Luke caught the keys and fumbled with them for a moment before he found one that looked as if it fit the lock. He slid the key into the padlock and let the chain fall, then pulled the gate open. He always carried plastic restraints with him but had never had to use them before this. Once he had Oscar’s hands secure, Woody put his gun away and picked up the dropped .22.
The fugitive’s tone changed. “Why, you guys just might be doing me a favor. I’m dog-tired. Not going to fight you. Tired of running and hiding and looking over my shoulder. Don’t figure now that prison will be any worse.”
Woody just glared at him, and Luke had to stifle a chuckle. All cop, even out of uniform, Woody’s expression and posture would brook no nonsense.
“Do you have a working phone in your house?” Luke asked Oscar.
“Nope. I’m as off the grid as I can be.”
Luke had not planned on transporting the man but saw no other course of action.
Woody seemed to read his mind. “You live with anyone? Anyone else home?”
Oscar shook his head.
“I’ve got him,” Woody said. “Why don’t you go check out the house, then lock it up?”
“Great idea.” He looked at Oscar. “Do you need anything from inside?”
“Nah, what’s the point?”
Luke turned for the house. As he walked away, he heard Oscar try to get on Woody’s good side.
“Look, sorry about the gun bit, really. For thirty years I’ve been looking over my shoulder, wondering if the feds would kick down my door. I’m done with it. Get me to jail.”
Woody’s harsh response told Luke he didn’t believe the guy and would not be letting his guard down. Luke smiled, glad he and Woody were a team. With a quick glance back when he reached the steps, Luke saw that Woody had Oscar’s arm and was moving him toward the truck.
Luke hurried into the manufactured home. The place was a mess. Oscar was a hoarder. Newspapers were stacked everywhere, leaving a narrow walkway resembling a maze. There was also trash and boxes, containing who knows what. The smell nearly knocked Luke back. Mold, body odor, decay, rot. It surprised him that the outside of the property was so neat.
He called out to see if anyone else was home and heard nothing. After a quick look through, he gratefully backed out of the place and locked the door. A thorough search would have to be left to the deputies. Taking a deep breath of fresh air, he jogged to the truck. Woody had already put Oscar in the backseat. He was studying the handgun Oscar had dropped.
“He had a round in the chamber. Could’ve been ugly.”
“I thank you, my friend. How’d you know to move up so quick?”
“I think there are bodies buried in the yard.”
“What?” Luke felt his hands go numb.
Woody nodded, expression grim. “I could be wrong—it might be pets or something else—but there are mounds there. He’s buried something. The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I knew I had to get out here and watch your bacon.”
It took a moment for Luke to find his voice. “Thank God you were with me today.”
“I second that. Someone was watching over the both of us today.”
Luke tried not to kick himself for not taking this more seriously. He’d really believed it was going to be a wild-goose chase and had not been on guard nearly enough.
On the road returning to civilization, Luke kept his questions to himself, but Oscar got talkative. His demeanor was on a switch: evil and murderous one minute and harmless old codger the next. He told them about his life on the run. Claimed he hated the deserted area he lived in but it was the only place he felt safe. He’d been supporting himself with an old friend’s Social Security checks.
“I didn’t kill him. He died of natural causes, so I just became him. I’m amazed that the PI in Arizona connected Parker to me. I thought I was so careful.”
Luke wondered if the friend was buried in the backyard.
Oscar rambled on about hiding from the cops, how it had worn him down. Luke listened and thought about how sin would do exactly that to a person. He thought about Abby Hart and the cold case that connected them. He wanted to believe that if there was another guilty party in her parents’ and his uncle’s murders, they were as tortured by guilt and fear as this shriveled-up old man behind him.
Curious about how it all started, Luke asked, “Why’d you kill that man in the first place?”
“I wanted the car, plain and simple. It was a beautiful ’54 Chevy, completely restored with shiny new leather seats and a powerful motor. I still think about that car and how the want of it made me pull the trigger. Dumbest thing I ever did. Don’t think I had it twenty-four hours before cops were all over me. Back then I thought I was invincible.”
From the look on Woody’s face in the rearview mirror, Luke knew he thought everything the old man was saying was hooey.
Luke reached into his glove box and pulled out a pocket New Testament. He carried them to give to runaways. “Don’t know how long you’ll be able to keep this, but why not read it while you can. Woody can put it in your shirt pocket.”
Woody took the little book and showed it to Oscar.
“God stuff? I’m too evil. God would never pay someone like me any account.” He made a face.
Woody looked in the mirror, eyebrows raised.
Luke waved his hand. “Put it in his pocket,” he said to Woody, then addressed Oscar. “You were wrong decades ago when you pulled the trigger, and you’re wrong now. God’s forgiveness is for everyone. Just read the book. What could it hurt?”
Oscar shrugged and Woody shoved the New Testament into his shirt pocket. Luke prayed he’d read it.
When they reached the main road, they hit cell service and his phone came alive. So did Woody’s. Luke paused at a stop sign to check it and his heart stopped. Looking in the rearview mirror, he knew Woody had seen the same thing. A police shooting in Long Beach. Luke also had a message from his friend Bill. He could put two and two together.
“I see it,” Woody said. “Abby called me, left a message. I’m going to call her back.”
Luke nodded and hurried to get Oscar to the proper authorities, all the while praying for Abby and her partner, Bill—praying they were safe and it was the bad guy who was hurt by the shooting. From Woody’s side of the conversation it sounded as if Abby was okay, and Luke relaxed. He got the feeling Woody didn’t want to say much in front of the prisoner, so he didn’t ask any questions.
Now he found it difficult to concentrate on Cardoza and was grateful that Woody was with him. Once back at the sheriff’s substation, Luke and Woody gave the officers all the information they had about Oscar and left the fugitive in their hands. They were very interested in Woody’s take on the backyard. Luke knew they’d have to officially confirm Cardoza’s identity, probably get a search warrant for the property, and then contact the authorities in Montana about extradition if no charges were filed against him here.
Luke was finished with his part, and he called to let the Arizona PI know. She was excited and grateful, but Luke didn’t want to waste any time being congratulated. He couldn’t get back to his truck fast enough.
“What did Abby say?”
“Not much. She wants me to go by her house and let the dog out. She’ll be tied up for a bit. I can call my neighbor to look after mine.”
“I’ll head right there. NFD?” Luke was learning cop lingo from Woody, like the shorthand for “no further details.”
“She promised Bill would call with more. It’s the Joiner case.”
Luke said nothing after hearing that. It probably meant Abby was the shooter, and that made his stomach cramp with anxiety. He was familiar with the case and guessed that the partners must have confronted a suspect. Luke made a point of following cases involving kids, and this one was about a ten-year-old’s rape and murder. He knew that Abby and Bill had evidence but were sweating out a lab backlog. If they had a suspect, the lab must have come through after all. There
must have been a hit right away, and since there’d been a shooting, Luke thought that maybe the suspect didn’t want to go quietly.
He wished he could fly back to the city. As it was, they were way south in Perris, at least an hour and a half away from Long Beach on a good traffic day. He clicked on the radio station that gave news updates every few minutes and hit the freeway hoping for clear sailing and light traffic.
They were halfway home when Bill called. Luke put it on speaker, asking if they had tangled with an uncooperative suspect.
“Not him. We found him on the couch,” Bill said. “He looked at us and held his hands out for the cuffs, saying he’d rather be in prison than hurt anyone else. No, man, it was worse. We stepped out the front door and the victim’s father was waiting for us. He tried to kill the suspect, got off a couple of shots before Abby dropped him.”
“Abby shot . . .” Luke’s voice faded as a horrible picture flashed in his mind. Abby shot a victim’s father?
“Yeah, it’s worse still. He’s dead. Abby’s pretty tore up about it. But she saved us all as far as I’m concerned. Thank God the father shot wild. He could have killed me; he could have killed Abby.”
Luke couldn’t imagine being in Abby’s shoes. He felt he knew her well enough that being “pretty tore up” was an understatement. All he could think about were her beautiful green eyes, filled with pain and guilt over taking a life.
CHAPTER
-5-
GOD, why did you let me kill him?
Abby threw water on her face from the sink in the locker room after she’d finished with the last interview. It was close to 9:30 p.m. She and Bill had been going over the shooting with everyone in the city for a lifetime, it seemed. She was beyond exhausted, moving around in a walking zombie state.
A day that had begun dreamlike and upbeat turned nightmarish and dark as if a coin were flipped.
She kept seeing Clayton fall and then the life leave his eyes as the paramedics worked on his bloody form to no avail. He wasn’t officially pronounced dead until he got to the hospital, but Abby knew there on the lawn that he was gone.
Abby couldn’t help but flash back in her mind to another shooting—the day she’d confronted Gavin Kent about her parents’ murders. Like Clayton, she’d waited a long time for a suspect, a reason for the deaths that ripped her world apart. And like Clayton, she’d had a gun in her hand when she confronted the monster.
She’d wanted to pull the trigger.
She’d wanted to be judge, jury, and executioner just like Clayton wanted to be.
She and Kent had faced each other, guns drawn. But Kent pulled the trigger and killed himself, wrenching the opportunity away from Abby. And today it was excruciatingly obvious to Abby that she could have been Clayton—a millisecond of difference and she would have been Clayton.
But why is the bad guy safe and the good guy in the morgue? Why, God, why?
“You made the hard choice, and you did your job.” Bill said those words to her over and over as if sensing how disturbed she was about what she’d had to do.
Abby listened and tried to take his words to heart, but she wanted to talk to her friend and mentor, Woody. So far she’d managed only a brief conversation with him between interviews. She’d called him as soon as she was able. A retired cop, he understood that she’d be consumed by interviews and investigation for hours, and she wanted him to go to her house and let her dog out.
When they finally were able to talk for a few minutes, he’d tried to quiet her doubts, her self-flagellation.
“Guy points a gun at you, you have to shoot. He could have killed you or your partner. Would you want that?”
Abby leaned against a row of lockers, and the sound of clanging metal reverberated through the empty locker room.
Clayton’s wife was inconsolable.
“How could you take his life protecting that monster?” she’d screamed as uniformed officers held her back from scratching Abby’s eyes out. In between sobs the woman explained that when Clayton saw Bill and Abby pull up, he just knew. She’d tried to stop him, but he was determined to avenge his daughter.
“I told him to leave it to God, but he wouldn’t listen,” Althea cried. “Why didn’t he listen?”
Abby listened. She heard the woman’s pain and felt guilt to the core. She knew exactly what drove Clayton Joiner and realized some of the same emotions drove her as well.
How could I kill him protecting a monster?
Her phone chimed and she saw it was Ethan, her fiancé, and felt guiltier. He’d called earlier and she’d never called him back. The interviews she had to give regarding the shooting had left her voice dry and weak. It wasn’t Ethan’s fault she just didn’t want to talk anymore.
Sighing, she answered the call, knowing he only wanted to help and be supportive.
“Hey,” he said, “I’m worried about you. Are you still at work?”
“On my way out.”
“You sound tired. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.”
“I’m numb right now.”
“Do you want any company? I can stop by.”
“Ethan, I’m just tired. All I want right now is bed. Thanks for the offer.”
“I understand. I’ll call you in the morning. Can I pray for you?”
“I’d love that.”
“Lord, I lift Abby to you tonight. You know what’s going on in her head and her heart. Heal what needs to be healed. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
Abby thought about Ethan’s prayer as she drove home through quiet, dark streets. “Heal what needs to be healed.”
She didn’t think healing was possible because there was no way to replay the moment and put the bullets back in her gun.
CHAPTER
-6-
LUKE DROPPED WOODY off at Abby’s house.
“Call me when you need a ride home,” he said as Woody stepped out of the truck.
“I will,” Woody said. “I don’t mind hanging out here for a while. Abby will need someone to talk to. Call before you come.”
Luke said he would, then headed home to his family, wondering how things had gone so right for him and Woody and so wrong for Abby and Bill. He got home in time for dinner and to catch a news report on the shooting. There were the usual inane comments by people and reporters asking why Abby didn’t just shoot the gun out of the man’s hand. The criticisms and second-guessing by people who’d never been in a life-and-death situation made Luke angry, and the outrage he heard in the voices of the anchor regarding a victim’s father being shot stoked the flames. There were even pictures of crowds forming in front of the police station to protest Abby. He had to retire to his office and throw a couple punches at the heavy bag to calm down.
In the end, it wasn’t the heavy bag that calmed him; it was the knowledge that Abby was a believer and that the foundation of her life shouldn’t rest on what reporters and onlookers had to say.
He called Woody after dinner, but Abby still hadn’t made it home.
“Don’t read anything into that,” Woody said. “The process after a shooting like this is long and involved. When I spoke to Bill a little while ago, he said Abby was talking to the department psychologist, which is a good thing.”
“I agree. I can’t imagine being in her shoes. I’ll head over after Maddie goes to bed.”
“Sounds good, and if you can stop and pick me up a burger or something, I’d appreciate it.”
“Will do.”
“Is your friend Abby in trouble?” Maddie asked as Luke sat down with his daughter for bedtime prayer. The question took him by surprise because he didn’t think she was paying attention to the news broadcast.
“No, she’s not in trouble, Mads, but she had to shoot someone today.”
“Did the person die?”
“Afraid so.”
“But Abby and Bill are okay.”
“Yes, they are.”
“I’m glad. But sometimes I wish there were no bad people in the wor
ld. Then people wouldn’t have to get shot.”
“I wish that too,” Luke said. He kissed her good night and then went to package up the dinner his mother had set aside for him to take to Woody. Luke had mentioned that Woody asked for food, and Grace, who hated fast food, insisted that Luke take some of her casserole to him.
Luke and Woody were set to fly to Idaho tomorrow to fulfill the last wishes of Woody’s old patrol partner, Asa Foster. Coincidentally, Asa had also worked with Abby in the twilight years of his career. It was time to nail down the fine points of their itinerary. But Luke wondered if Woody would want to cancel the trip because of the shooting. When he considered how hard this must be for Abby, he knew he’d be fine with it if that was what Woody wanted to do. Luke called to let Woody know that he was on his way.
“She’s not home yet. I spoke to her on the phone a couple of hours ago. Maybe you should hang out with me as well. She didn’t sound too great.”
“It probably wouldn’t be a good thing for her to come home to an empty house on a day like this.” Luke worked to sound nonchalant, but he was happy Woody had asked him to hang out.
“You’re right. I never discharged my weapon on duty, but I know guys who have. It’s not easy, and in this case . . . well, it’s not so black-and-white.”
“Um, is—is Ethan there?”
“No. I spoke to him as well. He said she told him not to come by, that she was tired. Just between you and me and the fence post, I don’t think everything is going too well with those two.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Luke said, wanting to pry but not wanting to pry. It was really none of his business. But his concern for Abby made him ask the next question. “Do you think she’d mind if I were there?”
“I’d kind of like your company. You and her speak the same God talk; you might be able to help her more than me. She’s taking this hard.”
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