Burning Moon

by Richard Barre

  Yanez said, “Try a set of knives that match the one found in Robb Huong’s neck, one knife missing from the set. Then a very intriguing box of photos and memorabelia linking your man to a military not our own. Unfortunately for those of us on the other side, one noted for its stealth and cunning.”

  Enjoying it, Wil could see as he went on.

  “Add to that both his kids falling prey to the brother, a hatred as old as Cain, a guy who guts fish all day,” the points ticked off on his fingers. “And what do we have?”

  Free fall, bottom of the shaft.

  “Tell me,” Yanez added with a note of triumph, “what does it say on your business cards? Will work for blinders? Looks like Detective Lin had it right about that independent streak of yours, you going there before we did.” Regarding Lin and nodding, back at Wil, then shoving out his chair. “Follow me, please.”

  With a glance at Frank, who fell in behind, Wil trailed Yanez to the lobby, Vinh Tien searching the faces as they entered. Settling on Wil’s as Yanez stood him up and read him his rights for the murders of Luc Van Tien, Robert Cao Huong, and the houseman, Duy Tan, no middle name.

  As Lin cuffed him and a deputy captured it on tape, Vinh Tien’s eyes never left Wil’s. As though thirty years had fallen away and he was steeling himself for interrogation by focusing on the Judas goat who’d led him to it.

  Then Vinh Tien was gone.

  Yanez made a move for the doorway; once there he turned and said, “Mr. Hardesty, I’d thank you for not having to run your client to ground, but as you say it’s all in a day’s work.” Smug turning to glitter in the obsidian eyes. “And here I’d only begun to dislike you.”

  ***

  Wil was taking breaths against the Bonneville when Frank Lin came out of the building and scanned the lot. Spotting him, he walked over and leaned into it as well.

  “Fucking fire,” he said, tracking the ridgeline haze.

  Wil ignored him.

  Lin said, “I didn’t know Yanez was going to do that.”

  Still, he said nothing.

  “Did you hear what I—”

  “I’m tired,” Wil said. “Sell it to somebody who’s buying.”

  “Have it your way. Just don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  Wil rubbed the base of his neck. “No way was Vinh Tien heading for the hills or anyplace else. A little matter of his daughter, remember?”

  “You can assure us of that…”

  “A knife from his gutting rack, a box of incriminating shit when he knew they’d be coming? That sound like stealth and cunning to you?”

  “Motive, capability, opportunity,” Lin ticked off. “Add it up and what’s looking at you?”

  “What’s looking at me is bullshit.”

  “Like it or not, it’s what’s there.”

  “So’s a lot of smoke,” Wil said.

  “Well, damn,” Lin fired back. “Why didn’t you just say so and blow it all out?”

  “Frank, I saw the man’s face when I told him his brother was dead. It was like the life was going out of it.”

  “The brother he held so dear. Who knew?”

  “Love and hate and families,” Wil said. “What they’re convinced they want until they get it. Hell, I don’t have to tell you that. “

  Lin rested his arm on the Bonneville’s roof. Rubbing a spot on the chrome, he said, “You’re also hung over and running on empty. And I didn’t come out here for this. I came about Lisa. What you said about her in there.”

  “How do I know what I said. Running on empty, remember?”

  “Don’t be an ass. Is she all right?”

  Wil looked at him through eyes that sought a thousand yards. He said, “Nothing a break or two wouldn’t help. On either side of a decision she’s having to make.”

  “Which would be?”

  “Sorry,” he answered. “Call her yourself.”

  “How about between friends?”

  “Interesting word choice,” Wil said. “Now one for you: Is Rudy planning on letting it out about the VC connection?”

  Lin eased away from the car. “Three guesses if you don’t know him from in there. And for us maybe when it’s over, huh?”

  “They’ll tear him apart, Frank, you know that. Rudy knows that.”

  “So long, Wil.” Backing up now. “Have a nap, take a load off. Go surfing or something.”

  “Whatever makes Rudy’s case, is that it?” Fighting not to shout.

  “He’s a cop, I’m a cop,” Lin said, turning away. “If that’s a big surprise to you, what’s been the point?”

  45

  Glass shattered in his ear, or something like it.

  Wil picked up the phone in a fog, checked his watch through blur: three-twenty…afternoon…four hours asleep. Shit.

  “Yeah?” he managed.

  “It’s Frank, two things: One, I’m sorry about this morning, what I was trying to tell you earlier. Two, we’re releasing the girl at four, and I thought you might want to be around.”

  Yawning, eyes fighting the light, Wil said, “What about her car?”

  “Techs aren’t finished with it yet. Tomorrow or the next day.”

  “All right, Frank. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” A pause, as though deciding, then, “Rudy had his press conference earlier, he and the ADA. You catch any of it?”

  Wil squinted open. “What do you think?”

  “Websites and radio, TV newsbreaks before their extended coverage. The talk shows are already picking it up.” Lin coughed, cleared his throat. “As expected, no free passes for the black-pajama set.”

  Swell: plan B, if he had one. “What about Mia?”

  “No mention,” Lin said. “For now.”

  Wil swung his feet onto the floor. Holding the portable to his ear, he walked to the front room and peered through the blinds. On the four-lane, a truck airhorned a car whipping around it. Afternoon sun lit the breakers, the foam sliding up the beach.

  “I appreciate it, Frank,” he said. “I mean, letting me know.”

  “Yeah, I can hear it in your voice.”

  “In the meantime, how is she?”

  There was a pause. “Hard to tell if it’s deferred shock or her usual effusive mode around us. Docs cleared her release and Rudy got what he could from her, which wasn’t much.”

  Wil said, “No point clouding the issue with facts, right?”

  “No fucking comment.”

  “Frank, she doesn’t know much.”

  “So you keep saying.” He hung up.

  Wil put on jeans and a shirt he left untucked, then drove the fourteen miles back to the sheriff’s, most of the way behind a Winnebago with stickers on it reading SOMETIMES I WAKE UP GRUMPY. OTHER TIMES I LET HIM SLEEP and WHEN EVERYTHING’S COMING YOUR WAY, YOU’RE IN THE WRONG LANE and, to the right of that, WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN, THE BUFFALO IS EMPTY. Picturing the occupants before timing a break around a white-haired couple in matching ball caps, the man’s hands gripping the wheel bus-driver style.

  On the road again.

  Wil envied them. He was waiting in the Bonneville, sipping the coffee he’d stopped for, when he saw Mia leave the building. Getting out with Matt, he smiled, raised a hand, met her at the steps.

  She was in the same outfit she’d put on at Luc’s: white jeans under the black blouse, carbon pullover across her shoulders. Blinking in the light, she looked tired but hanging in, shaking her head when Matt went to her, his hindquarters going nonstop as she dropped to one knee and held him.

  “We came to take you home,” Wil said.

  She rose and went to him. “You know about my dad?”

  “Yes, and I’m sorry.” Taking her in because she looked as if she needed it.

  “It’s like being in a nightmare, only you’re awake,” she said into his chest.

  “I know…”

  Pulling away, she said, “They called a cab for me. My mom doesn’t drive.”

  “I know that, too. Matt asked me
to tell you he brought a Peet’s with whipped cream and cinnamon. That and a dog bone.”

  It brought a smile, or part of one.

  He said, “Follow your nose and I’ll tell them to lose the cab.”

  Wil did; then he was in the car and they were heading west at the base of sere foothills, the smudge of brown reduced from yesterday but still casting a tint. “Radio said they knocked the fire back,” he said to her quiet. “They’re not out of it yet, but a few more days without wind—”

  “He told me about arresting my father,” she said. “What’s-his-name who sat in while they talked to me.”

  “Lieutenant Yanez.”

  She nodded, looked vacant.

  “Mia, is there anything you remember that might help your dad?”

  Headshake. “No, nothing I didn’t tell them last night. That I was showering on my break and heard things that must have been my uncle.” Adding, “Which was when I hid.”

  “Anything while you were in the closet?” he asked. “Footsteps?”

  “No, but the carpet’s thick and I wasn’t about to look.”

  “What about computer keys?”

  “You kidding?” she said. “That room’s designed to muffle sounds. And my heart was going so loud I thought the closet was coming apart.”

  “Okay. Keep trying. Maybe something will come.”

  “Just what I need,” she said.

  A block went by in silence, then, “Even though I didn’t see who did it, it wasn’t my father, do you understand that? He couldn’t have done what was done. Not to his brother.”

  Wil eased past a van full of blue soccer jerseys making faces out the window. He said, “But that was what you were afraid of, wasn’t it? Him boiling over before you could find out what happened to Jimmy. That’s why you made the break…thinking he couldn’t do anything to stop you if you were inside the compound.”

  At first she said nothing. Then, “Can you drive faster, please? I can’t imagine what it’s been like for my mom.”

  “Look, Mia, I know I asked you before. But was there anything in the computer that might help with either Jimmy or your dad? Things that Luc was up to?”

  “Nothing from the entries I made. They were just numbers.”

  “Okay.”

  “Meaning think about it, I know.”

  They passed flower beds, hedges, and liquidambar trees, split-level homes, an empty school yard with basketball courts. A woman in a straw hat walking a baby carriage and two German shepherds that Matt that took an interest in.

  “I don’t care what he was,” Mia said as their turn approached. “Nobody deserves to die like that.”

  Wil turned on the blinker.

  “I’m not safe, am I?” she said, as much to no one as him; hands around the coffee in her lap and staring straight ahead. “Because I was there.”

  “It’s unlikely,” he lied. “As long as it doesn’t come out that you were.”

  Dark eyes flicked over to him. “Will it?”

  “Not if I can help it,” he said, thinking son-of-a-bitch Yanez.

  46

  By the time Wil pulled into his drive, the mob of waiting TV people had their lights hot, crews ready to roll tape. Among them he recognized a familiar face: Gail Velarde, the reporter he’d opened up to in the magazine article Vinh had cross-referenced. In addition to Velarde and her cameraman, Wil saw vans from the other central coast stations, more from L.A. and San Francisco, a radio pool, several newspapers.

  Cain and Abel obviously was a big issue, the element of revenge. Even bigger, Wil thought, bracing himself, was the Vietnamese angle: thawing trade relations, culture and politics, money.

  Further distilled: money.

  Fortunately, he’d thought to leave Matt with Mia and the lost-looking Li, to whom his heart truly went out, Matt lending comfort and distraction, protection amid the fallout. But already Wil missed him, that feeling of having someone. Matt’s look as he explained to him that his duty was there, on temporary assignment.

  Point guard in a full-court rolling press, Gail Velarde met him as he got out and shut the Bonneville’s door. “Wil, a statement…”

  “Gail. Moving up in the world, I see.”

  She smiled at the recognition. “Not still mad at me, I hope.”

  “Nope, only at myself.” Blinking into the lights as he edged toward the stairs and the crews jockeyed into his path.

  Ignoring it, she glanced at the 3X5 card in her palm and said, “Since you and I have background we agreed I’d initiate the questions.”

  “Always nice to have a plan,” he said. “Who did you decide would answer them?”

  Gail Velarde’s eyes sought the camera’s red dot; her voice and expression went anchorwoman. “Private investigator Wil Hardesty found the bodies of Luc Tien and the others last night. Vinh Tien, the arrested man and Luc Tien’s brother, was his client. Mr. Hardesty, what was your business there?”

  “Let me through, please.”

  “Can you describe the scene for us?”

  “I’m not sure you want to wave that thing in my face,” Wil said to a kid holding a microphone on a pole. “The day I’ve had.”

  “Tell us about that,” a male reporter called from the periphery as flash units went off. “Bringing your client in to be arrested for murder.”

  “That is inaccurate,” he answered. “Vinh Tien came of his own free will.”

  Gail Velarde—louder, as if to reseize the moment: “Were you aware that Vinh Tien killed Americans as a member of the Viet Cong?”

  Way to go, Rudy, true to form, Wil thought as he drew a breath. “And are you aware Vinh Tien is a citizen of this country?”

  “Mr. Tien disclosed his Viet Cong ties to you, or you found out?”

  “Move, please, Gail. I won’t say it again.”

  “Yet you agreed to represent him for money? You a veteran of that war?”

  That war. For money. “War’s end,” Wil said.

  “Mr. Hardesty?” A woman with a radio-station badge holding out a tape recorder. “Lieutenant Yanez indicated you were investigating the death of Vinh Tien’s son, possibly at the hands of the brother he’s accused of murdering. Can you confirm that?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  Almost to the base of the stairs; kids on bikes, residents out on their porches, some approaching to catch it in progress, maybe get asked about their neighbor on-camera.

  From the reporters a voice asked, “What about the rumors of Vietnamese gang affiliations involving the deceased?”

  “How about all of you backing off before someone gets hurt?”

  “Is it true that Vinh Tien’s daughter was there but was spared? That she was seen leaving in an emergency vehicle?”

  “No comment.”

  “Confirm or deny?”

  “All right, deny,” he said, tempted to add emphatically, but figuring it as tipoff, blood in the water. One foot on the lower rung, the railing cold in his hand.

  “But is it true?” Gail Velarde shouted.

  “You mean, as if it mattered?” Halfway up the stairs.

  “Do you believe Vinh Tien capable of savagely murdering his own brother?”

  “Congratulations on finding your true calling, Gail.”

  But she was merely reloading to ask, “In your opinion, did Vinh Tien kill Luc Tien?”

  Wil turned to face her, the pack of them looking up at him. “No,” he said, feeling the limb he was out on reach breaking point. “Vinh Tien did not kill his brother.”

  “You’d stake your reputation on it?”

  “What reputation is that?”

  Somebody shouted, “Does that mean Vinh Tien is still your client?”

  “It means my property starts at the street,” Wil said. “Anyone here not get the distinction?”

  He turned, went inside, and, from his blinds watched them pull back, shoot angles of the house, the deck and window before returning to their vans. Some taking
off then, others starting up with the neighbors, Wil imagining the kind of background they were providing, given his history.

  ***

  From his rental across from a slide-damaged home thick with weeds, the man with the binoculars watched the vans pull away, the scene settle in. John Sebastian’s “Younger Girl” came up and he hummed to it, watched Hardesty leave the house in running shorts and head for the access tunnel. He watched him emerge and start running toward the Rincon then back toward the shoals. Four laps of sprints, two more of cool-down before heading in, the radio easing through “Season of the Witch” and “Like a Rolling Stone.”

  Stuff that made him feel where not much did anymore.

  He watched lights come on inside the house, steam rise from its bathroom window, Hardesty leave the house in jeans, white tee, and windbreaker. Rebel Without a Cause.

  Almost time.

  Giving the Bonneville enough lead to be recognizable, he rolled the rental downhill, chirped its tires hitting speed. He was catching up, easing off at four cars back, when his cell phone sounded.

  “Yeah?…”

  “Where are you?” the voice asked.

  “Watching the sun set,” the man said. “You really should see it.”

  “Meaning you’re still in the area.”

  “Help me here. Is that a question or an answer?”

  “An answer, I would imagine. But the question is why?”

  “Simple,” the man said, feeling familiar heat rise. “My time, my affair.”

  “Not when they conflict with ours,” the voice snapped back. “Especially not then.”

  “Loose ends.” Passing a moving van to keep the distance between himself and the taillights. “Nothing to do with you.”

  There was a sound resembling a laugh, then the voice: “One never knows about that, does one?”

  47

  Wil parked in the drive, brought the box to the door by its edges. His knock was answered by the portal in the big door swinging open.

  “Pizzaman,” he said. “He delivers.”

  Lisa shut the portal, pulled back the door, stood looking at him. Worn jeans, paint-splattered sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves. White-tipped brush in one hand.