Eleventh Hour (29 page)

His SIG Sauer felt heavy in her purse. She’d checked the clip. There was a full fifteen rounds in it. Other than that, she had twelve dollars and Dane’s AmEx. She didn’t quite feel like Rambo, but it was close enough.

It wouldn’t be dawn for several more hours. No one had followed her from the Holiday Inn. It was dark and she was armed. With each passing minute there was more distance between her and both the bad guys and the good guys.

She saw some kids in baggy pants on the corner of Pickett and Longsworth. They were probably dealing drugs. She didn’t even pause, just turned quickly and walked to the east. The freeway wasn’t more than a mile away and she’d flag down an eighteen-wheeler. She’d gotten to San Francisco riding high above the ground in big trucks and keeping company with at least a half dozen truck drivers. She’d even learned how to operate a CB.

If she ran into a nut this time, she had the SIG Sauer. She flagged down a really big Foster Farms truck heading up I-5. A beefy guy named Tommy stopped because, he told her, he had to make it to Bakersfield, and he’d been driving without a stop for too long and was dead on his feet. Would she mind singing and talking to him until he let her out? She didn’t mind at all.

He got her as far as Ventura County. “Hey,” he said, “I think we sing a pretty mean ‘Impossible Dream.’

”

An hour later, a smaller supply truck loaded with linens and bathroom supplies for one of the big ski lodges picked her up and began the climb to Mt. Pinos.

It was cold in the Los Padres National Forest, but down at Bear Lake elevation there wasn’t much snow on the ground, just a white veil, and the air was clear, as it had been yesterday.

The driver dropped her off in front of Snow House, a small lodge where she could wait until the stores opened. She wasn’t about to take a room. She knew they’d be tracking the card, would realize soon enough where she was.

Things had to happen soon or Dane would get to her. She sucked in a nice deep breath and walked into Snow House.

Her husband was driving up from LA a bit later, she told the desk clerk, and was meeting her here. This was where they’d spent their honeymoon and they wanted to come back. She was just here first. No, she didn’t want to check in just yet. She’d wait in the lobby area, near that roaring fire. They didn’t seem at all suspicious.

When the stores opened, she smiled toward the clerk behind the counter and walked out. She visited a small boutique, bought a cheap parka and gloves, and went to a general store at a filling station.

An hour later, she hiked to the Lakeview Home for Retired Police Officers.

She began to wonder if her great plan was going to lead to anything. She had to try it. She believed that Captain DeLoach had more answers than he’d given to them before. Now she was alone, and she knew she could get him to talk.

At least she prayed she’d get the old man to talk.

She walked straight to Captain DeLoach’s double-paned sliding doors, and tapped on the glass. No answer.

She tried the door. It was locked.

She tapped harder on the glass and jumped when she heard a querulous old voice mutter, “Who the hell wants in now? That you, Weldon? You want to finish the job on me, you little bastard?”

The curtains were jerked back and she was face-to-face with Captain DeLoach. He looked pale, sported a small white bandage around his head, but his old eyes were clear and focused.

He stared at her a moment, nodded to himself, and unlocked the doors. She watched him wheel his chair back before she opened the door and eased in. She relocked the door and drew the curtains.

She said, “I shouldn’t be here, Captain DeLoach, but I think you’re where all the action is, so consider me your bodyguard.”

“You’re a lot prettier than that idiot I kicked out of here last night. Overweight dolt, all he wanted to do was eat Carla’s doughnuts and she was getting pissed, which means that she’d carp at me. Did you see any of the cops they put around to protect me?”

“Not a soul, but I was really careful.”

“Yeah, yeah, I bet they’re all asleep. Hey, I recognize you. You’re an FBI agent, aren’t you? The gal with Agent Carver?”

“Yes, that’s right, I was with Agent Carver. I’m here to protect you. You don’t need those other cops.

But you’ve got to keep my presence here quiet, okay?”

The old man ruminated on this for a good five seconds and then slowly nodded. “I haven’t had a girl around me without a needle in her hand in more years than I can remember.”

“Do you remember back for a lot of years?”

“Yep. Do I salute you?”

“Yes,” Nick said. Slowly, the old man saluted her and she saluted him back. She said, “Tell me about some of those years you remember, Captain.”

Captain DeLoach paused again, then said in a dreamy voice, more singsong than not, “You know, young lady, some of those years are so clear in my head that it’s like yesterday. I can feel what I felt then, the exhilaration, the excitement. I can see their faces as they were then, hear the yells, the screams, feel them score into me, deep, taste them, you know? I can feel all the joy and triumph, the pure sweetness of winning, and I loved that, you know?”

“No, sir, I don’t know what it is you’re talking about.”

He gave her the sweetest smile. “So many people I knew, liked, but now they’re mostly dead. All except me and mine, of course. Yep, just look who’s left. That’s a shame, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, it’s a real shame. Why do you call Weldon a little bastard?”

“I remember it was like yesterday that he was just a little tyke, couldn’t even walk yet, and he was into everything. I was alone. What did I know about how to raise a baby?”

“I imagine it was very difficult, sir. What about Weldon?”

No answer this time. His head just fell forward. He seemed to be asleep. From one moment to the next, he was simply gone, someplace in the distant past when he’d known happiness. Poor old man. She wondered how it would feel to have your own son trying to kill you. She didn’t know what Captain DeLoach had meant with all that talk about the yells and screams. It made no sense.

She straightened, looked around the large room. It was nice and warm in there. She shrugged out of her parka, walked around a bit, getting acquainted with everything. It was like a junior suite in a hotel, only it was personalized with some photos on the end table—none of Weldon, but she and Dane had already remarked on that. Maybe she’d ask Captain DeLoach if he had any pictures of his only son stashed somewhere. Beside his bed were a few more photos—of a baby, and then that baby as a toddler.

Weldon? She didn’t know. But wait—that couldn’t be. There was a car in the background, and the car wasn’t forty years old. It was around the mid-1980s. Okay, so it wasn’t Weldon. Another family member had a little kid, that had to be it.

Nick turned away from the photo, realized that Nurse Carla or anyone who worked there, for God’s sake, could come tromping through the door. Where could she hide?

There was a big walk-in closet six feet from the double bed. The wood doors were slatted so she could see Captain DeLoach clearly. She spread her parka on the carpeted floor and made herself comfortable.

She’d bought taco dip, a small box of Wheat Thins, and a Diet Dr Pepper—her favorites—in the small food market inside the filling station, using up four dollars and eight cents of her twelve dollars. Before she fell asleep, her stomach happy, she wondered how long it would take Dane to track her down.

At ten o’clock in the morning, Delion, Savich, Sherlock, and Dane were seated around Detective Flynn’s desk in the detectives’ room on the second floor of the West Los Angeles Police Department. Linda, today’s volunteer receptionist, had given them all homemade cookies when they’d come in. “I’ve always admired the FBI,” she’d said, patting Savich’s bicep. “And you’re so nice, too.”

Sherlock had said, “What about me, Linda?”

“I think of you as their mascot, cute as a button with that red hair flying all over the place. As for you,”

she said to Dane, “you look a bit on the edge. The cookie will help get things in perspective, sugar always does.”

“Thank you, Linda,” Dane said. “That’s what we’ve been hearing about, sugar.”

The detectives’ room was, as usual, a madhouse, which didn’t appear to bother anyone. Savich settled down in a side chair next to Detective Flynn’s desk, MAX on his lap. He looked up after ten minutes and said, “No indication that she’s used the AmEx yet, either that, or folks are just too lazy to check. Since the card’s in your name, Dane, and not hers, I can’t imagine anyone not checking. We just wait, nothing else to do.”

Sherlock said, “You know the deal you made with her not to delve into her past? Well, we’ve got to find her and protect her, we’ve got to find out who she is. The time has come. Dillon, can you have MAX

find out who she is?”

“Yes,” Savich said. “We know her name’s Nicola, she’s twenty-eight, she’s got a Ph.D., and she’s a college professor. This won’t be anything for MAX. Everyone on board with this?”

Delion said, “Do it. Now isn’t the time for irrelevant promises.”

“Yeah,” Dane said. “That’s what I figured.”

While Savich worked, Detective Flynn was sitting back in his chair, his hands laced over his belly, a basketball on the floor beside him. He said, “I just don’t understand why she took off like this. She’s pulling us away from the really important stuff—you know, multiple murders, silly things like that. I’d like to get in her face when we catch up with her.”

Sherlock said, “Do you think she headed back up to San Francisco? To hide herself in the homeless population again?”

Dane shook his head. “No. And I don’t think she’s gone back home either, wherever home is.”

“Then where did she go?” Flynn asked, sipped at the god-awful coffee. His phone rang. He picked it up, barked, “Yeah? Detective Flynn here.”

He wrote something on a pad. When he set the receiver back into its cradle, he was grinning. “How’s this for a bit of luck? Our girl hitched a ride with a trucker. He said he always listens to the police reports on his CB. Said when he heard the APB, he knew he’d given our girl a ride.”

“Where?” Sherlock said.

“Up in Ventura County.”

“Hot damn,” Dane said. “She’s gone to see Captain DeLoach.”

“But why did she just run away like that?” Flynn asked.

“I’ll be sure to ask her after I handcuff her,” Dane said.

“I’ll provide the handcuffs,” Delion said.

“I’m still gonna burn her ass,” Flynn said.

MAX chose that moment to beep. Savich looked down, smiled. “MAX just told me who she is.”

Savich closed down MAX, rose, and stretched. “We can be at Bear Lake by midafternoon.”

THIRTY

One moment there was only the sound of Captain DeLoach’s soft snoring. The next there was a man’s voice, speaking quietly, right there, right next to Captain DeLoach’s wheelchair.

“Wake up, old man. Come on now, you can do it. It’s Weldon, and I’m here to make sure that it’s over, at least for you. Wake up, you old monster, wake up. I’m going to mete out the only justice you’ll ever get in this world, and I want you awake for this.”

Captain DeLoach jerked awake, snorted, looked up, and whispered, “Weldon, how did you get in here?

There’s cops out there protecting me, lots of them. And the Feds, they’re everywhere looking for you.

You’d better run while you’ve got the chance. How did you come in through the sliding doors? I always keep them locked.”

“You old fool, I have a key to the sliding doors. Not a soul saw me, for sure not that one cop chatting up Velvet in the reception area. And the other one who’s supposed to be protecting you—I saw him out in the parking lot smoking a cigarette. There’s just the two of them, old man.

“It’s finally time for you. For more than thirty years you’ve thumbed your nose at everybody. Now it stops. No more time for any big announcements to anyone else from you. It’s simple justice, you know it.

”

“You think you can manage it this time when you didn’t the last two times, you little wimp?”

“I was trying to scare you, not kill you, you monster. I didn’t think I’d have to kill you then. Is your brain so far gone you can’t remember that?

“But this time, I am going to kill you. All your threats to tell the world what you are will die with you.

After that fall you took—I really hoped you’d die, but you’re still tough, aren’t you? Why didn’t you make your big announcement?”

Captain DeLoach said, grinning widely, “Of course I’m tough, but no one could tell that by looking at you, you little pussy. I didn’t say anything because I wanted to torture you more, boy. Make you wonder, worry when the blow was going to fall. Threatening your daddy, trying to scare him—nearly to death—that’s not a nice thing, you know. And you left me there, lying on the floor, my head all bloody.”

“Shut up. No more abuse from you, old man, no more.”

“I’m still your only daddy, you puking coward. Jesus, I can’t believe that you’re actually part of me, although your mother was weak, always whining, just like you. And then she died, and it was just you and me, but you weren’t strong, you weren’t a man, you were just like her. And then you just up and left after high school, believed you’d escaped me. Well, I was sick of you, I wanted you out of there.

“But I kept tabs on you, boy. After all, you were the only one who knew. I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t ever tell anyone. And now you want to kill your own daddy.”

“Quiet! Just shut up, damn you. No more threats, no more lies. I’m going to send you to hell, where you belong.”

Weldon paused a moment, then said, “What I really can’t believe is just how long you’ve lasted.” He reached into his pocket.

Nick said, “No, Weldon, you’re not going to do anything to your father. Step away from him.”

Weldon DeLoach jerked up, appalled and surprised as he looked into the muzzle of the SIG Sauer, held in the hand of that homeless woman he’d seen on TV. What the hell was she doing here? He straightened slowly, took a step back.

The old man laughed, rubbed his arthritic hands together. “She’s my own personal bodyguard, Weldon.