4th of July (22 page)

Now I typed in key words that might make the tumblers spin, some answers fall into place.

I tried them all: whippings administered cum-mortem, couples killed in bed, and of course slashed throats, which sent up a storm of information. Too much.

Hours passed, and my vision started to blur, so I put the computer on “hibernate” and dropped down onto one of my nieces’ small beds to rest for a few minutes.

When I woke up, it was pitch-black outside. It felt as though something had awoken me. A slight noise that didn’t belong. According to the time flashing on the kids’ VCR, it was 2:17, and I had a prickly sense that I couldn’t nail down, as if I were being watched.

I blinked in the blackness and saw a red blur shoot across my vision. It was the afterimage of that red Porsche and it called up snatches of the disturbing scenes I’d had with Agnew. The set-to at the Cormorant and the one at Keith’s garage. The near collision on the road.

I was still thinking about Agnew. It was the only thing that explained the sensation of being watched.

I was about to get up and go to my room for what remained of the night when a series of hard pops and the sound of splintering glass shattered the still night air.

Shards of the window fell all around me.

Gun! Gun! Where the hell was my gun?

MARTHA’S REFLEXES WERE QUICKER than mine. She dove off the bed and crawled under it. I was right behind her, rolling onto the floor while riffling through my shocked mind, trying to remember where I’d put my weapon.

Then I knew.

It was in my handbag in the living room, and the closest phone was there, too. How could I be so vulnerable? Was I going to die trapped in this room? My heart pounded so hard it hurt.

I lifted my head just inches off the floor and by the faint green light of the VCR clock, I took inventory.

I focused on every surface and object in the room, looking for something, anything, I could use to protect myself.

The place was littered with big stuffed animals and a dozen dolls, but there wasn’t a single baseball bat or hockey stick, nothing I could use in a fight. I couldn’t even throw the TV, because it was bolted to the wall.

I pulled myself across the hardwood floor on my forearms, reached up, and locked the bedroom door.

Just then, another fusillade of shots rang out—automatic gunfire raking the front of the house, again striking the living room and the spare room at the end of the hall. Then the true intent of the assault finally sunk in.

I could have been—should have been—sleeping in that bedroom.

Inching forward on my stomach, I clasped the leg of a wooden chair, pushed at it, angled the chair onto its rear legs, and wedged its back under the doorknob. Then I picked up its twin and swung it against the dresser.

With a length of chair leg in my hand, I crouched with my back to the wall.

It was just pathetic. Forget the dog under the bed, my only line of defense was a chair leg.

If anyone came through the door aiming to kill me, I was dead.

AS I LISTENED FOR the sound of feet on the floorboards outside the bedroom, I imagined the door being kicked open and me swinging at the intruder with my stick, hoping to God that I could somehow knock his brains out.

But as the VCR clock blinked away the minutes and the silence grew longer, my adrenaline ebbed.

And I started to get mad.

I stood, listened at the door, and when I heard nothing, I opened it and worked my way down the long hallway, using doorways and walls as barricades.

When I got to the living room, I grabbed my bag from where it leaned against the sofa.

I reached in and closed my hand around my gun.

Thank you, God.

As I called 911, I peeked through slits in the window blinds. The street looked empty, but I thought I saw something glinting on the front lawn. What was it?

I told the dispatcher my name, rank, and shield number, and that shots had been fired at 265 Sea View.

“Anyone hurt?”

“No, I’m fine, but call Chief Stark on this.”

“It’s already been called in, Lieutenant. The cavalry is on the way.”

I HEARD SIRENS AND saw flashing lights approaching Sea View. As the first cruiser arrived, I opened the front door, and Martha bolted past me. She ran over to a snakelike object that was lying in the moonlight.

She gave it a sniff.

“Martha, what have you found? What is it, girl?”

I was hunkered down beside Martha when Chief Peter Stark got out of his squad car. He walked over with his flashlight and knelt down next to me.

“You okay?”

“Yep. I’m good.”

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

Together, we looked at a man’s belt. It was about thirty-six inches long and a half-inch wide, narrow brown leather with a squared dull silver buckle. It was such an ordinary belt; probably half the people in the state had one like it in their closet somewhere.

But this particular belt seemed to have some brownish-red stains on the metalwork.

“Wouldn’t it be grand,” I said, refusing to dwell on the terror of the last few minutes—how those shots had surely been meant for me—“wouldn’t it be something,” I said to Chief Stark, “if this belt was evidence?”

THREE SQUAD CARS HAD pulled up to the curb. Radios sputtered and crackled, and all along Sea View, lights went on in houses, and people came out onto their doorsteps wearing PJs and robes, T-shirts and shorts, hair standing up, fear overriding the lines in their sleep-creased faces.

Cat’s front yard was lit by headlights, and as the cops exited their cars, they conferred with the chief and spread out. A couple of uniforms started collecting shell casings, and a pair of detectives began to canvass the neighbors.

I took Stark into the house, and together we examined the shattered windows, the splintered furniture, and the bullet-pocked headboard in “my” bedroom.

“Any thoughts on who did this?” Stark asked me.

“None,” I said. “My car’s in the driveway where anyone can see it, but I didn’t let anyone know I’d be in town.”

“And why are you here, Lieutenant?”

I was considering the best way to answer that when I heard Allison and Carolee calling out my name. A young cop with ruddy, protruding ears came to the threshold and told Stark that I had visitors.

“They can’t come in here,” Stark said. “Jesus Christ, is someone roping off the street?”

The uniformed cop’s face colored completely as he shook his head no.

“Why the hell not? Number one: Stabilize the scene. Get on it.”

I followed the patrolman as far as the front doorstep, where Carolee and Allison grabbed me in a much-needed two-tier hug.

“One of my kids monitors the police band,” Carolee said. “I got over here as soon as I heard. Oh, my God, Lindsay. Your arms.”

I glanced down. Broken glass had made a few cuts in my forearms, and blood had streaked down and stained my shirt.

It looked a lot worse than it was.

“I’m fine,” I told Carolee. “Just a few scratches. I’m sure.”

“You don’t plan to stay here, do you, Lindsay? Because that’s crazy,” Carolee said, her face showing how mad she was and how scared. “I’ve got plenty of room for you at the house.”

“Good idea,” Stark said, coming up behind me. “Go with your nice friend. I’ve got calls in to the CSU techs, and they’re going to be prying slugs out of your walls and combing the place for the rest of the night.”

“That’s fine. I’ll be okay here,” I told him. “This is my sister’s house. I’m not going to leave.”

“All right. But don’t forget that this is our case, Lieutenant. You’re still out of your jurisdiction. Don’t go all cowgirl on us, okay?”

“Go all cowgirl? Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“Look. I’m sorry, but someone just tried to kill you.”

“Thanks. I got that.”

The chief patted down his hair out of habit. “I’ll keep a patrol car posted in the driveway tonight. Maybe longer.”

As I said good-night to Carolee and Allison, the chief went to his car and returned with a paper bag. He was using a ballpoint pen to lift the belt into the bag as I wrapped my dignity tightly around myself and closed the front door.

I went to bed, but of course I couldn’t sleep. Cops were coming and going through the house, slamming doors and laughing, and besides, my mind was spinning.

I stroked Martha’s head absently as she shivered beside me. Someone had shot up this house and left a calling card.

Was it a warning to stay away from Half Moon Bay?

Or had the shooter really tried to kill me?

What would happen when I turned up alive?

A SUNBEAM SLIPPED THROUGH the window at an unaccustomed angle and pried my eyes open. I saw blue wallpaper, a picture of my mother over the dresser—and it all came together.

I was in Cat’s bed—because at 2:00 a.m. bullets had thudded through the house, plugging the headboard in the spare room inches above where my head would have been.

Martha pushed her wet nose at my hand until I swung my feet out of bed. I pulled on some of Cat’s clothes—a faded pair of jeans and a coral-colored blouse with a deep ruffled neckline. Not my color and definitely not my style.

I ran a comb through my hair, brushed my teeth, and stepped out into the living room.

The CSU techs were still digging bullets out of the walls, so I made coffee and toast for everyone and asked pointed questions that yielded the basic facts.

Twelve 9mm shots had been fired, evenly distributed through the living room and spare bedroom, one through the kids’ small, high window. The bullets and spent cases had been bagged and tagged, the holes had been photographed, and the forensic team was wrapping up. In an hour, the whole kit and caboodle would be sent to the lab.

“You doing okay, Lieutenant?” asked one of the techs, a tall thirty-ish guy with big hazel eyes and a toothy smile.

I looked around at the destruction, the glass and plaster dust over everything.

“No. I’m not. This makes me sick,” I said. “I’ve got to sweep up, get the windows fixed, do something about this . . . this mess.”

“I’m Artie, by the way,” the tech said, stretching out his hand.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking it.

“My uncle Chris has a Disaster Master franchise. You want me to call him? He can get this place cleaned up, like, pronto. I mean, you’ll go to the head of the line, Lieutenant. You’re one of us.”

I thanked Artie and took him up on his offer. Then I grabbed my handbag and took Martha out the back way. I fed Miss Piggy, then circled around to the patrol car in the driveway and ducked my head to window level.

“Noonan, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Still on duty?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’ll be here for a while. The whole squad is watching out for you, Lieutenant. The chief and all of us. This really stinks.”

“I appreciate the concern.”

And I did. Harsh daylight only made the shooting more real. Someone had driven down this sweet suburban street, raking Cat’s house with automatic gunfire.

I was unnerved, and until I got my composure back, I had to get away from here. I jingled my car keys so that Martha flattened her ears and nearly wagged her tail off.

“We need groceries,” I said to her. “What do you say we take the Bonneville on a shakedown cruise?”

MARTHA JUMPED ONTO THE bench-style front seat of the “big gold boat.” I strapped in and turned the key. The engine caught on the second try, and I pointed the Bonneville’s aristocratic nose toward town.

I was going to the gourmet grocer on Main Street, but as I made my way along the crosshatched streets of Cat’s neighborhood, I became gradually aware of a blue Taurus sedan in my rearview mirror. It seemed to be deliberately lagging behind me but keeping up all the same.

That creepy feeling of being watched tickled my spine again.

Was I being tailed?

Or was I in such a state I just kept seeing myself as a pop-up figure in a shooting gallery?

I took Magnolia across the highway and onto Main, where I whizzed past all the little shops: the Music Hut, the Moon News, the Feed and Fuel store. I wanted to convince myself that I was just being skittish, but damn—if I lost that Taurus for a block or two, it was behind me at the next turn.

“Hang on tight. We’re going for a ride,” I said to Martha, who was smiling broadly into the wind.

Toward the end of Main, I hooked a right onto Route 92, Half Moon Bay’s umbilical cord to the rest of California.

Traffic was going fast on this winding two-laner, and I merged into a bumper-to-bumper chain of cars going fifty in a twenty-five-mile-per-hour zone. The double yellow line went the distance—a full five miles of no-passing lane as 92 crossed the reservoir and linked up with the freeway.

I drove on, dimly aware of the hillside of scrubby trees and chaparral on my left and the twenty-foot drop a few feet from the right side of my car. Three cars behind, the blue sedan kept me in sight.

I wasn’t crazy. I had a tail.

Was it a scare tactic?

Or was the shooter inside that car, waiting for an opportunity for a clear hit?

The end of 92 intersected with Skyline, and at the near right-hand corner was a rest stop with five picnic tables and a gravel parking lot.

I didn’t signal for a turn, just hauled right on my steering wheel. I wanted to get off the road, let that Taurus pass me so that I could see his face, get his plate number. Get out of his sights.

But instead of gripping the road as my Explorer would have done, the Bonneville fishtailed across the gravel, sending me back out onto 92, across the double yellow line and into the stream of oncoming traffic.

The Taurus must have passed me, but I never saw it.