Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir) (13 page)

"The guy, for Christ's sake. The one who was with Allison.
He's running for Senate now. You've seen what a whackjob
he's turned into."

I remembered watching Channel 6. What that reporter
looked like after the little "misunderstanding" at the Swift
news conference. "Can't argue with that."

"He can't afford to have me floating around. I'm a loose
end."

Key in the lock. "That's Sheila," I said. "She doesn't need
to know about this."

The door opened. In came Sheila. She took in the three of
us. "What's happening?"

"Hank's got a gas leak. He came to borrow a wrench."

She didn't believe me and knew she wasn't supposed to.
"Did you leave all the windows open to let the gas out?"

"No," Rae said. "Come on, Dad. We should get back there
and make sure the windows are open, before we blow ourselves all to hell." She grabbed his arm and hustled him out of
there. The door shut and I locked it and turned around.

"He forgot his wrench," Sheila said.

"Damn."

"You want to tell me about it?"

"Not sure. Let me sleep on it."

I woke at first light, with a sick feeling in my gut. Like I'd had
too much caffeine without any food to absorb it.

Something was missing.

It took me a minute. The crows. That time of morning, they ought to be cawing their damn heads off. But they
weren't, and none of the other birds were on duty either.

I slid out of bed, pulled on some clothes, slipped out the
door. It was only a few steps before I rounded the curve and
saw Hank's place. There were three cop cars. Two LW security
vehicles. Paramedics. A couple of neighbors standing around
gawking. Across the street, someone's visiting grandbaby was
squalling its fool head off. The kind of thing living at Leisure
World was supposed to eliminate.

Rae was talking to a couple of cops. She spotted me and
ran over. "They-"

"What's going on?" I said, real loud. "What's the matter?"
I put my arms around her, whispered, "Act dumb." She stared
up at me. "You don't know anything. Got it?"

Nothing.

"Rae. I need you to focus. You don't know anything. It's important. One of the cops is coming over. I need you to get it."

She straightened her spine. "I got it."

The cop came near. He was young and he had a mustache
and he thought he was hot shit. I asked, "What happened,
officer? Is Hank all right?"

"Who are you?"

"A friend."

"Well, friend, why don't you just step over there and wait.
We'll get to you soon enough."

"Certainly, officer." I put my hands on Rae's upper arms.
Squeezed. "You going to be all right?"

A tiny nod. "Uh-huh."

"Okay, good. You need anything, you know you can count
on Sheila and me."

"Sir ..."

"Right. Over with the others." I stepped away and began to concoct some useless information to share with the
police.

Someone had managed to get past the guard gate and jimmied Hank's lock and shot him twice. He'd evidently used a
silencer, because Rae, sound asleep in her room, didn't find
him until some time later.

It wasn't going to be long before the police figured out
who Hank was. I figured I had a couple of hours head start.

Rae showed up a little after 9. "Last cop just left."

"Good."

"We have to get the son of a bitch."

"And we will."

Sheila poured her coffee and we sat at the little table in the kitchen. When Sheila's back was turned Rae gave me a
look. "She knows everything," I said.

"I'm very sorry," Sheila said.

"Thank you," Rae said.

"And now I'm going to leave you two to ... to do whatever you're going to do."

Once she was out the door Rae said, "First, you need to
know this. Allison. She stole him from my mom. So I hated
her. She deserved what she got. But Dad didn't kill her. She
was dead when he got there."

"Swift killed her?"

"Yes."

?"
"WhY•

"Dad never knew. But Swift had been drinking. Maybe it
was an accident. Or maybe she was going to declare her love
to the whole world, and Swift couldn't have that."

"Then why did Hank stand trial?"

She took a deep breath. Looked away. "Blackmail."

I thought about it. Took a few seconds before things fell
into place. "He was willing to shut up for a big chunk of cash.
But without a presumed murderer, the cops would've dug
deeper. They would have found out it was Swift."

She turned back to me. "Swift says to him, yeah, I'll give
you the money, but you have to let the cops think you did it.
Then I'll make sure you get off. Which I guess he could do. He
had people in his pocket. And while the heat was on Dad, he
covered his tracks."

"Swift could have double-crossed him. Let him stand trial,
not interfere, and get him convicted."

"If he had, Dad would've told the real story."

"Who'd have believed him?"

"He had a picture."

"He just happened to have a camera with him?"

"He was done with her. He was going to divorce her and
get back with my mom. He was going to take a picture of them
together, and then he was going to use it to get a divorce, and
if she complained he was going to let everyone see Swift fucking around. Which Allison didn't want, because she'd gone
and fallen in love with the asshole."

"But he didn't get back with your mother."

"It didn't work out."

She slumped in her seat and stared at me with eyes half
open. "You don't seem surprised."

"About your dad blackmailing that shit Swift? I'm not.
Not really."

"How come?"

"You're not going to like it."

"Tell me."

I stood up. Went and leaned on the kitchen counter. "I
thought he'd done it. Gotten away with murder. Up until you
told me different a couple of minutes ago. So if I was ready to
think him a murderer, then what's a little blackmail?"

"You thought he did it, but you palled around with him
anyway?"

What was I supposed to say? That I still figured I'd killed
my son, and I felt some kind of weird kinship with someone
who'd killed his wife? She didn't need to hear that. "I liked
him. I got past his past."

Did she believe me? Maybe she did. It didn't really matter.

"So now what do we do?" she asked.

"What happened to the picture?"

"He sent it to Swift after he got off and got the money.
The negative too."

"How honorable."

"That's the kind of guy Dad was."

"That's the kind of guy I am too. But ..."

"But what?"

"But self-preservation. If you're dealing with straight
shooters, you shoot straight. If you're dealing with scum ..."

"You think he kept a copy?"

"I would have."

"Then let's go look."

There was nothing in the bedrooms. Nothing in the living
room. We moved into the kitchen. "There a junk drawer?" I
asked.

She pointed. "Top one on the right."

It looked promising. All sorts of crap. Take-out menus,
pieces of string, toaster instructions. Little bits of plastic that
had broken off things. Random tools, including a utility knife.
Which I discovered when the blade sliced my pinkie open. I
jerked my hand out and wailed and bled all over the counter.

Rae hauled me into the bathroom. She put pressure on
and washed the finger and poured hydrogen peroxide over it.
After a few minutes the flow turned to an ooze. She went into
the medicine cabinet for bandages.

"Just like mine," I said. "Pills for everything."

She bandaged me up. Stared at my hand. Then at the
medicine cabinet. Tried to retreat from the reality in which
her father had been murdered. "I guess we won't be needing
these anymore," she said, grabbing a bunch of the prescription
bottles and tossing them at the wastebasket. But she took too
many. One fell to the floor. Another into the sink. As she bent
for the one on the floor my eyes went to the one in the sink.
Which didn't have pills in it.

I grabbed it and struggled with the childproof cap until Rae saw what was up and snatched it from my hand. She
flipped it open and poured the contents into my palm.

A key. A safe-deposit key.

"Where did he do his banking?" I said.

We tore open a box of canceled checks and I practiced his
signature. My cut finger made it harder. But I didn't think it
had to be really close. Who's going to expect one geezer was
trying to get into another's box? Especially when the first geezer looks a lot like the photo on the second's driver's license?
Which we grabbed before we headed for the bank.

I was right about the lack of scrutiny. The kid manning
the safe-deposit station barely looked at the license or the signature. Two minutes later I was sitting in a little room, alone
with the box.

I pulled out some thin gloves I'd found under the kitchen
sink. Sooner or later they'd figure out someone had gotten into
Hank's box a couple of hours after he left the planet. I didn t
want them to know it was me. Good thing I watched CSI.

The photo was in an envelope under everything else. A
much younger Tim Swift standing next to a bed on which a
body lay. You could see the face.

Perfect.

I had Rae make the delivery. The man at its destination would
remember me, and I'd be in Seal Beach for a while. Sooner or
later he'd run into me, and questions might be asked. I didn't
need them. But he hadn't seen Rae before. And I was certain
she'd be leaving town soon.

But I watched from across the street. When she knocked
on the door, Chuck answered. He had a package of CornNuts
in his hand.

She asked him something and he shook his head. So she
said something else and handed him the envelope with the
photo. She spoke again. He nodded. She left.

When she was back in the car she said, "Daddy'll be home
in a bit."

"Then our work is done."

I'm guessing some of the Elliot people wanted to let it out immediately. Cooler heads prevailed, and it broke just in time
for the evening news cycle. By 8 that night Tim Swift was in
custody.

He was out the next morning. His campaign spokesman
got on TV and whined about photo manipulation and smear
campaigns. The local news people and the cable networks
went bananas. Implication and innuendo filled the air. A former staffer came forward and said she'd had an affair with
Swift six years back. The TV people all went hysterical.

By late that evening the Swift for Senate campaign had
been suspended.

There was no service for Hank. We never saw Rae again, at
least not in the flesh. I did spot her a few weeks later on TV,
the day Tim Swift gave up his House seat. A reporter asked
her how she felt about it and Rae gave him a look that would
curdle milk.

Two months later we sold the place at Leisure World.
Rented an apartment a lot closer to the water. The sea air is
good for its, and so are the younger folks in the building. One
couple has a boy of ten or eleven. In the right kind of light,
at the right time of day, he reminds me of Jody. And that, I've
been pleased to discover, makes me feel just fine.