Silent Joe (32 page)

Later, when I told Sergeant Delano what I'd learned, he chewed me out for being stupid enough to come back here when I didn't have to. But he let me hang around in the bubble for a while—that's the main guard station in the intake-release center—not working, just being.

I talked briefly with the Mod J guards and inmates. Sammy Nguyen had seen the rat again, was agitating for the trap I told him he'd never get. He asked me for a small flashlight, one of the good MagLite brands, so he could see the damned rat in the dark and throw something at it. Flashlights were forbidden in the jail, and I told him so. I told him that Bernadette was doing well and missing him very much. He gave me a suspicious stare, then flopped onto his bunk and stared up at her picture.

Giant Mike Staich was in a holding tank while they searched his cell; someone had ratted him out for having a weapon. I watched the search detail work through the small cell. They found nothing, left Giant Mike’s few possessions in the middle of the floor and walked out.

Dr. Chapin Fortnell was in trial.

Dave Hauser, assistant DA turned drug supplier, showed me a picture of the property he and his family would purchase as soon as he got this "stupid misunderstanding cleared up." The property had palms and a white sand beach and a lagoon of water the same color blue as the sky above

Serial rapist Frankie Dilsey lay on his cot with his back to the bars, humming. His feet were moving, like a dog running in a dream. Ice-Box Killer Gary Sargola looked at me mournfully as I walked by, but said nothing. His penalty phase was due to start next week, and the DA was asking for death. He was a pasty, bespectacled man and it was hard imagine him doing what he'd done. But when you thought about it, none of the guys in there looked any worse than anybody else. In fact, they looked a lot better than me.

I sat with some of the other deputies for a while in the staff dining room. We gossiped about the inmates and the bosses and drank coffee. Some were brand-new, and had almost an entire five-year stretch to go. Others were down to their last few months, even weeks. I was getting close to the end of my jail days—four years down and one to go.

When Sergeant Delano came in, we sat up a little straighter and quit talking.

"Trona," he said, "you've got a hot call on four."

I went to the guard station, punched the code for the outside line and said hello.

It was Rick Birch. He said the surveillance team had followed John Gaylen to a public park in Irvine. Gaylen had sat on a bench by a lake for two hours. He had made three calls on his cell phone and received two others.

"That was between noon and two this afternoon," he said. "At one-thirty, someone put a silenced bullet through Ike Cao's forehead in the ICU. We're still working it, but there was a new nurse in the unit just before it happened. Nobody's seen her since."

"What did she look like?"

"Fresh out of surgery—scrubs, hair net, mask, maybe a stethoscope and a clipboard. Short, wide, overweight. Dark hair and eyes. They got her on security video. The picture's terrible. Like the fog that night—hard to make out."

"Pearlita," I said.

"We've got six teams down on Raitt Street right now. If she shows, she's ours."

My little trick had worked. It had worked well enough to get Ike Cao killed. My heart sank then, just a little, even though I told myself that Ike was an attempted murderer, that his own gang boss had killed him.

Birch read my mind.

"Don't let your heart bleed out, Trona. Ike Cao helped murder your father. He'd have murdered you, too, if he had a chance."

"Thank you, sir," I said.

"The bullet was still inside Cao's head. We'll recover it, run it through DrugFire and the Bureau."

The Reverend Daniel Alter's face went bright red when I showed him the film strips from the safe deposit box. Out of respect, I looked away from him and stared out the windows of the Chapel of Light. The long summer evening was just beginning to fall. The sky was pale blue and the moon was an upended curl of white over Saddleback Mountain.

"I'm humiliated," he said. "And absolutely outraged."

"Yes, sir."

"What am I supposed to say to this?"

"I don't know."

"In Will's
safe-deposit box?”

I nodded. "But you knew that, Reverend. He didn't keep those in the bank because he liked them. He kept them there because they were valuable. How much was he getting out of you?"

His eyes got big, magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses. Disbelief. But even I—a great fan of Reverend Daniel's performances—could see how forced it was. He sighed and dropped the astonishment. He looked at me.

"We agreed on ten thousand a month for one year. I paid twice, so I owed ten more installments."

"That's not much money, is it, Reverend? For a very wealthy man like yourself?"

"Will said if I'd have gone any further he would have pauperized me I laughed at that, because we both knew he wouldn't. You see, Will was illegally taking advantage of me, I know. But I wasn't really paying him because he was donating that ten thousand to the Hillview Home for Children every month. He had no interest in the money as
money.
He was interested in it for what it could
do.
So, he caught me in a sin, and I'm paying for it. I didn't hate Will for what he was doing. I actually thought it was . . . fair."

I thought of the ten-thousand-dollar receipts I'd found in the safe deposit box.

"When was that film shot?"

He gazed out the window. "Two months ago. At the Grove. Luria was lovely and lonely and when I went upstairs to rest, she and a lady friend followed me into the room. We talked and talked. They drank a little. Actually, they drank like Packers fans. Will came in at some point, as did several others—to talk and freshen up their drinks. The bar in the hospitality suite was open. People coming and going. Everyone was a little crazy, actually. Some rather provocative things on the television. And that moment caught on the film, well, yes, I kissed her. I confess to that. I couldn't help myself, Joe. In fact, it was supposed to be a professional kiss—a peck on the cheek. But she turned her lips to mine at the very last moment, and I was . . . well, Joe, I
fell
And as soon as I'd done it, I knew it was very, very wrong. So I apologized and I went back down to the lounge. I had a strong drink, I must say. Then I had someone drive me home. To my Rosemary. The wife I love. Well, I mean she wasn't actually
at
home, at that specific point. She was on Majorca, ministering to the ah . . . ministering to herself, I think. Believe me, when I saw the film later, I cursed Will and his little briefcase camera. What trickery he was capable of."

Daniel looked suddenly smaller to me, as if he'd shrunk a size in the last five minutes. He wouldn't look at me.

"Two weeks later, Luria was killed on Coast Highway."

"I was crushed. I recognized her picture in the papers. I prayed for her. And I prayed for me, that your father would never show people what I'd done to her."

"Did you know that the kid who was killed outside the Pelican Point guardhouse was her brother? Luria was pregnant. She was severely beaten before that truck hit her. Miguel Domingo knew all that. His answer was a machete and a screwdriver."

"Jaime told me."

He bowed his head.

"Who brought her to the Grub, Reverend?"

"I have no idea, Joe."

"You don't get in without a sponsor, party girl or not."

"Yes, yes."

He pursed his lips and frowned. He closed his eyes. "I believe, Joe, that the party was thrown by the Committee to Reelect Dana Millbrae. In conjunction with the Research and Action Committee of the Grove Foundation."

It figured. I remembered the night. It was back in April and I'd been there, down in the bar, drinking sodas while the party went on upstairs. The players came out for that event. I remembered Daniel, in fact, a little tipsy. Will was all over the place—downstairs in the restaurant, then in bar, then upstairs into the hospitality suite and back down again. Lots attractive, single women, though I didn't see Luria Bias.

"Reverend, your security man, Bo Warren, met with the man killed Will. This was the night before it happened. Why?"

This time, Daniel's astonishment was real. "I ... I can't imagine
that,
Joe, let alone explain it. I can't believe that."

"I've got a witness. Somebody was in the car with Warren. I need know who it was."

"I'll talk to him. I will absolutely talk to him."

"Tell me, please, sir, as soon as you know."

I stood and gathered up my hat and briefcase. I went to the wind and looked out at the old day and the young night.

"Joe, I'm . . . willing to pay
you
the remaining hundred thousand dollars. The Hillview Children's Home would be glad to have the money. If you take away that incriminating film strip on my desk here, all you're left with is a legitimate charitable donation to a very worthy cause."

"Will could fake ten grand a month from the family fortune. I can't that, sir."

"Then I'll make the donation myself and save you both the headache.’’

I wondered why Daniel hadn't been making his payments to Hillview directly, all along. It took me just a second to see it from Will's angle, and I had my answer: Will didn't trust him enough. I turned and looked at Daniel. I wanted him to be holy but he wasn't. I wanted him to be strong, but he seemed to me to be weak when it matter and strong when it didn't. I wanted him to be honest and forthright, but he wasn't really those things, either.

"You look so disappointed, Joe."

"I spilled a lot of blood, sir. But Will died anyway. I thought you were close to God, but with all respect, Reverend, you strike me as kind of dishonest. You know what it seems like to me? It seems to me that if just one man would have stood up and done the right thing, this whole chain of things wouldn't have happened. Lies on lies, then more lies. Greed on greed on more greed. Nobody stopped. Nobody tried to stop."

"That's where you're wrong. We all try. We try every day. But we're imperfect and we're flawed. So we fail. Don't let perfection become the enemy of right."

"Those words are true. But they leave an awfully big hole, sir."

"Yes. I know. Please sit down another minute, Joe. Sit down, please."

I went back over to the chair, put down the briefcase and hat, and sat again.

"Joe, Will was not a saint. I see you're learning that about him. During the course of a man's life, Joe, he'll be faced with many difficult decisions. Men in power, like your father, they have to make more of them than others. It's difficult. That's why we need God to guide us. We cannot captain our own vessels alone."

"Reverend, I always thought Will was right. Even when I saw him doing something that wasn't right, I figured he was working toward a larger good. I thought when I got older and wiser, I'd see behind the actions to the larger things behind them. I thought his wrongs were . . . necessary detours."

"As well they may have been."

I collected my things and stood. "What if they weren't?"

"Here," he said. He handed me back the envelope with the film strips in them. "These are yours."

"Do what you want with them, sir."

"Thank you very much. Do what you think is proper with this.

"He gave me another envelope, sealed. It was thick and heavy and I knew what it was. I weighed it on the palm of my hand and looked Reverend Daniel.

"For Hillview Home," he said. "For Luria's family, if you can find any of them. For the memory of Will and all that he did that was good.

"Put it back in the offering plate, Reverend," I said.

I set it on his desk and left.

I caught Carl Rupaski in his office. His secretary was gone and Rupaski was sitting at his desk, big brown wingtips on the mahogany, gazing one window. Orange sunlight filtered down through the smog and onto Santa Ana.

He smiled when I walked in, but he didn't get up. "So, you're coming to work for the Transportation Authority?"

"No, sir. It was a flattering offer, though."

"What's that you got?"

"A tape player. I want to play something for you."

"If I said it, it can't be good."

"It's interesting. And I've got a few questions, sir."

At this, Rupaski pulled his feet off the desk and leaned forward. "This an official sheriff's department visit, Joe?"

"No, sir. I found this tape recording and some notes, and I wonder if you could clear some things up."

"Will's tape?"

"Yes, sir."

He sat back heavily and locked his fingers behind his head.

I played it.