A Killing in China Basin

FIFTY-NINE


She sat on the floor of the van, knees drawn up, head bowed but refusing to answer him. At the lake she didn’t run or scream. She did exactly what he told her to, as if she’d expected him, as if she always knew it would happen like this, and that both angered him and gave him confidence. He turned to look through the steel mesh. The van’s tall rear doors had no interior handles and were heavy duty and reinforced against theft. The mesh behind his head was sturdy. She really was his now.

‘Erin.’

She said nothing.

‘We’re going to talk,’ he said, and pulled off the road, drove to the corner of a shopping mall lot.

‘You’re going to talk to me. It’s going to be a long drive and I want you to talk.’

‘Why don’t you just kill me here?’

‘Because I have a house for us; we’re going to live together. It’s in the mountains and very beautiful, the kind of place you’ll like.’

‘You’re kidnapping me, Cody. That’s what’s happening, and you’re going to kill me.’

‘No, I didn’t search for you to hurt you. I know you got scared that night. I know you did what you did because you were scared.’

‘You shot John.’

‘John got himself killed. He tried to shoot me first. He got his gun out and—’

‘And then you made up that lie.’

‘It was a mistake to have asked you to lie. I admit that.’ He turned and looked through the mesh again. ‘But what you did was worse.’

‘Just admit it, you shot John! You wrecked our lives!’

She yelled and he liked that. It was better to get it out now and get it done. She turned to look at her again and said, ‘I want to know everything about you. I want to know everything that’s happened to you.’

‘What happened is I had to get a new identity to hide from you. You shot John, then you made up a story to try to hide what you did, and when that didn’t work you blamed other people. But you want to know about my life. You want to play out this fantasy, OK, here’s my life, here’s how it’s been.’

It just spilled out of her and he knew she wanted to be with him again. He heard it in her voice. She told him about living in a cabin near a lake and then he told her about the mountains where they were going now.

‘It’s dry and remote but the there’s a creek and a beautiful canyon. There are coyotes and bobcats and some mountain lion. We’re going to start over.’

She didn’t say anything to that, but he meant it. There were three rooms for her, and later, in a year or so, if everything went well, if she was good, he’d let her out on a chain in the yard. There was the room she’d sleep in at night and where he’d visit her. He did not plan to ever tell her where she lived or ever let her talk to anyone else. Or at least not for a very long time and there was no landline phone or even a paved road yet. His cell phone didn’t even work up there. If he was away on a trip she would have the long chain and ankle bracelet, and no knives or anything she could hurt herself with. She would have food and the TV until he got back. The mail already came to the PO Box down in Brantley and there were no neighbors, just the dirt road and the locked gate and the signs warning trespassers.

She’d fall in love with him again. It was a matter of being together and having time, but first things had to be even. She had to make up for the five years he did in prison. She needed to know what it felt like to be locked up. That was important.

He checked the rear-view mirror. Not far from the freeway now and the long drive south. They would need to make a stop at the warehouse for supplies for her first few months, and then they would be on their way.

‘Did you like living at Bucks Lake?’

‘It’s was always pretty, but there wasn’t any real way to make any money and I was always afraid you were going to find me.’

Just like her to be so frank. That was the Erin he remembered and he smiled at that. For the first time it seemed like her.

‘You don’t have to watch out any more, and I took care of Lafaye too. She’s gone.’

‘You killed her?’

‘No, she jumped off my boat and drowned. I drove around looking for her but I couldn’t find her. She was looking for you. That’s how I found you. I found you through her. She told me you were going to meet her at Lake Merced. You were blackmailing her.’ He turned and smiled. ‘So I said I’d meet you instead.’

He thought that was kind of funny but she didn’t and started to cry.

‘Don’t cry. It would spoil everything and we have so many things to talk about.’

‘I’m not going to spoil anything. You were once all I had.’

She moved up to the mesh and he could smell her, the warm heat from her face as he turned and leaned toward her and swerved the van toward the shoulder.

‘I want to try to kiss you through the mesh,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to get to know each other again. Try turning your head toward me again. Do it quickly.’

She didn’t really try but there would be time to get to know each other again. There were rules he wanted her to memorize but those could wait until they were at the house.

Now the traffic up ahead slowed. It distracted and agitated him. He wanted the timing to be very clean today. The drive south was long. They slowed to a stop and he saw police and emergency vehicle lights.

‘An accident,’ he said and felt her breath on the back of his neck. She was already working on him. He loved it how quickly she adapted. There were other police vehicles up there and if he’d been alone he would have turned on traffic radio to make sure it was an accident.

‘I was out of money,’ she said. ‘That’s why I was after her. She must have told you.’

‘She did.’ He turned. ‘Money isn’t going to be a problem any more.’

She didn’t answer and then said, ‘Money probably doesn’t matter any more.’

‘You think I’m going to hurt you? Is that why you say that?’

‘You’ve hunted me for years. You’ve kidnapped me. You ordered me into a van at gunpoint. Is that the person I knew once? Or were you always that person?’

‘I spent five years in a cage.’

‘I’m sorry about that but I couldn’t pretend there was a mugger.’

‘It’s OK, but it has to be even.’

‘What has to be even?’

‘We’re not going to talk about that yet.’

‘That’s fine, and I’m OK dying, I really am.’ Her voice quavered. ‘There won’t be any satisfaction in it for you and maybe God will forgive me for what we did to John.’

‘You aren’t going to die but it has to be even.’

She didn’t say anything for over a minute and they barely moved forward.

‘Cody?’

‘What?’

‘Are we really going to live together?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re going to keep me somewhere.’

‘For five years and then we’ll travel all over the world.’

‘Five years to match your five years?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK.’

More police cars now and a fire engine, but no smoke and no ambulance and they sat for ten minutes before the cars ahead started to move slowly forward. He questioned her more about the lost years and she told him she caught fish out of Bucks Lake and worked as a waitress, and did other seasonal stuff for employers who preferred to pay her under the table.

Then she asked, ‘Did you kill the San Francisco homicide inspector, the tall one, the one who arrested you?’

He gave her the same frankness she’d given him. It was the right way to start again and every word spoken at this stage was important.

‘I did.’

‘What about the wife of the other one?’

‘Are you going to ask me about Alex Jurika next?’

‘I am.’

‘After the first time we make love I’ll tell you everything that’s happened.’ He pointed through the windshield. ‘Looks like it’s moving again.’

It was but everything was flowing into one lane and there were more police cars. Must have been something else, he thought, not an accident, but whatever it was looked like it was over. When they got closer and he saw two cops standing directing the flow he said, ‘Get back and get down.’ When she lay on her side in the back he asked, ‘Do you want to be with me?’

‘I don’t know yet. You’ve got to give me time.’

‘I’m the same Cody.’

‘Then after what I did, why wouldn’t you just kill me?’

‘I’ve thought about killing you.’

‘Then just do it.’

‘I had a long time to think about it. I know you got scared that night. I knew ahead of time exactly what was going to happen so I wasn’t scared. But you didn’t have a chance to prepare. The cops knew you were lying. Did you know they knew?’

Even though they were getting close to the cops directing traffic, he turned and looked at her. He wanted to see her answer.

‘I couldn’t tell anything,’ she said.

‘Well, they knew you didn’t see me shoot John, but they also knew if they didn’t have you they wouldn’t be able to make the case stand.’

Stoltz checked her once more, and then pulled his cap down and blocked part of his face from view with his elbow resting on his driver’s door as the cop impatiently waved him forward. Behind him the whole line of cars got stopped and as he crossed the intersection they let cars start from the other direction. He neared three police cars parked in a line and another cop car swung in behind him. As soon as he saw that he knew something was wrong, but it was too late. Just like that they boxed him in and stopped their cars.

He went for his cell phone. He had Raveneau in there on speed dial and called him as he jumped the van up on to the sidewalk and started driving. He hit a light pole and the van rocked sideways but kept moving.

‘Get them to back the f*ck off or I’ll kill her,’ he said as Raveneau answered.

‘You don’t want to do—’

‘Goddamn you, I’m going to f*cking shoot her right now.’

‘I’m walking up to talk to you. Let me talk to you, Stoltz, you don’t have to get yourself killed.’

He saw the SWAT f*ckers and Raveneau rushing through ahead of them. A bullhorn voice ordered him out of the van and he was blocked. He couldn’t drive any farther without ramming one of them. He saw Raveneau break from someone trying to hold him and then start down the sidewalk. Stoltz opened the van door, laid the gun on his seat, showed his hands, and put one foot out on the sidewalk with all the guns pointed at him and people yelling. He ignored the order to get down and just before they rushed him he turned, grabbed the gun, and in a quick motion aimed through the mesh at Erin.

But his legs gave away. He heard a sharp crack and another sharp pain flowed up his side as he fell, bouncing off the van and sliding to the ground. He heard Raveneau’s voice close to him, saying, ‘Try to keep him alive,’ and then, ‘Hang in there, Stoltz, we’re going to get you to a hospital.’

Then the sidewalk turned gray and the voices moved far away. He heard Erin. He wanted Erin. He tried to say her name.