“He’s not in his right mind, Rob. He’s not responsible. We’ve tried to get help for him, like that time at the Chinese consulate—”
But the sheriff wasn’t paying any attention because mental states weren’t the issue here. Murder was. Murder and felony drug violations. He went on, reading now: “‘As the victim and Mr. Moody made their way upslope in a light misting rain, they were unaware that the suspect was armed, concealed and lying in wait. It was their assumption that the operation had been abandoned, as it was late in the season and they saw no signs that anyone was in attendance. At some point, no more than ten minutes after they’d arrived, the suspect sprang from cover in a threatening manner and when the victim recognized him—called out his name, Adam—the suspect opened fire with his Chinese-made assault rifle, fatally wounding the victim, and then firing on Mr. Moody, who took cover and returned fire with a legally registered handgun he routinely carried for protection in the woods.
“‘The suspect subsequently retreated but began a flanking maneuver that caught Mr. Moody by surprise (he was at this juncture in full flight, in a heavily wooded area some two miles north of the river and the California Western Railroad tracks, or Skunk Railroad, as it is popularly known). Suddenly he came under fire again, and initially, using the trees for cover and returning fire to keep the suspect at bay, he couldn’t determine from which direction the fire was coming. When he realized that the shooter was now in front of him, cutting off his retreat, he began evasive maneuvers, heading west in deep forest before again turning south, where he finally reached the railway tracks at mile marker six and was able to flag down the operator of a railway utility vehicle known as a speeder cart, who took him to safety where he subsequently placed a 911 call.’”
The sheriff glanced up, held him with his eyes, then slapped the report down on the table. “Just so you understand, Sten, Adam actively hunted this guy down, and if Moody wasn’t armed and hadn’t used his head, we’d be talking about three deaths here.”
“He didn’t kill Carey. That was the Mexicans. I saw them. We both saw them out there in their pickup—Carey even called 911 to report them.” A glance at the deputy—and he was smirking. Or gloating. One or the other, take your pick. “What are you smirking about, you son of a bitch?”
And now the kid came to attention, all right, one hand instinctively going to his duty belt. “Who you calling a son of a bitch?”
“You. I’m calling you a son of a bitch.”
“Back off, Jason.” Rob straightened up with a sigh, put his hands on his hips. “In fact, why don’t you go out to the car for me and I’ll call you when I need you?”
There was a moment of hesitation, the deputy’s face a field for the interplay of his emotions, and then they both watched as he turned his back on them and picked his way across the lawn to flip the latch on the gate and disappear round the corner of the house.
“Sten. Look. I know this is hard,” Rob said, easing off the glasses and folding them away in his pocket. “But the evidence doesn’t support that.”
It was hard and it just got harder because he was trying to put Adam and Carey in the same equation, trying to picture the way his son would break with reality but always seemed to be able to come back to it, to right himself. Until now.
“I’ve got to ask you,” Rob said, no trace of understanding or even consideration left in his voice, just calculation, “—you know where he is?”
Sten just shook his head.
“When did you last see him?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a while.”
More gulls. The mountains. The ocean. Big River. And the sheriff, the sheriff calculating, because he was working on his own equation. “He was angry last time you saw him, isn’t that right? He didn’t want to leave that house. You had a fight, the two of you.”
“That’s right. But you’ve got to realize, Adam’s not normal. He needs help. I’ve been on to social services about it, everybody, and all I get is privacy laws, all I get is it’s none of my business.”
“And when he left that night, he went where?”
He was trying to come up with an answer, trying to mitigate, minimize, deny, but all he could do, even as Carolee came slamming through the back door with her hair in her face and her feet trying to run out from under her, was look toward the mountains. And point.
31.