4th of July (27 page)

“You can’t, Lindsay,” she said, her voice coming out as a whisper. “Everyone will die.”

I reached around and touched her face with my hand. Ali’s mouth was turned down, the trust in her eyes was heartbreaking.

“Lie down on the backseat,” I said to the little girl. “Wait for me and don’t move until I come back.”

Ali got down with her face against the seat. I put my hand on her back, patting her gently. Then I got out of the car and shut the door behind me.

BRIGHT MOONLIGHT FLOODED THE hilly terrain, casting long shadows that fooled the eye into believing chasms were opening up underfoot. I stuck to the brush at the side of the road, rounding the clearing until I arrived at the blind side of the house on higher ground.

An upscale SUV was parked beside the house next to a plain wooden doorway. The doorknob turned easily in my hand, and the door swung open into a mudroom.

I groped my way in the dark, advanced into a spacious kitchen. From there, I entered a high-ceilinged great room, luminous with moon glow.

I kept to the walls, skirting the long leather sofas and large pots of palms and pampas grass. I looked up in time to see a flashlight beam disappear at the top of a staircase.

I drew my gun and loped up the carpeted staircase, taking two steps at a time, crouching at the top landing.

I listened over the sound of my own breathing and heard soft murmurs coming from the room at the end of the hall.

Then a high-pitched scream shattered the air. I ran to a doorway, turned the knob, kicked open the door.

I strafed the scene with my eyes. There was a king-size bed, a woman sitting with her back against the headboard. A figure dressed in black held a knife to the woman’s throat.

“Hands in the air,” I yelled. “Drop the knife now!”

“It’s too late,” said a voice. “Just turn around and get the hell out of here.”

I reached for the wall switch and flicked on the light.

What I saw was shocking, horrifying, unbelievable.

The intruder with the knife was Carolee Brown.

CAROLEE WAS ABOUT TO commit murder. My brain stalled as I tried to assimilate the unimaginable. When it kicked back into gear, I acted, barking out a command at the top of my voice.

“Back away from her, Carolee. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“Lindsay,” she said in a maddeningly reasonable tone. “I’m asking you to please go. She’s a dead woman no matter what. You can’t stop me.”

“Last chance,” I said, pulling back the hammer. “Put that knife down or I’m going to kill you.”

The woman in the bed whimpered as Carolee measured the distance between us with her eyes and calculated how long it would take to slash the woman’s throat before I put a bullet through her brain.

I was making the same calculations.

“You’re making a huge mistake,” Carolee said with regret. “I’m the good guy, Lindsay. This thing you see here, this Melissa Farley, is complete trash.”

“Toss the knife over here very carefully,” I said, grasping my Glock so hard that my knuckles were white. Could I shoot Carolee if I had to? I really didn’t know.

“You aren’t going to shoot me,” she said then.

“I think you’ve forgotten who I am.”

Carolee started to speak again, but the resolve gripping my face stopped her. I would shoot her, and she was smart enough to get it. She smiled wanly. Then she tossed the knife underhand onto the carpet at our feet.

I kicked the knife under a bureau, then I ordered Carolee to the floor.

“On your knees!” I shouted. “Hands in front of you!”

I took her down to the ground, told her to lace her hands behind her neck and cross her ankles, frisked her, and found nothing but a thin leather belt around her waist.

Then I darted my eyes to the woman on the bed.

“Melissa? Are you okay? Call nine-one-one. Tell them that a violent crime is in progress and a cop needs assistance.”

The woman reached for the bedside phone even as she kept her eyes on me.

“He’s got my husband,” she said. “A man is in the bathroom with Ed.”

I FOLLOWED MELISSA FARLEY’S gaze across the shadows to the door to the left of the bed.

The door opened slowly, and a male walked stiffly into the bedroom, his eyes wild behind blood-speckled glasses.

I noticed everything as the man came toward me: black T-shirt soaked with blood; belt, stripped from his pants, dangling by its silver buckle from his left hand; ugly hunting knife clutched in his right.

My mind raced ahead, thinking not where the knife was now, but where it would be next.

“Drop your weapon!” I screamed at him. “Do it now or I’ll shoot.”

The man’s mouth formed a grim smile, the chilling look of someone who is ready to die. He continued coming toward me, pointing the bloody knife.

My vision narrowed so that I could concentrate on what seemed necessary to my survival. There was too much to focus on, too much to control.

Carolee was behind me, unsecured.

The man with the knife knew it, too. His lip curled back.

He said, “G-g-get up! We can take her.”

I calculated what would happen if I shot him. He was less than ten feet away.

Even if I got him square in the chest, even if I stopped his heart, the closing range was short.

He was still coming.

I leveled my gun, fingered the trigger, and then Melissa Farley scrambled across the bed, launching herself toward the bathroom.

“No,” I yelled out. “Stay where you are.”

“I have to go to my husband!”

I never heard the door open behind me.

I never heard someone else enter the room.

But suddenly she was there.

“Bobby, don’t!” Allison screamed.

And for one long second, everything stood still.

THE MAN ALLISON CALLED Bobby froze. He steadied himself, and I watched his face seize with confusion.

“Allison,” he said, “you’re supposed to be home.”

Bobby! The stutter hadn’t cued me, but now I recognized his face. It was Bob Hinton, the lawyer from town who’d run into me with his bike. I didn’t have time to figure out exactly how he fit into this picture.

Allison drifted from behind me as if she were in a dream. She walked over to Bob Hinton and put her arms around his waist. I wanted to stop her, but before I could, Hinton reached his arms around her and held Allison tightly.

“Little sister,” he whispered, “you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t see this.”

My blood pressure dropped, and the sweat on my hands made the gun’s trigger slippery. I continued to gauge my shot at Hinton.

I jockeyed for a better angle, and Hinton turned the dazed little girl toward me. I could see that he was dazed himself.

“Bob,” I said, putting my heart into it. I wanted him to believe me. “It’s your choice. But I’ll blow your head off if you don’t drop that knife and get right down on your knees.”

Bob stooped, dipping his face behind Allison’s head, turning her into a shield. I knew he would put his blade across her throat next and tell me to throw down my gun. I’d have to do it.

I didn’t expect the look of terrible sadness that came over his face as he pressed his cheek to Allison’s. “Oh, Ali, Ali, you aren’t old enough to understand.”

Ali shook her head.

“I know everything, Bobby. You have to give up. I have to tell Lindsay all of it.”

A flash of red tore my attention from the haunting tableau in front of me. Melissa Farley half fell through the bathroom doorway. The front of her nightgown was dark with blood.

“Ambulance,” she panted. “Get an ambulance. Please! Ed is still alive.”

ABOUT TEN MINUTES LATER, sirens wailed and the flashing lights of patrol cars raced up the winding road below. Medevac chopper blades roared overhead.

Melissa Farley was back in the bathroom with her husband. “Allison,” I said. “Please go downstairs and open the door for the police.” Bob still held Allison tightly in his arms. She turned her round-eyed stare on me. Her lips were quivering as she held back sobs.

“Go ahead, darling,” Carolee said from where she lay on the floor. “It’s all right.”

Ten steps away from me, Bob’s face sagged; his expression was that of a beaten man. He squeezed Ali’s shoulders, and I gasped involuntarily. Then he released the child.

As soon as Ali was safely out of the room, my anger exploded.

“Who are you two? What made you think you could get away with this?”

I stepped over to Bob Hinton, ripped away the knife, and ordered him to put his hands against the wall. I Mirandized him as I frisked him.

“Do you understand your rights?”

His laughter was shrill but sardonic. “Better than most,” he said.

I found glass-cutting tools and a camera on Hinton, which I removed. Then I forced him to the ground and sat on the edge of the king-size bed, holding my gun on him and Carolee.

I didn’t even blink until I heard heavy footsteps rumbling up the stairs.

IT WAS AFTER THREE in the morning, and I was back at the police station. Chief Stark was with Bob Hinton in the interrogation room, where Bob was describing in detail the many homicides that he, Carolee, and Keith had committed in Half Moon Bay.

I sat with Carolee in the chief’s office, an old Sony tape recorder between us on Peter Stark’s messy desk. A detective brought cups of coffee into the room in a cardboard box, then he took a position inside the doorway as I interviewed Carolee.

“I think I’d like to talk to my lawyer,” Carolee said flatly.

“You mean Bob? Can you wait a few minutes?” I snapped. “He’s giving you up right now, and we’d like to get it all down.”

Carolee gave me a bemused smile.

She flicked a strand of hair from the front of her black silk turtleneck, then folded her manicured hands in her lap. I couldn’t help but stare.

Carolee had been a friend. We’d traded confidences. I’d told her to call me if she ever needed me. I idolized her daughter.

Even now, she was dignified, articulate, seemingly sane.

“Maybe you’d like a different lawyer,” I said.

“Never mind,” she said. “It’s not going to matter.”

“Okay, then. Why don’t you talk to me?”

I switched on the tape recorder, spoke my name, the time and date, my badge number, and the subject’s name. Then I rewound the tape and played it back to make sure the machine was working. Satisfied, I leaned back in the chief’s swivel chair.

“Okay, Carolee. Let’s hear it,” I said.

The lovely-looking woman in her Donna Karan perfection took a moment to organize her thoughts before she spoke for the record.

“Lindsay,” she said thoughtfully, “you need to understand that they brought it upon themselves. The Whittakers were making child pornography. The Daltrys were actually starving their twins. They were part of some freaking religious cult that told them their children shouldn’t eat solid food.”

“And you didn’t think to get Children’s Services involved?”

“I reported it again and again. Jake and Alice were clever, though. They stocked their shelves with food, but they never fed the children!”

“And Doc O’Malley? What about him and his wife?”

“Doc was selling his own child on the Internet. There was a camera in her room. That stupid Lorelei knew. Caitlin knew. I only hope that her grandparents get her the help she needs. I wish I could do it myself.”

The more she talked, the more I understood the depths of her narcissism. Carolee and her cohorts had taken on the mission of cleaning up child abuse in Half Moon Bay—acting as the whole judicial package: judge, jury, and executioners. And the way she described it, it almost made sense.

If you didn’t know what she’d done.

“Carolee. You killed eight people.”

We were interrupted by a knock on the door. The detective cracked it open a few inches, and I saw the chief outside. His face was gray with fatigue. I stepped out into the hallway.

“Coastside hospital called,” he told me. “Hinton administered the coup de grâce after all.”

I stepped back into the chief’s office. Sat down in the swivel chair.

“Make that nine, Carolee. Ed Farley just died.”

“And thank God for that,” Carolee said. “When you people open the barn at the back of the Farleys’ yard you’re going to have to pin a medal on me. The Farleys have been trafficking in little Mexican girls. Selling them for sex all across the country. Call the FBI, Lindsay. This is a big one.”

Carolee’s posture relaxed even as I grappled with this new bombshell. She leaned forward confidingly. The earnestness in her face was absolutely stunning.

“I’ve been wanting to tell you something since I met you,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter to anyone but you. Your John Doe? That terrible shit had a name. Brian Miller. And I’m the one who killed him.”

I COULD HARDLY ABSORB what Carolee had just told me.

She’d killed my John Doe.

That boy’s death had been on my mind for ten full years. Carolee was my sister’s friend. Now I tried to grasp that John Doe’s killer and I had been traveling on adjacent paths, paths that had finally converged in this room.

“It’s traditional for the condemned to have a cigarette, isn’t it, Lindsay?”

“Hell, yes,” I said. “As many as you want.”

I reached on top of a filing cabinet for a carton of Marlboros. I broke open the box and placed a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches beside Carolee’s elbow with a casualness I had to fake.

I was desperate to hear about the boy whose lost life I’d been carrying with me in spirit for so many years.

“Thank you,” said Carolee, the schoolteacher, the mom, the savior of abused children.