An Unacceptable Death - Barbara Seranella (29 page)

Who would have pointed the finger at Rico? Either the
real thief or someone who wanted leverage on the real thief.

A woman groaned inside the van.

"
Who's this?" Delaguerra asked. He beat a
hand on the side of the van. "Come out of there."

He said something in Spanish to his driver and the
guy went over to the passenger door of the van. A moment later,
Sharon stumbled out and was herded over to join the group. Her eyes
weren't tracking right, and her short blond hair was matted with
blood. One of those stray bullets must have caught her.

Sharon sank to the ground. Christina glanced at her
fellow agent and shrugged. "I've got a doctor who will see her."

Munch had to hand it to her, Christina had some kind
of nerve. Munch hoped she was also quick on her feet.

Make them protect you, Rico had written in his last
note to her. "I don't know what this bitch told you," Munch
said, pointing at Christina, "but whatever it was was a lie.
She's just jealous."

"
What's this?" Delaguerra asked in an
amused tone. "The little tiger roars?"

Humberto dug his gun a little sharper into Munch's
back. Christina swung the barrel of her Uzi so that it was level with
Munch's chest.

"
Hey," Humberto said. "Watch it."

"
So now you want me quiet?" Munch said.
"Which is it? You know the truth. He didn't want you. He was
marrying me."

"
He loved me, you little whore," Christina
screamed as she charged. The men stepped back as Christina and Munch
went down together on the pavement, but instead of the cat fight they
were expecting, Christina swung the Uzi around so that it was trained
on Delaguerra and his man.

Delaguerra aimed and Christina fired. Small tufts of
smoke wisped from the holes in the mens, chests. They died with their
jaws open in surprise.

Munch tore off the transmitter. It was smoking and
smelled like burning plastic. She swung the belt once around her head
to pick up speed and then smacked Humberto in the side of the head.
The blow put him off balance and then Roger tackled him. Humberto's
gun went flying and Munch scrambled after it.

The bodies of Delaguerra and his man jerked back
against the side of the Suburban as Christina cut a line of bullet
holes across their chests.

When the shooting stopped, the Suburban's alarm went
off, sounding long Klaxon bleats. Roger was cuffing Humberto and
turned to Munch. "Can you turn that thing off ?"

"
Sure." She stepped past the bodies on the
ground. The driver's door was still open, so she reached in and
popped the hood release. Then she quickly located and unplugged the
horns.

She returned to where Humberto was sitting on the
curb. Roger was emptying the big man's pockets. "By the way,
Roger, this is Humberto. Humberto, Roger." He could never say an
introduction hadn't taken place.

Now other sirens filled the air, the long—awaited
backup was finally arriving.

"
You better give me that," Christina said,
indicating Humberto's gun still in Munch's hand.

Munch handed it over, grip first.

Ellen poked her head out the front door of Munch's
house. "I called the fire department and told them we were going
to need some paramedics."

Asia pushed past Ellen and
came running across the lawn. Munch had never seen her daughter's
face look so pale or her eyes so wide. She wrapped her arms around
Asia and turned the little girl's face from the carnage. "It's
over now," she said. "We're going to be okay."

* * *

St. John arrived with the paramedics and badged his
way inside the police cordon that Roger supervised. When he got to
Munch and Asia, and realized that none of the blood was theirs, he
hugged them in relief. His second reaction was to confront Roger.

"
What kind of operation are you running here?"
he demanded.

"
And you are?" Roger asked.

St. John identified himself.

"
This is the narc I told you about," Munch
said. "He owes me an explanation and public apology."

Several other DEA agents in blue windbreakers arrived
on the scene. They helped Humberto to his feet, treating him with
care, and assisted him into the back of Christina's van. She told the
other agents that she'd catch a ride with Roger.

"
I'm waiting," Munch said.

Christina brushed dirt off her pants, pushed her long
hair out of her face, and gave Roger a nod before she began. "Rico
got a call from Delaguerra about a week and a half ago. Delaguerra
wanted him to help smuggle some guns into the sheriff's lockup in Van
Nuys. Several of Delaguerra's soldiers were in custody and looking at
going away for a long time. Delaguerra needed help to break them out.
Rico was in a spot. If he refused . . . well, let's just say
Delaguerra was not a man who took no for an answer."

"
Rico went along with the Santiago brothers,"
Roger said. "The plan was to raid the house where they kept the
guns. Take 'em into custody before they hit the street. Rico would
get busted along with them to maintain his cover. Then the brothers
changed the plan at the last moment, moving up the timetable before
we could get the team in place."

"
Why didn't he just get out of there?" St.
John asked. "Go out for cigarettes or something?"

"
The brothers were already suspicious,"
Christina said. "Rico had run out of excuses. He was hoping some
other opportunity would present itself on the way to the lockup.
Remember, they had the names and addresses of all his family. We
could protect some of them, but never all of them in time. That was
Rico's choice."

"
Save himself or save his family," Munch
said.

"
We don"t know what exactly happened at the
meet," Roger said. "It was too dangerous for him to wear a
wire. We heard shots and stormed the house. Rico was already dead and
he'd taken out one of the brothers, but the other one was still
alive."

"
He drew down on our team," Christina said.

Of course he did, St. John thought, but he didn't
condemn the agents for shooting the other brother. They had to make
their story work. "We realized we needed to rescript the
scenario or Rico would have sacrificed himself for nothing,"
Roger said.

"
So you shot up his body?" Munch asked.
"And said he'd been on the wrong side?"

"
It was the only way we could protect all of
you," Christina said.

"
Not to mention your cover," Munch said.

"
That's right," she admitted. "He died
for me, too."
 

EPILOGUE:

Seven Months Later . . .

TIME WAS SUPPOSED TO HELP, AND IT HAD UP TO A POINT.
Munch had some good days, but she also had some bad nights. Hour
after hour, she would lie alone in her bed, praying for sleep.

There were other lingering effects.

There was a shiny rectangle of scar tissue on the
small of Munch's back. The short-circuiting transmitter had charred
her skin black. Fourth-degree burns, the doctors said. Munch didn't
know there was such a thing. The doctors were surprised to learn that
she had never lost consciousness from the pain. They said skin grafts
were an option, but she didn't see the point. When she studied her
naked back in the mirror, she didn't think it looked so bad. She
suspected she was weird for thinking so, but she kind of dug having
it.

She had to call Asia if she was going to be even five
minutes late or the girl would work herself into a state. Angelica
volunteered to baby-sit whenever Munch needed her, and sometimes came
over even when Munch wasn't going out.

Munch told Angelica that she would be her stepmother.
That Munch could be the person Angelica could always come to when she
needed an adult to bounce something off. An adult who wasn't her
mother. They didn't tell Sylvia about those conversations. It would
only make the woman feel bad, and it wasn't about replacing her as a
parent, as much as supplementing. Munch did the same for her nieces
and the kids of friends from mostly the old days.

Angelica was keeping her grades up, but according to
her teachers, she lacked association skills and tended to keep to
herself. It was an Indian summer that year, the hottest days falling
in early autumn. Following a spate of hundred-plus-degree days, Munch
woke early on a Saturday morning mid-autumn. The windows were open,
letting in the cooler night breeze. She grasped at the wisps of a
dream, trying to decipher it, wondering if it was responsible for the
sense of urgency she felt. In the dream, her house was sinking in
quicksand as she clutched at the windowsills, trying to keep the
building up. She had packed her bags to leave. When she tried to pull
them through the open window, they alternately wouldn't fit or were
too heavy to drag. Someone was trying to tell her something in the
most urgent tones, but she was too busy.

Munch checked the clock by her bed. It was
four-thirty, yet she was wide awake. At least she had slept a good
five hours.

Jasper lifted a sleepy eyelid and regarded her
groggily. His jowls hung crooked, one side still flattened by the
pillow.

"
We have something to do," she said. She
went into Asia's room, woke her and told her to dress.

"
What is it, Mom?"

"
I know there's something we have to do today. I
don't remember what." Asia pulled on her clothes without
grumbling. Munch loaded them in the car. The dull yellow rays of
streetlights broke through the night fog. Munch headed for the
freeway, pulled by an impulse she didn't fully understand.

"
Where are we going?" Asia asked.

"
Looks like to Angelica. She needs to be a part
of this."

Angelica was in front of her house when they pulled
up. She had put on some much-needed pounds and looked younger. She
didn't look surprised to see Munch as she got in the car.

They drove to the beach and parked next to a
shuttered concession stand. The sign over the order window was cut
and painted to resemble a rainbow.

"
This is the place," Munch said.

"
What are we supposed to do?" Asia asked.

"
Let's walk out to the water. I have some
questions." Munch picked up small rocks along the way and handed
some of them to the girls. Jasper bounded in front of them, delighted
to feel the sand and surf under his paws.

Munch threw one of the rocks at a breaking wave. "I
hate feeling this way."

Asia looked at her in surprise.

"
I hate it when people I love die." Munch
threw another rock. "Why do you let that happen?"

Angelica stepped up next. "You said you'd take
care of me forever, and now you're gone." She threw a rock, then
two more. "You should have stayed out of my life. Now I miss
you."

Asia tossed a rock half heartedly. "You
shouldn't have taken drugs, not when you had a little baby."

Munch was surprised, and honest enough with herself
to acknowledge that it hurt her feelings that Asia missed her birth
parents. Angelica stepped up for another turn. "You'll never see
me graduate, Daddy, or meet my husband, or—" She stopped
talking as her tears overcame her voice.

Asia kicked at the water. She was also crying.

Munch let the girls express themselves. This was not
the time for counseling or even comforting. They were here to air
their wounds.

"
You should have tried harder," Munch said,
skimming a flat stone over the surface of a retreating wave. She
wasn't talking to Rico now. She knew he had done his best to stay,
but it had come to an awful choice, and he showed his love in a way
no man from here on after could ever repeat. He'd sacrificed it all
for the ones he loved. No, the hurt she was voicing was an old one. A
pain she carried like some kind of badge.

The voice from her dream came back to her. She'd been
hearing that spokesperson for years, but never quite identified who
it was.

She had often woken and wondered at the familiarity
of the voice and why she trusted it so completely.

"
You're thirty years old," it had said.
"It's time to drop this load. Forgive and release."

Munch looked down at Asia as the water swirled around
their ankles, and put a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "It's
going to be all right." She hugged Angelica to her with her free
arm. "We're going to live and love and laugh."

A wave broke offshore and Munch could swear she saw a
rainbow in its mist.
 
 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS IS THE PART WHEN I TRY VERY HARD NOT TO FORGET
any of the fine people who helped me with the research and production
of this novel.

Here goes:
LA Sheriff 's
investigator Carl Carter answered many questions. So did my good
friend Stephanie Monash. Thank you both for sharing your expertise.

DEA agent Rocky Herron, private investigator Becky
Altringer, David Corbett, and sheriff's deputy Gary Bale were helpful
with certain facts. My good friend Jerry Hooten gave me a great
tutorial on listening devices and body wires, complete with pictures.