Don't Leave Me (23 page)

When Sandy Epperson pulled into the small lot of the ranger station it was stuffed with two Malibu police cars and a sheriff’s vehicle. She saw three uniforms and one white clad older man moving in slow circles inside. A team of unsynchronized swimmers.

Had Samson called the local cops too? He had sounded truly spooked over the phone. She only hoped he wasn’t talking too freely without her being present.

One Malibu cop stood sentry at the door. Sandy flashed her badge and the cop, a clean scrubbed football player type, said, “Far from home, huh?”

“This involves a case I’m working,” Sandy said. “What’s going on in there?”

“You need to talk to Lt. Shriber.” He pointed to a guy in plain clothes.

“Okay,” she said.

“I’ll get him.” He went through the door. Sandy followed him in and stayed by the entrance. Cop etiquette demanded checking in with the other jurisdictional lead before stepping into a scene. But what kind of scene was this? Did they have Samson in a chair somewhere? The one called Shriber snapped to attention when the cop said something to him. He came from around the front counter and approached Sandy. “Who are you again?” he said. He was thin of body and of hair. What was left on his pate was slate-colored.

Sandy flashed her badge once more. “Where is Mr. Samson?”

“Who?”

“Samson. Charles Samson.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I got—”

“He’s the one who called me. From here.”

“And who is this guy?” Shriber asked.

“A guy I’m interested in. On another matter.”

“That doesn’t help me.”

Sandy wondered how much to give him. The complete story? No, not relevant. She wanted to find Samson, and quick. “He’s in some trouble. There may be people after him.”

“You say he called you from here?”

“That’s right.”

“Interesting.”

“Why?”

“There’s a broken bathroom window. Maybe that’s where your Samson slipped out, after shooting this young man.”

Sandy was too stunned to say anything. Shriber motioned for her to come through the counter gate.

The victim was on the floor, blood pooled around his head. There was a crater where the back of his skull should have been.

“Samson did not do that,” Sandy said.

“Yeah?” Shriber said, with an uptick in tone that invited her to continue.

“Samson’s no killer. He called me, he wanted help.”

“Maybe he made his own help. Describe this guy for me.”

“Whoever is after him did this, most likely. There’s no sign of robbery, is there?”

“I don’t know. We’re not through.”

“You won’t find any,” Sandy said. “And the exit wound, that indicates a serious weapon, not your average handgun.”

“I know that.”

“Have you got a couple of cruisers out there looking for people with guns?”

“Not yet.”

Sandy said, “I’m just going to look at that bathroom window if you don’t mind.”

“Now wait, this is a secured scene.”

“It won’t hurt to cooperate.”

“I have a scene to observe if you don’t—”

“Then you might want to observe the blood satellites.” Sandy nodded toward the small blood spatters that separated from the parent upon impact with the floor. Crime scenes always told a story. Blood spatters were subplots.

Shriber looked down.

“The pattern is interrupted in the middle,” Sandy said. “There’s a slight smear. That’s where your killer crossed over and headed toward the back, the bathroom.”

“Samson maybe.”

“To find the least favorable way out of this place?”

“Maybe somebody was in the front, spooked him. He looked for a back way out of here.”

“There a back door?”

Shriber looked toward the rear and had nothing to say.

“Keep looking,” Sandy said. She pulled out her card and handed it to him, then went to the front. As she went out she almost knocked over another woman coming in. Charging in, more like it.

“Detective Epperson, I presume?” The woman had short brown hair and was dressed like a professional, with navy blue coat over crisp white shirt.

“Yes,” Sandy said.

“My name is Lucy Bowers. We have to talk.”

Lucy Bowers? Where had she heard that name? Wait. She lived across the street from Charles Samson.

Or had, until she disappeared.

But she sure wasn’t disappeared now.

When Sandy had been a little girl, and her mother found herself inside some hard situation, she used to say, “That’s a fine kettle of fish.”

Well, here is the kettle, Sandy thought, and I’m in it. And fishy doesn’t even begin to describe the smell.

.

“You’re not telling me you think there’s a reason for all this, do you?” Henrietta Hoover had mercifully kept her robe closed but was now sitting with her legs crossed. Showing a little too much leg.

“Reason?” Chuck said.

“You think there’s a deity who made us?”

Sitting on a hard chair, and knowing he looked like hell’s own ambassador, Chuck did not continue the conversation.

“What’s your line of work?” the woman asked.

“School teacher.”

“How long?”

Chuck said nothing. He couldn’t imagine having to listen to this woman’s voice for an entire evening of theater.

“I’m gonna keep asking until you answer,” she said.

“Why not let me ask you questions?”

That seemed to please her. Good. At least this way he’d control the conversation until Royce arrived.

“Where were you born?” Chuck asked.

“Pittsburgh,” she said. “A good place to be
from
.”

“They have the Steelers.”

“They have jack, Jack. You married?”

Oh no. “I thought I was asking the questions.”

She shook her head. “Not anymore. Divorced?”

“I never talk about my personal life on the first date.”

“Life sucks,” Henrietta Hoover said. “And then you die.”

“That doesn’t leave much to look forward to.”

“There is nothing.”

How many conversations like this had he had in Afghanistan? With young soldiers who’d lost limbs or knew they would? Who fought the inner ferret of fear every day?

In some strange way, those had prepared him for this moment.

And then it struck him. She was as much a victim of the battle of life as the soldiers were of the war in Afghanistan. Whatever had happened to her, she was lashing out and looking for a reason to live. As much as he didn’t want to do it, his training kicked in and pushed the words out of his mouth.

“You’re gambling with the universe,” he said, “and you have limited information. Why bet against hope and meaning and beauty? Why go all in on that bet?” He was talking to himself now, as much as he was to her.

She was silent for the first time in a long time. Chuck couldn’t read her face, but he imagined the sound of rusty gears inside her head. “Where are you going?” she finally said. “I mean, when your friend picks you up?”

“Anywhere that’s not here,” Chuck said.

“Something bad really has happened to you, hasn’t it?”

“Best you don’t know about it,” Chuck said.

“Will you come back?” she said.

“Back?”

“Will you come back and visit me sometime? I haven’t had a good conversation like this in a long time.”

She seemed to sink into the chair, like loose change between cushions. In the dimness of the light Chuck could see hard lines on her face.

“Would you?” she said.

“Henrietta, it would be a pleasure,” Chuck said.

She smiled.

“Maybe I will take that Fig Newton,” Chuck said.

Ten minutes after the Newton, Chuck heard a car pull up in the drive. He peeked out the window and saw headlights, which were immediately shut off.

“He’s here,” Chuck said to Henrietta. “Thanks for having me.”

“Stay out of trash cans,” she said. “And don’t forget to come back.”

“I won’t.”

As he moved for the door she stopped him, and kissed him on the cheek.

He gave her a quick nod before she did anything else, then back through the narrow pack-rat corridor and out the side door.

Royce was out of the car.

“What the heck is this place?” he said.

Chuck said, “Did you see any other cars on the way in?”

“No. There were a ton of cop cars out at the corner, though.”

“Gotta go there. I have to tell them what happened, and start looking for Stan.”

“Chuck what is––”

“In the car.” Chuck hopped in the passenger seat. Royce got in and started up the car. As Royce backed out of the driveway, headlights on, Chuck saw Henrietta looking out the window at them, like they were a ship going to sea.

“Tell me now what is going on,” Royce said, heading up the dark road.

“You were right about the Serbs,” Chuck said. “I got the info from a guy who knows. It’s drugs, Royce. Heroin. It’s serious, because they’ve got Stan.”

“No way.”

“They came to the motel. The one I rear ended and another guy. They want something from me. He kept saying 'Where is it’?”

“Where is what?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. He had a stun gun, a baton.”

“This keeps getting better and better.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Stan and I got away, they chased us, we got held in a sushi restaurant and . . . did you hear any reports about a killing at a sushi place?”

“Killing!”

“These guys shot up the place. I can’t believe this is happening.”

Chuck closed his eyes, rubbed them. His head was buzzing. When Royce didn’t say anything, but slowed, he looked up. “What?” he said.

“Look.”

Royce’s headlights illuminated a lightless SUV straight ahead of them. In the middle of the road.

“It’s them,” Chuck said.

“Hold on,” Royce said.

He shoved his car into reverse.

This was crazy. Also their only chance. But it could mean death to both of them and he’d brought Royce right into the middle of it.

No time to think of that now.

Royce spun the tires as he turned. Chuck looked back and saw the SUV hit its lights and come toward them.

“I’m sorry,” Chuck said.

“We’ve been through worse,” Royce said. He gunned the car forward toward the deeper darkness of the canyon.

.

Stan listened at the door and heard no voices. Maybe it was now or never. Time to make a play. Time to show what he could do.

He could sneak! He got very good at sneaking as a kid. When dad was looking for him, or when bullies were around. He learned to sneak. He sneaked away from the Reilly brothers, one older and one younger, who were going to give him a super wedgie one day. He heard about it at school, and knew where they’d be waiting for him. He sneaked out by hiding in a bathroom stall with his feet up on the toilet so they couldn’t see. Then he went out low between the buildings at the corner of the campus and hopped the fence.

He could sneak, and he would, and when they came back to try to find him he wouldn’t be there.

Where he would be he didn’t know, but he was going to find his way to Chuck for sure.

He closed his eyes and saw the duck getting shot with the ball from the cannon held by the snowman.

Snowman was an 8.

Cannon was a 6.

Ball was a 0.

Duck was a 2.

8-6-0-2.

He would show them.

He pressed the numbers on the keypad.

The door went
click.