The Disappearance (30 page)

“Okay.” Luke deep-breathes, feeling the pain dull out. “I believe you. But I still think there’s dirt around the Lancaster family. I know Doug wasn’t in his room, and if you didn’t, you’ll find out. I also know the Lancasters own property up at Hollister, which would give him access. You might want to look into whether anyone saw him up there today. And check the state gun records, find out if Doug’s into guns, especially rifles.”

“What about tonight?” Logan asks. “Where are you staying?”

“My house. We’ve rented a bungalow up on Mountain Drive.”

“Do you want protection? I could put a patrol car outside.”

Luke thinks about that for a moment. Whoever came after him isn’t going to do it in a public, crowded place. If he does try to kill Luke again, it’ll be a sneak attack when Luke’s alone.

“This sucks,” he complains. “I can’t go around for the rest of this pretrial and into the trial with a cop on my ass all the time.”

“It’s your choice. But I think you should, for a few days at least, while the sheriff’s office investigates this.”

Logan’s right. “Okay, the house,” he says grudgingly. “It’s isolated up there, so okay. But not in public, I don’t need to draw that kind of attention.”

“Your call. I’ll have an officer follow you up.” He extends his hand. “We’re on opposite sides now, Luke, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect you.”

He means that. Luke reads it in his eyes.

“You too, Ray.” The man’s stature just rose in his eyes. “You too.”

They walk towards the exit. “I’ve got to ask you this, Luke,” Logan says with a tone of apology. “The trial. Have you thought about withdrawing?”

“I’ve thought about it,” he says. “Lying out there with a gunshot wound in my side, I thought about it plenty, after I knew I wasn’t going to die tonight.”

“So what do you think you’re going to do?” Logan asks. “If you do withdraw it’s completely uncontestable, I’d support it, and not because I’m afraid of going up against you. You’re a great lawyer, but I’m not worried about that. I’ve got a good case, and I’m going to prosecute the hell out of it.”

“I’d expect nothing less, Ray.”

“But if you are considering it,” Logan continues, “you should decide as soon as possible, one way or the other. It would throw a huge monkey wrench into the process. We’d be set back six months, at least.”

“Yes, I know.” And what lawyer with a brain in his head would take Joe Allison on as a client now? Who’s willing to risk his or her life on what’s still, objectively looking at it, a loser case?

“I’ll give it a day or two, Ray. No more. Then I’ll let you know one way or the other. But I promise I won’t leave you and everyone else dangling in the wind.”

There’s an unfamiliar car parked in front of the house as he pulls up, a late model Cadillac Seville, dark burgundy. One man is sitting in front, behind the wheel.

Luke coasts to a stop behind him and cuts the truck lights. He gets out carefully, spotting the police car coming up the hill behind him. He turns to the cops and makes a pointing motion with his hand towards the Cadillac, mouthing the words: “there’s someone here.” Then he waits, positioning himself behind the big boxy car, while the cops pull up alongside. They shine a light in the window, causing the driver, caught unawares, to throw his arm up as a shield.

Luke relaxes when he sees who it is. “It’s okay,” he calls out to the cops. “He’s friendly.” He walks up to the driver’s side door and yanks it open. “What are you doing sitting here in the dark like a hit man?” he says to Judge De La Guerra.

Ferdinand looks up at him. “I was waiting for you. I heard about what happened. I came to see how you are.”

“I’ll survive. Come on in.” He walks across the street to where the cops have parked. “A friend. He’s harmless.”

“That’s okay,” one of the cops says. “We’ll be right here, in case someone who isn’t shows up.”

“Good deal. Thanks. You want anything?”

The passenger cop holds up a thermos. “We’re in good shape. Another unit’ll relieve us at some point, but you’re covered round the clock up here.”

Inside, keeping the lights low, he pours three fingers of Conmemorativa tequila, the good stuff, into two glasses without asking, hands one to the judge. It’s painful to sit down; it’s painful to do anything. He needs more drinks, a hot shower, the pain pills of doom. “How’d you hear so fast?” he asks.

“On the radio.”

Luke grunts. “It’ll be on the tube later on. You can watch me look like a jackass.” He raises his glass in toast. “To a goddamn fool, and the misguided do-gooder who led him into this mess. That should cover the two of us.” He swallows the tequila down in one gulp, pours another stiff shot.

De La Guerra cradles his glass in his hands. “I’m sorry, Luke.”

“Don’t be. No one held a gun to my head.”

“You had a new life. I should have let you live it.”

Luke shakes his head. “I was hiding from my old life. Now I’m not anymore, so it’s actually a good thing, someone wanting to kill me notwithstanding.”

“But I’m worried about you now, really worried. Your life’s in danger. That’s more than I ever expected.” He pauses. “Who do you think tried this?”

Luke downs his second portion. “Doug Lancaster,” he says slowly, drawing out the syllables.

The color slowly begins leaving the judge’s ruddy face. “That’s a serious accusation, Luke.”

“I know. And I’m damn serious about it, too.”

He gives the judge all his reasons for suspecting Doug, beginning with the bribe, listing each new transgression in turn. Doug’s unaccountability for eight hours on the night his daughter was murdered. His known infidelities, and his wife’s knowledge of them. His warning Luke not to pursue Emma’s pregnancy as a defense strategy. His ownership of property at Hollister Ranch.

The two sit in silence, holding their drinks.

“And there’s something else,” Luke says. He’s on his third drink, none of which have been timid. The pain is coming on hard now; he needs to wrap this up, have the judge take his leave, and pop some potent relief.

“There’s more?” the judge asks. “What more could there be, unless you have an actual confession?”

“You’d better hang on to your chair for this one.” He’d laugh if it didn’t hurt too much, a laugh at himself and his guest, two chumps. “Joe Allison was having an affair with Glenna Lancaster.”

De La Guerra groans. He tosses his drink down. He’d like another, but he has to drive, and the road is narrow, winding, a treacherous passage even when you’re sober.

“From almost the day he came to work at the station, over two years ago,” Luke says, piling on the misery.

“Even after Emma was killed?”

Luke nods. “Before, after, during. Up until recently, from the way he dances around it. I don’t know whether to believe anything he tells me anymore,” he says in anger, “the way he walked me up the garden path. The prick.”

The judge slumps in his chair. What Luke’s telling him is intolerable. “You have to withdraw,” he says, his voice quavering.

“That’s what Riva wants.”

“She’s right. You have to quit this.”

“For what reason? My client lying to me, or getting shot at?”

“Either. Both. Damn, Luke,” the old man says, his voice almost breaking from the empathetic pain he’s going through. “I am so sorry. About everything.”

“All clients lie to their lawyers,” Luke says. “It goes with the territory. I probably would have, too, if our positions were reversed. It doesn’t mean he’s Emma’s killer. Maybe it means the opposite.” He’s parroting Allison’s idea, but it’s not completely far-fetched. “Getting shot at and having your only surfboard blown to smithereens, now that’s different.”

De La Guerra shakes his head. “No. You’re giving him too much of the benefit of the doubt.” He hesitates before going on. “And that doesn’t matter, anyway.” He leans forward—here comes the hardest part. “Remember what we talked about, when I first recruited you? Not about whether Joe Allison was guilty or not. I didn’t know that, and frankly, I didn’t care. I still don’t. I don’t know the man, I have no vested interest in him. My concern was that he have capable representation. That’s all.”

Luke shifts in his seat, trying to find a comfortable position. He can’t. “Yes, I remember that,” he says wearily. “You didn’t want your beloved city getting a black eye by railroading someone onto death row lickety-split, like some cracker city in Arkansas or Louisiana.” He pauses. “In fact, you would have preferred that I
not
get as deep into this as I have. Not upset the applecart, not expose the skeletons. A good competent job that would hold up to an appeal from whatever bleeding-heart civil-rights law organization gets involved in this after the conviction. That’s what you wanted and no more. Didn’t you?”

De La Guerra stares at Luke across the dark room. “Yes,” he says. “That’s what I wanted.”

“That’s what everyone wanted,” Luke says. “Including me.” Fuck it, he’s going to have another drink. As many as he likes. He isn’t going anywhere, and a man who’s been wounded in combat deserves limitless amounts of drink on his survival day. He helps himself, sipping from the glass as he puts down the bottle.

“The problem with that,” he continues, “is it never works that way, Freddie. You can’t defend a man for any crime, especially one as final as murder, like you put together a jigsaw puzzle. This piece here, this piece there, they all fit, it’s over. They don’t all fit, they never all fit. Even when a jury comes in with a verdict, when the convicted man pays his penalty, it isn’t over. It’s never over. Not one like this.” He pauses. “You and I know that. That’s why we’re here.”

The ghosts of the past, never laid to rest. De La Guerra peers into his tequila. “You’re going to stay with this,” he says with infinite sadness.

Luke shakes his head. “I don’t know yet, and that’s the truth. For damn sure I’m not going to get killed over it. But I’m not going to let some coward hiding out there in the dark run me out of town, either. I did that once, to myself. This time, if and when I leave, it’ll be my way, with my head held high.”

“What are you going to do?” De La Guerra asks. “If you stay on this.” It’s time to go; he has to go.

“Try to find out where Doug Lancaster was that night, if that’s possible. If he doesn’t have an alibi, start building a bonfire under him.” He’s rekindled his rage, thinking about what almost happened to him tonight. “If Doug is the bastard who tried to kill me—and I can’t think of anyone else who is so set against me that he would try something that reckless and insane—then he’s psychotic and could have become enraged enough to kill even his daughter. And if he did, I’m going to find that out.” He shooters his drink—truly the last one for tonight. The pain, the damage to his body, and the tension have hit him like an axe blow across the back. It’s time to go to sleep.

“Someone out there tried to murder me,” he says, pointing amorphously to the world outside. “I’m not going to walk away from that, Joe Allison or no. Whether I stay on as Allison’s lawyer or not, I’m going to find out who it was, and why.”

Riva doesn’t take Luke’s advice to stay up north until her business is completed. She arrives back in Santa Barbara early in the morning, having driven her rental car all night, nonstop.

“Why aren’t you packed yet?” she demands as soon as she walks in the door.

“Calm down,” he mumbles, his mouth full of mushy cotton, shielding his face from the sudden onslaught of the morning sun shining through the bedroom window curtains as she pulls them all the way open, blasting him in the face.

“I’m serious,” she says. “We’re getting out of here today, so start packing.” She’s in a no-nonsense mood. She’s throwing drawers open, flinging clothes out of them onto the bed and floor, grabbing handfuls of his hangered pants and shirts and laying them on a chair.

Groggy from the tequila, the pills, and the pain, he staggers out of bed and crabs into the bathroom, straddling the toilet for a long piss, then splashes water on his face. The water helps, but not much, especially when he sees what he looks like. His entire upper body is black, blue, and several nauseating shades of yellow.

He turns away from the mirror. He needs rest, and Riva won’t give him any, not until they’re gone from these parts. Cupping his hands under the faucet, he drinks deeply, thirstier than he realized, finally bloated enough to stop.

He comes out of the bathroom. Riva is still throwing stuff all over the room. She screams when she sees his technicolor body. “Oh my God! Oh Jesus Christ!”

“Stop,” he tells her. “It’s not that bad. It looks worse than it is, really.”

“You’re insane!” she yells. “Look at you!”

She won’t stop screaming, so he grabs her by the arms, hard enough to stop her. “What’s your problem?” she asks. “Besides terminal dumbness?”

“Calm down,” he tells her for a second time. “Just chill out a minute. Come on.” An arm flung over her shoulders, he walks/pushes her into the living room, where she flops on the sofa, staring up at him.

He lowers himself next to her. He can feel the pain coursing throughout his body, moving up and down, around and around. A hard, dull ache, like a monster toothache. “I can’t just up and go.”

“Why not?” Riva says, now feeling calmer.

Why not? Good question. “Because …” He has to lean forward, try to. Otherwise the pain will take over and he’ll let himself fall into it and he won’t have the strength to do anything except wallow in it, and he can’t do that, not now, he has work to do. He has to deal with her, get himself together, and go into town to start taking care of business, however that turns out.

“Because I’m Allison’s lawyer,” he begins explaining. “You can’t leave a defense without the court’s permission, no matter the circumstances. I have to make a motion for withdrawal with cause, and Judge Ewing has to approve it.”

“What if you were dead?” she says, her voice rising. “Would you have to make a motion to withdraw?”

“Well, I’m not dead.”

“All right, then. Get dressed. We’re going down to the courthouse so you can make your stupid motion and we can get out of here. Come on.” She grabs his arm and starts to drag him to his feet.