Last shot

Chapter 43

Sam ground a stick into the top of the anthill, leaving it protruding like a flag. He squatted, fists in the dirt, elbows bracing his knees. Tiny red motion set the stick alive. A neighbor kid about two years younger aped Sam's stance, casting sideways glances and making minute corrections to his foot position. The sun had dropped from view behind the roof, bathing the front yard in a gray swath, a precursor to shadow. When the wind shifted, it brought laughter from the children in the park at the street's end.

Sam reached tentatively for the stick, finally snatching it and shaking off the ants while his little friend watched with wonderment. Pulled to the opposing curb, waiting for Bear to finish his check-in with the LAPD homicide detective working the Ted Sands murder, Tim watched Sam play.

Ginny came to mind, sitting on a park bench regarding her nemesis, the monkey bars, her swinging legs too short for her sneakers to scrape tanbark. No concern greater than if she was at last going to make her way across the metal bars. No knowledge of what was in store for her at the end of her brief life. No premonition of Roger Kindell. Kindell of the tall forehead, the sloppy mouth, the uncomprehending gaze.

Roger Kindell of the garage shack and the hacksaw.

The pain came, but it was duller these days. Maybe after a time, some of the nerves in a well-pried wound finally burned out. Or maybe a part of Tim had capitulated, had gratefully traded a memory sensation or two for numbness. Either way, Sam at the anthill brought Tim back over familiar terrain. Another seven-year-old on the brink of death. The difference was, Sam knew it.

Despite the fate hanging over him, he seemed like any other boy. Tim didn't know what he expected-someone more maudlin, more tragic, more precocious-but Sam was just a kid poking at insects. Tim couldn't help but reflect on his own trivial parental concerns. Someday while he worried about Tyler choking on a cashew or slipping on just-washed tile, one of the billion parts that made up his son's tiny, splendid body could malfunction, and then Tim or Dray would be the one wearing a pager. With all the resources and love that get poured into a child, year after year, there were no guarantees. A weakened artery wall. A renegade mole. A malfunctioning gene. Watching Sam issue bossy directives to his sidekick, Tim mulled over what he'd learned about Sam's stage of illness. He was a sweet kid on a slow-motion descent, a little worse every day. And there was not a thing anyone could do for him. Except Vector, and Chase had made clear the clinical trials were closed.

Tim became conscious of Bear's staring at him. Tim's focus on Sam, the comparison with Ginny-it was all embarrassingly apparent. He wondered if he felt so much for Sam because it was a way not to identify with Walker, a commando avenger so obviously like himself. Tim reined in his emotions, refocused on his job. He couldn't lose sight of Sam as a key link in an investigation.

Sam dropped his stick abruptly and ran inside. A few seconds later a burly kid on a Huffy dirt bike jumped the curb, coasting across the front yard. He hopped off his bicycle, running beside it, then letting it fall, and confronted Sam's cowed little friend.

"Where's Piss-Eyes?"

Still in his petite imitative crouch, the younger boy shrugged.

The kid kicked over the anthill, hopped on his bike, and rode off. A moment later the little boy rose, dusted off his knees, and trudged up the street, presumably to his house. Bear finished jotting some notes, hung up, and followed Tim to the house.

Tim knocked at the screen, and Kaitlin called for them to come in. She was occupied with Sam in the living room. He was curled up on the couch, listlessly flipping channels. Tim and Bear's intrusion brought a certain level of awkwardness to the domestic scene.

"What is it?" she asked.

Sam said, "Nothing, Kaitlin."

"Is it Dylan again, that little shit?"

"No. It wasn't anyone. I'm just sick of playing outside."

Kaitlin looked at Tim, and then Sam, waiting to see if Tim was going to rat him out. Tim shrugged. Seemingly exasperated with both of them, Kaitlin stormed outside.

Sam pulled himself from the couch and slumped toward the kitchen. He wore a T-shirt with a demented jester face and green lettering that said Foot killer. "Tommy gets scared when the ants come out."

"He's little," Tim said.

Sam doled out a hunk of rice from a cooker and sprinkled it with MCT oil. "Yeah, well, kids my age don't play with me."

Tim almost asked why not, but he looked at Sam's weary, world-wise face and didn't want to put him through the paces. Instead he said, "That must suck."

Sam stopped his sprinkling. He met Tim's eyes. "You get used to it."

"Listen, Sam, we gotta talk."

"So talk."

"I watched your news segment. With those guys from Vector…"

Sam's face brightened. "Dolan and Chase."

"Right. Did your mom spend any time with them?"

"Sure. When they came here for the TV story, then after during the commercial shoot. They paid me, you know. For the commercial. I wanted the PlayStation Portable, but Mom bought the dumb fridge instead."

"Did she hang out with them any other times?"

"She went to Vector for meetings sometimes. Brought me in for some testing and stuff. But she never, like"-his face screwed up with disgust-"dated them or went bowling with them or anything."

"Anyone else she saw that was, say, new?" Tim asked. "In the days before she…?"

"Killed herself? Well, that's what she did. You might as well say it."

"Okay. Before she killed herself."

"A lawyer guy. I heard her on the phone with him once. She said she was gonna go see him at his office."

"Do you know what it was about?"

"No, but when I went in the living room after, there was some stuff from Vector-like brochures? papers and stuff? — out on the couch. So maybe it had to do with that."

"Do you remember anything about the papers? Were they letters? Did they look like research?"

Sam shrugged. "That stuff's kinda boring to me."

Bear firmed his mouth, lips bunching. Tim knew the look-Bear was all for squeezing the attorney until the only privilege he considered would be having Bear out of his office. Bear's hand rustled in his pocket, and he produced a picture of Ted Sands. "Did you ever meet this guy?" Bear waited until Sam shook his head. "How 'bout this guy?" Dean's photo elicited another head shake.

Tim asked, "Do you like Dolan and Chase?"

"Yeah. Chase had a cool guitar, and he could play, like, anything. Dolan was nice, but he sucked at Dungeons amp; Dragons." Sam added thoughtfully, "I'm not sure what I did wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"Why they didn't pick me."

From Bear's face it was clear the comment had caught him as off guard as it had Tim. A severe pause ensued, Sam looking at them with wide, curious eyes, awaiting an answer that might help him make sense of it. Tim's Nextel vibrated at his hip. Bear crouched down, his broad knees cracking, to mumble an answer to Sam so Tim could step away and take the call.

"The shooter used a silencer."

Tim held the phone away from his face, checking the caller ID. "Aaronson?"

"I took a look at the slug that killed Tess Jameson."

"I thought you couldn't tell from a slug if a silencer was used."

"Usually. But this silencer was rifled, with a different number of lands than the gun barrel. There were two sets of grooves on the projectile-one just barely offset from the other. I picked it up under the stereoscope and cast the marks in Microsil."

"Why wasn't this checked before?"

"Because most silencers we see are the smoothbore homemade variety. And most criminalists aren't as good as I am."

"I won't argue with that."

"And you shouldn't. Because I sourced the red stain for you, too."

Bear glanced up at Tim's expression, excited by proxy. Sam had wrangled away his badge and was busy flashing it from various poses.

"It's paintball fill," Aaronson continued. "The photo of the mark on the sidewalk outside Tess's house suggests it was squashed-stepped on, not fired. So I'm thinking you're right that it may have rolled out of the shooter's car, gotten crunched."

"He would've left more marks if it had gotten on the sole of his shoe."

"Not if he stepped up onto the grass to circle the house for a rear break-in. You said the back slider's missing a latch?"

"But then they'd have seen marks on the-"

"Sprinklers. June was dry as usual." Aaronson took a well-earned moment to be impressed with himself, then said, "More good news: It's a custom paintball, called the Bunny Bopper, designed to reduce bounces. It's got a brittle shell and easy-to-wipe fill. And it's made exclusively for a place called Game. Because they require easy-to-wipe fill and a softer, brittle shell."

"Why?" Tim asked.

Aaronson laughed, a nasal stutter. "Because the targets are naked."

Tim hung up and said to Bear, "We gotta go."

With reluctance Sam relinquished the five-point star, and they thanked him and stepped out into the brisk air. Her shoulders rounded, Kaitlin was on her knees by the kicked-over anthill, facing away. She didn't acknowledge them as they approached. A breeze parted her hair at her neck.

"I always wanted kids." She watched the red ants scurrying over the avalanched side of their home, set into unthinking motion. Endless repair work, one dirt speck at a time. "But I couldn't hold a pregnancy. Not past a few months. Walk didn't care so much, but me…" A listless shrug. "And now this."

"What can you do?" Bear said, rhetorically.

"I can wash his clothes and drive him to the hospital and pet his head at night," she said. "And if I'm lucky, we can do it over again."

She rose and walked past them into the house, the screen door banging behind her. After a moment Tim and Bear headed to the Explorer. The SUV pulled away from the curb, its taillights fading in the dusk.

The stand of juniper at the property line rustled and released Walker Jameson into the yard.