Mortal Pursuit

13

Headlights splashed on a wrought-iron gate.

“Some spread, huh” Wald smiled. “And no noisy neighbors.”

Trish didn’t answer. She peered into the darkness beyond the gate, her pulse ticking in her ears.

Leaning out, Wald pressed a button. Brief silence, then the crackle of a man’s voice. “Yes”

“Police.”

“Oh. Yes.” A cultivated voice, mildly flustered. “One moment, please.”

Trish peered past Wald and saw a security system control panel below the intercom. The display flashed a message: SYSTEM DISARMED.

A moment later the gate eased open automatically, operated from inside the house.

Wald drove through, guiding the Chevy down the long driveway. Trish scanned the yard, big and full of shadows. Fear caressed her with cold fingers.

“Funny,” she said evenly. “Porch light isn’t on. Or any floodlights, either. You’d think…”

“If they saw a prowler, they’d light up the yard Yeah. Like you said-funny.”

The house was a sprawling ranch with the red tile roof emblematic of southern California. The side walls were whitewashed stucco, the facade a seamless sheet of quarried granite.

Distantly Trish wondered how much the place was worth. Her mind stalled at two million dollars, but the likely figure was far higher.

“I read a profile of Charles Kent in the News-Press.” Wald’s words cut into her thoughts. “He’s a lawyer, practices in Santa Barbara.”

“Lawyer,” she echoed. It was the only word she’d picked up.

“Criminal defense. His clients are high rollers. TV stars, athletes, corporate types. They get busted for DUI or a gram of coke, and Charlie gets them off. Usually with a minimum of publicity.”

“Nice work if you can get it.” The statement was meaningless, a reflexive response to whatever he’d just told her.

“Yeah, Mr. Kent does all right. He’s not paying the mortgage, though. Well, actually there is no mortgage. This property has been in the Ashcroft family since the nineteen hundreds. House itself isn’t that old, of course; the original was torn down and replaced in the seventies. Anyway, all Charles had to do was marry Barbara.”

“Barbara Ashcroft.” The name registered in Trish’s memory. “She was featured in the gossip columns when I was a kid.”

“You mean yesterday”

“I mean fifteen, sixteen years ago,” she snapped, tired of Wald’s jibes.

Then she realized this smiling banter was simply an attempt to lighten the mood, relieve her tension.

“Sorry,” she added in a chastened voice.

Wald nodded. “You’ll hold up fine,” he said, the remark out of context but fully understood.

The blue-and-white eased to a stop behind a black Porsche parked near the detached garage. The Kents’ car Or did they have guests

Wald killed the engine. The sudden stillness seemed explosively loud.

“Let’s do it.” He threw open the driver’s-side door. “And Robinson … watch your back.”

He was out before Trish could read his expression and gauge his seriousness. She wondered if he was just being cautious, or if he felt what she felt-an indefinable foreboding.

Opening the door, she glimpsed herself in the sideview mirror. Her eyes were wider than usual. Cobalt eyes, startling and intense.

In the academy dormitory there had been jokes that she wanted to be a cop only because the uniform would go so well with her eyes. Right now it seemed as good a reason as any.

She swung out of her seat. Stood.

The warm night enfolded her like a blanket. Crickets sang, and somewhere a toad croaked in counterpoint. The sky was clear, the wide scatter of stars undimmed: no moon tonight and no city lights here.

Wald came around the car, and Trish saw that his holster flap was unfastened. She unhooked hers also while following him along the flagstone path toward the front door.

Time ran slowly, a sluggish current. Her senses were heightened, small details vivid to her: the click of her shoes on the stones, the low sputter of the radio clipped to her gun belt, a thread of blonde hair escaping from the barrette and beating gently against her left ear.

She was conscious of the tension in her abdomen, the strain in her shoulders. Dull aches, like the pleasurable soreness after a full workout in the gym.

Ordinarily she felt an unspoken confidence in her lithe body, her low resting pulse rate, her stamina and endurance. Her arms were toned daily by biceps curls and triceps extensions, legs strengthened by calf raises, squats, and lifts. Shoulder presses and rowing exercises firmed her back. Abdominal crunches and bent-knee sit-ups kept her belly tight.

Tonight she was aware of how little any of that meant, how ridiculously vulnerable she was.

It would take one bullet to stop her heart. Just one.

She wished she were wearing a vest, Kevlar or something like it, heavy and solid. Beneath her summer uniform-open-collared short-sleeve shirt and lightweight pants-there was nothing but cotton underwear, damp with sweat. She might as well be walking naked up the path, a target painted on her chest.

The door opened as Wald reached it. Limned in the light of a foyer was a man of perhaps forty-five in a double-breasted navy blazer and a silk shirt.

She knew who he had to be even before he told them.

” ‘Evening, officers. I’m Charles Kent.”

Wald handled the interview. “Mr. Kent, you called nine-one-one”

“That was my wife. She imagined she saw someone in the yard.”

“Imagined”

“Yes, well, the security system wasn’t triggered.”

He stood in the doorway, making no move to let them in, displaying none of the automatic courtesy to be expected of someone in his social class. Trish thought he seemed nervous, but maybe she was projecting her own anxiety onto him.

“No system is foolproof,” Wald said mildly. “I’m surprised you didn’t turn on the yard lights as a precaution.”

“Well, I did, of course. But not seeing anything, I turned them off.”

“Under the circumstances, didn’t your wife object”

“Not at all. She realizes she was mistaken.”

“Perhaps we could speak with her.”

“She’s somewhat embarrassed about the whole thing.”

“There’s no need for embarrassment. May we see her”

“The fact is, we have guests, and it could be awkward. I mean, for her to explain matters in front of them. You know.”

A bead of sweat glistened on his forehead. He was nervous. Trish didn’t doubt it now. Of course, many people were nervous around cops, but this man was a trial attorney.

“I’m not sure I understand.” Wald spoke with the poised professionalism that had deserted Charles Kent. “Your wife did telephone nine-one-one”

“Well, yes.”

“Then she must have believed she saw something. I’m sure she isn’t the type to make prank calls. Is she”

“No … certainly not…” He was trapped. “Oh, all right. Come in.”

Before entering, Wald cast a sharp sidelong glance at Trish, wariness in his eyes.

She didn’t need the silent warning. Quite obviously Mr. Kent was hiding something.

Maybe his wife had been drunk when she’d phoned, and he was fearful of gossip.

Maybe.

Trish took a last look at the yard, then drew a breath of courage and followed Wald inside.