Silent Joe

Chapter Twenty-Six

Early that morning I played Millbrae’s statement to Birch, Ouderkirk and Phil Dent. There was silence when it ended.

Birch muttered, “Wow.”

Dent started pacing, looking down at the floor.

Ouderkirk laughed. “Worthless shits,” he said. “Let’s arrest them all on murder one and conspiracy. That’s a special circumstance. That’s the death penalty.”

“Slow down,” said Dent. “We have to do this right. Joe, you want to tell us how you got him to talk like that for you?”

I did. I was vague about the “Gaylen” tape and never mentioned Ray Flatley, but I suggested that I could have “improvised” some evidence to get Millbrae’s statement. I also told him that I had “collapsed the timeline as to how recently we had talked to Gaylen.” And I said that I never told Millbrae that the evidence was genuine.

“You improvised, then collapsed a timeline? You’re talking like a lawyer,” said Ouderkirk. He turned to our district attorney. “I mean that as a compliment, Phil.”

“Thank you, Harmon,” said Dent. “With a conspiracy, you just have to pry one away from the group. If you can do that, you’re golden. Then you can peel the rest of them off like sections of an orange, try them separately, eat every last one of them.”

“I implied to Mr. Millbrae that he might be rewarded if he continued to he helpful,” I said. “I didn’t promise him anything.”

“Look,” said Birch. “We’ve got plenty here to interview Rupaski, Blazak and Bo Warren. Even Alter, if we want to. Blazak’s going to be getting it both ways, with the beating of Bias. And as soon as one of them thinks another guy’s rolling over, they’ll roll over, too. I’ve seen it a thousand times.”

“Gaylen’s the key,” said Dent. “Gaylen can finger any or all of them as hiring him. That’s one thing they’ll never admit. They’ll all do what Millbrae did — say it was a big misunderstanding, and Gaylen got carried away and Joe here surprised them and we’re looking at a jury being asked to believe that public servants and the forty-first richest guy in America are murderers. Tough sell for us, at that point. We start with Gaylen. I think we’ve got enough for a probable-cause arrest. Take him down. I’ll put together a package for an arrest warrant. Joe, what I need from you is a couple of pages summarizing what you’ve got on Gaylen, and a transcript of Millbrae’s statement.”

“I’ll have them in one hour.”

“We closed out our surveillance on Gaylen two days ago,” said Birch. “But we’ll pick him up fast.” He reached for the phone.

Dent kept pacing. Ouderkirk cleaned a fingernail with his pocketknife.

“You did some good work, Joe,” he said. “You’re going to make a good cop someday.”

“Yeah,” said Birch, looking at me over the telephone mouthpiece.

“We’ll see,” said Dent. “Not to spoil the party, but it’s a long swim between a confession made under questionable circumstances and a murder conviction.”

“That’s why we got you,” said Ouderkirk. “ ’Cause you’re so good at the breaststroke.”

Ouderkirk rubbed his chest.

Birch asked for the patrol commander.

“Rick, tell ’em all to be careful with Gaylen,” said Ouderkirk. “Creeps can feel when the shovel’s over their necks. Dangerous as rattlesnakes then.”

“Approach him with caution,” Birch told the patrol commander. “Consider him armed and dangerous. Harmon, let’s go see if he’s someplace obvious, like at home in bed. Get on that report, Joe. Make sure it’s something a judge would like to read.”

I was more careful with that report than with anything I’d ever written in my life. I documented my suspicion of Gaylen, the long trail that led from Savannah Blazak to Dana Millbrae, the admission from Del Pritchard that he’d placed a transmitter on Will’s car. One of Dent’s legal secretaries typed a transcript of Millbrae’s confession, then I excerpted the most effective parts. No one had to say anything, but in about five seconds roughing up Will turned into something else.

Phil Dent asked me to rewrite some parts. He told me to describe my recognition of John Gaylen’s voice during his interview with Birch and Ouderkirk, but to play down the fact that I didn’t positively identify him as the gunman. He ordered me to delete a reference to staking out Gaylen’s home. He asked me to delete the phrase “over drinks,” in describing my talk with Millbrae.

When he had read it through a second time, he looked up at me and nodded. “Get ready for a shitstorm,” he said. “And be careful with the press. If you look too much like a revenge-hungry son, it could backfire on us in court. Millbrae’s confession is going to be hard enough to get into evidence. Without it, we’ve got our work cut out.”

I spent the afternoon at my old home in the Tustin hills, cleaning some things out of Will’s closet. Mary Ann came and went, clearly upset, unable to spend more than a few minutes in the big master bedroom while I took down suits and arranged them on the bed. Some I was planning to keep for myself. With a little altering I could wear them. The others I’d decided to donate to the Salvation Army on Fourth Street, which is where Will had always taken his older clothes.

“Please leave some of the light linen ones, Joe. I always liked him in the lighter colors. And the tuxedo that’s in the back, in the clear plastic bag — that was for our wedding.”

Her eyes welled with tears and she walked briskly out of the room, shoulders back and head up.

Reverend Daniel dropped by in the early afternoon. I’d missed his sermon that morning, because I was busy trying to put friends of his in jail. Daniel looked haggard and worn. He wore his usual chinos and golf shirt and he seemed so eager to help, but so helpless. He hovered behind me as I brought shoes out of the depths of Will’s big walk-in.

“I worry about you, Joe.”

“I’m doing better.”

“Do you enjoy travel?”

“I liked the family vacations when I was a boy. My favorite was all of us in the white van, going to Meteor Crater and the Petrified Forest in Arizona.”

“That sounds splendid.”

“You see everything when you drive.”

Daniel then invited me to visit the Holy Land with a special group from the Chapel of Light. It was a twenty-day “spiritual junket,” with time in Egypt, some Greek islands, Paris, Rome and London.

“They’re leaving this evening,” he said. “But all you need is a passport. Everything else would be complimentary, Joe. A gift to you from the Chapel of Light. First class all the way, the best accommodations we could find.”

I looked at him and set a pair of loafers into a box.

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Business, Reverend.”

“I thought you were still on administrative leave, because of the shooting.”

“I am. There are other things.”

He smiled shyly at me, his eyes slightly magnified by his thick glasses. “You know, you’d be welcome to bring a friend to the Holy Land. Anyone you want, Joe. Perhaps the radio woman.”

I turned and looked at him. He was holding one of Will’s two-tone golf shoes, running his fingers over the spikes.

“Who told you?”

“No one told me anything, Joe. I listened to her show! You told her more in one hour of radio than you’ve told me in fifteen years as your minister. And I was happy that you did tell her about yourself. I felt, just listening, that you were very open to her. And that she was very open to you. That’s all. Maybe she could accompany you, do some interviews, and make a working holiday out of it.”

“No.”

“Just an offer, Joe.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.”

Daniel stayed on while I finished packing the shoes and belts. He sat on the side of Will and Mary Ann’s bed, legs crossed and hands folded over his thigh.

I started going through Will’s neckties. They were hooked to a small wooden carousel with brass spokes. I set aside the ones I wanted to keep. The others I laid out on the bed by Reverend Daniel.

“Do you remember that conversation we had, about your father doing things for a larger good?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How he always thought he was, even when his actions were damaging or venal? How he thought right and wrong were defined by circumstance?”

“He raised me to believe that.”

“Do you understand it?”

“It’s not hard to understand. It’s hard to live.”

“All my faith and all my learning tell me that Will’s way is not enough.”

“You have God.”

“I prayed long and hard to that God, just a few hours ago. Because earlier this morning I heard some things, Joe. Terrible things about good men. And I realized I had to do something. I didn’t know what. Thus, my prayers to God. Long prayers, Joe. Long and full of question marks.”

“Did you get any answers?”

“Yes. He said, Reverend Daniel, do the right thing. And He said, Reverend Daniel, tell Joe Trona to do the right thing.”

“We’re going to take them all down, sir.”

His face was gray, his expression flat. “I understand. I would appreciate you leaving my name out of it for as long as possible.”

“You were there, talking to the astrologer.”

He colored then, and looked away. “Yes. And other than the astrologer, there isn’t much I can say about that night.”

“You might be called. Reverend. That’s the DA’s decision.”

Daniel stood. “And if called, I will answer. I’ve tried to live my life that way.”

He looked out the window for a moment, then sighed and turned back to me. His voice was soft and his eyes were moist.

“Joe, let me ask you to do something, as a man of this sad and painful world. Let this go. It’s what Will would have done. Learn from it. Use the knowledge you’ve gained to further the interests of good. You can do so much good, Joe, if you participate in the world of men as a man. Will brought this upon himself. Salvage from Will’s sacrifice something good for yourself. For your family. For your friends. He would have told you to. I promise you that.”

“I don’t let murderers go.”

“Punish them, by all means. Punish them as a man. Don’t turn them over to the law. The law will sap all the good that can come of this. All the good your heart can do. All the good their hearts can do, if given the chance. The law sees nothing but itself. It can only add sadness to sadness, tragedy to tragedy. Your concerns are larger than the law. Will’s were.”

“You remind me of Lucifer in the Bible.”

“No one has ever said such a hurtful thing to me. Ever.”

“I think it’s a good comparison, sir. Besides, it’s too late. A lot of people know what I know.”

He faced me and took my shoulders in his hands. He squeezed and I could feel his fingers begin to tremble as he reached the peak of his strength.

“Joe, this is the most important decision of your young life. Everything that follows will depend on what you do. Not just for you but for many others. If you reconsider, please call me. I have some ideas on how justice can be done, and how good can be advanced. I have some ideas on how all of us can become wiser and benefit from this tragedy. And how Will’s name can remain clean and his family provided for, very handsomely. I have commitments from men who can make these things happen. Mr. Millbrae in particular is eager to reconsider his words and his memory. These men are willing to bring their treasures and their power and their loyalty to you. They all put their sins at the feet of Jesus.”

“Tell them to go fuck themselves, sir.”

“I’ve never heard you say that word before.”

“It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever said it out loud. But I appreciate the warning. And the free trip to the Holy Land.”

June allowed me to sit in the producer’s booth and watch her do Real Live at five. I had the same uneasy feeling I’d had that night with Will, that something was trying to go wrong. I felt the guns against my body. The near dark of the studio seemed threatening, as if bad things were hiding in the shadows.

But June was brilliant and relaxed on-air, talking to a seventh-grade teacher who’d been shot in the head by one of his students two years ago. He had survived with minor injuries. He had some very forgiving and generous things to say about the boy who shot him. Since then, the teacher had spent many hours befriending the youth in lockup. He said that the boy had changed, and was now growing like a beautiful tree transplanted from bad soil. I wondered if the teacher was closer to God than I was. I decided he was, and I was glad there were people like him in the world, especially working with young people.

When June’s workday was over, I held her hand and walked her quickly to her car. The early July heat was on us by then and the air was dirty and close. I kept an eye on the hedges and planters on the campus, and on the cars in the parking lot.

A black Mercedes with tinted windows pulled into the lot and parked crookedly in a space.

“You okay, Joe?”

“Just watching.”

A woman got out of the Mercedes, then swung open a back door and began unfastening a baby from its car seat.

“What’s wrong?”

“Get in your car, please. Turn on the engine and the air conditioner.”

She eyed me, but did what I asked. I took the passenger seat beside her, felt the hot air come blasting from the vents.

“Talk to me, Joe.”

“I’ve gotten a hotel room for you. It’s a nice one, a suite, they call it, down on the beach in Laguna. I’d feel better about things if you’d live there a couple of days. People know about you and me. Some things are happening and I don’t want them to happen to you.”

“Shit, Joe, are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to be there?”

“No.”

She stared at me. I watched the air lift her curls and saw the moisture on her temples. Her eyes were dark. I leaned over to kiss her and she turned away.

“Am I in danger?”

“I don’t think you are. I’m just worried about you.”

She touched my good ear. The air conditioner was getting colder and I felt the sweat tingling on my face.

“But you’re worried enough about me to get me a hotel room.”

“Just for two days.” I continued to watch the parking lot, the cars on the boulevard, the sidewalk. I felt like one big eye with a couple of ears attached to it. I was aware of my hands and my guns and where the door handle was and how long it would take me to push June down to the floorboard of her car.

“That’s one of the sweetest things a guy ever did for me. I mean, it’s right up there with flowers, coffee, chocolates and two million rubies on a first date.”

“It’s for safety.”

“Yeah, I know. I have to go home, get some things.”

“I’ll follow you if that’s all right.”

She sighed and shook her head. Then she moved her hand to my chin and turned it toward her, grasping tight. She pulled me down into a kiss that lasted one minute and forty-two seconds, according to her dashboard clock.

“Damned air conditioner can’t cool me off when you’re around, Joe.”

“The coolant might be low.”

She shook her head and I scanned the lot and street again, before getting out, locking the door and swinging it shut.

I escorted June into her apartment, made sure all the doors and windows were locked, then waited outside in my car. No company that I could see. I climbed the stairs again and we made love before she packed, while she was packing, and after. My heart was so full I could feel it beating in every part of my body. And I could feel her heart, too. It was as if we were a single animal — a tangled, impractical being — but a complete one. I told her I loved her between twenty and thirty times, losing count at eighteen when June gasped and quaked and dug her fingernails into the back of my head so hard that I had to bite a mouthful of her hair to keep from yelping.

The suite at the Surf and Sand was larger than my house and had much better views and furniture. Through the windows you could see the shimmering Pacific. The sky was pale and streaked with clouds on top, wispy blue in the middle, and a darker blue down by the horizon. When you went to the patio and looked down at the beach you could see the children playing in the water and the surfers intent on their rides.

I checked the door locks and deadbolt and the phone line to security. Then I made sure the manager — an acquaintance of mine, through Will — knew she was checked in. He had been kind enough to put June between honeymooners and a family of four. I set a sweet little Browning .22 automatic on the table but June turned white when she saw it. I gathered it up and forgot about giving her basic handgun instruction.

We made love again and it was a slower and different kind of love than before. It occurred to me that we might never feel these things again, and she told me that she felt that way, too. She cried in my arms. I’d never felt another person’s tears on my scar before and it was a strange thing. Like being dabbed with something that was cool and warm at the same time, liniment, maybe, or rubbing alcohol. I told her that when this was all over and I felt safe for her, maybe we could take a vacation. She laughed but I didn’t ask her why because we were two separate animals again by then and I was getting ready to go.

Back home I talked to Rick Birch on the phone. He said tomorrow Dent was going to charge Jack Blazak with conspiracy to commit murder, leak the story to the media and hope that this would light the fuse under Rupaski and Bo Warren. Birch was going to give Rupaski and Warren a day or two of surveilled “squirm time” before interviewing them about the death of Will. Savannah was sleeping a lot at Hillview, and she had added some details to her earlier accounts of the kidnapping. The Hillview director had allowed her a supervised visit from her mother. Birch said that Savannah had broken into tears when Lorna walked into the visitation room. Alex Blazak was still in jail and Dent’s office was going to file charges the next day unless he cooperated a lot more than he had as yet. Pearlita attacked two jail guards and took a dose of pepper spray in the face. Birch and Ouderkirk had gone to Gaylen’s house with arrest and search warrants and found it abandoned.

“No car, not many clothes, not many personal items,” said Birch. “Thermostat off, three days of mail in the box. No phone. No answering machine. He’s gone. But we’ve got two men on his house, twenty-four, in case he comes back for his toothbrush.”

“Has anyone at Bamboo 33 seen him?”

“They don’t talk to guys like me. Joe? Watch yourself. If these people would kill Will they’d kill you, too.”

I sat in my darkened house with a twelve-gauge Remington 1100 across my lap and watched part of a romantic comedy. I called June and we talked for one hour and fifteen minutes. She said the sunset from the patio had been totally unbelievable and the room-service dinner was the best food she’d ever eaten. The martini had knocked her on her “fanny.”

“I’m kind of hammered right now, Joe, but I had this thought that I love you and I miss you and I want to marry you and give you children after we screw around and have fun for a couple of years.”

“Okay.”

“That was easy.”

“What about Real Live?”

“I’ll keep doing it for as long as I want. It’s easy and fun. I mean, all I do is talk.”

I looked around my little house, at the simple furnishings wavering in the blue TV light and imagined June Dauer inside it.

“No room service here,” I said, running my finger over the shiny stock of the Remington.

“We’ll ditch both our places, put the money into something bigger. I have to tell you, even though we’ve been behaving like weasels, I do require large spaces and privacy sometimes.”

“I do, too.”

We were quiet for a while. I listened to her breathe. I could hear the waves splashing onto the beach.

“This is June Dauer,” she whispered. “Saying you’re real live. If you can’t be happy be quiet.”

“I’d like to be both,” I whispered back.

We hung up a while later.

Bridget Andersen called around ten. Her voice was calm and low and she sounded scared.

“Millie came in late today,” she said. “Looked like he’d had a rough night. On the phone a lot, door shut. Had long talks with Carl and a guy named Warren Somebody or Somebody Warren and I got it all on tape. Details about the night Will died. Something about a guy named John Gaylen. They talked about you, Joe — how you were the only one who put it all together about Will. They talked about getting you out of the loop. They talked about Millie recanting something he told you. He said he’d claim it was bullshit to cover his own ass. They talked about me and that original recording — they think I was helping Will. They talked about shutting me up, but I’m not sure if that means fire me or kill me. I left work usual time, and a white Impala followed me to the store, followed me to the health club, followed me home. Carl’s jerks. They parked across the street, two houses down. Like I wouldn’t see them.”

“I thought you pulled out that recorder.”

“I put it back when Will was killed.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Where’s the tape?”

“Up in my closet.”

“Stay there.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

She gave me her address and hung up. I propped the shotgun in the corner. I called Rick Birch to tell him where I was going and why. Then I threw on my jacket, locked the place up and headed out.

I backed out of the driveway and had to slam my brakes to keep from hitting Bo Warren’s red-and-white Corvette.

I got out and he got out.

“Watch where you’re going, Joe!”

Four men in long coats appeared from the darkness on my right, weapons extended and trained on my chest. They closed around me and the steel of their guns pressed hard into my body. They stripped off one of my .45s and my ankle .32. A white Impala pulled up behind Warren’s car. John Gaylen got out.

“Ah, Joe Trona. Let’s talk.”