The Law of Innocence

Epilogue

Monday, March 9

There were no paper towels or toilet paper. No bottled water, and not a single carton of eggs. I was giving a running commentary to Maggie over my cell, holding the handwritten list she had prepared with contributions from Hayley. So many items on the list were already gone. Long gone. I had started just grabbing what I could.

“What about pinto beans?” I asked. “I just got four cans.”

We were speaking via my Bluetooth earpiece, leaving both my hands free to grab things from the shelves.

“Haller, what are we going to do with pinto beans?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Nachos? There’s nothing here. I just need to get whatever’s left and then we’ll have to make do with it. And I still have a lot of stuff at the house. Have you checked the pantry against this list?”

I spotted a lone jar of Newman’s Own spaghetti sauce on the pasta shelf but another shopper swooped in and grabbed it first.

“Shit,” I said.

“What?” Maggie asked.

“Nothing. I missed out on some Newman’s Own.”

“Just go to produce, see what’s left. Get stuff for salads. Then come back. This is too crazy.”

Crazy was an understatement. Chaos had descended. But in the midst of it, there was at least a calm center for me. My family was together for the first time in too many years to count. We had decided that the three of us would shelter together until the threat of the virus passed. Even with my home office converted into a bedroom for my daughter, my house had the most space and the biggest buffer zone around it compared with Hayley’s apartment or Maggie’s condo. The nuclear family would ride out the plague together and now it was down to the prep work. It was my second supermarket stop, the first having been equally disappointing. Still, I had earthquake supplies at the house and a mostly stocked pantry. It was just the wish list my girls had put together that I was missing. Red wine, good cheeses, and a few of the ingredients for Maggie’s recipes.

I managed to fill the cart with things I was sure we would never use and none of the things that we would. Maggie stayed on with me the whole time. She had gone home with me at the end of the celebration at the Redwood and we traded sleepovers at each other’s place until we settled on staying at my place. The relationship felt new and good and I often told myself that if the trade-off was four months of fear and turmoil to have Maggie back in my life, then that was a deal I’d make any day of the week.

“Okay, that’s it,” I said. “I’m getting in line now.”

“Wait, did you get orange juice?” she asked.

“Yes, they actually had orange juice. I got two cartons.”

“No pulp?”

I looked into the cart at what I had grabbed.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” I said.

“Great,” Maggie said. “We’ll make do with pulp. Hurry back.”

“I’m going to hit the ATM and then I’ll head home.”

“Why? You won’t need money. Everything’s shutting down.”

“Yeah, well, cash will be king if the financial institutions go down and plastic no longer works.”

“Mr. Optimistic. You really think that could happen?”

“This year proves that anything can happen.”

“True. Get cash.”

And so it went. I waited nearly an hour to get through the checkout line. Near-hysteria was no doubt upon us now. I was glad to have my family close, though I feared what would happen to us if things got truly desperate.

It was so crowded in the parking lot that a car pulled up while I was unloading the cart and waited for my space.

“This place is a mess,” I said to Maggie. “It’s going to get out of hand.”

The guy waiting was holding up the cars behind him. Somebody honked but he didn’t move. So I tried to go faster, putting the bags into the trunk of the Lincoln.

“What was that?” Maggie asked.

“Some guy wants my space — he’s holding everybody up,” I said.

I turned my head at the sound of another honk and noticed a man with dark hair and slumped shoulders pushing a cart in my direction. A black mask covered the lower half of his face. He had only a single brown bag sitting in the cart’s child seat. I did a double take because the bag said Vons and this was a Gelson’s. I looked at the man again and thought he looked familiar. The way his hands were spread on the cart’s push bar, the forward hunch, the droop of his shoulders.

In that moment I recognized him. The man in the video who was pushing the room-service cart into Louis Opparizio’s hotel room in Scottsdale. His hair was different now, but the shoulders were the same.

It was him.

I stepped back from the trunk and looked around for an escape route. I had to run.

I shoved my cart forward to crash into his, then ran down the length of my car and into the next driving lane. I glanced back over my shoulder as I cut to my right. I saw that he was coming, pulling a gun from the Vons bag as he ran after me.

I kept going and cut sharply between two more cars and into the next driving lane over. Two quick gunshots sounded and I ducked low and kept my feet moving. I heard glass shatter and the impact of the bullet on metal but I felt no impact to my body.

Maggie’s voice came sharply in my ear.

“Mickey, what’s happening? What is going on?”

Then there were shouts behind me punctuated by another car horn.

“FBI! Freeze!”

I didn’t know who was yelling at whom. But I didn’t freeze. I lowered my head even more and kept running. And then more shots came — this time a loud and fearsome volley of overlapping shots from powerful weapons. I looked back again and saw no sign of the man from the video. I changed angles and saw him on the ground as four armed men and a woman moved in on him. I recognized the woman as Special Agent Dawn Ruth.

I stopped running and tried to catch my breath. Only then did I register Maggie’s voice in my ear.

“Mickey!”

“I’m okay, I’m okay.”

“What happened? I heard shots!”

“Everything’s all right. The guy from the video, the one who killed Opparizio, he was here.”

“Oh my god.”

“But so was the FBI. I see Agent Ruth over there. They got him. He’s down on the ground. It’s over.”

“The FBI? Were they following you?”

“Uh, either me or him.”

“Did you know, Mick?”

“No, of course not.”

“You better not have.”

“I just told you — I didn’t. Look, everything’s fine but I have to go. They’re signaling me over. I probably have to give a statement or something.”

“Just get home soon, please. I can’t believe this.”

I needed to go but didn’t want to hang up without comforting her.

“Look, this means it’s over. Everything. It’s over.”

“Just come home.”

“As soon as I can.”

I disconnected the call and walked back to where the group was gathering around the man on the ground. He wasn’t moving and nobody was bothering with CPR. Agent Ruth saw me and moved away from the pack, meeting me halfway.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Thank god.”

I looked over at the body. The gun I had seen was on the ground next to it. The scene of the shooting was being cordoned off.

“How did you know?” I said. “You told me it was over. You said they wouldn’t come after me.”

“We were just taking precautions,” she said. “Sometimes these people don’t like to leave loose ends.”

“And I’m a loose end?”

“Well... let’s just say you know things. And you did things. Maybe he didn’t like that.”

“So, it was just him? He did this on his own?”

“We don’t know that for a fact.”

“What do you know? Am I still in danger? Is my family in danger?”

“Your family is fine, you’re fine. He probably waited until you were away from the house because your family’s there. Just calm down. Give me a day or two to assess and I’ll call you.”

“What about now? Do I give a statement or something?”

“You should just go. Get away from here before people start to recognize you. We don’t want that.”

I looked at her. Ever the protector of her case.

“How is the investigation going?” I asked.

“It’s moving,” she said. “Slowly but surely.”

I nodded toward the body.

“Too bad you won’t be able to get him to talk,” I said.

“Guys like him never talk,” Ruth said.

I nodded and she walked off. The crime scene was beginning to draw a crowd. People wearing masks. People wearing rubber gloves and face shields. I then went to my car, finding the trunk still open but my haul of groceries still in their bags intact.

I closed the trunk and checked the rear bumper, a habit born of recent experience. The license plate was there as it should be, its six letters announcing my fate and my standing to the world.

I got in my car and drove home to shelter.