The Pallbearers

CHAPTEII 44

By the time Alexa got home at six that night she had pretty much pulled the case together for me. She'd pestered Chief Filosiani until he finally agreed to throw a net over the FBI, telling the feds that Straw was off-limits until he was through helping us with our high-profile murder case. They had no choice but to stand down.

After Alexa finished giving me this news, she added, "Tonv asked me if I had actual, physical custody of Jack."

"And you said, 'Of course I do, Chief. I wouldn't let that dirtbag out of my sight.'"

"Exactly. Flat-out lied to my boss. If this goes bad, I'm gonna get my ass kicked."

She was taking a huge chance for me, putting her own career in jeopardy. I took her hand. "I know you've been letting me run this, and I know it hasn't been my smoothest investigation. I want you to know how much I appreciate what you're doing."

"This is important to you. I can deal with the department fallout if it comes to that."

"I think we need to call a friendly judge and get the paperwork on Rick O'Shea going," I said. "I want to pick it up first thing in the morning. We can show the judge what Vicki has and move on O'Shea by ten A. M."

She tapped a nail against the kitchen table, deep in thought. "How come my instinct tells me this goes much deeper than Rick O'Shea?" she said. "Like all the way up to E. C. Mesa."

"Because it does. But we start with Rick. Since I've already got a decent prima facie case against him, and he's two pickles short of a full sandwich, we'll lay it on him, he'll get confused and give up everybody else. Cop 101."

Alexa said she knew a judge who would write our warrant for O'Shea and picked up the kitchen phone to call him.

I went outside and settled into my chair in the backyard to rest my aching body and watch the sun go down. I looked out at the still canal and thought about Walt. I wondered if I'd finally evened our debt. If arresting O'Shea made up for my not being there. Deep down, I knew it hadn't. It felt strangely incomplete.

I noticed some movement at the edge of the yard, leaned forward, and spotted our adopted cat, Franco, watching me from under an oleander bush. It was lady-cat season and he'd been away from the house for the last day or so. Now he was back with a smirk on his face, satisfaction burning in his big yellow eyes.

"Been out getting some?" I asked him.

He's not a cuddly cat, but he can read my needs. If I'm feeling bad, he lets me know he cares.

He walked over and wound around my ankles, then jumped up into my lap and plopped down. He sniffed at my cast, turned his head, and gave me a withering look.

"I know, it's disappointing."

Franco put his head down and began to purr.

As I looked down at him, my thoughts started along a new path.

We'd ended up with Franco because I'd failed to move quickly enough to save his original owner, Carol White, and she'd been murdered. Now I'd also failed to save Pop. In the end I'd made Carol's killer pay. Tomorrow I was determined to do the same for Walt.

This memory started a chain of thoughts that led me, once again, back to those early mornings, kneeling in the sand beside Pop on Seal Beach.

I suddenly remembered something that had happened over thirty years ago. We'd been out beyond the surf line just before dawn. It was only my first or second time, and I was still nervous about being in the ocean. I was sitting on my short board in my beavertail wet suit, facing Pop in the water, when I felt something bite my bare leg. I freaked out.

"A fish is biting me!" I yelled. "A shark!"

Of course it wasn't a shark, but I was scared, and I wanted to go back to shore. Pop wouldn't let me.

"That fish didn't bite you, bra. He kissed you. The old Hawaiians say that's a sure sign that you are at one with your aumakua."

Pop proceeded to explain that according to Hawaiian legend, aumakuas were our heavenly ancestors, who were godlike and always watching over their family. It was a hard concept for me because I had never known who my family was. Then he smiled at me.

"Animals, even fish, know when you've found your true center. That fish is telling you that you're at one with your maker. He's one of God's creatures, and when you're right with God, he kisses you. You gotta relax, bra, and say thank you." He was smiling as he told me this.

Of course, to a street-hardened throwaway like me, this was total bullshit. I was a tough guy, a cynic. For that reason, I never paid too much attention to Pop's Zen surfer chatter, and over the years I'd sort of learned to dial him out. But on this one thing, some part of me always wondered.

So sometimes when I was out on the board before sunup, I would try to do like Pop, center myself and Zen out. I was looking for inner peace, although I'd never felt any.

I was a little nine-year-old, mad as hell, sitting on a short board, dangling my legs in the water, trying to find an emotional center I was positive didn't exist.

But nonetheless, whenever I was backwalling, waiting for a big rhino, I would tone down the aggression and try to be at one with my aumakuas, whoever the hell they were, because I'd been dumped at a hospital and had no ancestors that I knew about. I'd sit there trying to feel good about myself and about a life where nothing ever seemed to be going right. I finally got to where I could sort of do it. At least I could go someplace else and leave some of that blind anger behind.

Then, one morning I was out there, feeling kinda spiritual. The sun was just coming up. Good sets were rolling in from Mexico. The sky was a beautiful red-orange. I was filled with a sense of well-being. For once I was almost happy.

And then it happened again.

A little fish, a perch or a bass, came up and nibbled my toe. I sat very still and wondered what force of nature existed that would put me at one with a tiny fish in this cold, vast ocean. Was there more going on in the universe than I had ever stopped to consider?

The next morning when I woke up, I began to wonder about God.