The Pallbearers

Chapter 41

I had a voice dial on the MDX, so as I carefully held the steering wheel, I recited Vargas's cell number. Miraculously, I got him on the phone.

After I told him what happened, he said, "Are you telling me O'Shea beat you up again?"

"I'm getting real tired of saying this more than once."

I hesitated for a minute, swallowed my pride. "Look, we're running out of time. I got the FBI circling because of Jack. O'Shea knows I'm a cop and that's bound to produce bad results. We need to get the pallbearers together and pool our knowledge. If it's not too much trouble, I'd really appreciate it if we could meet at my house."

"What about Diamond?" he asked after another long pause.

"Invite her. She's okay."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. O'Shea didn't know I was a cop 'til he found my badge. If Diamond was in on it, she certainly would have told him."

"I'm glad."

"Me too."

We set up the meeting for an hour from now. It would allow me time to get home, take some ibuprofen, ice my wrist, and try to get my head to start working again.

It was hard driving with one hand, but I made it. My sprained left wrist was throbbing almost as badly as my right arm by the time I pulled into my drive.

I put the MDX in park, which was no easy task with the wrong hand. Then I got out and lumbered into the house. I opened the refrigerator, fumbled some ice into a bowl, took it to the counter, and spent a frustrating ten minutes trying to get the cubes into a baggie. I tore off some adhesive tape using my teeth and made a clumsy icepack compress for my left wrist.

Next, I went into the bathroom, put the roll of fiberglass gauze in the medicine cabinet, and took the ibuprofen. As I was clinging to the sink, I got a distressing look at myself in the bathroom mirror.

I won't bother to describe my appearance except to say it was startling.

The pallbearers all showed up at a little past five. We sat in my living room. I stretched out painfully in the lounge chair, and then we discussed my broken arm, swollen wrist, and how Rick O'Shea had changed my tires for the second time in two days. I told them not to worry, it wasn't going to happen again. They settled into chairs in my living room and regarded the remark skeptically.

"Shane, you called this meeting, so I guess you're on," Sabas said.

Diamond, Vicki, and Seriana also sat there, waiting for me to dispense some wisdom. I almost couldn't summon enough energy to start talking.

"Some stuff happened since we split up," I began slowly. Then I told them about the gift Jack had left for me in my mailbox. I handed Sabas the SD card, and he loaded it into my computer. They all watched it, then turned to face me.

"Mesas house?" Vicki asked, and after I nodded she said, "Hes got a long board just like Pop?"

They spent a few minutes discussing that, and I gave them my theory about Pop and E. C. Mesa maybe being surfing buddies. Then I told them how Alexa and I had culled the Rolodex and about last nights trip to the house on Avalon Terrace, which led to the underground fight at the Hayloft. Lastly I filled them in on everything Alexa had learned at Mesa's table. After I finished, the room was quiet.

Sabas finally said, "I thought we agreed we were gonna all work this together. You couldn't make a call and let us in on what you were up to?"

"It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment decision," I defended. "We were only going to check it out but when we saw that party, it sort of developed into something else."

"You aren't the only one who needs closure on Pop's murder, Shane. We're all hurtin'. You gave us your word if we let you call the shots, you wouldn't freeze us out. But you went ahead and did this on your own anyway."

I'd had a bad morning. I was starting to get annoyed. "It was late, almost eleven P. M. when we got there," I said. "Last time I called and woke you up you chewed my head off."

"Boys, boys, boys," Vicki said. "Let's stop bickering and deal with what Shane and Alexa found out. What's it mean?"

"I don't know," I admitted, taking a breath to cool down. "Haven't a clue. But we need to review everything we know. See how quickly we can unpack this and figure what the elements were that really got Pop killed."

So we began.

Some of it was just theory, some of it was feelings. A lot was sad memories and regrets about Pop.

Diamond kept asking why E. C. Mesa might have that big, rhino-chaser cigar-box board in his garage. Seriana wondered if it could be a coincidence.

"In law enforcement, the rule is never trust a coincidence," I told her.

Vicki said, "The suicide note seemed like hooey even when we still thought Pop had killed himself. Now that we know he was murdered, it's gotta be bullshit."

I got up and limped over to the desk and found my copy of the note. I handed it to Vicki and lowered myself painfully back into the lounge chair.

She began reading a few parts aloud. "'Got pulled down by leash drag? 'Sorry about the yard sale? Tf you need the reason, tap the source, Walt? That doesn't sound right to me at all. Who writes a last note that sounds like that? But if somebody was forcing him to write it, Pop might have been trying to send a secret communication."

"You mean maybe it's like a code or something?" Diamond said.

Vicki looked at us and nodded. "If he knew he was going to die and somebody was making him write this, then maybe he was using all this surf lingo to tell us something."

I didn't give that idea much credence. We were beginning to grasp at fringe theories.

"Here's something that's been bothering me," Seriana said. "Why the six of us? I loved Pop, and I certainly owed him, but I don't think I was more special to him than a lot of other kids who were at the home when I was."

"Most people don't pick their own pallbearers," I said, nodding. "But Walt wrote that letter a week before he was killed, naming the six of us."

"Why would he do that?" Vicki asked.

"Alexa thinks Pop must have already known he was in some danger the week before he was killed and chose his pallbearers because he knew the kind of people we are."

"Which is?" Diamond said.

"Well, except for you, Diamond, we Ye nonconformists who don't do what were told. Alexa thinks maybe Walt picked us because in the event he got murdered, he knew we wouldn't accept the official version of his death and would keep looking until we found out what really happened."

"That's one fucking smart lady you got there, hoss," Vicki said.

"So you buy it?" I asked, looking around the room at everyone.

"I've also been wondering the same thing," Vargas said, nodding. "I always felt special in Walt's eyes, but then so did everyone else. I keep thinking, out of all the hundreds of people who went to Huntington House, why was I one of six that he wanted to carry his coffin? I feel the same as Seriana. There were so many others that he could have chosen."

Diamond broke the silence that followed. "So what's our next move?"

"I was waiting to go back and look at Pop's house until the coroner assigned a homicide number to the case," I said. "My idea was to take a forensic unit over to his house and redo the entire crime-scene investigation."

"Come on, that's nuts," Sabas sniped. "It's been a week and a half. There've been cops and newspaper people traipsing through there. That's a totally contaminated site."

I didn't have much patience for his tone. Despite a promising start after that fight at the gym, we were now getting on each other's nerves.

"I agree," I said, struggling to control my irritation. "So instead of waiting, let's go now. We knew Pop better than the cops who investigated this. Let's use our knowledge of him to see if we can find something they missed."

I rode with Sabas in the yellow truck. Halfway there, he looked over, staring at me with vato eyes. In that moment I could see remnants of the little nine-year-old shooter who had killed to protect his drug turf.

"Don't freeze me out," he warned. "Next time you torch me like that, I'll just take this into my own hands."

"Sabas, I wasn't leaving you out. We turned up the address on Avalon Terrace late at night. We didn't know there'd be a party and that Jack would be there. Why can't you cut me a little slack?"

"Why should I? Lookit you, you been getting beat worse than a birthday pinata. You ain't inspiring much confidence."

I decided not to argue with him. Despite all the mistakes I'd made, I felt I was on the verge of something. The answer seemed near. It was like the feeling I always got as a kid on sunrise patrol just before a big set rolled in.

As we neared Walt's old bungalow, in my subconscious I could hear Walt talking to me, using that crazy pidgin Hawaiian. Paddle hardf bra. We be in da zone fo shur.

The crinkly smile, the seawater-blue eyes, counting on me to get him to shore.