The Pallbearers

Chapter 61

Captain Ironwood handpicked four deputies and went with the six feds to collect what was left of Team Ultima. O'Shea was alive and transported by ambulance to the jail hospital in Tucson, where he was hooked to a machine and intubated. Kimbo Sledge and Chris Calabro tried to run but were arrested.

They found Seriana Cotton playing the slots in the Talking Stick Casino. She was scraped and bleeding but claimed she didn't have a clue what had happened out on the tenth fairway.

Mesa made no statement and hired Gerry Spence as his defense attorney, dispelling the myth that cowboys and Indians can't get along.

Everybody lawyered up and within hours it became obvious to me that Rick O'Shea wasn't going to be talking.

I had multiple kidnapping charges against Eugene Mesa, but with good lawyering, that might only be worth ten or fifteen years. Not nearly enough. Even worse, I still didn't have a murder case on Eugene Mesa for ordering Pop's death.

Diamond Peterson was among the missing. I had a very bad feeling about that. I didn't think we'd ever see her alive again.

Alexa and I got stuck in Tucson dealing with tribal law, the Arizona courts, state-to-state extradition papers, and a mile of related red tape. We didn't get back to Los Angeles until a few days later.

We arrived home the same day our two-week vacation to Hawaii was scheduled to end. We went out into the backyard, sat on our worn metal chairs, and sipped rum and Cokes with a dash of pineapple juice. It was the closest we had in our bar to the ingredients for a Mai Tai.

"Aloha," Alexa said as we clinked our glasses.

We talked about Hawaii, about Walter Dix, and about how disappointed I was that O'Shea hadn't flipped. It had been a long, painful journey, and in the end, despite everything, I still felt that I had failed Walt.

"Seriana reports for deployment back to Iraq tomorrow night," I told Alexa. "At least she got to see how it ended."

Alexa said, "Without her, we wouldn't have made it."

There was certainly no lack of truth in that statement. The pallbearers had been an unlikely team, but except for Diamond, in the end they had all earned my friendship and respect.

"Vicki's picking up Walt's ashes from the crematorium tonight," I said. "We're all going to say good-bye in the morning."

"Can I come?"

"Got a surfboard?"

She smiled. "No, but somebody has to make sandwiches and kiss your bruises."

"Then you're invited."

An hour later, I got a call from Kurt Westfall. He sounded angry.

"Still no sign of Straw," I told him.

"Fuck Straw. You hear about this shit from Gerry Spence's office?"

"No, what?"

"The Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation is claiming jurisdiction on Mesa's four kidnapping cases."

"So we try him there. What's the problem? He's not gonna beat it. You got five witnesses, two of whom are L. A. cops."

"Indian law ain't exactly like American law, Scully. They got all these tribal loopholes from some treaty that was signed in the eighteen hundreds. Add to that the fact that the Indian prosecutor went to law school on a Eugene Mesa tribal scholarship and Mesa is gonna pretty much skate on this whole thing. They're charging him with four counts of false imprisonment. A fucking misdemeanor."

"Come on," I said. I couldn't believe this was happening.

Westfall kept rolling out the bad news. "They're claiming no guns were used in the abduction and the statement you and your wife made confirms that fact, so it's not a kidnapping."

"False imprisonment? Isn't that like when a store security cop holds some guy for stealing clothes he didn't steal? We were tied up, dragged out of our room, transported… They threatened to kill us!"

"The transportation clause isn't valid on the reservation either, and they say nobody threatened your life."

I was holding the phone, feeling a deep sense of frustration.

Westfall heaved a deep sigh. "The Indian prosecutor has already accepted the false-imprisonment charges. It's a misdemeanor, so the fine will be around ten grand. If I'm ever arrested for killing my wife, hire Gerry Spence to represent me," he groaned.

After I hung up, I went to our bedroom and sat down heavily on the bed. I told Alexa what had just happened, and she came over to sit beside me. She took me into her arms and held me close. But there was very little she could do to comfort me.

An hour later, I was in bed, but couldn't sleep. I was looking at the ceiling, thinking about Eugene C. Mesa and how much alike we were. Neither of us knew who our parents were. I'd found out that Mesa wasn't his real name either. He'd picked it because he needed an identity and was a Mesa Indian.

A nurse at the hospital where I was left as an infant had picked my name for me. She chose it because she was a Dodger fan and loved Vin Scully.

Mesa and I had walked the same hallways at Huntington House as nine-year-olds. We'd both kneeled in the sand with Pop waiting for the sun to rise so we could "go catch some, bruddah."

Half my life, like E. C. Mesa, I'd also been feeding the wrong wolf, and that wolf had almost beaten me. But then Alexa and Chooch had entered my life and everything changed.

As I lay there, I remembered that I'd seen Walt at our wedding and spoken to him briefly that day. Something quick and meaningless. "How you doing, man? I'm stoked you came." I'd not bothered to thank him for keeping me alive so I could make it from Huntington House to my wedding dav.

Walt had never known Alexa. Not really. But he could see how-she had made the difference for me and it made him happy.

He had been there for me when it counted, but I had failed to repay the favor. I had left all of this unfinished.

I looked at the ceiling and waited for him to whisper down that it was okay. That I had at least made the effort. That I had done my best. He didn't speak. He didn't relieve my burden, but I could feel him up there.

Watching.

Waiting.