Last Shot Page 23

  “Remember our terms.”

  “Sometimes an interview takes its own shape, and past events become relevant—”

  “We know how this is played. I give to get. Respect the balance. If you don’t…”

  Yueh cocked her head at an angle generally reserved for spaniels and Playmates, as if debating whether to call his bluff.

  A producer shouted, “Live in four, three, two—”

  Tim said, “I’ll make sure all future exclusives from the Marshal’s office go to Fox.”

  Yueh’s expression of dismay clicked into a perfect mask of welcome. “Tim Rackley, known as the Troubleshooter due to his high-profile antics—”

  Tim gave her a bland look.

  “—is joining us. And tonight he’d like to deliver a message to the prison escapee who’s been terrorizing the Los Angeles community.”

  In the darkness of a vacant office, with the bustle of ceaseless KCOM staff and equipment thumping past in the hall beyond the drawn blinds, Tim and Bear reviewed the spoils of Tim’s encounter—the B-roll. They’d suffered through ten minutes of establishing shots of Tess’s house and on-site pickups, Yueh jabbering between takes about lighting and flattering angles. A pewter Mercedes Gelaendewagen rolled up to the curb, seemingly impervious to the dust. Dolan stepped out and headed toward Yueh in greeting before the take ended. The next resumed with them waiting, now impatiently, at the curb. An assistant clicked a light meter around Yueh’s face until she knocked it away.

  “Where the hell is this woman?”

  “We’re twenty minutes early, Melissa,” an off-screen producer said. “Keep your pantsuit on.”

  Bear leaned forward, excitedly jabbing a finger in the corner of the screen at what Tim had already noted: Chase Kagan. Leaning against the G-Wagen, he regarded the run-down neighborhood with something like delight. The aired segment had shown only Dolan at the house, but clearly Chase, as the more polished Vector mouthpiece, had accompanied his brother to oversee him. Chase’s temporary amnesia when presented with Tess’s name now seemed even more likely feigned.

  The take ended. The next began with Yueh practicing her lead-ins, variations on a theme: “A young boy stricken with a disorder…” “A boy stricken with a disorder in his youth…” “A young boy courageously fighting a genetic disorder…”

  In the background Chase sat on the tailgate of the G-Wagen, guitar across his seersucker shorts, playing “Dueling Banjos”—a joke no one registered.

  A prolonged blackness. A shot of asphalt as someone adjusted the camera. Then Dolan’s voice: “Here she is. Here she is.”

  “Finally.”

  A beat-up Mazda clattered up into the driveway, Sam waving from the backseat. When Tess climbed out and shook her blond hair loose from a pink Dodgers cap, Chase lowered his guitar. His gaze stayed fixed on her as she unbuckled Sam from the back.

  “You guys got here early.” Tess hefted a grocery bag from the trunk. “I wanted to have some things to welcome you.”

  “Let’s get the crew set,” Yueh said.

  The next shot was in the kitchen. Tess had unpacked some clear plastic wineglasses from the bag and arranged them on the chipped kitchen table. Chase popped the bottom off one and held the top like a cup; Dolan’s fell apart in his hand. She was setting up dip and generic-brand crackers when Chase said, in a surprisingly charitable tone, “You know what? Let’s clear this. We don’t want it to look like a celebration or anything.”

  Tess dipped her chin. “Okay, right.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled with a hint of embarrassment.

  A few outtakes followed of Yueh teaching Sam some basics about being on air. She dealt with him sweetly; when he didn’t smile on cue, she set her fists on her hips in mock anger to make him laugh. Tess looked on with beaming maternal pride, Chase at her side, taking in her profile.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie,” Yueh said, “we’ll shoot some footage of you, and you can watch it right here in this screen till you’re comfortable. Okay?”

  Some takes ensued—Sam hooking fingers into his mouth to pull his cheeks wide; Sam pretending to descend stairs, lowering his torso by increments from the lens’s view; Sam hamming it up with a ballplayer’s “hey momz.”

  Back to static, then an establishing shot as two PAs arranged pillows on the couch and the sound engineer fussed with a boom mike. To the side, only half in the frame, Tess finally turned and met Chase’s stare.

  Her voice, far from the mike, was barely audible. “Help you?”

  Chase manufactured a blush. “Your husband must adore you.”

  “He kept the TV. I kept the ring.”

  The exchange was tough to make out over the foreground noise. Bear raised the volume in time to catch Chase’s reply: “Why do you wear it?”

  “It keeps jerks from bothering me.”

  “Am I bothering you?”

  “Not yet.”

  Tim and Bear watched the rest of the B-roll for more of this daytime drama, but other than Yueh’s further warming to Sam and Tess, it depicted little of value.

  Bear popped the tape and thrust it into an immense jacket pocket. “You know who we gotta talk to now.”

  Chapter 43

  Sam ground a stick into the top of the anthill, leaving it protruding like a flag. He squatted, fists in the dirt, elbows bracing his knees. Tiny red motion set the stick alive. A neighbor kid about two years younger aped Sam’s stance, casting sideways glances and making minute corrections to his foot position. The sun had dropped from view behind the roof, bathing the front yard in a gray swath, a precursor to shadow. When the wind shifted, it brought laughter from the children in the park at the street’s end.

  Sam reached tentatively for the stick, finally snatching it and shaking off the ants while his little friend watched with wonderment. Pulled to the opposing curb, waiting for Bear to finish his check-in with the LAPD homicide detective working the Ted Sands murder, Tim watched Sam play.

  Ginny came to mind, sitting on a park bench regarding her nemesis, the monkey bars, her swinging legs too short for her sneakers to scrape tanbark. No concern greater than if she was at last going to make her way across the metal bars. No knowledge of what was in store for her at the end of her brief life. No premonition of Roger Kindell. Kindell of the tall forehead, the sloppy mouth, the uncomprehending gaze.

  Roger Kindell of the garage shack and the hacksaw.

  The pain came, but it was duller these days. Maybe after a time, some of the nerves in a well-pried wound finally burned out. Or maybe a part of Tim had capitulated, had gratefully traded a memory sensation or two for numbness. Either way, Sam at the anthill brought Tim back over familiar terrain. Another seven-year-old on the brink of death. The difference was, Sam knew it.

  Despite the fate hanging over him, he seemed like any other boy. Tim didn’t know what he expected—someone more maudlin, more tragic, more precocious—but Sam was just a kid poking at insects. Tim couldn’t help but reflect on his own trivial parental concerns. Someday while he worried about Tyler choking on a cashew or slipping on just-washed tile, one of the billion parts that made up his son’s tiny, splendid body could malfunction, and then Tim or Dray would be the one wearing a pager. With all the resources and love that get poured into a child, year after year, there were no guarantees. A weakened artery wall. A renegade mole. A malfunctioning gene. Watching Sam issue bossy directives to his sidekick, Tim mulled over what he’d learned about Sam’s stage of illness. He was a sweet kid on a slow-motion descent, a little worse every day. And there was not a thing anyone could do for him. Except Vector, and Chase had made clear the clinical trials were closed.

  Tim became conscious of Bear’s staring at him. Tim’s focus on Sam, the comparison with Ginny—it was all embarrassingly apparent. He wondered if he felt so much for Sam because it was a way not to identify with Walker, a commando avenger so obviously like himself. Tim reined in his emotions, refocused on his job. He couldn’t lose sight of Sam as a key link in an inv
estigation.

  Sam dropped his stick abruptly and ran inside. A few seconds later a burly kid on a Huffy dirt bike jumped the curb, coasting across the front yard. He hopped off his bicycle, running beside it, then letting it fall, and confronted Sam’s cowed little friend.

  “Where’s Piss-Eyes?”

  Still in his petite imitative crouch, the younger boy shrugged.

  The kid kicked over the anthill, hopped on his bike, and rode off. A moment later the little boy rose, dusted off his knees, and trudged up the street, presumably to his house. Bear finished jotting some notes, hung up, and followed Tim to the house.

  Tim knocked at the screen, and Kaitlin called for them to come in. She was occupied with Sam in the living room. He was curled up on the couch, listlessly flipping channels. Tim and Bear’s intrusion brought a certain level of awkwardness to the domestic scene.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Sam said, “Nothing, Kaitlin.”

  “Is it Dylan again, that little shit?”

  “No. It wasn’t anyone. I’m just sick of playing outside.”

  Kaitlin looked at Tim, and then Sam, waiting to see if Tim was going to rat him out. Tim shrugged. Seemingly exasperated with both of them, Kaitlin stormed outside.

  Sam pulled himself from the couch and slumped toward the kitchen. He wore a T-shirt with a demented jester face and green lettering that said Foot killer. “Tommy gets scared when the ants come out.”

  “He’s little,” Tim said.

  Sam doled out a hunk of rice from a cooker and sprinkled it with MCT oil. “Yeah, well, kids my age don’t play with me.”

  Tim almost asked why not, but he looked at Sam’s weary, world-wise face and didn’t want to put him through the paces. Instead he said, “That must suck.”

  Sam stopped his sprinkling. He met Tim’s eyes. “You get used to it.”

  “Listen, Sam, we gotta talk.”

  “So talk.”

  “I watched your news segment. With those guys from Vector…”

  Sam’s face brightened. “Dolan and Chase.”

  “Right. Did your mom spend any time with them?”

  “Sure. When they came here for the TV story, then after during the commercial shoot. They paid me, you know. For the commercial. I wanted the PlayStation Portable, but Mom bought the dumb fridge instead.”

  “Did she hang out with them any other times?”

  “She went to Vector for meetings sometimes. Brought me in for some testing and stuff. But she never, like”—his face screwed up with disgust—“dated them or went bowling with them or anything.”

  “Anyone else she saw that was, say, new?” Tim asked. “In the days before she…?”

  “Killed herself? Well, that’s what she did. You might as well say it.”

  “Okay. Before she killed herself.”

  “A lawyer guy. I heard her on the phone with him once. She said she was gonna go see him at his office.”

  “Do you know what it was about?”

  “No, but when I went in the living room after, there was some stuff from Vector—like brochures? papers and stuff?—out on the couch. So maybe it had to do with that.”

  “Do you remember anything about the papers? Were they letters? Did they look like research?”

  Sam shrugged. “That stuff’s kinda boring to me.”

  Bear firmed his mouth, lips bunching. Tim knew the look—Bear was all for squeezing the attorney until the only privilege he considered would be having Bear out of his office. Bear’s hand rustled in his pocket, and he produced a picture of Ted Sands. “Did you ever meet this guy?” Bear waited until Sam shook his head. “How ’bout this guy?” Dean’s photo elicited another head shake.

  Tim asked, “Do you like Dolan and Chase?”

  “Yeah. Chase had a cool guitar, and he could play, like, anything. Dolan was nice, but he sucked at Dungeons & Dragons.” Sam added thoughtfully, “I’m not sure what I did wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why they didn’t pick me.”

  From Bear’s face it was clear the comment had caught him as off guard as it had Tim. A severe pause ensued, Sam looking at them with wide, curious eyes, awaiting an answer that might help him make sense of it. Tim’s Nextel vibrated at his hip. Bear crouched down, his broad knees cracking, to mumble an answer to Sam so Tim could step away and take the call.

  “The shooter used a silencer.”

  Tim held the phone away from his face, checking the caller ID. “Aaronson?”

  “I took a look at the slug that killed Tess Jameson.”

  “I thought you couldn’t tell from a slug if a silencer was used.”

  “Usually. But this silencer was rifled, with a different number of lands than the gun barrel. There were two sets of grooves on the projectile—one just barely offset from the other. I picked it up under the stereoscope and cast the marks in Microsil.”

  “Why wasn’t this checked before?”

  “Because most silencers we see are the smoothbore homemade variety. And most criminalists aren’t as good as I am.”

  “I won’t argue with that.”

  “And you shouldn’t. Because I sourced the red stain for you, too.”

  Bear glanced up at Tim’s expression, excited by proxy. Sam had wrangled away his badge and was busy flashing it from various poses.

  “It’s paintball fill,” Aaronson continued. “The photo of the mark on the sidewalk outside Tess’s house suggests it was squashed—stepped on, not fired. So I’m thinking you’re right that it may have rolled out of the shooter’s car, gotten crunched.”

  “He would’ve left more marks if it had gotten on the sole of his shoe.”

  “Not if he stepped up onto the grass to circle the house for a rear break-in. You said the back slider’s missing a latch?”

  “But then they’d have seen marks on the—”

  “Sprinklers. June was dry as usual.” Aaronson took a well-earned moment to be impressed with himself, then said, “More good news: It’s a custom paintball, called the Bunny Bopper, designed to reduce bounces. It’s got a brittle shell and easy-to-wipe fill. And it’s made exclusively for a place called Game. Because they require easy-to-wipe fill and a softer, brittle shell.”

  “Why?” Tim asked.

  Aaronson laughed, a nasal stutter. “Because the targets are naked.”

  Tim hung up and said to Bear, “We gotta go.”

  With reluctance Sam relinquished the five-point star, and they thanked him and stepped out into the brisk air. Her shoulders rounded, Kaitlin was on her knees by the kicked-over anthill, facing away. She didn’t acknowledge them as they approached. A breeze parted her hair at her neck.

  “I always wanted kids.” She watched the red ants scurrying over the avalanched side of their home, set into unthinking motion. Endless repair work, one dirt speck at a time. “But I couldn’t hold a pregnancy. Not past a few months. Walk didn’t care so much, but me…” A listless shrug. “And now this.”

  “What can you do?” Bear said, rhetorically.

  “I can wash his clothes and drive him to the hospital and pet his head at night,” she said. “And if I’m lucky, we can do it over again.”

  She rose and walked past them into the house, the screen door banging behind her. After a moment Tim and Bear headed to the Explorer. The SUV pulled away from the curb, its taillights fading in the dusk.

  The stand of juniper at the property line rustled and released Walker Jameson into the yard.

  Chapter 44

  Kaitlin looked up from the pot on the stove and started, dropping the wooden spoon.

  Walker stood in the doorway. He said, “Sorry.”

  “You just—” She pointed to the front door.

  “That’s the guy?”

  “Yeah. The one who—”

  “Looks like me. Right.” He ran a hand across his mouth, his palm rasping over the scruff. “You were right. I won’t come back here anymore.” He removed a disposable cell phone
from his pocket and set it on the chipped table. “I want to leave this.”

  She stirred the sauce, pausing twice like she had something to say. Finally she cleared her throat, knuckled her nose awkwardly. “I’m sorry. What I said. About you never doing anything for anyone but yourself. I haven’t forgotten the ways you were good to me.”

  He stepped once and hooked a hand behind her neck, pulled her forward on her tiptoes so their foreheads touched. She reached to press her hands to his chest but then didn’t. They stayed like that for a moment, frozen, breathing the same air, her hands raised either to feel him or shove him away.

  “I am Hrothgar of the Tree People! Fear my rat!” Sam guarded the hall, cracked plastic light saber raised, Viking helmet loose on his head.

  Kaitlin settled back flat on her feet. “I think you mean ‘wrath.’”

  “Hrothgar of the Tree People might have a rat,” Walker said.

  Sam grabbed a plastic horn and shoved the oversize helmet back out of his eyes. His was an awkward face, years short of growing into itself, but something in his smile pulled his features into line, made the nose bow slightly, the chin firm. It made him, briefly, handsome.

  “This is true,” Kaitlin conceded.

  Sam’s stare still had not left Walker. “Why are you here?”

  “To talk to you.”

  “I’m important today.” Sam ran back down the hall, fending off imaginary villains with the Force.

  Walker followed, finding him sitting on his bed, a lump beneath the comforter. A fluorescent length of light saber protruded like a tail. “The stuff that could’ve cured me is a syrup, like chocolate syrup,” the lump said. “Except instead of chocolate, it’s filled with the gene I need. I just had to take it in a shot once a month, and the other kids’d even be jealous because I got to have chocolate syrup and not them. But then they said I couldn’t have it. The chocolate syrup. Why not?”

  “Prob’ly because we can’t pay for it.”

  “We?”