Shadowfires

“Yeah, but it's our job he's doing.”

“Let it go,” Reese said.

“I can't.”

“Let it go.”

Julio shook his head. “No. This is a special case. I feel a special obligation to that Hernandez girl. Don't ask me to explain it. You'd think I was getting sentimental in my old age. Anyway, if it was just an ordinary case, just the usual homicide, I'd let it go in a minute, I would, I really would, but this one is special.”

Reese sighed.

To Julio, nearly every case was special. He was a small man, especially for a detective, but he was committed, damned if he wasn't, and one way or another he found an excuse for persevering in a case when any other cop would have given up, when common sense said there was no point in continuing, and when the law of diminishing returns made it perfectly clear that the time had come to move on to something else. Sometimes he said, “Reese, I feel a special commitment to this victim 'cause he was so young, never had a chance to know life, and it isn't fair, it eats at me.” And sometimes he said, “Reese, this case is personal and special to me because the victim was so old, so old and defenseless, and if we don't go an extra mile to protect our elderly citizens, then we're a very sick society; this eats at me, Reese.” Sometimes the case was special to Julio because the victim was pretty, and it seemed such a tragedy for any beauty to be lost to the world that it just ate at him. But he could be equally eaten because the victim was ugly, therefore already disadvantaged in life, which made the additional curse of death too unfair to be borne. This time, Reese suspected that Julio had formed a special attachment to Ernestina because her name was similar to that of his long-dead little brother. It didn't take much to elicit a fierce commitment from Julio Verdad. Almost any little thing would do. The problem was that Julio had such a deep reservoir of compassion and empathy that he was always in danger of drowning in it.

Sitting rigidly behind the steering wheel, lightly but repeatedly thumping one fist against his thigh, Julio said, “Obviously, the snatching of Eric Leben's corpse and the murders of these two women are connected. But how? Did the people who stole his body kill Ernestina and Becky? And why? And why nail her to the wall in Mrs. Leben's bedroom? That's so grotesque!”

Reese said, “Let it go.”

“And where's Mrs. Leben? What's she know about this? Something. When I questioned her, I sensed she was holding something back.”

“Let it go.”

“And why would this be a national security matter requiring Anson Sharp and his damn Defense Security Agency?”

“Let it go,” Reese said, sounding like a broken record, aware that it was useless to attempt to divert Julio, but making the effort anyway. It was their usual litany; he would have felt incomplete if he had not upheld his end of it.

Less angry now than thoughtful, Julio said, “It must have something to do with work Leben's company is doing for the government. A defense contract of some kind.”

“You're going to keep poking around, aren't you?”

“I told you, Reese, I feel a special connection with that poor Hernandez girl.”

“Don't worry; they'll find her killer.”

“Sharp? We're supposed to rely on him? He's a jackass. You see the way he dresses?” Julio, of course, was always impeccably dressed. “The sleeves on his suit jacket were about an inch too short, and it needed to be let out along the back seam. And he doesn't polish his shoes often enough; they looked like he'd just been hiking in them. How can he find Ernestina's killer if he can't even keep his shoes properly polished?”

“I have a feeling of my own about this one, Julio. I think they'll have our scalps if we don't just let it go.”

“I can't walk away,” Julio said adamantly. “I'm still in. I'm in for the duration. You can opt out if you want.”

“I'll stay.”

“I'm putting no pressure on you.”

“I'm in,” Reese said.

“You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.”

“I said I was in, and I'm in.”

Five years ago, in an act of unparalleled bravery, Julio Verdad had saved the life of Esther Susanne Hagerstrom, Reese's daughter and only child, who had then been just four years old and achingly small and very helpless. In the world according to Reese Hagerstrom, the seasons changed and the sun rose and the sun set and the sea rose and the sea fell all for one reason: to please Esther Susanne. She was the center, the middle, the ends, and the circumference of his life, and he had almost lost her, but Julio had saved her, had killed one man and nearly killed two others in order to rescue her, so now Reese would have walked away from a million-dollar inheritance sooner than he would have walked away from his partner.

“I can handle everything on my own,” Julio said. “Really.”

“Didn't you hear me say I was in?”

“We're liable to screw ourselves into disciplinary suspensions.”

“I'm in.”

“Could be kissing good-bye to any more promotions.”

“I'm in.”

“You're in, then?”

“I'm in.”

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure.”

Julio put the car in gear, pulled away from the curb, and headed out of Placentia. “All right, we're both a little whacked out, need some rest. I'll drop you off at your place, let you get a few hours in the sack, and pick you up at ten in the morning.”

“And where will you be going while I'm sleeping?”

“Might try to get a few winks myself,” Julio said.

Reese and his sister, Agnes, lived with Esther Susanne on East Adams Avenue in the town of Orange, in a pleasant house that Reese had rather substantially remodeled himself during his days off. Julio had an apartment in an attractive Spanish-style complex just a block off Fourth Street, way out at the east end of Santa Ana.

Both of them would be going home to cold and lonely beds. Julio's wife had died of cancer seven years ago. Reese's wife, Esther's mother, had been shot and killed during the same incident in which he had almost lost his little girl, so he had been a widower five years, only two less than Julio.

On the 57 Freeway, shooting south toward Orange and Santa Ana, Reese said, “And if you can't sleep?”

“I'll go into the office, nose around, try to see if anyone knows anything about this Sharp and why he's so damned hot to run the show. Maybe ask around here and there about Dr. Eric Leben, too.”

“What're we going to do exactly when you pick me up at ten in the morning?”

“I don't know yet,” Julio said. “But I'll have figured out something by then.”

13 REVELATIONS

They took Sarah Kiel to the hospital in the stolen gray Subaru. Rachael arranged to pay the hospital bills, left a ten-thousand-dollar check with Sarah, called the girl's parents in Kansas, then left the hospital with Ben and went looking for a suitable place to hole up for the rest of the night.

By 3:35 Tuesday morning, grainy-eyed and exhausted, they found a large motel on Palm Canyon Drive with