need money, so that's not what I'm getting at. It's just something else should know.'
Merci thought about a quarter million dollars, what it would and wouldn't do. 'I wonder if they increased those death benefits when they hit it rich with OrganiVen.'
Natalie looked over Merci's face from bottom to top. 'Far as I know, they spent their money on nice things. Archie bought us a new car. A Mercedes C430. Red. We'd loaned them two thousand dollars to buy the start-up stock, before the big drug company bought them out.'
'Archie and Gwen bought us a computer, too,' said George.
It sounded to Merci like they believed the more things their son had bought for them the more innocent he was. And it must have sounded that way to them, too, she thought, because of the awkward silence that followed.
'He wanted to fly,' said George. He looked at Merci with a wry smile. 'Not professionally, just, well…'
'He jumped off the garage roof when he was seven,' said Natalie. 'Had broomsticks with cloth on them for wings. Broke an ankle, climbed up and jumped again, broke the other. Just hairline fractures they didn't have to be set.'
'Lucky,' said George.
'Stubborn,' said his wife.
'Loved rocks, too,' said George. 'Brought them home in his pockets, then later, in backpacks. Read up on them. Bought some fancy Japanese ones when they got rich.'
'The suiseki.'
'Yes.'
'Imagine that,' said Natalie. 'Buying rocks.'
Another pause then as the Wildcrafts' memories of their son collided with the reason for them being there.
'Well, thank you,' said Rayborn, wondering at the passions of A. F. Wildcraft. 'You've both been very helpful.'
'Gwen's funeral is Wednesday, Detective,' George said. 'The Catholic cemetery in Laguna Hills. Two o'clock. On behalf of Archie and Gwen's family, we're inviting you.'
'I'll be there. And let me get this, please.'
She paid and they stood.
'What are your chances of catching the guy who did this?' George asked.
She thought about that while she put down another dollar on the tip tray. 'Better than anyone else's.'
'Yeah, he was worried,' said Damon Reese, Archie's patrol partner. At thirty-six, he was six years older than Archie. He had a thick, handsome face, a strong nose and the scars of adolescent acne still sharp on his cheeks and neck. When he looked at you, you got all of his attention.
'Archie's a worrier. He worries about his appearance. He worries about gaining weight, losing muscle tone. He worries about the things he owns-his house and cars and all of that. What color paint. What kind of trees to plant. What kind of carpet to get. He worries about his investment in that company that's supposed to cure cancer. He worried about Gwen being happy. About Gwen's music. About Gwen's family. And that's for starters.'
'Quite a lineup.'
'Merci, Archie's a fix-it guy, an improvement guy. He thinks he can fix anything, and I'll give him credit-he does everything guts-out, does his homework and he never gives up. Me, I'm just the opposite. I know I can't improve hardly anything. I don't care what color my house is painted, and I can't change people. I don't have a wife to worry about anymore. So I take things easier. I'll bet my blood pressure is half of Archie's, and I probably sleep a lot better than he does. I'll never live up there in the hills, but that's fine. I like it where I am. We make a good patrol team because we're different.'
Merci listened and watched Reese turn the hose on the hull of his Boston Whaler. The boat was on its trailer in his driveway. Damon had gone fishing out of Dana Point this morning and he was back by ten for their talk, just like he said he'd be.
The water drummed against the aluminum and dripped off in glittering streams. It was too loud to talk over, so Merci just watched Deputy Reese hose the ocean off his boat and the life vests and the bait tank and the tackle. When he was done she watched him back it into the garage and helped him lift the trailer off the ball on his pickup.
Reese carried two big plastic bags of bass fillets into the house unworried about the pink drips. Merci carried his Lowrance sonar.
'Just set it on the counter there, Merci. Thanks.'
'What about Felix Mendez?'
Reese stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor and looked at Merci with his considerable attention. 'He would have killed me if wasn't for Archie. There's one thing I'm glad Archie was able to fix
He smiled, shook his head at the memory, got a clear baking dish out of a cabinet and set the bagged fish in it.
'Mendez wasn't a punk. He was a made guy, a ranking
Erne lieutenant. He was loaded to the gills that night, or none of it would have gone down. Fighting with his wife, jacked up on coke, drunk. When his wife tried to go off on Archie and he pushed her against the wall and cuffed her, Mendez went for his iron. He had a one-shot, twenty five-cal derringer in his bathrobe pocket-so small it didn't even weigh the pocket down. At least not enough for either of us to notice. So Mendez had it out quick, took us totally by surprise. Swung on me because I was closer. But Archie was fast. Blew a hole in Felix's hand about the size of a pea going in and a quarter going out. Bones sticking out all over, what a mess. Made the shot from ten, twelve feet away. Saved my life. Fantastic.'
'Did Mendez threaten to kill him?'
'Right there, in all the pain and noise, he probably said something to that effect.'
'What about later, in jail or the courtroom?'
Reese shook his head. 'No. Mendez wouldn't do that. The Eme puts a hit on a guy, they're not going to pound their chests about it. They'll just make sure it gets done.'
Merci knew he was right. 'Does the Eme have a shooter so big he wears size-sixteen shoes and has to recline a Cadillac seat just to get in and out?'
Reese's full attention again. She liked the bright humorlessness of his eyes. She'd always thought a cop's eyes should be like that.
'Not that I know of,' he said. 'But you could talk to Gang Interdiction about that. If they've set foot in this county, Quevas knows them. The Eme would probably do what the other gangs do-use someone up-and-coming to do the hit. So, they could have a bigfoot coming up the ranks, somebody we don't even know about yet.'
'A youngster,' said Merci.
'Yeah,' said Reese, with an echoing sarcasm. 'Where did you find shoe prints that big?'
'Under one of Archie's trees. About ten feet from where he fell.'
Reese shook his head. 'I talked to Ryan Dawes yesterday. He's trying not to let it show, but I think he's gunning for Archie on this one. He spent a lot of time trying to discover that Archie had lost considerable money on his stock investments, not made considerable money. I told Jaws that the Wildcrafts were not in any kind of unusual debt that I knew about. They made a killing and that was that. Dawes still seemed to want to cast Archie as desperate. It's like he's got this story in his head and he's looking for facts to make it true. I told him considerably less than I told you, without seeming unhelpful.'
'I'm glad.'
'Why is he thinking Arch? Jaws wouldn't say one thing about the evidence, but he must have something.'
He looked at her and they both knew he was asking for information she shouldn't give him. But she trusted Reese and she liked him and he was the kind of guy she'd want in her department if she were in charge. You give to get. But sometimes you give just to give.
'The physical evidence is almost all against him, Damon. Prints on the weapon. His gun hand was loaded when we did the GSR test. Her blood is on his robe. No solid evidence of anyone else being on their property at the time.'
'Jesus. Archie's gun kill her?'
