and everything.'
'I will.'
She was just about to go sit with Tim and watch him sleep when her phone rang again.
'This is Archie Wildcraft.'
'Where are you?' She started down the hall for the living room.
'No, I'm not telling. I can't let you arrest me for Gwen. I'm positive I didn't kill her. And I've got some things to take care of, you know, things I can't do from jail or the hospital. I just wanted you to know I'm okay, taking my meds and all that.'
'On TV you said you'd kill yourself, Archie.'
'No, that was some kind of problem with the videotape. I said I'll kill them myself.'
'Whoever shot Gwen.'
'Yeah, Gwen.'
'Is that what you're doing, Archie? Are you trying to track down the shooter yourself?'
There was a pause then and Merci listened to the traffic on Wildcraft's end of the line.
'Wouldn't you?' he asked.
'That's ridiculous.'
'You didn't answer my question.'
She thought about it but didn't take long. She knew what she would do.
'I might try.'
'Especially if your own department was thinking you did it.'
'I'm the lead investigator on Gwen's case, and I don't think you did it.'
'Tell that to Al Madden. He called me at home. He questioned my mom and dad. It's him and Dawes. I may have a bullet in my head but I know when someone's out to cook me.'
'Archie, we're not going to charge you. So meet me at UCI Medical. Or I'll drive you over. We'll get you checked in and let the doctors fix you up. You were bleeding on the CNB segment.'
'It was minor.'
'How do you know?'
'I'm actually kind of worried about it. I've been, well, when the pressure goes up I see colors that aren't logical. You know, like a red face or a blue hill. But I'm remembering things, and the feelings of things, so maybe the swelling's gone down. The doctor, Stebbins, he told me in the hospital that this could happen.'
'Archie, damnit, will you tell me where you are and let me pick you up? Nobody's going to charge you with Gwen. Dawes just smells an easy winner because you can't remember that night. Madden's just doing his job. But I know you didn't do it and I know I can catch the people who did. You can trust me on that, Archie. I'm good at what I do. And listen to this, Archie- there's a way to help you remember exactly what happened that night.'
Silence, and she knew she had him.
'Hypnosis, ' she said.
'Who told you that?'
'Stebbins. It's risky, because it puts you through the trauma again. But it lets you remember everything, just how it went down.'
'Really?'
'Really, Archie.'
'I'd see her again. Gwen, in memory.'
'Yeah.'
'I think there's a chance I got a look at the shooter.'
'Jesus, Arch-good of you to mention it.'
'But I'm not sure. I'm starting to see this face behind the light, wonder if it's something I saw or something I'm making up.'
'That's what the hypnosis can sort out.'
'And when I see that face I keep thinking the word reversible.'
'Reversible what?' she asked him. Damage?
'Just reversible.'
'That's not hugely evidentiary. Help me out, Arch. Help me help you get back to Gwen. Those doctors can make you better, get all those memories and feelings back for you.'
Another silence, this one longer. 'I'll think about it. But I still won't tell you where I am.'
'Think, Archie-you want your job back when you're feeling better, how's it going to look if we had to bring you in like a creep?'
'Sergeant Rayborn, I loved my job, but I don't care if I ever get it back. I have to get the man, the shooter aiming that light down on me, the guy hiding in the trees. And I have to go get Gwen.'
'Go get Gwen. What do you mean?'
'I told you I hear her voice. And I guarantee you it's not in my head. It's right here, in the room or wherever I am, and it comes from above me. Not high above me, not like high up in the air, but right there, like she's hovering, say… eight feet up. Eight to twelve fee above my head, and over my left shoulder. Every time she talks she's a little bit farther away. The first time she spoke I felt her breath on my neck. But the last time, which was about an hour ago, it sounded like she was, well, approximately twelve feet up, behind me and to my left.'
'Archie, they shot you in the head. You need medical attention.'
'I don't have time for it right now. When this is over, I'll let them poke and prod all they want. It doesn't hurt at all, you know. Just a lot of itching around the hole. That means it's healing.'
'Come on, Arch. Tell me where you are. You're going to get yourself into worse trouble if you're not careful.'
'I'm going to get my man, Sergeant. Deputy Two Wildcraft always gets his man.'
Archie laughed quietly. She heard a Harley whapping past from Archie's end, then another. She thought of Cook's Corner, the biker hangout in the hills, but so many guys owned Harley-Davidson motorcycles now that Archie could just as well be calling from Irvine or Laguna Beach.
'You tried to be there for Julia, too, didn't you?'
'Julia? How do you know about Julia?'
'Your parents. Then Matson, from up in Willits.'
'Oh, Julia,' he whispered.
She heard the three light syllables of Julia's name, and the tonnage of loss behind it.
'Julia was what made me want to be a cop. That and my forkball going south.'
'I had a nice talk with your mother and father. Lee and Earla Kuerner, too.'
'They're all good people,' he said quietly. 'I'm lucky.'
Rayborn heard exhaustion in his voice. 'Did Julia ever talk to you, Archie, after she was gone? Like Gwen is?'
'No,' Wildcraft said curtly.
'Why not?'
'Because they took her away, Sergeant. Gwen's different. They killed her, but she came right back to where she was. With me.'
'The same guys, do you think, Arch? The same ones that took Julia also killed Gwen?'
'Fuck all of you.'
He hung up. She tried the star-sixty-nine trick, but as usual it didn't work. She waited right there, in the warm living room of the orange grove house, for Wildcraft to call back. What a stupid thing to have said.
Three hours later she woke up. Her neck was sore from the couch and the police scanner was still turned to low.
She checked Tim then sat in the rocker, wondering how Wildcraft must feel with large pieces of his recent past blasted from his mind. Specifically, memories of what had happened on the night that left his wife dead and a bullet lodged too deep in his brain for the surgeons to take out.
Infuriated.
Frustrated.
Confused.
