thought about but never seen. Zamorra had not allowed her to throw away her badge.
'These deputies who've come,' she said, 'I respect them for showing.'
Merci had never seen admin so quiet on such a hot department issue as the Wildcraft case. There had been no official guidance, meetings or memos, none of the unofficial 'policy' that often leaked from behind the closed doors of the sheriff's office. Those who thought Archie was innocent were staying low, and the ones who thought was guilty were staying even lower. Lots of I-told-you-sos waiting be spoken, Merci thought. Lots of bets covered.
She watched a couple of young deputies and their wives or girlfriends stepping out of a van. The driver waited until they were out then locked the vehicle with a chirp. He looked at one of the dark windows and ran his fingertips along the hair behind his ear.
Maybe it was Wildcraft's own fault, she thought: he had built the wall around himself, he had brandished his weapon at Brice, he had the temper and the pretty wife and had stubbed his toe on more money than the guys he worked with would ever see. Maybe if Archie had been a little more open, a little more forthcoming, then people could rally behind him now, take up his cause. She had long suspected that being open and forthcoming were often methods for self-advancement rather than signs of good character, but what did this matter?
More opinions, she thought. More loud, useless opinions.
Rayborn, too young for wisdom but old enough to become tired of herself, sighed and shook her head slowly and stared out through the heat as the door of the chapel swung closed.
'So you get a deputy shot in the head,' she said. 'And his wife takes two in her own bathroom. He can't go to his wife's funeral because he thinks we'll put him in the hospital or under arrest or both. He's out trying to catch the creeps himself because he doesn't think we are. That isn't right.'
After the memorial service the mourners drove to the grave site. The cortege moved slowly through the cemetery and Merci stayed far behind so as not to annoy the Wildcraft and Kuerner families any more than she had to. She wanted to march over there to the hole in the ground and tell them she was sorry about Gwen, that she was really pulling for Archie every way she could, really wanted to button down this case and get a little justice done for their girl. But instead she parked by the rounded curb and endured a long hostile stare from Natalie Wildcraft as she walked from her Mercedes to the grave.
From the car Merci could see the dark mourners and the green hillock and a pile of red earth covered by a blue tarp. There were two big black boxes that looked like loudspeakers-far too much power, she thought, for the meager audience. The casket was gunmetal gray with gold accents. She flashed on Gwen in her bathroom-the robe and her blood and the cell phone in the sink, and thought: what a way to go to the satin. Twenty-six years old.
She was too far away to hear what the preacher was saying. Merci caught the earnest baritone coming across the grass and asphalt to her and it seemed like that sound must always be here, part of nature, like the breeze. Why not use the speakers?
At eleven fifty-seven Merci saw the helicopter waver into view and she wondered if Archie had friends with the air patrol. Her second thought was network news. The bird squatted in the blue sky and lowered upon the graveyard, tail swinging around like a cat's as it came closer to the ground.
By then she saw it wasn't a Sheriff's Department or a news chopper, at least it wasn't marked that way. She wrote down the numbers on the tail.
It leveled off a couple of hundred feet above the grave and she could see hair and black clothes rippling and jumping in the rotor wind, and hear the bone-tickling whump whump whump of the blades. Down it came, another fifty feet. The dirt swirled up from the edges of the tarp and the tarp jittered against the mound.
Then the oddest thing: Natalie Wildcraft beside the preacher, holding him by the arm with one hand and raising her other one high, waving it back and forth as she tried to shout above the roar to the mourners.
Merci could see the guy in the chopper, not the pilot but the man behind him in a baseball cap, bracing himself behind the open door of the passenger bay. He threw something from what looked like a bucket. A faint pink burst spotted the air, then exploded in the turbulent wind from the rotors.
Two of the deputies drew down on one knee, aiming up with the sidearms.
Some of the mourners covered their heads and ran in one direction others running the opposite way.
Rayborn scrambled out of the car, popped the thumb brake and started to draw her H amp;K, but it didn't make sense so she left her hand on the grip and watched. Another burst from above, and another, looked like the man was airing out a bedsheet next, and the air filled again with a pale storm of color that blew apart like a pastel firewood when it hit the chopper's wind.
Natalie Wildcraft stood with both hands raised to the machine.
Merci understood. The mourners who hadn't run were waving and cheering and the helicopter dipped a little lower. More buckets of color dumped into the sky then, as the first bits settled down over the gravesite and the mourners, and the deputies stood with their sidearms now literally at their sides.
Rayborn was trotting toward the chopper, looking up as Wildcraft threw another bucket into the air. She watched the confetti wobble down, and when she was close enough to catch some she got flower blossoms and rose petals and bits of curled gold ribbon. Daisies and marigolds and periwinkles and zinnias and gazanias and geraniums and a lot she couldn't ID.
Natalie went over to the speakers, bent for a moment, then music burst forth. Merci recognized Gwen Wildcraft's soft clear voice through the mechanical percussion of the blades. Archie threw out another bucket of blossoms, then another, then what looked like another bedsheet full. Where had he gotten them all?
I've got to get through to you
I've got to get next to you
Zamorra stood beside her, a red rose petal stuck in his black hair and a look of disapproving awe on his face.
'Sonofabitch,' he said quietly.
'Son of a something,' said Rayborn.
She watched the sky rain flowers, jumped forward to catch a few more, but it was harder than it looked, the way the petals zigzagged in the wind and the blossoms bobbed like parachutes.
Tiny Natalie Wildcraft faced her from the grave site, her fists clenched and raised over her head like a new flyweight champion, her mouth open in exultation or challenge-no way to tell over the hugely amplified post-mortem voice of Gwen Wildcraft or the thump of the helo-but what Merci got out of it was that Natalie was offering Archie's attendance as the latest proof of his love and devotion and innocence.
A white-and-orange CNB van leaned around a curve behind them and skidded to a stop. Out spilled a shooter and Michelle Howland.
'We're in the air for this,' said Zamorra. 'Abelera wanted a helo on call in case the news people used choppers.'
'Call them.'
But she made no move to call them herself. The chopper was ready banking away and lifting fast. In a windblown flourish the last; of the flowers showered down on the mourners while Archie shot toward the straight- up noonday sun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
They stood on the porch of Sonny Charles's last known address, a neat townhouse in Costa Mesa, over by the fairgrounds.
'I've never heard of Sonny Charles,' said Ruth Greider. She was red-haired, mid-fifties, stocky. 'I bought this home from a very nice couple.'
Merci explained in humorless terms how important it was to find a man who had once lived here. She implied that lives might be at stake. 'Were the couple eastern Europeans?' she asked.
'Russian. The Selatsins-Jerry and Mary.'
One hour later they sat in the cool living room of the Huntington Beach home of Mr. and Mrs. Vsevolod 'Jerry' Selatsin, who admitted to buying the Costa Mesa town house from Sonny Charles in March of 1999 and selling it to Ruth Greider eight months ago.
