I slammed on the brakes and hung a U-turn.
'If it's anywhere, it'll be in the suit I wore at my mother's funeral.'
'The Blackberry?'
I nodded. 'It's the only possible thing.'
I replayed the scene in Itta Bena once again. Only this time I had trouble focusing on Vanessa's face. It came to me now as one of those hyperpixelated images you get when you enlarge a digital photo too much.
Excitedly, I described things to Jasmine, slowly struggling to relate every detail as I drove north along Lincoln, making most of the green lights and easing through the reds. I visualized the cracked concrete in the garage of our little stucco beach house in Playa Del Rey a block from the ocean where the music of the surf rode the ocean breezes through the open windows on warm summer evenings. My mind saw the washer and dryer and the kids' bicycles and my workbench and the tools and the stacks of boxes I had packed when I had briefly thought of selling the place after the accident. But mostly I fixed on the plastic bag from the hotel room in Jackson all knotted up around the bloody new suit.
'How could you possibly have hung on to that?'
I shrugged. 'Memories. Why does the Catholic Church hang on to the bones and other relics of saints?'
'Perversity?'
I laughed. 'Okay, that's why I didn't toss it.'
When I pulled the truck into the driveway of the white, 1930s, art deco bungalow with the giant jade plants and the white picket fence guarding the little postage stamp of fescue in front, I knew at once everything was all wrong.
CHAPTER 21
'Porch light's on.' I sat in the truck and tried to decipher the shadows around my house.
'So?' Jasmine asked.
'So it's on a heat and motion sensor.' I killed the engine.
'Maybe we triggered it.'
I shook my head. 'It was on when we were half a block away.'
'A dog?'
Again, I shook my head. 'I adjusted the sensitivity so that doesn't happen. It used to wake us up all the time.'
I yanked the keys from the ignition, shouldered open my door, and got out. 'Wait here.'
I climbed into the truck bed and opened the big metal box bolted to the truck right behind the cab. The box held a few tools, chains for snowy Sierra roads, and a lot of gear for sailing, hiking, and mountain biking. And shooting.
Jasmine got out and made her way to the side of the truck bed, where she watched me pull out a sturdy metal box, locked with a casehardened padlock and secured by a thick security cable to a bracket welded to the truck bed. I unlocked the box and pulled out the Beretta Model 92F 9mm semiautomatic pistol I used for duty as a reserve sheriff's deputy. With another key on my chain, I unlatched the trigger lock, pulled a fifteen-round magazine from the box, slid it into the handle, and worked the slide to chamber a round. I grabbed two more fifteen-round magazines and shoved them in the pockets of my shorts.
'I thought you were going to wait there.' I nodded toward the front seat.
'I never said that.' She gave me that wry smile again.
'Whatever.' I climbed down. 'They might still be here.' I motioned toward the house.
Jasmine gave me a 'So what?' look.
'You might want to wait in the truck.'
She rolled her eyes, then pulled her cell phone off its belt clip and waved it at me. 'Isn't this one of those times when you're supposed to call for backup or something?'
That stopped me. I took a deep breath and held it for a long moment against the tension wringing my guts like a high-C piano string gone sharp. The palms of my hands tingled.
Was I overreacting? There was no sign of movement. I thought about the hours I had already spent with Internal Affairs and the probability that dialing 911 would mean more bureaucratic hassles and paperwork, and the reality that calling the LAPD for help usually meant waiting on hold.
'Well, I think the guys who attacked my boat wouldn't have done it if they'd found what they were looking for here.'
'Maybe,' she said. 'Or not.'
'Well, we can debate it all night or find out.' I turned and made my way up the short walk to the porch and found the front door ajar. I motioned Jasmine to stay back, but she ignored me again. I reached inside the front door, turned on the entryway light, and stepped in.
We made our way to the living room. I went first, following the Beretta, then turned on the overhead lights.
'Oh, hell.'
My home, which I had lovingly saved from the wrecking ball with my own sweat, muscle, and considerable money, had been expertly tossed, drawers emptied, cushions slashed open, fixtures ripped out, heating-duct grills pulled and thrown about. With a gathering sense of dread, and Jasmine right behind, I made my way from room to room. In the bedroom I had once shared with Camilla, the snapshots of her and the children lay scattered on the hardwood floors amid the fragments of glass and remnants of frames.
The devastation hit me hardest in the children's room. Untouched since the accident, the toys lay scattered, broken and shattered open with venality beyond professional thoroughness. I froze when my eye caught sight of a tiny stuffed tiger, my daughter's constant companion and sleep partner. It lay disemboweled on the floor, the stuffing probed and discarded. This ripped my heart like rusty barbed wire.
'Motherfuckers.' I bent over and picked up the tiger. The touch brought memories and tears. Then I stepped through the debris and placed the tiger gently on the lower bunk where my daughter's head used to lie, so perfectly beautiful in her sleep.
I swallowed hard against the tears, and when I turned away, my heart was hard again and filled with the momentum of revenge.
'Come on,' I said.
We headed through the kitchen and made our way toward the garage door, stepping carefully through the mess of broken glass, spilled flour, and broken mustard jars. A couple of feet before we got to the door leading down the two concrete steps to the garage door, we came to the walk-in pantry on the right. I laid my hand on the knob and paused.
'The suit should be in a plastic bag.' I nodded toward the garage. 'Next to the washer and dryer. I never got around to doing anything about it, but I couldn't throw it away'
The image flooded back vividly so I turned from the pantry and went to the garage door opened to reveal a new scene of chaos.
It stank like a stale beer joint. The reason became clear when I turned on the light and smashed on the concrete floor lay the remains of a full case of Lagunitas IPA. Foam still adorned the puddles. I drew a quick mental sketch of the cluttered one-car garage: my tool bench on the wall to the right with nothing disturbed, the old refrigerator-freezer used for beer, wine, and Costco overflow, piles of boxes stacked nearly to the ceiling, mounds of sailing and sporting gear. I spotted the shreds of the plastic bag from the hotel room in Jackson, scattered about the floor amid the articles of wrinkled, bloodstained clothing. In the split second it took me to comprehend this, the door to the walk-in pantry burst open.
'Hey!' Jasmine yelled as the door slammed into her. Then a single gunshot and the voice of a man cursing.
I whirled, Beretta at the ready. Jasmine stumbled sideways as the pantry door swung open again, slammed into my foot, and stopped instantly. The top twisted forward as if someone was shoving it with his shoulder. The upper hinge complained as the screws holding it in the casing began to splinter.
