and twisted oaks, firs and pines, I studied the layout before me. I could clearly see the main road that led into this section of the park. The picnic tables were before me. I counted three of them.
I looked at my watch. Fifty more minutes.
I moved into the rear of my van and fetched three recorders. Each recorder, I knew, could record up to four continuous hours.
Perfect.
I next slid the side door open and waded through some milkweed and sugar brush, and stepped out into the picnic clearing. I crossed the sparse grass and, at the picnic tables, I did my best to hide the recorders in nooks and crossbeams along the underside of the tables, making sure the duct tape didn’t cover the mouthpieces.
I pressed ‘Play’ on each of them.
From here, I could smell the lake, which didn’t smell very clean. Then again, lakes rarely smelled clean. The light rain helped the smell. The rain smelled fresh and invigorating and seemed to fall straight from heaven. Maybe it did.
With the light rain came something else. A scent. A hint of perfume. A soft suggestion of flowers mixed with…what? Citrus? Yes, citrus.
I knew the scent well. In fact, I had smelled it not too long ago at the cemetery, too, although I pretended I hadn’t.
It was my mother’s perfume.
The hair on my neck stood on end and a strong shiver coursed through me. The skin along my forearms rippled in goosebumps. I stood there silently, feeling as if an electric current was moving gently through my body. I didn’t know what was happening, but I liked it.
I stood like that until the feeling went away, and when it did, I saw him driving along the dirt road, his lights out.
Bert Tomlinson.
Chapter Forty-nine
As far as I could tell he was alone.
The park was significantly darker, and the sky between the trees was a deep purple. As far as I could tell, we were alone in the park. That is, alone to the naked eye.
He’s out there, somewhere, I thought.
Bert Tomlinson parked his Cadillac near the benches. The older Tomlinson got out of his car and walked around and ran his hand through his gray hair. He exhaled mightily. He checked his watch often, and once or twice I saw him adjust something under his armpit.
A shoulder holster.
A gun.
He checked his watch again, and I checked the time on my dash. It was almost seven.
Show time.
I threw on my high beams, blasting the open picnic area with light.
Bert spun around, shielding his eyes, and reached for something inside his jacket but thought better of it, and stopped halfway there. Smart move, since he didn’t know how many guns were trained on him.
I stepped out of my van, holding my Smith amp; Wesson out before me, and pushed through the shrubs. “Toss your gun aside, Detective,” I said.
“ I didn’t come here to get into a shoot-out with you, Knighthorse.”
“ Toss the gun,” I said, moving closer to him. I knew my own body was silhouetted in the headlights behind me. But he was brilliantly lit, and he looked incredibly old and weary. Much older than I remembered him looking.
He sighed, reached inside his jacket, and slowly withdrew his own gleaming Smith amp; Wesson. He held it loosely before him with his thumb and forefinger. I jerked my head, and he tossed it aside. It landed with a thud, and mostly disappeared in some leaves, although the shiny barrel reflected some of the headlights.
“ Can you turn off the damned lights, Knighthorse?”
“ No,” I said, and stepped closer to him. “And keep your hands up.”
He kept them up and I stepped over to him, and backhanded him hard across the mouth. He went spinning to the ground. I ordered him to stand again.
As he did so, I said, “That’s for being a shitty cop.”
The backhand had dazed him enough that I was able to quickly pat him down and verify he was weaponless. I then checked out his car. It was empty. I came back and was tempted to backhand him again, but I somehow restrained myself.
Instead, I pointed to one of the picnic benches and said, “Sit.”
He sat. I scanned the woods, or what passed for woods in this part of the country, listening hard. As far as I could tell, we were still alone. It had also begun to rain harder. It angled down through the clearing and nearly directly into my face. Bert Tomlinson hunched forward on the table, leaning on his elbows. He was dressed in a slightly heavier jacket than mine, with a hood. I didn’t believe in hoods. Hoods were for wimps. He was wearing jeans and running sneakers. I wondered if he was planning on doing any running tonight.
Something honked out on the lake. Something honked in return. Soon there was a helluva lot of honking going on. Something was spooking these geese.
“ Where’s your son?” I asked.
“ At home, I presume.”
“ He killed my mother.”
“ I understand you might think that.”
With the headlights shining into the clearing, the scene looked a little like something out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Rain crossed through the lights, slashing like silver daggers. The whole setting looked surreal.
“ He also raped two other women.”
Tomlinson was shaking his head. “No.”
“ And you got him off. Every time.”
“ I think you overestimate the reach of a simple homicide detective.”
Except my father had looked into this. I said, “The assistant DA at the time was an ex-partner of yours. In fact, the two of you had been partners for nearly ten years before an injury forced him to pursue a law degree, a degree that eventually landed him in the district attorney’s office.”
“ You’ve got it wrong, Knighthorse.”
“ So, how many innocent women has your piece of shit son killed, Detective?”
With the glow of the headlights illuminating just one side of his face, the retired homicide investigator looked impossibly old. A living corpse. His hands were clenched into fists, the backs of which were covered with age spots. He was an old man who should be playing with his grandchildren or relaxing poolside on a cruise ship…anything other than sitting in the rain and staring down the barrel of a gun.
“ He’s a good kid,” he said.
I stepped closer to the table, ignoring the rain, ignoring the bright headlights. “You’ve spent your entire life protecting him, haven’t you?”
He hadn’t stopped shaking his head. “He’s a good kid.”
“ Your son is a killer, and as far as I’m concerned, so are you.”
Beyond the surreal light, the geese stopped honking. I heard the lapping of water along the sandy shore. The jostling of boats tied together. The wind in branches, and another sound, too.
Whimpering. Coming from the old man.
“ You’ve bailed your son out of so much trouble, he probably thinks he’s bulletproof. Immune. A god among men. He could take what he wants, when he wants, and dear ol’ dad will always get him off. Always.”
“ No, no. You’re wrong,” he said, and his voice sounded strangled, and I saw that he was weeping now. He
