Archie still hadn't moved the gun barrel.
"You're trespassing," he said.
"I wanted you to tell me what happened."
Archie's temper spiked. It was like a rocket being launched. He couldn't account for it, really, other than that he'd been shot and his wife murdered and he'd been poked, prodded, needled, scanned, questioned, doubted, threatened, treated like a child and now trespassed on by a reporter.
Still holding the gun under Brice's chin, Archie ordered him off his property. He could hear the ice-cold anger in his voice and he knew it for what it was. "I'm absolutely getting off your property, Deputy. I'm going to back up now, and just go away. Okay? So don't shoot, and I'll be gone and I won't come back unless you invite me."
Brice lowered his trembling foot, then backed up one step, then another. Archie kept the gun pointed at his chest.
"Deputy Wildcraft, what happened that night?"
"Get away before I lose my patience."
Brice kept moving back, trying to keep eye contact with Archie and not trip.
"Did you see who killed your wife?"
"Get out."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'll kill them myself."
As Archie spoke, Brice veered off the walkway and backed into an orange tree. He flinched, swung back his hands for balance, almost dropping the camera. He finally steadied himself and re-aimed at Archie.
Archie smiled.
"Did you shoot her and yourself, sir?"
"Go to hell, you little shit."
Brice was halfway through the wildflowers now, backpedaling faster. When he thought he was out of shotgun range he whipped around, tucked the camera under his arm like a football, sprinted down the hill and jumped over the fence in one big leap.
Archie watched him scramble into a little silver four-door and drive away
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The walk-through with Wildcraft was a bust. Rayborn took careful notes and Zamorra made sure the tape recorder was always within pick-up distance of their subject, but Archie offered almost no new information. He was vague. He was forgetful. He was emotional, then oddly flat, then emotional again. To Merci, it seemed like the deputy was trying to weigh anchor through molasses.
As they walked the house she noticed that Archie had done some light housework. He had cleaned up the bathroom, taken away the old towels and opened two windows. He had also stacked the birthday; presents more neatly in the living room, pushing them up against one wall. He had leaned a twelve-gauge riot gun in the corner of the entryway a few feet from the front door. He had placed his medicine bottles on the kitchen counter by the coffeemaker, spread out in a neat line of four.
The bed was unmade, though, and the bedroom had grown warm and stuffy. Rayborn caught the scent of something musky and sexual and it embarrassed her.
Archie was sweating visibly.
"Who took care of the finances, bills, money stuff?" Merci asked
"Gwen. Ever since we were married. In the music room, there's a desk and file cabinets. It's all there."
"Tell us about OrganiVen."
Wildcraft sat on the bed. He looked around the room like he was new there. Merci could see it in his posture, in the earnest, uplifted face, the inquisitive eyes. Like he was discovering new things every second. Maybe he is, she thought. Eyes like Tim's.
"It was a company that was new. We invested some money, but I'm not sure how much. It was called that because they made a cancer treatment from snake venom. We got to see slides and pictures of what it did to tumors and it was amazing. So, then the company got bought up by a bigger company and we made a lot of money by selling our shares."
He looked at her, raised his eyebrows unenthusiastically, then looked away.
"How did you find out about it?"
"I'm not sure. I believe we worked with Priscilla's husband, Charlie Brock. He works for a big stockbroker, but I can't think of the name."
"Ritter-Dunne-Davis."
Archie smiled and his eyes sparkled. "Yeah. You should have seen that stuff, eating those tumors. It would kill the cancer, right while you watched. On a camera, I mean, a video."
"You and Gwen put almost everything you had into that company. Didn't you?"
"I think so. I don't remember particulars. Or maybe I never knew them, because Gwen did all the finances."
"I'd like to see those financial things," said Zamorra. "Take some with me to look over closely."
"You're welcome to them. I'm sorry I couldn't help more. I feel sleepy and thick. Kind of dumb. Maybe the swelling started up again."
"Let's get you back to the medical center, then," said Merci.
"I'm thinking about that. But I want some more time here. I look at her pictures and I see her things. And I smell her. And it feels like a light is about to go on. Like I'm about to bring something up out of black water."
"We can't post those deputies outside forever, Archie," said Zamorra.
"I know."
"You'd be helping us if you went back to UCI," he said. "Yourself too."
"I need to do a few things here. Make a few calls. Look at some pictures. Try to… try to just remember."
Zamorra left the room with a hard look at Archie.
Wildcraft was still sitting on the bed. He touched the sheet as i for the first time, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and fingers. When he looked at Merci, his hand stopped moving.
"You going to charge me with it?"
"If you did it, I will."
"Then you don't believe me."
"We're still investigating."
"I can see why you suspect me. With all the evidence you told me about." He smiled. The light caught his eyes and filled them with something innocent and childlike and sad. "I feel guilty."
Rayborn's antenna snapped upright at one of her favorite words "Why, Archie? Tell me what you did to feel guilty."
At first he looked angry, then offended, then just defeated. "I let it happen. I didn't protect her."
"They call that survivor's guilt."
"Do they?"
She studied his guileless eyes, trying to see behind them, into his; mind. Nothing like this had ever happened to Rayborn, and it unnerved her. She'd never chatted with a suspect about whether or not she was going to arrest him, except to disarm. Or talked about the evidence except either to intimidate or mislead. Or stood in a suspect's bedroom and smelled his tangled sheets and wondered if this was the last place he'd had sex with his wife, or if it was in their car, pulled off of Coast Highway, stars in her hair.
All of that was bad enough. But what made it worse was this was the only time she'd ever looked at a suspect and thought he was beautiful. Something to do with those dimples and the nice baseball muscles? Maybe. Something to do with him defending her in a bar fight? Okay. And something to do with the bullet in his head, too and all of the sad mystery it signified? Yes. But mostly the fact-the apparent fact-that this guy had loved his wife with passion. That was what made Wildcraft seem so genuinely, naturally, uncomplicatedly beautiful.
Christ, she thought: get a grip.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Nothing. Why?"
"Your expression. I don't know."
"No, you don't." Then, anything to break the hold of this moment. "Why isn't your gardener here today?"
"He must not work here on Mondays."
"Describe him."
"Dark skin and dark hair. I think he's Mexican but I'm not sure."
"How tall?"
"Short and heavy. Maybe five-eight, two hundred. Why?"
"I was wondering who left size-sixteen shoe prints under your tree out there."
"I don't know."
Wildcraft turned to look at the pillows. He leaned over, picked something off one of them, then held it out to her. She could see the hair: four inches, dark, a gentle bend in it.