Decker said, “Is Paco’s last name Albanez or Alvarez?”
“Albanez,” Martin said.
“Edna told my guys that the family name in this area was Alvarez.”
T said, “That’s Edna being Edna.”
Martin licked his cracked lips. “Ana’s my woman. We’re working on getting married. INS has been a bitch.”
The women came back, telling T that the car was ready.
Martin said, “I told you I’m not going nowhere.”
“Not up to me no more, Rondo.” T cocked a thumb in Decker’s direction. “He’s in charge. You might as well cooperate.”
“Who’s gonna protect me?”
Decker said, “I’ll be at your side until we can organize twenty-four-hour police protection.”
“Where are you gonna find the policemen? This ain’t the big city.”
“I’ll borrow from my staff if I have to. How many times did you get shot, Rondo?”
“Don’t know…more than once. I still got lead inside me.”
T said, “We’re going to put you in the Suburban now. Can you walk?”
“Not without help.”
“That’s not a problem,” Decker said.
There were four strong men, but Martin was a big guy and getting him upright from the floor without hurting him was a strain on the back. Slowly, they guided him until he was on his feet.
Rondo’s breathing was labored and his body was ripe with infection. Had they not interfered, Martin would have died in a matter of weeks, maybe days.
Inch by inch they led him to the Suburban. When they got to the back, four men-Decker, Brubeck, T, and Paco-each to a limb, lifted him up. He screamed out in pain as they secured him in the back of the van. When the task was finally finished, Ana climbed into the back of the vehicle.
“You can’t go, baby,” Martin told her. “You’ll get arrested and deported.”
She answered him in Spanish that she was not leaving him. The two of them bickered for a minute, and then Martin said, “Stubborn girl. Let’s just get this over with.”
Before Decker closed the hatch, he said, “Do you know who set you up?”
“No. Only remember Joe.”
“Did he give the orders?”
Brubeck bit back agony. “I think someone else.”
“Who?” Decker asked. “Someone familiar?”
“Possibly.”
“One of the Kaffeys’ sons, maybe?”
“Can’t say nothing, for sure.”
But Decker detected some hesitation. The man was a thread away from dying. He’d press the issue once he was hospitalized and, more important, stabilized. He closed the hatch to the Suburban. To T, he said, “Want me to sit shotgun or follow you in our rental?”
“You sit shotgun, for real this time,” T said. “Who knows who’s out there.”
HOT AND SMOGGY, the afternoon didn’t lend itself to gardening. Even the greenhouse seemed weighted down by the heavy air. Rina decided to call it quits. She had planned to be out for a couple of hours, but it was just too muggy. Had she kept to her original schedule, she wouldn’t have heard the frantic knocking at the door.
She looked out the peephole and couldn’t believe her eyes. She checked the newly installed video camera, and his face was very clear. She probably should have ignored it, but he seemed to be panicked. “What do you want?”
“Your husband isn’t in his office. Is he here?”
“No.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“He’s not here. Go back to the station house and someone will contact him for you.”
“They think I’m crazy.”
So do I, Rina thought.
“Please! I need his help!”
Again, Rina opened the door but kept the chain on. “What is it?”
“I’m pretty sure someone is following me. I want to know what I should do.” He thought a moment.
“I’m sorry. I must seem like a whack job, but I’m not.”
Within a moment, Rina made a snap judgment. It wouldn’t have been what Peter wanted, but he wasn’t here right now. She opened the door. “Come in.”
He was breathing hard and sweating profusely. Gone was the Tom Cruise smile, replaced by tension and anxiety. He wore a lightweight tan jacket over a white shirt and brown slacks. He walked haltingly across the threshold, and Rina closed the door. “Thank you…thank you so much.”
“Would you like a glass of water?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll be right back.” When she returned, he hadn’t moved from the front door. “How about if we sit down?”
“Okay.”
His expression was hard to read without the eyes, but he still seemed tense. When she touched his arm, he jumped, knocking the glass in her hands, water and ice sloshing over the lip. “I’m trying to guide you to a chair.”
“Yeah…sure. Sorry.”
Rina took him to the settee and he sat down stiffly. She put the glass in his hand; he gripped it and brought it to his mouth. “Why do you think you’re being followed?”
“I keep hearing footsteps in back of me…the same footsteps.”
“You can differentiate between footsteps?”
He nodded and took off his sunglasses to wipe his face. Glass eyes rolled in their sockets-pale blue with no light behind them. Like marbles spinning across the floor. He put his glasses back on. “I was out with my girlfriend. We heard popping noises. She said it sounded like a car backfiring, but I know what gunshot sounds like.”
“Did it hit the car?”
“No, thank goodness.”
“Were you driving through a rough area?”
“We were at the downtown interchange.”
“Freeway snipings aren’t unheard of. Did you contact the police?”
“I can’t see anything, the car wasn’t damaged, and Dana thought it was a car backfiring.” He was agitated. “Everyone in your husband’s department thinks I’m crazy except maybe him. I need to talk to him.”
“He’s not available, but I’ll call him and leave a message.”
“When will he be available?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Harriman.”
“Brett. I’m so sorry to barge in on you, but I know when something’s wrong, Mrs. Decker. I can hear it. More than that, I can smell it! It’s the same smell! Someone is stalking me!”
“Is your girlfriend waiting outside?”
“No, I took a cab. She already thinks I’m going off the deep end.”
She ain’t the only one.
Harriman said, “I don’t know what to do. That’s why I came here.”
“If someone is really stalking you, you shouldn’t be here. You should be at the station house.”
He sighed. “They’re not going to believe me.”
“That may be, but they won’t throw you out on the street.” She considered her options. “How about if I take you there? They’ll give me some credence.”
“That’s very kind of you…I’m so sorry to drag you into this. I just didn’t know where to turn. When they told me over the phone that Lieutenant Decker wasn’t in, I figured he was at home.”
“He’s not here.”
“I realize that. I’m sure I seem crazy to you.”
“Fear can do that.”
“I’ve been translating in the courtrooms for years. I’ve been used in some very bad murder cases. But no one has ever bothered me before.”
“Let me get my keys.”
“Yes. Where should I put the glass?”
“I’ll take it.” She went back into the kitchen and returned with her keys. She was about to guide him to the door, but then her eyes rested on the video monitor. The front porch was blank, but there was a strange car across the street. The white sedan appeared with a sizable dent on the rear passenger door. It could be another relative for the elderly woman who lived down the street, but Harriman’s paranoia was infectious. She couldn’t make out the license plate and something told her not to go outside.
Harriman said, “I caught a whiff of something that wasn’t there a second ago. Like tension or fear. What’s going on?”
“Maybe I’m nervous to be alone in a car with you.”