I rubbed my eyes, yawned and stretched. Almost immediately, my phone rang again.
“I didn’t have much to do last night after you left,” Alicia Rosario said, “so I started reading up on your friend, Hub Walker.” Her tone was all business, tinged with the bitterness of a good woman scorned. “He carried a German Luger pistol in Vietnam.”
“His father fought in World War I. He inherited the pistol from him.”
“The Luger’s not exactly standard U.S. military issue.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Walker, by chance, hasn’t shown you the pistol, has he?”
“What reason would he have had to do that?”
I waited for Rosario to respond. She sneezed.
“Gesundheit.”
“Sorry,” she said. “Must’ve caught a bug from somebody last night.”
I let the slap pass. “Why the interest in Walker’s Luger?”
“One of our forensics people recovered a spent 9-millimeter round last night from the Sheen homicide scene,” Rosario said. “I just got a call from the lab. They think they matched the make and model of the weapon.”
“Was it a Luger?”
“How’d you guess?”
Twenty-five
No county sheriff with career ambitions would ever rush right out and throw handcuffs on a Medal of Honor recipient suspected of homicide without careful tactical planning, especially in a military town like San Diego. You don’t simply cordon off the neighborhood, break out the bullhorn, and demand that the suspect surrender or else. You set about your work quietly and unobtrusively, hoping not to alert the breathless bobbleheads over at Action News, because if things go sour, you’ll never be elected sheriff again. Or anything else.
Detective Rosario’s plan, which her chain of command apparently had approved, was that I go in first. She was certain that Hub Walker trusted me by virtue of having saved his granddaughter from drowning, and by my having guided him to a safe landing on that fogged-in approach to the Rancho Bonita airport, when his airplane was running low on fuel. I could talk some sense into him, Rosario reasoned, and persuade him to surrender peaceably. He would have fifteen minutes to ponder his options before the SWAT team took over and took him by force. First, though, I’d have to sign a waiver absolving San Diego County of any liability in the event rounds start flying and I caught one or more of them.
Arresting a legitimate war hero for murder, discreetly or otherwise, had national news story written all over it. As soon as the story leaked, the military bashers would use it to perpetuate the myth that every veteran who sees combat comes home messed up in the head. Some do, but certainly not all. How much of Walker’s alleged bloodlust, if any, was influenced by his exploits in Vietnam forty years earlier was unknown. I’d once idolized the man. Now, I didn’t know what to think of him. The knot in my stomach was the size of a grenade.
“You do have health insurance, correct?” Rosario asked me as I waited in the backseat of her unmarked unit, two sun-splashed blocks up the street from Hub Walker’s house.
“I’m covered by the VA.”
“Good luck with that,” Rosario’s partner, Lawless, said derisively from the front passenger seat. He yawned, heavy-lidded, like he’d been up all night.
I asked if his wife had given birth yet.
“None of your business, Logan.”
“And on that cheery note…”
I opened the door and stepped out.
“Just be careful,” Rosario said like she meant it.
“Always.”
Two black Chevy Suburbans with tinted windows hunkered on the opposite side of the street, facing in the direction of Hub and Crissy’s house — the SWAT team ready to roll in should my efforts to diffuse the situation prove unsuccessful.
Just don’t leave me hanging, boys.
The well-heeled residents of La Jolla tended their bug-resistant roses. They walked their little yapper dogs. They pulled out of their driveways in their fine, impeccably detailed Beemers and Benzes. No one said a word to me or looked my way as I strolled toward the home of their celebrated neighbor, a suspected murderer — no one except Major Kilgore, who watched me through parted blinds as I passed by his house, then crossed the street. I flashed him a peace sign. Kilgore just stared.
The brass knocker on the Walkers’ towering front door echoed like gunshots.
“Who is it?” Crissy called from inside after a few seconds.
“Logan.”
Locks were unlocked. The door cracked open. Crissy smiled at me as though relieved. She was wrapped in a Japanese print kimono, red, her hair up.
“You scared me. With all this stuff going on around here, you can’t be too careful, you know?”
I nodded.
Hub was at the airport, she said, doing some work on his airplane in preparation for a flight they were planning to take to Mexico the next day. She expected him back soon. Did I want to come in and wait?
I said I did.
Crissy made sure to double-latch the door behind me. “Coffee? I just made some.”
“Sure.”
I followed her into the kitchen, the scent of lilac soap wafted behind her.
“So, Mexico, huh?”
“Hub just wants to get away for a few days. Says things around here are getting too stressful. He’s right. Also, there’s a pediatric ophthalmologist I found online in La Paz. American guy. Very innovative. He’s supposed to know everything there is to know about Ryder’s eye condition. We’re taking her down there to see him.”
Mexico. Where investigators would have a tougher time finding Walker.
“Where’s Ryder?”
“Still sleeping,” Crissy said.
“Been a awhile since I was able to sleep this late.”
“You and me both. I can’t seem to sleep at all anymore.”
She poured me a cup.
“I was thinking over what you said about Ray,” Crissy said. “I don’t know if this matters but, for what it’s worth, I do know he’s extremely jealous of Greg Castle. Ray’s convinced he’s the real brains at Castle Robotics. Thinks he never gets any credit. If you ask me, he’d stop at nothing to get his hands on that company.”
“How do you know all that?”
“How do I know?” Crissy fumbled for a credible answer. “Ask anybody who knows him. They’ll tell you. Ray’s got a little bit of a nasty streak in him.”
I sipped my coffee.
“So, what was it you wanted to see Hub about?” Crissy said. “He told me he already paid you what we owed you.”
“I’d prefer to discuss that with him directly.”
“Sure, whatever.” She pulled the kimono tighter around her. “Well, like I said, he should be home any minute now, and I really do need to go get ready. I’ve got another big meeting at Animal Planet up in LA this afternoon.”
“Cat Communicator?”
“They’re making noises like they’re actually going to pick up the series,” Crissy said as she padded down a long hall. “Can you believe it?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
I waited until I heard her bedroom door close, then called Rosario to tell her that Walker wasn’t home, but would be back soon. She put me on hold for nearly a minute.
“Change of plans,” she said when she came back on the line. “SWAT’ll move into position and take him down when he pulls into his driveway.”
“Works for me. Then I’m out of here.”
“Just do me a favor and stay put until we’ve got him, Logan. If he’s due back any minute and decides to resist, I don’t want you walking outside into the middle of a firefight.”