I didn’t see him anywhere, but if he was wandering around with a gun I didn’t want to surprise him, so I called “Rich?” softly. “You out here somewhere?”
I heard something like a moan, and quickened my pace, forgetting about the noise I was making crashing through the underbrush. Jesus, had Rich shot some surfer who was trying to get on to the property? “I’m coming,” I called. “Hold on. Where are you?”
I followed the sounds of the moans, and when I burst through the underbrush up at the highway’s edge, I was startled to come upon Rich Sarkissian, lying on the ground next to the open gate. He was holding onto his mid-section, and when he pulled a hand away to wave at me, it was covered in blood.
“Jesus, Rich, what happened?” I asked, dropping to the ground. I pulled off my shirt and started ripping it into strips.
“That asshole,” he gasped.
“What asshole?” I asked, as I pulled away his own shirt to expose the wound. “Who shot you? Some surfer?”
He nodded. “Fuh-fuh,” he said. I was busy stuffing strips into the open wound in his chest.
“I know, a real fucker,” I said.
He shook his head violently. “Fuh-fuh.”
“Is that someone’s name? You know the guy?”
He nodded weakly. I pulled my cell phone off my belt and turned it back on again, waiting impatiently for it to catch a signal. As soon as it did, I dialed 911. “I need an ambulance. A man’s been shot.” I gave them Bishop’s address. “He’s already lost a lot of blood. You need to be here now.”
The dispatcher wanted me to stay on the line, but I had to see to Rich. “Fun…” he said.
“No, I know it’s not much fun getting shot, Rich, but you’ve been through this before, buddy. You’re tough. You already know that. Looks like I got the bleeding stopped, so you just have to hold on until the ambulance gets here.”
“Fonseca,” he said, though his voice was hoarse and barely above a whisper.
“Fonseca? Dario Fonseca? Dario shot you?”
He nodded weakly. “Where did he go? Up to the house?”
“Go.” He pushed at me, very lightly. “Bishop.”
I positioned Rich at the gate to the property, where anybody coming down the highway could see him easily. “You hold out, buddy,” I said. “I called an ambulance for you, and they’re going to be here any minute. I’m going up to the house, and as soon as I see what’s what, I’m coming back down here.”
He nodded again. He looked like he was about to pass out, but there was nothing more I could do for him. If I was right, Dario had killed five people already, shot at me and then just shot Rich. And he was up at the house with Terri, Ari and Bishop, and he had a gun.
Oh, and Bishop had an arsenal himself, which could all be at Dario’s disposal.
Before I started making my way back up to the house, I pulled my cell phone out again and called Sampson’s office phone. The call went immediately to voice mail.
“Shit,” I said. Frantically I paged through my call log, finding his cell number and dialing it.
He picked up on the second ring.
“I need backup ASAP, and you’re the only one who can get it for me fast.” I explained, as quickly as I could, that the suspect he and I had discussed was armed and at Bishop’s address, and that one man had already been shot.
“Right,” he said, and hung up.
Thinking that Dario was already at the house, I didn’t bother staying under cover as I hurried up the twisting driveway to the house, and I made it to my truck without seeing anything or anyone except a lean brown horse wandering the open land near the highway and grazing.
Dario’s truck had pulled up next to mine. My old hand-me-down pickup still bore faint traces of the logo of my father’s business. Dario had seen me in it at Cane Landing, at Sugar’s and at The Next Wave. So he knew I was somewhere around-if he was thinking rationally.
You could see the parking area from the house, so I dropped to my knees and crawled to my truck, using Dario’s as cover. I opened the passenger door as slowly and carefully as I could, and unlocked the glove compartment. The 9 millimeter Glock my father had given me was nestled in the back, wrapped in a chamois. I pulled it out and slid it into my pocket. I had a spare pair of handcuffs in there, too, and I clipped them to my belt.
I didn’t bother to close the door, but slunk around the side of the truck and then the side of the house. I heard voices raised as I came to the back, and dropped flat to the ground. From the cover of some pili grass, I could see up into the tall windows.
Ari, Terri and Bishop were clustered together, at one end of the room. Across from them stood Dario Fonseca, with a pistol trained at them. As I crept closer, I could hear him yelling at them, “Where the fuck is my wife?”
That was so different from what I expected to hear that I had to pull back and regroup. Terri had called Bishop the night before to tell him there might be a problem with the deal. He had obviously called Ari. Ari must have spoken to Dario, who was already in deep financial trouble. He couldn’t afford to lose his investment in Bishop’s Bluff. He might have come to force Terri to agree to the deal.
But his wife? What could she have to do with anything?
I closed my eyes and racked my brain for anything I could remember about her. Her name was America. She was younger than Dario, and had grown up near him on the Big Island, the daughter of another paniolo.
Suddenly connections started zinging through my brain. That night at Sugar’s, Dario had said he was a rootin’ tootin’ cowboy, able to ride, rope and shoot. Did that mean America could, too? Was that America’s horse I’d passed before? Was she somewhere at the house? What could she have to do with anything? Why would Dario be looking for her?
I lay there flat on the ground, surrounded by the pili grass, and out of the corner of my eye I caught a tiny movement to my left, just the waving of another stand of pili grass. I shifted ever so slightly, moving my head so I had a clearer view.
I saw the outline of a woman’s body, and black hair in a ponytail that hung over one shoulder. While I could not see her face, something about her was familiar. Could that be Dario’s wife? I thought it was possible that I had seen her at The Next Wave, though we had never been introduced. Then she shifted again, and I saw the outline of her face, and recognized her. I had seen her at the outrigger practices and kissing Melody at Kahuna’s; she had been called Mary.
It was an easy leap; if my name was America I’d want a nickname, too. Mary lay there, her eyes fixed on the tall windows of Bishop Clark’s house. The air around us was so still and quiet, I could hear the waves down at the beach, and an occasional gentle whinny from her horse, out toward the road. Where was the ambulance, I wondered. I hoped Rich Sarkissian was holding on.
Mary shifted and raised the barrel of a rifle. Was it the same M4 carbine that had shot Mike Pratt and Lucie Zamora? I had to reevaluate everything I had been thinking about the case-but I couldn’t do that until the people in the house were safe.
I did have to think about the situation, I realized. If Mary had shot Mike Pratt off his board at Pipeline, that meant she was an expert marksmen, and that meant I was in big danger if she realized I was watching her. If I could see her, camouflaged as she was in the pili grass, she could see me, too.
Up at the house, I saw Ari lunge for Dario through the big windows. I held my breath as they wrestled for the gun. I wanted so much to rush up there and save them all, but couldn’t do anything as long as America Fonseca had her rifle trained on the windows.
Finally, I heard a siren. Was it an ambulance? The police? There was no way I could get in contact, warn anyone. As soon as I tried to use my cell phone, Mary would hear me, and that rifle would swing my way.