We hadn’t waited for Jones to join us, but had driven away, seeking somewhere far from the reservoir to dump the sand-coloured car. I’d already hauled the two men from it and laid them with the others outside the lodge, as well as the man I’d killed on the path. To all intents and purposes it would look like a shoot-out had taken down everyone around and in the lodge. It was better that Jones covered his own tracks and wasn’t seen with us. He would be resourceful enough to find his way back to the city having destroyed any trace that he’d been at the old lodge, we concluded.
We found a minor lake a couple of miles distant, and after stripping all identifiers from the car Rink sent it into the deep water where we watched it sink without trace just as the sun broke over the eastern peaks. I had lugged the plastic sack along with me, and inside it was the rope that had bound Yukiko’s wrists, and the hessian sack that had blindfolded her. In the bag we also placed our guns and Rink’s KA-BAR, and my blood-stained rag of a shirt. I loaded it with rocks, then hurled it far out into the depths of the lake. Afterwards we walked back to the motel at Chabot Lake, Rink carrying his mom in his arms the entire way.
Velasquez was sleeping when we arrived, but our buddy, McTeer, was fully alert and he met us at the door with his pistol drawn.
‘There’s no need for that any more,’ Rink told him. ‘Markus is finished.’
Rink took Yukiko inside and sat her down on a comfortable couch.
‘How are you doing, Mom?’
‘I’m fine, Jared,’ she said. ‘Please stop fussing.’
I hadn’t realised that Parnell and Faulks were up and about until I heard their collective whoop of joy as McTeer relayed them the news. The two old men came towards us from the depths of the lodge, their faces alive with a thousand questions. When they saw my semi-naked state, the small cuts all over me, they came to a halt, their mouths open in shock. I held a palm up to them. ‘Remember what I told you back at the cemetery that time? Best you don’t ask anything, then you can’t slip up and say something you might later regret.’
‘Just tell me it’s true. I’ll be happy with that.’ Faulks still appeared jittery but this time it was with excitement.
‘It’s over with. You can go home now. How’s about you gather your things together while me and Rink get cleaned up.’
Velasquez appeared from a back room. His dark hair was sleep-mussed, standing up like a cockerel’s crest at one side. His gaze seemed clear enough though, and he held his pistol in a firm grip. When he saw who was causing the fuss he relaxed. ‘Does this mean I get to go home too?’
‘First flight out,’ Rink promised, including McTeer in his glance. ‘I need you both back at the office and back to work. I don’t have money to burn, you know.’
Within hours both our vows played out. Rink and I took turns to shower — me tending to my minor wounds — then to dress in spare clothing, before organising taxicabs to take the old men home and our colleagues to the airport. We couldn’t leave San Francisco just yet. Not before Rink made sure his mom was OK. It would be difficult for her, now that Andrew wasn’t with her, but she had proven a resilient old bird and I trusted she’d be fine after a few days’ rest. She still had her friends close by, and I guessed that Parnell and Faulks would always prove sympathetic ears if she needed to talk with anyone about what had happened. Yukiko smelled of lighter fluid that Markus had sprayed her with, but she did not want to shower here. She wanted to go home. She cried when she recalled her home was no longer there.
I accompanied the old guys back to Hayes Tower. The police had been and gone from Parnell’s apartment, and it seemed like his landlord had seen to the replacement of the locks after Sean Chaney’s men had burst their way inside. Parnell checked around the apartment, and seemed pleased that it had not been totally wrecked. Who’d have guessed that two big men had been beaten up in his living room? The only sign of conflict was in the way the settee had been pushed against one wall, from when Rink had knocked his opponent unconscious and the big guy had flopped down on it. He offered me a seat, but I declined.
‘I can’t thank you enough, Joe,’ he said, extending his hand.
‘You might want to think about that next time you join a lynching party,’ I said, tempering my delivery with a grandiose wink that brought a faltering smile to Parnell’s face.
‘We know now that what we did was wrong,’ Faulks said.
‘No. Charles Peterson deserved everything he got,’ I said. ‘So did his son. Best that you forget all about the both of them now. The police might question you yet. Don’t admit to anything, OK.’
I shook hands with both old men, before leaving and hailing another cab to take me back to Chabot Lake. Enough time had passed for Rink and Yukiko to talk. That’s why I’d chosen to go with Parnell and Faulks: I didn’t want either Rink or Yukiko to hold back on their emotions while there was an observer nearby. That was their way. Hopefully by the time I got back, they’d have come up with some kind of plan for the future. Knowing Rink, he’d want his mom to come back to Florida with him. Knowing Yukiko, she’d refuse. I guessed that Andrew had left her well cared for in his will, and the insurance would pay out on her home. She’d be set up again in no time.
When I arrived back at the motel, Yukiko was sleeping in one of the rooms vacated earlier by the men.
Rink was watching TV with the sound turned down low.
‘Something you gotta see, brother,’ he said. There was a tone to his voice I had not expected.
‘What is it?’
He didn’t reply, just indicated the TV screen.
It was tuned to a local channel.
It showed a news crew at a crime scene, reporting live as firemen bustled about behind them.
I didn’t immediately recognise the abandoned meeting house in its current state. Not now it was barely a heap of smouldering embers. The fire crew were still dampening it down, but already investigators were poking around in the steaming wreckage.
More than the chattering reporter’s words, the tickertape banner playing across the bottom of the screen told me everything.
Murder suspect Markus Colby a.k.a. Charles Peterson had fled from police after fatally shooting one detective and wounding another, where he’d then come into conflict with local underworld figures at their remote hideaway on the shores of Upper San Leandro Reservoir. The police had no idea as yet why a furious gun battle had broken out during which Colby had slain a number of men, before being killed in a shoot-out with Sean Chaney. At some point a lamp had been broken and ignited some spilled accelerant and had burned down the lodge house. They were questions the chief investigator hoped to answer following further investigation.
The reporter then approached a large, fair-haired homicide detective overseeing the proceedings and asked his opinion. The man looked tired and drawn, a little ruffled by a long night of extraordinary occurrences, but he still mustered a few words: ‘No one knows what was in Markus Colby’s mind that would drive him to do this. But I will say that it matches his modus operandi. During previous attacks he has employed firearms, bladed weapons and fire against his victims. He was a brutal killer, but on this occasion he met someone equally dangerous. I’m sorry that I missed the opportunity to arrest him for his crimes, but I will add this: I’m satisfied that his terrifying murder spree is over with now, and the elderly residents of our good country can rest a little easier in their beds.’
It was a slightly scandalous comment to come out of a police officer’s mouth, and it shocked the reporter to momentary silence. By the time the interviewer formed a second question, Detective Garforth Jones had already moved away.