“Someone wants her head, Burt. Literally. He decapitated a guy in Bakersfield two nights ago. One of Lindsey’s old Air Force buddies.”
“One of the Headhunters?”
I nodded.
“Hunter becomes hunted. You think this beheader is working alone?”
“I think he’s got help. Just my gut on that.”
“Where did it happen?”
I knew he’d talked to Lindsey, but I gave him the basics anyway. He nodded along. Burt gets things quickly, including some things other people don’t. “Samara,” he said. “The Prince Charming she dated one time in Las Vegas. The one with the handwriting that looks like the threat. I wonder if he was in the Bakersfield area two nights ago.”
I told him the FBI was looking into that.
“I’ll make sure Lindsey’s door and window locks are sound,” he said. “And install a wireless security system in her casita, something she can monitor by phone. I’m up most nights anyway, so I can keep an eye out. You might think about moving her every few days. Motels, cash, new IDs. I’ve got a friend who breeds Cane Corsos — that’s ‘dog of the guard’ in Italian. Very capable and well-trained animals. He leases them out for protection. He could have one here in a day or two. Does Lindsey still have that pistol?”
I nodded.
“Tell her to be careful with it.”
We continued along the pond, then doubled back toward the casitas and the main house. I could see lights on in Lindsey’s casita number three. Apparently, Liz and Dick had gone to their respective corners. Casita four was vacant.
I sensed that something was bothering Burt. He’s never been one for an evening stroll, or walking me home. “Saturday, the day before Lindsey got here, I went to Joe’s Hardware for a space heater,” he said. “Noticed a nice black C–Class Mercedes SUV behind me. Big guy at the wheel, long black hair, sunglasses. Wearing a blue leather moto jacket. Very fashionable for this hick town. Fine. Got the heater, put it in my trunk in the parking lot. I went east on Main for home, and by the time I’m to Mission there’s the black Mercedes SUV behind me again. Fashion boy at the wheel. He followed me two vehicles back all the way here. Waiting at the gate, I watched him in the rearview. He went right on by, not a pause.
“Two days later, on my way to golf, same black SUV fell in behind me on Old 395. Same guy. I pulled into the club, he went by. Shot nine rounds — one under — went to the restaurant for lunch, and when I left he was sitting in his car in the lot. Same blue moto jacket. I got into my car and drove home. When I came to the gate I punched the code and came through and pulled in behind the bougainvillea. Sure enough, here comes Moto Man. Slowed down when he went past your drive. Took a long look in. Gate still open. I’d already figured he wasn’t looking for me. He had me, twice. And if he just wanted to draft in past the gate behind me, why didn’t he? First, I thought Clevenger. He had some trouble back in New Orleans, moons ago. Then I thought Lindsey — something to do with her ex, maybe. The custody dispute.”
I hadn’t seen a black Mercedes SUV around Rancho de los Robles, or in any other place that might stand out. I thought back to the previous morning, when I’d driven Lindsey and myself to the Fallbrook Airpark. Still before sunrise. Darkness and empty winding roads. No hundred-thousand-dollar German SUVs that I noticed.
“Think about that Cane Corso,” said Burt. “Best guard dog there is.”
“So you say.”
“My friend Bruno? He trains them right and contracts them out for people who need protection. Expensive, and kind of limiting, a large beast like that in your face twenty-four/seven. But Lindsey in casita three with a Cane Corso napping on a pad inside the door? That’s security, Roland. The beheader would never know what hit him.”
I sat in the dark in my office for a while, ailing from what I had seen in Bakersfield. Ugliness causes ugliness, happiness makes happiness. Opposite momentums. Joy is easy to ride, the way I had ridden it with Justine. Higher and higher. Until. Icarus? But so hard to ride death. Which led me to Justine. Which led me to Kenny Bryce. Which led me to the rabbit screaming briefly on Clevenger’s video. Leading me, of course, to my own death, whenever and however it might come. Death. One and whole and undefeatable. Spirals inside spirals.
My mother, who is only occasionally softhearted and almost never sentimental, told me something once that had the ring of truth to it: when you feel bad, do something good for someone else.
I told Burt not to let Lindsey out of his sight or off the property until I got back. Then got a handful of LOST CAT flyers from my office desk, then a staple gun and a hiker’s headlight from the barn.
It was a cool night and dark. A quarter moon. Fallbrook’s country roads are curving and unlighted, and the shoulders are thin, and the vegetation grows right up to the asphalt on both sides. The canopies of large old oak trees join hands from opposite sides of the narrow roads. Minor moonlight blinks by overhead and there is really just the faint white line to guide you through the curves. Headlights appeared behind me, coming fast. I pulled over to let a Porsche convertible howl past. A blonde in the passenger seat, hair streaming.
I stopped along Old 395, left the engine running and the headlights on while I pulled a rain-faded Oxley poster from a power pole and stapled up a new one. In the beam of my hiker’s headlight, Oxley’s hypnotic green eyes regarded me. I made another stop on 395 as I worked my way toward Fallbrook. I tried to make a rational assessment of the obese cat’s chances of survival after nearly a week and a half of coyotes, dark roads, and fast cars. Not good chances, by my reckoning.
I sensed a tail a mile from town, made a stop anyway. Got a gun from the locked toolbox in the bed of my truck, pocketed it in my barn coat. Stapled an Oxley poster to a white post-and-rail fence. A black Mercedes SUV passed by. I continued onto Mission, passed it, and pulled into a deep, oak-roofed turnout. Saw headlights in my rearview mirror two curves back. Not terrific tradecraft.
When I hit town I hung fresh LOST CAT posters outside Vega’s Tailor, El Toro Market, and the Mission Theater. Put the old flyers and the hiker’s headlight on the seat beside me. Looked down at Oxley, blanched by rain, fading into history. I fought back the pessimism. Heard Mom’s voice. Something good for someone else. Hoped her travels with Dad were going well. This month: Florida.
I’d just stapled a poster on the wall of the Main Street Café when the black Mercedes SUV pulled to the curb and parked in front of my truck. Burt Short’s fashion man stepped out, eyed me across the hood of his vehicle, then started my way. No blue moto jacket, just jeans and a black car coat against the December chill. His hair was black and unruly, much longer than he had worn it as a San Diego sheriff’s deputy during our two months as partners.
“Hello, Jason,” I said. “What brings you out tonight?”
“Lindsey Rakes. Your new tenant.”
“You mean my former tenant?”
“Maybe we should talk.”
I considered the pros and cons of having to lie to my old partner, now a licensed private investigator himself. And I was more than a little interested in what had brought him here. “Right this way.”
11
Just a few steps down Main Street was my new downtown office. New to me, at least, as of late last year when I decided I needed a place away from home to meet with clients — attempted murder, gunfire, and justifiable homicide being things best left outside the rancho.
The office is next door to the Dublin Pub, open but quiet at this hour. I could smell the fish and chips, hear the jukebox. I put the old-fashioned key into the old-fashioned door lock and let Jason in. Fallbrook is an old-fashioned town.