Black Current Read online

  Dex cowered beside me. “What is it, boy?” I whispered. “Is somebody still—” Just as I heard the sound of running feet, a figure dressed entirely in black appeared around the corner of the house and took off down the drive.

  It took a moment for me to react. Then I was after him, running pell-mell down the steep slope. He rounded the bend on El Balcon. I sped up—and abruptly my feet slipped on the gravel. I was airborne for what seemed like an eternity—

  —then came down front-first, scraping my right arm and cheek on the road. I lay there for a moment, stunned. What brought me to my senses was Dexter’s warm tongue licking my neck.

  I rose to all fours, then to my feet, testing my body. No broken bones, but the old injury to my knee twanged out a sharp warning. It wasn’t till I started back up the hill, a concerned Dex at my side, that the pain in my right arm and cheek began to set in. The raw skin burned like a brand.

  The heeler and I limped over to the studio. I felt sick: Brodie’s Little League trophies were broken to bits, and Danny’s high-school baseball cap lay in the dirt.

  I walked up to the gaping doorway, reached just inside for the light switch, and groaned. The window in the back wall was smashed, and the studio was a shambles. Even the bed was upended, the blankets soaked. It took a moment for me to register the odor: urine. The asshole who’d done this had pissed on the bed.

  Who—and why? Did it have something to do with the case? Rod Steinbach, maybe. He wouldn’t have done this himself, but he could be behind it. Or Porter Logsdon—yes. It could have been him.

  I picked my way through the chaos as I crossed the room. I peered through the broken window at the back, and saw daggers of glass in the dirt. The moon swabbed the shards in silvery light.

  I turned back to the room. That’s when I noticed the sheet of typing paper lying on the small kitchen table. I walked over, picked it up, and read the scrawled message:

  BACK OFF OR THIS WILL BE YOU.

  What the hell? I flipped the page over. And doubled over, as if I’d been kicked in the gut.

  The paper fell to the floor, but not before the photo seared my retinas.

  I only knew it was a picture of my brother because of the hair, the sun-bleached brown hair. It was Brodie, his face swollen beyond recognition, hanging by his neck from the bars of a cell.

  * * *

  Dexter hugged my heels as I left the studio and crossed the yard in the moonlight. My breath ran shallow and fast. I’d been wrong: this had nothing to do with the aquarium murders. Chaffee was written all over it. I would hunt down the bastard, tonight.

  I unlocked the front door of the house and stared into my dark living room, half expecting the snake to uncoil himself from the couch. But no, Chaffee was gone, of course. He’d run off into the dark.

  Back off or this will be you. Adrenaline scoured my arteries. I was focused on one burning goal.

  Dex edged around me and trotted inside. I stepped into the hall and turned on the lights. The dog behaved normally now, wandering into the kitchen and lapping at his water dish. Chaffee hadn’t entered the house. He could have broken in if he’d tried, but he hadn’t bothered. He’d hit me where it hurt most.

  Odd that he’d understood that. I’d underestimated the punk.

  “All the better,” I said aloud. All the better that Chaffee understood. Because I wanted him to understand, when I exacted revenge.

  I went through to the kitchen and sat down at the table, smoothed open the sheet of paper and stared at the words. I had a job to do, but there was no rush. Chaffee might be anywhere now. Hours would pass before I could be certain he’d be at home in his bed.

  When I glanced at my phone, I saw Taryn had called. “Sorry,” I said aloud. “I can’t help you, not now.” It was time for me to take care of my own.

  I fixed myself a pot of strong coffee. While it perked I changed into a dark long-sleeved top, and replaced my red tennies with my black ones. I wound my ponytail into a knot and pinned it at the nape of my neck.

  Then I collected some gear: a small flashlight, a few lock-picking tools, and an old purplish raincoat. I slipped Claudia’s switchblade into my pocket. For a moment I wished I’d accepted the gun Mike had pressed on me awhile back. But no: somehow it was better this way, more personal. The knife would do.

  I longed for revenge. But first, I needed to know. Chaffee was going to tell me everything he’d seen or heard about Brodie’s death. Every last thing.

  The kitchen clock read 11:00 P.M. I would pay the guy a visit at four in the morning.

  I stepped out into the flower-perfumed night. Insects whirred, chirped. I looked up: the resident big white barn owl swayed on her perch at the top of the cypress. She turned her beautiful heart-shaped face down upon me.

  The raptor was nothing like me. She was a coldhearted killer. My own heart smoldered with revenge, like a red-hot star.

  I set to work cleaning the studio to help pass the hours. For the first time, I couldn’t feel my brother’s presence in the room. I was alone: Brodie’s spirit had fled.

  * * *

  As I backed the Camino out of the garage and coasted down the hill in the night, I thought of the Tactacquins. They were depending on me, and I was withdrawing my support. I knew I was letting them down.

  But I felt no regret. Nothing and nobody mattered now, except my brother and all he’d endured.

  Montecito was quiet and dark. No light pollution here. Oh, I didn’t doubt infrared cameras recorded my passing. So what? I didn’t care what anyone saw in the morning. I only required tonight. Tomorrow could bring whatever it would.

  I parked a quarter mile away from the château, on Riven Rock, behind a stand of eucalyptus. I pressed the door shut with my hip, then cocked an ear and listened. No dogs barked. The sky had just begun to lighten to gray. The false dawn.

  At first I walked along near the bushes at the side of the road. But my footsteps made loud crackling noises in the dry leaf litter, so I stepped over to the asphalt. Then I broke into a jog. In two or three minutes I’d arrived.

  The mansion gleamed in the brightening sky like a glacé concoction, a storybook house made for children to nibble. I slipped inside the shrubbery and peered through the cyclone fence. Where were the guard dogs? Curled up in locked kennels, I hoped.

  Dawn was breaking, but the outdoor lights still shone over the grand central staircase and at the corners of the château. I studied the guest house, where my quarry was tucked away in his den. It was set off to one side, toward the back of the big house. A battered old sedan was pulled up in front.

  For a moment, I faltered. What if I failed? But I thought of the photograph of my brother. My desire for revenge reared up once more and roared through my veins like a freight train, drowning out any remnants of doubt.

  I checked my pockets. Everything was in place.

  I tied the sleeves of the jacket around my neck in a loose knot, shoved the toe of my shoe into the cyclone fencing, and started to climb. When I reached the top, I unknotted the jacket with one hand and laid it along the ridge of cut wire ends.

  Then, just as I prepared to swing my body over, I heard a kind of chant. “Woo, woo-woo”—the strange keening notes rose and fell in the dawn air.

  Still clinging to the fence, I peered through the wire. A thin young man wearing boxer shorts and a baggy T-shirt twirled on the lawn. He spun in awkward circles and lifted a tennis racquet to the sky. “Woo, woo-woo—”

  Thad Chaffee, dressed in light-colored sweatpants and T-shirt, appeared in the open doorway of the guest house. He leaned against the doorframe and watched the boy’s dance.

  Arms stretched wide, the boy ran to Chaffee. He seemed to be imploring his caregiver. Chaffee disappeared inside the little house and the boy began to twirl in circles again. The notes of his song rose an octave.

  I eased myself back down to the ground to observe the unfolding drama.

  But there was no drama. Chaffee reemerged with a racquet of his own and
a ball. The boy screamed with delight, and ran long. Chaffee waited, then hit the ball high and far. No longer awkward, the boy caught the ball on his racquet with perfect coordination, and returned it in a great looping arc.

  I knew I was observing pure happiness, something precious and rare. What a time to learn Thad Chaffee had a decent streak in him.

  Seeing this wouldn’t make my job easier. But I’d no intention of turning away.

  I scrambled back up the fence, swung first one leg over the jacket and then the other. I didn’t try to hide myself as I dropped to the ground.

  As I started across the plush lawn, Chaffee looked up and saw me. For a moment, he froze. Then he began to jog toward me. And at that moment, I realized something: Chaffee, who had the body of a whippet, was smaller than the guy I’d chased down El Balcon.

  “What the fuck are you doing here? I told you to stay away from me, bitch!” He grabbed me by the arm.

  This was not someone to reason with. I brought my right hand down hard on his wrist in a chop, and Chaffee gasped and bent forward.

  “Fuck! What’s wrong with you, freak? You broke my arm!”

  “Don’t lay a hand on me, Chaffee.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw the boy take a step toward us. I spoke quickly. “Somebody trashed my place tonight. Was it you?” But I already knew I’d made a mistake. He wasn’t the one.

  “I don’t want nothing to do with you, bitch! I already told you!” He cradled his wrist in his hand.

  The boy was coming toward us now, trotting in a wide arc. He was tall and gangly, thin as a stalk of bamboo. Over and over, he made a noise: “Tha … Tha.…” He was saying Chaffee’s name.

  “Then why,” I said. “Tell me why and I’ll go.”

  “Why what!”

  “I want to know why you changed your mind about dealing with me.” I paused, watching him. “You were warned off, weren’t you?”

  He shook his head back and forth. Fear sparked in his eyes. Real fear, not the kind inspired by the likes of me.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” He called over to the boy. “Mark, let’s go.”

  I was about to lose him. I was about to lose my one chance at finding out what had happened to Brodie. I suspected Thad Chaffee knew too damn much, and he wouldn’t be around forever. Somebody, sooner or later, was going to make certain of that.

  “Listen up. If you don’t talk to me, I’ll go to the cops.” A stab in the dark, it struck home.

  “No!” Chaffee stopped and turned back. “No, don’t do that!”

  “So it was the cops who threatened you. What is it they don’t want you to say?”

  “If I talk to you, they’ll kill me.” Chaffee looked different now. His coiled-spring of a body had sagged. “I can’t talk to you. Please—”

  “If you don’t talk to me, I’ll talk to them. And you better believe I’ll mention your name.” I paused for that to sink in. “Tell me what you saw that night, Chaffee. I won’t tell a soul where I heard it, and you won’t see me again.”

  Mark was humming uneasily. He’d begun to sway from side to side.

  “All right.” Thad wiped a hand over his mouth. “They found out I was talking to you—that day at the skate park? Some drug cop, undercover, saw you give me the money. They hauled in my ass, ’cause they wanted to know why.”

  “So you told them all about it, I suppose?”

  “They didn’t leave me a choice.”

  “And they told you not to say anything else to me. Because there is more, isn’t there.”

  “I told the cops I hardly told you anything,” he stalled.

  The gray light was warming now, bringing hints of color to the world. I glanced over at Mark. Red hair stuck up on his head like a bottlebrush flower.

  “Say it now. Say it, and you won’t hear from me again.”

  I could see him waver, trying to decide. I stepped into his space and leaned close, so close I could smell his sour morning breath. “This is my brother we’re talking about, get it? I will never give up on this, never. So get it over with.”

  “I told you everything. All I didn’t tell you was … I saw who was in the jail that night.” He shot me a look.

  “Who? Say it, damn you.” Almost there.

  He let out a long slow breath, as if his lungs had been punctured. “It was Wheeler. He was waiting when they brought your brother back to his cell.”

  “Wheeler. Chief Wheeler, you mean?” My tendons and muscles were tense as wound wire.

  “Yeah. It was him.”

  I had what I’d come for. Yet I couldn’t believe it. In the meantime, I could only shoot the messenger boy.

  “You could have done something to help him. You were there as a medic, you prick.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, to keep from scratching out his eyes.

  * * *

  The sun still hadn’t raised its flaming head over the horizon, but the air was filled with golden light and birdsong. I climbed into the cab of the El Camino and shut the door. I just sat there for a while, staring at the peeling pink and green trunks of the eucalyptus trees.

  All this time. For three long years I’d assumed Brodie had hanged himself, just as the coroner claimed. For three long years I’d blamed myself for neglecting my brother, and for aggravating the cops when Brodie wound up in jail. All this time I’d feared my badgering had caused someone to mess with Brodie, driving him to suicide.

  But Brodie hadn’t killed himself. He’d been murdered. And not because of me.

  I roused myself, and turned the key in the ignition. Dexter needed his breakfast, and I needed a couple of hours of sleep. The engine started up, but still I just sat there.

  “Brodie,” I murmured. “You were dangerous to them.” So dangerous they’d decided to shut him up forever. What secret had my brother known?

  * * *

  The next morning was a Sunday, which Dexter knew perfectly well. He jumped into the driver’s seat ahead of me, hoping for a leisurely spin around town. At first the little cow dog had done fine on his three pins. But he was aging, and arthritis was setting in. As his mobility had lessened, his passion for road trips had increased.

  “All right. But shove over, bud, unless you’ve learned how to drive.”

  I backed out of the ramshackle lean-to of a garage, did a ninety-degree turn, and headed off down the hill.

  “You know,” I continued, “I once knew a poodle who lived in a semi. He learned how to get his owner out of a fast-food joint by leaning on the horn.” I looked over at Dex. “A toy poodle,” I said just to rile him. But the cow dog ignored me. He hung his head out the window, grinning into the breeze.

  I circled through the streets around Cottage Hospital, searching for a park in the shade. “You owe me,” I grumbled five minutes later, after finally locating a spot under a Hong Kong orchid tree. “Now do your job, will you? Guard the Camino with your life.”

  As I entered Cottage, a security guard motioned me toward a desk.

  “May I help you?” an elderly volunteer asked.

  “I’m here to see Charlie … Corrigan.” I couldn’t get used to using his last name. Charlie was just Charlie to me.

  “Corrigan,” the old lady trebled. “Let me see—” She bent close to read her screen, raising a finger to the glass. “You know, dear…” She looked up at me. “I’m afraid there is no ‘Corrigan’ here. None at all.”

  “Would you mind checking again? When I phoned they told me he was going to be here at least another week, and that was only two days ago.”

  “I’m a bionic woman, dear,” she said tartly. “I had the lenses of my eyes replaced, cataracts, you know. I most likely see better than you.”

  “You probably do. But I don’t understand.”

  “Why don’t we have a member of the paid staff speak with you, dear? Put your mind at rest.”

  She was treating me like a confused child, but that was OK. I was confused, and worried as well. Charlie had been seriously ill, and … I didn�
��t want to go there. “Yes, I’d appreciate that.”

  The young man who came around the corner to greet me was good at his job. He spoke to me in a conciliatory tone that was practiced and fake, yet calming all the same. “Hi there. I’m Jonathan Sanchez. You wanted to visit with Charles Corrigan?”

  “Yes. I’m his only living relative, his niece.” I’d already used that line on the phone, and found it worked well. “I called two days ago, and a nurse told me he had pneumonia. She said they were going to keep Uncle Charlie in for another week. But apparently he’s not here.”

  “I’m afraid Charles Corrigan isn’t with us anymore.”

  “What? Please don’t—please don’t tell me—”

  “Oh, no. No—” The young man reached out and patted my arm. “Your uncle was very much alive when he left here.” He made a small grimace. “Very much alive.”

  I burst into relieved laughter. “Sounds like Charlie. Uncle Charlie,” I amended. “Alive and kicking, I suppose you mean?”

  “Let’s just say he made quite a fuss. He’d removed all the hookups and was nearly out the door in his hospital gown when we caught him.”

  I couldn’t help but smile, thinking of what a sight Charlie must have been, masked and bare-assed. “So where is he now?”

  “Actually, we had him transferred.”

  “Transferred? Where?” Something in the guy’s expression set a fresh alarm bell tinging.

  “I’m sorry. We can’t give out that information.”

  I tried on a frown. “As I said, I’m his niece, Mr. Corrigan’s only living relative. What, do you expect me to knock on the door of every medical facility in town?”

  “Mr. Corrigan is an adult. He will contact you if he wants to. Now, excuse me—I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot.” It was a feeble protest. Mr. Gatekeeper smiled kindly as he strode away.

  Fuming, I stood there and ground my teeth. Bureaucrats were the curse of the planet.

  “Miss,” the volunteer said. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”