Walk Away, page 8
“Nothing official. We’re just trying to get them talking,” Adkins said. “One sister is in shock, and the other sister shut down like a robot as soon as I started asking questions. I asked Officer Russo to take a run at her to see what she could figure out.”
“Who did the shooting? Amado or Espinoza?” Way asked.
“Espinoza.”
Way turned to Hannon and shut Adkins out completely. The men from the Coroner Unit were carrying out Jacob Collier’s corpse. “Okay, obviously the situation on the ground is a joke, which we figured. Our first priority is getting everything we can squeeze out of these women, so I want you to talk to Michelle Amado and drive her until she’s given us something we can use or she breaks. I’m happy either way.”
“What about the other one?”
“I’ll handle the other one. If I feel like she’s not responding to me we’ll see about switching out, but I want to put myself in front of the woman who pulled the trigger. This did not happen by accident. First a severe beating, then a bullet. This was cold stuff. Premeditated.”
Hannon nodded. “I’ve got it.”
“Good. Let’s move.”
Way pointed at Adkins. “Who’s where?”
“The Espinoza woman’s in the kitchen. The Amado sister and her daughter are back there.”
“Show my colleague where to go. I’ll be in the kitchen, but don’t come to me unless you have something good to tell me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Way went to the kitchen. He made a note of the hanging pots and the immaculately clean cooking area. The counters gleamed. Everything was in place. Hardwood flooring clicked under his heels. The sound caught the attention of the cop at the table. Russo.
“Deputy U.S. Marshal Way,” he told her. “Are you finished questioning the subject?”
“I wasn’t…Yes. I’m all done.”
“Wait out there with your detective. I’ll call you if I need you.”
Russo nodded and left swiftly.
Camaro Espinoza sat perfectly still. He could barely tell she was breathing.
“I’m Keith Way, with the United States Marshals Service,” Way announced.
“I heard.”
He approached the table and stood over her. “I am here pursuant to a federal fugitive warrant, and I want some answers.”
“Send Russo back in,” Espinoza said.
“You’re all done dealing with the locals for now. This is between you and federal law enforcement. Now, I’d like to know exactly what went down here tonight, and I want you to tell me in detail. Nothing gets left out.”
“Did you see the body?”
“I did.”
“Then that’s all the detail you get.”
Way grabbed the back of the Espinoza woman’s chair and kicked it around to face him. He leaned in closely. “Let’s cut the shit. You tell me what I want to know right now, or I will be the worst thing that happens to you all week.”
Espinoza studied his face. Way saw only composure in hers.
“Gosh. Why didn’t you say so?” she asked.
He stepped back but didn’t sit down. “The woman who owns this house is your sister?”
“That’s right.”
“Her name’s Amado. Yours is Espinoza. Which one of you is married?”
“Neither. We’re half sisters.”
“Where do you come from? Carmel? Salinas?”
“No.”
“My understanding is yesterday you beat the living shit out of Jacob Collier and put him in the hospital. Today he’s dead from a bullet you put in him.”
“Jake Collier was an asshole. Someone was going to kill him sooner or later.”
“You got to be the lucky one.”
“I guess so.”
“Where’d you get the gun?”
“It belongs to my sister.”
“You know your way around guns?”
Espinoza shrugged.
“I’m going to find out everything about you,” Way said. “I’ll know your shoe size.”
Espinoza looked at him and was quiet. Then she said, “I’m a seven.”
Way barked a laugh. “You don’t even know how much trouble you’re in.”
“How much trouble am I in?”
“You just killed my best chance at stopping a cop killer. You do the math.”
Chapter Twenty-One
LUKAS DROVE A dark green Honda Accord he’d stolen from a parking lot in Las Vegas. The ignition was wired together, the steering column stripped, but he kept to the speed limit on the whole eight-hour drive to Salinas, passing through sleepy Bakersfield along the way. He considered stealing another car there.
The skies were dark and portentous as he made the last few miles to Jake’s Pearl Street address. The signs of rain were everywhere, and when Lukas cracked the window to let cigarette smoke out, he smelled water in the air.
He parked two blocks away from Jake’s house, the car partially backed into an alleyway, providing him a quick start in almost every direction. A gusty wind picked at him as he walked the rest of the way. He stopped at the corner by a telephone pole riddled with staples and scraps of wet paper. He looked down the street.
The police cruiser made no attempt to conceal itself. It was parked directly in front of Jake’s house. Lukas saw the officer behind the wheel. It was impossible to know if he’d been spotted. He walked forward instead of back, crossing the street as if he belonged there, then stopped as soon as the house on the corner obscured him from view.
Lukas stepped up to the corner again and peered around to get a second look at the car. It had not moved, nor had the cop inside. Lukas pulled back.
There was no sign of Jake’s truck. Jake was gone, and Lukas’s calls went directly to voice mail.
Instead of crossing the street a second time, Lukas looped around to the next block and crossed there, coming back to his car the long way around. He got behind the wheel and thought. After a long while he called up a memory of the place Jake said he worked during the off-season. He remembered it was a lumberyard, but the specifics escaped him. With the phone he searched for lumberyards in the area and came up with three. One caught his eye. He dialed its number.
“Carlson Lumber, this is Spencer speaking, how can I help you today?”
“Yeah,” Lukas said, “I was trying to get ahold of Jake Collier.”
“Jake?” the man said. There was something in his voice.
“Yeah, that’s right. Doesn’t he work there?”
“Sure. Jake’s been here for years. Listen, can I put you on hold? I think somebody else can help you better.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just hang on.”
The line went quiet. Lukas thought the man had hung up, but the timer on the call continued to count. He waited until finally someone new picked up. The voice was younger, but his tone was somber. “You’re calling about Jake?”
“Yeah, who is this?”
“My name’s Derrick. I work with Jake. Who’s calling?”
Lukas considered his answer. There was no reason the cops would be listening here. “I’m his brother.”
“You’re Lukas?”
“That’s right. Where’s Jake?”
“He’s not here.”
“So where can I find him?”
“I don’t know how else to tell you except to tell you, but…Jake’s dead.”
Lukas was suddenly breathless. He sucked air. “How?”
“He got shot last night,” Derrick said. “It’s crazy, man.”
Lukas licked his lips. “Who?”
“Do you know Michelle?”
“Michelle? His girlfriend? His girlfriend shot him?”
“No, no, no. I heard about it from some guys I know in Carmel. He broke into his girlfriend’s place and started swinging a knife around. The next thing you know, Chelle’s sister shoots him right in the chest. Kills him. Just like that.”
Lukas felt a twinge of pain in his skull. He rubbed his temple with his thumb. Thoughts of his last conversation with Jake swirled around and emptied into his forebrain. Michelle. Rebecca. “Camaro,” he said.
“You know her?”
“Jake told me about her. He said she came out to where he worked and laid a hurt on him. Messed up his arm. Messed up his face.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Derrick agreed. “She was all over him in a second. Me and the boys, we were going to get involved, but Jake told us to back off so he could handle it. But she wrecked him, man. She totally wrecked him. Now she killed him. Jake should have let us deal with the situation.”
Lukas nodded stiffly. The pain in his head increased. He had to pry his teeth apart to speak. “Where is the chick staying? Does she have a hotel or something? What can you tell me?”
“I don’t know anything about that. I’m sorry. But I know where Chelle lives. I can give you her address in Carmel.”
“Give it to me.”
Derrick obeyed. “You probably don’t want to go over there, man. The cops are going to be worked up for a while. Nobody gets shot in Carmel. This is like DEFCON One stuff. Like the president got killed.”
“You’ve been a big help,” Lukas said.
“Whatever I can do. Me or any of the guys…you need something, all you have to do is ask. I’d be proud to carry his casket at the funeral.”
Lukas almost laughed. “What’s a number I can use if I need to get in touch with you again?”
“Yeah, let me give it to you.”
Lukas wrote the number on the back of a gas station receipt and crushed it into his pocket. It was easier to breathe now, but only just. He wanted to smash the phone into pieces against the steering wheel to have something to break. He kept his voice even. “I’m going to look into this, and then I’ll get back to you. And listen, don’t mention you talked to me. Not to anybody. I have some trouble I’m dealing with, and I don’t need the cops breathing down my neck, you understand me?”
“Yeah, I understand. No one will hear anything from me.”
“Good job. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Okay. I want to say sorry about—”
Lukas hung up the phone and dropped it on the passenger seat. He started the car by twisting two wires together and drove away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
ANNABEL WOKE FROM a dark dream that began to fade the moment she opened her eyes. She felt heavy-limbed and tired, but it was eight-thirty in the morning and it was time to move. On the bed beside her, Rebecca slept with a stuffed hippopotamus clutched to her chest.
She paused a moment to brush Rebecca’s hair from her face, then slipped out of bed and into the adjoining bathroom. With the door only half closed, she ran the shower and scrubbed herself thoroughly. She toweled off and blow-dried her hair, and when she looked out again Rebecca was still sleeping.
The house was still. She walked silently down the hallway and emerged into the living room. Before this moment it might have been possible to forget. Now it came to her like a hammer blow. The bloody stain marking the floor was still there. Spatters of red flecked the curtains and the wall.
Annabel stood rooted to the spot. She saw bright spots and realized she was hyperventilating. She slowed her breathing. Careful to skirt the empty space where Jake’s body had lain, she went to the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Camaro said.
Annabel jumped at the sound of Camaro’s voice. Her sister was at the kitchen table, outlined by the light falling through the window. It didn’t look like she had changed. It didn’t look like she had moved at all.
“You scared the hell out of me,” Annabel told her.
“Sorry.”
She switched on the lights, and the kitchen became a friendly place again. “Do you want coffee or tea? I was thinking coffee.”
“Coffee’s fine.”
“You want French roast? Hazelnut? Hawaiian blend?”
“Coffee.”
She selected a K-Cup marked EIGHT O’CLOCK COFFEE and put it in the machine. She used a pitcher to fill the reservoir and started the process. “It’s just a minute,” she said. “The water has to heat up.”
“That’s fine.”
Camaro sat with her hands folded in front of her, as quiet as the house itself. Annabel approached her slowly. When she pulled out the chair, it scuffed slightly, the sound incredibly loud in the hush. Only the buzzing of the machine as it warmed the water cut the silence. She sat down. “Did you sleep?”
“For a while.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“They talked to me, and I said everything you told me to say. They never pushed me. You were right.”
“Cops like easy answers,” Camaro said.
“So what happens now?”
“Now we wait to see if they charge me for killing Jake.”
“What will you do if they…if you have to go to court?”
Camaro glanced at her. “I’ll go.”
“They’ll ask you questions under oath. Me, too. It’s against the law to lie.”
“Do you think Jake would give a shit about something like that?” Camaro asked. “They can ask all the questions they want. Never change your story. If you change your story, then they have you. I can’t leave here worrying about whether you can handle it.”
“I can handle it.”
Camaro looked more closely at her. She put out a hand to cover Annabel’s. She squeezed it. “I know you can. You have to know you can.”
Annabel let Camaro hold her hand. She didn’t want to pull away. “I have to get Becca’s things together for school. Then I have to drop her off and go to work. You can come with me if you want.”
“I think I’ll stay here for now.”
They had coffee together, and then Annabel went to Rebecca to wake her up. She laid out her daughter’s clothes, and while Rebecca dressed, Annabel cooked a warm breakfast for all of them. Rebecca colored at the table between taking bites of oatmeal, drinking orange juice, and talking to Camaro. The scene was so basic and ordinary that Annabel was almost able to forget the night before.
In the end, Annabel dressed for work and left the house with Rebecca in tow. They went up the walk toward the parked Subaru. She noticed the police cruiser only when the woman officer got out of her car and approached them.
“Good morning,” the officer said.
The woman was young and slight and unthreatening, and she smiled easily. Annabel put herself between Rebecca and the policewoman anyway. She glanced back toward the house, hopeful Camaro might emerge, but Camaro was somewhere inside and out of sight. She breathed deeply. “What can I do for you, Officer?”
“I’ve been assigned to watch over you for a couple of days. I’ll take the mornings, and Officer Hill will take the afternoons. It’s for your safety.”
“Safety? I don’t understand. We’re not being threatened.”
The young officer came close. “Why don’t you go ahead and put your daughter in the car, then I’ll explain.”
Annabel’s hands shook as she buckled Rebecca into the booster seat in the back of the SUV. She kissed Rebecca lightly on the forehead and said, “I’ll be right back,” before closing the door.
The policewoman was waiting. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to scare you. You seem like a real nice lady, and your daughter’s nice, too.”
“Tell me what’s going on, Officer…?”
“Russo.”
“Officer Russo. Is there something else to worry about?”
“Did anyone talk to you last night about someone named Lukas Collier?”
“Lukas? That’s Jake’s brother, right?”
“Yes.”
“The lady with the marshals mentioned his name. She wanted to know if Lukas had called Jake lately, or if Jake ever mentioned his name.”
Russo took this in. “There’s a chance—just a chance—that Lukas Collier might be in the area. We have the police in Salinas and Pacific Grove and the County Sheriff’s Department looking into it. The U.S. Marshals have a warrant for Lukas’s arrest. And they’re worried, you know, that he might do something when he finds out his brother was killed.”
Annabel closed her arms around herself. “Do something? Like come after us?”
“Probably nothing,” Russo said. “I mean, this is Carmel. And there are way too many cops looking for him if he tries something stupid. But to be on the safe side, we’re going to do like I said and make sure everything is okay. All right?”
“All right. So do you follow me, or how does this work?”
“I’ll follow you. It’s time for your daughter’s school? She goes to Carmel River?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll tail you there.”
They parted. Annabel walked toward the driver’s side and then stopped with her keys in her hand. “Excuse me, Officer Russo?”
“Yes?”
“What about my sister? Who watches my sister?”
Russo looked at the house. “They didn’t tell me, but I think your sister can probably look out for herself, don’t you think?”
Annabel was slow to nod. “Okay. But don’t forget about her.”
“Nobody will. Let’s hurry. You don’t want to be late for school.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
YATES WATCHED THE home of Michelle Amado for hours without seeing any evidence of Jacob or Lukas Collier. With his energy dwindling, he drove away to a small Italian restaurant, where he fortified himself with a porterhouse steak with sautéed spinach the server assured him was organic, plus potatoes and cannellini beans. It was all very expensive, but everywhere in Carmel seemed expensive, and the restaurant was the closest to a family-style place as he’d been able to find on short notice.
When he returned to Michelle Amado’s home, the street was alive with flashing police lights, and over the next couple of hours more and more police arrived. He stayed as far back from the end of the cul-de-sac as he could without moving out of sight and watched the cops do their work. They brought out a body in a bag, and his heart leaped, but somehow he knew it was not Lukas Collier. A locksmith came for a while but left by midnight.
