TWENTY-SEVEN

It was another beautiful day at Bear Lake. There was no more snow on the ground, and the air was winter-clear and smog-free. The calm water sparkled under the late afternoon sunlight. It had taken them just a little over an hour and a half to drive I-5.

“Not bad time,” Dane said. “Considering.”

“Considering what?” Sherlock said.

“Considering that it’s LA and there are more cars per square foot here than any place in the country,” Dane said. “You wouldn’t believe some of the stories Michael used to tell me when he was just out of the seminary, living in a parish in East LA. I’ll never forget how he’d say that-” Dane’s voice fell off. His jaw tightened and he seamed his mouth together. Control, Nick thought, looking at him, keeping control was very important to him.

Savich said easily, “Gil Rainy was telling Sherlock and me that sometimes it takes him a good hour just to commute into the field office, and he only lives four miles away. Of course, Washington, D.C., ain’t no picnic either, is it, Dane?”

Dane just nodded, not ready to speak yet.

“How about where you’re from, Nick? Bad traffic?”

“No,” Nick said. “Not bad at all.”

“And you’re Dr. Nick, a Ph.D. in medieval history. Do you teach college?”

Nick said, “Yes, I do.”

“Ah. I thought college campuses were usually all jammed up with all sorts of gnarly traffic,” Sherlock said.

“I guess it depends on the campus,” Nick said, then turned to look out the window. Dane saw that her hands were stiffly clasped in her lap.

They parked in the small lot and walked to the entrance of the Lakeview Home for Retired Police Officers, founded in 1964.

They were met by Delion, Flynn, and Gil Rainy, all wearing buttoned-up sport coats but still looking a bit chilly.

Flynn said, “No sign of him. Gil’s got two agents posted out of sight at the turnoff. They’ll call when he shows so we can be ready.”

Dane said, “Anyone speak to Captain DeLoach?”

“No,” Gil said. “A heavy woman with a mustache named Velvet Weaver said that Nurse Carla told her that he wasn’t with it today, he was just sitting in his chair drumming his fingers on the wheels, humming to himself.”

“I’d like to see him,” Dane said.

“Go,” said Savich.

As Dane and Nick walked down the long corridor, they heard laughter, lots of it. The laughter was coming from old voices, and sounded wonderful. They paused at the doorway to a big recreation room where there were several televisions, a quality Brunswick pool table, card tables, and a small library section with bookshelves loaded with paperbacks.

There was a pool competition under way, and half a dozen people were seated around, taking sides, cheering or booing. Mainly they seemed to be laughing because both players-an elderly woman in a loose-fitting loud print dress, and an old codger in gray flannel slacks and a Harry Potter T-shirt, high-tops on his feet-were dead serious about the game, only they weren’t very good. Dane smiled and said to Nick, “You think maybe we’ll want to come here someday?”

“I don’t know. I don’t play pool all that well.”

They walked past the rec room and down another fifteen yards to Captain DeLoach’s room.

She hadn’t laughed much in the past month, she thought.

The door was closed. Dane tapped lightly and called out, “Captain DeLoach?”

There was no answer from inside.

Dane called out more loudly, “Captain DeLoach? It’s Agent Dane Carver here to speak to you again.”

Dane opened the door, careful to keep Nick behind him, which was really stupid, she thought, what with his left arm in a sling.

The room was empty.

Dane breathed out real slow. “Right. Let’s go see if he’s one of the cheerleaders back in the rec room.”

They found Captain DeLoach literally holding the eight ball, the old guy in the Harry Potter T-shirt trying to get it away from him.

Captain DeLoach was yelling, “Come on, Mortie, you lost to Daisy. She beat you fair and square. You can’t throw the eight ball at her or I’ll have to arrest you!”

“She deserves to eat it,” an old woman yelled, and thumped her cane on the floor.

Dane realized then that at least a third of the old people were women. They were retired police officers? He didn’t think things were so enlightened in law enforcement forty years ago.

Mortie wasn’t happy, but he fell back, obviously still fuming. At that moment, Captain DeLoach tossed him the black eight ball, laughed, and said, “Make her eat it if you want to.”

“Just let him try it,” Daisy yelled, shaking her fist at Mortie.

“Excellent,” Dane said. “Carla was wrong. Captain DeLoach isn’t out to lunch. Looks like he’s with us today, thank God.”

In another minute, they had Captain DeLoach off to the side.

“Do you remember me, sir?”

Captain DeLoach looked Dane up and down, stared at his left arm in its blue sling, then very slowly raised his arm and saluted him.

Dane saluted back. He smiled at the old man.

“I’ve got a gun,” Captain DeLoach said.

“Do you?”

“Yes, Special Agent, I do.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t want anyone to know, might scare ’em. I bribed Velvet to buy it for me. I told her no one could prove that I wasn’t attacked, and as a senior law enforcement officer I should be armed. It’s even registered in her name. It’s a twenty-five-caliber Beretta. Eight rounds in the clip and one in the chamber. All I have to do is pull back the hammer and I can kill anyone in the blink of an eye.” He pulled his hand from his pocket and in his arthritic old palm was the elegant small black automatic pistol.

“How long have you had the gun, sir?”

“Velvet got it for me yesterday. I didn’t want my son coming back to try to kill me again.”

“We heard that he called yesterday, said he was coming to see you in just a little while. We want to meet Weldon. Why don’t you let me deal with him, Captain? I doubt you’ll have to shoot him.”

“Will you shoot the little cocksucker for me then?”

“Maybe,” Dane said. “Just maybe I will. Why is it that he wants to kill you, sir?”

The old man just shook his head, stared down at his arthritic fingers.

“Captain DeLoach,” Nick said, “how old is your son?”

Captain DeLoach looked over at the pool match, then down at his hands and said finally, looking up at Dane, “He’s so young he’s barely on this earth, but the thing is, Special Agent, he just won’t stop trying to keep me quiet. It pisses me off, you know?”

Captain DeLoach looked toward Daisy, who was cheering because she’d just made the three ball in the corner pocket. “They’ve started another game. Old Mortie doesn’t have a chance. Do you know that he was once a police commissioner in Stockton? Daisy was married forty years to a desk sergeant from Seattle who died the day after their anniversary, fell over with a massive heart attack. She’s got spunk.” He thought a moment, then said, “You know, if Daisy weren’t so old, I just might be interested.”

“Yeah, you’re right, sir,” Dane said. “I’d guess she’s all of seventy-five.”

“More like seventy-seven,” Captain DeLoach said. He slipped the small Beretta into the pocket of his jacket. He was wearing the sports jacket over his blue pajama tops. “I’ll bet she was hot when she was younger.”

“Maybe so,” Dane said, and thought of his own grandmother, who’d died some years before.

Suddenly, Captain DeLoach said in a soft, singsong voice, “I can feel him. He’s near now. Yes, very close and coming closer. I always could tell when he was near. Isn’t that interesting?”

“Your son Weldon, Captain DeLoach, when exactly was he born? What year?”

“The year of the rat, yes, that was it. I really got a good laugh out of that. A rat.” The old man threw back his head and laughed out loud. The pool match stopped. Slowly, all the old folks began turning to look at Captain DeLoach laughing his head off. “Or maybe,” he said finally, wheezing deep in his chest, “it was the horse, yes, that was it. The year of the horse.”