End of Watch (29 page)

“One a day.”

“Atta girl. Don’t drop your guard just because life suddenly gets good again. You’re an alcoholic, you’re always going to be an alcoholic, and you need to always remember that. This is a disease and you need to treat it like you would any other. Keep doing what you’re doing even when the ride’s smooth, because I can promise you there are bumps ahead, and when the ride gets rough you want to be able to reach into your toolbox and pull out the tools that’ll help you through. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. Stay close, kiddo. I’d hate to lose you.”

“I’d hate to be lost. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Frank hung up.

Talking to Mary always made her feel like she had dumped a heavy pail of rotting trash. Not only dumped the trash but scoured the pail as well. Frank slid into her coat and switched the lights off. If she hurried she could get to the downtown meeting. She jogged down the stairs and stopped halfway across the parking lot. She went back inside, to the holding cells. Pablo sat in the last one.

“Irie,” she called, shook her head. “Pablo. Come here.”

He shuffled to her. Bringing her head close to the steel Frank spoke quietly. “I’m sorry it had to end this way. You’re a good man. I know you didn’t mean to kill my father. I knew it then—that look on your face when you shot him—I’ll carry that to my grave. You were strung out. Junkies, drunks … they do things they never meant to. I know it was the junkie that killed my father, not the man standing here today. So for what it’s worth, if it means anything to you, I forgive you.”

Tears spilled over red-rimmed eyes and Pablo said, “I never mean’ to hurt nobody. All dese years, dis time I hadda t’ink about it. If I coulda taked back dat one minute, jus’ d’at one
second,
evert’ing be differen’. You know? Evert’ing.”

“I know.”

He lifted his hands to her. She glanced around and violated the rules by putting her hand through the bars. Pablo grasped it, shedding tears. Frank checked again, grateful there were no cops.

“Hey. It’s gonna be okay, mon. It’s gonna be all right. You get to see your family again. Think how happy they’re gonna be.”

He yanked his head up. “You t’ink?”

She took the opportunity to extricate herself. “I
know.
You can call Roberto if you want. Tell him you’re alive.”

” ‘Im be mad. ‘Im ‘ate me now fuh sure.”

“No,” Frank assured. “He doesn’t hate you. He might be mad, but he doesn’t hate you. Your mother either.”

“My mot’er,” Pablo marveled. “Wha’ ‘er look like? ‘Er still pretty?”

“She’s old, mon, but yes, still pretty.”

“Old,” he repeated, twirling a finger around his head. “In my mind ‘er still t’irty-six!”

Frank smiled. “I’ll give the guard your brother’s number. It’ll be a short call though. Tell him you’re coming home and to call Detective Silvester. She’ll know when you’re coming back. All right?”

“I’m goin’ ‘ome?”

“You’re goin’ home, mon. I don’t know what’ll happen once you get there, but you’re goin’ home.”

” ‘Ome.” Irie tasted the word, then seemed to find it bitter. “You sure Berto won’t be mad?”

“Not a chance.” Lifting a hand to the man who’d killed her father, Frank walked away.

Outside the station, under the balmy Los Angeles dusk, a sickle moon winked over the freeway. Frank stopped to look at it. She thought about Noah, how many times they’d said good night, right here, under this same moon. She thought about her mother and father. About Mary in a midnight phone booth. About Annie’s angels and Darcy’s tutelary gods.

Ridiculous tears sprang up again. Frank blinked them back. She nodded at the blurry moon.

“Yeah, okay,” she whispered. “Maybe so.”

Slipping her key into the Honda, she realized she didn’t want that drink anymore.

About the Author

Baxter Clare is a wildlife biologist by vocation and a writer by avocation. She never intended to write mysteries but the L.A. Franco character rented a room in her imagination one morning and has been there ever since. This is her fifth L.A. Franco mystery.

In a ceremony at San Francisco City Hall she married her lifetime partner, artist Ann Marie O’Connor. They live in the rugged La Panza mountain range of California’s central coast, and Clare ventures regularly from chaparral wilderness to the urban wilds of South Central Los Angeles.