This was the first time I’d ever ridden in the front seat of a roller and I’ll tell you, it felt pretty bizarre. As he drove Hoffman sat straight and attentive as if awaiting orders.
“I knew you’d want to talk to the District Attorney,” he said. “I knew you’d protect yourself.”
“Well it was only common sense, Officer Hoffman. You don’t have to read too much into it.”
He studied my face and nodded the whole time I talked, but looked away as he spoke his own words. “Of course it was; you’re exactly right. But call me Rick, please.” There was a sly happiness to him as he shared his Christian name.
When we left out the Gardens sole entrance we had to turn instead of driving straight to the access road that led up out of the lowlands the Gardens nestled in: the new street network and construction layout was in the way, forcing Hoffman to skirt three sides of a huge, empty, cement-rimmed graded rectangle of lots rather than going as the crow flies.
At its top the short, steep access road teed into a well maintained stretch of highway running along the crest of a ridge. To the right the highway led past the hospital to what passed for downtown in Stagger Bay. To the left the highway ran uphill into thickly forested uplands.
There was a sign off the shoulder as Hoffman turned left and began the climb: ‘Moose Creek Road. Residents ONLY.’
We drove uphill, past access driveways to either side every few hundred yards; some gravel, and some poured concrete slab or tarmac paving. Large, expensive looking houses were occasionally visible from the road. All of them stood isolated on their own parcels of land, with plenty of elbow room and privacy.
A roller passed going downhill, Officer Reese driving. Reese and Hoffman made eye contact as they passed but otherwise made neither greeting nor sign of recognition. Moose Creek Road had pretty tight patrol coverage; you’d need a powerful crew to get anything done up here.
We passed other vehicles coming down the hill too; high-end German stuff mainly, with a few SUVs and Hummers thrown in for good measure. I saw that red Cougar on its way down into town, looking bright and shiny as if it’d just been waxed. The long-haired blond driver did a double-take as we passed in opposite directions, I assumed at all the sanitary napkins taped across my face.
The road curved on switchbacks and hairpins, creating striking views: Once I saw a mare and her foal cavorting together on a patch of hillside pasture. Another time I looked out to see the entire Pacific reflecting the sun in a rippling expanse of waves – towards the horizon a pod of whales breached, exhalations geysering up in distant slow motion from their blowholes.
“So what’s going on here, Officer Hoffman?” I asked as we pulled into a gravel driveway.
We parked in front of a rambling Victorian, dwarfed by the stands of old-growth redwoods surrounding it. Its front yard was perfectly groomed and trimmed. But visible in the backyard beyond the house was a disorganized clutter of toys and bric-a-brac: ATVs, a surf boat on a trailer, camper shells, stacks of lumber, and enough other et ceteras to make this very expensive lot look more like a proto-junkyard.
Hoffman aimed that ‘aw shucks’ smile just past me again. “Call me Rick. This is the father of one of the officers that died at the school – Officer Tubbs, the one you watched them shoot execution-style. She was his only child, all the family he had left.”
He almost looked at me now as he spoke. “Listen, Markus, I like you just fine, I’m your friend. But there’s some folks around here you’re not so popular with – bad people.”
We walked to the front door, which opened as we approached. We were expected.
The guy who opened the door was huge, a big hillbilly in a mesh-back trucker’s baseball cap with a neck about as big around as my waist. His identical twin stood a few paces behind, wearing a matching mesh-back cap. One led the way as the other fell in behind Hoffman and me, so they sandwiched us as we walked down the hallway into the living room.
The heat was turned way down like Mr. Tubbs was too frugal to pay out any more than he had to, to PG &E. Stacks of magazines and newspapers in the hallway suggested the current resident might be wrestling with the beginnings of a packrat hoarding obsession.
The living room was dominated by the presence of an old man sitting in an overstuffed yellow leather chair. An overwhelming aroma of Old Spice surrounded him; he apparently doused himself in the stuff. A narrow-brimmed fedora rested on his bony knee, with a green feather in the band. High shiny cheekbones, a balding head of cow-licked white hair that combing would be a waste of time on, and eyes that looked like they could melt holes through titanium. The old man was a real piece of work even though he also looked like death warmed over, like maybe he got his facials done at the undertaker’s.
Officer Hoffman dipped his head to Mr. Tubbs then kept his gaze lowered toward the floor. The Meshback Twins fanned out to take opposite corners of the room behind me, and I wondered if Tubbs ‘boxed’ all his visitors when they came to call.
Tubbs studied me intently. I returned his appraising stare as I took the chair in front of his. I waited but my host was apparently in no hurry to conversate, nor to offer me any refreshment.
He looked me up and down, spending a while on the patchwork of sanitary napkins duct-taped to the left side of my face. His face was deadpan, and I decided right then that this was no man I’d ever play poker with.
He aimed his stare at my stained and raggedy clothes. “You’re not much of a clothes horse,” he observed.
I primped myself defiantly. “This is my lucky outfit,” I said. “We’ve been through a lot together. Besides, I may make it as a male model yet.”
He nodded. “Tell me how my daughter died.”
I took a breath, blew it out. “It was quick,” I said. “She died easy.”
“I didn’t bring you here to be bull-shitted. Kendra wouldn’t have gone quiet.”
“All right,” I said. He was her blood and had a right to know most of it. “I’ll give it to you straight. She knew she was dead, but she didn’t flinch. She looked right in that son of a bitch’s face while he pulled the trigger, and she gave him nothing, nothing at all.”
I shook my head in wonderment at her memory, probing the pain like sticking my tongue into an abscessed cavity. “Mr. Tubbs, I didn’t know your daughter, but it was a privilege to be with her in that moment. She died as well as could be.”
He grunted. “So then a man like you, with a record like yours, he just hauls off and charges into that school unarmed after you watch her die. Why? What was the connection?”
“A lot of people been asking about that one,” I said. “You don’t think the kids were enough of a reason? You don’t think I’d be good for goodness’ sake?”
“Why?” he repeated.
“That’s private,” I said, looking at the floor. “It had nothing to do with Kendra.”
He nodded but didn’t press the issue further. His face squirmed around, and his mouth contorted into what took me a second to realize was a smile, one as warm and sincere as his cadaverous face could approximate. This old man was one tough nut: like daughter like father I supposed.
“That’s about the way I figured, son. I just wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” He stood.
“I’d like you to go with me somewhere,” he said, planting his jaunty little fedora on his head. I had a suspicion the invitation wasn’t a request.