The Exile Read online

  “John, it’s Jimmy.” It was Halliday, and there was an edge and excitement to his voice. “The Special Investigations people who went over the train. They found Raymond’s bag. Some victim.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The bag. There was a forty-caliber Ruger automatic in it and two full ammunition clips.”

  “Jesus,” Barron heard himself say. “His prints on it?”

  “There were no prints on it, period. None.”

  “You mean he wore gloves.”

  “Maybe. They’re going over the rest of the contents now. Polchak’s going to run his prints and photo past the Chicago PD to see if they have anything on him there, and Lee’s going down and talk to him about it. Red’s got this buttoned up till we know more. Nothing to the media. Nothing to anyone.”

  “Right.”

  “John—” Barron heard the change in Halliday’s voice. It was the same concern he had shown on the train before the operation to take Donlan began. “What happened today was rough, I know. But that’s the way all of us were introduced to it. You’ll get over it. It just takes a little time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll let you know if there’s more on Raymond.”

  7:10 P.M.

  One deep breath and then another.

  John Barron closed his eyes and leaned back in the shower of his small, rented Craftsman-style house in the Los Feliz section of the city and let the water rush over him.

  “That’s the way we were all introduced to it,” Halliday had said. All introduced to it? That meant there had been more. Jesus God, how long had this kind of thing been going on?

  Was he okay, Halliday had asked.

  Okay? Jesus in Heaven.

  It had now been nearly fifteen hours since he’d boarded the Southwest Chief in Barstow with Marty Valparaiso, almost ten since, shotgun in hand, he’d walked up the ramp in the parking garage shoulder to shoulder with Red McClatchy, a little more than that since Valparaiso, father of three, had walked up to a handcuffed man and shot him in the head.

  Barron lifted his face to the showerhead, as if the force of the water itself would make the memory and the horror go away.

  It didn’t. If anything it grew stronger. The sharp bang of the gunshot still reverberated. Along with it came the sight of Donlan’s body crumpling to the floor. In his mind he saw it again and again. Each time it played slower than the last, until it became a delicate ballet of still-motion illustrating the sheer force of gravity once life ceased to exist.

  Then came the rest, as faces, words, images flooded his memory.

  “Gives his name as Raymond Thorne. Says his IDs were left on the train.” Lee was in the front passenger seat of the detectives’ car reading from his notes as Halliday drove them through the parking structure on the way out. Barron rode in the back, alongside their handcuffed, still-incensed hostage/prisoner, trying desperately not to let any of them see the feelings of shock and nearly unbearable horror that still pumped through him.

  “Claims to be a U.S. citizen born in Hungary.” Lee half turned in his seat to look back at Barron. “Resides at twenty-seven West Eighty-sixth Street, New York City. Says he’s a computer software rep for a German company. Spends most of his time on the road. Said he was taking the train to L.A. because an ice storm in Chicago closed the airports. That was where he met Donlan.”

  “I don’t claim to be a U.S. citizen, I am a U.S. citizen,” Raymond snapped at Lee. “And I am a victim. I was kidnapped and taken hostage. These men were on the train. They saw it happen. Why don’t you ask them?”

  Suddenly they came into bright sunlight as Halliday exited the garage, and they were moving toward a wall of satellite trucks and media people. Uniformed officers cleared the way as Halliday approached, and then they were driving past them, turning onto the street and driving away, on their way downtown to police headquarters at Parker Center.

  Barron remembered the solemn profiles of Lee and Halliday as they sat in the front. They had been on the floor below when it happened. He knew now they had known exactly what was going to happen the moment they took “Raymond” out of there and down the fire stairs. It meant that the execution of someone like Donlan was some kind of business as usual and they expected that, because Barron was one of them, he would simply go along with it. But they were wrong. Wrong as they could be.

  Abruptly Barron turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. He dried off and went through the mechanics of shaving but paid little attention to it. His mind was still filled with unrelenting vignettes of things that had happened in the hours since Valparaiso pulled the trigger. Within them, two indelible moments stood out.

  The first was of driving through the horde of media outside the garage and seeing the short, young man in his familiar rumpled blue blazer, wrinkled khakis, and horn-rimmed glasses move right up to the car and stare in as they passed. Dan Ford was like that, as aggressive as any reporter in the city. And when he stared the way he had, it was exceedingly obvious because he had only one eye. The other was glass, although it was hard to tell—that is, until he began to stare intently with the good eye, as if making sure he actually saw what he thought he was seeing. That was what he had done then as Halliday drove past. And seeing him that close and staring, Barron had hurriedly looked away.

  It wasn’t so much that Ford wrote for the Los Angeles Times, or that, at twenty-six, Barron’s own age, he was arguably the most respected police-beat reporter in the city, a guy who told the truth in what he wrote and who knew detectives in almost every one of the city’s eighteen police-community areas. It was because he and John Barron were best friends, and had been since grade school. It was why he had so quickly turned away when Ford approached as they passed through the media line. Barron knew Ford would see the shock and revulsion in his eyes and would know something horrific had just taken place. And it wouldn’t be long before he would ask about it.

  The second moment took place at police headquarters and belonged to Raymond himself. He’d been photographed and fingerprinted and was on his way to lockup when he’d asked to talk with Barron. As the arresting officer, Barron had agreed, thinking Raymond was going to protest his innocence one last time. Instead, his prisoner had asked about his well-being. “You don’t look well, John,” he’d said quietly. “You seemed upset about something in the car. Are you alright?”

  Raymond had given the slightest hint of a smile at the end, and Barron had erupted in anger, yelling for the guards to take him away. And they had, immediately taking him through steel doors that had closed hard behind him.

  John.

  Somehow Raymond had learned his name and was using it to get to him, as if he’d guessed what had happened to Donlan and had seen or sensed how deeply shocked Barron had been by it. His asking to see him was nothing more than a way to test Barron’s reaction and confirm his guess, and Barron had fallen for it. The tiny smile, the smirk, the grin at the end was not only outrageous, it had been done on purpose and gave everything away. He might as well have finished by saying “thank you.”

  And what would he do when Lee went down to talk to him about the Ruger automatic found in his bag on the train? How would he respond to that? The answer was that he would do nothing more than play the innocent. He would either have a legitimate answer for the gun—it was his, he was on the road a lot, and it was licensed, which Barron doubted—or he would deny any knowledge of it, especially when he knew there were no fingerprints on it, and claim he had no idea where it had come from. Whatever the case, the subject of Donlan would not come up in any manner whatsoever. That little piece of business Raymond would keep between himself and John Barron.

  7:25 P.M.

  Barron pulled on a pair of gray workout sweats and walked barefoot into the kitchen to take a bottle of beer from the refrigerator. None of it would leave his mind. The killing had been devastating enough. Raymond’s arrogant cleverness made it wors
e. The rest was in what the others had done afterward: Valparaiso’s coming up to him with the official story of what had taken place; Polchak’s mechanical removing of the handcuff and planting of the gun in Donlan’s cold, dead hand. Then there was the famed Red McClatchy—his paternalistic concern for Valparaiso that, in effect, patted him on the head and sent him home; his calm radioing for both an ambulance and a tech crew who would go over the “crime scene” and, no doubt, formally confirm whatever Red told them; his order demanding that John file the report on it. Aside from the killing itself, it was the last that was cruelest.

  Like the others, Barron was already an accessory to murder by the simple fact that he’d been there. But by filing the report, typing it up and putting his name on it, he became a collaborator, his name right there on the bottom of the page as the police officer who certified the cover-up. It meant he could say nothing to anyone without incriminating himself. It was murder and he was part of it, whether he liked it or not. And whether he liked it or not, he was certain Raymond, no matter who he was or what he had been up to, knew what had happened.

  Beer in hand, Barron closed the refrigerator door, his mind spinning. He was a cop, he wasn’t supposed to be sickened or disturbed like this, but he was. The circumstances were different and he was older, but the shock and horror and disbelief twisting in his stomach now were the same as they had been that night eight years earlier when, at eighteen, he’d come home and seen the flashing lights of police cars and ambulances in the street outside his house. He’d been out with Dan Ford and some other friends. In his absence, three young men had broken into his house and shot and killed his mother and father directly in front of Rebecca. Neighbors had heard the shots and seen the three men run from the house and get into a black car and speed away. A “home invasion robbery gone bad,” the police had called it. To this day no one knew why Rebecca hadn’t been killed as well. Instead she’d been sentenced to a lifetime in Hell.

  By the time Barron arrived, Rebecca had already been taken to a psychiatric hospital. And Dan Ford, seeing him paralyzed by the horrible impact of what had just happened and realizing that Barron’s family had been insular and that he had no relatives or even close family friends he could turn to, had immediately called his own parents and arranged for John to come to their house and to stay as long as he needed. It was all a nightmare of police and flashing lights and confusion. Barron could still see the look on the face of the next-door neighbor as he came from the house. He was trembling, his eyes distant, his face the color of fireplace ash. It was only later Barron learned that he had volunteered to identify the bodies so that John wouldn’t have to.

  For days afterward he lived in the same mode of shock and horror and disbelief he felt now, as he tried to deal with what had happened and work with the various agencies to find a place for Rebecca. And then the shock turned to massive guilt. It was all his fault and he knew it. If only he had been there he might have done something to prevent it. He never should have gone out with his friends. He had deserted his mother and father and sister. If only he had been there. If only. If only.

  And then the guilt turned to anger of the deepest kind and he wanted to become a cop right then and deal firsthand with these kinds of murderers. Those feelings deepened as days and weeks and months passed and the killers were never found.

  John Barron had initially gone to college at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo to study landscape architecture and follow a dream of a career designing formal gardens that he had held since he’d been a child. After the murder of his parents he’d transferred immediately to the University of California at Los Angeles to be closer to Rebecca and to pursue a bachelor’s degree in English in preparation for law school, where he planned to study criminal law; he had visions of one day becoming a prosecutor or even a judge, choosing to enter law enforcement from that end. But with the money from his parents’ life insurance nearly gone and Rebecca’s expenses growing, he needed to find a full-time job, and he did—with the Los Angeles Police Department, academy to patrol cop to detective, all in rapid order.

  Five years after joining the LAPD, he was a member of the renowned century-old 5-2 Squad, walking up a ramp in an abandoned garage side by side with the legendary Red McClatchy in search of an escaped killer. It was the dream job of every cop on the LAPD and probably half the other cops in the world and had been accomplished by a combination of hard work, his own intelligence, and a sense of deep commitment to the life he had taken on.

  And then, in an instant, it all shattered, the same as his life had shattered that dark and awful night eight years before.

  “Why?” he suddenly yelled out loud. “Why?”

  Why, when Donlan was unarmed and already in custody? What kind of law enforcement was that? What code were they going by? Their own vigilante law? Was that why joining the squad was a commitment for life that you agreed to when you were sworn in? Nobody quit the 5-2 ever. That was the rule. Period.

  Barron wrenched open the beer and started to drink. Then he saw the framed picture on the table beside the refrigerator. It was a photograph of him and Rebecca taken at St. Francis. Their arms were around each other and they were laughing. “Brother and sister of the year,” the caption read. He didn’t remember when it had been taken or even what it was for, except maybe showing up as often as he did to spend a little time with her. Somehow he’d done it today; tomorrow he couldn’t even begin to think about.

  Then, suddenly and from nowhere, a calm settled over him as he realized it didn’t make any difference what the rules of the squad were. Never again would there be room in his life for cold-blooded killing, especially when it came from the police. He knew then what he had known almost from the moment Donlan had been taken down—that there was only one thing he could do. Find someplace far from L.A. where Rebecca could be treated and then simply take her and leave. He might have been the last to join the 5-2, but he was going to be the first in LAPD history to quit it.

  21

  PARKER CENTER, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT HEADQUARTERS. STILL TUESDAY, MARCH 12. 10:45 P.M.

  Raymond stood at his cell door staring out at the darkened cellblock. He was alone and wore an orange jumpsuit with the word PRISONER stenciled on the back. He had a sink, a bunk, and a toilet, all of which were in clear view of anyone walking past in the corridor outside. How many other prisoners there were, or what their crimes had been, he had no idea. All he knew was that none were like him or could ever be. Not today, probably not ever. At least in America.

  “You have the right to legal counsel,” the huge and imposing African-American policeman had said, reading him his rights under law. Legal counsel? What did that mean now? Especially as the walls began to close in around him as he had known all along they would. It was a process that had already begun when the same huge, imposing African-American policeman had come to see him to ask about the Ruger. His reply had been what it would have been if he had been caught on the train and the gun found in his bag there—simply to lie. To act wholly surprised and tell him he had no idea at all where the weapon had come from. He had been on the train for a long time. Back and forth to the dining car, the toilet, just up taking a walk and stretching. Anyone could have put it there. Most likely Donlan, as a backup to his own gun. He had spoken to the detective seriously and in all innocence, still protesting that he was a victim, not a criminal. Finally the detective had thanked him for his cooperation and left. If nothing else, Raymond had bought himself a little more time.

  The question now was, how soon would they realize everything he’d told them was false? When they did, their attention to everything else would suddenly ratchet up. How long would it be before they contacted the Chicago police to talk about the Ruger and to see if he had a criminal record or outstanding warrants there? And no matter how many murders had been committed in Chicago over the weekend, how long would it be before the matter of the two men shot and killed in the Pearson Street tailor shop came up? Among other things, the caliber
of the murder weapon would be discussed. How long after that before the Chicago police asked for a ballistics test on the Ruger? And even without fingerprints on the gun, how quickly would they start putting things together and wonder what the link was between the safe deposit keys, his recent travels in and out of the country, the men murdered in Chicago, his arrival and purpose in Los Angeles, and the plane ticket to London?

  10:50 P.M.

  Abruptly Raymond turned and walked back to his bunk and sat down, thinking of the odds against the incredible string of coincidences that had happened in such a short time. Somehow he had been on the same train, in the same car, and playing cards with a man wanted badly enough by the police that when it was discovered he was on the train, LAPD undercover agents had been sent to board it in the middle of the night to make certain he didn’t escape. Then, of all the passengers on the coach, this same man had taken him hostage. And, in very nearly the same breath, the police had seen him jump into a hijacked car with his captor and assumed they were accomplices, which was hardly the truth, but nonetheless why he was here.

  Raymond gritted his teeth in anger. It had all been so carefully thought out. He was one man traveling light, his weapons in place ahead of time. In his single cell phone he had all the communication he would need to stay in touch with the Baroness for such a short period of time. What should have been so simple had instead unraveled into an absurd and inconceivable series of events that, combined with his frustration at being unable to discover the French location of the safe deposit box, something wholly unforeseen because the instructions in the envelopes that held the safe deposit keys, which he had read and destroyed, were to have included that information but hadn’t, was enough to—Suddenly he realized: These things were not accidental at all. They were inevitable. It was the thing Russians called sudba, his destiny, and what he had been prepared for and warned of since childhood—that God would test him over and over throughout his lifetime in trials that would tax his courage and devotion, his toughness, his cleverness, and his will to prevail in the most profound difficulties. Since his youth and up until this point he had prevailed. And impossible as his situation seemed now, this should be no different.