CHAPTER ONE

 

The Chaplain comes by night.

He can’t afford to be seen near anybody with law-enforcement ties. Not even an ex-cop and a cop’s widow like myself.

If he was spotted at my place, his fellow Mogul bikers would plant him in the sand garden known as the Coachella Valley before the next sunrise painted the ocotillos yellow and orange.

So, the Chaplain comes by night.

This time, my clock radio reads 2:18 a.m. when I wake to hear his Harley mutter to a stop behind the house. My place is in the Cahuilla foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains overlooking Chapel City, Rancho Mirage, and—if you squint hard enough—the south end of Palm Springs.

It’s remote enough that I can afford my house, which is critical since Frank, my husband, got himself killed on what should have been a routine domestic violence call and left me nearly broke. All I got was a mortgage in default, a zero balance in his 401K, and no explanation of where the money went.

Lucky for me California takes care of the widow when a cop gets shot in the line of duty. Eventually there was a death benefit that paid off the mortgage, and I get half of Frank’s salary for the rest of my life.

But the 401K? Damned if I know what happened to it. He closed it with a cashier’s check and there the trail ends. Someday I’ll investigate and figure it out. But not yet. I can’t make myself do it.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: Frank did leave me the Chaplain.

The Chaplain was Frank’s confidential informant and he asked the Chaplain to look out for me if the worst happened to him.

Eight months ago, the worst did. A few nights after the funeral, the Chaplain showed up at my back door and told me the deal. Now he’s my confidential informant, witness retriever, and secret go-to for things best done in the dark.

I peer out the window beside my bed, and I can see in the moonlight that the Chaplain has a sidecar on his Harley, and luggage carriers on the back. He’s lifting something out of the sidecar.

A few moments pass and I hear stuff being set on the patio, followed by silence. Then he cranks up the Harley and vanishes into the night.

This is my arrangement with the Chaplain. I ask him to find something—most often an uncooperative witness—and bring him in. One time he explained to me how he does it.

The Chaplain’s wanted, so he doesn’t carry a gun unless he expects to need it, just a ball peen hammer. If a guy’s uncooperative, the Chaplain will show him the hammer, give him a look, and wait.

The Chaplain is six and a half feet and two-hundred-plus pounds of beard, muscle, and biker menace, and who’s to know what else is under those leathers? The guy usually becomes very cooperative, because the people I ask the Chaplain to track down are too deep into drugs, depravity, or gambling debt to go to the cops.

And when one doesn’t cooperate, the Chaplain slams the hammer down on the table, drags the guy’s hand out over the dent, raises the hammer, gives him another look, and waits some more. So far, that’s always done the trick.

Except tonight there’s a problem. The Chaplain’s not working on anything for me at the moment, so what’s he dropping off on my patio? I slide on my robe and slippers, and I’m halfway to the back door when my phone chimes from the nightstand.

I go back and pick it up. The caller ID shows the number for the Chaplain’s current burner phone. It’s always a burner with the Chaplain and he gets a new one every few weeks, then smashes the old one with his hammer and buries it in the desert. There’s gotta be dozens of his old burners out there in the sand. Do the metal-detector people ever find them and wonder how they got there?

“What’s happening?” I ask. “We’ve got nothing going on right - -”

“Look on the patio. And stay on the line.”

“But what - -”

“Please, Dana.”

The Chaplain’s like that. Gracious but implacable.

I walk out of the bedroom trailed by Duke, my retired German Shepherd K-9 partner, and swing open the back door. The Chaplain has switched on the patio light before leaving, and it takes me at least thirty seconds to process what I see: twin toddlers, one of each flavor, two or three years old, asleep in car seats. Around them is a bunch of kid stuff in reusable shopping bags--clothes, diapers, toys, plastic kiddie cups and bowls, books with covers in bright colors. “Grumpy Bird” and “Emily’s Balloon” are two that I can see. On their laps are a bedraggled stuffed pony and a one-eyed teddy bear.

“Jesus,” I say into the phone. “What the hell is this?”

The Chaplain, for once, doesn’t seem to know how to say what’s on his mind. The seconds drag past.

“They’re Frank’s,” he says finally. “Their mother was killed tonight. I didn’t know what else to do with them.”

I drop into a wicker chair, set my phone on the arm, pick it up, set it down again.

I study the kids in the car seats. The girl’s a redhead, the boy has hair that reminds me of Frank. His hair was a beautiful black till it got streaked with gray, which only made him more beautiful. And the boy has Frank’s nose and eyebrows, too. Duke sniffs his wrist and he wakes up. He peers around the patio, looks up at me with a sleepy half-smile, murmurs “Dukie.” Duke licks his face and he falls back asleep.

The boy’s smile nails it. Slightly crooked at the right corner, just like Frank’s. Plus, he and Duke know each other. Frank must have taken Duke along when he was with his twins and their mother, the bastard.

“Dana?” the Chaplain says.

I go back inside and tap the phone onto speaker. “They’re Frank’s? My husband had kids with another woman?”

The Chaplain is smart enough to know when a man should keep his mouth shut.

I process for another while.

The Chaplain clears his throat and waits.

“What am I supposed to do with them?” I ask finally.

“I thought you’d know. Because you’re...”

“Because I’m a woman, right? I’m a woman who couldn’t have kids!”

More tactical silence from the Chaplain.

I sigh. “All right, I’ll keep them till morning, then get hold of Child Protective Services. What are their names?”

“Rose and Sonny Williamson.”

“Sonny?”

“Dana, I am so sor - -”

“Frank. She named him Frank Junior. Didn’t she?”

Another silence. I figure the Chaplain’s debating if he can get away with saying nothing this time. Apparently, he decides not.

“Again, I am so sorry.”

“Who was the mother? It’s not another cop, is it? If it is, I swear, I’d kill her myself if she wasn’t already dead. And how did she die? And how did you get those kids?”

“She was Jennifer Williamson. She was not a cop,” the Chaplain says. “But the rest is too much to tell right now. You deal with the kids. You get some sleep. You put up the signal when you’re ready. Then we’ll talk.”

“No, dammit, we’ll talk now. Who was this bitch?”

But he’s gone. I fight off the urge to call him back. He’s told me never to do that. I tried, once. He blocked the call, buried the burner in the desert, and got a new one.

You don’t call the Chaplain. He calls you.

 

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