The Good House Read online

  If she’d had time to think about it, if she’d been meditating instead of relying solely on her eyes and ears, she’d have recalled that this dog’s bark sounded uncannily like a Chihuahua, Bebe, who’d lived with her family when she was a toddler. When Bebe died, she’d learned what death was. She waited at the door for him to come back every night for a week. She’d never stopped looking for him, never stopped waiting for him, and this dog sounded like Bebe. Even if she didn’t know it.

  “Come on out, you littlecomémierda,” she muttered, her favorite curse in Spanish,shit-eater, a Cuban word she’d picked up from an old boyfriend, and one of the few words she knew in her parents’ native language. She’d learned the full glossary of dirty words from her cousins, so she was content with her Spanglish even if her grandparents in Guadalajara couldn’t understand what she said.

  Colin’s voice came into her radio earpiece. “Status,” he said, annoyed.

  Colin had lit into her when she radioed him and told him she’d climbed down the embankment behind the deck to look for the dog. But since she was back there, he’d decided he had to back her up. Now she’d involved him in her silliness, and she felt truly bad about that. She pressed on her tiny microphone, which hung across her shoulder for easy access. “He’s moving. I’m due east now.”

  Colin groaned. “Rob’s gonna fry both our asses,” he said. “Help me find you.”

  Maritza studied her compass, watching the needle tremble. She was no Eagle Scout—or whatever the equivalent was for girls—but she knew how to use a compass, and this one was intent on pointing north, even when she faced the opposite way.

  “Comémierda,”she said. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “What?”

  “My compass is acting screwy. This damn thing’s no good.”

  “Forget it, then,” Colin said. He sounded out of breath from following her. “I thought you said you wereright behind the house. I don’t see you. Darlene said this suspect was last sighted on Eagles’ Nest, and that’s…what? Six minutes from here? We should go back to the house.”

  Colin was right. Tariq Hill could be ambling into the Toussaint house this very moment, although the house had been quiet as a graveyard. Not a peep. Not a whimper. Colin had made a joke about it just before she heard the first bark:You should see this guy with his bow and arrow, like he thinks he’s Tarzan. Now that her man is here, I guess it won’t be so quiet in there now.

  The high-pitched bark came again, to Maritza’s left. Twenty yards at most.Ten yards, even. If not for the ferns wrapped in spiderwebs, she would be able to see the damn dog now. “I’ve got him,” she said. “Give me one second.”

  Maritza surveyed the overgrown thicket before her, noticing a cedar tree with a huge crevice shaped like a heart, and a creek not too far down the way. She could hear the gentle water.

  “Be careful, Maritza,” Colin said. “Come back in.”

  “I’m east. Just keep straight,” she said, and she waded into the ferns.

  Spiders had never bothered her, so she calmly snatched away any webs that brushed her face, unmindful. She hoped this stunt wouldn’t stain the application she had sitting over at Portland P.D. She couldn’t stand another year in Sacajawea. Searching for dogs in the bushes wasn’t her idea of police work.

  “Negative,” Colin said. “We go back to the house. We stay there until Rob sends over another unit. Stop fucking around back there.”

  Maritza saw black fur scurry away from the creek that gurgled a few feet to her left; a fluffy ball at the end of the dog’s tail vanished behind a shrub. Maritza whistled and made kissing noises, crouching. “I need thirty seconds. I justsaw him. What’s this dog’s name?”

  “I forget. Ebony or something. Don’t let him bite you.”

  “I willstep on that little dog before I let him bite me,” Maritza said.

  “You still due east?”

  “Yes. Northeast.”

  “Make up your mind.”

  “East, mostly,” she said. “I see a clearing now. There are three fence-posts.”

  Maritza was grateful for the landmark of the three old fence-posts, which had come into her sight after she rounded the last tangle of hedges. This was the only good landmark so far, and she’d needed something more concrete to give Colin. She was about to call for the dog again, but her voice trailed off in surprise. The neatly trimmed black poodle sat directly in front of her, beside one of the fence-posts. With his bright purple collar, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen him immediately. Had he been there the whole time? She’d overlooked him on first glance.

  “Which way after this creek?” Colin’s voice tickled her inner ear.

  “I got him,” she whispered.“Shhhhhhh.”

  Maritza surveyed her surroundings to make sure Tariq Hill wasn’t in sight. It would be a hell of a trick for him to have trained the dog to lure her out here, but nothing was impossible. He might have a camp here they’d missed during the sweep.

  There were too many stands of fir trees, towering wild shrubs, and high stalks of grass surrounding her to put Maritza at ease. This area would be a nightmare to cover. But she didn’t see anyone, and that was good news for now. Kissing and cooing, trying to sound nonthreatening, Maritza crouched, duckwalking closer to the dog. His gaze was questioning, inasmuch as a dog’s face could be.

  “Come to Mama, little pooch,” Maritza said. “That’s right, Ebony. I won’t hurt you.”

  This was the dog. Ithad to be the one. How many black poodles were roaming around Sacajawea? If she helped capture Tariq Hill, she thought, her application in Portland would shoot straight through the bureaucracy. In fact, screw Portland. She’d apply to the FBI and go back home to Fort Worth, where she could get a tan, good barbecue, and real tacos again.

  “Tell me which way after the creek,” Colin’s voice said.

  “Left. North. But only slightly. Hence,northeast,” she whispered. She kept a big smile on her face for the dog, who had stood up on all fours, as if to run from her. She hoped dogs weren’t like porpoises, where grinning teeth were considered a threat. What was the rule for dogs, anyway? No prolonged eye contact. Maritza purposely shifted her eyes away from him, toward a clump of some kind of flowering bushes to her right.

  “Díos mio,”she said, falling to one knee.

  She thought she’d seen him. Would havesworn to it. She was looking for a six-foot-three black man, and he’d seemed to be standing ten yards to the side of her. Her finger was so tight against her warm trigger, she almost thought she’d pulled it.

  Yet, it wasn’t Tariq Hill. Instead, Maritza stared into the face of a wispily built teenage girl in a beautiful white dress, much like the traditional dresses her mother made her wear on the Day of the Dead as a child. The girl was pretty, as blond and sweet-faced as the girls she’d known in high school whose hips didn’t bulge and who always had boyfriends hypnotized by their flaxen hair.

  “Miss, you have to leave this property,” Maritza told the girl. She stood up, embarrassed to be pointing a gun at her. Maritza dropped her hand, slipping the gun back into its holster.

  “Who’s there?” Colin’s voice crackled in her ear, excited.

  “A kid,” Maritza told him, then turned her attention back to the girl.

  “There’s a manhunt under way, miss, and this is private property.”

  The girl’s face was blank, expectant. Standing closer to her, Maritza marveled at her gray eyes, round and almost fawnlike. She was pretty enough to be a model, except healthier, fuller. Maritza couldn’t remember seeing anyone prettier, except in a magazine.

  “Did you hear me, miss?”

  “I’m sorry,” the girl said. A single tear streamed down her face.

  “Where are you, Maritza?” Colin’s voice said, frustrated. But Maritza barely heard him, because the girl’s melancholy had moved her. The girl’s apology carried the weight of sins too great for someone so young.

  “What’s wrong?” Maritza asked her.


  “I’m sorry,” the girl said again in that world-weary voice, and her jaw began quivering, making her look ten years younger. The sight of this girl was making her heart ache in places she didn’t know it had. “What,linda?” Maritza said, in her own mother’s voice. “What happened?”

  The girl’s eyes brightened, her jaw went still, and her lips lost their sorrow. The transformation happened so quickly, Maritza doubted her eyes.

  “This happened,” the girl said. She pointed lazily over Maritza’s shoulder. Behind her.

  After turning halfway around, Martiza saw the motion of someonebig about to come into her vision, and her hand flew back to her gun.

  But not quickly enough. Maritza felt a shove and sharp pressure against her side, at her waistline. The push was hard, because she was no longer on her feet. She saw blood spouting above her holster, bloodying her hand. Maritza had never seen herself bleed this way before, in a fountain. The sight of her blood made her lose the idea she’d had about reaching for her gun, which didn’t matter because a stronger hand was already tugging her department-issue Glock away from her.

  Examining herself, Maritza saw something that needed her undivided attention: The black, grooved handle of some kind of tool the size of a large ice pick or a screwdriver was affixed to her waist, protruding fromunderneath her bullet-proof vest. When she touched the handle, her body contorted in pain, as if she’d shocked herself. This was the source of the blood, she realized. Something was buried to the hilt inside her. It had punctured her kidney for sure.

  People died like this.

  Maritza grabbed the handle to try to pull it free, but somewhere in her haze of panic, she stopped herself. No, she realized. If she pulled it out, she might bleed to death more quickly.Maybe it’s the only thing keeping me alive. She saw how awkwardly her legs had splayed beneath her, devoid of feeling. Movement was out of the question, and shock would be here soon.

  Tariq Hill stood above her, impassive. She’d forgotten all about him, just as she’d forgotten about the girl in the white dress, who was nowhere in her sight. When Tariq stood above her, Maritza’s brain chronicled everything she could about her killer: black male, age thirty-five to forty-five. Six-three or six-four. Short-cropped hair. Black shirt and black slacks. If she had a chance to speak to anyone again, those would be her last words.

  Tariq leaned over, his palm reaching toward her. Maritza turned her face away from him, thinking he might hit her. But he didn’t. He wrapped his hand around the charm hanging from her neck and yanked, hard. She felt the leather string cut into her neck before it broke away.

  “You won’t be needing this,” Tariq said. His voice seemed to shake the ground.

  Tariq tossed the charm over his shoulder, then scooped the whimpering dog under his arm. With neither pity nor boasting in his eyes, Tariq turned and made long strides toward a stand of fir trees. Maritza watched him retreat, gulping at the air. Her lungs couldn’t have been penetrated—she was certain of that—but she had to labor to breathe anyway. Her system was shutting down.

  But he hadn’t killed her yet. Any chance at all was a big chance.

  The pain roiled, making everything in Maritza’s sight seem to turn a bright shade of red. Even as her nerves awakened, screaming, she felt more determined to survive. She fumbled to press her radio’s microphone. Colin’s voice had been in her ear for some time, yelling her name.

  “Officer down,” Maritza said, hoping she was yelling, too, although she suspected her voice was a squeak by now. “Colin, I’m down. Tariq Hill is here. I’m down.”

  “Come again?” Colin’s voice responded, panicked. “Maritza, come again?”

  Maritza’s mouth moved in response, but her throat only bubbled beneath a moaning sound she hadn’t noticed until she could no longer speak. She hoped the bubbling in her throat wasn’t blood. Her mouth tasted terrible—like panic, like death—and if any blood came up, she’d know for certain she was about to die here. Until that happened, she had a chance. A small one.

  Maritza thought God was talking to her personally, but it was Colin in her ear. “Hang on, hang on. I’m almost there! I see a post.”

  The red sky twirled above her. Maritza closed her eyes.

  She thought she had died, until she heard the gunshot. Her first sight was Colin running toward her in a full sprint, his gun aimed. Her mind celebrated. Colin nailed thatputa, she thought.

  But Colin’s stride turned ungainly, and his midsection twisted as if the top half of his body had decided to run in another direction. While Maritza watched, Colin’s legs buckled beneath him and he fell in a tangle of his own limbs, not five yards from her. She saw a large bloodstain soaking his crotch. Colin was wearing his vest to protect his chest, back, and side—Rob had insisted on it—but Colin had been shot in the groin. Almost like an afterthought, Colin began screaming.

  Maritza saw Tariq stand over her friend, aim, and fire once at his head. The dog under Tariq’s arm barked, frightened at the sound. Tariq turned to Maritza next, his expression determined but washed of malice. He aimed his weapon like a man with a job to do. A man on his task.

  Maritza felt sorrowed. She and Colinboth down on the same day, she thought.

  She didn’t dwell on it long.

  There is no place like home, Tariq thought as he appraised the uniformed man and woman dead at his feet, not unlike lovers at arm’s length from each other. His gun’s last report rang around him, a powerful sound. Birds were taking wing from the treetops, afraid his bullets might be meant for them. But soon, silence. At least to the untrained ear.

  But Tariq could hear things and feel things others could not. Tariq felt the earth vibrating beneath his feet, the stirring of the house. The reclamation.

  All of this land, now, belonged to thebaka, and thebaka’ s plans had not included these two police officers, unfortunately for them. Thebaka had made their ears deaf to the sounds of its reclamation inside the house. If they had heard, perhaps they would have realized they had more pressing problems than a barking dog. They would have heard Death coming for them.

  Flesh was so easy to fool. At times, the match didn’t seem fair.

  Tariq rolled the dead man over with his foot and knelt beside him to pull the talisman from his neck. He scanned the herbs and overgrown grass in the clearing for the one he’d taken from the woman. Finding it, he stepped on them both, delighting in the muted cracking sound beneath his sole.

  He had to admit, That Bitch had her moments.

  Thebaka would have enjoyed using the police officers to kill Myles Fisher. As a boy, Myles Fisher had seen police officers wrestle his father to the floor, convinced he was watching his father’s murder. If thebaka had hidden inside the officer’s skins, Myles would have given it more fear to feed from before he died. And how much more terrifying for Angie would it have been to watch Myles Fisher slain by the hand of their protectors?

  The sheriff would have been best, naturally. But That Bitch had protected them all, using Angie and her rudimentary clay, preventing thebaka from riding them. Thebaka could inconvenience them and fool their ears, but it could not liberate them as it had liberated him.

  That Bitch could never be underestimated, Tariq remembered. But in his own way, Tariq was glad Myles Fisher was still living. At the man’s house today, smelling Angie on Myles Fisher’s bed, Tariq had felt a rage that made all his previous rage feel puny. This man’s hands had touched his wife. His fingers had violated her. His mouth had violated her. Hismanhood had violated her.

  And Angie had gladly allowed him to.

  Tariq knew he was still capable of mercy. Hadn’t he shown mercy to the actress? The uniformed woman had suffered, but not long. And the uniformed man had died quickly enough. Frankly, that was more mercy than thebaka would prefer.

  But there would be no more mercy.

  “No more mercy!” Tariq shouted, hoping his voice would carry to the place where Angie and Myles Fisher were fleeing on the other side of the prope
rty, mere acres from where he stood. They were fleeing toward the place they would be easiest to find, where thebaka wanted them to go.

  He would make Angie watch him kill the man she had betrayed him with. He would have her, his own reclamation. Then, she would die. Depending on his mood, her dying might take time.

  This land belonged to him now, and to thebaka.

  Thebaka was feeding here now, on the new blood that ran into the soil.

  Thebaka was always strongest after a feast.

  Thirty-One

  JULY2, 2001

  11:35P.M.

  MIDNIGHT WAS COMING,but The Spot looked like midday, crisp and bright. The moon was nearly full above the bonfire, and a shower of orange sparks flew toward the sky.