I FOLLOWED TURK to the side of the front door and saw shadows through the multi-pane window.
“Shit.” Turk’s voice. A blast of air.
Two more loud knocks. Turk stayed in front of me but didn’t answer the door.
“Thomas Muldoon, this is the La Jolla Police Department and we have a warrant for your arrest!” A command that penetrated the door and filled the room. “Open the door now!”
Turk stepped back and bumped into me. He spun away, and I grabbed his arm. Something hard came down on my hand and knocked it away.
“Police! Open the door!”
Turk bolted, three-legged, toward the kitchen where there was a door to the backyard, then a fence and overgrown open space. Running would only make things worse, and he couldn’t outrun the police on three legs. Best-case scenario was a hard takedown. Worst case, a bullet.
Two burst strides and I dove at his outline.
“Battering ram!” From outside.
My arms wrapped around Turk’s legs and we both went down hard. Two canes rattled along the wooden floor.
“Get the fuck off!” Turk wrested a leg free from my grasp and kicked me in the nose. A crack. My sunglasses flew off my face. Shooting stars burst inside my head. But I held onto the one leg.
The door exploded open, thwacked the wall, and shook the house. Multiple footsteps thundered across the open living room into the kitchen.
“Police! Stay on the ground! Arms and legs out wide! Now!”
I let go of Turk and slid off his leg flat on the floor. My head twisted toward the shouts. Four or five shapes with triangle tops like they were holding guns in two handed shooting platforms. Hopefully with their trigger fingers on trigger guards.
“On your stomach! Now!” The cop outline nearest me shouting at Turk. I was already belly down. Unmoving, except for the blood flowing from my broken nose.
A splot ahead of me. Must have been Turk rolling onto his stomach.
Shadows flashed across my eyes and someone snapped a cuff around my right wrist and wrenched my arm from my side and yanked it behind me at the same time something hard and round pressed into the small of my back. Probably a knee. Left arm next. Then the snap of the twin cuff on my left wrist. Hands patted me down, removing my wallet, phone, and keys from my pockets.
Scuttling sounds beyond my view.
“Stay down!” A hard thump vibrated along the floor.
“Thomas Muldoon, we have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Shay Louise Sommers.” A different voice than the ones that had shouted.
“This is bullshit!” Turk. A wail.
A rustle and a couple groans. A giant outline loomed above me. Turk bordered by two cops holding his arms.
The mass shuttled from the kitchen into the family room toward the front door. The thump of Turk’s damaged leg vibrated along the floor with each step.
“I’ll call Fenton and get him down to the police station!” I yelled at the receding shadow.
“Fuck you, Rick.” And then the shadow was gone.
“Mr. Cahill, we’re going to stand you up. Okay?” The voice that declared Turk under arrest.
He must have looked at my driver’s license from my wallet.
“Okay.”
Shadows. Two sets of hands grabbed my arms and helped me up to a standing position.
“Whoa!” A voice I hadn’t heard yet.
“Officer Horn!” The voice in charge, angry.
Then I realized why the reaction. Turk had broken my sunglasses along with my nose. They’d fallen to the floor. Blood dripped over my lip into my mouth. The coppery tang I’d tasted too often in my life. This time because a friend thought I’d betrayed him.
But the blood and my broken nose weren’t what shocked Officer Horn. It was the divot in my face beneath my left eye.
“I’m going to remove your cuffs, Mr. Cahill.” The outline in front of me. The man in charge. Probably the sergeant of the takedown team. Detectives Denton and Sheets would be waiting for Turk back at the Brick House. “Are you going to behave yourself?”
“Yes.”
The outline stepped behind me and took the cuffs off my wrist, then appeared back in front of me.
“What just happened in here?”
“Who am I speaking with?” I stared at the dark outline and could make out the oval of a head, but not its features. “I can’t read your badge, so I’d like to know who you are.”
“So, it’s true. You really are blind.” Surprise more than mock in his voice, which suddenly sounded somewhat familiar, though I didn’t know from when. Definitely before my blindness.
“Yep.” I let the disgust fill my voice. “I’m still waiting to learn who I’m speaking to.”
“We’ve actually met before. I’m Sergeant Ives, LJPD.”
Ives had been promoted since he and his partner harassed me for their old corrupt boss who was now long gone. Nice to know LJPD hadn’t changed its stripes with Sergeant Ives and Detective Denton still around. I feared for Turk and the railroad job rolling his way.
I stuck my hand out in front of me, but not for a handshake.
“I’d like my property back.”
“A couple questions, first.”
“Am I under arrest?” My hand still out, palm up.
“Not presently.”
“Then please give me back my property.”
Movement from the shadow in front of me, then the weight of my phone rested in my hand and the thump and chink of my wallet and keys on top of it. I stuffed the wallet and keys in pockets then commanded my phone to call Elk Fenton.
“Hang up the phone, Cahill. I have a couple questions to ask you.”
I pressed the phone against my ear, wiped blood from my throbbing nose, and smeared it on my jeans.
“Rick?” Elk.
“They arrested Turk. He’s on his way to the Brick House.” I hung up and commanded my phone to contact Uber.
“Hold on, Cahill.” Ives. “I didn’t say you could leave.”
“Unless you’re arresting me, you have seven minutes to ask questions before my ride gets here.”
“Cancel Uber. I’ll give you a ride home.”
I thought back to the last time I was in a car with Sergeant Ives. In the back of a police cruiser going to the Brick House, not my home. Handcuffed on trumped-up charges.
“I’ll pass, thanks.” I put the phone in my pocket and realized I was missing something much more vital than a phone, wallet, or keys. “Can someone hand me my cane?”
“Your cane?”
“Yeah. It’s what I use to see when I walk.” The cane had to be visible to Ives. I dropped it in the kitchen right near where we were now standing when I tackled Turk. “Could you hand it to me or would you rather watch me crawl around on the floor looking for it.”
Ives didn’t say anything or move. Possibly considering if he’d prefer me crawling around in my own blood over an act of human decency. Finally, the mass in front of me twisted one way then the other, then centered back in front of me.
“Horn, retrieve Mr. Cahill’s cane.”
Movement from another shadow.
“Which one? They’re two.” Horn.
“The white one,” I said. I’d forgotten that I’d knocked Turk’s cane out of his hand when I tackled him. The cops took him to jail without his third leg. “The other one’s Thomas Muldoon’s. Is anyone going to take it to him at the holding cell at the Brick House?”
“It’s potential evidence. We have a search warrant for the house.” Ives.
Turk would feel vulnerable and more isolated without his cane.
“Here you go, sir.” Officer Horn.
I stuck out my hand and the shadow put my cane in it.
“Thanks.”
“What happened in here just now?” Ives.
“You busted in the door and arrested an innocent man for murder.”
“Still a tough guy. Even when he can’t see.” Ives chuckled. Not derisively. Admiration hidden under the laugh? “When we entered the house, you and Mr. Muldoon were wrestling on the floor. You appear to have a broken nose. Did Mr. Muldoon assault you when he attempted to evade arrest? Do you want to press charges?”
“You seem to have the facts wrong, Sergeant. Again.” I stared at the dark outline in front of me. “Mr. Muldoon and I were wrestling, but it was a self-defense workout routine we put ourselves through. We have to be ready for the worst as disabled citizens.”
“We saw Muldoon through the window in the door. We know he was trying to flee.”
“Turk hasn’t fled anywhere since he took a bullet in his back saving my life.”
“Do your workouts usually end with a broken nose?” His outline shifted, like he put his hands on his hips.
“No. Today was an exception.”
“You’re sticking to that story?”
“Yep. And I’d better head outside or I’ll miss my ride.” I tapped my cane around Sergeant Ives and walked toward the front door.
“Your friend’s a violent killer, Cahill. Your broken nose is nothing compared to what he did to that poor girl.”