Not acknowledging him, she started to turn, was about to reenter the cabin when he reached her. Slipping one hand around her waist, he kissed the back of her neck.
She was rigid, unresponsive.
Ulrich remained behind her, maintained his grip around her waist. Kissed her again and she twisted away from his lips. He stroked her cheek, but his face, unseen by her, bore no affection.
Immobile.
Eyes hard and focused. Face slightly flushed.
Tanya said something, broke away from him, disappeared back into the cabin.
Ulrich stroked his mustache. Spit in the dirt.
Walked back to the car. Quickly. Face still expressionless. Flushed scarlet. He popped the trunk and retrieved the black bag.
Milo said, “Not good.”
His hand shot back to his gun and now he was stepping out from behind the tree. He’d barely taken a step when the shot rang out, hard and sharp, like hands clapping once.
From behind Ulrich. Above. The growth of pine at the ridge.
Milo ran back to his hiding spot. Gun out, but no one to shoot at.
Ulrich didn’t drop. Not right away. He stood there as the red spot formed on his chest, got redder, larger, .blossoming like a rose captured in time-lapse. Exit wound. Shot from the back. The leather bag remained in his hand, the mustache blocked out expression.
Another hand-clap sounded, then another, two more roses decorated Ulrich’s white shirt. Red shirt, hard to believe it had ever been white …
Milo’s gun hand was rigid, still, his eyes bounced from Ulrich to the pine ridge.
More applause.
When the fourth shot sheared off the top of Ulrich’s head, he let the black bag drop to the ground.
Fell on top of it.
The whole thing had taken less than ten seconds.
Screams from inside the house, but no sign of Tanya.
Duchess was barking. Milo’s gun was still out, aimed at the silence, the distance, the trees, that big mustache of trees.
CHAPTER 35
IT TOOK A while for the sheriffs to arrive from the Malibu substation, even longer to assemble a squad to travel up to the ridge. A small army of nervous, itchy-fingered men in tan uniforms, each deputy assuming the shooter was still around, wouldn’t hesitate to fire.
As we waited for the group to assemble, Milo hung out with the coroner, did his best to let the sheriffs feel they were in charge while managing to inspect everything. He asked me to comfort Tanya Stratton, but I ended up doing nothing of the sort. She shut me out, refused to talk, obtained whatever solace she desired by muttering to her sister over a cell phone and stroking her dog. I watched her from a distance. The deputies had shunted her away from the crime scene and she sat on the ground beneath a silver-dollar tree, knees drawn up, occasionally pummeling herself softly on the jaw. Her sunglasses were back on, so I couldn’t read her eyes. The rest of her face said she was shocked, furious, wondering how many other mistakes she’d make over the rest of her life.
While we’d waited for sheriffs, Milo had inspected the cabin. No obvious trophies. Not much of anything in there. A careful search, carried out later in the day, revealed nothing of an evidentiary nature, other than the doctor’s bag. Old, burnished leather, gold initials over the clasp: EHM.
Tanya Stratton claimed she’d never seen it. I believed her. Ulrich would have hidden it from her, produced it only when he was ready to use it. A while longer, and she might’ve lost the opportunity to make any mistakes at all.
Inside the bag were scalpels, scissors, other shiny things; a coil of I.V. tubing, sterile-packed hollow needles in various gauges. Rolls of gauze. Disposable hypodermic injectors, little ampules with small-print labels.
Thiopental. Potassium chloride.
The bag was taken into custody by a sheriff’s detective, but he never bothered to ask what the gold initials stood for and Milo didn’t volunteer the information. When the search party was ready, he and I rode along, sitting in back of a squad car, listening to nervous-talk from the two deputies in front.
The wounds—the way they’d passed through Ulrich at that distance, the size of the exits—indicated a high-velocity bullet, probably a military rifle, a good-quality scope. Someone who knew what he was doing.