Falling Down (26 page)

“H
ey, honey bunny,” Ken said. “Who's paying for all this?”

I'd shifted him to a private room at St. Mary's hospital. His broken bones still needed a few more checks on the pins and screws.

“It's all on the house,” I said.

“Get out of that chair,” he said. “Sit on the bed.”

I sat on the very edge, gingerly. He lifted the sheet.

“Get under here,” he said.

“The nurse will be along any time,” I said.

“Then get moving. I may be out of practice, but I'm not that quick.”

I got under the sheet and he pulled down my jeans and touched me.

“Got time in your life for a beat-up retired cop?” he said.

“Years,” I said.

“Whoa, wait a minute here.” Feeling my lower back, naked under the sheet. “Something's missing. Where's your Beretta?”

“Forget about mine,” I said, reaching underneath the front of his hospital gown. “Where's yours?”

H
ola, Ana Luisa
.

When you read this, your English will be better than my Spanish.

I'm writing in this diary a lot, now. I have a special memory, I can replay scenes from my past, but for you, I want to write things down so I have them clearly and accurately and you will know our history.

You have been baptized Ana Luisa Emich.

Father Frank Woolever did a special baptism service in the park, at the grotto beside the puppyfish that you've come to love as much as me. He blessed the water, he ran the water on your forehead, and he said it was a symbolic burial, that you were now baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and that your new life, in Christ and God, began at that moment.

My friend Laura Winslow brought her daughter and her granddaughter, and Father Frank baptized them both.

We have many pictures.

Laura made and edited a special video.

Our lives have changed.

We are no longer threatened.

Laura says there's no end to the chaos in southern Arizona, no end to drug cartels and gangs like the
maras
. But
we
are no longer threatened, our lives are no longer in danger. Laura says that the people who threatened us
worked independently of other
maras,
that all the computer records we found in the awful storage place were destroyed. Laura wiped the computer drives totally clean.

There are no records.

Just in case, and it may never come to this, Laura provided me with two completely new identities for the two of us. If we're ever threatened again, we'll use them, we'll move somewhere else and start over.

But I don't want to leave you, I don't want to leave our life together, and I don't want to leave this beautiful park and all the wonderful people who work in this sanctuary. Laura is gone. Once Ken was released from the hospital, Laura took him away and they're somewhere, out there. Someday, we may meet these special friends again.

And so I pray, Ana Luisa. I hope and I pray through Mother Teresa, may she intercede for us with God, may these dark times be over and may we live from now on in peace and serenity.

In God's name, I pray this is the true end to this story.

In writing this book, many,
many
people contributed in many,
many
ways.

Thanks to all the wonderful people at Tohono Chul Park, a privately-funded, not-for-profit nature preserve in Tucson, Arizona. Fifty acres of natural beauty and quiet serenity, Tohono Chul Park is the Southwest's center where nature, art, and culture connect. Special thanks to my close friends Mary Emich and Ken Charvoz on the Park staff. Mary is Director of Visitor Services, Ken coordinates the efforts of over three hundred volunteers. Both Mary and Ken started out to be just minor characters, and wound up with major and central roles.

Thanks to
everybody
who agreed to let me use their real names for characters in the book. This is no small thing. Other than Laura Winslow and her family, just about every name here (at last count, over thirty characters) is that of a friend or of somebody who graciously contributed money at an auction so that I'd use that name for either a good or bad character. That said, don't expect me to use personal details of any of these people—
Falling Down
is, after all, fiction. In particular, the real Chris Kyle is entirely the opposite of that character in the book. Chris is kind, sweet, generous, and a good friend. The Park itself (I'm both a Park member and a volunteer) has a major role as a real and symbolic
sanctuary of peace when set against the increasing drug and smuggling chaos of Southern Arizona.

Thanks to Mary Emich and Dympna Callaghan for helping me better understand some Catholic mysteries. Dympna, a Shakespearean scholar with tremendous research and writing skills, always inspires me to work harder.

I can't thank everybody who's helped me write this book, but here are four special friends who stand in for the larger communities they represent. As a fellow writer, Rhys Bowen gives freely of advice and support. The mystery community owes great debts to those who publish genre journals and guides: Janet Rudolph (
Mystery Readers Journal
) and Kate Derie (
Deadly Directory,
cluelass.com). Mary Jane Maffini, of Capital Crime Writers of Ottawa, is just one member of those special groups that promote and guide mystery writers; groups like Sisters in Crime, Private Eye Writers of America, and Mystery Writers of America. Thanks to my number one fan, Sylvia Ulan of Tucson. For me, Sylvia represents the mystery book community as a whole—the hundreds and hundreds of writers, fans, and readers.

And as always, this book simply wouldn't be possible without the support of my wife, Deborah Pellow.