The Heist

later Jake O’Hare, their father, strode into the backyard. He was dressed in a golf shirt and slacks, and still wearing his cleats. He was square-jawed, square-shouldered, barrel-chested, and big-boned. His gray hair was buzzed to military specifications. He moved with a slight limp, the result of an injury he’d sustained on a mission that he still insisted was classified. It was his limp that Kate imitated when she used the disabled elevator at the San Francisco Federal Building.
    “Dad, what have I told you about wearing your golf shoes around the house?” Megan said as Kate rose up to greet her father.
    “I’m aerating the grass,” Jake said, giving Kate a hug. “What brings you out here?”
    “I brought the kids their Christmas presents,” Kate said.
    “Guns, of course,” Megan said.
    “Water cannons,” Kate said.
    “It’s June,” Jake said. “You’re a little early.”
    “These were the gifts I was going to bring last Christmas, but then things got crazy at work,” Kate said. “I had a strong lead on a case that I had to chase down. That’s over now, so I’m catching up on some things that kind of fell through cracks during the investigation.”
    “That’s right, you finally caught Nick Fox. Congratulations.”
    “Thanks,” Kate said.
    Jake gestured to her glass. “You feel like having something stronger than that Hawaiian Punch?”
    “That’d be nice,” Kate said.
    “We’re making my famous hamburgers in a half hour,” Roger yelled from the pool.
    “Wouldn’t miss it,” Kate said, and followed her father around the side yard to the front of the house, where there were two matching detached garages, one on either side of the driveway. Both had red-tiled roofs, of course. She’d parked her white Ford Crown Victoria, the police interceptor model, between the two garages. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
    “From what?” Jake said.
    “From that,” Kate said. “I don’t know how you can take it here.”
    “It’s a good life,” Jake said.
    “You live in the garage.”
    “It’s a
casita
.”
    “It’s a detached garage that they put a bathroom and kitchenette in,” Kate said. “It still has the garage doors.”
    “They’re nonworking. It’s a garage door façade. We had to keep it to maintain conformity,” Jake said. “The architectural committee in this neighborhood is stricter than the Taliban. But I still like it here.”
    “How can you?”
    “It’s sunny all the time. The streets are cleaner than Disneyland. We’re right above the golf course and I get to be with my family. I get to tickle the grandkids and read ’em bedtime stories.”
    “Yeah, but there’s Roger.”
    “He’s a good man,” Jake said.
    “He’s unbelievably dull.”
    “Nobody’s asking him to open for Tony Bennett, just to be there for his wife and kids, and he is, more than I ever was for you and Megan.”
    “You don’t have to be there to be there,” Kate said.
    “Yes, honey, you do.” Jake went into his
casita
and came out a moment later with two cold Buds. Kate leaned against her car.
    “So you’re paying penance,” Kate said. “That’s why you’re here.”
    “I told you, I like it here.”
    “You spent decades traveling to exotic locales, fighting wars. How can you like this?”
    “I’m still fighting wars. We’ve got a real problem here with morning glories invading the common areas. I’m leading the landscaping committee’s offensive to repel the invasion.”
    “You’re depressing me, Dad.”
    He laughed and took a drink. “A new assignment will come along for you soon.”
    “I got one. It sucks.”
    “Not all of them can be Nick Fox.”
    “So everyone keeps telling me. To which I say, why not?”
    They were quiet for a moment, looking at the view of the smog-covered valley and the community’s front gate. There was a tiny guardhouse that looked like a miniature golf version of Megan’s McMansion. The guard always greeted Kate when she arrived like they were colleagues, both servants of justice wearing badges, except hers wasn’t a patch.
    Her father took another drink of his beer. “I led a covert mission once to assist a ragtag group of rebels in liberating their country from a crazy, crack-addicted dictator and his corrupt army. I spent months in that jungle, fighting soldiers and mosquitos the size of Corollas. But we did it. Twenty years later, I was sent on another covert mission to help rebels liberate their country. Turned out to be