Desert Cut (21 page)
He took a deep breath and recovered himself. “As I see it, the immediate problem is the safety of their kids, so excuse me while I get on the phone to CPS. Oh, God, by the time this is all over, those folks are gonna be so sick of me.”
After he made the call, I asked one more question. “When did Hall die?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because you’re about to hold a press conference and tell everybody else. Since I’ve shared all my information with you, don’t you think you owe me something? Even if it’s only a thirty-minute jump on the media?”
He grunted assent. “Hall died early this morning, somewhere between one and four. While running for the door, he took two bullets in the back. Neither hit any major organs, they just knocked him down. The killer finished him off with a shot in the face.”
“Handgun?”
“A .38. Probably a revolver, since there are damned few .38 automatics around and no casings on the floor. By the way, you carry a .38 revolver, don’t you?”
I didn’t like where this conversation seemed to be headed. “Need to see it?”
“If you don’t mind.”
Knowing better than to haul my revolver out of my carry-all, I handed over the whole thing; billfold, cell phone, comb, sun screen, medicated lip gloss, fliers of Precious Doe.
The carry-all was so heavy he almost dropped it. Throwing me a dirty look, he rummaged inside for a moment, then extricated my gun. He sniffed at the barrel. “It’s been fired recently.”
“If you remember, someone shot at me yesterday evening and I returned fire. I filed the report this morning, dotted all my I’s, crossed all my T’s.”
“Sure makes a handy explanation as to why your gun smells like an ammunition factory, doesn’t it? You realize I need to take this into evidence and see if the bullets in Hall match up.”
Somehow I managed not to grind my teeth. “They won’t. Just make sure you return it. Carrying a handgun is part of my job description.”
He snorted. “My, my. Ain’t we tough? By the way, do you have a concealed-carry permit?”
“It’s in my billfold. Which you have.” Since he already knew I carried a .38, I had no doubt he’d already run a computer search and found the record of my permit. This was pure harassment.
He took his time rummaging through my carry-all again, finally found my billfold, and after flipping through several credit cards and pictures of Warren, drew out the permit. He studied it for a while, acting like he’d never seen one before. Then, after dropping the wallet into the carry-all, he slid my .38 into its holster and looped it around his arm.
“Can’t say how long ballistics will take,” he said, handing the carry-all back to me.
As long as he wanted, probably, which could be a long, long time. “Sheriff, you know damned well I didn’t shoot Reverend Hall.”
“Denial noted.”
We parted in the hospital parking lot, and I watched him drive off in the direction of Freedom Temple. Maybe he would have better luck with Olivia Hall. He was, after all, male, and she was more likely to obey a man than a woman.
An odd thought occurred to me then. Maybe I was wrong about the redhead. Once I’d settled into the Jeep, I pulled out my cell and called Herschel Berklee, the M.E.’s assistant. From the background noises when he picked up, I could tell he was at the hospital and not at all happy to hear from me.
“I can’t get caught talking to you,” he whispered.
I ignored his fears. “Have you seen Hall’s body?”
“Yeah. I’m hanging up now.”
“Hold on. I need to know one thing, Herschel. Did the good reverend still have all his equipment, if you get my drift?” Given Hall’s strong beliefs about the necessity for sexual purity, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover he was as neutered as those Heaven’s Gate fools. Or his own just-as-foolish followers.
“I get your drift all right. But his corpse is still in possession of the family jewels.” With that, Herschel hung up.
So much for my new theory. Hall had been crazy, but not that crazy.
Another conversation with Raymundo Mendoza seemed necessary. Yes, it was Sunday, but since the Mexican pottery business was chiefly a tourist business, the store might be open.
I was right. When I pulled into the parking lot, Raymundo was just turning the
CLOSED
sign around so that it read
OPEN
.
He didn’t appear nervous when I approached, just sad. “What do you want, Ms. Jones? Can’t you see I’m busy here?”
Gee, everyone was so happy to see me today. “Been watching the news, Raymundo?”
His face hardened. “You expect me to say I’m sorry or something? Fat chance. Too bad it didn’t happen a long time ago. Then Nicole and I would have our baby and she’d still be…” The smile vanished and he lowered his head. “And things would be different.” He sounded ready to cry.
I followed him inside the store. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“Such as what?” He started rolling some of the larger pots onto the front patio.
I kept pace with him. “Where were you between one and two last night?”
“Sleeping.”
“Not hanging out by the river?”
“Don’t I wish. But I had to attend Mass with my family this morning, then come to work. The only time I can make it to the river is on Friday nights. If at all. And there’s no reason to now, is there? Nicole’s gone.” It’s hard to read someone’s body language when they’re rolling a heavy terra cotta pot, but something about the rigid set of his head hinted not only at sorrow but at barely-contained rage.
“So there’s no one who can vouch for you?”
“Give me an alibi, you mean?”
I nodded.
“No one in the world.” With that, he went inside the store, letting the door slam in my face.
Our conversation hadn’t eased my concerns, merely heightened them. Raymundo could easily have killed Reverend Hall. He had motive, opportunity, and probable access to a gun. The same might be said of Nicole. For the first time it occurred to me that she was lucky to be in CPS custody, far from Los Perdidos and a murder she had every reason to commit.
If
she remained in CPS custody. That girl was expert at vanishing acts.
With that less-than-comforting reminder, I drove over to Geronimo Espresso, ordered a Latte Grande, and put together a time line of the major events in the case.
FIRST FRIDAY: Warren and I find Precious Doe. Autopsy results reveal she’s been dead only hours.
MONDAY: I return to Los Perdidos.
WEDNESDAY: Nicole rescues Aziza Wahab. Vigilantes torch Floyd Polk’s shack, he dies in the flames.
SECOND FRIDAY: While I’m in L.A., Nicole and Aziza arrive at the Friedmans’ safe house. The girls are turned over to CPS.
SATURDAY EVENING: Someone shoots at me.
SATURDAY NIGHT/SUNDAY MORNING: Reverend Hall shot and killed.
As I studied the time line, something nudged at the edge of my consciousness, but I couldn’t identify it. I tried again, this time counting only the deaths. First Friday, Precious Doe. Wednesday, Floyd Polk. Saturday night, Reverend Hall.
No. That wasn’t it.
I slurped my way through the Latte Grande and ordered another. Then I tried another version of the list, noting the exact times and days I had interviewed certain people. This version took longer, but nothing clicked. What connection was I missing?
Halfway through my second latté, the caffeine caught up with me. As I began writing yet another version of the list, my trembling hand knocked over my cup, spilling milky foam across my notebook, soaking it several pages deep. I grabbed a napkin and began mopping up the mess.
When I blotted my way back to the first version, I noticed that the coffee had pooled across
SATURDAY EVENING
:
someone shoots at me
and
SATURDAY NIGHT/SUNDAY MORNING
:
Reverend Hall shot and killed.
My unease returned as I stared at the lines.
Saturday.
Who had I talked to and exactly when? I cross-referenced my second list. Saturday I had talked to Nicole before CPS took her away; to Dr. Lanphear; to Sheriff Avery; to Jimmy; last of all, I’d talked to Mrs. Nour, the manager of the Nile Restaurant. Then I’d returned to the ranch, returned phone calls, and taken my ill-fated walk.
Several hours later, Reverend Hall was dead.
I was about to move to the other list when the source of my unease emerged. Why was I so certain there was only one shooter? Why couldn’t there be
two
?
While rereading the other list, I noted that while three deaths—Precious Doe’s, Floyd Polk’s, and Reverend Hall’s—had occurred in the vicinity of Los Perdidos, the cause of death was different in each case. In Precious Doe’s case, blood loss. In Polk’s, fire. In Hall’s, gunshot.
Three killers? Three motives?
Such a theory seemed outlandish—how could such a town the size of Los Perdidos harbor three different murderers—but not beyond the realm of possibility. Some towns were rougher than others, and Los Perdidos, with its frontier past and unusual ethnic mix, was a likely enough place.
Under scrutiny, though, the theory was improbable. Precious Doe’s autopsy proved she had died of blood loss due to the botched amputation: ergo, the Cutter killed her. Polk, a convicted child molester, died the victim of vigilante justice. The vigilantes might not even have meant to kill him, just run him out of town as they had the more fortunate Duane. Something else occurred to me then. What if vigilantes hadn’t killed Polk after all? What if Polk had been killed by a single killer who torched his place to cover up his crime? Again, improbable but possible.
Hall had taken three bullets, not necessarily from the same person who’d tried to kill me.
Where was the connection?
There was only one way to find out if my shooter was the same person who shot Hall; go back to the shooting scene near the river. Revolvers didn’t eject casings, but automatics did. If I found any, I would know two shooters were operating, not one. Once I presented the casings to the sheriff, he could run a ballistics test on them at the same time he tested my own handgun. And maybe, just maybe, we would find out the name of the shooter.
The thought of a return visit to the river didn’t thrill me, because thanks to Avery, I was now weaponless, so I had to ask myself—did I really care who killed Reverend Hall enough to risk my own safety?
The answer came quickly.
Yes, I cared.
As long as the murderer wasn’t Nicole. Or Raymundo.
***
Soon I was hip-deep in brush by the San Pedro River, searching for bullet casings. If the shooter returned, I wouldn’t be able to defend myself, but since my earlier visits to the river had taken place in the early evening, not during this time of day, I felt safe enough. For now, at least.
With my foot, I started to roll aside a Diet Coke can to look under it, then froze.
There was only one person who knew I liked to walk by the river in the evening. Selma Mann, the well-armed owner of the Lazy M Guest Ranch.
With that unsettling realization, I rolled the can over and resumed my search.
An hour later, I had found no bullet casings, which probably meant the shooter used a revolver. Given the speed of his retreat, he certainly hadn’t lingered to pick anything up. He might have returned earlier this morning to retrieve them, but I doubted it. Abandoning my fruitless search, I walked back along the river toward the Lazy M. It was time for a heart-to-heart with Selma Mann.
She was crossing from the house to the barn when I arrived, several bridles slung over her arm. The smell of saddle-soaped leather wafted toward me on the breeze.
I caught up to her as she was returning the bridles to their hooks.
“Ready to go for a ride?” she asked, gesturing toward a big bay gelding. “I’ve been trying to lure you onto a horse ever since you arrived. Tecumseh there rides like a Cadillac.”
He sounded wonderful, but I wasn’t here for recreation. “Sorry, I just want to talk. Can we go in the house?”
After giving the bridles a final tug to even out their reins, she nodded. “I need to take a break, anyway. How about some coffee? About this time of day, I switch to decaf.”
It was not yet noon. Back in Scottsdale, I would still be hitting the high octane stuff, or even a Tab, which contained enough caffeine to give an elephant the jitters. But considering the conversation we were about to have, decaf sounded good. I didn’t want any more adrenaline pumping around that kitchen than necessary, especially not with all those guns in the house.
I followed Selma into the kitchen, where she fetched two mugs from the kitchen cupboard. Mine said,
WELCOME TO LOS PERDIDOS
; HERS SAID,
GERONIMO—FIGHTING DOMESTIC TERRORISM SINCE 1851
. When she’d poured big mugs of black brew for the both of us, I decided to just come out with it. “Someone took a shot at me yesterday evening.”
Selma sat her mug down so quickly that coffee splashed onto the table. “Where?”
“Down by the river, near the old settlers’ graveyard.”
She looked stricken, but maybe she was just a good actress. “Why didn’t you tell me before? I heard some shots but took it for granted a hunter was jack-lighting deer.”
“I wanted time to think about it. Besides, the shooter was no poacher. After I yelled, whoever it was kept firing. I was going to bring it up this morning, but then we heard the news about Hall.”
She walked over to the counter, pulled a dish rag out of a drawer and wiped up the spilled coffee, then sat down. “I don’t know what to say, other than I’m sorry. It’s usually perfectly safe around here.”
Not for little girls, it isn’t.
“I just came back from searching for casings, but there weren’t any, which leads me to believe that the shooter used a revolver. You own a couple, don’t you?”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “A Colt and a Smith and Wesson. Along with various rifles and shotguns. Over the years, any rancher collects a small arsenal, and my grandfather and father were no exceptions. What’s this all about, anyway? Do you suspect me? Because if you do, be advised that I wouldn’t have missed.”
At that, I smiled.
She wasn’t finished. “I doubt if the shooter was one of my ranch hands, either. I have strict rules for the bunk house: no drugs, no booze, no guns.”
“And you are She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed?”
Relaxed now, she laughed. “Touché. Granted, I can’t control their every movement, but they’re all decent, hard-working men. Hell, I even went to grade school with some of them. Los Perdidos is a small community, Lena. If any of those guys had a tendency toward violence, I’d know it.”
We sipped our coffee as companionably as possible when you’ve just accused your sipping partner of trying to kill you. But afterward, as I walked to the cottage, I realized something. Selma had adroitly deflected my suspicions of her onto her ranch hands, the same way she had once offered up the CEO of Apache Chemical.
The question remained. Why would Selma Mann try to kill me? I changed directions, and found Selma washing the mugs we had just used. This time I didn’t go in, just stood inside the door. “Lee Casey says you two used to date.”
She paused with her hand in the air, a mug dangling from her finger. “Why, yes, we did. But I’m astonished he brought that up.”
“Really?”
She set the cup on the drainer. “Our breakup was pretty ugly.”
“That’s what he said.”
A frown creased her forehead. “He admitted it?”
An odd choice of words,
admitted
. “Yes. He said you took it pretty hard.”
“
I
took it hard?” She picked up the mug again, flicked it with a dishtowel, then put it in the cupboard.
I began to get it. “Selma, who broke up with who?”
“
Whom
,” she said absently, frowning at the mug. It was now cracked, but hadn’t been when I drank from it earlier.
“Whatever. Mind answering the question?”
She took the mug back out of the cupboard and tossed it in the wastebasket. “So much for that. Anyway, I broke up with Lee, but I get the impression he told you the opposite.”
“He’s lied?”
She nodded. And waited.
“May I ask what broke you two up?”
Selma stared at me for so long I thought she wasn’t going to answer, but she did. “I broke up with Lee Casey because I suspected he murdered his wife.”
With that, she disappeared down the hall, leaving me standing there open-mouthed.
***
At the guest cottage, I sat down at the desk and called Jimmy on his cell. When he answered, he sounded like he was suffering from a cold.
“Did you ever find that accident report on Lee Casey’s wife?” I asked.
A thick-voiced, “Nope.”
“Hey, you getting enough vitamin C? You sound awful.”
He cleared his throat. “Thanks for caring. About that car wreck. I was able to get in touch with one of those insurance types who worked on the case, and he told me that the accident investigator felt uncomfortable about the whole thing, especially since Mrs. Casey had no known record of drug use.”
“Drug use? I don’t understand.”
“The autopsy revealed that when her car went off the mountain, she was stoned on Quaaludes,” he rasped.
I took a deep breath. “Mountain?”
“Yeah. For some reason, Mrs. Casey popped a few pills, then took a sunset drive in the Dragoons. When her car went off the road, she broke her neck.”
The whole thing smelled fishier than an anchovy cannery. “Was Mrs. Casey under treatment for stress, or any other type of emotional problem?”
“At the time, her friends said no. Anyway, because of the Quaalude factor, the insurance company refused to pay up. The investigation was brief, but you know how these things can go. Since no one found anything overtly suspicious, the case eventually faded away.”
“Were you able to find out who prescribed the drug for her?”
“Nope. There was a half-empty vial of the stuff in her purse, but no label. It was assumed she bought the stuff in Mexico. Or from a local dealer.”
Selma had told me she’d broken up with Lee Casey because she suspected he’d killed his wife. Now I wondered, too. The site of the accident wasn’t all that far from Los Perdidos, so it was within the realm of possibility that Casey drugged his wife, staged the accident, then hiked back to town. I saw another scenario. He could have paid an accomplice to make the kill for him. “Okay, so no insurance payoff. How much did he lose?”
“One point five mill.”
“Casey inherited his wife’s estate, didn’t he?”
“A flat twenty.”
I whistled. “Twenty
million
?”
“What else?” He cleared his throat again. “She was an only child, and her father, who predeceased her, owned timberland outside Flagstaff. He logged, then he developed. We’re talking hundreds of acres of housing tracts and strip malls.”
Yep, that could accumulate twenty mill pretty fast. “Any rumors of trouble between Casey and his wife?”
“Early in the marriage there was one report of a domestic, but the wife refused to press charges. Other than that, the guy’s clean, except for a few traffic tickets. Talk about a need for speed.”
I was silent for so long that Jimmy asked, “Lena? You there?”
“Yeah, yeah. So in the beginning, the marriage wasn’t perfect, but things quieted down. Maybe Casey learned to control himself. Or maybe she learned not to call the cops. Then a few years later she dies in a suspicious accident and he inherits everything. You thinking the same thing I’m thinking?”
“I’m way ahead of you, kemo sabe.”
“Of course, accidents sometimes happen.”
“Sometimes.” His voice sounded even huskier than at the beginning of our conversation.
“Try some throat spray, Jimmy. You’re throat’s so rough I can hardly hear you. And do me another favor. First thing in the morning, run a check on one Selma Mann. She owns the guest ranch I’m staying at outside Los Perdidos.”
“Sorry, I’m gonna be in late tomorrow.”
Even though I lived in an apartment above Desert Investigations, Jimmy usually beat me to work. “Doctor’s appointment?”
His turn for silence. He finally broke it by saying, “No, because Enterprise says they can’t pick me up until ten.”
“The car rental place? You having trouble with your truck?” Jimmy’s Toyota pickup was almost new, and like most Toyotas, its problems were few and far between.
After a short silence, he said, “Truck’s gone.”
“
Gone
? What do you mean, gone?”
His mumbled answer was so low he needed to repeat it. “Lydianna took it.”
Lydianna. The woman Jimmy had been dating. “Took? As in borrowed?”
“
Stole!
” he said, his voice breaking. “
Stole!
She told me she had to move some stuff, so I loaned it to her and she never came back. I called and called but she never answered her phone, so my cousin drove me over there, and her landlord said she cleared out in the middle of the night. She’d stripped the place bare, even stole his furniture
right down to the lamps
! Satisfied now, Miss I-Told-You-So?”
I didn’t know what to say, other than I was sorry.
After another bout of throat-clearing, he said, “Thanks for the sympathy.”
“Did you file a police report?” My betting was that he hadn’t.
“No. And I’m not going to, either.”
I sighed. “We sure have our troubles, don’t we, partner?”
“Does that ‘we’ mean you lied about things going great with Warren?”
I told him the truth, that my love life was as screwed up as his.
***
After showering off the grime I’d collected while searching for bullet casings, I slipped into fresh jeans and tee shirt, then picked up Precious Doe’s picture from the night stand. I looked at it for a long while, thinking about her suffering, remembering my own.
The foster homes. The beatings. The rapes.
But I had survived.
Why me, and not her?
I studied her face again. Her eyes were forever shut against the world, but I knew they would have been a warm mahogany, gentle and trusting.
Superimposed on them, the Cutter’s malicious eyes glinted like a freshly-sharpened knife.
***
Because of civil rights laws, Sheriff Avery couldn’t go house to house interviewing every African immigrant in town, but I could. Before we’d hung up, Jimmy had given me a list of every African tribe that practiced female genital amputation. I flipped through the phone book, but quickly gave up on that form of inquiry, since I had no idea what surname belonged to what African tribe. On the off-chance that a reporter might be hanging around the
Cochise County Observer
on a Sunday, I called the newsroom, where Bernice Broussard answered.
She listened while I made my request, then with obvious disapproval, said, “You want a list of just the
African
families and their tribal associations? You’re treading on delicate ground here, aren’t you, Ms. Jones? The very white, very American Reverend Hall has apparently been perpetrating the same tribal practice, so why pick on the Africans?”
“Because Nicole Hall said the Cutter had an African accent, that’s why.” I reminded her of Precious Doe’s injuries and the very real possibility they might soon be inflicted on another child. “Bernice, we have to get that woman off the streets.”
She grunted. “Point taken. The best person to give you that info would be the president of the Good Neighbor Society, who could tell you everything you need to know, but I doubt she’ll talk to you. She’s pretty protective of them.” I heard a rustling of papers. “Give me an hour. I’ll go through our files and see what feature stories we’ve written in the past few years which identified the tribal groupings of some of our newer citizens. That’ll at least give you a place to start.”
I remembered our earlier conversation, when she had sent me over to the Los Perdidos Library to look up the story on Tujin Rafik. “I thought your morgue files only went back a year?”
“We keep our computer backups forever.” With that, she hung up.
She was as good as her word. Fifty minutes later, while I lay stretched out on the bed reading the Dean Koontz paperback I’d picked up at the Tucson airport, my cell rang. It was Bernice, with a long list of names and tribal associations.
“You find her, I get an exclusive, right?”
“Right.” If it were possible. Given the swarm of media in town, she could easily get scooped.
On that note, we rang off and I headed to my Jeep. Selma was in the corral again, working another horse. When she saw me, she waved gaily, as if no hostility had passed between us. I waved back.
The first name on my list of African immigrants was Abdul Jokabi, who had moved to Los Perdidos with his family ten years earlier. The newspaper had written a feature on him when he became the town’s first African immigrant to buy a house. It was located in a small tract not far from the main drag, and as I parked on the pleasant, well-manicured street, I spotted a new Dodge minivan and an almost-as-new Honda Civic in the driveway. Happy children’s voices greeted me as Jokabi himself opened the door. A handsome man clad in the standard Arizona uniform of artfully-torn jeans and Arizona Diamondbacks tee shirt, he seemed friendly enough until I told him who I was looking for.
