Desert Lost (9781615952229) (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

The strain of the past few days must have caught up with me because I arrived at Desert Investigations feeling emotionally exhausted, not yet ready to sort through what I'd learned. I buried myself in paperwork until Jimmy gave a startled yelp. “We just received an email from Rosella!”

In my haste to get to the computer, I spilled papers all over the floor, but I didn't care. “Oh, crap. I told her not to contact us, that it's too dangerous.” But I was glad to know she was still alive.

“Don't worry,” he said, pointing at the screen. “She took precautions. It's from an Internet cafe. Here, read.”

FROM: ROSERUNNER

TO: DESERTINVESTIGATIONS.COM

K &I still on move. Read thru scottsdalejournal.com bout M. Happy 4 reunion but hope shes fine after stuff p-men put her thru. They otta be boiled n oil but prob get away with it—always do. Gotta go. Send U email n couple days. Be good or be careful. K sends her luv &me 2. R

“She sounds all right, don't you think?” Jimmy asked.

“Yep.” I didn't trust myself to say anything else, just walked back to my desk and began picking up the papers I'd dropped so he wouldn't see my face.

“Are you okay, Lena?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“Because you sound…”

I kept my head down. “Weren't you working on something?”

With a grunt and a click, he killed Rosella's email and went back to doing whatever he'd been doing.

Paperwork is the bane of a P.I.'s existence, but it does have its merits. For instance, it can keep you from obsessing about the safety of your friends. I worked on a group of case notes and invoices until Madeline walked in and announced that Glenda, her real estate agent, had called with the news that the New York house was already in a bidding war.

“How can that be possible,” I asked, “when you just talked to her yesterday?”

She gave me a smile that perfectly matched today's
Genghis Khan Is My Homeboy
tee shirt. “New roof, new furnace, two bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, attached studio, carpenter's workshop, wooded lot, and within bicycling distance of the Catskills. Glenda said two different artists viewed it this morning—they've both made offers. Plus, a sculptor and a book designer are scheduled to see it tomorrow.”

The news cheered me considerably. “If you sell it by the end of the week…”

“Escrow could close in thirty days,” she finished.

“Way to go, Maddy!” Jimmy enthused.

We spent the next few minutes celebrating Madeline's good fortune, doubly welcome because of her kidnapping ordeal. Nietzsche, the German philosopher, said that what doesn't kill us makes us strong, but I knew better. For many people the opposite was true: too much terror, too much heartbreak, and they were wounded for life. This sad realization tore me away from the celebratory moment with Madeline and back to the sorrows at hand: damaged Jonah, murdered Celeste.

I had a strong suspicion as to the identity of Celeste's killer, but before I took my theory to Scottsdale PD I needed an answer to one final question. The only person who might be able to give me the answer was Darnelle, the dead woman's confidant. Contacting her would prove difficult, but the conversation with Little Rick had given me an idea.

“Jimmy, I hate to break up this love fest, but since tonight's the night the sister-wives do their shopping at Frugal Foods, I need someone to drive over there and pass a note to Darnelle. Opal knows what I look like, so we need a fresh face. Any ideas?”

Madeline immediately volunteered, but I turned her down. “I'm not risking you again.”

Over her protests, Jimmy came to the rescue. “Heather would be perfect.”

I drew a blank. “Heather who?”

“Don't you remember? The pretty woman I met when we were on the way to lunch at Malee's.”

“The yuppie from Chicago? You've been
dating
her?”

“A couple of times. Well, maybe three or four, actually. And we meet for lunch every now and then.”

My partner's easy rapport with women never failed to amaze me. “Bringing a stranger into this…”

“Hear him out, Lena,” Madeline said, before I finished dismissing the idea. “He's told me about Heather and he may be on to something.”

Jimmy threw her a grateful look. “Heather's bright, and since she works with people she knows how to handle difficult situations.”

“Works ‘with people'? In what capacity? Cosmetic salesperson at Neiman Marcus?” Although I'd seen the woman only once, I remembered her sleek good looks and perfect makeup. She probably spent more on lipstick than I did on rent.

He frowned. “Heather's a conflict resolution specialist.”

So much for stereotyping.

Madeline could see that I still wasn't convinced. “With her professional background, she'd be able to read Darnelle's body language—as well as that of the other two women—which means she'd find the perfect moment to pass a note. I vote yes.”

“Since when is this a democracy?” At their combined frowns, I tried a final argument. “Well, it's nice that Jimmy wants to volunteer his girlfriend for such a touchy assignment, but she'll probably turn him down flat, as well she should.”

I lost that argument, too. Jimmy picked up the phone and dialed the resort where Heather was staying, and within seconds, secured her excited agreement. When he hung up, he said, “She told me it sounds like more fun than settling the usual corporate squabbles.”

Fun wasn't the word I would have chosen.

The workday ended with me composing a note to Darnelle, asking her to meet me at the fence Tuesday night after the others had gone to bed. I handed the note to Jimmy, and he headed off for an early dinner date with Chicago Heather, Girl Detective.

***

Jimmy arrived at the office the next morning saying that Heather had passed her assignment with flying colors. “Once she caught Darnelle's eye, she tucked the note in the middle of the apple display. Then she moved over to the pears and fussed around until Darnelle retrieved it. Told you so.”

I'd spent the night in a jangle of nerves, reading the Celeste King case file over and over again to make certain I hadn't skipped anything. The file included the medical examiner's report, everything the police had told me, the events surrounding Madeline's kidnapping, and my interviews with Jonah, Clayton, and Little Rick. Putting all this together with the information Rosella gave me before she'd been run out of town, I'd charted a loose timeline of Celeste's life that extended all the way back to her years with Hiram Shupe in Second Zion.

It still wasn't enough.

Somehow I managed to get through the day. Madeline was full of excited chatter about turning the empty barn into a home, listing all the elements she'd need to order, including insulation, drywall, flooring, and kitchen and bathroom fixtures. And those were just for starters. Her plans for her upcoming show at the Shadow Mountain Gallery were moving forward, too. An artist friend was nailing together the packing crates necessary for shipping fine art, and promised to have the job completed by the end of the week.

This kept my mind busy until eight, when I filled a thermos full of coffee, slipped on my many-pocketed vest, and departed for the unit at Kachina 24-Hour-Storage. Once there, I was pleased to discover that Jimmy had reinstalled the spy camera and monitor before he'd headed up to the Boulders for another date with Heather. All I needed to do was relax on my chaise and wait for Darnelle to make her appearance at the fence.

For whatever reason, the Kachina was extra busy tonight. Until just before eleven, the aisle outside my unit jingled and rattled with the sounds of opening locks and accordion doors. Pieces of conversation drifted toward me, revealing bits of interrupted lives. The only note of cheer came from the potter two units away, who'd turned up her CD player as she worked, and the retro sounds of the Beach Boys drifted toward me in the rapidly-cooling night air: songs of sunlit beaches, teenage dreams, little deuce coupes. Had life ever been that innocent?

When the potter, the last person on my aisle to leave, finally pulled her accordion door down, locked it, and walked away, I went over the case again and again, double- and triple-checking to make certain my assumptions were right. Despite popular belief, “stranger murders” are rare, because in most cases, people tend to be killed because of who and what they are. This doesn't mean that victims deserve their fates—no victim does—only that they had inadvertently put themselves in harm's way through business dealings or personal relationships. The amount of overkill Celeste had suffered meant that no stranger had killed her, she'd been killed by someone who either loved her or hated her.

Who?

In the beginning, I hadn't believed that Prophet Shupe could summon up the passion necessary to personally kill Celeste. After all, he'd pawned her off to another man without a second thought. As for Ezra, all he cared about was carrying out his elder brother's edicts. Opal seemed to exist in the same emotional vacuum, and while she was violent, I doubted she would keep hitting Celeste once she'd stopped moving. But this was
before
Celeste became pregnant. Afterward, the dynamics in the compound could have shifted.

If Ezra realized his wife had been unfaithful, he could have been angry enough to order his henchmen to carry out an act of Blood Atonement. However, Blood Atonement usually called for a clean bullet to the head, followed by a body dump in the desert, not right down the street. Had Opal guessed about the pregnancy? Clayton had told me she once flew into a rage when Celeste mentioned something about “cravings.” But, again, would she have kept hitting Celeste once she was dead? Probably not enough passion. For sheer passion, Jonah was the obvious subject, and he'd already confessed to the crime. Abandoned on the street to survive as best he could, his feelings of rejection could have temporarily eclipsed a son's love for his mother. It was easy to visualize someone in his situation clubbing, clubbing, clubbing an already-dead woman.

But one more person had come to mind. With any murder case, once you rid yourself of preconceived notions about who could kill and who could not, you came away with a plethora of suspects. Gentle Clayton, for instance, appeared incapable of hurting anyone, and wasn't that the perfect disguise for a killer?

Getting involved in a murder case sure played hell with your ability to trust.

As I sat in the storage unit mulling over the various possibilities, the silence outside and increasingly stale air in the storage unit soon had me fighting sleep. Finally, at twenty minutes after midnight, a pale face appeared on the monitor: Darnelle. Moving quickly, I left the storage unit and tiptoed up to the fence. Her pale blue dress gleamed under the full moon, which also revealed something different about her face, a firmness in her demeanor that hadn't been there before, a determined tilt to her chin.

Before I could say anything, a flurry of whispered words tumbled out of her mouth. “Miss Jones, thank God you contacted me. You have to help me get out, just like you did Clayton. I want a new life, one where I can see my baby whenever I want. Could you take me to one of them safe houses for women in my situation?”

That's when I noticed the Frugal Foods shopping bag on the ground next to her. It overflowed with clothing, reminding me of earlier years, when I'd moved my own paltry belongings from foster home to foster home.

“I'm not sure you can make it over the fence with that bag, Darnelle.” I gestured toward the razor wire coiled across the top of the fence.

Moonlight glimmered off her smile as she opened her hand, revealing a key ring. “They're to the gates. I stole them from Ezra's pocket when he was finished with me tonight. He sleeps like the dead.”

Probably because like any true sociopath, he never felt guilt. With a heavy sigh, I said, “All right. I'll take you to a safe place tonight, if that's what you really want.”

“I do!”

Within minutes, Darnelle had slipped through the compound's gates and was waiting for me at the curb as I exited the Kachina. As soon as she settled herself and her grocery-bag luggage in to my Jeep, she made another demand. “I want to see Clayton.
Now
.”

“But it's after midnight!”

The determination never left her face. “I need to make sure my baby's all right.”

Mother love. Although the quality had been effectively quashed in most polygamy women, it burned strongly in Darnelle. Against my better judgment, I pulled away from the curb, and while I headed for the freeway, phoned Bernie at the half way house. He picked up just as the answering machine kicked in. Shouting over his recorded message, he agreed, but just this once. From now on, he told me, Darnelle better remember that visiting hours didn't run this late, he'd have to drag Clayton out of bed, which would disturb the entire house. Furthermore…

Before he could finish his litany of complaints and possibly change his mind, I thanked him profusely and rang off. Then we headed up the Pima Freeway's entrance ramp, leaving south Scottsdale—and all that would soon transpire—behind us.

Although I hadn't yet questioned Darnelle, she was so looking forward to seeing her son that I realized it would be pointless to try now. Instead, I just let her sit beside me, imagining her new life we sped along the nearly-empty freeway to north Phoenix. It was too loud for conversation, anyway. A freshened wind blew straight across the windshield and into the Jeep. I saw Darnelle shiver, so I yelled at her to reach behind the seat for the flannel jacket I kept stashed there. The jacket proved too small for her to zip up completely, but at least it kept her arms warm.

The trip, uncluttered by heavy traffic, took only twenty minutes, and when we arrived at our destination, we found Bernie waiting on the porch. Without a greeting, he led us into the dimly-lit day room where Clayton waited, sleepy-eyed, on the sofa. Darnelle's face glowed as she threw her arms around him, and amidst kisses and caresses, told him her plans for their future. During all this, the poor kid remained half-asleep. Would he even remember this meeting in the morning?