Desert Shadows (9781615952250) (21 page)

What kind of “comfort,” I wondered? “Jesus, Owen! She was in love with you, and you knew it. You should have found another job.”

A dark laugh. “You've seen my house and how much there's still left to do. Besides, if Gloriana wanted to love me, to take photographs of me, why should I care? It's a free country.” The next laugh sounded even darker, and no wonder. He had learned well the fallacy of his statement. America wasn't free; it was very, very expensive. Especially its legal help.

“But she was seventy-six!”

Another shrug. “She was still a woman who needed love. And she enjoyed giving it as much as receiving it.”

I was speechless. Most American Anglos, worshipers at the Altar of Youth, have been conditioned to think of passion as something that dies with the appearance of gray hair. Other nationalities knew better.

A noise from behind me made me turn around. Janelle. I hoped she had merely been in the process of drying the big butcher knife she held in her hands.

“Gloriana was crazy, and so are you if you think my husband had anything to do with her,” she said, approaching me, knife raised.

I guess my backward scurry tipped her off to my alarm, for she immediately lowered the knife and gave it a couple of flicks with the drying towel. Then she put the knife down on a wheelbarrow.

“Janelle, I didn't say he had anything to
do
with.…”

“She wanted him to.” Her voice was as fierce as I'd ever heard any woman's. “But I told her he was mine!”

Did I hear what I thought I heard? “Janelle, are you telling me you actually spoke to Gloriana about Owen?”

Owen's voice was sharp, a Marine barking orders. “That's enough, Janelle! Go back into the house!”

“Don't tell me that's enough,” she shot back. “Nothing's enough when that woman had the nerve to drive out here in that big car of hers, looking down her nose at me and the children, saying she'd make it
worth my while
if I'd give you up!”

I wouldn't need an eye lift for decades. “Do you mean to tell me that Gloriana came out here and asked you to give her your husband?”

Janelle's laugh was ugly. “Give? Oh, no. Not Mrs. High-and-Mighty Gloriana Alden-Taylor. Before I sicced Rebel on her, the bitch offered me ten thousand dollars for him. She said considering what he had to offer, it was a fair price.”

***

On the drive back to Jimmy's trailer I tried to make light of the situation. “Well, partner, nobody's ever going to say it's dull out here on the Rez.”

“I'd really rather not talk about it now.” His voice held an edge that could cut stone.

So much for my ability to charm. I had entered a warm, loving home and left behind an igloo.

More trouble waited for us at the trailer.

Dusty sat on the front steps, twirling his cowboy hat on his finger.

“The fun never stops,” Jimmy muttered, pulling the pickup into the drive.

Chapter 23

Dusty, uninvited, followed us into the trailer. “Lena, why the hell didn't you call me?” His eyes were red again, something I now recognized was a danger sign. He was probably back on the sauce already.

I collapsed onto the sofa to take the weight off my throbbing feet. “Maybe I just wanted you and your redhead to leave me alone. God knows my life is complicated enough.”

Behind us, Jimmy banged around in the trailer's kitchen area trying to make a pot of coffee, but succeeding in doing little more than spilling coffee grounds all over the counter. “Folks, could we have a little less noise, please,” he begged.

Dusty sat down next to me, so I edged as far away as the small sofa would allow. “Bab…Lena, I was out on one of those city slicker cattle drives. I didn't know about the explosion until I got back and saw it on the news.”

A likely story. “No cell phones or transistor radios out there in God's country?”

He looked hurt. “We were in the Little Grand Canyon, Lena. You know you can't get a signal there.”

Maybe the likely story was true, but so what? Dusty and his redheaded “wife” had caused me nothing but trouble, not to mention major drywall expenses. I decided to stop things before they got any worse. “Dusty, every relationship eventually burns out, and it seems to me that we're wading around in a pile of ashes here. Let's cut our losses, okay?”

A crash from the kitchen made us both look up. Jimmy had dropped the Mr. Coffee, whether by accident or design, I couldn't tell. His face wasn't pretty, and for a brief moment, I remembered Owen's words about Native Americans' warrior heritage. A frisson of fear crawled up my spine.

“Look, you two,” he growled. “I may have been raised Anglo, but I'm still Pima, and I can't take this White silliness anymore. You two are in love, so for God's sake, stop ragging on each other and do something about it. I'm leaving for Esther's. Try not to get blood on the walls.”

With that, he stomped out. Seconds later, I heard his truck start up, then gravel hitting the sides of the trailer. He'd left us alone to make either love or war.

Neither of us said anything for a while. Then, with a tired sigh, Dusty walked into the kitchen area, knelt down, and began picking up the mess on the floor. “Looks like you'll have to hit McDonald's for your morning poison.”

“That's better than the kind of poison you've been hitting.”

As much as I like to see a man on his knees, the look he gave me from that position made me uncomfortable. “I told you, Lena. I stopped drinking.”

“Let's hope.”

The rattle of plastic, the clink of broken glass. Then the cabinet door opening, shutting. Footsteps coming toward me. The sofa sagging under his weight. Gentle fingers on my cheek.

“I got back to the ranch this afternoon, and as soon as the dudes were all squared away, I drove over to your apartment. When you weren't there, I went across the street to Cliffie's to find out where you were. He told me about the explosion, about you getting hurt. Then he said I'd find you at Jimmy's.”

Maybe he was telling the truth. Today was Thursday, which was always Art Walk night in Scottsdale, when the art galleries stayed open until nine. And heaven knows that Cliffie—an unreconstructed romantic—would be more than delighted to rat me out to my no-good, two-timing boyfriend.

Gentle lips replaced gentle fingers. “Oh, Lena, I love you so much.”

I turned my face to meet his kiss.

Screams in the distance. Explosions. Angry voices.

I am running through a forest, a tall blond woman running alongside me. I am small. Only a child.

“The ranger station isn't far. I think we can make it.” A man's voice.

I look ahead to see a big man with red hair. His face looms white against the night but a stripe of moonglow reveals green eyes.

Running with us are more children, white, black, Hispanic, Asian. Most of them are older than me, except for one, a dark-haired little girl of around four. My age. The blond woman who holds her hand is almost dragging her through the woods.

I am fleet, like the blond woman. I don't need to be dragged.

More noises behind us, now. Closer.

My legs hurt. I have a stitch in my side. I want the red-headed man to pick me up and carry me along, but he can't. In each arm he holds a baby. There is no room for me up there. Thoroughly miserable, I begin to whimper.

“Quiet, Tina! No tears!” The blond woman. As we leave the shadow of the trees and enter a moonlit clearing, I can see that she looks like me.

Obediently, I shut up, earning from her, “My brave little girl.”

But then the dark-haired girl, not so brave, begins to wail.

“No, no!” the man cautions her. “You can't.”

The girl, now as frightened by the red-headed man as by our pursuers, wails even louder. The babies in his arms, startled, join in. Their screams blend with hers.

Angry voices now. Right behind us. “
I hear them!” someone calls. A man. Then a woman, her voice shrill in the night, answers him. “Don't let them get away!”

All emotion leaves the red-headed man's face. There is no longer anything there I can recognize, no love, no fear. It is as if he has already died, yet remains standing.

“We have to split up,” he says to the blond woman. “You take Christina and the other two, and double back. If they catch you, pretend you were never with me, that you plan to do as they demand. Maybe you can find a way….”

“No!” The blond woman doesn't want to go. Neither do I.

But his will overrides her love, and eventually she obeys. He hands over the silent children to her and tells the noisy ones they need to follow him.

We can hear our pursuers' footsteps.

Before we leave the red-haired man, the blond woman tells him she loves him. He tells her she owns his heart.

Then he looks down at me and says, “Christina, remember me.”

And with the crying children trailing after him, my father strikes out across the clearing.

I awoke screaming.

“Lena, baby, it's all right. You're safe now, safe with me.”

Dusty's arms tightened around me.

Like those long-ago children, I wailed into the night.

I knew I'd never be safe again.

Chapter 24

I was still shivering, and not from the crisp March morning, when I arrived at the hospital to interview Sandra Alden-Taylor. She had been moved from intensive care to a private room, and was now allowed visitors. Dusty, who had the day off, told me he'd wait for me in the hospital cafeteria. Having been kept awake all night, he needed coffee.

Me, I was still wired on adrenalin.

But the minute he disappeared down the corridor, I pushed the night terrors from my mind.

I was good at that.

Swinging along on my crutches, I headed toward Sandra's room. The door was open, and a man's voice drifted out. Unless I was mistaken, John Alden Brookings was paying a social call on his orgy mate.

Not wanting to walk in on an embarrassingly intimate conversation, I stomped my crutches down hard on the tile floor, then cleared my throat and coughed a couple of times for good measure. Having thus announced my arrival even to the dead, I crutched into the room.

“Mr. Brookings, how nice to see you again.”

Brookings, wearing an only slightly out-of-style gray suit, stood over the bed, caressing the unblistered side of Sandra's face. His own face had softened in that way a man's does when he loves a woman. Or is pretending to. “Thank you for saving her,” he said, his voice hardly audible. Maybe my ears were going out again.

“You can stand, I observe,” I said to him. “You must be getting better.”

His eyes narrowed; for a moment I thought he was going to tell me what I could do with my observations, but he didn't. “Look behind you, Miss Jones.”

I did, and saw his wheelchair parked near the door.

“I can hobble a few feet. Not enough to amount to much.”

“Not enough to go for hikes, right?”

The narrow look again. “Right. Especially to the place you're thinking of.”

“Such as?”

“Oak Creek Canyon. I couldn't even make it across the parking lot. My legs would give out first.”

I wondered if it were true, but decided to let it go. I'd come to see Sandra, not give him the third degree.

“Mr. Brookings, if you don't mind, I'd like a few minutes alone with Miss Alden-Taylor.”

He shook his head. “I'm not leaving her. Not ever again.”

Great. I'd interrupted them in the middle of some sort of reconciliation scene. A lot of that seemed to be going around these days.

Sandra finally spoke up, her smoke-damaged voice raw. “I don't mind what John hears.” She reached toward him with a bandaged hand. He took it, kissed the bandages. “You can say anything to me you want, that I'm a whore, that I'm a bad mother, a bad niece, I don't care. You saved my life and I…I owe…you.” Her voice became even rawer at the end, and I wondered whether it would hold out.

Her gratitude could work to my advantage. “Did you know your little romp is plastered all over the Internet?”

She made an odd sound, which I finally realized was laughter. “The…whole world…knows. I'm a fucking star. Li…Literally.”

“I don't care about the whole world, just Gloriana. Did she know?”

Sandra started to answer, but Brookings placed his hand softly across her mouth. “That's enough about the tape.” Then, to me, “Sandra has a hard time talking, in case you haven't noticed. Ask me your questions and I'll answer for her.”

I didn't like it when men presumed to answer for their women; as a detective, I liked it even less. I repeated my question. “Sandra, did Gloriana know about the tape? And if she did, what did she do about it?”

Sandra flicked her eyes at Brookings. “I don't know,” she rasped.

She was lying. Gloriana knew.

As it now stood, Sandra would inherit enough money to purchase a home of her own. I studied Brookings carefully, remembering his trailer, the possibility that he was about to lose his disability payments. When the will cleared probate, Sandra would not be rich, but she wouldn't be living in a run-down trailer, either. How much money did it take for Brookings to forgive old grudges?

No point in asking the question, so I tried another. “Sandra, will you go back to work at Patriot's Blood when you're able?”

She waved Brookings' cautionary hand away. “If I watch…watch my money, I won't have…have to work for awhile. But Zach's offered John his old job back.”

Well, well. A new home. A new job. Life was certainly looking up for John Alden Brookings.

***

Women and their men. Dusty was able to do what Jimmy hadn't, convince me to rent a car with an automatic transmission. My feet were still too sore to depress the Jeep's clutch, but the teal-colored Dodge Neon I drove away from Budget Car Rentals had no such old-fangled equipment. As much as I hated the sleek little thing, I had to admit that the car would at least get me from Point A to Point B until my feet healed.

I dropped by the office to assure Jimmy that Dusty and I hadn't killed each other during the night, and stayed long enough to read the
Scottsdale Journal.
In addition to the usual murder, mayhem, and low-fat recipes, I saw that Representative Lynn Tinsley's English-only bill had cleared the Arizona House and had been sent off to the Senate.

“It's time we reclaimed the King's English for Americans,” Tinsley was quoted as saying. Which confused me. I thought by now it would be called the Queen's English. Then again, what did I know? Enough to remind myself to drop the
Journal
a line about Tinsley's shoplifting adventures. They were long overdue for an investigative journalism piece.

Tossing the paper aside, I took off again, this time to Zach and Megan's house. However, when I banged on the door, there was no answer. The house appeared deserted. No barks, meows, or oinks. What had happened?

As I hobbled back to the car, one of Zach's neighbors—perhaps moved to pity by my cheap car and crutches—opened his screen door and yelled, “They're gone!”

“I noticed that!” I yelled back. “Know where to?”

“They moved up to his grandmother's place. The pig and everybody, thank God. If you see them, tell them not to come back!”

I could see the neighborhood was going to miss them.

I took two wrong turns before I found myself pulling up to the big iron gate. I honked the horn, and a pack of dogs, cats, and Emma-the-not-Vietnamese-pot-belly trotted through a jumble of cars, vans, and pickup trucks to confront me.

Megan, looking like she was ready to pop, waddled forward to open the gate, little Casey at her heels. I wondered if the people down by the golf course could hear the racket.

“Back!” Megan yelled, shooing Casey and the other animals away. “Everybody get back!” She hauled the gate open by hand, calling for me to move the car through quickly, before any of her animals escaped.

“Half of them might run off to find their former owners, the very shits who abused them,” she grumbled, as she helped me and my crutches out of the car. Since I'd last seen her, her eyes had become shockingly dark, as if she hadn't been sleeping. I also noticed that the front of her maternity jeans was wet. Had her water broken? Was she going to ignore this signal of imminent birth, simply squat down somewhere and have her baby, with Rosa doing midwife honors?

As I braced the crutches in the loose gravel, she gave me a pitying look. I feared for a moment that she might pat my haunch and ruffle my ears, but she simply asked, “Is there anything I can do for you, Lena? Anything at all?”

“I'm fine, Megan.” I wished people would stop asking, because I was getting tired of my answer.

I had made my way halfway to the house when Casey, who had obviously found something interesting on the bottom of one of my shoes, knocked a crutch away. Off-balance, I fell to the gravel. I landed on my butt, but my carry-all fell upside down, spilling its contents.

Megan bent to help me, then jumped back, her face white. “My god, that's a gun.”

“Of course it is, Megan,” I said, attempting to put everything back in pretty much the same order it had been without adding any gravel to the mix. “I'm licensed to carry.”

“I don't like guns. They're dangerous.” The gun now safely out of sight, she pulled me to my feet, then handed my crutches back to me.

“Guns being dangerous, I believe, is the whole point.” At least my handcuffs hadn't fallen out. Then she would have really freaked.

Her beautiful face turned grim. “No, you don't understand. My rescue organization gets too many gun-shot dogs and cats. It's a slaughter out there, and not just during hunting season. Some people actually pick up strays to use for target practice.”

I'd heard rumors to that effect. It was fortunate that the evil in the world was balanced by the goodness of people like Megan. I hoped she would continue to care so much about her animals when the baby arrived. I would hate to see Casey, Black Bart, Emma, and the rest of the four-footed crew packed off to the pound.

After helping me brush the gravel off my clothes, she escorted me to the house. “I'm surprised you moved up here so quickly,” I told her. “Aren't you supposed to clear probate first?”

“Technically, yes, but Gloriana's executor said that since the office had been destroyed, we could continue Patriot's Blood business up here. Since we were moving the business, he said we might as well move ourselves, too. I really like it, because everyone in Save Our Friends can meet here at the same time. No more A to M on Saturdays, N to Z on Sundays.”

She opened the big double doors for me, allowed me to hop through quickly, then closed it, almost hitting Emma on the rump as she did so. The pig, which was almost the size of a Shetland pony, trotted ahead of us, her cloven feet tap-tap-tapping across the saltillo tiles, leaving little wet “V”s in her wake.

I head a noise from the direction of the living room, and looked back to see Rosa running toward us, a mewling kitten in each hand. “Miss Megan, I told you so many times, you should let me do those things.” Animal hair covered Rosa's black dress, her eyes were wild. “You take care of the pets, I take care of the house.”

Megan shrugged. “I was already outside with Emma.”

“The pig.” Rosa sounded like she thought Emma belonged on a bun.

“It's the day for her bath.”

“Dios mio,” Rosa muttered. “Which bathroom you use?”

Megan looked at her like Rosa had gone off her head. “Don't be silly, Rosa. I'm not using a bathroom. I'm using the fountain.”

With that, she set off after the pig, leaving me with Rosa and two squalling kittens.

“You need a maid, Miss Jones?” she said, displaying the first sign of humor I'd seen in her. “Have feather duster, will travel.”

I returned her smile. “Sorry, Rosa, it'd take you all of five minutes to clean my apartment. I'm here to see Mr. Zach. He around?”

“Sure. They are all in the library, working.”

“All?”

She shrugged, making one of the kittens complain even more loudly. “Shush, you,” she murmured, caressing it with her wrinkled cheek. “If you not good, I not take you to play with Caroline and John-John.” Then, to me, “Oh, yes, everybody here, the whole office. They in there figuring out what to do, but you can go in. I take these cats to the children. Miss Caroline, she like to feed the littlest babies.”

With that, she walked off, leaving me to make my way unannounced into the new Patriot's Blood offices.

The library had been transformed from a museum for books to an office that produced them. While the valued first editions remained secured in their glass-fronted cabinets, every other square inch of space had been usurped. Dozens of people sat around chatting on the leather sofas and chairs, on table tops, even the floor. Some clutched manuscripts, others held floppy discs. A large easel stood against one wall. On it, a chart illustrated which level in the publishing process each manuscript or game had attained. I counted eighteen projects frozen in various places between
ACCEPTANCE LETTER
and
SHIPPING
. A few books, not yet arrived at
BINDING
, had thick red lines slashed through their titles. To my delight, Barry Fetzner's
A Man Stands Alone
was among them. My joy was lessened only by knowing that the book's cancellation would please Fetzner, too. All the video games and CDs had been canceled. No more
Border Run
and its hateful cousins. What would the National Alliance do for fun now?

A silence fell across the room when I crutched in. “Is that her?” someone asked.

“Yes, Ms. Jones is the detective who saved Sandra,” Zach said, smiling toward me. “Everyone take a break. She probably needs to ask me some questions.”

The questions had to wait until I suffered through a series of handshakes and hugs. Eventually, Zach led me out of the library and into a neighboring den where I perched myself on the edge of a high-backed sofa, taking care not to sit too far back. It was strange how even the smallest habits must change when you are on crutches.

“Miss Jones, we're holding a pretty important meeting here, so please make it short.” Zach watched me position my crutches against the end of the sofa. His dark hair was combed neatly and he even wore a good suit, although a few stray bits of fur clung to it. The expression on his face, though, was that of a busy man tolerating an interruption.

This new Zach made me curious. “Now that you're living in the Hacienda, what are you going to do with the other house?”

“I turned it over to a real estate broker this morning,” he said, his foot tapping impatiently. “As I'm sure you know, this place is falling down, and it'll take a fortune to make it truly liveable. I could sell that acreage up north and put some of the proceeds into the house like Megan wants to do, but the question is—is the Hacienda really worth it? Wouldn't my money be better spent on, say, a less spectacular place but one in better shape? Megan also forgets that I need to find new offices for Patriot's Blood. We can't keep operating out of here.”