Desert Shadows (9781615952250) (22 page)

“Megan mentioned something about building an animal shelter,” I said, made curious by Zach's choice of words: I, my, mine. Not we, ours. Where did Megan's dreams fit in with his plans?

Zach's mouth twisted. “Look, Megan's hobby is fine in its place, but she needs to get it under control. I'm not going to live the rest of my life with all these animals under foot. She needs to get rid of them.”

I didn't like what I heard. “Have you discussed this with Megan?”

“Of course I did. Needless to say, it didn't go well. But that's her problem. I'm running things, now.”

His callousness made me wince, but after all, I wasn't here to talk about the fate of homeless animals. “Zach, how did the authors take it when you called, the ones whose contracts you dropped?”

“With varying degrees of outrage. At the high end, some were philosophical. At the low end, I got a few death threats. The game designers were the worst, probably because they tend to have trouble discerning fantasy violence from the real thing. But a couple of authors were pretty vituperative, too.”

“Such as?”

“Randall Ott, for one. How my grandmother was able to deal with that hothead is beyond me.”

“I thought Ott's book was your biggest money-maker. You're just going to let it go?”

He sniffed. “It certainly was, accent on
was.
Since Patriot's Blood will not be associated with his type of material any more, I suggested that he take his sequel to another publisher. Perhaps that National Alliance publishing house in West Virginia. He refused, saying their distribution is too narrow, which is probably true. They've never been able to crack the New York Times best-seller list like we have.”

He looked at his watch. “Ott's due up here any minute to sign some papers. We're reverting his rights back to him. So if you don't mind.…”

I can take a hint, but I don't have to abide by it. “Zach, since you've scratched Gloriana's entire publishing philosophy, what are you going to put in its place?” Cowboy poetry? Odes to pintos?

“Real literature,” he said, pride neutralizing the impatience on his face. “I'm going to start out with a strong non-fiction line, then as novels arrive, I'll look at those. Right now, I'm drawing up contracts for some very exciting titles.
Essentialism and Modernism.
The Violence of Rhetoric.
And my own personal favorite,
Pedagogy, Gender and Equity Examined through Poststructural Dialectics.
It's a brave new day for Patriot's Blood.”

At first I thought he was joking, but the fervor—
Fever
—in his eyes proved him serious. “And you think you can make money with books like that?”

His earlier impatience reemerged. “I'm aware that any new venture takes time. Readers have been so inundated with chick lit and other pap passing for literature that they need to relearn how to read. That's why I'll debut my non-fiction line first, as a teaching tool. Then, after I've reeducated the public, I'll roll out my experimental fiction line. Given the proper groundwork, all I have to do is print quality and the book-buying public will be lining up at the bookstores.”

If I print it, they will read.

I remembered Megan's hopes about the new direction Patriot's Blood might take. “I thought there was talk about publishing some mysteries.”

Zach's nose twitched as if he smelled something bad. “That was Megan's idea, not mine. I'm trying to legitimize Patriot's Blood, and I don't see how that can be accomplished by moving from one type of trash to another.”

***

On the way out, I passed a furious-looking Randall Ott walking up the gravel drive. Megan was too busy washing Emma in the fountain to say hello to him, but I gave him a wave for old time's sake. He didn't wave back.

Chapter 25

As soon as I left the property, I pulled to the side of the road, took my cell phone out of my carry-all, and punched in Myra Gordon's number. The librarian still wasn't picking up. Enough being enough, I flipped open my Arizona map and looked for Wyatt's Landing. I found it a few miles off I-10, almost halfway between Phoenix and Tucson. An hour's drive, if the traffic gods were with me.

They were. Snowbirds were nowhere in sight, and the only vehicles left on the road were eighteen-wheelers and SUVs hauling ass to get to wherever. For safety's sake, I positioned the tiny Neon halfway between two semis, and watched the landscape fly by. This area of the state resembled the pictures taken by the Mars Rover, without the pretty pink coloring. Miles and miles of flat beige desert and gray rocks, relieved every now and then by the bright red of fresh roadkill.

With relief, I swung off the freeway at the Wyatt's Landing exit and entered the outskirts of the tiny farming community, with alfalfa fields on my left, a few cheap motels on my right. The town itself was so small you could spit across it, little more than a collection of gas stations, fast food outlets, and elderly stucco homes.

The Wyatt's Landing Public Library—due to the town's infinitesimal size, there was only one branch—nestled between a Taco Bell and a Burger King. At first I suspected that the cars in its parking lot represented overflow from the fast food joints, but when I walked through the library's glass doors, I discovered I was wrong. Men wearing bib overalls trundled back and forth from the
SCIENCE
to
AGRICULTURE
stacks, while over in the corner, a group of women huddled together, avid looks on their faces. They all had copies of the same book on their laps:
The Life of Pi.
Then I remembered it was OneBookAZ month, the time every year when we were supposed to all be reading the same damn book.

I walked up to the information desk and asked for Myra Gordon.

“This is her day off,” a middle-aged woman wearing Harlequin-style reading glasses studded with rhinestones told me. Her hair was the color of merlot, the same color as her glasses. She was so Retro she was chic.

“Think she's at home?”

She pushed the reading glasses up and parked them on her head. “I wouldn't know. Are you a friend?”

“Oh, yes,” I lied.

As I left, I saw her reflection in the glass doors. She was already punching a number into the phone.

***

Myra Gordon lived a mere two blocks away, in an old stucco house that was probably an original Territorial. When I pulled behind her blue Honda, she was rushing out the door. Her face fell when she saw me.

“Mrs. Mbisi, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were avoiding me,” I said.

She stared at me for a moment, her eyes snapping with fury. Then she forced herself to calm and put her car keys back into her poodle purse. “I see there's no getting rid of you, so you might as well come in.”

Nothing like a warm welcome to make a detective feel at home. But I swung my crutches out of the Neon and hobbled to the porch.

Her eyes softened. “Oh. I'm sorry. I forgot about the bomb. And what you did to help that poor woman.” She unlocked the door, ushered me in, and asked me if I'd like something to drink.

Not knowing how long my visit would be, I accepted a Diet Coke. Even in March, Arizona air is desert dry. While she was in the kitchen clanking around with ice trays, I studied the African print throws on the sofa, the African masks above it. The coffee table and each end table held African carvings, some of animals, some of women. The only non-African decorations in the room were two studio photographs: one of a handsome, dark-skinned man with short-cropped gray hair, and the other of a lighter-skinned young man in an Army uniform.

When Gordon/Mbisi returned with my Diet Coke, she noticed me checking out the room. “My husband was from Ghana,” she explained. “He brought most of the art with him. I added a few pieces later.”

“Is that your son?” I asked, gesturing to the younger man's picture.

When she nodded, the anger returned to her eyes. “He was killed in Baghdad on the day of the first assault.”

“I'm sorry.”

This time the anger didn't leave. “And my husband was murdered, which makes two loved ones dead because of White men. But you know that, don't you? That's why you're here.”

Sometimes detective work is dirty work; I had little choice. Owen was looking at the needle if I didn't clear him. “That's right, Mrs. Gordon. Or do you prefer Mrs. Mbisi now that your secret's out?”

“Gordon. When I testified at the trial, my husband's murderers told me their friends in the Aryan Brotherhood would ‘take care of me,' so I'm doing what I can to make that difficult. That's why I took my maiden name back and moved here.”

No wonder she had been so hard to contact. I hoped for her sake that the Aryan Brotherhood wasn't as Internet-savvy as my partner. Then I comforted myself with the realization that they probably weren't. I doubted if their collective I.Q. would add up to room temperature.

“Mrs. Gordon, my partner ran a search on you and found out everything about the trial, including the interesting fact that the men who murdered your husband had some Patriot's Blood books in their apartment. Also, the woman who drew up the seating chart for the SOBOP banquet told me that you'd asked to be placed at Gloriana's table. Did you want to make sure you could watch her die?”

Gordon didn't bat an eye. “I wanted to look into the face of the woman who had murdered my husband.”

I didn't know what to say to that. “Mrs. Gordon.…”

She waved my words away. “I know, I know. You're going to tell me that she didn't murder him, that all she did was publish books. I'm no fool, Ms. Jones. I don't necessarily believe my husband would still be alive if Gloriana Alden-Taylor had printed only harmless children's stories or Regency romances. But everyone who contributes to hate, whether by speech or by printed word, is morally culpable for the pain their words cause others.”

“Not legally, though.” I hated myself for even pointing this out.

She inclined her head. “No, but think of this. If her products were illegal, Gloriana would be alive in prison, not dead in the ground.”

There was a picture, Gloriana Alden-Taylor sharing a cell with the female version of God's Avenger. Too bad it would remain only a fantasy. “Did you kill Gloriana, Mrs. Gordon?”

By now the anger had burnt away from her eyes and only sorrow remained. “No, Ms. Jones, I did not kill her. I have too much intimate acquaintance with violence ever to contribute to it myself. And with all the First Amendment's faults, I'm still a believer. If we relinquish free speech, we diminish our souls.”

“Admirable sentiments, Mrs. Gordon, but I didn't drive all the way down here to God's country for a lecture on the Bill of Rights. Convince me you didn't kill Gloriana.”

She looked at the photograph of her dead husband, her dead son. Then back at me. When she finally spoke, there was no expression on her face at all. “All I have for you is the truth, Ms. Jones. I arranged to be seated next to Gloriana so I could look into the face of evil. But when I met her, I didn't see evil. All I saw was the face of a lonely old woman. A woman just like me.”

***

When I got back to Scottsdale, the drywall guy was just pulling into the office parking slot, having obviously completed his job at the Biltmore Resort. I inched my way carefully up the stairs and let him into my apartment. After taking another look around, he told me the place would be good to go by the end of the day.

Pleased, I hobbled back down the stairs to the office and reported the conversation to Jimmy, who tried to hide his relief. “One more week at my place and those feet should be healed enough for you to navigate your stairs.” His face froze. “Wait a minute. Didn't you just say
you let the guy into your apartment?
Lena, how'd you get up there?”

I waved a crutch at him. “I've been practicing.”

“You're going to do what you're going to do, but I think you should give it a little more time.” There was resignation in his voice.

If I stayed at Jimmy's trailer any longer I might destroy a beautiful partnership, not to mention friendship. But I didn't tell him that. Instead, I said I was homesick. Not that I knew what “homesick” really meant. When you've grown up in as many “homes” as I had, you can't grasp the concept.

“Can you help me move back tonight?” I asked.

“It'll have to be tomorrow. Tonight Esther and I are taking Rebecca to the movies. I've finally found a film we can all see together without one of us losing his mind.”

I thought for a moment about calling Dusty, but then decided against it. Relying on my partner for help was one thing; relying on my boyfriend yet another. “Tomorrow it is, then.”

Satisfied with the way things were going, I returned to the business at hand, making a list of the people I needed to interview again. Sandra, most definitely, without Brookings standing guard. Yes, she had almost died in the fire, but Gloriana's murderer hadn't necessarily set it. The Aryan Brotherhood remained likely suspects.

I wrote down
SANDRA ALDEN-TAYLOR
and
JOHN ALDEN BROOKINGS
.

Both their lives had taken an upward turn after Gloriana's death, and I wasn't foolish enough to believe that blood was always thicker than water. Nieces had killed aunts before. Daughters, mothers.

And grandsons, grandmothers.

Of all people whose lives had been most enriched by Gloriana's death, Zach topped the list. Not only was he now able to re-create Patriot's Blood in his own image, but he had inherited a spectacular house in the bargain. And that undeveloped desert acreage I kept hearing about. At the beginning of this case, I had liked Zach, but since he inherited full control of Patriot's Press, I found myself liking him less. Had arrogance always lurked under that veil of harassed humility? Or had it been born with his new power?

I drew a double line under
ZACHARY ALDEN-TAYLOR.

Who else? I wrote down
OWEN SISIWAN
, and after some thought, added
JANELLE SISIWAN
. Owen gave every appearance of being a committed family man, but appearances frequently meant little. It was entirely possible that after a life of hardship on the reservation, he had decided to partake of the Good Life via Gloriana's lust for him. Unless I was wrong, Janelle was perfectly capable of committing murder to keep her man. As for procuring the water hemlock, many Native Americans were adept at identifying poisonous plants. That no one had mentioned seeing Owen's wife at the Desert Shadows Resort meant little. Few if any of the SOBOP folks knew her, but even if they had, she could have thrown a white apron over a black dress and blended into the background. Even Gloriana wouldn't have recognized her. No one pays attention to the help.

Then I corrected myself. No one pays attention to the help unless they look like Owen.

I drew a double line under
JANELLE
.

Who else? After careful thought, I discounted the dermatologist who had sat at Gloriana's table at the SOBOP banquet. The doctor had no motive and had actually tried to save Gloriana. But that wasn't true for the other people who had sat at the table.

After writing down
MYRA MBISI/GORDON
, I added
DAVID ZHANG
. Then
EMIL RAMOS
and
REPRESENTATIVE LYNN TINSLEY
. And how about
RANDALL OTT
? Gloriana was ruthless; Ott, crazy. A nasty combination. Anything could have happened between those two.

I wrote down
LAVELLE
and
LEILA ALDEN-TAYLOR
. While I couldn't see the twins actually doing the deed, they were obviously hiding something.

BARRY FETZNER
made my list. Considering the far-reaching loyalty of prison gangs, it would have been relatively easy for a member of the Aryan Brotherhood to come to some sort of arrangement with an outside killer.

I added
CHAPS PETERSON
, too. A long shot, but even cowboy poets do not like to hear their talent denigrated. Then, after thinking about it for a while, I wrote down
REVEREND MELVIN GIBLIN
. The fact that he had been good to me did not cancel out the possibility that he could be a killer. The Rev, who certainly knew his Arizona fauna and flora, might have killed Gloriana merely to keep her from spreading her press' awful brand of hate any further. A long shot, but so were some of the other names on my list.

I sat there staring at the Rev's name for a while, remembering the happy times I had spent with him and the other foster kids out on the desert. Remembered the songs around the campfire, remembered my sorrow when he—still half mad with grief over his wife's death—told us we couldn't live with him any longer. Remembered his tears when the CPS van came to pick us up.

I looked at the name some more.

Then I erased it.

***

Jimmy was still running names through the system when I pushed myself away from the desk and grappled with my crutches.

“Going upstairs to check on the progress,” I told him. “And after that, I'm driving up to Scottsdale Air Park to talk to David Zhang and Emil Ramos again. I have some follow-up questions.”

“Please be careful.”

I didn't bother asking who or what I was supposed to be careful of. It would elicit another lecture. Instead, I bumped up the stairs, only to find the drywall guy packing up his things.

“Finished.” He handed me an invoice.

When I saw the amount, I regretted not telling my landlord about my little hole-in-the-wall problem. But then I saw the now-sleek ceiling and walls and realized that he'd done a better job than my landlord would ever have paid for. The guy had even smoothed out a few extra spots, holes not put there by a big Desert Eagle. Which, I reminded myself, I had yet to get rid of. Maybe I should drop it down a sewer somewhere.