Short Cut to Santa Fe (15 page)

The sound of voices floated up from somewhere below. Kate pulled her head delicately in from the window and drifted silently over to the opposite side. The limousine was pulled up in front of the gates again, and Ginger had them opened.

“What about her? You want me to leave her there?” Ginger's voice was unpleasantly like Deever's, only higher-pitched and worried sounding.

“Wait till I'm in Albuquerque, and then get rid of her. Otherwise she's going to keep right on raising hell and screwing things up. I remember that bitch from the hearings—she works for
Time
or something. Wait till she's passed out and then dump her at the motel. That way, nobody'll ask questions. Key's in her purse. If you want to get fancy, leave her on a park bench with an empty bottle and a small bag.”

“Yeah, well I said I'd take her back, didn't I?” And he laughed.

And Kate could see Rodriguez looking down at her body, sodden with Scotch and filled with coke, dead, ugly on a bench somewhere in Taos. Ending up just as he said she would, dead of booze and drugs, not brave enough to face the simple process of getting off them. And Deever was right. Nobody would question what had happened to her. She had set the whole thing up. She hated fulfilling other people's prophecies. Hated it.

Suddenly it came to her. This room could not be as difficult of access as it appeared, or it would not contain any furniture larger than a pillow. No one could have wrestled that bed, the couch, the table, any of these things up here through that stupid Edgar Allan Poe staircase. Come on, Kate. Start looking.

She started with the windows. The fit between the adobe structure and the spanking new casement windows was her first concern. She ran her fingers up and around the framing. Solid. Then she looked at the window itself. It had hinges, of course. She tried dismantling the bottom one. It stuck. The memory of skills learned at college tweaked at her; her dorm had had windows exactly like this. She grasped the handle that worked the closing mechanism, twisted it backward, and unscrewed it neatly and quietly. The ultimate irritation weapon, disabling your neighbour's windows. The handle was not quite as useful as a screwdriver would have been, but it did help start the bolt. One thwack and it was on its way. A little yanking with her fingers and shoving with the handle and she had it out. The second hinge was a breeze, now that she had a system. With the window loosened, she could twist it in its track until she parted it from its closing arm. Sweating with triumph, she dragged her prize into the room.

The resulting space was almost wide enough for a human body. Maybe it was actually wide enough for someone who didn't fear getting caught in tight places more than anything else in the world. She looked down at the roof below, waiting for inspiration to come.

They didn't drag beds up through an opening this wide. She examined the two windows and the space between them with more care. No ideas jumped into her brain. No little rosette that you press and the whole wall comes away, not as far as she could tell. She walked over to the south wall and pulled back the curtains. Night was closing in. The bottom of the windows was covered by the bookcase; with a gasp of effort she pulled it aside enough to see what was there. And discovered that the windowsill connected two complete windows and the space in between. That was all a fake structure, no doubt fairly easy to remove. And when gone, it would allow for good-sized pieces of furniture to be dragged up from the ground. Her elation drained away. Even if she could create room for ten women by removing those windows, she would undoubtedly break her neck getting to the ground.

Maybe there was a rope. A ladder in case of fire. She yanked out all the drawers, threw open the bathroom cabinets, almost wrenched off the lid of the chest. Nothing but a few dust curls, more towels, and a duvet. She started to calculate how far down they would get her if she managed to tie them together, looked at the intractability of the materials, and gave up in despair.

“It's getting late,” said John.

The injured woman was lying on the ground, with her head in Harriet's lap. They were taking turns keeping her awake enough to pour a little liquid down her throat. Her eyelids fluttered and opened more frequently now, but except for that, progress was dishearteningly slow.

“How are the kids doing?” asked Harriet.

“They're being very quiet and stoical. Stuart is off on another of his scouting missions. It keeps his mind off things. Are there any more crackers in that box? I imagine they must be hungry.”

Harriet shook her head. “Not many. I still have apples. And no water.”

“Harriet?” A voice called from the rocks above them. A child's voice, filled with interest but no panic.

“That you, Stuart? You'd better come down while you can still see well enough not to fall.”

“I am.” The voice was accompanied by a rattle of dirt and gravel, and running footsteps. “I saw the van,” he said. “It's not that far down the road. We could walk it easy following the road. Honest. And then we could sleep in it.”

The fear of sleeping out in the open, at the mercy of all the things that prowl the night, informed his voice.

“It's an idea,” said John. “I can carry her for a while, anyway. She'd be more comfortable in the van. And a little warmer.”

“I wonder where Jennifer is,” said Harriet. “Did you see her?”

Stuart shook his head. “She must have gone.”

“I can walk, I think. At least for a little while. It would be good for me.” The voice, when it came, was so hoarse and faint and unexpected that everyone jumped.

“Diana?” asked Harriet. “You think you can walk?”

“Sure. I'm groggy, that's all. She's been giving me something pretty strong. But if you'll hang onto me, I can walk.”

It was an odd procession that started down the mountain road. Caroline held the flashlight that had been in Harriet's jacket, Stuart walked beside her for support, then John and Harriet and, propped up between them, a woman who staggered and stumbled and apologized in a thick voice about an equal amount of the time. “I'm sorry,” she said at last. “I have to rest for a while. Leave me here. I'll be all right.”

“It's not far from here,” said Stuart confidently. “Right around that next curve there's another and then a long straight stretch, and then another curve with a funny-looking black rock. Just beyond there.”

“Why don't you rest here,” said John, “while I go have a look. Do you mind? The children can stay with you—and Harriet.”

Harriet looked over at him, startled, caught the expression on his face in the fading light and smiled. “Certainly. Just check to make sure that it's our van, eh? Who knows how many cream Chevy vans might be littering the roads around here.”

John took the flashlight from Caroline and headed off, but as soon as he was around the curve he killed the light. Stuart's remark about someone following them had disturbed him considerably more than he had admitted, and he had no desire to advertise their presence. Once he'd rounded the curve out of earshot of the children's voices, the only sound he could hear was that of his footfalls, light on the dust and gravel. But his body was convinced that he was not alone. His back twitched, feeling the eyes measuring it, and his scalp tingled with the sense of a hostile presence. But no matter how often he paused to listen and watch, the mountain appeared empty and deserted.

The chunk of black rock loomed up to his right. One last corner and there it was, the van sitting on its pathetically misused wheels. As he approached it, a richly unpleasant and too familiar smell wafted over to him on the night breeze. He walked to the window, switched on his flashlight, and shone it on the gaping wound in the neck of the blood-drenched corpse of Jennifer Nicholls. One more throat had gone.

“You can't climb out that window and let yourself down to the roof, Kate Grosvenor. Your arm is too weak; it won't support you. It'll give way and you'll fall.” For the first time in more than an hour Kate was dragging her physical condition into her considerations. “It'll be fine, you stupid jerk,” she continued, having one of those Kate to Kate conversations she'd used since childhood to solve most of life's overwhelming problems. “Look at what you've just done with it. And besides, even if you fall, it's not that far. What do you think you are, a piece of irreplaceable china?”

She had been sitting in the dark on one of the hard-backed chairs, staring at the narrow space in front of her, earnestly talking to herself. Anything to keep from thinking of the word
stuck
. Time was passing. A dangerous amount of time. “Okay, then how do I get off that roof? I'm still two stories above the ground.” The answer popped back at once. “There'll be something out there to climb onto. You'll see.”

She paused in her arguments and dropped her head into her hands for a moment. “Right. I'm going,” she said, and stood up. And just as she was about to climb onto the windowsill, a happy farewell thought hit her. She picked up the bottle, carried it over to the trapdoor, unscrewed the cap, and poured the fifth of Scotch down the crack. Then she set the water jug and the ice bucket artistically on the edge opposite the hinges where, with a little luck, they would spill on the head of the next person coming up. As a final touch, she picked up the window she had detached from its hinges and perched it delicately on top of everything else. “There you go,” she said. “A nice little surprise.”

The search for the children had turned into a purely neighbourhood affair, efficiently organized by the wife of a local landowner, and assisted by tracking dogs brought in from headquarters. “Hi, Rodriguez,” said the man lounging behind the wheel of his car at the central point, working on a crossword puzzle while he coordinated negative results as they trickled in. “What in hell are you doing here? Haven't you heard?”

Rodriguez leaned his elbows on the car door and looked in. “You mean that's it's all a waste of time?” he said. “Sure. But I was sent down to coordinate.”

“The hell you were,” he said cheerfully. “I'm coordinating this thing and we're on until nightfall. The day you outrank me and then some, I'll give over sitting in here in comfort to go busting my ass poking around under bushes. I never got orders to turn anything over to you.”

“Christ,” muttered Rodriguez. “What in hell is going on?”

Rodriguez stalked back to his car and snarled something at his radio. “What in hell do you mean, a mistake?” floated through the evening air over to the trooper in the other car. “You sent me out to the middle of nowhere by mistake? You know how many people there are out here already? We're tripping over each other.” A pause. “Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

“Some anonymous bastard screwed up,” he said. “And now that it's all straightened out they tell me I can drive all the way back to town. Enjoy yourself.”

“Sure, Rodriguez.”

It was almost nine o'clock when Rodriguez walked into the café on Bent Street and looked around for his brother. One of his brothers. That was what the message had said. “Meet your brother at the café when you get off.” Neglecting to mention which brother. Or, in fact, which café.

It didn't matter. They were both there, nursing beers. “What's up?” he said. Out here in the world of work and tourists, they generally communicated in English. As a policy. Especially in a crowded restaurant.

“Not much. Nobody's seen you lately, that's all,” said Guillermo, the oldest of the three. “We called at work because it's easier to find you there than in that miserable hovel you call home. You know, if you want, I can get you—”

“You look like hell, both of you,” said Rodriguez. “What's wrong? Is everything okay at home?”

“Nothing's wrong. For chrissake, stop worrying. There was a party last night and I tied one on. Got to bed at five and had to be up at seven. Worked all day.” Guillermo yawned and grinned; he drained his glass and waved for another.

“What are you working on?” asked Rodriguez, pouring his beer and ordering the chicken with rice.

“Same thing,” he said. “Big contract with lots of money. I'm almost finished.”

“You smell like a horse,” said Roberto.

“So? I came home early and went riding. Trying to get the kinks out and clear my head.”

“Why don't you try showering? Clear your head and the air.”

“Shut up, Roberto. You're no rose yourself,” said Guillermo expansively and leaned back.

“What are you doing in town this weekend?” asked Rodriguez, turning to the middle brother.

“Her cousin's getting married,” said Roberto curtly.

“And they didn't invite you?” Rodriguez was filled with genuine astonishment. Roberto's girlfriend's family had been angling for him to marry her since she'd been seventeen. He couldn't imagine them bypassing an opportunity to work on him like that.

“Yeah, they invited me. I just didn't feel like going. I'm getting sick of Isabel's mother and all her maneuvering. Isabel wants to graduate and maybe even get a job, before she starts in on the fourteen grandchildren it would take to keep the witch happy.”

So this turned out to be old news. “What are you working on?” Guillermo asked, turning to Rodriguez.

“A tour company lost a bus,” he said laconically. “We're trying to find it.”

“What do you mean, lost a bus?”

“Just what I say. There was a bus, and then there was no bus. We came into it because we were told there were a couple of kids on the bus and when they didn't turn up their parents began raising hell,” said Rodriguez. “Naturally. Their parents, of course, are in our jurisdiction. But there weren't any kids on that goddamn bus. They were in a van, maybe, being kidnapped by some other people. But we can't find the van either, so it doesn't matter, does it? In short, no one knows what the hell is going on, and if it's a hijacking or a kidnapping, they're taking their own sweet time to contact us and tell us what they want.” He yawned. “I haven't had a lot of sleep either.” Then he looked at the beer in his hand, at the crowd in the restaurant, and pulled a twenty from his pocket. “Look, cancel my order if you can, or eat it yourselves. I can't stay. It was really nice seeing you guys, but won't you be home tomorrow?”

“Sure,” said Guillermo, vaguely, his mind on other things already. He was pointing at the two empty chairs. “Linda, Sam,” he called. “Over here. Lots of room.” Two women who were standing at the entrance waved cheerfully and pushed their way past the crowd waiting for tables. The waitress frowned and decided not to make an issue of it.

“We'll talk then,” said Rodriguez.

Roberto pushed back his chair at the same time. “I'll walk down with you. I got to drive over and pick up Isabel.”

“So you're going after all. You just don't want to miss the party,” said his brother.

“There's some of that,” Roberto admitted.

They walked through the narrow, twisting streets and alleyways between closed shops and little galleries, avoiding the noise and traffic only a block away. The dim lights from shop windows made the warm bricks and stones of the pavement glow; the night was warm for May but cool on exposed flesh. Rodriguez thrust his hands in his pockets and stared at his feet as he moved. When they came to the corner, he turned right, further into the maze of small stores and restaurants, instead of back toward work. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“The hell it isn't. You were damn near throwing beer in Guillermo's face.”

“Ah, shit,” he said. “I was bored. So would you have been, listening to him going on and on about how wonderful his life is.”

“Is everything okay with you and Isabel?” he asked. “I don't know when I last saw you alone on a Saturday.”

“With Isabel? And me?” He laughed. “She worked out this whole scheme. I'm picking her up at the hall and we're off.”

“So I guess you're using the cabin tonight.”

“Hell no. We are spending the night in a hotel close to where the reception is. A luxury hotel with room service and monster beds. What's the point in being employed if you don't spend it? Tomorrow, Isabel will arrive home, all demure, having spent the night with another cousin. You know, we're running out of excuses for Isabel to spend Saturday night somewhere else. Getting around her mother is turning into a real drag.”

“You shouldn't have fallen for someone who's half your age, then.”

“She's only nine years younger than I am,” he said defensively. “That's nothing. Our father was—”

“Now, there's a hell of an example to follow. You know, if you can't spend a day on your own without turning into a snarling bastard, you'd better marry her. Or get a hobby.”

“Oh—I had lots to do today. It wasn't that.”

Rodriguez glanced over at his brother, who was staring gloomily in the window of a bookstore. “I might use it myself tonight,” he said. “The cabin, I mean. It's about the only place I know of where I can sleep and they can't find me.”

Rodriguez knocked on the door of the motel room, hard. For the second time. Come on, come on. Answer the goddamn door, he screamed at her silently. Or are you too drunk? He walked over to the windows and shook his head in fury and exasperation. The stupid, stupid bitch had left one of them open. With the curtains pulled back. Anyone could have walked in. He heaved the sash up as far as it would go and climbed in himself to prove his point.

But she was not in the bed asleep. Drunk or sober. In fact, since he had last seen it, the bed had been tidied, the blanket folded, and the cover straightened out. The bathroom door was open; the lights were out. The place was empty. He turned on a light, closed the window, and pulled the curtains shut. “Okay,” he muttered, “she's gone to get something to eat. What's wrong with that? It's legal, even in the middle of an investigation.” But a little voice nagged at him that it was not the speed and the thoroughness of his investigation that he was concerned about. I probably drove right past her without even noticing, he said to himself. Like hell, Rodriguez. You were searching for her on every street you drove down. He noted that she had left the dish he had brought the chili in beside the bed, but had cleared away the glasses from the table. What did that mean? Nothing, Rodriguez, you blundering fool. Nothing at all. Except that maybe she was interrupted in the middle of cleaning up. By whom? Or what? He flipped on the light in the bathroom and looked around.

There were the four glasses, lined up in a row. On the mirror, right above them, Kate had drawn a scowling happy face in lipstick. What in hell did that mean? Face? Lips? I'm sad and have gone out to get drunk? He looked around for inspiration. She had left a small overnight bag on the counter, open. He peered inside, pulling out various zippered plastic-lined bags containing makeup and toiletries. He started to do a rapid check. Shampoo and hair things. Deodorant, skin lotion, and pricey-looking soap. Makeup. Lipstick. Why leave it here? The women he knew carted their lipstick around with them. Lipstick. He groaned. A clue. One so obvious that even he would get it. More like a bad pun. He took out the tube and tried pulling it apart. It resisted for a moment, and then gave suddenly with a pop. A tightly folded tissue was wrapped around the inside tube.

He spread it out on the counter and read the brief message. “Kate Grosvenor,” he muttered. “At Carl Deever's. Shit. How could anyone be that dumb? So stupid, ignorant, idiotic—” He ran out of words. Not to mention that little clue. The first person who walked in here would go directly to that lipstick tube.

He wiped the lipsticked face off the mirror, pocketed the tissue, and headed out to his car.

Kate stared down at the roof for a measurable length of time; it was still only five or six feet below her. She climbed up onto the sill and began to study the situation carefully. The window opening looked to be nine or ten inches wide, she thought, maybe less, and the adobe wall it was set in was more than a foot thick. Thin as she was right now, it was still going to be a tight fit for her hips. The sweat of pure terror poured off her face and trickled down between her breasts as she tried to distract herself with these basic and not very useful calculations. There was nothing for it. Turning her body suddenly sideways, she stepped off the ledge, one foot at a time, through the long narrow opening. Using both hands, one outside, one in, to clutch the fat section of wall between the two windows, she rapidly eased herself down and out. Just at the point where her feet were dangling helplessly, the sharp edges of the wood framing caught her hipbones and held her fast. She wrapped her arms as tightly as she could around the center post for support and breathed out with as much force as she could muster. She wriggled from side to side within the frame, using an up and down pelvic motion. And almost laughed hysterically as she realized that she must look like someone performing an obscene dance with a house. Except for putting a nice polish on the inside of the window frame, though, she was accomplishing nothing. And she was never going to be able to work her way back up through the window. She was caught there, trapped, unable to move. Panic burned through her system, screaming at her that she was choking, that she must breathe.

Then suddenly her thighs and buttocks freed themselves and her sharp hipbones smashed against some other obstruction in there. It hurt. She wrenched her frame about once more, forcing her hips past the narrowest part of the opening. She felt herself sliding down and out until her rib cage caught on the wood framing and stopped her once more.