Staring at the chaos on the television, Raleigh felt his pulse race as if he were headed into combat.
Just like in 1945.
My God, it’s really happening again.
28
The Rostov County hospital was a modest-sized two-story building, its stucco tinted the harsh orange of the late-afternoon sun. Heat radiated off the front steps. Even so, Tori hesitated on them.
Page watched her with concern. “Are you okay?”
“Just thinking about next Tuesday. San Antonio. The hospital.”
Page kept remembering that his mother had died from breast cancer. Numbness spread through him. “I’ll be there with you.”
“I never doubted that. But what happens if life gets back to normal and I’m alone again, even when you’re with me?”
“I can change.”
“Hard to do.”
“For you, I’ll do anything. I’ll quit being a cop.”
Tori looked surprised.
“The job’s what makes me shut down my feelings,” Page said. “To make things better between us, quitting’s an obvious start.”
“But what would you do?”
“What my father did. Be an airplane mechanic.”
Tori considered him a moment longer, then drew a long breath and approached the hospital’s front doors. They opened automatically.
Inside a lobby, Page walked past a row of plastic chairs and stopped before a spectacled woman at a desk.
“We’re here to check on someone. He was admitted last night with a gunshot wound. Chief Costigan.”
“He’s not receiving visitors.”
“Well, can you tell us how he’s doing?”
“Are you family?”
“No, we’re-”
“Edith, it’s okay,” a voice said. “They’re not reporters.”
Page turned and saw Captain Medrano standing at an elevator, its door closing behind him. He held his Stetson. Each of the upper sleeves on his tan uniform had a red Highway Patrol patch.
“In fact, they’re trying to avoid reporters,” Medrano said. He pushed the elevator’s up button, and the doors immediately reopened. “Come on, I’ll take you to him.”
In the elevator, Medrano looked apologetic. “I finally had to give the media your names. Believe me, I held off as long as I could, but I was starting to look as if I wasn’t in control of the investigation.”
“If they find out we’re at that motel…,” Tori said.
“The clerk promised to deny you’re staying there.”
“I hope he keeps his word. Do you know who the shooter was?” Page asked.
“Edward Mullen. One of the survivors remembered seeing him on the tour bus. We contacted the company that owns the bus. It’s based in Austin. The lights are only a brief part of the tour-it also goes to the big ranch house that was built for that James Deacon movie, Birthright.”
Page nodded. “Last night at the viewing area, someone mentioned that movie set.”
“Mostly, though, it’s a nature tour that goes through the Davis Mountains. The company gave us a list of everyone who signed up for that particular tour. All the victims had ID on them. We com- pared their names and those of the survivors to the names on the list. Edward Mullen was the only person we couldn’t account for. You were right-according to one of the survivors from the bus, he had a guitar case. The guy remembered because Mullen had a lot of trouble finding a place to put it. That must be where he hid the rifle.”
“A lucky guess.”
“No. I told you last night, you have the instincts of a good cop.”
Page glanced at Tori and found that she was looking at him.
The elevator doors opened. As they stepped into a hospital corridor, Page’s nostrils felt pinched by the smell of antiseptic.
“This was the ninth time Mullen had taken the same tour,” Medrano continued.
Page stopped walking and frowned at him. “The ninth?”
“The tour company gave us the credit-card number he used. The credit-card company gave us his address. The Austin police went to his apartment.”
“Surprise me and tell me he didn’t live alone.”
“His wife died a year ago,” Medrano said. “He didn’t have any children.”
“Now tell me the apartment wasn’t crammed with religious statues and paintings and all kinds of literature about damnation.”
“It’d take a truck to carry it all away,” Medrano replied. “I’m tempted to go with the theory I had last night: some kind of religious lunatic. But there’s a problem with that theory.”
“Oh?”
“Mullen has a brother. According to him, Mullen was never religious-never even went near a church-until his wife’s funeral.
Apparently her death hit him so hard that all he did was stay in bed all day. The brother tried to get him interested in things and happened to see a newspaper ad for one of those tours. Before his wife’s death, Mullen was a movie buff. If a movie was filmed in Texas, he knew it shot by shot. So when the brother read that the tour included the set for Birthright, one of Mullen’s favorites, he managed to convince Mullen-‘practically twisted his arm’ is how he put it-that the two of them should go on the tour. It also included some locations from movies that were made in the Davis Mountains. Before the group reached the movie locations, though, they arrived at that viewing platform. As usual, some people on the tour claimed to see the lights while others wondered what all the fuss was about.”
“Did the brother see the lights?” Page asked.
“No, but Mullen claimed they were spectacular. After he got back to Austin, he started filling his apartment with the religious statues and paintings.”
A phone rang, distracting Medrano. It came from a nurses’ station across from the elevators. Page glanced around and noticed open doors along the corridor, nurses going into some of them, people in civilian clothes coming out of others.
Medrano pointed toward a clock in the nurses’ station.
“Almost 5. I’m due at a press conference at the courthouse. I’d better show you where Chief Costigan is.”
As they walked along the corridor, Page looked again at Tori, who rubbed the back of her neck, obviously bothered by the smell and feel of being in a hospital. He stepped closer to her, reached out, and discreetly squeezed her hand, but got no reaction.
Medrano entered the second-to-last doorway on the left and stepped out of Page’s sight. “Want more visitors?” he asked someone.
“If they’re pretty,” a raspy voice said.
“One is. The other could use a shave.”
Medrano motioned for Page and Tori to enter the room.
Costigan lay in a bed that was tilted up, allowing him to see a news program on a television that was mounted on the opposite wall. The reporter on the screen was the same man Page had seen on the television at the motel office: rumpled suit, mussed blond hair, beard stubble, haggard but handsome features.
“Anything’s better than watching that damned fool get everybody fired up,” Costigan growled.
The chief pressed the remote control and shut off the TV. Bandages encircled his head, pads making one side thicker than the other. His face looked grayer and thinner. Even his mustache seemed gray.
“Recognize these folks?” Medrano asked.
“Sure do.” An IV tube was taped to Costigan’s left arm. Wires attached to heart and blood-pressure monitors led under the chest of his hospital gown.
“Glad to hear it,” Medrano said. “That’s part of the memory test. I need to get to a press conference, but I want this couple to tell a nurse if you start forgetting things, like the fifty dollars I lent you last week.”
“I didn’t borrow any fifty dollars.”
“You’re right. Come to think of it, I lent you a hundred dollars.”
“Get out of here,” Costigan said.
After Medrano grinned and left, the chief motioned for them to come closer.
“We brought your
windbreaker back,” Page said. “Thanks. It came in handy.”
“Keep it a while longer. I’m hardly in a position to use it.” Costigan studied them. “He called you ‘this couple.’ Does that mean things are better between the two of you?”
“It’s complicated,” Page answered.
“Isn’t everything? At least you came here together.”
Tori changed the subject. “How bad are you hurt?”
“Apparently I’ve got a hard head. The bullet creased my skull. Didn’t fracture it but gave me a hell of a concussion.” Costigan winced. “And an even worse headache. If I start to drool, tell the nurse.”
Despite the burden of his emotions, Page almost smiled.
“Your head was covered with so much blood,” Tori said, “I thought you were dead.”
“Scalp wounds are terrible bleeders. Mrs. Page, I heard that you picked up my gun and made good use of it. You saved the lives of a lot of people. You’re remarkable.”
Tori looked away.
“Sorry. It wasn’t my intention to upset you.” Costigan changed the subject. “I don’t suppose either of you has any cigarettes.”
“Afraid not,” she said, looking at him again.
“Just as well. They won’t let me smoke in here anyhow.”
“It’s a good time to quit,” Tori said.
“Yeah, this wound gives me motivation to stick around as long as I can.” Costigan looked at Page. “Before the shooting started, you seemed to see the lights.”
Page could tell that Tori was waiting for his answer.
“I did.”
“I’m impressed,” Costigan said. “Not everybody does. Your wife sure saw them.”
“Yes.” Tori sounded as if she spoke about a lover.
“But I’m still not sure what it is I saw,” Page added. “What’s happening here, Chief? What are they?”
Costigan pressed a button. A motor under the bed made a whirring sound and raised his head a little more.
“I’ve heard every kind of explanation you can imagine. Everything from ball lightning to pranksters. If it’s pranksters, they’re good at it. When I came to town to be the chief after my father was killed…”
The harsh memory made Costigan pause. He gradually refocused his thoughts.
“Well, I spent a lot of nights out there, looking for people with flashlights or lanterns or whatever. That’s a long way to go for a practical joke. I never saw cars parked along the side roads, and I never heard any noises I couldn’t identify. It would take at least a half- dozen people to pull off a prank like that, and I don’t know how they could do it quietly. What’s more, it’s hard to keep a secret. After all these years, someone in town would have hinted about what they were doing. And how many pranksters have the determination to do it night after night after night?”
“What I saw wasn’t flashlights or lanterns or pranksters,” Tori said.
“No, but there still has to be some explanation. I’m not sure you’re going to like this, Mrs. Page.”
“Please call me Tori. What am I not going to like?”
“I don’t think there’s anything magical about the lights. On occasion researchers have come here, some from as far away as Japan. They’ve set up all kinds of scientific instruments, machines that analyzed light and measured distance and… I don’t pretend to understand it. The best explanation they could come up with is a temperature inversion.”
“A what?”
“I said you wouldn’t like it. A temperature inversion. The way it was explained to me is, we’re five thousand feet above sea level. At this altitude, when the sun sets after a hot day, there can be as much as a fifty-degree difference between the daytime and nighttime temperatures. That causes an inversion of hot air on top of cold. Under certain conditions, distant lights-from a moving car or a train-can bounce back and forth through the layers. The lights get magnified. They shift up and down and right and left.”
“But why would they change colors?”
“The scientists didn’t explain that.”
“Do the lights appear in the winter?” Tori persisted. “If so, then there wouldn’t be as big a difference between the day and night temperatures. So how could there be a temperature inversion in cold weather?”
“The scientists didn’t explain that, either.” Costigan gingerly touched his bandaged head. “This headache… Harriett Ward.”
“Excuse me?” The statement seemed to come out of nowhere. Page worried that Costigan was having trouble keeping his thoughts straight.
“Harriett’s the person to talk to about the lights. She’s the local ex- pert. She runs an antiques store a block south of the courthouse. Lives in a couple of rooms in the back. Given everything that’s happening, I doubt many locals will go out this evening, even if it is Friday night. You’ll probably catch her at home.”
29
The sign had old-fashioned lettering: WEST TEXAS ANTIQUES.
As Tori parked in front, Page noticed a hutch, a rocking chair, and a wooden sink in the store’s window. The frame around the window was painted a pastel blue that contrasted with the yellow on the art gallery to the left and the green on the coffee shop to the right.
“Reminds me of the lights,” Tori said.
They looked up the wide street toward the courthouse, where numerous vehicles were parked, including several television broadcast trucks. Page estimated that a couple of hundred people stood in front of the steps, presumably listening to Captain Medrano conducting the press conference.
“My rental car’s still parked up there. I can’t get it until they leave,” Page explained to Tori.
The lowering sun cast the street in a crimson glow.
A pickup truck stopped. A teenaged boy leaned from the passenger window.
“Supposed to be some weird lights around here. We came all the way from Lubbock to see them. You know where they’re at?”
“We’re strangers,” Page said. “Just visiting a friend.”
A boy in the middle told the driver, “Ed, let’s go ask somebody else. Try that crowd up there.”
As the truck drove away, Page knocked on the wooden doorframe and peered through the window toward the shadows in the store.
“Maybe the chief’s wrong and she’s out for the evening,” he said.
But after he knocked again, a door opened in the back of the store. A figure approached, passing old tables and cabinets. The figure had white hair that was cut short, like a man’s. Then a light came on, and the person stepped close enough for Page to see a lean woman in her sixties. She wore cowboy boots, jeans, a work shirt, and a leather vest. Her skin was brown and wrinkled from exposure to the sun.
When she unlocked the door and peered out, Page noticed a wed- ding band.
“Mrs. Ward, my name’s-”
“Dan Page. And your wife’s name is Tori.” The woman shook hands with them. “Chief Costigan phoned to say you were coming. Come in. And please call me Harriett.”
Won over by the friendliness, Page motioned for Tori to go first, then followed the two women toward the back of the store. He noticed old rifles on a rack on the wall. The wooden floor creaked. Everything smelled of the past.
“I was about to have a drink, but I hate to drink alone,” Harriett said. “So I hope you’ll join me.”
She closed the door after they entered a small living room that was sparsely furnished. The rug had a sunburst pattern. Page didn’t see any indication that a man lived there. Thinking of the wedding band Harriett wore, he concluded that she was a widow.
“I’ve got vodka, bourbon, and tequila,” she said.
“What are you having?” Tori asked.
“Tequila on the rocks.”
“I’ll have the same.”
Page was surprised. Tori seldom drank hard alcohol.
“Tequila for you also?” Harriett asked him.
“Just a little. I haven’t eaten anything in a while.”
Harriett’s boot heels thumpe
d on the wooden floor as she went into a small kitchen. He heard the clink of ice cubes being dropped into glasses and the splash of liquid being poured over the ice.
“The chief tells me you’re interested in hearing about the lights,” Harriett said, returning with two glasses.
“According to him, you’re the local expert,” Page replied.
“I did a lot of research, if that’s what he means.” Harriett went back for the third glass and also brought a bag of tortilla chips, which she handed to Page. “I dug into history and found hundreds of re- ports, a lot of them from the old days. But nobody’s really an expert when it comes to the lights. Nobody really understands them.”
“Why hasn’t word about them gotten around?” Tori wondered.
“There was a segment about them on that old TV show, Unsolved Mysteries, and a crew from the History Channel did some interviews here about five years ago. Every once in a while, there’s an item in a magazine. When that happens, we get a wave of visitors. That’s why the county set up that viewing area and the portable toilets. People made so much mess out there that it seemed better to adjust to the tourists than to ignore them-turned out to be good for business, too. But eventually, interest dies down. For one thing, the lights don’t photograph well, so camera crews get restless. Plus, a lot of visitors don’t see the lights, which is why the county put up that plaque with its warning that people shouldn’t feel disappointed if they don’t see anything.”
Harriett clicked glasses with them and sat.
Although Page made a show of sipping the tequila, he had no intention of finishing it. He merely used it as a prop to encourage Harriett to feel comfortable and keep talking.
“Chief Costigan thinks they’re probably lights from a distance, magnified by temperature inversions. But I don’t believe that,” Tori said firmly.
“You’ll hear all kinds of theories. From UFOs to ball lightning.”
“Why do some people see them and others don’t?” Page asked.
“As I said, there are all kinds of theories. A psychiatrist on Unsolved Mysteries claimed it’s a form of mass delusion, that some people want their expectations to be fulfilled while others are determined not to be manipulated.”
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