by Eden Maguire
'So someone drove her out there? And even if it was an accident -
Arizona fal ing and hitting her head against a rock how come this other person didn't dive in to save her?'
Sure. And why didn't they cal for help? You know it was a pair of hikers passing by who saw her body floating in the lake.'
I sat for a while without speaking. 'OK, try this,' I said at last. 'Arizona goes to see Kyle at Mike's Motors in this crazy, desperate mood. She uses the excuse of getting her car fixed. He's scared she's going to say too much in front of Mike Hamil , so he fixes to drive her out to Hartmann later that morning. The lake is way out of town no one wil see them there.'
Phoenix picked up the story. They meet and it al fal s apart. Arizona loses control and threatens Kyle. She swears she'l stop him marrying Sable. We know he has a brutal temper - he strikes out, she stumbles, fal s and hits her head so hard she breaks her neck.'
This was making a lot of sense.
'Kyle's scared,' I went on. 'He doesn't know if Arizona is alive or dead, but he realizes he's facing the biggest problem of his life - how to explain what happened to Arizona. The water's deep, he believes it's the only way to solve his problem. So he lifts Arizona from the rock and tosses her into the lake.'
Every detail seemed to slot into place now that we'd spoken it out loud. We total y convinced ourselves.
Phoenix nodded. 'Then Kyle leaves. He doesn't need an alibi - not many people know his connection with the dead girl. He acts stunned like everyone else when the body is eventual y discovered. Later, the inquest 139
hears Arizona was a loner, she was depressed. They give a verdict of
suicide. No loose ends, no argument from the shel -shocked family. Al neat and wrapped up.'
'And the whole town is stunned because it's the second death in weeks. First Jonas, then Arizona. I remember that's when people start to believe there was a curse hanging over the kids of El erton. No one's
thinking clearly. We're al afraid.'
'Kyle walks away.' Phoenix put the final piece in place.
'That's what he believes,' I added. 'But he doesn't know about the Beautiful Dead.'
We sat together admiring our polished version of events. It made me more determined than ever to force the truth out of Kyle Keppler. 'How long before dawn?' I asked Phoenix. 'How much time do we have before
we set out for Forest Lake?'
He looked out at the stars and moon. 'Enough time for you to sleep,'
he answered. 'I'l keep watch. You rest now.'
Amazingly I slept. Phoenix held my hand and didn't let go until I woke at
first light, when the sun rose, hot red and gold, over the eastern
mountains. I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the warm light glowing on his wonderful face.
'It's today or never,' he reminded me, as if I needed it.
We left the house like two thieves, climbing out of the upstairs window and jumping into my car. I let it freewheel down the drive, not turning the key in the ignition until we were clear of the house and heading for Centennial and the freeway beyond.
'Forget Peak Road - take the back track to Forest Lake,' Phoenix suggested. 'It cuts a couple of miles off our journey.'
Yessir!' I tingled with the excitement of the lonely streets and the fact
that it was our final shot at solving things for Arizona. For once, because I had Phoenix sitting by my side, the idea of Kyle Keppler didn't scare me. 'We need to get to Forest Lake before Kyle leaves for work.'
'And this time we don't care if Sable sees you,' Phoenix decided. 'We 140
put al possible pressure on the guy to make him confess.'
'You'l be there?' I checked.
'Every step of the way. Now step on the gas. Drive, Darina, drive!'
We drove through dark mountains backed by a red-gold light, along a dirt track raising a cloud of dust, and no other car in sight.
Phoenix sat beside me wearing dark glasses, the round neckline of his white T-shirt making a strong contrast to the V of his half-unzippered leather jacket. I turned on the radio and listened to a country western song about saying a final goodbye to the one you love. Cruel death comes and takes the girl. ' Say goodbye, Marianna's leaving, Say goodbye, Marianna's gone.' The words 'leaving' and 'gone', repeated so many times in the chorus, tugged at my heart.
Then we came to Forest Lake, the hick town trying to live off its history and barely crawling into the twenty-first century.
Smal wooden houses lined the roadside, beaten-up cars and trucks parked alongside. Shutters were stil closed, deer had strayed out of the forest and grazed the shabby, sloping lawns. The only light in town glowed under the awning of the diner where I'd drunk my cup of coffee and watched the stray brown-and-white dog.
'We're headed for White Eagle Road,' I told Phoenix, growing tense and gripping the steering wheel. I tried not to think too far ahead in case I lost my nerve.
'Watch out you jumped a red light!' he warned.
I never even saw it, to tel the truth. We were on the right street now,
looking for Keppler's red truck parked outside number 505.
'I think this is it.' I pointed to the house with the rough wire fence and overgrown yard. But there was no truck, no dogs, no sign of life.
'No one's home.' Phoenix studied the run-down house. 'How does that work? Where are Sable and the baby?'
'Wait here. Let me go and knock at the door,' I told him, my stomach churning as I walked up the drive. I was looking for and not seeing the baby strol er, maybe laundry hanging out to dry. My knuckles rapped at
the glass panel in the door, rousing a dog in the yard next door. But no 141
one appeared from inside number 505.
The neighbour's Labrador scrabbled his claws against the wooden fence. He jumped up so that his blunt black face appeared, jaws snapping.
'Jesus, Troy, quit that noise!' a voice said and a nosy-looking woman
appeared at the fence. 'What do you want?' she asked me, no more friendly than her dog.
'I came to see Kyle,' I told her. 'This is his house, right?'
'Not home,' the woman grunted. 'Work it out - it's not rocket
science.'
'So where did they go?'
The Kepplers' neighbour walked down to the end of her driveway and waited there for me to join her. 'Who's he - your boyfriend?' she asked, casting a glance towards Phoenix who sat with his col ar tip and his head turned away.
I nodded. 'Kyle and Sable - where did they go?'
'Who cares?' The woman was cagey, her dog stil snarling in the back yard. 'The longer they stay away, the better I'l like it. Maybe then I'l get some peace.
I tried hard to look sympathetic. 'Party animals, huh?'
'Drinkers,' she complained. 'Too much alcohol, and with a smal kid to look after. It's not right.'
'They make a lot of noise?'
'Yel ing al the time.' The skinny, bleached-blonde woman raised her
eyes to heaven. 'The dogs bark, the kid cries al night long. Last night it was bad as it's ever been ... Quit it, Troy, I'm trying to have a conversation!'
The chunky Labrador took no notice. I soldiered on against a background of high-volume barking. 'So last night?' I prompted.
'Kyle gets home late, smashed out of his head like always. Her brother shows up with him, too drunk to ride a straight line.'
'Jon Jackson?'
'That's the one. They're drinking buddies, and God knows what else.'
I could have told her exactly the reason they showed up drunk last night their route out of Foxton would have taken them past at least three bars. One beer to numb the pains in their guts and heads, another to settle 142
the crazy thoughts about ghosts and corpses. But it would take more than two to get over what Hunter, Phoenix and Iceman had inflicted on them. They would have stayed for a third and a fourth.
'I'm on my back porch with the dog, so I hear everything.' The woman was
offloading big time. She didn't look like she'd slept much and I guessed she was glad to find someone who would listen. 'Kyle fal s
over whatever crap is in the yard. He swears, the dogs yowl, the kid wakes up and starts to cry. Sable has had a bel yful, and she's no shrinking violet, believe me. She gives him a hard time. Her brother weighs in on Kyle's side. Soon there's World War Three going on twenty metres from where I'm sitting.'
'I hope no one got hurt,' I cut in.
The woman shrugged. She made it plain that actual domestic violence didn't come high on her scale of antisocial activity. 'It's the noise I can't take,' she sighed. ' Sable's yel ing that it's the last time this is going to happen. She's packing her bag and taking the baby to her mom's place.'
Which she did?'
The woman's smile showed a gap between her two front teeth. 'In Kyle's truck. That real y stuck in his craw. Sable's out of there for good and he's yel ing down the street for her to bring back his truck, his dogs and his baby or he'l kil her. What a joke. This is way past midnight, did I tel you?'
Sounds like Sable had taken enough B. S. What did the guys do after she left?'
'What do you think? They drink a couple more cans. I set Troy on them, I'm so pissed. But Kyle kicks out at my dog and I hear Jon say he's getting the shotgun from inside the house. They laugh in my face when I go round to fetch Troy.'
'Did Jon bring the gun?'
The neighbour frowned. 'I didn't wait for it to happen. I grabbed my dog and pul ed him back into my yard. I heard more cussing and then the sound of their bikes. I looked out of my window to see them ride off down the street end of story.'
Phoenix and I drove back to El erton real fast. We reached Mike's Motors 143
by 9.30 a.m., looking out this time for Kyle's black-and-chrome Dyna rather than his red truck.
'Boy, Kyle's brain must be hammering its way out of his skul !'
Phoenix muttered as I parked by the concrete ramp leading up to the workshop.
'Yeah, plus his wife just left him, remember. I'm not looking for any positive attitude here.'
'If he showed up at work.'
We looked around - there was no Harley parked nearby. 'OK, so I go in and find out,' I decided.
This time Phoenix didn't let me go alone. Instead, lie focused on his disappearing act, creating the glittering halo around his whole body, then gradual y fading into invisibility. 'I'm right at your side,' he promised.
It was so weird, to hear his voice and the sound of his footsteps
walking up the ramp with me, but to be able to see right through him.
'Hey,' I said to an older guy bent over the engine of a blue Toyota.
'We're ... Fin looking for Kyle Keppler.
'That makes two of us.' Mike Hamil eased out from under the hood, then stood up straight. 'If you see him before I do, you can warn him he doesn't have a job to come back to.'
I gasped, coughing as I breathed in the smel of diesel and engine oil. 'You laid him off? Since when?'
'Since eight o'clock this morning when he didn't show up for work.' Hamil 's voice was flat, giving the impression that Kyle had overstepped the mark once too often. 'He had his chances, but this time he blew it.'
'He has a family,' I pointed out. 'What happens to them if he doesn't get his job back?'
Mike Hamil lifted a dirty rag from a nearby oil drum and wiped his hands. He wore a long, dark moustache which made him look old and didn't match his greyer hair and eyebrows. His jeans were loose and
stained, his plaid shirt straining across a sagging bel y. 'Listen,' he told me, 'this isn't your business, but Kyle's family is the reason I kept him in work so long. My wife is best buddies with Sable's mom - the two of 144
them put pressure on me to keep him in employment, yakk-yakk-yakk -
you know how women do. Plus, when he's sober he knows his way around a car engine.'
'So does anyone know where he is right now?' Time was ticking by Kyle's no-show was another serious setback.
'Sleeping his way through the mother of al hangovers, I reckon.' Mike lifted his cap and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. 'The story goes his drinking got out of hand again last night - my wife heard Sable final y packed her bag and left.'
I put on a pretty good act. 'My God, that's awful. His whole life is fal ing apart!'
'A guy who drinks and plays around like that - it's going to happen.' Mike went through into a tiny office and sat down on a revolving chair.
He picked up the phone ready to dial.
'When you say, "plays around", you mean other women - plural?' This time I was truly shocked - no acting necessary.
'At least half a dozen,' he told me, his eyes starting to narrow as he wondered how come I was so interested in his ex-employee. 'Listen, honey, if you're Kyle's current squeeze, you should know that you're the latest in a long line. Over the years, Keppler has played pretty much the entire El erton field.'
'I'm not his latest ... whatever!' Let's get that straight! I took a deep breath then pushed for more information. 'So he played around even after he got together with Sable?'
Mike made a sucking noise through his teeth. 'A wife and baby
doesn't change a guy like Kyle, but you try tel ing Sable that. Karen my wife - did warn her he was cheating on her - a year, eighteen months back.'
His stubby finger tapped numbers on the phone keypad. I only had time to squeeze in one last question.
'Would that be when Kyle was in a relationship with Arizona Taylor?'
Mike's finger didn't complete the dial. He looked at me from under suspicious brows. 'The kid who drowned herself?'
I nodded.
'Yeah, around that time,' he said slowly. 'She was my friend.'
Mike made a sucking noise through his teeth. 'Wel , I felt bad for her
- she was way too young. You or someone else who cared about her should have told her Kyle was bad news.'
'I didn't know she was involved until it was too late.'
He flicked back eighteen months, remembering Arizona. 'Poor kid, she could have done a whole lot better than Kyle Keppler. I remember the times she would hang out here, trying to act tough. She wasn't - not real y.'
'Did she come to the workshop the day she drowned in the lake?'
Mike's dial ing finger got ready again. 'She came a lot of days, and
yeah, she did cal that morning. She lost control a little when she found
out Kyle wasn't here he was nursing his usual sore head, I guess.'
'He missed work?' I needed to be doubly sure.
'Yeah. Lucky I wasn't busy that day. Later, we al heard the news about the girl - Arizona.'
'Thanks,' I said, letting air out of my lungs in a long sigh.
This isn't stuff you wanted to hear - right?' Mike Hamil was a
decent guy and he picked up on my obvious disappointment. But he did get it total y wrong when he dumped me and Arizona in the same cheated-on category. 'Kyle's a good-looking guy and he can get whichever girl he wants, but you need to break off whatever it is you have going with him.'
'I don't-'
Honestly, honey, he's not worth it. You can't trust the guy even to give you the time of day.'
The fact was, we'd got to 10.00 a.m. on our final day and we were no nearer to tracking Kyle down. I turned in the direction I thought Phoenix might be and told him we were getting nowhere.
He spoke from way in front. 'We learned a lot from Mike Hamil ,' he pointed out. 'For starters, we know now that Arizona and Kyle didn't arrange to meet at Hartmann.'
'So we're worse than nowhere,' I groaned. 'We only had the one theory and now that's blown apart.'
A guy passing by caught me apparently talking to myself as I got in
my car. He gave me an odd look then pul ed out his cel phone. 146
Hearing Phoenix sink into the leather passenger seat, I quickly drove off. 'I wish I didn't know that Kyle is a serial cheat.'
'Yeah, it sucks.'
/>
We both thought about what the news would do to Arizona. 'Do we need to tel her?' I asked.
That's a hard one to cal . I don't think we do, unless it's part of the
final picture.'
'Which we're no nearer to finding out.' Frustration was gnawing at me
as I drove aimlessly towards the centre of town. ' Keppler could be anywhere. How do we corner him if we don't know where he is?'
I stopped at a red light for pedestrians to use the crossing. Among them was a young woman pushing a strol er. It took me a couple of seconds to recognize her as Sable Keppler with her baby!
Pul over,' Phoenix said, after going through the same delayed reaction.
I turned into a gas station and we watched Sable meet up with a woman who looked like an older version of herself the same dark hair and definite jawline. Smal and slight, they were both dressed in tight jeans and loose jackets which drew attention to their thin-as-sticks legs, with striped scarves wound around their necks. They bunched together on the sidewalk, deep in conversation.
'I want to hear what they're saying.' Deciding to risk leaving the car, I crossed the road, as if I wanted to browse in a store window. A creak of leather and the faint sound of footsteps told me that Phoenix had come too.
The store sold fishing rods, which was as fascinating as you can get. I tried to look interested in the reels, floats and flies.
'I bought diapers.' The woman who I guessed was Sable's mother held up a plastic carrier bag. 'What else do we need?'
'I left Mischa's feeding cup and bowl back at the house - her
favourites.' Sable made a list. ' Plus I need baby wipes and comforters.'
'OK, so we cal at the pharmacy on the way home. We can pick everything up there. Did Kyle try to cal ?'
'Five or six times. I let it ring out.' 147
'You'l have to talk to him sooner or later.' Sable's mother took the
strol er and started to push it towards a parking lot. The baby strained at the straps, turning to see whether Sable was fol owing.