The Desert Behind Me

by Shannon Baker

  “I often feel a tingling in my hands before they start in. Lots of times there’s an intense pressure in my head. If I feel those sensations and I’m in public, I can take out my phone and talk to them, or even put in earbuds and it looks like I’m singing.”

  “What do you say?”

  We have no time for questions.

  “Depends. I interrupt them politely and firmly let them know our agreed-upon boundaries. And those are that unless it’s an immediate or urgent matter, I’ll give them time to have their say later on.”

  Rafe’s eyes held mine, totally drawn in. “Like real people? And they cooperate?”

  You need to find Cali. You need to get Bethany’s hoodie.

  “Like real people. Sometimes they throw their fits. Frank pops off a lot, though he doesn’t really expect me to hurt myself any more. The most aggressive voices represent those feelings most needing release. So when Frank gets too noisy and insistent, I let him talk and try to reassure him that it’s okay.”

  “What if he doesn’t believe you? What if it isn’t okay?”

  “If I feel overwhelmed, I can soften the edges with medication. I try to avoid that as much as possible. The pills take away pieces. It may not be much of a life, but I’d like to live it.” Most of the time.

  I got up for more water. Rafe’s ice had melted but he still hadn’t had a sip. I picked his glass up.

  “What about that night. When Cali went missing. Did you take pills that night?”

  Frank’s hilarity couldn’t be contained.

  No. I didn’t go out that night. I didn’t take Cali. I didn’t hurt Kaycee. I knew this.

  The ice machine chugged and clunked cubes into the glasses. When it was done I answered. “I honestly don’t know. But I didn’t go anywhere near the ball park.”

  “Do you have a witness?”

  I filled the glasses and set them on the counter. “Look around. I don’t have friends. My witnesses are all in my head.”

  I had to calm down. I led Rafe outside to the cool shade, leaving the French doors open to let in the morning air.

  Along with the Chorus, Frank had some particular words to say to that. “I didn’t go out that night. I’m not crazy.”

  “But you believe in voices that aren’t real.”

  “They are real.” Did I sound angry?

  He eyed me with doubt.

  “Billions of people believe in a God they can’t see or hear, why wouldn’t I believe in voices I do hear?”

  He was silent for a long time. I curled my hand around my water glass, the cool on my palm not calming the heat inside me.

  I broke the silence. “Did you run the license plate?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Belonged to some old duffer in Oro Valley. Someone stole the plate and he hadn’t even realized it was missing.”

  I pleaded with him. “Kaycee, Cali. It’s all wrapped up with Bethany’s murder. We need to find Cali.”

  He exhaled deeply. “I might believe you, but I’m not sure anyone else will. And we’ve got nothing to go on. I’m going to have to take you in for formal questioning as part of the investigation.”

  A gasp sounded from the open door. Mom stood at the threshold, her face set in fury.

  42

  Overzealous air conditioning frosted the meeting room at the station. At least Rafe hadn’t taken me to an interrogation room. I worried Mom would be off finding me a lawyer and demanding she be allowed to advise me. Maybe she bought Rafe’s story about me helping the investigation. Rafe and I agreed to have me drive the Juke to make it look less like I was a suspect.

  We’d been at this for an hour. Rafe questioning and me answering again and again, hoping I remembered something more.

  “Okay, let’s go over this again.” Rafe sounded patient, though I wanted to punch something. “You say you saw the three girls at the fence talking to someone. The girls deny it. You say Shax witnessed it, but he denies it. We can’t find any of the homeless people in the park to corroborate your story. You say Shax was worried about a dog. He says he doesn’t have a dog. Shax says he saw you with Cali that night.”

  I rubbed my temples.

  “You have no memory of that night after you maybe did or didn’t take a sedative. Again, no witness. You have a necklace and hair ribbon. We can analyze it for DNA but that will take too long. You say it mirrors your daughter’s murder case, but the evidence of that case is missing, so can’t be confirmed. Your badge, which you say was stolen, was found in Cali’s car. But there’s no evidence of breaking and entering at your house.”

  I lowered my head to my crossed arms on the table. “I didn’t do it.”

  Frank laughed.

  My phone rang, surprising both of us. I looked at Rafe and he shrugged, allowing me to answer.

  “Kari?”

  She started in. “I don’t think Grainger King did it. Doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know why he confessed, but whatever.”

  “I’m sure King didn’t do it.”

  She chewed and I pictured her with her pencil between her teeth, as I’d seen her so many times. “I checked the timeline. The mur— incident happened not long after the early release program.”

  I’d forgotten about that. During the last election cycle, the polls showed a majority of constituents were disgruntled about the high cost of prisoner upkeep and felt too many prisoners were incarcerated on minor charges. Mom thought a popular move would be a sweeping early release program. It must have worked because she was reelected.

  My mind raced. “Do you think it was someone I’d arrested who was released and wanted revenge?”

  The pencil nibbling continued. “Could be. I’m researching your old cases to see if something jumps out. But that’s going to take a while.”

  “This could be important. Thank you.”

  We hung up and I relayed the information to Rafe.

  “Let me see if I can have her send us some files and we can help.” He left the room.

  I pushed back from the table and paced.

  I saw it.

  Darkness. A moment of shock in his eyes when they focus on me. Then the smile in the night. Like a ghoul.

  “I need more,” I pleaded with the voices.

  Cuffs, the orange glow of a street light. Frosty air. Disgust that tastes like ashes I want to spit onto the cracked pavement.

  The memory was so clear. I’d seen it at the grade school when the man in the blue golf shirt grinned at me. Why couldn’t I place it? And why did it resurface now? Who is shoving it at me again? Answer me!

  Rafe returned with a can of Coke in each hand. He glanced at me and froze. “What?”

  “I know who’s got Cali.”

  43

  I raced toward him. “Hurry.”

  He didn’t move. “You know? Did the voices tell you?”

  We had to go. “I remembered.” He studied me, still not convinced. “Please. Trust me. I know this.”

  Standing still while he searched my face took all my patience. Rafe slammed the Cokes on the table. “Let’s go.”

  We ran down the corridor. We were too late. Oh God, please don’t let it be too late.

  He wanted to be found out. He’d given me so many clues. Exactly like he’d done with Bethany. “It’s Shax. He’s got Cali.” I shouted as we ran toward the door.

  He followed close behind me, our feet pounding the industrial linoleum. It seemed forever before we reached his cruiser and another lifetime to make it onto the street. “Lights and siren?” he asked.

  Would it matter to Shax? He’d know we were coming. But not when. I shook my head. “He is playing with us. That would only make him happier.”

  “How do you know it’s Shax? He didn’t seem together enough to pull off kidnapping.”

  “It’s a game. He’s not a homeless mental case. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Setting me up, telling you I’d been at the ball park that night with Cali. Lying about the guy talking to the girls. It was all a set up.”
/>   Rafe didn’t look convinced. “Why would he do that?”

  “He killed Bethany. He’s proving he’s smarter than me.”

  “Why you?”

  Everything inside me tightened. “I don’t know.”

  Frank said, “Yes, you do.”

  “Are you sure it’s Shax?”

  “The tattoos. Among all the vines are cars. Bethany was killed in a junkyard.”

  Rafe’s forehead wrinkled. “That seems sketchy at best.”

  “Sure. But the thing about the dog? He said he never left her alone except this once, when he wanted time to be with someone. I had a date, the first one in years, the night Bethany was taken.”

  Rafe took that in.

  “And he mentioned a Jaguar. You probably didn’t notice the way he said it, but it had a creepy note to it. Bethany’s body was found next to a Jaguar.”

  “And you remembered all this while I was gone?”

  Why bother lying? “I didn’t remember. The voices did.”

  Rafe didn’t reply.

  This was no memory because I hadn’t been there. But I clearly saw Bethany sitting in front of her geometry book at the kitchen table, tapping her pencil and squinting while she envisioned the steps of the proof she never finished. The doorbell rang and she looked up, curious why someone would be at the door after ten o’clock. She was concerned someone needed help. She threw down her pencil, the chair scraped on the tile floor, and she hurried to the door. No hesitating, because someone might need her. When she tore open the door, a dark figure rushed inside and grabbed her.

  For the rest, I’d have to ask Peanut. That’s not something I could face.

  We caromed into the parking lot in front of the picnic table laden with those who called it home. Out of the car in a flash, I rushed to the half dozen men and a couple of women sitting, laying, or standing by their motely piles of possessions. Their uniform of grimy faces and tattered clothing disguised people living lives of despair, loss, loneliness, but also joy, hope, and friendship. Human lives.

  Shax wasn’t among them and I dashed off, leaving Rafe to question them. Across the park, to other clumps of people, past individuals lounging in the relative cool of early afternoon under the shade of the palm trees. One man sat cross-legged and shouted to someone only he could see.

  “Crazy bastard,” Frank said, then let loose with his cruel laughter.

  At the edge of the park, moving quickly toward the street, I spotted him. Hunched into the red sweatshirt with the hood up. Bethany’s hoodie. I must have shouted because he flinched and started to run.

  I sprinted with speed born of rage and bottomless grief. He hadn’t made it to the sidewalk, only a few steps before I tackled him.

  Nothing but bones stuffed into filthy clothes and Bethany’s sweatshirt, he toppled easily, almost fragile. The ground came at us hard and fast, the grass only dry threads on dirt like concrete. He cried out as I landed on top of him.

  Before I could roll him over and get to my feet, Rafe stood over me. He reached down and grabbed a fistful of the back of the hoodie and as I slid off, pulled him to stand, like a lifeguard might tug a floundering kid from the shallow end.

  The hood fell back. Not Shax. The cool guy, the one flirting with Cali and Megan, hunkered in front of us. No longer swaggering and confident, he had the manner of a rabbit cornered by a coyote. He shrunk into the sweatshirt.

  “Take it off. Take it off now!”

  Rafe helped the guy get the sweatshirt over his head and didn’t take his eyes off the guy when he tossed the hoodie toward me.

  I hugged it, even knowing how ridiculous it seemed.

  With no overt force or threat, Rafe held the guy rooted in front of him. “What’s your name?”

  Eyes to the ground, he mumbled. “Huff.”

  “No mystery how a street name like that came about,” Frank said.

  Now Rafe sounded kind. “Okay, Huff. How did you get this sweatshirt?”

  Huff raised his gaze slightly and scanned the park. “Shax. He gave it to me yesterday and told me to wear it in the park and wait for,” he pointed at me, “her and when I saw her, to walk away with the hood up.”

  My heart beat in my throat and I sounded winded. “What about a couple of days ago? You were cleaned up, dressed in decent clothes, talking to the cheerleaders at the gate. Why?”

  Huff cast a sly glance at me, then back to Rafe. “Shax. He hired me. Took me to his place and let me sleep there, take a shower, get some grub. Told me if I stayed sober long enough to do this job, he’d help me out, whatever I wanted.”

  “He had you talk to the girls when I was there?”

  “It wasn’t easy. We tried three different times. But when you were at the games, that little girl wasn’t there or the other way. But then it happened and I did it.” He sniggered and those glassy eyes shone. “Shax was good on his word. It’s been a fine time since.”

  I wanted to grab Huff by the throat and do what the voices, those meaner than Frank, told me to do.

  Rafe must have known I’d reached my limit and he took over. “Where is Shax now?”

  Huff shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care. He’s a spook, you know?”

  I had another question. “Why? Did he tell you why he did it?”

  That halfway focus drifted and a stupid smile played on Huff’s face. “Yeah. Said you took everything from him and that’s why he’s on the street.” He snorted.

  Rafe clamped a hand on Huff’s shoulder. “He took that girl. She is innocent and now she’s hurt or dead. Do you think that’s funny? Do you think it’s justice?”

  Huff looked stricken. “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  Rafe’s face hardened. “Is there anything else you remember that could help that girl?”

  Huff looked at the sky. “Shax said to tell you he wasn’t done. He’s going to make you pay for what you did.”

  Desperation rose in the form of roiling waves of sound inside me. “How? What did he say?” I fought to hold back Frank’s rage. “Where did he take her?”

  Huff shrugged again, his whole body tugged up by his shoulders, then dropping like a bag of lead. “He said you’d know.”

  I didn’t.

  “Moron,” Frank said, but he wouldn’t tell me what he knew.

  44

  Rafe took Huff into the station. I was still a person of interest but if questioned, Rafe would say he didn’t have enough evidence to hold me. Exhausted, I dropped in my Juke and headed home to think. Cali was in Shax’s control somewhere and I prayed she was still alive. Shax thought I’d know where she was, so I hoped that meant he kept her alive for the game.

  Early release. Someone I’d arrested. The voices cursed my stupidity. But I’d been a cop for 23 years. That’s a lot of cases. So much resentment and hate.

  What I knew was that I needed to retreat and calm down. Despite Frank’s silence, the Chorus and dozens of voices threatened to overwhelm me. If I took some time, drank my lemon water, let myself breathe, maybe Frank or one of the others would help me.

  Mom sat at the breakfast bar in front of her laptop, papers spread across the granite, manila folders piled and spilling from her leather briefcase, her Bluetooth headset plugged into her ear. She swiveled around and frowned. “You’ve been gone most of the day. I called the sheriff’s department but they didn’t give me any information.”

  I ignored her probing. “I’m working on a case.”

  It looked like she inspected a wall for chinks. “This can’t be good for you. I honestly don’t have the time to help you manage something that, frankly, is not your job.”

  I plopped in the other barstool and faced her. “We need to talk about Bethany’s case.”

  “That’s not a good idea. It will only upset you.”

  “I’ve been talking to Kari and she—.”

  She slapped the counter. “Kari? I didn’t know you kept in touch. Oh, Honey, you shouldn’t be talking to her. She’s trouble.”

>   “Is that why you transferred her away from me?”

  She frowned. “Is that what she said? The truth is she wasn’t a good cop and I didn’t want her to bring you down. You are so loyal, even when it hurts you, so I have to look out for you.”

  Stunned by her casually admitting to such manipulation, I didn’t answer for a moment. “The evidence box is missing.”

  Her eyes flared with temper. “Did Kari say that? What’s she doing digging around where she doesn’t belong?”

  “Grainger King’s file is gone. And so is the case file on Bethany.”

  She blew air from her lips. “That’s not right. Kari is a flake. Probably doesn’t know how to find files.”

  My hand had fisted on the counter and with effort, I relaxed it. “I don’t believe Grainger King killed Bethany.”

  She jumped up. “Is this coming from delusions stirred up by this investigation you’re involved with? King confessed to the murder.”

  “To you.”

  Her hands clasped the back of the barstool and her knuckles whitened. “Why would you doubt its veracity?”

  Frank was back. He prodded and railed until I spoke too harshly. “It seems too easy. Too convenient.”

  “Is that what those voices are telling you? Or this Rafe person? Maybe it’s a story Kari concocted because her career is crap and she blames it on me.”

  Her anger blew at me like napalm. The hand on the counter shook, as did the rest of my body. I needed to keep pushing, even if I lost the only person in the world who had always been there for me. “I believe Bethany’s killer is still out there.”

  She stretched her neck as if letting go of her temper. “Oh, Honey. You’re so much worse than I thought. At least I’m here in time to get you some help.”

  I wanted to tell her for the first time in a long time I was living. It hurt. My world felt shaky, but real. And now, when it seemed I might actually be gaining traction, she wanted to “get me help.” I knew what that meant.

  But what if Mom’s observation of me was right? Maybe I’d slipped so far from reality I didn’t even recognize it.