“Of course. I know the whole thing, but this is the important part.” She recited, Heads: War gambles with the breath we breathe. Humanity merits a permanent war-reprieve. Parts’ callous attitudes could jeopardize: One nuclear war will all earth martyrize!”
“Very good. I’ve got it on tape, and I’m going to write about you and put it in my story.” Jane glanced at the guard, who stood behind Sara looking at his watch suggestively. At any second the loudspeaker would blurt, end of visiting hours. She said, “But I have one more question before I go. Are you related to Cindy Cameron?”
“Cindy? No. I have a daughter named Ruth. Ruth Cameron. But…but then. . .”
Jane waited through a very long pause.
“Seems like when she hit those teenaged years she did say she didn’t like her name and she took to calling herself Cindy.”
Jane sat straight up in her chair. “About thirty years old, right? Beautiful long red hair?”
“Guess she would be thirty-something now.”
“Mrs. Cameron, I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Well, that’s right good of you to say. Some people blame the mother if a youngster runs off.”
Jane cocked her head at the peculiar answer but then, this woman was definitely not ordinary. She took her phone from her purse and scrolled to the newspaper’s photo of Cindy at her high school graduation. She held it up to the window, hoping the woman could see it well enough through the scarred and dulled safety glass. “This is your Ruth, isn’t it?”
Sara’s eyes widened as she stared at the photo. “Where did you get that?”
“A friend of hers gave it to us when we interviewed him about the murder.”
“Murder, what murder?”
Jane hesitated. Something wasn’t right here. “Her murder, on May 7th.”
“She – someone killed her? She’s dead? My Ruth is dead?”
Jane was speechless. Damn! The murder is news to this woman! Doesn’t she read the paper or watch the news? Isn’t she the next of kin? Why didn’t they notify her?
Sara stood very slowly, as if to walk away.
“Wait, Mrs. Cameron…”
Sara took three steps and stopped. An ear-splitting scream, “Michael!”
Jane and the guard jumped, startled. The guard reached for Sara’s arm. A transformation overtook Sara’s body before she could grasp it. One second Sara appeared weak and soft, as if she would melt to the ground in a faint, and then she froze, her ropy muscles rigid and still.
Jane felt a stab of remorse. What had she done now? Guilt and regret overwhelming her, she rose, tapped on the glass, but Sara didn’t turn. She was as unmoving as a statue, one of the living statues in department store windows or on the plazas in Europe. The reporter thought herself immune to surprise but what happened next stunned her. The guard took Sara’s arm and pulled gently to guide her away. Sara did not budge and appeared not to breathe. The guard stared at Jane, no doubt wondering what she had done to the woman. Jane could only shake her head. The guard tried again. Sara’s arm lifted a little when she pulled at it but the rest of her body remained as immobile as if imbedded in the concrete floor. The guard raised her grip to both Sara’s arm pits and pulled harder. Sara’s body remained rigid, and began to topple forward. The guard caught her and pushed her upright again. Sara’s face was as immobile as her body. Sara’s body was there. Sara was somewhere else.
• • •
Chapter Twenty-Two
Winston Verbale had formed the habit of stopping in at Allie’s office shortly before eight a.m. to chat while he sipped his coffee. He had almost slopped the steaming brew into his lap during one such chat a week ago, when Allie told him someone had tried to kill her friend’s dog. He knew he hadn’t gotten the dog because the mutt came chasing after his car but he thought he had nailed the Indian bitch, who dropped like a stone after his second shot at her. He wondered if she was stupid enough to think the dog had actually been his target. At any rate, it had been a good bet to try to take her out rather than Allie, because Allie was proving to be a valuable informant. Today she sat in one of the office easy chairs reading the morning Heat when he walked in.
“What’s Yuma’s earth-shattering news du jour? Are the lettuce and cantaloupe doing well?”
She looked up. He saw shock on her usually serene face. She turned the paper so he could read the headline, “Yuma’s Peace Poet is Murder Victim’s Mother.”
Now he was shocked.
Allie’s voice rose to just above a whisper when she said, “I’m still reading it.”
He turned and went to retrieve another copy of the paper from the waiting-room. The table there always held the morning edition and a few tattered magazines. He grabbed the paper and began to read when the receptionist walked in. She stared at him, raising an eyebrow, both inquisitive and flirtatious. He returned the look with a glare. The slut wanted him, of course. He walked the corridor to his office, trying not to look rushed. He closed the door before he sat down to read.
His hands shook as he skimmed through the absurd poems about gold and heads and parts. There wasn’t much else, just that a bit of detective work by the reporter had found the victim’s given name was Ruth, not Cindy or Cynthia, and her mother was Sara Cameron and Sara had been arrested. Nothing about where the mother came from or when. He read it twice, let the paper fall to the floor at his feet. Cindy had never told him anything about her mother, including whether the woman was dead or alive. What a mistake he had made when he talked about her, once only, but in a crucial context. Now here she was in this one-horse town in the middle of nowhere, able to make a liar out of him.
A knock at his door. Allie entered. Without preamble, she asked, “Win, how are you taking this? Are you okay?”
He stood, picked up the newspaper and folded it, careful not to reveal his discomfort. “I’m fine. The poor woman. I’ll have to visit and extend my condolences.” He sniffed and turned his mouth down at the corners.
“Yes, I think I’d like to do that too. But why didn’t she come forward before? It’s been two months since they discovered her daughter’s body. You said Cindy told you she had to go back east to take care of her mother but her mother has been here in the valley since January.”
“I never knew what Cindy was up to. Not the most reliable person, kind of quirky and unpredictable with all the bird-watching stuff…”
Allie’s face silenced him. Evidently she had really liked the red-haired witch. She looked down at the newspaper still in her hand and said, “I guess it’s not important. But being hit twice in one day with important news can be – upsetting.”
Her words and tone were expectant, but he didn’t know what she wanted him to say. Then it registered. “Twice?”
“The article about the vacant seat on the city council. Didn’t you read it?”
Her voice sounded faint with dismay. He was beginning to dislike the woman, useful or not. He answered, coldly, “No, I didn’t. Why?”
“I guess the council seat isn’t vacant any more. Debbie Smith decided to accept the mandate to finish her husband’s two year term.”
Allie paused, still looking at his face. He knew she could see how stricken he felt. Might have expected it from her, the bleeding-heart do-gooder. Memory flashes of Debbie Smith rose with the bile in his stomach. He pictured Debbie Smith shaking his hand once at a town hall meeting. Then he remembered her face in a different context. The fat slob he had encountered in the office bathroom a few weeks ago and failed to recognize.
He cleared his throat. “That’s the way the dice roll. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got…” Allie must have known he had dismissed her because she left without another word, sparing him more dishwater sympathy.
He sank down in his chair. His thoughts chased themselves in frantic circles. No council seat, no recognition, no reward for all the handshaking, ass kissing and image polishing. No. It wasn’t right. The way Allie had looked at him wasn’t right, as if she didn’t like him or suspecte
d him of some wrong-doing. He just wanted what he deserved and had never gotten. Rage came then, the blood rushing to his head and pounding in his ears until he thought his skull would split. It was all he could do to remain seated while his muscles twitched and heart pounded. Without conscious volition his head lowered and his eyes stared at the floor, seeing nothing.
Now there would be no reward for giving up the casino and all its delights. But. . .maybe he would go back to gambling. Back to the life of excitement and suspense, pitting his wits and will against the dealer or even more valiantly, against the house? Memories. . .the ecstasy of winning, the forgettable despair of loss. . .
Then another memory surfaced, the memory of killing the red-haired bitch who had tried to outshine him, threatened to challenge him in the game of politics and then hinted she would leave him. No one like that would ever leave him, refuse to speak to him, imagine themselves better than him.
The sight, sound, feel and taste of it came back to him: sun and shadow, blood and dirt. He remembered the power of fulfillment that overwhelmed him while he watched Cindy fold and sink face-first to the ground, twitching and gasping, life pulsing out of a hole in the back of her head. It was a simple matter of eliminating anyone who would eliminate him. Rid himself of competition, distractions. Now another spoiler, another stealer, Debbie Smith.
Other memories came that soothed him just a little. He remembered the stupid faces of the stupid people who had walked in on him in the bathroom, and how he had laughed at them. He imagined the look on the Indian bitch’s face when she thought her mutt was dead. Slowly, with the help of imagination, the devastation gave way to constructive thought and clever planning. He would do what all great men had done. He would turn a set-back, what might look like a defeat, into victory. He would use the red-haired bitch’s mother and her absurd poems and he would win it all, yet.
* * *
In less than a week he had developed and rehearsed the plan and now his performance. He wiped the sweat from his upper lip with his fore-arm because his hands were covered by nitrile gloves. He flattened himself against the siding of the house. Behind the tall shrub of yellow bell flowers in bloom, neither moonlight nor street lamps could reveal his presence. He had studied her schedule and knew it would be almost ten o’clock before she returned. In the hungry silence, with only the rise and fall of his chest for distraction, he knew he had never before felt this keyed up. “Hyped,” the kids would call it, but not fearful or anxious, no. Waves of anticipation washed over him, strong and rhythmic, cleansing him of doubt, feeding his virility and power with the knowledge of what he would do.
The car’s headlights appeared. He couldn’t see her in the driver’s seat against the glare, but he recognized the car by the unique pattern of smaller led. lights around the beams. His eyes locked on her approach down the quiet, residential street. The closer she came, the harder his heart thumped against his ribs.
The car pulled into the driveway slowly, giving the remote time to lift the garage door. When the door was up four or five feet he crouched low and approached the car’s rear bumper. Touching it, he followed into the right bay of the two-car garage then squatted behind the passenger-side door and waited for the door to close. He wouldn’t move until it was down fully, blocking the view of anyone who might be outside, and until she got out but hadn’t entered the kitchen, a window of action just a few seconds long.
This close, the rattle of the metal door sounded deafening. He felt the rumble in his teeth. He held his breath. Flash. Lights flooded the dark garage. He cringed. Clunk. The bottom of the garage door touched down. Her car door opened. She stepped out. A cry of pent-up excitement burst from his throat as he rushed around to her side of the car. She heard it and turned with the same look of dumb surprise on her face he’d seen in the office bathroom.
He smashed into her doughy body, almost bumping her forehead with his. It could have been a lover’s embrace until his right hand clutched her neck, and he forced her down, crashing to the concrete floor. Her head and shoulders landed on the steps into the kitchen. She cried out in pain and her arms wind-milled to grasp something. Her frantic motions knocked a mop and broom from their holders on the wall. The handles fell across Verbale’s back. He threw them aside, fury deepened.
He grabbed the front of her dress and jerked her upper body onto the floor. No longer immobilized by shock, she began to struggle but all her bulk was useless against him. His right hand tight around her neck pressed deep into her flesh. It feels just like the rubber of a squish-ball! Now he pressed down with both hands, and felt the slickness of oil and sweat on her skin. Her mouth gaped and saliva rolled off her protruding tongue. She stared up at him, emitting only gagging sounds, but mentally he heard her silent shriek of horror and her frantic question, why. Her terror-stricken eyes narrowed a fraction then popped wider, the whites large desperate circles around swollen black pupils.
“Recognize me now, Bitch?” he panted. “Wish you had fucked me when you had the chance?” His thumbs worked deeper into the pasty flesh of her neck, his fingers red and knuckles white with exertion.
No sound then but his grunts of effort and the futile thumps and slaps of her limbs against the floor. In a strange moment of timelessness awareness, he saw her head was topped by a helmet of drab brown hair, so unlike Cindy’s flagrant, life-affirming mane. Yet the excitement, the exultation of Cindy’s death was nothing compared to this. It filled him, surged through his arms, jolted through his fingers into the woman like bolts of electricity. It was good, exciting good. His hands felt something give way in her throat, and within seconds her eyes rolled back in her head. He didn’t want to let go yet. It was too soon. But then it was done, the last breath of life choked out of her. She went limp, soft, unmoving and unbreathing. Dead.
Power surged through him, uncontrolled. It shook him. He didn’t move. Finally, with trembling reluctance, he allowed his fingers and thumbs to release their grip. Still kneeling on the concrete, thighs straddling her body, he straightened his torso, his arms and hands hanging numbly by his side.
He stared at the limp body underneath him for long moments, silently congratulating himself for triumph over what was now so much raw meat. Then his eyes shifted from her face to the bulge in his crotch.
This was good. It was better than good. He began to chuckle. So much for foreplay. He unzipped his pants and with a few jerks on his rock-hard dick, he came onto her bulging-eyed, purple face.
So much for wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. I’m not a smoker, so what comes next? He was still smiling when he remembered. The plan. Yes, of course, the plan.
• • •
Chapter Twenty-Three
Traditional harvest time for the early crop of Summer Kiss variety cantaloupes was mid-June, but on Guzman Farm it took place whenever Boss Sam Guzman said it would. On June 5th, he appeared at the fifty acre plot south of County 12th Street followed by a gaggle of foremen, machine rental agents, buyers, and day labor contractors. Guzman was a sun-burned man in his sixties, bow-legged and heavy around the middle but well-muscled. His aggressive stride and the intense set of his craggy face left no doubt as to who was in charge here.
From the north side of the field, he walked by ten rows, then down the eleventh furrow for five or six yards before he stooped to inspect one of the cantaloupe. Here on the south side of the raised bed it had been free of standing water while it soaked up the most available rays of sunshine.
Close on his heels, the head foreman and the machine rental agent watched expectantly. Guzman swiftly cut the melon from the vine and lifted it to carve out a slice. With the melon in his left hand, knife and slice in his right hand, he took a bite of the juice-dripping fruit. He rolled it on his palate like a wine taster, while those who watched held their breath in suspense. Finally he swallowed and declared, “Good sugar!” The harvest was on.
The next morning two tractors and a dozen workers began the task of picking, sorting and moving thousands of cantalou
pe to the cooling sheds. From there they would be packed with care in plywood crates and shipped to grocery stores all over the country.
The lead tractor pulled a metal-frame trailer twenty feet wide. On the trailer, a ten foot tall conveyor belt held the fruit placed on it by the harvesters. From the conveyor belt, the melons went down a chute onto a stainless steel sorting table at the side of the contraption. There, other workers quickly sized the melons and placed them in boxes.
Most of the workers were Mexicans with years of field experience. They were adept at selecting the ripest melons to cut from the stem and place on the conveyor belt. They worked in companionable silence as usual, focused and earnest. Until Stephen Lopez gave a hoarse shout and tossed a melon back into the dirt. He shook his hands violently, rubbed them together, wiped them on his pants. He quaked, his knees threatened to buckle. Both arms pointed stiffly down to the soil, then upward to the sky. He shouted, Dios mio, Dios mio! Una cabeza, una cabeza!
The nearest tractor driver stopped and dismounted to look at the object the field hand had chucked back into the dirt. He approached to within inches. The thing was the right size for a melon, round like a melon, a mottled buff color like a melon, but melons didn’t have hair. He extended a booted foot to roll the object over. And melons didn’t have lifeless eyes filled with dirt and a gaping mouth filled with flies.
No more melons were harvested on Guzman Farm the rest of that day.
• • •
Over the past week, Kim had kept her promise to call Lon at the start and end of every day. Sometimes their conversations were as brief as “I’m okay,” and “All right.” At other times, especially in the evenings, Kim sat in bed when they talked with the lights already turned off and Zayd settled on the rug beside her. Their conversations then were longer and more personal and she felt Lon’s presence almost as strongly as when they were together.
“I’m still at risk, is what you’re saying, Lon.”
“I don’t want you to worry but Wagner, unfortunately, is still among the suspects. On that night, when he was supposed to be on duty, he called in sick. Diarrhea and vomiting, he said, and of course he was alone the whole night with no one to confirm it. It was a very indirect line of questioning because we didn’t want to alert him he was a suspect. In the meantime, there was no match in the computer for the shell casings and the tire tracks were too smeared to match with anything. But you never can tell when someone or something cruising under the radar will suddenly make a blip.”
Fatal Refuge: a Mystery/Thriller (The Arizona Thriller Trilogy Book 2) Page 13