Fatal Refuge: a Mystery/Thriller (The Arizona Thriller Trilogy Book 2)

by Sharon Sterling

  At the bottom of the eleventh box he pulled out a bagged pair of sneakers. He held his breath. A look at the soles released an explosive exhale. They were the same brand and size as the one he had cast at the scene of Cindy Cameron’s murder. Two distinctive markings on one sole matched the cast markings.

  • • •

  “Reed, you’ve got to sign these out to me.” Lon held the evidence bag with the shoes in one hand and wiped his forehead and then his nose on his handkerchief with the other.

  Detective Reed cocked his head. “Your own Nikes not doing it for you, Raney?”

  “Very funny, Reed. These could be the shoes worn by the person who killed Cindy Cameron. I need to double check them against my cast of the print, and I need to keep them safe.”

  “They’re safe here.”

  “Let’s not get into this turf thing, Reed. We’re a task force, remember? Just get your evidence clerk to sign them out to me, and you might get some of the credit when we arrest the suspect.”

  “You’re a demanding cuss aren’t you?”

  • • •

  What used to be a 1970’s motel was now a residence provided by the housing department of the County Mental Health Clinic. It provided basic shelter for a few seriously mentally ill clients who had been court ordered for treatment. Most of them had been homeless before entering the system, and this housing arrangement was preferable to the other alternatives – a group home or a board and care facility. Residents here were required to be compliant with medications and willing to accept supervision by case management staff.

  Nine separate bungalows of salmon-colored stucco, room-with-a-bath size, formed an open square around a courtyard of compacted dirt. In the blinding heat and glare of a late July afternoon, nine window-mounted air conditioners hummed a promise of relief. Next to front doors, patched and faded walls held white plastic letters of the alphabet. Lon knocked on the door of unit D, Sara Cameron’s new home. Silence from within, while the window curtains in other units parted and curious eyes inspected him. He knocked again.

  The door opened a crack, and Sara Cameron’s face looked up into his. “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “Lon Raney of the Yuma County Sheriff’s Department, Mrs. Cameron.”

  “Don’t call me Mrs. I never married the man. The Good Lord punished me by taking away my love child, my Ruth. The innocent often pay for the sins of the wicked.”

  “Uh, that’s what I’d like to talk to you about, Sara. I’m looking for the person who – who harmed her. Can I come in?”

  “A godly woman never entertains a man in her room. But you look genuine. If my counselor can be here, then it’ll be okay. I’ll call her. Give me your number.”

  Lon scribbled the number of his personal phone on the back of his card and handed it to her. She took it and slammed the door. Lon walked away, wondering at the steel in this small woman’s spine and at what must be a scrambled maze of mutated neurotransmitters in her divergent brain.

  An hour later he received a call from Allie Davis, who he remembered from the murder investigation. He returned to Sara’s housing unit. Allie opened the door. They shook hands. When he entered Sara remained seated on the twin bed. It was covered with a bright blue crocheted spread and someone had added other touches of color in an attempt to enliven the institutional ambiance of the room.

  Sara inspected Lon, then turned to Allie. “You two know each other.”

  “Detective Raney talked to me about your daughter soon after – after they found her. I told you that Cindy and I were friends, so it was natural that the Sheriff’s Deputies thought I might know something that would help them.” She motioned Lon toward the only chair in the room and went to sit on the bed beside Sara.

  Lon resisted the need to mop his forehead again. The window air conditioner made valiant noises but provided negligible relief against an outside temperature well above one hundred. He looked at Sara’s feet again; he’d taken a quick glance an hour before when she stood in the doorway. Getting the information he needed required the direct approach. “Sara, I’d like to know about the Nike sneakers we found in your truck.”

  “My truck? You went through my things? When do I get them back? When do I get my truck back? They said I wasn’t under arrest anymore, so you’ve got no right to them.”

  “Yes, you’re right. Detective Reed has filled out the paperwork to release the truck and all your belongings to you, except the sneakers. They might be connected to your daughter’s murder.”

  “I don’t understand. How could that be?”

  “We don’t understand either, Sara. The sneakers are too large for you by at least three sizes. Who do they belong to?”

  “They belong to me since they were in my truck. But I see what you’re getting at. I can’t rightly say who they belonged to before I got them.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “Most likely at the Goodwill. I shop there sometimes.”

  Lon had anticipated this kind of dead end to his inquiry, but he wasn’t finished. “I understand you have a friend named Michael. Could it be the sneakers belonged to him?”

  Allie started to shake her head at him, but his look silenced her. His attention returned to Sara. As experienced as he was with interrogation, her face told him nothing. It held the blank expression called a ‘flat affect.’

  Then her eyes and mouth softened, melting into both wistfulness and embarrassment. “Michael, Michael, my friend. I miss him.”

  • • •

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  On Yuma’s Main Street, the fenced patio at Lute’s Casino felt shaded and almost cool, thanks to the misters that lined the eaves of the roof. Their fine spray of water cooled the dry air and coaxed the patio temperature down to the low 90’s. Tourists bent on gambling often discovered to their consternation that Lute’s was not actually a casino, but a pool hall, domino parlor, pin-ball arcade and restaurant with patio seating. Built in 1901, it underwent several incarnations of use before landing in the hands of the Lute family.

  Lute’s drew locals as well as tourists. It appealed to bikers, pool players, domino grandmothers, business men out for lunch, and gaggles of kids lined up at noisy game machines. The kitschy decor featured walls lined with posters, celebrity photos, Western memorabilia and artifacts, all capped by a mannequin’s foot protruding through the ceiling in the main salon.

  Lon and Kim had a rare same day off and decided to meet there to talk, drawn by the home-spun but inventive menu. The din inside the main room challenged normal conversation and few patrons braved heat of the patio so it was a place they could talk in some privacy.

  Lon arrived first and requested only a glass of water while he waited for Kim. He downed it in one long gulp, remembering the days before the western droughts and global weather weirding, when tall glasses of ice water greeted each diner whether they wanted it or not.

  Through the open doorway into the restaurant he saw men in jeans chalking their pool cues and ladies at a round table intent on their domino tiles. In the corner, a senior citizen with grey hair and paunch pounded away at an old upright piano. He wore jeans held up by suspenders over a faded plaid shirt, cowboy boots and a sweat-stained straw cowboy hat. The plinking notes of his piano drifted out as backbeat to the racket made by diners and players.

  Kim arrived a few minutes late, leaving behind in the main room a trail of male gawkers. One youth with no character but abundant acne marking his face had followed her out to the patio. Lon rose, smiled at Kim and glared away the would-be Casanova.

  Kim wore white today, a soft cotton shirt with a collar, khaki shorts and white running shoes. She had threaded her long pony tail through the back of a white baseball cap. She looked back at him and smiled. Since the night someone had attempted to murder Kim they had mutually chosen to meet in public places like this, which were not conducive to carnal thoughts much less carnal actions.

  The waitress interrupted his introspection, took thei
r order and soon they were dining on Lute’s best cuisine. When their conversation turned to the Cameron investigation Lon looked around to be sure no one would overhear.

  “You’re saying this Michael person might not be imaginary after all?” Kim bit into her Lute’s signature special, a hot dog burger, while her eyes remained fixed on Lon’s face.

  “It’s a possibility he might be real. Remote, but we can’t afford to dismiss it until we investigate.”

  “How can you investigate someone who might not exist?”

  Lon wiped a string of cheese from his chin and finished chewing before he answered. “We’ll do DNA on the sneakers. If we get a male ID, we’ll run it through NCIC for someone named Michael in this area who has a criminal record. Then we might link him to Sara Cameron. The other possibility, of course, is that the shoes belonged to someone not named Michael who was Cameron’s killer.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “Not really. Chances are we won’t get a single readable DNA or we’ll get too many to sort and classify. They found the shoe in her truck jammed under the mountain of junk she kept in there. How many DNA traces do you think it could hold?”

  “Not my area of expertise.”

  “If she got the shoes at Goodwill like she said, they would have collected DNA as people touched them or tried them on. It may be a dead-end, even if there is a real Michael.” He pushed away his plate with remains of a grilled cheese sandwich with green chilies and drank his beer while he looked at her over the rim of the mug.

  Today it was impossible to ignore the vital physicality of his platonic friend. He would never get enough of looking at Kim’s tawny skin, jet-black hair and strong-boned face that somehow conveyed integrity as well as pride. He admired her beauty, her direct personality, her energy. He wondered about the pain and horror he had seen in her that night in her bedroom. It had to be the result of some sort of sexual trauma, a rape or molestation. And if she had been raped, would she have told him she was a virgin? So, molested as a child? What a devastating effect it had made on her sexuality. But other women were able to recover from that kind of atrocity, and he trusted that she would, too.

  Pain leaking from horrible memories was not the only vampire-like emotion bleeding Kim’s spirit. He could sense unexpressed feelings of anger, maybe guilt, and maybe even shame. Where did they come from? He couldn’t untangle it all. And if he didn’t understand her, didn’t really know her, why had she captured him like this?

  She munched a French-fry, smiling at him at the same time. His breath caught in his throat. He wondered if the secrets she guarded from him would remain a barrier between them, even after Cameron’s murder was solved. If it ever was solved. How could he concentrate on Cameron, much less on the back-logged cases? Thoughts of Kim and her safety crowded out anything else when he wasn’t with her. The thought that her life might still be in danger gnawed at him. Would she even survive to be in the relationship with him that he wanted and imagined every day?

  She must have seen the questions in his eyes. She said, “Nothing suspicious at my place since we talked last night. No dark colored cars driving down my street at night, no one stalking me. The Sheriff’s patrol cars still drive by a couple times every night, keeping an eye on me.”

  “The lead detective and I are working the case, but still no progress. We canvassed Wagner’s neighborhood to see if anyone noticed him leaving the house that night, checked the only security camera he would have passed on the way to your place. Nothing.”

  Kim shrugged. “You know, it doesn’t fit that someone who would do something as petty as file a complaint against me with the EMT Board would then try to kill me. He’s looking less and less like a real suspect, isn’t he?”

  “Afraid so. So what about the Board – your EMT license?”

  “Well…”

  “What?”

  “I did get a letter from the Board asking me to meet with them in Phoenix to give. . .what they called a preliminary, verbal explanation of a situation that led to a complaint against me. They didn’t identify the complainant.”

  “We both know who it was, that son-of-a-bitch.” It took a few minutes for Lon to stow his anger to be dealt with at a different time. “So. . .” He hesitated. “About Cindy Cameron. I don’t want you to hang all your hopes on this, but you may be right about Winston Verbale. We’re liking him more as suspect number one.”

  Kim leaned forward in her chair. “Why?”

  “One of Cindy Cameron’s bird-watcher friends came forward with the information that the morning Cameron was murdered she called saying she was going to Kofa with Verbale to spot a rare species of woodpecker – a ‘Lewis’ Woodpecker’ is what she said.”

  “Are you going to arrest him now?”

  “No. It’s not even enough to get a search warrant for his home or his car. But we’ve got a photo of his black Mercedes and a picture of him from the newspaper – the political article from a few months ago. We’re canvassing the area around her house and around his, showing them to the neighbors.”

  “That makes sense. Whether they went in her car or in his, someone must have seen them leaving or him coming back.”

  “The timing would have to fit, though. We know he went to the airport for his flight to Costa Rica. Unless someone saw her leaving in the car with him and then saw him coming back alone, it wouldn’t be worth testimony in court.”

  Kim’s chin came up, and she spread her hands in a gesture of mild exasperation. “Wouldn’t it be worth knowing for sure that he did it?”

  “It would. I want it solved too, Kim, but I’ve learned not to close my mind to any possibility until all the evidence is in.” He shook his head to dismiss his own frustration and leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs under the table. His sneaker bumped hers, then their bare legs touched. He saw her eyes widen. He jerked his leg back. Did she think he was still pressing for a physical relationship? He smiled at her in a way he hoped was reassuring. She trusted him and he would not betray that by trying to seduce her. The idea of someday being her first lover was daunting enough without adding the psychological poison of guilt.

  In the silence that followed their touch he considered telling her what he had been thinking about her safety and the Cameron case, but decided against it. His growing suspicion of Winston Verbale extended to what had happened to Kim.

  If Verbale was guilty of Cindy Cameron’s murder, maybe he knew that Kim had found the body, and feared she knew something that might incriminate him. Maybe he had a rifle as well as a hand gun and had been the one who tried to kill her.

  The bullets and shell casings from the night of the attempted murder had produced no trail that might lead to Wagner, Verbale or any other shooter. Could there be something he hadn’t done to help the detective in charge, even something not legally sanctioned? In his ten-plus years in law enforcement he had never before tried to bend the rules or circumvent procedures, but knowing who had tried to harm Kim would be worth it. Anything that kept Kim safe was worth it.

  During his silence, Kim looked across the table at Lon and pondered the why and how of their attraction. He was too tall, too slender and not handsome enough to inhabit most women’s erotic dreams. But then, she wasn’t like most women. Maybe it was his intelligence and the way he looked at her as if there was something about her he wanted to know very much…but was patiently waiting for her to reveal.

  During their lunch she had been mulling over her own plans and wondering if she should share them with Lon. Sara Cameron wanted to see the place her daughter had lost her life and had asked Allie to take her there. Allie passed the request to Kim, and she had agreed. Her instinct was to tell Lon but for some reason she pushed it away, reasoning that he worried about her too much already.

  She reached out to the mist descending from a nearby spigot. Gathering it on her fingers, she smoothed the moisture over her forehead and cheeks while she searched the strip of sky visible between the top of the fence and the roof. N
ot a cloud in sight, uniformly, unrelentingly blue. Finally she broke the thoughtful silence. “I hope the monsoon comes soon. It seems a little more humid lately, at least in the evenings.”

  “The rain will cool things off. Then, so much for the license plates and bumper stickers that say ‘It’s a dry heat’.”

  She nodded. “I know – the ones with pictures of a skull and cross-bones. In July and August they could picture a drowned rat.”

  Lon paid the bill with a generous tip in cash and they walked back through the restaurant to the exit. Their eyes were unaccustomed to the dimness indoors. They didn’t see a well-dressed but rather ordinary-looking man standing at one of the game machines watching the action but Winston Verbale saw them. It shocked him as nothing lately had. Kim the Indian squaw with the detective. He froze, mind instantly racing to make sense of it. They’re together. Very together. What kind of game is this turning into?

  • • •

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Kim left her house in the grey light of dawn, determined to hike into the Kofa and back before that part of the Sonoran Desert came to a boil. She decided to leave her dog at home, knowing he would have loved the hike; but she reasoned that four people and a large dog in a small car was more like a circus act than a day trip.

  Zayd’s good-bye was very different from his tail-wagging, tongue-lolling greeting. He stood two feet back from the window, stock still, watching. He remained unmoving as long as she could see him. She wondered if he turned and went to his bed when she was out of sight, or lingered there at the window. She had tried to ease their parting by giving him a doggie treat before she walked out the door but it went untouched until she returned, when he would pounce on it and devour it in seconds.