“They are.”
“Well, that just sucks. Doesn’t it? I’d make ’em give me a Silkwood shower. If you know what I mean.”
“I do,” Gus says. “So, I guess I’ll call for a ride home.”
Myers puts a hand at the back of Gus’s neck, gently turns him away from the crime scene, and says, “I don’t know about that, Mr. Parker. Sergeant Woods is on his way right now. Maybe you should talk to him.”
Gus shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I’m sure Woods has more important things to do here than talk to me.”
Myers laughs, then adjusts his weight. “We have two orders from the sergeant,” he says. “Block the road from the media and keep you here if you show up. Woods is the boss. Mills’s boss. Best you comply.”
“I’m flattered. I think.”
About twenty minutes later a tank-size SUV rounds the bend. It’s a box of armor and rubber. Colored lights pop up everywhere like menacing eyeballs. The car comes to a thunk at the side of the road. Sergeant Jacob Woods emerges from the heavily tinted interior. Another man exits the SUV. Gus doesn’t recognize him.
The two men cross the road without seeing Gus and confer with Myers and a few others. Jacob Woods looks up at the ledge, while one of his men points to a walkway that will lead him there. Someone says something to make the sergeant laugh. Woods gives the comedian a slap on the back. Then he narrows his eyes and looks Gus’s way.
Gus stares back.
It’s narrow eyes versus narrow eyes.
The men climb the walkway and disappear above the ledge. They’re up there for a few minutes when Gus is summoned. It’s Myers’s voice from above. “The sergeant would like you to join him up here,” the cop says.
A sound cracks through the air as Gus reaches the walkway. A sound Gus, by now, is familiar with. It’s the wobbly cutting of chopper blades through the sky. He can read the logos on the closest two. The news channels have arrived. “I guess we have company,” he says to Myers who has come down to escort him.
“Too bad we can’t shoot ’em down,” Myers says. “They’d make for great target practice.”
“I guess the whole first amendment thing rubs you the wrong way.”
“I love my guns.”
Gus sighs. “That’s the second amendment.”
“Who’s counting?” Myers retorts. “Let’s just say I’m no fan of the media. If they even start to interfere we’ll get them out of here.”
In less than a minute they’re at the top and Gus sees a semicircle of crime scene techs hovering around what he assumes is the cave. As he approaches he sees the sergeant break from the group and come his way.
“It’s Parker, right?” Woods asks, extending a hand.
Gus nods. They shake firmly.
“Good to see you again,” the sergeant says. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah. Can I help you with anything here?”
The sergeant sizes him up anew. “Help with anything? Two bodies in one day, buddy. And Mills tells me you called it.”
“In reverse order, if that makes a difference.”
“As long as we can put it all together, I don’t care what order you see the bodies.”
“You think there are more. . . .” Not a question.
“Yes,” the sergeant says. A more definitive answer than Gus expected.
“Me too.”
“Can you come over to the cave and take a look?” They start to walk, and then the sergeant stops abruptly. “It’s not your typical desert cave, you know. Lots of beer cans. Kids, that sort of thing.”
“Right,” Gus says. “I’m guessing no petroglyphs either.”
“No ancient ones. But we have a brand-new drawing in there.”
They reach the periphery of the cave. “Come on, everybody, give us room,” the sergeant demands. The small army disperses. And then Woods leans into Gus and says, “Look, you can’t touch the body. You know the drill?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t even approach the body. Stay as close to the walls as possible. You hear?”
Gus nods. He enters the shallow cave to find a woman on the floor, facedown, her head turned to one side. The side of her neck that is visible is slashed from her ear to her throat. Orbs of blood soak her clothes at other puncture points: her left shoulder, her right rib cage; a dried-up pool has seeped from her stomach.
“Her name is Lindsey Drake,” the sergeant says. “She’s from Wisconsin. We found her rental car parked along the road.”
Gus nods. He studies the depiction of the murder chiseled into the side of the cave. It has every characteristic of the killer. Again, a self-portrait of crime. The killer and his victim. A knife. Gushing stab wounds. The artwork is unrefined, a classic message from a child. There’s hesitation, mania. There’s anger, joy, and Gus sees that fire again. And he sees that New England town again, a house by the water. He bows his head.
“We don’t know what brought her up here,” the sergeant says. “Her boyfriend just said she was missing around Camelback last night.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Yeah. Some guy who called 911 when she didn’t show up back at the hotel.”
“And what happened? Did anyone go looking for her?”
“It was after dark when he called. It had only been a few hours since she went missing,” Woods explains. “An officer went over to the hotel, took a report. We had a few patrols come up to the neighborhood. But it was too dark for anyone to go up the mountain.”
“Did anyone follow up with the boyfriend this morning?” Gus asks.
“After Mills cleans up he’s going to the hotel to question the guy.”
“Okay,” Gus says, looking squarely at the sergeant. “But what I don’t understand is why the killer would have been lurking here. This is not a trail. There are no petroglyphs. Hikers are interested in the mountain, not this little ledge.”
“So you see no connection?”
“Oh, no, I see a connection. I get the same vibe here as I did at the other two crime scenes. I’m just curious about this spot.”
“It doesn’t fit the profile?”
“I’m not a profiler, Sergeant.”
Woods smirks. “Yeah,” he says. “I know that, Parker. We got a guy for that.”
“Right.”
Outside at the clearing, the sergeant introduces him to Timothy Chase, the other man who Gus saw getting out of the SUV. Chase examines Gus, nods, and shakes his hand. “Pleasure,” the detective says. He’s wearing a linen blazer, blue jeans, and one of those Wheaties smiles. Timothy Chase is a large outline of a man, long arms, legs, and wide chest.
“So, you’re the profiler?” Gus asks.
The man, who towers over Gus, laughs and shakes his head. “Forensic psychologist,” he says.
“Right. Of course. I thought the terms were interchangeable.”
“They’re not.”
“My fault,” the sergeant says. “At least I don’t call him Mr. Hollywood anymore.”
Gus laughs, then acknowledges that Detective Timothy Chase does, indeed, possess that Hollywood look, those impossibly chiseled features and gleaming eyes. Gus sees the emergence of self-help guru Tony Robbins in the face of the detective, those huge teeth, those happily catatonic eyes. The similarity to Robbins is actually quite striking. Gus had almost dismissed the man as a jarhead; now studying him closer he feels a bit emasculated. Ain’t nothing wrong with this guy’s sperm count, Gus observes resentfully. He’s probably impregnated half the women in the valley just by brushing by them on the street.
“He’s my scene investigator. Supervising until Mills gets back,” the sergeant explains.
“Former FBI?” Gus asks the towering detective.
Chase nods. “I see my reputation precedes me. Or is that your psychic thing?”
“I think Mills mentioned it to me,” Gus says. “But didn’t he call you out to the Peak? To take over the scene there?”
Chase bristles. “Well, turns out I
was needed here, Mr. Parker. We sent the very capable detective Ken Preston out to the Peak. So I think we got it covered. Do I need to clear it with anyone else?”
Distinctly put in his place, Gus apologizes. “I hope it didn’t sound like I was second-guessing.”
“No apology needed, Mr. Parker,” Chase says. “It was good to meet you. I’ve worked with psychics before on FBI cases. I’d welcome any of your hunches. Now if you’ll excuse me. . . .”
Gus nods. “Look, if I can have some time in the cave alone, that would be very helpful.”
“Uh, no. I can’t let you in there alone, Mr. Parker,” Chase tells him. “Totally against protocol. With all the evidence, and everything . . . Can’t have you disturbing the scene, you know.”
“I’d like to go back in,” Gus insists. “You could have someone escort me. Just give me some space.”
A few moments later Gus is back at the hole in the mountain, latex gloves on his hands, surgical shoe covers on his feet, and Detective Morton Myers at his side. They circumnavigate the body, giving it a wide radius on all sides. They steer clear of the bloodstains and the splatter. Then he sits by a distant wall of the cave, across from the drawing. Gus might as well have the chamber to himself now, the way he is able to shirk the presence of Morton Myers and the techs working nearby, the way he tunes out the exterior chatter and the other noises of the day. He closes his eyes. Yes, there’s New England again. And the ocean. And there is a man grunting and a child screaming. And the man is in flames. And now it’s the child grunting as he pulls fish from the water and cuts their heads off. He picks up clams and crushes them with his hands. He is bloody and older now. He is throwing furniture at a cowering woman. She’s beautiful but terrified, her makeup running. And he’s grunting as he curses her. Fucking cunt, fucking cunt, fucking cunt! This madman kicks the woman in the face. He kicks her repeatedly. Gus can’t see his face, but he sees thick veins in his neck. He sees the man’s feet; what he believes at first to be blood is actually ink. His ankles are tattooed. He can’t decipher the tattoos, but they look like a signature, like an artist had signed the man’s feet. He hears a drumbeat, a crash of cymbals, and applause. He opens his eyes. The light comes in. It’s like he’s just been watching theater.
Someone is shouting his name.
13
Detective Alex Mills takes a good whiff of himself and smirks. He smells like a baby fresh from a bath. He reeks of soap, completely sterile, completely disinfected. They had given him a hazmat suit to wear just so he wouldn’t have to ride back to headquarters in his underwear. He had stripped off the suit and stepped into the shower where the water was set at a furious temperature and velocity. And he just stood there, slack, surrendering to the torrent, grateful for the cleansing, yearning to touch his wife’s skin, to go home to her and curl up in bed, under the cover of their big fleece blanket, and sleep. A deep, dark, center-of-the-earth kind of sleep. But such an expedition would have to wait because Mills has been sent to the downtown Hyatt to seek out Neil Carmody, the boyfriend of the Camelback victim.
The man opens the door on the second knock. He’s unshaven and disheveled, his eyes sunken and surrounded by circles of ashy gray. “Mr. Carmody?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Detective Alex Mills from the Phoenix Police Department.”
The man’s face sort of collapses right there in the doorway. “This can’t be good.”
“I believe we found your girlfriend’s body on Camelback Mountain. We’re investigating this as a murder.”
Then the man goes weak in the knees and grasps the doorjamb. He just stands there and says nothing. His chest is heaving.
“May I come in?” Mills asks.
The man lets him pass.
Mills looks around the hotel room. There are two suitcases, a garment bag, and some kind of carry-on. One bed is unmade. The room smells of human sweat and sickness. Gone is the institutional fragrance of Generic Hotel, replaced by the odor of a man who has been up all night in desperation. He’s in a black T-shirt and gray sweatpants.
“What happened to her?” the man asks, wide-eyed, a minor tremble in his voice.
“What happened to you?” Mills studies him from head to toe. So there’s no mistake about his question, he stares hard at Carmody’s fat lip, the dried-up blood, the laceration above the eyebrow, and, of course, the crudely bandaged right hand.
“Oh, God,” Carmody says. “I must look like I’ve been in a brawl,” he adds somewhat absently.
“You do.”
“I fell.”
“You fell?”
“On a hike yesterday morning,” the man says. “Lindsey and I were hiking Camelback.”
“And you fell?”
“Hard.”
“Did you go to the hospital? Did you need a rescue?”
Carmody laughs. “No. We were on our way down. I tripped and got banged up, but I made it to the car and Lindsey drove us back.”
“Did the two of you have a fight of any kind?”
“Huh?” And then, “No, no. We never fought.”
“What do you think she was doing up at Camelback alone?”
“I know what she was doing. She was going up there to take some more pictures. I had just handed her the camera when I tripped, so she never got the shots she wanted.”
“But you were already on your way down when you fell,” Mills says. “I would think the only shot worth getting was the view from the top.”
“No, Detective, Lindsey wanted to document the climb from ascent to descent.”
“Oh. I see. So you let her go off alone to finish taking pictures?”
“Let her? What do you mean? It didn’t seem particularly dangerous. I mean, it was daylight. I figured there would be lots of hikers around. And I sure as hell wasn’t in any condition to go climbing again.”
“I understand,” Mills says. “Now I need you to come with me, Mr. Carmody. Do you need a few moments to get yourself together?”
“To see her body?” the man asks with a shiver.
“The body is still at Camelback. I need you to come with me to the police station.”
“To the morgue?”
“Like I said, the body is still at Camelback, but it will eventually be taken to the ME’s office, and, yes, if you wish you may view the body.”
And then Carmody sits at the side of the unmade bed and sobs. “I don’t think I slept at all last night,” he says in between gasps for air. “Every hour that went by took more and more convincing that she was all right. You know what I mean?”
“I do.”
There’s always a mix of sympathy and healthy suspicion. The sobbing is not uncommon, nor is the drama. But Mills senses a melodrama, here, and melodrama is often an overcompensation. Hard to know at first.
Still crying the man says, “I mean, it’s like with every hour you feel the hope slipping away and you have to fight that much harder to believe otherwise. I don’t think I can do this.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Carmody,” Mills tells him. “But I don’t think we have an option. We ID’d your girlfriend through her driver’s license, but we still need a full statement from you.”
Carmody then goes facedown on the bed and wails.
Mills waits and says nothing. He stares out the window at the view of the northwest valley, sees nothing remarkable except the late-day sky.
Carmody groans, then rolls over. “I don’t believe this,” he says, getting up. “This can’t be happening.”
“Where you from?”
“Boston.”
“Interesting,” Mills says. “I’m told her license was issued in Wisconsin.”
“It is,” Carmody tells him. “She moved to Massachusetts to be with me. Just a month ago. She hasn’t switched things out yet.”
“Go wash your face.”
Now the two men are heading toward the police headquarters, driving big squares of the central Phoenix grid around the station because Mills is hoping to give Carmody
time to process. Time to talk.
“What brought you to Phoenix?” Mills asks.
“Business conference,” Carmody says.
“I figured.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Most tourists don’t stay downtown. They stay at the resorts.”
“My company used to put me up at the Phoenician. No more. Too expensive.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“I work for a consulting firm. Human Resources.”
“How long have you been in Phoenix?”
“Three days. The conference ends today.”
“So you came in Friday night?”
“No,” the man replies. “Thursday afternoon.”
“You have your travel documents?”
The man fidgets. He lifts his hands as if to exaggerate their emptiness. “Not with me. At the hotel.”
“I’ll want to see them.”
Neil Carmody is staring vacantly at the road ahead.
“Are the two of you experienced climbers?” the detective asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Camelback is not for beginners exactly. Certainly not for beginners who don’t climb in the desert. You’re a long way from home.”
“We’re not beginners,” Carmody says. “There are mountains in New England, you know.”
The man speaks evenly, almost eagerly now, the lack of guile suggesting to Alex Mills that Neil Carmody doesn’t know he’s being questioned when he’s being questioned. Mills slows to stop for a red light at Twenty-Fourth Street, and that’s when he pivots his torso and says to Carmody, “I’ve got to tell you, the sergeant takes one look at you and you become a person of interest.”
Carmody’s expression doesn’t change. “With all these bruises, I wouldn’t blame him.”
“Well, you cleaned up okay enough.”
“Yeah, but the bruises are still bruises. And the scratches on my face don’t look like I was playing with a cat.”
“No, they don’t,” Mills says. “But, hell, if you were the killer I imagine you would have hightailed it out of town by now. You’d be long gone, man.”
Carmody doesn’t say anything, and this bothers Mills.
Desert Remains Page 12