“Do we want?”
“I don’t see any connection between a guy that got drunk and blew away his business partner eight years ago and this week’s disappearance of a two-year-old, do you?”
Perez considered for a few seconds, then shook his head.
“The stickup artist hasn’t shown up back in Ohio, but his credit card has been used several times between here and Denver. He’s probably on his way home.” She turned the page of the notepad.
“I don’t see a likely link between armed robbery and Zachary, either.”
“No,” she agreed. “But I’m having Highway Patrol catch up with him just to make sure he doesn’t have a toddler in his camper.” She tapped the lined page in front of her. “Of more interest is our child molester, Wallace Russell. Like I told you, his Buick Skylark entered the park five days ago, two days before Zack disappeared.”
Perez put his feet on the floor and returned the chair to all four legs. He felt dazed. This case had started only three days ago?
Nicole continued. “Wallace Russell, arrested and released three times for indecent exposure, arrested and convicted twice for child molestation.”
“Consisting of?”
She consulted her notes. “According to the five-year-old girl involved in the latest incident, he asked her to ‘pet his magic mushroom to make it grow.’ ”
Nicole’s gaze met his above the notepad. Her mouth crinkled at the edges.
“This shouldn’t be funny.” He clasped his hands together on top of the table.
She nodded. “We both know these perverts can escalate, and there’s nothing funny about that. He’d apparently put his fingers around the child’s neck; there were bruises there. It’s just the . . . magic . . . mushroom—”
They simultaneously lost it. Perez laughed until his nose ran. He pulled out a handkerchief and honked into it. Across the table, Nicole wiped her fingers across her cheeks, smudging the mascara that ran down from her eyes. He held out his handkerchief to her. Her resulting disgust made him burst into laughter again.
Nicole slapped both hands against the tabletop. “Enough. They’ll be in any moment now.”
She kept her eyes averted, mopped at streaks of mascara with a tissue, composed herself as she regarded her face in her compact mirror. Perez blew his nose again, stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. From mountain lions to skulls to gunshot wounds to magic mushrooms. This must be what it felt like to trip on LSD.
Nicole snapped the compact shut. “Let’s get back to it. Our pervert got out on parole two years ago. His address is in Flagstaff, but he hasn’t been home for the last two weeks.”
So Wallace Russell had been in the park but was currently unaccounted for. “Nobody’s keeping track of this guy? What the heck has his parole officer been doing?”
“Twiddling his thumbs and counting the days to retirement, apparently. He did condescend to provide us with a photo, even if it’s two years old.” She waved the black and white square of paper in the air.
The door opened. Sheriff Wolford stuck his head in. “Have you seen the lobby?”
They nodded.
“Goddamn vultures.” He ran his fingers through his hair, standing it on end. “Ready for the boys?” The man glanced at Perez, then at Nicole. “Something up between you two?”
“Nope,” Perez snapped. “Bring ’em in.”
The chair squeaked as Perez slid it back. He took the bag containing Zack’s shoe from Nicole’s briefcase, removed the sneaker, and set it in the middle of the table.
“Good idea,” she said. “Let’s see if they sweat.” She sighed heavily. “This case is a mess, isn’t it?”
So she thought so, too. “I’m not even sure where to look next,” he admitted. “Do you think we have a chance in hell of finding this poor kid?”
“Something better break soon. Miller’s getting antsy, especially now that we’ve asked for Crime Scene two days in a row.”
Perez nodded. Their SAC wasn’t long on patience.
The two teenagers filed in. Stripped of their padded jackets and air-filled tennis shoes, both Billy Joseph and Patrick Wiley appeared to have shrunk during their incarceration. Orange jail uniforms added a jaundiced hue to their complexions. The sheriff motioned for them to sit, then positioned himself behind them, his arms folded over his substantial belly.
“No lawyer?” Nicole asked.
The sheriff shook his head. “Their parents didn’t want to have to pay the hourly fee for this part, and they wouldn’t accept a PD. Said they didn’t take charity.”
“The parents aren’t coming, either?”
“Mrs. Wiley’s in the ladies’,” Wolford replied. “She’ll be here any minute.” Right on cue, a middle-aged woman walked in, nodded to the agents, sat down next to Patrick. She wore a flowered shirtwaist dress. Her graying hair was scraped back from her red cheeks, held in place with two yellow plastic barrettes. She kept her eyes on the table.
“The Josephs aren’t coming,” Wolford added. “It’s a fifty-minute drive from Floral.”
“I had to take time off work myself,” Mrs. Wiley murmured in a soft voice.
Perez was appalled. Would the parents take more notice if their kids had murdered someone? Maybe they didn’t understand the seriousness of the charge.
Nicole tapped the tabletop impatiently. “Okay, we’re all here, then. Ready, boys?”
Billy placed his palms on the table. Patrick nodded, a grim expression on his face. A large pimple had blossomed in the crease of his right nostril. His gaze focused on the shoe; he reached for it.
“What a dinky sneak!” He balanced it on the palm of his hand and held it out to his friend.
Billy squirmed in his chair, his cheeks nearly as red as Mrs. Wiley’s. Patrick stared at the miniature sneaker, stole a look at his friend again, gazed back at the shoe. Finally, his eyes met the agents’. “Is it his?”
Nicole narrowed her eyes. “What do you think?”
Patrick dropped the shoe as if it was suddenly too hot to handle. Perez exchanged a glance with Nicole. Inconclusive.
Nicole got serious. “How did you boys put the ransom note together?”
The teens shot nervous glances at each other.
Perez turned to Nicole. “Think we should separate them?”
“We didn’t send it,” Billy blurted out.
“Then who did?” Nicole asked.
Billy’s gaze darted to Patrick’s, then back down to the table in front of him. “Don’t know.”
“The copy shop clerk described a young woman.” Perez placed a grainy picture of Jenny Fischer in front of the boys. A head shot had been cropped from the family photo and blown up. Jenny more or less matched the description provided by the attendant in the copy shop from which the message had been sent. “Did this woman fax the message?”
Both boys barely glanced at the picture. “We don’t know nothing about the ransom note,” Billy enunciated carefully, as if he were speaking to an idiot.
Mrs. Wiley picked up the photo. “Isn’t this that poor baby’s mama? She’s so young. ’Cept for that big red blotch there, she looks a little like Suzanna.”
Patrick flinched noticeably.
Nicole perked up. “Who is Suzanna?”
The woman touched her son’s arm. “Suzanna Christensen. Pat’s girlfriend. They go to school together. She wasn’t involved in this foolishness, was she, son?”
Patrick stared at the ceiling.
Perez recovered the snapshot. “Thank you, Mrs. Wiley. We’ll talk to Suzanna.”
Nicole laid photos on the table, snapping them crisply like a card dealer. “Wait until they’re all out before you say anything.”
Twelve photos, in three rows of four, depicted men in their thirties and forties, some with earrings and beards or mustaches, all with longish hair.
“Did any of these guys hire you?” Nicole asked.
The youths scanned the pictures carefully. Billy picked one up. An old jail pho
to of a baby-faced man. Long dark hair combed over a balding crown, then rubber-banded into a limp ponytail. The magic mushroom’s old parole photo.
“This guy seems kind of familiar,” the youth said. “I think I seen him over at the Burger House.”
Patrick glanced at the photo in his friend’s hand. “Doesn’t look familiar to me. You’re losin’ it, buddy.”
The sheriff peered over the boys’ shoulders, then raised his gaze to Perez’s and shook his head. He resumed his position against the wall.
Billy slid the photo back into its position in the grid. Patrick tapped an index finger on the middle photo in the lowest row. The boys exchanged glances. Billy nodded.
Patrick held the photo out to Nicole. “This is the guy.”
Billy agreed. “He hired us to pick up the money.”
Perez and Nicole examined the photo the youths had chosen. Fred Fischer’s face smiled up at them from the slick paper.
JENNY Fischer sat alone in a booth in the Appletree Café. She held a coffee cup in her hands, stared into the black liquid. It was blessedly quiet, except for the whoosh of the vacuum cleaner that the waitress was running over the threadbare carpet between the tables. She couldn’t take any more phone calls from the press. There’d even been someone from a talk show on TV. They all wanted to know how she felt.
How did they think she felt? She’d lost everything. Her parents had never liked Fred. She raised her hand, cupped it over the birthmark on her cheek. Why couldn’t they understand that an ugly girl like her didn’t have options? Worse, they’d been right; marrying him was a mistake. He’d been good to her for almost three years, but now, at the first sign of trouble, he disappeared. What kind of a husband was that?
Zack’s orange plastic truck, missing its wheel, was on the table in front of her. She stared at it, the last thing her baby had touched. Why, oh why, hadn’t she been playing with Zack, holding him, instead of fussing with that damn camp stove?
The FBI agents seemed to think that Fred might have something to do with her baby’s disappearance. And Fred had been gone all that time after she’d discovered Zack was missing. And this whole cougar business. Fred had really started it by bringing them here, by pointing out the posters; hadn’t he? Could she really have been that blind? That stupid?
“Mrs. Fischer.”
She raised her head. The two FBI agents stood next to her table.
The female agent slid into the booth beside her. “Where’s your husband?”
When Jenny didn’t respond instantly, the agent turned to her partner. “I can’t believe the sheriff sent the deputy off to some hunting accident; I specifically told him a twenty-four-hour watch.”
The man slid into the opposite seat. Even though his expression was solemn, his clear brown eyes looked kind. “Where’s Fred, Mrs. Fischer?” he asked.
“He told me he was going out for a cinnamon roll,” Jenny said.
They both just stared at her, waiting. She slammed the cup down, slopping coffee over the red and white checkered oilcloth. Tears flooded down her face. “He’s gone!” she choked out. “He’s been gone since nine o’clock this morning.”
She flung an arm onto the table. The spilled coffee seeped into the sleeve of her pink blouse, but she didn’t care. Her fingers curled convulsively around the tiny truck. “I don’t have Zack; I don’t have Fred; now I don’t even have a goddamn car!”
17
THE trail slanted uphill another mile to the mesa. Sam made herself keep looking in every crevice and under every bush. She tried hard to keep her focus on finding any hint of Zack, but it was hard to think of anything other than Kent and the cougar and how much her feet hurt. Her thigh throbbed with each step, and soon her head joined in. Each jolt was accompanied by a slosh from her water bottle and a metallic ting from objects clanging together inside her knapsack. A symphony of aches and pains.
Above her position, over the crest, helicopter blades reverberated. The racket grew louder, the noise hanging in the air. Sounded like the machine had touched down near ZigZag Passage. After five minutes, the low roar changed to a high whine, and the copter buzzed by overhead. A quick peek at her watch confirmed that more than four hours had passed since the rescue helicopter had left Milagro Canyon. Enough time to bring in Crime Scene investigators from Salt Lake City?
She envisioned Perez directing a team of thick-lensed forensic experts to the location of the skull. Or would Agent Boudreaux take charge of the investigation? She hoped Apollo hadn’t come back to his kill; she didn’t trust either FBI agent not to shoot the lion on sight.
She stopped to check a shadow under a low bush. Nothing but dust. She straightened and went on.
“Zack!” she yelled, for good measure. “Zachary!”
She stopped for a minute to listen and heard the only response she expected, another shrill cry from the red-tailed hawk circling overhead. It sounded like one of this year’s fledglings. They were always noisy when they were learning to hunt. Maybe they just couldn’t contain their excitement at seeing the world spread out beneath them.
“Zack! Hey, little buddy, where are you? Answer me.” If you can, she silently added in her thoughts. After finding the skull and seeing Kent and the cougar bleeding into the dust, it was hard to keep up the hope that Zack would be found alive and well.
The hawk screeched again. If only she shared that raptor’s view now. Could the hawk see the investigators uncovering more bones? Coyote Charlie skulking through the canyons nearby? Could the hawk see Zack?
A dark crevice in the cliff wall nearby caught her attention, and she walked over to peer into it. It went back only about four feet, and no little boy huddled in the shadows there. She trudged back to the trail and resumed her uphill march.
She’d passed the two MISSING notices on her hike back from Milagro Canyon. She was beginning to despise those posters. If Zack had stayed with his parents, she would be earning her pay by writing about wildlife, ecology, the beauty of nature. Kent would be happy and healthy, and so would the cougar. There’d be no MISSING posters fluttering from rocks. There’d be no helicopters drowning out the birdsong. There’d be no teams of sharpshooters on their way to murder the cats. This was all Fred and Jenny Fischer’s fault.
Then she remembered the young mother’s anguished face. And she recalled the moment when she’d freed herself from the brambles and found the dark path empty in front of her. If she had just taken the time to talk to Zack’s parents that night . . .
If that little boy was dead or in the clutches of some pervert, how was she going to live with that?
“Zack! Zachary!” No response except a faint echo from the surrounding cliffs. Even the hawk had gone now.
She checked her watch; she had a couple more hours of daylight. Temple Arch loomed to the east of the path, a blind arch where centuries ago, a half-moon of rock had fallen away from the overhanging curve of the cliff overhead. Tucked into the snug indent were the Anasazi ruins she and Perez had headed for this morning.
This was the canyon into which Coyote Charlie had disappeared. She shaded her eyes and peered at the steep cliff down which he’d vanished. There was no obvious path, but a closer inspection might reveal a line of ancient Anasazi footholds linking the protruding rocks that zigzagged up the vertical slope.
Coyote Charlie might be making a collection up here, Perez had said. It gave her the creeps to think he could be nearby, watching her right now.
“Zack! Answer me, Zachary!” Please.
She stood at the junction of Goodman Trail and Milagro Trail. Below her, three hundred feet down, Village Falls fell in a long horsetail from the cliff. The noise of the waterfall was barely audible, like the white noise of distant traffic. She licked her chapped lips, thinking of that clear cold water. But the round-trip to the falls would take at least thirty minutes out of the remaining two hours of sunlight: she couldn’t afford it.
The stale liquid from her water bottle left a metallic taste in her mouth. She
poured the last few drops into her palm and rubbed her face and neck. Her hand came away streaked with brick red smears. Kent’s blood.
She pulled out her phone and called park headquarters. Jerry Thompson told her that Kent had come through surgery and was in intensive care; that he’d dropped Perez off at Las Rojas Police Station; that yes, an FBI Crime Scene team was working up above; and that no, he didn’t know about the cougar.
Didn’t give a damn about the cougar, she thought bitterly as she hung up. He’d been more than ready to shoot the wounded cat on sight. The superintendent struck her as more politician than conservationist; he’d no doubt cooperate fully with the “wildlife control officers” dispatched from USDAWS, even if he believed that killing the lions was pointless.
She called Lauren at SWF. Her voice mail answered. Was Lauren avoiding her now? She punched in Max Garay’s number.
“Yo.”
“Max? It’s Sam. How’s it going up there?”
“It was nice while it lasted,” he said in his lazy fashion. “Easy come, easy go.”
“Harding hasn’t fired us, has he?”
“Us? Speak for yourself, WildWest. I’m a permanent employee; I’m the only one who can show Harding how to work his computer. And I’ve got about eleven thousand more photos to digitize here. But the answer you’re looking for is, no, not quite yet.”
“There’s been a development since this morning.”
“Found the kid?”
She hated to squash that hope in his voice. “No. But illegal hunters shot a ranger and a cougar this afternoon.”
“Send it in,” he said wearily. “Are the photos any good?”
Oh God. She was supposed to remember to take a picture of her friend bleeding to death in the dust? “I didn’t get any.”
“Uh-huh. I see. Get thee to the unemployment line, girl.”
She hastily described the bloody events of that afternoon. She wanted to give him the skull, too, but remembered Perez’s warning, so she stuck with Kent and the wounded cougar. “You could come up with something, couldn’t you?”
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