The Desert Waits

by J. Carson Black

  One of the women said through chattering teeth, “She was shot.”

  Alex saw Caroline as she had been last night, swinging her legs off the tailgate. Impossible to believe that Caroline’s incredible energy, her irreverent wildness, could be gone.

  “It was Luther.”

  “Luther?” she asked stupidly. She followed the man’s gaze and recognized Luther van Cleeve from television interviews on the morning shows. He stood in the doorway, rooted there like a giant redwood. There was no mistaking the grief on his face; it was like a raw wound.

  “They were supposed to be blanks,” someone added behind her.

  “Someone loaded the prop gun with real bullets instead.”

  “Might’ve been a mistake.”

  “Yeah right,” said a woman wearing a long sweater, a flimsy calf-length skirt, socks, and ankle-high shoes.

  Just then Caroline’s husband lurched into her and fumbled for her arm. “Oh God,” he said, squeezing his eyes to hold back tears. “Someone’s killed Caroline!”

  Ted was still holding on to Alex when Deputy McCutcheon escorted them to a quiet section of the restaurant. Alex’s eyes saw without registering the colorful paper flowers and piñatas on the walls, the gaily-painted wooden chairs. She was moving through a dream, and the garish Mexican furnishings that populated her vision were as lacking in reality as the thought that ran like a mantra through her head: Caroline’s dead, Caroline s dead.

  She stood beside a cerulean-blue chair. Its seat was fashioned of woven yucca and the high, straight back was decorated with crudely painted flowers and leaves. She’d seen chairs like it a hundred times before, but it was hard to stop staring at it.

  At last, she was sitting opposite the deputy. She transferred her gaze to him. His eyes, calm and solemn, brought her back to reality. Up to this point, Alex had expected him to refute the story she’d heard. She’d expected him to tell them it was a mistake, that Caroline wasn’t dead after all. But now she knew it was true without his saying a word.

  Sheriff Kyle Johnson joined them. Tall and fiftyish, the sheriff had a face like a hatchet: thin lips, jutting chin, a narrow nose cutting between close-set, merciless blue eyes. He wore a navy-blue business suit, western cut, black lizard-skin cowboy boots, and a black Stetson hat. The boots weren’t the only lizard-like thing about him. He kept licking his lips, his tongue flicking out like a reptile. Alex found herself staring at the gummy, white residue gathered at the corners of his mouth—dead skin?—and tried but failed to resist the distraction.

  Just as the deputy was about to speak, the sheriff stood up and walked to the door. “Isn’t that podium set up yet?” he demanded of a hotel employee.

  “Podium?” Alex asked Nick.

  “For the press conference.”

  “Oh.” Her mind ran like a squirrel on a treadmill, always coming back to the fact that Caroline’s stalker had been dead serious in carrying out his threat. He had indeed given her a surprise for her birthday. Even Deputy McCutcheon’s presence hadn’t deflected him.

  And so she sat there, numb, as Deputy McCutcheon said, “Mr. Lang, I’m sorry to be the one to confirm what you have already heard. Your wife was killed by a gunshot to the head.”

  Ted’s hand squeezed hers, and automatically she squeezed back.

  “It appears the projectile was discharged from a prop weapon on the set. How or why that happened, we don’t know.”

  Alex wondered why the deputy didn’t speak in plain English. His words were abstract, too slippery to get a grip on. She found herself getting annoyed. She glanced at Ted and her annoyance melted. He was putting a brave face on it, but she could see he was blinking back tears.

  “You’re saying she was shot by the prop gun,” Alex said.

  “That’s what we believe at this time.”

  “Who would do that?”

  “At this point, we don’t know if it was an accident or deliberate.” The deputy’s eyes held hers; it was almost as though there were a lifeline between them. Alex found herself unable to look away, needing to hold onto his equanimity, the sad kindness in his eyes.

  A busboy hesitated at their booth. “Sheriff Johnson? They’re ready for you now.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.” Kyle Johnson stood and hiked up his trousers. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Lang,” he said perfunctorily, shaking Ted’s hand before striding to the doorway. He didn’t even bother to conceal his eagerness.

  Nick stood up, too, his mind already on the questions he’d be asking the crew. Although he had to move on, he was aware that the forward motion of Ted Lang’s life had been stopped dead. Nick knew from experience that victims in situations like this wanted to talk it out over and over again. They needed to push it around, ask themselves if they could have done anything to change the outcome. He’d experienced it many times in his stint with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which dealt with big-city crimes. At times like this, the loved one of the victim imprinted on a police officer like a baby duck. He didn’t want to sever that bond altogether—he would want to talk to both Ted Lang and Alex Cafarelli again later—but he had to extricate himself for the moment.

  If they were true victims, they would need time to assimilate what he had told them.

  “I guess that’s it,” he said. “We’ve set up a place to talk to the crew in one of the conference rooms. We want to interview everyone involved with the production. I wish I could stay and talk to you some more, but we’re kind of shorthanded down here. I or someone else from the sheriff’s office will want to talk to you later.” He trailed off, knowing his excuse sounded weak, even though it was true.

  “I’ll be all right.” Ted Lang’s expression was flat. Shock. It hadn’t sunk in yet.

  “If you need me, I’ll be in the Kiva Room.” Nick glanced again at Alex Cafarelli. He liked her. There was a strength to her, the way she’d handled Caroline last night. He found himself comparing her to Caroline, who despite her tough act, had made him think of a clinging vine. It had been clear to him that the star had a lot of problems. Serious problems.

  “Ms. Cafarelli,” he said, taking her aside. “Could I talk to you for a minute? I don’t think her husband should be alone right now. Would you mind staying with him? He might want to ask you about your last night with her. If it’s not too much for you.”

  She nodded.

  As Nick walked into the lobby, his mind went over the scene earlier today, wondering if he could have done anything at all to avert the tragedy.

  The crew had been filming the climactic scene, a falling-out between the two main characters. Caroline’s character, Solana, had betrayed the hero and sabotaged his mission against Middle Eastern terrorists. Nick wasn’t impressed with the story line, but he had to admit that both actors were real professionals. It was a standoff—kill or be killed. Caroline’s vulnerability came across even when she was the villain.

  When Luther fired the gun, Caroline fell backward. She lay on the ground, absolutely still. The crew was stunned, then relieved when she stood up. They broke into nervous applause, thinking she was playing one of her practical jokes.

  Only Nick sensed that something had gone terribly wrong. He was the first to spot the hole drilled into the right side of her head near her ear, the blood soaking the underside of her hair and blotching her collar.

  And yet she was standing there as if nothing had happened, cracking jokes.

  “I think we’d better get her to a hospital,” Nick told Grey Sullivan.

  Panicking, the director closed down the set and drove her to Palo Duro, the closest town. The only clinic was over the border on the Mexican side.

  The doctor told them that the bullet must have bypassed the cranium, exiting harmlessly out the back of her neck. Stranger things had happened, he said, and suggested she take some aspirin for her headache.

  Caroline had had enough. Sliding down from the examining table, she declared, “I could really go for a shot of Cuervo right now,” an
d promptly collapsed, her flailing hand hooking the privacy barrier that surrounded the bed and pulling it down on top of her. The barrier was a shower curtain decorated with ducks in galoshes.

  She was dead when she hit the floor.

  Nick detoured by the press conference. Kyle Johnson spoke into a bristling forest of microphones. He was the last of a dying breed, the rugged western sheriff, and to prove it, he sprinkled a couple of down-home-isms into his official statement. Nick noticed Alex Cafarelli and Ted Lang standing at the edge of the crowd, looking displaced. He felt sorry for them. He wished he could have given them more information, told them that Caroline had died instantly and, as far as he could tell, without pain. But this early in the investigation, he couldn’t eliminate either one of them as suspects and had to be careful not to go into the specifics of Caroline’s death. He didn’t want to feed potential suspects any information that might help them figure out an alibi later.

  The reporters shouted questions. “Do you think someone switched live ammunition for blanks?”

  “I’m not ruling anything out at this point, but I am confident that when the investigation is completed, we’ll find Ms. Arnet’s death was nothing more than a tragic and sadly avoidable accident. Of course, we will pursue every lead vigorously, as we do all cases involving an unnatural death.”

  Nick knew what the sheriff was doing. Johnson liked publicity, but he wasn’t about to let this case get out of hand and show him in a bad light. He sure didn’t want his constituency to remember that America’s biggest female star had been murdered on his watch.

  There hadn’t been a murder in Gilpin County in six years. Johnson had been quick to take credit for the low homicide rate; although in a county this sparse, there was little chance of people bumping into each other, let alone getting on each other’s nerves enough to kill.

  Despite evidence to the contrary, as far as Sheriff Kyle Johnson was concerned, there wasn’t going to be a murder investigation in Gilpin County. Unless it happened after election day.

  Four

  We have confirmation now that superstar Caroline Arnet has been fatally shot on the set of her latest film. Jagged Impact. I repeat, Caroline Arnet, star of Patriot Girls and Linked Hearts, has died of a gunshot wound to the head …

  —Don Rahey, CBS Evening News

  Shortly after Nick McCutcheon left, Sheriff Johnson ended his press conference and took Ted to Palo Duro to identify Caroline’s body. Alex, remembering her promise to the deputy, offered to go along.

  “This is official police business,” the sheriff told her brusquely.

  Another deputy—his nameplate said Muñoz—interviewed her in one of the conference rooms. He asked her about her friendship with Caroline. When was the last time they’d talked? Why had she come so quickly when Caroline called? Did she know that Caroline was in danger? They went over what had happened the night before. She asked him some questions of her own, but he wasn’t any more forthcoming than Deputy McCutcheon.

  An hour and a half later, Ted rang her room, asking her to meet him in the lobby for a late dinner. He needed to talk. When Alex reached the lobby, it was a madhouse. She recognized the local news affiliates from Tucson and Phoenix, but there were so many more—the networks, CNN, Hard Copy, A Current Affair, photographers from People and the National Enquirer. They descended on Ted like sharks on chum.

  Alex was tempted to run. “Let me get Deputy McCutcheon. He’ll keep them at bay,” she told Ted.

  “That won’t work. They won’t leave without a story. Just stall for a few minutes and then I’ll give them a statement.” He ducked into the men’s room. The reporter from the Enquirer followed him in.

  Ted emerged a few minutes later. He’d washed his face and combed his hair. Wren-like wings curved back from a neat side part, edged with a wavy line of silver near the temples. The gray did little to age him. Ted Lang appeared completely disingenuous, putting Alex in mind of an Eagle Scout dressed as an adult. As he crossed to the podium, she realized that he wasn’t kidding; he’d handled this before.

  When did you decide to surprise her?

  How did you feel when you learned …?

  Who told you?

  Where were you when you found out?

  Is it true she hated her costar?

  “I have a statement I’d like to read,” Ted said. He unfolded a piece of paper and spread it out on the podium. “First I want to thank Sheriff Kyle Johnson and his department for …” His handsome face seemed almost vacant. Still in shock. “I know she would want us to finish the film. I’ve spoken to the producers and the director. They are all willing to go forward—” He was nearly drowned out by the yelling of the pack. “—and since they’d already planned to wrap filming this week, we’re confident Jagged Impact will not suffer from Caroline’s absence. Although it is painful for me personally, I cannot in good conscience deny her this last, final tribute,” His voice broke on the last word, and he turned away.

  Alex felt as if she’d just walked in on someone naked. The reporters didn’t seem bothered in the least by Ted’s breakdown. They clamored for more. Ted pulled himself together and spoke into the microphones. “That’s all I have to say. I hope you will respect my privacy. Thank you.”

  The night wrapped them in cool, black velvet, insulating Alex from reality. She sat on the foot of a chaise lounge, staring numbly into the pool.

  It was a peaceful night. The reporters had gone off to Palo Duro to film the Mexican morgue where Caroline’s body was kept. Knowing Mexico, Alex doubted they’d be successful.

  She and Ted were a stone’s throw from the hotel’s newly remodeled lounge, the Conquistador Bar and Grille, the name outlined in cursive neon on the outside wall. Someone had turned off the pool light. The neon’s reflection glided across the pool’s surface like an electric snake. Ted, sitting on the edge of the steps, stirred the water with his foot, breaking the reflection into bright-pink Morse code. “The sheriff asked you to stay with me, didn’t he?”

  Alex saw no reason to lie. “He thought you shouldn’t be alone right now.”

  Ted dabbled the water with his toe. “ Did Caroline say anything to you about someone bothering her?”

  “I saw the greeting cards.”

  “She got flowers, too. Gifts. I assumed they were from a fan. I didn’t take it seriously, but now I know she was more scared than she let on. I should have come back—” He made a choking sound, gulped, shoved his head into his hands. His shoulders shook with silent tears.

  Alex’s heart went out to him. She sat down beside him and put her arm around his shoulders. Ted wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. When he spoke, he kept his face averted from her, ashamed to be seen crying. “She was attacked last night. Why didn’t they suspend production until they knew it was safe? Why didn’t the sheriff offer her protection? I ought to sue the bastards.” He leaned against her, and Alex was aware of his thigh pressed against hers. “You wouldn’t believe the way she looked. So still, lifeless. I’ve never seen her like that before. She was always in motion. And that hole where the bullet … and they wouldn’t even let me take her home. You think the guy who was in her room here did it?”

  “I don’t know.” But Alex knew obsessed fans did kill the objects of their idolatry.

  “I wish I’d listened to her more. When I was here about a month ago I noticed that there were some guys on the crew who flirted with her—the usual thing. It was hard to tell if they were serious. Caroline always liked men better than women; she felt comfortable around them. She called them her drinking buddies. I still can’t believe it. She would have been thirty today.” He paused, got a grip on himself. “I keep trying to think ... I don’t know ... if there was someone on the crew who would do something like this.”

  A breeze sprang up. The leaves of the peppertree rustled.

  Ted stared up at the stars as if he could find the answer there. “There was one guy—a biker who drove one of the trucks. His name was Angel, although he was
anything but. Caroline hung out with him a lot. But I think he left the shoot.”

  “Did you tell the sheriff?”

  “Uh-huh. I told him about Booker, too—”

  “Booker?” Where had she heard that name before?

  “Booker Purlie. He’s the—you know, the assistant prop man. Weird little guy. He was always around. I could tell he had a crush on Caroline, but he was too shy to do anything about it. He’s harmless.” Ted dismissed him with a wave. He looked at her hopefully. “Did she say anything to you?”

  Alex told him her version of last night’s events, including her impression that Caroline was hiding something.

  Ted shook his head, clearly puzzled. “I don’t know what that would be. We never kept any secrets from each other. We kept in touch every day when I was in Italy. I know she was unnerved by this guy’s overtures, but she said it wasn’t important enough for me to stop what I was doing and come out here. I should have insisted.”

  Alex understood the guilt he was feeling. She, too, felt she had not done enough to save Caroline’s life. Even though an intruder had broken into Caroline’s room, Alex hadn’t seriously believed anyone would kill her. The idea ran against her entire belief system. Things like this didn’t happen to her, to her friends.

  But, of course, they did happen.

  Alex realized, at the back of her mind, there had been a small part of her that didn’t believe Caroline. Her story hadn’t made a whole lot of sense. Why didn’t the intruder do more than touch her? Why did he have a change of heart and write that vicious note after telling Caroline he wouldn’t hurt her?

  Guilt lay in her stomach like a badly digested meal. The only positive thing she could do now was sit here with Caroline’s husband and share his pain.

  Ted Lang reached for her hand and squeezed. “Thanks for coming. You must have cared a lot to drop everything and come here. I wish to God I’d been here.”

  “You had no way of knowing. Nobody did.”