The Desert Waits

by J. Carson Black

  Relief flashed through her. No white dune buggy. The bug had put a scare into her yesterday, even though there was no logical link between the car and Booker Purlie.

  The way he’d raved on about Caroline ... crazy.

  She was grateful to Ted for rescuing her in the restaurant, although she’d certainly paid a price. When Alex was in high school and college, she would go anywhere with anyone just to be popular. But as she grew up, she found herself preferring her own company and became a lot more discriminating. She realized she didn’t have to spend time with everyone she met, particularly people who were, frankly, dull. And yet she’d found herself marking time with Ted Lang and wishing she could get away.

  White bread, an uncharitable voice said in the back of her skull. Not just any white bread either. The guy had Wonderbread written all over him.

  Bland or not, Caroline must have seen something in him. It was difficult for Alex to picture the two of them together. Caroline, irreverent, wisecracking, wearing that elusive star quality like a mantle. And Ted Lang, so middle-management he faded into the woodwork. How did those two ever get together?

  Cut the guy some slack. His wife just died. Listening to him was the least she could do—that one time.

  The dirt road wound down through the foothills of the Cascabels, occasionally crossing a dry wash. Chips of mica embedded in the rocks bounced light up into Alex’s eyes like silver sequins. At this time of morning, the shadows were long; the bottom of one arroyo was so dark that Alex almost didn’t see the cat lying in the middle of the road. She slammed on the brakes.

  The cat lay like a gray-and-white mat on the dirt, a spot of blood leaking from its mouth. It was a fluffy domestic cat; worlds away from the jaguarundi.

  Alex pulled over to the side and got the ground sheet from the back of the Jeep. The least she could do was move the dead creature off the road, keep someone else from hitting it. She knelt beside the animal. Its sides rose and fell shallowly. The blood, she realized, came from a lost tooth. There wasn’t another mark on the cat, but it probably had internal injuries and would die soon.

  As she pondered what to do, the sound of rocks popping off tires alerted her to the curve in the road ahead of her. A beige Bronco rounded the shoulder of the hill; sunlight speared off the red and blue lights on top. Deputy McCutcheon emerged from the Bronco and walked over. His shadow was cool on her neck. He squatted down and touched the cat’s throat with his finger.

  “I think he’s in shock,” Alex said. “You know if there’s a vet around here?”

  “Not for miles.” He helped her slide the cat gently onto the sheet. “Maybelle Deering lives back up the road a half mile. She’s an animal rehabilitator licensed by US Fish & Wildlife. This might even be her cat. I’ll take you.”

  He handed Alex the bundle and opened the Bronco’s passenger door. Alex held the cat wrapped in the ground sheet as they bumped over the washboard ribs of the road.

  “I was on my way to see Maybelle anyway,” the deputy said. “On the way back, I was going to stop in and see you. What’s going on?”

  “I saw on the news that the sheriff says the case is closed.”

  “It is, officially. But that doesn’t mean we can’t open it again. You know anything?”

  Alex glanced over at him. He sounded casual, and she sensed he was more than a little interested. She debated telling him about the dune buggy, but on this sunny morning, its appearance at two places really did seem more of a coincidence than anything else. Instead she said, “Have you investigated Booker Purlie?”

  “He was one of the witnesses we talked to.”

  “He said some pretty strange things to me.” She relayed the incident in the restaurant.

  “You think he was the fan who was harassing Caroline?”

  “Don’t you?” Alex saw a big pothole coming and braced against the seat back to keep from jouncing the cat. Nick McCutcheon slowed and eased the truck’s wheels through the dip.

  “Suspicion’s one thing, but we don’t have probable cause to do anything else at this point.”

  “So you’ll do nothing?”

  “We’re working on it, Ms. Cafarelli. It’s going to take time for the autopsy results, especially with the Mexican government dragging its feet. Ah, here’s Maybelle’s. She owns the Hotel Sonora, did you know that?”

  “You know someone was harassing her. You saw the cards. He said he’d surprise her for her birthday, and he did.” Suddenly aware of the agitation in her voice and how it might affect the cat in her arms, Alex took a deep breath. It wasn’t her affair anyway. Caroline had been more of an acquaintance at this point in their lives.

  Except she couldn’t let it go. She didn’t even know why it was so important to find out who killed Caroline, but it nagged at her like a cut that wouldn’t heal.

  And she had a strong feeling that Booker Purlie was the killer. The idea that he was walking around while Caroline was lying in a Mexican morgue—it made her mad.

  Deputy McCutcheon turned onto another dirt road marked by a mailbox. Ahead, three enormous eucalyptus trees rose up out of the desert, sheltering a house like admiring aunts around a crib.

  “The cat okay?” McCutcheon asked.

  “He’s still breathing.” Alex stepped out onto the dirt, her ears ringing with the ubiquitous bird chorus, the sun warm on her shoulders. Saguaros, long fingers gloved in dark velvet, poked up amid the brighter greens of shrubby mesquite and palo verde trees. At this time of the morning, the spires of the tall cacti were haloed by silver, backlit against shadowed blue mountains. The eastern flank of the Cascabels drowsed above the desert floor like a long-tailed lizard.

  Nick McCutcheon had already crunched up the drive and disappeared behind an olive-green palo verde tree. Alex shifted the bundle in her arms and followed him.

  “You there!” The voice sounded like an engine revved as loud as it would go. Borderline female. “You’re trespassing!”

  Alex turned around and her heart lurched at the apparition twenty feet away: a woman of indeterminate age astride a bloated Appaloosa. Four of her five dogs could have been Australian shepherd mixes, and the fifth one was a Jack Russell terrier—the hairy kind. The woman wore a ratty Cubs cap, denim workshirt, chaps, cowboy boots, and a squash blossom necklace holding a chunk of turquoise the size of a baby’s fist. Her complexion had been cured to cowhide. Hennaed braids, coarse as copper wire, hung down to her waist; she’d be a dead ringer for Willie Nelson if it weren’t for the eye patch. Above the patch was the half-moon imprint of a horseshoe—nail and all—mashed into her forehead.

  “Don’t you know it’s rude to stare? Now, who the hell are you?”

  “She’s with me,” Nick said, reappearing in the drive. “We found a cat in the road. We thought it might be yours.”

  Maybelle Deering jumped down and pulled the Appaloosa’s bridle off. “Get out of here, Bob.” She belted the horse hard across the flanks. He squealed and pinned his ears back before charging off, the western stirrups beating a tattoo on his oil drum sides. “Let’s have a look.”

  “Aren’t you worried about your saddle?” Alex asked.

  “He’s too fat to roll on it. ‘Sides, he knows better. Knows I’d hack him up for horse meat.” The horseshoe on Maybelle Deering’s head was the color of fired brick. Alex tried to avert her eyes, but it was difficult.

  “You seen enough or do you want to buy a ticket?”

  “You got to admit it takes some getting used to. Miss Maybelle,” Nick said. He turned to Alex. “Bob kicked her when she was shoeing him, when was it? Four years ago? She was lucky to come out of it alive.”

  “Crushed my eyeball like a grape and put me in a coma for two days. I can’t smell anything I eat. Almost shot him for it, but I figured that would be a mercy and I wanted to make his life hell. I trot him in the wash one hour every morning and one hour every evening as punishment. Fat old bastard, doesn’t make a dent. But he hates it and that’s good enough for me. Let me see the ca
t.”

  Alex pushed aside the sheet. The cat’s eyes were open and focused on nothing. At first she thought it had died, until the ribs rose again.

  “Shock is good anesthesia. We’d better go to work.”

  Maybelle Deering led them toward the house, followed by her doggy retinue. The Jack Russell kept jumping at Alex’s knees, a fat bullet-shaped pest with an irresistible face.

  “Down, Spot!” Maybelle yelled. She didn’t have to tell him twice.

  The house’s facade was a smaller, rundown version of the hotel—stuccoed adobe with a squared, undulating roofline. But these walls were dingy tan and rust-streaked from metal canales below the roof. A patch of stucco had broken off near one of the windows to reveal a jigsaw piece of adobe.

  “It ain’t much, but it’s home.”

  A chastity belt of mature prickly pear cactus, some branches reaching five feet in height, circled the house. Judging from the build-up, the window and door frames had been painted over many times; this incarnation was cerulean blue. The window screens ballooned out where they weren’t torn. Chicken wire had been tacked the length of the porch, and a refrigerator had been placed up against the front door. Apparently Maybelle Deering didn’t want anyone to use the front entrance.

  They walked past this section of the house to a room that must have been added on later. White-painted brick, flat-roofed. Swampbox cooler. The roof extended to a carport which had been slapped together with cheap wood and panels of corrugated plastic: yellow, pink, and turquoise. Saguaro ribs were laid across the top, striping the packed earth of the lean-to with shade.

  The carport contained not cars but cages and terrariums. Alex glimpsed a rabbit and a white-winged dove behind the wire cages.

  After spraying down the table with Fantastik and wiping it vigorously, Maybelle took the bundle from Alex and set it on a wooden trestle table. She rummaged through a tackle box and came up with a syringe and vial.

  “I’ll give him something for shock.” She plunged the needle into the skin between the cat’s shoulder blades. As she waited for it to work, she palpated the animal. “No broken bones. I don’t think there’s internal bleeding, but you can’t be sure.”

  “So it’s not yours?” Nick asked.

  “I don’t keep cats. Too much temptation around here. You need to wrap him up and keep him warm and quiet. Can you do that?”

  “I guess so. I’m staying at the hotel.”

  “We don’t allow pets, but you go tell Ray Ochoa I said it’s okay.”

  “Thanks.” Alex hadn’t given any thought to keeping the cat, but Maybelle Deering treated the situation as though it were a fait accompli.

  “You here on vacation?”

  “Sort of.” Alex didn’t feel like going into Caroline’s death.

  “You aren’t that wildlife photographer’s been poking around the canyon, are you?”

  Surprised, Alex said, “I didn’t know I was so well-known.”

  “Everybody knows everybody else’s business around here. You photographing anything special?”

  Alex shrugged. “Not really.”

  “I heard not too long ago how there’s supposed to be jaguarundi around here. You’re not out here because of that, are you?”

  “I’ve been looking,” she admitted.

  “You had any luck?”

  “No.”

  “You won’t, either. The last one anybody spotted was in the thirties, and Game & Fish isn’t even sure about that. Some rancher saw it from a distance. Could have been an immature mountain lion.” She patted the cat. “Well, you do see one of ‘em, you call me. I’d love to see it, but I won’t hold my breath.”

  Nick McCutcheon stood in the drive, looking at something beyond Alex’s line of sight. He strolled back to the carport, arms folded across his chest, long legs scuffing up little pillows of dust. Alex thought he looked damned good.

  “You still doing construction?” he asked Maybelle.

  Maybelle returned the vial to the tackle box. “Yeah, it’s turning into my life’s work. When I started, all’s I was planning was a place to keep these animals. It’s growing like Topsy.”

  “With that high fence and all those earthmovers, looks like you’re gonna build another Superdome.”

  “Ever hear of liability? That’s why I fenced it in, plain and simple. I’m digging a basement. Some of these animal’s are nocturnal and they’ll do better in where it’s dark and quiet. And why are you so nosy?”

  “Delbert’s been complaining about the noise. The bulldozer and all. Says they’re doing it at night.”

  “Of course they’re doing it at night! It’s the desert, for Christ’s sake. Too hot during the day. I don’t know what Del’s problem is. He’s got to be two miles from here. Tell that old fart to mind his own business.”

  “Sound carries in the open.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll tell my boys to stop at ten. How’s that?”

  “That’s reasonable. So what have you got lately?”

  “Not much. That dove’s lost a lot of feathers, don’t know if it’s gonna make it. Your cat probably got it,” she added pointedly. “But that red-tailed hawk’s doing well. Gonna let him go soon.”

  “Can we see him?” Nick asked.

  “Why not?” Wrapping the cat in a rag rug, Maybelle placed him in a cage. “That’ll keep him,” she said. She led them into the house.

  Alex had expected squalor. The place was messy, yes, but Maybelle must have remodeled the kitchen in the last ten years. They passed into a large, dark room dominated by an enormous picture window. Through the window Alex could see a large clearing of graded earth, a hill embroidered with new desert plants. Rows of boxed mesquite and saguaro cactus, wrapped like mummies, stood inside the high chain-link fence. Two tractors rested nose to tail next to a new pueblo-style building which had been painted a deep, rosy terra cotta, the color of the homes of Santa Fe.

  Alex had made a number of assumptions about Maybelle Deering. One, that she was poor despite her ownership of the Hotel Sonora. Or maybe because of it. But the building and the construction site looked as though they would cost a lot of money.

  “You like it? I’m gonna knock this old relic down and live there with my animals. There’s even gonna be room for Daddy’s collection.”

  “Collection?”

  Nick pointed to the walls. Alex, whose eyes had to adjust to the light after staring through the window, had to blink a couple of times to see anything.

  What she saw was a tribute to excess. Heads of every kind of game animal imaginable stared balefully from the walls. Some, she recognized, were from Africa. A grizzly bearskin stretched out before the fieldstone fireplace, its snarling head as big as a medicine ball. Zebra skins had been tacked up on the walls. A polar bear stood on its hind legs near the window.

  “Daddy was a big game hunter,” Maybelle said. “Don’t believe in it myself. I like my animals alive.”

  Amen to that.

  “Still, the Bible says respect your folks, and if he took the trouble to shoot and mount them, I’m gonna have a place for them. You wait here for a minute, the place is a mess. I’m not sure I can even get the door open.”

  Nick was quiet as Alex stared around the house of horrors. Besides making her angry, it gave her the creeps.

  Maybelle reappeared. “Come on. At least you’ll be able to walk through now.”

  There were no hallways in this rabbit warren of a house, just one room leading to another. They stepped down or up as the house followed the contours of the hill. Alex did notice that the worn linoleum floors were covered with expensive oriental carpets.

  They passed through a murky room which derived its greenish tint from the bougainvillea vine covering the window like a mat. The curtains consisted of brightly striped Mexican saddle blankets strung on a cord. It was a narrow, long room filled with small cages and terrariums, some of which had been covered by dust sheets, probably to keep recovering creatures in dark and quiet. Alex looked with int
erest at the snakes, lizards, scorpions, and other insects. Under the window, a bank of cages contained mice.

  “Do a land-office business in mice. Raise ‘em myself and sell them to people who’ve got snakes,” Maybelle said. “Have a few rattlesnakes here.” She pointed to a refrigerator next to a portion of wall covered with a black tarp—more construction? “Antivenin, just in case.”

  She opened the door on another porch, this one caged in, approximately eight by fifteen feet, covered with a canopy of thin mesh. A red-tailed hawk was perched on a truncated tree.

  The red-tailed hawk was the most urban of hawks and loved to perch on telephone poles, watching for prey and then swooping down on it. This hawk was an orphan. Maybelle was teaching it to become wild again.

  On the way back to the Jeep, Alex tried to assimilate what she’d seen. “Does she really punish her horse every day?” she asked Nick.

  “You could look at it that way, or you could just say she’s keeping him in shape.”

  Alex shuddered. “The great white hunter—the son-of-a-bitch!”

  “That would be the late senator, Maurice Deering.”

  “My parents voted for him. I thought he was a liberal.”

  “You’d be surprised what personal tastes some liberals have.”

  “Some of those animals were endangered species.”

  “Deering died in 1967. He’s beyond prosecution.”

  “How old is Maybelle, anyway?”

  “Sixty-two.”

  “She doesn’t look it.”

  “Must be the Oil of Olay.”

  “I thought she was poor, but that house she’s building must cost a fortune.”

  “Her daddy left her a fortune.”

  “To live like that ... it’s good what she does, though, for the animals.”

  “What are you going to do with the cat?” Nick asked.

  “I guess I’ll keep it for now. Maybe I should put an ad in the paper. Maybelle said I could keep him at the hotel.”

  “You’re staying then. Do you mind if I ask why?” He glanced at her. She couldn’t read his expression because of the dark glasses he wore.