Scattered Graves dffi-6

by Beverly Connor

  ‘‘Hey, you talk to me, you damn bitch. Where do you think you’re going?’’ he yelled again. He sounded genuinely puzzled, as if she had taken flight or some thing equally unexpected and impossible. ‘‘You come back here,’’ he demanded.

  Yeah, right, thought Diane.

  She rarely climbed solo, certainly not on a rock face this high. It was dangerous without the safety of rope. Diane was good with rope. She liked it; she knew how to manipulate it, tie it. Rope was good. Hanging with her bare hands on the side of a cliff, she wasn’t so sure about. But she had judged Harve Delamore to be more dangerous than the rocks. She kept the level of the risk from her thoughts, reminding herself that she had climbed this face many times—albeit on rope—and she had never fallen. She was lucky he’d dragged her to this section of the gorge. There were other places on the cliff face that she could not climb.

  Diane continued inching her way down, always being careful. You feel the full weight of the laws of physics on the side of a rock face. Concepts like grav ity and equal and opposite reaction suddenly become very real.

  A rock the size of a melon bounced off the slope beside her. Harve was throwing boulders at her. Well, shit. She glanced up. She could see him grinning even from a distance.

  She climbed to her rock would give her a harder climb, but she rock. Another one the size of her head bounced near her, breaking on impact. At least he wasn’t a good shot. Diane braced her feet and found her handholds. She slowly moved to a safer place as the rocks rained around her from above. He was throwing anything he could find, as if he suddenly did believe there was a possibility she might get away from him.

  Diane found a place under a ledge where she could stop and rest. She heard him yelling but couldn’t un derstand what he was saying, though she did hear the word bitch a couple of times. She looked for footholds. They were harder to find in this route, and her shoes weren’t the best for climbing, but they did hold trac right, where the slope of the measure of shelter. It was a couldn’t survive a hit from a tion better than she had expected. Her muscles felt good at the moment—the stretching and exertion al ways felt good. She’d been afraid Harve had sprained her arm, jerking her around the way he had, but other than being sore, it seemed fine. This would work after all. She started moving again, putting one hand in a crack and another on a protrusion of rock. She pushed on the rock with one foot, finding a toehold with the other.

  As she moved along, she began hearing scraping sounds overhead. What now? she thought. She turned her head and looked up, but her view was obstructed by an overhang. She stopped and listened. He was climbing down. The crazy bastard was climbing down the rocks.

  She started descending again. After several feet, Harve came into sight. He was making his way down a large crevice between the ledge she had climbed down from and the adjacent rock. It looked to the untrained eye like an easier route, but it was decep tive. It was difficult to prevent your feet from becom ing wedged in the crevice.

  ‘‘Are you nuts?’’ Diane yelled at him. ‘‘You can’t climb down here.’’

  ‘‘Scared, little girl?’’ he shouted.

  ‘‘You should be scared. You’re not a rock climber,’’ she yelled back.

  ‘‘How do you know? I do this every weekend,’’ he sneered.

  ‘‘No, you don’t,’’ Diane said under her breath. ‘‘I know all the climbers and cavers.’’

  She wondered whether he had a backup gun. No, he would have used that instead of throwing rocks.

  ‘‘If you can do this, I can,’’ he shouted.

  So that was it, she thought. He wasn’t going to let a girl best him. Well, he was wrong. Diane was in her element. She felt calmer than she had since he’d dragged her out of her vehicle.

  She moved horizontally on the rock face, heading toward an easier path. A few feet from her was a slab of rock that looked vaguely like a sheep’s head plastered sideways against the cliff. Climbers called it Ram Rock. It had several creases and protrusions that were like features—eyes, a nose, an ear, and a horn. All made easy hand- and footholds. She had it in her mind now to climb back up to the top and run for her car, since Harve was down here.

  ‘‘I played football,’’ he yelled. ‘‘I could’ve gone pro.’’

  He sounded closer. She looked over at him. He was perhaps twenty feet to her left and above her position. He was working his way down the crevice and having a difficult time, going too fast.

  ‘‘Did you play ball on a vertical field?’’ said Diane.

  He didn’t respond. She watched as his foot slipped and slid down the crack. He grabbed at the rock. He stopped with a jerk when the crack widened to a tiny ledge. He looked startled, then scared. After a few moments he apparently thought he was safe, because he grinned at Diane. He pulled a knife out of his belt and pointed it at Diane, making small circles with the blade.

  ‘‘You don’t have time for that,’’ said Diane, calmly. ‘‘You need both your hands.’’

  ‘‘I’ll teach you to fuck with me,’’ he said.

  Then he looked down. He shouldn’t have. Below them at the bottom of the gorge was an old car some one had long ago pushed off the edge of the cliff into the canyon. At this height it looked like a child’s toy. The tops of tall pine trees swayed in the wind four hundred feet below them.

  Diane saw his face change. He grew pale, his eyes widened, and she knew his pupils were dilating. It hap pened so fast. He was panicking.

  Harve hugged the rock, not moving. Diane thought she heard him moan.

  ‘‘Stay calm,’’ she shouted. ‘‘Don’t let go of the rock. Hold on with both hands.’’ Why am I helping him? she thought. Let the bastard fall.

  He whimpered.

  ‘‘Breathe slowly and evenly,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Help me,’’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘‘Help me.’’ Diane had seen people panic on the rocks, but they

  were tied to ropes. If his panic got out of control, he would free-fall to the bottom.

  ‘‘Harve, listen to me. You’re standing on a small ledge. You can stand there for a long time until I get help. Try to stay calm.’’

  ‘‘I can’t,’’ he whimpered.

  What a change, she thought.

  ‘‘Concentrate on holding on. Don’t look down,’’ said

  Diane. ‘‘Look up. Look how close you are to the top.’’ Harve brought his gaze around and looked up. They

  were no more than fifty feet down. He whimpered

  again. It must look impossible to him. She was sure

  the tension in his muscles that panic brought was mak

  ing them ache.

  ‘‘Listen to me, Harve. Breathe more slowly. Relax

  just a little bit. You’re in a good place. You have a

  place to stand. Just stand there and I’ll get help.’’ ‘‘I can’t,’’ he whimpered.

  ‘‘Yes, you can. Concentrate on something else. Why

  did you come after me?’’

  Harve was silent for a long moment, and Diane re

  peated the question.

  Silence again. He wasn’t talking.

  ‘‘Harve, can you talk?’’ she asked.

  Harve squeezed his eyes shut. ‘‘Oh, God, oh, God,

  oh, God,’’ he whispered.

  ‘‘Breathe,’’ she said. ‘‘In and out. You are in a good

  place. You could stay there all day if you had to.’’ He was paying attention. His breathing didn’t sound

  so ragged.

  ‘‘You sound good. Just keep calm. Panic is your

  enemy, not me. When you panic, you’re in trouble,’’

  said Diane. ‘‘When you feel better, I’m going to go to

  call for help. Rescue will come and get you out of

  here, but you have to hang on.’’

  ‘‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’’ he said. ‘‘Have

  me waiting here while you go get help. Pretending to

  be my friend.’’
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  ‘‘I’m not pretending to be your friend. Obviously

  we aren’t friends. But I don’t want you to die out here

  either,’’ said Diane.

  He looked up, apparently reassessing his situation,

  deciding maybe he could climb back up after all. ‘‘I’m not going to die. You are.’’ He took aim with

  his knife, preparing to throw.

  ‘‘Don’t do that,’’ shouted Diane.

  He grinned, reared back, and threw the knife hard

  at Diane.

  Chapter 6

  Diane flattened herself against the rock face and watched in horror as the knife whizzed in a spinning blur toward her. She had no way to dodge it, nowhere to go. She threw one arm up in a defensive move just as the deadly blade struck the rock next to her abdo men and glanced off her waist.

  The sudden move, the twisting of his body from throwing the knife, had shifted Harve’s center of grav ity, spoiled his aim, and left

  himself upright. The laws of

  him struggling to hold physics are hell when

  you’re balanced precariously. His grip slipped on the rock. His arms flailed wildly, and his foot became caught in the crack. Diane heard the ankle break as his body fell backward, headfirst, his foot trapped in the fissure. He screamed, hung there for a moment; then his foot slipped from the crack and he fell five hundred feet to the bottom of the gorge. Diane didn’t look. There was no way he could survive; there was nothing on the way down that would break his fall, nothing to grab on to, no help, no hope. Diane winced when she heard the thump of his body impacting on the rocks at the bottom. She felt sorry for him, living his last moments in terror.

  She didn’t move for several long moments. She felt drained, her energy gone with Harve. Her heart beat faster and she felt sick. She couldn’t throw up. Not here. After a couple of minutes, her nausea subsided, her head cleared, and she moved again. She climbed over to Ram Rock and up to the top. It was an easy climb for her.

  She walked to her car to call for help. Her cell lay on the pavement, smashed beyond use. She walked back to Harve’s vehicle and called dispatch on his po lice radio.

  ‘‘Who is this?’’ the female voice interrupted. ‘‘Diane Fallon,’’ she said.

  ‘‘You’re a civilian. You aren’t allowed to use this

  channel,’’ the voice said.

  Diane started to tell her, Okay, I’ll go to the mu seum up the road and call 911. ‘‘I’m trying to re port—’’

  ‘‘Ma’am, you have to get off this channel. Where are you calling from?’’

  ‘‘A police car. I don’t know the number,’’ said Diane. ‘‘It belongs to Harve Delamore.’’

  ‘‘Where is the officer?’’ said the dispatcher.

  ‘‘He’s dead. He fell into Chulagee Gorge,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘Where are you?’’ the dispatcher asked.

  Diane gave her location. She got out of the police car and walked to her own vehicle, climbed in, and locked the doors. She was shivering, so she started the engine and turned on the heater. She looked in the rearview mirror at herself. Her face was a puffy, blood-smeared mess. Her blackened eye was swollen half shut. Her hair was in tangles, blotched with dried blood. She suddenly felt the way she looked. She put her forearms on the steering wheel, rested her head gently on them, and waited.

  It wasn’t long before she heard the sirens, faint at first, then growing louder and louder—coming in high volume to the rescue of a downed officer.

  Diane didn’t move until she heard a knock on her window. She jumped. It reminded her of how all this had started. She didn’t have the strength to do it again. This time she wouldn’t roll down the window.

  She lifted her head. It was Izzy Wallace. She smiled wanly and rolled her window down, glad to see a friendly face. Izzy looked at her.

  ‘‘What the hell happened?’’ he asked. ‘‘Wait a min ute. I’ll come around.’’

  He picked up the smashed cell phone and looked at it, worry on his face. He walked around and got in the passenger side of Diane’s red SUV.

  Diane explained all the events of the morning— from being pulled over by Harve Delamore to the fall.

  ‘‘So he’s at the bottom of the ravine?’’ said Izzy.

  ‘‘Yes. His gun is down there somewhere. I knocked it out of his hand. His knife is down there too. So is my jacket. My billfold with my driver’s license is in it,’’ she said.

  ‘‘We need to go to the police station, and you will have to give a statement again. We need to take a picture of you too. You look like hell,’’ he said.

  Diane looked at her face again in the rearview mirror. Her left eye was black and swollen, and she had a huge bruise from her eye to her jawline. And there was the blackening dried blood. She looked at her mouth and her teeth. Thank God, her teeth weren’t damaged.

  ‘‘I didn’t think he would come out on the rocks,’’ Diane said. ‘‘If you’ve never climbed before, it’s scary. I thought I could get away from him that way.’’

  ‘‘Harve never had the best judgment,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘You know there’s going to be some who will blame you.’’

  ‘‘I know. Does he have a family? A wife and kids?’’ asked Diane. ‘‘Are his parents still living?’’

  ‘‘He has an ex-wife. They didn’t have any kids. I think his parents are dead. He has a brother some where. I don’t think they got along.’’

  ‘‘That’s sad,’’ said Diane.

  Izzy escorted Diane into the police station, took a picture of her and her face, and walked her to one of the interview rooms.

  ‘‘This won’t take long,’’ he said.

  Janice Warrick walked in and frowned at her. ‘‘You look awful. Have you been to a doctor?’’

  Before Diane could answer, Curtis Crabtree came in with a patrolman and told Janice to leave.

  ‘‘I caught this case,’’ said Janice. She looked at each of them. The large frown line between her eyes deepened.

  ‘‘The chief is taking it,’’ Curtis said.

  The patrolman had thin light brown hair that looked slightly windblown. His name tag said he was Officer Pendleton. Of the two, he looked the most angry— and grief stricken. Izzy had said Delamore’s friends would blame her.

  Neither said anything. They just stood against the wall across from her, staring. Diane was surprised that Curtis was there. Perhaps like Neva, he was a police officer or a detective before he was recruited to work in the crime scene unit. Like any new broom, the new mayor had done a lot of sweeping. Diane was one of the people he’d swept out. In the wake, new people were hired. There were many in the police department now that she didn’t know.

  Diane didn’t say anything either. She sat and waited, hoping it wouldn’t be too long. She ached all over, and her head throbbed where Delamore had hit her. She closed her eyes and rested her head in her hands. She hoped that frustrated them—her not being able to see them stare at her.

  The door suddenly opened, and Edgar Peeks, Mayor Jefferies’ new chief of police, burst into the room. He had dark hair, hazel eyes, and almost a baby face, were it not for the day-old beard he seemed to always wear—perhaps because he had such a baby face.

  He pulled up a chair and sat opposite Diane, glaring at her for several moments.

  ‘‘You are in a lot of trouble,’’ he said.

  Diane said nothing; she simply gazed back at him thinking that, no, she wasn’t in trouble; the police de partment was—one of their officers just went berserk and tried to kill her.

  ‘‘Have you nothing to say?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘You haven’t asked a question,’’ said Diane. She was wondering why she was being treated as a perp instead of a victim. ‘‘I told the policeman on the scene what happened.’’

  ‘‘We’re not going to forget that you’re responsible for Harve’s death,’’ Pendleton said. He had his fists curled, like he wanted to fight.

  Dian
e wondered how ‘‘not forgetting’’ was going to manifest itself. Were Delamore’s friends going to stalk her? Pull her over every time they saw her? What?

  ‘‘How do you think I am responsible?’’ she asked him.

  ‘‘He’s dead because of you,’’ said Pendleton.

  ‘‘How?’’ repeated Diane. ‘‘I tried to get away from him. He shot at me, beat my face in, tried to push me off the cliff, and tried to kill me with rocks and a knife. All the while, I was trying to get away. If you blame me because I wouldn’t die, then you need to seriously rethink your values. I’m sorry you lost a friend. Truly I am. But I did not push him or in any way entice him to follow me out onto the cliff. He did that all by himself in an effort to harm me. Now, I’m really too tired for this.’’