“How would you feel if someone showed up on your doorstep and started yelling at you?”
Ben laughed. “What do you think you’re doing?” He leaned back against the car and crossed his arms again. “My guess is, she was just venting her anger. She won’t hurt you.”
“That’s great! That’s just great!” Chelsea felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. What’s the matter with me? She started to shake all over.
Ben spoke. “I went out with Sunshine twice. Early in the summer.”
“That’s all? But she said—”
“Twice.”
“How could she come up with all this stuff about how you were going to be Dawn’s father, how you were going to get married? How could she come up with a story like that?”
“I don’t know.” Ben opened the door to the cab.
“You must have led her on in some way!”
“I didn’t.” Ben sounded irritated.
Rage boiled up in Chelsea. How could he be so heartless? “You know, Ben, there are a lot of things about you I don’t understand. You shrug off this whole thing as if it were nothing. I guess being above it all is a point of honor with you, isn’t it? Don’t show your emotions, no matter what. Well, you might think being cryptic is attractive, but it turns me off!”
He closed the door and walked toward her again. “You’ve got me all psychoanalyzed, don’t you? Okay. I suppose I owe it to you.” He paused. “I did go out with Sunshine twice, but for reasons I won’t go into, I decided not to go out with her again. She built all this stuff up in her head. Is that clear enough for you?” He stepped back and rested his hands on his hips. “Now, you have to fulfill your part of the deal. Friendship is a two-way street.” He grinned wickedly,
“What do you mean, my part of the deal?”
“Your act of faith.”
Chelsea watched as Ben walked back to the truck and opened the door.
“You have to believe me.” He jumped into the truck, put it in gear, and drove out onto the highway.
Dust hung in the still air for a long time afterward.
Forty-eight
A week into their exploration and cleanup of the Tombstone Rose Mine, C.M. Tunney Mining and Exploration Company made a grisly discovery.
They found the skeleton of a woman.
She had been shot in the right temple by a large-caliber gun. Her other injury, a fractured femur, might have been sustained in the fall down the shaft.
Because the Tombstone Rose Mine had been boarded up for safety purposes since the early 1950s, the date of death was set before that time.
The body was taken to Tucson where detectives, working with a forensic specialist, would try to put together what evidence they had with the records of missing persons before 1950. There was little hope of discovering the identity of a skeleton that old.
Chelsea read about the discovery the next day in the Bisbee Daily Review.
The newspaper slipped from Bob McCord’s fingers and fell with a dry whisper to the floor. Making no move to retrieve it, he stared out at the cactus garden.
The sun threw a hopscotch pattern on the ochre, ceramic-tile floors. Birds sang and fluttered through the mesquite trees; quail pecked at the birdseed scattered on the ground outside the kitchen window. Coffee steamed unheeded at Bob McCord’s elbow; croissants and butter languished on china plates. He didn’t know why he prepared breakfast every day. The thought of food nauseated him. Every time he put food in his mouth, he thought of the rice crawling on his plate.
Sleep was a thing of the past. The dreams were getting worse—now Bob looked for excuses not to go to bed. He spent hours every night watching television, writing reports, playing solitaire, dusting furniture, taking walks—anything to keep from falling asleep. Nerves frayed, he watched the weight drop from him like a second skin. He could barely keep his eyes open. His mouth was dry, and the inside of his knees and elbows were chafed and sore. But none of these things compared with what had greeted him this morning.
The headline’s rhythm had found its way into his brain: body found in Tombstone mine, body found in Tombstone mine, body found . . . He could see a small plane pulling a banner through the sky: Body found in Tombstone Mine: Film at Eleven. Could picture the words in lights crawling along the marquee at the Plaza Hotel: HAPPY HOUR—SHRIMP COCKTAIL $1.99—BODY FOUND IN TOMBSTONE MINE—BABS MORRELL AT THE PIANO—
Kathy had reached to him from the grave.
He could hear her high, mocking laughter. He could see the green eyes, bright with fear and something else. Knowledge . . .
She had wanted to die. He knew that now. Maybe she’d wanted to join Johnny. He really didn’t know.
The events paraded through his head: the fire in the mine, the day he had gone to tell Kathy about John’s death. Even then she had seemed to know what he was about to say before he said it. At the edge of grief, waiting to hear the words.
Bob thought about John’s funeral. It had been glorious. Horses, all black, drew a hearse specially ordered for the occasion. Black plumes had been mounted on the horses’ head-stalls; crepe hung from crupper to breech straps. The cortege had wound through Bisbee to Evergreen Cemetery where Peggy McCord stood at the grave, grasping little Edward’s chubby hand in her own. It had been her first, and last, trip to Bisbee.
Kathy, of course, hadn’t been there.
Bob had been surprised to discover that Lucas, who had practically disowned John in life, deified him in death. The house in Warren was a shrine to John’s memory.
If John had lived, Bob could have competed with him as a man. But John had been only a bright promise. Who knew what he could have accomplished had he lived? Bob found himself in the unenviable position of playing second fiddle to a ghost—shadow-boxing in a game that had been fixed from the beginning.
Bob had waited a suitable time and then visited Kathy. He’d been impressed with her strength, the private way in which she had dealt with her grief. He’d wanted her more than ever.
She had shown him nothing but contempt. He couldn’t keep from acting like a fool over her, stumbling over himself to please her. His dead brother’s girl.
She had became his obsession.
Bob remembered the result of that obsession, the culmination of all the years he had been relegated to second place in Lucas McCord’s affections. First he’d been rejected by Lucas, then by Kathy. Bob hadn’t recognized the rage building up inside.
They had driven to Fry. He was ashamed, how he’d gotten her to go with him; he didn’t like to think about that. They’d left late in the afternoon, but it had been dark by the time they found the old woman’s house.
Mrs. Lewiston, the nurse, hadn’t corroborated his story, but she hadn’t denied it either.
Kathy had not believed him. Hell, he hadn’t really believed it himself. He knew Kathy had suspected him for concocting a story to get her alone with him.
They’d driven back. Bob had brought along a bottle of Cutty Sark; it rested between his legs. Every few minutes he’d drink from it. Kathy had sat as close as she could to the passenger door, her face a mask of distaste.
Stars had burned brightly overhead. The night heat had made his hands feel like paper. Liquor had bubbled through his lips and down into his stomach, the fumes rising like a phoenix to his brain. . .
An idea had formed in his mind. Once he’d realized what he was going to do, he’d clung to the plan with an obstinacy that could only have come from Lucas McCord. It had squelched the better part of him, silenced the small voice inside that had said: No. She won’t go for it. Leave her alone.
He’d been possessed. Possessed by liquor, possessed by his desire to own something his brother had, even if that thing was a person.
“I know a shortcut,” he’d told Kathy. “It’ll save us a quarter of an hour at least.”
Those words had changed his life.
Now, Bob’s fear came in waves, the troughs being memories. The way his body was ravaged by sleep-deprivat
ion and hunger, he was surprised he could feel anything at all. The only thing that kept him going was his tremendous desire. His desire to show Lucas McCord, once and for all, that he could amount to something. Governor Robert McCord. Over and over the words went through his mind until the other words—bigger and blacker and louder—pushed into his consciousness.
BODY FOUND IN TOMBSTONE MINE.
Fear took him like a wayward kite far above the territory of his twisted desires and blighted dreams, the dark country of his soul.
The smattering of lights belonging to Fry glittered far behind them. The graded road was rough. Rocks flew up to thump against the body of the new Packard belonging to his father. If Dad knew he had it . . .
Bob pulled on the whiskey again. He was getting a nice feeling in the pit of his stomach. His idea had solidified. It couldn’t be altered now.
Ahead loomed the cone-shaped hills surrounding Tombstone like a camp of pitched tents.
And there, up on the right, the other road. Leading to the ranch house.
Bob knew the land belonged to the Boquillas Cattle Company. No one lived in the house now. Until someone new moved in, the empty building was a perfect trysting place. Bob and his friends had discovered the ranch house one night earlier this summer. There had been a lot of parties there since then.
He peered over at Kathy. She stared straight ahead. As if she could feel his gaze, she turned to regard him.
He shivered. Her eyes were big and clear, pools so deep that he was lost in them for a moment.
The car ran into the ridge of rock debris along the side of the road. He righted the vehicle and shot another glance at her.
Her lipstick looked dark and slick in the starlight.
Funny. He couldn’t remember her wearing lipstick.
She grinned at him. Her teeth were perfect and white. Sharp.
He nearly gave up his plan at that moment. Something about her scared him.
Don’t be an idiot. She’s nothing but a helpless girl.
Almost to the turn-off. The road angled to the right, a gray line across miles of grassland and ocotillo and low bushes.
He drank again. Courage. He glanced at her shapely legs ending in those ridiculous shoes women wore these days. He thought about those legs wrapped around him. He thought about her calling his name instead of John’s. Once she had him, once she experienced his lovemaking, she would never think of his saintly brother again.
“Want to show you something,” Bob said. His voice was raspy, quavering. Not the image he wished to project. She intimidated him. It was hard to admit, but sometimes when he looked into her eyes, he saw the knowledge of ages there.
“I want to go home,” she said.
“Just hold your horses. It’s not far.” He held out the bottle to her. “Drink?”
“No.”
“Suit yourself.”
She sat calmly, her chin tipped toward the passenger window, her hair obscuring most of her features, that ridiculous camera perched on her lap.
He turned onto the road. It was little more than a track. The car whined as it gained the hump of dirt. He dropped the gear. The tires spun for a moment in the chalky dust. The dirt was fine and powdery, and when the tires gained purchase, he sighed in relief. It wouldn’t do to be stuck out here all night.
But Kathy was stuck. Oh yes, Kathy was in a real jam.
He wasn’t the first young man to go driving with a young woman at night. He wasn’t the first young man to take a woman to a lonely place where she had to make a decision. Cooperate or remain stranded. A choice, and she would have to make it. Certainly that wasn’t rape, was it? It was just a choice, plain and simple.
Excitement burrowed in his stomach. She wasn’t exactly a good girl anyway. He had a feeling that his brother’s girl could show him a few tricks he didn’t know.
“I want to go home,” she said again, looking straight at him.
Too late now, he thought. Too late.
Forty-nine
“It says here that Tenneco West swapped the land with the Bureau of Land Management in 1971,” Ben said. He set the heavy, cloth-bound record book down on the table in front of Chelsea.
“But it doesn’t say who the tenants were.”
Ben and Chelsea had spent most of the morning looking through ledgers recording land transactions and deeds in the County Recorder’s office, trying to find out who owned the abandoned house near the San Pedro River. Neither of them referred to yesterday’s conversation about Sunshine. After Chelsea had calmed down, she decided she had jumped to more than a few conclusions. It was entirely possible that Sunshine had wanted to marry Ben so badly, she had built up the fantasy until it seemed real. Sunshine was just crazy enough to do something like that.
Chelsea decided to believe Ben. The alternative would only make her miserable.
They had traced the property from the original Spanish land grant to the present owner, the Bureau of Land Management, who wanted the area for a riparian wilderness reserve. But nowhere did they find a record of the occupants of the house. If they went through every hand-written ledger, which numbered in the hundreds, maybe they would find something. Maybe.
“I know that someone lived there before the land went to the BLM,” Ben said. “I remember driving by and seeing people living there.”
“I wonder when the house was built.” If it was built in the early fifties—when the mine was boarded up—it would mean that Kathy couldn’t possibly have been killed there.
Ben glanced at her, and she saw pity in his eyes. He had asserted that whatever discrepancies came through Kathy, the central issues were always accurate. John didn’t die in the Copper Queen Mine, but he did die in a mine. The house on the San Pedro River might not be the site of Kathy’s murder, but he was positive that the murder had taken place.
One thing was certain: Kathy was haunting Uncle Bob. And there had to be a reason.
Nothing strange had happened to her since they’d gone to look at the house. Could Kathy have left her alone because she needed the energy to go after Bob?
They drove to Tombstone to see the mine where the body had been removed. The gates of C.M. Tunney Company were closed and padlocked—they couldn’t get within a mile of the place.
On the way home, Ben said, “We’re not getting very far by ourselves. Don’t you think it’s time to talk to the police?”
“What would I possibly say?”
“You could make an anonymous phone call. Say you have reason to believe that a woman named Kathleen Barrie might have been murdered sometime in the 1940s, and—”
“Hey, friends and neighbors, want to know how to rat on your great-uncle without getting caught? No muss, no fuss, no recriminations? Make an anonymous phone call.”
“Listen. Did it ever occur to you that you might be helping your uncle? You said you think Kathy’s after him. She might be waiting for you to do something. If you don’t, she could decide to mete out her own justice. Ever think of that? And another thing . . .” He took Chelsea’s hand. “If you don’t help, she might try to destroy you. I don’t think I could take that.”
“You’re afraid for me?”
“Yes, dammit, I’m afraid for you. I don’t care what a nice guy your great-uncle is, he’s not worth losing your life over. Besides,” he added, “maybe it will turn out he didn’t kill Kathy. Wouldn’t you feel better knowing that Kathleen Barrie is alive and well, living in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan? Or that the skeleton in the mine was just a two-bit floozy from the Tenderloin?”
Chelsea grinned. “Even floozies have the right to live.”
Ben’s hand came out and he ruffled her hair. “Don’t I know it?”
She socked him playfully on the arm.
Along with her psychic sensitivity, Chelsea had inherited something else from great-grandmother Mary McCord. Like Mary, she detested unpleasantness. And like Mary, she often set troubling problems aside, subconsciously hoping they would solve themselves, which of course, they n
ever did.
Despite Ben’s urging, Chelsea just didn’t see the wisdom in stirring up a hornet’s nest of questions right now. Much better to wait and let things unfold naturally—or unnaturally, as the case may be. After all, Bob’s career was at stake. The election was little more than a week away.
Chelsea didn’t want to be the bad guy. She had to take time to think about it, time to weigh the pros and cons.
Time was a precious commodity, and for Bob McCord, time was running out.
Fifty
On the drive over to Bob McCord’s house, George Becker reflected that it had been a bad day from the moment he woke up. Patty, his teenage daughter, was already on the phone when he came down for breakfast, and his wife had left a note saying she had a tennis date. So much for family togetherness, something his wife had been harping about lately. When he was ready to have breakfast with his family, they were off doing other things.
To top that off, he’d left his credit card at the filling station and didn’t remember it until he was halfway to Bob McCord’s, so he’d had to turn around and go back to get it, getting caught right in the middle of the rush-hour traffic.
Lighten up, he admonished himself. Nothing should bother me today. The family, the traffic, the credit card—nothing. Because today he should be floating on air. Today he had inherited his old friend Bob McCord’s campaign.
He should be overjoyed. After all, the groundwork had been laid ages ago. All George had to do was accept the accolades. Bob was a shoo-in. Everybody knew that.
So why did he feel so nervous?
Because Lindsey Harris—Bob’s former campaign manager—had looked like he had been through World War II when he’d come by yesterday evening and—in a wholly uncharacteristic manner—landed this plum in George’s lap. Family illness, Lindsey had told him. Can’t give Bob McCord the attention he deserves. But George could tell he was lying.
Why? Why had he handed over the reins now, when victory was almost assured?
Unless the rumors are true.
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