The Laura Cardinal Novels

by J. Carson Black

  And the man is him.

  Chapter 47

  As Laura listened to Frances Goodenough at Oro Valley PD, she started to get a bad feeling. As if she were in her car with the windows rolled up and the air at full blast, the stereo turned up all way, and someone was tapping on the window.

  The more she ignored it, the louder the tapping became, until at last she had to turn off the air conditioner and the stereo and look at the window to see who was tapping so insistently.

  This was what had been bothering her: Two cars had left the Brashear's house earlier this morning. The Navigator was one. The maid's car was the other.

  If Lourdes had driven out under her own steam, how had Angela taken her hostage?

  Laura looked at the Oro Valley PD detective. She didn't want to tread on his interview, but she had an important question.

  He saw her look, and he nodded.

  “You said ‘they,’” Laura said to Fran Goodenough. “You said they left you out in the desert. What did you mean by they?”

  Fran Goodenough, a pale, blond woman with short hair and very pale eyes, looked at Laura, her plump face confused. “I—I meant the two of them. The one who had the gun on me and the one in the backseat, yelling at me. The little one.”

  “The little one?”

  “The older lady.”

  Laura pictured the deputy escorting the Brashear's maid to his car. “Excuse me,” she said. She went outside and called Nina Brashear, who answered on the first ring. Laura asked how Dr. Brashear was.

  “He's in surgery. That's all I know.”

  “Is Lourdes with you?”

  “Lourdes?” She sounded as confused as Fran Goodenough had looked.

  “A sheriff's deputy dropped her off at the hospital so she could be with you.”

  “I haven't seen her.”

  Laura thanked her and hung up. She called the sheriff's office and was patched through to the deputy who had taken Lourdes to the hospital.

  “I dropped her off at the front entrance,” he told her.

  Back inside the office, Laura asked Fran Goodenough to go over her story again.

  Two women had approached her as she’d prepared to unload her groceries into the trunk of her car. She’d been reaching down for the trunk lever on the driver's side when the younger woman had pushed her back into the car.

  That was when she’d noticed the black SUV parked in the adjoining space. The older woman had started pulling things out of the SUV and throwing them into the Camry, all the time talking in Spanish. The younger woman had shown Frances her gun, ordering her to stay put in the driver’s seat. She’d gone around and got in on the passenger side, had pushed the gun into Frances's side and told her to drive. The older woman had gotten in the back with all the stuff she'd brought along with her.

  They’d found a dirt road, and the younger girl had told told Frances to keep driving until they were hidden from view. Then they’d pushed her out, warned her not to tell anyone, left her there.

  “Did the older woman talk to you?”

  “She told me they would come after me and kill me if I didn't do exactly what they said.”

  “She said this in English?”

  “I don't speak Spanish.”

  Laura had been completely fooled. Everyone had. They had taken Lourdes at face value. Perhaps it was because she was a maid; shy, cowed, seemingly unable to speak English—the kind of person who passed under the radar. No one had bothered to really look at her.

  Laura blamed herself. She had not been able to look beyond the stereotype and actually see the woman.

  So who was she?

  Lourdes had told Frances Goodenough that her daughter would come back and kill her if she didn't cooperate. Laura remembered what Trudy Goodrich told her about the woman who ran the ringtoss, whose fifteen-year-old daughter had taken up with Robert Heywood all those years ago.

  Lourdes was Angela's mother.

  Chapter 48

  From the Oro Valley PD, Laura drove back to the Purvis place; she would use it as her headquarters. As she turned into the yard, Victor called. A check with Yellow Cab—the third taxi company he had contacted—yielded a fare from the University of Arizona Hospital. The taxi driver described a Hispanic woman in a maid's uniform. He'd dropped her at a parking lot in Reid Park and saw her get into a white Tempo or Topaz. The time was one fifty-four p.m.

  Reid Park bordered on Colonia Solana Estates on the south. Lourdes must have driven the few blocks to the park earlier in the day and left her car there for later, in case she needed it.

  “We've requested a fixed-wing aircraft from Phoenix to search for both the Mercury and the truck,” Victor said. “If they can get to I-19, it's a straight shot to Mexico. You gonna handle next of kin?”

  Laura agreed that she would. At the Purvis trailer, she waited for the crime scene techs to finish (they were within minutes of her arrival) and found the phone number for Lucy Purvis, Clinton's ex-wife, on the speed-dialer of his phone. She called the number and broke the news that Clinton had been in a shooting and was in the hospital.

  “He'll be all right, won't he?” Mrs. Purvis asked her.

  “We think so.” Laura gave her the information, then asked her about Angela's mother and started to describe her.

  “I can do you one better,” Mrs. Purvis said. “I have a photo of them from the carnival. I know exactly where it is—it's in a photo album in the den. Let me scan it, and I'll send it to you.”

  Twenty minutes later, Laura was looking at a photo of Lourdes and Angela on her cell phone. Lourdes was a younger version of the Brashears's maid. Angela was in her teens, but she hadn't changed all that much.

  Lucy Purvis said to Laura, “I knew there was something bad about Angela from the very beginning. The way she'd suck up to you if she wanted something, and other times, she'd look right through you as if you didn't exist. She and her mother were always plotting something. Lourdes had a reputation as a flattie.”

  “A flattie?”

  “I heard she flattened the games sometimes—if there was a mark with some obvious cash she wouldn't let him win, she'd go for all the money she could get and leave him flat broke. She was very smooth about it. Had that look down to a T. ”

  “What look?” Laura asked.

  “That defenseless, oh-poor-me look. People always underestimated her. And Angela. She never got into trouble herself, but she got plenty of the other kids in hot water. She always made me think of the cat who drank the cream. That smile on her face. As if she was so superior. You really think she helped Heywood kill Tom?”

  “I do think that, but I don't know that we could prove it.”

  Lucy said, “I knew it.”

  Laura checked the farm building she and Jaime had looked at on their earlier trip out here, thinking that while Lourdes was going into her terrified maid act, Angela had to hide somewhere until she could escape. Laura entered the cavernous building and walked straight to the tractor. She had to stand on her tiptoes to peer into the interior. The windows were dusty and grimy, and she could see only part of the floor. Laura went around to the other side and got up on what passed for a running board. She was about to touch the glass when she saw the four fingertip prints stark against the dust.

  She stepped back down from the tractor and called for the DPS fingerprint tech, who was currently driving back to Tucson. Then she waited in the relative cool of the farm shed. Before she'd seen the prints and backed off, Laura had managed to angle her gaze toward the floor of the tractor. An old blanket lay on the floorboard. She surmised that Angela had used the blanket to cover herself up.

  Angela could have easily sneaked out the back door of the machinery shed.

  She called the deputy who had arrived on the scene first. “Did you see Purvis's truck?” she asked him.

  “The green Ford F-250? No. I thought the suspect took it.”

  “Did you see any vehicles other than the Camry?”

  He thought about it. “No
.”

  “I'd like to ask the other deputies at the scene—could you have them call me asap?” She gave him her number.

  “I could ask them all and call you back with a report.”

  “No, I want to talk to each of them separately. Just have them call me.”

  She sat down on the concrete lip in the shade of the farm machinery building, out of the oppressive heat, staring at the dogs' graves, but thinking about Angela.

  Thinking about everything that had happened today. It appeared that twenty-five-year-old Angela had managed to convince everyone she was twenty-year-old Micaela Brashear—easy enough to do.

  But would they ever find the real Micaela?

  Laura watched as Dan Montes, one of the lab techs, stowed his equipment into the back of his van. Her mind going back to Micaela—another lost girl. Probably buried somewhere in the desert.

  And what about Lily? Was Lily real or just someone Angela had made up for her own amusement? As she had made up Bill Smith, the paper tiger of kidnappers. Laura's gaze strayed to the graves again. She noticed that a couple of the wooden signs—the two at the end— had nothing written on them.

  Dan Montes had just opened the door to his van when Laura yelled out for him to come over to the shed and bring his shovel.

  Chapter 49

  Laura was supervising the excavation of the dog graves when her phone chirped. She answered, thinking it would be one of the sheriff's deputies calling her back about the truck. She'd already seen the tire tracks on the far side of the farm machinery building. If the truck had been parked there when the sheriff's deputies arrived, it would have been invisible from the mobile home. All Micaela would have to do was wait until the techs were inside the trailer before driving away.

  The caller wasn't a sheriff's deputy, though; it was Victor. “We've got Lourdes.”

  Laura's pulse quickened. “Where'd you find her? Is Angela with her?”

  “Nope, just Lourdes. But we're pretty sure where she is. You know that old steak house on Arizona 79? Hennessey's Steak House and Bar?”

  Laura remembered it. As she recalled, it was probably seven or eight miles from the turnoff to Trinidad Ranch.

  Victor said, “Lourdes was just pulling up outside Hennessey's when one of our own spotted the car. When he turned around to check her out she was getting out of the car—-took one look at him, jumped back in, and laid scratch outta there. Fortunately, we already had DPS all over that road, they put out a spike strip, and voila!”

  “Is she talking?”

  “Nope. But before she got in the car, she started yelling to somebody in the steak house. The patrol officer didn't know Spanish, but he could swear she was warning them.”

  “You think Angela's in there?”

  “They could have set it up for a meet. It's memorable—just that one building on that long stretch of road.”

  “I'm on my way.”

  “See you there.”

  Laura pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant just as Victor arrived from the direction of Tucson. There were two highway patrol cars and a sheriff's vehicle. Pulled up at an angle, doors open, replaying the scene of earlier today. Déjà vu all over again.

  Hennessey's Steak House and Bar was a long white building of stuccoed adobe. She could tell it was an old structure. One side looked as if it had originally been a small ranch house, with a slight pitched shingle roof. There was a small square window near the eaves of the pitched roof—an attic window. No window pane, though, just open space. Blackness.

  She shaded her eyes and squinted at the attic window. Thought she saw a movement, but she couldn't be sure.

  “How long have you been here?” she asked the highway patrol officer.

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Has there been any reaction from inside?”

  “Nope. We announced ourselves, but there's been nothing.”

  She looked up at the attic, and her heart shifted in her chest. Did she really see a movement? If she did—if it was Angela—they would have a dangerous situation. Angela would be above them as they went up the stairs. She would have the upper hand.

  “Do you know how she got in?”

  The highway patrolman—his badge said Wasson—-motioned to the right. “There are three windows on the side. All of 'em boarded up, but one looked like it's been pried out enough for someone to get in. Could have been the suspect. Could have been transients, too, looking for a place out of the weather.”

  She stared at the building, barely registering the faded blue cursive writing under the eaves: HENNESSEY'S STEAK HOUSE AND BAR.

  The boarded-up windows were covered with graffiti. She imagined a few people had spent time inside.

  “We have someone at the back door and at every window that isn't boarded up,” Wasson added.

  Laura knew there were two options. One was to wait her out—for hours if need be. That would be a SWAT operation and would come with a hostage negotiator. The other option, equally defensible: Go in now.

  It was now the hottest part of the day. The temp must be over a hundred and ten. The air was like an oven, the heat a live thing clawing at her breath. Out here under the oppressive sky, the sunlight bounced hard off the metal of the cars, and heat waves rose off the desert floor like fumes from a jet engine. Plenty of humidity, but no rain in sight. Laura herself was slippery with sweat, beads of it prickling her scalp under her hair, trickling down her sides. The only dry place on her was her mouth and throat.

  She had a bad feeling.

  She called her sergeant. Jerry asked her to describe the situation. She tried to keep her voice low and calm: just the facts, ma'am. “Do you want to send a SWAT team?” she asked him.

  He covered the phone, and she heard muffled conversation, then he came back on the line. “No, the lieutenant and I both agree. You handle it. Use your best judgment.”

  She closed the phone, took a deep breath, and looked at Victor.

  “We're going in.”

  He gave her a quick nod. They had done this before.

  Laura said, “You and I will go in the front. I go low, you go high.” She glanced at Wasson. “Officer Wasson, I want you at the back. You say there's just the one back door?”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Don't go in until I say it's clear.” She didn't want them to go in at the same time and possibly shoot one another by mistake. “Are we clear on that?”

  “Yes, ma'am.” He started for the back. Laura waited for him to get in position. Watched the sheriff's deputies, all of them tense and ready, covering them from the front. “Police!” Laura yelled. “Come out now!”

  No answer.

  “Police!”

  The sound thudded in the silence, not even an echo.

  The door to the steak house had a padlock. Laura mimed a cutting action with her fingers to one of the sheriff's deputies to get a bolt cutter from the back of her Yukon and to follow them. They were careful to walk to the edge of the building and follow the wall, staying under the windows, even though they were boarded up. She nodded to the sheriff's deputy, and he sheared off the lock.

  She nodded again, and he worked his way back behind his car.

  Victor stood on the right side of the door, gun drawn and ready. Laura crouched on the left, the SIG slippery in her sweating hands. “On three,” she said.

  Victor shoved his foot into the door, and it shuddered open.

  “Police! Don't move!”

  Both of them aiming into the darkness, Laura's gun scanning back and forth. Thinking at any moment they could be ambushed and killed.

  “Police!”

  There was no sound except for pigeons in the rafters.

  A square of light on the floor in the darkness from a hole in the roof.

  “Clear!” Victor yelled.

  There were three rooms in the steak house. They cleared every one of them.

  No sound except for the flapping of feathers, the cooing of doves.

  All the appl
iances had been ripped out except for the tall counter where waitresses gave their orders and a stainless steel area for putting together the plates of food.

  Stairs in the back, behind the partition to the kitchen.

  The doves chortling softly.

  Laura looked at Victor, her regular partner most of the time. Victor, who had five kids, one them only a year old. She decided if anyone was going to get shot, it would be her.

  Laura was scared, but more than that, she was angry. Her anger rose up in her from a place she hadn't known existed. She realized then that she wanted Angela. It was between them and only them. It had been like that from the moment Angela had lied to her at the Brashear house. Eliciting her sympathy and playing her for a fool. Angela had killed Chris and nearly killed Jaime. She had killed three little girls that Laura knew of. That would end now.

  “I'm going up,” she said to Victor. “Cover me.”

  He was about to argue, but saw her face, conceded: “I'm right behind you.”

  She started up the stairs, Victor behind and to the side, his gun trained on the opening at the top. The opening lighter, from the sunlight coming in from the small window. Dust motes snowing down.

  Laura's heart felt like an engine revving madly in her chest. Fear clamped down on the rest of her, numbing. She knew there was heat in this stiflingly close stairway, but her extremities felt cold, the SIG frozen in her hand. The stairway seemed to narrow before her like a tunnel.

  Up, quietly, each step painfully slow.

  Nothing moving up there. Not a shadow, not a sound.

  She kept seeing, in her mind's eye, Angela leaping out like a jack-in-the-box.

  She reached the top step, twisted, and aimed.

  The attic was empty except for some old chairs and tables. The sun pouring in through the small window. A shred of curtain moving slightly.

  “Clear!” she yelled, surprised at how hoarse she sounded.

  The curtain had been what she had seen from outside.