I don’t know if I said something witty or if he was just surprised to hear that kind of talk come from a woman who looks like me. This time he belly-laughed, and he had the belly to do it with. “Now that, that I can agree with.”
The taxi finally arrived before I could make an even bigger fool of myself and they all helped me in and the driver took me to the hotel. I was sobered slightly on the way there by marking the passage of each block, hoping the taxi driver was not an assassin and I had just done something really stupid. I tested the door handle so I could jump out in case he didn’t make the right turn on Speedway.
But the taxi driver dropped me off without trying to kill me and I made it into the room without any help. I got a couple of towels from the bathroom and hung them over the pictures over the bed so I could stop imagining what I saw. I nearly fell off the bed, then fell onto it and stayed there while the room spun around me.
Thirty-eight
I must have eaten the burrito during a blackout, because the next morning when I stumbled into the bathroom I found dried guacamole on my nose and the burrito was gone. I was still dressed so after I washed my nose I went to the hotel restaurant, where they have a breakfast buffet, and got myself plenty of bread and coffee to bring back to the room. While I was eating and wallowing in the remnants of the previous night’s self-pity, I turned on the Weather Channel for the week’s prediction (hot, hot, hot, rain, rain, hot, rain). Staring at the screen I thought about where my life stood, in no particular order:
Zachariah Robertson, the man who symbolized everything good I had ever accomplished, and everything I had failed to do, had killed himself while in my care.
Floyd Lynch, the closest I’d ever gotten to discovering the killer of Jessica Robertson, was dead.
Despite my best efforts at being the perfect wife, my marriage was ruined.
Max was going to find the evidence that I had killed Gerald Peasil and would make me do time.
Someone had tried to kill me twice and there was no reason to think that someone wouldn’t try again.
After having such a hard-on to prove Lynch’s innocence, Agent Laura Coleman hadn’t returned my messages for forty-eight hours, hadn’t been interested enough to show up for Lynch’s plea. No one but me seemed to think there was something odd about that. Something, I was finally recognizing, sinister.
There was something linking it all, but everything had happened so quickly I couldn’t stop long enough to think about any one event, let alone how they were connected.
Couldn’t just one thing go right? I clicked to local news, and, as if in answer to my question, I discovered that after being shot by the father of one of his victims, Floyd Lynch was in critical but stable condition at the Tucson Trauma Center
I realize life has to be pretty bad when that was the good news. But good news it was. While Lynch remained alive there was the chance of getting all kinds of questions answered.
Besides, I couldn’t sit around a hotel room feeling sorry for myself. I needed to find Coleman, make sure she was all right, and finish Lynch’s investigation. I owed that much to Zach. First I needed to find out how long Lynch might remain in the hospital.
Before that I needed a shower. The sweet and sour smells of Zach’s blood from the day before mixed with the vodka and the burrito reminded me I couldn’t remember when last I had bathed.
I took a long hot one, washed and dried my hair, and put on clean clothes out of my garbage bag.
Next. I called Gordo and told him I wasn’t living at home anymore, that he needed to step up his protection. He didn’t ask why. Good old Gordo.
Next was no option. Lynch was stable and secure for the time being, and my concerns for Coleman grew the more I thought about it. It suddenly occurred to me she hadn’t even called me after the courthouse shootings. Even if she was at her parents’ place, even if one of them was gravely ill, she would have seen it on the news and called me. I phoned Maisie Dickens.
“Maisie, I finally heard from Agent Coleman.”
“Good. Last time she e-mailed I told her you were looking for her.”
I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or bad thing, but I’d work with it. “Thanks, having you tell her must have helped. She told me to meet her at her house.”
“She’s taking some time off, I think. Lord knows she’s got the vacation days piled up.”
I was glad to see that Maisie was in confiding mode. “Yes, and just between us, she’s needing some girl talk.”
“Oh, does it have to do with her being taken off the Lynch case? And wasn’t that something about him getting shot? I knew she was upset the other day but she never talks to me.”
“That’s our Laura, always trying to hang tough. The thing is, she hung up without giving me her address, kind of distracted, you know? I was there once but can’t remember. You know how it is.”
Maisie is menopausal. She knows how it is. “She called you? She must really need to talk.”
“Mmm. I tried calling her back but can’t get through, and I’m supposed to be over there in half an hour. Can you give me her address?”
“Not protocol, Brigid. You know that.”
“Come on, just between us old gals. How dangerous could I be?”
That was alarmingly easy. I heard Maisie tap tapping on her computer, and in a second she gave me an address on Elm Street in the Sam Hughes historical neighborhood near the university.
“Give her my love, would you?”
“What a sweetheart you are. I sure will, Maisie.”
I closed the phone, tossed the good clothes out of the garbage bag onto the other bed, and left the bloodstained clothes in it. I had already delayed hiding them to my great regret, and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again, even if it meant driving out of my way. I wouldn’t even take the chance of a Dumpster.
I carried my tote and the bag with the bloody clothes outside to the parking lot. I looked where I had parked my car last and didn’t see it. I panicked. That was all I needed, to have my car stolen.
Then I remembered my car was parked at the bar because I’d been too drunk to drive the night before. I threw the bag over my shoulder and headed the mile down around the corner to the bar, feeling like any other homeless person who traversed this stretch. It was already hotter than hell but the exercise would get the rest of the alcohol out of my system.
I found my car safely parked in their small lot where I had left it. I would have liked to make a discreet exit, but Emery drew up in a beige Hyundai, with Cheri watching me from the passenger’s seat. I cringed inwardly but with proper barkeep attitude they simply waved me off, not showing any embarrassing concern.
I headed north on Campbell, up where it turns into one of those roads that you see on a map hemmed by little green dots indicating they’re scenic. Usually I enjoyed driving around these twists just a little faster than speed limit, feeling my tires hug the asphalt, but this time I hardly noticed. I turned left on Ina, a short distance, then right on Oracle.
Set against the idyllic backdrop of the Pusch Ridge section of the Catalina Mountains is the U-Store-It storage company. Set within the storage building is my space, about as big as half a garage, where I keep my private collection of weaponry.
I moved aside a few boxes of old case files and shells and tucked the plastic bag behind a safe close to the back wall. Hiding the clothes made me recall how I was not a killer but sure had learned a lot from them. If I became a real suspect in the killing of Gerald Peasil they’d access my credit card, find this storage facility charged to it, and get a search warrant. But for the short term the clothes were safe here until I had the time to dispose of them more thoroughly.
Turning my attention to the dinky .38 I had in my tote, I twisted the dial on the safe and opened it to reveal several rifles, a single-barrel shotgun, and half a dozen small arms. From that cache I selected and loaded a 1911, a .45 that was guaranteed to kick some major ass, to keep in my trunk just in case I ran int
o something ugly at Coleman’s house. I grabbed an extra box of ammo. When I emerged with my tote bag heavier than when I went in, I glanced around to make sure no was watching me.
Then, feeling just this much more confident that I would not be discovered, provided I could trust my husband to keep my secret, I headed back the way I had come, down into the city, to the address on Elm Street that Maisie had provided. I pulled up in front of a nice, tidy little hacienda with lots of purple bougainvillea out front, but the thing that got my attention immediately wasn’t Coleman’s house. It was her Prius, parked in the driveway, in front of the closed garage door.
Thirty-nine
Had she actually been home all this time and was just ignoring me? Feeling half-stupid and half on edge, I left my car parked in the street, decided on the .38 just to be on the safe side, and approached the vehicle cautiously, the way a cop does when they’ve stopped a motorist, as if someone might sit up in the backseat and start firing. I could see nothing through the windows and used the edge of my T-shirt to test the doors.
I found the driver’s side unlocked, and that put me further on alert. No cop would ever, under any circumstances, leave their vehicle unlocked outside, even in their own driveway. Coleman would probably lock hers if she had it in the garage.
I wedged my pistol into the back of my jeans to give the inside of the car a quick once over and found nothing, not so much as a muffin crumb from breakfast on the road. I popped the trunk, which was similarly empty except for a collapsible lawn chair and a few reusable shopping bags. It was a second bad sign that I was able to get into the trunk.
Nothing more to discover there, so I turned my attention to the house. All window shades drawn both against the heat and as security. The front door was locked. This part was as it should be. To make myself less conspicuous, I went through a low gate on the right side to the back of the house, where I found a French door leading into the living room.
I didn’t bother to knock, just in case someone inside was not Coleman. I broke in, no fancy technique, just used a rock on one of the small panes in the door, reached through to the bolt lock. If someone inside was not Coleman the breaking glass would have alerted them, so I stepped in carefully, weapon drawn, and checked the place out.
The house felt warm and a little stuffy, like when someone goes on vacation and leaves the AC on eighty-five. I wandered quickly through the rooms, growing quickly aware that I was alone, and taking just a few minutes to get some sense of her that might help me. Coleman decorated the way she worked, by the book, or in this case, by the catalog. The place was strictly Bed, Bath, and Beyond, white towels, and bed-in-a-bag. Everything except the towels were shades of brown and geometry.
The bedroom was plain and spare, with a window overlooking the front yard. A collection of photographs including one of her family, presumably, hung on the wall. It made me doubt that Coleman brought Royal Hughes to her bedroom. As a rule, people do not have sex in the same room with photos of their mother smiling on them.
The small walk-in closet held two more suits like the ones I’d seen her wear and a dozen long-sleeved silkish blouses that all looked too hot for Arizona. Some casual clothes, too; jeans, cotton blouses, and a raggedy maroon bathrobe with the chenille ridges wearing away.
Nothing but over-the-counter drugs in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, and she went for the cheap moisturizer, shampoo, and toothpaste. The shower was very clean, the plastic shower curtain had no water drops, which I found neat to the point of weirdness but that’s just me.
Back in the living room I noticed a put-together desk with a blotter that made me smile despite my concerns. Only Coleman would still use a blotter. On top of it rested a laptop computer and a few black binders whose edges were aligned parallel to the edge of the desk, all the clutter Coleman would allow. I recognized the cardboard box containing Floyd’s reading material that we had brought from the Lynch’s, set neatly beside the desk. Heaven forbid Coleman would fail to bring it in from her trunk.
It should have been pretty easy to find what I was looking for, but I rifled through the two small drawers finding nothing but pens and pencils—oh God, they were lined up side by side by length in descending order. She was more compulsive than I’d thought. Calculator, roll of stamps, a can of compressed air for cleaning her keyboard. I went into the larger file drawers beneath. Tax returns filed by year. They still weren’t paying agents what they were worth. A six-year-old passport, with only one stamp for Cancun five years ago, listed her birthplace as Henderson, North Carolina, and her birth date as May 12, 1979.
I finally found what I was looking for next to the phone in the kitchen, on a small bench at the end of the counter. I flipped through the lime-green leather address book. Like me, she didn’t seem to have any friends. The entries, written in pencil, were few. Her dentist and doctor. Eva’s hair salon. What looked like her brother back in North Carolina. Page after page of blanks. Not even anyone from the office. Except under the Rs, there were the initials RH and a number. Coleman was so afraid of being found out she wouldn’t even write his whole name in her address book.
I used her home phone to call the number. Royal Hughes answered very quickly.
“Yes?”
“When was the last time you saw Laura Coleman?” I asked.
“Who is this?”
“Brigid Quinn.”
“What are you doing…?”
“Where?” I asked.
“There,” he hedged.
So he knew her home number by heart when it appeared on caller ID. “When was the last time you saw Laura Coleman?”
“I don’t want you calling my home, Agent Quinn.”
“I’m getting a little angry here. When was the last time you saw Laura Coleman?” I repeated.
“At the Lynch crime scene. I told you. You shouldn’t call my home. I’m hanging up now.”
I heard a voice in the background, “Honey? Can you do Bill’s piano lesson today?”
I had no idea where he lived, but I pressed my advantage. “You’re a liar, and I’m close enough so if you hang up I’m coming over there to put a tire iron through your double-paned windows before you can call nine-one-one, and let you do the explaining. When was the last time you saw Laura Coleman?”
He paused, must have felt that in his position it was wiser not to resist me, plus those double-paned windows are really expensive. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I swear to God, not since the crime scene. It was all over more than a year ago. Why?”
“I think Coleman’s been abducted.” There, I said it.
No oh my God, or what the fuck, just, “What makes you think that?”
I heard the voice in the background, less distinct this time. He had probably moved outside as we talked.
“Her car is here.”
“Oh for pete’s sake, she rented a car or flew somewhere,” Hughes said, and hung up.
Like I said, no friends. If that’s how Hughes responded, especially given current attitudes toward me, I wouldn’t get any more traction with Max Coyote or Roger Morrison. I was on my own.
Assuming she still had her maiden name I looked under the Cs in her address book and found Ben and Emily Coleman at the Paloma Vista Retirement Center, with an address and phone number.
Only I didn’t call the number directly. Not wanting to alarm her parents I called directory assistance instead and got the main number at the center, asked to speak with the manager.
“I’m calling to ask about one of your residents,” I said.
“I’m sorry. We don’t give out any information on our residents.”
“I’m a family member, and I’m just calling to inquire after Emily Coleman’s health.”
“I’m sorry. Perhaps you could call their number directly. We don’t give out any information on our residents.”
“Could you tell me whether their daughter has been there within the past three days?”
“I’m sorry. We don’t give out any in
formation on our residents.”
“Is this a real person I’m talking to?”
“Yes, and we don’t give out any information on our residents.”
Why can’t anything be easy? I hung up, took the address book with me, and set out for Paloma Vista.
Forty
If Arizonans want Mexicans to stay out of the country, why do they give everything Spanish names? It kinda sends conflicting messages. Paloma Vista was a modest but lovely two-story structure with a barrel-tiled roof that stretched on both sides of a long circular drive. A small bus with the name of the center and the word FUN! painted big on the side was boarding a group of mostly women.
I pulled up behind it, got out of the car, and asked the group as a whole if anyone knew Ben and Emily Coleman. All of them did. One woman said they were having lunch in the dining room and then shook her head in a tsking fashion as if my question made her sad. Maybe the mom was feeling poorly after all. I walked through the automatic doors, past the reception desk where the young woman didn’t ask who I was, through a spacious sitting area where the upholstery on the chairs didn’t match the pillows didn’t match the rugs except in some existential way known only to a decorator, and beyond into the dining area. A maître d’ of sorts welcomed me and asked if I was there to visit someone.
“Ben and Emily Coleman,” I said.
He led me to a table set for four, where a couple sat who, I must confess, appeared to be not much older than me. Both as tall as Laura, even sitting down I could see that, lanky and with thick heads of gray hair. I approached cautiously, introduced myself as a friend of their daughter, and asked if I could join them for a moment though I saw they were still eating. I apologized for that.
“That’s all right. It’s just dessert,” Ben Coleman said as he gestured to the chair next to his wife. He also gestured to a young woman who hovered nearby. “May I get you a rice pudding?”
I thanked him for his hospitality, but no, and the young woman hovered away.
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