Mortal Crimes 1

by Various Authors

  “What do I do with her if I get called out to a homicide? Not to mention, her mother’s still mad at me. But Chris is determined—she’s gonna be a cop no matter what.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Nothing, I guess.”

  This time Jaime drove. The air conditioner had given up completely, so they rode with the windows open. The seats offered no lumbar support. Laura finally stuck her purse between the small of her back and the seat back.

  “So give me the details,” Jaime said.

  “Yesterday morning, Heywood showed up at Sandy’s apartment, and they ended up fighting.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So he wanted his stuff back.”

  “You mean the suitcase, right? The one with his trophies.”

  “Right.”

  “How’d she manage to hide it from him?”

  “She told him she had given all his stuff to Goodwill the last time he walked out on her. But I guess he saw through that. Maybe something she said when they were getting along, or at least hinted at.”

  According to Detective Waddell, Heywood had flown into a rage. Laura could understand that. His wife had thrown away the most important single thing in his life. She pictured him, touching his trophies and reliving his time with the girls. If for no other reason, the fact that Sandy had denied him this pleasure made her a hero in Laura’s book.

  “Man, that must have been something. He must have been mad as hell about that.”

  “She got a black eye, contusions on her face, and a broken wrist. He kicked her in the stomach. Choked her, too, but by then a neighbor was beating on the door and threatening to call 911.”

  “So she turned the suitcase over to Waddell.”

  “Not yet. She told him she’s got it in a ‘place of safekeeping.’ She thinks Heywood’s coming back.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. She’s planning on using it as leverage. I don’t know if it’s to keep him around or because she thinks she can get some of her money back.”

  “She’s going to tell him she still has his trophies? That’s nuts.”

  “I guess she thinks she can handle him.”

  “So why does Waddell think Heywood’s coming out here?”

  “He told her earlier that night, when they were getting along better. He said he had some business dealings in Arizona. Maybe that’s what she’s hoping, that he’ll finally make some money and pay her back.”

  “She gonna be all right?”

  “Nothing that cosmetic surgery wouldn’t help.”

  “Jesus, talk about getting your priorities straight,” Jaime said. “What is it with women?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know, putting up with that. Getting beat up over and over again, then coming back for more.” They were passing through Catalina, which was mostly a strip of small businesses and restaurants on either side of the road against the northwest face of the Santa Catalina Mountains. The mountains managed, in this light, to look blue and gold at the same time.

  Jaime said, “Don’t call me a sexist. I’ve read all the literature. I was in sex crimes once. But I still don’t get it. Somebody hurting you is somebody hurting you.”

  “I don’t get it either. But then I didn’t grow up in a house where I was used to it. I’ve never known what it was like to be assaulted by a guy.”

  She hadn’t been assaulted by a guy until recently, she should have added. Certainly, Grady’s attack qualified as an assault. “Anyway,” she said, “she told Waddell what was in the suitcase. She says she thinks those things—earrings, bracelets, underpants, barrettes—belonged to other women. But the thing is, up until this last time, she never confronted Heywood about it. If she was an angry wife, wouldn’t she do that?”

  “So you’re saying she knew all along.”

  “Kind of knew. Probably rationalized it. Kept the suitcase—hid it even—and didn’t confront him. My guess is she tried not to think about what it meant. Waddell told me her favorite TV show is CSI.”

  “Let me guess—her second favorite show is Law & Order.”

  “Probably.”

  “Everybody knows everything these days. Now juries are expecting DNA analysis on every case. Hey, you shoplift a whistle, we’ll just get your DNA. Right.” Jaime slowed for the turnoff to Florence at Oracle Junction. Turned left onto 79. “Waddell really thinks Heywood’s making a beeline for Purvis’s place?”

  “He doesn’t have a lot of friends. Clinton Purvis could be the only one.”

  Jaime shrugged. “Worth a shot, I guess. Even if he isn’t out here, the guy might have heard from him. Clinton the Clown.” He laughed. “I know a lot of people who would’ve bought that bumper sticker in the nineties.”

  They were on a two-lane road called the Pinal Pioneer Parkway. Just crossed into Pinal County. There was a lot of desert around them and the structures were few and far between. Laura liked that. The first part was a little scrubby, but the farther north they went, the more beautiful it became.

  “There it is,” Jaime said and started slowing down.

  The Tom Mix monument came up on the left—an iron likeness of Mix’s horse, Tony, his head down in sorrow. Tom Mix, the early western movie star, crashed his convertible in the wash that crossed this road in 1940. A suitcase in the back flew forward and broke his neck. Laura had written a paper on him when she was in school after seeing the monument.

  “The left or the right?” Jaime asked.

  “Trudy said on the left. Those mailboxes up there. The red one.”

  The mailbox said TRINIDAD RANCH LLC.

  “Name of the company that owns the property?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What are they?”

  Laura shrugged. This didn’t look like mining country. “Who knows?”

  “Sit on a piece of property and do nothing. Nice work if you can get it,” Jaime said.

  They bumped down the washboard road past a couple of houses. Came to a rusty metal sign riddled with bullet holes that said TRINIDAD RANCH, turned right on a narrow lane. Two ruts and a hump of dirt and weeds in the middle.

  Ahead on the left, Laura saw a large metal structure. To their right, a good eighth of a mile from the steel farm building, was a turquoise and white house trailer that fronted a backyard wrapped in tall chain link. Parked in front of the trailer was a white truck.

  “Heywood’s truck is red,” Laura said. “Brand new Dodge Ram.”

  “Unless he traded down, that’s not it.”

  As they drove up, a pack of dogs ran up to the chain link fence, barking. A rusted iron ramada stood on a cement foundation nearby. There was plenty of farm junk under the ramada and a couple of long tables, the kind you’d find at school cafeterias, and something under a canvas tarp. But what intrigued Laura most were the signs. Big signs, painted on wood. Beautiful calligraphy in bright, circus colors. Signs with carousel horses, Ferris wheels, clowns. A big sign affixed to the metal skin of the house trailer: a grinning clown with bright red hair like a Raggedy Ann. Old-fashioned letters spelling out THE AMAZING CLINTON THE CLOWN!

  As they approached the trailer, a man let himself out the front door. He was deeply tanned, in his forties, and wore a gimme cap, a dirty white T-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. When he saw them, he paused on the stoop.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “We’re looking for Clinton Purvis.”

  “Clint’s not here right now.” The man didn’t appear to be wary of them at all. He removed his cap and wiped his forehead. A white tan line halfway between his eyes and his hairline.

  He introduced himself as Bob Dodge. “I come by and feed his dogs when he’s gone.”

  “How long’s he been gone?”

  “Oh, ‘bout two months. He’s doing a string of county fairs up north. Idaho, I think. Coeur D’Alene?” He scratched his head. “That’s right.”

  Laura asked, “Are you out here every day?”

  “Every day
God sends. Gotta feed the dogs.”

  “You live near here?” Jaime asked.

  “Just down the road. That first house, the red brick. Why?”

  “Have you seen a red truck around here?”

  “One of those new Dodge Rams? Met a friend of Clint’s early this morning, as a matter of fact. He was here when I showed up to feed the dogs.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Oh, about seven. Looked to me like he might have spent the night here.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Just a feeling I had. His clothes looked slept in, and he didn’t smell too good.”

  Jaime Molina handed Dodge the six-pack of photos they were showing to everyone. Dodge pointed to Heywood’s picture. “That’s him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Sure as I can be.”

  “What did he say?”

  Bob Dodge put his hat back on. “Let’s see … said he was an old friend of Clint and his son. Wanted to know when he’d be back.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “Sometime the beginning of next week.”

  Laura said, “Did you know Clint’s son?”

  “No. I wouldn’t want to either.”

  “I heard he died.”

  Bob Dodge pointed in the direction of the steel outbuilding. “Just past the machine shed, you’ll find what’s left of that kid’s meth lab. Had to be eight or nine years ago, before my time. Apparently, when it blew, it was a sight to see. Lit up the sky for miles.”

  On their way to check out the ruins of the meth lab, they took a look at the machine shed: cavernous and mostly empty except for a high-cabbed green tractor with dirty windows and a harrow in the far corner. There were a few oil spots on the concrete floor and some bins that held long-neglected pesticide and plant food.

  The meth lab itself had been in a trailer. One portion was intact, the long, curved back section of a travel trailer from a long-ago era. The rest was a blasted-out mess. Broken glass, twisted pieces of equipment, torn upholstery, trash, lots of stuff blackened beyond recognition. Jaime called out to her from forty yards away, held up a charred beaker, intact. “Do you believe this?”

  He approached her through the thick desert growth. “Probably didn’t feel anything if there was an explosion.” He paused, pushed at a coally, burn-braided timber with the toe of his shoe—Laura thought it might have come from an attached ramada.

  “At least it was quick. Wasn’t like he burned to death. Jesus. That’s one way I wouldn’t want to go.”

  “Me neither,” Laura said.

  “Die in my sleep when I’m ninety, in perfect health—that’s what I want,” Jaime said as they walked back to the car. “What scares you the most? About dying?”

  “Airplane crash,” Laura said. “Knowing we were going down. That scares me.”

  “They say the best way is drowning. It’s not supposed to be bad at all.” Jaime detouring toward the big steel farm building.

  Laura picking up the pace to keep up. “Eating a blowfish isn’t such a bad idea.”

  “Oh yeah, the Japanese delicacy. I heard eating it gives you the giggles. Either it tastes really good, you have a good laugh, and you live, or it tastes really good, you have a good laugh, and you die. Speaking of dead, look at these.”

  Jaime motioned to a double row of small graves near the machine shed, piled with rocks to keep away the coyotes. The makeshift cemetery was spread out under a cottonwood tree, with rocks demarcating the area. Wooden crosses on all the tiny graves, most of the dirt dried into the ground like glue. Some of the crosses were old and weathered; they had no names or the names had faded away. But Laura could read some: Inky, Spoof, Jethro, Pearl, Mooch, Clem, Gaffy, Gypsy, Slick, and Trouper.

  “An animal hoarder,” Jaime said. “Usually it’s middle-aged or old women do that.”

  “You’ve seriously got to stop profiling everybody.”

  Jaime shrugged, but she could tell he was hurt. She shouldn’t have said that. She’d broken an unspoken barrier. You didn’t tell another cop what to do. You especially didn’t tell another cop from another agency what to do. Unless you were an asshole, like someone from the FBI.

  She’d say she was sorry, but that would only compound the gaffe. She’d make it up another time, another way.

  ________

  They were held up on 77 due to an accident; a car had caught fire. The car was a blackened chassis by the side of the road. Laura’s former compadres from the Highway Patrol were out in force directing traffic; 77 was down to one lane and stopped dead while the tow truck jockeyed for position. Laura used the time to call in an Attempt to Locate on Robert Heywood with a description of the truck, registration, and license number.

  When they got to the Department of Public Safety building, the sun had dipped down below the mountains, leaving a rust-colored stain.

  “I’m beat,” Jaime said. “I’m gonna head home.” He fiddled with the lanyard with his ID photo, the one she’d had issued to him so he could get into the DPS building. Said, “Why do you think Heywood came back here?”

  Laura had been thinking about that. “Maybe he and Clinton Purvis are good friends. Could be as simple as that.”

  “It isn’t, though.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You think he really is looking to make a big score?”

  “Sounds like it.”

  But what kind of score? That, they didn’t know.

  Laura walked him out and went to her own car.

  She could go home. She was tired enough. But she didn’t want to. Fortunately, her mare was fed along with the other horses on the Bosque Escondido, so there were no worries there.

  It was a clear night, and there would be a full moon tonight.

  A good night for a drive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  As Laura approached Steve Lawson’s cabin, she saw two people on the porch. Lawson and the woman who must own the SUV parked behind the little purple PT Cruiser.

  Interesting little car, the Cruiser. Kind of funky. Laura thought it went with Steve Lawson pretty well.

  The woman walked out to the SUV and stopped at the driver’s side, looking at Laura. She was in Laura’s lights. A small, slender woman with a cloud of dark hair, wearing a casual black sweater-tights combo that would look good in New York. Fashionable boots. Warm for Tucson, but nice up here. Hard to see her features, but Laura guessed they were attractive. The woman stared into the headlights, and Laura doused them. Got out.

  The woman waited for Laura to come to her. Laura noticed that Steve Lawson had come around the car, and the two of them watched her approach.

  “Detective Cardinal,” Steve said. “I’d like you to meet my—” He paused. “Julie DeSabato. Jules, this is the detective I was telling you about.”

  They shook hands all around.

  “I was just leaving,” said Julie, but she didn’t open her car door. Laura felt she was being scrutinized, and the scrutiny wasn’t friendly.

  There was tension here.

  Steve seemed nervous. No, more like shaken. He looked pale—almost haggard—and there was a restless quality in the way he swayed from foot to foot.

  “Detective Cardinal,” Steve Lawson said. “What brings you up here?”

  “I wanted you to look at some photos.”

  “You have a suspect? Already?”

  Julie DeSabato said, “I’ve really got to go.” She tipped up on her toes, and gave Steve Lawson a peck on the lips. “Think about what I said,” she told him. Then she got into the SUV and gunned the engine.

  Laura and Steve stepped back as she drove away.

  “My ex-wife,” Lawson said. “Why don’t we go inside?”

  They clumped up onto the porch. Jake met them, tail wagging. Laura reached down to pet him.

  “We’re looking at a man who was here during that time,” Laura said. “Would you take a look at these photos and tell me if you’ve seen any of these m
en before?”

  Lawson took the sheet from her. His sleeves were rolled up, and there was a nasty-looking scar on his right arm. He walked under the kitchen light, looked at the sheet for three or four seconds. Passed it back to her. “I’m sorry. Nobody looks familiar.”

  Laura held on to the sheet. “It’s all right. I’m asking a lot of people.”

  “So you think he was up here at the time Jenny Carmichael disappeared?”

  “Really, at this point, we don’t know.” Laura scanned the room. Saw the dishes in the drainboard, a wine bottle and glasses on the counter. A Ouija board sitting on a footstool, the footstool the same ugly Early American material as the chairs and couches.

  Lawson looked at her. “Spaghetti con vongole,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Our dinner. Spaghetti with clam sauce.”

  “And after dinner, a turn at the Ouija board.”

  “Do you … Wee-gee?” Steve Lawson said softly. He seemed to be saying this to himself.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s just a line from—“

  “I Love Lucy.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “When I was a kid it used to be on KTTU when I was getting ready for school.”

  “You seem young for that.”

  “Not for syndication. They had reruns of that and The Andy Griffith Show. The Andy Griffith Show was my favorite.”

  “What a coincidence,” Steve said. “That’s mine, too. The early ones, before they went to color. That and The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

  “I hated The Honeymooners.”

  His eyes widened. “So do I.”

  “You don’t, by any chance, like The Three Stooges?”

  “Hate ‘em.”

  “Really? I thought men loved The Three Stooges.”

  “We aren’t all part of one huge body. Some of us have the capability of original thought.”

  “Why don’t you like the Stooges?”

  “I’m not big on physical humor.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and folded his arms. “There was a study that said men and women see humor differently.”

  “Here it comes.”

  “No, seriously. It could explain the whole Three Stooges phenomenon. Men like their humor broad. They like slapstick. Not all men—Jake and I are the exception. Women like their humor more subtle. They’re willing to take it a few more steps to get to a satisfying punch line.” He caught her skeptical look. “You think I’m flattering you, am I right?”