Murder Under the Desert Moon

by Maria Grazia Swan

  Almost on cue, the moon reached a higher point in the sky and a glimmer of light shone into the dark corners, and I noticed a mound of, what, bed sheets? By a huge wooden door? How bizarre. And then the pile moved. I jumped; my breath caught. Dio Mio. A moon ray reached the white heap and it glittered. Not possible, I was hallucinating. I had to get out of there but I didn't move.

  "Lella?" Larry called from the pool.

  The pile of white shimmering rags had me hypnotized. It glittered, moved, and…hummed. The humming gave me shivers, shivers of fear. Something about getting married, no, a chapel. Ah! I remembered some old song about someone going to a chapel to be married. That's what the white sparkling heap hummed.

  Oh, my God, a jilted bride. It had to be.

  I breathed deeply. Probably one of the flight attendants. Susan said she was surprised they weren't around today. Frightened of this poor girl, how silly of me. I took two steps back and tried to get Larry's attention. He was out of the pool, drying himself with a large towel when he noticed my waving him over.

  "What?" He headed my way when the white thing howled.

  What was she saying? I couldn't understand a single word.

  Larry stopped next to me. "What the hell is going on in this place? What's that?" He pointed to the white pile.

  "I think it's one of the flight attendants. Maybe she's drunk—I can't understand what she's saying."

  Just then the woman sat up with her back against the massive door. I could see the white dress and something white covering her head, and her hands pressed against her chest. Poor thing. She howled again, a long lament, high-pitched.

  "Hochu k tebie. Ahah." Then sobs.

  "She's not making any sense. I don't think she speaks English." Larry stepped in front of me. "I need to get closer to see if she needs help."

  "But—"

  He moved fast, and I tiptoed right behind him. He bent over to look at the crying woman. Without getting up he said, "Vivian Kurtis."

  "What about Vivian?" I found myself whispering.

  "Lella, this bride here is our landlady."

  He moved back and moonlight landed on Vivian's face showing caked rouge on her wrinkled cheeks and black furrows left by now dry mascara. Lipstick smeared outside her lips, and even in the dark of the night the feverish desperation in her hollow eyes couldn't be missed.

  She wore a wedding dress covering her from neck to toe and a very elaborate wedding headpiece with yards of crumpled veil. Everything looked fresh out of a horror movie.

  I crouched next to Vivian; the smell of booze made me gag. She was drunk, and she started to hum about the chapel again. Up close I noticed stains on the dress, and one of the sleeves was ripped. More Halloween than wedding.

  "We need to get her home," Larry said. "I'll get my clothes on. I may have to carry her."

  His I'm-the-cop-and-I'm-in-charge attitude surfaced. I kept nodding. I heard him walk away.

  "Vivian, Vivian, it's me Lella, your neighbor." Not a flicker of recognition. "I'm Flash's mom, you know, Flash, Lucy?"

  At the word Lucy she grabbed my arm and shook me. "Hochu k tebie." She started sputtering and crying again.

  I patted her hand hoping she'd let go of me.

  Finally Larry was back. "Here Lella, you hold my stuff, and I'll carry her home. How are we going to get her inside?"

  "I could go look for the caretaker, you know, Ric—ah!" I saw a shadow sneaking up behind Larry.

  "It's okay, Mrs. York. It's me, Rico. I was looking for Vivian." He glanced at the crying pile on the ground. "Where did you find her?" He didn't seem too surprised or shocked. Just another day at the office kind of attitude.

  "Find her? Well, she was right there, where she is now. I was looking for the bathroom."

  "How about we get her home, and then we can chat?" Larry had had about enough of the scene. He bent down and scooped up Vivian. "Let's go," he said.

  At first she resisted—then she let go. She looked dead to me, walking behind them. Her arms dangled like the arms of a rag doll, but the humming went on, so did the whimpering.

  Rico led the way, followed by Larry with the drunken bride. I quietly locked the pool gate behind us as the moon recoiled behind the clouds.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "What are you doing?"

  The minute we closed the door, Larry grabbed his briefcase and scribbled something on a sticky note. "I'm writing down what she kept repeating. Okay, I'm writing down what I heard, not sure what she was trying to say. It may have been Russian."

  "So? Maybe she was a Russian spy in her youth."

  "Lella, I'm sure you noticed the helper, Rico's, reaction or lack of it? This was not the first time this had happened. Too bad I didn't have my phone with me. I'd sure like to get a good picture of both of them, but Rico especially. I have a funny feeling his personal info would be hard to find, especially in Arizona."

  "Larry, if you're trying to scare me, congratulations, you're succeeding."

  "Oh, sweetie, no, no." He walked over and hugged me, his hair still damp from swimming, his shirt clinging to his body. "I mean he's probably in the country illegally, although his English is very good, even his accent sounds almost…British? And I didn't get the feeling he had nefarious intentions in our regard. He did seem overly protective of Vivian, sort of a natural reaction, I assume. Can I see your phone?"

  "My phone? Why? Have you been talking to my son?!"

  "Talking to your son about what?"

  "My phone! This morning he started telling me I needed a new phone—"

  "He may be right. Can I take a look?"

  "Fine!" I fished into my bag, handed him the phone, and headed for the bedroom.

  "Hey, wait. Are you mad? Why? If Kyle's right, we'll just get you a new phone."

  "Precisely. Guess what? I can get my own damn phone."

  He stood there, looking at me with that eternal squint of his that made me feel hot even after all these years together. What did he see in me? I would never understand, but now he walked over, nuzzled my hair, his hands on my shoulders.

  "Sorry, my intentions were good. Let me shower, and then if you're still awake by the time I get to bed I'll explain to you why a new phone would help me out, a lot."

  He went into the bathroom, and a minute later I could hear the water running. If I'm still awake? That snake charmer, how could I possibly go to sleep? I wanted to hear how I could help. Would that make me part of the investigation? What investigation? I definitely needed to start wearing the straw hat when out in the sun. And Kyle had not called. I heard Larry getting out of the shower.

  "Remember when I told you that in all the years that Carillo has been incarcerated he's never, ever had a visitor? I was wrong, misinformed. A few months before the passing of his grandmother, a man came to visit him. He claimed to be a cousin but he was turned away because he didn't have proper identification. There are no records left, no camera shot, just a one-line notation."

  "Are you saying this Rico guy is Carillo's cousin?"

  "No. Far from it. I'm saying he may have been the man visiting Carillo."

  "What for?"

  "Don't know at the moment, but I don't believe in coincidences either. Anton Hasan was associated with an Armenian crime syndicate around the time that the Soviet Union was collapsing. I bet whatever Vivian was mumbling was in Russian. Let's sleep on this. Maybe I'm too close to the problem to see clearly."

  "You don't believe in coincidences, you say, well, neither do I. So, why are we here?"

  He turned to me, a quizzical look on his face. "Here?"

  "At the Camelview Suites, where you think you may have found Carillo's cousin and Hasan's Russian accomplice."

  Forget the squint, his eyes wide open, he started to laugh so hard even Flash jumped on the bed to check out the scene. "Touché," he said between fits of laughter. "Actually, one of the paramedics who drove you to the hospital is dating a flight attendant, and he suggested the place. He overheard my phone con
versation with the cat-sitter." He dried his eyes with the back of his hand, turned off the light, and came looking for me under the covers.

  We spent the morning in a huge mobile phone store inside a mall, one I hadn't visited before, and it was no competition to either the Scottsdale mall or the one on Camelback. But Larry said that this was the place to shop for a cellular phone.

  Whatever.

  I couldn't understand what men found so exciting about buying a phone. I wanted simplicity. He asked for high performance and spent nearly an hour going through all the bells and whistles with the young man working there, who looked so young he probably had yet to start shaving. And Larry insisted on paying for the phone. He knew I wasn't going to argue with him in public, so I smiled while giving him the stare.

  We went back to the Camelview Suites, walked by Vivian's place, and into our own place, where Larry spent the next thirty minutes teaching me how to take pictures and how to use e-mail and texting.

  Texting. How about that?

  He even set up a voice mail for me—I did the recording. That part was fun—I kept messing up because I would giggle when I wasn't supposed to. The minute he left I sat at the kitchen table and wrote down all the instructions he'd given me…just in case.

  He promised to be back by 5:30 to pick me up, and we would have our sunset dinner at the revolving restaurant downtown. With that in mind I decided to work on my suntan a little more so my legs would look nice with my short dress. I packed my big bag, same stuff as the day before—sunscreen, towel, lip gloss, and…my new camera phone.

  What better place to try my hand at taking pictures? Maybe I could send one to Kyle to entice him to come by. Good plan. Oh, water and might as well take a piece of fruit. I grabbed an apple.

  Flash was under the bed. She may have given up on visiting her friend, Lucy, just as I had given up on making sun tea. Some things are just not meant to be.

  I felt ashamed to admit that I was relieved not to see Susan and her little Emily when I got through the pool gate. My eyes were instantly drawn to the squat storage building with the massive wooden door where we'd found Vivian, but you couldn't actually see the door or that part of the structure at all from the gate. Only the narrow side facing the common path was visible, and it was a very plain, sand-colored wall without windows or doors.

  I headed to my usual lounger, but I found it taken. One person in the whole pool area and she was asleep on my lounger. How annoying. At first I assumed she was one of the flight attendants we'd crossed paths with in the parking lot, but all three of them had looked young. The sleeping woman had gray hair cropped very close to her scalp, and by the look of her back, she was on the plump side of curvy, while I seemed to remember three rather slim uniformed bodies laughing as they passed us the evening before.

  I sat myself by a table on which I put my large bag, and I started to unpack. I changed my mind, grabbed my reading glasses, and attempted to type a text to Kyle. Wow, that was much harder than I'd expected. How did you type on such a tiny keyboard, or whatever it was called? My fingernails kept touching the wrong buttons, and at some point everything disappeared until I realized I'd accidentally hit send.

  What now? Where did it go?

  "Hi there." The voice startled me. The gray-haired woman was awake and talking to me.

  She had a pleasant face, without makeup, tanned like the rest of her body. Her hair looked lighter by her forehead, almost white. I've always envied women my age who had enough self-confidence to wear their hair au naturel. I'd been dyeing mine since way back, and I'd probably continue to do so until the day I died.

  "Hi back," I said. Very original. "Hope I didn't wake you up."

  She laughed a raspy sort of laugh like old smokers often have. She pulled herself up to a sitting position. Her black bathing suit made her look rather sophisticated in a way I couldn't quite explain. "I'm Shannon, Shannon White," she said, stretching her hand to reach mine.

  We shook, and I quickly blurted out my name, "Lella York, happy to meet you." And I was.

  "Is that a Nokia Smartphone?" she asked.

  "Uh…yeah, it says Nokia. Why? I have to tell you I just got this, and I'm not sure what I'm doing yet."

  "Oh, it's easy, all you—"

  Just then a loud bling came from the phone, and I literally jumped in my chair, to Shannon's delight.

  "Relax, someone's texting you."

  "Oh." I stared at the phone. "And how do I know who's texting?"

  "Here, hand it to me—let me show you." Her fingers clicked so fast, both hands, then she handed me back my Nokia.

  I read Kyle's laconic message: "In Sedona, having a good time. Later."

  I sighed.

  "Bad news?"

  "Not really. It's my son—he's in Sedona. I was hoping he would come by to say hello."

  "Are you from Phoenix?"

  "No, Orange County, California. Been here almost a week, and Kyle, my son, yesterday announced he was driving to Arizona, but he went straight to Sedona."

  "Let me guess—there's a girl involved."

  I nodded.

  "Youth will be youth. So, you're alone?"

  "No, I'm here with my—boyfriend." Damn it. Why was it so difficult for me to admit I had a boyfriend?

  "Lucky you," Shannon said. "Men our age are usually chasing younger skirts, or they're married."

  "Shannon, you talk—like a man. I mean it in a good way."

  She laughed that raspy laugh of hers again. "Comes from being around men all the time. I'm a flight attendant, what's called the purser, in the world of us cabin slaves, meaning I'm in charge because I've lasted longer. And I often work first-class intercontinental flights, and most passengers are men and so are the cockpit crewmembers. I've picked up their mannerisms."

  "Another flight attendant. We saw three of them arriving last night." I didn't mention the loud party.

  "Oh, I don't stay in the same unit. I go a long way back with the owner of the place. We used to work the same airline in our younger years, so she keeps a studio for me all the time. I haven't seen her around in a while though."

  "You mean Vivian Kurtis?"

  "You've met her? She's the nicest person ever. She's been through so much, poor thing."

  "Believe it or not, we're in the unit next to her, and my stupid cat keeps sneaking out and going over to Vivian's to play with her ferret."

  "Lucy? I'm glad to know Lucy is still around. She's getting old for a ferret. The three of us need to get together and have our own happy hour. What do you say? I'll be in town a couple of days."

  "Great idea, except for this evening. I'm supposed to go to dinner with Larry. Larry's my," I swallowed hard, "boyfriend. Any other time would be great. I hardly know Phoenix at all, well, except for two malls."

  We both laughed.

  "It's a date then, tomorrow. I'll give you the grand tour of the city, and we'll try to talk Vivian into joining us."

  I'd just found myself the perfect source of information regarding Phoenix and—Vivian Kurtis. Couldn't wait to tell Larry about it. He would be impressed. Now I needed to practice taking pictures with my…what was it Shannon had called it? Smartphone.

  To say I was proud of myself would be an understatement.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "How does it work?" The view from the twenty-fourth floor of the Hyatt in downtown Phoenix was incredibly beautiful. When Larry had mentioned the moving—revolving was the word he'd used—restaurant, I had mental images of wagon-restaurants on European trains. Lovely experiences but, in general, not that memorable because the trains travelled at high speed, and the views were glimpses of blurry objects hurtling by, and the food could be good or bad, with too many variables to be consistent.

  Not this.

  While I knew it moved, I couldn't feel any sense of motion. The scenery lingered, framed by the same two-story glass panes, long enough for me to read the name of the airport building or location we were looking at while enjoying superb food a
nd attentive service.

  According to the tag on the spot we were at at one point, across the street we could see St. Mary's Basilica, the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in Arizona. The church was illuminated, and it reminded me of old Spanish churches, both impressive and a little unsettling among the tall buildings. It felt a little bit sacrilegious to look down onto that sacred place of worship from our table…could I be more hypocritical than this? I never went to church, not even at Christmas.

  "You see," Larry explained, "the round top is attached to this giant screw, and one complete revolution equals unscrewing, then it changes direction and screws back in."

  For about two minutes I believed his explanation, and I became so concerned with the giant screw not getting back the proper way I even felt a hot flash surge. Then the Cheshire cat smile gave him away. I kicked his shin under the table and kept on eating my medium-done steak. I ignored his exaggerated wincing.

  But I had to agree with Larry—it was the perfect place for a romantic dinner, watching the sky set itself on fire as the sun left us. By the time the revolution was complete dessert had arrived, for Larry, as I had already eaten too much.

  Street lights and faraway buildings suddenly lit up, and in the air-conditioned environment you could fool yourself into believing this was any fair-weather place in any pulsing metropolitan area—until you stepped outside the hotel and the soles of your strappy high heels met the concrete that had been storing heat all day long.

  Valet parking went to fetch the Lincoln.

  "I have to decide on the color of the Mercedes," Larry said while we waited.

  "What else do you get to pick?"

  "Everything." That came out with such force it had me wondering if he was upset about it.

  "I should be thrilled about replacing my four-year-old car with a brand new, more expensive model, but I tend to get attached to things." He stroked my arm. "And people, especially Italian people."

  When he said Italian my mind went to Kyle. The magic was broken.

  We got into the car.

  "I wish my son would call."