Deadly Sanctuary (Kendall O'Dell Series #1)

by Sylvia Nobel

  “No.”

  “Well, before we jump the gun, we’d better make sure this letter is authentic. Have you got something at work with his signature on it?

  “Yeah, I can check it. But, it sure looks like his.”

  “What about the postmark?”

  “It’s kind of smeary. But it looks like Cabo San Lucas. It was mailed last week.”

  Why did I feel so cold all of a sudden? I sat back, and pulled the covers up around my neck. “I smell a rat. I think someone’s fabricated it to get me off the track. The timing is just too perfect. Don’t you see? Someone thinks I’m getting too close. Don’t tell me you’re going to be fooled by this?”

  “It does explain his whole disappearing act. You said yourself his girlfriend knew he was on his way to meet with some other woman. They probably cooked this whole thing up so’s he could get out of his relationship with the first gal, what’s her name?”

  “Yolanda Reyes. But, Tugg, what about that phone call two weeks ago? This other woman is still waiting for him. And, what about the ticket to Nogales? Why would he buy only one, and then take his truck?”

  “I dunno, Kendall,” came the weary sigh. “All I know is, John was not a happy camper when he worked here. He was pissed at Tally, pissed at Roy, and pissed at me for killing his article. You had to know John for this to all make sense. He had a real flair for the dramatic. I think his letter is pretty clear. He saw a golden opportunity to latch onto some wealthy dame and grabbed it.”

  I sputtered, “But…but…what about his note? What about his phone call that day? If he was planning to leave, why even bother? And what was with all that nonsense about a story that would stand this town on its ear?”

  “He was a great one for exaggeration. Most of the time he was full of shit up to his eyeballs and we did have several heated arguments when I asked him to lay off of Roy until he could prove his allegations. The way I’m reading this is he couldn’t come up with anything concrete any more than you have, so instead of sticking around and looking like a jackass, he took the coward’s way out.”

  My skin no longer felt cold, but my teeth were chattering. I reached under the mattress, pulled out my notebook, and stared at it numbly. It wasn’t difficult to detect the tone of acceptance in Tugg’s voice. If he dropped the whole investigation, it would let him off the hook with Mary, her whining sister, and Roy. My fears that his illness was getting in the way of clear thinking, surfaced again and a sense of defeat enveloped me like a shroud. I could see everything I’d worked on the past two months going down the tubes.

  His voice broke into my thoughts. “Jesus, Kendall, I know how you must be feeling, but you can’t feel any more foolish than I do. I’ve had you spinning your wheels looking for something that was never there.” I could hear Mary’s demanding voice in the background urging him to lie down and he muttered, “Yes, yes, in a minute.”

  “Listen, Tugg. I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet. I think the first thing we need to do is verify the signature. Can we meet at the office right away?”

  “I’d never get past Mary,” he confided, his tone gloomy. “The doc’s got me on another new medication and I’m supposed to take it easy the rest of the weekend. But you can come get the letter. I’ll give you the key to the filing cabinet in my office. You can pull John’s personnel folder and compare the handwriting.”

  “Okay, but one more thing before you hang up.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did you tell Tally?”

  “At the time, I had my reasons.”

  “What are they?” I persisted.

  “Look, I haven’t mentioned this to anyone at work, but there’s a possibility I may have to have surgery. In good conscience, I don’t feel I can take a chance on checking into the hospital without someone else knowing what you’re working on. Especially after that episode in the darkroom.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but you did promise me two weeks, remember? Plus that, what help can Tally be to me when he’s going to be out of town for two weeks?”

  “To tell you the truth, I completely forgot about that until yesterday. These drugs make me feel like I’m walking around in a fog all the time.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t want Mary to overhear this, but you do realize if the handwriting matches, that…well…we have to tell Roy. And, of course, you’ll get the story.”

  My spine stiffened. Writing an article about John Dexter vegging out in Mexico seemed a poor substitute for the dramatic scoop I had in mind. And the idea of telling Roy set my teeth on edge. “Thanks,” I said dryly, and then a thought struck me. “Wait a minute, Tugg. You can’t tell Roy yet even if the signatures do happen to match.”

  “Come on, Kendall,” he said, his voice soothing, “I know this has been your baby, but he has to be told. John’s case is still open.”

  “I know that. But I have his files, remember?”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath, and then, “Oh, shit! That’s right.”

  “You’ll have to give me a few days to figure out how to get them back. That is, unless you just want to march in there and confess what we’ve been up to the past two months.”

  He laughed nervously. “Ah…no. I don’t think so. How are you going manage that without him knowing?”

  “Actually, I haven’t had time to formulate a plan yet. But, I will. Let’s say Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, okay?”

  “All right. I guess a few more days won’t make that much difference after all this time.”

  “No, it won’t. And speaking of time, why do you suppose Dexter waited so long to write to you?”

  “Who knows? And to think—all this time we’ve been building up a case against Roy and that Phillips woman based solely on John’s disappearing act,” he replied, a note of wonderment entering his voice. “Funny how things that looked suspicious at first don’t anymore.”

  “I’ll be over to get the letter and key in half an hour,” I said, hanging up.

  Damn! It would sound irrational to anyone else, but I didn’t want the signatures to match. Deep down inside, I was still convinced that Roy and Claudia were involved in something sinister. She seemed devious enough to cook up a fake letter.

  I set the answering machine and hadn’t gotten two steps from the phone before it rang. I let the machine do its job while I grabbed my purse and car keys. “Sugar pie! Y’all there?”

  Ginger’s voice filled the room, demanding to know why I hadn’t called her back. The flash of guilt made me hesitate. Knowing Ginger, she’d try to pry every last detail from me. No. I’d call her later.

  Outside, the searing desert wind blew my freshly brushed hair into a tangled mop. I jammed on sunglasses, and prayed the thunderheads building over the mountains would finally produce the rain I so desperately craved.

  The furious pace of events during the last twenty-four hours, coupled with a lack of sleep, left me feeling muddled. I was conscious of the fact that this was probably not the time to be introspective, but, throughout the drive to town, I tried to focus on my feelings for Eric. While his attentions were pleasurable, and I was more than flattered by his kind offer, Tally’s kiss had fired intense feelings I hadn’t felt for a long time—if ever.

  At Tugg’s house, I dodged rolling tumbleweeds and flinched at the sting of sand on my face. Mary answered the door and handed me an envelope. I thanked her, expressed my concern for Tugg and hurried to the car. I read the letter over twice and studied the postmark on the crumpled envelope. It looked awfully convincing.

  Filled with anxious anticipation, I drove downtown to the newspaper. The building seemed unnaturally quiet with only Harry at work in the production room.

  “Man,” he said to me with a shake of his head, “you sure missed one hell of a party last night. I thought you were coming?”

  It felt like the letter was burning a hole in my hand, so I made up a quick excuse and then slipped into Tugg’s office.

  I spread the paper flat on his desk and pul
led John Dexter’s employment application from the file. My hands were sweaty and the headache throbbed at my temples again. “Please don’t let it be true,” I whispered, positioning the papers side by side.

  After a careful comparison of the two signatures, I groaned aloud. Acute disappointment formed a bitter taste in my mouth. Unless this was an excellent forgery, he was indeed alive and well, and living in Mexico.

  The next week passed slowly. Without the stimulation of my secret assignment, I felt at loose ends and finally fell into a deep blue funk. Nothing sparked my interest, and the future loomed before me like a black hole of boredom.

  Each day, the merciless sun bore down from the white hot sky with such ferocious intensity, it seemed as if my very bones would melt. The complexion of the town changed perceptibly with the onslaught of the Arizona summer.

  At high noon, the streets were almost deserted. The few remaining winter visitors had high-tailed it out. The fortunate residents with money had headed for the coast, or escaped to their mountain homes up north. Those who remained toughed it out, some stoically accepting their fate, and others, like me, vocally complaining about the weather we could do nothing about.

  On Tuesday, I returned the files to the sheriff’s office with such ease it was almost laughable. When I was sure Roy was gone, Duane and Julie had been readily distracted by the cake I brought in to supposedly commemorate my birthday. While their backs were turned, it was a simple matter to slip the folders under some others on Duane’s desk. Each would think the other had pulled them out.

  Tugg gave John Dexter’s letter to Roy and the story broke in Wednesday’s edition. I managed to convince Tugg that even though the signatures appeared identical, we should at least have them analyzed by an expert. He agreed, and I mailed the letter and application to Phoenix. We were told not to expect the results for several weeks.

  I got the discomforting task of delivering the news to Yolanda Reyes. The stricken look on her face as she read a copy of Dexter’s letter made my throat tighten with sympathy.

  “This cannot be true,” she finally whispered, tears brimming in her eyes. “He loved me! He would not do this thing.”

  A spasm of emotion shook her. “It is…more bad than if he is dead,” she cried, burying her face in her hands. I understood what she meant. If John had died loving her, that was one thing, but to abandon her for another woman was unforgivable. I pressed a tissue into her shaking hands and waited until she regained her composure.

  “Look, Yolanda, I’m having as much trouble believing this as you are. My boss seems convinced the letter is from him…but, I’m not so sure.”

  A ray of hope gleamed from her swollen eyes. “Why do you say this? You think maybe he did not run away with that…that…”

  “Listen to me carefully.” I went over everything in John Dexter’s file with her. “Now, is there anything you can think of that is different than what Roy Hollingsworth has in that report?”

  Yolanda blew her nose. “I think it is the same, but I have trouble remembering. If I know that day is the last time I will see him, I would…what is the word…give more attention?”

  “I understand and I know it’s painful, but if you recall anything different from what I just told you, call me right away.”

  Back at the office, the revelation about John Dexter caused quite a stir and gave everyone something to talk about besides the heat. Harry used a few words I never heard before and Ginger snorted, “Why that little piss-ant. And to think he had us worried to death, and had all them men out there gallivanting all over God’s creation day after day looking for him…well, I’d like to tan his skinny hide.”

  “I knew he was a flake,” Jim remarked in disgust. “What a chicken-shit thing to do.”

  When I stopped by to get the weekly information from the sheriff’s log later that day, it was hard to ignore the look of smug triumph pasted on Roy’s chubby face. He wasted no time bringing up the subject.

  “Well, well, well, how do you like them apples?” he crowed. “Seems like I was right all along about Dexter. He never was missing. He was just doing what he always did, only this time, he chased some woman’s skirt all the way down to Mexico. Guess he’s been having a fine old time yankin’ our chains.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” It was hard for me to look at him and even harder to carry on normal conversation. It irked me no end to know that he and Claudia had outsmarted me. They must have laughed themselves sick when Tugg revealed the contents of the letter.

  My problems didn’t end there. Wednesday evening, Ginger called, breathless with excitement. “Y’all sittin’ down, sugar?”

  “Should I be?” I asked in a weary voice.

  “It might not be a bad idea.”

  “Jesus, what is it?”

  “Lucinda went with Tally to Colorado.”

  My heart seemed to disengage from my chest and crash land in my stomach. “Who told you that?” I asked hoarsely.

  “I got it straight from the horse’s mouth. Lucy’s Aunt Polly told me.”

  I grabbed the table for support. All week, the memory of Tally’s kiss had kept me in a state of anxious turmoil. It was the one thing that lifted my fractured spirits. Since he’d left, time had crawled to a standstill and I found myself eagerly counting the days until his return. And now this.

  Even though Eric had called me twice to tell me how much he missed me, and sent me another expensive bouquet of flowers, some inner knowledge told me that what I felt for him was not the real thing.

  In spite of the fact that Tally and I seemed to have almost nothing in common, and he had a host of emotional problems to unravel, I finally admitted to myself that I was in love with him. He had not verbalized his thoughts to me that last day, but I’d felt certain his feelings for me were just as powerful. Ginger’s news left me in a state of utter desolation.

  The next two days I went through my routine in a stupor. The daily assignments were dull, conversation tedious, food tasteless, and nothing relieved the sensation that my heart had been ripped out and fed through a shredder.

  I did a good deal of soul searching. It had been less than six months since my heart-aching breakup in Philadelphia and, against my own advice, I was right back where I started. With age thirty staring me in the face, so far love had provided me with more torment than joy.

  When I arrived home Friday afternoon, bad news was waiting for me on the answering machine. “Kendall, dear, this is Mary Tuggs. I hate to tell you this but, Tess Delgado called me today. She’s being released from the nursing home the first of July. I’m really sorry, but you’ll have to be out of the house by then. Give me a call and we’ll talk about finding you a place in town.” It was a fitting end to an altogether lousy week.

  After pouring myself a glass of wine, I stepped outside onto the patio. As twilight shadows blanketed the distant hills in purple, I breathed in the clear, sweet-smelling air. What would it be like, I wondered, to live somewhere else, perhaps in another cramped apartment. I had to admit that living in such splendid isolation these past months had spoiled me.

  How I would miss the song of the wind and the way the stars shimmered at night in the dark canopy of sky. Or the way the moon looked as it rose majestically over Castle Rock. I would miss the sugary scent of honeysuckle and even the prickly cactus garden I had once so detested.

  I didn’t even realize I was crying until I felt a tear slip off my chin. Hastily, I swiped it away and stepped into the house. It was time to call Eric and tell him I would go for the job interview in Phoenix.

  30

  The interview on Tuesday afternoon with Barney Wexler, managing editor of the Arizona Republic, was a great success. He spoke in glowing terms of Eric and seemed impressed by my credentials and copies of the recent series of articles I’d written for the Sun. Yes, there would be an opening on the investigative staff, but it wasn’t available until the first of August. If I cared to wait, the job was mine.

  My mood was somber after I
left his office and started home. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? Career advancement and higher pay?

  When I finally broke free of the snarled rush-hour traffic, I couldn’t help but notice the massive thunderheads piled high like frothy whipped-cream over the mountains ahead. Every now and then, flickering tongues of violet lightning illuminated their steel-gray bellies. The effect was mesmerizing. A quick run through the local radio stations finally produced a weather report.

  A warm air mass was pushing moisture up from the Gulf of California, producing a weather pattern more common during the summer monsoons and, the announcer explained, even though it was too early in the season for such storms, a flash flood alert was in effect for the mountains north and west of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Flash flood? After so many weeks without rain, it sounded impossible.

  I couldn’t help it. As I drove into Castle Valley I perceived everything with new eyes. The town, snugly tucked beneath the mass of Castle Rock, didn’t look as shabby to me as it had that first evening back in April. Since then, this wild, rugged land had become my home.

  It was close to six o’clock when I arrived at the paper and walked past Tugg’s office. I paused in the doorway, mildly surprised to see him still at his desk.

  “Back to twelve hour days?” I inquired.

  He looked up and gave me a wry smile. His normally pink face had a sallow cast. “Comes with the territory, as the saying goes. So, how are you doing? What did the specialist say?”

  I had told everyone that I’d gone to Phoenix for a doctor’s appointment. “I’m much better,” I said truthfully.

  Tugg smiled. “How about that? I told your dad the dry, desert air would clear you up in no time. Plus that, I got to do him a favor. Of course, it’s paid off for me. You’re heads above John Dexter. You know, that series was just great. I’ve had more comments on that piece than anything since I took over this place.”

  Guilt welled up in me. “Thanks, Tugg. Um…could we talk for a few minutes? In private?”

  He threw me a curious glance. “Sure. Shut the door behind you.”