Murder on the Horizon

by M. L. Rowland

  The old man leaned in toward Gracie until his face was only inches from her own. “Arson.”

  “Arson. How . . . ?”

  “Firebomb through the front window. That give you what you lookin’ for?”

  “I . . .” Gracie stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. “Is there anything I can do for you? For Acacia?”

  John glowered down at her. “Whatchoo doin’ here?”

  “I . . . It’s . . . I was concerned about Vivian. About Acacia.”

  “Acacia’s back with her mother,” he spat. “Get away from me. From us. We don’t need no help from you. You got nothin’ we need.”

  Openmouthed, Gracie watched John shuffle away from her down the hallway.

  * * *

  DISTURBED AND DISTRACTED by John Robinson’s bitter outburst and the possibility that Baxter’s cousin Jordan might have burned down the bungalow at the bottom of Arcturus hill, Gracie drove out of the medical center parking lot on autopilot. Barely aware of what she was doing, she merged the Ranger into the stream of eastbound traffic on the I-10.

  A mile down the highway, a mishmash of signs came into view. Gracie’s eyes flicked to one announcing the 215 Highway exit north to Barstow.

  What day is it today?

  She counted back through the days of the previous week, then forward again until she was confident that it was, in fact, Friday.

  Confirming by the dashboard clock that she had enough time for a long detour before heading back up the mountain to Timber Creek, Gracie cut across two lanes of traffic onto the long, sweeping exit ramp curving over the I-10 and heading north.

  The curving four-lane Mojave Freeway climbed up into the mountains. Gracie zoomed past semi-trucks laboring up the long incline, their side panels blaring UPS, MAYFLOWER, and TARGET, past cars and motorcycles, climbing slowly up to the Cajon Pass. She slid down the long, gentle descent on the other side, all way to the desert floor and along the pin-straight highway decorated with billboards, signs, and power lines. An hour after leaving the regional medical center, the Ranger glided past the sign announcing DESERTVIEW CITY LIMITS; POPULATION: 119,206; ELEVATION: 2,863.

  Following signs for the Civic Center, Gracie exited the highway and drove along flat, traffic-clogged streets, through a commercial section of strip malls landscaped with white gravel and pink oleander and palm trees, finally turning onto a street that led into downtown.

  As she neared the center of town, signs of organized activity increased—barricaded streets, vehicles jamming curbs, people walking singly or in groups of two or three, purposefully, in the same direction, some carrying signs, some cameras.

  Gracie parked the truck in a King Soopers parking lot. Opting out of acting as a walking advertisement for the Sheriff’s Department, she shed her orange SAR uniform shirt. Pushing up the sleeves of her white turtleneck top and wishing she were wearing shorts and Tevas rather than pea green uniform jeans and hiking boots, she emerged from the cool, air-conditioned interior of the Ranger and into the open desert air. It was like stepping into an oven set on Broil.

  In the relative coolness of the building shadows, Gracie walked the several blocks to the central square of the city. Up ahead, a crowd of protesters had gathered across the intersection, holding signs and banners, shouting, taunting, blowing whistles and noisemakers to drown out the chants of marchers as yet unseen. A woman wearing a multicolored clown outfit and an electric-blue wig was playing an upbeat polka on an accordion.

  Visible over the heads of the crowd, a Confederate flag flowed by along with several handheld signs. A slight breeze caught another flag, unfurling it for an instant, displaying in the center a spiderlike, and instantly recognizable symbol—a swastika.

  Melting into the throng of people, Gracie edged around the corner, mashing herself between bodies and the building, and headed down the block to where the crowd thinned enough for her to shoulder her way through to the front. She stopped at a barrier and looked up the street.

  Protesters lined both sides of the streets, held in place by yellow police tape and steel barriers. Men and women. Young and old. Latinos, whites, blacks. Some held signs reading NAZI GO HOME and PEACE! and I DISLIKE YOUR HATE. And a long, white banner with red lettering: RISE ABOVE RACISM. Others were obviously simply looky-loos, snapping pictures of the spectacle.

  A phalanx of law enforcement from different agencies—city police, Sheriff’s Department, state patrol, even what looked like National Guard, some in riot gear, some on bicycles—were stretched along the street between the marchers and the protesters.

  There were thirty or so marchers, both men and women. Some wore black long-sleeved shirts and black cargo pants tucked into black army boots. Some wore white T-shirts, red suspenders holding up blue jeans, steel-toed work boots with red laces. Others wore what appeared to be derivations of the black uniforms of the Nazi Gestapo. A few wore black caps, but most heads were bare, closely shaven with a scalp tattoo here and there.

  Rage emanating in palpable waves, the group marched down the street at a fast, determined pace, quickly reaching the point where Gracie stood. As they passed, a man toward the front shouted into a bullhorn. Fists pumping the air with the strong-arm salute of the Third Reich, the marchers responded to his call, the rhythmic chants clashing with the cacophony of protester yells and whistles and noisemakers.

  Gracie scanned the faces of the marchers, looking for someone she recognized. Certainly Winston wasn’t there. He would have stood a head taller than almost everyone around him.

  About two-thirds of the way back in the parade, she spotted Lee Edwards, Baxter’s father. Eyes focused straight ahead, mouth set in a grim line, light brown eyebrows furrowed, head shaven. That he was wearing a white T-shirt and holding one of the red, white, blue, and black flags with the swastika in the middle was all that Gracie could see of the man.

  On the near side of Lee was another man she recognized from the training—small framed, a couple of inches shorter. White T-shirt displaying sinewy forearms with multiple elaborate tattoos. Shaved head with a neatly trimmed black goatee. Thin, straight nose. Gold hoop in one ear.

  As Gracie watched, the man’s eyes, the startling blue of glacier ice, slid over to meet hers, lingered for a moment, then slid away.

  Gracie backed into the anonymity of the crowd, suddenly wary and uncomfortable that the man had seen her there, possibly recognizing her.

  Several feet up from where Gracie stood, a young white man clambered over the steel barrier and screamed at the marchers, “Shut up! Shut up!”

  Two Sheriff’s deputies muscled him back behind the barrier and onto the sidewalk.

  The noise of the crowd swelled, growing more agitated, angrier, jeering, and taunting. Some leaned far out over the barriers, shaking their fists at the marchers and yelling, “Go home! Go home!”

  Across the street another man, a young Latino, hopped the barrier. He ran into the street, scooped up a rock, held it aloft, and yelled something unintelligible.

  Two of the neo-Nazis fell out of line. Police descended, pushing the marchers back in line and tussling with the young man, strong-arming him back behind the barricade.

  The crowd yelled louder.

  Gracie glanced around her, suddenly aware of heightening emotions, the volatility of a situation that could turn very ugly and lethal very fast.

  I’m outta here.

  Dropping back out of the crowd, she rounded the corner and escaped up the street, relieved as the crowds and clamor receded.

  Halfway up the block, she stopped, backed up, and stood staring at a white pickup truck parked along the street.

  Toyota Tacoma. No shell. Brown racing stripes. A couple of rust spots and a dent here and there. Empty gun rack in the back window. Tiny Confederate flag decal in the bottom-right corner.

  A memory swam to the forefront of her brain. A similar truck had driven past the
Robinson bungalow the night she and Vivian had sat outside on the front deck, counting the cars driving up and down Arcturus, remarking how wonderful, how peaceful it was that there was so little traffic on their road. Tinted windows had prevented her from seeing the driver of the pickup as it coasted back down past the house again.

  Was it the same truck? Gracie couldn’t be sure. Small white pickups were ubiquitous in Southern California. And so what if it was the same one? she asked herself. There was no way to tell whether the owner was a marcher, a protester, or someone totally uninvolved in the tumult half a block away.

  She kept walking.

  CHAPTER

  22

  THE Ranger zigzagged up the back side of the mountain, slowing almost to a stop for a hairpin turn, then accelerating for the short straightaway, slowing once again for a tight turn, speeding up for yet another straightaway. In twenty minutes, the truck gained almost thirty-five hundred feet in elevation. The flat khaki-colored desert dotted with mesquite and Joshua trees gradually surrendered to giant mounds of California granite and piñon and juniper. Halfway up the precipitous incline, Gracie turned off the air-conditioning and opened her window, draping her arm on the sill and reveling in the dropping temperature.

  Normally, Gracie took particular delight in the lightning-quick transition from desert to mountain. But, this time, as she braked, rounded a sharp curve, sped up, braked again, and rounded another curve, she realized that, once again, she felt as if someone had tied a knot in her stomach—the aftereffects of the neo-Nazi parade. Leaving the steep incline with its Mojave vistas in the rearview mirror, Gracie sped up for another long straightaway, slowing once again for the curving stretch that led up and over the final rise, then down into the far eastern end of the valley.

  Relieved to be back on her own turf—cool, quiet, and peaceful—Gracie circled the Ranger around the north shore of what remained of Greene’s Lake, mostly empty from the long summer, white patches of alkali showing on the exposed lake bottom.

  Suddenly remembering her decision to call Sharon Edwards about her two grandsons, Gracie pulled into a turnout, yellow-page-searched for the woman’s number on her phone and made the call. Twenty minutes later, obligation fulfilled, she edged the Ranger back out onto the highway and continued toward home.

  Gracie flipped on her left-hand turn signal and slowed the truck for the turn onto the road leading to the southern end of the valley. At the last minute, she flipped the signal off, swooped back into the main lane, and continued straight ahead, along the winding northern shoreline of Timber Lake and into the little village of Buckskin.

  With a hand resting on the warm hood of the Ranger, Gracie stood on the gravel shoulder of the road, staring unbelieving at a red, white, and blue RE/MAX FOR SALE sign pushed into the rocky hillside in front of Ralph’s log cabin.

  At the top of the cement driveway, the door of the narrow fieldstone garage stood open. As Gracie watched, Ralph emerged from the cabin, a box in his arms, and walked across the driveway into the garage.

  She climbed up the driveway. “When were you going to tell me?” she asked as she neared the top.

  Ralph set the box on top of a wide stack of boxes and turned around to face her. He wore a torn, heather-gray T-shirt with ARMY in black lettering on the front, faded Levi’s, and paint-spattered work boots. His short-cropped silver hair gleamed in the late afternoon sun. Still pale, Gracie observed, but his pallor was shades better than the dried mud of the previous week.

  Winded from the short, but steep climb, Gracie stopped ten feet away and sucked air into her lungs through her nose. “Or was the plan to not tell me?”

  “I left you a message.” Ralph’s voice was neutral, a stranger’s.

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Where?”

  “On your machine at home.”

  Shit. “So . . . you . . . you’re leaving me?” she asked, unable to keep from making the question personal.

  “This isn’t directed at you or meant to hurt you.”

  “Well, it is hurting me,” she said. “A lot.”

  “Believe what you like.” Ralph turned away, lifted a box from the floor, and set it atop the pile.

  “Why are you acting like this?”

  “I’m not acting any way.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re cold. You’re distant. You act like . . .” She almost said, like you don’t love me anymore, but the words stuck to the roof of her mouth like peanut butter.

  Without turning around, Ralph said, “I had a heart attack.”

  Gracie actually took a step backward. “What? When?”

  “Five . . . six weeks ago.”

  “You worked the Edwards search. Last week.”

  “’Bout did me in.”

  “But you’re so . . . young.”

  “It happens.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It was mild.”

  “So that makes it not important enough to tell me? Saying a heart attack is mild is like saying . . .” She stopped, unable to think of a good analogy. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked again.

  “I told Gardner. I thought he would tell the team.”

  “Well, he didn’t,” Gracie said. The bastard. “Ralphie. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I . . . Because . . .” He stopped.

  “What? Because you didn’t want me hassling you? Bothering you?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “There was nothing you could have done—”

  “I could have been there . . . here.”

  “I didn’t want you here.”

  It felt as if Ralph had reached inside her chest and wrenched out her heart.

  Seeing the pain registered on her face, Ralph closed his gray-blue eyes for a moment, inhaled, then opened his eyes again, his face softening. “I didn’t want you to see me that way, Gracie girl,” he said.

  It hit her then. Ralph was used to being the strong one in their relationship, at work, in everything, the man in charge, in control. He hadn’t wanted Gracie to see him weak, vulnerable.

  “I didn’t want your . . .” he continued.

  “Pity? Again, you mean?”

  Ralph looked out across the neighbors’ yard and slowly nodded.

  Gracie cleared her throat to dislodge the lump that had risen and stuck her hands in the back pockets of her pants. “Where are you moving to?”

  He turned, picked up the same box from the pile, then set it down again. “Tucson.”

  “You hate the desert.”

  “Sometimes one has to do what one has to do. Sounds like a line from a goddam movie.”

  “What’s in Tucson?”

  “Not what. Who. My daughter.”

  “I didn’t . . .” Gracie stopped. She tried to swallow, but her throat was parched. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

  Ralph looked directly at her and said, “You never asked.”

  The truth slammed into Gracie like a two-by-twelve to the side of the head. “I haven’t been a very good friend to you, have I?” she said, her voice wobbling. “I’m sorry, Ralphie. I’m sorry you had a heart attack and you didn’t think I was capable of being there to help. I’m sorry I let you down. Sorry I hurt you.” She swiped a hand across her cheek and looked down at her fingertips. They were wet. She hadn’t even been aware she was crying.

  Ralph walked over to Gracie and put his arms around her. “You didn’t let me down, Gracie girl,” he said, his voice gentle, warm, quiet. The old Ralphie’s voice.

  Gracie wrapped her arms around his neck and mumbled into his warm shoulder, “You’re all I have.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re my best friend. I love you. Don’t get mad at me, but would you
stay if I said I’d marry you?”

  She felt him chuckle. “No. That was a . . .” She felt him shaking his head. “I’m not the right man for you.”

  “You’re the most important man in my life.”

  “No, I’m not. You and I both know it.” He pulled away and kissed her hair. “I’ll be back to visit.”

  But Gracie knew he never would.

  CHAPTER

  23

  GRACIE steered the Ranger around a slow-moving delivery truck and back onto the westbound highway lane leading into town. Behind her, the morning sun, still low in the sky, shone down the length of the valley, illuminating the sentinel pines lining the road.

  Minnie’s chin rested on her shoulder. She reached back and stroked the silky head.

  Despite feeling as if she hadn’t slept in weeks, Gracie spent the night of her disastrous day kicking off blankets, pulling them back up, staring into the darkness, sitting up, turning on the light, turning it off, lying back down, and turning the light on again. Once again, she was unable to stop the pinwheels of thoughts and images spinning around in her brain. Children carrying high-powered weapons. Baxter’s tear-stained face and bruised body. Angry men marching and chanting angry, hateful words. Ralph’s heart attack. Vivian and John’s house burning. Ralph moving away. John’s angry face leaning in toward hers. Tattoos. Swastikas.

  At four thirty in the morning she finally fell asleep only to slap the buzzing alarm clock off ninety minutes later. She sleepwalked through the day at camp. Practically comatose, she helped serve the breakfast, waved good-bye to the church group, spent several hours in the middle of the day supposedly catching up on paperwork, trying not to lay her head down on the desk lest she never pick it up again. In the late afternoon, she greeted the arriving group of a dozen corporate executives. Finally, after a steak dinner grilled outdoors next to the lake, she drove home and collapsed onto her bed, unconscious almost immediately, sleeping straight through until her alarm went off the following morning.

  The new group in camp was small enough for Allen to handle preparing and serving the breakfast alone. Promising the head cook the afternoon off—he hadn’t had time off in over a week—Gracie set her alarm for eighty thirty, allowing herself an additional three hours of sleep.