by Rose Beecham
Bobby Lee thought they could let this soap opera run for most of the year before Jude would have to break his heart, by which time no one would care that she was tall and cut her hair too short for a woman. Instead they would be whispering behind her back that she was a callous ball-breaker who’d dumped the only half-decent male ever likely to propose to her.
Jude could live with that.
She closed the hatch and took a cursory look inside the front of Debbie’s SUV. As she moved from the front seat to the back, she said, “If this ex is determined to play dirty, maybe Ms. Basher can come up with something she can use as emotional blackmail herself. Everyone has secrets. If she thinks about it, she probably knows a thing or two the ex would rather keep to herself.”
“I’ll work on it,” Sandy said in a tone of grudging thanks.
Jude closed the driver’s door. “I’m all done here.”
Sandy accepted the keys from her. “I hope you nail that jerk.”
“Finding Corban would help.” Jude offered a professional smile. “By the way, thanks for getting involved in the search.”
Sandy shrugged. “It’s a good workout.”
“You think you need one?”
The subtle compliment garnered a hint of satisfaction. With a faint grin, she murmured, “Old habits…”
“When were you discharged?” Jude put her best guess out there.
“That obvious, huh?” Sandy glanced down at herself in wry appraisal. “I was wounded during my second tour of duty in Iraq. I completed my tour, but after that I decided not to roll the dice anymore.”
“Was it an IED?”
“Funny, that always sounds so clean.”
Jude took that for a “yes.”
“I wasn’t in the vehicle that took the hit. We were back a ways, but there was a mortar exchange. We took the position out. Another day, another martyr.” The comment was cold and bitter, and Jude could see in the stiffness of Sandy’s mouth and the shuttered lowering of her gaze, the strain of holding back emotion.
Carefully—wanting to get an inside track with this woman—she said, “I never served. In my job there’s the occasional shoot-out and you have to deal with dangerous situations, but you’re not under constant random attack. I can’t even imagine what it was like for you over there.”
“Be thankful for that.” Sandy’s expression grew distant. Jude could feel her slipping out of reach, finding the place she went, mentally, to escape.
“Friends of my family lost a son in Iraq recently,” she said, rebuttoning her coat against the cold. Her face felt numb, but she wanted to keep Sandy talking. “He was in Tikrit.”
“4th Infantry Division?”
“Yes. First Lieutenant Carl Sandler.”
“That’s tough,” Sandy said. “You never know who the bad guys are over there.”
“Where else have you served?”
“Kosovo and Afghanistan.” Sandy hesitated. “I was with the 82nd Airborne.”
“The maroon berets?” Jude was intrigued. There weren’t too many female paratroopers in the armed forces, and Sandy couldn’t resist letting her know she was one of that elite. “I didn’t realize we still had paratroopers in Iraq.”
“The eighty-deuce is usually deployed for offensive combat operations. We were in Iraq for the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Later we redeployed on a support mission for the elections.”
“No picnic, huh?”
Sandy fell silent, blinking rapidly. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket and glanced back toward the house. Everything about her seemed strangely still, and Jude sensed she was exerting tremendous control. Something had welled inside, an inner rage that frayed at the edges of her control, making her eyes dark and fierce and her bottom jaw so tight, she had to have her teeth painfully clamped. Almost anything could push her over the edge, Jude decided, and she would explode.
Aware that this was a tricky moment, Jude weighed her options and suggested in an impulsive manner, “We should have a drink some time.”
Sandy stared at her like she’d taken leave of her senses. During the long silence that followed, Jude had plenty of time to observe the paratrooper’s train of thought as her tense expression shifted from surprise to puzzled incredulity, then stark paranoia.
“You’re not my type, Detective,” she responded eventually.
“You’re not my type either.” Jude offered a grin to lighten things up. “Good we got that out of the way.”
Sandy gave herself a moment, perhaps to regroup, then said, “I’ll take a rain check.”
“Your girlfriend’s invited too,” Jude coaxed.
A pause. “Why? Is she your type?”
Jude took this for Sandy’s version of humor and ran with it. “No. I prefer them fickle and high maintenance.”
This self-effacing irony raised a faint grin. Her voice warming by a few degrees, Sandy commiserated, “Us simple types can’t seem to leave the princesses alone.”
They both shook their heads, sharing a moment of morose introspection. Then Jude said, “Okay, I’m out of here. Nice talking with you, Sandy. Thanks again for participating in the search.”
“No sweat. Good luck.”
Jude felt Sandy’s eyes on her all the way to the Dakota. She couldn’t help but wonder which one of them, in hand-to-hand combat, would walk away.
Chapter Thirteen
Heather Roache sat down at her desk in the tiny cubicle her boss liked to refer to as the Accounts and Administration department, dropped her purse next to her chair, and opened the Durango Herald, which she always read while she was drinking her morning coffee before work.
At the sight of the front page, she realized today was going to be a bad day. They should have sold the paper with a free barf bag like the ones they had on airplanes. The headline said Mom To Marry Suspect Boyfriend. Staring down at a photograph of Tonya Perkins and Wade Miller smooching for the camera, she almost threw up her low-carb snack bar.
Mr. McAllister crowded into the closet-sized space with her, donut box in one hand, two take-out caffè lattes in the other. These were from the Silver Bean, a small trailer that served the only good espresso in Cortez. Heather couldn’t bring herself to set foot in a place where there were still Kerry/Edwards posters all over the walls from the last election and people mocked Vice-President Cheney over that quail-shooting accident.
The café was run by Wendy Mimiaga, the crazy chairwoman of the Montezuma County Green Party, so who could be surprised that it was always full of liberals and they showed Michael Moore movies over and over. If there was any other place that made good coffee, Heather would have insisted Mr. McAllister go there, but the Four Corners was not known for its high-class restaurants and European coffee, and Starbucks had recently passed Cortez by, instead opening its long-awaited franchise in Durango.
Desperate times called for desperate measures, and if there was one thing Heather couldn’t stand, that was weak, lukewarm coffee with grounds floating around on a surface scum of flavored coffee creamer. She sometimes wished she’d never accepted Mr. McAllister’s offer of eight months at Covenant Bible College in Windsor. She’d gotten used to the cafés of Fort Collins with their espresso and foreign foods, and when she came back to Cortez she brought with her these newfound city tastes.
“I can’t believe Orwell let that asshole go.” Mr. McAllister planted a sticky finger on Wade Miller’s face, leaving a blob of chocolate frosting behind when he resumed work on the donut he was munching.
Heather dabbed the spot clean with a paper towel. “I always knew Tonya Perkins was stupid about men, but this is incredible.”
“You see what they’re up to, don’t you?” Mr. McAllister paused in his chewing. “Their theory is that we’ll all be so distracted by the wedding and all, we won’t notice they killed a kid.”
Heather snorted softly. “They’re assuming everyone else is as dumb as them.”
“I don’t think they’re as dumb as they look.” Mr. M
cAllister opened the donut box and extracted another, this time jelly, his favorite. “He did it. No doubt about it. Her…I’m not so sure.”
Of course not, you’re a man. Heather said, “She has to know something. But she’s kidding herself. She wants to get married so she’s going to believe what she wants to believe.”
“Like O.J.’s kids.”
“The difference being she’s an adult and it’s her baby that’s gone missing.”
“Look what it says here.” Again the sticky finger, this time dusting the newspaper with powdered sugar. Mr. McAllister read aloud, “Montezuma County Sheriff, Orwell Pratt, on Monday told the Durango Herald that two members of the goat’s head gang, Gums Thompson and Matthew Roache, are persons of interest to the authorities. So far Mr. Thompson and Mr. Roache have been interviewed by detectives and remain at large in the community.”
“At large!” Heather gasped. “What are they saying? They’re acting like Matt did something.”
She read on. The article seemed strangely distorted. Tonya and Wade were called the “newly engaged couple,” and the reporter said they were “understandably distressed over allegations about Mr. Miller’s role in Corban’s disappearance.” The paper cautioned against “trying this young couple in the court of public opinion” and urged readers not to “destroy reputations before all the facts are available.” The reporter wasn’t half so considerate of Matt and Hank.
“This is unbelievable,” Heather complained. “The sheriff told me Matt’s an important witness. Now he gets treated like a criminal.”
“Donut?” Mr. McAllister offered her the box.
Heather was so stressed she chose a bear claw and tore into it automatically. How much worse could this nightmare get? She’d just spent five years making the Roache name respectable in Cortez again, and now this had to happen.
“I don’t know what to do,” she hiccupped, tears collecting around her nose. She read a little further and gasped, “Oh, my God. She’s pregnant.”
It raised the matter of abortion, Heather thought. Maybe exceptions should be made in some cases.
Mr. McAllister put his non-sticky hand on her shoulder and said, “There, there. We’ll think of something. Those fools at the Herald need a good talking to. Leave it to me.”
Somehow that didn’t inspire confidence. Her boss was shaped like a tree, tall and stout of trunk with spindly limbs. At first glance, he could be mistaken for a tough guy, but it was Heather who had to bully people into paying their accounts on time. Mr. McAllister was always promising to “tear them a new one,” but she was the one who terrified the team leaders when they screwed up. He owned the company, but you’d never know it from his clothes or his attitude.
He’d stepped into his dad’s boots six years earlier, after Randolph McAllister had a heart attack and fell off a roof. Ever since then, Heather and the building contracts manager had been in the business of making it seem like he fired off orders and had no time for fools, just like his old man. They’d been so effective he seemed to believe this propaganda himself.
Heather had no problem with that. Mr. McAllister and his wife had no kids, and they treated her almost like she was their own. They sent her to bible college, then they paid for her to study accounting part-time, and when she bought her house they helped her get it financed. She had the best health insurance money could buy, and any time she needed a day off, all she had to do was ask. She was lucky and she knew it.
If Matt was willing to put in a fair day’s work he could walk into a well-paid job at McAllister’s Roofing and Restoration. But Heather wasn’t going to let him sign on unless he got his act together. She owed Mr. McAllister more than that.
Wiping her tears, she said, “My brother had nothing to do with the kidnapping, and I’m going to see to it that he doesn’t get the blame.”
“That’s the spirit.” Mr. McAllister gave her a fatherly squeeze and reached once more for the donuts, but Heather closed the box.
“Only two at a time. Remember what the doctor said.”
“I should have known you were counting.” He grinned. “Now just say the word if there’s anything I can do to help you and your brother.”
Heather hesitated. She had an idea, but she wasn’t sure if it would just complicate matters. “Mr. McAllister, maybe there is something. That lawyer of your daddy’s who made those weirdoes in Mancos pay their bill. Do you think we could get some advice from him?”
“Griffin Mahanes.” Her boss pronounced with distaste. “A jackal, like the rest of them. But I’ll call him.”
“I can pay,” Heather said. “I have savings.”
“Keep your money in the bank. I’ll take care of it.”
Heather smiled awkwardly. Normally she would have said no, but she knew she couldn’t afford pride at a time like this. “I just want Matt to get a chance to tell his side of the story,” she said. “I don’t want them to destroy his life over one stupid mistake.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Mr. McAllister was already dialing the “jackal.” Pointing at the donut box, he said, “I’ll take a coconut cream. You know how I get, talking to city boys with Viagra in their pockets.”
*
Jude headed north, taking the long way out of Paradox Valley. The paved highway soon ran out, and she was bumping her way along the narrow gravel road that discouraged tourists and locals alike from making the climb up to Carpenter Ridge. From the top, the valley spread out 2500 feet below, offering a desirable-if-dangerous photo op. When it wasn’t covered in snow and veiled by low clouds, you could look out across the red and ochre rock formations west to the La Sal Mountains in Utah.
Jude usually came up here on horseback in the summer, roaming the dusty paths over rainbow layers of sandstone and red rock, studded with fossils. Dried mudflats flaked in chunks, and pebbles spun like ball bearings beneath her horse’s hooves. The temperatures got high, upwards of 110 degrees.
She loved the canyon. It felt holier than a church, infinitely closer to the divine, more ancient than life itself. A billion years old and bearing the footprints of species long extinct, clans of people long departed, wild horses, and warriors. Their spirits lingered in wind and echo, in the globs of light that bounced across the castellan walls as if the ancients were hurling snowballs.
Jude was trying to enjoy the moment without picturing her Dakota rolling down into the valley when her cell phone rang. She stared at the caller ID and vacillated. When she could not hold out any longer, she pulled over where the road widened and picked up.
Mercy’s voice poured into her ear. “Hello? Is that you?”
“Well, I don’t have a spare girlfriend who picks up the phone for me, so I guess it must be,” Jude said pleasantly.
Mercy ignored the sarcasm. “I’m calling to apologize about bringing Elspeth to town the other day. You were right. I should have checked with you first.”
“Apology accepted.”
Jude waited. For what, she had no idea. It wasn’t like Mercy would now announce that she’d been a fool and she was going to dump Elspeth and live with Jude forever in a secluded log cabin where they could have noisy sex all they wanted and no one would pound on the wall. It would be good-bye to seedy far-flung motels and hello to domestic bliss.
She edged the Dakota farther into the pull-off and killed the engine.
Mercy said, “I wanted to let you know...Elspeth and I have decided to get married. We’re flying to New York for an exclusive interview with Paula Zahn next week.”
“Married,” Jude repeated flatly.
“Yes, we’re going to Canada after the interview.”
“You’re coming out on TV?”
“Everyone’s going to know in the end, anyway. We thought it would make sense to get in first.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Congratulations?” Mercy suggested.
Jude’s mouth refused to form the word. “I thought you weren’t interested in long-term commitment.”<
br />
“Things have changed. When Elspeth and I had that break from each other last year we both realized that everything works better when we’re together.”
“That break—you mean the one when you started sleeping with me?” Jude wondered why she was prolonging the conversation. She loosened the collar of her shirt. Her skin felt hot and damp.
“Yes.” Impatience crept into Mercy’s tone.
“Back then you said she was an ex.”
“It’s what I believed at the time. Jude, is this postmortem really necessary?”
“I guess I’m trying to understand why you picked her and not me.” The words were out before Jude could come up with a more sophisticated way to express her bewilderment.
Mercy sighed. “How am I supposed to answer? I don’t know why I love her and not you.”
Well, she’d asked for that one. Jude flinched.
“Before you start reinventing everything, you might want to be honest with yourself for a change,” Mercy said. “The fact is, it suits you not to share your life with a partner. You work all kinds of hours, you have weird phone calls on that spare cell phone of yours—I have no idea what that’s about. And you don’t like explaining yourself to anyone. You might think you want a full-time relationship, but trust me, you don’t.”
“Free therapy,” Jude remarked dryly. “This is an unexpected bonus.”
“Jude, I’m not the enemy.”
“Then what is?”
“Loneliness.” Softly, Mercy explained, “We got together because we were lonely.”
“And sex starved,” Jude recalled.
Mercy laughed. “Yes. That, too.”
“It was good.”
“Extremely good.”
“I miss you,” Jude said.
“You miss someone,” Mercy replied after a long pause. “And for a while I’ve been your someone.”