by Rose Beecham
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Just so you know, I won’t be hung out to dry. If I go down, it’ll be noisy.”
Arbiter chuckled softly. “Relax. You’re in good shape.”
“And I plan to stay that way.”
Jude ended the call and deleted the record on her disposable cell phone. She didn’t want to be part of a screwup. If this operation went south, she would be given a security transfer to another location, far from the Four Corners. The thought troubled her. She wasn’t ready to leave.
*
“Miss Harwood is having a soirée next Saturday,” Tulley said as soon as Jude’s shadow fell across his desk. “We’re invited.”
As he’d expected, his boss received the news with a pained expression. She was unmoved by independent cinema unless Bruce Willis was in it, and she thought Elspeth Harwood was overhyped.
“That thing is about to fly off its bracket,” she said like she had more important things to worry about than the social event of the year. She took off her sunglasses and stared up at the ceiling fan. “I suppose if I don’t fix it myself one of us is going to get decapitated. Remind me—why do I have a big, strong twenty-seven-year-old deputy sitting around this office? Other than feeding pig ears to his dog, of course.”
Tulley said, “I put in a maintenance call to Montrose. They said it’s on the fall schedule.”
They also said the Paradox Valley substation was low priority being as it was a fully renovated building, unlike some of theirs that were about to fall down on the heads of female deputies. Was that what Tulley wanted? No sir, he told the supervisor.
The stationhouse used to be a school until the Montezuma and Montrose sheriffs’ joint initiative. Now it consisted of an office, an interview room, a couple of holding cells, and a utility room out back. Jude kept her Bowflex in one of the cells since her house was too small for serious gym equipment. Tulley was thankful about this because having the Bowflex in plain sight gave him the motivation to improve himself. He worked out every day and could press two hundred pounds, a weight most MCSO deputies would never lift unless they had to rescue their wives from a burning building.
Tulley smoothed his shirtsleeves over his biceps and wondered if he should buy a bigger size uniform now that his was getting really tight. His best buddy, Bobby Lee Parker, said ladies like to see shirt buttons popping across a man’s chest instead of his gut. Tulley could accept that, but he wasn’t sure if he looked professional with his shirt all stretched.
“No one ever filled out a T-shirt like Marlon Brando,” Miss Benham said from the counter in their tiny kitchen. She must have noticed him feeling his muscles. “Women fainted in Streetcar Named Desire, did you know that?”
“Yes, ma’am. But ladies were shy back in the old days. Not any more.” To make his point, he said, “They weren’t fainting in 300, they were panting.”
“300 indeed,” Miss Benham sniped. “They should have gotten their historical facts in order before they made a film about Sparta.”
“It ain’t supposed to be a documentary.” Tulley was surprised that Miss Benham didn’t appreciate the film for its artistic visual style even if she thought the men were too naked.
“It’s pro-war propaganda,” she said with a delicate sniff.
“It’s a legend,” Tulley argued.
“You’ve been duped.”
“You sound like a schoolteacher.” That always got her. Miss Benham had taught right here in this room for about fifty years before she retired.
“I liked that movie,” Jude said. “I got it on DVD. Big screen would have been better.”
“Oh, man, it was awesome at the Regal,” Tulley told her. “Me and Bobby Lee went three times.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Jude zapped hairs off her seat with a sticky tape roller. “Has that hound been sitting on my chair again?”
Tulley patted his thigh and Smoke’m got up from his bed and plodded across the office for a smooch. “It’s mostly from his ears. He was laying his head there.”
“I don’t care where it’s from. I’d appreciate not having dog hair all over my butt every time I walk out of here.”
“Coffee, Detective?” Miss Benham already had the mug in her hand. She placed it in front of Jude along with the invite they’d received that morning.
Miss Benham said she was going to keep the card for a souvenir since Dr. Westmoreland had handed it to her. Tulley couldn’t see as that was fair. The envelope was addressed to him, too. It was handmade. That was one of Miss Harwood’s hobbies. A gifted actress like her, always in the public eye and working on two movies at once, longed for time out. Miss Harwood relaxed by squishing rags and paper into a pulp and making her own cards and envelopes. Only special people received them. Everyone else got whatever the publicist sent out. That’s what it said in the latest Vanity Fair magazine. Bobby Lee brought in his copies for Tulley when he was done reading them. He subscribed.
Now that Miss Harwood had moved here from England, she was in all the magazines. The fact that she’d just married Dr. Westmoreland from the ME’s office in Grand Junction was big news. No one in the Four Corners would have guessed they’d have a famous lesbian couple living here, of all places. Some people around the area had come out of the closet to show their support. Tulley thought they’d probably regret their noble impulses. It was all very well to flaunt your personal preferences when you were rich and famous. Regular people had to think about their paycheck.
Miss Benham said Dr. Westmoreland was a self-defining woman and Miss Harwood was a creative artist from London and therefore had Bohemian sensibilities and fluid taste in partners. She wouldn’t expect the Philistines in the Four Corners to understand such things. But she sure had that wrong. No one Tulley knew was offended by idea of Miss Harwood and Dr. Westmoreland together. Most guys at the MCSO said it was hot. Live and let live.
Tulley glanced over at Jude. She had a strange look on her face as she read the invite, and she’d had her hair cut again. Miss Benham thought it made her look too stern, but she about lived at the Le Paradox hair shop. Bobby Lee said with unique looks like hers, fancy hairdos and lipstick were pointless. Miss Benham said Bobby Lee was biased because he was her boyfriend. She thought the people who cared about Jude should encourage her to make more of her attributes. Tulley could see her point. It was one thing for a guy to be tall, dark, and handsome, but people wondered about a woman who looked like that. Things being the way they were, however, Miss Benham was dreaming if she thought Jude would ever wear a dress.
“I guess you two can hardly wait to rub shoulders with the Hollywood crowd.” Jude dropped the invite on a stack of files like it smelled bad.
Miss Benham snatched it up. “We’re one of the select few to receive this invitation, I’ll have you know.”
“I wish that did it for me,” Jude said.
“Philip Seymour Hoffman will be there,” Tulley said. “And they’re going to do a computer uplink to Lars von Trier.”
Miss Benham sighed. “All those phobias of his. If he could only bring himself to get on an airplane and leave Denmark, he could come out here and find out what this country is really like. Generalizations are the province of the uninformed.”
“Von Trier’s the director of Dogville,” Tulley informed Jude. He didn’t think much of the USA Trilogy so far, either. He wasn’t surprised when he found out von Trier was brought up by nudist, communist parents.
“I don’t watch animal movies,” Jude said.
Tulley caught Miss Benham’s eye and they both kept quiet. He fed Smoke’m some Zuke’s PowerBones, a treat Bobby Lee’s mom had told him about. She was a pothead, but she sure loved her dogs and she knew plenty about canine health. She was the one who told him that there was way too much stuff from China in dog food. She said they still ate dogs over there so why would they care if our pets got sick? That was before the recalls. Ever since then Tulley had been shipping Smoke’m’s food
from a natural pet store run by hippies in Boulder.
“I’m going to Montrose to buy a new dress for the soirée,” Miss Benham said. “Something bright. Why should women of my age have to settle for mauve?”
“You don’t look a day over sixty,” Jude said.
Tulley had seen old photos of Miss Benham when she ran the schoolhouse. She looked exactly the same now as she did back then in the dark ages. He wasn’t sure how to turn that observation into a compliment, so he kept quiet.
The phone rang and Jude picked up. After a short silence, she asked, “When did she leave?”
Tulley recognized the tone. Normally Jude’s voice was low and husky. He and Miss Benham argued over who she sounded like most, Kathleen Turner or Barbara Stanwyck. When something came up, her tone flattened out and she seemed to bite the ends off her words. From the few things she said, he could tell there was a problem, so he got to his feet and combed his hair in the wall mirror just in case they’d been called out. He could do with a haircut, he thought, moving his thick black waves first in one direction, then the other. Sometimes he went to Le Paradox, but only if that weirdo friend of the hairdresser’s wasn’t around.
He wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong, but Sandy Lane had taken a dislike to him. She called him “Pretty Boy,” which, despite Floyd Mayweather’s accomplishments in the boxing ring, was not a nickname most guys would appreciate. Tulley thought she was deliberately egging him on, but he wasn’t about to pick a fight with her. If there was one thing his ma taught him, it was to never lay a hand on a woman.
Jude asked a couple more questions, then said, “Okay, I’ll be over in ten minutes.”
Miss Benham poured coffee in a paper cup to go. As she squeezed the lid down over the rim, she asked, “Shall I accept Miss Harwood’s invitation for all three of us? We’re invited to bring a guest each, as well.”
“Count me out,” Jude said. “Tell her I have a headache.”
“It’s a week away. You can’t predict headaches in advance.”
“Trust me, in this case I can guarantee it.”
“It’s not because of their sexual orientation, is it?” Miss Benham asked. “No one worries about that type of thing anymore. Besides, creative people have always explored boundaries and defied social mores.”
Jude rolled her eyes. “Agatha, I don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone’s sexuality. Bobby Lee will drive you. He can go in my place.”
Miss Benham stared at Tulley like he knew why their boss got irrational every time Miss Harwood’s name was mentioned. He said, “Dr. Westmoreland asked for us to tell you she hopes you’ll come.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet she does.” Jude swapped her uniform shirt for plain clothes.
Tulley checked out her muscles. His were bigger these days. In comparison to both of them, Bobby Lee look like a weakling with his Pilates for men.
“Will you be needing me and Smoke’m?” he asked.
“No, that was Debbie at Le Paradox,” Jude said. “Some kind of security issue. I’ll go take down the details and check the locks. That’ll keep her happy.”
“Your hair’s short enough,” Miss Benham said.
Jude smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile, but the sun lines crinkled around her eyes. Over time, Tulley had gotten used to her serious look, but when they first started working together he always thought she was mad at him. Jude didn’t put on a happy face like most people. Folks that didn’t know her wouldn’t see the little changes that gave her thoughts away, but Tulley had learned to recognize them. Her mouth was straight and hard-looking, and when she pressed her lips together in anger her chin tightened slightly. When she thought something was funny, the small hollows at each corner of her mouth deepened a fraction.
Tulley had a theory that most people didn’t notice Jude’s mouth because they were too busy staring at her eyes, which were flat-out beautiful. He wished he could stare right into them for as long as he wanted, but he only got to do that with Smoke’m. All the same, he took advantage when she didn’t realize she was being watched. It wasn’t just their mossy granite color that was unusual. She had a mess of eyelashes most females would flutter all the time, but that wasn’t her style. Instead she watched everything with a sleepy gaze that gave no clue as to her thoughts. Bobby Lee said she had bedroom eyes. Tulley had never understood that expression until he met Jude.
After she left the stationhouse, he said, “What’s with her and Miss Harwood?”
“It’s that dark side of hers,” Agatha said. They often talked about Jude’s silences and her tendency to go off into the mountains alone. “I suppose she has things on her mind.”
Tulley considered telling Miss Benham about the terrorists, but Jude said there was no reason to worry a woman of seventy-two with frightening information. Miss Benham was looking forward to the Telluride film festival and Jude was damned if a few cretins planning a bio-attack would spoil it for her.
“Deputy, that dog bed is filthy.” Miss Benham frowned at him across her glasses. “Take it outside and shake it right now before it gives me hives.”
Tulley said, “Yes, ma’am.”
He never argued about doing the chores. His ma had taught him better than that. He picked up the denim-covered beanbag and whistled to Smoke’m. Once they got out into the parking lot, he shook the bed into some bushes and gazed up at the huge Marlboro Man sitting on his horse, overlooking the station. That, Tulley thought, was a real man. Tough guys like him were the bedrock the West was built on. While Smoke’m lifted his leg at the base of the billboard, Tulley struck a pose like that of the bronzed cowboy. He couldn’t help wondering what the Marlboro Man would say to someone like Crystal Sherman.
Every time he saw that female, Tulley got embarrassed. She always pretended to flirt with him, saying she wanted to watch when they took his picture for the fund-raising calendar and such. Tulley wished she’d quit. Her husband was a buddy of his. Deputy Gavin Sherman had a seven-thousand-dollar Belgian Malinois detection dog from Adlerhorst International. That was one super-smart animal. He’d never track a felon like Smoke’m and he wasn’t a cadaver dog, but he could get around an agility ring like he was on banned substances.
Tulley was helping Gavin train him for the canine world games in Scottsdale in a couple of months’ time, so he stayed at their house when he was in Cortez. He wasn’t sure if that was such a good idea. Crystal had a habit of walking around in little tiny shorts when they were working the dogs. She was always bending down to pick up throwtoys and leaning seductively against the ramps and weave poles. The last time Tulley stayed overnight she walked in on him when he was taking a shower. He didn’t think it was an accident.
Taking another look up at the billboard, he tried to guess what the Marlboro Man would say if Crystal Sherman ran her hand over his butt while he was flipping burgers on the grill. The ideal brush-off came to mind and Tulley rehearsed the words in a convincing cowboy drawl.
“Darlin’, while I’m flattered, I think it’s time you ran along back to your husband.”
Chapter Three
The midsummer sun burned a hole in the afternoon sky, its molten glare too much even for Pippa Calloway’s high-tech sunglasses. Squinting, she rested her head on the steering wheel and contemplated her situation. She was parked at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, her cell phone was almost out of juice, and she was low on water. This was truly the road trip from hell.
A deep voice over the windshield repeated, “Recalculating.”
“Hal,” the voice of her Garmin GPS unit, liked to point out the error of her ways. Pippa extracted a fresh bottle of water from her cooler, took a few gulps, and then splashed some on her face. All she could think about was sleep. She’d left Connecticut five days earlier for her two-thousand-mile odyssey to the Southwest. Her Mazda CX7 looked like it belonged to a homeless person, with personal possessions piled to the roof. Pippa had crammed five years of her life into the car, forcing herself to throw away everything she had
n’t worn or looked at for a long time.
She pictured Uncle Fabian’s smooth, tanned face as she lugged all this crap into his spare room. He always rolled his eyes over her pack-rat habits, but he never made her feel unwelcome. Pippa had an open invitation to come to him anytime, for any reason, and stay as long as she liked. Usually, when family life got unbearable, she fled to Maulle Mansion, his home in the Garden District of New Orleans. This time, however, she wanted to put several thousand miles between herself and her parents.
She’d never been to the log cabin in the San Juan Mountains and had the impression that her uncle preferred to have the place to himself. Still, she had a front door key, one of the four he’d given her to his various homes. Earlier in the month Uncle Fabian had suggested she fly to London to chill out in his pied à terre near St. James Park. But her parents thought nothing of “hopping across the pond,” as her mother put it, to shop and go to the theatre. If Pippa wanted to avoid them, she would have to hole up some place her mother wouldn’t be caught dead in. Looking around, she knew she’d found that exact place.
As she left Farmington, she turned off the GPS and slid a couple of old Rolling Stones CDs into her player. The route was depressing, lined with a succession of pawn shops, junked cars, decrepit mobile homes, scrawny dogs, and scenery that was nothing like a western movie. She had expected red canyons, tall cactus plants, and cowboys on horseback. Such vistas were the norm somewhere around here, if Uncle Fabian’s e-mails and photos were any indication. Meantime she was driving toward an ochre-toned netherworld beneath a vast blue sky, a place where time and human foibles made only a transient impression on nature.
To her left loomed Shiprock, a dark bluish gray monolith that seemed to float above the desert plain. According to a brochure she’d picked up at a trading post en route. The Navajo had named the landmark Tse’Bit’Ai, or Rock with Wings. Pippa pulled over and found her camera. As she took photos, she thought she could almost see the wings of a celestial being struggling to break free of the volcanic stone. The illusion sent a small thrill of pleasure through her body and she squeezed her hands closed, imagining the feel of clay between her fingers. It had been months since she modeled or sculpted. She could hardly wait to get started again.