Desert Shadows (9781615952250)

by Webb, Betty

  I looked over at the window, but saw no flying geese today, no herons. Nothing but the cloudless Arizona sky.

  “Lena?”

  I reached down and rubbed my feet, although they hardly hurt at all anymore. Anything to escape Gomez’ stare.

  “Lena, you need to cooperate.”

  What a pointless remark. “I’m here, aren’t I? That’s cooperation.”

  Gomez cleared her throat and leaned forward, the same expression on her face that I had frequently seen on Captain Kryzinski’s when I’d done something to annoy him.

  “Lena, stop fooling around. It’s obvious to me that you don’t understand anything about yourself, that you’re a troubled, angry woman who acts without thinking, sometimes violently. Yes, you’re brave, and yes, you saved Ms. Alden-Taylor’s life. But you’ve done damage, too. You’re licensed to carry a concealed weapon, and that worries me. How long will it be before you do even more damage to someone than you did to the woman you saw beating her child? You are simply going to have to get your anger under control, and you can’t do that unless you start opening up. Beginning now.”

  This was what it had come down to, then. Me spilling my guts under court order. After one last, hopeful look out the window, I asked, “What do you want to know?”

  “For starters, how many foster homes were there?”

  Good question, Gomez. I wasn’t sure myself, but I could give it a try. I started counting on my fingers. “I don’t remember the name of the first couple, because I was only there for a couple of months. But I seem to remember, vaguely, that they were nice enough. Then I was sent to.…”

  She broke in. “Why were you taken away from the first couple?”

  I shrugged. “Why does CPS do anything? The next place I don’t remember much about, either, which is probably good, but I stayed there until I was around six. They went back East, so I moved again.” I continued on, counting off the five foster homes I’d lived in before I reached the age of nine.

  Then I stopped. Another desperate look out the window. Still no geese. No herons. Where the hell were they when I needed them?

  “Go on, Lena,” Gomez said, her voice now a purr. “You’re doing very well.”

  “Well, uh, after the sixth home, I, uh, wound up at the Giblins. He was a minister, his wife taught Sunday school. They had a lot of foster kids and took us camping all the time. But then Mrs. Giblin had a stroke and died, so I was sent to the Johnsons, foster home number eight. They took in foster kids for the money. God knows they didn’t care anything about us. And then came the artist, she was home number nine. She and.…”

  The smell of turpentine, linseed oil, White Lilac cologne. “You’re my own sweet girl, Lena, my own sweet little girl.”

  I took care that my voice didn’t waver. “…and her husband were going to adopt me, but then she developed breast cancer, so CPS moved me again. Let’s see, foster home number ten, that was.…”

  Gomez broke in. “Go back to foster home number six.”

  “Uh, why?”

  “Because it’s the only home you haven’t described at all.”

  I looked up at the ceiling. Recessed fluorescent lighting. I hate that stuff. Makes everyone look green. “That’s because, uh, there wasn’t much to tell.”

  The monster in the closet.

  No. I refused to revisit that nightmare.

  Gomez’ voice was firm. “Humor me.”

  Oh, hell. “They had a nice house. Big. And a dog. His name was Sandy, which I now realize was pretty funny because of that play about Little Orphan Annie. Annie’s dog was named Sandy, too.”

  “What happened to Sandy?”

  I looked at Gomez in surprise. “Little Orphan Annie’s dog?”

  “No, Lena.”

  “Oh. Well, nothing happened to my, uh, foster home number six’ Sandy. Why do you ask?”

  “Because your voice shook when you mentioned him.”

  Impossible. If I could control myself when talking about the artist who had almost adopted me, why would I waver when talking about some damned dog? Maybe I’d been hanging around Megan and her strays too long.

  Jesus. That three-legged dog.

  “Oh, you’re right. I forgot. Sandy disappeared one day. Didn’t come back. Which made me sad. Then I went to the next foster home, the Rev, and.…”

  “No, Lena, we’re not through with foster home number six. Tell me about the people. What were they like?”

  The monster in the closet.

  “The people? Oh, they were ordinary people. Nothing special.” I had to give Gomez something, though. Otherwise, she would never ease up. “Listen, Gomez. I started having problems at home number nine, the home of the artist I was telling you about. That’s when I began stealing.”

  No lie there. I still had the satin pillow I’d stolen from the artist’s husband. Welcome to the Philippines was embroidered on it.

  Gomez’ eyes flickered. “We can talk about the artist during your next visit, but right now, I want to hear more about home number six. What were the people’s names?”

  I drew in a deep breath. “Uh, Wycoff. Norma and Brian Wycoff.”

  “Tell me what they were like.”

  The air in the room closed in on me like a living thing, like the air in Patriot’s Blood while it burned. Suddenly, I could not catch my breath or see through the red film that edged my vision. Even the roaring that had plagued my ears after the explosion was back.

  From a distance I could hear Gomez shouting. “Lena! Put your head between your knees!”

  For once I did what I was told. In a few minutes, the breathing eased and the darkness slid away. But I couldn’t lift up my head. It was too heavy.

  “Lena, are you all right now?”

  I wondered where the geese were, the heron. Fishing, probably, in Eldorado Park. I hoped the water wasn’t too polluted. We can’t have three-legged herons, can we? Just three-legged dogs no one loved.

  But that was wrong. I loved him.

  No, Megan loved him. Not me. I didn’t have a dog. Never did. Foster children weren’t allowed to have pets. Too much baggage.

  No dogs.

  Never.

  Ever.

  Gomez’ voice, as if from miles away. “I’m getting you some water.”

  I heard Gomez’ small refrigerator open, the clink of ice against glass, water pouring.

  “Drink this.” Cool glass in my hand.

  I drank. The roaring in my ears faded, the remaining blackness vanished.

  “I pushed you too hard too soon.” Her voice sounded oddly tender. I wasn’t used to that. From anybody.

  “Too…too soon?” My voice had returned. “What, are you nuts? I’m still, um, having some physical problems from the fire. Look, it has to be around time for me to go, right? I’m obviously not feeling well and I need to lie down.”

  “You need help, Lena, that’s what you need.”

  I managed a laugh and grabbed my crutches. “These are all the help I need.” I lurched to my feet. “I’m outta here.”

  She opened her appointment book. Now her voice held no inflection at all. “Same time next week, Lena. You still have five appointments left before you fulfill the Court’s requirements.”

  The monster in the closet.

  Ignoring that old nightmare, I limped to the door. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “If you want to keep your private investigator’s license you will.”

  I stood in the doorway for a second, trying not to scream. I couldn’t take this. But I had to. Like I had taken so much for so many years. And lived through it all. “Okay, Gomez. See you next week.”

  “I’m looking forward to it, Lena.”

  The only thing I was looking forward to was getting back to my apartment and falling into bed.

  I prayed I wouldn’t dream.

  Chapter 30

  When I hobbled sans crutches down the stairs to Desert Investigations the next morning, I discovered Jimmy already at his compu
ter. Was it my imagination, or was he looking older these days? Maybe he missed my delightful presence at the trailer. Not.

  “Hey, look at you,” he said, smiling. “On your own again.”

  “Call me Speedo.” I limped over to my desk and sat down a little too quickly. Now my ass hurt, too.

  My sour mood must have communicated itself to him, because he said nothing more, just went back to work on his computer. While he did his finger dance, I looked through the big plate glass window onto Main Street. Deserted. At nine o’clock it was too early for tourists, but they’d be along as soon as the art galleries opened. Especially since the weather was mild. The sky had clouded over again, but perhaps the sun would soon emerge. We Arizonans were so spoiled. We averaged, what, three hundred and twenty-five days of sunshine a year, yet we belly-ached all the way through those other forty.

  The telephone calls hardly lightened my gloom. People wanted this, they wanted that. Husbands wanted to find out if their wives were cheating, wives wanted to find out ditto about their husbands. When I explained that Desert Investigations did not take marital cases, they cursed me.

  People don’t like each other any more, do they?

  Toward the end of the day, when the phone rang again, I prepared myself to repeat the usual speech, but the voice on the other end of the phone had me smiling instead. Dusty.

  “Hey, I got back from the trail ride last night, so let’s get together.”

  My first instinct was to tell him I was busy, but he would know better. Besides, after my treatment of Jimmy, I needed all the friends I could get.

  “A movie?” I suggested.

  “Sounds good to me. What’s playing?”

  Leaning over, I plucked the Scottsdale Journal out of the trash can and found the Arts &Entertainment section. Scanning through the movie listings, I found a Meg Ryan romance, the latest Quentin Tarantino gore-fest, another Eddie Murphy comedy.…

  And Cold Sky, written and directed by Sappho, a.k.a. Victoria Alden-Taylor.

  “I’m in the mood for a Western,” I told Dusty. “How about you?”

  At the sound of his laugh, I realized my mistake. The man had spent several days out on the trail with a passel of dudes, trying to recreate an Old West that had never existed in the first place. “Oops,” I said. “Well, there’s a horror flick at the mall, one of those guy-in-a-ski-mask-type things.”

  The laughter died down. “Lena, you know I hate malls. The Western sounds fine. Who knows, maybe it’ll even be accurate.”

  ***

  “So what did you think of the movie?” I asked, as we left the Camelview, Scottsdale’s only remaining venue for art films. Not wanting to deal with my crutches in a crowded theater, I had left them back in the apartment, so now I limped badly. No problem, though. Dusty had his arm around me.

  “Well, I’m not sure you can call it a Western.” He chuckled as he hoisted me into the front seat of his pickup truck. “Even though it had cowboys, Indians, and horses.”

  “And lesbians.”

  “I really liked that part.”

  I gave him a look. “I’ll bet you did, cowboy.”

  Another chuckle. “You’ve got to admit, babe, it was a pretty good flick.”

  For all my carping, I thought so, too. And the movie had delivered a surprise. Regardless of its artsy-fartsy trappings, the movie had a strong love story. The fact that the love element had been between two women—a school teacher and a saloon gal—was immaterial. Sappho’s film revealed her warm heart.

  The question was, where did she get it?

  ***

  I had my own heart troubles. Or lack thereof. That night, as we lay together in my bed, I found that I could not respond to Dusty’s caresses. After almost an hour trying to light my fire, he finally gave up and rolled over on his back.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “You can, well, you know. Anyway, I don’t have to respond for you to enjoy yourself. I hear married people do it like that all the time.”

  He leaned over and stroked my hair. “But we’re not married, are we?”

  It was a measure of my distress that I had even pronounced the M-word, and now I regretted it. “You sure you don’t want to, um…?”

  “No, Lena, I don’t want to um. I want to lie here beside you.” His arms tightened around me.

  I sniffled, then tried to hide it with a sneeze. “I think I’m getting a cold.”

  “You’re such a terrible liar. That’s one of the things I love about you.” He buried his nose in my neck, then followed it up with kisses designed more for comfort than arousal.

  Blinking my tears away, I said, “I’m such a mess.”

  “Yes, honey, you are. But so am I. So are half the people in this world. They simply put on a better front than we do.”

  I started to argue about that, then stopped. Maybe it was true. Maybe I was no more troubled than anyone else. I had almost convinced myself of that when I finally fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 31

  Time for the dirty work.

  A quick call to the Hacienda the next morning revealed that Zach was back from Iowa but was too busy meeting with editors to see me. No problem. I didn’t want to talk to him quite yet, either. Next, I dialed Captain Kryzinski’s number to tell him to prepare for an arrest in the Gloriana Alden-Taylor case. I struck out there, too, only getting his answering machine. Loath to leave the details on the tape, I said that I’d figured out who had really killed Gloria Alden-Taylor, and that it wasn’t Owen.

  Then I hung up and told Jimmy.

  “But…but Zach seemed like such a nice guy, Lena!”

  Jimmy had always been too trusting. “That’s what he wanted everyone to think. But after he inherited Patriot’s Blood, he revealed his true colors. Believe me, Mr. Nice Guy he ain’t.”

  The real Zach would kill his grandmother to inherit. The real Zach would ignore his pregnant wife and, in true Alden-Taylor fashion, follow his own obsessions. Not for money. Not for power. Just for the sake of a literary imprint. Obsession didn’t have to be carried in the genes, after all. It was a virus, infecting everyone it touched.

  You didn’t have to be a true Alden-Taylor to be a sad excuse for a human being.

  I should know.

  I’m the expert on sad excuses.

  ***

  When I went out to the Neon, I noticed that the early morning clouds had scuttled away, revealing a sky so blue it looked phoney. I stopped for a second to enjoy it. To the north, Mummy Mountain rose green and purple against the far-off McDowells. A gentle breeze whispered in from the south. These days of grace were why we Arizonans put up with our 120-plus-degree Julys and August monsoons.

  I closed my eyes and smelled sage, damp earth.

  Then I opened them again, aware that all I was doing was killing time.

  I didn’t want to do what I had to do, which was to ask Zach my final questions, then tell him what I already knew. There was no danger because Zach would hardly try to kill me in front of Rosa, Megan, and a pack of editors. But the visit would give me a chance to advise him to call his lawyer and arrange a deal. If he turned himself in voluntarily, he would be able to plead down, maybe even to Manslaughter Two. What would he get then? Fifteen years? Ten? With good behavior, he could be out in seven. It was all ridiculous, of course, for murderers to serve so little time, but that’s the way the court system worked, and not only in Arizona, either. Selling a little weed could get you thirty years, but stone cold killers had their hands slapped if they bought the right attorneys.

  As I drove up the dirt road to the Hacienda, I realized that Megan would not look upon a seven-year absence from Zach as a mere hand slap. Yet there was nothing I could do. I could only hope that when I got to the Hacienda, she would be out rescuing another stray. I didn’t want to see her eyes when I confronted her husband with my knowledge.

  Part of my wish came true. By the time I arrived at the Hacienda, Megan was gone. But so were Za
ch and the Patriot’s Blood editors.

  “No more business today,” Rosa told me. “Mr. Zach and Miss Megan, they went to visit at the hospital. Miss Sandra, she gonna get released tomorrow. I think they gonna hire a nurse to take care of her until she can do for herself, then they say they gonna help her move.”

  “Move?” For one wild moment, I had a picture of Sandra, Caroline, and John-John moving into John Brookings’ trailer at Wigwam Court. But then I remembered that under the terms of Gloriana’s will, Sandra had inherited enough to buy a house. How nice for Brookings.

  I thought about the will again. Would it be declared null and void once Zach was convicted of murder? Probably. Then again, Arizona did not have an automatic Son of Sam law, the law New York state had once enacted to keep killers from profiting in any way from their crimes. As usual, legal matters were more complicated out here in the Wild West. There was a remote chance Zach could be found guilty of murder and, with some fancy-footed legal maneuvering, still claim part of the inheritance through a blind trust. It had been done before. The greatest likelihood, though, was that once his guilt had been confirmed through trial, Sandra would successfully challenge the will. That would make her mother and aunt happy.

  But where would it leave Megan?

  I looked around the Hacienda’s courtyard at Megan’s menagerie—the dogs, the cats, the rabbits, the pig, and the llama—and decided not to think about it. I couldn’t bear to.

  “Thanks, Rosa,” I said. “I’ll go to the hospital and see them there.” Still safety in numbers. I started to turn away from the door, when Rosa’s voice stopped me.

  “They been gone two hours already, Miss Lena. They probably already up at the parcel by now.”

  “Parcel?” My confusion must have shown on my face, because Rosa explained.

  “The land Miss Gloriana own near Pinnacle Peak. Mr. Zach, he said they were meeting some real estate guy up there after he and Miss Megan leave the hospital.”

  The land Megan and Zach had such different plans for.

  I asked Rosa for directions and limped back to the Neon. With the new freeway completion, the trip should take no more than a half hour. Which was exactly why the Pinnacle Peak area, at one time so remote, had skyrocketed in value. A small building lot now could cost as much a completed home in other areas of Scottsdale or even Paradise Valley. How many acres had Zach inherited? I searched my memory and came up with forty. Then I did some quick math, whistled. The sale would buy a lot of decaf mocha lattes at Starbucks.