I made an audible pffft sound and shook my head. “I think I’m into doctors these days. What’s not to like about growing old in the capable hands of a plastic surgeon? An artist can paint you pretty, but a good plastic surgeon can provide you with the fountain of youth.”
I saw the exchange of scoffs between Shirley and The Z. Damn. Everyone seemed to love Gage. It made me sick.
“I’M NOT GETTING MUCH, Steve,” Shirley said. “Frustrating as hell.”
“So tell me where you’re at,” Detective Taylor said while nursing his Starbuck’s quad shot.
“Our so-called witness is a deportee. Back in Sonora. He told us this guy was out there in the middle of the desert and a maniac killer. Then he adds he’s on a boat out there in same desert.”
“Woah. You still take this witness as credible?”
“We notified Border Patrol and their aerials to keep a watch. I’m sure that sent them off laughing. My best guess is we may have a crappy little house out there with an anchor on the front porch. Something like that.”
“Sure. Probably all the pier ropes and posts and everything. Could be. What else?”
“No clue as to a location. Somewhere this side of the border and long before Tucson’s borders. It’s not like these guys have a GPS, and if there was a coyote or a drop house involved, this guy’s not talking.”
Taylor shook his head. “Of course not. What else?”
“Maybe a huge black SUV. But, it was a moonless night, good for the flight and the safer trek on foot. Not much on the physical description. Caucasian. Shaggy salt-and-pepper hair all covered up with a cowboy hat. Maybe goes by the name of Sacred. Scared the crap out of our witness.”
“But for the name, it fits about every rancher down that way,” Taylor said.
“Except this guy had a limp. Left leg.”
“That’s something,” Taylor said.
“And one more thing. That black SUV? The illegals were freaked out because they thought it was a black and white.”
“Policia?”
“They were scared. That much I know.”
“The sacred police. Just great.”
Chapter 45
Missing
SHIRLEY CALLED ME at Falls & Falls. The sound of her craggy voice, an octave lower than usual, told me to heed her words. Drop everything and come to her house.
I did.
Upon pulling up to the familiar driveway with the quaint home nestled between mature saguaro cacti and blooming bougainvillea, it was impossible to miss the police cruiser, and the lime green P.T. Cruiser.
Vic Romero?
Not bothering with the doorbell I burst through the double doors to find Shirley, Victor Romero, and Detective Taylor, along with the younger sidekick I had seen with Taylor the night I made my grand scene in The Club bar.
“What is it?” I felt a somber urgency in the air.
Shirley ran up to me and took both of my hands into hers, squeezing them so hard the two rings on my fingers edged through my skin.
“Zoey’s missing,” she said.
“What do you mean she’s missing? I just talked to her yesterday.”
“When?”
“In the morning. She was on her way to buy a new battery for her cell phone. What’s going on?”
“Her cell was dead?”
“No. She was talking on it. I just guess it was getting that way. I don’t know,” I whimpered, unsure of what was to come. I pushed back away from Shirley and begged for more information with focused eyes, but my shoulders drooped.
“Her van’s in front of her office building, but she’s not there. Her crews were all out early on jobs. They found it odd she wasn’t there, but took their assignments and left. An employee returned about noon and there was still no sign of her, plus she missed an appointment for a cleanup quote. A big job on the south side. We all know Zoey doesn’t miss an appointment.”
“The standard missing 48 hours doesn’t apply here,” Taylor said. “She’s as good as one of ours.”
Victor Romero sat in an oversized wing chair, his face so deep into his cupped hands, it was hard to understand his words.
“Family. She’s my family. Like a daughter. She’s my little big girl,” he whispered.
He raised his head and planted his hands firmly on the arms of the chair with new and clear resolution. “I’m on it. We’ll find her.”
Taylor’s eyes now swept the floor, then back to Romero. “You need to pull it together, my friend. We’ll get to the bottom of this. You know we will.”
Vic raised his head and planted his hands firmly on the arms of the chair. “I’m on it. We’ll find her.”
Taylor shook his head with a tilt at the same time. “I don’t need to remind you you’re unofficial, right?”
Vic turned to Shirley, then to me. “Sterling Falls, will you hire me as your private investigator to determine the whereabouts of one Zoey Lane?”
Shirley smiled and that’s all I needed. I reached into my purse and pulled out a five-dollar bill, figuring that’s the way the lawyers did it on TV. I handed it to Vic. “You’re hired.”
Vic turned to Taylor. “I’m official. I know that doesn’t mean I’m on your team, but you can grant me some common courtesies.”
“Plenty,” Taylor answered.
Chapter 46
The Devil’s Advocate & The Devil
DETECTIVE TAYLOR STARTED with the basics. Junior would rule out family, friends, and the possibility of a major freaking out. It happened on the force. It could have happened with Zoey. Too much insanity in her line of work. Too much spilt blood and scattered guts and incomprehensible gore. No reason for this in any season and in any moment in time. Big brave Z may have caved.
Taylor played the devil’s advocate. He looked for the more nefarious element under any radar. It was four in the morning and he still sat huddled over his desk in his home office. Circled on a large map of random squares and arrows and gaps—a big fact flamed its fan of frustration. The Z factor came in after any crime. Way after the fact. She was never in harm’s way on the job. Still, some of her findings and reporting had turned into state’s evidence. She had to testify on several occasions. Some of those testimonies helped put many criminals behind bars.
One of those necessary evils in order to be an upstanding citizen, Taylor thought.
And then he asked himself who else? No boyfriends. Not much of any life outside her work. The girl was so driven.
Happy employees. Loyal. There was a mighty attrition factor as many joined on with alacrity and then couldn’t hack the work, but for those that stayed and sucked it up, Zoey compensated them well.
Zoey’s purse remained in the van. No wallet. Romero was quick to tell him why.
“She was making good money, Taylor. She had these fancy purses. She tried to tell me they were Hobo’s, but no hobo I know of could afford one of these things. Anyway there was no way she would take it onto any scene. I know for a fact she carried her wallet on her person.”
“No cell phone, either,” Taylor said. “Ping it.”
“Already on it, Romero.”
Taylor absorbed the information. There was no evidence of a break-in at her offices. Her home turned up clean, but as Taylor took another mental look at the small casita Zoey called home, he wondered. No plants. No pets. Maybe she did need a mental leave of absence and felt like her loyal employees could take care of things. Maybe. People do break like filigree Dresden dolls falling on a marble floor. Taylor looked at Zoey’s work log, and especially, her copious notes. Her jobs. They were ugly.
The previous morning she worked a murder-suicide scene. Eighty-year old man. The wife thought he couldn’t chase her and beat her anymore because he used a goddamn walker. Wife was wrong. He fired eight shots into his bride of fifty-eight years, then aimed the 45 up the hollow of his throat and fired once more.
That afternoon Zoey worked the house of a hoarder. Seventeen cats, nine dogs and two pot-belly pigs. Filth and fec
es knee deep. Crazy thing was it was a damn okay looking home in a decent neighborhood. No one knew their neighbor’s kids were out back with their broken thrift shop Tonka trucks playing in a sandbox full of cat poop and cacti thorns and a couple carcasses of unidentifiable origins. The house had no discernible sleeping spaces inside, all taken over by plastic tubs of tattered Christmas decorations and old clothes, broken plastic chairs and soiled pillows, and junk not suitable for any charity donation. Tricky was the single potty, not overwhelmed with boxes of filth, but it didn’t seem to flush anymore.
Hell, I’d escape and never look back at this kind of humanity, Taylor thought.
Then he remembered the Zoey he knew. She would never leave her employees hanging. She’d never leave customers that needed what only she could provide with such loving care.
Where the devil is that ping on her cell?
SACRUM LOVED WATCHING Zoey’s enormous eyes widen even more. Something about them. The black skin. The dark eyes and the whites of those eyes that popped. They reminded him of the five-inch whitewall tires on his first Chevy.
He’d tell her that he wasn’t prejudiced. His standard line that he believed. He liked his women pure white, but that had nothing to do with anything on his mind. It was just an experiment, but of proportions. He fantasized about the research. What if he could piece together the skins of a black person onto a Mexican. Would the Mexican be better off? Would the black guy want to be a Mexican? So many social issues; it boggled his mind.
He remembered well the story told to him by a patient that needed a simple procedure to correct a drooping eye. The man was Mexican and came to him from working at a major company in Dallas. The patient told him that half of the employees there were white and the other half, black, and during their lunch break the cafeteria was clearly divided, table-by-table like a checkerboard.
The Mexican didn’t know where he fit in because he didn’t fit in anywhere. So he made lemonade. Sometimes he’d sit with the blacks and they welcomed him and talked about the whities. Then he’d sit with the whites and they’d talk about the blackies. Somehow, he slid by unscathed by the petty thorns of prejudice.
Fascinating, Sacrum remembered thinking. All the perplexities of racism.
He was out of skin for his living experiment down on his beloved Sarah. And as gorgeous a boat as he imagined Sarah to be, there simply was no room for Zoey for further surgeries. Lucky he bought the old warehouse off of Valencia so long ago. Lucky it was neither a dump nor a beauty of a building. People could drive by, but they rarely did. And no one gave the place a second look.
“So here we are, Ms. Lane,” Sacrum said. “Time sets up so beautifully sometimes. Pure synchronicity.”
Sacrum wore a black leather face mask. Small cut outs for his eyes, nose, and mouth. He wore dark glasses to further protect his identity, and he spoke through a small microphone. A voice modifier.
“You don’t know me. If you did, you might actually like me.” He was playing her. The Skull had told him she had identified him and would eventually talk. She hadn’t said one word to him when they saw each other at the jazz concert, and the woman had backed away. That annoyed him.
Zoey shook her head frantically and mouthed the words, “Who are you? Why me? What do you want from me?”
“My little surgery center is plum full-up so I hope you don’t mind these digs. I’ll make you very comfortable.”
Zoey closed her eyes tight.
“Open those eyes now! I need to see your goddamn eyes.”
Zoey complied with the command. First, with a squint. The light was bright and unforgiving. Then back to full-blown open terror in spite of the blazing threats to be seen.
“I have a little problem, Ms. Lane. I’m a little short on skin. Now I’m no bigot, but you gotta admit there aren’t a lot of blacks around here. In all my years in practice I’ve maybe treated five. Maybe six. And one thing is just simply a medical fact. Black don’t crack. I tell you, you African Americans have the most amazing skin. It got me thinking that I need black skin. You’re plump and perfect.
“You need not worry. This place is quite sanitary. May not look like it, but it is. I need to leave you for a while. I have one surgery scheduled for this entire fucking week and it happens to be this afternoon. Some fat lady wants liposuction. She doesn’t have a clue that if she keeps eating like a damn pig, the fat will just latch on someplace else.
“Brings me to another point. You and I both know you could stand to shed some pounds.”
Zoey thought of her older brother’s jambalaya. Her memories then turned toward her mother’s West African Stew with all the yummy peanut, butter and coconut. She tried frantically to taste the spices and the sweets and the sours. If she could imagine tasting the comfort food then maybe she could keep her sanity, but the sound of The Voice interrupted all thoughts.
“You’re going to be on a nice little diet. The IV diet. You’ll lose some of that unreasonable fat and your skin will loosen up a bit. It will be easier for you to share it that way. It will take a while, but we have all the time we need.
“I’m just going to give you a little something to help you relax. You’ll really enjoy it.”
Sacrum cried as he drove to the surgery center. He cried for his dead mother. His stupid limp. He cried for his success that would be just around the corner.
Chapter 47
Martinis & a Black SUV
SHIRLEY MET ME AT THE steakhouse at La Encantada. Not that either of us could eat, but they served fine martinis. We both were well-aware of that fact and I was there with a single purpose.
We hadn’t yet sat down when I asked the question. “Any news on Zoey?”
“I’m not officially on that case.”
“Seems like no one is official these days,” I said. “And you’re not one to back off.”
“You’re right. I’m down here officially on one job, and now I’m digging into the case of your would-be could-be robber and now Zoey’s gone and I’m digging in as fast as I can. Taylor’s a good guy. He’ll get her back. It’s just he doesn’t know all the—”
“All the what?” I asked.
“Never mind. He’ll get the job done. He always does.” She shifted in her chair in sync with again reaching for her martini glass. “He has an eye witness that puts a black SUV at her office parking lot about the time she went missing. Ring a bell?”
“You aren’t possibly telling me it’s the same SUV that may or may not have been involved in the insidious shooting you were involved in at my store? Are you insane? How many black SUVs do you think travel the roads in Pima County?”
“Hell no, I’m not saying that and I’m not going there. I have an exact answer to just how many. A helluva a lot. And I’m not directing this toward you. You asked. I told you. Just a lot of black SUVs out there seem to be doing a lot of bad things.”
I shrugged. Swept my eyes to the floor. “Anything else?”
“You know Zoey’s purse was left in the van, but likely she wore her cell phones. Taylor got a ping on one of the GPS coordinates. Looks like it was either lost or tossed out of a car on I-19, heading south. Since it was on the left side of the road, it’s probable the driver ditched it.”
“Zoey on the run? And a second phone?”
“Can’t rule it out. And yes, she also carried a second cell. No ping on that one.”
“Why a second cell?”
Shirley shrugged and shook her head. She pressed her lips together, then forced a smile. I knew she was holding something back. I also knew she wouldn’t be talking.
“What about her family?”
“Tricky. Taylor and his guy are working on it. All her siblings have either been shot dead in gang wars or are in prison or missing. Zoey hasn’t seen her mother in years. The mother doesn’t exist on paper. Maybe she died and no one claimed the body. It happens more than you would want to believe.”
“So we just wait?”
“You wait, Sterling. We’re all do
ing everything we can.” She sipped on the martini and chased the sip with a gulp. “Your turn. What about these men in your life? Seems complicated.”
“And you keep close tabs.” Too close, I thought.
“Gage and that Marcus fellow?”
“Gage comes and goes out of his studio. I see him sometimes. He waves. I close the blinds. We have shared custody over The Earl. Works for us right now.”
“The dog?”
“The dog, the Earl of Éclair, Harry. And as for the doctor, Marcus is on another one of his missions. He takes frequent humanitarian trips.”
“Very impressive.”
I saw her eyes make contact with some unseen worldwide computer in her brain. “Look, we’ve come a long way, the two of us. Don’t mess it up. Don’t start investigating either Gage Beauchamp or Marcus Armstrong. Let me be.”
“You have my word. You’re a grown woman and I trust your instincts.”
Shirley’s cell rang. With a few cryptic words she shoved it back into her purse. “That was Taylor. Zoey’s mom may be a Jane Doe in an Alzheimer’s facility in Chicago. He’s on his way there.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It probably means nothing for Zoey’s case, unless she found her mom and made a bolt for Chicago. It means Taylor is an extraordinary man trying to do some good in a sometimes no- good world.”
Chapter 48
Poisons
MARCUS ARMSTRONG FELT a flush overcome his face. His fingers shook. He reached into the scratched and dented gray steel cabinet and pulled out a bottle of the newly stocked bourbon.
Nervous? He was nervous? That wasn’t in his game plan. That wasn’t him. Was that the problem? Who was he now? Fuck. Marcus, nervous that the black bitch might have recognized him, or Sacrum—who didn’t give a rat’s ass?
Evil Cries Page 13