Evil Cries

by Lala Corriere

  He poured five fingers. Maybe six, depending on whose fingers might be counting. He guzzled the fiery liquid, sat down, and breathed. He breathed until he stopped shaking, but he still wasn’t sure who he was. He fixated on the good doctor. The man Zoey Lane had recognized, but only as a rich doctor who had a nasty mess to clean up in his fancy barn.

  Futile. He was not Marcus. Not in this aged dilapidated warehouse. He gave up the notion, let Sacrum become the man in charge, and after one more pull on the drink he put on his mask. He attached the little device that would change his voice, and went in to visit his guest.

  “Ms. Lane, you’re going to have to stay here a while. I’m not sure I told you that.

  “This is the true medical situation. I’m not much of a liar. You should appreciate this fact. This is about brilliant research, and you are an exciting part of it! It will take about a month or so to get your fat out and loose skin on. Maybe another month to determine if the grafts are a success. Maybe sooner, which would mean an early rejection. Bad news for all of us.

  “Better news for you, I need you alive. And I’m keeping you comfortable. I loathe failure, but I’m not quite sure I was able to pull of preserving all the old skin samples of White Goddess II. God. I coveted that pure skin.”

  Zoey drifted off into her other world.

  Sacrum smiled and Marcus cried as he drove to the hospital to perform his patient’s hedonistic surgery.

  I SAT OUT BACK UNDER the shade of the ramada and, as always, gazed across to Gage’s studio. I hated our relationship. I hated our lack of a relationship.

  Born with a silver spoon in my mouth. That’s what Gage had said when we first met, he learned my name, and then the nature of my business. He wasn’t the first to make an offhanded crack about my name. Maybe true. I had laughed with Gage at that time. Now I longed for those old easy critical-humor jokes of his. I wasn’t laughing these days.

  I watched as Gage headed my direction rather than toward his studio.

  The conversation started off easily enough. “I feel like I have flutterbies,” he said.

  I almost cracked a smile. I adored Gage and his spoonerisms.

  “Where do we go from here?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m confused. Right now the only thing I know is that I don’t trust men, and maybe some women, and that’s a horrible way to live my life.”

  Gage cleared his throat and sipped on his coffee in the old mug he had carried with him. “Tucson’s a small city. Rumor has it you’re seeing someone.”

  This caught me off guard. My humiliation and resentment might have been exampled by my narrowed eyes, locked fists, and flushed face. I retorted, “If a horseback ride and a couple of lunches constitute seeing someone, then I guess our resident spies are correct.”

  “I have to ask this. Do you want to move on, Sterling?”

  I felt the shudder down my spine. No. I did not want to move on. “I’ve thought about it. This is your home. Your studio. You should move back here and I can find another place, if that’s what you want.”

  “That’s moving out. Moving in. Moving around, but that’s not what I asked. Do you want to move on?”

  I lowered my chin to hide from Gage’s prying eyes the lips I felt trembling. I couldn’t talk.

  “Okay. You stay here for now. I’ll stay on at The Club. For now. Hell, I’m gone half of the time anyway.”

  “To Chicago?” I blurted out.

  “I have to go where my paintings sell. I have a show in Sante Fe this weekend and then, yes. My paintings sell in Chicago. Word-of-mouth with collectors? A fluke? I don’t know what the devil it is, but I know I’m damn lucky to be selling in this market.”

  So we had reached another impasse. A stalemate. A Mexican standoff.

  Gage left with a final few words. He asked me to get rid of the poison in my heart. He told me he held only love for me and he hoped I’d figure that out one day. I think he meant one day soon. It might have been an ultimatum.

  Chapter 49

  Oleanders & Opals

  SHIRLEY STOOD IN FRONT OF Steve Taylor’s desk. Pacing felt better and she could only do that on her feet, lead weight that they were these days. “How’d you pull it off? Going to Chicago to chase down The Z’s mother?”

  “Never easy on our budget, but it is relevant to our missing person case. And Zoey, no matter the rank around here, feels like one of ours.”

  “But no luck?” Shirley asked.

  “Depends on your take. We found Zoey’s mother. We know that. We didn’t find Zoey.”

  “How advanced is the Alzheimer’s?”

  “She remembers her little pudgy and beautiful daughter. My guess is the last memories are of her at about age eight. She remembers naming her Zoleander. She was quite clear on that.”

  Shirley raised a brow, “Zoleander?”

  Taylor smiled, “She loved oleanders, but knew they were poisonous.”

  “Zoleander. Zoey.” Shirley smiled back. “Anything else?”

  “She didn’t recognize recent photos of the Zoey we know, but they haven’t seen each other in a couple decades, as best we can tell,” Taylor said.

  “I think that’s about right,” Shirley confirmed. “Zoey missed her mother. I wish I would have helped her find her, but Zoey seemed pretty bullheaded about the whole thing. Heartbroken and heart strong.”

  I HADN’T SEEN MARCUS Armstrong in nearly a week. I knew he would call. I deduced it was another one of his Good Samaritan sabbaticals that delayed him. I respected him.

  When he entered the store, it seemed more business than pleasure. I could handle that, and handle it very well.

  “Just checking on the status of the black opal. Any takers?” he asked.

  “Plenty of gawkers. Really, I feel quite guilty holding onto it. It seems to bring locals and tourists into the store, but really, I’m not sure I can sell it for you. Perhaps you should take it back,” I said. “There are bigger markets out there for it.”

  “Nonsense. Our deal stands. You keep it on display. One never knows where the buyer will come from and the buyer won’t materialize if the opal is in my safe. I’m only curious. And curious as to if you had dinner plans. Chef is making Osso Bucco.”

  “No, I have no plans.” Why did I say that? Because I had no plans. Because Gage and I were going nowhere. Gage had a friend and I needed one. And I happened to love Osso Bucco.

  “Tell Chef I’m in charge of the dessert. It’s the least I can do.”

  “And you cook, too?”

  “Pretty much two main dishes, a few different salads, and one mean dessert.”

  “Then I’m putting you down for dessert. No store bought.”

  “No store bought.” I tried to give him my mock hurt voice, but it came out rather flippant.

  Immediately he asked if I was troubled. Intuitive. I liked that about him. He seemed to understand me when sometimes, I didn’t. I dismissed thoughts about Gage and went with my other troubles fueling a feeding frenzy in my heart. Zoey.

  “She’s become one of my best friends in Tucson. She’s crazy. Spontaneous. Smart. And no one knows where she is.”

  “You just said it. She’s spontaneous. Maybe she took off for a stint,” Marcus said.

  “But she’s so loyal to her work. And her employees. Marcus, it doesn’t make any sense.”

  He seemed to sip on his thoughts for an extended moment that inexplicably put me on edge. I started scratching at my scalp that didn’t itch and shifting in my perfectly comfortable chair.

  “She needed a break. I mean, has law enforcement found anything else to suggest otherwise?” He said.

  “She didn’t take her purse and they found her cell phone on a roadside. That’s a biggie.”

  “She wants to get away from everything. For a while. In today’s world, plenty of people leave technology behind. Toss it out the window. Let her be. We all have those moments in time.”

  I shrugged. I would put the stomach-ache aside for now.
Think about something else.

  I went back to the reason he apparently came in to see me. “I’m sorry I’ve had no takers for your black opal. It’s getting a lot of attention, but no pocketbooks are emerging.”

  I feigned a smile, still not completely rid of the turmoil in my gut.

  “Can you be at my house by seven with that fancy dessert of yours? And don’t take this as cruel, but don’t bring your missing friend with you in that pretty mind of yours. She needs time away. You need time away.”

  Chapter 50

  Late for a Fiasco Date

  “FINALLY! WE’VE GOT A HIT,” Shirley told Steve Taylor.

  “On Zoey?”

  “God. Do I wish. It’s that lunatic immigrant killer I’m supposedly chasing down and getting nowhere. We can at least draw a tighter circle around the region between the border and south of Sierra Vista.”

  “Sierra Vista? Crap. That’s like saying you have a dog lost somewhere in Texas. How’d you come up with it?”

  “A witness, another illegal that Border Patrol picked up, said he heard screams in the dark. He saw a black SUV speed away. Didn’t get a plate, but he could tell it was Arizona.”

  Taylor muffled a laugh. “Because they try and steal Arizona plates as fast as they can.”

  “One more thing,” Shirley said. “The witness thought it was police. He kept telling us it was a black and white. Only black. Whatever the heck that means.”

  “They’re mostly looking out for the green-and-whites. Border Patrol. But surely they know to look out for the black-and-whites. These people live in fear and they know what fear looks like.”

  FLUSHED WITH EMBARRASSMENT, I was a good twenty minutes late for dinner. I’m never late. If I’m five minutes late, my palms start sweating. At fifteen minutes late my stomach feels like I’m on a trapeze with stiletto heels and no net below me. I tried to call Marcus, but through the layered desert colors of canyon walls up Reddington Pass the reception was spotty, at best.

  The open property gate welcomed me, but I admit surprise that Marcus wasn’t on his veranda to wave me in. The fortress-like doors were open, and equally the double doors to his home, I assumed open for me. And I was not on time.

  “Marcus? Are you here? I’m so sorry I’m late.”

  No response.

  My dessert, a delicate Charlotte Rousse, had already fallen to a miserable state of slumpy goo and in serious need of refrigeration. No longer the elegant puff of a cake with raspberries on top, but rather a puddle of gunky cream and runny raspberry juice. I headed for Marcus’s kitchen.

  “Chef?”

  No sign of anyone, but I could not miss the enticing aroma of the Osso Busco. I elected to open the refrigerator door and try to salvage what remains of my fancy dessert actually remained.

  Aside from a package of moldy cheese and the faint odor of what I can best describe as sweat, the only thing I saw inside the refrigerator were bottles and bottles of beer, and another two bottles of Jack Daniels. I can’t fathom why, but the contents of that refrigerator took me by surprise. I guess because I’d had those few lovely meals there, with even lovelier wines.

  As I tried to scoot a few beer bottles aside my hand holding my melted and shrinking Charlotte Rousse faltered. My dessert was sliding off the plate!

  “Damn it!” I yelled, just as I reached under the plate to prevent the whole thing from landing on the white stone floor. I had barely gained some balance, and my composure, when I heard him.

  “You use swear words?” It was Marcus. He looked—well, he looked angry. His tone of voice accusatory and harsh.

  “I have my moments,” I said, still positioning the pile of mush that was once a beautiful dessert onto the shelf in the refrigerator. “I guess this dessert doesn’t travel.”

  He stared at me, the icy edge of his words still on his lips. It didn’t help my state of awkwardness.

  I closed the door and stood, only after grabbing a folded towel from the polished white counters and wiping up red raspberry juice from inside the refrigerator and the floor. “I’m sorry. It’s just I called out to see if anyone was here, and my dessert desperately needed refrigeration. At this point it will still taste wonderful, but look like a red and purple mop.”

  He eased back his stance. Softened his shoulders. His voice, more the familiar sound of melodic tones and pacing. “I just don’t think profanity becomes you.”

  “I don’t suppose it becomes anyone, but it has its place. For me, sometimes,” I said. I’d already apologized, I thought. Hell!

  “Let’s go outside. Chef has poured wine for us out there. He can save your dessert or rescue us with one of his own. Not to worry.”

  I did worry, but it was a stupid dessert. WTF?

  The meal proved to be remarkable. The perfect Osso Busco and the accompaniments of a spinach salad, lemon, buttered barley, and homemade bread. For dessert, Chef had taken my fallen dessert, stirred it up, and used it as a topping over berries that must have been grown in a magic bubble of a greenhouse. I’d never seen berries that large. I thought to ask where he had found them. I thought better of it. Chef and I didn’t converse that much, I realized.

  The evening and the conversation didn’t sit as well. Probably my fault.

  I said, “I know I don’t know you well, but I was just, well, upset about my failed dessert and I tried to save it by chilling it. And I was taken aback to find no food in your refrigerator and plenty of beer and bourbon. It’s none of my business, but it just struck me as odd. You walked in and surprised me and by then I’d already made a mess of your counters and floor.”

  He scrutinized me with narrowing dark eyes. His arms crossed after he pushed his chair away from the table. “Chef keeps all of my meals in the, butler’s hall. My wine is in an air-and-humidity-controlled room. As for the beer, it’s a courtesy for all of my workmen that are forever working on the house or out at the stables or on the grounds. And I will readily admit that every once in a while, I partake in a taste of bourbon, chilled. Is that all that’s bothering you?”

  It troubled me that every once in a while I partook in conversation with a potty mouth and clearly that would be unacceptable to him. And clearly I was not about to change for a man. “I’m out of line,” I said. “I’m just off balance with my dessert fiasco.”

  As the evening came to a close and still outside under the ramada, Marcus stood and told me he had an early surgery the next day. He took my hand and kissed it.

  It was an obvious signal that it was time for me to go.

  Chapter 51

  Not in Public

  MARCUS ARMSTRONG HUNG out with the great crystal skull. He did not consider it a soliloquy. He talked to the skull.

  “There’s money in the skin,” Marcus said. “The deal is it’s only good in a cooler for forty-eight hours.”

  The skull answered. “Forget about The Human Tissue Authority. You have no business doing business there.”

  “But there’s a black market for skin, right?” Marcus demanded.

  “Of course. Pay for it by the square inch. It’s huge, but beware the very words of Sir Conan Doyle,” the skull answered. “When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of the criminals. He has the nerve and he has the knowledge.”

  “I’m an abstemious man. And with that, I’m quite careful. I need no warnings.”

  “I would not call a man living at this ranch and surrounded by the biggest and best of all things that money can buy abstemious. Be careful,” the skull said.

  “Shut up!”

  ZOEY HAD VANISHED. Into thin air, as they say. Evaporated beyond any particles of dust, although Shirley had told him she still wanted to look under The Z’s bed and count the dust bunnies. Detective Taylor wrestled Zoey’s disappearance and it ate at him like a layer of burning lava. He’d wait for the day he could bathe himself of the dusty ashes in the aftermath. With Zoey back home.

  On his side, Taylor thought, Zoey had the best of the best searching for her. Retired
turned private detective Vic Romero. FBI in the form of Shirley. And all of the nearby county sheriff’s offices, the city police, and the state patrol. She was one of theirs. All of theirs.

  Taylor reviewed the file for the umpteenth time. Zoey’s van had been searched for evidence. No unidentified finger prints. No DNA, although they did collect random fibers, just in case.

  Perimeter interviews were conducted with neighboring persons at Zoey’s office and her home. Old court records had been seized. Maybe some asshole that she had helped send away as a prosecutor’s witness had decided to mess with her.

  Flyers had been posted all over town and the surrounding towns of Oro Valley, Marana, and even as far south as Rio Rico and Nogales. All of Southern Arizona was blitzed with her photograph, and Taylor wanted to head north toward Phoenix.

  Once the police understood Zoey had two cell phones, both records had been seized. Nothing. No activity on either phone. Why the devil did she have a second phone?

  Did she run off of her own accord? Had she been in an accident and suffered amnesia?

  It became easier for Taylor to think that she took off for some respite rather than to ponder about the unthinkable. His gut told him it wasn’t so easy.

  He finally shed a choked back tear when inevitably considering every possible scenario. He wondered if Zoey cried as well. He knew Vic Romero and Shirley and maybe even the Falls girl cried. He hoped Zoey cried. If she cried, she was still alive.

  IT HAD CROSSED MY MIND more than once. I enjoyed Marcus’ company, but I really didn’t know much about him. And something else. Why didn’t we ever go out in public? A couple lunches, sure. Near my shop. An encounter with him at the jazz festival. No dinners out. No night at the movies. He asked me once if I wanted dinner out, but his voice directed me he’d rather stay home with Chef, and Chef was admittedly one of the best in town. I acquiesced because I love good food and I love ranches.

  Was he sensitive to the fact that I was still technically involved with someone?, but we weren’t really dating, were we?