Forcing Amaryllis

by Louise Ure

  Now all the current cavern dining was done at the new La Roca, just steps from the original caves. Deciding to treat ourselves to the luxury of a new hole-in-the-wall, we parked on the U.S. side of the border and crossed over on foot. A three-block walk took us across the railroad tracks and down shop-lined Elias Street. Many of the little tiendas sold identical Mexican crafts and souvenirs, colorful serapes, woven leather belts, and nacimientos, those distinctively Mexican nativity scenes. We paused at the windows of El Changarro, next to the entrance to La Roca, and drooled over their dream-inspired weavings and carved wooden statues.

  La Roca was quiet and cool: an oasis from Sonoran Mexico, even after only three blocks. We both ordered the garlicky camarónes al mojo de ajo and watched the roving band of mariachis curl around the tables. They wore their pants appropriately tight over cannonball bellies, and when they raised the violins to their chins, the silver buttons down the side seams of their pants gleamed in the light.

  “You know that vowel-less puzzle?” Giulia asked after the shrimp arrived, “It’s kind of like finding Amy’s rapist. We have all the words ready, but the hard part is putting it all together.”

  I nodded, thinking that “empty” was another word to add to the list, but I didn’t say it, as the strings and horns of the mariachi band approached the chorus of “Volver volver” at a volume appropriate to a broken heart.

  36

  On Wednesday morning I had a meeting with Amy’s doctors. They were full of news about recent successes with electrical stimulation of the brain. Rewiring the circuitry, they called it, as if Amy was a kind of faulty television. We’d been through this before, and just like every other time, I let my mind wander to the possibility of happy endings. I’d read about some of these successes, and about comatose patients who spontaneously awakened weeks, months, even years after their trauma. I had to continue to believe.

  Strike, Enrique, and I had agreed to meet at Alphabet City at noon. I was the first to arrive and joined Selena and her twin sons as they sat down for lunch.

  “Want one?” she asked, doling out the sandwiches.

  I declined her offer, and Selena turned her attention to pondering a new menu.

  “What letter will it be?”

  “O,” she replied, her mouth full of peanut butter.

  “My, we’re feeling brave. Oysters and octopus?”

  “Maybe oysters. Omelets. Olla podrida, of course; that kind of stew pleases just about anyone.”

  I read the potential menu over her shoulder. She’d already crossed off the oxtail soup but left okra, osso buco, and oatmeal cookies as possibilities.

  “Give me a ch day any day,” I offered. She gave me an exasperated smile and returned to her list.

  Enrique’s arrival was followed by a blast of hot air through the door. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. “Isn’t it supposed to cool off in the fall?” There had been no rain today, but the salmon-bellied clouds crouching over the Tucson Mountains at sunset last night had promised relief soon.

  Enrique ruffled his nephews’ hair and grinned when he saw his little sister’s scratchy notes on the menu. “Olives and onions and orange marble cake,” he chanted in a singsong voice.

  We all turned our heads at the sound of the revved engine out front. “Sounds like Strike is here.”

  Strike slid sideways through the partially opened door, kissed me on the forehead, and took the last empty seat at the table. Selena took in the kiss with rolled eyes and an elbow dug into her brother’s side.

  “It’s on the radio,” Strike said. “The sheriff’s office just picked up Blanken. They found him at a campsite up near Mount Baldy in Madera Canyon.” Enrique got up to phone his office for more details.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Have they charged him with DeGroot’s murder yet?”

  “No, they’re still calling him ‘a person of interest.’”

  “The only thing about him that ‘interests’ me is whether he attacked Amy and Miranda. But at least I won’t have to keep watch for that Taurus in my rearview mirror.” I felt buoyant. It was all I could do not to start dancing, munchkinlike, singing “Ding-dong, the witch is dead.”

  Smiles blossomed around the table. Cates had been found not guilty, and Blanken was in police custody. Now, if I could only shake the specter of a vicious highway patrolman.

  “What did the Santa Cruz County attorney say?” Strike asked.

  “She says we’ve got plenty of nothin’, but that may change now that they’ve found Blanken.” I filled them in on her reasons for refusing to start an investigation of her own.

  Maybe it was time to let the authorities handle it. I could give Giordano or the sheriff’s department all the evidence we’d collected, tell them our guesses about Blanken or the highway patrolman, and just walk away and get on with my life.

  “What are you going to do, Calla?” Selena asked.

  “Some meditation.”

  By the time I left town and headed southeast toward Patagonia, long shadows raced ahead of my car like a shy friend playing tag. I was going to return Cates’s belt and put this hunt for rapists behind me. Strike had accused me of “buying a dog and doing all the barking myself.” It was time I let the police and sheriff’s offices do the barking.

  Giulia’s well-meant advice whispered to me. “Put your own oxygen mask on first.” She was right. I needed to put Amy’s attack behind me. It would always be part of me, like my English-Italian heritage, my love of crossword puzzles, and my dislike of exercise—but it would no longer define me. I had to create a new life for myself and not be just a mute witness to my sister’s pain.

  I promised myself that when I got back to town I’d look into state financial aid again, to see if they could help with Amy’s care. And I’d find a job that was light-years away from the world of criminal defense.

  I swung under the wrought-iron arch at the entrance to the ranch and inched up the dirt road toward the house in low gear. Lights were on downstairs, and a television laugh track leaked through the open window. Ray Cates came out on the porch and stood silhouetted against the light.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “I wanted to return your belt to you.” I put one foot on the first step and reached toward him with the belt in my outstretched hand.

  “I was wondering about that. My father said you had been here.” He tucked the belt though a single loop on his pants and buckled it.

  “It was stupid. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking very clearly.”

  “That’s okay. No hard feelings.” I don’t know what he thought I’d wanted with the belt, but I was glad he wasn’t asking for an explanation. He picked up a cowboy hat from the benchlike swing beside him on the porch. “I was just going out for a beer, maybe get some dinner. Would you like to join me?”

  “No, thanks anyway. I really ought to be getting back.” With no clouds on the horizon to give us a Kodachrome sunset, the darkness was already settling in.

  “It would mean a lot to me. I’ve felt like a real pariah these last few months, and now you’re making me feel like more of one.” He shuffled the hat in a circle between his hands.

  “I don’t mean to do that. Sure. Shall I follow you?”

  “It’s just up the road.” He eyed my car in the deepening gloom. “But I’m not sure your axle would clear some of the ruts the monsoons left us with in this part of the county.”

  “Okay, let me get my purse.” I pulled my bag from the passenger seat and walked toward the black Escalade. I heaved myself onto the running board and then into the car. It was new enough to still smell like leather. I dug around in my purse until I found the cell phone and pushed the power button to see if I had enough juice and a clear signal for a call.

  “Who are you calling?” he asked as he started the car.

  I laughed. “My babysitter.” I dialed Strike’s home number. Whether he took me literally or figuratively, Cates nodded.

  Strike didn’t answer, so I left a message
at the beep. “Hi, it’s Calla. I’m down in Patagonia and I ran into Ray Cates. We’re going out to get a drink and maybe some dinner. I’ll be back in town before midnight.” I peered at the dial pad to locate the end-call button.

  “Everything okay?” Cates asked.

  “Sure. Where are we headed?”

  “Just up the road to Patagonia. There’s a great little Mexican restaurant there.”

  “Hope it’s not too fancy. I’m not dressed for a night on the town.” I looked down at my jeans and huaraches.

  I finally found the end-call button and pushed it. I hoped Strike didn’t mind hearing part of our dinner planning as a message from me.

  “Tell me about yourself,” Cates said. “I sat next to you at that table for weeks, but I don’t know anything about you.”

  It made me think of Giulia’s comment, that I had no life, no identity except as Amy’s sister and caretaker. In Cates’s eyes, I began and ended as his jury consultant. I was still somebody else’s apostrophe. “Let’s see. I’m a third generation Tucsonan—”

  “So am I. My grandfather moved here from Virginia.”

  “My mother’s family came from Italy. My father’s from—”

  “How would you feel about a steak dinner instead of Mexican food?” he interrupted. We had passed through the little town of Patagonia and were on the north side of the city, headed toward Tucson.

  “Sure. That would be great.”

  “Have you been doing this trial consulting long? Do you like it?”

  I didn’t want to tell him I’d been fired. It would have made me look stupid and him feel guilty. “I’ve only done it for six years, and to tell you the truth, I’m thinking about changing careers.”

  “Oh?” He looked over with interest.

  “How far is the restaurant? Would it be easier to go back for my car and I can follow you?” If I’d known we would be heading north, I would definitely have taken my car. As it was, I could look forward to a heavy, red meat dinner and a long drive back home trying to keep my eyes open.

  “Not far. And I’m enjoying the company.”

  “Okay. Me, too.”

  Cates tuned the radio to an oldies station, and Wilson Pickett crooned “In the Midnight Hour.” My thoughts returned, unbidden, to the rapes I’d investigated. What was it that had tickled the back of my mind in the courtroom? That one sentence that I knew was meant for me to understand.

  Stop it, I told myself. If you’re going to get past this, you have to quit miring yourself in sadness. Get on with your life.

  “I’ve always liked an oldies style of music,” Cates said. “In fact, I think my favorite music is from my father’s era. You know, a big band sound. Blaring trumpets, drum solos that go on for days.”

  “I like my parents’ music, too. But for me that’s the rancheras. Old-fashioned Mexican love songs.”

  “I like that. It fits you.”

  Did it? I hadn’t associated myself with a love song for a long time. And what about all the women I’d met in this rapist hunt? Christie Parstac, the student nurse who had been picked up in a bar but couldn’t identify her rapist. Mary Katherine Carruthers, who created the only safe place she could, behind barred windows and guard dogs. Sharon Hamishfender, the dancer who was punished for ignoring the advances of two men in a bar. I hoped there would be love songs ahead for all of them. Maybe mine would include Tonio Strike.

  “You like your steak rare?” Cates asked, taking me out of my dour reflections.

  I laughed. “It’s been so long since I treated myself to a really good steak that I can’t remember how I like it. How much farther is it now?” We had passed Sonoita and were still heading north toward Tucson.

  “I’m sorry. Are you getting hungry? I thought of another place I’d rather go. They make the best steaks in the state. Forty-eight ounces, mesquite grilled.”

  “I wish you’d told me. It would have been easier to take two cars.” If this restaurant was close to Tucson, then maybe I would have Cates drop me off at home after dinner and I’d ask Tonio to pick up the car with me tomorrow.

  Cates continued to talk about his favorite foods and restaurants. I remembered hearing some of the same comments from the get-to-know-you tape of Cates we’d played for the jurors in the mock trial.

  “I think my appreciation of food is tempered by my wallet,” I said. “Someday, when I have lots of money, I’m going to eat nothing but truffles and sea bass and saffron and champagne.”

  “We can do that tonight if you want,” he said with a smile.

  I grinned back.

  The lights of Green Valley and Sahuarita were off to our left. Bonnie DeGroot’s hometown.

  Twenty minutes later we approached the outskirts of Tucson, and Cates took the Vail Road exit instead of continuing on into town on I-10, then swung east of the city on Old Spanish Trail. I remembered some great steak restaurants out this way, and my stomach grumbled in complaint.

  He laughed when he heard the rumble. “Not much farther now.”

  “That’s great. I think I’ve decided on the forty-eight ouncer, rare, with baked beans and cherry pie and ice cream.”

  “Sounds like you’re working up an appetite.”

  The radio had moved on to Sinatra and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” My mind twisted the lyrics from amorous to literal.

  What about their skin? Amy and Miranda both had thin cut marks on their stomachs. Certainly not life threatening, but why were they there at all?

  “Earth to Calla. Earth to Calla.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not very good company, am I?” I tried to pay attention as Cates described his plans to go down to Mexico for more cattle for his father’s herd.

  We crossed over the dry Tanque Verde Wash. Palm trees lined the street and cast spearlike shadows from the moon and the yellow streetlights. They looked like visiting out-of-state relatives to the paloverdes and eucalyptus around them.

  Put your own oxygen mask on first, Giulia had said. I took a deep breath as an example. I could do it. I could turn my life around. Maybe I would buy a bright red shirt—something to make me stand out in a crowd. I might even try lipstick—put on a happy face.

  A Happy Face? I thought back to the autopsy photos I’d seen of Lydia Chavez. Razor-like cuts marked her chest as well, like a turned-down mouth and two angry dimples. A frowning face? And Amy’s cuts made a prototypical Smiley Face?

  The scars on Miranda’s stomach were three separate cuts, like a widely spaced colon and then a close-parenthesis mark. Turn it on its side, and it was the same as the other two.

  Now I knew for sure. The same man had tried to kill Miranda and Amy, and he had succeeded in killing Lydia Chavez.

  “We’re almost there, Sweet Thing.”

  37

  My heart dropped into my stomach.

  Like Miranda, I was in a car heading out to a restaurant where no restaurant existed. Like Lydia Chavez, I was in a remote and empty landscape with a man I thought I could trust. Like Amy, I had thought I was safe. I’d found the Sweet Thing rapist.

  I couldn’t let him see my fear, and I had to get away.

  “I just remembered I promised Tony Strike I’d meet him tonight.” I reached for the cell phone.

  “Put that away,” he said quietly, ripping the phone from my hand. He made sure it was turned off and jammed it into the pocket of his khaki pants. “I thought you were going to help me celebrate.” He turned and grinned at me.

  “That phone message I left was for Strike. He knows I’m with you. You won’t get away with it this time.”

  “Doesn’t worry me a bit. I’ll be able to prove I was in Tucson or I was getting my rocks off with a whore in Nogales. Or maybe I was on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico. They’ll have even less proof this time. I’m getting smarter.” He tapped his temple with a forefinger.

  I cradled the seat belt release in my hands, ready to make a move. We were on Sabino Canyon Road now. The road ended just up ahead at the public parking
area that led to the trails through the mountains. Hot, late-summer air whistled through the open window. I watched the isolated homes of adobe, stucco, and glass blur past me. No lights. No one I could go to for help. The engine roared as he pushed the massive SUV up the final grade toward the canyon. With a crunch of gravel he swung into the circular lot for visitors’ parking. There were two cars in the lot but they were empty, probably left overnight by hikers who planned multiday trips into the rugged Pusch Ridge Wilderness nearby.

  Cates grabbed both my wrists with his right hand and yanked the sun-buckle belt around them, passing the tongue of the belt through the buckle so he could use the strap like a leash. “Come on, I’ll show you how I want to celebrate.”

  I kicked out, connecting solidly with his right kneecap. He howled and grabbed his leg, freeing my arms. I took advantage of his pain and clawed at the door handle. I was halfway out the door when he grabbed the waistband of my jeans and hauled me back. My huaraches couldn’t get a grip on the asphalt, and I slid closer to him. Finally I managed to get my elbow outside the car and used it to pry myself out of his grasp.

  I threw the car door closed behind me. “I slammed the car door on it when he was six,” Cates’s father had told me when I asked about his son’s damaged hand. I hoped that I had done it again.

  A dim glow radiated from the visitors’ center, but this late at night there was no activity to accompany the light. Moonlight sparkled off shards of mica in the desert rocks.

  I ran toward the darkness of Bear Canyon Trail, wrapping Cates’s belt around my fist like a gladiator’s gauntlet.

  It had been a long time since I’d spent a moonlit night in the canyon. Now I would have to call on all the resources of my past, remember every stone and twist in the path, to renew my acquaintance with the canyon that I’d known in my youth.

  Cates’s car door closed with an angry clap. Evidently, I hadn’t hurt him enough to stop him.