He was tired of being treated like an invalid, someone who couldn’t function. Ian had pointed to that fender bender he’d had just last week in the Safeway parking lot, as if it meant something, but everyone had fender benders – that woman’s car had been parked perfectly in his blind spot, just a freak thing. Of course, Ian didn’t know about the stop sign Malcolm had run in his unmarked police car; he just hadn’t noticed it, was all. He must not have handled the patrolman who stopped him very well, because he had actually been issued a citation. Anyway.
Malcolm reached the top of the ladder, set the pruning saw and the clippers on the roof. Even though it was shaded here in the back by an overgrown mesquite tree, the roof was hot, hotter than he’d expected. Probably, he should give it a squirt with the hose. For a second, just one fleeting second, he almost called down to Cindy, ‘Hey, hon, could you turn the hose on this—’
Never mind.
Actually, he could get pretty close to the worst of the vines without going on to the roof. Clippers looked like the best bet. He grabbed them, then leaned over, got hold of the closest vine and pulled it toward him. The clippers were pretty good, still sharp, and they cut right through the stem. He threw the cut vine down on to the yard and saw he could just reach the one next to it.
He leaned as far as he could, maybe just a little too far because the ladder began to tilt. He grabbed the edge of the roof with one hand to right it, dropped the clippers he was holding in his other hand, tried to catch them and lost his footing. Then the ladder was falling, and he was falling with it.
Uh,oh, Cindy, here I come, was the last thing he thought before he hit the ground.
After the accident, Malcolm’s chief, Ray Friendly, once again suggested he take time off.
‘Why?’ Malcolm asked.
He and Ray had known each other since Malcolm was a rookie, and Malcolm trusted Ray generally speaking, but now nothing anybody said to him made any sense.
‘I mean, I can still function. I just have some shoulder pain,’ Malcolm protested.
Ray said nothing. There was what you might call a pregnant silence.
‘Time off for what?’ Malcolm said finally. ‘So I can stare at the walls?’
‘Or go fishing. Whatever.’
Malcolm had never fished in his life. ‘Jesus Christ, Ray. Can’t you do better than that?’
‘Okay, okay,’ Ray said. ‘What I’m saying is, you got to take time off before you hurt yourself or, god forbid, somebody else. That’s an order. And here’s another piece of advice. There’s too many memories for you here right now. Get out of town for a while.’
‘No – I mean, why?’
‘For one thing, you have to drive by that motel every day on your way to work. How does that feel?’
‘I don’t drive by that motel. I get up a little earlier and take an alternate route.’
Ray put a Friendly hand on Malcolm’s shoulder.
Malcolm flinched.
‘Oops,’ Ray said. ‘Sorry.’ He paused. ‘Just do it, okay? Leave town.’
So he did.
THREE
Two months later
Maybe I’m wrong, Carrie thought. She felt sick to her stomach. God, of course I am. She’d tried to call Rose, her sister, back in Pennsylvania, but Rose wasn’t answering her cell.
It was Brewery Gulch Days in the small Arizona town of Dudley; bands were playing, and there were art galleries and street artists, the Miz Dud beauty contest, and street dances at night. The hotels were all booked up, and the town full of tourists, Carrie Cooper and her husband Wes among them. Wes had taken early retirement from his job selling insurance; Carrie had a crafts store she ran with her sister. They were middle-aged people; not young, but certainly not old.
‘In our prime!’ Wes would say, and Carrie would laugh.
She laughed at all his jokes whether they were funny or not. Though not newly-weds, they still sometimes acted as if they were. He was tall, with medium-brown hair, muscular but with a bit of a gut now. He’d worn a full beard for years, but had shaved it recently. She thought he looked even better without it.
Carrie had her light-brown hair streaked every three months with gold highlights. She’d just had it done before they came here. Carrie was something else, despite what she would jokingly call her advanced old age. She was fine boned, her delicate features perfectly symmetrical. She still brought looks from men wherever she went.
Carrie was beautiful.
That afternoon Wes had decided to go on the mine tour, but Carrie had been queasy about going way underground where it was dark and cold, so she stayed behind. Carrie was prone to jumping at loud noises and slept badly without a man in the bed beside her, which in her younger days had caused her to make some mistakes. And right now she was scared.
She’d been scared since last night, their first night in town. They were staying at the Copper Queen Hotel. Wes had gone up to take a shower before dinner, and Carrie had taken a walk. That was when it happened. What she saw.
She’d hurried back to the hotel. In the lobby she’d had a conver-sation with one of the waitresses, then Wes had showed up.
She hadn’t told him what had happened, what she’d seen on her walk last night. Should I have? she wondered now. She tried her sister’s cell again, but still no answer. You think you can get away with things, she thought, but maybe you can’t.
There was music in the air, mostly drums, some guitar riffs. Despite Wes’s usually comforting presence Carrie hadn’t slept well last night, worrying. Melatonin – her sister swore by melatonin. The woman behind the desk at the Copper Queen had given Carrie directions to the Natural Foods Co-op. They would probably have some there. So Carrie put on her baseball cap and sunglasses and took a walk.
She left Main St and turned down a side street, taking pictures with her cellphone: she took one of the sign at the Silver King Hotel, and one of a man in a long black frock coat and a cowboy hat. After she took his picture, the man in the black frock coat followed her for a while.
‘I’d love to show you around, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I know some interesting places the average tourist never sees.’
‘No, please,’ Carrie said. ‘Thank you.’
She walked and walked. Walking was good for anxiety – that was all it was, anyway, anxiety. Last night had been her imagination. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she had to have been mistaken, and she had always had some anxiety issues – she hated that word, issues – but she was much better than she used to be.
So get over it, she told herself.
She turned a corner, walked a stretch, and then another corner and there it was: the Dudley Natural Foods Co-op.
There was a sign in the window saying ‘We Are Not Racist Here’ over a circle with the letters ‘SB1070’ for the anti-immigration law recently passed in Arizona and a slash across it. Next to that a sign said ‘Humanitarian Aid Is Never a Crime’. Humanitarian aid, thought Carrie. I could use some of that.
By the door a young woman with bright-red hair in a long batik skirt was dancing, swaying and bobbing to the faraway drums: thumpety thump, thumpety thump.
The young woman dancing was Posey, an employee of the Food Co-op in charge of produce, on her break. She was skinny, angular, with a dragon tattoo like the girl in the book on her left arm.
‘Look at her dance!’ said Windsong behind one of the cash registers. He was in his sixties, with a gray beard and a red bandanna round his head. ‘See!’ he said to Kate. ‘We don’t need YouTube in Dudley. We got our own YouTube here. It’s called life!’
‘Life,’ Kate said.
‘Hey there, you. Lighten up,’ said Windsong. ‘One life is all you get.’
Kate smiled. Windsong was always making her smile. She almost resented it. ‘What?’ she said. ‘You don’t believe in reincarnation?’
Now she watched as a pretty woman wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, pink T-shirt, khaki capris, big fat silver athletic shoes – standard tour
ist uniform – walked past Posey dancing and into the co-op.
The automatic doors hissed: doors installed by an ambitious manager (now gone), along with a point of site cash register-computer system such as they used at places like Walmart, using a twenty-three percent interest loan that would cripple the Co-op’s bottom line for years.
‘What does that mean?’ the woman asked Kate, taking off her sunglasses. She had beautiful eyes, startlingly blue, but she looked tired. ‘Humanitarian aid is never a crime?’
‘People were getting arrested for helping illegals that were crossing the border in the desert,’ Kate explained. ‘Giving them water, that kind of thing.’
‘But that’s good, isn’t? Giving people water in the desert?’
Kate shrugged. ‘I would think so, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me know if you need any help finding anything,’ Kate said.
On the back wall was a mural depicting a couple in a red pickup, merry faces looking out the windows as they drove through desert to a green oasis, where a farmer in a straw hat stood surrounded by bushels of (certainly organic) fruits and vegetables.
‘Oooh. Nice.’ The woman took a picture of it, then frowned. ‘I didn’t get it all,’ she said.
‘Here,’ said Windsong. ‘Let me try.’ It was slow today, everyone down on Main Street dancing.
She handed him the phone. ‘Do you guys have melatonin?’ she asked Kate, voice going up on the word melatonin.
‘Of course. Here, I’ll show you.’ Kate led her to the right aisle. ‘Let me see,’ Kate said, scanning the supplements. ‘Here it is!’
The woman reached over to the shelf for the bottle. Her hand was shaking just a little bit. Something about her was wrong, off. Stress? The dreadful stress of being a tourist? Or a panic attack, Kate thought. Maybe she’s having a panic attack. Kate’s mother had had panic attacks when Kate was a little girl, before her mother met Bill, now Kate’s stepfather.
The woman dropped the bottle of melatonin.
Kate stooped to pick it up. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked her.
‘Yes. No. I mean, I don’t know.’ She paused.
Kate looked concerned.
‘My name’s Carrie,’ the woman said suddenly.
‘I’m Kate. Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Oh, I’m being stupid. I’m sorry.’
‘For what? I mean—’ Kate began but she didn’t finish because Windsong came hustling over, cellphone in his hand.
‘Got a good one,’ he said to Carrie. ‘The whole mural.’
‘Thank you.’ She held out her hand for it.
‘No, wait.’ He stepped back. ‘Another picture is called for here. Two beautiful ladies.’
They stood together, grinning cheesy smiles as he took the picture.
‘Kate!’ someone called from the back.
‘Ryan wants you, Kate,’ Windsong said. Ryan was the manager, at least this week, Windsong liked to joke. The co-op went through managers every three or four months.
But Kate turned to Carrie, concerned. ‘Are you sure—?’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
Carrie’s cellphone rang.
‘Hey, Kate,’ called Ryan again.
‘That was strange,’ Kate said to Windsong later.
‘What?’
‘That woman? That you took the picture for?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘The woman in the baseball cap?’ Posey asked from the produce section. ‘Pretty?’
‘Yes.’
‘She was a little stressed,’ Posey said. ‘I noticed too.’
‘I asked her if she was all right,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t know—’
‘Maybe she’ll come back,’ said Windsong. ‘Purchase some of our fine all-natural stress reducers.’
‘Maybe,’ said Kate, standing in the aisle where the herbs were kept in giant glass jars: mugwort, sheep sorrel and skullcap. Mugwort, sheep sorrel and skullcap, Kate sang in her head. Oatstraw and gotu kola.
Witchy stuff.
From way in the back of the store, Kate heard her cellphone ping. A text coming in. Not Harry, she hoped. She deleted his texts before she even read them, ever since that first one: Mistake.
Who cares, thought Kate. Bully for him. He has no idea where I am.
‘Actually, not so much stressed,’ Kate said. ‘More like scared.’
‘Let’s take a walk,’ Wes said. ‘Before it gets dark.’
He took Carrie’s hand, and they left the Copper Queen Hotel. She was feeling better now – it was just stress, she told herself now, making her imagine things. Stress, anxiety, whatever it was, it wasn’t real. She planned to tell Wes – not right now, but later – and they would laugh about it.
They climbed the crumbling WPA stamped cement steps behind the hotel. Shadows had begun to lengthen, making mysteries out of alleyways and corners. The air had taken on a renewed vitality, full of interesting smells: fennel and creosote and marijuana. Later, in the dark, the town would begin to glitter.
They passed a big three-story building with a bell tower, then climbed another long flight of steps. It was a mile high, and the altitude made them stop from time to time to catch their breath. They peered down the little alleys that led off on either side, curious about the tiny houses that lined the steps.
From a house nearby, music; it sounded Mexican.
‘Salsa,’ said Carrie. She loved music.
Last night, she remembered, music from the bars had throbbed in the dark till midnight.
‘Wes,’ said Carrie. She stopped, suddenly deciding. ‘Listen.’
He stopped too, two steps up from her, one hand on the railing. ‘What?’
‘There’s something I want to tell you.’
‘Wait till we get to the top!’ he said. ‘Almost there. Come on!’ In a burst of energy he began to run up the steps.
‘Wait up,’ she called. ‘Come on. Wait.’
He stopped again and turned. She could see his face, his new face without the beard. He seemed to be smiling. He waved at her and turned back. Then she heard a popping noise, barely audible over the salsa music.
He stumbled. He must have missed a step when he stumbled, because he fell.
‘Wes,’ she called urgently, thinking: what? Oh no, heart attack? The altitude, the climb? ‘Wes, are you all right?’
She hurried up the steps, fast, fast.
She’d almost reached him when there was another popping noise. She fell too. One hand stretched out in front of her so that she was just touching his ankle as her blue eyes dimmed, her newly streaked blonde hair still bright.
FOUR
It was almost dusk when the sirens began. Windsong and Kate heard them as they were closing up. They walked outside together. Windsong was getting on his bicycle and Kate into her car when an ambulance whizzed by on the highway above, red lights flashing, siren full blast.
‘Wow!’ Windsong teetered on his bike.
Kate started her car and headed for the High Desert Market where she’d pre-ordered a dinner to go. On Main St the noise of sirens grew louder, insistent. Three police cars, lights flashing, went right by the Grill at the Convention Center.
The street was packed, the sound of the sirens like an urgent backdrop. Cars were almost at a standstill, inching along. Damn. Kate usually walked to work, but she’d been running late that morning. She edged along then lucked out and found a parking place just down from the High Desert Market. She pulled in and got out.
People, oddly dressed, crowded the sidewalk. A couple of contestants for the Miz Dud contest, of indeterminate sex, sashayed by. One of them wore a tight black sequinned skirt and feather boa, the other a long purple jacket and leggings. The air thrummed with tension. What was going on? Kate wondered. People passed by, to and fro, seeming to walk a little faster than usual.
A man in a cowboy hat jostled her arm and hurried on without apology. The sidewalk narrowed a bit just before the market, and someone bu
mped right into her from behind.
‘Excuse me?’ someone said.
Kate turned and saw a tall blonde woman in a long black dress. The woman’s blonde hair was shiny, well cared for, but didn’t match her ageing face, made her look hard. She looked familiar, but Kate had met so many new people lately that she’d lost track of who was who. For a moment they stared at each other, then the woman looked away.
Kate was certain now she must have met her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began. ‘I’ve forgotten your name. I—’
‘My purse,’ the woman interrupted: whisky voice. ‘I dropped it.’ She pointed down. There it was on the ground, a black suede pouch, next to Kate’s foot.
‘Oh.’ Kate stepped away. ‘Do you happen to know what those sirens—?’ she started to ask, but the woman was already gone.
Two teenage girls giggled at some lame teenage joke, nudged by, and then Kate was at the market.
Inside it was jam packed, people talking all at once, half tourists, half locals. Peyton, the owner, recognized her and handed over her dinner. Kate took it to the cash register to pay.
‘What’s going on,’ she asked the cashier, a young woman with Rasta braids, as she paid.
‘Somebody got shot.’
Shot. Kate felt a little sick. ‘How? Was it an accident? Are they okay?’
The girl shrugged. Customers were waiting. ‘That’s all I know.’
Outside, Kate’s cellphone chimed. Dakota.
‘Hello?’
‘Where are you?’ Dakota asked.
‘I’m standing by my car at the High Desert Market.’
‘Well, get in your car, lock the doors,’ said Dakota. ‘Then go home and lock yourself in. Someone shot and killed two tourists. That’s what those sirens are about.’
‘No. Two tourists? My god. Who?’
‘I don’t know who shot them. I don’t know if anyone knows or if someone’s been arrested or anything. It happened on the steps that go up to High Road past the Central School. Not like a drunken bar thing. It’s kind of panicky around here right now. You need to play it safe.’
Empty Houses Page 2