Dinner was big juicy steaks at the picnic table out on the ceramic tiled patio.
‘How’s the shoulder?’ Ian asked.
‘Improving.’ Malcolm cut a bite of steak. It was excellent: rare, swimming with red blood. ‘Or so the physical therapist tells me,’ he lied.
‘Good, glad you’re getting some help. Those rural health clinics,’ Ian said. ‘They’re fine as long as you’re not sick. You might want to consider doing some of that therapy in Phoenix. I mean, we can put you up.’
‘It seems to be working out okay down there,’ Malcolm said.
‘You’re not incredibly bored?’ Sally asked.
‘Actually—’ Malcolm cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been working on a little investigation, local thing.’
‘Really,’ they said in unison, smiling, interested, happy for him.
They were both so nice, his brother and sister-in-law, scared to bring up the subject of Cindy at all for fear of reminding him, as if he would have forgotten.
‘It’s a little hush-hush right now,’ Malcolm added and immediately felt stupid – he sounded like one of those cop wannabes he used to look down on.
Shawn giggled. He put his finger to his lips. ‘Hush, hush, hush, hush,’ he whispered.
‘Of course,’ Ian said.
‘Good steak,’ said Malcolm. ‘Really good.’
‘We get it from this place online.’
‘We don’t get it too much,’ Sally said. ‘Just for special times. I mean, it’s not the healthiest way to eat.’
‘She’d have me on salad and fruit every day if she could,’ Ian said. ‘Maybe some salmon thrown in for the omega three.’
‘It’s for your own good,’ Sally said.
‘We’re talking about men here,’ Ian said. ‘Me and my brother. Real men. Real men eat red meat.’ He pounded his chest for emphasis.
Shawn pounded his chest several times too, giggling wildly.
‘Shawn. Calm down,’ Sally said.
‘Red-blooded men,’ said Ian. It was an old family joke whenever they had steak when they were kids. ‘Right, Malcolm?’
‘Right. Red-blooded men.’ Malcolm glanced at his watch. ‘Oops. Got to be somewhere in half an hour.’
‘Where’s that?’ Sally asked.
‘A poetry reading at the Poetry Barn.’
The Poetry Barn was a little detached house, not really a barn at all, near downtown Phoenix, where some alternative art galleries were. Malcolm was a little late due to having to find a place to park. He finally did and hiked back two blocks. Outside the open door, he paused. There was a poster that looked handmade, saying ‘Poetry Reading Tonite’, and a picture of Harry Light, the same one that was on his website. Inside, someone was strumming a guitar carelessly, as if they were doing it for their own pleasure and didn’t care what anyone else thought.
Malcolm stepped inside. The strumming stopped, abruptly. On a table by the door was a big glass of the kind used for wholesale pickles, full of bills. A sign on the jar said ‘Donations’. Malcolm dropped in a dollar bill. A woman in black sitting by the inner door smiled at him, her dark-red lipstick inviting, mysterious.
‘Hi,’ Malcolm said. ‘This Harry Light. He’s from California, isn’t he?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Does he read here often?’
‘This year we’ve been lucky. He’s read here several times.’
‘Oh? When was the last—’
She put a finger to her lips. ‘Shhhh. Not now. Go on in. He’s just started.’
He went through the inner door, sat down on the first empty chair he came to and took a deep breath.
The room was half full, maybe twenty people, and dim, with a spotlight at the front that shone on a lectern. A man stood at the lectern in the spotlight.
‘—speculative vanishing against the brightness—’ he was saying. ‘Oh, holy, holy, oh, holy—’
It took a second before Malcolm realized this was Harry Light – he looked different than the photograph, smaller.
‘—and extreme, extreme—’ Harry Light raised his fist and banged it on the lectern, making Malcolm jump. ‘I said—’ Pause. ‘EXTREME, EXTREME, EXTREME, but – madness. This is madness. No more the tulips, the saguaro, the, the, the, TENNIS BALLS. The balls of tennis, the holy balls of tennis, the balls of holy tennis.’
He stopped. He looked around the room, as if to catch the eyes of everyone there. The silence stretched out.
‘But I died,’ he said. ‘Long ago I was already dead.’
He bowed his head.
There was another silence, then thunderous applause.
‘So powerful,’ Malcolm heard the woman beside him say to her companion as he made his way out.
Kate slept fitfully at the Shady Grove Bates motel, tossing and turning. The headlights of passing cars reflected through the sheer curtains at the window, making patterns on the wall. Close to dawn she finally fell into deeper sleep, full of dreams. Then she found herself back at the house in New Jersey, wandering in the dark from room to room. Lights flickered on and off enough for her to see that every room she came upon was empty, though she was certain that before there’d been some furniture: a bed, a couch, a table. When she got to what must be the last room, she saw there was something on the floor. She bent to pick it up. The framed snapshot of the woman at Tall Pine Lake, 2005.
But she was certain she’d packed that in her carry-on, yet here it was still in the room. She took it over to the window where there was more light and saw in the reflection of a passing car what she should have realized all along: that the snapshot of the woman in the sunglasses, the bikini, the big straw hat, smiling back at her on the beach at Tall Pine Lake in 2005, was a snapshot of herself.
In the night a thought flickered through Malcolm’s brain and woke him up with a start. Where the hell was he? A window across the room. Street light shining through frilly curtains. Holy fucking tennis balls. His brother Ian’s spare bedroom. And what was the thought? Kate. Kate was in trouble. How did he know? Just a feeling, an intuition he’d formed, the man with the radar for angst and depression.
TWENTY-ONE
The next morning before he left Phoenix, Malcolm called up an old friend, Detective Frank Cruz of Mesa PD.
‘Mac!’ Frank said. ‘Hey, Mac, how’s it going down there in Dudley? I hear they even got crime. Like, in the two tourists.’
‘Exactly. So, I was wondering. I got a little gig there, helping the defense on that—’
‘Helping the defense! Good Lord, you always was a mite liberal. You know what though, I forgive you.’
‘In my opinion the whole thing’s a rush job by the Chamber of Commerce.’
‘I hear you.’
‘Anyway, I’m curious if there’s anything hinky with the daughter of the male victim, Wes Cooper. Polly Hampton – Polly’s Collectibles – right here in Tempe.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘And listen, just one more thing, there’s this case in Ocean Front, California? Missing persons, Anna Marie Romero?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’d like to talk to the lead investigator. I was wondering if you could assist me in that.’
‘What? What? Asking for special favors?’
‘Yup.’
‘There is no way, no way at all that I won’t assist you in any way I can. I’ll see what I can do. The number you’re calling from—’
‘My cell. It’s good.’
Harry Light – no, Hairy Lite, thought Malcolm as he drove the boring truck-riddled stretch of freeway between Phoenix and Tucson. It was hard to imagine it ever rained here, ever, ever, ever. What had Kate seen in that guy anyway? What kind of emails were those nasty emails Dakota had mentioned? Actively threatening or just underhand and snide? Probably, Hairy Lite was just an ordinary jerk and you could leave it at that.
But for Anna Marie Romero.
Back in Dudley he drove straight to Ernie Roger’s garage. Was it his imagi
nation or had the Honda moved over two spaces? It looked like the tire hadn’t been fixed yet. He went inside to the office. The same guy he’d talked before looked up.
‘Remember me?’ Malcolm said.
‘Sure do.’
‘You gotten to that Honda yet?’
‘What’s your interest, exactly?’
‘Friend of the owner,’ Malcolm lied. ‘She told me she had a funny feeling about it so I told her I’d check it out.’
The guy pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Ed, said the name stitched on it in red letters. ‘Let’s go outside,’ Ed said.
Over by the Honda, Ed lit up. Past the chain link fence, the desert stretched on and on to the mountains and Mexico.
‘That tire?’ Ed said.
‘Yeah.’
‘It looked almost new. It wasn’t your average blowout.’ He paused, as if for effect. ‘Some son of a bitch shot the goddamn thing, that’s why it blew. There was a goddamn bullet in that tire.’
‘No fucking shit. You call law enforcement?’
‘The cops?’
‘Yeah, the cops!’ Malcolm was almost shouting.
‘No, sir, I didn’t.’
‘Why not? Somebody shooting at someone’s tires is a criminal offense.’
‘Hey!’ Ed backed away, arms raised high. ‘Cool it, man, I just found this out myself. I’ll do it, okay.’
‘And not Dudley PD. It happened outside city limits. It would be the County Sheriff’s jurisdiction. Never mind. I’ll do it myself.’
‘Mesa PD, huh,’ said Officer Brad Holmes. He stretched out his hand, ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’ He scratched his head. ‘DES, the department of public safety, would have gone out on the original call. I’ll get their report ASAP. Man, oh man – hope we don’t have some random shooter out there.’
‘I see your point,’ said Malcolm, ‘but I doubt if Miss Waters would be happy to find out it wasn’t a random shooter.’
‘Haw, haw,’ said Officer Holmes. ‘I see your point too. This a pissed off ex or what?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Well, I’ll be needing to interview her.’
‘She’s out of town at the moment.’
‘Maybe that’s for the best, huh?’
Did Hairy Lite know how use a gun? Would Hairy Lite have traveled all the way to Cochise County to take a pot shot at Kate’s car? Maybe not, but a new thought occurred to Malcolm, a good one. All those writers who did workshops and stuff in prisons so they’d have juicy material for hopefully best-selling novels. Maybe Hairy was one of those guys, did the prison circuit – if so, he’d have some criminal connections. He could have hired someone.
Why exactly had Kate left Hairy Lite? Just because he was a jerk? Women had been staying with jerks instead of leaving them for centuries now. Dakota had said out of control temper tantrums. If the Anna Marie Romero thing did turn out to involve Hairy Lite, then Kate, having lived with Hairy, might have some useful infor-mation about a possible motive for him to want Anna Marie dead, which in turn would give Hairy a motive for going after Kate.
Though some guys, all the motive they needed was for the woman to leave them.
Might, maybe, what if. At least Kate was safe back east for now.
He drove to Dakota’s studio. She was outside watering the gazanias.
‘You’re in touch with Kate, right,’ Malcolm said.
‘Right. She’s in Vermont.’
‘Vermont? I thought she was in New Jersey.’
‘All I know is she texted me she was going to Vermont. We haven’t actually talked. She’s probably having too good a time, seeing old friends and stuff – she deserves to have some fun.’
‘I talked to the guy at the garage where her car is. Her tire blew because someone shot at it.’
‘What!’ Dakota dropped the hose, and it twisted and wiggled, a stream of water hitting Malcolm in the leg. ‘Oh my God. Do they know who?’
‘No. It could have been a random shooting.’
‘Great,’ said Dakota. ‘Just great. I’ll think about that next time I drive to Sierra Vista, if I do ever ever again.’
‘I talked to law enforcement. They’re investigating it.’
‘Call me when they find anything out, okay? I’ll give you my cell number, and you give me yours too.’
‘Better yet. I got a card.’
‘Should I tell Kate?’ Dakota asked. ‘It will totally freak her out.’
‘Maybe not yet.’
Sid wasn’t at the St Elmo Bar for Malcolm to show him the photograph of Polly Hampton. A tired-looking blonde bartender said wearily, ‘He’s out of town, camping in the White Mountains. Back in a few days.’
Camping, everyone was camping. Maybe Sid was camping with Elton Savory, the night-shift guy at the High Desert Market.
Malcolm went home.
Inside the house it was hot. He opened all the windows. Then he looked in the fridge to see if he had to go to the store, which he was not in the mood to do at all. There was still some hamburger meat left – it smelled a little funny, but it had aged, that was all. People had been eating aged beef for centuries. Out on the porch the orange cat lurked by the empty bowl. Malcolm filled it.
The sister. There was still Carrie Cooper’s sister, far away in Millville, Pennsylvania, running a crafts store. Far away back east in Millville, Pennsylvania, which wasn’t that far from Vermont or New Jersey, probably. Not that that had anything to do with anything. If he wanted to do this right, he should go to Millville himself and talk to Carrie’s sister. What was her name? Rose Kelly. Why the hell not? The defense would have some money to pay for expenses.
Surely they would. He called Stuart Ross’s cell.
‘Ross here.’
Malcolm explained.
‘Sure, sure,’ said Stuart. ‘Why the hell not? It’s a murder case, after all.’
He sounded distracted, like he was thinking about something else. Malcolm hoped this wasn’t going to turn out to be a conversation that Stuart Ross conveniently forgot. His own brother was an attorney, and he’d gone to law school for a year himself, but he thought, once again, he never trusted lawyers, especially lawyers for the defense. But what the hell.
Suddenly seized by a sense of urgency he went online, looked up the closest airport to Millville, Pennsylvania. He booked the earliest flight, ouch, very early.
Nothing left to do right now. It was too soon to cook up the aged hamburger so he took a Sam Adams out of the fridge and went out on to the porch. A curve billed thrasher flew up on a branch, and a big black crow was carrying on. It was getting cooler now, and the light slanted through the branches of the trees in a way that for some reason reminded him of being ten years old.
All of a sudden here he was working a case, or maybe even two, if in fact Hairy Lite had something to do with Kate’s tire getting shot out. He was feeling a little better, a lot better in fact, looking forward to tomorrow for the first time in months and months.
Chico wasn’t looking forward to anything much, except in his dreams. He pushed the cart loaded with worn-out paperback books slowly in front of him – a little job he had as a trustee. Pretty ironic that everyone seemed to trust him here, him, the double murderer, though of course he’d gone to high school with two of the other inmates and one of the guards, and another of the guards had been married briefly to one of Chico’s aunts.
He pushed the cart slowly down the bleak hall and left it by the door to the prison library.
From somewhere down the hall, came a shrill scream and then another – ‘Mothafucah!!’ – one of the inmates going over the edge. It happened all the time. He heard the sound of guards coming from somewhere. Chico sauntered past the front lobby, going slow, not wanting to get involved in any kind of melee. Manny, the guard he’d gone to high school with, was usually on duty at the front lobby this time of day, getting on in the evening, but Manny was nowhere to be seen.
In fact, no one at this one small second of time was anywhe
re to be seen, all attending to the screaming inmate. The doors to the outside were just to Chico’s left, past the security checkpoint. Chico stopped thinking. His body, longing for migas, a decent bed and a good violent action movie, took over and strolled to the security checkpoint. Then he hesitated, but just for a moment.
Then, suddenly, he was past the checkpoint, was out the door and into the evening.
He saw no one. He ran fast, as fast as he could ever run, past the cluster of buildings that made up the complex and into the desert. It was still light enough to see, dark enough that he might not be seen by someone approaching the complex. Under a small moon just rising, he ran over rocks, dodging cholla cactus and prickly pear, mesquite and tamarisk. He knew where he was going, knew the area well, not like some of the inmates.
Panting, he stopped to catch his breath, resting against a large rock. But he hadn’t much time; someone would notice he was missing, alarms would sound off. He needed to get to the outskirts of town where he would be one of many, not a lone runner out in the desert under the moon, the stars. He started up again, climbing this time, up and over. Then all of Dudley lay below him, just beginning to twinkle in the dusk. He started down the mountain to the first house on the edge of town.
He knew the house, half rotting wood, half adobe – it had been abandoned for years. Back when he was in high school he would go there with a bunch of other guys, get high. For a moment he considered hiding there, but it was too obvious – he kept going further down, tired by now, stumbling. He heard the sound of tele-vision somewhere, the warmth of laughter, phoney. He was really tired, out of shape after being in jail, but he kept going, down some crumbling cement steps, through someone’s yard, the Rodriguezes’, yeah, sure, but no one was home.
Where the hell am I going, he thought, and the thought distracted him. He stopped noticing where to put his feet, tripped on a rock and fell, hitting his head on another rock.
A bright light exploded in his brain as he lay there, then things got dark as he lapsed into unconsciousness.
And in another part of town, Lupita was just setting the table for dinner – she’d made chili rellenos, nana’s favorite, as a special treat – when her nana suddenly sat upright and screamed.
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