Stealing Faces

by Michael Prescott

  She dug deeper and found a spare clip for that pistol of his, the Gock, Crock, whatever it was called.

  Had he shot Sharon Andrews with the pistol? If so, the cartridges in this clip were probably of the same caliber and design as the two slugs found in her body.

  There was one more item, at the very bottom of the sack. A leather sheath. And in it, a knife.

  She cupped the sheath in the palm of her hand and lifted it. Spots of discoloration freckled the careworn leather, spots that were brown and black and rust-colored. Some were dirt, and some were blood.

  Sharon Andrews’ blood? Almost surely.

  Cray had used this knife to—well, she knew what he’d used it for.

  Seaweed in the tide. Green and limp.

  A woman’s face.

  She almost dropped the knife in a spasm of repugnance.

  “You okay?” Wallace Zepeda asked over the music.

  “Fine. I’m fine.”

  She was. Really.

  Because she had Cray now. She had him.

  All she needed to do was get the whole package to the police—Cray’s tools and, with them, his damn car key. The key would link the satchel to him almost as effectively as a fingerprint.

  The cops must receive dozen of anonymous tips, but this was one tip they couldn’t ignore.

  And let Cray tell any smooth lie he liked. It wouldn’t matter. He was finished, the murdering bastard.

  Her hands were shaking as she knotted the satchel’s drawstring clasp.

  When she looked up, she was surprised to see that the Rambler was heading west on Silverlake Road, and her motel was dead ahead.

  “It’s there,” she said, pointing.

  Zepeda pulled into the parking lot and turned off the cassette. He cast a sour gaze on the ramshackle building and the nearby freeway.

  “Great place. You find out about it in the Triple-A guide?”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Not exactly. Look, I really want to thank you—”

  “Forget it. I don’t want your gratitude. I just want your attention for a moment.”

  “I’m kind of in a hurry.”

  “You’ve got time for some old Indian wisdom, don’t you?”

  “Sure. I’m sorry. Of course I do.”

  “Then here goes. You’re in some deep shit, lady. You can’t handle it alone. You need to get some help, or the next person who finds you in the desert will be looking at a corpse.”

  She was shocked for a moment, and then she had to smile. “That’s old Indian wisdom?”

  “It’s wise enough. And I am one old fucking Indian.”

  “I’m going to get help, Mr. Zepeda.”

  “You wouldn’t be selling me a string of beads, would you, Paula?”

  “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “Okay, then. Get some rest. And find yourself some damn shoes.”

  He let her out and watched her as she hurried to her room and went quickly inside. He noticed that she hadn’t needed a key; the door had been left unlocked.

  Unlocked—in this neighborhood.

  It was just another thing Wallace Zepeda didn’t want to think about as he drove away, Creedence loud over the speakers, the sun a haze of glare in the red east.

  15

  Cray was heading south on Interstate 10, two miles past downtown Tucson, when his glance strayed to the floor of the passenger seat and he realized that it was empty.

  Kaylie’s purse had been there. She had taken it, of course. That didn’t matter.

  But the satchel did.

  He had forgotten it entirely. Exhaustion and anger had fogged his mind.

  She had carried off his little black bag, perhaps without even knowing what it was. But she would know before long. She would look inside, paw through the satchel’s contents. She would find the knife.

  Cray had cleaned the knife after each kill, but he knew that microscopic traces of blood could still be found on it, perhaps in the narrow crevice where the blade met the hilt.

  Sharon Andrews’ blood. And the blood of others.

  The knife posed the worst threat to him, but the other items were incriminating as well. Once in the possession of the police, the bag’s contents would fairly scream his guilt.

  “God damn her,” he said with sudden violence. “God damn that meddlesome girl to hell.”

  He took the next exit and doubled back toward town, driving fast. There might not be much time.

  * * *

  Elizabeth spent less than two minutes in the motel room, long enough to put on her shoes and collect her two suitcases.

  Before leaving, she entered the bathroom, switching on the vanity lights over the counter. The sink was old and yellowed with deposits of chemical residue, and there was hair, not her own, in the drain.

  She cupped her hands under the lukewarm stream from the tap and splashed her face, wanting to feel clean.

  When she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw sky-blue eyes and a pale, freckled complexion. She found the strength for a smile. “Still here,” she said aloud.

  Cray had wanted to wipe her out. He had failed. Now he would pay the price.

  She loaded her luggage into the Chevette, then remembered her gun. Cray had said he pitched it into the brush outside the motel.

  She spent a few minutes combing the weeds before conceding that the gun was lost. It could be anywhere within the dense foliage. She would need hours to perform a thorough search, and even then, finding the gun would be largely a matter of luck.

  Well, maybe she wouldn’t need it. Maybe her role in all this was almost done.

  The hope buoyed her as she hurried to the front office, fishing the room key from her purse.

  The clerk was watching an adult video on a portable TV with a built-in VCR. He glanced at her and asked perfunctorily, “Room okay?”

  “Fantastic.”

  He heard sarcasm and shrugged. “For nineteen a night, whatchoo expect? The Ritz friggin’ Carlton?”

  On the TV, a nude woman with breasts like water balloons was urgently requesting, “More.”

  Elizabeth was at the door when the clerk said, “Hey, wait a sec. You see anybody funny hanging ‘round here last night?”

  “Funny?” There was nothing funny about John Cray. “No.”

  “Kids, maybe? Troublemakers?”

  “I didn’t. Why?”

  “Some shithead busted inna our storage closet, is why. Didn’t take nothing, but they fucked up a goddamn expensive padlock. Broke it all in pieces.”

  “Broke it?”

  “Like it was glass. I don’t know how the hell they pulled that off.”

  She thought of the cold stream hissing from the canister’s nozzle. Cold enough to freeze a padlock solid and render it vulnerable to a shattering blow.

  “Me neither,” she said. “You call the police?”

  “Cops?” The clerk pantomimed spitting. “All them assholes do is hassle me. You know?”

  “I know. Well, good luck.”

  She was glad the crime would go unreported. She didn’t want the police somehow connecting the break-in with Cray, then tying him to her.

  The police. She really was going to contact them. The thought seemed strange, unreal, after so many years of evading every patrol car, every blue uniform.

  Although it was only a few minutes past seven o’clock, already the morning was warm. The Chevette, unprotected from the sun, baked her as she cranked the engine. The car was equipped with air-conditioning, but that particular feature had never worked. She rolled down the window and tried to breathe.

  Pulling out of the lot, she anxiously checked the frontage road, looking for a black Lexus. It was doubtful Cray could get here this fast, but she wasn’t taking anything for granted.

  The road was clear. She took the 22nd Street on-ramp to Interstate 10 and let it carry her north.

  * * *

  Cray rolled into the motel parking lot at 7:10. The Chevette was gone. Kaylie had left.

  He had expec
ted as much. Driving here, he had pieced together her most plausible plan of action.

  She would call the police. It was her best move, the one he would have made had their positions been reversed. She would call from a pay phone and identify him as the killer, offering the satchel as proof of his guilt.

  Or she might simply leave the satchel outside a police substation with an unsigned note. But he didn’t think so. He expected her to call, because only by talking to another person could she be certain her message got through. And, high on the adrenaline rush of survival, she would do it as soon as possible.

  From a public phone. She wouldn’t call from the motel. She still didn’t want to be identified, didn’t want to get directly involved.

  Having made the call, she would need to make a quick getaway before the police responded. The fastest escape route was the interstate. Cray was betting she would stay close to I-10, either a few miles north or south of the motel.

  Which direction?

  South, the city turned mean. Barrio streets, crime, danger. More police cars cruising. More cops on the beat.

  She wanted to be in a less populous, less heavily patrolled area.

  North, then. She would go north. Past downtown Tucson, into the near suburbs.

  Of course, she might have made the call already. By now it might be too late.

  Perhaps he ought to run. Race for the border. He knew enough Spanish to get by. He could live in the mountains if he had to, at least for a month or two, until the urgency of the search abated.

  No.

  He would not permit himself to lose. It was bad enough that he had let her get away. To allow her this ultimate victory was unthinkable.

  Cray found I-10’s entrance ramp and sped into the northbound lanes. The time was 7:15.

  16

  Elizabeth drove three miles on the freeway, until the crowded part of town was behind her. She considered taking the Speedway Boulevard exit, but decided to go a little farther.

  At Grant Road, a mile north of Speedway, she exited, heading east. Within two blocks she found a Circle K convenience store. Two phone kiosks were stationed at the side of the building, away from the main entrance.

  Perfect.

  She wondered if she was reckless to try this. It would be safer to simply mail the satchel to the police.

  But mailing it would take more time. She was determined to have Cray arrested as soon as possible. Today, even.

  He was a monster, and she wanted him caged.

  She parked a block away from the convenience mart—close enough so she could run to her car after making the call, but not so close that somebody loitering near the phones might happen to see the Chevette and link it to her.

  Her luggage was in the hatchback compartment.

  She opened the larger suitcase and found her winter gloves, pulling them on.

  No fingerprints on the phone handset.

  She was thinking of everything. This would be an error-free performance. It had to be.

  She shouldered her purse and picked up the satchel. Her heart was drumming fast, and the air seemed very hot, but she was all right. She was going to do this and do it perfectly, no mistakes.

  Halfway to the phone she stopped with a sudden thought. Slowly she opened the satchel, and inside she found her photo album, twenty-eight pictures of herself in various guises throughout the years, and alongside it, the manila envelope containing the false documentation she had purchased or created.

  She’d nearly forgotten about those items. Nearly left the satchel for the police with her photos and her phony birth certificates inside.

  “Oh, Christ, Elizabeth,” she whispered, feeling something worse than fear—a kind of disorienting embarrassment, a sense of humiliation so deep it was almost physical pain.

  She hurried back to the car. In the driver’s seat she fumbled open the satchel and took out the damn photo album and the damn envelope, and then she searched it thoroughly with her gloved hands, checking to be sure nothing else of hers was in there.

  When she was done, she checked again. She no longer trusted herself.

  Wallace Zepeda had been right. This was too much, this burden she carried. It was making her—

  —crazy—

  —a nervous wreck, and she couldn’t bear up under it much longer.

  * * *

  Cray passed the exit for downtown without slowing. Kaylie wouldn’t go into the heart of the city. Too much traffic. Too great a risk of encountering a delay after she had made her call.

  The next major street was Speedway. He got off there, heading west for six blocks, looking for the Chevette.

  Nothing.

  This was hopeless. He would never find her. She would call, and even though the police would surely be skeptical, a squad car would be dispatched to pick up the package she had left.

  Squad car.

  Of course.

  Cray pulled onto the roadside and opened his glove compartment, hoping fervently that Kaylie McMillan, clever as she was, had not thought to look inside and clean out its contents.

  She hadn’t. The police-band transceiver was still there.

  Six of the channels were preset to Tucson PD frequencies. He activated the scan mode, dialing the volume high. Coded cross talk chattered over the speaker. If the patrol unit had not yet been dispatched, he might hear the call go out.

  The scanner, roaming among the various frequencies, buzzed and chirruped with ten-codes and half-intelligible inquiries and responses. He listened for the particular assignment he was waiting for.

  Obviously there was a chance Kaylie had gone outside city limits, in which case the call would be handled by a sheriff’s department cruiser. Cray wasn’t monitoring those bands; he couldn’t listen to a dozen channels at once.

  Or, if she had called already, he might have missed the dispatcher’s signal. Or the assignment could have been conveyed electronically via the mobile computers installed in TPD cars. Perhaps even now the police had the satchel in their hands, and an evidence technician was examining each separate, incriminating item.

  He pulled back into traffic and made a U-turn, then headed east on Speedway. He would travel it for a mile or two beyond the freeway. If he still hadn’t found her car, he would continue north.

  Grant Road was the next exit. Maybe he would find her there.

  * * *

  Elizabeth almost got out of the car again, and then in an excess of self-doubt she opened the satchel and checked its contents one last time.

  She was sure there was something she’d forgotten. But no, it was all here.

  Chloroform. Duct tape. Smelling salts. Pocket flashlight. Locksmith tools. Glass cutter. Suction cup. Spare clip for the gun. And the knife in its sheath.

  Okay. She was set. She was ready to go.

  No, she wasn’t.

  Cray’s ignition key. That was the item she’d overlooked.

  The key to the Lexus was the one item that could be definitively connected to Cray. And it was still in the pocket of her blouse.

  “You’re cracking up,” she told herself, and she wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not.

  If she could overlook so many obvious details, what else was she failing to see? Maybe she ought to wait, have some breakfast. She hadn’t eaten since—when?—since yesterday afternoon, actually. She could find a coffee shop, have some eggs, some coffee. Clear her head.

  That was the smart thing to do, but she knew it wasn’t a real option. She had to get this over with. Her fear would only get worse the longer she delayed.

  She found the key in her pocket and placed it in the satchel, then carefully knotted the drawstring.

  This time she was ready.

  She looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Her pale, frightened face.

  “Ready,” she said, confirming the fact, just in case there was any doubt.

  Out of the car again. She approached the convenience store. The two phones at the side of the building were both unused at the mome
nt. Good.

  She checked out the street. No patrol cars. She looked through the glass wall of the store. No cops inside. Not even a security guard, from what she could tell.

  Better and better.

  She placed the satchel on the ground below the kiosk, pushing it against the brick wall of the building to hide it from a casual observer. Then she lifted the telephone handset in her gloved hand.

  Calling the police. She was really doing it, really calling the police.

  She took a breath, fighting for composure, and then with a trembling finger she stabbed three digits.

  A long ring. Another.

  She was shaking so hard she could barely breathe.

  A third ring, cut off early as a businesslike male voice came on the line.

  “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

  * * *

  The bitch wasn’t on Speedway.

  Cray had covered the wide, well-traveled boulevard in two directions. Twice he’d seen a red hatchback that might have been the Chevette, but both times the sighting had been a false alarm.

  At the corner of Grant and Campbell he hooked north. Returning to I-10 would take too long. He would take Campbell to Grant Road and head west.

  On the passenger seat, the transceiver stuttered and crackled, his lifeline to the police—and just possibly his last hope.

  17

  “I’m calling with information,” Elizabeth said, her mouth pressed close to the handset, “about Sharon Andrews, the woman who was killed in the White Mountains. I know who did it.”

  “All right,” the man on the other end said in a low, neutral tone.

  She’d heard that tone before, though she wasn’t quite sure where.

  “His name is John Cray.” She spelled it. “He lives in Safford. Just outside Safford, I mean. Lives there and works there.”

  The words had come out in curiously disjointed blocks of speech. She had rehearsed this conversation many times, but now she couldn’t remember a single thing she’d meant to say.

  “Go on,” the man said.

  If he was impatient or skeptical, he hid it well. He sounded interested, open to whatever she might say. A calm, reassuring, practiced voice, a doctor’s voice ...