And that seemed to flow into Philip, because he straightened his shoulders and drew in a deep breath. She could see his chest expand beneath the cream-colored shirt. Still his eyes were dull with exhaustion, white worry lines embedded in his forehead. “Thanks for coming by,” he said.
As he started to turn around, Catherine caught his arm. “I can stay here if you’d like to go home and rest for a while.”
He turned back. “I called you because . . .” His lips moved around the soundless words a moment before he plunged on: “I thought Maury was dying, and I thought you should know. But he made it, and I’m going to stay in case he needs me. I really don’t want company.”
Catherine let her hand drop. “Will you call me . . . ?” She let the rest of it hang between them, until Philip nodded and walked off. She waited until he had passed the desk and disappeared around the corner into the waiting area. Waiting still, staring at the swinging double doors that led down a corridor, the air thick with antiseptic, to the cubicle-sized room where Maury lay stretched under white sheets. She had a sickening feeling that she would never see him again.
Somehow Catherine made her way back to the escalator, riding it down, clinging to the rubber handhold, the atrium below swimming under the fluorescent lights. He had changed everything, the man named Erik, following her in the dark, bursting into her home, shooting Maury. She could feel the anger sputtering inside her like live wires. She stepped off the escalator and started across the lobby. A different guard stood near the entrance this evening, tall and pimply faced, Adam’s apple popping in his throat. She walked past and let herself through the double glass doors. Down the walkway—she was invisible, wasn’t she? A woman with short, sandy hair like thousands of other women, head high, shoulders thrown back. She would not fear him.
But he should fear her, because of what he had done to Maury.
Erik lay on top of the scratchy bedspread in the motel room, hands clasped behind his head, watching the mute, flickering images on the television against the wall. A highway, mountain slopes all around, and a white van and three, four—no, there were five—cars spun about, and police vehicles, ambulances parked across the lanes. The remote lay on the bedspread next to him, but he didn’t have the energy or the desire to listen to the inane comments. Besides, the words in white block letters floated across the bottom of the screen on a black band. He didn’t try to follow them. He could have given the running commentary himself, all of it true—the van plunging onto the highway, colliding with two cars, and other cars piling on, brakes screeching, metal crashing into metal. How the driver of the van was declared dead at the scene, a bullet hole in the head. How the injured were airlifted to St. Anthony Central where two men were declared dead. All identities withheld until families could be notified.
He could describe exactly what had happened, even the alleged part. Several drivers claim to have seen a vehicle parked near the site of the accident. The police are looking for a brown sedan allegedly driven by a white male. They believe the man may have fired a weapon that struck the driver of the white van.
Oh, yes, he had fired the weapon all right, the Sig 226 Tactical that put the bastard in the van permanently out of his misery, caused a six-car wreck, and missed Catherine McLeod. A foolish mistake, and not one he would make again. But it meant he’d had to turn in the brown sedan, now that she had seen it, and rent a nondescript light-colored Pontiac. Now he understood who the enemy was. He hadn’t fully understood before. Always give the enemy credit for being intelligent, the first lesson he’d learned at Yellow Jacket. He hadn’t forgotten it. What he’d forgotten was how wily, how street-smart the enemy could be. She was like a guerilla in the jungle, senses on the alert—she could feel things—ready to leap from side to side, swing from a branch, fade into the shadows. In a guerilla war, you had to consider different tactics.
The cell phone lay on his chest, a light weight pressing against his heart. The ringing was like the gong of an alarm. He half expected the client’s voice on the other end, shouting that he was incompetent, threatening to terminate him—an ironic term. Wasn’t it the man with the gun who might terminate the client? A fact the client must have understood, because it wasn’t the client calling. It was Deborah, barely concealed impatience running through her voice. Was he coming home tonight?
No, he was not. He spent twenty minutes explaining. No, the deal wasn’t finished yet. One of the principals had balked at the terms; they were going to have to meet again tomorrow and hammer things out. But you promised . . . Yes, he knew he’d promised, but he couldn’t control everything. He’d made an effort to soften his voice then and told her that it may take a little longer than he had expected. How much longer? Longer was all he could say. A day or two, whatever it took. He’d try to wrap it up as fast as possible, but there was a sonofabitch involved that was going to take some persuading. You’re very good at that, Erik. Yes, he was good at that.
He said good night, told her he loved her, told her not to worry, get a good night’s sleep, kiss the kids. He’d call tomorrow. Then he picked up the remote, turned off the TV, and stared into the shadows. Headlights flashed through the blue drapes. An engine was revving up outside, and he had to force back the urge to jump off the bed, fling open the door, and shout at the driver to get the hell out of here. Finally, the vehicle—a pickup, most likely, in this neighborhood, a place for losers and loners and people who wanted to be left alone—started to move out of the parking lot. He listened to the engine turning onto the street, popping and sputtering.
He knew Catherine McLeod. She would continue writing her foolish stories, attempting to live her foolish life. He would be her most faithful reader, and the stories would tell him where to find her next. But even if they didn’t, sooner or later she would make a mistake and use a credit card. His contact would call, and he would have her.
Catherine finished writing the article on the laptop positioned on the desk in front of the window. She’d worked on the interview with Arcott and the press releases from Senator Russell’s office and the governor’s office that Marjorie had e-mailed her. Headlights below flitted across the gauzy curtains. The bleep of a car horn and the sound of an engine turning over broke through the hotel quiet. She had finished half of the club sandwich room service had delivered, and the bottle of Chardonnay she’d bought on the way back to the hotel was nearly empty. There was still a film of liquid on the glass next to the laptop.
She refilled the glass, took another sip, and scrolled to the top of the article.
The Arapahos and Cheyennes plan a major homecoming to the plains of Colorado where they once lived. The tribes have announced plans to build a Las Vegas-style casino and five-star resort hotel on five hundred acres thirty miles east of Denver. Peter Arcott, head of Arcott Enterprises, will develop and manage the casino complex. The plan is contingent, however, on a complicated land exchange settlement that will require congressional action.
In a press release issued today, Senator George Russell stated that he believed the time had come for the Arapahos and Cheyennes to be compensated for the unjust loss of their lands. “They have waited for justice long enough. It is time the people of Colorado rallied behind their demand for a small part of the lands taken from them. I believe that when the voters understand the genocidal acts committed in 1864 at the Sand Creek Massacre, they will support and applaud any attempt to right such terrible wrongs.”
Governor Mark Lyle has rejected any land settlement with the Native American tribes that would take Colorado lands. In a statement issued today, he called the tribal proposal to relinquish claims on lands in exchange for five hundred acres near Denver an outrageous attempt to circumvent the state constitution, which stipulates that gaming can only be approved by a vote of the people. Colorado voters have turned down the expansion of gaming seven times. He called upon the state’s congressional representatives to block any settlement agreement that would allow the tribes to build a casino.
Befor
e writing the article, she had spent an hour on the Internet, and the research had paid off. She’d confirmed what Arcott had said about bypassing the governor, as long as the casino was built on land the tribes acquired after 1988 in a reparations settlement.
And she had found something else:
Arcott Enterprises developed casinos for tribes in Alaska, Nevada, and California after Congress had agreed to land settlements. The settlements had been authorized through riders attached to other bills, approved by Congress and signed by the president. Governors of the three states had complained that the riders bypassed the states by allowing casinos without the approval of voters.
She had written a side article about the Sand Creek Homecoming Run set for a week from Saturday, quoting Norman on how the Arapaho kids would run across the ancestral lands to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming in memory of the Arapahos and Cheyennes who had been killed at Sand Creek.
All in all, the articles weren’t too bad, but not the in-depth reporting she was known for—the direct quotes from unlikely sources, the truth hidden in smiling faces and obscure documents. Still the article would run in tomorrow’s paper. A biding of time, a stab at the revelations sure to come. And she hadn’t seen anything in the Mirror about the scheduled Sand Creek run or about how other land settlements had gone through Congress on riders attached to other bills. She highlighted the articles and sent them to Marjorie. The black numerals in the upper corner of the screen said: 12:01 a.m.
She found her cell on the nightstand and checked the messages, her thumb curved stiffly over the delete key, wanting to wipe away any black letters that spelled Unknown. Yet she could not delete a message from Erik. She would have to listen to the oily, sickening voice and call Bustamante. The message wasn’t there. Instead, a message from Marjorie. Would she make the deadline? They were holding the front right column. “Yes, Marjorie,” she said out loud. “I made the deadline.” Three calls from Lawrence. She felt her stomach muscles tighten: she didn’t want to hear his voice and listen to the excuses, whatever they would be this time.
Catherine deleted the messages, took another gulp of the Chardonnay, and listened to the night quietly moving through the downtown streets. She had the sense of things flying away, that they could never be retrieved. When she had finished the bottle of wine, she opened the hotel refrigerator and poured the small bottle of whiskey into her wine glass.
17
A bright morning, light glowing through the gauzy curtains, the walls of the hotel room a soft golden color, and the sound of the telephone screeching through the muffled noise of traffic on the street below. Catherine stared into the room and tried to recall where she was, every part of her heavy with sleep. A dull ache crept through her head. She reached for the cell on the nightstand.
Bustamante’s voice burst into her ear, jarring her wide-awake. “We may have some good news,” he said. “How soon can you get here?”
“What are you talking about?” She sat up and pushed the pillow between the headboard and her spine.
“We may have the gunman in custody. I need you to come down here right away.”
The cell felt cool and inert in her hand. Whoever had wanted to kill her was in police custody, and for a moment, the possibility of normality flashed in front of her. She could return to the town house, go to the newsroom every day, walk Rex whenever she felt like it. But not yet, she realized. Not until she was certain. She told Bustamante she would meet him at police headquarters in forty minutes.
Catherine parked in the garage near Civic Center, and walked along 13th Avenue. A block away was the city and county building, a great expanse of white stone and columns that looked over Civic Center Park. A couple of blocks ahead was the beige brick building of the Denver Police Headquarters that resembled a fortress abutting the sidewalk. It was already hot, the morning sun bathing the pavement and reflecting off the brick, and the heat added to her sense of queasiness and the persistent aching in her head.
Inside the lobby, she waited at the counter while the policewoman tried to calm a Hispanic woman weeping into a wad of tissue and clutching the hand of a little girl with black braids and scared, brown eyes. After several minutes, the woman wandered over to the blue plastic chairs in the waiting area, pulling the little girl behind her, and Catherine told the policewoman that she was there to see Detective Bustamante.
Catherine took the last vacant chair. The Hispanic woman sat across from her, face buried in the black hair of the little girl gathered on her lap. There were several other women with children, but most of the people waiting were men—young men and older men, black and brown and white men—sprawled on the chairs, staring into space, arms crossed over their chests. Others sat hunched forward, elbows propped on thighs, studying the floor. The air was filled with odors of perspiration, tobacco, and the sense of hopelessness.
In the alcove behind the counter, the elevator doors parted and Nick Bustamante stepped out. Catherine watched him scan the waiting area before his eyes settled on her. She got to her feet and walked over. “I didn’t recognize you at first.” He stuck an arm between the sliding doors and ushered her into the elevator.
“But then you did,” she said. She felt the pull of gravity as the elevator rose and wondered what else she ought to do. A pair of black framed glasses, perhaps, the floppy clothes of an older woman. She would keep changing if she had to, keep peeling away until there was nothing left of her.
The elevator bell clanged. The doors parted and they stepped out into a wide corridor. “This way,” Bustamante said, nodding her ahead. A pair of uniformed officers stepped to one side to give them room. They passed a succession of closed doors before Bustamante stopped in front of one. The knob made a clicking noise when he turned it. He pushed the door open, and Catherine walked into a small cubicle similar to the one where he had interviewed her two days ago. A table with chairs on either side filled up most of the space. A thin stack of folders had been arranged in the center of the table.
Bustamante walked around and dropped into the chair beneath the window. Daylight streamed past the tan window shade and shone in his black hair. Lines of fatigue fanned his eyes, and she wondered if he had been awake all night. She sat down across from him.
“Jefferson County sheriff needs your statement about the shooting on the highway yesterday. We’ll be videotaping you”—a nod toward the one-way mirror—“same as before.”
“Is that why you brought me here? You said you’d arrested the bastard.” She was thinking that he’d expected her at headquarters yesterday, but she’d had no intention of going to a place where the gunman might be waiting outside. “I told you what happened on the phone,” she said.
“Tell me again.” He gave her a little smile that lingered a moment longer than it should have, she thought. “For the record,” he said.
She looked away. Nick Bustamante was altogether too good-looking and too—what was it about him?—trustworthy, as if he was the man he appeared to be, a man who said what he meant. She wasn’t used to that. She had never known when Lawrence was saying what he meant. The night at the ranch had only confirmed that fact. And she was a reporter, for godssakes. Accustomed to people saying what they wanted to read in the paper, trying to project an appearance of who they wanted to be. She was always trying to get below the surface, to strip away the pretense.
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
“I saw a brown sedan parked between the entrance road and the highway.” She hesitated, watching the scene play out again in her mind. How strange for it to be parked there, she had thought. But there was something else she’d seen, or maybe she was just seeing it now. “I saw the flash of metal,” she said. “I jerked the steering wheel to the right. It was instinct.”
“The van was right behind you.”
“On my tail, trying to pass all the way down the mountain. Who was he?”
“Twenty-two-year-old cable installer, name of Bryan Murphy. In a hurry to get to another job, hi
s boss said. Survived by his widowed mother.”
“Oh, God.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“The others?”
“A fifty-eight-year-old grandfather in a red sedan that crashed into the van. A forty-two-year-old father of two from Kansas, on vacation.”
Catherine leaned back against the chair and clasped her hands together hard. For a moment, she thought she might be sick.
“Can I get you anything?” Bustamante said, concern moving into his face. “A glass of water?”
She shook her head.
“Anything else you remember? Did you get a glimpse of the gunman?”
Catherine lifted her hands to her mouth and bit at a thumbnail. Maybe, she thought. But she couldn’t be sure. What had happened, and what did she later think had happened? She shook her head again.
“We arrested the man we believe to be the Washington Park rapist. Seven women in two years. It’s possible he intended you to be the next victim.”
“He had a gun.”
“That was the way he operated. Held a gun on his victims, threatened to shoot if they fought him. Do you think you’re up to seeing him?” He picked up the file folders. “There might be something about him that you recognize. Two of the victims have given a positive ID, and with the DNA evidence we have, we’ll nail him. It would be good to know if he’s the man who came after you.”
“You think he tried to kill me on the highway?”
“When things didn’t work out at your town house the way he had planned? It’s possible. We intend to find out.”
She nodded. She was thinking that her own theory seemed to be crumbling into pieces around her feet. Someone wanting to kill her for what she might write about a casino and an act of genocide at Sand Creek? It seemed preposterous with a rapist sitting in custody somewhere close by, listening to the faint clank and whir of the air-conditioning system.
Blood Memory Page 16