by Betty Webb
Shaking my head, I corrected her. “You just said there were only seven kids on the witness list.”
I had wondered about that eighth burn mark, too. It was generally accepted that Wycoff had victimized more than the seven children on the witness list, but given the fact that children were so hesitant to make accusations against adults—especially molestation-type accusations—no one would ever know how many. Maybe even Wycoff had lost count.
Eastman was a good interviewer, and although she’d been open about the number of burns on Wycoff’s thigh, she kept mum about the emasculation. Good cops always held something back, a detail about the crime only the killer would know.
“Where were you last night, Ms. Jones?”
There it was. She was through playing games and the interview would now proceed in earnest.
“I was asleep in a trailer covered with butterflies.”
“Anybody with you?”
“I’m celibate these days.”
“Lucky you. We’ve obtained a search warrant for your trailer. The techs are out there now, going over every inch of it, butterflies and all. Your Jeep, too.”
“Try not to make a mess.” Before returning to the trailer from the Winnebago, I had dismantled the garrote and with its pieces, thrown my gloves, muddy Reeboks, wet socks, and even the Taser into the raging creek, keeping only my beloved Vindicator as a reminder of what could have been. They were all halfway to Mexico by now, but the soles of my feet were still sore from my barefoot slog back to Monarch. Good thing my emergency backpack had held an extra pair of Reeboks.
Ignorant of my mental inventory, Eastman eased back in her chair again. “Did you kill Brian Howard Wycoff?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Norma Wilson Wycoff?”
“No.”
“Did you aid and/or abet the person who killed either of them?”
“No.”
“Do you know who killed either of them?”
“No.”
Detective Eastman closed her eyes for a moment, hummed a few more bars of “Maria,” then stood up. “I’ll have a deputy drive you back to Black Canyon City. Have a nice day.”
***
My .38 had been handed back to me as I left, but considering everything, I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t been arrested. Hell, if I’d still been a cop, I would have arrested myself. But here I sat, free as the proverbial bird, in the yellow house at Debbie’s Desert Oasis, drinking herbal tea with Debbie and two other women while crime techs crawled all over Monarch and my Jeep. Some of the folks in the trailers toward the rear of the property had decamped after being cleared by the police, leaving our landlady grumbling about lost rent.
Since I had backed out of the Winnebago after taking only one step inside, I was not too worried about the authorities’ interest in me. The night before, my camo pants’ legs had been rolled up to my knees, so there would be no blood on them, and thanks to my latex gloves, I had left no prints on the Winnebago’s door handle, either.
“I don’t mean to be nosey, Lena, but why did they take you in for questioning?” asked Nicole Beltran, the beautiful redheaded resident of Fishin’ Frenzy. With that amazing skin, I couldn’t get a fix on her age, but she could be anywhere between twenty and forty.
“I was just, as they say in the movies, ‘helping the police with their enquiries.’” The tea was delicious, a combination of berry, peppermint, and something else. Mango?
“Well, I don’t like this,” said Jacklyn Archerd, the pistol-packing biker in Mustang. Like me, she was dressed all in black, but her jeans were tighter than my cargo pants and her low-cut tank top revealed a lot more than my tee shirt did. Too thin-lipped and wiry to be conventionally attractive, she wasn’t much older than thirty, but road-weathering had taken a toll on her face. Her copious tattoos didn’t help. Both arms were sleeved-out with flowers and birds, and the name STEVIE was written in black and red Old English letters just below her collarbone. Note to self: Never tattoo a boyfriend’s name anywhere on your person.
“The cops, I mean, not you, Lena,” Jacklyn continued. “They decide they don’t like you, they make stuff up. Some guy’s dead down there. Murdered, you said they told you, so they’re gonna be making up some pretty big stuff.” Here she shot a look at Nicole. “And we, uh, you know…” She trailed off.
Debbie came over with another batch of blueberry scones. “I’m sure everything’s going to be fine. The police know what they’re doing.”
“News to me.” When Jacklyn raised her teacup to her lips, I noticed she wore no wedding ring, either. No jewelry at all, not that she needed it with all those tattoos.
“Jacklyn,” Debbie soothed, “let’s keep calm. Whatever’s going on at the Genovese place has nothing to do with us.”
My second scone was as delicious as the first, and for the next few moments I gave myself over to pleasure. The morning’s brush with the law had left me unsettled, and I’d read somewhere that herbal tea and scones calmed your nerves. It seemed to be working.
“Either of you ladies stay here before?” I asked, merely to make conversation.
“Oh, yeah, we…” Jacklyn began, only to be cut off by Debbie.
“I do have my regulars.” Debbie beamed around the table like a proud grandma. “Theme trailers are very popular these days. Bed comfy in Monarch, Lena?”
“Best night’s sleep I’ve had in years.” No lie there. Usually I woke up screaming in the middle of the night.
“What with all the runoff, fishing should be good today. You ought to try your luck down at the creek. The fishing tackle is in that tall closet in Monarch’s kitchen.”
“I noticed.”
“Or if fishing’s not your thing, there’s a dude ranch in the valley about a mile further along. You could rent a horse and see the sights.”
I told her I might do just that. We chitchatted for a few more minutes until the tea and scones were gone, then took separate paths back to our individual trailers. As I stopped to examine another of Debbie’s large sculptures—SEEING THE LIGHT was constructed of copper, wood, and brick, with a few flashings of chrome—it struck me that the two trailers closest to the yellow house were occupied by single women. Unlike the people toward the rear of the property, Jacklyn and Nicole had checked in with no partners, no children. Mere coincidence, or something more?
Once I arrived at my trailer, I made an annoying discovery. While the Yavapai County techs hadn’t made too big a mess during their search, they had confiscated my Vindicator, including my emergency backpack with its remaining stash of clean underwear.
So I was still under suspicion.
When I checked the tiny bathroom, I found that the damp clothes I had hung out to dry were gone, too. If worse came to worse, I could pick up a pair of jeans and a new tee shirt at the general store in town. Or since Detective Eastman hadn’t ordered me to hang around, I could simply return to Scottsdale, but I hated to waste money. The rent on Monarch was good up to eleven Monday morning, and although I didn’t care who had killed either of the Wycoffs, I had become curious about Debbie’s Desert Oasis. Something was off here.
With a sigh, I climbed into my Jeep and headed for town.
The Black Canyon City General Store had everything the well-dressed PI could want, just not in the colors I preferred. Instead of black jeans or black cargo pants, I had to settle for beige-and-green camos. And instead of a solid black tee shirt, I wound up with a camo print there, too. As for underwear, white was the color of the day, but at least panties weren’t thongs and the bras weren’t underwired. The white socks were okay, too, since I didn’t plan on hitting any fashion runways.
With two changes of clothing in my cart, along with a new backpack, I made my way to the checkout line and took my place behind a Stetson-wearing cowboy. He smelled like Horse, but in a manly sort of way. His cart was piled high with Ralston Purin
a. Come to think of it…I stopped looking at the dog food and lowered my eyes.
I’d know that ass anywhere.
Dusty.
I would have moved back in line but an elderly woman was already nudging my own ass with her cart, urging me to move forward to where Dusty was in the midst of breaking another woman’s heart.
“Salome, you’re lookin’ finer than fine today,” he told the checker, an overweight thirty-something with an acne-scarred face.
She blushed as red as her cheap lipstick. “You don’t mean it.”
“I never say anything I don’t mean, darlin’.”
Liar!
The poor woman blushed even deeper. “I’m, uh, I’ve lost a few pounds. This new diet…”
He didn’t let her finish. “Now don’t you go losin’ too much, darlin’, ’cause what you got, it’s all in the right places.”
It was all I could do not to gag. How in the world had I ever been naive enough to fall for that old line?
I was saved from announcing in a loud voice that the cowboy was a two-timing, forked-tongue piece of shit who almost got me killed, when the elderly woman behind me decided she’d forgotten something, backed her cart out of the line, and headed for the produce department. Seizing my chance, I ducked down my head and backed away, too. I spent the next few minutes lurking in the motor oil aisle until the cheating son of a bitch left the store.
By the time Dusty tore out of the parking lot in a tan Silverado with RED ROCK RANCH painted on its side, I had recovered enough to return to the checkout counter. When I reached the unfortunate Salome, I said, “Couldn’t help noticing that good-looking cowboy you were talking to. Your boyfriend?”
“Don’t I wish.” Still flushed, she gave me a wobbly smile. “He looks just like Clint Eastwood, doesn’t he? I mean, like back when Eastwood was lots younger and better lookin’ than he is now.”
“Cowboy live around here?” Please, God, let her say he was just passing through.
She nodded. “Rented hisself a little house down near the dude ranch. He’s the head wrangler, knows everything there is to know ’bout horses.”
And women.
The love-struck Salome continued singing the cheating son of a bitch’s praises as she rang up my new wardrobe. “I went to a party down there once and he’s got it fixed up real cute.”
I bet his bedroom was real cute, too. Blondes, brunettes, and redheads draped over every picture hook and curtain rod, lolling across the bed, rolling around on the rug…
Forcing myself not to sneer, I said, “He sure looks like a man of taste.”
Somehow I made it to my Jeep without bawling.
Chapter Eight
Ordinarily, a PI’s life doesn’t extend itself to fishing, but as I walked down the gravel road to Black Canyon Creek, I carried a rod and reel and a squirmy plastic bag filled with night crawlers dug up behind Monarch. The near run-in with Dusty had shaken me enough that I needed to settle down before making a final decision about the Wycoff investigation. Fishing was supposed to be relaxing, right?
As I topped the rise and looked down into the narrow valley below, I stopped for a moment. Laid out before me was a crime scene similar to the one I had seen in Apache Junction, only spread along several acres. The heaviest police presence swarmed around the Genoveses’ taped-off Winnebago, where a sheriff’s cruiser sat parked next to two tech vans and a coroner’s wagon. A uniformed deputy stood outside the gate to wave curiosity-seekers away. At the house, I saw a white Chevy SUV emblazoned with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department logo, plus what appeared to be an unmarked Chevy cruiser. They were parked diagonally behind the family’s vehicles, blocking their way out.
I could only imagine what the Genoveses were going through. Getting grilled by the police is never fun.
At the bottom of the hill the gravel road forked left toward the Genovese house, and right toward a narrow trail leading straight down to the creek. The storm’s runoff had lessened, but the current remained strong enough that the going could have been treacherous. After picking my way carefully down to the bank, I settled myself on a large boulder so deeply embedded in the ground it would have taken an industrial-sized bulldozer to move it. Best of all, my perch was less than a hundred yards downwind of the Genovese house. I baited my hook, and cast my line into the creek, forcing myself not to think of my ex-lover. Instead, I thought about the case.
Unlike Detective Eastman, I didn’t hum, just listened to the birds and the water. They were all the music I needed. In counterpoint to the peaceful afternoon, the gentle breeze sometimes rose enough that it carried snippets of conversation between the deputies still stationed at the Genovese house, most of which I ignored now that the Big Bad Wolf was dead. Only once did one of the deputies mention the fact that the murdered man’s wife had also been killed a few days earlier. Strange, wasn’t it? A discussion of pedophiles followed, most of which I tuned out, but I tuned back in again when another one said, “Served her right, staying with a perv like that.”
I thought so, too.
***
Two hours later, I had caught two rainbow trout and one largemouth bass, all of which I released. The high point of the afternoon came when I saw Grace Wycoff Genovese shoved into the unmarked cruiser and driven away. Another eyebrow-raiser arrived when I returned to the B&B and found Detective Eastman helping Debbie into the back of another cruiser. Neither woman looked happy.
“Are they arresting Debbie?” I asked Jacklyn, who was watching just outside the front door of yellow house.
The biker sneered at me. “Mind your own business.”
I left her alone with her hostility and her Glock, and wended my way through the brush toward Monarch. Before reaching the trailer, I saw Nicole crying on the stoop of Fishin’ Frenzy. Some women “cry pretty.” She wasn’t one of them. Black mascara streaked her cheeks, marring that flawless complexion, and her running nose was almost as red as her hair.
“Can I help?” I didn’t have any tissues, but sometimes an arm around your shoulders can be steadying.
She waved me away. “Just leave me alone.”
Before I could say anything else, my cell vibrated in my pocket. Expecting yet another call from Jimmy or wife-beating Frank Gunnerston, I fished it out and looked at the screen.
The call was from Mario Genovese.
***
An hour later I was sitting in a booth in the crowded dining area of Coyote Corral, enjoying a late lunch of huevos rancheros and listening to Mario Genovese give his version of the previous night’s events. The place was packed but at first Genovese kept his voice so low I had trouble hearing him.
“Grace had his blood all over her and, uh, she’d tried to put his di—, uh, his penis back on…” he whispered. A handsome man with a dimpled chin and an outdoorsman’s tan, his brown eyes were creased with worry. “I told you it’d been…”
“Severed. Yeah, you did.” The memory wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t keep me from enjoying the huevos rancheros, some of the best I’d ever had. They were served with refried beans, garlicky Spanish rice, and hot rolled tortillas. Not knowing how he would react to my next question, I ate fast.
“Tell me, Mr. Genovese, putting aside Grace’s display of histrionics, do you think there’s a chance she did it?”
Instead of exploding, he answered, “She loved him.”
“People kill people they love all the time.”
“Grace wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
I managed to restrain my laughter by sopping up salsa with a tortilla.
Oblivious to my feelings about his wife, he continued. “Once the cops get through talking to her, they’ll have to know she had nothing to do with it. Look, when my daughter gave me your card, I almost tossed it, but now I’m glad I didn’t, because I want you to…” He stopped, took a deep breath, then continued. “Let me be hones
t here. I despised my brother-in-law, and yes, I made a big mistake in letting him stay in my RV for even one night, but Grace begged and begged and promised not to let him get anywhere near the grandkids and…”
I took a big bite of tortilla, swallowed it down, then licked salsa off my fingers. “She let Bethany meet him twice.”
“She couldn’t have!” The denial was so loud several customers looked our way.
“Twice, Mr. Genovese. I’ve had Wycoff under surveillance since he arrived at your place, and during that time I saw her encourage conversation between them two times. She even tried to take Bethany out to the RV, but your grandson stopped her.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Has it occurred to you that maybe Grace loved her brother too much?” Such as the incest kind of too much? Incest was a common occurrence in pedophiles’ families. That’s one of the ways they get started. Our booth was now the center of attention. Funny how discussing a murder can make even un-nosy folks turn nosy.
“Maybe we’d better finish this conversation someplace else,” I suggested. He hadn’t yet told me what he wanted.
Genovese looked around, saw the fascinated faces, then stood up. “Outside. In back. There’s something I need to ask you, something you could…”
Before finishing, he spun on his heel and headed for the hallway that separated the bar from the restaurant.
Intrigued, I followed him down the hall toward the rear exit, past an office, past the restrooms—Cowgirls and Cowboys—and out into the afternoon sunshine. He kept walking across the pickup-centric parking lot until he reached the Dumpster. The garbage must have been picked up recently because it didn’t smell at all bad. In fact, the spot he’d chosen was quite nice. The Dumpster enjoyed a scenic view of acacia-covered hills rising behind it, and fluffy white clouds scuttling across a bright blue sky. Between pauses in our conversation I could hear semis roaring along I-17. Still, it was pleasant being outside after the crowded restaurant.
Picking up the conversation where we had left off, I said, “I’m talking about incest, Mr. Genovese. It might explain Grace’s behavior.” And your obviously unhappy marriage.