Desert Vengeance

by Betty Webb

  “It’s okay to tell me what was wrong with your grandmother, Luke. I hope it was nothing serious.” Whatever the illness, maybe it had affected her judgment.

  “Breast cancer,” he told the carpet. “But they got it in time.”

  “Mastectomy? Chemo?” Sylvie, my Scottsdale PD frenemy, had once undergone a long bout of chemo, and she’d been pretty loopy during that time, ascribing her loopiness to “chemo brain.” She’d even started dating a fellow cop, something she swore she would never do. It had taken her another three months for her to return to her usual, razor-sharp self and dump him.

  “Yeah, both. Radiation, too, Mom said.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Couple years. Before Mom and Bethany and me moved in here.”

  “Glad to hear she’s better. But you know, Luke, with that motorbike of yours, you must be pretty familiar with the area around here, all the trails.”

  Aggrieved, he raised his voice again. “It’s legal! Just as long as I don’t take it out on the highway!”

  “What I meant was, you must know if there’s another way to get to the Winnebago without going past your house.”

  Light dawning, he relaxed. “Yeah, there’s a dirt trail that comes down the hill behind the pasture. It’s too narrow for cars, but it’s great for bikes and horses.”

  And murderers on foot.

  When my next few questions elicited no more useful information, I escorted Luke back into the living room, where his grandfather gave him an anxious look. Luke made a beeline to the front door. Before it closed behind him, I caught a glimpse of Bethany outside, hovering over her new bike, a small wrench in her hand.

  “I bought her a new basket, too,” Genovese explained. “Told her she had to put it on by herself but forgot to tell Luke.”

  “Speaking of Luke, Mr. Genovese…”

  It was interesting to watch his face when he learned that his grandson had been e-mailing the forbidden girlfriend in the middle of the night. He didn’t know whether to cheer or be furious. I kept reminding him that the timing gave Luke a perfect alibi, and that his recollection of Grace’s snores alibied her, too.

  “Never thought either would be a good thing,” he grumbled, mollified.

  The Genovese living room was more up-to-date than the den, and considerably more feminine, with a soft green Berber carpet, matching floral love seats, chairs heaped with color-coordinated pillows, and a bronze-and-glass étagère showcasing miniature teapots. A collection of Wedgewood plates lined the walls. Every flat surface was taken up with family photographs, mostly of Luke and Bethany, from cradle to now. Over the upright piano hung a formal studio portrait of the children’s mother. Before work and worry had prematurely lined her face, Shana had been stunning.

  Reminded, I asked, “Where’s your daughter?”

  “Working. Daytime bartender called in sick again, so she’s covering.”

  “Pulling a double shift?”

  He shrugged. “Run a bar, that’s the way it works.”

  “She’s not too upset over her uncle?”

  “You’re kidding, right? She liked him even less than I did, almost stroked out when she heard he was staying in the ’Bago.”

  I made a mental note to track down Shana, but first things first.

  “How many customers did you get at the Coyote last night? What with the monsoon and all, I’ll bet you closed up early.” Since I’d been sleeping the sleep of the innocent, I hadn’t heard his truck pass the Oasis.

  “You don’t know the folks around here. A whole pack of them stayed ’til closing, like they were afraid to get their feet wet or something. Hell, one old boy went and got his dog out of his truck and brought it in. Fed the ugly thing tacos all night.”

  “When did your last customer leave?”

  “Closing time, two o’clock. What with the cleanup and all, Shana and I didn’t get out of there until after three. Damned dog made an awful mess, but even worse was the guy who puked all over the bathroom. Told him next time, he’s eighty-sixed for life.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You allowed a customer in that condition to drive?”

  “You think I’m crazy? He gets in a wreck, kills himself or someone else, my name’s all over the lawsuit, so hell, no, I didn’t let him drive, just called his wife and told her to come and pick him up.”

  “When was this?”

  “Just before closing. It took her, me, and Shana, all three of us, to get him to her car.”

  “None of your other customers offered to help?”

  “Did I mention he’d puked all over himself, too? Anyway, by the time she showed up, everybody else had split, leaving us to do the honors.”

  As unlikely as it seemed, it sounded like Genovese and his entire family were alibied to the hilt. “Did you…?”

  The sound of a car door closing outside, then footsteps on the porch, cut my question short. I heard a child’s questioning voice—Bethany’s—mingled with a woman’s. Then the front door opened and Grace walked in, fresh from her grilling at the sheriff’s office. Red-eyed and frowsy-haired, she looked like hell but wore a fake smile for the girl’s sake. It disappeared when she saw me.

  “Who are you?”

  Before I could answer, Genovese explained my presence.

  Grace wasn’t pleased. “We don’t need a private detective snooping into our business. There’s already been enough of that.”

  But Bethany, who had followed her in, was thrilled. “A detective? Just like on TV?”

  “Exactly,” I answered, only half-truthfully. “I’m here to help your family.”

  Grace was having none of that. “Listen, you…”

  Before she could continue what sounded like a get-out-of-here-and-don’t-come-back order, Genovese interrupted. “Let’s do this in the den.”

  At first it didn’t seem like Grace would comply, but then changed her mind. Turning back to the girl, she said, “Go help Luke with that basket, okay? Remember, your grandfather told you to work on it yourself, not have him do everything for you.”

  As soon as the girl left, Grace threw me an ugly look and walked toward the den, her gait as stiff-legged as a robot’s. She didn’t bother to check if we followed.

  Earlier, I had only thought of her in relation to her sicko brother, but now I saw another side. Although a pushover where he was concerned, she had no trouble being confrontational with others.

  Contrary to popular opinion, enablers aren’t necessarily weak. It’s tempting to believe they are when they have no income of their own and need to rely on their mates for financial support, but in actuality, that’s seldom the case. Before the Wycoffs had been outed for the monsters they were, Norma Wycoff ran a busy print shop, ordering supplies, balancing the books, hiring and firing the help without a qualm. She had also been a cake-baking deacon at her church and the Mace-toting commander of the local Neighborhood Watch. People who knew her, when later questioned by the police, described her as a no-nonsense woman. Yet I knew that if her child-raping husband said the sun rose in the west, Norma would nod her head and agree—while the sun rose in the east right in front of her.

  No, you didn’t have to be weak to be in denial. You just had to be obsessed, and if there’s one quality present in all enablers, it’s that they are as obsessed with their pedophiles as their pedophiles are with children. Knowing this, I dreaded the upcoming interview.

  This time I didn’t chase her husband out of the den. On several occasions Norma Wycoff had been violent, and considering the stress Grace was under, I wouldn’t put it past her, either. If nothing else, the man might serve as a calming agent.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Grace,” I said, once we’d seated ourselves in the den’s ugly chairs, Genovese taking the one behind his desk.

  No answer from the woman other than a red-eyed stare.

 
“If I’m going to help you and your family, I do have a few questions.”

  Still that stare. Goosebumps rose on my arms, but I kept my voice steady. “Were you aware that under the terms of Mr. Wycoff’s release he had to remain within Pinal County jurisdiction unless approved beforehand to move elsewhere?”

  More nothing.

  Genovese leaned forward. “Grace, please.”

  She flicked her eyes toward him, but her head didn’t move. “A brother has a right to be near his sister.”

  “Even when the brother has confessed to multiple counts of child rape and there are two children on the premises?”

  “People give false confessions all the time. The cops make them do it.”

  Although I already knew the answer, as a matter of form I asked, “Where were you between ten and two last night?”

  “Sleeping.” She tugged on the necklace at her throat, a silver dove winging its way across a gold cross.

  “You didn’t go out at all?”

  “It was storming.”

  As if people never took long walks in rainstorms. “So you don’t know if Luke was here all night.”

  A brief flash of alarm across her face. “I heard him! Luke…Luke was in the living room. All night!”

  “How do you know that if you were sleeping?”

  “The TV woke me up. He was watching it.”

  A practiced liar, but not a good one. Now for the real question. “When was the last time you saw your brother? Alive, I mean.”

  “When I took him his dinner.”

  “Did you talk?”

  “Of course.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “The weather.”

  Jesus, talking to her was like pulling teeth. “Anything else?”

  “We prayed together.”

  “Your brother was a religious man?”

  “He was a godly man.”

  I thought about that for a moment, then said, “A false confession is a lie. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I always thought godly men don’t lie.”

  Her rebuttal was classic. “He was scared back then, you know, back when it all happened, so he told the police what they wanted to hear.”

  “You’re saying he was a weak man?”

  “We are all weak compared to the glory of God.”

  Seeing a possible chink in the armor of denial, I zeroed in. “But Grace, weakness can manifest itself in various ways, and in your brother’s case, pedophilia was one of them.”

  Her voice rose. “My brother’s no pedophile! He was railroaded! Railroaded by the police and by…by…” She searched for the word. “…by those little brats. They’re the ones who killed him!”

  Seven little brats, all of us supposedly in cahoots with each other? With difficulty, I resisted the urge to slap her. “Then you’re convinced he was innocent of those crimes.”

  “My brother would never do anything like that.”

  “You weren’t worried about him being around your granddaughter?”

  “It’s a sin to separate people who love each other.” She turned her red-eyed stare away from me and onto her husband, bile seeping out of her voice like pus from a festering sore.

  The urge to slap her intensified. Grace’s interpretation of “sin” was highly creative—turn your back on child rape while loving thy brother waaaay too much. “Okay, let’s say—just theoretically, you understand—that those, ah, brats didn’t kill him. Who do you think did?”

  The red stare returned to me. “The whore on the hill.”

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Yes, I did, but not being from around here, I don’t know who you’re referring to.”

  The red eyes narrowed into slits. “You should, since you’ve been staying with her.”

  Her husband cleared his throat. “Grace. Don’t.”

  “Don’t tell me what I can say and what I can’t,” she snapped.

  I turned to Genovese in bewilderment. “Who is she talking about?”

  He raised his hands in a helpless gesture.

  Further enraged by his lack of cooperation, Grace clenched her fingers into claws and screamed, “It was your darling Debbie! The whore on the hill!”

  I couldn’t take any more so I stood up. “Thank you for your time, Grace. You’ve been very helpful.”

  As I walked out of the den, I snuck a look back at Mario Genovese, who was staring at his wife like he’d never seen her before.

  Chapter Ten

  Ten minutes later I was back in the butterfly trailer, figuring what to do next. Now that the Genovese family appeared to be alibied out, I no longer cared who had killed Brian Wycoff, so sticking around was a waste of my time. As for wasting my Monarch rent money, I no longer cared about that, either. And then there was Dusty. Added to the uncomfortably close presence of an ex-lover and the possibility of running into him, a return to Scottsdale looked pretty good despite the Valley’s more intense heat. I was just about to start packing my new clothes when someone knocked on the trailer door. When I opened it, I saw Nicole, the redhead in Fishin’ Frenzy. She had changed into a neatly tailored suit and designer pumps, and was carrying a briefcase. Behind her stood Jacklyn, the gun-toting brunette in Mustang, in her usual black leather pants and black halter top. Seeing the women up close like this stirred my memory. I’d seen both of them before, but where and when eluded me.

  “Can we come in?” Nicole asked.

  I nodded. Their eyes weren’t quite as red as Grace Genovese’s but getting there, and the hostility they’d shown me earlier had vanished.

  “The cops still have Debbie,” Jacklyn said. With her Glock, tattoos, and black leather she should have looked tough. Instead, she looked vulnerable.

  “They’re taking her formal statement, that’s all,” I said. “I had to give one, myself. So did the victim’s sister.”

  It was like I hadn’t even spoken. “You have to do something,” Nicole said, her voice firm in contrast to her porcelain-complexion looks.

  The women’s abrupt departure from their earlier mind-your-own-business attitudes confused me. “Do something? Like what? I’m finished here.”

  “Debbie looked you up, said you might be just what we need.”

  I had paid for Monarch’s rental with Desert Investigations’ credit card, so it would have been easy to find our website, but that begged the question. Surely Debbie Margules wasn’t in the habit of doing background searches on her tenants. More to the point, why would an inoffensive artist who ran a cutesy B&B need the services of a private detective?

  “If Mrs. Margules—Debbie—needs anyone at this point, it’s an attorney. I’ll be happy to recommend one.” In my line of work you bump up against dozens.

  Jacklyn started to say something, but Nicole brushed her aside. “She already has one, more or less, and that’s me. The problem is, it’s been a long time since I handled criminal defense cases. These days I specialize in real estate law, mainly commercial, so I can’t do much more than counsel her to keep her mouth shut during the interrogation. Which she will, if I know her as well as I think I do, but I’m leaving for the sheriff’s office to see what I can do. She’s been gone too long. If worse comes to worse, I know an excellent defense attorney in Phoenix, but when I called his office I found out he’s on vacation in Bermuda and won’t be back until late next week. So for now, I’m it. You, too, if you’ll agree to come aboard.”

  A former defense attorney who now specialized in real estate law? She had to be older than she looked. Much older, and possibly the regular client of a superstar cosmetic surgeon.

  Since I hadn’t yet told Genovese I would work for him I remained free to indulge my curiosity. Gesturing toward the butterfly-print sofa, I said, “Maybe you’d better sit down and tell me what’s going on.”

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sp; They sat, and Nicole took a deep breath. “The other day Debbie threatened to kill that Wycoff guy, and everybody at Coyote Corral heard her.”

  That’s another thing about my line of work; the surprises just keep coming.

  Hiding my shock, I said. “Two questions. One, why did Debbie make the threat, and two, how did she know who he was? Mr. Wycoff didn’t exactly announce his arrival via bullhorn.”

  The two women looked at each other in silent communication. Then Jacklyn, brushing back a stray lock of black hair, replied, “We all knew him. Knew about him, anyway. What he had done.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t quite understand, but the Wycoff trial took place almost thirty years ago. Sure, it was all over the newspapers, but why would you still remember something like that?” The minute the words were out of my mouth, I realized that both women were somewhere in their late thirties or early forties—the right ages to have been his victims.

  My suspicion must have shown on my face, because Nicole vented a bitter laugh. “Not us. But Debbie’s daughter, Lindsey, was nine when she disappeared, and at the time, Debbie and her husband—Ed’s dead now—lived only a couple of blocks from the Wycoffs.”

  While checking into the B&B, I’d seen a painting of a little girl around that age, but when I mentioned it, Debbie had brushed me off.

  “When exactly was this?” I asked Nicole.

  “A year before Wycoff was arrested.”

  Before I could respond, Nicole added, “And why do I remember ‘something like that’? Because every single time another child disappears, the media shows up on the doorstep of every family who’s suffered through the same heartbreak. Like mine. Yes, that’s right, Lena. My daughter, Candice, was ten when she was taken.” Her gorgeous skin had paled, but her voice remained firm.