by Betty Webb
Certainly not me.
So I had to ask myself once again: why did I care? The world was surely a better place without those two monsters.
Squinting against the monitor’s glare, I studied the problem area again.
Thought about it.
Read it again. Noticed what I’d not noticed the first time around, whether accidentally or accidentally-on-purpose. Then I logged onto the Internet and did some quick and dirty research that confirmed that my suspicions were right. Who knew? Certainly not me.
I thought about the situation some more.
Then I reread my research and reread my case notes. All of them, this time, starting with the first paragraph on the first page.
I should have spotted it earlier, but then again, I’m not a firearms expert—just an ex-cop who lugs around an old .38 out of misplaced sentimentality.
What the hell should I do now?
***
An hour later, after two Excedrin dulled the headache I had given myself, I realized the decision would be best left to someone else, so I typed up some information, printed it out, and made my way through the heat to my Jeep.
Sophia Ceballos, the fourth member of Parents of Missing Children had been released from the hospital a couple of days earlier. Unusual for a woman who was supposedly “in traction,” as the other women at Debbie’s Desert Oasis had claimed. She was still in a cast, but with the aid of a crutch, she was able to open the door at her north Scottsdale condo. She looked like hell, with a splint on her nose, a swollen jaw, and an eggplant-colored bruise covering the entire left side of her face. When I showed her my ID, the bruise darkened even further. She had to be at least in her fifties, but with an odd mercy the swelling on her face had smoothed out any incipient wrinkles.
“Debbie warned me about you,” she said.
It’s always nice to be greeted with joy. “May I come in? It’s hot out here.”
Sighing, she hobbled away, ushering me into a mostly-beige living room that smelled of antiseptic. A table next to the beige-and-beige sofa was heaped with vials of medication, a large box of tissues, and a carafe of what looked like iced tea. She didn’t offer me any.
“Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible. I just took another Oxycodone and I’ll be nodding off in a couple minutes.” She plopped down heavily on the sofa and folded her hands in her lap. A large bandage decorated her left arm.
The only things not-beige in the room were the framed photographs of young girl: girl with bright pink bougainvillea; girl with green bicycle; girl with red wagon; girl with golden retriever. Sophia’s daughter, Trish, who had disappeared thirty-two years earlier when Brian Wycoff was still preying on the young and innocent. I felt a pang of guilt for the added misery I was about to inflict, but there was no avoiding it. I had to be sure, so without invitation, I sat down on a beige-on-beige chair.
“Your car’s an automatic, right?”
“What’s left of it, yeah.”
“You’ve got a white Hyundai Elantra parked in your carport and it doesn’t have a scratch on it.”
“Rental.”
“Been driving around, have you?”
“Somebody has to go to the grocery store and since I’m the only person living here, I won the coin toss.”
Before I could ask another question, three fat Chihuahuas waddled into the room. The fattest of the trio took one look at me and growled.
“Poncho doesn’t like you,” Sophia warned, “so maybe you’d better leave.”
“I’m used to not being liked. Haven’t died of it yet.”
While the other Chihuahuas settled themselves at her feet, Poncho waddled closer to me, the side of his lip sticking to a dry tooth. It made him look like he was sneering. Maybe he was.
I raised my feet off the beige carpet and tucked them under my butt. “Since you’ve been driving, maybe you drove over to Apache Junction.”
“Bullshit.”
“Then maybe, a couple days later, you took a trip up to Black Canyon City.”
“More bullshit.”
“Prove it.”
“Since when do I have to prove a thing to you?”
I looked her up and down, noting the location of her injuries. “Your left side seems to have taken the brunt of the impact.”
“Aren’t you observant. Yeah, I got T-boned by a garbage truck. Good thing it took out the rear of my car, not the front, or I wouldn’t be sitting here listening to bullshit.”
“You’re right-handed, I notice.”
“Most people are.”
Poncho growled again. Gee, Sophia and her dog were a barrel of laughs.
It had to be asked. “Did you kill Norma and Brian Wycoff?”
“I hear he died slowly and painfully.” A smile tugged at her bruised lips.
“That he did. Mind answering the question?”
The smile segued into a smirk. “Yes, I do mind.”
In a way, I admired her. After experiencing the greatest tragedy possible, she had survived with her spirit intact. Jimmy’s research had revealed that she’d gone back to college—having originally dropped out when she became pregnant with Trish—and received her master’s in psychology. Now a licensed grief counselor, she not only spent her free time volunteering at a no-kill animal shelter, but acted as a foster parent for hard-to-place dogs. Like nasty-tempered Chihuahuas. Yet here I was, cross-examining her.
“Okay, let’s say you did kill them. What do you think your punishment should be?”
When she laughed, Poncho stopped growling. He gave her a yearning look, then rejoined the other dogs at her feet. I was surprised he didn’t jump up in to her lap, but maybe the surly little pipsqueak couldn’t reach it.
For some reason, Sophia Caballos decided to answer my last question. “What do I think my punishment should be if I killed those two? I think the Marine Corps Band should play ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ as the President of the United States awarded me the Medal of Honor.”
I smiled at her. “That’s what I think, too.”
Then I stood up and left.
***
The day not yet over, I briefly stopped at Desert Investigations. Upon checking my messages, I found one from Detective “Maria” Eastman, telling me, no, ballistics had not been run on any of Mario Genovese’s firearms, and why should they? The victim in question had bled to death. If I had new information, call her ASAP.
I had also received several more phone messages from Dusty, delivering the standard begging and pleading. I erased them.
“What’s wrong?” Jimmy asked.
“What do you mean, ‘what’s wrong’?”
“You don’t look happy.”
Jimmy had never been fond of Dusty, so there was no way I was going to let him know the cheating son of a bitch had snookered me again, so I just said, “You know what? I think I’m going to go upstairs, feed the cats, and take a cold shower. After all my driving around, I feel like I’ve got half the Sonoran Desert’s dust on me.”
Besides, now that I had talked to everyone involved in the Wycoff case, I had a major decision to make and a cold shower might help me think it through.
***
Ten minutes later I had reached my decision. I was dressed in fresh clothes and was giving Snowball No. 1, Snowball No. 2, Snowball No. 3, Snowball No. 4, and Mama Snowball an early dinner when I heard a polite tapping at my door.
I checked my Timex. Five o’clock on the dot. It was probably Jimmy, wanting to know if I needed anything before he headed home to await the arrival of his water tank. I smiled, looking forward to future days on my new horse. She might be only green-broke, but I was, too.
Equals.
Still smiling, I opened the door. “Maybe I’ll have her trailered down tomorrow if…”
But it wasn’t Jimmy.
&
nbsp; It was Dusty.
Uninvited, the cheating son of a bitch rushed by me and plopped himself down on my sofa as if he belonged there.
“Get out.”
He ignored my command. “But, Hon, it’s not what it looked like.” The man couldn’t even deliver a plausible excuse.
“I saw your bare ass! And hers!”
“You don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand? Hell, Dusty, this time you broke your own record for cheating. We were together for, what, three hours and you were already two-timing me. Just get out.”
“But Hon…”
“Don’t ‘but Hon,’ me. Go tell your sad story to Sexaholics Anonymous.”
“I don’t need…”
I heard someone coming up the stairs. I peeked around the open door and saw a furious Jimmy taking the steps two at a time. This mess was about to get messier.
“Lena, are you all right? I saw someone go by.”
“I’m fine. Go see about your water tank.”
He ignored me, too. Upon reaching the landing, he peeked around the door and saw Dusty. “Oh, for God’s sake. What the hell’s he doing here?”
I looked at him in shock. “I thought Indians never swore.”
“Only when provoked. And I’m feeling pretty provoked right now.”
“Not half as provoked as me,” I muttered.
Jimmy strode into my apartment walked up to Dusty, and halted threateningly close. “Why can’t you leave her alone? Doesn’t she have enough trouble without you stirring up more?”
Face red, Dusty sprang to his feet. “My relationship with Lena is none of your business!”
I’d never known Dusty to get violent, but there was always a first time for everything, so I asserted myself.
“There is no relationship, Dusty. Now, both of you, get out!”
Menace hung in the air for a moment, then Dusty blinked. “Hon, I…”
“Out.”
He stared at his boots for a moment, then stepped carefully around Jimmy and walked slowly to the door. Once there, he paused and gave it one last try.
“You sure this is what you want?”
“Never been surer of anything in my life.”
He gave me a searching look. “Yeah. You’re right. Maybe you need someone who’s never hurt you.”
He left.
One furious male gone, one more to go. I turned and faced Jimmy. “Since when is my personal life any of your business?”
“Since the rate of domestic homicide in Arizona shot to forty-five percent higher than the national average.”
“You’re quoting statistics at me?”
“I’d say statistics are pretty apropos right now.”
“I can take care of myself.”
A slight smile. “Who says you’re the one I was worried about?”
I blinked. “You want me to believe you were worried about Dusty?”
“You’re the one with the gun. Promise me you won’t follow him to Black Canyon City and shoot him.”
“Oh, Jimmy. I’m not going to shoot anyone.”
“That’s a relief.”
Before I could stop him, he did something he’d never done before. Rapidly closing the distance between us, he put out his hand and caressed my cheek.
“You know where I live, Lena.”
Then he walked out.
Chapter Thirty
Another rough night.
I played with Snowball No. 1, Snowball No. 2, Snowball No. 3, Snowball No. 4, and Mama Snowball for a while. Then I thought about Dusty. Then I thought about Jimmy. Then I drug the bankers’ box from my storage unit into the bedroom and shut the door, confining the cats’ havoc to the living room. I needed time alone with some photographs.
Moving the Vindicator aside, I took the picture of a child’s bloodied dress out of the box. Looked at it. Laid it in my lap and folded my hands across it.
Let the memories come.
The shot.
My mother screaming.
Darkness descending as I lay on the pavement.
And earlier…
Running through the woods. More gunshots. Children screaming, dying.
My father falling. Dying.
My baby brother. Dying.
Jamie.
Oh, Jamie.
Chapter Thirty-one
The next morning Jimmy said nothing about last night’s dust-up or his odd behavior afterwards, so the workday passed quickly. Yolanda Blanco and her daughter Inez stopped by Desert Investigations to say hi. Yolanda wanted to ask why her bill seemed so small. She didn’t quite buy my explanation, but what expectant grandmother is going to argue about having an extra thousand dollars left in her pocket when that money can be used for baby clothes and a crib?
Bob Grossman and Sophie Perrins also dropped in to let me know that Frank Gunnerston had been bound over for trial, and that my name—as well as his ex-wife’s—would appear on the witness list.
When I groaned, Sylvie sniped, “Maybe before you took his case, you shoulda first done due diligence.”
“Guilty as charged. He get bail?”
Bob shook his head. “Judge Knopf just laughed when Gunnerston’s defense attorney brought it up. Just between you, me, and the lamppost, word on the street is that the judge’s granddaughter was stalked by an ex-boyfriend, got roughed up by him a few times, and fled the state before we could catch up with him. So Knopf is often sympathetic. Too bad there aren’t more like her.”
I expected Sylvie to add to the judge’s accolades, but she didn’t. She was probably thinking about other women, other crimes, endings that didn’t turn out as well, killers that got away.
“I guess you can’t catch them all,” I said.
“Nope. You sure can’t.”
By the time the day was over, I’d finished the billing and taken on two new cases. Another runaway daughter and an elderly millionaire who wanted us to find out if his twenty-something fiancée loved him for himself or for his pocketbook.
Just another day at Desert Investigations.
But then the day ended, and I could no longer put off what had to be done. After going upstairs to give the cats enough food to last several days, I locked my apartment door and left.
***
Evenings, even in scorching August, are beautiful in Arizona. The skies are clear and spangled with stars. Rush hour long over, the streets were fairly quiet. I saw few joggers. As I neared Biltmore Fashion Square, traffic picked up and I found myself in the midst of a group of low-riders tooling down Camelback Road, their sound systems blaring out a mixture of mariachi and rap. I lost them when I hooked right on Twenty-fourth Street, only to find myself being tailgated by an orange Ferrari on its way to some big do at the nearby resort. Whoever was driving—I think it was a woman, but these days you can’t always tell—was listening to One Direction, for God’s sake. I lost the Ferrari two blocks before I made my turn on Bonadventure.
Guy DeLucca heard me drive up, and opened the door before I was halfway up the walk.
“What brings you out on this hot night?” he asked, as he ushered me into his monochromatic living room.
“For another go at that tea of yours. Most enjoyable I’ve had all week.”
The old social worker smiled. “Then you must hang out in some pretty nasty places, because mine’s instant.”
“Say what you will about the taste, it’s efficient.”
“Then you’ve got a glass coming up. Sit, sit. I’ll be right back.”
I sat on the brown sofa, leaving the recliner for him. The sofa was surprisingly comfortable. The whole room, despite all its brown-ness, felt comfortable. I especially liked the military photographs, and the Civil War saber and the Walther PPK/S pistol hanging on the wall. If you’re going to decorate, pick thi
ngs that mean something to you.
When DeLucca returned to from the kitchen a few minutes later, he only carried one glass.
“Aren’t you going to have any?” I asked, as he handed the glass to me. Several undissolved tea crystals floated on the surface. I didn’t care. I was parched.
“This late in the day? Caffeine keeps me awake.”
Not just the caffeine, I guessed. The memories of the seven children he had placed with the Wycoffs probably kept him up, too. As I chugged my bad tea, he eased himself into the recliner across from me.
“Why are you really here, Lena?” he asked.
“Making a delivery.” I handed him the first page of the printout I’d made earlier.
He looked at it, frowned, then read aloud, “Lindsey Margules, nine. Steven Archerd, seven. Candice Beltran, nine. Trish Ceballos, eight.” He looked back up at me. “What’s this?”
“You’re retired, in seemingly good health, and you have a lot of time on your hands. You’re also resourceful, good at tracking people down. Finding out what happened to these kids would give you something constructive to do for a change.”
The frown morphed into a faint smile. “Constructive?”
“As opposed to running around killing people.”
“Ah. That.”
He eased back in the recliner. “And here I thought I’d been so clever.”
I eased back, too. “You sort of blew it when you made that fake attempt on my life up in Black Canyon City.”
He had the grace to look contrite. “I hope I didn’t scare you ladies too much, but when you told me Mrs. Margules had been arrested, I had to do something.”
“So you made certain the authorities knew the killer was still out there, still in possession of the gun that killed Norma Wycoff. It worked, too. Mrs. Margules was released.”
“None the worse for wear, I hope.”
Remembering the delicious red velvet cake, I said, “The cops went out their way to be nice. You almost got by me, you know, until I remembered something odd about that Walther PPK—that it takes a .22 LR, a caliber usually associated with small game rifles.” I motioned to the German pistol hanging on the wall. “Did your grandfather bring the Walther home from World War II?”