Rage Against the Dying Page 9

  I carefully maneuvered the van closer, closer to the edge of the wash where there was an opening between the mesquite trees that clung stubbornly to the earth despite the erosion of the sand beneath them. When I felt the tires begin to sag dangerously on the driver’s side, leaving the vehicle in drive, I pulled up the emergency brake, crawled over the console and out the passenger side. It would have been more convenient if I were on the left bank of the river and could punch the gas with my walking stick. Instead, I released the brake, pushed on the open passenger door, and prayed for the strength I needed as well as maximum rollover so the drop and tumble would justify the condition of the corpse.

  The technique worked. The van fell the eight feet or so into the riverbed, twisting as it dropped so that by the time it hit the softest sand it was lying on its roof, the engine still humming. Holding my breath, practically holding my heartbeat, I stopped long enough to listen if any observers had noticed the accident and were screaming and running toward the wash. There was no sound except one delayed thump like a sack of cement mix falling in the back of the van. The scumbag’s body, I reasoned, which must have caught on something before making the drop.

  It had taken less than fifteen minutes to reach the point of no return from my decision.

  Ideally it would be at least a week before the van was discovered, decomposition and insect activity obliterating the slashed artery. If not, this could be judged a suicide of a derelict John Doe. They wouldn’t look closely enough to see some of the cuts were postmortem; he’d be stored in the morgue fridge and no one would ever ask for him.

  I went over the scene carefully in my stocking feet, leaving the tracks that showed my presence in the wash but dragging the backpack behind me to obliterate his footprints near the bridge. That brought me back to where the van had originally been parked, and I saw the manila envelope on the ground. Staying to look inside, removing it from the scene, both were risky. I picked it up and put it in my backpack.

  When I hefted the backpack over my shoulder, I noticed it was lighter than usual. I had been in the wash about ten minutes before the perp showed up and had only gathered a half dozen or so rocks. Questions would be asked if I returned home after such a long time with so little. I picked up the rose quartz and a few others.

  Phase four: rather than taking the main road home, I trudged up out of the wash about a hundred yards past the bridge and crossed Lago del Oro Parkway. Morning rush hour was past, so the dozen cars it comprised and any hope of their providing rescue was long gone. If some other woman had been down there, she would be lying in the back of the van right now, broken. Because it had been me, the man was broken instead. That comforted me.

  Other women. Unfortunately, I had accidentally silenced the asshole before I could find out about those other women. But more important, there wouldn’t be any others, ever again.

  Listening to my ragged breathing and trying for a time to cleanse my mind of death, I looked again at the nearby mountains about three miles to the east. They had that whole purple-mountains’-majesties thing going for them. That thing I thought I was going to defend in my more naive days as an agent.

  I made my way across the arroyos separating Lago del Oro Parkway from the edge of my housing development. Only a quarter mile as the crow flies, but it was some rough going, sliding down the gravel on one side of a narrow gulley and having my back spasm as I dug with my stick into the other side for the climb back out. There were about six of these, each one higher up than the last so that at the very top you’re looking back into a small valley that the river had carved over millennia.

  Other than that there was nothing, nothing but desert scrub highlighted by occasional orange-red blooms blasting from the top of a barrel cactus and the track of horseshoes, but my nervous system couldn’t seem to get out of hyperalert mode. Peering through scraggly tree branches and behind low hills, I kept my stick ready and stayed on the balls of my feet. Every sound, from a motorcycle roaring on the road that ran parallel to my route to the rustle of a rabbit in the brush made the nerve on the side of my neck spark.

  I could have disabled him in the wash and then called for backup. That’s what I should have done.

  The 10 percent humidity and dehydration began to affect me, making me a little woozy. My blouse was already dry, stiffened a bit by the blood saturating it. I craved water but wouldn’t open my lips to drink, aware that the dead guy’s blood cells, a few of which had probably collected in the corners of my mouth, were likely infected with something.

  Despite the wooziness, when I came to the last arroyo before the house, I buried my bloody walking stick in the softer sand on the side toward the top, where it would not likely be washed away in the next hard rain.

  When I finished, and started once more to pull the backpack over my shoulder, I remembered the envelope. I was mildly curious about its contents, but needed to get into the house and cleaned up without Carlo seeing me. Phase five: Carlo. I foolishly thought that this would be the greatest challenge, not to bring a scumbag to justice, but to forever hide from my husband and the world the ghastly thing I had just done. Killing the guy, that was the easy part.

  Fourteen

  I snuck in the side gate, through the outside door that leads into the garage, and from there inside to the laundry room. I could hear the shower going on the other side of the wall in the master bathroom, thank God. It gave me precious moments to toss my backpack on the claw-foot mahogany foyer table and the cell phone onto the kitchen counter, rip off my clothes, including blouse, hat, shoes, underwear, and gloves, and dump all into the washing machine; throw in half a bottle of bleach; and turn that sucker on. I’d toss it all in the garbage later, but no use providing more evidence than was inescapable.

  The Pugs, who must have been having their morning nap in my closet, rushed me. Rather than jumping on my legs the way they always did, they approached cautiously, interested in the new smell I had brought home. I spoke as fiercely as I could while keeping my voice low, “Stop! Stay!” Unaccustomed to sharp tones, they sat back on their haunches and eyed me suspiciously as if concluding I actually was that stranger I smelled like.

  Trying to move as fast as I could, before Carlo came out and saw me with most of my body stained where the watered-down blood had seeped through my clothes, I started into the front bathroom, then stopped when I heard Carlo belting an aria in the shower of the master bath.

  I don’t know much Italian, but knew that this one went on like that for a while. At any other time the sound of singing would make my skin crawl, but this time it came as a gift. He knew all the verses and the orchestral accompaniment between them and wouldn’t turn off the water until he got to the end of the song.

  I went into the guest bathroom at the other side of the house and shut the door. My knees buckled from the shock and dehydration and I wanted to lean up against the sink, but would not take the chance of leaving any trace evidence, so I just stood and swayed a second. To keep from collapsing I stared in the mirror at the little tattoo of a white rose over my heart. Carlo never asked me about that tattoo either.

  I thought about what I should have done. I should have left the van as is, come home and cleaned up, and explained everything to Carlo as gently as possible and then called Max. That’s what I should have done.

  It took a long time to get clean. I took a bottle of alcohol into the shower with me and poured most of it over my face. Only then did I finally open my mouth under the shower and drink my fill. I washed my hair and the rest of my body, not caring if the soap ran into my eyes. Blood seeping through the gloves had caked in my cuticles and dried on the walk home. It finally melted with my repeating the whole washing process a second time. Even so, when I stood again in front of the mirror, inspecting the reddening bite mark on my upper right arm, I let my fingers soak in a little more alcohol that I poured into the sink. Only then was I ready to leave the bathroom.

  I had practiced again using my voice while in the shower so was
able to call “Hi, Perfesser. I’m back!” loudly enough and without a tremor to reach him anywhere in the house. Luckily he was still in the shower himself and had moved on to something mournful that sounded like Piangee, Piangee, so did not acknowledge my greeting.

  In no hurry for Carlo’s first appearance, I finally allowed the exhaustion to take me, fell into the living room couch to further excite the Pugs, who, happy to have the real me back, threw themselves at my ankles like muscle-bound two-year-olds, making hum-smack noises with their tongues. Then they stopped their playful attack to sniff me again, likely detecting a residual whiff of dead scumbag. “Everything is just fine,” I told them. As if puzzled still, without my being able to detect any signal between them, they left to cool their taut bellies on a part of the Mexican tile that was not covered by Jane’s rugs.

  A final sound of a flush, the water running, the foosh of air freshener, and Carlo emerged from the master area with an opened copy of Islam Today and a triumphant gleam in his eye. That little bit of normalcy reminded me why I did what I did. Though prepared for this moment, I felt my body go rigid with tension and concentrated on one muscle at a time, starting with softening the corners of my mouth.

  When he saw me he squinted a bit, trying to figure out what was different while, still working on composure, I stared back at him.

  “You’re naked,” he finally asked, sitting beside me on the couch and crossing his long legs. Overwhelmed with joy at the entire pack being united, the Pugs began a new assault on his shins. He brushed them off without taking his attention from me.

  I recognized my last chance to speak the truth. The man in the van, covered with blood, mouth open in the final groan, snapped in and out of my head. I replayed the events in a flash and made them play out differently. But there was no turning back now. I felt my eyes flash open. “I tripped over a rock and got sand in my hair,” I said, nuzzling Carlo’s cheek and patting his thigh while wondering how long it would take for someone to find the van in the wash. “What a klutz. I’m glad you weren’t there; you would have loffed and loffed.”

  Instead of chuckling at my phony British accent Carlo shook his head and pointed at my arm. “Must have been a bad fall. Is that a bruise coming up?”

  I got up and went into the kitchen area of the great room. Using the microwave door over the stove as a mirror, feeling Carlo’s eyes on my ass, I stood on my tiptoes and once more examined the crescent bruise on my arm, reassuring myself he wouldn’t recognize it as a bite mark, then busied myself fluffing my still-damp hair. That way I could arrange some over the other darkening bruise on my forehead where I’d been head-butted and stall looking him in the eyes until I developed my alibi more completely.

  Carlo came up behind me. I could see the reflection of his questioning look in the microwave door. The look was surprisingly unnerving for someone who has spent most of her life undercover, let alone someone who has just killed a man.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Is there any coffee left?” I asked, sniffing in the direction of the monster Cuisinart that didn’t look like any coffeepot I’d ever seen outside of a Dunkin’ Donuts.

  “I think so,” Carlo said. “Let me get you a cup.” He pulled one of Jane’s Bavarian porcelain cups, the kind with little feet at the bottom, out of the cupboard and poured me a cup of black, cold. While he was getting it for me I got my backpack off the credenza and dumped the rocks into the sink to rinse them off. The water bottle fell out, too, and I was glad I had my back to Carlo, hiding it from sight as I washed more blood off it.

  I focused on my hands to make sure they weren’t shaking when I turned to take the cup from him. Partly successful, the cup didn’t rattle against the saucer as I sipped, but it had to follow my head a bit, which had begun moving back and forth at an alarming rate. I wasn’t wimping—only a psychopath can take life without some reaction. Just as bad was having to hide the fact. Luckily Carlo missed my trembling, having turned to the sink to finish rinsing off the rocks I had left there. With his back still to me he said, “I can’t believe you bothered to drag all these rocks up the hill after tripping.”

  “I’m in incredible shape for an old broad, is that what you’re trying to say?” I said lightly, put the empty cup and saucer on the counter next to the sink to keep him busy, and went to blow-dry my hair despite the fact it was already dry. I crammed myself hurriedly into jeans and a blouse before remembering the bloody bottle that must have left some residue inside the backpack. I’d have to throw the backpack in the washing machine for a second run.

  When I grabbed it off the counter I felt the bit of resistance inside and remembered the envelope. I glanced over at Carlo, who had settled into his chair with the copy of a life of Ludwig Wittgenstein he’d been reading. “If you want me I’ll be checking e-mail, Perfesser.”

  He nodded, lost in philosophy. I went into my office, sat down on the swivel chair at the desk, pulled the envelope out, and looked inside, hoping to find something that would identify the man who had assaulted me.

  What I drew out of the envelope was an unlabeled DVD disk on top of a photograph printed off a color computer on plain paper.

  Probably porn, I thought, and put the DVD aside to look at the photograph. In the first moment I don’t know what I saw. For the first moment my mind failed to register anything at all other than that, kind of a cerebral short circuit. Then I registered an unpretentious neighborhood street, neat sidewalks, graveled yards. Sage in bloom, like a burning bush consumed with lavender flame. A woman with white hair pinned up. After that I was aware of a muscle twitching once, hard, at the corner of my mouth.

  I was staring at a photograph of myself.

  Once the shock passed of seeing myself, and understanding that the attack in the wash could not have been just a coincidence, I looked at the image for details. The clothes were what I’d been wearing the evening before when we walked the dogs. I had taken a long shower to get the smell of the medical examiner’s office out of my skin and put on that red T-shirt. Someone had driven by and taken my picture without my being aware. I wracked my brain for a memory of the white van going by, but there was none. Our tidy middle-class subdivision was small, if two cars went by it was a busy evening. I would have remembered a crummy white van. And I would have remembered a driver who looked like the man I killed.

  I picked up the DVD that I had discounted as just porn and inserted it into my computer. While it loaded, I got up to close the door to my office. The DVD was a short clip, just the news report from the night before about catching Lynch and about my involvement in the Route 66 murders. And there for that brief second was my face on the computer, the formal picture in my black suit taken on the occasion of my retirement from the Bureau.

  I thought of the man I had just killed, whom I had never seen before today. There was no way he could have seen the newscast the evening before and taken the picture within two hours of it. Someone had to know about me before then, and know where I lived. And then I thought of his words that I thought were preposterous bravado just before his final attack: “Yer dead.” Maybe he wasn’t talking about doing it himself. Maybe he was talking about the person who hired him, and how it wasn’t over.

  I played over the entire scene in my head, from his observing me from his truck to my accidentally puncturing his femoral artery and losing whatever chance I had to find out more from him. Was this connected to the capture of Floyd Lynch and my involvement in the Route 66 case, or was it a grand coincidence? No, I returned to the idea that someone would have had to know about me more in advance of the news report to track me down to that wash. No coincidence.

  And even if it was, for safety’s sake I needed to treat it as an assassination attempt. In asking the man in the wash where the bodies were, I had been asking the wrong question, and now he was too dead to give me the answer to the right question—who sent you?

  I tracked back over the events in the wash, the way he liked older women, the way he broke
their bones. But nothing clicked. Coming up blank on everything except for the certainty that there was something I did not yet know and that not knowing was dangerous.

  There is a peculiar feeling at times like this. The closest I’ve been able to come to describing it is to say I drained out of myself. With hands that were now rock steady I opened the compartment next to my desk where the extra keyboard and broken monitor were kept. I reached way in the back behind the useless monitor and pulled out a box about ten inches long by six inches wide by three inches high. I opened the box and removed the FBI special, Smith and Wesson Model 27 with a three-inch barrel, from its foam casing.

  The ammunition was kept in a drawer on the right side of the desk, the one with all my pens and what have you. This smaller box was also hidden toward the back, a box that had originally contained staples. One by one, without a tremble I pulled out six shells and loaded them into the weapon. I placed the weapon on the desk.

  Now I was in control.

  Fifteen

  Or thought I was in control until a knock at the door made me jump a little. There had never been closed doors and knocking until this moment. There had never been jumping. “Not now,” I said loudly enough to be heard through the door, then afraid I had spoken too harshly, added, “Perfesser Darling.”

  “It’s your cell phone, Honey. It’s buzzing.”

  Everything normal. I got up, opened the door and smiled.

  “Sorry, just thinking hard.” I really did feel sorry, because at that moment there was something invisible yet more impermeable than a Kevlar vest slipping between me and Carlo. A lie wide enough to divide us. This is what I had tried so desperately, risked everything, to keep from happening, but it was happening just the same. Even in the stress of the moment, bigger-picture things like danger and death, there was this little pinch in my heart. Maybe that’s what they mean when they talk about hearts breaking.