Darkness on the Edge of Town (32 page)

He needed to get out of here.

Officer Ray Garcia wiped the sweat from his face.  Even in the squad car, Timmy Swanson was still kicking and screaming.  Let him kick.  He wasn’t about to break through that steel mesh.

“D & D.  Possession of crack.  Resisting arrest. I guess that’ll about do it,” said Sam Chilcott.

“Ought to. See you in a few.”  Ray knocked on the roof of Sam’s squad car and then walked back to his own.

He always told his kids he had eyes in the back of his head, which wasn’t far from the truth.  He’d been trained to look at everything as a potential threat, and had developed that eye for detail.  So as he walked to his car, he scanned the trailer park. Maybe someone would resent the arrest of poor ol’ Timmy, maybe they would rush him, or take a potshot at him. Some people would say he was paranoid, but it was a paranoia he wasn’t ashamed of. 

A vehicle up ahead stood out from the rest.  Every other trailer looked as if it had been moored there and the vegetation—and junk—had grown up around it. But the motorhome at the end looked out of place.  The trailers here had been scoured by the sun and the dust, burnished to oxidation.  But the motorhome looked as if it had been washed recently. It also didn’t look permanent.

He stepped out of the lane so he could see the back end.  Lace curtains in the back window, just like on the sides. 

He’d heard something about a motorhome recently, but couldn’t remember what kind or where.

His hand-held crackled—a knife fight two blocks south of here.  He got into his unit and floored it on out of there.

Musicman unlocked the door to the motorhome and called out, “Oh, June, I’m home!”

It was a lame joke but it had become kind of a ritual.  He loved the old TV shows on TV Land.  At his age, he’d missed the best ones, the Andy Griffith Show, the Dick Van Dyke Show, Lucy. 

“There’s been a change of plans.  We’re going on our trip sooner than I thought.”

No reply.

“I’m sorry about what I did.  I just kind of lost it.  I won’t act like that again.”

Nothing.  She was being stubborn.

He was surprised to realize that it excited him.  He remembered one porno tape he played over and over where the man did a young girl and she fought and snarled and he kept saying, “You little wildcat!”

He couldn’t think about that now.  Sometimes he felt he lived inside a flame that wanted to consume him, burn him to nothing. This was one of those times.  He swallowed. “We don’t have any time to waste. We’ve got to go.” 

He unlocked the padlock.  “Let’s go!”

Still no reply.

Maybe he should just hitch the GEO up to the Pace Arrow and get out of here. That way he could leave her in her room.  Deal with her later.  She needed finesse, not force, and he didn’t have time to play games.

“Okay, you want to play it that way, fine.”

He walked outside and got into the GEO, drove it up to the hitch.

As he got out, he saw two cop cars zoom by on Benson Highway. Going fast and silent but with their lights on, headed in the direction of the Motel 6.

Don’t be paranoid

Maybe they were going to the Motel 6, maybe not. But what if they were?

What if it had something to do with him?

Shit!  He didn’t have time. He clambered back into the motorhome and pulled the seat cushions off the dinette seat, flung it open and rummaged inside.  He needed his duffle and his computer bag. He grabbed the duffle and started throwing things in.  The main thing was the laptop, the power cord, the disks, his Jazz drive. 

His notebooks.  His photo albums.  His cameras, of course.  His cash.  And Summer. 

It took him three trips to get everything into the GEO.  There was a lot he was leaving behind, but he couldn’t help that.  Although no one had put his picture up on television, he could feel them breathing down his neck.  He  knew he was one step ahead of their snapping jaws—he could feel it. He always trusted his instincts.

They knew who he was.  Maybe it was the way the cop had looked at the motorhome. He should have jumped on that earlier. At least they didn’t know about the GEO.

After he’d stuffed everything into the back seat, he stood by the car, the sun beating down on him, hyperventilating.

Where would they go?

Mexico? 

He’d have to put her in the trunk.  But what if the Mexican customs asked to see inside?

He’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

Or he could head east or west on the interstate.  Or take the backroads, lay low.

Later. He’d figure it out later.

He went back inside, feeling strangely jazzed.  She was going to give him a battle. He knew it.  The wildcat. 

And so he prepared everything ahead of time. The choloroform, the rag, his handcuffs, duct tape.  It was all in the same place he’d stashed them after he’d used them on Jessica—

The boyfriend, standing there in the doorway of the Pace Arrow.  “What’s going on?
”

The image so strong it seemed like real time.  Stupid kid, surprising him like that.  The girl, who’d just stopped struggling, a dead weight.  He had no choice but to act—and act fast. 

Still amazed no one saw him drag the kid down into the woods.

He had the rag, the bottle at the ready.  Knocked on the door.

No answer.

He felt the beginning of impatience.

“Summer, we can do this easy or we can do this hard.  I guarantee you won’t like it hard.”  He tried not to laugh at the pun. 

Nothing.

Bitch

To think he’d bought a present for her.  He reached into his shirt pocket and extracted the key to the padlock, unlocked the door and pulled it open.

Something jumped out at him like a jack in the box. 

“What—?”

He saw the stick clenched in her hands and his mind had only a split second to wonder what it was when it hit him right in the mid-section, punching into his side.

Pain, tingly and bright and blood-colored.  He thought he screamed.

He grabbed at her as her impulsion carried her past him, his fingers snagging her dress—

She jerked away and through a fine haze of pain he saw her bolt through the hallway and out the door, the door banging wham wham wham—

And he was aware that he was holding his side and it was kind of like hot pudding, slick as snot as his father used to say, and he staggered back, spun around, and that was when he saw the object on the floor.  Wood tapering down to a band of brass glimmering at the bottom.

It was a leg off the swing-out table. 

She’d sawed it off.  Somehow.

Smart girl.

He grabbed a towel from the bathroom and pressed it to the wound. 
Compress
.  It hurt like a sonofabitch but it had missed everything vital.  There were splinters, though, big ones.

Time slowed.  His nerve endings screaming.  The towel turning red. Still, he’d better go get her and think about cleaning this mess up later.

As Laura walked across the parking lot to the Motel 6 entrance, the overheated asphalt yielded under her shoe like brownie dough.  Traffic hummed and sighed on the street behind her, a constant pedal point.  She shielded her eyes against the glare and glanced back at the van parked unobtrusively near the edge of the property—a unit from the Pima County Sheriff’s SWAT team inside.

The young woman at the desk looked like a college student. She wore a nice blazer with the nametag “Marci”.

Laura asked Marci if she had either a Dale Lundy or Jimmy de Seroux registered. 

Marci looked through the book.  “No one by that name.”

“Anything close?  Maybe a combination of the two?  Dale de Seroux?  Jimmy Lundy?”

Uncertain, the girl pored over the names again. 

Laura looked at the names upside down.  “That’s it. James E. Lund.  Could you pull the card, please?”

“I don’t know—“

“We have a warrant.” 

“Oh. Okay.”  Marci found the registration card and pushed it diffidently across the desk. 

The date of check-in was July 15th.  James E. Lund, Glenwood Springs, Colorado.  Drove a 1994 white GEO Prism with a Colorado plate.  He was in Room 17.

A white GEO?

Laura wondered if he’d ditched the motorhome, or if he’d just added the car.  Sometimes the simplest things could slip under the radar.  All the agencies were on the alert for a motorhome.  But they might not even see a motorhome towing a car. 

She asked Marci for the key to Room 17.  Marci handed it over without asking to see the warrant, which was good because Laura didn’t have one. Victor Celaya was on his way with it.

“How did he pay for the room?” she asked. “Cash, check or credit card?”

Marci looked up the receipt.  “He paid cash in advance.” She anticipated Laura’s next question.  “For a week.” Laura counted up in her head.  He had three days left.

She walked back out into the gun-metal haze. 

At this time of day, between check-out and check-in, there were few cars in the parking lot, and no white GEO Prism with Colorado plates. 

She walked back to the 4Runner, got in and turned the air conditioner on full blast.  Immediately her cell started bleeping.  It was Charlie Specter.  “A TPD officer spotted a motorhome in a trailer court on Benson Highway that looked suspicious.  He says it fits the description and the photo—the Pace Arrow.  From the looks of the street numbers, it’s less than two miles from where you are now.

“I got hold of the owner of the trailer court, asked him if he had anyone there by the name of Lundy or de Seroux.  He said the guy with the motorhome gave his name as John de Seroux.”

Summer ran through the trailer park pounding on doors, screaming for help.

But the trailers just dozed in the summer sun.  Nobody was going to open their door to her.  She didn’t know why, but she knew it was true.

She started running up the lane toward the street.

Behind her the motorhome door banged open and she heard running feet.

She knew it was him, but looked back anyway.  Dale got into his car, backed it up and swerved around, heading toward her in a funnel of dust.

Summer knew she wouldn’t make it to the road.  She scanned the trailer court and saw a break in the fence near the last trailer she’d been to.  She had to go back in the direction of the GEO, but the good news was, he’d have to turn around. 

He saw what she was doing and hit the brakes, but by the time he had stopped the car she was past him and was already cutting across the concrete pad next to the trailer.  Behind her, she heard the tiny engine roar as he put it in reverse.  She darted toward the break in the fence, trying to figure out how to get through the clumps of prickly pear guarding it.

Behind her she heard the car slam into park and the door jerk open.

She had to get down on her stomach, which took time, and shimmy through, careful to avoid the cactus.  Chain link snagged her dress and she had to yank at it, legs flailing.  Then she was free, out into the desert and running. 

“Summer, get back here!” Dale yelled.

Then: “
Dam
mit!”  And the slam of the car door, the squeal of the engine again as he charged up the drive, spraying gravel. 

What would he do?  Could he drive into the desert?  He’d have to get out onto Benson Highway and get past the other businesses before he could get to the empty lot.  It would be fastest and easiest for him to make a right onto the highway and another right, so he would probably be up ahead.  She switched directions, following a path through the scrub, her sandals scarfing up dirt like an open mouth and stickers pricking her feet and legs.  She stepped on a doghead that went through the bottom of her sandal and yelped. Pulled it out and kept on going.

She hoped she’d guessed right. As she ran she could see rooftops rising above the screen of creosote and mesquite—the next street, parallel to Benson Highway.  A neighborhood.  She ran for it.

Where did all this traffic come from?  Musicman slammed the steering wheel with his fist.  Summer was loose and here he was, just sitting here, waiting as a whole procession of cars drove by.

His mind raced.  Where would she go?  Would she stick to the desert or would she make her way back to the highway?  Or would she head for another road?

Dammit! His side hurt. Raw, throbbing.  Blood starting to show through the towel. If a cop stopped him now…

How could this
happen
?

Now he wished he’d chased her on foot.  But even that would have been problematic; he doubted he could have gotten through the break in the fence.

One more car and he could turn right.  But as he watched, the white van slowed down.

Come on, dammit! 

The turn signal came on.    

“Come on, come on,” he muttered.  “Shit or get off the pot.”

But the van didn’t turn in.  It kept going, turn signal still on. He tried to catch a glimpse of what kind of asshole would play a game like that, but couldn’t; the windows were too dark.

Suddenly he remembered the white van at the Motel 6, the one he’d flipped the bird at.  He thought they were similar: A white Ford utility van with dark windows. 

The van continued past and he pulled onto the street behind it.  Suddenly, it u-turned four lanes and headed in the other direction.  Cretin.

Down the road from the El Rancho was the next business, The Desert Rose  Motel.  The Desert Rose was a horseshoe of peeling white brick buildings around asphalt, a drained pool in the center.  This was the kind of place that rented by the week.  Place looked deserted, but he knew people lived here—if you could call this living.  Could she have come here for help?

He swerved in off the road.  He scanned the highway, the few buildings, tried to see between them at the desert.  Finally he turned in and drove around the horseshoe.  He didn’t see anyone—it was too hot to be outside.  Still, he looked, paying particular attention to the four cars parked nose-in to the cabins.  Looking for movement, looking for feet underneath.