Desert Angel (12 page)

The kids scurried out the door to play with neighborhood friends and Angel followed soon after, hoping to give Rita and Vincente some time alone together. Without having to worry about being jumped, she liked being outdoors again, the sunshine, the desert landscape, the stubborn plants. The land was rough but it wasn’t barren like she’d first thought.

Giving the area a slow once-over, she spotted the house with the high platform that she and Rita had climbed. Now that she was looking, she realized several houses had a platform like that, over a carport, or on the corner of the house with the best view. That brought Scotty to mind again. Where had he parked a couple of nights ago? Had he left a cigarette butt or anything? She pictured where Vincente had parked his truck when she’d first arrived and imagined where the ruts would be that she’d seen from the rooftop. Walking slowly, examining the west side of the street, sure enough, Angel easily found the furrows leading back toward the highway.

After several steps, she noticed that she was looking at tire tracks. There should be at least two sets: Goot’s cruiser when he drove up to check Scotty and Scotty’s own, and maybe more, but in the few days Angel had lived with Rita she’d never seen any other car parked in that place. As she walked, she saw only two different prints, one a couple of inches wider than the other. The pickup was probably the wider. And she remembered. Her dream. Tracking. And then something else. Something big. She couldn’t believe she’d thought of it.

Rita had asked her if there was any way she could prove Scotty had killed her mother … His tracks? His tire prints leading to her grave? Had it rained? No. And these were his truck’s tire prints! A sheriff could make some kind of copy and compare them with the tire prints leading north from the ruined trailer. And find where her mother had been buried … and if he’d moved her, where he’d gone, probably up closer to those jagged ridges.

Got you.

*   *   *

T
HAT SAME AFTERNOON
, waiting for TJ to respond to Rita’s call about the tire tracks, Angel wondered for the first time where Norma lived, wondered whether Norma would like to go for a walk. Salt Shores was such a strange mix between an old-fashioned village and a ghost town. Exploring it reminded her of hunting for arrowheads like she’d done one time with her mother and Scotty. If you looked closely, you never knew what you might find.

Through Rita’s front window, Angel saw the cruiser arrive, saw TJ get out and reach back inside for his hat. She lost sight of him as he walked to the door. The kids were off playing with friends and Vincente was in the love seat watching some ball game on TV. Angel sat with Rita on the couch, holding pencil and paper, making a list of words for a game she was going to play with the children. Angel knew Rita was nervous. She’d already bitten the erasers off two pencils.

Angel was ready, but TJ’s knock startled everybody else. Vincente muted the TV and Rita set her things aside while Angel let TJ in. He was taller than she’d remembered. Her head was level with his adam’s apple.

“Thanks…,” she said, faltering. Figuring out this tire thing had given her some confidence, but she seemed to lose it in TJ’s presence.

TJ looked past her. “Rita, Vincente,” he said, standing just inside the front door. “You had something you wanted to tell me?”

Angel could sense Vincente and Rita looking at her. She’d told them she had to talk to TJ. She hadn’t told them what this was about. “Uh, I thought of something,” Angel began.

TJ breathed through his nose, his face blank, waiting.

“Okay, uh, you want to prove Scotty killed my mom, get his tire prints from where Goo—” She stopped because TJ was already impatient, grimacing. Angel’s stomach dipped for a second, but she started again. “You get his tire tracks where the deputy checked him out, across the road here. You take those to the burned trailer up by the Gom—” This time she was stopped by Rita’s head shake and the pained expression on her face.

They aren’t legal.

“I got things to do,” TJ said, looking at Vincente, like he was sure another man would understand.

Angel wouldn’t back off. “You said people were investigating a fire east of Cathedral City. I know that place. That’s where Mom and I lived with Scotty. In a trailer at the end of some ruts. Rita can probably tell you pretty close. That’s where the fire was. That’s where he killed Mom and drove away and buried her. I told you. I followed him. Later, when he knew I knew, he came back to the trailer and tried to kill me, too. Burned everything to wreck the evidence.”

The disdain left TJ’s face while he dug in his shirt pocket for his notepad. “Okay, give it to me,” he said, “but I don’t know what’ll happen. We just got your word. No body or nothing.”

19

TJ’s visit had put a damper on Saturday evening. Remembering about Angel finding her mother’s fresh grave was just too gruesome. They rushed through a tamale dinner and afterward made popcorn, watched a TV movie, and went to bed early.

Sunday morning the whole family took a long walk south from the club, following the water’s edge. Angel asked about the white crunchy stuff that they kept stepping on. Picking up a handful, she examined delicate hollow shells that looked like beads. Barnacle shells, Vincente told her. Zillions of them, joining the dead drying fish and matted bird feathers that made a carpet beside the sea. “Too salty,” Rita said. “No boats ’cause motors get ruined, and most fish can’t survive, but the birds love it.”

The kids taught Angel the funny bird names—grebes, cormorants, egrets, bitterns—but her favorites were the big white pelicans that glided five or six feet above the water’s surface and crash-dived whenever they spotted a fish. Jessie found an old oar, Rita picked up a mangled pair of reading glasses with one frosty lens remaining, and Angel discovered a corroded black-and-yellow license plate that she decided to keep for a souvenir.

Back at the club, everybody had chocolate-covered ice cream cones and Vincente had a beer. That night they all fell asleep in the living room listening to a new CD that Vincente had brought home from a store in Tucson.

*   *   *

A
NGEL AWOKE
M
ONDAY MORNING
in the tractor cab feeling more than just rested, feeling good, energetic. On the short walk to Rita’s she ran her fingers through her hair. Would Rita give her a haircut? She noticed a tall, thin cactus with red blossoms. Had that been there before? The white grit, the weathered pastel houses, the tall palm trees and scrubby plants, could this place actually be beautiful? She smiled. What was the matter with her? Gas fumes from the truck?

Rita and Jessie were on the porch waiting when she walked up. Rita handed her a banana. “Breakfast,” she said. “Let’s get going. You can wash up at the school.”

Jessie bounded ahead of them and Angel felt like holding Rita’s hand as they turned the corner but she didn’t.

“Another scorcher,” Rita said, fanning her face. “Next couple of weeks could be in the hundreds and it’s just the end of May. You know school’s almost out. What you gonna do then?” she asked. “Think you might stay around here?”

Angel didn’t answer but the question made her feel even better. Rita didn’t hate her. Didn’t resent her for all the trouble she’d caused. What would she do next, once Scotty was in prison? It seemed like a miracle. She wouldn’t have to keep running. She could choose. A future.

*   *   *

L
ATER THAT MORNING AT SCHOOL
, Angel was waiting for Norma in the vestibule. “Hi. You still mad at me?” she asked, offering Norma a fat red grape from the food supplies.

“You suck,” Norma said, batting at the grape but missing.

“You’re a grouch,” Angel said, popping the grape in her own mouth.

“Hey, that’s mine,” Norma complained.

“You didn’t want it,” Angel said, kneeling down a little so she’d be more on the girl’s own level. “Want me to see if I can find you another one?”

Norma turned her back like she was mad.

“Go on in,” Angel said. “I’ll look.”

Angel picked the biggest grape she could find off the bunch reserved for morning snack and found Norma standing by the table-games shelf, pulling out one box after another. “Want to teach me Candyland today?” Angel asked, handing her the red seedless.

“Primo did,” Norma said, pouty.

Angel was surprised the girl had noticed. And glad. “Want to teach me something else?”

“No,” Norma said, walking away.

But at game time, Norma was shuffling through the boxes again.

Rita, observant as usual, asked, “Who would be willing to teach the big girl a new game?”

Primo’s hand shot up. “Me, me.”

“You did a great job showing her Candyland yesterday,” Rita said, “so let’s give someone else a chance.”

Norma, carrying a small cardboard box, practically stomped over to the table where Angel sat. “Tic-toe,” she announced, defiant, daring anyone to dispute her claim.

“That’s a good one,” Rita said. “Thanks. Tomorrow it can be another person’s turn.”

Norma frowned, sat down, dumped the contents, and shoved the O’s at Angel. “I start,” she said.

*   *   *

A
T NAP TIME
A
NGEL SAT BESIDE
R
ITA,
watching the children, trying to remember if she had ever taken naps.

“Looks like you have a friend again,” Rita said, pursing her lips.

“She told me her and her sister are going to run away. Buy their own house,” Angel said. “I used to dream about the same thing.”

“I know Norma’s real troubled by the things she’s seen at home, but she’s fierce. She fights back, tries to hold her own,” Rita said. “I can’t understand this domestic violence thing. The wife, it’s usually the wife, keeps expecting the guy’s going to change or really, really hopes he’s going to change, and she keeps coming back for more … or maybe she thinks she doesn’t deserve any better. Maybe she saw it in her own home as a kid and assumes that’s just the way families are. I guess I should study it, ’cause it really stumps me. I’d shoot Vincente if he pounded me in front of the kids.”

Angel nodded, remembering the gun she’d hidden. That afternoon a gray-haired woman hand-delivered Rita’s and LaDonna’s paychecks and that evening Rita drove everyone to the huge Safeway in Indio for the month’s new groceries.

*   *   *

T
UESDAY
N
ORMA WAS STANDING
in the hall waiting for her when Angel came out of the bathroom. “Hi,” Norma said, “I got new panties.”

“That’s nice,” Angel said, laughing, “I wish I could say the same thing.”

Norma stepped back and examined Angel’s face.

“I’m not kidding,” Angel said. “Let’s do a quick tic-toe before circle starts.”

Norma grinned and ran to get the game.

*   *   *

T
HE CALL CAME ON
R
ITA’S CELL ABOUT AN HOUR LATER.
Angel couldn’t hear the conversation but she could tell by Rita’s face that something had happened. Bad news. TJ gave Rita the details and she passed them on to Angel after she hung up.

Scotty had told the investigators he was a taxidermist living alone in a trailer near the ridges that bordered Joshua Tree Park. Said the trailer caught fire one night when he was in town drinking with friends. A couple of local businessmen corroborated his story, one a pawnshop owner, the other, a locksmith.

Scotty told them the animal carcasses they found were either roadkill he’d salvaged or taxidermy projects he hadn’t started yet. Said the animals were long dead before the fire. The feds had lab guys checking that out but it would take at least a month to get the results. Scotty denied everything about drugs and said he’d kept some weapons for use in his guide service. He paid fines for burning and creating a nuisance on public land. He agreed to stay in the area if they needed to question him further. Since they didn’t have any conclusive evidence, they released him.

They released him.
The words made a vacuum. Angel filled it with rage. She shouldn’t have expected any help. The system had always been against her. Really, there was
never
any help, was never going to be any help. She was and would be alone, and hope for anything different was a stupid waste of time. She left the kickball game without looking back and exited through the rear door. A tall century plant at the front corner of the building hid her as she scanned the block for Scotty. Mid-morning no one seemed to be outside, no cars were moving.

Okay, Angel would walk these streets and look at every vehicle. Get a sense of which ones belonged in this neighborhood, which houses looked vacant, what building or foliage could hide a pickup. In other words, get the lay of the land so she’d have an idea where Scotty could watch undetected. She turned right at the sidewalk. White house, black car; tan house, vacant; two empty lots; white house, red pickup; more vacant lots; trailer house, white Ford; and so on, turning right at each corner until she passed by Rita’s and retraced her morning route to the school. Did this make any sense? It was really only a rectangle of four streets that had good access to Rita’s. There weren’t that many cars and trucks, a few more probably away at people’s work. Well, it was a start, and the walking burned off some of the anger.

Fifty miles north her mother’s killer was also walking. Heading to a Greyhound station, buying a one-way ticket to Los Angeles.