Pious Deception (33 page)

“Run!” Frank ordered.

She didn’t move. Rain pelted her shoulders.

Lightning crackled, and a crash of thunder bounced off the cliffs, slamming against her ears. Against the dark porch Frank McKinley’s face shone granite-white, unyielding.

“Run!” he yelled. “I like a moving target.”

“Frank—” There was no cover on the switchback road, nothing to protect her from the McKinleys, or from Vanderhooven’s killer, who’d be coming down into her “trap.”

He aimed and shot. The bullet hit the water by her feet, spraying her legs. “Run. Woman.”

She turned and started back toward the road, wiping at her eyes as the rain streaked down her face.

“Faster,” he yelled.

She reached the switchback road and broke into a trot, pushing her feet against the muddy surface. How much of a cat-and-mouse game was this with McKinley? Would he shoot her here, or wait till she was close enough to the top to think she might live? Close enough for Vanderhooven’s killer to pick her off first.

Lightning flashed, the thunder almost upon it. The picture of Joe Zekk’s splattered head filled her mind. She started to run, looking up the hill for a rock big enough to shield her. None. The cemetery, maybe—

A great crash shook the air, like a hundred thunderclaps—but no lightning had preceded it. Rocks tumbled down the hillside, bouncing off the hard undersurface of the road and over the edge, down the hill. She raced on past the switchback over the broken ground toward the cemetery.

Below her men yelled. She kept running.

Another crash cut through the air. An explosion! The hillside shook; boulders leapt into the air, avalanching down, knocking others loose in their path. Kiernan flung herself, panting, behind a gravestone. In the village below, figures were running toward the houses, yelling. Frank’s porch was empty. She looked up at the top of the road where the explosion came from. No one was in sight.

Explosions weren’t part of her plan. How had …? She thought of the rocky fist overhanging the end of the valley. Her body went cold. No wonder the McKinleys had let her go; they had a much greater danger to deal with.

Water rushed down the hillside, slewing around the gravestones. She started up the path between the two halves of the graveyard, where she’d sat with the boy only yesterday. The rise was steep and her feet slipped on the mud. Thrusting her weight forward, she grasped the top of a gravestone and pulled herself up. The stone gave. She fell back, landing hard.

Through the pounding of the rain and the smacking of the rocks rolling down the hillside she could hear shrill voices from the village. How soon would one of the McKinleys remember her and assume she was connected with the explosions? She grabbed at another headstone and pulled herself up.

Another explosion resounded from the top of the canyon. Rocks crashed down to her right. If boulders dammed the valley, the fast-running Rattlesnake River would soon put the whole place under water. Veering to the left, she climbed upward, planting a foot, and pushing off before it had time to slip. How long would it take to set the next explosion? Two minutes? Less? She reached for an outcropping of rock. Her hands slipped; she slid backward. She hooked her fingers around ocotillo, ignoring the thorns, pulled, grabbed another just as the first snapped.

The canyon top by Zekk’s house was twenty feet above her now, but the wall was sheer. Somehow she found a toehold, then another. Her breath was coming in quick pants. Near the top was a boojum tree, a single, succulent stalk. She grabbed it, swung herself around it, and planted her feet.

The edge was five feet above her head. She caught an outcropping of rock halfway up, pulled, braced her feet, and looked up, ready to reach for the edge.

Bud Warren stuck a hand down. “Kiernan!” he yelled over the roar of the wind and rain and the river below. “I saw you down there. Thank God you’re safe. Can you reach?”

His hand was too far away. She felt a wave of panic. “Bud, come closer.”

He leaned toward her.

Keeping hold of the rock, she reached beyond his hand and grabbed his sleeve.

He jerked back, ripped his arm free, and lunged at her shoulders. She went flying backwards, butt over head in the mud, and smacked into the boojum tree.

Mud filled her mouth and nose. She spit and spit again. Her feet slipped. She clutched the tree, barely aware of the sharp spines cutting into her hand. Half-dazed, she looked with blurred eyes down to the village, Watching the splotches of color that had to be people rushing out of houses. Rocks tumbled down the hillside, crashing below. Bud Warren would still be up at the top of the hill, behind her. She wiped the mud from her eyelashes, pushed herself up, and turned around.

Warren was gone!

Or had he just taken a couple of steps backward, to get better leverage for a shove that would send her crashing down through the gravestones to the boulders below?

Holding on to the tree, she leaned back and tried to see over the canyon edge. No hand or foot was visible. Cautiously she continued up the hillside, digging her toes in farther, making each hold deeper. She grabbed a root right below the edge, leaned in against the wet hillside and listened. The dull roar of the rushing river was broken by the staccato clacks of rocks smacking together and the frantic yells of the people below. Over it all, like a thick drape, was the thrumming of the hard rain. Bud Warren could be right above her. There was plenty of noise to muffle any sound he might be making.

She planted her feet, pushed off, and swung herself up and over.

Warren wasn’t there.

Her hands stung; the skin was ripped. Her head throbbed, and her arms and thighs ached. Forcing herself to run, she headed to the side of the house and made her way around it to the front. She stopped and listened, then looked down the length of the plateau in time to see Warren move behind the dome wall.

She ran, pressing her feet into the soft earth, forcing herself to move faster across the wet ground. She flung herself, panting, against the dome wall.

Was that a noise inside the dome wall? Warren could be in there. He certainly knew how to get in. He’d been in “Austin’s little prayer dome with the pink glass window”—both he and Beth had used those words—often enough with Beth. Hoisting herself up, she peered over the wall. The door to the dome was open. Zekk’s feet were visible. But there was no sign of Warren.

Beyond the dome was nothing but the narrow peninsula that led to the jagged outcropping of rock. The giant fist of rock. Kiernan’s body went cold. One explosion there and those huge rocks would crash down, setting off an avalanche that would dam the canyon. The flood waters would fill it faster than the villagers could clamber up the slippery hillside. It would form a lake over Rattlesnake, the McKinleys, the old man’s will, and over her own corpse.

She raced around the dome wall, stopping just short of the narrow arm of the peninsula. Fifteen feet long, a yard wide, slick with rain. Beneath it nothing but the canyon bed. Warren was out at the far end near the rocky fist. He was right in front of the dead tree. His dark hair flopped in his face. He was bending, planting wires. Explosive wires.

He stood up. Mud sprayed over the edges of the peninsula into nothingness. He stared at her, his face etched with fury. He raced forward. Still on the mesa itself, she leapt to the side. His momentum propelled him on.

Desperately, she looked at the dome. There’d be no safety there. Warren was twice her size. There was only one place she would have a chance, where her agility could save her and she could use his size against him.
If
she could get him to move fast enough.

She ran out the narrow arm to the fist of rocks. The dead tree was behind her. Inches away on either side of her the ground dropped off. Rain pelted her face, ran down her body. It bounced off the muddy ground into the abyss. She turned to face Warren. Stooping, she yanked at the wires. Her feet skidded to the side. She hung on to the wires and scrambled to pull her feet back from the edge.

Face red with rage, Warren started toward her, striding more slowly now, confident in his physical advantage. His dark hair clung to his face; his soaked work shirt outlined his muscular body.

She backed up against the trunk of the dead tree. She could thrust her arms behind her, and she could hang on.

One chance, she thought. Just one. Got to make him move faster. She reached down for the wires, and pulled.

“Leave them,” he yelled.

She yanked again. The ground gave. Dirt and mud and water shot over the edge of the outcropping into the empty air below. The wires lifted, almost free.

Warren raced across the muddy ground toward her. She flung her arms back, grabbed tight around the tree behind her. He was four feet away, coming fast. She let out a yell. He lunged at her. With both feet, she kicked. Grazed his hands. Slammed her heels against his eyes. Instinctively, he grabbed his face. He stumbled back. One foot skidded to the side. He scrambled for footing, fell forward. Kiernan watched his fingers slip through the mud as he clawed for a hold in the wet ground. Slowly, he slipped over the edge.

His scream reverberated off the canyon walls.

W
AYLON
J
ENNINGS WAS SINGING
“Ladies Love Outlaws.” Every table in the tavern was filled. The smoke was so thick you could cut it. The whole place reeked of beer. Dusty men in faded jeans and boots bellied up to the bar rail. Each one held a beer—the round of beer she had bought. Patsy Luca was in heaven.

“What do you think of it, Stu? It’s great, isn’t it?” Patsy yelled over the beat of the jukebox.

“Great,” he muttered.

“See the guy at the end of the bar, the one in the “Outlaws” sweatshirt? He’s the one who gave me the tip on that old Packard I traced last year. And the guy three down from him—”

“So what’re you going to do with your earnings, Patsy?”

Patsy grinned. “I’ve got my eye on a Winchester four-ninety. Guy who owns it wants way too much. But I’ll get him down. What about you?”

Wiggins leaned back in his chair, momentarily balancing on the back two legs. The jukebox stopped, but the noise level decreased only slightly. He waited till Patsy leaned in close enough so he didn’t have to shout. “Well, you know, I’ve been thinking that a few days on the beach might not do an old codger any harm. Don’t have to worry about the sun ruining my looks.” He laughed. “And now that we’ve got this invitation to San Diego …” He shrugged.

Patsy stared, amazed. She thought the world of Stu, she really did. But sometimes the man got strange ideas. To throw away his money, to
pay
to leave Phoenix … Especially now, when the word among her sources was that there was a hot-car ring operating out of a house on East Ellis Drive in Tempe. Maybe if he had another beer …

A
LONG, EASY RISE
in the gray-green Pacific surf swept up to an arc, poised motionless a breathless instant longer than seemed physically possible, then spilled raucously over the edge and crashed down on the rocky beach. Above, Kiernan sat on her deck, her feet on the rail. The afternoon sun was still hot, but she hadn’t been out long enough for her stomach to be red, even the part not covered by Ezra’s gray furry snout. Ezra was snoring.

Kiernan scratched the wolfhound’s head. Eyes closed, he moaned with pleasure. In his excitement he had been up most of the night. But now, his kingdom in order once again, he was sleeping the sleep of the satisfied. Kiernan leaned back, noting how welcome was the cocoon of home after a case like the one she had just finished. And yet she missed the intensity. She picked up the phone and started to dial Stu Wiggins’s number. But no, the case was over. She compromised and dialed Sam Chase.

“Chase here.”

“Hi, Sam. It’s Kiernan. I’m back.”

“I figured you might be. I just talked to the archbishop’s office. They’re not pleased about your fee. If you want to see red silk fly …” He laughed.

“I take it that means no problem, for us.”

“Oh no. They’re not pleased, but at least the murderer wasn’t one of their own. And so far, the media hasn’t mentioned the seamier details of Vanderhooven’s death. Their focus is on Warren planning the murder to protect his water rights.”

Kiernan leaned back in the chair. “That’s lucky for them. Warren was after the water rights, certainly, but with him there was also a touch of revenge. Maybe he’d spent too many nights lying under the stained-glass window in Vanderhooven’s meditation dome listening to Beth Landau complain about Vanderhooven.”

“Nothing like righteous indignation to put a better face on greed, eh?”

From the kitchen came the sound of the broiler door opening. “Five minutes,” Brad Tchernak called.

Eyes half-opened, Ezra lifted his brown head, stretched, and dropped it back on Kiernan’s stomach. To Chase she said, “He was Beth’s lover, which also meant he had access to her key to Vanderhooven’s rectory, to her office at Hohokam Lodge, and to the Culiacán. He was the one person who could take that bottle and put it back in the drawer a couple of days later. And the peace-making ritual Vanderhooven and Beth had, Vanderhooven would never have mentioned it, but Beth did. You can just picture her lying there in the dome, telling Bud Warren about it. So he knew that if he left the bottle on Vanderhooven’s desk, Vanderhooven would take a drink, for old time’s sake. Vanderhooven would see that peace offering as Beth’s accepting his idea of the monastery. Vanderhooven would be drinking to his ultimate triumph. His last triumph. You can see how the idea would appeal to Bud Warren.”

“But what about the autoerotic asphyxia?”

“For Beth’s boyfriend there was a wonderful irony to it, don’t you think? But it had a very practical purpose, to divert attention until John McKinley died. All Warren needed was for Rattlesnake to be isolated long enough for the old man to die without signing the new will.”

“Four minutes,” Brad Tchernak called from the kitchen.

“What’s that?” Chase asked.

“Dinner. Brad’s broiling the bluefish and tomatoes I had flown in from Jersey. You see what a decadent life I’m leading, Sam.”