The Laura Cardinal Novels (15 page)

Laura dutifully turned to the photo spread: More spiders and a scorpion or two.

“Very impressive, sir.”

His smile was quick, as if he were expecting the compliment.

“I called you in here to see how the case was going. Is it true we’re close to an arrest?”

“We’re in the process of collecting evidence now. We’re hoping the forensics on the computer will pan out.”

“But the lipstick with the prints on it? That’s pretty solid?”

“The lipstick had her prints on it. It was found in his bedroom.”

Galaz frowned. “I’m glad you’re taking your time and not rushing to judgment. You remember Walter Bush.”

Walter Bush was a local businessman who had been arrested for a series of burglaries based on one witness’s identification. He was eventually cleared, but not before he attempted suicide in his jail cell. A lawsuit was pending.

Galaz leaned back, hands clasped behind his head. “Laura here is one of the best investigators we’ve got. You remember the Judd murders—guy murdered his whole family? Laura was the one who cracked it. She’s like a pit bull. Grabs on and won’t let go.”

Laura mentally squirmed.

“We’ve been having a little disagreement on what kind of killer this is,” Galaz said. “Mickey’s convinced he’s white, but I’d like him to think outside the box a little bit." He smiled and spread his hands. “You know—embrace diversity.”

Laura said, “The majority of these offenders are white—“

“What did I tell you?" Mickey said, winking at her.

Laura added, “But it’s a mistake to rule out any one race. Even though there are very few black or Hispanic offenders, I think there will be more as—“

Galaz turned to Mickey, his grin triumphant. “You see, Mickey? She agrees with me. Even though minorities are under-represented, culturally we’re catching up. More of us are joining the ranks of the middle class, are better-educated, we’re succumbing to the same pressures that the average white guy has. We’re developing a taste for it.”

Laura said nothing. It was tantamount to saying how great it was that women were catching up and passing men in lung cancer statistics.

“All I’m saying, Mickey, is it could be anybody,” Galaz said. “We don’t want to limit our options."

“I agree,” Laura said. “But likely he is Caucasian." Hoping the lieutenant wouldn’t be insulted in some weird way.

“Oh, I’m sure he is. We were talking theoretically." Galaz rolled a Mont Blanc pen in his long, tapered fingers. “I understand there’s an Internet connection to this? You think the perp got to this girl on the Internet?”

She wondered if he got the term “perp” from television. Nobody in her squad or any squad she knew had ever used the word. “We think there could be an Internet connection, but so far we haven’t been able to find it.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. I’ve got someone on it, but with the Cary Statler homicide—we don’t have the resources.”

His eyes were sympathetic. “I was talking about this with Mickey. This CRZYGRL thing. You really think that’s important to the case?”

“It could be.”

“I told you that Mickey here works for Dynever Security. It’s one of the top Internet security companies in the United States. Heck, probably the world.” He glanced at Harmon. “You work with the government on all levels, don’t you, Mickey? State, federal, you name it. Really impressive.”

“We’ve consulted on a number of high-profile cases for them,” Harmon said.

“I forget what all you do,” Galaz said, fiddling with his pen.

“Mostly we’re Internet security. Countersurveillance. One division creates websites and develops networks, another is strictly data management. We also offer Internet security services to small businesses.”

It sounded like a sales pitch.

“The point is,” said Galaz, “You know as well as I do we’re not equipped to handle something like this. If this guy really did lure her on the Internet. You know what our budget’s like.” He turned to Harmon. “Desert Lakes, this little podunk town in the middle of the state? They have three times the budget per capita we do. They get the shiny new cars, the cyber-cops, all the perks. Here we are, the state agency, we’re supposed to be elite, and we’re lagging behind everybody else.”

Laura smiled. There was a joke around the investigative division that “DPS” stood for “Don’t Pay Shit”.

“So we have to improvise." Galaz leveled his gaze on her. “How sure are you that this is the guy?”

“Lehman?" She paused. Not knowing what to say.

“Go on. We’re nonjudgmental here.”

Laura didn’t like the way this was going. She didn’t like the “we”—this friend of Galaz’s sitting there as if he were DPS. But she had to be honest. “Even though we’re moving ahead with Lehman, we’re looking at other leads.”

“Would it help if we could find this CRZYGRL connection?”

“I suppose so, sir.”

“What if we outsourced this job to Dynever Security?”

So that was what this was about. She opened her mouth to reply, then stopped. Harmon was sitting right here. She realized belatedly she’d walked into an ambush. She couldn’t tell him her real thoughts with Harmon here.

“My guess is, this is going to take some getting used to.” Galaz swiveled in his chair, back and forth, smiling at her. “Tell you what. I’m having a little get-together tonight, just a few people. I’d like you to come by, meet the folks you didn’t get a chance to last time.”

“That would be great, sir.”

“So I can count on you?”

“Yes sir.”

“I particularly want you to meet the head of Dynever Security. Great guy. He’s like a brother to me.”

She nodded, not knowing what else to say.

He glanced at his watch. “I can tell we’re going to get out of here late. Nine o’clock for drinks? You can find my house okay, can’t you? I don’t think you’ve ever been there.”

Laying it on a little thick. Victor was right; she should have gone to the barbecue. She nodded. “I’ll be there.”

“See you then.”

Something in his smile told her that the audience was over.

When the door shut behind her, she felt as if she had been processed through the county jail—her wallet, shoelaces, and belt gone. Folded, stapled, and mutilated.

She found herself staring at the wall of photos again. Noticed that most of them included Nick Fialla, the University of Arizona football coach who had led the Wildcats to a Rose Bowl win two years ago. It amazed her how the prominent people of Tucson, the movers and shakers, flocked to get their picture taken with Nick Fialla.

He should rent himself out, she thought sourly. Like the burros in Nogales that the tourists pose with to prove they’d been to Mexico.

The sun had just gone down behind the Tucson Mountains when Laura reached the Vail exit. The lights of oncoming cars were already snapping on, strung out across the pink-purple hills east of Tucson like a necklace of diamonds.

As she drove across the overpass, she spotted a scrawny woman sitting in the open hatchback of a Chevy Vega parked near the off ramp, holding up a cardboard sign that said BLOWJOBS $2.00.

Everyone had their price.

Laura’s price was giving in to Let’s Go People! Galaz. No way she could get out of going to this party; she’d already missed the barbecue—apparently the only person in the whole department who did.

As she pulled up in front of her house, she spotted something pale in the darkness of her porch. It materialized into a white long-sleeved shirt as she approached.

“Tom?" Her heart quickening.

“Hi, Bird.”

“When did you get back?”

“This morning.” He stood up from the steel glider near the door. It creaked loudly—sixty-year-old springs.

He was close enough that she caught the scent of his shirt, a combination of starch and the fresh smell of line-drying. Tom didn’t own a dryer. He didn’t own much of anything.

“I heard about the girl who got killed—thought you might need me.”

“Who’d you hear that from?”

“Mina.”

“Mina called you?”

“I called her. I was checking on Ali.”

Referring to a famous bareback bronc named Old Yeller. Ten years ago, before Old Yeller took the inevitable downward spiral to the dog food factory, Tom bought him, changed his name to Ali (“because he was The Greatest”) and towed him around from job to job. Ali was twenty-three years old, sway-backed, and deeply suspicious of Laura.

She inhaled the night air, soggy and laden with the odors of creosote and manure. She was glad Tom was here—
really
glad. “How long have you been waiting?”

“I wasn’t waiting. I was sitting.”

Zen and the Mystic Itinerant Wrangler. He reached out and touched her lightly on her cheek, which sent her thoughts whirling like sparks from a kicked-up fire, her mind buzzing on and off like an old neon sign. He was aware of his effect on her, but had the good sense not to say anything. “I thought we could go by the cantina and get a drink. Mina’s beginning to wonder if you’re avoiding her.”

Mina, the proprietor of the Spanish Moon Cantina on the Bosque Escondido, liked to micromanage the lives of the people who lived and worked here. Laura wondered if she’d weighed in on the living-together issue yet.

“I’d better not drink anything. I have to be somewhere later.”

“Oh?”

“A party at my lieutenant’s house—it’s mandatory.”

“Mandatory?”

“For me anyway. I didn’t go to the last one, so I’ve got to go this time.”

“What’ll he do if you don’t?”

She shrugged. “Probably nothing. It’s politics.”

“Sounds to me like he set you up.”

Great insight from a man whose only possessions were a truck, a saddle, a horse trailer, and one decrepit horse.

Here she’d found a man who was perfect for her in every way except one. In the currency she valued most, the currency that defined her life—career—he didn’t even have pocket change. He had no ambition. Thirty-five years old and he wrangled horses on a guest ranch.

He said, “Did you get my note?”

“Of course I got your note. I have to eat, don’t I? Lucky for you, you didn’t leave it in the cleaning closet.”

He had both hands on her shoulders now. “Have you thought about it?”

“I haven’t had time.”

If she thought he’d be heartbroken, she was wrong.

“Okay, I can wait. If you can’t drink, can we at least eat?”

“I was going to have mac and cheese.”

He smiled. “Not much food in those little boxes.”

“I’ve got two of them.”

Laura drifted in and out of sleep, her body one long smile. Naked in the cool swirl of sheets, the boat-oar ripple of the ceiling fan playing over her body, legs entangled with Tom’s long, lean ones, the feel of his skin against hers … times like these, she felt young again. Young in that innocent romantic way before life started cutting away at her. Before Billy Linton blew her romantic ideals out of the water. Before she learned that no matter how strong a bond you had with your family, it could be ripped away from you at any time.

Lying here, she felt like the college kid she once was, infatuated with life, absolutely certain about her future. All she had to do was succumb to her feelings, and she could hold it again, that hope. Allow herself to be swept away by this incredible lover whose touch shot through her like electricity.

Still drowsy, she found herself looking at the length of his body in the light from the bathroom. It was impossible to keep herself from touching him. She reached out and laid a finger on his skin. Felt a shiver, although it was warm. Traced a line down his muscled forearm, down along his rib cage, the bump where one rib had broken during a bull ride, then down into the hollow between his hipbones.

Another shiver.

Why shouldn’t we live together?

Because it could go wrong. That was the lesson she had learned from her marriage.

Marriage?, the hard-ass in her said. Whatever it was she and Billy had, you couldn’t really call it a marriage.

The fact was, love could go wrong. All those good times, feeling you were joined at the hip, that you knew the other person so well, as well as you knew yourself, and then something bad happens and all of a sudden you become enemies. You don’t even know how it happens, but one day you meet in the hallway and you skirt around each other, looking away, trying not to touch. Because all of a sudden touching is impossible, you can’t stand to feel him on your skin. How does that happen? Just bad luck? Did it happen to everyone who went through a tragedy? She didn’t know.

Tom stirred and his arm fell across her.

She couldn’t deny how good it felt to be with him. Logically, she knew she couldn’t judge Tom by the Lintons. Besides, Tom didn’t have a rich family.

She pressed her lips to his, and he stirred again.

The sudden thrill of absolute wanting always caught her by surprise. Undeniably needy … and he always responded.

Now he rose up on one arm above her, settled his lips onto hers.

She cupped the back of his head, and they kissed long and slow.

Exquisite.

But something not so good insinuating itself into her mind—
“Shit!”
She sat up, grabbed the bedside clock and turned it so she could see.

Tom, his dark eyes cloudy with sleep and desire and questions, “What’s wrong?”

Eleven ten.

“Dammit!”

“What’s wrong?” Concern etched into two grooves between his eyes. Realization. “You missed the party.”

She hopped out of bed, stumbling in the sheet and having to grab the bedpost to stay afloat. In the bathroom, turning the shower on full spray. Fumbling for her toothbrush. Before or after her shower? What would she wear? What kind of shoes?

Feeling impotent. Unable to make decisions. Duck into the shower, make it fast.

As she scrubbed, she tried to remember. How did she let this happen? The two of them sitting on the porch eating macaroni and cheese. Watching TV, starting on the couch and transferring to the bedroom, hurried and wanting.

Immersed in their lovemaking. Mindless pleasure. Spending themselves, energy dwindling down to a tiny speck, like the dot on her grandmother’s old television set just before it went dark. She remembered thinking as she drifted off, I’ve got time. Just a few minutes and then I’ll get up …