by Nora Kane
Margot lowered her window.
“Margot, I don’t want to be your enemy…”
Margot cut him off, saying, “I told the woman from the liquor store one of us would be buying something. Why don’t you do that, so you’re not tempted to follow me.”
Mal didn’t say anything as she lowered the window and left the parking lot.
Margot watched him in her mirror. He stayed where he was until she was too far away to see him.
Margot drove home thinking about the man who left Shaw’s office. She wondered if she should call Shaw and warn him.
Margot made the call, but it went to voicemail. She wouldn’t be surprised if Shaw didn’t take calls after hours.
She decided not to leave a message. Just wearing a cowboy hat and boots didn’t mean his new client was a rogue cartel assassin. She figured that, as crazy as it would sound on the phone, it would sound even crazier in a voicemail.
Margot spent the drive home watching in the rearview mirror. She felt it was kind of silly since Mal would know how to get to her house, which made her wonder why he was following her in the first place. He had to know her well enough to know she was going home.
It was easier to tail someone if you knew the final destination since there was no real worry about them losing you. There would be no reason to stay tight since, if they got too far away, it would be easy to catch up. Mal should know this; nearly everything Margot knew about tailing people and spotting a tail she had learned from Mal. If he was doing it right, she should have never been able to make him.
It made her wonder what he was thinking. He hadn’t answered her question about how long he’d been on her tail, which made her think it had been a while, maybe since the incident out in the orange groves with Dean Stone.
If he’d been tailing her all day, he might have seen the cowboy come out of Shaw’s office. The guy certainly came off as a creep, but creep was a long way from hitman. It could be that Mal had jumped to the same conclusion, but he wouldn’t risk being made merely due to seeing a creepy guy in western wear leaving a building Margot had gone into.
She had her phone in her hand as she went into her apartment. Her fingers were on the screen ready to call Mal and ask him what exactly he thought was going on. She put the phone away without calling. If he had something to tell her, he could have at any time while they argued in the parking lot. He either had nothing and had just got sloppy after following her for perhaps weeks or he wasn’t willing to say. Either way, Margot saw another phone call as a waste of time.
Margot went to the liquor cabinet instead. Seeing how little was in the bottle of Maker’s Mark, she wished she’d fulfilled her promise to the liquor store owner instead of putting it on Mal. After some further thought, she was glad she had left without buying any booze. If she had a full bottle, she wouldn’t stop at one glass of whiskey. One would calm her and quiet her brain so she could sleep without thinking about Mal or Randy or Stick. More than that and she was likely to drink until she passed out and regret it in the morning.
She filled a glass with ice and poured whiskey over it. She congratulated herself on having a drink of choice that any idiot could make before sitting down to sip her whiskey. She finished it faster than she wanted to and was wishing she could make another when she accidentally drifted off to sleep.
Margot woke up gasping for air. She was still sitting in her chair with a glass of melted ice on the table beside her. She’d been dreaming. It was a recurring dream that had been haunting her sleep off and on since she was a teen.
In the dream, she was fighting in some kind of mixed martial arts tournament, battling an opponent bigger and stronger than she was. The details of how she got there might change, but she always ended up on the ground with her opponent choking her out. There was no counter and no escape. Margot’s only choice was to tap out.
No matter how many times she tapped though, her opponent wouldn’t let go. She’d look to the referee who would just shrug. Her opponent never spoke, but Margot knew instinctively she wouldn’t let go after Margot passed out. She was going to hang on until she was dead.
The panic and adrenaline of knowing she was near death did nothing to help her get free. The chokehold was tight. All Margot could do was continue to tap her opponent’s arm and hope she would let go.
She never did and, as always when Margot went to sleep in the dream world, she woke up in the real world. It had been a while since she’d had the dream; she hoped it wouldn’t become a regular occurrence again. She rarely got good sleep afterward.
Margot drank the ice water. She dragged herself back to her bedroom.
Chapter 8
The drive out to the desert was actually relaxing, more so than finding herself fighting a losing battle for her life every time she fell into a deep sleep. Mal, who apparently suffered from some wicked nightmares himself, had suggested more than once that she learn to lucid dream so she could take control of the situation. Margot had yet to figure out how to do it. After last night, she didn’t see herself asking him for tips on lucid dreaming any time soon. Maybe never.
Perhaps once they weren’t a couple, they should have gone their separate ways. She wouldn’t have said it before the events of the last couple of months, but maybe Mal was just as bad as a business partner as he was a boyfriend and a cop.
Maybe everyone who said he was just a thug and a killer had it right and it was Margot who had it wrong.
She put on some music, put her brain on autopilot, and drove. Margot was glad she wasn’t nursing a hangover, but one of the few thoughts she had was she needed to restock the liquor cabinet. She might even go to the liquor store with the grumpy owner just in case Mal hadn’t done his part and spent some money in her store.
Even though she managed to keep the stress of everything going on out of her mind, Margot still kept an eye on the rearview mirror. She made mental notes of every car behind her and kept track of them until they were no longer following her. She arrived thinking either no one had tailed her or whoever did was really good at it.
When she pulled up to the substation, Brantley was waiting by his department-issued Ford Explorer, looking at his phone. He tipped his hat as she got out of her car.
“I figure we take my car,” he told her. “I checked my GPS last night and those coordinates aren’t exactly on the road. I’m guessing your little Toyota isn’t a four-wheel drive.”
Margot preferred taking her own car, but he was right about the four-wheel-drive, so she shrugged and asked, “Do I have to ride in the back behind the cage?”
“No, ma’am. You can ride up front with me. You need to keep in mind I am a happily married man and keep your hands to yourself.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. Can we go by the motel first?”
“We haven’t cleaned up yet.”
“Even better.”
Brantley shrugged. “I suppose you can tell me what you think about the crime scene.”
“That’s what consultants do. I’m not sure what I’m going to be able to tell you. It’s not like I was an ace homicide detective before I left.”
“According to Ames, you were on your way.”
“He said that about me?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I don’t think he likes me much.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“He also told you I was ‘hostile’.”
“True, but I think he meant it in a good way,” Brantley said and then went around the truck and climbed in. Margot got in the seat next to him.
The motel looked run down. There were no cars parked in the lot. If she hadn’t known better, Margot would have guessed they were out of business. There was a clerk in the office though, an elderly man who looked annoyed that Margot and Brantley had shown up. He gave them a room key to room sixteen, which was sealed off with crime scene tape.
“Which room did Stick stay in?” Margot asked. “Is it occupied?”
“
Sorry, but that’s my only customer right now,” the old man said.
“You only have one customer, and you gave him that room?”
“It’s the slow season, which is also the hot season. Keeping those rooms cool costs money so I only keep the A/C on in two units this time of year. One of them was the unfortunate young man’s room.”
“You could have put him in the other one.”
“I suggested it, but he liked the location of room eight better. I don’t blame him. The view is better.”
“He walk here?” Brantley said as he motioned to the empty parking lot.
“No, he just went for a drive or something. That’s not really my business.”
“Can you tell us about him? What does he drive?”
“Why?”
“He picked a murder victim’s room. I find that curious.”
The clerk shrugged. “I don’t. There’s only two rooms, and like I said, that one has the better view.”
“Does he drive a white Cadillac convertible?” Margot asked, thinking about the man dressed as a cowboy at Shaw’s office.
“Why do you ask?”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“No. He paid for the next two days, so if you want to know anything about him, why don’t you ask him when he gets back. His car will probably be the only one in the lot.”
“I just might do that,” Brantley said.
“Whatever floats your boat,” the clerk told them.
They walked over to the crime scene room.
“What is it about a white caddy?” Brantley asked as they made their way across the gravel parking lot.
“Probably nothing. Probably less than nothing.”
“But you checked anyway?”
“That’s why you’re paying me the big consulting fee. I’m thorough.”
“I don’t know how thorough you are if you think the consulting fee is big,” Brantley said as he used the key to unlock the door.
They stepped inside. The interior wasn’t much better than the outside. It looked like it might have been a nice place twenty years ago, but nothing, including the big box television, had been updated in at least that long.
Brantley pointed at the bed, which was down to a box spring and a frame.
“It was a bloody mess. They took everything even though I think all they sent to the lab were cuttings from the sheets.”
“Any word back on the blood?”
“Yeah, O positive, so it could have been Stickley—or for that matter, Randy and his mom as well.”
Brantley pointed to a hole above the bed. “We dug a slug out of there. Nine-millimeter. The best guess is somebody shot somebody, and they fell on the bed and bled all over it. Whoever it was, they either used a revolver or they were thoughtful enough to pick up the casing. Until Stick was found dead, we figured it was him shooting Randy.”
“Why would Stick shoot Randy?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Did Stick carry a nine mil?”
“Yep, a Glock.” Brantley paused and patted the gun on his hip. “But that ain’t saying much. No shortage of those and the slug was pretty damaged. I asked Ames and he said Stickley’s gun still had a full magazine and he didn’t have any spent shells on him.”
Margot walked around the bed and poked her head into the bathroom. There really wasn’t much to see.
“Shall we do some geocaching?” Brantley asked.
Margot shrugged. “Why not? It's what I’m here for.”
Brantley pulled up the geo-tracking app on his phone and they headed deeper into the desert.
Brantley was right about Margot’s Prius not being the vehicle for the terrain. There were no roads leading to the coordinates Stick had left. Brantley found a dry wash that was reasonably flat and took it out. Margot noticed several tire tracks heading up the wash in the same direction.
Brantley anticipated her question.
“The tracks could be something, but lots of people use these washes as four-wheel drive trails. It does show someone’s been out here recently, but they could have nothing to do with any of this.”
It didn’t take long for Brantley to reach their destination. The tracker led them to a natural flat spot off the wash. Like the wash, it wasn’t a road, but it was easily passable. It didn’t go long before the ride started to get rough but about that time, they reached their destination.
“Convenient for it to end here where the road ends,” Margot said.
“I was thinking the same thing. Makes it seem less like a wild goose chase, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, but we haven’t found anything yet.”
They both got out and looked around. Other than some Ocotillo plants and a lot of sand, there wasn’t anything to see. Brantley went around the back and opened the trunk. He got out a shovel and joined Margot in front of his SUV.
“What’s that for?” Margot asked him.
“It seems like a good place to bury a body,” Brantley said. “Plenty remote but accessible by car. I figured I might as well be ready if we find something.”
“You’re just a regular boy scout, aren’t you?”
“Something like that.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing since we turned down the wash.”
They started walking, looking for any sign of recently turned over sand. Margot didn’t really see anything.
“Unless he buried someone out here himself, I don’t get how Stickly could have found anything,” Brantley remarked as they walked.
“Maybe he followed them out. Maybe he didn’t find a body at all, just the location.”
“How did he find that? Like I said, it’s a good spot for this kind of thing, but it’s hardly the only one.”
“I don’t know.”
“You know, I didn’t know what I expected to find, but this seems like a whole lot of nothing.”
“Yeah, well, welcome to detective work. Sometimes you have to work your way through a lot of nothing before you get to something. Sometimes you only find the nothing.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s why I stick to busting up meth labs and bar fights, for the most part.”
“I’m guessing they wouldn’t drag a body too far from the car,” Margot said as she stopped walking.
“I doubt they went this far. You see anything?”
“Nope, not yet.”
“Odds are, we aren’t going to. I may have dragged you out here for nothing.”
“Don’t give up yet. You were the one optimistic enough to bring a shovel.”
“That may have been a serious miscalculation.”
Margot couldn’t really argue with him there. As she stood there looking at the sand, thinking about what could have brought Stick out to this location, she thought of something her sister had said.
“His phone.”
“Whose phone?” Brantley asked.
“Randy’s. Stick called my sister and asked about his phone the morning before he sent the email and got himself killed.”
