Crimson Lake Road (Desert Plains)

by Victor Methos

  She put the workbook back and searched Zachary’s desk.

  No locked drawers, and nothing other than office supplies. His computer was password protected. She spun the globe lightly with her fingers before leaving the room.

  The bathrooms and guest bedrooms held nothing of interest. As she was about to go to the garage, the sliding glass door leading to the pool opened, and she heard Tara shout, “Mom?”

  Yardley went out to meet her daughter. “What is it, darling?”

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Just wandering.”

  “Huh. Well, I need to use the bathroom.”

  “It’s over there down the hall.”

  She watched her daughter walk away, leaving wet footprints on the hardwood floors. Yardley took some paper towels and wiped them up. She waited until Tara went back to the pool before leaving the kitchen. She went to the other side of the house and to the door she guessed led to the garage. She had to try another two doors before she found it.

  Inside the garage were a blue Lincoln sedan and a motorcycle. She flipped on the light. The garage was neat and orderly. All the tools put away on the racks in ascending order based on size. No grease stains on the concrete floors. An office was built into the space. It had windows looking out over the cars. Yardley descended the few steps and crossed the garage. A desk wrapped around the entire room, and there was a computer and two printers. Unlike Zachary’s study, this office was messy and cluttered.

  She flipped through a few documents, mostly bills and some letters about a car Zachary was trying to purchase from Berlin. A rare type of BMW. Yardley saw a door behind her. She tried the knob, but it was locked. She found the garage door controls. The sound of the door gliding up the metal tracks made her anxious, and she pictured Zachary coming home unexpectedly.

  No neighbors were outside when Yardley stepped into the sunlight. She went around the garage. She hadn’t realized how large it really was until just then. Enough to fit four cars or more.

  The outside had only one window, and it was small. She had to stand on tiptoe to look inside.

  The room behind the locked door was some sort of workshop—except that there was a recliner and television on one side of the room and a coffee table with empty beer bottles strewed across it in front of the recliner. She ran her eyes over the entire room and settled on some objects covered with black cloth near the workbench.

  Yardley went back inside the house. She had noticed a bowl, something Asian and expensive, in the kitchen. It was filled with loose keys. She searched through them. They were clean metal, almost all unused. Spares. She took the bowl and went back to the office in the garage.

  It took six separate tries, but one key, a brass one, different from the others, unlocked the door. She waited a few seconds and listened, making sure Tara hadn’t come back in the house. Then she opened the door.

  The workshop was filled with dust and tools. Despite the window, there was no ventilation, and the door was on a spring hinge and closed on its own. There was a musty scent to the room, like old sweat. She flipped a light switch near the door.

  The workbench held scatterings of sawdust, and several woodworking projects were lined up on the shelves near it: incense burners and some bamboo crafted into walking sticks.

  Yardley skirted around the bench. The cloth she’d seen through the window was thick, almost like a blanket, and hung over something large and square. She pulled it off.

  It was one of Sarpong’s paintings.

  26

  Yardley was lying out on a deck chair watching the girls when River came home. She held two shopping bags and set them down before she kicked off her shoes and lay down.

  Yardley thought about the Sarpong painting in the garage as she watched River. It was the second in the series, the one River had nearly died being a part of. Behind that painting were the other three. They were excellent replicas on thick canvas, something that would have to be special ordered.

  “I hate the mall during sales,” River said. “It’s like the jungle for middle-aged housewives. Eat or be eaten.”

  “Get anything good?”

  “Some blouses. Oh, I got you something.” She dug into one of the bags and came up with a small blue T-shirt decorated with a rainbow and a puffy bear.

  “The Care Bears?” Yardley said.

  “I guessed you were a fan. Who didn’t love The Care Bears as a kid?”

  Yardley took the shirt and held it up. The bear had a red heart on its chest.

  “Tenderheart Bear,” River said. “Reminded me of you.”

  Yardley was grinning like a child who had just received a toy, and then the grin slowly faded as she thought about the paintings in the garage and what she was about to do.

  “I love it. Thank you.”

  River put on her sunglasses, releasing a deep, relaxing breath as she lay back again.

  She said, “I love listening to Tara and her friends. It’s so . . . I don’t know. Just the energy they have is something I’ve always wanted.” She waited a beat. “I can’t have children.”

  Yardley watched her in silence. River glanced at her and then away.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Why would you?”

  River watched Tara for a while. “There was just too much damage to my cervix to ever have a viable pregnancy.”

  “Damage?”

  River was silent for a long while. “When I was a young girl . . .”

  “You don’t have to say it. I’m so sorry, Angie. I don’t even know what to say.”

  “Yeah, well, what can you do? I survived, right? I survived my abuser and I survived the Crimson Lake Executioner. How many people can say that? But I don’t know how many of my nine lives I got left.” She was quiet a beat before adding, “You think some people can just be cursed, Jess? Like they’re just born to suffer and nothing else?”

  Yardley took her hand. “No.”

  She smiled and gripped Yardley’s hand tighter. “I hope that’s true.”

  After leaving River’s home, Yardley decided to call Baldwin.

  She sat in her car outside a burger joint while the phone rang and went to voice mail. She realized that she hadn’t eaten today, so she went inside.

  The place was set up like a 1950s burger hub, and the menu only had burgers, fries, and milkshakes. Something by Frankie Valli played on the speakers. Yardley ordered and sat down.

  Baldwin called halfway through her meal.

  “Cason, I have something I need you to do.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Of course,” he said in a severe tone. “More than anyone.”

  “Then do this thing for me and don’t ask me about it. Don’t ask why I need it done or why I think there’ll be something there. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Draw up a warrant asking to search the curtilage around River’s home, their garbage cans, the garage, and Zachary’s car. I’ll email you what to put in the affidavit.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Jess, is this something I need to be worried about?”

  “No questions, remember?”

  He exhaled. “You got it. I’ll get it done right now.”

  “Thank you.”

  She hung up and stared at her food, the thought of eating suddenly making her feel nauseated. She pictured River’s face as the FBI and local police arrived with a search warrant. The first thing she would ask Yardley was if she knew about it.

  She pushed the food away and left.

  27

  Yardley spent the next day at work reviewing files she was handing off to Jax. He sat in her office part of the day, his feet up on the desk as she gave him summaries of the cases he was about to inherit.

  “Do you know I wrote a book?” he said as she looked for a file in one of the boxes stacked in the corner.

  “I didn’t.”

  “It’s called Heart of Da
rkness in the Justice System. It’s about how I went up against the mob and the cartels and a few other gangs. Went on a book tour and everything. You should read it.”

  “You went up against the mob in Wyoming, huh?”

  He smiled. “You’re allowed to exaggerate here and there. People expect it.”

  She faced him. “We should focus on these cases, Kyle. I got the trial I had this week continued, but you’re going to have to do it next month.”

  He shrugged. “I work better under pressure.”

  “I’ve spent dozens of hours prepping it. You don’t think you could use my insights?”

  He shrugged again, looking out the windows. “Not my first rodeo.”

  She sighed and sat down on the edge of the desk. She folded her arms and glared at him. “You couldn’t care less what I think about any of these cases.”

  “Honestly? No, I don’t give a shit what you think about them.”

  “Why?”

  “We just do things differently.”

  “Bullshit. Be a man and be honest. Have some balls.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, I got balls, baby.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “I just think women prosecute a certain way that I don’t agree with.”

  “And what way is that?”

  He leaned back in the seat and took out a sucker, which he unwrapped and put in his mouth. “I’m not getting fired and sued over this.”

  “Stays between us. You just said you have balls, remember?”

  He grinned. “Okay, well, I just think y’all are too emotional. That’s all. And when you got the power to have people arrested, you gotta be cool and calm. I just think it’s harder for women to act that way a lotta the time.”

  Yardley’s eyes narrowed, but otherwise she didn’t allow herself to react.

  “I’d like to start movin’ my stuff in.”

  She nodded. “I’ll have everything out of here by the end of the day.”

  He rose, sucking on the sucker as he watched her. “I think maybe we’re not ending this well. Why don’t we talk about it more over dinner at my place? I can cook a gumbo that would—”

  “Try not to scuff the desk with your boots; it’s expensive,” she said on her way out, disgust coursing through her like a fetid river.

  “Where you going? I thought you wanted to go through all these cases?”

  “I have a meeting with a judge. We’ll finish later.”

  Baldwin couldn’t get the warrant for River’s place signed yesterday—no judge was available—and he was busy with another case today, so she’d had him send it to her. She’d made some adjustments and then printed it out this morning.

  Judge Thomas Nuhfer was older and near retirement. He was, as far as Yardley had seen, the strictest sentencing judge in the federal system in this part of the country. He routinely gave out ten- and fifteen-year sentences on first offenses and didn’t hesitate to impose a life sentence on cases other judges would give twenty years for. He was also the judge most likely to grant a search warrant on thin evidence.

  The rumors flew as to why he was the way he was. Some attorneys gossiped that when he was eighteen, his girlfriend had been kidnapped and never found. Others said that his father had been a strict disciplinarian, forcing him to stand on nails and hold books over his head as punishment. And still others said that a defendant he was lenient on went home and killed his entire family, and Nuhfer had never forgiven himself.

  Yardley just believed he was a small man who wanted to feel big.

  Most defense attorneys quietly accepted Nuhfer’s sentences, but she’d seen one who’d found a way out of his web. Dylan Aster, a younger attorney out on his own, had purposely yelled at Nuhfer, calling him every insult he could think of, even mocking his toupee. Aster had been held in contempt and taken into custody for a night, but it created a conflict on all future cases because now it was assumed Nuhfer couldn’t be impartial on any of Aster’s cases.

  Dylan Aster never had to appear in front of Nuhfer again.

  None of the other attorneys had understood what he did; they all thought Aster’s tantrum was just a childish response to an overbearing judge, but Yardley knew she was right because while being taken into custody, Aster had winked at her.

  Nuhfer sat in his chambers with a glass of sparkling water next to his computer. Two packets of Alka-Seltzer were next to the glass. He ate sunflower seeds out of a bag and spit the shells back into the same bag.

  “Judge, I think we have an appointment. May I come in?”

  He glanced at her, then turned back to his computer screen. “What for?”

  “Warrant I need signed.”

  He sighed like she had just asked him to help her move and said, “Sit down.”

  She sat across from him, took the warrant out of her satchel, and handed it to him. He put on reading glasses and scanned it, his lips moving as he read.

  “It’s thin, Ms. Yardley.”

  “We’re not asking to search the home or for a blood draw. Not even to search his place of employment. The garbage cans, the surrounding property, the garage, and his car. I feel that’s a minimal intrusion, Judge. Considering that the first victim is his lover and the second his girlfriend, I think probable cause is met.”

  “Why the garage? Why would you expect to find the evidence there and not inside his home?”

  “It’s doubtful Mrs. Pharr was ever in Mr. Zachary’s home, but she was in his car. And the second victim’s presence in the home as an occupant would complicate any evidence found.”

  Nuhfer thought a moment, staring at the warrant. Yardley felt butterflies in her stomach, and they were beginning to nauseate her.

  “Not to be blunt, Judge, but to quote Justice Scalia, nobody knows what probable cause is. I think it just means you view everything in the light most favorable to us and ask if it’s at least possible this man committed the offenses he’s suspected of. Our profile also suggests the killer works in the medical field, just like Michael Zachary.”

  Nuhfer signed the warrant and handed it back. “The garbage bins outside the home, the garage, and any cars in the garage or on the property. Nothing else.”

  “Of course. Thank you.”

  He turned back to his computer. In the hallway, she leaned against the wall. The only thing she could think about was what River would do when law enforcement showed up at her house and accused the man she loved of being the one who’d tried to kill her.

  28

  Grove Springs Middle School was a flat building in the midst of a residential neighborhood. The homes were run down, and the school had rust on the handrails and chips in the lime-green paint.

  Baldwin came as school was just starting and the kids were roaming around or chatting on the benches or walking to the convenience store up the block. He went in and found the front office. A woman in a beige dress sat at a computer and didn’t look up at him as she said, “Can I help you?”

  “Yeah, I’m Special Agent Cason Baldwin, I’m with the FBI. I’d like to speak with Principal Reilly, please.”

  “One second.”

  He folded his arms and glanced around the office. A bulletin board was up on the wall with announcements for a talent show, basketball games, and The Taming of the Shrew put on by the drama club. A young boy sat near him on the bench, his head held low.

  “What’d you do?” Baldwin asked.

  The boy looked at him. “I put a firework in a potato.”

  Baldwin whistled. “Blow it up?”

  He nodded, a look of terror on his face.

  “Well, I wouldn’t do it again, but the punishment will pass. Plus, the girls are gonna think you’re a rebel,” Baldwin said with a wink. It made the boy grin.

  A short, pudgy man in a sweater-vest came out of an office. He raised his eyebrows and said, “Ted Reilly.”

  They shook hands. “Cason Baldwin. I’m with the FBI, looking into Harmony Pharr’s disappearance. Could I steal a minute of your time?”
/>   “Of course. Come on back.”

  Reilly’s office was sparse but had a comfortable-looking blue couch against the wall with an incense burner on a table next to it. Both men sat.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I heard,” Reilly said. “First the abuse, then her mother, and now this. I swear the guardian angels must have something against that family. No offense if you’re religious.”

  “I’m not. You’re talking about the boyfriends with the abuse, right?”

  He nodded. “I called Child Services myself once when Harmony showed up to school with bruises all over her body. I mean these deep-black bruises the size of a baseball. She got put into a foster home for a couple weeks, but then they let her go back to her mother.” He shook his head. “She told me she didn’t want to go back. That the family that had her was actually nice to her, but her mother wanted her back.”

  “What about her father?”

  “What about him?”

  “You know his background?”

  He nodded as he folded his hands across his stomach. “I do. You’re asking if he did something to her? I don’t know. To be honest, my interactions with her were brief and far between. You may want to talk to Margaret. She was Harmony’s history teacher. They had a close relationship. She’s the one that brought all this to my attention.”

  Margaret Dimopoulous looked exactly like what Baldwin pictured when he thought of a schoolteacher: petite, with glasses, a skirt, and some marker on her hands. She resembled a teacher he’d had in elementary school who—not unlike Margaret with Harmony—had taken an interest in Baldwin and would bring him lunches when he didn’t have any or a coat during the winters, since his mother and her boyfriend wouldn’t buy things they considered as trivial as that.