Crimson Lake Road (Desert Plains)

by Victor Methos

  “If you don’t know, that means you did everything you could. What more could you have given that damn job? You have to do everything you can, and then the rest is just up to the universe.”

  Yardley felt an icy chill hit her heart. It was so pronounced it took her breath away. The realization overtook every other thought: she hadn’t done everything she could.

  There was one thing she had resisted doing, one thing she had refused to even consider. After she did it, then she could tell herself she’d done everything she could, but not before.

  “I have to go,” Yardley said. “Will you do me a favor? Will you stay here with Tara until I get back? I’m sure she’s sleeping, but I’d feel better if you were here.”

  “Of course. Where you going?”

  “To see someone I really don’t want to see.”

  68

  Yardley called Warden Sofie Gledhill. She explained what she needed, and the warden agreed, but only after telling her, “You sure? You remember last time what it felt like? You told me being in the room with him felt like being stuck in a coffin.”

  “I know, but I have to.”

  Yardley sat in the Low Desert Plains Correctional Institute’s parking lot until she received a text from Gledhill that a room was ready.

  The deputy at the reception desk had been waiting for her, though she still had to sign the log-in sheet and go through the metal detectors. After that, she was let through a set of steel doors and then a sliding door made of iron bars. A guard, a short man with a buzz cut, led her through the hallways to death row.

  The room they had set up for her was an attorney-client room. The last time she had been in this particular room, she’d watched Tara meet her father for the first time.

  “I’ll bring him in.”

  “Thank you.”

  Yardley sat down on a metal stool and waited patiently. A clock was in the corner, and the only sound in the room was the ticking of the second hand. It was discomforting that it was so quiet; prisons were always loud. Filled with shouting, laughter—and occasionally screams.

  The steel door across the thick glass barrier opened, and Eddie Cal was brought in. Yardley had to force herself not to shiver, though her body felt like it had frozen in place, and she couldn’t move if she wanted to.

  He sat down and looked at her with his deep-blue eyes that looked so much like Tara’s she had to look away and prepare herself before looking back.

  “I didn’t expect to see you again,” he said softly.

  Yardley looked at the guard. “Can you give us a moment?”

  “Sure thing. Holler if you need me.”

  Yardley waited until the guard had left and then looked at Cal. He appeared the same as he had two years ago, maybe more gray in his scruff and on his temples.

  She wanted to scream at him, to throw things, to call the guard back and tell him to hurt him in some way . . . but she couldn’t. She needed his help, and whatever he had done to Tara would have to wait until later.

  Yardley swallowed down her anger and forced her face to remain passive. “I suppose congratulations are in order for staying your execution indefinitely.”

  He gave a small shrug. “There’s lawsuits by various bleeding-heart groups pending, and the new governor is opposed to the death penalty, but it’s just delaying the inevitable. You look beautiful.”

  The comment revolted her, but she showed no reaction.

  “What are you doing here, Jessica? I don’t think I have any more fans living in your home, do I?”

  She interlaced her fingers and placed them on her knee, appearing as calm as possible, though the comment filled her with terror and disgust in a way she hadn’t been prepared for. She inhaled deeply to relax herself and said, “I need your help.”

  A smile crept to his lips. He blinked slowly, taking her in.

  “You must be desperate to see me.”

  “I am.”

  “And what do you have to offer me for my help?”

  “Nothing. Other than I’ll put some money on your commissary account.”

  He chuckled. “Doesn’t sound like much.”

  “You’ll either help me or you won’t, Eddie. I’m not going to beg you.”

  He inhaled deeply and shifted on the stool. His chains jangled and made her think of a rattlesnake.

  “I would say no if it were anybody else, but it’s stimulating to see you. I have drawings of you up in my cell. Would you like to come back and see them?”

  “No.”

  He watched her in silence. “How is our daughter?”

  Yardley had to swallow, just to have some sort of movement, but didn’t avert her gaze or snap at him. He was testing her to see how much she knew. “She’s studying robotics at UNLV. She’s working with a company right now that has plans to hire her after graduation. She’ll be their youngest engineer.”

  His head tilted slightly. “Has she exhibited any behaviors that have disturbed you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “By now, if what I have is perhaps genetic, she should have exhibited traits you recognize in me.”

  “She is nothing like you, Eddie. And no, she’s fine. Perfectly happy. Or at least as happy as someone can be considering the life you put her through.”

  “If I recall, you agreed to marry me. Aren’t we both at fault for her suffering? You maybe a little more for not seeing who I was?”

  He grinned, and his grin was awful.

  “What do you need?” he said.

  “Do you remember Sarpong? The Night Things paintings?”

  “I do.”

  “You were obsessed with them for a long time. You wouldn’t talk about anything else. You never told me why.”

  “They struck a nerve in me. It was rare for someone else’s art to do that, but it happened occasionally. I had the same reaction to a few of Caravaggio’s works.”

  She nodded. “I remember that. But it wasn’t like with Sarpong.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” He leaned forward slightly. “This is about the murder on Crimson Lake Road, isn’t it? I read a fascinating article on the whole thing in the Sun.”

  “I know the journalist who wrote that piece. It was accurate.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it was. He’s a good writer. Detailed. He had some illuminating insights on the motivations of the killer.”

  “He’s always written like that.”

  “I’m sure . . . there’s a certain something in your voice when you talk about him. Are you sleeping with him?”

  “You don’t have the right to ask me questions like that.”

  “But you have the right to come here whenever you like and ask for my help?”

  She was silent as they watched each other. “This was a mistake.” She rose.

  “You want to know why your killer is inspired by the Sarpong paintings, don’t you?”

  She watched him a moment, then sat back down. “Yes.”

  “What do you think they mean? Why did Sarpong paint them?”

  “I spoke to a psychiatry professor I trust, who consulted an expert in twentieth-century art. The expert said they’re about morality and our consciousness. About how evolution has given us the ability to turn off our morality when it suits us, and we’re not even aware when it happens. Sarpong was a biologist by profession, so it would make sense that the themes of his paintings would reflect evolutionary ideas.”

  He grinned. “How poetic. Utter bullshit, but poetic.”

  “What do you think they mean?”

  “They’re not about evolutionary psychology. It’s much simpler than that. Much more primitive. What do you feel when you look at the victims in his paintings?”

  “I feel . . . pity for them.”

  “Why?”

  “They suffered before their deaths.”

  “And what type of person would make them suffer?”

  “A sadist.”

  He shook his head. “There’s no evidence Sarpong was a sadist or into any type
of deviant sexuality. Who would want to make someone suffer before they killed them yet isn’t a sadist?”

  Her brow furrowed as she ran through the possibilities. “I don’t know. A person filled with rage?”

  “And why would rage lead them to that?”

  “Because they’re unstable, and they don’t have insight into themselves to know when they’re rageful.”

  “No, Sarpong knew exactly what he was doing. Those paintings took more than six years to complete. What kind of rage would a person have to feel to take six years to paint an expression of that rage? What type of anger could sustain itself that long?”

  Yardley suddenly lost her breath, almost like a gasp, and she shivered. “Revenge . . .”

  Cal was silent, watching her unblinkingly.

  Yardley’s heart raced. “He’s taking revenge on them, and it has something to do with Crimson Lake Road.”

  Cal leaned forward more, as though trying to smell her. A grin perked his lips as his eyes gazed into hers.

  She wanted to leave, to run out without another word, but she forced herself to say, “Who was Sarpong taking revenge on?”

  “Four wives, four divorces, four paintings. In life, he was a cowardly man who was dominated in his relationships by stronger women, but in his paintings he was God over those women. He could do whatever he wanted to them.”

  Yardley looked into his icy blue eyes, and she thought they suddenly looked dead. The eyes of a corpse. “Thank you for your help, Eddie.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. Seeing you is reward enough,” he said with a smile.

  She ignored his comment and said, “I’ll put some money on your account.”

  “I appreciate it. You wouldn’t believe how expensive donuts are in here.”

  She rose, and as she turned away, she suddenly stopped and looked at him again. “If they’re about vengeance, why were you obsessed with them? Who were you taking revenge on?”

  He gave a quiet grin, then said, “I’ll see you in your dreams, Jess.”

  69

  Aster and Ricci sat on the couch in Weston’s chambers and Yardley in one of the plush leather chairs. Weston was running late.

  Yardley felt jittery, anxious. It felt like the smell of death row—old concrete, sweat, and dust—was still on her and wouldn’t come off.

  “Thought any about manslaughter?” Aster said.

  “I might be doing better than that,” Yardley said.

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “There was another killing on Crimson Lake Road last night. Once I confirm a few things, I’ll be dismissing the case against Zachary, unless I find more evidence of his involvement.”

  The door opened, and Weston hurried in. “Sorry, sorry, it’s this damn IBS. Kicks my ass in the mornings.” He went to a rack that held his robe. He slipped it on and sat down behind his desk, before taking out some antacid from a drawer and a bottle of water from a minifridge underneath the desk.

  “So I received your motion, Ms. Yardley, and frankly I’m not inclined to grant it.”

  “It’s necessary, Your Honor. And it’s only three days. We’ll start the trial again right where we left off on Friday, or I’ll be dismissing the case, depending on what I find in the next few days.”

  “That’s not fair to that jury to sequester them for three days because you didn’t do a thorough enough investigation before filing this case.”

  “I’m not asking for them to be sequestered. I don’t want to impose any more hardship on anyone because of this, but it’s something I need to do.”

  Weston looked at Aster. “And you’re on board with this?”

  Aster shrugged. “Gotta go with the flow.”

  Weston let out a long breath. “Fine. Three days. Trial starts again Friday morning at eight, or I’ll expect a motion to dismiss on my desk at that time. Not one hour more, Ms. Yardley.”

  “I understand. Thank you.”

  Aster said, “We should grab lunch and talk.”

  “I can’t; I’ve got a drive ahead of me.”

  “To where?”

  The drive to Fruit Heights didn’t take as long as she remembered, but the temperature sat at 110. By the time she pulled into town, her blouse had stuck to her with sweat. She went into a diner bathroom to clean up before ordering ice water and taking a few minutes to think. Baldwin was meeting her down here later in the afternoon after he finished testifying in another case. He had tried contacting Jude Chance and couldn’t find him. Yardley had told Chance they had a witness, and hours later the witness was dead. That thought kept running through her mind, over and over. The idea of him doing it himself was preposterous, but was it possible he had let someone know that they were close? Did he know who the Executioner was? The possibility sat on her chest like a heavy weight. The truth was she liked Chance and didn’t want to believe it about him.

  Chief Wilson was at his desk eating a tuna sandwich with coffee when Yardley got to the station house. When he saw her, he took another bite, then set the sandwich down.

  “You’re late,” he said with a mouthful of food.

  “Sorry, just needed a minute.”

  He took a manila folder out and tossed it onto the desk. “Names of all the neighbors and friends of the Jones family that we had at the time. I could’ve faxed it to you.”

  She took the folder and opened it. It held only seven names. “I need to visit with them today if they’re still here.”

  “Those are the ones that aren’t dead and haven’t moved. They’re still around. The first three are at work—I wrote down the addresses there. The others are retired.”

  Yardley looked through the file. What she really wanted were photos of Bobby Jones, Sue Ellen’s brother. The boy who saw Tucker Pharr kidnap his sister and get away with it. If anyone had the motivation for vengeance against Tucker Pharr and his family, it was Bobby Jones.

  “Did you find any photos of Bobby Jones?”

  He shook his head. “Probably all got tossed when their father died and he went into foster care.”

  “Any idea where he could be? I would really like to talk to him.”

  “Couldn’t say. I placed a couple calls after talking to you, and DCFS completely lost track of him after he ran away from his third foster family. No criminal convictions or credit cards in his name, nothin’ like that. I don’t think he wants to be found, if he’s even still alive. Why you so desperate to talk to him anyway?”

  She rose. “I really appreciate this, Chief. Thank you.”

  He shrugged as he sipped some coffee. “Hell, no skin off my nose.”

  The first on the list was a man named Reginald Perez. He had been a friend of Sue Ellen Jones’s father. Chief Wilson’s note said they had served in the army together. He worked at a trucking warehouse. Two men were in the main office when Yardley walked in, one in dirty coveralls and the other in a collared shirt and jeans. They stopped speaking and stared at her.

  “I’m looking for Reginald Perez.”

  The man in the coveralls said, “You found him.”

  “My name is Jessica Yardley. I’m an attorney with the Clark County District Attorney’s Office. Mind if we speak in private?”

  The other man said something about finishing up tomorrow and then left the office. Yardley strolled to the counter. Behind them on the wall was a calendar of nude women, a tall blonde displayed for the month. Oily fingerprints had stained the photo over her breasts.

  “I’m here about Sue Ellen Jones.”

  He looked surprised for a second but then sat down behind the counter. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a bit,” he said. He took some chewing tobacco out of a tin in his pocket and put a pinch between his cheek and gums. “What about her?”

  “I’m following up on some things in a current case that relates to her. I was told you were close to the family.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Her daddy was a good friend of mine from way back. We’d play poker at their house every Friday. Sue
Ellen would get us food and drinks and we’d give her a quarter here and there. Her daddy said she never spent the money. She was a good kid.”

  “Tucker Pharr was never convicted for her disappearance. Do you believe he was the one responsible?”

  “Hell yeah, I believe it. I know it. Everyone knows it. Sue Ellen’s brother, Bobby, saw the whole damn thing. Everyone knew it was Tucker and no one could do a damn thing about it.” He spit into a cup on the counter. “I hope he’s dead.”

  “No, no, he’s not dead. But his daughter’s missing. She’s the same age Sue Ellen was.”

  He nodded. “Well, that sucks for her, but I hope it gives him a worlda hurt.” He spit again. “What you here for really? This shit is from a long time ago.”

  “I’m looking for Bobby Jones. Chief Wilson had no photographs of him and assumed that all the family photos were thrown away when his father died. Bobby went into the foster care system, and the last thing we know about him is that he ran away at the age of sixteen.”

  “Yeah, I feel for the boy. First his mama dies of cancer, then he loses his sister, and then two months later his daddy drops dead. He was just a kid, he didn’t deserve a life like that.” Perez was lost in thought a moment. “Wish I coulda helped him. I just didn’t have room. I had five kids in the house back then. I just couldn’t do it.”

  “I was given this list,” Yardley said, pulling out the folder that Wilson had given her, “and told that these people might know something about Bobby. Can you think of anyone else I should talk to?”

  He shook his head. “No, ain’t many people left that knew them. I’d talk to her, though,” he said, pointing to one of the names. “Gail. She would watch Bobby and Sue Ellen most days when their daddy was at work.”

  “And she’s still in town?”

  He nodded. “She’s old, don’t go out none. That’s her right address.”

  “Do you have any photographs of Bobby?”

  He shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t keep that shit if I did. Bad memories.”

  “If you saw a picture of Bobby today, you think you’d recognize him?”