Valley of Shadows

by Cooper, Steven

  Mills leans back in his chair, his posture a signal. His phone rings. It’s Kelly. He tells Woods he has to pick up. “Hon? What’s up?”

  “The results are in . . .”

  “I kind of had a feeling. And?”

  “And she won’t give them to me over the phone.”

  “Oh.”

  “She said she wouldn’t give them to me over the phone, positive or negative,” Kelly explains. “She says she’ll stay late if I can make it there by five.”

  “I’ll meet you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I said I’ll meet you. Text me the address.”

  Kelly says she will, tells him she loves him, and she’s gone.

  A probing look occupies Woods’s face. “Everything OK?”

  “Yup,” is all Mills says.

  “Can we pick up where we left off?”

  “Yup.”

  Mills looks at his watch. He has an hour.

  “The preacher says you’re scaring his members by nosing around.” “Not my intention.”

  “He’s very upset.”

  “Is he?”

  “He told the chief the next time you show up it should be with a search warrant or a subpoena, or don’t bother coming . . .”

  “All the more reason to show up.”

  Woods throws his hands up, paces. “I don’t know what to say. I want to avoid a lawsuit. These people sued the U.S. government for Christ’s sake.”

  “Not for Christ’s sake, let me assure you. And they lost.” “Whatever, Mills. I don’t want this to look like we’re persecuting a religion.”

  “A cult.”

  Woods stops pacing, turns to Mills. “I get it. But I’m not interested in a standoff.”

  “We’re not even close to that.”

  Woods makes an attempt to wave as he leaves Mills’s office, but the hand gesture looks more like a slice. Mills thinks it was intended for his neck.

  Dr. Eileen Gilmer sits behind her desk, her face placid, her skin unadorned by makeup, and she says, “The pathology report shows you have invasive ductal carcinoma. A clinical term for breast cancer.”

  Kelly takes a short breath. “I figured. I’ve been getting a bad vibe,” she says.

  Mills wants to open his mouth and scream, but it’s one of those nightmares when he can’t make a sound.

  “Before your vibe gets any worse, Kelly, I want you to know I’ve been down this road with many, many patients, and most are living healthy lives today,” the doctor says. “I don’t want to sugarcoat it either, but let’s just take this one step at a time. First, you’ll go back and meet with a surgeon and medical oncologist at the breast center and discuss your options.”

  “Which are?” Kelly asks.

  “A lumpectomy or a mastectomy,” the doctor replies. She describes both procedures, comparing and contrasting the indications and the benefits. Mills wants to be taking mental notes, and he’s trying, but his stomach is a kettledrum, the percussion giving birth to waves of nausea; he might throw up.

  “I want the lumpectomy,” Kelly says. “I don’t need to deliberate.”

  “Spoken like a true attorney,” Mills says for comic relief. “Did you know my wife is an attorney?”

  The comedy lands like a lead balloon, providing no visible relief, which is to say, not comic at all, and Mills’s stomach becomes volcanic. He listens but doesn’t listen as doctor and patient continue to discuss, and he doesn’t actually hear anything until Dr. Eileen Gilmer says, “You can go in as early as Friday.”

  “This Friday?” Mills asks.

  “Yes,” she replies. “I’ve talked to my colleagues over there and they have a couple of procedures postponed. They can fit her in, if she wants.”

  “No. I don’t think we should rush it,” Mills says.

  Dr. Gilmer leans forward. “And I want to emphasize that there is no rush. You could wait a week. You could wait three weeks. Personally, I’d like you to do it sooner than later, but there is no immediate rush.”

  “What about the cancer spreading?” Mills asks.

  Kelly tugs his arm and says, “Alex, could you just shut up for a minute and stop talking for me?”

  Mills doesn’t say anything but acquiesces by retreating physically into himself, withdrawing in the chair, lowering his head, studying the pattern of the carpet below.

  “We’re not worried about the cancer spreading over a week or two,” the doctor explains.

  “I want to do it Friday, if they really have an opening,” Kelly insists. “The judge is off, so I don’t have to be in court. Otherwise, I’d wait. But the timing works out.”

  The doctor nods. “I’ll make arrangements for you. You’ll probably have to go over there tomorrow morning for some labs and to meet with the team.”

  “Fine.”

  “Hon, can we talk about this later?” Mills asks as he emerges from his retreat.

  “There’s nothing to talk about, really.”

  “What about recovery time?” Mills persists. “Don’t you want to know if and when you’ll be able to get back to work?”

  Kelly doesn’t reply. A truck thunders by. Mills can hear its brakes screeching at the intersection. Taking a cue, the doctor says, “Recovery time from a lumpectomy can be anything from a few days to a couple of weeks. For you, I suspect the shorter end.”

  “What stage cancer is this?” Kelly asks.

  “We don’t really identify the stage right now,” the doctor says. “We think the tumor is about two centimeters, which is not insignificant, but that will be confirmed with surgery. They’ll take a sample of your lymph nodes and that’ll give us the bigger picture.”

  Kelly asks about radiation and the doctor says her guess is six weeks. Kelly nods as if she’s letting that sink in, as if she’s still probing too, and she asks about chemotherapy. The doctor tells her that the team at the breast center will recommend chemotherapy if it’s deemed necessary after the surgery. Kelly is braver than anyone in the room, the way she sits there interviewing the doctor. She’s braver than her husband, the way he sits there imagining the worst, and as he sits there, again, on the verge of hurling lunch. He’s overcome by a damp chill. His head is in his hands. He’s not proud of himself. But he’s proud of her. He’s so fucking proud of her as she stands up and extends a hand to the doctor, as the women shake firmly with knowing smiles, as Kelly nods defiantly even though the cancer, as Mills sees it, is casting shadows everywhere.

  Later, at home with Kelly, he looks at his wife and notices the first signs of affliction. She’s beaten up, wiped out. She has the opposite of a sunburn on her face; it’s the fluorescence of disease. Maybe he’s making too much of this, but he’s never seen her like this before. Never as in never. They’re both on the couch reading. “You don’t feel well,” he says to her.

  “Just exhausted,” she says.

  Despite the malaise of her complexion, there is a contentment on her face, a God-given rendition of goodness that she was born with. It’s a sleepy contentment now, but it’s there and it confounds Mills in the contradiction. If he could hold her as tightly as he craves, he’d surely break her. “I’ll make dinner,” he announces.

  “I had planned on that,” she says.

  “I love you.”

  “Ditto,” she tells him. “When do you think we should tell Trevor?”

  “Whenever you feel it’s right.”

  “I’d like to wait ’til we know more.”

  He leans forward, grabs her hand. “I support whatever decision you make.”

  As he gets up from the couch to prepare dinner, his phone rings. “Mills,” he says absently.

  “Detective Mills, it’s Aaliyah Jones.”

  “Who?”

  “Aaliyah Jones, from Channel 4.”

  “Oh right,” he says. “I’m sorry but this isn’t a great time . . .” “Someone’s following me,” she whispers.

  “What?”

  “Someone’s following me,” she rep
eats. “Gus Parker warned me about this last week. And he was right.”

  “Are you in your car or on foot?”

  “In my car,” she replies. “Can you meet me?”

  Mills looks at his wife. No way. No freaking way. And he doesn’t feel bad about it when he says, “No. I’m sorry. I can’t. I have a family issue.” “Oh my God,” she begs. “Can you send someone?”

  “How long have you been followed?”

  “About ten minutes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “He’s making every turn I make.”

  “You know it’s a he?”

  “No,” she says. “I can’t see.”

  “Can you identify the car?”

  “I can’t tell. Shiny and new, I think.”

  Mills knows he should jump in his car. He knows he should stay home. He knows too many things about being faced with bad choices. He can hear tires squealing on Aaliyah’s end of the call. “Aaliyah,” he says, “you have a few options. You can pull into a public place, like a gas station, or you could drive to police headquarters and I’ll have someone meet you.”

  “OK,” she says.

  “How far are you from downtown?”

  “Less than ten minutes.”

  “Fine,” Mills tells her. “Do not go home. Go to headquarters. Park out front on West Washington. Put on your hazards.”

  “I’m on my way . . .”

  “Stay on the phone w—”

  But she disconnects. Mills dials Powell, asks her to meet Aaliyah Jones at headquarters. Powell says something about being late for a date and Mills says, “Just leave her car there and take her someplace she feels safe. Leave her with a friend or coworker. Mission accomplished.”

  “Fine,” Jan says. “But you owe me.”

  “Infinitely,” he tells her. “Call me if there’s an update.”

  When he hangs up Kelly looks at him and says, “What was that about?”

  “Who the fuck knows,” he replies. “And let’s not think about it.”

  Truth is, he doesn’t know. Could be Aaliyah Jones is paranoid. Could be she’s in danger. Powell can figure that one out. He does know one thing. The only life he can protect tonight is Kelly’s.

  25

  Gus sits again with the book. He tries to focus not on the story, but rather on the leftover vibes of a woman who once traversed these pages. The lights are out in the house but for the one lamp over the couch where he sits. He just finished the tofu rice bowl he picked up on the way home from work. Maybe too much soy sauce. There’s a salty taste in his glands. He hears the collective whir of the neighborhood’s air conditioning outside. He hears Ivy breathing at the other end of the couch. He listens for more, but hears not even another heartbeat— inside or out. He’d like to hear the heartbeat of Viveca Canning. He touches the lines of The Secret Garden, grazing the words with his fingertips. He sees the woman. She’s a familiar face, this most social of socialites. Her face has appeared on the covers of glossy magazines. She’s that woman on the news, the one who’s always raising money for good causes, the one with the pastel voice who enunciates her words with hope and an almost inaccessible grace. Almost. But she’s accessible. People adored her. Gus can access her somehow. There she is, her hair as white as clouds. Gray streaks at her temples. Her greenish-hazel eyes stare back at him, happy, beneficent. This is not a vision, per se, just her face as he has seen it before.

  A light breeze stirs. But not a door or window is open. And yet the breeze persists, softly circling him, and the pages turn. Or feel like they’re turning. The wind rises, first a whisper at his neck, and then a whip, a storm, a monsoon. The pages flip furiously in his hands. There’s an urgency to escape, to outrun the danger. And she’s running in the shadows. But she can’t outrun the storm, and there’s nothing Gus can do to help her. Instead, she turns to a wall of rock, braces herself, brings her shawl to her face, and waits for the ruin to pass. She hides there behind the gossamer shield, and then she’s a shadow, herself, a silhouette on the mountain. She must leave and she must leave soon. This is she and her endurance. This is she and her intensity. This is she who survives and transcends and makes this a beautiful afternoon.

  Her kids are coming home from school. They’re young. She’s young. She throws her arms open to both of them, and they rush in for an embrace, and they stay there, holding each other close, and Viveca Canning’s smile is on fire. In the house, she and her husband sit at opposite ends of the table, the children between them. And they talk about school. And about church. And they say a blessing. Gus strains to listen but can’t hear the words. He sees lips moving in unison, and he hears a ring of whispers rise from the table, but nothing else of the prayer. Finally, Gus hears “Amen,” and then the slamming of a door that echoes from the end of a long, dark tunnel. Again, a tunnel. Gus knows, even in this trance, that the tunnel is most likely his own, mostly represents his own uncertainty about this murder and the vast ground he must cover between the known and the unknown. He watches the family. The children exchange mischievous glances. The boy launches a pea at his sister. She kicks him under the table and he laughs. The parents barely acknowledge each other, Viveca absorbing the sight of her children, seeing them as her own salvation, her husband only looking at the food on his plate. Then the windows explode.

  Gus recoils. He slams the book shut.

  That man. Her husband.

  Gus picks up a vibe right now as his fingers linger on the book cover. The message is ringing in his ears. Viveca Canning’s husband paid for something with his life.

  Mills picks up the phone.

  “Your girl never showed,” Powell says, sidestepping hello.

  “What girl?”

  “You know, the reporter . . .”

  He puts a hand to his forehead. “Aw, Jesus Fucking Christ,” he groans. “You gotta be kidding me. How long have you been waiting?” “About thirty minutes.”

  “Shit. She should be there. Let me call her. Stand down for a few minutes.”

  He can’t reach Aaliyah Jones. He dials her several times and gets sent to voice mail each time. Kelly is clearing the dishes. She points to the coffee maker and he nods. He calls Powell back. “Hey, can you do me a favor? Run by her house and—oh, shit, I don’t have her address . . .” “Never mind. I’ll run her DL,” Powell says. “Spell her first name.” “Man, I owe you.” He spells Aaliyah. “You sure you don’t mind doing this?”

  “I said I’d run her DL and find her address. I didn’t say I’d go over there.”

  “Come on, I’ll make it up to you, Jan.”

  She scoffs. “What’s wrong with you, Dude?”

  “Nothing. It’s something . . . with Kelly.”

  “Something?”

  “Yeah, I can’t talk about it.”

  “Uh-huh. Is she okay?”

  “I said I can’t talk about it.”

  “OK, Alex. Forget it. I’m already fifteen minutes late for my date. A girl needs to get laid. I’ll enlist Preston for this little reconnaissance mission.”

  He can hear her car peeling out. “Thanks,” he tells her.

  When he’s off the phone, he pours himself a cup of decaf and turns to Kelly. She’s asleep on the couch. He doesn’t know whether to throw a blanket over her and leave her there, or to gently carry her to the bedroom. He stares at his resting wife, his masterpiece, and he doesn’t know what to do.

  26

  As usual, he sits in a conveyor belt of traffic the next morning, as the Squaw Peak Parkway slowly churns cars southward into Central Phoenix. It’s 7:55 a.m. Mills stares across the valley as the morning sun chases away the long shadows of dawn, the sleepy mountains coming to life, flexing their muscles, welcoming God, or whomever they answer to. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything. But this is how he makes it through today’s commute, watching a landscape he can’t control, that doesn’t need his control, one which, even if he were to conquer it, would be there tomorrow unchanged and indifferent to his feat.
Gus has always told him those mountains are alive, have some kind of inner pulse, something like that, and Mills has no proof the guy is wrong, but for now, for right now, the panorama sweeping across his windshield doesn’t ask a thing of him. It’s just there offering him a vast meditation. A constant stillness. This is an image he’ll keep.

  Even when his phone rings.

  Even when Ken Preston says he never found Aaliyah Jones.

  “She wasn’t at her house,” Preston tells him. “I would’ve called you, but it was midnight before I gave up.”

  “Hmm. Looks like we have a missing person situation on our hands.”

  “It doesn’t have to be our hands.”

  Preston must be studying the same view, Mills thinks. The detachment in the man’s voice sounds like the detachment in Mills’s mantra.

  “Okay, Ken, thanks,” he says. “I’m slowly rolling down the Squaw Peak. I’ll see you when I get in.”

  As soon as he’s off with Preston he dials Aaliyah Jones. The call goes to voice mail. He calls Channel 4 and they transfer him to her extension and, again, he gets voice mail. He calls back and asks to speak to an actual person, and someone picks up and says, “Newsroom. This is Liza.”

  “Liza, this is Detective Alex Mills from Phoenix, PD.”

  “The famous Alex Mills! What an honor.”

  Mills smirks. “Yeah, okay, I’m actually looking for Aaliyah Jones.” “Not coming in today. Called out sick.”

  “Out sick? When exactly did she call?”

  “I don’t know,” the woman replies. “I came in this morning and the note was on my desk. I’m the assignment editor, so I’m the first to see sick calls. She probably called in sometime between midnight and seven this morning,”

  “OK, thanks,” he says, as his car finally spills off the conveyor of the highway and onto the city streets.

  “Is there a problem?” Liza asks.

  Mills hesitates, knows his hesitation speaks volumes. So, he lies. “No, no problem. Just returning her call. As soon as you speak to her, have her call me.”