“Then who is it?” he asks, for a split second genuinely worried it’s another man.
“It’s nobody. It’s me.”
“But we’ve always been so good,” he says. “Probably better than most couples—and more often.”
“We’re perfect together,” she assures him. “But I’m not perfect right now.”
He lies flat, then pulls her close so she can rest her head on his chest. He strokes her hair as she drapes an arm across him. They lie there for a moment, still and quiet. “What’s not perfect about you, babe?”
“I went to the doctor last week. . . .”
His stomach twists. The blood seems to drain from his face. He never could have pretended to be ready for a moment like this. “What is it?”
“I’m menopausal.”
“What? Are we that old?”
“Wrong response.”
He lifts her face, then plants a kiss firmly on her lips. “Sorry. You know I don’t mean that.”
“So we’re looking at hot flashes, moodiness, a change in libido, and who knows for how long,” she says. “I’m kind of young for ‘the change,’ but I suspected it all along. And now the doctor’s confirmed it.”
“Well, it could be a lot worse, Kelly,” he says. “You could be sick. And you’re not sick.”
She begins to weep again. “I know that. But I feel like my life is over.”
“C’mon, that’s a bit much,” he says. “You can feel sorry for yourself if you want to. I support that, hon. But I don’t support the doom or the gloom about life. We’ve got a great life, you know, aside from this bullshit with Trev.”
She wipes her tears and smiles. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yup.”
“Next time you find out something at the doctor, don’t wait a week to tell me,” he says.
“Just be ready for a lot of changes,” she warns him. “And I want to apologize now for any temperamental episodes in the future. And for running the air conditioner at twenty below zero.”
“Apology accepted.”
“You and Trevor might want to go buy flannel.”
“Hard to find in the desert.”
“And I’ll probably won’t be doing as much cooking,” she says cheerfully. “Or other household chores.”
“Wait a minute! I don’t think that’s a symptom of menopause.”
“It is if I say it is,” she insists with a hearty laugh.
“Good night, Kelly.”
He flips off the light and holds her until the rhythm of her body and her breathing changes and she’s drifted off to sleep. But he can’t sleep. He stares into the black fabric of night, and through the seams he finds slivers of their memories. The very first day they met, how she walked over to him, confidently, her hand extended, and how she smiled and her eyes gleamed when she said, “As a law student I just want to say how much I admire your father. Lyle Mills is an inspiration.” That did not endear her to him; it didn’t turn him off, either, but he would not have considered dating a woman whose first attraction to him was an attraction by proxy. He would tease her about her “come-on” line for years. And next he sees her coming toward him down the aisle. She was illuminated. And the joy and the beauty and the grace on her face said everything. Maybe too much. Trevor’s birth. Fear, love, panic, love. Their first house. The road trips. Birthdays. Holidays. This is a kaleidoscope of everything they’ve ever been and how impossibly lucky they are. They’ve never forgotten that. They remind each other constantly, even now, all of these years later. Sometimes the only reaction to all of this love and all of this good fortune over these years is to weep. And he has wept openly with her, and it has made them stronger.
He’s fully awake. He starts to balance their checkbook in his head. Do their taxes. Worry about Trevor. Worry about work. About the FBI report. About the congressman. About everything. He gets up, goes to the living room, and powers up his laptop. He emails Sergeant Jacob Woods: “Imperative that we talk in the morning.” He emails his squad: “Myers, work with Preston on FBI files; Powell, follow up with realtor’s office re: cardboard, Meeting @ 3 p.m. All hands on deck.” Then he sends an email to Gus Parker and attaches the two photos of the beach: “Let me know if you see anything here. One shot is the travel agent’s dad and mom, the other is the congressman with two of the victims. Same beach. Thanks, A.”
It’s almost midnight.
Alex goes on Google and searches for “menopause.”
There are 160,000,000 results in 0.74 seconds.
What, 160,000,000 results? That completely overwhelms him. Maybe knowledge is not the antidote to Kelly’s menopause. Maybe vacation is. He goes into the kitchen, pours himself a glass of wine, returns to his computer, and Googles “Hawaii.”
Somewhere between Maui and Kauai he passes out on the couch. He sleeps until six thirty when Kelly tugs at his hand.
“Was it the smell of my menopause that chased you from the room?”
“Huh?”
“Why don’t you crawl into bed for another half hour? You look like you could use it.”
He yawns broadly, then sits up. “Jesus. What the fuck . . .”
“Either get back in bed or join me for coffee.”
“Coffee,” he says.
On his way into work, his phone dings with Woods’s reply. “I’m in my office,” it reads. “Stop by when you’re ready.”
Gus and Ivy stroll the neighborhood for a morning walk. She’s been a lot peppier since she and Gus have been more predictably at his house in Arcadia. The birds are singing, and she responds with her typical leaps in the air when she spots them in the trees. This neighborhood, the sound of the valley whirring to life, people with their pets and their kids and their jobs, this is the real world. When he’s with Billie, whether behind the gates in Paradise Valley, or looking out to the sea in Malibu, he’s not fully in the real world. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but sometimes it’s as if he’s left his life when he leaves his home and goes to hers. Ivy, her eyes studious, looks at him as if she can read his mind.
“No, I’m not having second thoughts,” he tells her. “I’m just happy to be home with you. Okay?”
That seems to satisfy her, and she prances on. He doesn’t want to tell her that the indulgences have started to wear on him.
“Race you home?”
That’s all Ivy needs to hear, and she’s off like a bullet. He runs behind her, yelling at her to stop when they need to cross a street, resuming the chase on the other side. She’s yipping at the air. At home he bathes her and cooks up some human food for her. She dries off in the sun by the window, sleeping on the warming tile floor. Gus opens his email, sees the message from Alex Mills, and downloads the photos. He doesn’t have to be at work until eleven.
Mills is not fully seated when Woods says, “So, what’s up?”
“Good morning, Jake.”
“I think your word was ‘imperative.’ Imperative that we speak.”
“Right. It was. Because it’s imperative that we interview the congressman.”
Mills braces for an eye roll or a dismissive wave of the hand. Neither happens. Woods just sits there waiting for his subordinate to tap dance. But Mills smiles because the sergeant is not going to fuck with his newly reclaimed mojo. The days of his mojo getting fucked with are over. “I know it’s not a popular decision, but it has to happen,” he tells Woods. “You remember the Kimberly Harrington case?”
“Of course I do.”
“The twenty-fifth anniversary of her disappearance is this Friday.”
“Wow, twenty-five years,” Woods says. “But what does this have to do with Al Torento?”
“That photo I keep telling you about . . . of those guys . . . it was taken in front of the same hotel where the girl was staying.”
“At the same time?”
“We don’t know,” Mills replies. “That’s what we want to ask the congressman. We can’t ask anyone else because the other two guys in the photo are
dead.”
“Gotcha. Well, I’m not going to stand in your way.”
“And if he circumvents me again? If he goes to the chief or the mayor?”
Woods leans forward, cupping his chin in his left hand. “I’ll back you. I’ll recommend that Torento help us out.”
“Recommend?”
“Come on, Alex, we can’t force the guy to submit to questioning,” Woods says. “We have no grounds.”
Mills gets up. “He knows his two old buddies are dead. Apparently he has no fear, our invincible congressman.”
“Or he doesn’t want his name dragged into this during an election year.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ve been down this road.”
“I’m not saying it’s a good excuse, but it’s all about PR when you’re trying to stay in office. You just can’t have your name associated with a case like this.”
Mills drifts to the door. “You don’t think his stonewalling looks suspicious?”
“I didn’t say that. I think he’s freaking out because he’s afraid he might be next, or he’s freaking out because he knows something.”
“Thanks, Jake.”
The sergeant nods but says nothing as Mills backs out the door.
Gus studies the people posing in the photos. They’re on the same stretch of beach, the sea spreading out behind them. The man and woman are happy but not without troubles. The three guys are happy but not without mischief. He sees from one photo to the other a vivid entitlement in their eyes, as if, of course, they deserve this vacation, of course they will indulge, of course they will act as if they own the world as they reign over this corner of Mexico. Of course they will break the rules. He sees this specifically in the young men. The husband and wife feel entitled to be here, too, but they don’t want trouble. They have enough of that at home. She’ll allow herself more liquor than usual because, Lord knows, she needs it. The guys, though, they’ll make noise about their desires. They’ll grunt and whistle and ogle at the females on the beach and in the bars, and to them it will be all about “getting lucky,” because this vacation will be a complete disaster, and a waste of money, if they don’t all get laid at least once. Better be more than once.
Yes!
This is where the Spanish music plays. This is where it’s been playing all along. It’s a mariachi band on the beach. All day. All night. The tempo races, and Gus can see a frenzy of people dancing in the sand, in the water, on the terrace overlooking the beach. People spill out from everywhere in reverie. A constant beat. Horns blasting. Gus can almost smell danger in the sultry mix of salt air and alcohol, in the cocktail of perfume and cologne. Something fearsome stalks these people. Maybe he’s projecting—considering what he knows about the two dead guys in the photo—but the fear feels linked to that specific beach at that specific time, not to crudely dug graves twenty-five years later in Phoenix. He closes his eyes and tries searching for answers about the missing girl. He repeats her name several times. Waiting. On the sixth try, he finds her shrieking with joy as she splashes in the water, as she dances to the music, as she clinks margaritas with her girlfriends and they toast their fortunate lives. On this beach. In this paradise. Under the sun. Under the moon. It’s so dark now. He opens his eyes, and he’s compelled to look at the man in the middle. He can’t look away. It’s the congressman Alex has been talking about. There’s a gun. The congressman is in a room, and the blinds are closed. Gus sees the gun, but he can’t hear what’s happening. Too much noise from the street, too much traffic.
Ivy barks.
He turns to her and realizes she’s the only sound for miles. He looks at the clock on his screen. He’ll have to leave in a half hour.
Mills puts a call into Al Torento’s office in DC. A staffer answers and tells Mills that Torento is unavailable. Mills has no patience for unavailable. Really no patience. Without revealing too much, he stresses the importance of Torento taking the call. The staffer audibly balks, which makes Mills want to reach into the phone and grab the guy’s throat and squeeze his voice box ’til all that’s left in Washington, DC, is the squeak of a cornered mouse. Instead, he closes his eyes, warding off a migraine, and listens as the man tells him to call the district office and ask for Cal Whitmore, the congressman’s chief of staff.
“Thanks for calling your pal Al’s Phoenix office! This is Paisley. How can I help you this morning?”
The woman’s voice is the equivalent of two hundred milligrams of caffeine surging through the bloodstream of a sixteen-year-old cheerleader.
“Yes, this is Detective Alex Mills calling from the Phoenix Police Department. I need to speak to Cal Whitmore.”
“Your call is super important to us, sir. Can I put you on hold?”
“Sure.”
While on hold Mills listens as Al Torento narrates an exuberant list of his phenomenal accomplishments. His inflection has the same effect as riding in the car with Grandpa Mills, whose idea of driving was gas-brake-gas-brake-gas-brake. “I introduced legislation to protect Arizona’s water. I voted yes on fair trade, no on raising taxes, yes on education reform. I cosponsored a bill to protect our borders from illegal aliens and terrorists.” Then the prerecorded narration segues into a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” sung by Glen Campbell, who makes it as far as the “perilous fight” before Paisley interrupts.
“Thank you for holding, sir,” she says. “I appreciate your patience. I checked, and Cal’s in a meeting.”
Jesus effing Christ, Mills thinks. It took you that long to determine he’s in a meeting? He shakes his head and says, “Please put me through to his voice mail.”
Mills leaves a message.
When his phone rings about five minutes later, he knows instinctively that it’s not Cal Whitmore returning his call, or Al Torento coming out of hiding. And he’s not wrong. It’s Gus Parker reporting for duty.
“So I observed the two photos you sent. Very vivid. Very active. They took me right back to that spring break in Mexico.”
“They did?”
“Oh, yeah. Those guys were there, for sure. On spring break. And I think I saw that girl, the one who went missing.”
“You think?”
“I can’t be sure. It’s possible that the power of suggestion influenced the vibe,” he explains. “But the most important vision I had was the gun. There was a gun.”
“Okay . . .”
“I’m not sure what was happening, but I saw the congressman in a dark room, and there was a gun.”
“Who was holding the gun?”
“I don’t know.”
“C’mon, Gus.”
“I don’t know if anyone was holding it. I just saw a gun.”
“Was this in Mexico?”
“I have no idea. But I don’t think so. In my vision, the congressman looks more like the guy on the billboards, older, you know, not a college student.”
Mills enjoys this. Always enjoys this. “Could you tell what was happening, Gus?”
“Well, all I could see was the congressman in this dark room, a bare room, no furniture really, except a chair, I think,” Gus says. “And I really don’t know what was going on, but the expression on his face was so—what’s the right word here?—potent. Yeah, he was either furious or terrorized. Like he wanted to kill someone, or like he was about to be killed. I couldn’t hear what was going on because of all the traffic noise outside the room.”
“Wow.”
“Is that enough?”
“No,” Mills says with a laugh. “There’s no such thing as enough. But it’s great stuff. Let me know if anything else comes to mind.”
“If I have a chance later today, I’ll try to get back to that room. See what else it reveals.”
“Sounds good.”
“Have you considered a woman?” Gus asks. “As the killer. There seemed to be a feminine kind of vibe in that room with the congressman. Just a fraction of a vibe, really, but I thought I’d ask.”
“A feminine vibe,” Mills re
peats. “Hmm. I don’t know.”
“I think I’m seeing a woman with blond hair. But I might be getting mixed up by that girl who went missing. I told you she came to me in a vision. She was splashing around in the water—”
“We found evidence of blond hair in our third victim’s car.”
“It’s a woman’s hair,” Gus says emphatically.
“But not necessarily the killer’s.”
“Not necessarily,” Gus concedes. “But worth considering.”
Mills pauses while he tries to fit a feminine piece into the puzzle. “Doesn’t exactly fit the profile,” he tells Gus. “She’d have to be strong, stronger than your average female to somehow overpower these guys.”
“We don’t know they’ve been overpowered.”
“They’re dead, Gus.”
Gus laughs. “Right. And I’m not telling you that your suspect is a woman. I’m just asking if you’ve ruled that out.”
“I have not.”
“Good. Gotta get to work, man.”
Fascinating shit, Mills thinks as he ends the call and goes to seek his second cup of coffee of the morning. But there’s a balance. Always a balance with Gus Parker. A balance between how much is real and how much Gus’s revelations play like hippie poetry or those artsy movies with subtitles and symbols. For such a fan of classic literature, he rarely gets the pathos of those movies. And while he often doesn’t get Gus, he likes having a hippie brother.
Preston sends a text, asking if Mills can push the meeting back until three thirty. As Mills is typing, “Fine,” he sees a text from Kelly. He sends the one to Preston, then reads what Kelly sent him.
“Got a call from Corinne Heathrow,” the text reads.
“Lucky you,” Mills texts back.
“Mediation scheduled for Thurs afternoon in Chandler. Can u do that?”
“This Thurs?”
“Yup. Problem?”
“No I’ll make it work, babe.”
“I checked out the person they hired. All good.”
“ok, love you.”
“XO.”
And then his phone goes quiet. All his phones go quiet. His personal cell, his work cell, his landline. Crickets. Until he gets an email from the chief’s assistant, saying the chief would like to meet with Mills. Today, if possible. The chief? Pressure directly from the chief is unusual, but, of course, Mills had reached out to Torento this morning, which probably prompted the man-baby congressman to go running to the chief once again. Knowing he can push this off for at least a few days, Mills replies to the email, saying today won’t work. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never. Meanwhile, no one from Congressman Torento’s office has returned his calls, not from DC, not from Phoenix, least of all not from Torento himself. Mills dials the man’s wife. She’s not overjoyed to hear from him—not rude, just not inviting. She’s tired, worn, weary. That’s how she sounds.
Dig Your Grave Page 31
