A Dead Nephew

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “What’s going on in here?” a woman asked as she stepped inside. Her light red hair was pulled back and bound at the nape of her neck.

  “I’d love to hear the answer to that question too,” Frank said as he peered inside from behind her. For about ten seconds, I had a “Lucy moment,” wondering how to explain the awkward situation. Then Frank saw the gun.

  “Don’t anybody move,” I said. “Step away from the door and bring us a broom.” John Lugo smiled and tightened his grip.

  “We can’t move until you clear us a path,” John Lugo responded. “The sooner, the better. I could get used to this.”

  “The only thing you’re going to get used to is a tiny room with no windows,” Frank groused.

  “Hang on. I can clear a path,” Kim said. She grabbed a panel of wood leaning against the wall near her. It looked like the panels covering the windows, but Kim used it to push everything in front of her off to the side. When she reached us, she kicked the gun toward Frank and Denise, and we exited the building.

  “Denise and I came here to check out this place since Christian Cursor’s probation officer told us it’s where he was working when his probation ended. He got glowing reviews from his employer. When you said you were visiting Yucca Valley, you might have mentioned we’d find you here.”

  “First of all, you didn’t say you were going to be in the area today. Second, this wasn’t our original destination. In fact, you could have saved us some running around if you’d told us Christian Cursor worked at a dry-cleaner called The Cleaner Man.”

  “That’s a mascot or tagline, not the name of the shop,” Denise offered. Frank and I swiveled our heads toward her. “‘Donny’s Dry Cleaning’ is the name of the shop. The first we knew anything about the Cleaner Man was when we pulled into the alley and saw the faded sign with the little man on it. I guess we all ran into a few surprises today.”

  “I’m willing to forget about some of the surprises,” I said, fixing John Lugo with a gaze. “John just put a new twist on what happened the night Sacramento was killed. I hope he’s prepared to give you his version of events since Timothy has had so much to say about it.”

  “Sure, it’s about time,” John responded. “Tell me where and when to show up, and I’ll be there.”

  “You’re entitled to have a lawyer present, Mr. Lugo. Take a tip from me, though, and don’t rely on Andrew Clearwater. He might help Timothy Ridgeway, but not you.” John peered at me for twenty seconds before he replied.

  “I don’t need more bad advice. Can you recommend someone? This is only the beginning of the trouble for me, isn’t it?”

  “Yep. Frank Fontana’s not the only detective with questions for you. George Hernandez is handling Tango’s assault and his attempted kidnapping allegedly at your direction.”

  “Revenge is blind,” John responded. “That’s especially true when you don’t want to see the part you played in the worst tragedy of your life. That’s not an excuse. I’m surprised by how sick I am of destroying ‘everything good and decent in my life’ as you so aptly put it.”

  “Call Paul Worthington, he’ll recommend someone trustworthy,” Kim suggested. “You might have to postpone your meeting until tomorrow since I’m not sure how quickly he can get someone out here.”

  “That’s good advice,” Frank said and gave Kim and me a ‘whose side are you on’ kind of look. “You have until tomorrow to work something out. We can meet at our offices in Riverside. In the meantime, I’ll keep the gun. There are some surprises we can do without.”

  You can say that again, I thought. It was time to go home—too bad I didn’t stay there.

  28 The Blow

  When the winds picked up, I took it for granted that the evening blow was coming our way. As the sun drops lower in the sky, cooler air plunges toward the ground, the hotter air rises, and we desert dwellers get the blustery mix of wind we call “the blow.” The wind whistles and whines, causing everything to swing and sway. The tumbleweeds tumble. Initially, I was too preoccupied with Betsy’s story to worry about the weather.

  After we’d left Frank and Denise, Kim dropped me off at home. I dragged myself into the house, where Betsy was waiting. Even after I explained that Kim and I had just returned from the High Desert and shared what we’d learned there, Betsy didn’t budge. She wanted to visit a spot not far from the national park. Hikers had reported seeing a man, dressed like the Lone Ranger, and behaving strangely.

  “With a mask?” I asked.

  “No. He was wearing a white cowboy outfit like the one the Cleaner Man wore when Brien and I saw him. The hikers also said he was engaged in a ritual. He faced in each of the four directions, drank from a bowl, and poured some of what was in it on the ground. Then he collapsed, and the hikers were afraid it had been a suicide ritual. He bolted like a scared rabbit, though when they ran toward him, yelling. There’s an old Native gathering place not far from where they saw him. We need to visit the location in person.”

  “What did Peter have to say about doing this?” I asked.

  “I had to persuade him about my sense of urgency. John’s gang has been rounded up. Frank called Peter about sheltering John if he asks for protection. The hikers scared the Cleaner Man off this morning, so I believe this is a good opportunity to find and explore one of his hideaways. I promised to bring along the masks and to hide if we see him rather than chase him like I did before. Peter will join us as soon as he can. It’s vital that we now, Jessica.”

  “I believe you.” Betsy was persuasive. There was such urgency and conviction in her voice, my stomach responded with a telltale twist. I’d relented.

  As I cut through the park, headed back to the high desert, I wished I’d checked the weather report. Betsy was silent in the passenger seat of Bernadette’s SUV as I drove. She only spoke to give me directions once we were through the park. Her voice had that far away quality to it as the winds grew.

  After turning off the main road, we drove down a dirt road with the wind whipping around us. I parked near an outcropping of boulders on land owned by a band of the Mission Indians. Betsy had pointed out a place where we could hide the SUV. Then, without hesitation, she darted from the vehicle toward one of the amazing rock formations you find in this area. I tried to catch up as she took us into a half-circle of open space that backed up to the edge of the rocks.

  Betsy appeared not to be the least bit concerned by the gathering storm. She was sitting, cross-legged, on the ground, and hadn’t spoken for fifteen minutes. Betsy had quickly been swallowed up in shadows as the sun sank closer to the horizon, and the front moved in, driving clouds ahead of it.

  As the shadows enveloped me, I shivered. They felt heavy, like a blanket. Alive too, as if laden with the ancient spirits of those who had inhabited the area long before civilization “discovered” it and a series of nations fought to own it—Spain, Mexico, and the U.S.

  We were only a few miles from the Soaring Hawk Casino, but it was as if we were alone in the middle of a vast, empty desert. As the wind swirled just outside the semi-circle, it kicked up a dirt devil that rose high up into the air, carrying sand and desert debris with it.

  Suddenly, Betsy stood. She rose to her feet without using her hands. The woman is in amazing shape, although, as she stood there in front of me, she held her head. When she turned to face me, her eyes were unfocused, and she spoke Cahuillan words, not English.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, taking a step closer to her. “I didn’t understand what you said.”

  “This is it. I’m sure of it. This is where it all began for him years ago when he was still Randall Young. He returns here to renew his sense of purpose.” Then I heard the growl of an engine and the grinding of a vehicle fighting to shift gears. Loud enough to be heard above the howling wind, Betsy went on alert. “A storm is coming.”

  Without another word, the tall woman turned. Instead of walking toward the clump of trees where we’d parked the SUV, she stepped in among the rocks. Betsy mot
ioned for me to follow, then reached back behind her and pulled me up. The step she’d taken was more than I could have handled without her help. She didn’t stop.

  We kept moving upward, working our way deeper into the mammoth boulder formation. Some of the boulders were so smooth that they appeared to have been poured into their imaginative shapes, one on top of another. When we perched at a high point for a moment, I caught sight of the storm.

  A massive vertical wall of sand moved toward us, skirting the ground. Desert-dwellers have dozens of words for local winds and storms. This one was called haboob. Perhaps another Arabic term borrowed by the inhabitants of a fanciful “new Araby.”

  Betsy kept going, tracing a path that wound over and between rocks of all sizes. As she headed down, we were shielded on both sides from the wind as it blew harder, now screaming through the cracks and crevices around us. I spit out grit carried on the wind ahead of the haboob.

  When Betsy suddenly stopped, she dropped behind a ridge of rock and pulled me to her side. She put her fingers to her lips as we peered through the dim light. We’d covered a considerable distance when Betsy led us on that scramble over the rocks. I had no idea where we were, but I could hear a man’s voice clearly. Then, I saw him. Wearing an enormous white Stetson, and dressed in white from head to toe, he stepped forward through an opening into a cave-like sheltered area below us. He was quoting scripture.

  “Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, ‘Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place.’”

  I covered my mouth so I wouldn’t gasp or scream. He was carrying a body. Then a child of eight or nine stepped from behind him and spoke as they recited a verse together.

  “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel, therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me.”

  The man bent down, laid the body of a woman on the ground near a rocky wall across from us, and stepped back. The child began to weep. The woman was dressed in a thin, cotton gown like a nightie, and didn’t move.

  “When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”

  The child dropped to her knees and threw herself over the body; he bellowed.

  “Don’t touch her! Stand and be cleansed or die with her.”

  “I’ll die with her, Father,” she responded in a defiant tone. My whole body tensed, wondering what he’d do. Betsy let out a shrill cry that bounced around, echoing throughout the space. She leaned in and whispered in my ear. The man almost disappeared as he sought shelter from that cry beneath the ridge where we hid.

  “When you see me again, reach out and shove the loose rocks below you, and send them sliding. Then, don’t move.” I was speechless as Betsy disappeared without making a sound.

  “That’s the water baby’s cry, Ruth,” the Cleaner Man said. “Even in this barren, heathen land, spirits sound the alarm when there’s a death. Save yourself, child, and come away with me.”

  “No!” the child shrieked. The man she’d called her father reached out and yanked her toward him, pulling her off her feet. She kicked him, and he tossed her away as if she were a ragdoll. When Betsy let loose another of those cries, the child crawled closer to her mother as her father took shelter below me again.

  Betsy popped up out of nowhere, hidden in the shadows on a rocky outcropping near the child. I set off the rockslide as she’d instructed me to do. The child scampered toward Betsy and looked around as if trying to decide where to run. The Cleaner Man did the same when the child yelped. For a second, he looked up, and a scattering of rocks and dirt hit him in the face. His eyes were dark, and his face was coated in what must have been a white paste. Dirt had settled onto it, leaving streaks. Stumbling, he dodged another rush of dirt and rocks before disappearing again. When I peeked out, Betsy and the child were gone.

  “Where are you, Ruth? You will not defy me!” he screamed as the rockslide settled. Running in circles, he beat his chest in rage. His hat had fallen off, and his hair was shorn close. Christian Cursor, or whoever he believed he was, must have decided the child had run outside because he vanished into the storm. The sound of the howling winds swallowed his bellows. There was movement below. When I leaned out as far as I could without falling, I searched, but the woman was no longer lying on the ground. I screamed as a hand gripped my ankle from behind.

  “Shh! It’s me,” Betsy whispered as the Cleaner Man dashed inside. I cringed as he searched above him, trying to determine where the sound had originated. When his eyes finally settled back on the ground, he dropped to all fours, searching for the body of his wife. Betsy guided me down to her from below, as I squeezed through a crevice barely big enough for me to slip through sideways.

  Now what? I wondered. I could no longer hear it but imagined the storm raging outside as the Cleaner Man roared nearby. Betsy said nothing as she went to check on the child who was sitting calmly next to her mother. They were both so pale they nearly glowed in the cool, dark cavern. Diffuse light reached us from somewhere and revealed a shimmer of crystal on the rocky interior.

  “It’s best to be quiet until he’s seized by the spirit,” Ruth whispered. “When that happens, he visits all the babies in limbo. He’s gone for a long time—for days sometimes—but comes back renewed. While he’s gone, we’re able to move about more freely.”

  I glanced at Betsy. She shrugged as if she was wondering the same thing I was.

  “How often is he seized by the spirit?” I asked.

  “It used to be monthly. Lately, though, the pressure to be watchful has caused him to visit more often.” The child turned her back to us to tend to her mother.

  “Do you mean every day, Ruth?”

  “No, but he’s gone every week now,” Ruth replied.

  I nodded, hoping this didn’t happen to be the place he went when he visited the babies in limbo. I figured that was a lie, and I felt sickened, more convinced he went missing from home to find and cultivate his relationships with those he preyed upon. A wave of claustrophobia followed as our hiding place momentarily felt like a trap.

  I smelled water, which was a good thing if we had to stay here for long. In the meantime, I had a bottle of water in the fanny pack around my waist. The bulging fanny pack is one reason I’d struggled to get through the opening. My gas mask was in there, along with a few other items.

  “If you’ll give me your bandana, I’ll wet it a little. I want to clean the woman’s face to see how badly injured she is,” I whispered to Betsy. “We may be able to wait out the Cleaner Man, but I don’t believe the woman can.”

  “I agree. Ruth’s right, though, that we need to remain as quiet as possible. He’s raging, but he’s also looking for us. I blocked the space I used to drag his wife in here, and the crevice you dropped through is too small for him. It’s not too small for him to use the gas if he’s brought it with him.”

  “You did as Peter asked and brought your mask, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but that won’t help Ruth or her mother.”

  “True, we’ll remain as quiet as we can,” I responded. “I’ll clean up Ruth’s mother, and then I’ll see if I can find water.”

  “I already know where there’s water. Why don’t I get water while you examine the woman? I have a container—with a filter—so water won’t be a problem,” Betsy suggested as she showed me a flat nylon container hanging around her neck.

  “Come back soon.” I wetted Betsy’s bandana with the water in my bottle. She was gone without making a sound.

  “Ruth, I’d like to wipe the dust from your mother’s face. Can you tell me what happened to her?” Ruth searched the shadows around her and began to weep.

  “It’s evil to speak against him, but Father hurt her. He slapped her. She fell and hit her head. I tried to help her get up but c
ouldn’t do it. Then I decided it was better for her to stay on the floor. I lied to my father and told him she was dead. He listened for her heartbeat, but I knew he couldn’t hear it.”

  “Is he hard of hearing?” I asked.

  “Yes. He was too close when a blast went off when he was trying to get rid of a tree stump at Nana’s house,” Ruth replied.

  I brushed a strand of hair from Ruth’s forehead before I leaned down to check her mother. It was faint, but her heart was beating. Her pulse was almost impossible to detect even though she was nothing but skin and bone. I gently washed her face, which was bloody, dirty, and scarred. The gash that started on her forehead and ran into the hairline wasn’t deep, but it had bled all over her face and her gown. Ruth was fortunate that it had stopped bleeding, or I doubt her father, as smart as he is, would have believed her lie.

  “What’s her name?” I asked as I continued to wipe away the streaks of blood and dust. I was a little distracted, wondering if I could get to the SUV where a first aid kit contained an emergency blanket. I still wore the blazer I had on when I set out this morning. I slipped it off and used it to cover the woman.

  “Martha,” Ruth responded.

  “How did you end up here?”

  “When I told Father she was dead, I hoped he’d go away to pray for her or that he’d be seized by the spirit. Then I was going to try to find someone to help my mother. Instead, he brought us here to lay her to rest among unclean spirits. He says this is a place where pagans worshipped, and she should be placed among her kind.”

  I wondered what that meant as I examined the woman and the child. I wanted to ask but squelched my curiosity. There was no reason to take a chance that the Cleaner Man might hear our whispers while asking an unnecessary question.