“Like the hero.”
“Like the hero. I’m sorry, Charlie.”
Could anybody that convincingly contrite be a murderer?
You bet.
“I couldn’t believe it when poor Earl dropped dead at your feet. Did he say anything?” Did Mitch’s body stiffen a little with that question?
Yeah, he did but it didn’t mean anything. “No, he didn’t. Well, he wanted me to run away.”
Had Mitch’s body relaxed a little against hers with that answer? “Shit,” Mitch said, “he was the hero and he died for it.”
Mitch had schemed with John B. to lure everyone else away so that the murderer could come back after Charlie.
“Why would he want to kill me?”
“Because I convinced them all you knew who he was and were trying to trap him to clear your mother. At least I tried to.”
“By telling them I was psychic and that’s how I knew. Thanks a heap.”
“Who do you think is the murderer, Charlie?”
“Everybody. It’s motive I can’t figure. Earl and Tawny might have angered John B. or Scrag somehow.” Or you. “But I can’t fit Gordon Cabot into that scenario. Sid might have had reason to want Cabot dead but not the other two. Unless they figured out he lulled Cabot and needed to be silenced.” Actually, you were furious with Cabot and closer to Earl and Tawny than Sid ever was. “Scrag and Earl squared off a little bit ago, but Scrag was with me when Tawny …”
“At least you’ve stopped trembling.” And he kissed her, wiped a tear from her cheek, and buried his face in her hair. “I’m sorry I put you in danger like that, Charlie. I just wanted to get it over with.”
“Who do you think murdered Earl?”
“I know all those people well, Charlie. I can’t believe any of them would do such a thing.”
Charlie wouldn’t have believed she could let down her guard, feel warm and safe enough to fall asleep there. After all, she’d just seen a man die with a knife in his back and only the night before a young vibrant woman writhing in flames. But maybe murder gets easier to live with or the system overdoses and you go numb. Or maybe the stress sent her into shock and made her sleep. She’d never know. But she woke to darkness and cold. She was alone.
Next to falling off cliffs, crashing in airplanes, drowning, becoming one of the youngest grandmothers in history, or having to take Libby and go live with Edwina, Charlie’s worst nightmare had always been being lost and alone in the wilderness. She’d prefer a dark alley sprawling with drunks and junkies any day, but it was beginning to look like she was on a roll this trip.
She peered through the weed cover to see several shapes, definitely male, standing off at a distance and gesturing as if in deep discussion. One wore a cowboy hat à la John B. One wore his jeans like Scrag Dickens. One had Sidney Levit’s white hair, glowing now in moonlight, and the other was Mitch.
Charlie’s legs were tingly asleep, but she decided she had to get out of here regardless. One of those dudes was a murderer. Anybody who’d killed three times would have little to lose by making her a fourth.
And thanks to Mitch Hilsten, whoever it was thought he knew that she knew who he was and probably why he done it. If it wasn’t Mitch, that is.
How to unwedge herself from this rock without attracting their attention. Then find Homer and Dean. And then what? Charlie was in a real mess here. But she couldn’t die and leave Libby with a demented grandmother. She couldn’t leave this planet without telling off Richard Morse and throwing this job in his chauvinist teeth.
Charlie realized suddenly she’d paused for a fantasy about lining up a power job with William Morris first and throwing that at Richard as well. She had to get control of herself and think of a plan before Mitch brought the others over to her hidey hole. Maybe they were all together against her. She probably had only seconds to—
The guys looked up as if one and ran straight at her, shouting obscenities. Charlie froze, too shocked to react, not that she’d have had time to get out of the crevice and escape them. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, the men were gone and she was alone. Was she hallucinating or what here?
Then Charlie became aware of what she’d been hearing too, over the thunder of her pulse. What had sent them all running. The unmistakable tear in the quiet of a desert night. The roar of the jet boat engine.
Chapter 27
Charlie filled the plastic canteen, mostly by feel, in the puddle at the back of Spring Cave. She drank half of it and filled it again. The water tasted metallic but good. The upside-down ferns looked like shrunken heads hanging by their severed necks in the shadowy recesses. It must have been too cold for the mosquitoes but Charlie didn’t linger anyway. This would be the obvious place for the men to look for her.
Aren’t we being a little melodramatic?
Listen, I don’t know about you, but I want to be alive to see that smirky runt of a sheriff’s face when Edwina walks out of that jail a free woman. Charlie covered her mouth when she realized she’d carried on this conversation aloud.
Now that she had water she had to find a place to hide until morning. Glancing longingly at the wooden box with the dusty oats and hinges that didn’t squeak, she passed it by. That would be too obvious.
The best way to survive this situation was to keep from panicking and feeling sorry for herself. The latter being almost more difficult because Charlie so loathed discomfort. Edwina used to rattle on about all sorts of things one should know to survive in the wilderness when she’d hauled Charlie off on research trips, not a word of which her daughter could remember. She’d been too busy loathing the discomfort and being away from her friends.
The moon was cold and bright and had highlighted the white-painted rocks lining the path that brought her here and would take her back to the beach at the first inkling help was arriving. Charlie had only to survive until then. That moon was also casting some heavy shadows for her to hide in.
She’d reached the slickrock jumble near the river and peered over it in time to see the jet boat round the bend heading upstream, the shapes of two men on board. Had to be Dean and Homer because everybody else was dancing around on the beach waving fists.
Earl’s body had been covered. It looked as if someone had thrown the plastic tarp over him that once covered the supplies still piled where Charlie left them. By the way the covering bulged at one point, it was obvious no one had removed the knife.
Charlie’d turned and ran before they saw her, found the rock-lined path and raced, well, hobbled as fast as she could, along it to the spring. Her tire-tread sandals were neither warm nor swift, but she was not going to feel sorry for herself.
She didn’t think they’d be able to see her tracks at night and by morning help would be here. What she needed to do was to stay off the path but follow it back toward the beach from the sidelines. Where, unseen, she could flit between shadow puddles if need be, but stay close enough to meet her rescuers. Sounded like a good plan.
One problem. A chorus of coyotes sent up a harmony only they could appreciate and Charlie made a wrong turn, chills rising everywhere. She’d heard coyotes often when traveling with her mother and even in town on a quiet night, her home but a few blocks from Boulder’s mountain backdrop. Charlie had even heard the critters in the canyons of Southern California when visiting reclusive clients.
They’d always sounded so much farther away than they did now. But she wasn’t going to panic or feel sorry for herself. Nor would she wig out over the fact that, although she was sure she’d retraced her steps exactly, the white rocks of the path were still nowhere in sight in any direction.
The coyotes keened and yipped lonely sounds she sincerely wished they’d stifle. Charlie visualized them ringing a campfire, pointing their noses at the moon, wearing bandannas around their necks.
The thing to do was to stop going in circles, find a safe shadow, and sit quietly to think what the thing was to do. Again it was a sound that set her off—a footstep or a h
oofstep or a pebble dislodged from a path or … Charlie found her shadow and sat down fast.
“If you’re out there, darlin’, you stay put, hear?” Scrag’s voice came low and somber. “This shit’s going to work itself out.”
She could hear him repeat the message twice as his footsteps faded away. He was probably walking the trail and if she moved in that direction maybe she could find it. If Scrag was warning her not to show herself it meant either that he was on her side or it was a trick.
What she would do was sit quiet as the proverbial mouse until he came back and then she’d know it was safe to leave her shadow. Wouldn’t she? Sounded like a good plan, but she didn’t have the patience to sit there and wait in gross discomfort and seriously substantial fear.
She experimented by moving a shadow puddle closer to the area from which she’d heard Scrag Dickens and the sky didn’t fall in, no night creatures out feeding made a grab for her. So she moved on, a shadow at a time, keeping low, from bush to bush to … no white-painted rocks, no trail, no overhang shelters or cowboy line camps, no river. God, where was she?
By the next morning the swelling in her feet had completely disappeared and tighten the straps as she might it was a major effort to keep her tire clogs on. And, yes, she was lost but she figured she couldn’t be that far from the river and if it was big enough to carve the Grand Canyon it was big enough for her to find. And if she found it, the rescue squads sent out by Dean and Homer would find her. Logically, if she found a wash or arroyo or whatever and followed it downhill she’d come to the river.
And the sun was rising in the east, which should give her some direction as well as warm her. Charlie was so cold she’d lost the battle to keep from feeling sorry for herself hours ago. But every time her stomach rumbled she forced herself to see the body on the beach and the burning woman at the electrical substation and her hunger went away. She’d taken not one sip of water and her canteen was still full.
She worked up the nerve to climb a pile of slickrock and stand above the scrub forest and weeds to look out on a veritable garden. A garden of buttes and buttresses and pinnacles and sculpted ribs of rock, monoliths that rose blood-red out of swirling purple shadow, ground mist, and night, their tops flaming with sunrise.
Definitely big-screen stuff that would have had a lot more appeal from a cozy theater seat. But from their position she figured the river could be in any of three directions. Or all, when you thought about it, because it curved and wound so. No matter, the sun would warm her soon and there would be airplanes in the sky and maybe Dean’s helicopter and she would jump up and down and wave and be rescued.
On that happy note Charlie took a breakfast swig of water, rolled it around on her tongue and teeth before swallowing to get the full benefit.
As the sun continued to move down the buttes and cliffs, birds took up singing and flitted from bush to bush as she had bush shadows half the night. Bright, strong twitters and tweets and trills—no chorus of them—they were individual and far flung. But they sounded ridiculously happy and at home in this ghastly place.
Charlie searched the sky for rescue planes, but saw only a contrail too high in the friendly skies and too busy to notice her speck of a life in this universe.
As she lowered her eyes another bird circled ahead. Turkey buzzard. Vulture. They like dead meat. Circling over Earl Seabaugh of the once-laughing sea-green eyes? Very likely. And if so, that was the direction she should head.
Here’s to the buzzard, the body, the beach, and the boats to the rescue. Charlie took another swig, giggled, and started off. She was kind of proud of herself for not running around banging her head against rocks and screaming by now.
The buzzard kept circling, then descended out of sight. Charlie planned to hide behind the same pile of rock she had last night when Homer and Dean took off in the wounded jet boat and case the scene carefully. She hadn’t spent the previous horrible night saving her skin to have it exposed by walking into a trap.
She noticed her course was weaving, but that was because of the ill-fitting footwear. Wasn’t it? She slipped into a fantasy in which she was describing her heroic escape and calm calculating demeanor, at a time of terrible danger, to her daughter and Maggie Stutzman. Libby and Charlie’s best friend were awestruck.
Get real, they’d be yukking it up. Probably have to hang on to each other to stay upright.
Where have you been?
Right here. You just haven’t been listening. I’m a little worried about our present direction. Should we maybe slow down and scout the scene …
Charlie’s inner voice was too late and she was reminded of why they have serious medication for people who hear voices.
The vulture rose at her approach just as three others appeared from nowhere but pulled out of their dives toward the body on the ground to soar off with their brethren. They voiced no sound but their giant wings whumped the air as they ascended. For a moment the big sky filled with feathers and an obscene stench.
It wasn’t the river, the beach, or Earl that had attracted them either. It was Mitch Hilsten. He lay sprawled on his stomach, a bloody wound on the back of his head.
Chapter 28
Charlie didn’t know whether to use her precious water to try washing out Mitch’s wound (maybe the blood already had) or try to force some down his throat. She’d turned him over so that he was bleeding on the collar of his sheepskin jacket. But he was breathing. She could almost see his beard growing.
She pulled the lapels of his jacket together to keep him warm, found one side decidedly heavy, and reached into a pocket stuffed with two cans of soda.
Charlie sat back and studied the unconscious man while downing a warm Dr Pepper, not wanting to admit how relieved she was not to be alone.
The guy’s out, Charlie. How much more alone can you get?
Yeah, but he’s still warm.
The other pocket was stuffed with Oreos. Charlie ate only two before guilt overcame her and she dribbled water between the beautiful teeth. The first dribbles ran out the corners of his mouth but then he swallowed, eyelids fluttered.
“Mitch?”
“No.”
“Mitch, open your eyes, it’s Charlie.”
He did. And his eyes were crossed. Did that mean concussion?
She rolled him on his side and off the wound. The movement pulled up his jacket and revealed something red sticking out of his pants’ pocket. One of those thick pocketknives that have more attachments than a vacuum cleaner. She slipped it into her own pocket thoughtfully.
Charlie had forgotten that a lot of men carry pocketknives. Homer’s cutlery had clearly killed Earl, but any of the rest of them could have wounded the second jet boat with one of these.
She wished she had something to wrap Mitch’s head with, but neither of them possessed a clean inch of skin let alone clothing. Edwina would have plucked a strip of skin off a cactus or plastered leaves from the bushes together with spiderwebs and spit or something equally gross.
He closed his eyes again and she offered him water, Dr Pepper, an Oreo, and a kiss. His response to all was the same.
“No.”
“Well, I can steal the rest of your cookies and soda and go off and leave you to the buzzards, you know.”
“Vultures.” One eye opened to a slit. “Turkey vultures.”
“Mitch, do you know who I am?”
“Why would Scrag hit you over the head with a rock?” Charlie’s gnat bites oozed. Some had crusted over and they seeped again when she rubbed off the scabby crusts trying to scratch without nails. The most maddening were those inside the outer curling of her ears.
“I don’t know. Always liked the guy. Even lent him money once. Maybe it’s because he can’t find work. He can’t think of anything else.”
She’d tried to convince him they should stay put and await rescue. But he knew that he knew the way to the river. Charlie knew he was not acting right. She’d even tried to hold him back but he shrugged her off
and kept wandering. No telling where they were by now.
“Yeah, but why would he attack you because he didn’t have work?” Charlie knew that by “work” he meant work in the “biz.”
“Terrifying, not having work. It does things to you. I should know,” Mitch told her. “When you’re trained to do one thing and no one can afford you. No reason to leave the house. But the house is empty. I have three houses, a condo in Aspen, and one in Switzerland. I don’t want to live in any of them. It’s hard to make friends when people look at you and see an image instead of a man. Even my kids get lost in the image. My own flesh and blood. My wife couldn’t live with the image and didn’t want the man.”
“Please, Mitch, if we ever get out of here you’ll hate me for having heard all this.” Part of Charlie ached to respond to the staggering loneliness in the dazed eyes, part of her wanted to believe in the image, the rest of her couldn’t believe they were having this conversation at a time like this.
He told her he’d met and married his wife in New York and their relationship had been good while he’d studied his craft and found small roles on the stage and in television commercials to help her support them and their growing family. She held down steadier jobs—waiting tables, clerking. Then he landed several bit parts in movies and started traveling too much.
He was discovered in one of those small parts and offered a leading role. He moved his family to California. “Janet hated it out there.” His career zoomed, his marriage died. “Now I have nothing but an image and three houses and two condos.”
“Hey, more good scripts will come your way. They’ll have to. You’re Mitch Hilsten, for God’s sake.”
“I’m either too old or too young. Or the role doesn’t fit the image.” His speech was getting less slurred, his gait steadier. But Charlie waved his sheepskin at two flies buzzing around the clotted blood at the back of his head. She’d ended up carrying both their jackets because he’d just wandered off and left his.
Murder in a Hot Flash Page 18
