Desert Wind

by Betty Webb

  After she’d returned to the sofa, I softened my voice. “Calling the sheriff is a good idea, Mia. By the way, have you heard what happened to Deputy Stark this morning?”

  When she smiled, I felt chilled, and the room’s glacial decor had nothing to do with it. “One of the pool boys, Eric, informed me. He was driving in to work this morning, and said a deputy at some roadblock told him all about it.”

  Other than the late, unlamented Detective Smiley Face, law officers tended to be a close-mouthed bunch, and I said so.

  “The cop was Eric’s cousin. You know how everyone in Walapai Flats is related. Given that, coupled with all the nuclear fallout they’ve had around here, it’s a miracle they’re not all walking around with two heads. Anyway, the cop told Eric, and when Eric got to the community pool, he told everyone there. I imagine all of Sunset Canyon Lakes knows about it now.”

  “Kimama’s death took place when you and Roger were out of town, right?”

  She nodded. “Out of the entire country, as a matter of fact. Roger was a careful man, except when it came to gambling. We flew to Monaco, where he dropped a quarter million at the gaming tables. I could have killed him.” Her brief session of sadness vanquished by gin, her brittle smile returned. “But I didn’t.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I had no motive. There was plenty left after that quarter million went down the drain. True, some of Roger’s habits could be annoying, but as far as I was concerned, his good qualities outweighed the negative. He gave me everything I wanted—clothes, jewelry, cars, boats, and houses all over the ass end of creation. He was my gravy train, and the gravy never stopped flowing. I’ll even miss him. When I remember to.”

  “With him gone you’ll still have all that, plus freedom.”

  Her earlier brittleness returned. “Lena, Lena. You are so naive. I already had all the freedom a girl could wish for, plus the protection of a powerful man. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

  “You didn’t love him, did you?”

  “Define love.”

  Well, there was a poser. What was love, anyway? Need? Compassion? A blind cat? Given my own history, the only thing I knew for sure about love was that it had the power to rip your heart out.

  When I didn’t answer, she nodded. “You see?”

  Maybe I did. “Do you think your husband had Ike Donohue killed, too?” I doubted it, but I wanted to hear her take.

  She shook her head. “Absolutely not. In fact, when Roger found out Ike had been killed, he got more emotional than I’d ever seen him. Ike had pulled his ass out of the fires many times. He even called Sheriff Alcott, demanding to be kept up to date on the investigation.”

  “What did the sheriff say to that?”

  “I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but when Roger ended the call, he didn’t sound happy.”

  Alcott hadn’t mentioned anything about that phone call to me, but there was no reason he should have. Strictly speaking, it was none of my business.

  “What will you do now? With your life, I mean. Will you stay on here?”

  After a dainty sip at her gin, she answered, “Get rid of this god-awful mausoleum, for starters, then sell my interest in the mine to Cole Laveen. Oh, don’t look so surprised. Of course Roger left everything to me. Who else was there? Parents dead, no ex-wives, no kids. Anyway, Cole will do a lot more good for this town than my husband ever did. After that, maybe I’ll move to Napa. I’ve always wanted to own a vineyard, with some pretty little Arabian horses—not white—for me to ride while I inspect the plants. Plants? Or vines? Which is it? I’ll have to read a book on wine-making first, won’t I? But that’s okay, because I love research. Or maybe I’ll just travel. Amsterdam and Geneva are lovely at this time of year. So’s Russia, and God knows I love those fierce Russian men. Ever had one?”

  Amused despite my fuddy-duddyness, I shook my head.

  “Too bad. You might find the experience enlightening. There’s nothing to keep me in Walapai Flats any longer. I’ve already run through all the interesting people. The cowboys were fun.” A wink. “So were the cowgirls.”

  “Mia, have you ever really loved anyone?” Other than, possibly, Kimama Olmstead.

  She shrugged. “Just before I turned eighteen, my mother took me to a Phoenix psychiatrist who diagnosed me as having something called a ‘narcissistic personality disorder.’ He told her I was interested only in myself and unable to form emotional attachments. As far as I’m concerned, that describes most of the winners in this world, so big deal.”

  “I’ll bet it felt like a big deal to your mother, having a daughter who couldn’t love her back.”

  “If that psychiatrist was right, there was nothing I could do about it, was there? No matter who you are, you can’t force someone to love you. Mother made out okay in the end. You should have seen the house I bought her as soon as Roger and I married. It’s worth ten times as much as that Apache Junction hovel she used to own. Now she’s living in Biltmore Estates, having the time of her life. Golf every day, parties every night, diamonds up her ass. Those’re good enough substitutes for a kissy-huggy relationship, I imagine. Come to think of it, maybe I’ll pull a Brad and Angie and adopt a few kids from some benighted Third World country to give her those grandchildren she’s been pining for.”

  I wondered which would be worse for a child: starving in a mud hut or being raised by Mia.

  “Remember that mystery game we played at the mixer?” I asked. “Let’s play it for real now. If you didn’t kill your husband, who do you think did?”

  “Not Deputy Stark, that’s for sure. Unless I’m wrong, Kimama wasn’t the first dirty job he did for Roger. Stark wasn’t the smartest guy in town, but I doubt he was stupid enough to derail his own gravy train. Anyone around here could have killed him, maybe even those folks in Kimama’s group, Victims of Uranium Mining. Or…” Here she twinkled at me again. “How about Hank Olmstead? He loathed Roger, but was too ‘Christian’ to admit it. You know how men like that are, straight-laced and cold, but when they erupt, they’re regular volcanoes. And in the words of the immortal Martha Stewart, that can be a good thing. I tried to hook up with him once, but he wasn’t having any. Come to think of it, that Polynesian daughter of his is pretty cute, brace and all.”

  “Touch Leilani and Olmstead will kill you. So that’s it, only two people comprise your list of suspects? Given your devious mind, I find that hard to believe.”

  “Since you insist, there’s Cole Laveen, his business partner. He and Roger were always butting heads over proposed mine safety issues. As you know, Roger used to be sole owner, very bottom line oriented, and he never saw a problem he couldn’t fix with a few well-worded press releases penned by the sublimely sleazy Ike Donohue. If the natives remained restless, he’d be able to bribe the mine inspectors into seeing things his way, like they did at Moccasin Peak. But when the newspapers raised a fuss about all those dead Navajos, he was forced to bring Cole on board as partner.”

  She took another trip to the wet bar. This time, instead of just filling up her own glass, she poured me some mango straight from the bottle. Flashing me a smile, she said, “This one’s not poisoned.”

  Such a kidder.

  Once back on the sofa, she said, “You know, Lena, Cole Laveen is a lot like you, a regular do-gooder. He insisted on keeping the Black Basin up to code instead, of faking it like Roger planned to, so profits won’t be what they could have been. That’s Laveen’s problem now, not mine, because I’m divesting myself of the whole controversial mess. But here’s another suspect for you. Trent, Katherine Dysart’s ex-con husband. Roger fired him yesterday over some money that went missing from the resort’s entertainment account. My husband was open-minded about a lot of things, but thievery wasn’t one of them.”

  Yet he’d married a thief. “Did the police take Trent in for questioning?”

  “They’re probably working him over with a rubber hose as we speak.” />
  “Sheriff Alcott isn’t the rubber hose type.”

  “You’d be surprised.” Her eyes danced, revealing that she knew more about Alcott than I did. My, my, what a busy girl she’d been.

  “Back to Cole Laveen. Do you think he might grant me an interview?”

  Although she looked disappointed that I didn’t ask her to fill me in on her sexual adventures with the sheriff, she answered readily enough. “You can try. Watch out for that maid, though.”

  She winked.

  ***

  Cole Laveen’s house was right down the Aleppo pine-shaded lane from Mia’s, so within minutes I was pressing buttons on the intercom beside a sturdy wooden gate. When a woman’s disembodied voice answered, I told her who I was and what I wanted. She didn’t reply, but a courtyard full of dogs—they sounded like mastiffs—did. They bayed so loudly I thought I’d go deaf. Every now and then one would take a running leap at the gate, hit it with a thud, and the gate would creak and bow outward. Five minutes later, just as I was ready to take to my heels, the baying suddenly stopped.

  “I brought the dogs in,” Intercom Lady announced. “But be careful in case I missed one.”

  The gate slowly swung open. I walked though, trying not to reveal how surprised I was. This was the home of Roger Tosches’ business partner?

  After the forbidding gate, I’d been expecting another marble monstrosity like Mia’s or at least one of those pseudo-Tudor McMansions which were so popular in non-Tudor Arizona. I certainly hadn’t expected a modest tri-level that could have been hauled here by helicopter from some Wisconsin suburb. White siding. Green shutters. Slate roof. Two garden gnomes flanking a plain oak door.

  The frumpy maid who opened the door was as dowdy as the house. Nowhere near as sleek as Mia’s white-clad servants, she wore a stained apron and a plain housedress that had suffered through too many washings. Her gray hair looked like it had never been styled, just combed.

  “Here to see his nibs, huh?” she asked, ushering me into a house that smelled of dog.

  Apparently she hadn’t attended Maid School, either “The dogs aren’t anywhere around, are they?”

  “Nah, I ran them into the back yard, not that you were in any real danger. They’re all pretty much toothless by now, been with us since I don’t know when.” She turned away and yelled, “Hey, Cole! That detective woman’s here to see ya!”

  “Be right there!” a man yelled back.

  The maid grabbed me by the arm and steered me into a living room that paid more attention to comfort than style. Brown tweed carpeting, overstuffed furniture covered with dog hair, walls that were almost invisible because of a photographic surplus of children and dogs.

  I’d just taken my seat when Cole Laveen walked in. He was as pretty as his house, wearing pink-and-green checked golf pants and a yellow golf shirt at war with the remnants of his red Bozo-the-Clown hair. His smile flashed cheap dentures.

  “Hey, Babs, why don’t you make us some coffee?” he asked the maid.

  “You want it, you make it yourself,” she replied. “That damned Jack Russell pissed on the stairs again and I have to clean it up.”

  I was beginning to get it. The “maid” was actually Mrs. Laveen, hence Mia’s warning. “I don’t need anything, I’m fine.”

  Laveen gave me a penetrating glance that seemed out of kilter with his clownish appearance. “No, no, you look dehydrated. I’ll get you some water. I never could figure out how to run that coffee machine.”

  He disappeared for a minute, then returned carrying a bottle of generically labeled water, no glass. “This okay?”

  Gratefully, I took the bottle and twisted off the cap. When I looked around to see where to put it, Laveen grabbed the cap from me and put it in his pocket.

  “You’re here to talk about poor Roger, right?” he said, sitting across from me on a sofa that was even hairier than my chair. “Sad, what happened to him, but I can’t say I’m surprised. He was totally insensitive to other people’s needs. A person might be able to get away with that sort of thing in a large city, but in a small place like Walapai Flats, it creates unnecessary problems. And as I’m sure you’ve discovered—tell me if you haven’t—Roger did have an unfortunate past.”

  “The Moccasin Peak Uranium Mine?”

  “A total of twenty-seven deaths were ascribed to it, and every one of them could have been prevented. Men like Roger, they think they’re being clever by cutting corners on safety, but in the long run, they cost their companies more money in lawsuits than if they’d instituted proper safety procedures in the first place.”

  Seemingly, Laveen was being open, but experience had taught me to be careful around such openness; it was often a mere diversion. “Then you attribute his death to his business practices?”

  He attempted to smooth down his wiry red hair, but it sprang back up again. “Oh, well, I’m not going so far as to say that, but I’m not blind to the amount of animosity people around here felt for him. I found him difficult to work with, myself. That’s why I felt some temptation when he approached me last week with the intent of buying back his shares now that the Black Basin looks well on track.”

  “Were you going to sell?”

  “Hell, no, he wasn’t!” This from Mrs. Laveen, apparently finished with her piddle-cleaning chores. “He planned to be a constant presence at that mine to make certain Roger didn’t get up to his old tricks again.” She sat down next to her husband and patted him on his thigh. “Isn’t that right, Cole?”

  He patted her thigh in return. “Now that we’ve retired here, Babs and I feel a responsibility to this community, so yes. We’re even thinking of setting up a teen center to give the kids something to do besides get in trouble.” He waved toward his photograph-covered wall. “We had six kids, and every one of them raised bloody hell in their teen years. It’s a miracle none of them wound up in jail, isn’t it, Babs?”

  “I’d of killed them first.” She scowled like she meant it, but she couldn’t disguise the pride in her voice when adding, “Three doctors, two social workers, and an engineer. No lawyers, thank God.”

  He smiled fondly at her. “Babs was the line-drawer and she made sure the kids toed it. Me, I tend to let things go.”

  This couple was too good to be true. Or maybe not. Even in this cynical old world, miracles sometimes happened.

  But usually not on my watch.

  “Mrs. Laveen, do you have any theories about the person who killed Roger Tosches? Or Ike Donohue, for that matter.”

  She shook her frowsy gray head. “Don’t know, don’t care. If there’s an Afterlife, the both of them are in big trouble.”

  ***

  When the trolley dropped me off in front of the leasing office, Katherine had returned. She was sitting behind her chrome and glass desk, drinking 7-Up straight from the can, oddly inelegant behavior for such an elegant woman.

  “How’d the sales pitch go?” I asked.

  “They weren’t in a buying mood.” She took a final chug of 7-Up, then tossed the empty can toward the waste basket. She missed, and the can rolled across the floor until it came to rest in the corner. She didn’t bother picking it up. “Knowing you, you’ve already heard about Trent.”

  “From Mia Tosches. Is it true?”

  “True that the police took him in for questioning, true that he embezzled money from the entertainment account, or true that he murdered Roger Tosches?”

  “Whichever.”

  “He’s my husband,” she said, as if that was answer enough.

  “Which means you’re sticking by him regardless.”

  “You love who you love.”

  I thought about Dusty. About Warren. About the mother and father I only vaguely remembered but yearned for every day. Then I thought about Mia, and the way her brittleness had softened when she spoke Kimama Olmstead’s name. Katherine was right: you love who you love. “True as that may be, Katherine, why would Trent embezzle money? Surely with your combined salaries and free
housing, you were making enough to get by.”

  The silence, which I’d taken as a mere pause before answering, stretched so long that I filled it with another question. “Enough money to get by, that is, unless Trent picked up a drug habit while serving time, a common enough occurrence. Did that happen?”

  Her continued silence provided my answer.

  ***

  Due to the detour around Deputy Stark’s murder scene, traffic along Route 47 moved slowly. I didn’t mind, because it gave me time to think. When the traffic arced around one of the smaller mesas, I pulled away and bumped the Trailblazer to the side, where the view—unhindered by a mile-long line of vehicles—was breathtaking.

  Stepping out of the car into the still-cool morning air, I could see an azure sky so pure it almost hurt. Fawn-colored desert. Soft green cacti. Red, orange, and purple mesas clawing toward the heavens.

  The “nothing” the Atomic Energy Commission had seen fit to despoil.

  Grateful that I was always equipped with running shoes and a canteen—and that Deputy Stark was no longer around to shoot at me—I began to jog. The very physicality of running clears the mind, and as I headed toward a mitten-shaped mesa, I reviewed everything I’d learned. The fact that people lie isn’t always a drawback. Lies often point toward a greater truth.

  Ike Donohue lied for a living, and in their own way, so did Roger Tosches and Ronnie Stark. Donohue lied for a paycheck, Tosches lied to open the Black Basin Mine, Stark lied about his brutality in order to keep his job. Money wasn’t the only reason people lied. Out of shame, Ted Olmstead lied about his relationship with Mia. Stark’s damaged wife lied from misguided loyalty. Nancy Donohue lied about her true feelings for her husband. Gabe Boone lied to spring Ted from jail.

  Silence could be a lie, too. In order to keep tourist dollars rolling in, every member of the Walapai Chamber of Commerce remained silent about the area’s history of radioactive contamination. Mia Tosches, no fool, hadn’t revealed her feelings for Kimama Olmstead to her husband. Trent Dysart’s résumé didn’t list theft, manslaughter, prison, or drug addiction. Hank Olmstead wasn’t foolish enough to admit that he loved his children enough to kill for them.