Fatal Refuge: a Mystery/Thriller (The Arizona Thriller Trilogy Book 2)

by Sharon Sterling

  The ambiance of the two-story mall was calculatedly Southwest: Mexican tile floors the color of red rock, concrete columns camouflaged by painted designs in rich ochre and turquoise, wall murals made with bits of tile depicting desert scenes and huge planters sprouting palm trees and desert succulents. Contradicting the mall’s uniqueness were the common shop names – Macy’s, Penney’s, Sears, shoe stores and jewelry stores familiar to any shopper in the States.

  Kim and Allie walked silently for some minutes until two elderly women wearing running shoes passed them in a power-walk, arms pumping, ear buds in place, eyes fixed ahead. Kim smiled and gave Allie a thumbs up sign of approval.

  “Darn right, kudos for them,” Allie said. “That’ll be me in a few years, you know. I’m entering the awkward stage.”

  “Awkward, Allie? I don’t think so.”

  “Yes. It’s the years between when men open doors for you because you’re hot and sexy and when they open doors for you because you’re old and decrepit – the years between lust and decency.”

  Kim laughed. “Are you saying men experience a motivational gap between the age of lust and the age of decency?”

  “Hum. No, I guess in those between years they open doors for a woman because she is either pregnant or carrying a baby.”

  Kim smiled, but something was bothering her and finally she asked, “Allie, how are you doing with Cindy’s death? How are you handling it? I mean, have you talked to anyone else about it? Do therapists see other therapists if they’re struggling with something?”

  “Of course they do. I have in the past but I think I’m doing okay these days even after losing Cindy. When she went missing it felt worse in a way. I imagined terrible things were happening to her, but I didn’t know what to do. I think the memorial service helped. A lot of her massage clients were there and some of her bird-watcher friends. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know so many people besides me cared about her.”

  “Was her family there?”

  “No, and it’s got me stumped. The police let me look through the desk in her massage room at the spa, and her address book at home. No relatives I could identify. The police took her computer and phones. If they found any family contacts, like on social media, either they didn’t inform them in time or they just didn’t show up for the service.”

  “She really is a mystery, isn’t she?”

  “Even when she was alive, I felt like there were pieces of her she wouldn’t share.” She stopped and turned to Kim. “They never did find the gun or bullets, did they?”

  “After the canine search they did the whole grid with a metal detector. Found a few interesting items but not what they were looking for.”

  “Darn. When are they going to solve it?”

  Kim couldn’t answer. The question lingered as they resumed walking, more slowly now.

  Allie asked, “You’ve been seeing that Detective Raney, haven’t you?”

  “Seeing, yes. Dating, no. I told him I’m not ready for more than casual and if he tries anything I’ll break his arm.”

  “Kim! Have you ever thought of taking a non-assertiveness class?” Slowly Allie’s smile faded. “It’s a good thing you found her, Kim.”

  Kim knew Allie was referring to Cindy.

  “Her massage clients might never have reported her missing, and Win said he didn’t expect her back any time soon. She could have been out there in the desert for… But I hate to think about it.”

  Kim stopped and nodded toward a bench close to the large fountain at the mall’s central hub. They sat. Allie crossed one leg over the other and then tugged her skirt down over her knees. For long minutes they listened to the fountain’s water splash and echo in the spaciousness. Then Kim looked directly at her older friend. “Speaking of Verbale, did he say anything to you about being questioned?”

  “By the police? No, why?”

  “He was a suspect, of course. They questioned him but he had an alibi. They checked to verify it, but. . .”

  Allie’s comment came quickly. “Win’s a murder suspect? He’s a little strange, maybe, but…”

  “Strange how?”

  “He looks like an overgrown kid. His face is so innocent but his personality doesn’t match it. He’s really ambitious, a hard worker, a doer and a joiner. He’s just too normal. He has his heart set on getting into local politics. I guess his job as HR director isn’t important enough for him.”

  “I met him at your barbecue with Cindy. I didn’t like him.”

  “We all have those kinds of reactions that we might not be able to understand.”

  “You don’t like talking about him, do you?”

  “He’s my co-worker and I guess he just puzzles me, so what can I say? Anyway, how are you doing with your job? I’m thinking it’s probably a lot more interesting than working at that hardware store in Camp Verde.”

  “It is. I’m glad I left for EMT training and so happy I got the job here. It’s better than I ever expected, never boring.”

  “Sounds very challenging.”

  “I’ve seen some things you wouldn’t believe.” She glanced at Allie, thinking I wouldn’t even want to describe them to her. She couldn’t handle it. “Well, almost never boring,” she added. “I don’t enjoy the nursing home calls, taxi service for the dear, ancient departed. It’s a yawn all the way to the morgue. But there are enough pile-ups out on I-8 to keep it interesting. Three cars in a heap with six or eight people to treat and transport is a challenge but I love it, and the physical part isn’t hard for me like it is for smaller women.”

  “I don’t know how you do it. How can you just set your emotions aside, and not panic, or… or cry?”

  Kim didn’t try to answer. She didn’t want to tell her friend that there was little room for empathy in EMT work. Empathy got in the way. A good call for most was a murder or a four-car pile-up on the Interstate that would exercise their triage skills. A bad call was a pickup at a nursing home. There was no hurry and no challenge at all if they were dead. She held her arms out toward the fountain, enjoying the errant sprinkles of cool water, wishing she could feel it on her face. Suddenly she turned to ask, “Allie, do you think I’m weird?”

  “Weird? What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe it’s not normal to enjoy the kind of work I do, or even the search and rescue stuff. Maybe it’s morbid, or ghoulish.”

  “Kim, I’m not your therapist anymore. It’s been more than three years.”

  “Yes, and I remember what you said when you were my counselor. You said, ‘If people could just believe three things, they wouldn’t need counseling: first, shit happens; second, it is what it is so accept it; and third, no one is perfect so how can anyone expect you to be or do the impossible?’ Did I remember all that right?”

  “Congratulations. But to answer your question as your friend, I can say I never thought of you as weird. Misguided, maybe, but not weird or ghoulish.”

  “So how am I misguided? Is it the karma stuff we talked about?”

  “Not necessarily, but the lengths you went to… Do you really want to talk about it?”

  Kim hesitated. “No,” she said, finally, “I don’t need to talk about it. But by saving that disgusting pervert I tried to kill, you saved me. If you hadn’t, right now I would either be in prison or consumed with guilt and drowning my sorrows in booze – or something equally destructive.”

  “Do you still feel the same way about karma, that you’re its instrument?”

  “If you mean do I still believe I’m a delivery-woman for karmic justice, including executions of the guilty, the answer is no. Even if the worst karma someone has coming is a bouquet of dead roses, let someone else deliver it.”

  Allie laughed. “Yeah, karma by wire, let the god Mercury deal with it. Certainly not you in a brown shirt and shorts, tooling along in a brown karma-mobile. . .”

  Kim smiled at the image. They rose to walk again. Allie’s hard-soled pumps clicked on the tile while Kim’s soft-soled
slip-ons made no sound at all. Kim continued to mull over Allie’s question. She said, “I’m concentrating on myself these days. Karma’s like a balance scale that weighs behavior. Everything you do counts.”

  Allie shook her head in assent. “You’re saving people’s lives as an EMT. That’s what I’d call good karma – and finding lost hikers, too.”

  “We haven’t done that in a while, but Zayd and I are up for it anytime. Allie, how much do you know about Apaches?”

  “Not much, I guess.”

  “As a tribe, we were known for our endurance, our ability to withstand hardship and pain. We also liked to dish out the pain.”

  When Allie said nothing, Kim knew she didn’t understand. She stopped in front of a shoe store, but her eyes didn’t focus on the thin-strapped sandals in bright summer colors. Allie stopped beside her and turned, but Kim would not meet her eyes. Finally Kim said, “Let’s not mince words. We liked to torture people.”

  She reluctantly turned to look into her friend’s face and saw Allie’s lips purse in puzzlement.

  “We?” Allie asked. “When was the last time you tortured someone, Kim?”

  Kim stiffened, her face solemn. “Never. But you know what they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Kim! So much for stupid aphorisms. Do you think the Apache tribe invented torture?”

  Kim raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

  “Kim, you have what I’d call shared ancestral, karmic guilt. Really, you must know the Apache in Arizona were mortal enemies of the Mexicans and the Mexicans knew a lot about pain. They probably learned it from the Incas or from the Spanish, who perfected their techniques during the Inquisition. Who knows who started the revenge cycle of torture and mayhem between the Mexicans and Apache? And yes, it continued with the ‘White Eyes,’ but their hands weren’t lily white either. They had been torturing people for centuries. All of Europe – hell, the whole world engaged in those atrocities.”

  Kim nodded.

  “When you learned your tribe’s history, didn’t you learn that soldiers and settlers retaliated in kind, or worse? Full scale massacres of Apache men, women and children. From what I’ve read, it was a torture contest.”

  Kim felt her mouth harden when she pictured what Allie described. “Yes, I’ve heard that,” she said.

  Allie continued, “What about medieval torture chambers with all those instruments supposedly devout Christians created just for inflicting pain? Was the Marquis de Sade an Apache? And if you and your people inherited a tendency for cruelty or blood lust, or whatever you want to call it, why haven’t I heard of Apache serial killers or serial rapists?” She stopped, as if at a loss for more words and drew a deep breath.

  Kim felt the muscles of her stomach relax and somewhere in her gut the tension eased. Allie’s words rang true, and in that moment of relief she remembered again it was no longer Allie’s job to understand and counsel her. “I guess you’re right. Thanks, Allie.”

  Unexpectedly, a divergent memory clicked into her mind. “Allie, you know the story in the newspaper about the jewelry store theft and the silly poem they found strewn all over town?”

  Allie nodded again, eyebrows drawn together in apparent puzzlement by the abrupt change in subject.

  “I went on that call,” Kim said. “The newspaper has it wrong. Lon says the police don’t believe the thief wrote the poems. The perpetrator just saw the chaos and decided whoever did it would get blamed for the theft, too. The jerk is lucky the police were around the corner when his arm went through the glass or he would have bled to death.”

  She put her hand on Allie’s shoulder. “Lunch hour is almost over. Come on, I’m going to treat you to some ice cream before I drive you back to work.”

  • • •

  Chapter Fifteen

  At the clinic, Winston Verbale had just pulled his Mercedes into the north-side parking lot where it would be shaded when a red Jeep pulled in beside it. He felt a flash of annoyance that when its door opened it might scar his vehicle’s paint job. He quickly recognized Allie but not the other woman.

  Curious, he waited as they got out, and heard the tall, dark-haired woman say to Allie, “Did you hear Zayd’s crate rattle against the sides every time I made a turn? It doesn’t do that when he’s in it. I need to secure it better.” She came around to the passenger side to embrace Allie in that quick hug women do.

  Allie waved good-bye to the woman as the other backed the Jeep out and left. Only then he stepped out of his car looking from Allie to the departing vehicle. “Who’s your pretty friend? Is she Indian or Indian?”

  “She’s an Apache.”

  “Is she looking for work here?”

  “No.” Allie’s voice sounded sharp. “Not at all. She’s got a job. She’s busy. She’s an EMT and she does search and rescue in her spare time.”

  Verbale was surprised at the abruptness of Allie’s answer because she was usually so mild, easy-going to the point of soupy. “Just checking. We’re looking for a new weekend receptionist, and your friend would dress up the waiting room.”

  He opened the door and followed her in, but a question lingered. “She’s with the canine team? I saw the crate in the back of her Jeep.”

  “She is. And from what I understand, she’s working with the Sheriff’s team to find the killer. If I know her, she won’t stop until it’s over.”

  Win gave her a parting nod and went to his office in the administration wing. By the time he reached it an unpleasant train of thought was stirring his defenses. He sat in his black leather office chair, leaned back, picked up a pencil from the desk and then flung it down again. Allie’s friend was a search and rescue worker. Their most frequent jobs were at Kofa, and Allie had known about Cindy’s death before the public did. Kim must have found Cindy’s body. But so what? What could she know that might impact him?

  The answer eluded him, the question eclipsed by the memory of an arrogant Sheriff’s detective, a Lon Raney, interrogating him about Cindy. The cop was tall and cool-mannered, probably thought his dick was gold. The cop suspected him, in spite of his alibi. The detective’s manner had been professional but his questioning persistent in spite of Win’s efforts to charm him. He had to face it. He was still a suspect in Cindy’s death.

  The heat prickling his scalp brought him to self-awareness. His face was flushed and that might look strange to anyone walking by the office. Employees could see him clearly through the open door and glass wall panels. He sat up straight and picked up the phone, pretending to press in a number. Now anyone walking by would think he was blushing at an off-color remark or, more likely, an effusive compliment. He had always been able to manipulate the drones.

  Soon he put the phone down and rubbed his palms against his eyes, tired of miming. He picked up his pencil again and began doodling on the margins of the large desk calendar. When he realized the futility of trying to deny the truth or distract himself from it he stopped, unable to suppress the rising feelings of being on uncertain ground, of being crowded, pressured.

  That Raney dick, with the cool manner and soft-voiced questions – that is not the kind of attention I like. That detective, Allie, and the bitch Apache are all crowding in on me, pressuring me. I have enough to worry about with the council election coming up. My life is one big gamble with no payout since the bathroom trick stopped working for me.

  He tapped the pencil on the desk. Now he needed to divert negative attention and suspicion from himself. He needed room, space to play his own game in his own time. Maybe eliminate one of the players – but which one? It would be easy to take Allie out of the mix. More complicated but certainly possible to eliminate the Indian and her mutt. He was certain he could outsmart the detective and it would be a pleasure. But was the detective the biggest threat? Which one really has to go?

  • • •

  At the fire station Kim and her partner finished their four o’clock to midnight shift. Jerry showered
first then stood watch for Kim since there were no separate facilities and more than one fire-fighter had “accidentally” walked in on her. Kim wasn’t happy about needing her partner to spot for her but the alternative was to go home on some occasions wearing fluids or residues from other human bodies. That made her less happy.

  About to finish up in the locker room, Jerry glanced at her sideways a second time with a speculative look in his eyes.

  She asked, “So, what’s up, Latte? Something on your mind?”

  “Not really. Uh, I was just wondering what you’d do if you lost your EMT license.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. You’d have to do something pretty stupid to get reported to the NPDB and get your credentials yanked. Why?” He didn’t answer, his usually bland and cheerful face closed.

  “Wait, Jerry! You’re not in trouble are you?”

  “Naw. Just wondering.”

  His manner didn’t sit right with Kim. She wondered what would surface if she answered his question. She said, “Well, if I couldn’t do EMT, I’d try somewhere else to qualify for fire-fighter. Maybe sign on as a hot-shot, fight forest fires. More exciting than a city fire-fighter’s job.

  “Ha. A big city fire fighter doesn’t get excitement?”

  “I imagine it would be like this job: long hours of boredom for the occasional adrenalin-rush.”

  “Boredom? Speak for yourself, Thrill-jockey.”

  “Okay, Bench-warmer.” She smiled at him with real affection. Leaning down, she pulled on her shoes and fastened the tongues with a slap, preparing to leave.

  “Wait.”

  Kim looked up, surprised at the tension in his voice.

  “I’m sorry to tell you this – actually I don’t want to tell you at all but I think you should know…”

  “Out with it, Latte. I don’t blame the bearer of bad news if he didn’t instigate it.”

  “Amos Wagner, the Deputy at the Sheriff’s North Station, has been trash-talking about you.”