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

by Sharon Sterling

  He coached himself with familiar warnings about quitting on a losing streak, appearing normal, being able to hide his feelings like the best poker players in the world. At eight a.m. he entered Allie’s office with a cheery, “Morning, Sunshine.” He put the cup of flavored coffee on her desk. All she could do was smile back at him while the thought of his arrogance, his monstrous duplicity, released a flood of acid in her stomach. His falsity and the thought of what he had done to her friend sickened her while she struggled not to let it show. When he left her office she took the paper cup to the bathroom and poured the brew down the sink.

  Her mental turmoil escalated throughout the day. She had to do something. Confront him? Tell someone? Who? Kim, the police, a sheriff’s deputy? Tell them what, that she suspected him because he brought her coffee every morning?

  She was able to put aside her concerns to focus on each of her clients in their turn, but in idle moments her own inaction tormented her. Finally, she questioned why she had mentally condemned him when the legal system would claim he was innocent until proven guilty. There had to be a way she could confirm her suspicions before she shared them with anyone else. In the last minutes before five p.m., she had it. She left her office and started down the corridor, instructing herself not to hurry because he never left at quitting time. She spotted him through the glass windows, still at his desk. Yes!

  “Allie, hi.” He put down the papers in his hand then did a slow double-take when he saw her face. “You look excited. What’s up?”

  “Yeah, I guess I am excited. I knew you’d want to hear this. I just had a call from my friend, the one who’s close to the Cameron investigation, and she said they’re about to wrap it up! They have solid proof of who did it. Of course she wouldn’t tell me who, but she said detectives are talking to the judge right now to get a warrant for his arrest.”

  Win blinked, blinked again. “Well that’s great. And it’s about time. It’s been – how long now?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “They should have solved it long ago, but I guess that’s the state of law enforcement, they take their time without any consideration for the victim’s loved ones.” He leaned back in his black leather executive chair and crossed one leg over the other. “It’s about time they got it together,” he added, then sat staring at her.

  Allie’s thoughts were that Win never crossed his legs like that. More telling, his words sought to place blame rather than praise for the investigators in her imagined scenario. She said, “I guess we’ll have to wait until they arrest him. . .whoever. . . to really celebrate. Well, got to get home now.”

  “Yes! Keep me posted, please.”

  Allie was confident in her ability to read body language, nuances of voice and expression and listen to what people didn’t say as well as what they did say. She walked out to her car feeling stunned to have what she knew was the truth confirmed. In her mind, Win had confirmed his guilt as clearly as if he had confessed it.

  • • •

  When she was out of sight, Verbale stood on legs that felt inadequate to support him. Unable to react further, he automatically returned the wave of several office workers as they passed his office. He turned and looked around but was unable to register what he saw, unable to compose a coherent thought. Then it came. As of this moment he no longer controlled the game. Someone else had taken over and now he and the game inhabited a different world, a different universe, where the game would be fatal to the loser.

  Think, think! What should I do? What followed was that he was on the defensive now. He had to defend himself. He had thrown away the 45 he used to kill Cindy, tossed it into the river; the shoes and clothing he dropped in the Goodwill bin. Then the week he returned from his alibi trip to Costa Rica, he bought a little 22-caliber pistol.

  He jerked open the top drawer of his desk, grabbed the key to the lower drawer, unlocked it and retrieved the little 22 and immediately held it behind his back. He silently cursed the glass walls and door of his office while he tugged out the tail of his short-sleeved dress shirt and tucked the gun into the belt at the small of his back. He relished its hardness against his skin. The sensation dominated him while he locked his office door.

  Another employee leaving for the day caught his eye. That person walking down the hall, he told himself, I could kill him now. I could kill six people with no effort at all. The thought was both reassuring and tantalizing.

  In the car he leaned back in the seat; the gun pressed uncomfortably against his spine. Should he put it in the glove compartment? No, he needed the feel of it, pain or no pain. He reached for the button to start the engine, but then he asked himself, “Where will I go? Home? They might be there, waiting for me. Who could help me, hide me? No one. No one I trust enough. It’s time to cash in and go.

  He started the engine, checked the gauges; the gas tank was almost empty. He fought the urge to gun the engine anyway in a headlong race for Mexico. The San Luis port of entry was less than twenty miles away. Instead, he drove to the nearest gas station, the shabby one with second-rate fuel he never used, and filled the tank. Back in the car, he told himself he had time, time to go home to get his laptop and other things, things that might incriminate him: a lock of the fat woman’s hair, stiff with her blood. Think, think, don’t panic. Get it together. Doubt and fear crowded his mind. He struggled with the decision. It was like the recurring nightmares of being an unrecognized nobody in a crowd of celebrities and it produced the same effusion of cold sweat.

  Finally he leaned forward and patted the dashboard of the car. The car would take him to Mexico, then maybe, after a few years, back to California with a new identity and then . . .

  • • •

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Dusk had overtaken the last dog day of summer, the time when the sun released its last, weak rays before twilight, the time highway patrol officers call “dusk, dinner, and death time,” when most fatal road accidents occur.

  Near the intersection of Highway 95 and West County 15th Street, just yards north of the place the Highway cuts through the north-west edge of the Cocopah Indian reservation, Verbale pushed the speed limit heading south, fleeing toward the border and freedom. Anger, fear and hope vied for dominance in his mind but for now, at least, he felt in control. The glare of the setting sun to his right would extinguish itself in just a few minutes, bringing the dark of night to make him safer. The intersection of Highway 95 and County 15th Street near Avenue B was nothing that would slow him; the smaller roads held stop signs.

  Something in the corner of his eye – he turned his head, a pickup truck came at him from the left, the driver’s face startled. He jerked the steering wheel right. The truck veered left. At the same instant both drivers knew it was too late. A loud “crunch” and a jolt when the sides of the vehicles touched, then the truck careened across County Avenue B and onto the shoulder. Win’s black Mercedes bounced onto the shoulder of the dirt access road and onto Reservation land. A jarring stop, an instant of brain-numbing shock.

  Breathless, Verbale assessed his body’s condition and decided he was not injured. But his car! Anger jolted him. His car was damaged, his beautiful Mer-kaaa-deez now with an obscene dint in its beautiful black skin, no longer pristine! His head jerked toward the offending vehicle and its driver. He leaned forward to touch the gun at the small of his back.

  Then he remembered the game, the deadly game, and this was not part of it. It didn’t occur to him that the man had probably been blinded by the setting sun, didn’t see the stop sign and if it had occurred it would not have mitigated his rage. His plan of escape came into focus again to dispel the fog of rage. Killing was a luxury he couldn’t afford even for the pleasure of destroying the other driver, the stupid clod.

  Then it hit him. Was his car still okay to drive? He gunned the motor, let the Mercedes roll forward a few yards to check its soundness then began to turn back toward the highway.

  Movement from the truck caught his eye. The young driver climbed down fro
m the cab, apparently unfazed, and looked at his rear fender. Verbale could see a new dent-and-scrape on the truck with a few flakes of black paint decorating its faded blue. The man headed across the road toward him. Win had no intention of talking to this ignorant farmer who probably intended the mundane exchange of insurance information. Furious but on track again in spite of this hellishly bad luck, he pulled the steering wheel hard left into a U-turn that would take him back to Highway 95 south.

  The sound of a siren, an East Cocopah Tribal Police car barreled toward him, braked hard, sending up a spray of dust, turned across the road and blocked his way. It was too much. He was so close, so close to freedom and now this! He cut the engine and slapped both palms to his face. Pent up terror and rage erupted from his mouth. He screamed and screamed and screamed.

  • • •

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  At the fire house, Kim and her EMT squad number three partner, Jim, sat in the day room drinking iced coffee. After five o’clock on this noon to midnight shift there hadn’t been one call-out when usually there were three or four.

  The day room décor had been designed to simulate the cozy ambiance of a private home, featuring easy chairs, sofas and a few potted plants but concrete floors covered by throw rugs, high ceilings and speakers on the walls betrayed its real function.

  Kim sat at a desk in the corner while Jim had slumped into the room’s only recliner. He levered the chair back, creating a picture of innocent indolence. His recent attempt to grow a goatee had not matured and masculinized his face as he had hoped; the blond fuzz on his chin softened his appearance even more.

  “Hey, Latte,” Kim said, “maybe the reckless drivers and wife beaters are worn out by the heat.”

  “Let’s hope. I’m not as unquenchably thirsty for mayhem as some of your former partners.” Still in recline, he reached for the glass of coffee sweating droplets of moisture, and bent his head down sideways to take another sip.

  Kim nodded. “I noticed. When you became the new half of Squad Three we wondered if we’d have to put the Newbie on tranquilizers. Those first few weeks, I think I heard you praying for no call-outs. You’ve finally learned how to relax.”

  “You did okay by me, Straight-Up, trained me good. I feel like I can handle whatever they throw at us.” He put his glass down and turned his head toward her. “And speaking of confidence,” he said, “you look totally rad today. What’s up?”

  Kim laughed. “So I’m feeling good. Nothing’s up.”

  “Only money or sex could make someone as happy as you look and I’ll wager you’re still as poor as me.” He turned away and reached for his glass again.

  Kim rose from her chair, the wooden legs screeching on the floor. She went to smile into her partner’s face, one hand on the back of the recliner. “I’d say that’s a little too personal and none of your business, Latte. One hard push and you’ll be on the floor wearing your coffee.”

  He sat up fast. The recliner squealed then thumped while his coffee sloshed. He wiped his hand on his uniform then put the glass down on the end table and stood. “Sorry, Kim.” He held both palms up and toward her.

  “Don’t ever go there again kid,” she said. She turned and went to the bookcase, wondering if there was something to read that was good enough to relieve the enforced idleness of this shift. She saw Jim still stood looking at her.

  “So, Kim, whatever happened between you and Amos Wagner? I haven’t heard anything lately about him out to do you dirt.”

  She sat down in an easy chair. “Good to know. He and I came to an understanding.”

  “He didn’t get your license pulled, like he was bragging he would.”

  “If he had, I wouldn’t be here. He made a complaint to the Board, but then he retracted it. He hadn’t given them anything to document it in the first place, so they dismissed it.”

  “Justice triumphs again.” He picked up his glass to salute her. She nodded and opened her book. He put the glass down and went back to the recliner.

  Unable to focus on the novel, Kim turned to watch him. His eyes closed while she mused about his embarrassingly accurate comment. Her relationship with Lon was now much more than a friendship or even the modern version of friends with benefits. They were seeing each other almost every day and spent most nights together at her home or his. Their sex was an exploration of passion and joy she had never suspected lay within her and they seemed to understand each other without explanation or justification.

  She looked at Jim’s face and idly wondered if he would ever be so fortunate in his relationships. His face smoothed to contentment in ultra-slow motion, his jaw easing lower, lips parting. Soon a deep and slow rhythm of breath told her he had fallen asleep.

  She rose from the chair, dropped her paper-back novel on the end table and began to pace, unable to release feelings of tension so inappropriate for a quiet day. For a reason she didn’t understand her thoughts turned to Apache ancestors, among them Cochise, Geronimo and the woman warrior, Lozen. What intense, exciting days and what desperate, tragic times those had been. She tried to imagine herself there and then, but couldn’t complete the mental picture of who and how she would have been. Still, it was interesting to speculate that she had been born too late and was meant for those days instead of these.

  An alarm sounded. It startled her out of her reverie and shocked Jim awake. The duty sergeant’s voice blared from the intercom, “MVA, two vehicles, with injury. Intersection of Highway 95 and County 15th. Law enforcement on site. Squad Three respond.”

  • • •

  The sounds of Verbale’s screams stopped the uniformed Cocopah officer in his tracks. Fresh from two years of junior college and on the job three months, he had dealt with only a few accidents, fender-benders with no injuries. This one was different. He spoke into the radio fastened to his shoulder then continued toward the black car, wondering what terrible injury could make a man howl like that. He noticed body damage on the passenger side of the car and looked through the glass at the driver, bending and craning his neck to see the man’s injuries. He couldn’t see the blood and gore he expected. Then it must be the poor guy’s legs and feet, he decided. He waded through knee high weeds and clods of dirt to the driver’s side and reached for the door handle.

  Fear replaced Verbale’s anguish. His hand came up in a split second. He locked the door. Then it hit him. This was a tribal policeman who didn’t know anything about him. It was the Sheriff’s deputies who wanted him for murder. Chances were slim they even had a warrant yet, much less put out a BOLO. Here was good luck embedded in the bad. He unlocked the door, unfastened his seat belt and got out, smiling at the officer. “I’m all right,” he said. “But I have an important meeting in Sonora, in Mexico, and I’m running late.”

  “Aren’t you injured?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Why were you screaming?”

  “I told you! I have important business to take care of in Mexico.”

  “So you were late for a meeting. Were you speeding?”

  “No, no. That guy ran the stop sign!” He gestured to the opposite side of his Mercedes where the driver of the truck now inspected the damages.

  The officer motioned for the other driver. Standing between both, he interrogated the young man briefly. When he was satisfied the second driver also denied injury he began to take notes, meticulously recording names, license numbers and other details.

  Win looked from the young farm worker to the dark skin and round face of the officer. He barely suppressed the urge to punch them both, to jump into the patrol car and speed away, do something, anything. His mind raced while he trembled with frustration and impatience. He glared at the young driver who dipped his head and fixed his eyes on the ground. The distant wail of an ambulance siren grew louder, closer. Within seconds, all three men turned to see it roll onto the dirt access road.

  When Kim was satisfied she was well away from traffic on the highway and the county road she stopped.
Jim immediately unfastened his seat belt, climbed down from the shotgun seat beside Kim and went around to open the back doors and prepare to give aid. Kim sat looking through the windshield at the three men who stood talking. She picked up her radio. “Squad Three reporting. Hey, Dispatch, I thought you said injury. These guys are all vertical and breathing. What’s up?”

  “Roger, Squad Three.” The Dispatcher’s voice sounded more bored than resentful. “The call came in from the Tribal police. Check it out then terminate if appropriate.”

  She walked toward the three men. The officer turned and stepped toward her, obviously relieved to see another responder on scene. They greeted each other with a quick handshake and exchange of names, then she asked, “So who’s injured?” She glanced over at the pickup truck on the far shoulder of the road. “Someone trapped or lying down in there?”

  The officer responded. “No, just these two guys. I thought Mister Verbale here was injured but he says he’s fine. I’ll call the Sheriff’s Department now. The truck is on their territory.”

  For Kim, the name Verbale sparked instant recognition. “Lon’s murder suspect!”

  Verbale let out a piercing scream. Officer and truck driver jumped. Win clutched his belly and bent forward. “Ohhhhh. I think I am hurt. Ohhhhh!” He took a few steps toward Kim. She reached to grab him before he collapsed. He leaned on her, groaning. He lifted his chin toward the ambulance to indicate his intent, and began to walk toward it with Kim supporting him.

  Kim didn’t like it; something was wrong here. The guy hadn’t looked injured or shock-y to her. He might be a fraud, hoping for an insurance payout like some she had transported. But, no, this was different. This man might be a murderer.

  They reached the cab of the ambulance and continued back to the open rear doors. Out of sight of the Cocopah officer and the other driver, Verbale reached to the sweat-drenched small of his back and pulled his gun. He pressed the barrel into Kim’s right side and leaned into her, rotating his wrist. The gun barrel twisted into her side as if it would bore through her skin into her rib cage. He whispered in her ear, “Don’t say a word.”