“From?”
“The Superstitions.”
“What the heck you doing out there?”
“I’m with Chase. There’s been a murder.”
Gus hears Chase’s neck snap and can see without looking that the man is simmering.
“You’re with Chase? Right now?”
“Yep.”
“Oh. Jesus Christ.” Gus hears Mills fidget over the phone, hears the spasms of a flummoxed man. “Jesus Christ,” he repeats.
“How about we call you from the scene?” Gus asks.
“How about you stay in the car,” Mills tells him. “Hang up now very calmly but keep your phone on.”
“Right,” Gus says. “Good advice.” Then he hangs up. His stomach is in the basement. His hands are cold and sweaty. Again, the sphincter.
“Dammit, Parker,” Chase says, and Gus jumps in his seat.
“What?”
“I told you not to run your mouth off about the Superstitions.”
“It was Mills. That’s all.”
“What did he want?”
Gus tells Chase about the drug ring at Central High. “I guess my visions paid off.”
Chase turns to him, and the killer’s fiendish smile is like the penciled-in hyperbole of a suffering clown. The slit of Chase’s mouth might as well be carved from ear to ear with one slash of a knife. Gus sees the knife. One is missing from the bench. He feels the knife against his back, slitting through the fabric, ripping through his flesh and digging at his vertebrae. He settles into the cradle of the seat. Chase is still smiling. “Look at you,” the man says. “All proud of yourself.”
“Well, it was nothing, really. Just a hint.”
Chase slaps him on the knee. “No way! You solved the case, Parker! Good job. Really, I mean it.”
“That means a lot coming from you.”
“Does it?” Chase asks, the grin suddenly collapsing.
“Yeah,” Gus tells him. “Of course.”
Chase steers the car to the right-hand lane, then down an exit ramp. “Almost there,” he says. The signs, indeed, are pointing to Lost Dutchman. Gus leans again on the window and closes his eyes. Yes, he sees Teddy Smith in the cave with Elizabeth Spears, in the cave with Lindsey Drake, in the cave with the others, in the room with Andrea Willis, and he sees the man wild with rage then gently carving, then wild with rage and then gently carving again. And over the dying bodies, Teddy Smith is chanting, “I love my daddy. I love my daddy. I love my daddy.”
The ding of his cell phone startles him. It’s a text message from Mills.
AM: There’s no murder
GP: Huh?
AM: There’s no murder at the Superstitions
GP: There are cops out there already
AM: Just called into HQ. No one working a murder. Are you there yet?
GP: About five minutes
“Who are you texting, Gus?” the killer asks.
“Beatrice,” he says instinctively. “She thinks she can guide me to the murder, and maybe the murderer.”
“I told you to keep your mouth shut about this. At least ’til we get there, dude.”
“Technically my mouth is shut. I’m texting.”
“Technically I’ll throw that damn phone out the window,” the killer warns him. “I don’t mean to be a dick about this, but nothing can compromise the investigation. Not at this point. Woods already pulled Mills from the case. I’m next.”
“Fine. I’ll just call her and tell her to stop. Okay?”
“One call.”
“Like I’ve just been arrested. . . .”
“Don’t tempt me.”
He calls Mills. “Hey, Beatrice, dear—”
“Who? What the fuck?”
“Look, Bea, I’m not supposed to be saying anything about the case right now. I mean, we’re not even sure it’s, you know, linked to the other murders. And Chase is getting pissed.”
Chase laughs a crazy, startled laugh beside him.
“Don’t get out of that car,” Mills tells him.
“Not sure I can refuse. Dinner sounds great, Bea.”
“Well, do what he says then,” Mills instructs. “But don’t do anything stupid. The guy’s got weapons, you know.”
“Right.”
“We’re alerting everyone. An army’s heading that way, but in the meantime the best you can do is stall him. If you try to get away chances are you’ll end up dead.”
“I think that might happen anyway, Bea.”
“Do not hang up. I want to hear every move he makes.”
“Okay,” Gus says tentatively.
“I’m telling you, put the phone down like we’re done. But don’t hang up.”
Gus complies, but, despite the warning from Alex Mills, he considers jumping from the moving car. He imagines the velocity of his escape, his head cracking open on the pavement, a limb or two severed by an oncoming vehicle. He figures it’s probably safer and less bloody to simply bolt once the lunatic parks the car.
38
They enter a parking lot. The place is empty. Not a sign of life.
“Where are all the cops?” Gus asks. “You said they were already out here.”
“They went in at another trailhead. At least that’s what they told me when I called in. My job is to look for evidence coming in this way.”
“All by yourself? That’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“You’re coming with me.”
Chase parks the car.
Gus points to a sign. “Now I see why no one’s out here. ‘Spirit Rock Trail Closed for Maintenance,’” he reads.
“Lucky for us,” Chase says, “or else we’d be turning away hundreds of hikers on a day like this.”
“Yeah. Lucky.” Gus starts to unbuckle but then pauses. “You know, why don’t you go ahead of me? When the techs are finished with the scene, have them send me in.”
Chase laughs. “You scared? You’ve seen a dead body before, Gus Parker.”
Gus tries an ambivalent chuckle. “Of course I’m not scared. I’m good. Just don’t want to get in the way.”
“Come on,” Chase says. “It’s a ways in, I’m told. Easier if we go together.”
Gus doesn’t budge.
Chase grabs the keys, jumps out, and heads to the trunk. Gus eyes him in the side-view mirror. He’s no match. The brawny Teddy Smith could flatten him like a warm tortilla. But Gus bets he could outrun the psychopath. What he lacks in mass he makes up for in agility, dexterity, and speed. That’s it, he’ll scramble away, hide behind boulders if need be. He grits his teeth, tries to speak without moving his lips, and says, “Mills, if you can hear me I’m at the Spirit Rock Trail. I assume we’re heading in. That’s all I know.”
Suddenly Chase is at the window, rapping hard.
“You coming?” His smile is almost gleeful. He’s thrown on one of those khaki jackets with all the pockets, the kind TV correspondents and photographers sometimes wear to blend into a war zone, an earthquake, or the migration of wildebeest.
Gus has given up on his bowels; they’re either with him or they’re not. He tries to go Zen and usurp the cramping inevitable with a dream or a meditation or a vision. And he sees an empty cave.
The door opens beside him. “You know, we’re sort of in a hurry,” Chase says. “I’m afraid we’re keeping a dead body waiting.”
“Right. Sorry,” Gus says, surreptitiously sliding the phone into a pocket as he climbs out.
When they reach the trailhead, Chase pivots toward Gus and says, “You thirsty?”
Gus shakes his head.
“You sure? By the time you’re thirsty you’ll already be dehydrated.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard that line a hundred times, Chase.”
The killer moves toward him with that strange, exalted smile on his face.
Gus retreats a few steps, wishing there were hikers out here he could call for help, or mountain bikers, a fucking goat herder, anybody. Thinking Mills might not be able to hear the
muffled conversation, he slides his hand in his pocket and tries to lift his phone higher. But it’s no use. The phone keeps slipping back down, and it just looks like Gus is standing there playing with his dick.
“I brought some water just in case,” Chase says. “Love this jacket. Lots of pockets. I’m like a boy scout. Always prepared.”
“That’s comforting,” Gus tells him.
They walk. The trail is gentle at first, and it doesn’t feel like a climb at all. Gus remembers this hike and the bounty that awaits: about a mile into this trail is a gallery of petroglyphs. Hikers make this pilgrimage with almost religious piety, practically genuflecting at the sight of the legendary etchings. It’s the perfect place for a man obsessed with ancient artwork, even more so when it’s abandoned without a soul around to come to Gus’s aid.
The climb becomes slightly more strenuous, but, as they reach an apex, Gus can see a boulder-filled canyon in the distance.
Gus scans the horizon, takes in the sun, and lets it land on his face. He closes his eyes and disappears for a moment in a square of white, listening to the crunch of the psychopath’s footsteps ahead of him, and he sees the simple radiance of God. In this square there is nothing but peace and light, not a murmur, not a scuffle, nothing. He assumes that this is how it will end. Not necessarily here and now, for he still believes that he has much work to do, that he is not destined for a final bow at the Superstitions. But he assumes that this is how it ends for everyone: a white square of nothing blessed with everything.
“Keep up, dude,” Chase barks.
Gus’s eyes pop open. He smiles. “Sorry.”
The man looks back at him with an empty face; there’s nothing there but a wall of flesh and ageless secrets. Gus sidles up beside the killer, and they continue their hike like old buddies on a break from the stewing madness of married life, kids, and relentlessly mediocre careers. They’re the kind of friends who will plan a guys-only weekend at Lake Havasu or maybe Vegas but never go. They’re the kind of friends who won’t slay each other. The pretense is all Gus has to work with—and he has no faith at all that it’s working.
“You feel anything yet?” Chase asks.
“Feel anything?”
“You know, Parker, you getting one of your vibes out here?”
Gus stops and feigns an inward search. Chase moves in close. Gus sees nothing except a certain disappointment, a frozen frame of the view ahead where nothing happens and no one knows what to do. It’s like a test. Here’s a sentence; fill in the blank. Gus is about to emerge from the view when he sees a flash of something, an object dangling, here then gone, then back, dangling. A rope. He reports that to Chase.
“Interesting,” Chase says. “What do you think it means?”
“I have no idea,” Gus replies.
They walk in silence for about another ten minutes. The whole way Gus feels himself short-circuiting, as if his vibe gets no signal out here.
Chase stops and points. “Down there,” he says, indicating a rocky area near the trail’s end. “Blessed with petroglyphs.”
Interesting choice of words, Gus thinks. “Yeah. I’ve been out here before.”
“One of the best collections in the Southwest. This killer has chosen the ultimate sanctuary for death.”
“Eloquently put. You must know him well,” Gus says, trying to taunt the man out of his lunacy. “A very complex profile, I’m sure.”
But Chase is unfazed. “It’s my job,” is all he says.
Gus understands Chase’s mission now and can’t think of how to distract him. It’s psychic versus psychopath.
“I don’t know, Chase. I’m not getting any more vibes about this place.”
The man is breathing heavier now. He puts one foot up on a rock and leans there. “You will. I have faith you will.”
You’re faithless, Gus thinks. Your soul is on empty.
“We’re going down to the scene,” Chase tells him. “I’ve been told exactly where it is. It’s just beyond the petroglyphs. Our killer’s consistent.”
Gus follows. The trek is steep. Their footsteps release a landslide of pebbles. Chase stops at a ledge.
“We stuck?” Gus asks.
“Hell no,” the man says. “Just hang and drop.”
Chase goes first.
“Hang and drop,” Gus repeats. He lowers himself to the ledge, then over the side, his hands gripping the edge. There is a bump of land right below, not much more than two feet of air between his feet and another solid surface, but still Gus’s blood stirs. He hangs. Wishes that if he did fall he’d fall forever. The sun is beating at his neck. The man below grunts and spits and grabs his leg.
“I got you,” Chase says. “Just drop yourself slowly.”
Gus complies. The man takes his arm and guides him down. Gus follows him to a lower path that meanders between walls of rock. They turn a corner, and a stony wash comes into view. “There,” Chase says, pointing across the dry riverbed. On the face of a boulder, pointing a bit to the east, is the ancient artwork of a lost people. The crude rendering has eyes, and teeth, sharp teeth, like a reptile’s. “He wants the bodies to be found,” the detective says. “It’s his fingerprint.”
Chase is awestruck and almost giddy.
“That’s not the way all murderers work,” he continues. “I mean, if I were a killer and, say, I wanted to kill you, I’d make it so your body was never found.”
“That’s a comforting thought, Chase.”
“You know what I mean,” the man says with a bold laugh. “I’d put you way out in the desert. Like in the middle of nowhere.”
“Well, this is kind of in the middle of nowhere.”
“No,” Chase insists. “This is the perfect gallery for him.”
Of course it is. The walls around them are all adorned with petroglyphs, an exhibit of tribal art in 360 degrees. The portraits could be alive—they feel alive—whispering to each other about the two visitors below. Gus truly senses that these etchings have voices; he has a primal sense of spirits dwelling in the rock, behind those masks. There is water here, too. Of all places. As if to support these cliff dwellers.
Gus looks at Chase who is similarly transfixed, only deeper, in worship, and he realizes this is his opportunity to get away.
And so he backs up a few steps, then a few more, pretending to admire the artwork as he retreats. He steps gingerly over a pool of water, then another. Then the way back to the trailhead opens in front of him and he takes off running upward out of the canyon.
At first his strides are as quiet as a whisper. He’s slithering, like a snake.
He has no sense of time. It feels as if he’s been running forever, but he knows desperation never runs as swiftly as it needs to. Thirty seconds feel like five minutes. A minute feels like an hour.
And desperation rarely remains quiet. Desperation has a sound. And now he hears it, how his feet are kicking stones, loosening rock as he flees. The tiny avalanche betrays him now, and he can absolutely sense the moment Chase emerges from worship and notices him gone—he knows this without looking back. And then he can hear the man coming after him, another rush of footsteps against the hardscrabble of earth.
Chase is yelling, “Stop, Gus Parker. Stop right there.”
But Gus keeps running.
He doesn’t turn around, even as he hears the voice coming closer, even as he feels the vibration of the killer’s feet ripping up the dirt behind him. He pulls the phone from his pocket and, in a staggering voice, yells for Mills. There’s no answer. Of course there’s no answer.
No signal.
No shit. The phone is useless. He has only his feet. And he’s pounding the rock, the dirt, more rock, nearly tripping, nearly spinning out of control. There’s a breeze at his neck that might as well be Chase’s breath.
At the ledge he reaches. He jumps, and his hands land on sharp stones, the pain jolting through him. He loses his grip and slides down, then jumps again. He holds himself up, clutching the ledge and p
ulling his body upward. A simple push-up, but he stops to catch his breath.
Okay. Stop.
His heart is exploding. His hands are bleeding. One more contraction of his shoulders and he’ll be up and over, and so he exerts those muscles and begins to rise. He clears his torso and is about to lift a knee when there is a distinct seizure of his legs.
And Gus knows it’s over.
Chase has him in the vise of his hands. The vise might as well be cuffs, otherwise Gus would try to kick. But there is no kicking. Chase has immobilized his prey. And the predator begins to pull slowly. Inch by inch Gus comes down, his face scraping against a wall of rock. Then Chase grabs him by the stomach, spins him around, and Gus’s feet hit the earth.
The man is smiling again. “Perhaps you believe there’s no body out here after all,” Chase says. “Well, there isn’t. Not yet.”
“But what do you want with me, Teddy?”
The man’s face turns purple. “What did you call me?”
“Teddy. Teddy Smith.”
Chase lunges. His hands make swift and forceful contact with Gus’s chest, and Gus feels himself falling to the ground. His head hits a rock. “What the fuck?” he says, his brain a scrambled egg as he tries to reassemble the image of the man towering above him.
“Hi, Gus Parker,” Chase says.
Gus’s eyes are foggy.
“I said hello, Gus.”
“Yeah. Hi, Detective.”
“You having fun yet?”
“Loads.”
The fog clears, and now Gus is blinded by the sun. The silhouette of Timothy Chase bends to him, hoists him by the back of his collar, and then suddenly he’s airborne. Chase has lifted him from the ground in one swoop and thrown him over his back. It’s the firefighter’s carry, and Gus tries to appreciate the irony, but his head is throbbing and the world is upside down, maybe inside out, from this position. The man rushes back down the trail, jumping from rock to rock in a manic zigzag as if he’s traversing a minefield.
Gus, bouncing around up there, tries reaching into one of Chase’s pockets, thinking maybe he can grab the guy’s gun. He figures it’s his only option at this point, but he doesn’t find a gun. He tries another pocket. Again, nothing. He’s only riding Chase’s back for maybe a minute before the killer throws him to the ground and his whole body lands in a thud. The thud echoes everywhere.
Desert Remains Page 37
