“That explains why my intuition was right and wrong,” Gus said.
“How so?”
“A while back, I sensed Chase would crack the case, that somehow he’d upstage you, but it turned out he cracked the case because he was the case.”
“You could have warned me.”
“Like I said, my intuition was right and wrong. And I knew how important the case was to you. I didn’t want to mess with your mojo.”
Mills laughed. “My mojo,” he repeated. “Yeah. There’s that.”
The two men shook hands. “You need me again tomorrow?” Gus asked.
“I do. Sorry.”
“No problem. Just call. Let me know where and when,” Gus told him. “And when you’re all done with this, I think you should take your family away.”
“Is that a vision you’re getting?”
“No,” Gus replied. “It’s just a suggestion. A nice vacation somewhere far away.”
“I hear England is very nice in the winter,” Alex said.
“I hear it’s rather bleak.”
“How about you?”
Gus stood there considering the options. He thought about spinning the globe, pointing arbitrarily. He thought about surfing at Puerto Viejo or maybe hiking the Inca Trail and meeting with a shaman in Peru. Then he thought about Wales. He got an instant and fleeting vibe that something or someone was waiting for him in Wales. “Seattle,” he replied. “I think I’ll head up to Seattle.”
“Seattle? Talk about bleak.”
Gus shrugged and laughed. Then he got in his car and drove home to take Ivy out for a winter stroll.
42
Gus stayed for three days. He couldn’t tell how much Seattle had changed, because the big things about Seattle hadn’t changed and those big things tended to upstage the little things.
She looked yellow to him and bruised. She acknowledged him with a thin smile then closed her eyes and slept.
There was not a lot of Meg Parker left in the Meg Parker in the bed. Every time he came into the room he looked for her. Sometimes she’d stare back at him with glassy eyes and, again, that thin smile. She said very little. And she answered questions with a yes or a no.
His father said that she’d been getting sick for a couple of months before the diagnosis. He said that the cancer was already taking a toll. He said other things, too, mostly clinical things, and he did go to work half days.
One morning Gus went with them to the hospital and watched his mother undergo chemo. She brought a book. The place smelled of astringent and the rotting, dying organs that the astringent was meant to mask. He asked to speak to her doctor who could not be found until they were all just about ready to leave.
“My father’s been cagey about the prognosis,” Gus said. “I’d really like to know.”
The doctor did a doctor thing (Gus had seen the expression among the radiologists who soberly ponder bad news) and tilted his head back and forth, not a nod, not a shake, a metronome of thought, and said, dispassionately, “We’re looking at a year, maybe eighteen months. Are you here for a while?”
“No,” Gus said. “I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh.”
“But I’d like your number. I’d like to call and check in,” Gus told the man. “If that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
Meals were quiet but respectful. There was a din of inevitability that lightly hummed throughout the house, like the running of the refrigerator when everything else goes quiet. Gus didn’t want to flash back, but he flashed back. And he saw her in a bathrobe, then a business suit, then an evening gown. He saw her at the grocery store with flawless skin. He saw himself running down the street. An eight-year-old being chased by his uncle. He saw his mother’s heart break looking from the window even though Ivan was still alive. He saw a piece of her disappear. He wondered who was estranged from whom. He thought about forgiveness not as a debt but as an act of grace, but he lingered there until he realized that forgiveness often flows both ways, in two directions, often mutual, often magnetic, taking a distinct charge out of the atmosphere.
When Gus left Seattle, when he waved good-bye as he closed the door of the taxi cab, he took with him a visceral distinction between life and death, almost a physical line that split something inside him into two parts.
On descent now, he sees the antennas poking out of the Estrella Mountains, a cluster of alien eyes blinking in the night, and then the more barren outline of South Mountain. The aircraft dips and turns, a precarious bird in a dive home, and Gus sees the muscular ridges of Camelback, blacker than the sky. There’s a heartbeat in these monoliths of the valley. There are vibrations that will never die.
And now here is Beatrice Vossenheimer waiting for him as he emerges from the shuffle of arriving passengers. She gives him a big, breathtaking hug. Then kisses him three times. She is gushing. “Gus, Gus, Gus, I’m glad you’re home,” she sings. “I’m glad you went, but I’m glad you’re back.”
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he tells her.
She drives him home, and they’re greeted by a frenzied Ivy. The dog charges at Gus, slobbering, yipping, and wrestling him to the ground. “Thanks for dog sitting,” he cries from the floor. “What did you feed her? Red Bull?”
Beatrice ignores him and moves into the kitchen. “I hope you don’t mind,” she calls to him. “I took the liberty of whipping up a salad.”
“How great,” he says.
He showers while Beatrice puts the food out. He’s in sweatpants and a T-shirt when he enters the kitchen. “Looks like you need to hang out for a few days just as you are,” she tells him. “Decompress from your trip.”
“I’m back to work the day after tomorrow.”
They sit. Gus forks through the salad and munches a crouton. The air is easier to breathe here. When they finish eating, Gus clears the dishes and Beatrice curls up on the couch. “There’s mail for you,” she tells him. “Elsa dropped it off along with the papers.”
The pile contains mostly bills and one actual piece of mail. Not much has changed in the newspapers. The arrest of Timothy Chase is still making headlines. Chase has been formally charged and will likely face the death penalty if found guilty. He remains under psychiatric observation at the state prison. According to public records, Chase has been placing calls every day to his mother, Priscilla, who has declined to talk to her son. Everything else about the case continues to be speculation and carrion.
“You weren’t following the news during your trip?” Beatrice asks him.
“Not at all.”
Gus turns to today’s morning paper that, finally, offers up an original headline, one that sends a full recognition to his face:
VALLEY CONTRACTOR INVESTIGATED IN BRIBERY SEX SCANDAL
Case Could Implicate Local Officials, May Reveal Forced Prostitution
He is, at once, relieved and terrified for Bridget Mulroney. He wonders if she has the true grit to survive this. Not the affectation of grit with which she has lived from day to day. Vindication isn’t always a Hollywood ending. More often it’s a maelstrom. He knows this.
“Did you open the card in the mail?” Beatrice calls to him.
“No,” he says. “I didn’t.”
“Open it,” she tells him.
He reaches for the pile again and finds a card with no return address, a Paradise Valley postmark. “Are you inviting me to a wedding?”
“Open it.”
Inside, Billie Welch’s signature lightning bolt adorns the cover of the card:
I’m playing Phoenix Sky Pavilion on the 18th. I’d like to put you on the guest list. Hope we can spend some time. Peace, love, Billie
He smiles. He can’t help himself.
“Geez, who writes letters anymore?” he wonders aloud.
“She says she doesn’t own a computer,” Beatrice says. “Doesn’t have an e-mail address.”
“Did you know about this?” he asks her as he approaches the couch.
<
br /> “Like, psychically?”
“No. Like, did she tell you?”
“Yes. She invited me as well, with Max.”
“The dude from Safeway?”
“His name is Max,” she chirps.
He sinks into the couch beside her. Ivy hops into his lap. “Are you going?”
She smiles impishly. “No, no, Gus. Time for you and Billie to be alone.”
“Alone with her band, her road crew, her hair and makeup entourage?”
She raises her head. “Gus. It’s time for you to be alone with that woman.”
“Okay,” he says. “Cool.”
She snorts and falls back into the pillow. “Cool? Is that all you can say?”
He nods. That’s all he can say. But that’s not all he can see.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you for everything, everything, and everything, Paul Milliken. Without you I never would have come back to the velvet underground. I certainly never would have stayed. It doesn’t matter if no one else understands what that means. You do. Your faith in me is relentless. You’ve given me incredible support. To my sister, Nancy Sciore, for calling me every morning and not asking if I’m writing. For just calling and, every so often, saving my life. I’m enormously grateful to my parents for a lot of things, but when it comes to the work I’m doing now, for understanding I am too old to have a fallback position. Thanks for the support, Mom and Dad. My beautiful nieces, Chloe and Marielle: You promised to take care of me when I’m old and senile if I mention you here. I love you like crazy. You amaze me. I mentioned you here. To David O’Leary and Jean Stone, for being the dearest, oldest friends. Billy, Greg, Beth, Nate, Ivette, Mia, and Ethan—I did really well in the in-law department.
I’m grateful to my agent, Ann Collette, for being such a great advocate for this book. She’s also an enthusiastic coach, and I hope she doesn’t mind if I call her the “Queen of Revisions.” She expects you to work. And you’re always the better for it. I want to thank my editor at Seventh Street, Dan Mayer, for welcoming Desert Remains with such open arms and grooming it with such a keen eye to final publication. I appreciate all the hard work the people at Seventh Street and Prometheus Books do to bring books like this one to life. And thanks, as well, to the team at Penguin Random House for getting Desert Remains to booksellers everywhere.
Prior to becoming Maricopa County sheriff, Paul Penzone helped on a very early version of this book. The story evolved quite a bit, but his early tips about the law enforcement landscape in Arizona proved invaluable. All errors are exclusively mine. He is absolutely NOT the basis for the character Sheriff Clayman Tarpo of Maricopa County. David Drennon has always been my go-to guy in Phoenix. A dear friend, former colleague, and even the one who looked after my South Mountain home for a while, David deserves a big thanks.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Many of the hiking trails, petroglyphs, and caves depicted in this book are based on real sites in the Phoenix area. I have taken creative liberties with some. Others are a complete figment of my imagination. I recommend visiting to find out for yourself.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steven Cooper is a freelance writer, a video producer, and the author of three previous novels. A former television reporter, he has received multiple Emmy Awards and nominations, a national Edward R. Murrow Award, and many honors from the Associated Press. He taught writing at Rollins College (Winter Park, Florida) from 2007 to 2012. He currently lives in Atlanta. Visit his website at www.stevencooperbooks.com. You can also find him on Twitter: @thestevencooper.
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