The Desert Waits

by J. Carson Black

  “It was supposed to be bigger than Sun City. They got as far as a few model houses before the S&L involved in the deal went under. There’s a theory that they never meant to build it. It’s a modern ghost town. You ought to bring your camera.”

  Ted was persuasive. Alex found herself sitting beside him in his rented Infiniti as he drove out into the flat desert west of the Cascabels.

  “That was quite a scene back there,” he said, reading her thoughts. “Booker’s got a severe mental disorder—paranoid schizophrenic or something like it. Good prop man, though. He’s fine if he stays on his medication. I used him on an MOW.”

  “MOW?”

  “Movie of the Week. Deadly Impunity: the Madeline Delessio Story. Premiered on ABC. Did you see it?” He glanced at her, and Alex realized he was waiting for an answer.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’d know. We hit it out of the park.” Ted guided the car with one palm pressed against the bottom of the steering wheel. His Audemars Piguet watch caught the sunlight, nearly blinding Alex. “The made-for-TV movie is a highly underrated art form. What other medium dares to tackle the really tough issues? Cancer, murder, spousal abuse, disabilities—real human drama—they’re all right there in the Movie of the Week. You know, I’d rather do one of them than a feature film? Seriously. You must think I’m crazy for saying that.”

  “I don’t know enough about it to think you’re crazy or not.” Alex thought. He’s disconnecting. That’s how he’s handling his grief.

  “Take my word for it, the Movie of the Week is going to command the respect it deserves before long. It’s the perfect medium for what I want to accomplish.” His face had become animated; he glanced at her and smiled. His teeth were perfect and white. Capped? “I’ve got two properties in the works right now, the western and a possible deal for an MOW, but I’m going to have to put them on the back burner. The producers of Jagged Impact want me as a consultant to make sure they remain true to Caroline’s vision. I’m her interpreter now: her eyes, her ears, her voice. You know this was her film? She was the one who knocked on doors and put the deal together.” He pounded the steering wheel. “God, I miss her.” He slowed the car and pointed. “There’s the gatehouse. Spooky, huh?”

  The Spanish-style gatehouse, complete with a tower reminiscent of Taco Bell, slumped on the dusty plain. Bright-green desert broom grew up around the white stucco walls and choked the crumbling asphalt, which started about fifty yards before the gate. The lowering rays of the sun painted the gatehouse walls saffron. The window panes of the tiny guardhouse cubicle had been punched in, and glass shards bristled at the edges like shark’s teeth. Through the arch, Alex could see a flat tract of land dotted with clumps of burroweed. Three model homes perched on the edge of the clearing like Monopoly hotels.

  As Ted emerged from the car, he kicked a beer bottle out of his way. “ It makes me sick to think this was once pristine desert. There was no reason for them to scrape it flat like this. Developers! They don’t do anything halfway. It should be against the law to do something like this without building something.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Alex said. Arizona had a legislature that had passed a bill to manufacture chlorofluorocarbons and a governor who claimed the endangered Mexican spotted owl was smart enough to find a new habitat if man destroyed its old one. As if the bird could go through the real estate listings like anybody else. The governor was somewhat of an endangered species himself in this part of the country; he was exceedingly fair-skinned. Alex fervently wished his ancestors had never left their habitat in Scotland. With skin like his, and considering all the scientific data showing the relationship of chlorofluorocarbons to the depletion of the ozone layer and its link to skin cancer, you’d think he’d hedge his bets. Instead, he wholeheartedly supported the manufacture of Freon.

  Alex reflected that there should be one more C added to the “five Cs of Arizona”: cotton, citrus, copper, cattle, commerce, and cancer.

  Since the wacky Arizona legislature had passed a bill making it illegal to defame vegetables, it was within the realm of possibility that they might also pass a resolution calling melanoma a beauty mark.

  Ted’s voice broke into her thoughts. “We’re in a war for our lives. This kind of rape can’t continue indefinitely.” He took a deep breath. “I can’t even think about it right now; it makes me see red. Want to take a walk?”

  Alex, too, put a lid on her anger, turned it down to a low simmer. You can’t fight city hall.

  “Caroline said you’re a wildlife photographer. You take some good ones in the canyon today?”

  “Some.” She tried not to betray her impatience to go back to the hotel. The scraped earth depressed her and she wanted to be by herself.

  Ted shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Today he wore a button-down shirt and a silk tie. His shirtsleeves had been rolled up and he looked for all the world like a young candidate on the stump. Alex was struck by that image as he squinted against the sun. The light picked out the laugh lines around his eyes, keeping him from looking too boyish. For a brief instant the rogue thought came to her that he could have been posing for Newsweek or TIME, that all he needed was to drape a suit jacket over his shoulder, one finger hooking the collar.

  What’s the matter with me? What devil sat on her shoulder, judging the poor guy, analyzing his every move as if he were a contestant in the bereavement Olympics?

  Sure, Ted struck her as a trifle shallow, but he had a right to be himself. He had lost his wife and was coping the best way he could. She resolved to be kinder. “How are you doing?” she asked him.

  “I’ll manage.”

  “it probably hasn’t sunk in yet. I know it hasn’t for me.”

  They reached the first model home. The dying sun slanted across the land, striating the ground with long, blue shadows.

  “If you want to talk about it—” Alex offered.

  Ted sat on a low stucco parapet which surrounded the front entrance of the house and Alex sat down beside him. He stared out at the desert, his smooth face gleaming in the sun like a head on a bronze coin. “It’s hard to put into words. She was so ... special. She belonged to everyone, not just me.” He looked helplessly at his hands. “I don’t know what to do, now that she’s gone. I’m lost.” He started to cry, his back heaving with deep, gut-wrenching sobs. Alex didn’t think about it. She put her arms around him and hugged him to her, feeling his hot tears soak through her shirt.

  His head was heavy. Alex found her mind wandering. She heard the drone of a light plane, looked up over his shoulder and watched as the plane circled lazily and headed back toward the mountains.

  At last he took a deep breath and straightened up, one hand resting on her thigh. He looked blearily into her eyes. “Thank you.”

  His eyes searched hers. “Alex, I haven’t been straight with you. I told you we had a rock-solid marriage, and that’s not true.”

  Alex wished she could get up and walk away, but she knew he was in pain and he was Caroline’s husband and somehow she owed Caroline to listen.

  He was waiting for her reaction.

  All she could think to say was, “Oh?”

  The plane was back, circling as if looking for a place to land. Briefly, Alex wondered if it was in trouble, but the engine sounded fine.

  “It was rock-solid on my part. I loved her with all my heart. But she was such a big star—you don’t know the pressures people like them are under. They’ll do anything to get relief, to feel good about themselves. You know the stories about romances on the set.” He passed a hand over the back of his neck. “Oh, I don’t blame her. It was perfectly natural, the way they’re thrown together like that, but I never expected she’d ask for a divorce.”

  Alex closed her eyes. Why did she have to hear this?

  “I think she fell in love with Luther, although I’ll never know. That’s why I came back. I thought I’d surprise her for her birthday. You know, wine and dine her and r
emind her of how it used to be between us? And now she’s dead. I never got the chance.”

  The sun sank lower to the far mountains, which had turned to the color of a red plum, almost transparent. The plane gleamed momentarily like a straight pin before disappearing over the rugged peaks. She desperately wanted away from here. Just hearing Ted’s story brought back her own ugly memories—Brian, who hadn’t even had the guts to ask her for a divorce in person. She felt the familiar void open up beneath her and, although it was warm, experienced a chill.

  Suddenly chastened, he said, “I shouldn’t have told you, should I?”

  As she stood up from the wall, he reached for her hand and swung her around to face him. “Alex, please don’t think any the less of me for this.”

  She tried to laugh off her discomfort. “Of course not.”

  “I want you to like me. It’s important. I feel as if I’ve known you all my life.”

  She pulled her hand away. She knew he was hurting, but she didn’t want to hear anymore. It was too close to home. “Let’s walk.”

  He fell into step with her as she threaded through the silent, empty rooms open to the desert. They went through all three houses. Alex commented on the dust-coated bowl of wax fruit .still sitting on the kitchen counter, the rat droppings that seemed to be everywhere. “Maybe they should have called this place Hanta Virus Village.” Her attempt at a joke fell flat.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’m not going to dwell on it—what does it matter now if she was having an affair? Everyone has problems, and in my tunnel vision, I forgot that you’re hurting, too.”

  “I don’t think there’s any comparison. You were married.”

  “Normally, I’m not the kind of guy who dwells on things. I don’t like people who feel sorry for themselves.”

  Alex didn’t like self-pity either, although if anyone were entitled, it had to be Ted. “You’ve got to give yourself time to grieve.”

  “It didn’t give me the right to air my dirty laundry, especially now that she’s dead. I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m sorry. Am I forgiven?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.” She felt mean-spirited, judgmental, and admired Ted for his sense of pride.

  At the rear doorway to the last house, she paused to look out at the desert.

  Parked at the curb a hundred feet up the street was a white Volkswagen dune buggy.

  “What’s the matter?” Ted asked, coming up behind her.

  Alex jumped at his voice. “Do you know who owns that car?” she asked. “Someone on the crew?”

  “I haven’t spent that much time with this crew. Could be, though. Why?”

  Alex swallowed, her throat dry. The houses had blocked the bug from view until now. She had the strangest feeling it had been waiting there for her, patiently biding its time.

  It was the same bug. She recognized the bumper sticker, VISUALIZE WHIRLED PEAS, plastered to the back bumper. First, it had been at the trailhead to the canyon. And now it was here. Trembling, Alex realized her legs were swaying like saplings battered by a strong wind. She pictured Booker Purlie’s avid face as he sat across from her in the dining room. Could this be his car? Had he followed them here?

  The evening was washed in an eerie red light. The bug sat on the weed-choked asphalt, its dinged metal gleaming dully. In the rear, the engine lay exposed to view: dark, gleaming entrails.

  Empty. Just parked there, innocently enough. Alex wondered how such a mundane object could inspire such fear. “Did you see anybody around here?”

  Ted looked puzzled. “No. What’s wrong?”

  Alex decided to take a look at it, see if she could find out who it belonged to. Still feeling as if her legs might buckle at any moment, she traversed the distance to the car.

  The doors were locked, the windows rolled up. A devil’s claw was hooked around the rearview mirror; a grease-splotched slice of ochre carpet lay where a floor mat would be. Plastered to the side window was a sticker for the Nature Conservancy.

  As she leaned over to look in, she inadvertently brushed against the rounded fender. The metal was hot to the touch. The engine ticked, cooling. She looked back at the houses. Ted stood in the doorway, his face a featureless blob in the closing dusk.

  The other two houses looked empty.

  Where was the owner of this bug? It was flat here, not so much as a mesquite tree to hide behind for one square mile. Only a few stands of burroweed, low to the ground.

  Coincidence, she told herself. Someone from the crew, someone who took the day off to hike the canyon, someone who then drove out to see where they’d be shooting tomorrow.

  Coincidence.

  Not long after that, they left. As the Infiniti reached the gatehouse, Alex glanced in the side-view mirror.

  Her heart squeezed.

  It might have been a shadow in the gathering dusk or a figment of her imagination. But she thought she saw someone standing in the doorway of one of the houses, watching them go.

  Nick McCutcheon pounded the steering wheel of his Bronco and cursed Kyle Johnson’s name. The parking lot to the substation was empty. Janice and Bob must have taken Ellie with them to Puerto Peñasco.

  He didn’t blame them. Even though Game & Fish was on its way, he’d tried to catch the parrot himself, chasing it from tree to tree.

  As soon as he saw the Game & Fish truck, he’d left, driving as fast as he could for home, but it was too late.

  He had let Ellie down. Again.

  Sheriff Johnson was turning up the heat. Nick knew the sheriff hoped he would drop out. Sometimes he felt like doing just that;

  Johnson had powerful friends in the county and a big war chest. If Johnson were reelected, the harassment wouldn’t stop. And Nick would find himself making more excuses to Ellie.

  There were two messages on his machine. One was from Janice, probably from a pay phone in Palo Duro. She was polite, but he could hear the censure in her voice. The other message was from Alex Cafarelli. He looked at his watch. Ten thirty. He guessed that a wildlife photographer was an early riser. He’d drop by tomorrow. It would give him a chance to interview some members of the crew again.

  Feeling restless, he picked up the portable cassette recorder he’d used for interviewing witnesses last night and flicked it on. He listened to the tail end of Luther van Cleeve’s statement, the action-adventure hero’s strained voice sounding anything but star-like. To Nick, Luther’s shock and grief seemed genuine.

  “I don’t know why it happened today, with her. I used that gun in almost every scene,” Luther said.

  Nick fast-forwarded until he got to Phil Curry, the property master.

  The property master corroborated Luther’s claim. The gun had been used throughout the filming of Jagged Impact. Nick listened to the tape.

  Nick: Where was the gun kept?

  Curry: It was locked up in a marked drawer inside the truck at night. During the day, we kept it on the prop table when Lute wasn’t using it. There was always someone there to prevent just something like this from happening. In fact, we’d tightened up security years ago, since Brandon Lee.

  Nick: Were you always there?

  Curry: I was in and out because there are times I need to be on the set when they’re shooting, catch the problems that crop up. But Booker should have been there all the time.

  Nick: What about the day before Caroline was shot?

  Curry: (Pause) I’m pretty sure I was there most of the day. They were shooting a static scene, no props.

  Nick: Does anyone watch the prop truck at night?

  Curry: There’s a security guard who watches the trucks. I’d go by sometimes and check on things for the next day after our meeting. (Pause) At the end of the day, all of us—the director, DP, all the key personnel, we get together and discuss what we’re doing the next day. But the gun was locked up. Only Booker and I had a key.

  Nick: Did everyone know which scenes were going to be shot on which days?

  Curry:
Well, usually it’s on the shooting schedule. That scene—where Justin shoots Solana—was going to be shot out of sequence.

  Nick: Who would know it was being shot out of sequence?

  Curry: Well, Grey. The first AD, the director of photography, let’s see ... the production manager, key grip, gaffer, me. The actors. Everybody, I guess. The change was made weeks ago.

  What came up next was the most interesting part of the interview.

  Curry: Something did happen, come to think of it. I was called to the phone. I went to Grey’s motor home. When I picked up, no one was on the other end.

  Nick switched off the tape recorder. Someone had wanted to get Phil Curry away from the prop table.

  Nick stared out the window at the darkness. There was something else, a niggling sensation that he was missing something important in Curry’s statement. Just at the edge of his conscious mind, out of reach. Something else ...

  He picked up the phone and called the hotel.

  Phil Curry was in a meeting. Nick requested that Curry call him back and left his number. Then he radioed Dispatch and asked for copies of the transcripts of last night’s interviews. “I thought you were going camping,” Lupita said. He glared at the rolled up sleeping bags by the door, the blue-enamel cookset still in its box. He’d bought it at the Kmart in Tucson.

  “It didn’t work out,” he said.

  Seven

  Ill-fated superstar Caroline Arnet in limbo; the Mexican authorities are still refusing to release her body, today, April 25, 1996.

  —Barry Campbell, TODAY

  MUSIC UP—theme from TODAY

  Alex made it to the canyon by seven thirty the next morning. Nothing had triggered the camera, so she added more scent to the Q-tip and hiked back out. The turnaround was devoid of cars.