Falling Down

by David Cole

Her eyes flared wide open, her mouth a perfect O of surprise. “If I tell you, I’m dead.”

  “You’ll have protection.”

  She laughed, a loud, musical laugh that had no dark edges.

  “Finish me yourself, or call an ambulance. I’m done talking.”

  “Mary,” I said. “Cock the pistol.” She drew back the hammer with a double click. “Stay where you are, keep the pistol right on these perfect silicone breasts. If she makes any move toward you, just shoot.”

  “You can’t do that,” the woman said. “God-lovers don’t kill.”

  “God doesn’t roll dice,” Mary said. “But I will.”

  “Let’s make a deal. I give you E210, you forget about me.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  “You’ve got no proof I’ve done anything.”

  “I don’t need proof, I don’t care what happens to you.”

  “Yeah, well. What proof do I have you’ll keep your word?”

  “Do you believe in God?” Mary said.

  “Hardly.”

  “Then as God is your personal witness, we’ll let you go.”

  “That was too easy,” the woman said. “There’s no proof in what you said, that you’ll actually let me go.”

  “There’s no real proof of God’s existence,” Mary said. “But I know He’s there.”

  “No deal,” the woman said finally. “Go to hell.”

  “Mary. Keep your gun on her,” I said. “While I look for something.”

  I didn’t have to look far. A Tucson Yellow Pages lay open on the kitchen counter, between the sink and a portable phone and open to a page.

  Storage—Household and Commercial

  In red ink, a business name and address circled, with numbers in the margin of the page: 9-26-56. I ripped the page out of the book, rummaged through drawers and cabinets, and finally found what I wanted in the garage. I went back inside.

  “Mary,” I said. “We’ve got to do this carefully, so we don’t give this bitch an edge. Take this electrical tape and unroll four or five feet. I’ll stand away from you, while you wrap this around her ankles. Then more tape around her arms, tape her arms so she can hold the towel over her knee.”

  Now the woman cursed, but we paid no attention. I wrapped the last towel around her mouth and taped it securely to her head. Furious, her eyes followed every move, but there was no edge for her, none at all.

  Back inside our car, driving out of Ventana Canyon.

  “Where are we going?” Mary said.

  “E210,” I said. Handed her the page of advertisements, bloody fingerprints and all. Mary looked at it, shook her head.

  “E210,” she said. “What is it?”

  “A self-storage locker.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “If we’re lucky, something that will lead to who’s doing all this to us.”

  37

  UStore.

  The digital name itself a clue of sorts, the storage company owned by somebody with an eye to advertising on the Internet. Approximately fifty or so individual units, each fronted by padlocked, pull-down steel doors. uStore was southwest of Tucson, off Rincon and past the state prison, the pavement ending in a roundabout and a few other anonymous buildings. A graded dirt road ran to the south. I parked behind one of the other buildings, out of line-of-sight from uStore.

  “Something in there,” I said, “something will give us answers.”

  “There’s no front office,” Mary said. “It looks empty.”

  “Probably is. These self-storage places often don’t have an office on the premises, there’s a lot of money in this business, probably handled by a central office in Tucson. Lots of military people, from the Air Force base, they use these temporary storage units when they’re not assigned adequate housing.”

  “E210,” she said.

  “And if I’m right, I’ve got the combination to a padlock. You ready?”

  She touched her Mother Teresa medal. “Forgive me, Lord, for what I am about to do.”

  And the next ten minutes answered all my questions.

  We walked quickly to uStore, no windows in sight, no cars, no vehicles of any kind until we rounded the C and D sections of the units and saw a Chevy Cavalier parked midway down the last aisle.

  “This is E,” Mary whispered. Her shoes clattered on the asphalt.

  “Take off your shoes,” I said. Removing mine, racking the Beretta’s slide. “I know that car, why do I know that car?”

  I stopped, thinking, couldn’t recall where I’d seen the car.

  Moving again slowly down the E side of uStore, number two-forty, two-thirty, two-twenty, and stopped in front of two-ten. A huge padlock hooked through matching slots between quarter-inch-thick metal bars.

  “The combination,” I said. “Read it to me.”

  “Nine.” I set the padlock at zero, rotated the dial right to nine. “Twenty-eight.” Right again. “Fifty-six.” Right again, Beretta shifted to my right hand, tugging on the padlock. It wouldn’t open.

  “Doesn’t it go right, left, right?” Mary said. “Like a gym locker.”

  Zero. Right to nine. Left to twenty-eight. Right to fifty-six.

  It still wouldn’t open.

  “Gym locker,” Mary said. “Umm, ummm, go left a full turn, then stop.”

  Zero. Right to nine. Left, full turn past twenty-eight, then twenty-eight again. Right to fifty-six. Our eyes locked, I pulled gently on the padlock, and it slid open without a sound. I stood two feet back from the door, motioned Mary to grasp the handle, and nodded. She jerked the door up, it rolled open on oiled tracks but still made a clatter, and we were inside the unit.

  Open doorways on both the left and right walls.

  “Deb?” a voice said in the distance.

  “These units are connected,” I whispered. “This whole area of the storage units, they’re all connected on the inside.”

  “Deb? Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. My huskiest voice.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I waggled the Beretta to the left, moved to the edge of the open doorway, looked at Mary with the .357 out in front of her, the gun steady in both hands. I stepped into the doorway, saw a figure five units away.

  “Freeze,” I said. But the figure lurched sideways, more of a fall than a jump. I ran through three more units to find a man, crawling on the floor, trying to reach an AK-47.

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh, Jesus Christ. Not, no. Not you.”

  Christopher Kyle scowled at me from the floor, the AK-47 still six feet away. He dragged himself a foot closer, but I didn’t even hurry, I went to the AK-47 and tossed it aside.

  “Ah,” I said. “Oh, God. Not you.”

  He licked his lips, propped himself against a desk. Four computer monitors set up on a shelf along one wall, on the other wall a rack of computers, the web servers, the entire ChupaLuck online gambling casino.

  “Who is he?” Mary said.

  “A Tucson homicide detective.”

  “A detective?”

  “Over the hill,” I said. “And dirty.”

  “Why?” Mary said. “Why?” she said again, looking at Kyle.

  Kyle reached behind his back.

  “Don’t do that,” I said quickly. “Christopher, do not do that. Trust me this one last time, Christopher. You move, you die.”

  He slowly withdrew his hand, his muscular hands around a Glock nine.

  “I’ll shoot you,” I said. “I’ve already shot that woman today. That Carlin woman, whatever her name is, I shot her in the knee. I’ll do the same to you.”

  Kyle kept the muzzle away from me, moved it across his chest.

  “Don’t, don’t don’t don’t do that,” I shouted.

  But he swiftly tucked the muzzle under his chin and pulled the trigger. Except the gun misfired. I kicked the gun, before he could try again, kicked the gun so hard it crushed his lips and broke several teeth.

  “You always told me,” I said. �
�You told me that killing was random and easy. Not gonna be your way out, though.”

  Mary knelt in front of him. She pulled off her shirt, wiped Kyle’s bloody mouth, staring at him as he cursed.

  “My girl,” Mary said. “You threatened my girl’s life. You used up a lot of young lives. I could not imagine anybody using a young woman’s body like you’ve done, stuffing her intestines with poison.”

  Kyle snarled, moaned, an utterly wordless cry.

  “I forgive you,” Mary said. “I’m glad that you’re going to live. I will pray for you every day of my life. Whatever horrible, terrible place they’ll send you to, where you’ll live, hopefully, you’ll live a long, long time.

  “For the rest of your life,” Mary said. “I will pray for you. And may God forgive you.”

  “You would forgive him?” I said. Disbelief, shock.

  “Yes.”

  “After everything he’s done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will God ever forgive me?” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “Then God help me,” I said. “Because I understand so little of this.”

  Seeing a large roll of duct tape, I wound the entire roll around his body and the chair and desk and everything close enough to secure him even tighter. I looked at all the computer equipment, all of it familiar, its purpose familiar, everything about it not much different than my own office, Kyle himself not so different from me in his technical abilities.

  “I don’t understand this,” I said.

  I looked at the blood on his face, I looked for curses and defiance but all I saw was an old man’s spirit and purpose sagging in defeat. Nobody moved, no sounds came from outside, the silence so profound I heard my heart beat. I held my Beretta in both my hands, I racked the slide, ejecting all the cartridges and they tinkled to the floor, one by one until the magazine was empty and I hit the magazine button and the magazine dropped to the floor.

  “I don’t understand this,” I said. “There’s no meaning in what you’ve done.”

  “You’re marked women.” Kyle finally spoke. “La Bruja’s curse is on your heads, on your daughters’ heads.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s all you. When you go away, nobody will care about any of us. And you will go away for a long time.”

  “Kill me now,” he said.

  “We’re going to leave,” I said. “I’m going to call Bob Gates, I’m going to tell him where to find you.”

  “Kill me,” he said. “Finish me now.”

  I set my Beretta on the floor.

  I walked away from it.

  38

  “Hey, honey bunny,” Ken said. “Who’s paying for all this?”

  I’d shifted him to a private room at St. Mary’s hospital. His broken bones still needed a few more checks on the pins and screws.

  “It’s all on the house,” I said.

  “Get out of that chair,” he said. “Sit on the bed.”

  I sat on the very edge, gingerly. He lifted the sheet.

  “Get under here,” he said.

  “The nurse will be along any time,” I said.

  “Then get moving. I may be out of practice, but I’m not that quick.”

  I got under the sheet and he pulled down my jeans and touched me.

  “Got time in your life for a beat-up retired cop?” he said.

  “Years,” I said.

  “Whoa, wait a minute here.” Feeling my lower back, naked under the sheet. “Something’s missing. Where’s your Beretta?”

  “Forget about mine,” I said, reaching underneath the front of his hospital gown. “Where’s yours?”

  tohono chul park

  Hola, Ana Luisa.

  When you read this, your English will be better than my Spanish.

  I’m writing in this diary a lot, now. I have a special memory, I can replay scenes from my past, but for you, I want to write things down so I have them clearly and accurately and you will know our history.

  You have been baptized Ana Luisa Emich.

  Father Frank Woolever did a special baptism service in the park, at the grotto beside the puppyfish that you’ve come to love as much as me. He blessed the water, he ran the water on your forehead, and he said it was a symbolic burial, that you were now baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and that your new life, in Christ and God, began at that moment.

  My friend Laura Winslow brought her daughter and her granddaughter, and Father Frank baptized them both.

  We have many pictures.

  Laura made and edited a special video.

  Our lives have changed.

  We are no longer threatened.

  Laura says there’s no end to the chaos in southern Arizona, no end to drug cartels and gangs like the maras. But we are no longer threatened, our lives are no longer in danger. Laura says that the people who threatened us worked independently of other maras, that all the computer records we found in the awful storage place were destroyed. Laura wiped the computer drives totally clean.

  There are no records.

  Just in case, and it may never come to this, Laura provided me with two completely new identities for the two of us. If we’re ever threatened again, we’ll use them, we’ll move somewhere else and start over.

  But I don’t want to leave you, I don’t want to leave our life together, and I don’t want to leave this beautiful park and all the wonderful people who work in this sanctuary. Laura is gone. Once Ken was released from the hospital, Laura took him away and they’re somewhere, out there. Someday, we may meet these special friends again.

  And so I pray, Ana Luisa. I hope and I pray through Mother Teresa, may she intercede for us with God, may these dark times be over and may we live from now on in peace and serenity.

  In God’s name, I pray this is the true end to this story.

  acknowledgments

  In writing this book, many, many people contributed in many, many ways.

  Thanks to all the wonderful people at Tohono Chul Park, a privately-funded, not-for-profit nature preserve in Tucson, Arizona. Fifty acres of natural beauty and quiet serenity, Tohono Chul Park is the Southwest’s center where nature, art, and culture connect. Special thanks to my close friends Mary Emich and Ken Charvoz on the Park staff. Mary is Director of Visitor Services, Ken coordinates the efforts of over three hundred volunteers. Both Mary and Ken started out to be just minor characters, and wound up with major and central roles.

  Thanks to everybody who agreed to let me use their real names for characters in the book. This is no small thing. Other than Laura Winslow and her family, just about every name here (at last count, over thirty characters) is that of a friend or of somebody who graciously contributed money at an auction so that I’d use that name for either a good or bad character. That said, don’t expect me to use personal details of any of these people—Falling Down is, after all, fiction. In particular, the real Chris Kyle is entirely the opposite of that character in the book. Chris is kind, sweet, generous, and a good friend. The Park itself (I’m both a Park member and a volunteer) has a major role as a real and symbolic sanctuary of peace when set against the increasing drug and smuggling chaos of Southern Arizona.

  Thanks to Mary Emich and Dympna Callaghan for helping me better understand some Catholic mysteries. Dympna, a Shakespearean scholar with tremendous research and writing skills, always inspires me to work harder.

  I can’t thank everybody who’s helped me write this book, but here are four special friends who stand in for the larger communities they represent. As a fellow writer, Rhys Bowen gives freely of advice and support. The mystery community owes great debts to those who publish genre journals and guides: Janet Rudolph (Mystery Readers Journal) and Kate Derie (Deadly Directory, cluelass.com). Mary Jane Maffini, of Capital Crime Writers of Ottawa, is just one member of those special groups that promote and guide mystery writers; groups like Sisters in Crime, Private Eye Writers of America, and Mystery Writers of America. Thanks to my number one fan, Sylv
ia Ulan of Tucson. For me, Sylvia represents the mystery book community as a whole—the hundreds and hundreds of writers, fans, and readers.

  And as always, this book simply wouldn’t be possible without the support of my wife, Deborah Pellow.

  About the Author

  DAVID COLE is the author of six previous books featuring Laura Winslow. In 1994 he co-founded Native Web (www.nativeweb.org), an Internet corporation for native Americans and indigenous peoples of the world. A longtime political activist, he lives in Syracuse, New York.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Praise for the Laura Winslow novels by DAVID COLE

  “Dazzling.”

  Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

  “Not for the squeamish. Keep the lights on!”

  Glynco Observer (GA)

  “Kept me reading far into the wee hours. The author has a gift.”

  Sue Henry, author of Murder on the Iditarod Trail

  “Full of memorable characters, convincing dialogue, and enough dead bodies to keep even the most jaded reader happy.”

  Lansing State Journal (MI)

  “Compelling and readable…Laura Winslow [is] a unique and gutsy sleuth.”

  Mary Jane Maffini, author of the Camilla MacPhee and the Fiona Silk series

  “One of the most complex and fully realized protagonists around.”

  Donna Andrews, author of Click Here for Murder

  “Haunting…Will leave the reader a bit uneasy at the end.”

  The Mystery Reader

  Books by David Cole

  FALLING DOWN

  SHADOW PLAY

  DRAGONFLY BONES

  SCORPION RAIN

  STALKING MOON

  THE KILLING MAZE

  BUTTERFLY LOST

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.