“The chupacabra is a nocturnal alien creature,” I said. “Much feared in Mexico and Miami and the American Southwest, though it was originally discovered in Puerto Rico. Called the Goatsucker, because it prefers to feast on the blood of goats, though it also sucks the blood of other livestock and small animals.”
Daly clearly believed I was making sense.
“Does it kill humans?”
“No cases have been documented, but it has fangs and long, sharp teeth.”
She seemed so ignorant, but how could she be? After all, she had run with Rhea and knew her methods. And Rhea had trusted her enough to bring her here.
“Chupacabras or other aliens may be the malefactors here,” I said, straining to not sound patronizing. “But we must consider all possibilities. You must tell me anything that might help. Now.”
No change in her expression.
“People may kill you to keep you from talking,” I said, gently emphasizing the word people. “But there’s an out. If you’ve already talked, if the world knows what you know, the reason for killing you goes away. That’s what I can offer. A large, splashy news story. Jesus-Is-Coming headlines. It’s a grand approach, for it throws all the light on others, and it lets the reporter shape things. Marvelous. The coppers and the prosecutors fall in line and do what the newspaper wants.”
This was far too honest for her.
“That’s disgusting,” she said. “That’s corrupting the justice system.”
“It’s reality. And I want to experience reality until I’m 75 years of age, which the actuarial tables say should be my life span.”
“You just feed your readers what you want to feed them.”
“I keep them well fed. And me.”
“You weren’t in love with Rhea.”
My head was singing with that strange music that lies above music. It blended with the snuffling of traffic, the yelping of night birds, the voice from the stereo, crying an Irish cry: “For the stranger’s land may be bright and fair, and rich in its treasures golden. But you’ll pine, I know, for the long ago, and the love that is never olden.”
“I’m a sick bastard,” I said. “And I don’t know about love, but I do know I shouldn’t have been in love with her. If I was, and if there’s a God in Heaven, that’s the sin he will put against me forever.”
She looked helpless now.
“You don’t know what love is,” she said, and that was a prayer. If she was wrong, what chance did she have, what chance did anyone have?
“Oh, I do,” I said. “Love is pity. Love is sympathy with the human being inside the cold operator. Rhea once told me a story. I believed it. And that frightens me, for I think she might have won me over.”
“Tell me,” said Daly. “Unless you’re afraid to tell me.”
“To tell you a story?” I said. “Of course not.”
And so I began.
“Once when she was eight and living in a foster home in north Chicago, a man came looking for her. She supposed it was her father, though she didn’t know her father. She saw him through the window—a man with a false smile and a bad suit, too much rayon matched with too much cheap cotton. A man who asked, ‘Is there a little girl here, a brown-haired girl about this size?’ If so, he had a message for her. No, said her foster mother, no little girl here like that. Silence, for many moments. The man looked as if he might say something more. Rhea could see an alcoholic tremor fluttering his lips. But he closed his mouth and went away. She saw him making his way to the corner, pumping his knees as if to show he had some pride, not looking back, the wind catching his dry forelock and wrenching it about. It was an autumn day, bright and chill, the tree branches dead, the leaves kicking across the cold ground. And she watched him until he turned the corner and was lost.”
Daly’s hand was at her throat.
“What was the message?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Rhea didn’t know. ‘I want my daughter back? I shouldn’t have let her go? I want her to be with me? I am all alone in the world?’ I don’t know. Rhea said he did not look like the kind of man who was easy to love. He looked like the kind who wanted to get something from you. But she lived her whole life wanting to hear that message, whatever it had been. And seeing him turn the corner and vanish.”
The room was quiet, and I spoke into the silence.
“Did she ever tell you that story?”
“No,” said Daly. “Not that one.”
“Even so, you made me think of it,” I said. “Because you believe in her.”
She looked into her empty glass. “I can’t tell you anything about her,” Daly said. “And I’m going away in the morning.”
“Away from Phoenix?”
“Away from you. You tell me things I can’t believe.”
“My stories are always true,” I replied. “They are my stock-in-trade, as a journalist and as a man.” I thought about Rhea, and I thought about the ghosts of the illegals, and I thought about all the stories I had told, and would tell. “Truth is the best lie,” I said. “No-one can catch you out.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The overnight low was 92 degrees, but by 5:30 a.m., I was banging the heavy bag hanging from the cottonwood tree out front, stripped to the waist and driving in with the 16-ounce gloves. Old gloves and a scuffed 40-pound Everlast bag, and very little art to the punching. Gut punches and crossovers and uppercuts. Bam! One in my father’s jaw. Thwack! One under the chin of the copper who’d slapped me out of the shelter of a doorway on a rainy Belfast night. And bang, bang, bang against all the faceless ones who had done in the people who’d been good to me. My mother. Tom, the homeless boy in the Falls Road who shared his bread with me. Patrick O’Connell, the old editor at the Belfast Herald who’d taken me in and got me some schooling, then got sacked and taken off by a heart attack. Bash, bash, bash, until the sweat ran down my chest and my knuckles ached and my head swam. Until my brain buzzed and went blank. Until the thumping woke Daly and she creaked open a window and asked me what I was doing and gave me a look saying violence doesn’t solve anything.
Four hours later, using Frye’s Karmann Ghia, I dropped her off at a Rent-A-Wreck place on Camelback. Little mirages swirled on the ground around the punched-up Pontiacs and traumatized Nissans and gutshot Chevys. The dust itself seemed to sweat. Daly was still lugging her duffel bag. If she hadn’t been so young and muscled, the weight would have done her in.
“Don’t bother to check up on me,” she said, hefting it out of the back seat, dressed for the road in jeans and a peasant blouse. “And don’t go around following me. I’ve got something I can use against you now.”
“Don’t worry,” I said.
I drove downtown and returned Frye’s car to the parking lot outside his restored townhouse near Fourth Avenue and Roosevelt. Though I probably shouldn’t have, since every area of restored homes is a magnet for car-breakers, I left the keys in it and walked three blocks over to a car-rental place off Central. I selected a Toyota Corolla. To hell with these big American cars. My Ford had been a large target in that murderous smash-up, and now I was ready for something reliable, small and agile.
I drove over to the newspaper and took the elevator up to the ninth floor. I thought I knew where I stood with Halvorson, but I had to make sure. I found him in his office looking through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the freeways, the palm trees and the mountains—Camelback Mountain and the rest. His reflection floated in the air over Phoenix as if he were an elemental force of nature instead of simply a bad-tempered lobster who favored white polyester shirts, solid-color polyester ties and metal-gray polyester slacks. And his forehead was knotted beneath his gray-blond hair. I supposed he had been thinking, something that never came easily to him.
“Top of the morning to you,” I said, just to get under his skin. “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”
He didn’t even turn around. “I don’t have to look for you. You work for me. At least, you’re supposed to.”
“Didn’t Frye tell you? I’ve been out in the field.”
He grunted, perhaps savoring his role as part of the landscape.
“You got Frye drunk and almost killed,” he said. “And you’ve been out screwing the pooch somewhere. Why do reporters do that?”
I perched my bottom on his desk.
“Because we’re adventurers, ranging through saloons and alleys dispatching the bad and beautiful with head shots,” I said. “So editors like you can wave bloody pelts in front of readers and drive up the advertising.”
He pivoted to confront me—a military about-face.
“Right, right. Play your own game,” he said. “Fuck around. Use the newspaper to scare people who don’t want their names in print. Pretend you are the newspaper. But remember, you’re just an employee. And maybe not that for very long.” He was breathing raggedly. Maybe he’d been slacking off his fitness training, the bastard. “You hang around with assholes and make the clubs late at night, and my street sources say you’re crooked. Who knows? We’ve never caught you at it. But we don’t need to. You’ve been sitting on your ass. That part is over. Now go bring me some copy or you’re out.”
I slid off his desk.
“I love your passion,” I said. “And now I’m off to get you a bloody headline, or die trying.”
I should have stopped at that point, but I didn’t. Story of my life. I swung a hand at the scene beyond the window.
“While I’m out, why don’t you inspire me, journalistic ace that you are? Stand right here and make sure those fucking mountains don’t move.”
* * * *
In more ways than one, I was doomed at this point. Every man’s hand was against me, and every woman’s too, if you count Daly Marcus. It looked like it was me for the trash pile or the prison cell or the chilled slab, and in double-quick time, too. Still, there’d been plenty of queer turnings in this scenario, and another was about to occur. Daly was again leading the way, and it started with a mistake she made.
Well, to be honest, it was a mistake I led her to. Like many people unfamiliar with the West, she exaggerated the role of the sheriff in law-enforcement. So I put it in her head that the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, whose jurisdiction lay on either side of the stretch of Interstate 10 on which Rhea died, was the proper agency to approach in what she believed was Rhea’s murder. That would divert her while I pursued more fruitful inquiries. The plan worked, up to a point.
Having plunked down her money to rent a five-year-old Pontiac Fiero, she took a 70-mile drive through the desert on Highways 87 and 287 to Florence, Arizona, an antique prison town southeast of Phoenix, reaching her destination at about 11 a.m. She then went directly to the low brick building that was the sheriff’s office and, as I suspected she would be, was sent in to see a deputy—a sergeant, by rank--named Daniel Robles, known widely as “Handsome Dan.” It was a well deserved appellation. A nicely set-up officer 35 years of age, Robles was a mestizo with blood-brown skin, bright eyes and a large chunk of black mustache. For those reasons and others, he was hell with the ladies. A bit of a lad, we would have said in Belfast.
She was in good hands now. Despite his looks, Robles was not just a simple biff. He exemplified the best kind of American copper—decisive, not easily distracted, not easily taken in, willing to do what was needed, no compunction about shooting when shooting was called for. When Daly arrived, Robles was just finishing the file of a not-very-interesting case. He checked her out in the reception area and found his pulse quickening, but he waited. Then, in good time, he moved in, noting that Daly’s filmy cotton top was playing peek-a-boo with her superstructure, and that she exuded a rich scent of herb shampoo.
“Miss Marcus?”
Daly smiled, rose, walked a few steps to Robles’ cubicle and settled in. And her investigation moved into what would be its final stage.
“I’m here because a friend of mine was killed,” she said.
Then she launched into a discussion of time sequences, conflicting stories, suspicious turns of phrase. Robles did not immediately understand what she wanted. As she rambled on about the auto accident, he told me later, his mind wandered. He kept trying not to stare at her breasts and wondered why she dyed her hair green, when her normal hair probably was black and sweet as sugared coffee. Then Daly Marcus said two things that seized his attention.
“I believe Ms. Montero was murdered,” she said. “And unless I miss my guess, a reporter named Michael Callan had a part in it.”
Neither of these possibilities shocked Robles, though we were friends, of sorts. He’d put me onto cases of small-town corruption, and I’d often described him heroically as he slapped the manacles on villains out among the saguaros. Once, when I was doing a ride-along with him, we’d come on two marijuana smugglers who’d gotten their pickup trapped in a dry wash. They went for their shotguns. Robles took one down with a double-tap from his Glock. I dumped the other with a rugby tackle and battered his head with my Colt. Robles kept the bash-up dark for the sake of my job security. I wasn’t supposed to be carrying a gun on duty.
“Why do you suspect Callan?”
“It’s obvious,” said Daly. “He’s trying to ruin her reputation. What’s the point now she’s dead? He simply wants to cover his tracks so the police don’t look into her death.”
Handsome Dan had never gotten enough on Rhea to make an arrest, but he didn’t think it was possible to ruin her reputation. Still, he decided to be oblique.
“The police aren’t going to look into her death anyway,” he said. “It was a Highway Patrol case, and they’ve closed it out. They sent us a courtesy copy of the report, but we found nothing out of line. An accident.”
He rose, repaired to a nearby filing cabinet, extracted a folder, returned to his desk, and spent a few minutes in review.
“This is about as straightforward as they come,” he said. “Her own physician certified her at the scene.” He looked up. “I’m interested in your theory, though. How could Michael Callan have arranged for Ms. Montero to go under a semi-trailer truck?”
“I don’t think he did,” she responded. “He had somebody else do it. He got into a big car crash in Phoenix last night. That probably was a set-up, too. Either they were trying to kill him to keep him from talking or they were just putting on a show for me.”
Daly was spinning as usual, popping out wild theories in an effort to hook Robles. Without him, she would have to go this alone. With him she would have a champion—or a partner—with authority, a gun, and excellent cheekbones. But she could tell her strategy wasn’t working. She could feel herself floundering, could see doubt flickering in Robles’ eyes. In an instant, her interview would be over. But something he’d said jabbed at her memory.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “What does certified mean?”
Robles was closing the file folder. “What?”
“You told me Rhea was certified at the scene. What does that mean?”
He re-opened the folder.
“Her death was verified,” he replied. “The State of Arizona, like most jurisdictions, requires that death certificates be issued. It can be done by a medical examiner, who does an autopsy, or by a personal physician.”
Daly put a hand on Robles’ desk. “And Rhea’s personal physician just happened to be riding with her?”
Handsome Dan wanted to help. But he was a professional.
“That wasn’t unusual,” he said. “Dr. Aguilara was also Ms. Montero’s friend. She had some kind of interest in an old hotel near Casa Grande. He’s semi-retired, but he ran a clinic out of the place.”
“And he still does?”
“Yes,” said Robles. “He still does.”
Daly began to breathe more heavily. The room was hot, since t
he official level of air-conditioning was set rather low, and she later told me the heat was causing her some distress. A pity. But breathing hard also caused her chest to heave, an enjoyable phenomenon if you were a man. Robles was. Daly fanned herself with her hand, and Robles realized just how attractive green hair could be when set off by the shine of perspiration on a young female animal.
“Then he was a witness?” she said.
Robles, distracted, said, “What?”
“Dr. Aguilara was an official witness to the accident?”
“Yes. Oh, yes, he was right there.”
“I would really like to talk to him, but I suppose he wouldn’t talk to me without a good reason.” She nipped her lower lip. “He would talk to you, but I guess you couldn’t go with me unless you were conducting an investigation. Something like a follow-up.”
Robles tugged at his collar, but he felt better.
“We sometimes do that,” he said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I found Arthur Morrison in his office in a stucco complex edging the desert in north Scottsdale. The place had been bypassed by dollar-rich developers, and its shabbiness showed. Hacking air conditioners, rust streaks slithering down the walls, vegetation sagging like funeral clothes, the parking lot fissured and cracked. Places like this infested the Valley. On every block there was an address that never worked. Businesses failed, new ideas dead-ended, entrepreneurs foundered. The reasons were various—lazy employees, poor cash flow, indifferent customers.
At least you could cite those factors, but they didn’t really explain anything. One address would prosper and another just like it would go bust. Perhaps ancient forces were in play. At times, I wondered whether some Hohokam Indian three centuries ago had moaned and gibbered over his horrid pottery business, mystified why he had so little trade, why his suppliers stumbled, why employee theft took his pots, and him not knowing that he’d simply picked a location that was never going to thrive.
Was it a curse, or the Valley’s obsessive changeover? The psychic undertow took many businesses down. Even in good locations, identities altered overnight. A gas station became an antiques store, then a fast-food restaurant, then a real restaurant, then a thieves’ market, then a topless bar. Doughnut shops morphed into secondhand clothing stores; year-old eateries got flattened and replaced by car washes; perfectly good houses were leveled and replaced by perfectly bad houses. Grocery stores were bought and changed names. Banks moved and office workers clicked keyboards where tellers had cracked coin rolls. Junk dealers sold out and apartments rose on lots that once held piles of hubcaps, scrap metal, old bedsprings. Glistening hotels reared up on what for years had been empty lots. This was a city of restless renewal. If you were a reporter, it jangled your nerves, and tweaked them. It had a red-hot poker up its backside, and yours.
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