The Laura Cardinal Novels

by J. Carson Black

  “Sure. I’ll put it with my sheets, my rug, my couch—“

  “This is my nidito. You’re just—“

  “What? What am I?”

  He stood there, looking at her, still holding the box. The man she had invited to live with her.

  She thought of her nice FiestaWare. Thought of them nested one into the other, their fine sold colors, dark blue, green, tangerine, dark red. Okay, so there would be bees and flowers, too. She sighed. “Okay. Put them in the cupboard near the fridge.”

  Still holding the box, he bent awkwardly and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re doing pretty well.”

  “You think so?”

  “You’ve lived alone for a long time.”

  “So have you.”

  “But I’m not territorial like you are.”

  It was true. As he let the screen door close behind him, Laura realized this would not be easy. When she’d agreed to try it, in the middle of the night three days ago, it had seemed absolutely right. Love was love. It was supposed to conquer all.

  But she’d seen him leave towels on the floor of his bathroom.

  The morning after Tom Lightfoot moved in, Laura awakened to rain tapping on the roof just before dawn. It seemed to her that the temperature had dropped ten degrees. She crept out of bed, careful not to wake him. Looking down at him and thinking that this was how it would be from now on. She found herself thinking of Buddy and Beth. Were they healing the rift between them? Or would Buddy get a place nearby and hover around his daughter like a guardian angel?

  She brewed some coffee and went outside, sitting down on the old steel glider, swinging back and forth. She’d found the Art Deco glider at a yard sale, complete with the original striped canvas cushion. Here on the porch of a house built in the twenties, the scent of the desert around her, she could pretend this was the early part of the twentieth century.

  There were serial killers then—though not as many—and plenty of pedophiles, but people didn’t know about it. How nice for them.

  The rain was soft and steady—what the Navajos called a female rain. Water dripped off the eaves and splashed on the brick pavement in the few places the porch roof leaked. The smell of wet creosote wafting in, the trunks of the big old mesquites gleaming black as seal skin. The coolness good on her face, a balm to her singed eyebrows and the burn on her cheek.

  Now was as good a time as any. She went inside, got her mother’s old electric typewriter and set it on the wood, drop-leaf table on the other end of the porch. She needed an extension cord to plug it in.

  It took her a moment or two to figure out how to install the ribbon she’d bought from Hart Brothers Business Machines. The guy had one ribbon left, taking up dust in a back aisle, saying it was fortunate for her this was a common typewriter in its day.

  As she lifted the paper bale and rolled the first sheet of paper through, she smiled, thinking how Tom had liked the idea.

  Zen and the art of unfinished business. She liked it that her crazy idea had Tom’s approval. But that was predictable; he admired simplicity in all its ways.

  She stared at the clean sheet of paper, then typed “Chapter Seven”. The action was strange, percussive. Both stiff and too fast for fingers used to a computer.

  She was still staring at the words “Chapter Seven” forty minutes later when Tom came out and joined her. He’d brought her more coffee. He had put the right amount of half and half in it—a quick learner. She told him that.

  “I read somewhere there’s a big shot designer in Hollywood who made up a swatch to show his maid what color his coffee should be. You’re not that bad.”

  Glad she hadn’t said she appreciated him using her FiestaWare instead of his supermarket china.

  He bent to kiss her. Soon the coffee and Chapter Seven were forgotten.

  After they made love and were lying tangled together, listening to their heartbeats slowing back to normal, Laura felt a sudden strange bursting in her heart, as profound a moment as she had ever had. Tears unshed for eleven years suddenly came to the surface.

  She lay in bed with Tom stroking her hair, her tears soaking the sheets and filling up her nose and throat. Enveloped in his comforting presence.

  Feeling that, finally, she belonged.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mickey Harmon couldn’t sleep. He kept dreaming that Julie Marr was alive. He had to see her again to make sure. He didn’t know what he’d do if she really was alive—take her to a hospital? Maybe she’d be so grateful, she wouldn’t rat him out.

  He didn’t know why he stopped by Mike Galaz’s house. Maybe it was because he’d always gone to Mike for advice. In recent months, he and Jay had gotten tired of Mike Galaz always calling the shots, always being crowned Dark Moondancer. So they’d shut him out. But this was different.

  He went looking for Mike Galaz by instinct.

  Taking some chick’s virginity would have been worth big points, but that didn’t matter now. Mickey Harmon was scared. He couldn’t face this alone, and he was afraid of how Jay, who had always been a mamma’s boy, might react. And so Mickey woke Mike up, and they drove out to the place where he and Jay had dumped Julie Marr.

  Mickey told Galaz the story on the way, how they had meant to seduce her—his euphemism for date rape—but she’d freaked, fought them, and in slamming around the car, she’d sliced her head open. So much blood. Mickey and Jay panicked, dragging her out of the car to a mesquite tree, covering her with dirt and trash.

  But now he wasn’t so sure she was dead.

  It turned out that Mickey was right. Julie Marr was alive. They found her wandering dazedly in the desert, blood all over her face.

  What are we going to do? asked Mickey, getting that panicky feeling.

  Galaz didn’t look at him; he just walked out to meet Julie Marr. When she saw him, her face lit up with relief. Mickey could swear he saw that. She thought Mike was here to rescue her.

  He wasn’t prepared for what Galaz did next.

  Mickey watched in horror as Galaz raped and strangled Julie Marr. When she wouldn’t die, he stabbed her repeatedly with a knife he produced from his windbreaker.

  He should have said something, but his voice was weightless, silent.

  This time, they buried Julie Marr under the mesquite tree, digging a shallow grave in the caliche and rocky ground, piling up rocks to keep the animals away.

  Mickey was scared.

  Mike always knew what to do, though, and he already had a plan. Jay Ramsey, Mike told him, should never know that they’d found Julie Marr alive. Jay came from money and Mike Galaz saw an opportunity for blackmail, a way to control Jay Ramsey and his money.

  Don’t even think about going to the police, Galaz told him. You’re as guilty as I am. We’re bound together forever the three of us. You, me, and Jay.

  It was the first of many times Mickey would keep his mouth shut.

  The pact Mike Galaz and Mickey Harmon made that night lasted until the summer of this year, ending with Mike Galaz’s death in a warehouse fire.

  In the aftermath of the fire, Mickey Harmon, cuffed and shackled, led the Tucson Police Department to Julie Marr’s remains. Retired detective Barry Fruchtendler was there to watch as the girl’s bones were unearthed from their shallow grave.

  After eighteen years, Julie Marr was finally going home.

  _________________

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  No one can write a book alone. Many people have given generously of their time and expertise to help make this book possible, including—

  Florida Locations: The good folks at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Tallahassee, Florida: Jennie Khoen, former FDLE Public Information Officer; Kristen Perezluha, FDLE Public Information Officer; Mike Phillips, FDLE Special Agent Supervisor; and Apalachicola historian, Laura Roberts Moody.

  Arizona Locations: Leslie Boyer, M.D., Medical Director of the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center; Michael Crawford of Chandler, Tullar, Udall & Redhai
r; Lieutenant David Denlinger, Arizona Department of Public Safety; DPS crime lab criminalists Ron Bridgemon (retired), Sue Harvey, John Maciulla, Curtis Reinbold, Seth Ruskin, and Keith Schubert; Ron Thompson, Tucson Police Department; and the folks at the La Posta Quemada Ranch (on which the Bosque Escondido is based), Karen Bachman and Pam Marlow.

  Also thanks to Alice Volpe, Tracy Bernstein, Claire Zion, Leslie Gelbman, and Kara Welsh.

  To my friends, family, and the people who just plain helped me out, not exclusive to but including: Sinclair Browning, J.R. Dailey, Pete Hautman, J.A. Jance, Mary Logue, Carol Davis Luce, Cliff McCreedy, Barbara Schiller and Allegra Taff; writers group members Sheila Cottrell, Elizabeth Gunn, J.M. Hayes, and E.J. McGill. And to my aunt, Evelyn Ridgway, my mother, Mary Falk, and my husband, Glenn McCreedy, the only person to read my first draft—at his peril.

  Special thanks to my three go-to guys: Arizona Department of Public Safety detective Terry Johnson, Tucson Police Department detective Phil Uhall, and Cops ‘n Writers consultant John Cheek (TPD retired). Without you, there would be no book.

  Any and all mistakes are mine. No animals were harmed during the writing of this book. I’m available for birthday parties.

  All of the above is true, except for the birthday party part.

  DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

  To Liz Gunn

  Sometimes, all you really need is a good whack between the eyes with a two-by-four and some damn good advice to follow it up.

  Thank you.

  Have you ever seen true evil? I mean, looked it in the face and recognized it for what it is? I have. And you know what? It's a face like any other.

  1

  THURSDAY—PAHRUMP, NEVADA

  Because of the mineral show, which he had not expected, Bobby Burdette had to stay in a little hole-in-the-wall called the Mercury Motel. The Mercury Motel had a pool full of screaming kids and a plate glass office that arrowed out toward the street in a triangle—the kind of space-age dump the Jetsons would have stayed in. The motel sign, a thermometer, lit up at night: red neon mercury climbing up to the boiling point over and over again.

  At least that wasn’t a lie; even in September, it was ninety degrees after the sun went down.

  The Mercury Motel was situated between a defunct filling station and a date palm orchard. The dates fell over the fence into the parking lot and onto the wax finish of his classic Dodge Challenger—The Mean Green—and got picked up by people’s shoes. At any given moment, there were a half dozen of them littering the walkway in front of the motel rooms like squashed cockroaches.

  Bobby told himself he didn’t have to put up with the poor accommodations and the sickening smell of dates much longer. If things worked out the way he expected, he’d never have to stay in a shithole like this again.

  There was a good side to Pahrump, though, one he hadn’t considered when he blew into town earlier today. For one thing, the plate glass office had nickel slots.

  And the town had a whorehouse.

  And it was legal. It was called The Bambi Ranch.

  Bobby planned to bag one of those bambies.

  He’d seen it on a cable show once, how the girls would parade into the parlor and line up—blondes, brunettes, redheads, wearing different outfits—and you could pick the one you wanted just like at Red Lobster. There was something about it that just got to him, somewhere deep. Like that feeling you get in your gut when you ride a rollercoaster.

  The sun was going down below the far mountains when he drove The Mean Green out of the Mercury Motel parking lot, the sun flashbulbing him in the eyeballs. For such a little town, the traffic in Pahrump was hellish— mostly crawling RVs with satellite dishes on their roofs, the street lined with booths and a herd of people on the sidewalks, sometimes walking right out in front of him.

  For a minute he wondered if The Mean Green was the right car to be seen in. The lime green paint and chrome wheels weren’t exactly camouflage. But everyone was so busy looking at cases full of minerals or watching their own feet, they probably wouldn’t notice a circus driving through.

  Besides, he liked how ballsy it was—hiding in plain sight.

  The Bambi Ranch was out of town; he knew that was a requirement of all legal brothels in Nevada. He was surprised at the size of the layout—there were five narrow buildings, like temporary offices they had at schools, only this was no school. All of them were painted lavender. As he drove over the cattle guard into the parking area, he noticed an airstrip to his right, the windsock sticking straight out like a condom. There was also a satellite dish on a balding Bermuda lawn surrounded by a white picket fence.

  The place was lit up like a Christmas tree. Tiny white bulbs strung up in the Aleppo pines, colored lights all over the front office, and not the kind you got at Kmart either—these were professional quality, the kind you’d find on the front of the casinos in Vegas. All that light power on these little sorry buildings. Like the crown jewels on a ten-dollar hooker.

  He’d wanted to savor the event, but it didn’t turn out that way. The women outnumbered the men, and they sure didn’t line up like he’d expected. More like they converged on him like sharks on chum.

  “You want me, don’t ya sweetness?” a handsome woman in her thirties said, practically getting him in a half nelson. She smelled of heavy perfume, breath mints and gin, but her skin was smooth and her boobs were huge.

  Another one said, “With me, you buy one, you get one free. Redeemable any time.” This chick was younger, with black hair and purple lips. Pale as a fish’s belly.

  Then there was the brooding Russian woman who tried to smile. At least he thought she was Russian. Pale, washed out, sad. Most of them, though, they flounced and strutted and ran their fingers through his hair. When the door opened and another man came in, three of them made a beeline for him. They reminded him of the catfish he used to feed as a kid at Lake Mead: boiling up the water, their mouths avid.

  The one who remained was the young chick. She had a stud in her eyebrow and looked kind of skeletal, but her skin was like cream. And she didn't reek of booze like the older ones. She caught his look and nodded to the menu on an easel near the counter—a list of services and their prices, all nicely written up in fancy calligraphy on white poster board. He opted for basic cable, so to speak, and paid the bored little man behind the counter in cash.

  The Goth girl motioned him to follow her. She led him outside into the warm night, across the cracked walkway to the first trailer, down a hallway to a small dark room, paneled with walnut veneer.

  The minute they got through the door, she removed her clothes. If you blinked, you missed it. She had on boots that zipped up the insides and a flimsy skirt with an elastic waist band. Zip, zip, and the boots were off, and then she shimmied out of the skirt and her bottom half was naked as a jaybird. She clasped her arms around his neck and pulled him down on the bed without a word.

  It wasn’t as fun as he thought it would be. In fact, he found his mind drifting, thinking about tomorrow and all the days after that. Playing it out in his head. He seemed to hear her from a distance, moaning and groaning, doing her level best to get him to finish up.

  But he wasn’t into it. It wasn’t anywhere near as exciting—as dirty—as he had expected it to be. The whole idea had been huge in his mind, but this—this was paltry. And so his mind wandered to something he saw on the road on the way up here today: an abandoned airplane hangar baking in the desert sun. The Goth woman whimpered about how good he was—he noticed she worked herself into more of a lather the longer it took, like jockeys waling on their horses as they neared the wire—but his mind was on the checkpoint trailer at the California border, the two Homeland Security agents in their protective vests and their dark clothing, the sun bouncing off their sunglasses, the big German shepherd between them.

  He liked their look. Easy enough to approximate. All he needed was a haircut and the right kind of sunglasses.

  “Oh—my—God!”

  Bobby wo
ndered if he should fake it like his girlfriend did, or just quit. But he was stubborn; he wanted his money’s worth. So he decided to put his mind to it, and with intense concentration, managed to put it over the top, just as the egg timer by the side of the bed rang.

  It was the hardest work he’d done all day.

  Feeling good about getting it done, he said, “How was that, sweetness?”

  “Oh, it was great.”

  The way she said it made him want to slap her. That tone in her voice. He’d heard that tone all his life, and every time, it said he wasn’t worth talking to or listening to or even lying to. The way women could put you down just by the inflection.

  Just once, he’d like to see something on a woman’s face besides contempt, disappointment, greed, or want.

  “The tip jar’s over there,” Goth said.

  For a moment he saw himself picking up the jar and tossing it into the mirrored closet doors, but then he remembered that he shouldn’t do anything memorable. He had to think about the big picture. He wanted to be like those two agents—anonymous in their dark glasses and their clipped haircuts.

  He put a dollar in her jar and said, “Sorry to overtip you, but I don’t have any loose change.”

  She slammed the door after him with her foot.

  The Mean Green sat patiently outside, his only friend.

  Well, his girlfriend thought she was his friend. She thought she was more than that. But the more she loved him, the less he felt like loving her. Human nature was funny that way. It had always been like that with him. He knew it, but still he kept digging himself into these holes. Now he was going to meet her in Vegas, and he knew what was coming. All these wedding chapels going to waste.