The Laura Cardinal Novels

by J. Carson Black

  “Fuck what they want! I want my daughter back.”

  If Barbara Wingate wanted to call the child her daughter, so be it. “If all this was a mistake, you’ve got to let them figure that out. I know you love Erin. You want what’s best—”

  “You don’t know what I want! I want you to see what you’ve done to me. I want you to see it in living color.” She bit the words off one at a time. “I want this to stick with you for the rest of your life.”

  Talk to her. Talk was all she had. “Barbara, if you do this, you’ll never see Erin again. Think what it will do to her. If she knows—how guilty she’d feel.”

  Barbara Wingate held her gaze. The gun muzzle steady at the place above her ear, the cold blue-gray metal dark against her hair. Her finger pressing—Laura thinking about the two pounds of pressure, all it would take.

  “Think about Erin. This can be worked out. We can work it out. I can vouch for you. But you have to show them you’re all right. You want that, don’t you, Barbara?”

  For answer, Barbara Wingate stared a hole through Laura’s soul.

  And pulled the trigger.

  28

  Laura had seen countless gunshot wounds, and they were ugly. She had been lucky enough not to see the act of murder or suicide—the moment a bullet crashed through the brain, obliterating everything that was human. She knew this time, though, it was going to happen, and she also knew she was powerless to stop it—there wasn’t enough time. She flinched, seeing in the blink of her eye the explosion in slow motion, the angry cloud of blood obliterating one side of Barbara Wingate’s face, gray matter and pulverized bone spraying sideways into the blue wall.

  But she didn’t see it, because it didn’t happen.

  Like film, time had stuttered forward. First frame: woman standing on the porch, gun to her head. Second frame: woman standing on the porch, gun to her head.

  No gunshot, no smell of Cordite, no blood, no thick wet sound as the woman collapsed onto the floorboards.

  Just Barbara Wingate standing across from her, the gun at her head, her face both defiant and triumphant.

  Laura didn’t wait for her to pull the trigger again. She lunged forward, using her weight to topple Wingate to the ground. Scrambled on top of her, grabbing one hand and then the other from behind. Placing her knee in the woman’s back, jerking her arms roughly backwards and cuffing her. Adrenaline quicksilvered through her veins; it was easy to drag Mrs. Wingate to her feet and force her the few feet to the car and shove her against the hood.

  Rage like a red haze in her head.

  Watch it.

  Don’t lose it, she told herself. And so she was gentle when she nudged the woman’s blue-jeaned ankles with her own foot.

  “Spread your legs.”

  Barbara Wingate didn’t protest. She was a lamb now. No tears, no shouting, just meek compliance. Laura patted her down, then reached down at her feet for the revolver lying in the grass.

  She cracked open the cylinder and spun it: empty.

  Feelings—relief and anger foremost—rushed through her, making her legs shake. She had to sit down. She sat on the porch, keeping her gun trained on Wingate. “Don’t you even think about moving,” she said.

  “Why? You think I care if you shoot me?”

  “Brave words,” Laura said, “from someone who never meant to kill herself in the first place.”

  She heard the familiar sound of someone gunning a patrol car. A sheriff’s car, lights blinking, slewed into the drive.

  “What’s going on?” A deputy shouted.

  Laura, still training her gun on Barbara Wingate, said, “Nothing. Now.”

  29

  The sheriff’s deputy—his name tag said Frank Gutierrez—put Barbara Wingate into the back of his patrol unit, then came to stand over Laura.

  “You going to stay like that?” he asked.

  Laura realized that she was still holding her gun in the same position, both arms shaking. Slowly, she let her arms down.

  “What happened here?” he asked.

  “I’m trying to figure that out myself.”

  The next hour went by quickly. Richie, Laura, and three members of the sheriff’s department entered the house, which was as neat as it had been when they were here two days ago. Nothing to indicate Barbara Wingate’s state of mind; the beds were made, the girl’s room neat as a pin.

  In other words: perfect.

  Framed prints on the walls, all with a romantic theme. Works by Maxfield Parrish, lords and ladies, beautiful maidens. Unicorns.

  Richie went to interview Barbara Wingate, talking into the back of the police car. She kept her eyes steady to the front and refused to talk to him, except to say she wanted her lawyer.

  The adrenaline which had helped Laura subdue Mrs. Wingate had not gone away. All it did was make her shake.

  She went through the motions, looking through the house, allowing herself to be interviewed by both Richie and the sheriff’s deputy, but her mind was on what she could have done to prevent this situation.

  How did she allow Barbara Wingate to get the drop on her like that?

  Laura realized she had not been sufficiently aware enough of her surroundings. She took for granted the early morning wind, the sounds, and shadows. She had been so focused on breaching Barbara’s house that she had succumbed to tunnel vision.

  Hard to believe she had allowed herself to be ambushed like that.

  From the start it had gone wrong. She had set this whole juggernaut in motion, and it had come back to bite her in the ass.

  The sheriff’s unit containing Barbara Wingate headed up the drive. Richie came up to her. “They’re taking her to Flagstaff Medical for observation. They’ll keep her on suicide watch, at least overnight.”

  “Then what?”

  “She’ll be charged with threatening and intimidation and probably released. Her son’s on his way.”

  Suddenly, she needed to sit down. She opened the door to the Impala and sat on the edge of the driver’s-side bucket seat. None too soon: The adrenaline that had sustained her was slowly slipping away. She felt incredibly weak.

  Still seeing that gun muzzle pointed at her face, looking into that perfect, round black hole.

  Richie surveyed the area. “I guess our work is done here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jessup turned out to be a dry hole.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Bobby and Shana are in the wind.”

  “I know.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Guess there’s nothing else I can do here. I’m going home.”

  “See you in Tucson.” He thumped the roof of her Impala and walked to the Starskymobile, whistling. He looked like a man on top of the world.

  Glad it was her and not him.

  So what? He was up, and she was down. At this moment, she didn’t give a damn. Numbly, she dragged herself back to the motel. She packed her duffle, put it in the trunk of her car, and headed for the airport.

  30

  Laura barely saw the scenery as she drove Interstate 40 toward Flagstaff. Her mind was elsewhere.

  She still felt the cold circle at the base of her neck. She couldn’t stop thinking about her own reaction.

  Paralyzed with fear, unable to do anything. Unable to think. It had only been for a split second, but in her job, a split second could last an eon. A split second could mean the difference between life and death.

  And she had frozen up.

  Not only that, but even now, driving on the interstate—she was still scared.

  Scared because she’d seen the intention in Barbara Wingate’s eyes. The woman had thought about shooting her. It was in the tone of her voice, in the flicker of her eyes. It had been temper, because Wingate had already made sure the gun was unloaded. She’d already had her plan, and her plan was to scare Laura so badly that it would stay with her for a long time. But for a moment, irrationality had taken over, and Laura had seen the resolve in her e
yes.

  The woman was far from crazy. But she had a bottomless well of rage, and that rage had bubbled up for a brief moment. If the gun had been loaded, Laura wouldn’t be here now.

  It had been Barbara’s decision. Her life had been in Barbara Wingate’s hands.

  Laura slowed for the exit to I-17, aware of the trembling in her fingers. She had underestimated the woman. She’d planned her way to Mrs. Wingate’s door, but she had not planned well enough. She had not considered that the woman could be outside, that she could come at her from around the side of the house.

  Laura was alive now only because she’d been lucky.

  The contained worry that had lived with her every day—the constant, nagging thought at the back of her mind that this day would be her last—had finally broken loose and taken over her body and her mind.

  If it continued to happen, she would be useless for police work.

  The possibility of dying in the commission of her job was real. It was something you figured into the equation. When you said goodbye to your loved ones in the morning, you made sure there was no unfinished business. Every day could end early. But you couldn’t let it paralyze you.

  Her legs were shaking. She had to pull over. She drove onto the grassy verge on the road near the airport, opened the door, and walked out among the stolid ponderosa pine trunks. Tipped her face to the sun, felt it on her cheek, smelled the pines. A grasshopper catapulted out in front of her through the tall, rust-red and gold grasses.

  Alive. She was still alive. Time to appreciate that. Time to send up a prayer of thanks.

  She’d made mistakes, but she was still here. When she got home, she would deal with what had happened today. She’d do things differently. She’d go to the eye doctor. She’d request counseling. She’d face what had happened today and make her peace with it.

  She’d straighten things out with Tom, find out once and for all where they stood. At least she had a second chance to do all these things.

  She stood under a massive pine tree, feeling the shadows play across her face, listening to the whiz of traffic, her fingers going automatically to the Vaseline lip balm in her pocket. Suddenly thirsty for it, her lips feeling like the crevices in the Grand Canyon. So intent on the relief she craved that for a moment she didn’t register the chirp of the cell phone clipped to her belt.

  It was Shana. At first her words made no sense—she was on the verge of hysteria.

  “Slow down,” Laura said. “Take a deep breath and tell me again.” Hoping the girl wouldn’t hang up on her.

  “He left me there! He tried to kill me, I thought I was going to die, I had to dig and dig and—oh Jesus! How could he do that? How could he? Troy, I told you, you’re not going to do anything!” she said, addressing someone in the room with her. “He’d kill you!”

  She was sobbing now, her voice breaking up on the cell, a male voice yelling in the background. Laura had the damn thing pressed to her head so hard it stung her ear, thinking how technology was a bastard. “Where are you? I’ll come to where you are.”

  There was a pause.

  “Shana? Shana?” Had she disconnected?

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Her voice dull.

  “You said he tried to kill you. Is that true?”

  A whimper.

  “Shana, he could come back. You need to tell someone. You know you called me for a reason.”

  “I’ve got Troy.”

  “Who’s Troy?”

  “He’s a friend.” The old Shana, defiant.

  “Tell you what,” Laura said quickly. “Just tell me where you are. I’ll come out and we’ll talk if you want to or we won’t. It’ll be up to you. Where are you staying?”

  “If Bobby knew I talked to you— Would you shut up, Troy? Shut up!I can’t hear myself think!”

  “Bobby can’t do anything to you while I’m there. Are you at home?”

  Another pause. “I’m in Flagstaff.”

  “That’s a coincidence. I’m over by the airport.” Laura tried to sound warm. She’d never met anybody so suspicious, so perverse. “Where are you?”

  Laura heard the phone drop on a table or counter, and Shana’s voice. “You tell her.”

  Someone snatched the phone up, and she heard a young man’s voice, angry. “Look, I don’t know who you—”

  “Will you just tell her where we are?” shouted Shana.

  Laura drove south on I-17 to the exit for Kachina Village and Mountainaire. As she came down the off-ramp she saw the convenience store to the left of the road she was supposed to take. She came to the first T-intersection and took Kachina Trail—one-lane asphalt. Kachina Trail meandered around a meadow—two fawn-colored horses grazing near a tiny pond. The road wound up onto the piney bluff above, past a grove of young aspens just turning yellow-green. Asphalt turned to red cinder, the dust rolling up under her tires and hazing the green backdrop of pines.

  Streets on the left, pine forest on the right, dropping down to glimpses of meadow and horses, the freeway beyond. Up ahead, cars and trucks lined the road, parked around the house on the corner. A family walked across the road from their car, the woman and daughter each carrying a wedding present, wearing pastel dresses which went well with the flower arbor near a man-made pond and the radiant blonde girl in a wedding dress.

  Laura turned at that corner, Moenkopi. The rest of the street, with a few exceptions, wasn’t as nice. She drove by dented mailboxes, mobile homes in various states of disrepair, cars on blocks, and the ubiquitous pines that still managed to look beautiful even in this setting. Up on the right a waist-high chain link fence wrapped around a yard mostly taken up by a decrepit school bus and two snake-headed pit bulls.

  A faded turquoise mobile home sat far back on the lot, a slender young woman sitting on the warped wooden stoop, one arm resting on her knee, a long cigarette between her negligent fingers. Her wheat-colored hair a straggle, a man’s long-sleeved shirt unbuttoned over a Neapolitan-colored striped tube top, dirty jeans and boots.

  It took Laura a minute to realize it was Shana, and that the chocolate in the Neapolitan on the tube top was dirt. Laura walked up to the gate.

  The dogs raced to the fence, sticking their noses through the spaces in the links, their eyes golden and unknowable.

  Shana looked in her direction, flicking an ash from her cigarette out to the side. A young man sat up from a weight bench, wiped his face with a pink dish towel, and sauntered up to the gate. Tank top, tats, earring. He had black hair and haunted eyes with dark smudges underneath, and a heavy chain looped from his belt to the front pocket of his jeans. He unceremoniously dragged the two dogs by their collars around the house to a shed, pulled the door closed with a metallic shriek.

  Giving her the evil eye, he opened the gate.

  Laura walked in, avoiding a rusted Weber grill lid lying on the path to the door.

  Shana remained on the stoop, tangling her fingers into her hair and pulling it back and around her neck so that it fell over one shoulder. Laura noticed dark roots, maybe because the hair was dirty.

  Laura said, “Mind if I sit down?”

  Shana sighed, took another drag from her cigarette. She was trying to appear as if she didn’t care, but Laura could see her arm was shaking.

  Troy had followed Laura up to the trailer and stood there, looking from one to the other. “You don’t have to tell her anything,” he said.

  “Troy,” Shana mumbled.

  “You called me,” Laura said, keeping her voice low and reasonable. “You must have a reason.”

  Shana dug into her hair again. Laura noticed her nails, which were ragged and in some places cut down to the quick, rims of dirt underneath. Ridges of dirt in her knuckles, too.

  “You said you had to dig. I guess you weren’t kidding. What’s that all about?”

  Troy stood over them, arms crossed, glowering. “Look, you want her out of here—”

  “Nuh-uh,” Shana said wearily. And then she starte
d talking.

  At the house on the corner the wedding was in full swing. The handsome young couple stood under the white lattice arbor reciting their vows. As Laura slowed for the turn, Shana said, “Wait a minute.”

  Laura let the car idle. Shana stared out the window, her expression wistful. Laura thought that if Shana cleaned up she would look a lot like the bride.

  Over the rushing water in the pond and the rattle of quaking aspens at the edge of the bright green lawn, Laura could hear the murmur of the reverend’s voice. She glanced at Shana, who was twisting the cheap engagement ring Bobby Burdette had given her back and forth on her finger.

  After a few minutes, Shana sat back, all animation gone from her expression.

  Laura said, “Shall we go?”

  Shana looked straight ahead. “I don’t see why I have to go to the hospital. I’m fine.”

  “We have to get you checked out, Shana. You could be dehydrated. You’re sunburned and you said yourself you were pretty sick when you got to Troy’s.”

  “So I threw up. Wouldn’t you, if someone did what Bobby did to me?”

  “The sooner we go, the sooner we get this over with.”

  As Laura put the car in gear, Shana muttered something.

  Laura asked her what she’d said.

  “I never had a wedding that nice.”

  The hospital in Flagstaff kept Shana overnight for observation. As Laura suspected, the girl was dehydrated and needed to have her fluids replenished. The abrasions she had received in digging herself out of the makeshift grave Bobby Burdette had made for her also needed tending.

  Shana protested, but weakly. Laura got the impression the girl liked the attention. She’d already called Shana’s parents, and they had broken land speed records to get here. Laura talked to them in the waiting room. Mostly to alleviate their fears, but she didn’t touch on what Shana had told her about her harrowing experience of the last few days.