Sliding the glass door aside, she ran outside and toward David's trailer. Hurtling herself inside, she scrambled for the phone there, and got a dial tone this time. Thank God. She punched 911, and then hurriedly gave a description of the van. When asked her location, she told the operator "out back," then she laid the receiver down and waited outside for the police. While waiting, she stared at the bright house as a numbing sensation spread inside her. She looked up at the moon overhead, and saw a shooting star flash a long white streak past its ghostly face.
~ * ~
There were no sirens as two patrol cars arrived, their spotlights swiveling to illuminate the few shadows surrounding the house. Val walked down the driveway to the side, waving toward the cars with both hands.
The two cops were rotund men, the blue fabric at their waists stretched, their turns more like swivels as she directed one of them into the trailer, and showed him the journal on the table. "The girl was locked inside the main house," she explained, half disbelieving her own oddly throaty words, "and I was about to free her, when. . . when the man who lived here came back and took her away."
The officer began to flip through the journal, front to back, riffling the pages between. Then he pointed at the inside back cover. “Did you know this man David?” he asked.
She blinked at him. “What?”
“Did you know the guy?”
“Yes. I mean no, not really." Obviously.
“You've been here before, then?”
“No, I followed his dog here.”
The cop nodded once to himself, as though he didn’t believe her. Then he turned to his left shoulder, and spoke something like a code into the looping microphone attached to his uniform, just below the shoulder. Another patrol car's lights swept the yard, and then two more policemen joined the first man's partner, now nearing the back doors, gun drawn.
“Where's the dog now? In the house?”
“No," Val said. "He ran away. Or the kidnapper took him.”
“You mean David.”
“No, I don't know his name. I just know his wife's name was Melissa, just like the little girl's.”
The officer's eyes narrowed slightly, and his jaw went askew. He glanced down at the journal, and up at her again. “You didn't read this?”
“Not all of it,” Val said. "No time."
The man tapped at the name and address written in block letters on the inside back cover. Val stared at the name in astonishment. It read:
David Leiter
114 Calle Cabrillo
Tucson AZ 85716
"Ring a bell?" the officer asked, seeing her reaction.
~ * ~
The master bedroom had an ironic story to tell for anyone with eyes half open. A Windsor chair had been tied to a bed post, with plastic tie straps on its arms and legs. The straps had then been cut, and a discarded length of brown strapping tape was found near the wall, as though tossed there. The tape was bagged for fingerprint analysis, and the chair dusted, but they all knew who they were looking for now.
David.
Val still stood mutely in the back yard, mouthing the name, when Greg Lomax finally arrived with a news crew. “You might be in deep water this time, Valerie,” Greg said, taking her aside as Tom Waldren and Russ Morrell prepped for an exclusive. “Want a lifeline before the sharks start circling, or not?”
“What do you mean?”
Greg glanced over at KTAT's premier talking head, who always seemed to be waiting for his cue. “Let me rephrase. Does the station mascot do this alone, or are you ready to salvage your job?”
“My job,” she said, still feeling dazed. "What is that?"
Greg sniffed and touched his nose. “Investigative reporter." He paused for effect. "As opposed to homeless person.”
Each second of her decision seemed to hold the weight of eternity. Val looked up at the moon again, but no shooting star offered a sign. Only the stark cratered face of another world--a dead world--met her gaze. When the pull of it felt overwhelming, she finally let go. In that moment, faith met fear, and her will to resist collapsed like opposing waves in a rip tide.
"Okay," she agreed at last, "okay, I'm ready."
Was she? Even as she said it, she was aware of the changed timbre of her voice. The steady, determined, familiar tone taken by the person who had long pretended to be her. The actor--or impostor--in the award winning role of Valerie Marie Lott.
15
The next morning, when Greg dropped the Star's early edition heavily onto her desk, he announced, “Trent won't tell us if there's been a ransom demand, but with the leads you've supplied, our perp shouldn't be free much longer. Now let's just hope the Melendez girl is okay, and this resolves quickly. For all our sakes.”
Val stared down at the headline, numbly.
KTAT REPORTER CONFESSES LINK TO MELENDEZ CASE
Valerie Lott, reporter for KTAT-TV Channel 7, revealed her suspicions about the perpetrator of Melissa Melendez' abduction in a surprise investigative interview on last night's 10 PM news broadcast. Lott, standing outside the home of former optics engineer David Leiter with KTAT station manager Greg Lomax, reported to news anchor Waldren that she called 911 after being locked inside Leiter’s residence north of Reid Park. “He was just someone I met at the park, and trusted,” Lott contended. “If anything, he seemed harmless, but obviously he was wise enough to conceal his true identity, which is probably what made me break off our conversation when I did.” When her suspicions peaked at hearing about the Melendez abduction, Ms. Lott went in search for her acquaintance, following her “intuition,” as she put it, although she also mentioned following a dog she saw at the park. Rejecting police help, the veteran reporter then risked her life by placing herself in danger on a hunch--a danger that consisted in hiding in the suspect’s house during a chilling close call when the abductor briefly returned, after which she then witnessed the suspect's van depart the premises. “I still don't believe David wants to do what he's doing,” declared Lott. “I don't think he'll harm Melissa, either. He's obviously still troubled over the loss of his wife and his own little girl earlier this year, and when he comes to his senses again, he will let her go.”
Lott next appealed to Leiter directly. “If you hear this, David, please just let the girl go, and turn yourself in," she pleaded. "We will find you the help you need to get through this ordeal, trust me.”
“Is Mrs. Robinson satisfied?" Val asked when she finished reading. She looked up at her boss, who had been watching her read with avid interest.
Greg straightened his tie, inadvertently flashing his new white choppers. "She was upset at first, but I think I've convinced her we're on top of it now."
"And are we?"
Greg now scratched the birthmark that resembled a rash on his red neck. “I don't get you, Val," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"You're the one who's lucky to be alive here, after your own little ordeal.”
“You know I don't really believe that.”
He chuckled. “That why you hid in an empty liquor cabinet?”
She ignored the question, posing one of her own. “Did the detective say when I could read the rest of David's journal?”
“Trent's not saying much of anything right now. Everything on site is being examined. The only thing we know right now is that Leiter is an engineer, a loner with few friends other than this Dr. Etherton who’s come forward with clippings about their experience in Dubai during the bombings there. Of course, if you ask me, this Leiter guy’s either a religious nut or a wannabe terrorist himself.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You don't think it's obvious, him living like an Al Qaeda trainee with no air conditioning, when he's got a three bedroom luxury house sixty feet away?”
“Like I told you, maybe he couldn't live there due to memories of his wife.”
Greg shook his head, not buying it. “So he eats pork and beans, and sleeps on the floor of a trailer parked in his
driveway? Come on! There’s a Cusinart on the marble island in his kitchen. A cappuccino machine. A stainless steel refrigerator and rotisserie oven, for God’s sake!”
“None of which mean anything to him anymore. At least that much is true." Val paused. "You've never been in love, have you? With the exception of the Nielson family, that is.”
Greg gave her a hundred yard stare, and then, after instructing her to interview Vasquez in order to show viewers that she was back on the job--business as usual--he left her office, slowly shaking his head.
Escaping reporter inquiries, Val found herself in the park once more, about to fulfill her obligation. This time, though, it was different. As she watched the ball players practice, she felt no pang of lust or even mild interest. Nor did she need to waylay the team's star player. She had an appointment, arranged by simple phone call to the club's office. The team’s office manager claimed that Vasquez was more than willing to give her whatever time she needed, now, after seeing her on TV.
Time was what she needed, for sure, to figure things out. Because it felt unreal to sit on the same bench where she'd met David, and to know his name really was David. Considering what had happened since. Even though it was only Greg who'd suggested she was lucky to be alive, and not detective Trent, the bizarre notion felt disorienting, all the same. As though everything she'd hoped to understand had been suddenly snatched away, instead. Like a life preserver jerked out of reach at the last second.
Stalling for more time, Val considered next what David had said about not letting thoughts about the past or the future control one’s life. How thinking too much was itself the problem. And again, she couldn't help imagining David at the gazebo again, losing that battle. Because it was a battle she could never hope to win, herself. Might she ever stop worrying about the future, even for just ten minutes of peace? The newspapers and broadcast networks wouldn't let anyone do that. Everywhere, zealots promoted Socialism or Zionism or radical Islamic terrorism, often in the name of God. Talking heads and editorial writers alike warned of global warming, a coming Medicare crisis, stellar radiation, bird flu, loose nukes, the collapsing dollar. Had it all been too much, even for David?
She didn't know his background, obviously, but he was a human being, after all, and any human being could crack under the weight of propaganda. Especially someone who'd never considered that advertisers needed to sell insurance, comfort foods and escapist programming. How could anyone escape thinking about the future for long, when even the Bible told of an asteroid that would destroy a third of the Earth in the book of Revelations? It was why she'd succumbed to the obsession herself, along with everyone else, of seeking that jealously coveted affluent life.
Before it was too late.
To really believe true happiness was possible, beyond the shallow vanity that passed for it, as David claimed, required more than simple courage or faith, given the chaotic state of the world. What it did require, however, she had only a clue. If David had indeed known it, perhaps it was in his journal, this secret--this simple vision that had flowered out of blindness. And maybe she could hold onto it longer than he had, given her own experience.
Whatever David's experience had been in Dubai, beyond what his former colleague was saying, perhaps that was in his journal, too. It would certainly help to see those puzzle pieces, she realized. Considering that there were billions of stories out there, competing for attention, it might even help explain why his was just about the only one that not even its author cared to tell. Although it did make perverse sense that David remain a man without a story if he truly believed stories only hinted at the truth, and weren’t an end in themselves any more than a church building was a temporary refuge from the world's insanity, as witnessed by how many folks pretended to believe what few practiced outside the sanctuary.
What his story really needed, she thought, was at least one more dramatic twist. Something to propel both it and her forward toward real change. After all, wasn't change only possible, as he’d said, when--
As if on cue, her cell phone rang. She flipped it open, warily. “Yes?”
“Val, it’s me.”
“Greg? What’s. . . what's wrong now?”
“Nothing. Good news. They've got the Melendez girl.”
She heard Greg’s voice saying the words, but his tone was what threw her off. He even sounded mildly disappointed, somehow. “What?”
“She was found at Tucson Mall, abandoned by a stranger at the southwest entrance, next to Sears.”
“That's. . .” Val searched for the word, “wonderful.”
“Yeah,” Greg conceded, “full of wonder. Did you get Vasquez to commit to an interview? You with him, or what?”
“No, he's agreed to it, but I just haven't spoken to--”
“Forget him for now, then,” Greg interrupted, “and get down here right away. There's reporters from other stations here already, asking for a statement.”
Greg clicked off.
Val closed her phone, and then imagined all the TV sets in Sears' electronics department, every one of them showing the same girl's face in close-up. Only she couldn’t imagine the expression on her face. Was she crying, or was she happy?
Val took a moment before leaving the park. She returned to her Cavalier, only to sit inside it and stare out past the ball field at the flower garden in the distance. A desert dove chirped in a tree above her windscreen, and dropped a tiny parcel of waste that plopped and ran down the glass, like the tear of an angel. Looking closer, she then saw that the drop had landed on an ant, which now struggled to escape, not unlike a fossil insect resisting the drop of resin that might harden into amber and transport it, unchanged, from the distant past into the far future.
She refocused her gaze past the ant toward the gazebo, and once more tried to imagine David there alone, struggling to escape being trapped, himself. But even David's face was gone now, too.
The little girl's blank stare had taken its place.
16
She was on her way to the station when her cell phone rang again. And again it was Greg. “Listen, Val,” Greg said, his tone evoking more of an edge, “it might be better if you stay away from here for a while, after all.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, people around here are starting to point fingers. I don't mean people, exactly. I mean competing reporters."
“Which ones?”
“KGUN, the Star, couple radio stations."
“What are they saying?”
“It's not accusations, really. It's more in the tone. Can you see where this is going? Innuendoes of incompetence.”
She could hear voices in the background, now. Several eager voices. “They think. . .you think. . .”
“Doesn't matter if you didn't know, or couldn't know. Now that Melissa is safe, the gloves are off. Maybe Leiter did respond to your plea on TV, but he's somewhere out of reach, and Trent isn’t talking, except to say that a former associate of Leiter’s has come forward to confirm his distress, and hasn’t heard from him in months. So if you're here. . .well, there you are. They need to punch at something.”
“What about David's journal, his diary?”
“I've asked about that again, and they keep telling me it's evidence. If it's any consolation, they won't let anyone near Leiter's house. Or his trailer.”
She felt the heat of frustration as she braked for a red light. “If I don’t come in, just what am I supposed to do?”
“Go back and interview Ramon,” Greg suggested. “I’ll tell people you’re busy doing your job, business as usual. Then, I don’t know, go shopping or something! Let's not give these busybodies more lead for their pencils until we know the final chapter.” He paused. “Okay, Ms. Producer?”
Her red light turned green.
A car behind her beeped.
Val closed her phone without replying, and then reluctantly but dutifully did a U-turn, circling back to the park where it had all started, once more.
Round and
round it goes, she thought, and where it stops the Shadow knows?
~ * ~
She found Ramon Vasquez ruggedly handsome, with close cropped hair and a mischievous, spontaneous smile that lit his face like a bright bulb in a dark room. Together, they walked outside the stadium administration building to sit on yet another bench near one of the new practice ball fields that taxpayers had bonded the previous year in order to attract such star players.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” Val said, admiring the way his biceps shifted beneath the toned brown flesh of his bare arms.
“Not at all. Thanks to you.”
“Of course this is just preliminary. Is there a time you prefer for the on-camera part of the interview?”
“I'll make time. You just say when, honey.”
Honey again?
“When,” Val said, impulsively.
Vasquez gave a short chuckle. “What?”
“Sorry, you asked me to say when. So, you want to tell me how you see the season shaping up?”
“Great, actually. Terrific potential, with the talent we got. Have a real shot at making it to the finals.”
“This year or next year?”
Vasquez' dark brown eyes narrowed, then he laughed expansively. “Come on, now.”
“Well, it's never really final, is it?” Val said. “There's always another game, another season. It's all anyone talks about, anymore.”
The star now made another face--a cross between confused and amused. Val studied him, and decided the reaction did, in fact, take away something from his formidable arsenal of concupiscent weapons. This was confirmed when he asked, “What do ya mean by that?”
What did she mean? “Nothing. And of course you do experience the present sometimes, so there’s that. Maybe it’s why the game doesn’t seem the same to you each time out. It’s new to you, somehow, and to your fans. Makes you feel alive, briefly. Even if the competition itself is a bit barbaric, when you think about it.”
“Huh?”
The Miraculous Plot of Leiter & Lott Page 23
