Laura Cardinal 01 Darkness on the Edge of Town

by J. Carson Black

  Everyone had their price.

  Laura’s price was giving in to Let’s Go People! Galaz. No way she could get out of going to this party; she’d already missed the barbecue—apparently the only person in the whole department who did.

  As she pulled up in front of her house, she spotted something pale in the darkness of her porch. It materialized into a white long-sleeved shirt as she approached.

  “Tom?" Her heart quickening.

  “Hi, Bird.”

  “When did you get back?”

  “This morning.” He stood up from the steel glider near the door. It creaked loudly—sixty-year-old springs.

  He was close enough that she caught the scent of his shirt, a combination of starch and the fresh smell of line-drying. Tom didn’t own a dryer. He didn’t own much of anything.

  “I heard about the girl who got killed—thought you might need me.”

  “Who’d you hear that from?”

  “Mina.”

  “Mina called you?”

  “I called her. I was checking on Ali.”

  Referring to a famous bareback bronc named Old Yeller. Ten years ago, before Old Yeller took the inevitable downward spiral to the dog food factory, Tom bought him, changed his name to Ali (“because he was The Greatest”) and towed him around from job to job. Ali was twenty-three years old, sway-backed, and deeply suspicious of Laura.

  She inhaled the night air, soggy and laden with the odors of creosote and manure. She was glad Tom was here—really glad. “How long have you been waiting?”

  “I wasn’t waiting. I was sitting.”

  Zen and the Mystic Itinerant Wrangler. He reached out and touched her lightly on her cheek, which sent her thoughts whirling like sparks from a kicked-up fire, her mind buzzing on and off like an old neon sign. He was aware of his effect on her, but had the good sense not to say anything. “I thought we could go by the cantina and get a drink. Mina’s beginning to wonder if you’re avoiding her.”

  Mina, the proprietor of the Spanish Moon Cantina on the Bosque Escondido, liked to micromanage the lives of the people who lived and worked here. Laura wondered if she’d weighed in on the living-together issue yet.

  “I’d better not drink anything. I have to be somewhere later.”

  “Oh?”

  “A party at my lieutenant’s house—it’s mandatory.”

  “Mandatory?”

  “For me anyway. I didn’t go to the last one, so I’ve got to go this time.”

  “What’ll he do if you don’t?”

  She shrugged. “Probably nothing. It’s politics.”

  “Sounds to me like he set you up.”

  Great insight from a man whose only possessions were a truck, a saddle, a horse trailer, and one decrepit horse.

  Here she’d found a man who was perfect for her in every way except one. In the currency she valued most, the currency that defined her life—career—he didn’t even have pocket change. He had no ambition. Thirty-five years old and he wrangled horses on a guest ranch.

  He said, “Did you get my note?”

  “Of course I got your note. I have to eat, don’t I? Lucky for you, you didn’t leave it in the cleaning closet.”

  He had both hands on her shoulders now. “Have you thought about it?”

  “I haven’t had time.”

  If she thought he’d be heartbroken, she was wrong.

  “Okay, I can wait. If you can’t drink, can we at least eat?”

  “I was going to have mac and cheese.”

  He smiled. “Not much food in those little boxes.”

  “I’ve got two of them.”

  Laura drifted in and out of sleep, her body one long smile. Naked in the cool swirl of sheets, the boat-oar ripple of the ceiling fan playing over her body, legs entangled with Tom’s long, lean ones, the feel of his skin against hers … times like these, she felt young again. Young in that innocent romantic way before life started cutting away at her. Before Billy Linton blew her romantic ideals out of the water. Before she learned that no matter how strong a bond you had with your family, it could be ripped away from you at any time.

  Lying here, she felt like the college kid she once was, infatuated with life, absolutely certain about her future. All she had to do was succumb to her feelings, and she could hold it again, that hope. Allow herself to be swept away by this incredible lover whose touch shot through her like electricity.

  Still drowsy, she found herself looking at the length of his body in the light from the bathroom. It was impossible to keep herself from touching him. She reached out and laid a finger on his skin. Felt a shiver, although it was warm. Traced a line down his muscled forearm, down along his rib cage, the bump where one rib had broken during a bull ride, then down into the hollow between his hipbones.

  Another shiver.

  Why shouldn’t we live together?

  Because it could go wrong. That was the lesson she had learned from her marriage.

  Marriage?, the hard-ass in her said. Whatever it was she and Billy had, you couldn’t really call it a marriage.

  The fact was, love could go wrong. All those good times, feeling you were joined at the hip, that you knew the other person so well, as well as you knew yourself, and then something bad happens and all of a sudden you become enemies. You don’t even know how it happens, but one day you meet in the hallway and you skirt around each other, looking away, trying not to touch. Because all of a sudden touching is impossible, you can’t stand to feel him on your skin. How does that happen? Just bad luck? Did it happen to everyone who went through a tragedy? She didn’t know.

  Tom stirred and his arm fell across her.

  She couldn’t deny how good it felt to be with him. Logically, she knew she couldn’t judge Tom by the Lintons. Besides, Tom didn’t have a rich family.

  She pressed her lips to his, and he stirred again.

  The sudden thrill of absolute wanting always caught her by surprise. Undeniably needy … and he always responded.

  Now he rose up on one arm above her, settled his lips onto hers.

  She cupped the back of his head, and they kissed long and slow.

  Exquisite.

  But something not so good insinuating itself into her mind—

  “Shit!” She sat up, grabbed the bedside clock and turned it so she could see.

  Tom, his dark eyes cloudy with sleep and desire and questions, “What’s wrong?”

  Eleven ten.

  “Dammit!”

  “What’s wrong?” Concern etched into two grooves between his eyes. Realization. “You missed the party.”

  She hopped out of bed, stumbling in the sheet and having to grab the bedpost to stay afloat. In the bathroom, turning the shower on full spray. Fumbling for her toothbrush. Before or after her shower? What would she wear? What kind of shoes?

  Feeling impotent. Unable to make decisions. Duck into the shower, make it fast.

  As she scrubbed, she tried to remember. How did she let this happen? The two of them sitting on the porch eating macaroni and cheese. Watching TV, starting on the couch and transferring to the bedroom, hurried and wanting.

  Immersed in their lovemaking. Mindless pleasure. Spending themselves, energy dwindling down to a tiny speck, like the dot on her grandmother’s old television set just before it went dark. She remembered thinking as she drifted off, I’ve got time. Just a few minutes and then I’ll get up …

  As the hard needles of spray drilled into her skin, Laura thought of something Frank Entwistle used to say.

  There are no accidents.

  She took Old Spanish Trail, flooring it along the edge of the Rincon Mountains, knowing it was too late. Doglegged over to the Catalina Highway, turning right onto a single lane of blacktop that climbed along the base of the mountains to where Galaz’s house overlooked the city. No cars parked outside the closed decorative iron gate, the house dark.

  Driving back, Laura was surprised how bad she felt. She sensed that this time, she’d done the u
nforgiveable. Victor always warned her that she needed to pay attention to what was going on with the brass. He’d told her on more than one occasion that she was impolitic. She’d always brushed it off, because in her opinion sucking up wasn’t important to the job she did every day.

  The moon peeked over the shoulder of the Rincons, a laughing clown.

  When she got home, Tom was gone. She was surprised, although she couldn’t expect him to stay. If they lived together it would be different. He’d be there all the time.

  Too tired to think now anyway.

  She got into bed, was asleep within minutes. Awakened not long after by a loud thump. Hallelujah—the bobcat kittens were back.

  Laura sat up in bed, listening to them play on the roof, watching the moonlight and mesquite shadows tremble across the floor. Most ranch houses in the southwest had concrete floors. This one had been deep red for the majority of its eighty years, scuffed and chipped by generations of cowboy boots, spurs, dragged saddles and bridles. Laura had painted it hazelnut brown, a glossy finish. In the moonlight, though, it was hard to tell what color it was.

  She wished Tom had waited. The lack of his presence prickled her, like the ghost pain from a severed limb.

  She had not had this feeling since Billy—that heart-thumping, nerve-shattering, high-voltage infatuation. Like two electrical wires touching, igniting feelings both visceral and surprising.

  Laura had spent some time thinking about it. She’d known sexier men, better-looking men, more powerful men. Maybe it was the forbidden nature of their relationship. The desire for the forbidden had probably been pummeled into her during catechism—kids being prone to absorb the opposite message as they were. By the time she was a teenager, forbidden pleasure as a concept was in full force. It fueled her poor choices in middle school, high school, and college. Beautiful boys who knew they were beautiful and had nothing else to occupy their minds except contempt for those who worship them.

  Her mother wasn’t here to disapprove now. But Laura knew she’d adopted her prejudices. An itinerant former bull rider was not the right man for her. The end result was a relationship that tasted and felt illicit—and therefore delicious.

  A train horn blared. The railroad tracks ran along the freeway, some five or six miles away as the crow flew. On sleepless nights, which lately had been all too many, she heard every big truck out on the highway and the mournful horn of the trains. Those sounds had been woven into the tapestry of her life, the lonely sounds of people going elsewhere, passing in the night.

  If you lived together you’d—

  Stop it.

  The bobcats, snarling, scuffling, galloping back and forth across the roof. God bless them.

  No more sleep tonight. She turned on the light. The chartreuse green walls of her bedroom looked like they had peeled and faded in the sun—she’d taken a course on distressing walls to look old. That and the mesquite mission bed—hecho en Mexico—made her room beautiful, to her eyes anyway.

  Her gaze strayed to the photos on the wall opposite the bed, the focal point of the room. Most of them were of good times with her parents and her friends, eight-by-tens of her on her mare Calliope, showing off her ribbons from the Alamo Farm annual horse show. Two Ross Santee pen-and-ink drawings that she had found at a yard sale. A wedding picture of Frank Entwistle and his second wife, Pat.

  No wedding pictures of her own, though. There hadn’t been any.

  She liked looking at the wall of photos from a distance, the cumulative effect of them arrayed tastefully, the mellow finish of the gold frames catching the light, but the truth was she rarely got up close and looked right at them. She didn’t like how they made her feel.

  That was then; this is now.

  Those days were as old and faded as the photographs, a half-remembered dream. Someone else’s life. She was not the pretty, shy girl perched on the fifty-thousand-dollar Thoroughbred hunter, the teenager giggling with friends at places as diverse as Dairy Queens and rock concerts.

  The girl looking out of those photographs seemed confident of her future happiness.

  Laura, looking at it from the perspective of distance, thought that was sad.

  22

  She was getting ready for work the next morning when she heard the gate creak out front. She looked out the window and saw Mike Galaz standing just inside the hog wire fence, almost concealed by the large mesquites. He seemed to be looking at her roof.

  She came out on the porch. His gaze still fixed on the clay barrel tiles, he said, “Is that a prickly pear growing out of your roof, or are you just happy to see me?”

  He didn’t sound mad. In fact, he sounded friendlier than she’d ever heard him. “Like it?” she said. “It’s the latest in home design." And immediately wondered—was she being too flip? “About last night—“

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  A compulsion to explain. “I guess I was more tired then I thought. I fell asleep.”

  “No problema. You missed a good time, but it’s no big deal.” He removed his coat jacket and folded it neatly over his arm. “You have air conditioning in that shack? I feel like I’m going to melt.”

  “Maybe you should trade that black SUV for a white one.”

  “Why is that?” He stepped up onto the worn brick paving of the portal and wiped his brow with the back of his hand.

  “Black attracts heat.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve got good air conditioning. It’s just walking from the car to the house that kills me.”

  He didn’t seem to know the basics about living in the desert. Like driving a white car or getting most of your outdoor work done before eight in the morning. She’d seen Galaz go out for a jog during his lunch hour in the middle of the summer.

  The Galaz family had been around Tucson since the eighteen hundreds, but the lieutenant didn’t act like an native Tucsonan, except in one way. Tucson had a proud tradition of Hispanic politicos and wheeler-dealers.

  She offered him coffee and he accepted while she went through the house closing windows and turning on the cooler.

  He held his hand up toward the air vent, grimacing at the fishy smell. “You sure it works?”

  “Swampbox,” she said. “It’ll take awhile.” She had no doubt that Mike Galaz had real air conditioning in his expensive home in the foothills.

  A hundred years ago, he would probably have lived in a ranch house just like this one. He looked like he belonged here with his elegant Spanish features and aristocratic bearing. A man who would look good by candlelight.

  He cradled the coffee mug in both hands. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping by like this.”

  “No, of course not." But she started to feel nervous again.

  Galaz sipped his coffee. “A shame you couldn’t meet Jay.”

  “Jay?”

  “Head of Dynever Security. The main reason I had the party, for you and him to meet.”

  He was mad after all. What she was about to say would make him a lot madder. “About that.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to get them involved.”

  “Because of the chain of custody? Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “You know what a defense attorney might do with that.”

  He stared at her, his dark eyes inscrutable. “You’re a good detective, Laura. You always think ahead. I like that.” He took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “But you’ve got to give me some credit. There’s no way I’d jeopardize this investigation. If you’re worried about the forensics on the computer, of course our crime lab does that. No way I’d farm that out. I’m just talking about the cyber stuff. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just air.”

  Air that can kill, Laura thought.

  Galaz leaned back, and the Mexican chair creaked. “I thought you had your doubts about it being Lehman.”

  “I have questions.”

  “I saw the autopsy report. That part about the frying pan. I find it hard to believe Lehman would
walk up the road looking for those two kids.”

  “I can’t speak for Victor, but I bet he’d say that Lehman killed Cary in his house and dragged him up to the cabin at night.”

  At the mention of Victor, Galaz’s eyes turned stony. Something between them. She remembered what Victor had called him—a control freak.

  He crossed one knee over the other and said, “What do you think?”

  “I didn’t see any blood evidence of that, and there would have been a lot of blood. Even when you clean a place really well, there’s always some residual blood. Nothing came up when we used Luminol.”

  “CRZYGRL12. That bothers me, too. You said yourself Detective Holland hasn’t done much.”

  “To be fair, we’ve been kept pretty busy.”

  “But bottom line, you’ve got your doubts.”

  She nodded.

  He set his coffee mug down. “I think we should try this. Before he gets another girl. Victor and Buddy can work the Lehman angle.” He saw her expression and added, “I promise you, there won’t be any repercussions.”

  “You can’t promise that.”

  “Yes, I can. I’ll take the blame if it goes wrong, but it won’t go wrong. This guy is good. You’ll like him.”

  She noticed his word tenses. Past the negotiation phase. As far as he was concerned, it was a done deal. It would have been a done deal last night, but she’d messed that up by not showing.

  She realized that if she had gone last night, this conversation wouldn’t be taking place. He would have asked her in front of this man Jay, and she would have had to agree. In the DPS—as in any law enforcement agency— you never made your boss look weak. Never.

  Maybe Victor was right about the lieutenant’s need for control. He certainly had it now. Might as well get it over with. She could make a token effort, talk to the guy, then tell Galaz it didn’t work out. “Okay, I’ll talk to him.”

  “Good." Galaz reached into his wallet and removed a card, set it on the table.

  The card said Dynever Security — Michael J. Ramsey II, CEO.