Laura Cardinal 01 Darkness on the Edge of Town

by J. Carson Black

  Locked in pain, Laura followed his words, but there was a lag. She could feel a buzzing in her brain and knew it was pure fear. This wasn’t just pain, it was agony, her body slippery with sweat—soaking every inch of her skin, in her eyes, blotting her blouse with it. And clenching, God, her toes were clenching and the pain just wouldn’t stop …

  Galaz said, “There are variations in neurotoxins from species to species. Some are far more extreme than others. This particular neurotoxin is pretty severe, but fortunately for you, not long-lasting. One, two hours at the most, and then the effects wear off. Another choice of spider, and you could be in incredible pain for two or three days. But I chose Steatoda juliei because we don’t need that long.”

  She looked at his crossed legs, the top leg moving back and forth. Using his knee as a fulcrum. He was smiling. “I gave this Steatoda its name. Since I spent months studying the effects of its venom on everything from bunny rabbits to horses, I can safely say this was an unnamed species, until now. That’s Phylum: Arthropoda; Subphylum: Celicerata; Class: Arachnida; Order: Aranae; Genus: Steatoda; Species: juliei.”

  Suddenly, her lower back bloomed like a bright red flower, pain so crushing and absolute that for a moment she couldn’t breathe.

  She closed her eyes and moaned. Her instinct told her to curl up in a fetal position on the floor, but her abdominal muscles were as stiff as a washboard. She gulped air, tried to roll with the cramping pain, but couldn’t: It was the bright screaming center of her brain.

  Galaz was talking at her but she didn’t understand much of what he said.

  “When you find a new species you can name it after anything you want—other than yourself. That would be in bad taste. You just add an ‘i’ to the end. So I named it Steatoda juliei. Do you know why I chose juliei?” He leaned his upper body as far forward as it would go so he was looking into her eyes.

  Julie Marr. She didn’t know if she spoke it out loud or if she just thought it.

  “I meant this dose for Buddy Holland’s daughter. I wanted to see how she reacted, but—” He shrugged— “The best-laid plans … you know the saying.” He turned to Harmon. How is our other patient?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “You sure this time?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Galaz stood. “We’d better go then. You’ll have to carry her. Give me her gun.” Galaz removed his own gun from the paddle holster on his hip and traded it for Laura’s Sig Sauer. Harmon tucked Galaz’s gun into his ankle holster.

  “That reminds me. Better check her boots, too. She should have another weapon.”

  Harmon’s manhandling was excruciating. He found her second gun, her mace, her knife.

  Galaz put his index finger to his lip. “What we’ll do is, you make sure this place looks right. Doesn’t matter about hair and fibers, lots of people come here. What about Freddy?”

  “I saw him race out of here. He won’t be back for a while.”

  Galaz said to Laura, “Freddy thinks someone stomped his boyfriend. He’s probably just now figuring out his inamorata isn’t at St. Mary’s Hospital. Pretty ingenious, don’t you think? If only you hadn’t come early and spoiled the party.” He sighed. “I should have known—you never know when to stop.”

  Laura barely heard him. Her arms felt as if they were being pulled out of their sockets, handcuffed as they were behind her back. Every muscle, long and short, big and small—writhing, turning inside-out, flopping like an oxygen-starved fish, wringing itself limp, squirting pain and adrenaline into her system.

  “Aren’t you even curious where we’re going?”

  Laura tried to say something, but couldn’t.

  “You mean to tell me you haven’t figured it out?”

  He stood over her, the toe of his alligator-skin loafer inches from her face.

  “We’re going to see Summer,” he said.

  Buddy Holland trailed Laura Cardinal to a house in midtown, then to Fort Lowell Road. He knew from the way she was acting that Cardinal was on to something and he wanted to know what it was.

  It was easy to get locked out in an investigation like this—he was just some cop from Bisbee with no power here. He also knew that Cardinal didn’t trust him because Summer was his daughter. He understood how she could think that. But he didn’t care how she felt; he wanted to find his daughter, and no one was going to stop him.

  He watched her drive through the gates to what looked like an estate. He got out and walked up the utility road along the east side of the property, lined with a new ten-foot-high, chain link fence topped with barbed wire, every panel marked NO TRESPASSING in big red letters. When he came to a place where the lane curved, he spotted a mirror by the side of the road to show the blind corner. The last time he’d seen something like that was in Germany, where he’d been stationed during his stint in the Army. Fingers locked into the chain link, Buddy peered through the kaleidoscope of foliage at the narrow road and saw Laura Cardinal’s car stopped on the lane as she talked to someone in a black SUV.

  The SUV turned around and followed her up the lane. They turned in at some tall trees—where he assumed the house was. Buddy wondered if the black Suburban belonged to the DPS lieutenant, Galaz. Whatever they were doing, he and Victor had been kept in the dark. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Summer’s kidnapping. Maybe their meeting was of a personal nature.

  Still, he decided to stay around awhile and see what happened.

  He backed his Caprice under a tamarisk tree a little ways back from the road, where he could keep an eye on the entrance. The sun was low in the sky and the shade of the tamarisk, dense and inky, concealed the car well.

  A little over an hour later, he heard cars coming up the lane. Galaz’s black Suburban drove slowly out the gate and turned right onto Fort Lowell, followed by Laura Cardinal’s 4Runner.

  The glass was dark on the SUV, but he thought he saw a person in the passenger seat. A man drove Laura Cardinal’s 4Runner. He was by himself.

  Why wasn’t Cardinal driving her own car? Was she riding with Galaz?

  There was something secretive about this that seemed off.

  Buddy realized he had a choice. He could go onto the property, or he could follow Galaz and the 4Runner.

  He compromised by calling Victor Celaya. Victor said he would send someone to check out the property. That worked out, Buddy put his brown Caprice into gear and slipped into the traffic stream like an alligator into a river.

  56

  Ghostly letters spelled out the words CHIRICAHUA PAINT CO. in canary yellow on the dark red brick just under the roof line of the warehouse. Below that were two rows of multi-paned factory windows, all of them either blacked-out or broken. The property was wrapped in chain link. Behind the warehouse, an east-bound train rattled past. Laura wished she could scream to them. But even if she were able, they were too far away.

  Mickey Harmon un-padlocked the gate and swung it open, waiting for Galaz to drive through. They jounced across the potholed parking lot around to the back and parked in the shadow of the building. Mickey got out of the 4Runner and into the backseat. Galaz left the engine running so he could run the air conditioner.

  “Where’s Musicman?” Galaz asked Harmon.

  “Parked down the road between a couple of trucks. Must think he’s invisible.”

  Galaz laughed. “I’ll bet he’s waiting for it to get dark. You should leave the gate open, make it easy for him.”

  “He might call the police,” Harmon said.

  “He won’t. He wants her for himself. There’s no way he’d give her up—not voluntarily.” A smile flickered on his face, not reaching his eyes. “What do you think, Laura? You’ve been hot on Dale Lundy’s trail for some time. You think he’s going to give up now?”

  “No.”

  “See, Mickey? Cardinal knows her quarry.”

  She stared at him, feeling the ache in her eyeballs. Tried out her voice again. “You used me to find him.”

  He l
aughed. “It pays to have a crack investigator on the home team. At a certain point I didn’t need you anymore, though—Jay tracked down his ISP before Charlie did.” He turned to Harmon. “Just remember, Mickey, I want Lundy alive. I want the last thing he sees to be me doing Summer. I want him to know he’s been dominated. He’s got to learn that he can’t defy me.”

  He tapped the steering wheel, the only sign that he was nervous. “I’ve got to figure out what to do with Laura here. Any ideas?”

  Harmon grunted.

  “I didn’t think so. That’s why you never got higher than the third level.”

  The third level? He must be referring to the game Dark Moondancer. Pushing forty, and he was preoccupied with a kid’s game. It was the first thing about this whole situation that made her want to laugh out loud. The feeling didn’t last long.

  Galaz’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel: Tap, tap, tap. “Jay was easy, but if one of our criminal investigators disappears, that’s going to look bad. I really wanted to have some time with Summer, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen now.”

  “I dunno. You could maybe take her someplace else—“

  “No. There’s the time element. I’ll be lucky if I have a half hour. Laura here is the head of a task force, people will be calling, they’ll come looking for her. This whole thing could blow up in our faces. Better just go ahead and cut my losses.”

  Laura asked, “Why Dark Moondancer?”

  “Why? Because it’s more than a game, that’s why. Dark Moondancer transcends fantasy. To get to the highest level and become Dark Moondancer, you have to make it real. Things you would never dream of doing in your regular life—you’ll do if you want to win. This game isn’t for the faint of heart.

  “The problem with Mickey here, and Jay—they always pulled their punches. They had no commitment. No vision.”

  Across the empty lot east of the warehouse, Laura saw cars crawling along a road that paralleled the railroad tracks, the last rays of the sun flaring off their back windows. Too far away to signal. She traced their movement with her eyes, though, watching them turn and go out of view, becoming swallowed by the rise of land and the creosote. One of them was a brown Caprice, the kind Buddy Holland drove. Now she wished she’d brought Buddy with her.

  She said to Jay, “After all these years, you’re still playing this game?”

  “It’s not just a game. It’s a way of life. There are smart people and dumb people, powerful people and losers. Dark Moondancer is a metaphor for power.”

  “Do you still play it, Mickey?” she asked.

  Mickey grunted something intelligible. Scared to say anything in front of Mike Galaz?

  “Did Jay?”

  Galaz said, “Jay was nothing but a rich crip who outlived his usefulness. Although he did buy me this warehouse for my extracurricular activities.”

  “Did he have anything to do with Julie’s murder?”

  “You saw the note.”

  “The one you wrote and planted?”

  He smiled. “You think the three of us did it? That’s what you think? Jay, Mickey and me?”

  Even through her pain, Laura was amazed at her own curiosity. She wanted to know how long Galaz had been killing. She wanted to know if Jay had helped him kill Julie Marr.

  She had to know.

  Galaz sensed that need and abruptly changed the subject. “You’re not so different, you and the pedophile. There are a lot of things I can take, Laura, but being patronized is not one of them. I don’t take that from anyone.”

  What was he talking about? “Patronize you?”

  “Come on, Laura. Don’t play that game.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know what you think I did.” In her mind she reviewed her actions of the last few months. She had always been polite, always did as she was told, was very careful in fact because she didn’t know him well. She’d gone out of her way to stay under the radar, to do what he wanted, even going outside the department and working with Jay Ramsey because he asked her to. She had done everything—except show up at his party.

  He couldn’t be that petty, could he? Why would the fact that she didn’t show up to his parties make a difference to him either way?

  Galaz glanced at his watch. “Times a wasting. Mickey, you’re going to have to do the honors.”

  Mickey Harmon got out and opened the passenger door.

  “Better take the cuffs off. That would look bad if anyone driving by looked too hard. Laura, can you walk under your own steam?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Get her on her feet and see.”

  At 22nd and Park, Buddy Holland got caught at the light. By the time he made the turn onto Park, both the Suburban and the 4Runner were gone.

  He put on the afterburners, gunning it up to eighty to catch the cars ahead, but none of them were the vehicles he was looking for. Galaz must have turned off somewhere in between. He backtracked and found himself cruising through the warehouse district, his instincts telling him they were here somewhere. But where?

  The sun was going down and it was getting harder to see. He scanned the roads, empty except for big trucks and semis parked for the night, the blank-windowed factories and warehouses. Then he saw something out of place—a small white car tucked in between two trucks.

  A white GEO Prizm crammed to the ceiling with junk.

  He drove down the road and pulled in behind an empty office building to think.

  Buddy didn’t know what kind of connection there could be between Dale Lundy and the meeting between Laura Cardinal and Lieutenant Galaz. Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what. And now, here was this amazing coincidence. A ’94 GEO Prizm parked between two trucks.

  He got out of the car and slipped behind the empty building. He walked to the next block, cutting back between two warehouses, following an internal alley. He emerged fifty feet or so from the car.

  Getting darker by the minute.

  He drew his weapon, using the back end of a big tractor trailer for cover. He went from one truck to another until he was behind the truck parked to the left of the GEO. This gave him a good back view of the GEO, including the driver’s side.

  No signs of life. No movement inside that he could see, but with stuff piled that high, it was impossible to see past the back seat. Buddy squinted at the license plate. He didn’t need to call in to get Dale Lundy’s plate number; he knew it by heart.

  He was right. It was Lundy’s car.

  He thought about going back to the Caprice and calling it in, but just then he heard footfalls down the road, the crunch of shoes on dirt. A hundred yards up the road he saw a figure almost obscured by darkness—just the white of his shirt. Walking north.

  Headlights appeared at the other end of the road, lighting up the weeds along the side of the road. Buddy watched as the man ducked behind a palo verde tree until the car had passed. Then he was walking again, heading up to the street Buddy knew from his previous pass was a dead end.

  He flashed his MagLite on the back of the GEO, approached it at a slant, gun trained on the driver’s window. Adrenaline pumping, knowing he should identify himself, but aware that the man walking up the road might hear. With every step, he saw more of the interior of the car.

  Empty.

  Relief like a douse of ice-cold water. Summer wasn’t there. But where was she?

  Buddy looked up the road. The man was almost to the cross street. Buddy watched as he crossed the street and walked along the chain link fence on the other side, then stopped. Too dark to tell, but Buddy assumed there was a gate. The man just stood there, peering in. Even from here Buddy could tell he was scared. It was in the way he hung back, the nervous movement of his head as he looked around.

  What do I bet it’s you, asshole?

  Laura was able to hobble from the car to the warehouse door, every muscle screaming. Her toes clenched, her teeth aching, her nerve endings shrieking like the high strings on a violin. Every shuffling step was a
n agony. She wanted to lie down. She wanted to curl into a ball. But Mickey had taken off the handcuffs so she needed to test her limits in case she had a chance to get her weapon back. Otherwise, she knew the end of her pain would also be the end of her life.

  Once inside, her freedom ended.

  “Carry her, Mick,” Galaz said, his voice impatient. “Otherwise it’ll take all day.”

  Mickey slung her over his shoulder.

  The warehouse was empty except for broken glass. In the huge, cavernous space, their footsteps crunched on glass and concrete, echoing in the rafters high above. The last light of the day poked through the jagged holes in the many windowpanes. The intact windows had been painted over dark green, giving the place a murky, aqueous cast.

  They didn’t have far to go. Half of one side of the warehouse was a suite of offices—cheap wallboard painted mint green, doors removed. Their destination was the corner office, closest to the back door.

  “Who’s there?”

  The voice belonged to a girl. It sounded creaky, as if she wasn’t used to speaking. Just inside the door, Harmon set Laura down.

  She was facing into the room, but her mind balked. She stared at her feet, at the floor, a kind of disconnect. She didn’t want to see what had been done to Summer. Her job was finding the bad guy. Her job was to pick up the pieces. Her job was to comfort the families. There was nothing she had ever done that had prepared her for this.

  She couldn’t do anything for Summer. She was helpless.

  Galaz said, “What’s the matter, Laura? You’ve been looking for her all day—aren’t you the least bit curious?” At the same moment, Mickey Harmon poked her in the back.

  She couldn’t see this. It would do her in. She couldn’t help Summer, she couldn’t help herself. For the first time in her life, Laura wanted to give up. Give it up, let it go. Like slipping into a warm bath. A certain comfort when you knew it was hopeless, and you were just waiting for death.