Inquisitive by nature, Napoleon knew well enough to leave that one alone. His grandmother had always said that a person’s time in prayer was the most special time of their life. It seemed that even angels needed that time.
Not only humans and angels, The Gray Man said softly.
Napoleon thought for a moment, remembering the story, told with such reverence some Sundays when his grandmother dragged him to church, of Christ on the Mount of Olives. Three times he’d asked the disciples to stand guard for him while he went off to pray, and three times they’d fallen asleep. By the time they awoke, Judas had arrived. But by then Jesus had made his point: that even he prayed.
The sands grew firmer as they crested the nearest dune.
“Hey, man,” Napoleon said, trying to inject some humor into the situation. “At least I waited for you.”
Again, a moment of quiet before The Gray Man spoke. Only because you had to.
Napoleon chuckled softly. “You got me there. So… who was that guy?”
He has many names. The Shaman. The Witch Doctor. The Dark Rider.
“How do you know about him?”
I learned of him a while ago. He sometimes crosses over. When he does it takes quite a lot of effort to force him back and…
“And?”
He creates a lot of destruction in the meantime.
It didn’t seem like the red and orange light of the sky ever dimmed here, but it didn’t seem as hot as it was earlier, as if hell had weather of some kind. A light breeze was kicking up some sand. Napoleon closed his mouth and tightened his lips, trying to keep the grit out, but breathing through his nose while hiking across the desert was too much work, and before long his nostrils were beginning to clog with sand.
A few dirt devils swirled off in the distance, tilting a patch of charred cactus trees.
It was a long while before The Gray Man spoke again, and when he did it was as if he was picking up right where they left off.
Why don’t you do it, Villa?
“What?”
Pray.
Napoleon thought for a second. It was an odd question, a personal one, which no one had asked him before. “I guess I figure God’s got bigger problems than any I need to bother him with.”
I would disagree. Everyone’s problems are important to Him. But, more importantly, why would your prayers have to be about problems?
“I dunno.”
Why couldn’t they be rooted in thanks? Or asking for guidance? Or maybe discussing your questions about life?
“I guess.”
You guess?
“Look. Don’t take this wrong, but praying just seems like an exercise in futility to me.”
Says the man with a tattoo of praying hands.
“That’s different,” Napoleon shot back with a cough. His mouth was dry and the sand was getting in his teeth a bit.
How so?
“I was younger then. More naïve.”
You mean less cynical.
“Or realistic.”
And by realistic you mean less disenchanted by life. Less… brokenhearted.
“Look. I don’t know you.”
True.
“And you don’t know me.”
Not true.
“Well, if you did know me, you’d know how thirsty I was right now.” There were at least a dozen dunes between where they’d started from and the white light in the distance, but it was nearly impossible to truly tell. It didn’t matter. Napoleon was already gassed. Halfway down one side of a slanted hill, tumbleweeds banging at his ankles, he had to stop. “I don’t suppose you know where I could find the nearest water fountain, do you?”
No.
“Perhaps you think I should pray to find it?”
Well, as we discussed, praying here is not a good idea. But, normally, it couldn’t hurt. And by the way, I know you well enough to know that sarcasm is your best defense.
“Maybe.”
And sometimes pretending like we don’t want to talk to God is a lot easier than coming to terms with the things we’d have to say.
“How so?”
The world, Villa, is a place full of so much hurt but, sadly, so are each of your lives. It builds up and builds up and then manifests itself in so many ways: your need to over-eat, or for a drink each night, or a number of any other self-destructive behaviors. You get therapy, from some other poor soul who’s drowning in their own sorrows, but they can only carry you so far, then some prescribed meds to chemically alter your brain to make you feel less hurt, but they can only take you so far, too.
“So?”
Villa. Feeling less hurt is not the same as being well, is it?
“Whatever. None of this has anything to do with me. Except the—”
Drinking part? Right?
Napoleon didn’t answer.
How long have you been sober now, Villa?
Napoleon didn’t even have to think about it before he answered, “Eight years, three months, eleven days.”
That’s a long climb.
“Yeah. And I did it myself. Without having to pray to God each day.”
Let’s be honest with one another, Villa; you may not have prayed each day, but you did pray. A few times.
The sand was being whipped up again, the cooling air pushing it up Napoleon’s pant leg as he thought hard about what The Gray Man had just said. He wanted to lie. To say he hadn’t. But there were many nights when he would fight the urge to buy a bottle of Jack on the way home, and many nights when he lost that fight and would be sitting on his couch with the bottle right next to him, like a loving date in a brown paper bag, and the war in his mind would rage, and his body would literally shake at the anticipation of just one taste and, nearly beaten, without a way out, he would—
Pray.
“Yeah? Okay. So what? Maybe I was just desperate.”
There, hiding behind the drapes of denial in Napoleon’s mind, The Gray Man chuckled. Yes. Or maybe, just maybe, you were hopeful.
“Please.”
Maybe, just maybe, you knew it would work.
“How could I possibly know that?”
Because you had faith then, Villa.
“What do you mean ‘then’? I mean, what about this? What about coming here?”
You came here in the hopes of finding a man you let torture you, long after he died.
“I came here to help save Kyle Fasano too.”
Be careful adding a good deed to an evil one. The latter always corrupts the former simply by association.
“What’re you saying, man? Can’t you just cut out all the deep shit and just say it clearly?”
“Fine. You came here out of a desire for vengeance to track down Joaquin Murrieta, out of pure pity for Mrs. Fasano and because deep down you wanted to die. Clear enough for you?”
Napoleon came to a dead stop. “That’s a lie.”
“The only lie is the one you keep telling yourself about not needing God. A lie you, of all people, have no right to tell.”
Napoleon laughed, his neck growing hot as his anger grew. “Why me ‘of all people’?”
The Gray Man materialized in front of Napoleon, his face firm and his eyes focused on Napoleon’s before he answered, Because many years ago you chose to do what you do. With good in your heart, you pinned on a badge and set out to make things right in a neighborhood that was drowning in evil. Don’t you see, Villa? In one way, shape or form ever since, you’ve been fighting the war we’re in right now, even here beyond the gates of hell itself, all of your adult life.
His anger vaporized because everything The Gray Man was telling him was true. All those foot patrols, all those talks with the kids in the neighborhood trying to steer them from the gangs, all the chats with the shop owners who were afraid for their lives after dark, all of it was in the very simple hope that he could make a difference. Then, he’d lost it somehow.
“Not ‘somehow,’ Villa. None of us get to blame random chance for our choices. Don’t you
see? The enemy took note of you, Villa. Your love for a good woman went bad, and hers for you as well. Then the booze. Then a monster came calling, not only killing those poor little girls, but then stealing all your hope, all your faith and nearly all your prayers as well.”
Napoleon sighed deeply. “Well. I’m here now. At least I can fix that part. I can find him, Murietta. Finally.”
And do what? Villa, he’s already in hell. There’s nothing worse you can do to him. Trust me.
Napoleon said nothing.
Instead you need to focus on defeating the demon you’ve let get inside you, deep down.
“You mean…” Napoleon’s legs were beginning to feel like rubber, but he continued up the next dune.
What is it you call it? The… desesperación?
Napoleon didn’t want to talk about it, so he changed the subject. “What’s Kyle Fasano’s involvement with you, or what’s this mission he was on that’s led us here?”
The Gray Man sighed. Fine. We’ll talk about it another time. As for Kyle Fasano? It’s better for you not to know, to be honest.
“That’s not fair. At least part of the reason why I’m here is to save him, you know, and I still don’t get to know why?”
The Gray Man chuckled. We were doing so well, too.
“Why do you say that?”
You’re here for Fasano, yes. Out of pride and fear. Pride in that no one gets away from the great Napoleon Villa again, and fear of what happened the last time someone did. When you get past these motivations, when your heart is pure, then I’ll explain it to you, because only then will you be ready to hear.
AS THE CIRCLE of the search widened, so too did the list of women. At one point Conch pushed away from the computer and walked to the window overlooking the parking lot. As he stood rubbing his eyes, he told himself that this couldn’t be. How could he have missed this many women disappearing from his small town? The answer was obvious: because they’d all left town before they’d disappeared, some to as far away as Las Vegas or Henderson in Nevada, others as nearby as San Bernardino and Tulare. Their disappearances were spaced out, too, over ten years.
In short: they were off his watch, off the grid and lost in time.
It didn’t mean that the Ashley Barton case was related in any way. On the face of it, quite the contrary. If she’d been taken, it was while she was in town. But the similarities couldn’t be overlooked: the age range of all the missing women was eighteen to twenty-one. Ashley was twenty. They were all working at markets, gas station mini-marts or liquor stores at the time they went missing, save one, Melissa O’Connell, who had quit her job at a 7-Eleven store two days before she started stripping at the Cowboy Club in Visalia.
He brooded and was pondering what to do next when Parker and Kendall returned to the station, anxious to update him on their findings.
“We think he may have marked the scene,” Parker said before Conch could bring up the database findings.
“How so?”
They told him about the carving on the pole, that it was fresh, that it could mean anything, but the fact that “AB” was part of the symbol, couldn’t just be dismissed.
“We’ve got the business cards with a ‘what does it mean’ issue…” Kendall said.
“And now the carvings with a ‘what does it mean’ issue as well,” Parker added.
“Okay, it may not add up, but it’s only because we’re missing parts of the equation,” Conch explained.
“Yeah. Well, you can say that again,” Parker chimed in, looking worried.
“How’s that?” Conch asked, but Parker simply waved off the question, which bothered Conch because he still hadn’t been able to shake the fact that Parker was withholding something from them.
Kendall spoke next. “What now?”
“Well, while you guys have been off finding more questions, I think I might’ve stumbled across some answers.”
“How so?” Parker asked.
Conch told them both. The room was silent for a minute, then Parker dug in. “So what? I mean, you’re searching a very large area, right?”
“Fairly large, yeah.”
“People disappear for all sorts of reasons.”
“All from the same town?”
Parker shrugged. “Eighteen women over ten years. I’m not a statistician, but that seems possible.”
“But is it probable?” Kendall wondered aloud.
“That’s my point,” Conch replied, feeling the firmness in his voice. He got what Parker was doing, playing devil’s advocate, but he wasn’t used to being openly challenged, much less in front of his deputy.
“Any similarities in their physical appearances?” Parker pressed.
“Yes. Eighteen to twenty-one, attractive, these seem to be the repeat factors, along with their career choices. Beyond that, body types, heights and weights were fairly different, though none of them could be considered overweight.”
“So… they were all hotties who ran the cash register at the market…” Kendall said with a sigh.
“Except the one who traded up to stripping,” Parker interjected.
Raising his eyebrows, Conch looked at Parker. “Two days after quitting her job at the market.”
Parker nodded. “That’s got a bit more teeth to it.”
Just then, Mandy arrived with the beef stew and biscuits. With her graying brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, she ordered the men to the center desk in the office and served them each a bowl while Conch introduced her to Parker.
“Shame, what happened to your partner and all,” Mandy said, startling Conch. Mandy was never one to bring up anything that could be awkward in a conversation.
Conch watched as Parker barely flinched before nodding a few times and saying, “Yes. Yes, it is.”
To Conch’s horror, Mandy continued as she gave them each napkins and spoons she’d packed in a separate bag. “Has anyone heard anything? People don’t just disappear. I mean, how is such a thing possible?”
“Mandy,” Conch interrupted, nervously glancing from his wife to Parker.
“No, Sheriff, it’s fine,” Parker replied, taking a few bites of stew before offering a shrug. “I just wish I had the answer.”
Kendall was sitting quietly with his bowl of stew, occasionally dipping his biscuit in the gravy before taking a bite.
He should be home with his family now. It’s been a long stretch, Conch thought.
To Conch’s relief, his wife had evidently taken his hint, as she changed the subject to Parker: where in Los Angeles did he live, exactly, and did he have a girlfriend? Conch smiled as Parker squirmed a bit more at the last question. Many times over the years Conch had thought that Mandy would make a good cop, usually after he’d gotten in trouble or forgotten to pay the property tax bill, when he was forced to face his wife’s grilling up close and personal. But now, seeing her set in on Parker barely five minutes after meeting him, well, Conch decided he might have to make her an honorary deputy just yet.
Parker shared that he was single. This seemed to break Mandy’s heart, so she unveiled the blueberry pie she’d baked to help ease his pain.
“Now, do me a favor,” she asked Parker and Kendall.
“What’s that?” Parker asked.
“You make sure my husband eats one slice of this and one slice only, okay?”
Everyone laughed but Conch.
His wife had put on a little weight over the years—without putting a single dent in her beauty—but not nearly as much weight as Conch had. Still, even though he knew she meant well, had even formed a conspiracy with his doctors to get his weight down at any cost, he still bristled at having his dessert messed with.
“Now, Mandy…”
“Don’t you ‘now, Mandy’ me,” she said with a shake of her head. “We got a cholesterol count we gotta hit, and, really, you shouldn’t even be getting the one slice.”
Conch sighed heavily and looked up to see Parker grinning at him. “What’s so funny, LA boy?”<
br />
“Oh, nothing. Just nice to see marital bliss in action,” Parker answered.
“You see. He’s a nice city boy,” Mandy said with a smile.
“Well, I dunno about that,” Parker said matter-of-factly.
“Oh?”
“Plenty of single women here,” Kendall finally spoke. “A few of my wife’s friends are—”
“Divorced with children,” Conch blurted out.
“Now, Floyd…” Mandy corrected her husband. “Let’s be nice.”
“Yeah… Floyd,” Kendall teased.
Night had fallen full and heavy outside. The paper bowls hit the trash and Parker snagged the last biscuit as Kendall cleaned up, telling Mandy she’d done enough for them for one night.
“So, you two have lived here your whole lives?” Parker asked Mandy.
“No. When Floyd was in the navy we lived in North Carolina for a while. I’m originally from Bakersfield. He’s a Nebraska boy. When he got out we followed some friends to Seattle. That’s where Floyd first became a cop. But I always knew I wanted to be back in California, just not back in Bakersfield.” She smiled and placed a hand on Conch’s shoulder. “Truth is, I woulda moved anywhere with this man.”
Conch chuckled. “Which is why ‘anywhere’ ended up being Beaury, which was only a stone’s throw away from your whole family in Bakersfield?”
“Now, you—” Mandy laughed, and Conch stole a moment to look at his wife’s face, laughing in the low light of the office. Truth was it was he who would’ve followed Mandy anywhere. He’d been a crazy young man, that was for sure. But even crazy knew dumb luck when it saw it, and Mandy Belfour had been Conch’s dumb luck, no doubt about it. Sometimes a man could land a woman so far out of his league, in so many different ways, that was the only way to explain it.
“And?” Parker said with a smile.
Conch looked at Mandy and gave her an encouraging nod. It was always better when she was the one telling the story. And so she did. About Conch managing to move up the ranks quickly with the Sheriff’s Department over in Barstow before requesting a transfer to the station house in Beaury. And about Charlie and Monica, born only a few years apart. Both of them married now and moved off: one to San Mateo, the other to Sacramento. Charlie was an analyst for Merrill Lynch, and Monica a nurse, each of them having started families of their own, making Conch and Mandy grandparents four times over already. Benjamin, Lucas, Karina and Dalia. The four names of their grandchildren rolled off his wife’s tongue with so much love that it was as if Conch’s heart was being pulled right out of his chest.
A Million to One: (The Millionth Trilogy Book 2) Page 17
