Desert Rage

by Betty Webb

  Which led to Question Number Two: Let’s say the near-impossible was true. If one of the condemned men’s families contained a computer whiz kid who possessed the same talent, would Jimmy be able to locate him? Most of the websites Jimmy used to snuffle out Dr. Cameron’s part-time job were public postings, merely dates and events. Anyone who cared had access to the same information. Backtracking visitors to those same sites would be a Herculean task, perhaps impossible, but given the execution dates…

  Maybe. Just maybe.

  Although Cameron had been performing his service to the state of Arizona for several years, I decided to confine my focus to executions taking place this year. Earlier than that, the passion for revenge would probably have cooled. As I climbed out of my Jeep, I ran the more recent execution dates through my mind.

  Maleese Young—January 1

  Sidney Hoyt—January 11

  Beulah Phelps—March 22

  Blaine DuCharme—May 1

  Kenny Dean Hopper—July 7

  That last date caught my attention. It was the day before the Cameron murders.

  Parched from the long, hot drive, I made a beeline for the vending machine in the Best Western’s snack alcove. Not a lot of selections, mainly water, presweetened teas, and artificially flavored fruit drinks. No Tab, my preferred drink, just several other species of Coke. I chose the least exotic: Diet Coke. When the cold can rattled down the chute, I picked it up and pressed it against my forehead. Ahhh.

  As I climbed the stairs to my second-floor room, something else occurred to me. There was no guarantee that the killer was linked to Dr. Cameron’s grim freelance job, and I might be jumping the gun here. I’d already discovered that his own brother didn’t approve of him and his neighbors didn’t much like him. Who else harbored negative feelings about him? People in the medical profession are notoriously closed-mouthed, but a visit to Good Samaritan Hospital was probably necessary. Maybe Cameron had saved the life of a gang member, to the disgust of a rival gang. Or maybe he’d failed to save a life, and a grief-addled relative decided to make him pay. Then again, maybe one of Good Sam’s other doctors, or even a nurse, held a grudge against him. Granted, it would have to be a pretty big grudge to result in such a horrific crime, but at this point, anything was possible.

  Something else bothered me. So far, everyone I’d talked to, especially the murdered man’s brother, had described Alexandra Cameron as a near-saint. I didn’t believe in saints. Everyone has secrets, especially beautiful women who sound too good to be true.

  Then there was Terry Jardine. Monster Woman.

  Interviewing her presented a problem in more ways than one. Since she was the leading suspect in the firebombing of Desert Investigations, I had to be careful not to muck up the arson inquiry. Still, murder trumped arson, and considering her relationship to the executed Kenny Dean Hopper, there was no denying that Jardine was a strong suspect. She was certainly strong enough to inflict the damage I’d seen in the crime scene photographs, and crazy enough to do it.

  The clincher? Kenny Dean Hopper, Monster Woman’s erstwhile fiancé, had been executed the day before the Cameron murders.

  When I opened the door to my room, a gust of cool air rushed out to meet me. I scurried into its frigid embrace and kicked the door shut. After setting my carryall down on the bed I grabbed the TV remote and clicked on CNN, hoping Thorsson had somehow not graced that cable channel with an interview. I lucked out, in more ways than one. Her patrician face, backed by the avid, slightly crazed, faces of her supporters, never showed. Instead, while I’d been working, the world had become more peaceful than usual. Only one suicide bombing in a Baghdad market, only one little girl’s face attacked with acid in Kandahar, only two drowning victims in a Bangladeshi typhoon, only one workplace shooting at a St. Louis factory, and only four teens murdered in Chicago.

  Satan must have been napping.

  Caught up on the day’s carnage, I popped open the Diet Coke can and chugged it, reveling in its frosty run down my esophagus. Since I was already wired, I didn’t need the caffeine, but what you gonna do? I made a mental note to stop by a Circle K on the way to Jimmy’s and pick up a six-pack of some of the caffeine-free species, otherwise I’d be awake all night. Thirst slaked, I stripped off my sweaty clothes and treated myself to a cold shower. After I’d lowered my body temperature to a more comfortable level, I wrapped myself in a thick towel and checked my phone messages.

  Six calls were from Desert Investigations’ clients. They had read about the firebombing and wanted to know how it would affect their cases. Most were from companies wanting background checks of potential employees, but one was from Jennifer Longley, a too-doting mother who’d hired me to investigate her son’s fiancée. I returned the calls and reassured the clients that work on their cases continued unabated. In the Longley case, nothing negative had yet been discovered about the fiancée in question. Mama Longley didn’t sound pleased at this news; she’d hated the girl at first sight.

  Telephone work finished, I dressed and went downstairs to the motel office, where the amiable manager told me that yes, he would cancel the rest of my reservation, but there would be a penalty. “Scottsdale in July isn’t exactly the summer destination of choice, so I’m sure you understand,” he said.

  We commiserated with each other over the ungodly heat for a couple of minutes before I went back to my room and packed up what few things I’d brought with me.

  Then I left for Jimmy’s trailer.

  ***

  A man of his word, my partner had dinner simmering on the stove. Coq au vin, served with slow-roasted potatoes, crusty French bread, and apple cobbler for desert. It was all delicious.

  “I’ll get fat staying with you,” I said, staring at my empty plate.

  Jimmy looked smug. “Enjoy it while you can. Besides, you could use a little more weight.”

  “What, I’m too thin?”

  “How many meals do you average a day?”

  “Two, usually. Breakfast and dinner. You know my schedule. Half the time I’m too busy for lunch.”

  “See what I mean? Another five or even ten pounds wouldn’t hurt you.”

  I smiled. “In that case, I’ll have some more cobbler.”

  After finishing the second helping, it was all I could do to keep from licking the bowl.

  “I’ll wash, you dry,” Jimmy said, as he cleared the table.

  When he handed me a dishtowel that had ARIZONA—THE GRAND CANYON STATE printed on it, he caught sight of my new ring. “That’s a big hunk of turquoise and silver you’ve got there.”

  “Too big?”

  “Not for you. In an emergency, you can substitute it for brass knuckles.”

  “There’s an idea.”

  Companionably, we started on the dishes.

  For a brief moment I missed my little apartment again, where after a meal all I had to do was throw away a paper plate. Then again, my usual dinner of ramen noodles didn’t taste like coq au vin or apple cobbler.

  “Did you check out the Camerons’ neighbors?” I asked, as I dried a big serving platter. It had a picture of a smiling turkey painting on it.

  “As soon as you called. That Parelli guy? No record, no wants, no warrants, but a lot of his friends look fishy, and two of his brothers got popped for mob-related activities. Extortion, mid-level dealing, et cetera. You know what they say about birds of a feather. Still, I saw some publicity photos of the hot spots he worked on and as far as talent goes, he’s the real deal. Did you know that, besides other trendy night spots he’s responsible for, he decorated the Python Lounge?”

  The Python Lounge was one of Scottsdale’s flashiest clubs, catering only to the very rich and very famous. Its regulars included the starting lineup of the Phoenix Suns, as well as a never-ending stream of visiting music, film, and TV stars.

  “Fancy,” I said.


  He gave me a plate. “Not so fancy is the Camerons’ other neighbor, Elmont “Monty” Newberry. He’s been arrested twice for battery, although both times the charges were dropped. Never served a day, even though one of the guys he hit suffered two broken ribs and a fractured eye socket.”

  I remembered Monty’s thin, aristocratic face, his obvious affection for his fierce wife. “Was a woman involved either time?”

  “Only in the legal negotiations. The original complainants came into large sums of money shortly thereafter, and Margaret Newberry, Monty’s wife, was the attorney of record. You going to hold that plate for the rest of the year?”

  Pondering the old saw about not judging a book by its cover, I set the plate in the cabinet and took the new one he held out. “And he seemed like such a nice man. Oh, well. Sounds like you’ve been busy.”

  “Aren’t I always? How about you? What’s on tap for tomorrow?”

  I told him I planned to drive over to Good Sam and see if I could get someone to talk about Dr. Arthur Cameron. Because of HIPAA regulations, I wasn’t hopeful.

  “No problemo,” he said. “I’ll hook you up with Valerie.”

  “Valerie?”

  “Valerie Redhorse, R.N. Another one of my cousins, married a Paiute. Works in the ER over there. Probably knows Dr. Cameron all too well.”

  “And you didn’t tell me this before because…?”

  “Because she’s been up on Second Mesa for the last week, helping vaccinate Hopi kids. I was going to tell you as soon as she got back, which will be late Sunday night. Here’s another plate, belonged to my grandmother, so be careful. By the way, I put fresh linens on your bed and left you a clean towel and washrag.”

  “You’re a fine host, Almost Brother. As well as a never-ceasing flow of information.”

  “Nice to be appreciated for a change.” He grunted. “Hey, I’ve already gone to the gym, how about you?”

  “Taking the day off.”

  Another grunt. “Usually after dinner I watch a little TV. Tonight Animal Planet is airing a special on endangered Southwest species. Want to watch it with me or are you going to work?”

  I thought about the interviews that needed transcription, the additional case notes I had to finish. “Work.”

  “Why am I not surprised? Well, you know where the computers are and what the Desert Investigations password is. Me, I’m going to relax and find out how close Arizona’s mountain lions are to extinction. Or is that a non sequitur?”

  “What’s so non sequitur about that?” My partner’s thought patterns often escaped me.

  “The word ‘relax’ probably shouldn’t be used in the same sentence as ‘extinction.’”

  “Oh.”

  “Have fun working. There’s another non sequitur for you. No, on second thought, that’s actually an oxymoron.”

  Once the last dish had been put away, we separated companionably; he to Animal Planet, me to the glacial computer room, where I worked nonstop for another three hours. When I finally emerged, Jimmy had already turned in for the night. Good. Maybe he was a sound sleeper and wouldn’t discover the reason for my initial hesitation in accepting his hospitality.

  As promised, the sheets on my bed were fresh and the mattress firm, but it made no difference. Sleep never came easily to me, this night was no exception. For hours I lay there staring at the ceiling, trying to still my overactive mind by listening to coyotes yip in the distance. It didn’t work. The last time I looked at the bedside clock, it was half past one.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I was standing by the entrance to the mine shaft. At the bottom lay the dead children, their cries silenced by the same round of gunfire that killed my father. Next to me, my mother stood frozen, her grip on my hand so tight it hurt.

  The Golden Boy, much bigger than I, stood on the other side of the mine shaft, his blue eyes dancing with joy. Now he was the only son. The One.

  Because Abraham had sacrificed his first-born brother instead.

  I had no older brother, no one to die for me. Did that mean I would be next?

  As if reading my mind, Golden Boy said, “He won’t touch you.”

  My mother tightened her grip on my hand even further. She leaned down, whispered, “Don’t say anything.”

  But I, being only four years old, ignored her. Refusing to show fear, I asked, “How do you know he won’t?”

  “Because he promised you to me.”

  I began to scream.

  ***

  “Lena! Wake up!”

  Strong arms pulled me away from the mine shaft.

  Not my mother’s arms. Someone else’s. I flailed out at them, then opened my eyes and saw Jimmy. He was bare-chested, wearing only boxer shorts. They were covered with cartoons of Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote.

  In one of them, a thought balloon over Coyote’s head showed Roadrunner roasting over a slow fire.

  Chapter Seventeen

  By noon I was standing on Felix Phelps’ front porch in an old Peoria subdivision imaginatively named Happy Acres, wondering if the man would ever answer the door. In case the doorbell was broken—everything else around the house seemed to be in disrepair—I knocked. Still no answer. The disintegrating Toyota Corolla in the driveway bore testament that he was home, but maybe he was out walking the dog. If he had a dog.

  Thirty-four-year-old Felix was the son of Beulah Phelps. A few months earlier, Dr. Arthur Cameron had ushered Beulah out of this vale of tears for poisoning four elderly men, burying them in her backyard, and collecting their Social Security checks. Due to strange odors emanating from the yard, her neighbors eventually became suspicious and called the police. The appeals process had taken two decades, but in March, Felix had been granted the privilege of attending his mother’s execution. According to the Arizona Republic story Jimmy pulled up for me this morning, the second Beulah had gasped her last, her son fainted, thus ensuring that neither mother nor son left the execution wing of the Arizona State Prison under their own volition.

  The next month he moved back into the house he once shared with his mother, a renter this time. Why?

  “Felix’s home, he just don’t answer the door,” called a woman’s voice. Somewhere in her sixties, she stood on her front porch, looking as wrecked as her house. Frowsy gray-and-white hair that eerily matched the peeling paint, an ill-fitting brown dress the exact color of the dead grass on her lawn.

  “I need to talk to him,” I called back.

  “Then you might as well go on in. Asshole never locks his door. Probably gonna get his head bashed in by some hop-head burglar someday, not that Felix’s got anything worth stealing.” With that, she went back inside her own crumbling house, and a second later, I heard the sound of three locks sliding into place.

  Peoria is a northwestern suburb of Phoenix, and its neighborhoods range from new, upscale planned communities settled alongside artificial lakes, to down-at-the-heels neighborhoods like this one. Although built with great optimism after WWII, over the years the area’s lack of a strong economic base and the erosion of time laid bare the houses’ hurry-up construction. Their shambling appearance wasn’t helped by the tiny lots they sat on. Huddled as close together as they were, their unkempt yards and crumbling sidewalks announced the neighborhood’s illness as terminal. One day the bulldozers would come along and that would be the end of Happy Acres.

  The thought of bulldozers made me wonder if the backyard still retained the open maws of four graves. Or had the city filled them in?

  I gave the door a final knock, then, taking the old woman’s advice, opened it to the stench of cigarette smoke, mildew, and urine. “Hey, Mr. Phelps, you in there?”

  A mumble from a far corner of the room. “What?”

  The curtains, nothing more than none-too-clean sheets, had been drawn, so the living room was dark after the morning’s white-hot gl
are. But I could hear him trying to breathe, emphasis on the trying part.

  “My name is Lena Jones, and I’m a private investigator. I’d like to talk to you about your mother.”

  “She’s…dead.” His halting voice was a high tenor, similar to that of a child asthmatic’s.

  As I stepped into the room, I reached my hand into my carryall and switched on my digital recorder. “I know, Mr. Phelps. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  “The bastards…killed her.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “They…shouldn’t a…done that.”

  “She was convicted of murdering four innocent men.”

  “She was just trying…to take care of me after…Daddy left. What’d they…expect her to do when she couldn’t…get a job? Beg on the…street?” He was parroting the same defense his mother had used at her trial.

  My eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom and I focused in on him. Felix Phelps was morbidly obese, little more than a blue-lipped, glutinous mass. His rolls of fat spilled over a patched-together recliner surrounded by empty beer bottles, cigarette packs, fly-specked TV dinner containers, and empty Hershey wrappers. Urine stained the front of his giant-sized sweatpants. Diabetic, probably, but I saw no syringe, and no oxygen apparatus to ease his labored breathing.

  There being no way this man could have committed the three torture-killings described in the Cameron case file, I removed him from my mental list of suspects. In his condition, swinging a baseball bat even once was beyond him. He needed medical attention as soon as possible.

  “You look unwell, Mr. Phelps. Want me to call someone, get you some help?”

  “Call who? Never…had no one…but my…mama, now don’t even got her. She was just…an old lady. Who was she…gonna hurt anymore, huh?”

  I looked around for something to sit on, saw nothing. The recliner and a cooler next to the recliner appeared to be the only pieces of furniture in the room. I didn’t even see a television set. So I kept standing.