Desert Rage

by Betty Webb

  “What sources would those be?”

  “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

  “Funny man.”

  “I’m known for my one-liners.”

  He returned to his cold office, leaving me sitting there trying to figure out what to do next. I didn’t have to think too long because minutes later my cell rang again. Fiona Etheridge, Kyle’s foster mother.

  “I wanted you to be the first to know, well, after my husband, of course, so I guess that makes you the second, I just have to thank you for everything you’ve done, because without you, everything…”

  “Kyle’s being released, right?” It was the only thing that could have reduced her to babble.

  “Isn’t that what I said?”

  “Kinda.”

  She babbled on, telling me about the call she’d received from Curtis Racine, Kyle’s attorney. After convincing the county attorney’s office that surveillance videos proved the boy couldn’t have killed the Camerons, Kyle had been granted a release, the only condition being that he, like Alison, could not leave the state.

  “Mr. Racine assured us all charges will certainly be dropped,” she finished. “It’s just a matter of red tape now.”

  I felt almost as happy as Fiona, but for a different reason. “What time are you picking him up from the detention center?”

  “At five. He’ll be home in time for dinner, isn’t that wonderful? I thought I’d never get over having to give up the twins but…”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “Huh?”

  “The case is still open, Fiona, and he may be sitting on valuable information.”

  “Oh.” A long silence, then, “I guess we owe you that much, don’t we?”

  You sure do. “How about after dinner?”

  A small gasp. “That soon?”

  “And do me a favor. Do not discuss the case with him before I get there. How about eight? No, make it seven. You folks will be done eating by then, right?”

  “Uh, I guess so, but…”

  “Good. See you then.”

  Before she could change her mind, I hung up.

  ***

  I arrived at the Etheridge house at seven on the dot. When they opened the front door—letting out a strong aroma of pizza—both Etheridges were smiling, but their smiles faded when I stepped in and they saw my battered face.

  “Something fell on me at the gym.” No point in telling them that the object was a woman and she fell on me on purpose.

  “You sure you’re okay to drive?” Fiona asked, concern in her voice. “If you need to, Glen can drive you home. We can do this interview some other time. What matters is that Kyle is home where he belongs. And safe.”

  “No need to fuss, I’m perfectly fine.” My head was killing me, but I didn’t want to put off this interview. The longer the delay lasted, the more tainted Kyle’s memory would become. Given the more than two weeks that had lapsed since the murder, it was tainted enough already. But regardless of the hitches in his memory, he was still the first person to arrive at the murder scene. Other than the killer.

  Or killers, plural.

  Fiona remained hesitant. “You just look so…so…tired.”

  Glen, towering behind her, spoke up. “Fi, let the poor woman sit down, okay?” Although he wasn’t a handsome man—his nose was too broad and his chin too narrow—his face radiated kindliness. “Tell you ladies what. I’ll go in the kitchen and pour us some coffee. Decaf all right, Miss Jones?”

  I nodded, despite not being into decaf. While he was gone I could get the important questions out of the way. Fiona acted protective, but not as protective as I sensed he’d be.

  Seeing my assent, he disappeared into the kitchen, leaving his wife to steer me to the family room. “I’d rather you not ask Kyle any questions about the case until Glen gets back,” she said, quashing my plan. “We’ve already seen what can happen when he’s questioned without parental supervision. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Of course.” I didn’t let my disappointment show. The fact that both parents preferred to be present during the interview wasn’t good, because children—especially young teens—were notoriously circumspect about what they reveal when their parents are listening.

  When we reached the family room, I saw Kyle sitting on a vinyl-covered sofa with a fat brown puppy in his lap. Two kittens played with a Nerf ball at his feet. He appeared entranced by the view out the sliding glass doors that opened into the backyard. It wasn’t particularly attractive or even well-tended, but he didn’t seem to care. Neither would I, if I’d spent two weeks in the confines of the Mesa Detention Center. Studying him, I was surprised at how old he looked for his age, and how handsome. Clean movie-star features, glossy black hair, blue eyes so dark they were almost violet. The boy radiated good health, but there was no mistaking the burn scars up and down both of his arms, parting gifts from his biological mother.

  Seeing me, he tucked the puppy under one muscular arm and stood up, careful not to step on the kittens.

  ‘Thank you for all you’ve done for Ali,” he said in a deep baritone. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “And for me.” He stuck out his hand.

  When I shook it, my hand came away covered in brown puppy hair.

  “Sorry,” Kyle said, wiping his own hairy paw on his jeans as he sat back down. “He’s shedding.”

  “No problem. I’ve had worse on me.” Monster Woman’s blood, for instance.

  Fiona fussed around with some pillows on a raggedy chair across from the sofa. “Sit down, sit down. This is nice and soft. Or do you need back support? How about an aspirin?”

  “I’m fine.” I plopped into the chair before she could fuss some more. “I’d really like to get this interview started.”

  “Not until…” She left off as Glen entered the room, carrying four unmatched coffee mugs on a tray.

  “Here we are,” he announced. “Sugar and milk, for those so inclined.”

  I grabbed a mug, took the digital recorder out of my tote, clicked it on, and set it on the coffee table.

  Glen looked at it, then glanced at his wife, who’d joined Kyle on the sofa. “Is that really necessary?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Speech-activated, right?”

  “Now that it’s on, yes.”

  “Then understand that we reserve the right to stop this interview at any point.” His voice, though gentle, was firm.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Good. Since we’ve got that settled, Miss Jones, have at it.” Glen put his coffee mug down on an end table, then walked over to the sofa and stood there, arms crossed, fists clenched. Now Kyle was flanked by both foster parents. All gratitude forgotten, they’d circled the wagons.

  I cleared my throat. “Kyle, after you returned to the abandoned house and found Ali gone, how long did you stay there? Did you leave right away, or wait for a while, thinking she might come back?” I already guessed the answer, but wanted him to tell me himself.

  Kyle, after pouring enough milk into his coffee to turn it pale beige, answered. “As soon as I saw she’d left, I headed for her place. We’d been fighting and I figured she’d gone home.”

  “Weren’t you worried about showing up at the Camerons’? Word I hear is that Ali’s parents wanted to break you two up.”

  He shook his head. “Not really. Her mother didn’t mind me seeing her, as long as it didn’t get too…” He paused, searching for the word.

  “Hot and heavy?” I suggested.

  A pained smile. “Something like that.”

  “Did you see anything unusual on the way to Ali’s house?”

  He took a sip of his coffee. Made a face. Put it back down. “Like what?”

  “Anything. A person on the street, maybe, who didn’t look as if he belonged in the ne
ighborhood. Or an unusual vehicle. Anything.”

  “Not that I can remember. It was awfully hot, and not many people were out.”

  “Not many? You saw someone, then. Who? Where?”

  “Well, there was the mail carrier. Is that the kind of thing you mean?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. Tell me about him.”

  “Her. She was driving one of those little trucks they have. You know, just delivering the mail.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Couple blocks before I got to Alison’s house. Colt Street, I think it was.”

  “Did you see the mail carrier get out of the truck and actually put mail into the mailboxes?”

  He gave me a look that said, Are you for real? “Uh, yeah, I did. That’s how I know she was a she. She left mail at a couple of houses. She was getting back into her truck as I rounded the corner.”

  The police report had logged in several unopened bills and junk mail from the Camerons’ mailbox. Maybe the carrier had noticed something. Since the post office kept a log of who was on what route any given day, it should be easy enough for the police to check.

  “Good, Kyle. Now we’re getting somewhere. You see anyone else?”

  “Well, there was this air-conditioning truck. Some guy getting stuff out of it.”

  A man. A truck. “Where was this?”

  “Waaay before I saw the mail carrier. He was, like, closer to the party hou…uh, closer to the abandoned house than to the Camerons’.” He looked over at Glen, who shrugged.

  Fiona put her hand on Kyle’s shoulder, the better to squeeze a warning if necessary.

  I soldiered on. “How do you know he was the air-conditioning guy?”

  Another you must be some kind of stupid look. “Because it said BINGHAM’S HEATING AND COOLING right there on the side. It’s the same company Mom Fi uses.”

  “What color was the truck?”

  A sigh. “Red, with white and black lettering, aluminum ladder on the top. Just like the truck that always shows up here.”

  “Same guy, by any chance?”

  “Nah. Our guy’s skinny. This other one was kinda fat. Or maybe muscular. Heck, I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly checking him out. Guys aren’t my thing.” He blinked, looking startled at what he’d just said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  Mom Fi patted him on the shoulder.

  I thought about the air-conditioning guy. With the Camerons’ neighbors out of state, their cul-de-sac was deserted, so there couldn’t have been any complaints about overheating units on their street. “Is there anyone else you might have seen that you’ve forgotten about? Think hard, Kyle.”

  He looked up at the ceiling, where a fan was busy stirring the air around. His eyes tracked it for a few seconds, then he closed them for a moment, thinking. Mom Fi started to say something, but I raised my hand to silence her. Finally Kyle opened his eyes again. “Sorry. I can’t remember seeing anyone else. Like I said, it was pretty hot out. Most people were indoors. Or at work. Or on vacation, you know?” He turned those startling blue eyes on me. “I mean, c’mon, wouldn’t you be on vacation someplace cool if you didn’t have to work?”

  Relieved chuckles from Glen. A nod from Fiona.

  Considering everything, the interview was progressing well. Kyle felt relaxed enough to act snarky.

  I smiled, prolonging the feel-good moment. “You got that right, Kyle. They say Switzerland’s nice this time of year, Iceland, too, so maybe I’ll check them out sometime. But for now, yeah, I have to work, which means asking you all these pesky questions. So far, you’ve been very, very helpful, and I really, really appreciate it.”

  He beamed. Not only handsome, nice, too.

  But in my business you do what you have to do, even to nice kids. “Kyle, tell me exactly what you saw and heard when you approached the Cameron house.”

  Kyle flinched, and the puppy in his lap yelped. Stricken, the boy leaned his head down and nuzzled it. “So sorry, baby,” he cooed. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

  Fiona glared. “Lena, we’ve spent hours trying to make him forget what he saw that day!”

  Exactly what I’d been afraid of. “In your place, I’d feel the same way, Fiona, but please understand, there’s a vicious killer out there somewhere, possibly in this very neighborhood. Have you thought about that?”

  The look on her face proved she hadn’t, so I pressed my advantage. “The Cameron case isn’t closed just because the authorities turned your son loose. The detectives will be going over old ground, trying to figure out what they missed last time.” Such as eighteen thousand dollars stuffed into a pillow sham. “If they can’t come up with any new leads, new suspects”—I stressed the word ‘suspects’—“they might go back to where they started. With Kyle and Ali. We need to make certain that doesn’t happen, and if it means dredging up a few bad memories, well…”

  She didn’t buy it. Neither did Glen.

  To my surprise, Kyle did. Speaking directly to Fiona, he said, “She’s right, Mom Fi. Just because they let us go for now doesn’t mean they can’t arrest us again.” Then he blushed. “After all, we did…uh, I did sign that, um, statement.”

  “You mean your confession,” I said, to make certain his foster parents understood the nature of the ongoing threat.

  “Yeah, my confession. And I get it, it was a dumb thing to do. But we were scared, and I thought…Never mind what I thought. Ali didn’t do anything bad, she didn’t do anything at all. She just said what she did to protect me. She’s telling the truth now, but if they start in on me again I’m afraid…”

  “You’re afraid she’ll go back to telling the same old story.”

  “Yeah.” He gulped, close to tears.

  I reframed my question to give him a few moments to collect himself. “All right. Let’s start again at the beginning. When you returned to the abandoned house from the Circle K, Ali wasn’t there, so you left again, this time for the Camerons’ place, thinking that after your argument she went home. Now pay attention. The minute you turned into their cul-de-sac, did you see anything or anyone in front of their house or leaving their street?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did you hear anything?”

  Another head shake.

  “Was the front door open or closed?”

  “Open, but not by much.”

  “So you were able to walk right in?”

  “I knocked first.”

  “And?”

  “Nobody came. But when I knocked, it made the door open more, and when it did, I, uh, smelled something strange.”

  “Tell me about the smell.”

  He looked down at the puppy, which had fallen asleep on his lap. “Uh, like, uh…” He took a deep breath. “Like dog poop.”

  “Right. Is that when you went in?”

  “Yeah. I was trying to figure out what was up, you know? ’Cause, Dr. Cameron, he was a doctor, I mean, like, a medical doctor and had this thing about dirt, so even with Misty, that place was always spotless, so I walked in, just a couple of steps at first, calling for Ali, and at first I didn’t see anything, but then, but then, I saw, well, you know.”

  The puppy woke up, stared at him, then struggled to get down. That’s when I realized how tense Kyle had become. His hands were clenched, and he was biting his lip so hard I thought it might bleed.

  “Kyle?” Fiona’s voice.

  “It’s all right, Mom,” he said, easing the puppy down to the floor, where it joined the kittens tormenting the Nerf ball. Looking back at me, he said, “I saw Dr. Cameron first. He was sitting in that chair with tape over his mouth, covered in something red, but I didn’t know what it was at first, I thought maybe he’d been painting, but I didn’t smell paint, just the dog poop, and then I noticed his hands were all taped up, and then I saw Mrs. Cameron, s
he had tape over her mouth and her hair was sopped in the same red stuff as Dr. Cameron’s and I knew then it wasn’t paint because her hands were taped too, and I saw Misty all in red next to Ali’s brother and he was all covered in red too and I…and I…I didn’t still get it and I walked over there ’cause I was going to take the tape off and make them tell me what happened and maybe help them wash off all the red…but then…but then when I got close I saw that they weren’t going to tell me, not ever going to tell anyone anything not ever again, and then I saw the bat and then…and then Ali came in and I thought…I thought…”

  “You thought she’d done all that,” I said, so softly I could hardly hear my own voice.

  A gulp. “I must have been crazy.”

  “No, you were in shock.”

  Violet eyes ringed in red, he continued. “Ali…Ali saw Misty wasn’t dead but I thought Misty was so awful-looking that I just knew she was dying and suffering and suffering, and I can’t stand to see an animal suffer like that and all I could think was to put her out of her misery real fast so it wouldn’t go on any longer and Ali was standing there saying all this crazy stuff and I was, like, remembering this note she wrote me about wanting them all dead so we could always be together and it was…it was…it was just…it was just awful.”

  “What happened then?” I couldn’t seem to talk in a normal tone anymore, just whisper.

  “Ali grabbed her mother’s purse, the purse with the car keys in it and we took Misty to the vet.”

  “Then you headed for California.”

  His handsome face twisted. “Oh, God, we were so stupid!”

  Glen, who hadn’t said a word during all this, stepped forward. His hands were still clenched, as if ready to throw a punch. “Okay, Miss Jones. That’s it. I want you to leave now.”

  “But…”

  Glen started toward me, fist raised.

  Not wanting to get beat up again, I grabbed my recorder, threw it in my carryall, and hurried to the door.

  As I turned the knob, I heard footsteps. I turned to see Kyle, standing at the entrance to the family room, Glen and Fiona clutching at him, trying to drag him away. He was too strong. “Wait, Miss Jones! I just remembered something else!”