Come Dark

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Come Dark Page 27

by Steven F Havill


  Her phone vibrated. “Guzman.”

  Jackie Taber’s silky voice was soothing. “The sheriff filled you in a little?”

  “A little. What is going on, Jackie?”

  “LT is handing off the phone right now to Mr. Garcia. The kid’s a space-case, so it might get interesting. He’s holding a gun, and he looks comfortable with it.”

  “Tell LT not to provoke him in any way.”

  “He’s clear about that. He’s just leaving the phone on a seat next to Garcia and retreating. That’s what the kid wants. Now he’s saying he wants to talk to you and nobody else. All he has to do is press the autodial and you’re on.”

  “I got it. Thanks, Jackie.” She clicked off and waited, the phone poised.

  After what seemed like enough seconds to fly halfway across the neighboring state of Arizona, her phone vibrated.

  “Guzman.”

  “You talked to my brother.” The voice was tight.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s going to die, ain’t he?”

  “No. He’s had one surgery to remove his spleen, and he’s doing all right in post-op. He has surgery coming up on his left elbow later tomorrow or Monday morning. He’ll be fine when it’s all over.”

  “You ain’t lyin’?”

  “No. Why would I lie about something like that, Arthur? Come on. Your mother is with him, and you should be too.”

  “I got to talk to him.”

  “Give the phone to Lieutenant Mears. I’ll give him the numbers. But first, you need to let Christina go. She can’t help you.”

  “Yeah, she can. She ain’t goin’ nowhere until this is all over.”

  “What is it that you want, Arthur?”

  “I want to talk with my brother.”

  “Done deal.”

  “And I want to talk with Mr. Waddell.”

  “He’s here with me. We’ll be at the airport in just a few minutes. But he’s not going to go into that room as long as you’re threatening Christina with a gun.”

  “I lose the gun, you won’t talk with me. They’ll just shoot me.”

  Probably true, Estelle thought. Fortunately for Arthur Garcia, Sheriff Robert Torrez was still en route. That bought Arthur a few minutes, anyway.

  “So why all this nonsense, Arthur? We know that you helped your brother do some extra artwork up on the mesa. And on the train. And at school. Busy as you guys were, that’s all just a petty misdemeanor. It doesn’t warrant any of this.” She paused as the nose of the jet lowered a degree or two. “Is that revolver that you’re holding the same revolver that killed Coach Scott?”

  “You better know it is,” Arthur said quickly, and Estelle caught the surge of sorry pride in his voice. “My brother ratted me out?”

  The undersheriff almost laughed. “Way too many gangster movies, Arthur. No, your brother said you had nothing to do with his accident. He had no idea what happened later at the school. But you went back to the school later, didn’t you, Arthur? Scott had threatened to turn in one of your guns to the cops. The one he took from you. When you went there, Scott was still there.”

  “Yeah, he was. I caught him in the shower, man.”

  “Brave of you.”

  “Hey, that guy’s psycho. I was just going to tell him that he had to give the gun back. Something like that was going to screw up my parole. He had no cause to do that.”

  “Even when you stuck the thing in his face and threatened him?”

  “It don’t work.”

  “But he didn’t know that.”

  “No. But I was going to tell him that he had to pay for whatever my brother needed, ’cause he was the one who knocked into the ladder. And then he knocks me down, and then he throws that ladder like some big spear into the back of the truck. I saw it go right through the back window. He didn’t have cause to do that.”

  “So you accosted him in the shower.”

  “He saw me and started to come for me. He was comin’ right at me, right out of the shower. I had to do something.”

  “Four times something.”

  “Yeah, well. I don’t know about that. I just shot until he went down, man. It was self-defense, the way I see it.”

  “So don’t make it worse. Christina is no threat to you. She needs to be out of there. You hurt her, and you’re dead, my friend. Just like that.”

  “I talk to my brother and Waddell, and I’ll let her go. You tell Torrez that.”

  “We’ll set all that up when I get down,” Estelle said. “Play it smart. Just a few more minutes. Let me talk with Christina.”

  “You don’t need that.”

  “Yes, I do. Just hand her the phone. It’s no risk to you.”

  “You tell the cops to stay out of this room.”

  “They will.”

  A pause, a shuffle, and then a husky voice said, “This is Christina.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Just scared.”

  “Okay, you have every reason to be, but just wait it out, all right? Garcia isn’t going to hurt you, and my officers aren’t going to charge in and force a confrontation. They’re content to wait it out. Everybody gets out of this safely, Christina. No heroics.”

  “I understand,” Christina said calmly.

  She pictured the girl, hardy ranch stock used to wrangling fractious horses, building fences, clearing storm-clogged culverts—even sweet-talking local drunks at the Broken Spur Saloon into peaceful submission. Christina Prescott was more than capable of making Arthur Garcia’s day more memorable than he ever bargained for. But he hadn’t hesitated in killing Coach Scott, and now, as a felon facing a murder and weapons charge? He would never again see the light of freedom, and he was smart enough to know it.

  “Christina, I know you could probably break Art Garcia into little pieces. But please. He has a gun, and he’s used it before. Just be patient. All right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Smart girl. I’ll be back to you in just a minute.” She broke the connection and redialed Jackie Taber. “Leave Mears’ phone with Garcia for now,” Estelle said. “He just admitted to killing Scott. He claims that he went to see Scott to get a gun back. Apparently Art was carrying it all the while they were roaming around the county painting things. Unloaded, but who knows that. Scott confiscated it after a confrontation at the school, and was going to turn it into us. Arthur went back to school, caught Scott in the shower. He says he shot when Scott charged him.”

  “Dictate terms at gunpoint,” Jackie said. “Well, okay. That always works. But it’s as good a line as any, I suppose. Right now the issue is one very frightened Christina Prescott who’s got a nutcase holding a gun to her head.”

  “We play it slow and easy,” Estelle said. “Nobody gets hurt.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Thanks. We’ll be on the ground in a couple of minutes. We’re just north of Cat Mesa now. I’ll bring Miles out with me.”

  “Sounds good. Himself just arrived. He’s talking with LT.”

  “Ask him to be patient, Jackie.”

  The sergeant laughed softly. “You bet. We can always ask.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The jet screamed a fast approach over Cat Mesa, dropping like a graceful rock to swing east and approach the west end of runway nine-zero. Nose high, the Cessna cleared the boundary fence and touched down on the numbers, braking hard.

  As the sleek jet sighed to a stop by the fuel island, Estelle rose and beckoned to Miles Waddell. He listened carefully, eyes riveted on hers, as she explained what she knew.

  “And they’re in the theater?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head in distress. “I’ve only met the brother once, I think, a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t impressed. Why Efrin idolizes him, I couldn’t guess.”

  “Strange chemistry,” Estelle said. “Right now, I’d like you to follow me up there in your own vehicle. I’ll go on ahead and talk with Bobby.”

  “Okay.” He reached out a han
d toward Marion Banks. “You’re all set?”

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “One of the company trucks is parked in the hangar. I’ll take that up the hill.”

  Estelle shook hands with the girl gratefully. “Thanks so much. You can’t imagine what this means to us.”

  The Charger was an oven. But after the frigid air conditioning of the executive jet, even the hot air off the airport’s tarmac felt good through the open windows. Turning west on the old state highway, she punched on the embedded phone.

  “Hey,” Bob Torrez said as he connected.

  “I’m just leaving the airport. Is he still holding Christina?”

  “Yup. He’s got that revolver dug into her skull with the hammer cocked. Even if I had a clear shot, I wouldn’t take it.”

  Estelle’s heart hammered. “Listen, Waddell is coming right behind me. I don’t know what Garcia wants from him, but I’m not sending him into that room, Bobby. So everyone just sits still until I get there.”

  Southbound from State 17, the county road was pounded hard after two years of heavy construction traffic, and the overpowered sedan was able to make good time. Only two oncoming belly-dump haulers took to the ditch to give her room, and she arrived at the NightZone entrance with fingers aching from clamping the steering wheel.

  Bruce Cooper, the young man at the gate, opened it without being prompted, and under other conditions, Estelle might have enjoyed the dramatic, glass-smooth drive up the macadam access road to the mesa-top. As she rounded the first curve, she caught sight of Miles Waddell’s hulking diesel pickup behind her, just turning into the park entrance.

  “Where are you at?” The sheriff’s quiet voice bloomed out of the car’s stereo.

  “Just coming out on top. Miles is a half-mile behind me.”

  “Okay.”

  What was okay? Estelle wondered. Ignoring the arrows on the roadway, she took the narrow road against traffic, cutting off a large section of loop.

  In a moment, she entered the circle drive that fronted the restaurant, theater, and planetarium complex, and it looked as if the first soiree for the facility was a police convention. Estelle swung in hard to clear the curb and the front bumper of Torrez’ Expedition.

  The sheriff appeared at the bank of six doorways.

  “Nothing’s changed,” he said. “He’ll talk to Jackie, and she’s settled him down some, but he ain’t lettin’ go of the gun.”

  “How’s Christina?”

  “Hangin’ in there. She’s a tough gal.”

  The clatter of a diesel pickup announced the developer’s arrival. “Miles can come into the common foyer, but that’s as close as he goes,” Estelle said. “So let me find out what this creep has to say for himself.”

  The right-hand side of the double doors to the theater/planetarium opened on silky hinges, and forty yards away Estelle saw Christina Prescott sitting in the farthest chair in the first row. Directly behind her, the gun resting against her skull, sat Arthur Garcia. Estelle stopped and let the door close softly behind her. She held out both hands, spread wide.

  “Arthur, were you able to call your brother?” He looked like a fat version of his younger brother—same inky black hair, thick on his wide skull, too much fat on his face for his dark, expressive eyes to do justice. He jerked the gun against Christina’s skull, and she winced.

  “I tried to. They said he was asleep. They’re just jerkin’ my chains.” He tried for a tough-guy sneer.

  “Hang on.” Estelle pulled out her own phone, holding it up so he could see that it wasn’t a weapon of any sort. She scrolled down a list and touched autodial. As she did so, she asked, “Christina, are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  Estelle nodded and spoke into the phone, her eyes fixed on Arthur Garcia. Sure enough, the revolver’s hammer was cocked, and Arthur’s fat index finger was in the trigger guard. Estelle held the phone in her left hand, her right resting on the butt of her own automatic. Because she had already made her final decision, her mind was calm and clear.

  A hospital staffer came on the line. “This is Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman. I need to speak with Nurse Sturges.” She waited for a couple of heartbeats. “I don’t care what she’s doing. Get her on this phone. This is a police emergency.” She frowned hard and then relaxed. Lowering it away from her face, she said to Garcia, “They’ll find her. Just be patient.”

  “Get rid of that gun you’re carryin’.”

  “No. I’m not going to harm you, Arthur. And you’re not going to harm Christina.” She said it so matter-of-factly that Garcia appeared flustered.

  “Ah, Nurse Sturges? This is Undersheriff Guzman. We met not long ago in Efrin Garcia’s room. It’s imperative that we get Efrin on the phone.”

  She listened for a moment. “Sure. Do that, please.” Estelle had been walking toward the narrow elevated stage below the screen, moving obliquely away from Garcia. She watched him, and saw that his hand was steady. And why not? What sort of challenge was this, after blasting four rounds through a naked man, defenseless in a shower?

  “Efrin? Can you hear me clearly? All right, I want you to listen very carefully. Your brother Arthur is here with me. We’re in the theater with your mural. Will you talk with him? He needs to know that you’re going to be all right. Hold on.”

  She bent down, laid the phone on the polished oak of the stage, and shot it across toward Garcia. It stopped six feet from him.

  “Put your hands up on your head,” Garcia said. “I mean it. Do it now.”

  Estelle did so, and was surprised at the agility of the heavyset young man. He kept the revolver pointed at Christina, an easy shot.

  “Christina, just hold still,” Estelle said, and then thought, Cheap gun, we hope it has a hard trigger.

  Arthur grasped the phone. “Hermano?” He immediately crossed back to the protection of his hostage.

  Apparently Efrin Garcia had a lot to say, because his brother stood head down, frowning at the floor.

  “You shouldn’t a’ ratted me out,” he said finally, and glared at Estelle as if she were in charge of what his brother said, lying two hundred and fifty miles north in the Albuquerque hospital. “Yeah, well now there’s nothing I can do. They got me here. They ain’t going to let me walk away.”

  He listened for another minute, and it seemed to Estelle that his posture relaxed just a bit.

  “Yeah. I’m going to do that. No. I don’t want to talk to her now.” He lowered the phone. “I gotta talk to Waddell. He’s outside, ain’t he?”

  “I won’t bring him in here as long as you’re holding the gun on Christina.” Estelle, hands still on her head, walked across to the first row of seats, and sat down ten spaces from Christina. “There. You have me now. Let her go.”

  “You’ll bring Waddell in if I do that?”

  “No. Not as long as you have that gun. Nobody comes into this room. Let Christina go, and you can talk with him on the phone. He’s not coming in here.” She heard a faint knock from the back of the hall, a small, singular sound that the perfect acoustics delivered clearly. She knew what it was. It would be inconceivable for Robert Torrez, he of the single-minded hostage negotiating technique, to stand patiently out in the foyer, waiting for something to happen. He would think in terms of contingencies. Was he now in one of the three projection booths? Or snuggled up against the mid-floor planetarium projector? From any of those vantage points, his shot would be clear and easy.

  “Okay. She can go,” Arthur Garcia said, as if he’d come to the same conclusion as Estelle.

  “Just a minute.” She pointed at the phone. “Slide that over to me.”

  He did so. One burly arm hugged Christina close. Estelle cleared the phone and appeared to select another number, the hall remained silent of ringtones. She knew where the sheriff was, and she knew that he could hear her without the alert of the phone.

  “Bobby, let this one go. He’s going to let Christina out, and I need for him to talk to Waddell.” She wasn�
��t sure if the sheriff had heard her, or was ignoring her, or was already gently squeezing the trigger on his .308. She immediately pushed the autodial, and out in the foyer, Miles Waddell answered instantly.

  “Mr. Waddell, Arthur needs to talk with you for a minute. And Christina is coming out. Just stand near the first set of doors.”

  “I need to come in there?” Waddell asked.

  “Absolutely not. You stay out in the foyer. Arthur will be on the phone.” She held it out toward Arthur, and he pushed Christina away with the muzzle of the revolver. Holding the gun now on Estelle, he slid into a seat two paces down from her.

  “Waddell?”

  “He’s out in the foyer. That’s as close as he’s going to get.”

  Garcia reached for the phone.

  “I’m on the line,” Waddell said. “She’s done you a favor, my friend. Now it’s your turn to do something smart.”

  “Hey, man, look…my brother wouldn’t a’ done any of that taggin’ if I hadn’t talked him into it.” Arthur turned and gazed at the partial space mural.

  “I don’t care about the vandalism,” Miles said. “That’s not what all this is about, is it?”

  “If I give myself up peaceful, you got to let him finish this mural.”

  “I got to?”

  “Yeah. I mean, he needs to. You don’t know how proud he is of all this, man.”

  “That’s the only reason you came up here?”

  “Yeah. That’s it. Look, Efrin didn’t have nothin’ to do with that coach gettin’ himself killed down at school. Efrin didn’t even know I went back to settle things up. I had to get my gun back, man. And then Coach charged me like that, and there wasn’t nothing I could do.”

  “You could have turned and run,” Waddell said. “How far is a naked man going to get, pursuing you through the neighborhood?”

  “Yeah,” Arthur said bitterly. “That’s going to happen.” He snuffled and dragged a finger across his nose. “Look, man, I ain’t got nothin’ left now. That guy messed with my brother, and I settled things. I screwed this up so there’s no comin’ back. I know all that. But Efrin—he’s different. He’s going to be a famous artist someday. You gotta let him have that chance.”

 

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