Evil Cries

by Lala Corriere

  “The suits at the FBI. Vic Romero and Steve Taylor. That’s it.”

  “Not even Zoey?”

  “Not even The Z. But she’ll find out. She’s that way, you know.”

  “Where are you on the case?”

  “I speak fluent Spanish. I know the desert. Our sources confirm that the immigrants seem to vanish long before they hit Tucson or Phoenix, but we have reason to believe the trouble originates here.”

  “That’s pretty vague,” I said. “Why Tucson?”

  “The information is a bit odd, but enough for us to bite. Three illegals were picked up by Border Patrol. When we deported them one went running to the Mexican authorities. He claimed he was invited to have a beer—and here is the incredulous part—on a boat. In the middle of the desert.”

  “You said it. Incredulous. Like, ridiculous. Why pursue it?”

  “Because maybe it was just a shack or a trailer with an anchor out front. Because the rest of the story wasn’t so incredulous. The illegal went on to report that the man on the boat was loco. That he has all sorts of medical devices. And he touched them.”

  “Sexually?” I asked.

  “No. He caressed their skin. Pinched them. Caressed them again. However he touched them, it scared the dickens out of all three, and the men were as tough as they come.”

  “And why the Tucson connection? I mean I’ve heard there’s a quorum of ranchers at the border that would gladly get rid of illegal trespassers in any way they can. The trash they leave behind is the least of the trouble. The guns. The drugs.”

  “While the so-called captain of the boat was busy displaying his torture toys, our main witness said he saw a briefcase on the floor. He claimed there was a receipt sticking out of it from Tucson Electric Power. He recognized the word Tucson because that’s where the three of them were headed.”

  “Weird, but don’t a lot of Tucson executives own land down there and play vaquero on the weekends?” I pushed.

  “Good. True. But this time I think we don’t have a case of cowboys and Indians. Or bad Mexicans. More like one bad cowboy and illegals. And our cowboy’s name might be Sacred.”

  “Sacred how?”

  “More than you should know, Shirley said. “Now, quid pro quo. What’s going on with you and that man of yours?”

  “He’s still at The Club. Undetermined relationship status.”

  “That man at the park. Who’s he?”

  “A customer. Sort of a friend. I’m interested. I’ll see him again socially, and it will do me well.”

  “I don’t know if you should do that,” Shirley said.

  “This is no game of Mother-May-I,” I snapped backed.

  She held her hands in the air, “Of course not. I just meant until you determine that undetermined status of yours.”

  I nodded. So true. Mother may be right.

  “Not advice. Just a thought. I mean, those photos. We live in a new world. There is such a thing as Photoshop. Why don’t you go see him at The Club and have a nice long talk? Ask the questions and hear the answers. You can’t solve a relationship problem by stewing about it.”

  I thought about it and said the unthinkable. “Shirley, will you go with me, just until we settle down to talk?”

  Chapter 42

  Skin

  SACRUM SAID, “I’LL speak in layman’s terms. That way I think you’ll understand me. Okay, Pocko?

  “It’s about your skin. Full of bumps and ridges and a little fat. Now, it’s not me, but for some people you might be the wrong color. What you’re going to get, Little Pocko, is a full body graft of new skin. White skin. This will be a good thing for both of us. Trust me.”

  Sacrum scoured the eyes of his patient. “You want to know whose skin? Is that it?”

  The man stared back with brown vacuous eyes. Drugged eyes. Sacrum tried so hard to keep the drugs at a minimum so his Pocko would go on the journey with him as a complete partner.

  “I like porcelain on my women. Just doesn’t always work out that I like the women after a while. I’ve preserved layers and layers of beautiful white skin. Not sure if my preservation techniques are perfect, but that’s part of the research. It has been some years since I skinned my last wife.

  “That’s what’s so perfect about you, Pocko. You’re a bit fat, but I should have just enough epidermis, papillary, and dermis—I should have just enough skin, to stretch and make this work.

  “I want this to pan out for you, my man. I do, but the thing is if it doesn’t I have options. Skin on the black market is worth a ton. Right now, it only holds up for about 48 hours in the cooler. Hard to move it that quickly. So we’re going to do a transplant with what I’ve managed to preserve, and if it fails—well, then there’s your skin to sell.

  “You’re going to go to sleep now, Pocko, and when you wake up in about a week, with luck on our side, you’re going to be a fucking white guy. And I’ll be fucking drowning in fame and fortune soon enough.”

  RACHEL LEE ENTERED the lobby of The Club and asked for Gage Beauchamp’s room. The front desk clerk stated policy against giving out room numbers, but offered he would connect her to the room through the house phone.

  “Gage. Don’t be mad. I hate what happened to you. I’m so upset about you and your friend. I’m in the lobby. I thought maybe we could talk this through and figure out how to set things straight.”

  Gage took a deep breath and plenty of time. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll meet you in the bar.”

  “I THOUGHT YOU WANTED to help me, Rachel,” Gage said. “You showing up here can’t possibly help.”

  “I had to do something. I’m your friend. And it looks to me like you could use one.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  Rachel giggled. Sultry. A thick Irish brogue. “Oh my, yes. It looks like you’ve been out on an archaeology dig for six months. And without a shovel, or a pal.”

  Gage scoured his body. “Artists wear crumpled clothes all the time.”

  Rachel said, “Is that a smile I see? Really?”

  He laughed. “Okay, Rach. One drink. And you’re buying since you look so damn—”

  He almost said because she looked so damn hot. He could have said she was a sight for sore eyes. “You look so damn rich in your haute couture. And I’m the one in the wrinkled clothes.”

  After receiving their drinks, Gage leaned back in his chair, stretching out his arms and sighing. “So how’d you do it?”

  Rachel swallowed dry air. “Do what?”

  “How’d you pull yourself up so far and so fast?”

  She smiled. “Hard work and determination. Same as everyone. And look at you! Selling out in Chicago when the entire economy has flat-lined.”

  “It’s crazy good luck. One gallery.”

  “Unbelievable,” Rachel said.

  In unison, “Remember when we—”

  “You go first.”

  “Another round, please.”

  Chapter 43

  Not a Happy Hour

  STEVE TAYLOR AND Junior met at the lobby as planned.

  “You wore cop shoes?” Taylor didn’t attempt to hide his frustration.

  “They’re all I have. It was either these or my running shoes. What the hell do you wear?”

  Taylor lifted his pant leg up to reveal the cowboy boots.

  “No way am I wearing cowboy boots in the desert in the summer.”

  “Then next time wear the damn running shoes. Throw on some Bermuda shorts and a madras shirt.”

  Taylor approached the front desk and displayed his badge. “I need the room number for Gage Beauchamp.”

  The clerk looked up. “Popular man, but you know I can’t give you that information without a warrant.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Guest privacy and all that. You’re a good man.”

  “A man who respects the job you guys do.” He shrugged and tilted his head toward the bar.

  Taylor immediately spied the couple sitting at a bank of windows. He led the way to secure
a table with regard to a bit of distance, but not out of ear shot.

  “Maybe the redhead doting on our boy is the perp. Maybe she owns a black SUV. She sure looks rich enough,” Junior said, barely seated in his chair and scarcely able to contain his excitement.

  “Slow down. Take out your phone and pretend to make some calls. Get some photos of both of them,” Taylor said.

  While Junior made his “calls” Taylor made a few new notes on his growing list of evils. Find out just how long Beauchamp intended to reside at The Club. And especially, who the devil was the woman?

  “Can you hear what they’re saying, Boss?” Junior asked.

  “Not if you don’t stop talking.”

  Two beers were brought to their table along with some wasabi pea and nut mix. Taylor hoped that would keep Junior’s mouth busy.

  SHIRLEY REACHED FOR MY ARM and held it close to her waist as we entered The Club.

  “A wise friend once told me to check your expectations at the door.”

  “Mine are checked and on a flight to the Congo.”

  We walked straight over to the house phone and I called Gage’s room. No answer.

  “Now what?” I asked Shirley.

  “There’s always his cell phone.”

  “I’d rather not give him a head’s up.”

  “Then let’s go have a glass of wine. Relax. You look like a scared queen ninja warrior that forgot her tiara, her sword, and her mission.”

  I heard the sound of a piano playing and patrons laughing and joking and shaking off the stinging needles of any one bad day. We’d barely stepped inside when I saw them from across the room of occupied seats. Gage. How could he?

  I stormed over to their table.

  “You sonuva bitch!”

  Gage stood up. “No wait, Sterling!”

  I punched him in the face. I don’t think it was that big of a hit, but his leg got caught up in the chair and he went flying backward.

  Taylor and some guy with him rose out of nowhere and were at the side of the table.

  I glared at Taylor, and Shirley acted like she didn’t even know him, or anyone.

  We turned to leave, Shirley again holding my arm, but this time a lot tighter, and we left The Club, my ninja warrior armor pierced, but still operating on full-combat speed.

  TAYLOR TURNED HIS ATTENTION toward the man now being comforted by the striking redhead wearing clothes he could buy his wife for a month of salary. Maybe. Damn. His wife would look good in them, he thought

  The two detectives flashed their badges to their new guests, now seated again at the table.

  “You’re going to have quite a shiner there,” Taylor said to Gage.

  “Matches my mood,” Gage said. “Shining personality and all.”

  “Gage Beauchamp?” Taylor asked.

  Gage squinted with his one good eye. “Yes. Why?”

  “Do you mind telling me what just happened here?”

  Taylor took note of the change of tides.

  Rachel’s charming and nurturing smile now turned into a tight grimace. “I need to go. We’ll talk later.” She pecked Gage on the cheek and disappeared.

  “Personal,” Gage answered.

  “Sure,” Taylor said. “I just have a few questions for you about another matter. The shooting that occurred at Falls & Falls a while back. May we sit down with you?”

  Gage looked around the room. “You gentlemen might as well. It looks like I’ve managed to clear the room.”

  “Ahh, you know your women,” Junior piped in. “Guess they both need to simmer down.”

  Taylor noticed Gage’s reaction to a single word. Both. He caught a formidable shudder.

  “What do you want to ask me? As far as I know, a thug goes in with a gun, gets a bullet or two back. It has to happen a lot in this city with the right-to-bear concealed weapons for one and all.”

  Junior choked back a throttled laugh. While he made a fool of himself, Taylor saw the frightened waitress designing a route away from their table. He grabbed a napkin and lifted the wine glass the redhead had held. He placed it carefully next to him on his chair. No one saw the swift movement worthy of a Vegas magic show.

  “It runs a little deeper than that,” Taylor said. “We know, for example, that this so-called thug was doing a job for someone else. Know anything about that?”

  Gage’s eyes darted back-and-forth between both men. His eyes wrestled between a focused stare and a glazed oblivion. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m going to get a little personal, Mr. Beauchamp. And you can either answer my questions here, pleasant and quiet and civil, over a drink, or we can take you down to the station.”

  Gage’s posture collapsed in the chair and he rubbed his chin. He bit his lower lip. The grimace betrayed his uncertainty.

  Taylor continued, “I have to look at the facts and they’re piling up. You’ve had an ongoing relationship with Sterling Falls and you invited her to move to Tucson, and in with you, all nice and cozy. You convince her to open a store down here. That sounds to me like a pretty serious and permanent commitment.”

  “It was serious. It is a commitment.”

  “So again, what did I just witness? You all hot with a hottie. Did you have a momentary relapse on that commitment?”

  “This is all a mistake and I still don’t know why you need to know anything,” Gage fumed. “You’re flashing around your badges and accusing me of fooling around? It’s not true and not your business. So say most of our politicians and cops. This is too personal, Detective. It has nothing to do with anything, but me and Sterling.”

  Taylor moved his elbows in on the table toward Gage, with both hands circling the stein of beer.

  “A man was hired to scare the living daylights out of Ms. Falls. Maybe send her off packing. Now I’m here trying to figure out who did that hiring, and here you sit. Looks to me, from my point of view, like maybe you think you made a mistake and need to tidy up your Tucson house, since it looks like neither of your babes are into a ménage a`trois.”

  Gage gave a sharp bite on his lip, “So you seriously are sitting here with me and thinking that I orchestrated some bozo attempt to shoot up my fiancé’s new store?”

  “Fiancé?”

  “Well, no. Not yet, but you’re in my face affirming that that might be what’s implied and that I’m fucking it up. And I wasn’t even in town the night of the—.”

  “Killing. The night of the killing. No. You weren’t here, but your SUV was here. A similar SUV dropped off Manny Perez a few blocks away from the crime scene. Hiring is hiring. You could be anywhere in the whole wide world and not float my boat with an alibi.”

  “I’m done here. Either charge me with some ludicrous crime and haul me away, or you can talk to my lawyer while I go up to my room.”

  “Oh, you’re free to go, all right. Maybe, just a guess that you’re redhead is waiting for you up there.”

  Gage left the table after throwing down some cash.

  Taylor used a fresh napkin to hand the redhead’s wine glass, still nestled in his lap, over to Junior. “Process it for prints. We need to know who our Red Riding Hood is.”

  “But I thought we weren’t officially—”

  “That’s about to change. “Bag the evidence, Junior. And get some DNA while you’re at it.”

  “Now I know you’re smoking something,” Junior said. “You know damn well they’ll never process it with what we have for a case, and even if they did and we got lucky, we’ll have our answers in about three years.”

  Taylor ignored the pessimism. “Save it. For process someday. For now, get me those photos on your cell and run the prints. Inventory the DNA.” Of course he knew that the chances of ever getting that DNA run would be parallel to the city of Phoenix being named to host the winter Olympics.

  Chapter 44

  Beyond Words, Rumors, and Reason

  “SHE RECOGNIZED YOU.” The skull talked to Marcus. Marcus tried not to listen, but he
replied, as he always did.

  “Who?”

  “That chubby black girl at the jazz concert. She saw you and she backed away.”

  “You’re crazier than me,” Marcus said.

  “You know who she is. She cleaned up your mess in the stables. Then you saw her doing that witchcraft thing, all over your property. That could have been bad. She knows what she’s doing. She may know things. She’s a witch and she’s on to you.”

  Marcus poured his third three-fingers of the twenty-year-old bourbon. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You can’t do anything, but Sacrum can. That dark girl can be your black orchid. Just waiting for you. You can finish your current research project with a delicious twist.”

  “Enough!” Marcus screamed, but then the bourbon confirmed all that the skull had said, if indeed they were ever separate entities. Marcus wasn’t sure anymore.

  “You must go back. You must go back. This time some black. It may be your only salvation.”

  Marcus dropped to the floor. Or was it Sacrum? The voice was correct. He needed more skin. Patches, anyway. Why not take some samples from the black girl? Her skin may work better in the long run. How would he know until he tried? And she probably was a witch, anyway. And she may know too much. A simple inconvenience.

  TAYLOR FOUND NO surprise on the fingerprint report. A Rachel Harris Lee. The file came back with a slew of drugs charges and petty theft. Charged, but not prosecuted for prostitution. They had names of plenty of ex-lovers, Taylor thought. Not a great start, but a start.

  “OH BOY. WHAT A trifecta,” The Z said. “Gage with the bimbo at The Club, you girls walking in, and then Detective Taylor and his guy there? What the heck was that all about?”

  I spoke first, “Shirley and I were co-conspirators. Didn’t start off that way, but that’s what we walked away with.”

  The Z looked at Shirley. “He’s a bad boy?”

  “I’m not convinced,” she said, “but he was most definitely at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong companion.”