by Alton Gansky
Curtis took the camera in trembling hands. Jack reached over and pressed the play button. Perry watched Curtis watch the video. A minute later, Curtis set the camera down, rose without speaking, and left the room.
“What’s with him?” Brent said.
“Read the translation,” Gleason said to his protégé.
“I was but . . .”
“Just read it,” Gleason stated.
Brent did. A few moments later he said, “But that would mean . . . that would mean . . .” Unable to finish his sentence, he whispered, “Oh, everything is going to change.”
Chapter 13
CONCESSIONS HAD BEEN made, and Perry supposed he should feel grateful, but feelings were spurious things that never quite seemed synchronized with the facts of life.
A person could be depressed on a beautiful day as well as on one covered in gray skies. Depression was knocking on Perry’s emotional door. His mood was darkening faster than the sky overhead. The sun was well into its daily plunge toward the horizon. In a few moments it would drop behind the hills west of him and twilight would be in full swing, lending its eerie tone to an already dark situation. The powerful work lights beamed down a wash of illumination, causing anything in their path to cast long, ebony silhouettes on the ground.
The longest shadows were cast by uniformed men who combed the land for clues, and by a detective in a white shirt and dress pants. Perry watched as the last of the crime scene investigators bundled up their equipment and started down the slope to the police van now on the site.
Perry was not one to allow depression to linger. It was an unwanted guest, and while he was as human as the next person—and therefore vulnerable to such invasions—he never surrendered to it. Emotions, he knew, were frail, misleading things, and the best way to deal with them was to choose how he would feel. He had heard his pastor describe emotions as blind things. “Never let them drive.” Perry thought the point was well made.
Perry believed the best way to expel negative thoughts was to be involved in positive action, but there was the problem. For the moment he could do nothing but wait. He’d tried everything he knew, pulled all the strings available to him, and had only limited success. His father had placed a call to California’s governor, a man with whom Sachs Engineering was acquainted—and to whose campaign they’d made sizable contributions. All that guaranteed was that the governor would pick up the phone. Perry prided himself on his ethics, and the only man he knew who took such matters more seriously than he was his father. Henry Sachs would never ask the governor to interfere with a police investigation, and neither would Perry. Still, there was the hope that a little pressure from Sacramento might gain some latitude.
It had.
Montulli and Sanchez brought in more officers to search the site and promised they would soon release it back to Perry. The Sachs Engineering team offered whatever assistance they desired. So far that had only been the use of the work lights.
After meeting with Jack, Gleason, Curtis, and Brent in the pizza parlor, Perry had returned to the site with Dr. Curtis in tow. The scholar had taken some time to himself, trying to understand all that he had heard and seen on the video. By the time they made the short drive out of town and onto the Trujillo property, the archeologist was back to his old self. In fact, he was manic, asking question upon question, floating suppositions like a child blowing bubbles into the air. “Greatest find in American archaeology . . . no, in all archaeology . . . stand the world on its ear . . . change everything . . . rewrite the history books.” Complete sentences had given way to bullets of thought as Curtis’s machine-gun mind went fully automatic.
Now, as Perry sat in a canvas camping chair watching the police do their business, Curtis was at the plastic folding table reviewing copies of the survey documents that had been stolen the night before. He mumbled aloud to himself: “odd,” “curious,” “of course.” Perry had stopped listening; he continued to gaze over the yellow crime scene ribbon.
“You look glum.”
Anne Fitzgerald approached, still wearing the jeans and striped camp shirt he had seen her in earlier that day. Perry was mildly
surprised that he hadn’t noticed her arrival. “Not glum, meditative.”
“Is there a difference?”
“I think so.” Perry started to ask how she got past the sheriff’s deputies but quickly dropped that thought, noting that this town mayor seemed to go wherever she wanted.
Pulling another camp chair next to Perry, she sat down. “Sergeant Montulli told me you called in the big guns. It’s not every day the governor rings our little town.”
“Maybe you can use it against him and run for governor yourself.”
“Thank you, no,” Anne said with a slight chuckle. “I’m not cut out for that kind of politics. The small town stuff is better for me. This is where I can do the most good and have the greatest impact.”
“Is that what motivates you? Good?”
“You are glum,” Anne said, giving him a second, appraising look. “You probably won’t believe it, but yes. This is the second small city that I’ve served. The money is lousy and the headaches many, but there’s also satisfaction in it.”
Perry gave no response. He continued his vigil.
“I thought you might like to know something. A few things, actually.”
“You’re not here to pump me for more information? I know you didn’t get what you wanted when the police interviewed me.”
Anne tried not to look surprised. “Not much gets by you, does it?”
“Or you.”
“I know you think I’ve been a pain, and I have been. That’s my nature. I’m curious and meddlesome. I admit it. Actually, I’m proud of it. My husband found it endearing when he was alive.”
Perry wanted to ask how sure she was of that, but suppressed the urge. “Well, what can I do for you, Mayor?”
“I came to do something for you,” she replied. “I thought you’d like to know that the victim wasn’t killed by your trowel. His neck was broken.”
“How do you know that?”
“Greg Montulli told me. I pester him as much as I do you. He said the preliminary report by the medical examiner indicated a broken neck.”
“Not from falling into the pit,” Perry said. “It was only three feet deep, and it was covered when we came back in the morning.”
“I imagine that could be far enough,” Anne said, “but it wasn’t from a fall. The M.E. told Greg that there was no bruising on the head, but there were some bruises along the man’s left jaw. He thinks . . .”
“An assassination. Someone came up from behind, grabbed his head, and yanked with a twist.”
“Is there anything you don’t know?”
“I read a lot. Why the trowel?”
“To implicate you or your crew, I assume. The equipment they showed at the sheriff’s station was found over in that clump of trees. The man was probably killed there and then moved to your pit.”
“So someone was spying on us at a distance, then is killed and tossed on our work site.”
“Right, and they know the victim’s name: Edward Dawes. Since he had no identification on him, he had to be traced by fingerprints. He was a private detective out of Bakersfield.”
“Private detective?” Perry mulled the news over. “Someone hired him to spy on us, then killed him? Not only that, they placed the body where it was certain to be found. The killer wanted the police to know of the murder.”
“That’s the way Greg and Detective Sanchez see it. The question is, why?”
“That’s obvious: to stop our work. It doesn’t take a genius to know that a dead body would turn the site into a crime scene and that would halt our work . . . which it has.”
“And implicating you and your crew by burying the trowel in the back of Dawes would really grind things to a halt.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Perry asked.
“Because you didn’t kill him and you have a right
to know.”
“But isn’t it to your benefit for this plan to work? You share the same goal: stopping our work.”
“No, I don’t, and that’s your problem. You assume that I’m against what you’re doing here. I never said that. I just wanted to make sure that what you’re doing is on the up-and-up and that it wouldn’t adversely affect my town. For all I know, you’re burying hazardous materials out here that will contaminate the ground water.”
“That’s a stretch.”
“No, it’s not. It’s been done before, and if a few more city and county leaders had shown the courage of curiosity, a great many environmental disasters could have been avoided. Just ask the residents of Love Canal, New York. Their children were sickened by chemical dumps that affected the soil and the water.”
“Okay, I get the idea. I can assure you that we’re not doing anything like that.”
“No, but you are digging up bodies.”
There was no answer to that. Proof of her words was in a pit just a few yards away.
She didn’t press the point. “I thought you might also want to know that the crowds are getting bigger. The motels in town are full, and those in Tehachapi are filling fast. Before I came up here, I had the misfortune of encountering David Branson.”
“Your newspaper editor?”
“One and the same,” Anne said. “He is a happy camper. He’s been on the phone all morning talking to media around the country. It seems the world will soon be on your doorstep.”
“They’ve already begun arriving,” Perry said. “I saw a media van with a microwave dish. Fortunately the police have kept them back.”
“What happens when they release the crime scene?” Anne asked. “Greg isn’t going to be able to keep a crew up here twenty-four hours a day.”
“I’ve thought of that. I’ve hired a security firm to help with crowd control. And I have a man buying every No Trespassing sign he can find. That’ll give the sheriff’s department clear reason for arresting anyone who comes on the property without permission. I may fence the place off, but that would take a little time.”
“So you’ve thought of everything,” Anne said.
“No one can think of everything,” Perry admitted, “but I try.”
Anne shifted her gaze to the site. “I must admit,” she said, “that you seem less stressed than I thought you’d be. I mean, things like this don’t happen on every project, do they?”
“No. I’ve dealt with my share of setbacks before, but nothing like this. Our firm has been courted by admirals and generals and lambasted by congressmen and senators. I thought I had seen and experienced it all.”
“Yet, here you sit, a little somber perhaps, but as cool as an ice cube. How is that?”
Perry turned to her and studied her for a moment. She’d been a problem for him, but she had, at least, been direct. Nothing required that she make the drive to the site and walk up the tiring slope, yet here she was, and this time she came bearing information instead of demanding it. She deserved a straight answer. “Faith.”
“Faith?”
“I’m a man of faith, Mayor. It guides everything I do.”
“What kind of faith? You mean like faith in humanity or faith in the religious sense.”
“Faith in the Christian sense.”
“Ah. Greg said you were one of those.”
“If by ‘one of those’ you mean a Christian, then yeah, I’m one of those.”
“Is this where the sermon comes?” Anne asked. Her words were tight, strained.
“You asked, I answered. I don’t do sermons. My faith has seen me through many things. It’ll see me through this.”
“‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,’” Anne said.
Perry’s eyebrows rose. “Hebrews 11:1,” he said. “You are full of surprises, aren’t you, Mayor?”
“I’ve heard Bible passages since I was a child. My parents took my sister and me to church every week. Even after we moved to Ridgeline, they found a church and made sure we put ourselves in the pew every Sunday.”
“Sounds like you didn’t like it.”
Anne sounded bitter. “Actually I did. I continued through my teenage years and as an adult. Then I quit.”
“May I ask why?”
Anne paused and scowled, as if remembering. “My husband was killed by a street thug. He traveled a lot for his business. He did commercial real estate. He was good, the best I have ever seen. Like you, he was a Christian. Taught Sunday School, was a deacon, all that stuff. One Tuesday night he was in San Bernardino inspecting a set of concrete tilt-up buildings in the industrial area. A guy robbed him, then shot him in the face.”
Perry closed his eyes for a moment, driving the image from his thoughts. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Yeah, well, everyone was sorry. Everyone but God. The police called. I drove down the mountain to the hospital. He lived long enough for me to get there. He was a mess, his head swollen to twice its size. I couldn’t even recognize him. The nurses told me that the disfigured person on the bed was my husband, and all I could do was believe them. I held his hand and told him everything would be all right. My sister arrived. The pastor was with her, so were my parents. They joined hands and prayed around us. Ten minutes later my husband died. Apparently God had taken His phone off the hook.
“Over the next few months, I lost both parents,” Anne continued. “All three were gone in less than six months. I prayed for them too. God wasn’t listening to me, so I decided that two could play that game. I stopped listening to Him.”
“What about your sister?” Perry asked. “What did she do?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“You said she went to church with you and the family. Did she give up on God too?”
“No, she still believes. I don’t know why, but she does.”
Perry took in a deep breath and let the story settle. He could hear the bitterness festering in Anne. She hadn’t turned her back on faith; she made herself its enemy, hating every mention of it.
“I don’t tell the story much anymore,” Anne added. “Don’t know why I’m telling it to you now. Maybe I feel guilty about my pestering you.” Like Perry she took a deep breath, then blew it out noisily. There was derision in the way she did it. “Well, go ahead. I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?” Perry asked.
“The few times I’ve told the story to a Christian, they immediately tried to explain things away. They say they’re sorry, then try to explain why it’s not God’s fault. So go ahead. Who knows; maybe you’ll say something new.”
“You don’t want to hear what I have to say.”
“What, no pity? No pat answers to deliver from the Word of God? No ‘You’ll get to see them all in Heaven’? You disappoint me. Go on, regale me with your Christian wisdom. I want to hear it.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“What . . . what?” she sputtered.
“I said you’re an idiot. You blame God because you’ve faced a tragedy. You want fairness in an unfair world. You want sinless behavior from sinners. Come on, Anne, you’re smarter than that.”
“That’s uncalled for!”
Perry shrugged. “You asked what I thought. Well, now you have it. You’ve been through a horrible ordeal and feel cheated by it. You’ve been in a pity party for years now, using the death of your loved ones to avoid the responsibility you have before God.”
“How dare you speak to me this way!”
Perry continued, his voice even but as firm as granite. “Do you prefer the easy platitudes? You said you didn’t. How dare you speak about God like He’s some frivolous clown? Do you think you’re the only one who has suffered in this world? In Sudan, Christians are abused and women sold into slavery. Every apostle but one died a martyr’s death. By the time of Nero, the streets of Rome were lined with Christians hanging on crosses. Emperors would wrap them in wax and light them on fire, using th
eir burning bodies as torches. Even God’s own Son was nailed to a cross. What makes you think you should be spared pain and difficulty?”
Anne started to speak, but nothing came out, so Perry continued. “I’m grieved at your loss, but I won’t waste time joining you in your pity party. Everyone faces hardship, disappointment, and, sooner or later, tragedy. It’s called life. If you want to talk about how unfair God is, you’ll need to find a different audience, because I’m not going to listen to it.”
Perry watched Anne’s jaw tighten and her eyes narrow as if to hold back the hurricane of fury swirling within her. “You owe me an apology,” she said through tight lips.
“You owe God an apology,” Perry countered in the same steel voice.
Anne sprang from the chair and stepped toward Perry, raised her open hand, and swung. It stopped a half-second later, her wrist in the firm grip of Perry.
“No, ma’am, you are not going to slap me and then walk away. This isn’t an old movie. It’s real life. Think about what I said.” He released her wrist. She stood there for a moment, and he saw a glint from the work lights in the tears that brimmed in her eyes.
She turned and walked away.
“That was pretty harsh,” a voice said behind him.
Without turning, he spoke to Dr. Curtis, who still sat at the table. “You’ve been in the faith longer than I have; would you have handled it differently?”
There was silence, then, “Probably, but you handled it better than I would have. She needed someone to be honest with her for once.”
“I just hope I didn’t overdo it.”
“Time will tell. Time will tell.”
RUTHERFORD’S HEAD BOBBED as he tried to focus on the stretch of butcher paper that dominated the conference room table in front of him. “You say Henri’s boy drew this?”
“Yes,” Julia said. “He was working on it when I gained entrance to the house.”
“It looks too real to be a drawing.”
“I saw him doing it,” Julia added. “The paper was draped over the dining room table, and he was drawing this with crayons.”
