A Stranger Lies There (15 page)

At Indian we made a right, nearing Deirdre's clinic, and it brought back the uneasy tension between us yesterday. Now all I wanted to do was feel her heart beating against mine, breathe in the clean scent of her hair. Listen to her soft voice in my ear telling me everything would be all right. I clung to a last vestige of hope, that maybe Deirdre had been out on one of her morning jogs when I called. She'd do that sometimes, get real quiet, struggling with her demons, and I'd know to leave her alone. She'd buzz around the house, try to keep herself busy with the mundanities of housework. Eventually she'd give up and take an exhausting run into the surrounding desert on one of the many old dirt tracks that crisscross the landscape. Return with her eyes afire, as if they'd stored the light reflected from the burning sands. Her skin would glow with sweat and exertion, temporarily cleansed of the toxins inside.

We passed over the interstate into North Palm Springs a few minutes later. The freeway was no longer the colorful river of moving light it had been yesterday evening. I looked down and saw broken, gray concrete and painted lane markers worn away by endless traffic. The travel stop bustled with commuters going about their business.

I got up to stand anxiously on the steps in front of the door, watching as the Thomas Avenue stop got closer. The brakes squealed and the door folded open in front of me with a metallic screech. Bounding onto the pavement, I was stunned by the blast of heat and light after the air-conditioned coolness of the bus. It pulled away with a groan as I stepped away and ran toward home, picking up speed as I got closer, needing to be there
now
, yet dreading what I'd find.

By the time I reached our street my lungs were burning and my vision was spotting. Rounding the corner at full speed, I almost got run down by a kid driving an old foreign car, his hair waving behind him in the open window. I stumbled and went down, ripping my pant leg and scraping my palms. Leaving skin on the pavement, I kept going, my heart doing triple-time. As I approached the house, I saw Deirdre's car sitting in the driveway, gleaming under the blazing sun. Racing past it to the front door, I noticed that everything seemed normal—no signs of struggle anywhere on our property—until I tried the door and found it shut firmly but unlocked.

I pushed it open and entered the static dimness of our living room. The house was quiet except for the heaving of my chest, and when I called out Deirdre's name, I could barely hear my voice.

I walked down the hallway to our bedroom, still panting.

I stepped into the open doorway.

And felt a piece inside of me break off and fall away.

For a moment I wanted to let it pull me down with it. But then I swallowed the lump in my throat and knelt beside the bed, feeling her neck for a pulse I knew wouldn't be there. The room suddenly got smaller, and I saw my reflection in the clouded glass of the syringe buried in Deirdre's arm.

I collapsed on the bed beside her, burying my face in her hair, the pain rippling through me. I stayed there until the trembling stopped and the grief became a dull ache in the pit of my stomach. I reached for the phone and picked it up. Gave the information to the police, and after hanging up, tried to banish the thought that I'd driven her to it.

I laid back down beside her, treasuring those last few moments alone with her in our hot bedroom. I heard Deirdre's voice in my memory, hushed and reverent, as if recalling the receiving of a sacrament or sacred gift. It was in Idyllwild, where we'd gone skiing for the weekend, inside our cabin toward midnight. We were in front of a roaring fire, listening to the crackle and hiss of the logs.

“I remember when I used to fix,” Deirdre had begun, her face glowing in the firelight, framed by the window behind her and the moonlit snow outside. “I always used those wooden matches, the thick, long ones that came in a box. Strike it and get that life-giving flame. At least it felt that way then. A bright orange flower, dancing in front of my eyes. And then that sizzle as I cooked it. Sometimes I'll hear something in the kitchen, you know, the spatter of grease or something, and still get a chill up my spine. It brings it all back to me. Drawing it into the glass. The prick of the needle, and then that warm liquid rush. God, it felt good.” She stopped, and her eyes came back to mine. “But it doesn't last. It's a lie. The doorway to damnation. It takes so much more than it gives. And you never really know that until it's too late.”

A warm glow spread across my back. I opened my eyes, found us bathed in a golden shaft of sunlight from the window. Deirdre's face flushed and lifelike in the healing rays of light. A robin was hopping on the fence just outside the window, deep red as a desert sunset. When it saw me it froze, regarded me calmly, then fluttered off lightly when the doorbell rang.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I stumbled to the front door, tears blinding my eyes. I let the two uniforms in without a word, pointing back to the bedroom. If they said anything to me, I didn't hear it.

When I saw Branson and Tidwell approaching through the dried grass, the dam finally broke. The blood rushed in my ears. My voice was an incoherent torrent of accusation and blame. I struggled past Tidwell, who tried to hold me back, into Branson, who went down in the grass at my feet with blood running from his nose. Then I was on top of him, my fists pummeling his face and chest, with Tidwell shouting in my ear. He pulled me off in a tangle of flailing arms and flying fists. I landed on my back with his knee on my chest and his gun in my face.

“Right there, buddy!” he warned. I heard the hammer click back, the black hole of the gun barrel offering infinity if I chose it.

“Do what you have to,” I whispered. Tidwell uncocked the gun and holstered it, roughly pulled me off the ground.

He whirled me around and slammed on the cuffs. “You better get it together, man, and fast.”

The two patrol officers had come outside, and they were re-holstering their weapons. Tidwell marched me past Branson, who was muttering under his breath and brushing dead grass from his rumpled suit, to the dark sedan sitting by the curb behind the black and white. He shoved me into the back seat. Rolled the window down before slamming the door shut.

“Stay there, Ryder. Don't even think about moving.”

Tidwell joined Branson in the middle of the yard and said something to him. Branson silently shook his head in response, dabbed at his nose with a handkerchief. Blood spotted his white dress shirt. They both turned to look at me in the car watching them, Branson with a frown on his face but no apparent rancor toward me. Tidwell just shook his head disgustedly and went into the house; Branson nodded solemnly in my direction before turning to follow him inside.

An ambulance and a second patrol car pulled up. Lights flashing, sirens blaring. One of the officers on the scene met the two who'd just arrived, conferred with them briefly, then directed the medics into the house.

Another officer approached and leaned toward me through the open window. “I don't have to worry about you out here, do I?”

I ignored him. He shrugged and leaned against the back of the car, watched the crime scene tape being strung up around the front of the house. Evidently, he'd been assigned to guard me.

Closing my eyes, I let my head fall back to the seat. I tried to block out everything that was happening. No luck. I heard more vehicles pulling up, brakes squealing and doors thumping shut. Hurried footsteps going back and forth. Orders being given and acknowledged. Shocked whispers and conjecture from the neighbors gathered once again in the street. The news people finally arrived, drawn by their ever-vigilant police scanners.

One reporter made it to the car. “Is that your wife in there, Mr. Ryder?”

The question startled me. I opened my eyes to see a microphone jammed through the window, before the cop rushed back over and grabbed him. “How does it feel to be going through this again?” he yelled over the officer's shoulder as he was being escorted away.

I watched all the activity swirling around me, trapped. Tidwell came out of the house and got into the car. He twisted around in the front seat and pushed the hair back from his sweating forehead. “You okay?”

I looked away, not answering.

“I'm sorry this happened,” he said.

“A lot of good your sorrys do for Deirdre. If somebody had listened to me last night, or even this morning, she may have had a chance. So take your apology and shove it.”

Tidwell's eyes flashed angrily. “Watch it.” He was about to say something else, but then stopped himself and sighed.

“I guess I'll be going to jail again for hitting Branson.”

“No. We're not going to arrest you for that. Branson feels as bad as I do about this.” He paused for emphasis. “But you really gotta cool it.”

I practically spat the next words at him. “Cool it? My wife is dead.” I shook my head, tired of being angry. “You guys should have been here. As soon as I told you something was wrong. You fucked up and Deirdre paid for it.”

“Look. I told you there was nothing we could do. We can't go running all over town every time someone thinks something
may
be wrong. We'd never get anything done. And you gave us a lot to do last night.”

“I'm not interested in excuses,” I told him. “Just find the guy who did this to her.”

A steady look from Tidwell, like something was on his mind. He blew air out of his mouth and his eyes slid away.

“What?” I asked apprehensively.

“I hate to tell you this, but right now we're not even sure it's a homicide.”

“You gotta be kidding!” I shouted, barely able to restrain myself. My voice lowered a notch. “What are you talking about?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Branson watching the exchange from the lawn.

Tidwell glanced his way for a second, as if for support, then told me, “We've only taken a quick look so far, but there's no sign of violence or struggle anywhere in the house, including the bedroom.” He stopped, reluctant to go on, but I already knew what he was going to say. “And with her history of drug—”

“Fuck you. She's been clean since I've known her. Not one relapse.”

No response.

“You think this is all a big fucking coincidence? Some guy ends up dead on our front lawn, and two days later my wife OD's?”

An earlier thought resurfaced, but I pushed it away.

“There is no way she did that to herself, no fucking chance. That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. I told you what happened last night. She was all set to come out to Indio for me. What do you think, she decided a quick nod would be the thing to do before getting behind the wheel?”

Branson was suddenly there, standing outside the car. “Maybe she was already high when you called her.”

That took me aback. Deirdre had sounded out of it when she first answered the phone, and I'd assumed that was from sleep. But she'd recovered quickly, and seemed clearheaded and razor-sharp when I told her what was up. Branson had to be wrong. I'd have known if she was using. Wouldn't I?

“No,” I said, putting it out of my mind with an emphatic shake of my head. “Didn't happen that way. She had help with that syringe.”

“I don't know what to tell you,” Tidwell said. “If there's evidence of that, we'll find it.” He looked up as the coroner's wagon arrived and backed partway into the driveway. Branson went over to meet it and led them into the house.

“I just can't believe I let her down,” I said to myself. Grief was waiting to pull me under, a dark undertow.

“I promise, if your wife was murdered we'll get the guy. Just let us do our jobs.” A pause. “We're going to need a complete statement from you about how you found her. At the station. You up to that?”

“I guess so.” I was suddenly very tired. Shock was beginning to set in. “Whatever.”

“Let me go tell Branson.” He left me alone and I stared straight ahead. Unmoving, barely breathing. Retreating into myself. The flashing red and blue lights blurred together, the sounds of emergency activity fading away. Why hadn't she fought? The question came out of nowhere, and with it, a stinging shame for thinking that way. Maybe Deirdre thought she could handle the dose. Or that I'd make it back, or send the cops her way in time to revive her. Either way, it was better than accepting the finality of a bullet in the head.

Tidwell reappeared beside me. Opened my door and turned me around to take off the cuffs. He returned them to the case on his belt and shut the door, then circled around to the driver's side and got in. I sat back, hands still clasped behind me, unable to look back as we drove away.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Back at the police station for the third time in two days. Tidwell sat me down in the conference room and left to get some coffee. He brought in two styrofoam cups, but I didn't touch mine, leaving it sitting in front of me. The glass-topped table reflected the lighted fluorescent squares above as the steam from the coffee curled upwards.

“Wait here,” Tidwell told me and walked across the squad room to a large office, where he spoke with someone sitting behind a desk. Presently, Tidwell turned to look at me. The other man nodded, saying one last thing before Tidwell stepped out and closed the office door. On the way back, he stopped and talked to one of the other detectives for a moment, then went to his own desk. Rummaged around in there until he found a cassette tape, which he removed from its wrapper and slid into a small tape recorder. He brought it in with him, along with a dog-eared legal pad and pen. I heard phones ringing and the chatter of a typewriter before he closed the conference room door and sat down.

“Branson should be here any minute. We'll start without him.” After clicking on the tape recorder, Tidwell recited our names and the date and time.

“You got out of here about eight this morning. Did you call her first thing?”