A Stranger Lies There (26 page)

“Okay,” Tidwell said. “It was a long shot anyway. We'll continue to do what we can, I promise.” He narrowed his eyes. “But I have to warn you again, Mr. Ryder, to stay out of it. No matter how much you think Turret's involved.”

“No problem,” I lied. “But I want to know the first thing if anything breaks. Deal?”

They both regarded me steadily, and I knew they were about to do some lying of their own. “You have our word,” Branson assured me.

We shook hands and walked separately back to the parking lot, the two detectives a few paces ahead. I caught up with Terry and her husband, who were also leaving. Thanked them for coming and turned to Terry, who now ran the Triumph Outreach work camp.

“I was hoping you could help me with something.”

“Anything,” Terry said.

“I was just told that a possible suspect in all this was headed down to El Paso. To a church started by some ex-cons. You think you could make some inquiries? See if he ever made it there? His name is Glenn Turret.”

“Those two cops tell you this?”

“Yeah.”

Terry thought a second. “I can make a few calls. You know the name of the church?”

“No. Just that it's in El Paso.”

“Okay. I'll see what I can do. They say anything else that could help?”

“This guy was released from Calipatria between the two murders,” I explained. “Supposedly. He and I have some history. Long story short, I'm looking for him now.”

Terry nodded slowly, eyes on mine, squinting into the sunset. She knew not to press further, that I'd tell her the rest when I was ready. After I'd squared things for Deirdre.

“You know about that squatter's camp down there don't you?” she asked me instead.

Seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it. “Not sure that I do.”

“Forget what they call it. But it's not too far from the prison. Should be easy to find once you get down there. One of my counselors at Triumph spent some time there after his release. Till he got his shit together.”

So if Turret was low on cash … I thought. Maybe I'd get lucky.

“Great. That gives me a place to start.” I gave her a hug, shook her husband's hand. Thanked Terry for everything and said I'd be in touch. We went to our cars and said goodbye. By this time everyone else had left.

As I drove out of the lot, I noticed a small tractor emerge from a distant outbuilding. It bounced over the cemetery grounds toward the oak tree and the open grave beneath it. I stopped the car and watched the tractor pull up to the mound of dirt beside the grave. The operator got out, pulled the tarp off the freshly turned soil, then jumped back in and used the lowered shovel to push it into the hole. I knew I shouldn't watch this, but I was unable to look away, hypnotized and overwhelmed by the sight. Deirdre was being buried, and she wouldn't, couldn't come back. Very soon, from this distance, there would be no trace of her left. I had a sudden panicky feeling that she was alive down there, screaming soundlessly and gasping for breath, clawing at the coffin lid to get out.

The last pile fell into place and was tamped down by the flat-bottomed tractor shovel—up, down—until the ground was level and even. Then the operator got out one last time, covered the wounded landscape with the tarp, and drove away.

I laid my forehead on the steering wheel and closed my eyes, struggling to hold back the tears. I needed to focus on what lay ahead. The first thing was to try and get some sleep, then be on the road early tomorrow morning. I started the car and headed home.

Just past Cabazon, the freeway elevated and curved to the right, toward the steep rise of Mount San Jacinto. At the apex of the curve, a giant Marlboro billboard rose beside the freeway. In the foreshortened perspective against the inert face of the mountain, the cowboy it depicted seemed to bear down on the car, advancing with great speed and purpose. Then I was out of its path as the highway curved away.

SEA

CHAPTER THIRTY

In low places, consequences collect.

I'd read that somewhere once, and it returned to me now as I descended into the lower southern outskirts of the Coachella Valley. I wondered what sort of reckoning I was headed for, or whether the mistake I'd made in my youth had finally run its course with Deirdre's death. Maybe the final results of my actions thirty years ago would reveal themselves in the blinding desert sunlight two hundred feet below sea level.

I gave it a little more gas and the car picked up speed. A lone vehicle cutting through the desert and the boiling waves of heat already rising from the concrete. It was early Sunday morning, about eight o'clock, but the sun had long since risen to begin its daily assault. The interstate had veered east a while ago, taking most of the other early-morning travelers with it as it snaked over the Mecca Hills toward Blythe. I'd stayed on 111 and followed it straight down, into the widescreen vastness of Imperial County. Past the Avenue 50 turnoff in Coachella, where my car had been shot up and forced into that field several nights ago. Whether the cops were ready to release the car from impound, I couldn't say. It hadn't even occurred to me to ask yesterday at the cemetery.

So I was using Deirdre's car, which felt right, like part of her was still with me for this lonely trip into the badlands. Despite the heat, I'd leave the windows up as long as I could so the last of Deirdre's scent wouldn't blow out of the car.

I slowed down for the little town of Thermal. It had only a few small intersections to impede the flow of traffic. Run-down mobile home parks, most no more than parking lots for shabby camper shells, became a common sight, betraying the area's itinerant reputation. This was where the dream ended for some. Tapped-out and done-in, living off government checks or the kindness of neighbors. For others like the migrant farmworkers up from Mexico, maybe a better life. What would I find down here? The end of the line? A new beginning? Or something much worse—more questions than answers?

Lower and lower I went, each passing mile turning up the heat while the sun rose higher. The sky was a white sheet covering the desert, all color scorched away. Up ahead, the haze above the Salton Sea became more apparent, a pall hanging over the water. In the distance, I could just make out clouds of steam being coughed up by the geothermal plants at the south end of the sea.

Soon, the agricultural fields began taking over the landscape. Bright green citrus groves. Thriving crops of alfalfa, melons and onions. Date farms straddled the highway, the tall trees lined up majestically in vaulting cathedral columns, broad rows between them dappled with shadow and sunlight. I imagined myself among those massive trunks, looking up at the heavens peeking through, palm fronds waving like angels' wings.

I cracked the windows and was greeted by the sharp odor of the sea and the pungent scent of the surrounding fields. It got stronger and stronger until I had to close the windows and turn on the air conditioner.

A half hour later, the town of Niland, population 1400, appeared. “Downtown” was one dust-strewn block baking under the mid-morning sun. On the right, an unkempt strip of mostly abandoned storefronts, although the Pond Bar and Grill seemed to be a hangout, with several Harleys parked in front. A laundromat next door, no one inside. Across the street, the Jailhouse Cafe and the I.V. Restaurant, whose initials no doubt stood for Imperial Valley but to me implied something else entirely. It was closed up, its windows dusty and opaque.

Calipatria Prison, where Turret had finished out his sentence, was a few short miles away. The squatters' camp, which I'd actually found on a map last night, was just outside town.

I pulled into a gas station mini-mart, proceeded to the dirt parking lot behind it. A young woman had connected a water hose to a spigot at the rear of the building. She was filling up a big steel oil drum in the back of her Jeep. She said hi to me as I got out and went around to the front.

Inside, which was cooled by a rattling window air conditioner, I found a pay phone against the wall. Terry answered on the second ring.

“Hi, it's Tim. Down here in Niland, just about to visit that place you told me about.”

“Good. I'm glad you found it. What's it like down there?”

“Quiet. Hot. Reminds me of one of those dying Old West towns you see in the movies.”

“Prison's the only thing keeping that area alive, seems like,” Terry said. “Anyway, I was able to talk with someone in El Paso. Pastor for the church down there. Not much to tell you, I'm afraid.”

“What did he say?”

“Turret's not there. You probably already figured that. This guy wouldn't tell me anything else, but I got the impression he's still expecting him. Does that help you at all?”

“A little. Least I know I have a shot of finding him here.”

Terry wished me good luck, said to call her if I needed anything else. I hung up the phone. Bought a Coke and inquired where Beale Street was.

“Slab City, huh?” the clerk asked. He was grizzled and sunburnt. Mid-forties with a short gray beard. Cramped at a small counter displaying candy and tobacco. Behind him were racks of cigarettes and porno magazines. A tiny portable TV played at low volume on a shelf.

“Yeah. How did you know?”

He shrugged. “Only place the street goes.”

I took my change and asked, “So which way?”

“Couple blocks that way,” he answered, pointing back the way I'd come. “Make a right.”

I thanked him and turned around to leave, then I stopped. I'd wanted to concentrate my inquiries on the outlying areas off the beaten track, figuring the cops had already struck out with the usual places like gas stations and restaurants. If they were even looking anymore. But it couldn't hurt to ask.

“Noticed anybody new in town? Middle-aged man, alone?”

“You mean someone like you?” He smiled.

I shook my head. “Not just passing through. Maybe he's come in here a few times. Just in the past few weeks or so.”

“Can't think of anybody. Just travelers like yourself. And truckers hauling loads of produce.” He shrugged again. “People I know from town.”

“Thanks anyway,” I said, not surprised at the answer.

Out back, I sat in the car, drinking my Coke. The girl with the hose finished up and turned off the faucet, unscrewed the hose and methodically coiled it before tossing it next to the oil drum. The Jeep's back end sagged with the weight of all that water inside. Just before she got in she flashed me a quick smile. White teeth, clean blond hair, nice skin. Not the image I'd had in mind of the people who lived down here—the clerk inside was closer to what I'd expected. But you never really knew.

The girl drove off and I watched her leave, wondering what the barrel of water was for. An old lady came shuffling up the street, stooped in the heat. She stopped behind me in the parking lot, looked around like she'd forgotten what she'd come for. After a few moments she sat down heavily in front of one of the rooms at the dilapidated old motel behind the gas station. It reminded me of the Blue Bird in Indio, a short strip of rooms badly in need of paint. This one had a wooden walkway along the front of the rooms, covered by an extended roof to keep it in the shade. The lady was perched on the edge of the walkway half in and half out of the sun, seemingly content to sit still and catch her breath. That would take a while today.

I got out of the car and approached her. She looked up at me expectantly, her blue eyes laser sharp under wrinkled lids. But I could see she was a lot younger than I'd first thought. Probably even younger than me, maybe early forties. Dressed in greasy, dark gray sweats cut off at the knees and elbows. Dark, leathery skin. Broad face under a mop of oily salt and pepper hair that resembled dirty straw.

“Thirsty?” I asked hesitantly.

“Hell yeah.” Her voice was thick with phlegm, and she cleared her throat wetly before continuing. The words came slowly, more like a speech impediment than intoxication. “Got a smoke too? Goes good with a beer.”

“Not on me. What brand?”

“Doesn't matter,” she said, then thought better of it as I turned back toward the mini-mart. “Lucky Strikes,” she called out after me. “No filter.”

A few seconds later I was back with a cold Miller forty-ouncer, a pack of Lucky Strikes and matches. She took the bottle and put it against her face. Closed her eyes to the chilled glass, then twisted the cap off using her shirt as a grip. Her first gulp drained nearly a third of it. Deep, thirsty swallows with her face turned upward and her throat moving up and down.

“Thanks, mister,” she said, as I gave her the cigarettes and matches. She put the beer down carefully beside her in the dirt and took the pack, tapped it on her knee to tighten the tobacco inside. After lighting one up she coughed once and took another drag.

“The hard stuff,” I said with a grin.

She showed me a gap-toothed smile. “Helps deaden the tickle in my throat.”

I sat down next to her and drank some Coke. “You live around here?”

“Yep,” she replied between gulps of beer, then gestured behind us with her head. “Got me a little trailer out at the base.”

“Isn't that the place they call Slab City?”

“That's what they call it. Not sure why.”

“Need a ride there?”

“Sure, why not?” She blew out some smoke, eyeing me shrewdly. “What's in it for you, though?”

I looked away. The small parking lot was empty except for my car. No traffic on the highway out front. The faucet at the back of the mini-mart dripped the very last of its water. “I'm looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“Somebody I used to know.”

She scratched her scalp hard, smelled her fingertips afterwards. “Why do you need to find him?”

“I think he may have killed somebody.”

She raised one eyebrow skeptically, but I could tell she believed me. She'd probably heard a lot worse. I finished my soda and hurled the empty plastic bottle toward the dumpster a few feet from the car. It went end over end and hit the wall of the building, bounced off and landed in the trashcan.