River Runs Red (The Border Trilogy) (20 page)

Still, it was stupid.

It was all circumstantial evidence. That’s what they would have called it on a TV lawyer show, right? She had no physical evidence, nothing the
CSI
crew could stick under a microscope, unless they could match the mud on Wade’s rented Ford to that from the parking lot outside La Hacienda. And from the other killing, Gretchen Fuchs, she didn’t even have mud. Just the knowledge that Wade, who hadn’t spent much time in El Paso over the last decade or so, hadn’t known where to park at the mall, and Gretchen’s home had been near where he had parked. Out the mall exit, left at the light, and you were practically to her house.

Molly had spent all day on the phone and at the computer, and what she had come up with was this: nobody on earth had any reason to kill Gretchen.

She was universally liked. Even the people who had been laid off from the travel agency, where she had kept her job, hadn’t blamed her, and they’d all said they would miss working with her. Gretchen didn’t have the greatest luck with men, and she was not, at the moment, dating anyone seriously—or even frivolously, that Molly could determine—but the men she had dated still liked her. Nobody had anything to gain from her death. Nobody profited. Nobody wanted to see her dead.

Which made the murder a crime of opportunity. She had been killed because she had been available, outside in the backyard at the time the murderer happened to be there. He hadn’t been stalking her—he had just seen her and taken his shot. The police, utterly without clues, agreed.

Wade had just flown into town. He would have had no opportunity to stalk anyone.

Could he, in the intervening decade, have become some sort of psycho killer? Wouldn’t there have been signs in his youth?

Well, there were, of course. She didn’t know much about killers, but if genetics were a component, he’d be a natural. She’d never known Wade to kill anything bigger than a trout, but maybe that didn’t mean anything.

Thinking about it—about sitting across from him at The Greenery, about him spending time in Byrd’s room—made her stomach churn and ache.

She had thought there was something strange going on when he had said that unfamiliar word, then denied saying it.
Kethili.
Or had
she
been the one who said it? She couldn’t remember anymore. They had both needed rest, no doubt.

Still, she had to know for certain.

After work, instead of going home, she drove to Oregon Street and managed, with patience and some aggressive driving, to get a parking spot on the street from which she could see the exit for the hospital’s public lot. When Wade left, she would see him, even if he had walked over, because the route from Providence Memorial to his hotel would also take him down Oregon.

She had a green iced tea and a Power Bar in the car with her. The hard part would be if she had to pee. The nearest restroom would be inside the hospital, and if she went in there, there was a remote chance that she would run into Wade. It wouldn’t be hard to explain her presence there, but it would be awkward to turn around and follow him if he was on his way out. She sat in the car and watched, worrying at her dry skin and wishing he’d hurry up.

She saw his rented Focus pull out of the lot around seven thirty. Darkness had fallen while she waited, but headlights from an oncoming car illuminated Wade. A steady flow of traffic blocked his left turn, so he made a right. Molly started Byrd’s Xterra and followed. He worked his way down a few blocks, made a left, then another. She stayed about a dozen car lengths behind, able to keep him in sight because she sat much higher than he did, until he parked in the Hilton’s lot.

Walking from the car to the hotel, he looked tired, his head drooping, shoulders slumped, dragged down by his captivity and escape, his whirlwind tour of hospitals and debriefing rooms, and the emotional journey to El Paso. She hadn’t been through nearly that kind of hellacious experience and she felt exhausted.

After waiting outside the hotel for an hour, Molly decided he was probably in for the night. She risked entering the lobby and using the ladies’ room, then dashed back to the SUV. Wade’s car sat where he’d left it. She settled back in. A wind blew up out of nowhere, buffeting the car, and later a light rain fell, tap-tap-tapping on the roof.

She didn’t realize she was dozing off until the sound of a car engine close by brought her around. She sat upright, eyes wide open, and tried to shake off the slumber that had enveloped her. Seconds ticked by while she realized what she had seen: Wade’s rental car, driving out of the hotel’s lot. A quick glance at the empty space it had occupied confirmed it.

Adrenaline raced through her, waking her all the way. The Ford was already gone, somewhere up Oregon Street. She started the Xterra, checked for traffic, and pulled into the street. The hospital loomed at the top of the hill, but when she passed it and got a good look down Oregon, Wade’s car was nowhere in sight. Just in case, she drove down the street, peering up every side street she passed, watching the cars parked along the way.

No sign of him.

He had wasted no time getting lost. Had he seen her, snoozing in her brother’s SUV? Had he just been in a hurry to get somewhere? It was almost ten o’clock at night, late for an appointment.

Molly drove around the neighborhood for another twenty minutes, searching fruitlessly. Finally, exhausted, she drove home.

* * *

On a hunch, when she woke up in the morning, she grabbed the TV remote from her bedside table and turned on the morning news.

Sure enough, the anchors were talking about a double homicide during the night. Two young Latinas had been heading to their home at the South Chihuahua Apartments, just blocks from the border, after drinking in a downtown bar. An unknown assailant had used something like a pipe or a bat to beat them to death, in a manner so gruesome the local network affiliate wouldn’t show the crime scene. Their reporter did a stand-up on the other side of Montestruc, with a mural behind him (Molly thought there was blood on the mural, but she couldn’t be certain), only hinting at the carnage he saw across the street.

Molly suspected Frank would have all the gory details ready for her when she reached
The
Voice
offices.

Wade had left his hotel room late, seemingly in a hurry. Twenty minutes later, he hadn’t returned. Two women were killed at some uncertain point during the night. That still didn’t necessarily mean it was Wade who had killed them.

But it sure as hell didn’t rule him out.

PART TWO: MALO DURO

“I am fulfilling at last a dream of childhood and one as powerful as the erotic dreams of adolescence—
floating down the river
. Mark Twain, Major Powell, every human who has ever put forth on flowing water knows what I mean.”

—Edward Abbey,
Desert Solitaire

“The River, spreading, flows—and spends your dream.

What are you, lost within this tideless spell?”

—Hart Crane, “The Bridge”

TWENTY-THREE

Molly drove.

Wade sat beside her, in the passenger seat. Byrd rode in the back of his own SUV.

She tried to ignore her growing suspicion of Wade. Byrd wanted his best friend along, and the whole trip had been Wade’s idea, anyway.

She had stopped in at the hospital after a rough morning at the office—Frank had, indeed, horded all the gruesome details of last night’s double murder for her—and found Byrd and Wade sitting in what she could only describe as morose silence.

“What’s up?” she had asked.

“I’m gettin’ transferred,” Byrd said.

“Transferred where?”

“La Mariposa.”

“Which is…?” She sat down heavily in the guest chair Wade didn’t already occupy and stared past Byrd at his broken oar.

“Sierra Providence’s La Mariposa Hospice.”

“Hospice.” The word was so close to “hospital,” but the meaning was so different.

A hospital was where you went to be fixed.

You went to a hospice to die.

“Byrd, no…”

“Byrd, yes,” Wade said, pointing to each of them in turn. After years of watching him on TV, it was still a shock to see him with his beard growing back in. “Wade yes. Molly yes.” A small joke, accompanied by the trembling ghost of a smile.

Molly couldn’t return it. Tears forced themselves from her eyes, despite her best efforts to hold them back. She went to her brother, put her arms around him. His thin arms encircled her neck like a bony collar.

This is ridiculous,
she thought.
He’s the one who’s dying, and he’s comforting me.

“Wade had a great idea,” he said. Subtly but unmistakably, he pushed her away. Having learned to read his cues, she took her seat again, biting back the sobs she wanted to release.

“What is it?”

“We’re going to Malo Duro,” Wade said.

“You are?” She looked from Wade to Byrd. “
You’re
going?”

“All of us,” Byrd said. “You, too.”

“When? Byrd, I’m swamped—” She cut herself off midsentence. She still had to get Wade’s story, despite her growing suspicions. Going on a nostalgic trip to their old hometown might loosen his tongue just enough. And without real evidence-—although she had every reason to be cautious—she couldn’t spend her life worrying about what he might do. Besides, Byrd would be with them. Byrd, who had always been her protector. He couldn’t fight now, couldn’t stand up to danger the way he once had. But Wade wouldn’t try anything in front of Byrd, no matter how far over the deep end he might have gone.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Byrd pointed out. “You have Sundays off anyway.”

She scraped hair away from her eyes and nodded her assent. “You’re right, Byrd. I’m in.”

“Excellent,” Wade said. “Bright and early in the morning.”

“You’re sure you feel good enough?” Molly asked her brother.

“I’m not likely to get another chance,” Byrd said. He betrayed no emotion as he said it. Just a fact, like any other.
I’m warm.
I’m hungry. I’m dying.
All the same.

So here they were, making what amounted to a holy pilgrimage. Back to Palo Duro, the town of Byrd’s birth, and hers. The place where they’d met Wade. Molly drove east through El Paso, on the freeway that sliced through the city, parallel to the Rio Grande. They passed fast-food joints and cowboy boot outlet stores, strip malls and porn shops. Mexico climbed the hills to their right, always a presence. Then they left the city behind and struck southeast, still parallel to the river, slicing through open country now, ranch country, hills and valleys and mesas defining the skyline. The sky outside the city turned from brownish gray to blue and the air stopped smelling like baked sewage.

When they passed a restaurant with a huge sign offering roasted chicken, Byrd broke out in laughter that quickly became a hacking cough. “What is it, Byrd?” Molly asked.

“That restaurant. It reminded me of one of my favorite exit lines this week.”

“Oh, God.”

“No, listen. Saint Lawrence, a Roman martyr, was bein’ burned to death over hot coals. His last words were, ‘Turn me. I am roasted on one side.’ I’m just not sure how applicable it is to me.”

The exit for Palo Duro appeared about an hour outside of El Paso. The Palo Duro Motel stood beside the interstate, its three signposts stark against the cloudless sky. The tallest of the signs had blown out altogether and its frame stood there empty, surrounding a patch of blue. The next was weather-faded but still legible when you got close. The shortest, still thirty feet tall, was an illuminated sign with most of the plastic intact, and Molly suspected it was visible from a great distance at night.

She peeled off the freeway and onto Palo Duro Road. The motel was on the right as they exited, Café on the left. It was almost noon, and a couple of pickup trucks were parked outside Café. The motel had parking in front and back, but the front part that they could see was deserted.

“Well, this hasn’t changed a bit,” Wade said. “It’s like I never left.”

“Did you think it would?” Byrd asked. “What would change it? The motel never relied on business from town. I’m sure it’s strictly a stopover for people who can’t make it to El Paso comin’ from the east, or who want to get past it headed that way.”

“You’re probably right,” Wade said.

“Anyone hungry?”

“Byrd?” Wade asked.

“Not yet.”

“Let’s keep exploring,” Wade suggested. He caught Molly’s gaze with eyes as blue as a mountain lake. The beard was coming in fuller as the days passed, and somehow it made him look young again.

Molly drove past Café and on down the two-lane that led into town. Some of the farmland they passed was in use, mostly growing cotton, as the McCall family had done for years. This time of year, the fields were brown and white, with cotton strewn along their edges and beside the road like snow. So much cotton, it was hard to imagine anyone going bankrupt. Molly knew it happened all the time, though, just as it had to their parents. Debts grew unmanageable, crops failed, prices fluctuated. Sometimes people just got old, and their children didn’t want to stay on the farm.