WHEN GEENA FINALLY LEFT him and filed for divorce, Fallon put the Encino house up for sale and took his last two weeks of vacation from Unidyne. Then he loaded the Jeep Liberty and drove straight to Death Valley.
Will Rodriguez was the only person he told where he was going. There was nobody else to tell, really. He had no close friends except for Will, and theirs was mostly a work-related friendship; and Timmy was three years gone now and his folks both dead, too. Geena could have guessed, of course. She knew him that well, though not nearly well enough to understand his reasons. She’d think the same thing she always did when he went to the desert. And she’d be wrong.
October was one of the Valley’s best months. All months in the Monument were good, even July and August when the midday temperatures sometimes exceeded 120 degrees and Death Valley justified its Paiute Indian name, Tomesha-ground afire. If a sere desert climate held no terrors for you, if you respected it and accepted it on its terms, the attractions far outweighed the drawbacks.
Still, he’d always been partial to October, the early part of the month, so in that sense Geena’s timing couldn’t have been better. The beginning of the tourist season was still a month away, daytime temperatures seldom reached 100 degrees, and the constantly changing light show created by sun and wind and clouds was at its most spectacular. You could stay in one place all day, from dawn to dusk-Zabriskie Point, say, or the sand dunes near Stovepipe Wells-and with each ten-degree rise and fall of the sun, the colors of rock and sand hills changed from dark rose to burnished gold, from chocolate brown to purple and indigo and gray-black, with a spectrum of subtler shades in between.
It had been almost a year since he’d last been to the Valley. Much too long, but it had been a difficult year-the still-painful memories and the dying marriage and a heavy workload at Unidyne. He’d been alone on that last visit, as he was alone now; alone on the last dozen or so desert trips. Even before Timmy’s death, Geena had refused to come with him anymore. She’d never much cared for desert country, actively disliked Death Valley, and she’d used Timmy as an excuse: he was too young, there were too many hazards, he was better off at home with her. After the accident, she hadn’t needed an excuse anymore.
Well, he preferred being alone. Had always had loner tendencies, even during his stint in the army and the good early years with Geena before and after Timmy was born. The Valley was a place made for loners. You could share it only with someone who viewed it in the same perspective-not as endless miles of coarse, dead landscape but as a starkly beautiful wilderness teeming with life. To him it seemed almost sentient, as if deep within its ancient rock was something that approximated a soul.
He’d taken his time deciding where to go first on this trip. The Monument had more than three thousand square miles, second only among national parks to Yellowstone, and all sorts of terrain: the great trough of the Valley floor, with its miles of salt pan two hundred feet and more below sea level, its dunes and alluvial fans, its borate deposits and ancient borax works, its barren fields of gravel and broken rock, its five enclosing mountain ranges packed with hidden canyons, petroglyphs, played-out gold and silver mines, ghost towns.
Most of an evening had been spent with his topos, the topographical maps put out by the U.S. Geological Survey, before he finally settled on the Funeral Mountains and the Chloride Cliffs area. The Funerals formed one of the eastern boundaries, and their foothills and crests were laden not only with a variety of canyons but with the ruins of the Keane Wonder Mill and Mine and the gold boomtown of Chloride City.
He left the Jeep north of Scotty’s Castle near Hells Gate, packed in, and stayed for three days and two nights. The first day was a little rough; even though regular gym workouts had kept him in good shape, it takes a while to refamiliarize yourself with desert mountain terrain after a year away. The second day was easier. He spent that one exploring Echo Canyon, then tramping among the thick-timbered tramways of the Keane and the decaying mill a mile below, where twenty stamps had processed eighteen hundred tons of ore a month in the 1890s. On the third day he climbed to the Funerals’ sheer heights and Chloride City-no strain at all by then.
It was a good three days. He saw no other people except at a distance. Much of the tension and restless dissatisfaction slowly bled out of him. He could feel his spirits lifting again.
Geena was on his mind only once in those three days. Eleven years of marriage, all they’d shared and suffered through, and now she seemed almost a stranger. He didn’t blame her for the long-running affair she’d finally admitted to, or leaving him to be with the other man; he hadn’t been there for her, any more than she’d been there for him, in three long years. Maybe things would have been different if they’d had another child, but she wouldn’t consider it, kept insisting she couldn’t bear another loss after Timmy and the earlier miscarriage. There was a time when he’d thought so, but that was long past. The simple truth was, their life together had died when Timmy died. Now that they’d finally admitted it to each other, the only emotions he felt, and was sure she felt, were sadness and relief.
It was the morning of the third day, as he stood atop one of the crags looking out toward the Needle’s Eye, when he thought of her. There was no wind and the stillness, the utter absence of sound, was so acute it created an almost painful pressure against the eardrums. Of all the things Geena hated about Death Valley, its silence-“void of silence,” an early explorer had termed it-topped the list. It terrified her. On their last trip together, when she’d caught him listening, she’d said, “What are you listening to? There’s nothing to hear in this godforsaken place. It’s as if everything has shut down. Not just here-everywhere. As if all the engines have quit working.”
Right. Exactly right. As if all the engines have quit working.
That, more than anything else, summed up the differences between them. To her, the good things in life, the essence of life itself, were people, cities, constant scurrying activity. She worshipped sensation and speed, needed to hear the steady, throbbing engines of civilization in order to feel safe, secure, alive.
He needed none of those things, needed not to hear the engines. Silence was what he craved. This kind of silence, nurturing, spiritual, that let him feel as he felt nowhere else, at ease with himself and his surroundings. It was the other kinds he hated, the cold, hurtful, destructive kind-the long, loud silences of a shattered marriage, the empty silence of a child’s grave. They were worse than the thunder of engines.
He remembered something else Geena had said to him once, not so long ago. “When we were first together you were a fighter, Rick, a soldier in and out of uniform. You welcomed challenges, you faced problems and responsibilities head-on. But after Timmy died you just seemed to give up. Now all you want to do is run away and hide from the world.”
Well, there was some truth in that. He’d been a fighter once, yes-the army had honed that tendency in him-but it had been more of necessity than choice. Like his drift into corporate security, the only well-paying job his four years of MP duty qualified him for, but work that didn’t really satisfy him. He’d never felt comfortable in mainstream society. Cities and suburbs made him feel hemmed in, even though he’d lived in one or another most of his life. Too many complications, pressures, distractions. Traffic-clogged freeways, urban blight, random violence, gang-infested neighborhoods like the one he’d grown up in in East L.A. Those, and all the other by-products of what was laughingly called modern civilization: global warming, Nine-Eleven and the looming threat of terrorism, the stupid Iraq War.
Timmy’s death had eroded the bonds that not only held him to Geena but to the hostile urban environment and a lifestyle that was mostly of her choosing and direction. Disenchanted, disaffected-he was both of those things. An escapist, too? Not the way Geena had meant it. He didn’t want to hide from the world; he wanted to narrow it down to a better fit for Rick Fallon. And that meant open spaces, places without people, places without engines.
The desert country had a way of simplifying things, reducing life to an elemental and much more tolerable level. It cleansed your mind, allowed you to think clearly. Allowed you to breathe. It was in his blood; it kept calling him back. The one place he truly belonged.
This wasn’t a new thought by any means. It was the main reason he’d taken the time off. Spend a couple of weeks in and around the Valley, reassure himself that the pull was strong enough to hold him permanently. And then quit Unidyne, quit Encino, start a whole new life. He wouldn’t be able to live in the Monument-permanent residence was limited to a small band of Paiutes and Park Service employees-but he could find a place in one of the little towns in the Nevada desert, Beatty or Goldfield or Tonopah. Hire out as a guide, do odd jobs-whatever it took to support himself. Money wouldn’t be a problem anyway; once the house and the rest of their joint possessions sold, he’d have several thousand dollars to fall back on.
Late that third afternoon he hiked back to where he’d left the Jeep. It had a sophisticated alarm system and he used the Club to lock the steering wheel, but they were habitual, city-bred precautions. He’d never had any trouble with thieves or vandals out here.
Before he crawled into his sleeping bag he sifted through the topos again to pick his next spot. He wasn’t sure why he chose Manly Peak. Maybe because he hadn’t been in the southern Panamints, through Warm Springs Canyon, in better than three years. Still, the region was not one of his favorites. A large portion of the area was under private claim, and the owners of the talc mines along the canyon took a dim view of trespassers. You had to be extra careful to keep to public lands when you packed in there.
Just before dawn he ate a couple of nutrition bars for breakfast, then pointed the Jeep down Highway 178. The sun was out by the time he reached the Warm Springs Canyon turnoff. The main road in was unpaved, rutted, and talc-covered-primarily the domain of eighteen-wheelers passing to and from the mines. You needed at least a four-wheel-drive vehicle to negotiate it and the even rougher trail that branched off of it. He wouldn’t have taken a passenger car over one inch of that terrain. Neither would anyone else who knew the area or paid attention to the Park Service brochures, guidebooks, and posted signs.
That was why he was so surprised when he came on the Toyota Camry.
He’d turned off the main canyon road ten miles in, onto the trail into Butte Valley, and when he rounded a turn on the washboard surface there it was, pulled off into the shadow of a limestone shelf. No one visible inside or anywhere in the immediate vicinity.
He brought the Jeep up behind and went to have a look. All four of the Toyota’s tires were intact, a wonder given the road condition, but the car was no longer drivable. A stain that had spread out from underneath told him that the oil pan had been ruptured. The Camry had been there a while, at least two days; the look and feel of the oil stain proved that. He had to be the first person to come by since it was abandoned, or it wouldn’t still be sitting here like this. Not many hikers or off-roaders ventured out this way in the off-season, the big ore trucks used the main canyon road, and there weren’t enough park rangers for daily backcountry patrols.
The Toyota’s side windows were so dust- and talc-caked that he could barely see through them. He tried the driver’s door, found it unlocked. The interior was empty except for two things on the front seat. One was a woman’s purse, open, the edge of a wallet poking out. The other was a piece of lined notepaper with writing on it in felt-tip pen, held down by the weight of the purse.
Fallon slid the paper free. On top was a date-Wednesday, two days ago-and the word “Dear” scratched out, as if the writer had decided there was no one to address the note to. Below that were several lines of shaky backhand printing. He sensed what it was even before he finished reading it.
I can’t go on anymore. There’s no hope left. Court Spicer and his man Banning have seen to that. I’m sorry for everything and sick of all the hurt and trouble and it’s too painful knowing I might never see Kevin again.
He couldn’t quite decipher the scrawled signature. Casey or Cassy something. He opened the wallet and fanned through the card section until he found her driver’s license. The Camry had California plates and the license had also been issued in the state. Casey Dunbar. Age 32. San Diego address. The face in the ID photo was attractive, light-haired, unsmiling.
The wallet contained half a dozen snapshots, all of a boy eight or nine years old. Fallon felt a wrenching sensation when he looked at them. The boy might have been Timmy if he’d lived to that age-different features but the same lean, smiling face, the same mop of fair hair falling over his forehead.
Nothing else in the wallet told him anything. One credit card was all Casey Dunbar owned. And twelve dollars in fives and singles.
Fallon returned the wallet to the purse, folded the note in there with it, and slid the purse out of sight under the seat. A set of keys dangled from the ignition; he removed them, locked the car before he pocketed them. In his mouth was a dryness that had nothing to do with the day’s gathering heat.
If she’d brought along a gun or pills or some other lethal device, she was long dead by now. If she’d wanted the Valley to do the job for her, plenty enough time had elapsed for that, too, given the perilous terrain and the proliferation of sidewinders and daytime temperatures in the midnineties and no water and the wrong kind of clothing.
Yet there was a chance she was still alive. No carrion feeders in sight-a favorable sign, but not conclusive. It all depended on where she was.
All right. Alive or dead or dying, she had to be found, and quickly. He hurried back to the Jeep for his Zeiss binoculars.
HE CLIMBED UP ON the hood, made a slow scan of the surrounding terrain with the powerful 7 × 50 glasses. The valley floor here was flattish, mostly fields of fractured rock slashed by shallow washes. Clumps of low-growing creosote bush and turtleback were the only vegetation. He had an unobstructed look over a radius of several hundred yards.
No sign of her.
Some distance ahead there was higher ground. He drove too fast on the rough road, had to warn himself to slow down. At the top of a rise he stopped again and went to climb a jut of limestone to a notch in its crest. From there he had a much wider view, all the way to Striped Butte and the lower reaches of the Panamints.
The odds were against him spotting her, even with the binoculars. The topography’s rumpled irregularity created too many hidden places; she might have wandered miles in any direction.
But he did locate her, and in less than ten minutes. Pure blind luck.
She was a quarter of a mile away to the southwest, in partial shade at the bottom of a salt-streaked wash. Lying on her side, motionless, knees drawn up fetally, face and part of her blonde head obscured by the crook of a bare arm. It was impossible to tell at this distance if she was alive or not.
The wash ran down out of the foothills like a long, twisted scar, close to the trail for a considerable distance, then hooking away from it in a gradual snake-track curve. Where she lay was at least four hundred yards from where he’d parked on the four-wheel track. He picked out a trail landmark roughly opposite her position, then scrambled back down to the Jeep.
His cell phone was in his pack. He dragged it out, switched it on. No signal. Sometimes you got one in the more remote sections of the Valley, sometimes you didn’t; out here, the ramparts of the Panamints must be blocking it. No emergency help, then. Whether she was alive or dead, it was up to him to deal with the situation.
It took him more than an hour to get to where she lay. Drive to the landmark, load his pack with two extra soft-plastic water bottles and the first-aid kit, strap on the aluminum-framed pack, and then hike across humps and flats of broken rock as loose and treacherous as talus. Even though the pre-noon temperature was only in the eighties, he was sweating profusely-and he’d used up a pint of water to replace the sweat loss-by the time he reached the wash.
She still lay in the same drawn-up position. And she didn’t stir at the noises he made, the clatter of dislodged rocks, as he slid down the wash’s bank. He went to one knee beside her, groped for a sunburned wrist. Pulse, faint and irregular. He didn’t realize until then that he had been holding his breath; he let it out thin and hissing between his teeth.
She wore only a thin, short-sleeved shirt, a pair of Levi’s, and worn-out Reeboks. The exposed areas of her skin were burned raw, coated with salt from dried sweat that was as gritty as fine sand; the top of her scalp was flecked with dried blood from ruptured blisters. A quick inspection revealed no snake or scorpion bites, no limb fractures or swellings. But she was badly dehydrated. At somewhere between 15 and 22 percent dehydration a human being will die, and she had to be close to the danger zone.
Gently he took hold of her shoulders, eased her over onto her back. Her limbs twitched; she made a little whimpering sound deep in her throat. On the edge of consciousness, he thought, more submerged than not. The sun’s white glare hurt her eyes through the tightly closed lids. She turned her head, lifted an arm painfully across the bridge of her nose.
Fallon freed one of the foil-wrapped water bottles, slipped off the attached cap. Her lips were cracked, split deeply in a couple of places; he dribbled water on them, to get her to open them. Then he eased the spout into her mouth and squeezed out a few more drops.
At first she struggled, twisting her head, moaning softly now: the part of her that wanted death rebelling against revival and awareness. But her will to live hadn’t completely deserted her, and her thirst was too great. She gulped down some of the warm liquid, swallowed more when he lifted her head and held it cushioned against his knee.
Before long she was sucking greedily at the spout, like a baby at its mother’s nipple. Her hands came up and clutched at the bottle; he let her take it away from him, let her drain it. The notion of parceling out water to a dehydration victim was a fallacy. You had to saturate the parched tissues as fast as possible to accelerate the restoration of normal functions.
He opened another bottle, raised her into a sitting position, then exchanged it for the empty one in her hands. Shelter was the next most important thing. He took the lightweight space blanket from his pack, unfolded it, and shook it out. Five by seven feet, the blanket was coated on one side with a filler of silver insulating material and reflective surface.
Near where she lay, behind her to the east, he hand-scraped a sandy area free of rocks. Then he set up the blanket into a lean-to, using takedown tent poles to support the front edge and tying them off with nylon cord to rocks placed at forty-five-degree angles from the shelter corners. He secured the ground side of the lean-to with more rocks and sand atop the blanket’s edge.
Casey Dunbar was sitting slumped forward when he finished, her head cradled in her hands. The second water bottle, as empty as the first, lay beside her.
Fallon gripped her shoulders again, and this time she stiffened, fought him weakly as he drew her backward and pressed her down into the lean-to’s shade. The struggles stopped when he pillowed her head with the pack. She lay unmoving, half on her side, her eyes still squeezed tightly shut. Conscious now, but not ready to face either him or the fact that she was still alive.
The first-aid kit contained a tube of Neosporin. He said as he uncapped it, “I’ve got some burn medicine here. I’ll rub it on your face and scalp first.”
She made a throat sound that might have been a protest. But when he squeezed out some of the ointment and began to smooth it over her blistered skin, she remained passive. Lay silent and rigid as he ministered to her.
He used the entire tube of Neosporin, most of it on her face and arms. None of the cuts and abrasions she’d suffered was serious; the medicine would disinfect those, too. There was nothing he could do for the bruises on her upper arms and along her jaw, the scabbed cuts on her left cheek and temple. Those weren’t the kind of injuries you got from stumbling around in the desert. They were more than two days old, he judged, already starting to fade. He wondered where she’d gotten them, if somebody had used her for a punching bag.
When he was done, he opened another quart of water, took a nutrition bar from his pack. Casey Dunbar’s eyes were open when he looked at her again. Hazel eyes, dull with pain and exhaustion, staring fixedly at him without blinking. Hating him a little, he thought.
He said, “Take some more water,” and extended the bottle.
“No.”
“Still thirsty, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Come on, we both know you are.”
“Who’re you?” Her voice was as dry and cracked as her lips. “How’d you find me?”
“Richard Fallon-Rick. I was lucky. So are you.”
“Lucky,” she said.
“Drink the water, Casey.”
“How do you know my…? Oh.”
“That’s right. I read the note.”
“Why couldn’t you just let me die? Why did you have to come along and find me?”
“Drink.”
He held the bottle out close to her face. Her eyes shifted to it; the tip of her tongue flicked out, snakelike, as if she were already tasting the water. Then, grimacing, she raised onto an elbow and took the bottle with an angry, swiping movement-anger directed at herself, he thought, not him, as if she’d committed an act of self-betrayal. She drank almost half before a spasm of coughing forced her to lower the bottle.
“Go a little slower with the rest of it.”
“Leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that, Casey.”
“Don’t call me that. You don’t know me.”
“All right.”
“I want to sleep,” she said.
“No, you don’t.” He unwrapped the nutrition bar. “Eat as much of this as you can get down. Slowly, little bites.”
She shook her head, holding her arms stiff and tight against her sides.
“For your own good.”
“I don’t want any fucking food.”
“Your body needs the nourishment.”
“No.”
“I’ll force-feed you if I have to.”
She held out a little longer, but her eyes were on the bar the entire time. When she finally took it, it was with the same gesture of self-loathing. Her first few bites were nibbles, but the honey taste revived her hunger and she went at the bar the way she had at the water bottle, almost choking on the first big chunk she tried to swallow. He made her slow down, sip water after each bite.
“How do you feel now?” he asked when she was finished.
“Like I’m going to live, damn you.”
“We’ll stay here for a while, until you’re strong enough to walk.”
“Walk where?”
“My Jeep, over on the trail. Four hundred yards or so, over pretty rough terrain. I don’t want to have to carry you the whole way.”
“Then what?”
“You need medical attention. There’s an infirmary at Furnace Creek Ranch.”
“And after that, the psycho ward,” she said, but not as if she cared. “Where’s the nearest one?”
Fallon let that pass. “If you feel up to talking,” he said, “I’m a good listener.”
“Talk about what?”
“Why you did this to yourself.”
“Tried to kill myself, you mean.”
“All right. Why?”
“You read my note.”
“Pretty vague. Who’s Kevin?”
She turned her head away without answering.
He didn’t press her. Instead, he shifted around and lay back on his elbows, with his upper body in the lean-to’s shade. He was careful not to touch the woman.
It was another windless day, the near-noon stillness as complete as it had been the other morning in the Funerals. For a time nothing moved anywhere; then a chuckwalla lizard came scurrying up the bank of the wash, followed a few seconds later by a horned toad. It looked as though the toad was chasing the lizard, but like so many things in desert country, that was illusion. Toads and lizards weren’t natural enemies.
Before long, Casey stirred and asked if there was any more water. Her tone had changed; resignation flavored it now, as if she’d accepted, at least for the present, the burden of staying alive.
Fallon sat up, removed one of the remaining two full quarts from his pack. “Make this last until we’re ready to leave,” he said as he handed it to her. “It’s a long walk to the Jeep and we’ll have to share the last bottle.”
She drank less thirstily, lowered the bottle with it still two-thirds full. Good sign. Her body was responding, its movements stronger and giving her less pain.
He let her have another energy bar. She took it without argument, ate it slowly with sips of water. When it was gone, she lifted herself into a sitting position, her head not quite touching the slant of the blanket. She was a few inches over five feet, more sinew than flesh. Her relatively young age, and the kind of body she had and the fact that she’d taken care of it, explained her survival and the relative swiftness of her recovery.
She said, not looking at him, “I guess you might as well know.”
“Know what?”
“About Kevin. The rest of it.”
“If you want to tell me.”
“He’s my son. Kevin Andrew Spicer. He’s eight and a half years old.”
“Court Spicer your husband?”
“Ex-husband, and I hope his soul rots in hell.”
“So you hate him. Divorce does that to some people.”
“Hate doesn’t begin to describe what I feel for him.”
“What did he do to you?”
“He took Kevin.”
“You mean a custody battle?”
“Oh, yes, but I won that. I had full legal custody of my son.”
“Had?”
“Court kidnapped him,” Casey said. The words seemed to stick in her throat; she coughed again and swallowed heavily before she went on. “Four months ago, not long after the judgment. He had visitation rights, every other weekend. He picked Kevin up one Friday afternoon and never brought him back.”
“Where was this? San Diego?”
“Yes.”
“You still live there?”
“I don’t live anywhere anymore,” she said.
Fallon said, “You must have gone to the authorities.”
“The police, the FBI, a private detective I hired-nobody’s been able to find them.”
“How could they vanish so completely?”
“Money. Everything comes down to money.”
“Not everything.”
“Court claimed he was broke when I divorced him. All I got was custody and child support that he never paid.”
“But he wasn’t broke. Hidden assets?”
“I thought so, my lawyer thought so, but we couldn’t prove it.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“Musician. Second-rate musician.”
“Then where’d the hidden assets come from?”
“He had another income, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.”
Fallon said, “He must have wanted the boy pretty badly.”
“Not because he loves him. He did it to hurt me. He hates me. He can’t stand to lose money, property, people, any of his possessions.”
“He sounds unstable.”
“Unstable is a polite term for it.”
“Abusive?” Fallon asked. “You, your son?”
“The verbal kind. His rants caused Kevin to have more than one attack.”
“Attack?”
“He’s asthmatic. He needs medication… if he doesn’t get it and he has a serious attack, he could die.”
“Spicer wouldn’t let that happen, would he?”
“He’s capable of it. He’s capable of anything, any kind of viciousness.”
“Against his own son?”
She didn’t answer. She sat stiffly, squinting in the direction of Striped Butte, where the sun threw dazzling glints off its anamorphic conglomeration of limestone and other minerals.
“Banning,” Fallon said. “Who’s he?”
“The last straw.”
He waited, but she didn’t go on.
“What happened to your face? You didn’t get those cuts and bruises from the desert.”
The question made her wince. She said in a dry whisper, “I don’t want to talk anymore. My mouth hurts and my throat’s sore.”
“Drink some more water.”
She sucked from the bottle, then lapsed into a brooding silence.
Time passed. Fallon looked up at Manly Peak and the taller, hazy escarpments of Telescope Peak to the north. Some people found the Panamints oppressive. Bare monoliths of dark gray basalt and limestone like tombstones towering above a vast graveyard-mute testimony to the ancient Paiute legend of how they were formed, in an eons-long war among the gods. It was easy enough to imagine them that way, as the earthly remains of cosmic battles in which thunderbolts were hurled like spears, fire was summoned from the earth’s core, mountains melted and flowed into the Valley, massive stone blocks were ripped up and flung helter-skelter until they piled so high, new peaks were created.
But there was a stark beauty in them, too. And to Fallon, a sentinel-like quality-old and benevolent guardians, comforting in their size and age and austerity. They held his gaze while he sat there waiting and listening to the silence.
HE GREW AWARE OF heat rays against his hands where they rested flat on his thighs. The sun had reached and passed its zenith, was robbing the shelter of shade. If they didn’t leave soon, he would have to reset the position of the lean-to.
“How do you feel?” he asked Casey. “Strong enough to try walking?”
She was still resigned. “I can try,” she said.
“Stay where you are for a couple of minutes, while I get ready. I’ll work around you.”
He gathered and stowed the empty water bottles, took down the lean-to and stowed the stakes, strapped on the pack. When he helped Casey to her feet, she seemed able to stand all right without leaning on him. Carefully he put his sun hat on her head, easing it down to cover her sunburned forehead and scalp. Shook out the blanket, draped it over her head and shoulders so that her arms were covered, and showed her how to hold it in place under her chin. Then he slipped an arm around her thin body and they set out.
Long, slow trek to the Jeep. And a painful one for her, though she didn’t complain, didn’t speak the entire time. They stayed in the wash most of the way, despite the fact that it added a third to the distance, because the footing was easier for her. He stopped frequently so she could rest; and he let her have most of the remaining water. Still, by the time they reached the trail her legs were wobbly and most of her new-gained strength was gone. He had to swing her up and carry her the last hundred yards. Not that it was much of a strain: she was like a child in his arms.
He eased her into the Jeep’s passenger seat, took the blanket, and put it and his pack into the rear. There were two quarts of water left back there. He drank from one, a couple of long swallows, before he leaned in under the wheel. She had slumped down limply in the other seat, with her head back and her eyes shut. Her breath came and went in ragged little pants.
“Casey?”
“I’m awake,” she said.
“Here. More water.”
She drank without opening her eyes.
He drove back to the Toyota, unlocked the driver’s door, opened it carefully because the metal was hot enough raise blisters. He fetched her purse from under the seat, then slid into the stifling interior. Usual junk in the glove compartment; he rummaged through it until he found the registration and an insurance card. He put these into the purse.
When he switched on the ignition, the gas gauge indicator hovered close to empty. He twisted the key to see if the car would start. The engine caught on the third try, stuttering a bit; he shut it off immediately. If the only serious damage was the ruptured oil pan, repairs wouldn’t cost much. It was arranging for a tow truck to come out and haul the Camry to the station at Furnace Creek Ranch that would be expensive.
He pulled the trunk release, got out and went around back. Two pieces of luggage in the trunk, a small suitcase and an overnight case. He took these out, closed the lid, locked the car again, and carried purse and luggage back to the Jeep and stowed them in the rear. Casey still slumped low on the seat with her eyes closed. She didn’t open them until after they were moving again in the opposite direction and the heated slipstream fanned her face through the open window.
Fallon drove slowly, trying to avoid the worst of the ruts, but a few times as they bounced over the track she gave out low groans. Otherwise she made no complaint, said nothing at all. When they reached the smoother valley road above the Ashford Mill ruins, her breathing grew less labored and he thought she was asleep. If so, the sleep didn’t last long. They were halfway between Mormon Point and Badwater when she stirred, shifted position, and drank thirstily from the water bottle. When she lowered it, her pained gaze turned to him.
“How much farther?”
“Forty-five minutes. You okay?”
“Do I look okay? It feels like we’ve been riding for hours.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“I can’t stop you.”
“Why did you come here?”
“Where? Where you found me?”
“No, I mean Death Valley. Nearly four hundred miles from San Diego.”
“I came from Las Vegas, not San Diego.”
“Why were you in Vegas?”
“Fool’s errand,” she said bitterly.
“Is that where you got those bruises? In Vegas?”
“… You really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
For a time she was silent. Then abruptly, staring straight ahead, she said in flat tones, “A man called me a few days ago. He said his name was Banning and he knew where Court and Kevin were living, but he wanted two thousand dollars for the information. In cash, delivered to him in Las Vegas.”
“Somebody you know, this Banning?”
“No.”
“But you believed him.”
“I wanted to believe him,” Casey said. “He claimed he’d known Court years ago, mentioned the names of people I knew. He said he’d heard that the detective I’d hired had been asking questions about Court.”
“Did he say how he’d heard?”
“No. I know I should’ve asked him, but I didn’t.”
“What’s the detective’s name?”
“Sam Ulbrich. He managed to trace Court and Kevin to Las Vegas last week, but that was as far as he got.”
“You tell him about Banning’s call?”
“No.”
“Why not? Why not send him instead of going yourself?”
“He stopped working for me when I couldn’t pay him anymore. I had nothing left to sell, nobody to borrow from.”
“What about your family?”
“I don’t have any family. Except for my son.”
“So you couldn’t raise the money Banning demanded.”
“Oh, I raised it. I went to Vegas with two thousand dollars in my purse.”
“Where’d you get it?”
It was several seconds before she answered. Then, in the same flat, lifeless voice, “I stole it.”
Fallon didn’t say anything.
“I was desperate,” she said. “Desperate.”
“Stole it where?”
“From the man I work… worked for. From the office safe. And I drove to Vegas and gave it to Banning.”
“And it was all just a scam,” Fallon said. “He didn’t know where to find Spicer and your son.”
“Oh, he knew, all right. He knew because Court set the whole thing up. That was part of the message Banning delivered afterward.”
“Afterward?”
“After he beat me up and raped me.”
“Jesus.”
“Your ex-husband says you’d better stop trying to find him and Kevin, otherwise there’ll be more of the same. Only next time he’ll do it himself and it won’t just be rape and a beating, he’ll kill you. End of message.”
“You call the police?”
“What for? Banning isn’t his real name. What could the police have done? No. No. I stayed in the motel room where it happened until I felt well enough to leave, and then I started driving. By the time the car quit on me, I was out here in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t want to go on living.”
“You still feel that way?”
“What do you think?”
Fallon said, “It’s a hundred and twenty miles from Vegas to this part of Death Valley. How’d you end up where I found you?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you did come here intentionally. Death Valley-dead place, place to go and die.”
“No. I’ve never been here before. I told you, I just kept driving until the car stopped. What difference does it make, anyhow?”
“It makes a difference. I think it does.”
“Well, I don’t. The only thing that matters is that you found me too soon.”
They rode in silence again until they reached the intersection with the Shoshone highway. Six miles from there to Furnace Creek Ranch.
He said as much to Casey. “When we get there, I’ll tell the infirmary people you made the mistake of driving out into a wilderness area in the wrong kind of vehicle, and when it broke down you tried to walk out and lost your bearings. That sort of thing happens a dozen times a year in the Valley. Nobody will think anything of it.”
She was silent.
“After that I’ll get a cabin for you so you can rest up.”
“Don’t you listen? I don’t have any money.”
“I’ll pay for it. You can pay me back later.”
“Pay you back how?”
“Cash or check. I don’t want anything else from you, Casey.”
“Oh, sure. That’s what you all say.”
“I’m not other men. I’m Rick Fallon.”
“Why should Rick Fallon care about me?”
Good question. He kept thinking about the way he’d found her, how she’d looked lying there in the wash. And the suicide note. And everything that she’d told him. And above all the face of the boy, Kevin, smiling at him from the photograph she carried-the boy who looked like Timmy.
But all he said was, “We can talk about that later.”
“We’ve talked enough. I have, anyway. You know my story, so now I’m supposed to listen to yours?”
“No.”
“Then we don’t have anything left to talk about.”
“I think maybe we do,” he said, and let it go at that.
FURNACE CREEK RANCH WAS a sprawling tourist oasis that Fallon avoided except when he needed to buy gas and supplies. Eighteen-hole golf course, the world’s lowest at 214 feet below sea level. Two hundred and twenty-four moderately priced rooms and cabins. Restaurants, saloon and cocktail lounge, shops, a Borax museum, swimming pools fed by underground springs, tennis courts, stables, airstrip, RV and trailer parking, service station. Too crowded, too much engine hum.
It was midafternoon when they drove past the lushly landscaped grounds of the Furnace Creek Inn, just down the road from the Ranch. The Inn catered to those who preferred luxury accommodations and meals at a four-star restaurant. He’d stayed there once with Geena, at her insistence. It had everything you could want-everything she could want, anyway. The engine sounds were more muted there, but he could still hear them, and he missed the silences and wide open freedom of the remote sections of the Valley. He’d never been back to the Inn.
Before he delivered Casey to the infirmary on the palm-shaded Ranch grounds, he repeated the lost-by-accident story he was going to tell and warned her not to say anything to contradict him. Her response was a head bob. She seemed to have lapsed back into a brooding lassitude.
“I’ll have to tell it to the park rangers, too,” he said. “They may or may not want to talk to you, now or later. If so, just stick to the story.”
Another head bob.
There were no problems at the infirmary. The woman on the desk asked for Casey’s address and medical insurance card. Casey said she didn’t know where her purse was, and Fallon said it was in the Jeep. He went out, checked her wallet and found a Kaiser card. Her driver’s license had been issued within the past year, so the address on it-716 Avila Court, San Diego-was probably current. He slipped the license out and took it and the insurance card inside, leaving the purse where it was.
From the infirmary he made his report to the ranger on duty and went from there to the Ranch office. Even though the resort throbbed with people, there was usually space available at this time of year. Today was no exception. He used one of his credit cards to secure a cabin for two nights in the name of C. Dunbar.
At the cabin, he brought her luggage and purse inside and laid them on the bed. Neither bag was locked. With the door shut, he went through them. Nothing but cosmetics and personal hygiene stuff in the overnight bag; no drugs other than a prescription vial of Ambien sleeping tablets. The suitcase contained a skirt, a pair of slacks, a couple of light-colored blouses, a thin poplin jacket, underwear. And wadded up inside one of the liner pockets, a pair of torn cotton panties and a third blouse, white, also torn, and spotted with streaks of dried blood.
He closed both cases and checked the purse again. The name and address on the Toyota’s registration was the same as the one on her driver’s license. He put that aside and removed the other items one by one. Wallet. Coin purse. Leatherette business-card case. Cell phone. Lipstick, compact, nail clippers, tissues. The last item was a small, round chunk of plaster of paris with the words “For Mom, Love Kevin” etched into it-the kind of thing grade-school kids make and loving parents cherish. Timmy had made something like it for Geena. And for him, a crude wood-modeled keychain that he still carried in his pocket.
He still had Casey’s license and insurance card; he returned them to the wallet, then opened the leatherette case. A dozen or so glossy business cards, all done in red and black embossed lettering, all the same: Vernon Young Realty, 14150 Las Palomas Avenue, San Diego. Casey Dunbar, Sales Representative.
The cell phone was charged and working; you could almost always get a satellite signal in this part of the Valley. He opened the cell’s address book. Around a dozen entries, listed by first name or initial or type of business or institution such as “School”; most had telephone numbers only. The few addresses were all in San Diego and environs. The final entry was “S. Ulbrich,” with a phone number but no address. He wrote the number down on a sheet of paper from the writing desk.
The wallet next. Other than the one credit card, probably maxed out, and the twelve dollars in cash, there was nothing but the driver’s license, medical card, and snapshots of her son. He looked at the snaps again-six of them, ranging from when Kevin was a baby to his present age. The physical resemblance to Timmy was not that strong, really, and yet the boy’s image brought memories flooding back. Fallon resisted an urge to take Timmy’s photo from his own wallet and compare the two side by side. He closed Casey’s wallet and returned it and the rest of the items to her purse.
All right.
Outside he retrieved his cell phone from his pack, took it back into the cabin. The digital clock on the nightstand gave the time as 4:30. Will Rodriguez should still be at Unidyne. He put in a call, waited through a five-minute hold before Will’s voice said, “Hey, amigo. I thought you were going packing in Death Valley.”
“That’s where I am.”
“Everything okay?”
“More or less. Listen, Will, are you busy right now?”
“No more than usual. Why?”
“I stumbled into a situation here and I need a favor.”
“You got it. What kind of situation?”
“It involves a woman-”
“Ah.”
“No, nothing like that,” Fallon said. “She’s in trouble. I need some information on how bad it is.”
“Felony kind?”
“Yes. But I think it might be fixable.”
“By you?”
“Depends. Maybe.”
“Careful, man. You’re pretty vulnerable right now.”
“So is she.”
“… Okay. What can I do?”
“Make a couple of phone calls, do an Internet check. You still know people in law enforcement, right?”
“Some. I’ve been off the job for years, you know that.”
“This shouldn’t take much effort. The only serious crime involved seems to be parental abduction-not by the woman, by her ex-husband. She apparently had custody of the child.”
“What’s her name?”
“Casey Dunbar. Seven-sixteen Avila Court, San Diego. Ex-husband is Court Spicer, the kid is Kevin Spicer, age eight and a half. Abduction happened four months ago. She hired a San Diego private detective named Sam Ulbrich and he traced Spicer and the boy to Las Vegas. I’m wondering how reputable he is.”
“How do you spell Ulbrich?”
Fallon said, “U-l-b-r-i-c-h,” and read off the phone number he’d found in Casey’s address book. “One more thing. She did something stupid when she ran out of money. Stole some cash from the real estate outfit where she works to pay off a guy in Vegas who claimed to know where Spicer and the boy were living.”
“How much cash?”
“She says two thousand dollars. The company is Vernon Young Realty, 14150 Las Palomas, San Diego.”
“And you want to know if theft charges were filed. And if the amount is more than two thousand.”
“If she’s been straight with me or not. Right.”
Will said, “Pretty late in the day. I may not be able to get back to you until tomorrow morning.”
“That’s soon enough. Call me on my cell. And thanks, Will.”
“Por nada. Just remember what I said about being careful. Don’t get yourself mixed up in something you’ll live to regret.”
“I won’t forget.”
Fallon locked the cabin and drove to the service station, where he reported the location of the Camry and arranged for it to be towed to the Ranch. Then he returned to the infirmary.
The nurse told him Casey was resting, that her burns were relatively minor and her condition not critical. “You did a very good job of hydrating her and tending to her injuries, Mr. Fallon.”
“Has she said anything about what happened?”
“No. She didn’t want to talk about it.”
“About the other injuries? The older ones?”
The nurse’s lips pursed. “She said she was in an accident, but it looks to me like she was abused. Do you know anything about that?”
“No. The first time I ever laid eyes on her was in that wash. How long before she’s well enough to travel?”
“A day or two, barring infection.”
“Can I see her?”
“If she’s awake. We gave her a mild sedative.”
Casey was asleep. The nurse suggested he come back in two hours; Fallon said he would, and went from there to the saloon. He was tired enough and thirsty enough to crave a cold beer. He sat in a corner with the pint of draft ale, as far from the other customers as he could get, and tuned out bar voices and a TV news broadcast. The same thoughts he’d had on the way in still crowded his mind.
Careful, Rick. You’re pretty vulnerable right now. Don’t get yourself mixed up in something you’ll live to regret.
Good advice, but he had the feeling he was already mixed up in it, already committed. Careful, yes; that was why he’d gone through her things, called Will. But unless it turned out that she’d lied to him about the kidnapping and the stolen money, he couldn’t walk away as if he’d never found her. Kevin and the resemblance to Timmy, the abuse she’d suffered, the possibility that she might try to kill herself again… they were part of the reason. But there was more, too. He couldn’t quite explain it yet, needed to think about it. Not here, though. Someplace where the engines were still and there were no distractions.
The beer made him realize he was hungry. There was a restaurant next to the saloon; he dawdled over a steak sandwich and another draft. Will still hadn’t called back by the time he was done. Probably wouldn’t until morning.
The two hours were up; he returned to the infirmary. Casey was awake, the nurse told him. He found her groggy but lucid, small and vulnerable on the bed like a wounded child. When he was alone with her he said, “I’ve got a cabin ready for you. The nurse says I can take you there if you feel up to it. It’s just a short ride.”
“All right.”
“We can get you a wheelchair if you need it.”
“No. If I can stand up, I can walk.”
He waited five minutes in the anteroom. She came out under her own power, walking slow and stiff but steadily enough. She wouldn’t let him help her outside or into the Jeep.
On the way across the grounds he said, “A tow truck will pick up your car tomorrow morning and bring it back here. The mechanics ought to be able to get it running again.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Maybe you do.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
At the cottage she again refused his help, walked inside on her own. When she saw her luggage and purse on the single bed, she gave him a quick sidelong look.
He said, “Don’t worry, I won’t be staying here. The cabin’s all yours.”
“You paid for another cabin?”
“No. I prefer sleeping outdoors.”
She sat on the edge of the bed. “I can’t figure you out.”
“Sometimes I can’t figure myself out,” he said. “I’ll come by in the morning, sometime after nine, and we’ll talk. You’ll still be here?”
“Where am I going to go? I can’t pay for the car repairs, either.”
FALLON SPENT THE NIGHT packed in near Skidoo, the remains of an old mining camp above Emigrant Canyon. Alone in the stillness, he felt the tensions of the long day evaporate, his thought processes sharpen until they were as clear as the crystalline night sky. He knew then the other part of the reason why he was letting himself become involved in Casey Dunbar’s troubles.
The Valley, and his symbiotic relationship to it. As if it was somehow responsible for bringing the two of them together.
He could have gone anywhere within three thousand square miles today, and yet he’d chosen, or been directed to, the exact spot where the Toyota had quit running two days ago. He could have easily missed finding her in the wash, but he hadn’t. She could have been dead by then, but she wasn’t. If you looked at it that way, the Valley was just as responsible for saving her life as he was.
Illusion? False mysticism? Maybe. All he knew for sure was that the concept seemed real to him. If the story Casey had told was essentially factual, he was obligated to continue watching out for her, to provide her with a reason to go on living. Otherwise none of today’s happenings would mean anything and his relationship with the Valley would never be quite the same again.
He wondered if he could make her understand this. He wondered if he should even bother to try. She’d probably think he was crazy. Hell, maybe he was. But it was a benign form of lunacy, the kind that allowed a man to live at peace with himself.
At first light he went for a five-mile roundabout hike that eventually brought him back to the Jeep. By then the day’s heat was just beginning to seep through the night chill. He drove out of the canyon to Stovepipe Wells, a smaller food and lodging settlement on the desert flats; filled the Jeep’s gas tank and then went into the restaurant for coffee and a plate of eggs and toast.
Will Rodriguez called as he was about to start the thirty-mile drive to Furnace Creek Ranch. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday, amigo. I couldn’t get hold of a couple of people until this morning.”
“What did you find out?”
“The woman seems to’ve told you a straight story. She brought a legitimate kidnapping charge against her ex-husband four months ago. Still outstanding. He and the kid have dropped completely off the radar.”
“What about the theft charge against her?”
“There isn’t one,” Will said. “No warrant of any kind.”
“Sure?”
“Positive.”
“So Vernon Young didn’t file a complaint after all.”
“Why wouldn’t he? Two thousand bucks is two thousand bucks.”
“He may not know yet that the money is missing. Or if he knows why she took it, maybe he feels sorry for her.”
“Or she has some reason to lie to you about the theft.”
“She have any history with the law I should know about?”
“No. Clean slate.”
“The husband, Court Spicer?”
“Court short for Courtney. He’s another story. Three arrests, one for aggravated assault-bar fight-and two for drunk and disorderly. The most recent D &D was six months ago, right before the custody hearing. One reason why the judge ruled against him, probably.”
“Casey told me he hid assets before the divorce, that that’s how he financed his disappearing act.”
“Could be, but it didn’t come from his job.”
“Musician, right?”
“Right. Piano player-solo lounge jobs or with small jazz groups.”
“What’d you find out about the detective, Sam Ulbrich?”
“Operates in San Diego under the name Confidential Investigative Services,” Will said. “Former police officer like most, in business for himself about fifteen years. Brought up before the Department of Consumer Affairs five years ago for overcharging a client. He claimed it was bogus; the judge agreed and his license wasn’t suspended. Otherwise, he seems to have a decent rep.”
“Okay. Anything else I should know?”
“That’s the whole package. So what’re you going to do?”
“About Casey Dunbar? I’m not sure yet. Depends on her.”
“Well, whatever you do, just don’t all of a sudden drop off the radar yourself.”
Casey was waiting for him in her cabin, with the air conditioner cranked all the way up to near chilly. Dressed in clean clothes, her hair washed and brushed, her sun-blotched face and arms greasy with burn ointment. The deep cracks in her lips had already begun to scab over.
“Feeling better this morning?” he asked.
“I suppose so.” She seemed to mean it; the dull, hopeless look had faded. Not exactly glad to be alive, he thought, but no longer wishing she weren’t. “Had breakfast?”
“No. I didn’t want to go out looking like this.”
“You can get room service here.”
“On your money? No, thanks.”
“You need to eat,” Fallon said. He went to the phone, put in an order for a light breakfast without consulting her about the contents.
“You’re pushy as hell, aren’t you?” she said when he hung up. There was spirit in the words, but no rancor. She wasn’t angry at him, but at herself and what she saw as the hopelessness of her situation.
“Sometimes. When I need to be.”
“How long are you going to keep it up? All this Good Samaritan stuff.”
“As long as you’ll let me.”
“What would your wife say if she knew?”
“I’m not married. Not anymore.”
“So you say.”
“I can prove it to you, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Okay, so you’re unattached and full of the milk of human kindness. And you expect me to believe there’s nothing in all this for you?”
“There’s something in it for me.”
“Uh-huh. Now we get to the bottom line.”
“The bottom line,” Fallon said, “is I might be able to help you find your son.”
The hazel eyes widened. “What’re you talking about?”
“Just what I said. Find your son, get him back to you.”
“… You can’t be serious.”
“Never more serious.”
“My God. Then you must be out of your mind. Weren’t you listening when I told you about the money I stole?”
“I was listening. You’re not wanted by the police, Casey. Vernon Young hasn’t filed theft charges against you.”
“He… how do you know his name?”
“Does it matter?”
Reflexive headshake. “Are you sure he hasn’t filed charges?”
“I’m sure.”
She bit her lower lip, grimaced because her teeth caught one of the scabbed places.
“If he knows the money is missing,” Fallon said, “he understands why you took it. He may be waiting to hear from you, hoping you’ll decide to pay it back. It’s only been a few days. Grace period.”
“But I don’t have it, I can’t pay it back.”
“Not right away. Arrangements can be made.”
“What do you mean, arrangements?”
“Monthly payments. Or if necessary, a loan to pay it back all at once.”
“Nobody would loan me that much money.”
“I might,” he said, to see what she’d say.
“What are you… oh, come on. Two thousand dollars?”
“I can afford it.”
“No. I wouldn’t feel right accepting that much money from you.”
“We could have a legal paper drawn up and notarized.”
“How do you know you could trust me?”
“I don’t.”
“Oh, but you’d be willing to take the risk.”
“Maybe. If it comes down to that.”
“If you think it would get me into bed with you-”
“Oh, Christ. What kind of man would I be if I expected that, after all you’ve been through?”
“I don’t know what kind of man you are, not really.”
“I’ll say this one last time: I don’t want anything from you.”
“Right.” Edge of sarcasm in her voice now. “You saved my life, a stranger, and now you’re willing to loan me two thousand dollars and help me find my son. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does to me.”
“What can you do? You’re not a detective-” She broke off, blinked, and said, “Or are you?”
“In a way. I work for a big pharmaceutical company in L.A.-assistant to the head of security. That gives me resources. It’s how I found out that no theft charges had been filed.”
“Checking up on me.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No. But… finding people? Do you know how to do that? The police, the FBI couldn’t find Kevin. Neither could the detective I hired.”
“Maybe none of them tried hard enough. Or looked in the right places.” She kept on staring at him. “I don’t know what to think,” she said. “I’m not used to dealing with somebody like you. Most of the people I’ve known in my life are takers, not givers.”
“Like your ex-husband.”
“Yes. Exactly. Court… you don’t know him. He meant what he said about killing me. He’d kill you too, if you got in his way.”
“I’m not afraid of men like Court Spicer. He may be off the rails, but he’s also a coward. Sending Banning after you proves that.”
“But you’d still be risking your life for a stranger, two strangers. Saint Rick? I don’t believe that.”
“My soon-to-be ex-wife said I used to be a fighter, somebody who welcomed challenges, but that I’m not that way anymore. I think she was wrong.”
“Meaning you want to prove her wrong.”
“It’s not like that.”
“How is it, then?”
“The split wasn’t ugly like yours. I don’t have anything to prove to her.”
“To yourself, then?”
He shrugged. “There are other reasons. Some you’d understand, some you might not.”
“That’s an evasive answer.”
“All right. I’ll tell you the main one.” Fallon opened his wallet, removed the snapshot of Timmy from its glassine pocket, handed it to her. “My son. Timothy James Fallon.”
She said, staring at it, “He… looks like Kevin.”
“He would’ve been the same age.”
“Would’ve been?”
“He died,” Fallon said. “Three years ago.”
He thought he saw the shape of her expression change. She sat motionless, looking at the photo. “How?”
“An accident. A stupid accident. He climbed a tree with some other kids on a dare, lost his balance, hit the ground on the back of his head. Inoperable brain damage. He was in a coma for three weeks before he died.”
“God.”
“I was at work when it happened,” he said. “There wasn’t anything I could do to save him. Maybe there’s something I can do to save your son. Do you want me to try?”
She sat holding the snapshot of Timmy, alternating her gaze between it and Fallon. Making a decision.
“Yes,” she said at length. “I want you to try.”
WHILE CASEY ATE HER room-service meal, he quizzed her about her ex-husband, her son, and the man who called himself Banning.
Court Spicer first. Fallon asked for his description, since she had no photograph to give him. Average height. Lean and wiry, about 160 pounds. Black curly hair that he wore long, so long the last time she’d seen him that he’d had it in a ponytail. Clean-shaven then. Blue-gray eyes, very intense. Long-fingered hands. Mole on his left cheek, near his mouth. “I used to think he was good-looking. Now,” she said bitterly, “I think I must have been out of my mind.”
Nothing much there, except maybe for the mole. Mr. Average. And weight can be gained, hair cut and dyed, beards or mustaches grown, a man’s appearance changed in a dozen other ways.
“Tell me about your relationship with him,” Fallon said. “Start with how you met.”
Talking about Spicer was difficult for her. She spoke haltingly, her gaze slanted off much of the time in a fixed stare. She’d gone with a friend to a small club in San Diego’s Old Town district, she said, where Spicer had been playing piano. He’d noticed her, kept looking at her and smiling, and on his break he’d gone to their table for introductions, bought a round of drinks. She was flattered by the attention, but not attracted to him enough to say yes when he asked her for a date.
Two days later he’d surprised her with a phone call. She hadn’t given him her home number; he’d gotten it some other way. The persistent type. She was lonely enough to agree then to have drinks with him.
That casual date led to others. He didn’t try to talk her into sleeping with him. Kept it low-key. He could be charming, she said. Amusing, fun to be with. He took her to good restaurants, shows, jazz clubs, and improv sessions where he sat in from time to time-a whole new world for her.
She’d been seeing him off and on for three months when he proposed. She said no, but she kept on dating him, and he kept on asking her, and one night, after too much to drink, she let him take her to bed. The next morning he asked her again and she said yes. They were married in City Hall two weeks later.
“It wasn’t a bad marriage at first,” she said. “He could be moody sometimes, but mostly he was sweet to me. But that all changed when I made a mistake with my birth-control pills and got pregnant.”
“How’d he take the news?”
“He just… blew up. He didn’t want kids, not right away. He was so furious, I thought he was going to hit me. That was the first time I saw the other side of him… the first time I was afraid of him.”
Spicer wanted her to have an abortion. She refused. They fought about it and when she wouldn’t give in, the marriage turned rocky. He joined a trio that played road gigs, keeping him away from home for several weeks at a time. When he came back to San Diego, he spent little time at home with her. He was gone somewhere the night her water broke. She had to call for an EMS ambulance to take her to the hospital.
She’d come close to divorcing him at that point. But when he finally showed up at the hospital he’d been apologetic and full of promises; fawned over his new son. So she’d stayed with him, more for Kevin’s sake than her own.
For six years Spicer more or less lived up to his role as husband, father, and family provider. He worked steadily, mostly in the San Diego area, though the money he made combined with her modest income was barely enough to pay the bills. When Kevin was six months old, Casey had found a woman to take care of him during the day for a reasonable fee and gone back to work for Vernon Young Realty, the sales rep job she’d had when she met Spicer. It was the only way, she said, that they could make ends meet.
What finally sent the marriage skidding downhill was Spicer’s professional failures and frustrations. Better gigs eluded him; every tryout with a topflight band failed. And no one in the profession liked the elaborate piano compositions and band arrangements he wrote. He grew more and more moody and depressed. Lost his temper at the slightest provocation, threw screaming fits. Accused Casey of having affairs with neighbors, coworkers, strangers. Began drinking heavily, staying away from home for days at a time without explanation. Lost or quit one job after another.
Then, three years ago, things had gotten better for a time. Spicer’s whole attitude changed after his return from a road trip, became upbeat, cheerful. Their financial troubles were over, he told her, and proved it by paying off some of their debts and buying her and the boy presents. He claimed to have found a new, well-paying gig at the Beach Club in La Jolla, to have sold one of his jazz compositions to a large recording company. But he wouldn’t let her go with him to La Jolla to hear him play, and he was evasive when she asked who’d bought the composition.
She grew suspicious enough to drive to La Jolla alone one night. He wasn’t at the Beach Club; the management had never heard of him. In their apartment she went through his desk looking for, and not finding, a copy of the recording company contract he claimed to have signed. She confronted him the next day. He flew into a rage, refusing to explain why he’d lied to her or where the extra money was coming from. Warned her not to meddle in his private business.
“You don’t have any idea how much he had or was getting?” Fallon asked.
“No, but it had to be a lot from the way he was spending at first. Thousands.”
“More coming in over a period of time?”
“Yes. I think so.”
Spicer’s mystery income wasn’t enough to keep him happy. Not long after the confrontation he underwent another change, back to his Hyde persona with a vengeance. Long absences, verbal abuse when he was home, more heavy drinking, and the bar fight that led to his arrest for aggravated assault. Finally she’d had enough. Told him she wanted a divorce. He shoved her, threw her down on the couch-the closest he’d come to physical violence. Accused her of leaving him for another man. Threatened to “make her pay” if she went through with the divorce.
“That was the last straw,” she said. “I just couldn’t take it anymore. I hired a lawyer and took Kevin and moved out. He found out the new address and kept calling up at all hours, drunk or stoned and yelling obscenities. Then he got his own lawyer and sued for custody. Spite and hate, that’s all it was. He doesn’t give a damn about Kevin.
“I had no trouble getting the divorce, but the custody trial dragged on and on. Court put on a good show, the loving, misunderstood father, all that crap. The judge saw through it and gave me full custody.”
“What was Spicer’s reaction?”
“None at first. He didn’t make a scene or bother me afterward. But he had visitation rights, one weekend a month-there wasn’t anything I could do about that. The first few weekends, he brought Kevin home when he was supposed to. Then the last time he didn’t. He’d packed up and left, without a word to the landlord or anybody else. The police found his car later, abandoned, in El Cajon. If he bought another one, he must have done it under a different name.”
“Or had someone buy it for him,” Fallon said. “What about his friends?”
“He didn’t have any, at least none that I knew about. Just casual acquaintances, almost all of them musicians.” She paused and then said, “Eddie Sparrow.”
“Who’s he?”
“A trumpet player Court worked with once. That’s how Sam Ulbrich managed to trace Court to Las Vegas-Eddie Sparrow.”
Ulbrich had found out that Sparrow was playing with a jazz band at a club off the Vegas Strip, and gone there to interview him. Sparrow told him he’d run into Spicer at a private jam session the weekend before last, but hadn’t talked to him and didn’t know where he was living.
Fallon asked, “The club where Sparrow’s working-what’s it called?”
It took her a little time, but she dredged the name out of her memory. The Hot Licks Club.
“All right. Can you think of anyone Spicer might know in Vegas besides Eddie Sparrow?”
“No.”
“Did he ever take you to Vegas?”
“No.”
“Go there by himself?”
“The trio he was with had a four-week gig there once.”
“When was that?”
“A few years ago.” She paused. “You know, it was right before he came into all that extra money.”
“So the money may have come from some source in Vegas. Did he go back there after that?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did Ulbrich check with the musicians’ union to find out if Spicer’s working there now?”
“Yes. Court’s union card is still valid, but they wouldn’t give out any information about him.”
Fallon said, “Okay. Now tell me about Kevin.”
“Tell you what? Except for his asthma, he’s just a normal boy.”
“How bad is the asthma? Does he need to see a specialist?”
“No. Any doctor can prescribe his medication.”
“How do you think he reacted to being taken by his father?”
“Scared and bewildered. How else?”
“Would he try to run away if he had the chance?”
“No.”
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
“He’s always been cowed by Court. Afraid of him. If he tried to run and Court caught him… No, he wouldn’t do that.”
Fallon asked about the boy’s interests. Sports, outdoor activities?
“Well, he’s not good at team games. He’s quiet, shy, he doesn’t make friends easily. He’d rather read fantasy books like The Hobbit and play video games than anything else.”
“Good with computers?”
“Like all kids these days. But Court knows that. He wouldn’t let Kevin near a computer by himself.”
Fallon nodded. He let a few seconds pass before he said, “This isn’t going to be easy for you, but now I need to know about Banning.”
Her eyes slanted away again; he could see her steeling herself.
“You’re sure you never saw him before that day in the motel?”
“Positive,” she said.
“Never heard his voice before?”
“No. It was deep, growly… I’d remember if I had.”
“What exactly did he say to you on the phone?”
“He’d heard that I was looking for my son and ex-husband, that he knew Court and knew where they were living and he’d tell me for two thousand dollars. Bring the money to Las Vegas and he’d meet me and when I paid him, he’d tell me where to find them.”
“Did he say how he knew Spicer?”
“He said he’d tell me when he saw me.”
“Did he use Sam Ulbrich’s name?”
“No. Why should he?”
“No reason, unless he got your number from Ulbrich.”
“… Are you saying Sam Ulbrich helped set me up?”
“I don’t know Sam Ulbrich.”
“Neither did I, before I hired him. I picked his name out of the phone book. His office isn’t far from where I live.”
“He didn’t have to know you or Spicer to set you up,” Fallon said. “Detectives can be bought off during the course of an investigation.”
“I don’t believe it. He was very professional, he didn’t try to overcharge me or anything like that. For God’s sake, Court isn’t that powerful. He doesn’t have unlimited funds, he can’t corrupt everybody.”
“So we’ll assume Ulbrich’s clean. Let’s get back to Banning. You agreed to his terms, and he told you when and where to meet him.”
“The Rest-a-While Motel, room twenty, at three o’clock Wednesday afternoon.”
Fallon asked where the motel was located. North Las Vegas, she said, on North Rancho Drive. She didn’t remember the exact address. Small, old, nondescript-the cut-rate type of place.
“Was the room reserved in your name?”
“No, Banning said I was to check in and wait for him in number twenty. But I think the clerk may have been expecting me.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t have to ask for room twenty. As soon as he saw my name on the registration card, he gave me the key.”
He asked if she’d gotten the clerk’s name. She hadn’t. But she remembered the man well enough: midforties, balding, slightly built but with a noticeable paunch.
“How long were you in the room before Banning showed up?”
“About ten minutes.”
So he’d either had surveillance on the motel, so he knew when she arrived, or he’d got a call from the clerk. He’d been somewhere close by, in any case. “Describe him.”
After a few seconds she said, “Not handsome, not ugly. About your height, six feet. Heavyset but not fat. Strong. I couldn’t fight him. I couldn’t even scream with his hand on my throat. He-”
“Don’t dwell on that. How old?”
“Thirties. Maybe thirty-five.”
“Hair color?”
“Black. Short and kinky.”
“Distinguishing marks? Scars, moles, anything like that.”
“A tattoo. On the back of his right wrist.”
“What kind of tattoo?”
“A dragon. Breathing fire.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Brown leather jacket. Slacks, shirt, cowboy boots…” She paused, frowning. “He had something odd in the jacket pocket. It fell out when he took the jacket off and he grabbed it and stuffed it back-quick, as if he didn’t want me to see it.”
“Did you get a good look at it?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure it was a garter. Gold, with black ruffles around the edge. I think it had writing on it.”
“Writing?”
“A name of some kind.”
Not a woman’s garter, then. A sleeve garter. Some casino employees- floor bosses, dealers, croupiers, stickmen, bartenders-wore them. The name on it could be that of a casino.
“Can you remember anything else about him?”
“He wore a ring, a big gold cat’s-eye ring. One of the times he hit me, it cut my cheek.”
“You’re doing fine,” Fallon said. “Now, what about his car?”
“I didn’t see it. I didn’t even hear him drive up.”
“Okay. What did he say to you when you let him in?”
“Just… ‘I’m Banning.’ He was smiling.”
“And then?”
“He asked if I’d brought the money and I said yes and took it out of my purse and gave it to him. He counted it before he put it in his pocket. Then… then his smile changed and he said, ‘All right, now you get what’s coming to you,’ and that’s when he grabbed me and threw me down on the bed. It all happened so fast…”
“When did he deliver the warning? While he was attacking you?”
“No. After he… afterwards.”
“Can you remember his exact words?”
She’d picked up her coffee cup; the question made her put it down again, hard, so that it rattled the saucer and nearly tipped over. “I’ll never forget it. ‘Message from your ex-husband. Stop looking for him and the kid. If you don’t, he’ll find you and do what I just did to you and then he’ll kill you. And if you go to the police, I’ll find you and fuck you again and then I’ll kill you.’ ”
“That all?”
“Isn’t it enough?”
She had begun to rock slightly, back and forth. There were goose bumps, he saw, rising on her bare arms. The conversation, the chilly air in the room, physiological reaction to the sunburns.
He said, “That’s enough for now. You’d better lie down for a while, get some rest.”
“I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not. Not yet.”
He got up to turn the air-conditioning unit down to medium cool. She wouldn’t let him help her to the bed. When she was lying down with a sheet over her lower body, she said, “What are you going to do now?”
“Go see about your car. It should’ve been towed in by this time and if it’s not too badly damaged, the mechanics ought to have it ready to drive by to- morrow. You won’t be ready to travel before then anyway. Probably not until Monday.”
“I can’t just sit around in this cabin for two more days…”
“You will if you want my help.” He went to the writing desk, found a piece of cheap motel stationery and a pen. “What’s your cell phone number?”
She gave it to him and he wrote it down. Then he tore the paper across the middle, pocketed the top half, and on the clean bottom portion wrote his cell number. He put that piece on the nightstand.
“Call me if you need to at any time. Otherwise I’ll call you.”
“From where? Where are you going?”
Fallon smiled wryly. “The other side of silence.”
“What?”
“Vegas,” he said, “where else?”