Rage Against the Dying

Thirty-eight





I must have eaten the burrito during a blackout, because the next morning when I stumbled into the bathroom I found dried guacamole on my nose and the burrito was gone. I was still dressed so after I washed my nose I went to the hotel restaurant, where they have a breakfast buffet, and got myself plenty of bread and coffee to bring back to the room. While I was eating and wallowing in the remnants of the previous night’s self-pity, I turned on the Weather Channel for the week’s prediction (hot, hot, hot, rain, rain, hot, rain). Staring at the screen I thought about where my life stood, in no particular order:

Zachariah Robertson, the man who symbolized everything good I had ever accomplished, and everything I had failed to do, had killed himself while in my care.

Floyd Lynch, the closest I’d ever gotten to discovering the killer of Jessica Robertson, was dead.

Despite my best efforts at being the perfect wife, my marriage was ruined.

Max was going to find the evidence that I had killed Gerald Peasil and would make me do time.

Someone had tried to kill me twice and there was no reason to think that someone wouldn’t try again.

After having such a hard-on to prove Lynch’s innocence, Agent Laura Coleman hadn’t returned my messages for forty-eight hours, hadn’t been interested enough to show up for Lynch’s plea. No one but me seemed to think there was something odd about that. Something, I was finally recognizing, sinister.

There was something linking it all, but everything had happened so quickly I couldn’t stop long enough to think about any one event, let alone how they were connected.

Couldn’t just one thing go right? I clicked to local news, and, as if in answer to my question, I discovered that after being shot by the father of one of his victims, Floyd Lynch was in critical but stable condition at the Tucson Trauma Center

I realize life has to be pretty bad when that was the good news. But good news it was. While Lynch remained alive there was the chance of getting all kinds of questions answered.

Besides, I couldn’t sit around a hotel room feeling sorry for myself. I needed to find Coleman, make sure she was all right, and finish Lynch’s investigation. I owed that much to Zach. First I needed to find out how long Lynch might remain in the hospital.

Before that I needed a shower. The sweet and sour smells of Zach’s blood from the day before mixed with the vodka and the burrito reminded me I couldn’t remember when last I had bathed.

I took a long hot one, washed and dried my hair, and put on clean clothes out of my garbage bag.

Next. I called Gordo and told him I wasn’t living at home anymore, that he needed to step up his protection. He didn’t ask why. Good old Gordo.

Next was no option. Lynch was stable and secure for the time being, and my concerns for Coleman grew the more I thought about it. It suddenly occurred to me she hadn’t even called me after the courthouse shootings. Even if she was at her parents’ place, even if one of them was gravely ill, she would have seen it on the news and called me. I phoned Maisie Dickens.

“Maisie, I finally heard from Agent Coleman.”

“Good. Last time she e-mailed I told her you were looking for her.”

I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or bad thing, but I’d work with it. “Thanks, having you tell her must have helped. She told me to meet her at her house.”

“She’s taking some time off, I think. Lord knows she’s got the vacation days piled up.”

I was glad to see that Maisie was in confiding mode. “Yes, and just between us, she’s needing some girl talk.”

“Oh, does it have to do with her being taken off the Lynch case? And wasn’t that something about him getting shot? I knew she was upset the other day but she never talks to me.”

“That’s our Laura, always trying to hang tough. The thing is, she hung up without giving me her address, kind of distracted, you know? I was there once but can’t remember. You know how it is.”

Maisie is menopausal. She knows how it is. “She called you? She must really need to talk.”

“Mmm. I tried calling her back but can’t get through, and I’m supposed to be over there in half an hour. Can you give me her address?”

“Not protocol, Brigid. You know that.”

“Come on, just between us old gals. How dangerous could I be?”

That was alarmingly easy. I heard Maisie tap tapping on her computer, and in a second she gave me an address on Elm Street in the Sam Hughes historical neighborhood near the university.

“Give her my love, would you?”

“What a sweetheart you are. I sure will, Maisie.”

I closed the phone, tossed the good clothes out of the garbage bag onto the other bed, and left the bloodstained clothes in it. I had already delayed hiding them to my great regret, and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again, even if it meant driving out of my way. I wouldn’t even take the chance of a Dumpster.

I carried my tote and the bag with the bloody clothes outside to the parking lot. I looked where I had parked my car last and didn’t see it. I panicked. That was all I needed, to have my car stolen.

Then I remembered my car was parked at the bar because I’d been too drunk to drive the night before. I threw the bag over my shoulder and headed the mile down around the corner to the bar, feeling like any other homeless person who traversed this stretch. It was already hotter than hell but the exercise would get the rest of the alcohol out of my system.

I found my car safely parked in their small lot where I had left it. I would have liked to make a discreet exit, but Emery drew up in a beige Hyundai, with Cheri watching me from the passenger’s seat. I cringed inwardly but with proper barkeep attitude they simply waved me off, not showing any embarrassing concern.

I headed north on Campbell, up where it turns into one of those roads that you see on a map hemmed by little green dots indicating they’re scenic. Usually I enjoyed driving around these twists just a little faster than speed limit, feeling my tires hug the asphalt, but this time I hardly noticed. I turned left on Ina, a short distance, then right on Oracle.

Set against the idyllic backdrop of the Pusch Ridge section of the Catalina Mountains is the U-Store-It storage company. Set within the storage building is my space, about as big as half a garage, where I keep my private collection of weaponry.

I moved aside a few boxes of old case files and shells and tucked the plastic bag behind a safe close to the back wall. Hiding the clothes made me recall how I was not a killer but sure had learned a lot from them. If I became a real suspect in the killing of Gerald Peasil they’d access my credit card, find this storage facility charged to it, and get a search warrant. But for the short term the clothes were safe here until I had the time to dispose of them more thoroughly.

Turning my attention to the dinky .38 I had in my tote, I twisted the dial on the safe and opened it to reveal several rifles, a single-barrel shotgun, and half a dozen small arms. From that cache I selected and loaded a 1911, a .45 that was guaranteed to kick some major ass, to keep in my trunk just in case I ran into something ugly at Coleman’s house. I grabbed an extra box of ammo. When I emerged with my tote bag heavier than when I went in, I glanced around to make sure no was watching me.

Then, feeling just this much more confident that I would not be discovered, provided I could trust my husband to keep my secret, I headed back the way I had come, down into the city, to the address on Elm Street that Maisie had provided. I pulled up in front of a nice, tidy little hacienda with lots of purple bougainvillea out front, but the thing that got my attention immediately wasn’t Coleman’s house. It was her Prius, parked in the driveway, in front of the closed garage door.