Deadly Sanctuary (26 page)

“I do, don’t I?” I said, wondering how much longer I could maintain the phony smile. He backed out the door and threw me one last lecherous wink before exiting.

The man had no shame, I thought wryly, watching his car leave the parking lot. When I turned from the window Julie was headed to the back office when she whirled around and retraced her steps. “Could you listen for the phone for a few minutes?”

“You bet.” I watched her disappear down the hall, and seconds later heard her retching. I felt badly for her, but also exhilarated as a sudden thought struck me.

I raced to her office and made a beeline for the filing cabinet. It took me only a few tense minutes to locate the Dexter and Mendoza files. With the folders clutched in my shaking hands, I paused for a second to reflect on my impulsive decision. What was I doing? I, Kendall O’Dell, who had never stolen anything in my life, was about to make off with property belonging to the sheriffs’ department!

The squeak of the bathroom door opening made my heart drop. There was no time to find the files of the teenage girls, but I wasn’t about to lose these two. I closed the file drawer, thinking that Claudia had managed to deter me once today. It wasn’t going to happen again.

I sprinted to the lobby and slipped my hot properties underneath the log just as Julie rounded the corner. I hoped I didn’t look as guilty as I felt.

“Are you all right?”

“I feel like I’m gonna die,” she moaned. “I must’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with me.”

“It wasn’t Mexican food, was it?” I asked with a sympathetic smile, remembering the miserable night I had spent after too much salsa and too many hot tamales.

“No,” she answered.

Half-heartedly, I asked if she wanted me to stay until Duane returned, but she waved me away, saying she’d be all right.

With the stolen contraband burning my hands, I rushed to the truck. My throat was tight with excitement. It was tempting to go through the folders now, but the parking lot of the sheriff’s office was probably not a wise place for that.

The engine started with a roar and I headed back to the office, wondering if Tally had made good on his word to replace my battery. I kept glancing at the folders, absolutely dying to read them. With a groan of impatience, I realized that I had several more assignments to complete and dinner at Ginger’s looming before me. It would be hours until I would have time to study the files. After that, I’d have to figure out how in the world I was going to return them without Roy’s knowledge.

Tally had my battery charged by the time I got back to the office. I thanked him profusely, and by the warm expression in his eyes, I felt optimistic that the feelings of friendship between us had been rekindled. He expressed again how anxious he was for me to accompany him on the hayride since he was scheduled to be gone on a business trip for the following two weeks. I gave him my word I would be there.

I thought about calling Eric about my request for a shortened evening, but then remembered that he was out of town until Friday.

Dinner at Ginger’s was great, as always, but I was so preoccupied by what I might find in the folders I’d taken, it was difficult to concentrate on anything she said. Pleading a headache, I left early and rushed home. After changing into shorts and a T-shirt, I sat down crosslegged on the living room floor to study the data. The feeling of anxious anticipation raised goose bumps on my arms as I flipped open the first file.

A half-hour later, a cloud of disappointment settled over me. John Dexter’s file was so clean, it squeaked. In fact, it was absolutely flawless. And that’s what bothered me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on any one item, but I felt instinctively something was wrong. It appeared as though everything Roy related to me had actually occurred. There was, in addition to his write-up, the reports of the various sheriff’s posses that had been involved. The two week search appeared to have been extensive and thorough.

I pulled Roy’s copy of the traffic ticket out and studied it. At exactly 4:02 p.M., he had clocked John Dexter speeding south on highway 89 at seventy-eight miles per hour, just as he’d said. With a deep sigh of disgust, I slapped the folder shut.

If this was indeed a cover-up, Roy had done an admirable job. To an objective observer, it was a clear case of a man in a hurry who had planned to carefully disappear from sight. There was no hint of foul play, no sign of his vehicle, and no body ever found.

Violet Mendoza’s accident was another matter. After I read her folder from cover to cover, two things stood out in my mind. Number one, what had a woman of sixty-eight been doing at a run-down bar in one of the shabbiest sections of town at eleven o’clock on a Monday night? Secondly, it seemed suspicious to me that the original description of the vehicle given by the witness had been whited out. The report had been filled out in Duane’s handwriting, but the insertion was in Roy’s sloppy scrawl.

Supposedly, Violet had been struck by a dented green pickup with Sonoran plates. The report had been forwarded to the Mexican authorities, but Duane had added a note stating that he expected little cooperation from them. It was a simple case of hit and run. Case closed. One week later, enter Claudia.

At that point, my inner antenna was vibrating full tilt. Was it my imagination, or did the whole thing read like a Hollywood script? Everything appeared to be too damned perfect. I remembered Tugg’s request to report back to him, so even though it was close to ten, I was anxious to share my thoughts. I dialed his number. After I had gone over all the details I was just a tad annoyed that he seemed somewhat unimpressed with my findings.

“How are you going to get those files back?” he asked, as if that was the most important detail of our conversation.

“Let me worry about that. Now, what do you make of Violet Mendoza’s case?”

“I think you might be reading more into this than you should.”

It was difficult to keep the sarcasm from my voice. “You don’t think it was odd that she was mowed down outside a bar at eleven o’clock at night? Miles from where she lived? A woman of her age?”

Tugg’s voice sounded weary. “Listen. Everybody in town knew about Violet’s drunken brother Gilbert. He used to hang around several of the bars in town, including the Rattlesnake. It wasn’t unusual for the bartender to call Violet to come and get him now and then when he’d tied one on. That’s probably what happened. As far as the whiteout—well, maybe the witness changed his mind and Roy had to alter the description of the vehicle. It happens all the time.”

I was so nonplussed by his ready explanations, I couldn’t speak.

“Look, Kendall,” Tugg continued, his voice sympathetic, “I hate to throw cold water on your theory, especially after all the trouble you went through to get those files, but there’s just not enough here to print anything. I still need some physical evidence, a witness, a body, something. You know that.”

“Does Gilbert Mendoza still live here?”

“Nope. He disappeared a couple of months after Violet died. I heard he went back to Mexico.”

“I see.” Every direction I tried to move, a door slammed in my face.

I heard him yawn, so I said good-night. My gut feeling that all was not as it seemed stayed intact, even though Tugg’s explanation sounded quite plausible. By the time I settled into bed, I felt like I’d been whipped.

The next morning at work, it suddenly dawned on me that Dr. Price had never returned my phone call from last Tuesday. I looked up the number for Serenity House again. As before, I got the recording. I slammed the phone down so hard both Tally and Jim turned to stare at me.

“What’s eating you today?” Jim asked.

“I can’t believe this. Who ever heard of a mental institution with a recorded message?” I told both of them briefly about my near accident, then added, “I think his behavior is weird, to say the least.”

Jim quipped, “Hey, you’d probably act strange too if all you did was work around psychos all day. Maybe he’s too busy pumping ‘em full of tranquilizers and doing lobotomies to answer the phone. Ever think of that?”

I glared at him and turned to Tally. “You’ve lived here a long time. What do you know about Serenity House? I think it’s peculiar that no one in town seems to know much about it.”

He looked amused. “They don’t bother us, we don’t bother them.”

“Well, perhaps the rest of you don’t think there’s something odd about the place, but I do.”

“So what are you going to do? Scale the fence and sneak inside?” He had that challenging gleam in his eyes again.

“Maybe I’ll just do that.”

They both cracked up laughing and the conversation came to an abrupt end when Tugg called Tally to his office.

By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, I was tired and irritated. In a dusty room at the courthouse, I listened to the clock chime three and, yawning widely, arched away from the ancient wooden table, slamming the property tax records book shut. This was leading nowhere. So far, I had spent no less than five hours, either on the phone or talking to everyone I could think of, and, standing in line at the post office only to reach a big, fat zero.

I could find nothing to give me any clues to Claudia Phillips’ background. Either I was a rotten reporter, or she had no past. She owned no property and had no checking account at any of the local banks. That fact seemed very odd indeed. The car she drove was leased in the name of the shelter and no one in town seemed to know anything about her. She apparently had no relatives, boyfriends, or even lady friends. It was as if she had landed from Mars.

The only smidgen of information I gleaned, was that she had rented a post-office box when she had first arrived in Castle Valley five years ago. She had closed the box after one year. That might or might not be significant. But, I did know one thing—that was one of the best ways to keep your previous address a secret.

The student records administrator at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where Claudia had supposedly attended school, told me it would take days, perhaps weeks, to establish if she had been a student there. There was nothing listed under Claudia Phillips. Had she perhaps registered under another name? Did I know what years she attended? Could Phillips be her married name?

My spirits plummeted. For the second time in one day, I questioned my abilities. Why hadn’t I asked her those questions during our last interview? If I went back now it would seem extremely suspicious and I doubted she would sit still for such probing.

I got up, stretched, and headed outside into the blinding afternoon sunlight. During the short drive to the office, the conversation I’d had with attorney Mike Scott popped into my head. Perhaps he’d remembered something about her. A phone call was definitely in order.

No one had their minds on work when I returned to work. Jim, Lupe, Al and Rick were all gathered around Ginger’s desk, chattering about the barbecue at the Starfire Ranch. The air fairly crackled with excitement. They sounded like a bunch of kids waiting for the circus to come to town. “Hey there,” Ginger called when she noticed me. “Tugg said we could all skedaddle early if everything was done. He left about twenty minutes ago and Tally’s gone out yonder to the ranch to help set up.”

“I’m out of here,” Jim announced breezing past me.

“Right behind you,” Al yelled after him.

I smiled to myself. A Broadway show was exciting. An evening at Radio City Music Hall was exciting. To me, the much awaited cookout, probably complete with bugs and snakes, didn’t strike me as such a big deal. Then I had a sobering thought. Would the day come for me when the most stimulating event of my life would be a small-town barbecue?

Ginger used her hip to close her desk drawer then shut off the computer screen while reaching for her purse with the other hand. “Y’all coming?”

“No can do. I’ve got to finish up my article first. I guess the sooner I get it to Harry, the sooner he can leave too.”

“I guess we’ll see y’all later at the hayride.”

“That’s the plan.”

She gave me an impish wink. “Have fun with Eric tonight. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Well, unless it’s going to take place in the middle of a crowded restaurant, I don’t think you have to worry.”

Her musical laughter was still echoing in my ears as I moved to my desk. It took me a half-hour to put the finishing touches on my article and when I got it to the production room, Harry was pacing in obvious impatience. I apologized for being late as he anxiously grabbed the copy.

At my desk once more, I dug Mike Scott’s business card from the bottom of my purse and dialed his Phoenix number. His secretary kept me on hold for about five minutes before he came on the line. He remembered me immediately and asked if I was watching any of the French Open Tennis Tournament. I told him that I had been too busy. Had he, I asked, had an opportunity to think about where he had seen Claudia Phillips before?

“Gee, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve thought about it a couple of times since then and it bugs me that I haven’t been able to place where I’ve seen her before. I guess I’ll think of it eventually, but, if you don’t mind my asking, why are you so interested in her?”

I told him a little about my articles on the runaways and her involvement in the shelter. “That reminds me,” I said to him. “Does the name ‘Charles’ mean anything to you?”

“Charles who?”

“I don’t know the last name. All I know is that whoever this man is, I have the feeling she doesn’t like him very much.”

“Hmmmmm. Charles. Nope, I can’t tell you right now, but maybe that name will shake something loose.”

I thanked him and was about to hang up when he added, “I’m sorry I haven’t been much help in answering your questions, but I do have some other information you might find interesting.”

“What’s that?”

“Did you ever get that interview with Eric Heisler?”