Hour of the Hunter (8 page)

The waning afternoon sun scorched the ground around him. No one had yet ventured into the deserted rest-area parking lot by the time he returned to his victim's car. He helped himself to another beer-still cold, thank God-and started the Toyota. He turned off the air-conditioning and drove down the freeway with the windows open, letting the hot desert air flow freely over his body. It was outside air.

He was free.

Fortunately, there was plenty of gas in the car, so he didn't have to stop before he got to Phoenix. He drove straight to the Park Central Mall in Phoenix proper and parked in an empty corner of the lot.

There, as afternoon turned to evening, he went through the woman's purse and removed all the cash, over two hundred dollars' worth.

Beneath the seat he discovered a gun, a Llarna .380 automatic. He had planned to take nothing that belonged to his victim, nothing that could tie him back to her, but the weapon was more temptation than he could resist. Trying to purchase a weapon if he wanted one later might cause people to ask questions. So he pocketed the gun.

Carefully, systematically, he went over every surface in the vehicle, wiping it clean of prints. Then he did the same to the beer cans and jewelry before he took them to a nearby trash can. The clothing he ditched in another can, this one at Thomas Mall on his way to the airport.

Sky Harbor was his last stop. Once there, he pulled into the long-term lot and took a ticket. One last time he wiped down everything he remembered touching since Park Mall-the door handle, steering wheel, gearshift, window knob, and keys. Then, placing the newly wiped keys back in the ignition, he got out of the car and walked away.

It was dark by then and much cooler. In the hubbub and hurry of the airport, no one noticed him walk away.

It would be a five-mile hike to his mother's new house in Tempe, but he wasn't afraid of walking. in fact, walking that far would be a real treat.

Chapter Four

AROUND SEVEN, BRANDON Walker emerged from his cubicle and ventured down the hallway, hoping to bum a cigarette and some company from Hank Maddern in Dispatch.

"Who knows. . ." Brandon began by way of greeting, walking up behind the dispatcher's back.

it ... what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Maddern finished without turning. Both men laughed.

The intro to the old radio show The Shadow was a private in-crowd joke, shared among the grunts of the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

Professional police officers called themselves Shadows to differentiate between themselves and the political hacks who, with plum appointments, held most key jobs.

Sheriff DuShane, reelected over and over by comfortable margins, had himself one hell of a political machine, to say nothing of a lucrative handle on graft and corruption. One outraged deputy had printed up and distributed a bumper sticker that said, SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF.

GET A MASSAGE. He had been all too right; he was also no longer a deputy.

DuShane may have been crooked, but he was also nobody's fool. He knew the value and necessity of real cops to do the real jobs. That's where the Shadows came in. They did all the work, got none of the glory, and most of them wouldn't have had it any other way.

Hank Maddern, who had reigned supreme in Dispatch for more than ten years, held the dubious honor of being the most senior Shadow. He worked nights because he preferred working nights.

"Hey, Hank, got a smoke?" Brandon asked.

Maddern pulled a crumpled, almost-empty pack from his breast pocket and tossed it across the counter. "Didn't quit smoking, just quit buying?"

"I'll even up eventually," Brandon said, shaking out the next-to-last cigarette.

"Right. You working on a case or hiding out?" Hank Maddern knew some of what went on in Brandon Walker's home life because he often fielded Louella Walker's calls.

"Hiding out," Brandon admitted, breathing the smoke into his lungs.

"Too bad it's so quiet."

"Give it time. It's Friday. Things'll heat up."

As if on cue, the switchboard buzzed, and Maddem picked up the line.

Brandon, with the cigarette dangling almost forgotten between his fingers, lounged against the counter. He gazed off into space, letting his mind go blank.

He wasn't ready to go back to his cubicle, and he sure as hell wasn't ready to go home.

Maddern, listening intently on his headset, made a series of quick notes. "What was that name again? L-A-D-D, first name Diana?"

Immediately, Brandon Walker's attention was riveted on Maddern. Even after six years, Diana Ladd's name was one he remembered all too well.

What was going on with her now?

"The boy's name is David," Maddern continued. "Yeah, I've got that, and you're Dr. Rosemead? Repeat that number, Dr. Rosemead, and the address, too."

Maddern reviewed his notes as the doctor spoke, verifying the information he had already been given.

"Sure," he said. "I understand, it's not life-threatening, but you've got to talk to the mother. Right. We'll get someone on it right away.

You bet. No problem."

He dropped the line and reached for the duty roster, running his finger down the list, checking the availability of cars and deputies%.

"What's going on?" Brandon asked.

"Car accident. Out on the reservation. A kid's been hurt, but not seriously. Needs a few stitches is all. Unfortunately, they took him out to the Indian Health Service in Sells. The doc there can't lift a finger because the kid's an Anglo.

They've tried reaching the mother by phone. Ma Bell says the line's off hook."

"I'll go," Brandon Walker offered at once.

"You? How come? You're Homicide. I already told you, the kid's not hurt bad."

"I'll go," Walker insisted.

"You really don't want to go home, do you? But don't bother with this.

I've got a car out by Gates Pass right now.

"Gates Pass?" Brandon said. "Doesn't she still live in Topawa?"

Maddem did a double take. "You know the lady?"

Walker nodded grimly. "From years ago."

"If you want to take her the bad news, then, be my guest," Maddem continued. "But the address they gave me doesn't say Topawa. It's out by Gates Pass somewhere.

The telephone number is a Tucson exchange."

The dispatcher scribbled the phone number and address on another slip of paper and handed it over to Brandon just as the switchboard lit up again. Maddern turned to answer it, waving Brandon away. "Later," he said.

Brandon Walker didn't return to his cubicle. Instead, he hurried directly out to the parking lot where his unmarked Ford Galaxy waited.

It was almost dark, but the temperature inside the closed vehicle was still unbearably hot. Before leaving the lot, Walker rolled down all the windows. Switching on the air-conditioning was pointless didn't work. Repairs on grunts' cars got shunted to the bottom of the priority list when it came to departmental mechanics.

The air conditioner was out of order, but the high-output, police-pursuit engine roared to life as soon as Walker turned the key in the ignition. He peeled out of the parking lot in a hail of loose gravel and headed for Gates Pass, driving on automatic, his mind occupied elsewhere.

Diana Ladd. It had to be her. It didn't seem possible that there would be two women in town by that same name. She had made a big impression on him. How long ago was it?

June? Jesus, it had to be almost seven years ago since the first time he saw her. He had forgotten about her between times-had forced himself to forget because some things are too painful to remember.

When had she moved to town? Not town exactly. The address on Gates Pass Road indicated an almost wilderness area well outside Tucson's city limits. She would have had more company in the Teachers' Compound in Topawa, living in the shabby mobile home where he had first met her.

Had she stopped teaching on the reservation then?

Maybe she had taken a job with District Number One in Tucson. God, she'd been pretty. Even six months pregnant she'd been pretty. And defiant.

He remembered the last time he saw her as though it were yesterday.

They were standing in the crowded hallway of the Pima County Courthouse after the judge announced Andrew Carlisle's plea-bargaining agreement.

The old Indian lady-what was her name?-was sitting on a bench off to the side. Diana Ladd came up to him, grasping his sleeve with one hand while the other rested on her bulging belly. He avoided her gaze, not wanting to see the betrayal and hurt in her eyes, but he couldn't evade the accusation in her voice.

"How could you let them do it?" she demanded, outraged, indignant.

"How could you let them get away with-" "There was nothing I could do," he answered lamely. "I didn't have a choice."

"We all have choices," she'd returned icily.

Drawing herself stiffly erect, she marched away from him, walking with the awkward dignity of the profoundly pregnant. She went straight to the bench and helped the old Indian lady to her feet. The two women walked past him, the younger carefully leading the elder, as though the old woman were blind or crippled or both.

And Brandon Walker, left alone in the midst of a milling crowd, looked after them and wondered what he could have done differently. Of course, that was years ago now. He was no longer as green, as naive.

He knew now that Diana Ladd had probably been right all along. There were things he could have done, arms he could have twisted, debts he could have called that might have made a difference.

A golden sliver of moon peeked over the jagged-toothed canyon as he drove the winding road to Gates Pass. He had no delusions that Diana Ladd would appreciate his coming to find her and tell her the news.

Hearing about the accident from someone she knew, even someone she didn't like, would be less hurtful than hearing it from a complete stranger.

In his gut, he understood that, but Brandon Walker wasn't looking forward to the meeting. He knew Diana Ladd hadn't forgiven him for what had happened, and that was no surprise. He hadn't forgiven himself.

At that time, long ago, Rattlesnake's bite had no poison.

The children laughed at him and played with him and tossed him in the air. Sometimes, for a joke, they would pull out all his teeth. This made Ko'oi, Rattlesnake, very unhappy.

One day Ko'oi went crying to First Born. "The children are always teasing me and making me miserable.

Please change me so I can go live somewhere else and be happy."

First Born had already changed many of the animals, so Rattlesnake, pulled out all his teeth, and threw them They fell in the desert, and overnight grew into the mountains we call Ko'oi Tahtami, or Rattlesnake's Tooth.

In the morning, First Born gathered up a few small, sharp rocks from these mountains and threw them into some water. They grew sharp and white and long, just the way rattlesnake teeth are today. First Born gave them to Rattlesnake and said to him, "Here. Now the children will no longer torment you, but from this day on, you will have no friends.

You must crawl on your belly and live alone. If anything comes near you, you must bite it and kill it."

And that, nawoj, my Friend, is the story of how Ko'oi, Rattlesnake, got his teeth.

In a lifetime of serial matrimony, Myrna Louise Spaulding had worked her way through a list of last names far too numerous to remember.

Like overly zealous Chicago voters, she cast her ballot in favor of marriage, voting early and often. She always married for love, never for money. She always divorced for the same reason--4me love--which may have been true at the time but never lasted long. Myrna Louise wasn't a risk-taker. She never slipped one wedding band off her much-used ring finger without having a pretty good replacement prospect lined up and waiting in the wings.

Her son, Andrew Carlisle, found his mother's peculiar penchant disturbing at first, humorous later, and ultimately boring. In his opinion, if Myrna Louise had been any good at the game, she would have seen to it that she picked up a few good pieces of change here and there along the way.

But no. With one minor exception, she always targeted bums and the'er-do-wells who were far worse off mentally and financially than she was.

Her last husband, Jake Spaulding-who also happened to be her late husband-had managed to roll over and die before the divorce was final.

Much to her stepchildren's dismay, Jake died without first revising his Will. He left Myrna Louise in sole possession of the little family house on Weber Drive.

As a neighborhood, Weber Drive didn't have much to recommend it, unless you liked the multicolored jack-in-the-box on the corner, but the house constituted a roof over Myrna Louise's head for a change. On her meager pension and with the widow's mite she had lucked into after Jake Spaulding's timely death, she figured she'd barely be able to cover both taxes and utilities.

A bit down-at- the-heels, Weber Drive still managed to be respectable enough, and even a bit self-righteous. Myrna Louise had made tentative overtures of friendship toward some of the neighbors. She was determined to fit in here, to really belong someplace at last. Her son's unexpected arrival was a definite fly in the ointment. Those very same neighbors might well puff the welcome mat right out from under the mother of an ex-con.

"Why, what in the world are you doing here?" a stunned Myrna Louise demanded, covering her dismay as best she could when the opened door revealed her son waiting on her doorstep.

"I came to see my mama," he said with a smile. "I thought you'd be glad to see me after all this time."

"Oh, I am. Of course I am. Come in. Come in here right now. But why didn't you let me know you were coming?"

"Because I didn't know, not for sure, anyway. They like to keep people guessing until the very last minute. It makes for better control."

She dragged Andrew into the living room and stood looking fuzzily up at him. Myrna Louise should have taken to wearing glasses years before, but she usually couldn't afford it, and besides, she was far too vain.

A driver's license might have forced her into glasses earlier, but she'd never owned a car, not until now. Jake's car was still out in the garage.