Magician (22 page)

“You’re lucky not to be in a body cast,” I lectured him good-naturedly. “And getting out of here after a week is nothing short of a miracle.”

“I know, I know. I’m tired of living in constant dread of Jell-O and enemas.” He shook his head and shivered. “Cold. Fall’s finally arrived here, too.”

“Yeah. I guess we can head on back to Birmingham. It’ll be good to be home, even if the weather is terrible.” I held up two airline tickets for Tiller to see.

Tiller nodded. “It’s still a damn shame about Inspiration. I guess we pretty much ruined the fair. And we tarnished the town’s reputation considerably.”

“Mayor Claeren seems to think what happened will be a boon to the community. Says he can do a lot of things with the free publicity. Something tells me he’ll do it, too. He’s an amazing character. The important thing is, we’re alive.”

Tiller shrugged. “Never did see that damned monument.”

“What monument?”

“The Chiracahua National Monument. Where the nut bag visited when he first got here.” Tiller looked at me with a sleepy smile. “Want to ride over there?”

“For Christ’s sake, Tiller.”
 

Tiller shrugged. “We never have any fun.” He scratched his scruffy beard for a second. “What about Fain?”

“He’s got a lot to answer for here, before Birmingham brings him to trial in the Champion case.”

“I know that. I mean, have you already gone to . . . you know.”

“To see him? No, I haven’t.”

“Why not?” We had reached the car. Tiller took the crutch from under his arm, and I opened the door for him.

“Sheriff Payne has the matter well in hand. What do I want to see him for?”

“Damn, I hate those pop psychology buzzwords. But
closure
is a good word, I guess. There it is. To put an end to the whole damned thing.”

I smiled as I held the door open. “Closure. That won’t happen for me until they find Georgia Champion.”

“Find her. I assume that you mean find her remains? I also take it that Mr. Fain hasn’t said anything?”

“He hasn’t spoken to anyone, as far as I know. He’s in the hospital up in Tucson, in serious but stable condition. Under heavy guard, of course.”

“Well, barring any future revelations from Samson Manley Fain, I guess that does about make it a wrap, then. You know, Roland, we do make a pretty good team.”

“I think so, too. We’ll have to do it again some time.”

Tiller nodded, and slid into the new rental car. It was sleek, and black. “I see you finally managed to find a Buick.”

“A man has to know what he likes.”

Chapter 30

“Hey, I think that’s our plane that just landed.”

I raised my head. I’d been dozing in the airport while we waited for our flight home. “Ah, good.”

Tiller nudged me. “Roland, you know how you always say, a man has to know what he likes?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Don’t look now, but one of those ‘things you like’ just appeared down the concourse.” Tiller whispered through his newspaper. “I think that she’s headed this way, too.”

I looked up and my eyes met Traci’s across the bustling corridor. “I guess she came to see me off.” I looked back at Tiller, who shielded himself with his newspaper.

“I’ll just go say goodbye,” I volunteered. Tiller remained silent behind his newspaper.

I found my way over to Traci and gave her a hug. “My hero,” I said.

I let go and held her at arm’s length. She raised an eyebrow.
 

“So this is, as the saying goes, goodbye. I guess some things just don’t happen like we want them to.” Her voice sounded almost sad, but she wore a bemused smile.

“That’s true, Traci. Sometimes they don’t.”

“Well, you got the bad guy. But you know, you could have gotten the girl, too.”

“You give me too much credit. Seems to me that it was you that took down the bad guy.”

“Well, you weakened him a little. Helps if you hit him with a big Jeep. But what I meant was this.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled my head down to her level, and kissed me. I didn’t pull away.

Another time and place, and I would stay here with this girl.

I stepped back and looked down at her. She wiped away the solitary tear she had allowed herself, then turned and walked away.

Chapter 31

“I’m glad you came back to me, after all that happened,” Viv said to me as she sat down on the sofa. She had put the stereo on a station that played good music. Billy Holliday was singing about a child that had its own.

“I told you, I went on business.”

“Are you always pursued by female contortionists on these business trips?”

“Most of the time. Pursued, but never caught yet.”

“And what about now? Have I caught you?”

“You might say that I am in your protective custody.”

“Well, since I am protecting you at the moment, and not some redhead from the circus, I think I’ll keep you here for a few days.”

“That sure sounds great. I’m kind of tired of trouble at the moment.”

She smiled and got to her feet and went into the kitchen.
 

I smiled as I watched her go. I wondered if I was too old-fashioned for someone like Traci. She had been beautiful, exotic, totally unlike any woman I had ever known.

And face it, that scared me to death.

No, I answered my always chiding inner voice, there was more. Maybe we had no spoken commitment, but somehow, already, there was a bond of some sort between us. Tenuous, even flimsy perhaps—but it was there.

Billy Holliday had finished singing. Now a somber announcer came on and recapped the day’s headlines. The Braves had won again, the Mideast peace talks were going nowhere; and, repeating tonight’s top story, recently captured child murderer Samson Fain had escaped.

Viv had walked back into the room, a spatula in her hand. Time stopped for a second.

“Did he just say what I thought he said?”

Chapter 32

I walked into the Dead Letter Office without knocking. “I came as soon as I heard the news,” I said to Tiller, who sat watching the TV. The news of Fain’s escape was on all the networks.

Tiller answered without looking up, “What do you think, Roland? Egg on our faces. I doubt that they’ll ever catch that big bastard again.”

“Come on, Tiller, of course they will. We gave the FBI all that information we had collected. Fain might be out again, but he’s up against too many professionals now, people who know what to look for, and where to look. He’s good at disappearing, but now they know his tricks. Besides, he’s still weak from what happened in Inspiration. He won’t get away. They’ll catch him, you’ll see.”

“Do you really believe that?” Tiller asked pointedly, looking at me steadily.

I said nothing in response, but dropped into the chair beside the desk.
 

We sat and watched the news, which showed footage of Fain arriving at the Birmingham Airport in the custody of the FBI. Fain appeared massive but bowed, and several cuts marred his face. He was clad in the customary orange coveralls and manacles, and surrounded by a squad of FBI agents.

“This footage has practically run on a loop since the escape,” Tiller snorted. He seemed as if he wanted to say something more, but the words would not come.

A young woman’s voice, professional and detached, purred along with the broadcast.

“In a statement issued this morning, the Birmingham Police Department said that Samson Manley Fain managed to escape from St. Gerard’s Hospital this morning while under heavy guard. When asked whether this was due to police negligence, Commissioner Carter declined comment.”

The scene changed to the still smoldering ruins of the Inspiration fairgrounds.
 

“Arizona Police captured Fain with the assistance of Birmingham authorities, after a sensational gun battle near Douglas, Arizona that caused extensive damage to a traveling show that was wintering in the area.”

“Glad to see the local news is still accurate as ever,” Tiller noted glumly.

The scene changed once more. The Champions were giving a news conference, and Horace Champion was being given full sway by the salivating press.
 

“Let me reiterate,” Champion was emoting to a room full of reporters, his face wet with tears, “our position is stronger than ever. We will go on fighting this battle with all of our resources until our beloved daughter is returned safe and sound to her home.”

The report ended with a still of Fain, sitting in the back of a police car, smiling. Underneath it was the byline:

 
Suspected Child Abductor Escapes.

This image became the background for an athletic-looking anchorman with perfect hair and a deadly earnest expression. “We’ll be bringing you round the clock coverage of this story as it develops,” vowed the grim-faced young man.

“I’d like to know what in hell he thinks is going to develop,” Tiller mused.
 

“They just told all that there was to tell,” I said by way of agreement.
 

“Yeah,” Tiller grunted, “and most of that was bullshit.”

We were both silent for a long while. Finally, I spoke again. “What do you think he did with her?”

“I was going to ask you.”

“Until he confesses, none of us will know.”

“Roland, that isn’t exactly what I mean. In that damn ghost town, Cauchemar. It all came together out there. The name itself proves Fain had knowledge of the place beforehand, when he abducted Georgia Champion. He told you he used the same van. These things mean that he, in all likelihood,
took her all the way out there,
God save that poor kid’s soul. Fain admitted Kenny Joiner had been right about what he saw the day of the abduction. He as much as admitted to the other killings, in his statements to you.”

“You put it together nicely. All of those things are true. But I take it there is something else bothering you.”

Tiller had a strange light in his eyes. “A hell of a lot still bothers me. But chiefly this: You said you saw her out there, Roland. Georgia Champion.”

I looked at the floor. The image came back to me. “Yes. I thought that maybe I had.”

Tiller leaned closer, and his voice became a shade darker.

“I know you believed what you saw, out there in the desert. But what I mean is, do you
still
believe it? Was it really her, out there, after all this time?”

I sat still, my chin resting on my hands, deep in thought. Tiller let me have all the time I needed to formulate my answer. “You were unconscious, Tiller. I was pretty beaten up, and I’d been unconscious, also. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe what I saw was a hallucination. But there she was, as clear to me as you are now, older than her picture, and smiling at me.” I shook my head, whether to be rid of the image, or bring it into sharper focus, I wasn’t sure.

“When I woke up in that emergency room, after the fire and all that happened at Inspiration, I expected them to tell me that Sheriff Payne’s men had found her at Cauchemar. But of course they had found nothing, not so much as a footprint.”

Tiller spoke again, and his voice carried a nervous note, as if unsure if he should press the issue. “What I mean, is, Roland, was she really there? You think so, don’t you?”

I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to answer that question.

Epilogue

Outside, it was raining. Inside, it was dark. Viv had taken one look at me and decided that I needed some serious downtime, which included a few evenings and afternoons together with her. It was early evening, and we hadn’t stirred from the house all day. I looked at her face as we lay in the dim bedroom. She was half asleep, breathing softly, peacefully.

I still hadn’t told her everything about Inspiration; parts of it were just too dark. She had been horrified at my battered appearance when she had met me at the airport. I doubted I would ever tell her the whole story, especially the part about seeing Georgia Champion.
 

Viv turned over and put her hand briefly on my cheek and murmured something about the mail. I caressed her back for a second, then slipped out of bed and put my feet into the slippers she’d bought me upon my return.
 

I donned my raincoat and went out to the curb. It was the middle of October, and getting colder in Birmingham, a remarkable contrast to the Arizona desert of just a couple of weeks ago.

I opened the mailbox and peered inside. There was quite a stack. I had been careless with the mail, and other things, the last few days. I chided myself. Was this the first stages of love? One never gets too old for some things, I smiled to himself.
 

Thank God for that.