R.P. Dahlke - Dead Red 04 - A Dead Red Alibi (5 page)

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Chapter Seven:

I was surprised at how many eateries there were in downtown Wishbone. Everything from pizza to a five star restaurant. We chose
The Table
because we could get in without reservations.

“My chicken taco
s were great,” I said, licking sauce from my fingers. “How was your salad?”

Dad reached across the table to steal my last French fry. “Better with fries. I’ll pay the bill if you want to step outside and call Caleb.”

“Do I have to?” It was a rhetorical question since we both knew this call was inevitable. My problem was that I needed Caleb’s help. My dilemma was that I also missed him terribly. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry for taking off without waiting for his explanation, but I didn’t know how to apologize and in the next breath ask for his help. I pushed back my chair and picked up my purse. If anyone deserved to eat humble pie, it was me.

I
plodded outside, punched in Caleb’s number and sighed, ready to apologize first, then ask for help.

“
Bueno
?”

I opened my mouth and then shut it. Was this a joke? “Caleb?”

There was silence on the line then the phone clicked off. What the…? Maybe I didn’t have the right area code. I punched in the ten numbers and got the same answer.

“
Bueno
?”

“Who the hell is this?”

“Is me, and this my phone now, bitch. Don’ call here no more or I come bust you up.”

My dad sauntered
through the exit, but one look at the shock and distress on my face and he stuttered, “Wh-What’s wrong?”

I held out my hand. “Do you have your cell phone with you?”

“I almost never go anywhere without it these days, but not today, or I’d have used it to call for help. Isn’t yours working?”

I handed him my phone. “Just call Caleb, will you? If he answers you can hand me the phone.”

He did as I asked, listened, blinked and closed the phone. “Someone swore at me in Spanish and hung up. Is that what happened to you?”

“Something’s wrong.” I looked at my watch. “It’s late, but maybe
I can get someone at the Sheriff’s office.”

I punched in the number
and got the night operator.

When I asked for Sheriff Caleb Stone, the woman said he was on vacation.

“Yes, I know that but this is an emergency. I need to reach him right now.”

“If this is
an emergency please call 9-1-1.”

“No, it’s personal.”

“Oh honey, you’re about a year too late on that one. The man is on his honeymoon.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard too.” I thanked her and hung up. “No help there. He’s gone on his honeymoon—without me.”

“Think he lost his cell and some Mexican picked it up?”

“And then swear at the caller when they answer? What the hell is going on?”

“He’s in trouble, then?”

“Don’t say that. Not yet. I’m calling his deputy, Kenny Everett. He might know something.”

Kenny knew the wedding was off, but not Caleb’s whereabouts. “All’s he told me was that he was leaving town. He looked so down in the mouth, I didn’t want to ask where he was going, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. The problem is, Kenny, someone has his cell phone and they aren’t
offering to take messages. He may be hurt. Can you put out a locator on the cell phone and see what turns up?”

“Sure,
Lalla. Can I reach you at this number?”

I hesitated. We’d planned on returning to the ranch tonight, but with no cell service and still no
landline we were stuck in town until we heard back from Kenny. “Yes, please. Call me when you hear something, and thanks.”

My dad shuffled from one foot to the other. “Where do you think he went?”

“I have no idea. Mendocino was my idea, not his. He would’ve been happy with a beach
palapa
in Ensenada. Regardless, we have to stay in town in case Kenny calls. If we don’t hear from him tonight, we’ll get help tomorrow.”

Dad pointed ac
ross the street. “There’s a big hotel. Lights are still on. Let’s try there.”

The Copper Queen Hotel had been renovated to accommodate a burgeoning tourist trade. Gaslights were now wired for electricity and old black and white photos lined the walls to tell the story of fortunes found and lost in the heyday of Arizona mining. Lucky for us, the night clerk had one room left. The honeymoon suite, we were assured, had a sitting room with a pull out couch. I whipped out my credit card before Dad caught a whiff of the expensive bill and insisted we
instead find a park bench. I was exhausted, and God knows my dad was fading fast.

I put him to bed in the sitting room, and sat down to call everyone and anyone I knew in Modesto.

I woke up Roxanne, worry in her voice at my late night call. “He lost his phone and someone else is using it? That can be traced, you know.”

“Yes,” I said. “Kenny Everett is on it, but for now, if someone in town knows, or thinks they know where he went, it sure would help alleviate my fear.”

Roxanne waited a beat, letting me know my fear wouldn’t be riding shotgun if I hadn’t run off to Arizona.

Rushing to my own defense I
stupidly blathered a silly line, “It is what it is, Roxy.”

“Nonsense. I left you all those messages. Texted you, too, didn’t I? How was the man to know that his five minute pit stop at a 7-11 would put him between a needle junkie and a scared Pakistani shop owner? Still, you could’ve taken a phone call from him—or your friends.”

My head hurt, my stomach hurt worse, and I didn’t think I could say another word without breaking down completely. I knew my voice trembled when I rushed to end the call with a promise to let her know if I found out he was okay. I closed the cell and rested my head between my hands. Oh God, what have I done? I’d stupidly left him with no recourse but to take his paid vacation time some place where, at the very least, his cell phone would fall into the hands of thieves.

Unable to sleep, I trolled through the mini bar looking for candy then turned on the TV.

I had half a Mars bar in my mouth when my cell phone rang. I answered and a growly voice asked, “Is this Miss Lalla Bains?”

I spat the candy into my hand. “Yes, this is she. Who’s calling?”

“This is Deputy Simon from the Cochise County Sheriff’s office, we got Caleb Stone here and he’d like for you to pick him up.”

“Did you say Cochise County?”

“Yes, ma’am. Sierra Vista substation.”

Sierra Vista was an hour away, tops. What the hell was he doing in Arizona?

“Yes, of course I’ll come pick him up. Has he been in an accident? Is he injured?”

“Oh no, ma’am, though he wasn’t wearing anything but his skivvies when we found him. At first, we thought he was drunk, staggering along the highway, but the EMTs looked him over and he was just suffering from exposure and dehydration, the victim of some darn coyote.”

“An animal?”

His growly voice rumbled with laughter.

“Oh, no ma’am. These’re smugglers. Every once in a while they highjack a car or a truck.” The deputy seemed pleased to educate someone new on the subject. “They get one of the women to lie out on the road and when an unsuspecting driver stops, the men run out and snatch the car and keys. Evidently, this one had a gun and got not only your friend’s truck, but his wallet and boots. I think he’s madder about his boots than anything. He said they were expensive.”

This was Caleb a
ll right. He loved those boots, and had them worn in just right and I knew the thought of losing them would annoy him to pieces.

I was d
umbfounded but relieved that Caleb was here in Arizona. “Where do I pick him up, at your county jail?”

“Yes
ma’am. Like I said, he’s at our substation in Sierra Vista. You familiar with the town?”

“Give me an address.”

“East on Highway 90 to Colonia de Salud. It’s a short street, and we’re on the right. He’ll be in the lobby.”

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” I said, wedging the cell between my shoulder and my ear while I dragged on my boots.

“And one other thing?”

“Yes?” Another man who likes to drop
one other thing
on me.

“Sheriff Stone
will be wearing one of our two piece suits and plastic flip-flops, but you’re not going to want to take him out in public, if you know what I mean. Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you’d return the gear.”

“I’ll be sure to do that, Deputy. See you soon.”

I closed the phone and took a deep breath. If only I’d nailed my feet to the floor at Roxanne’s Café for fifteen more minutes, Caleb and I would be married, and on our honeymoon right now. But because I couldn’t handle the embarrassment, my dad spent most of today cozied up to a dead police chief, while Caleb got car-jacked, robbed of his wallet, cell phone and clothes and spent his first day in Arizona wandering half-naked in the desert. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen lousy minutes and a chain reaction rolled downhill to become a catastrophe.

Karma had
once again spun around and kicked me in the head. Maybe it was just relief from the tension of today, but suddenly it all struck me as terribly funny.

My smile erupted into a fit of giggles and then laughter bubbled over. I wiped at tears running down my cheeks. I was laughing so hard I doubled over w
ith the pain of it.

The two most important men in my life, the ones who had been as constant as night and day for as long as I could remember, and who, when the chips were down, were there for me, had been maul
ed in the wake of my stupidity.

I wiped at my tears and stilled the ache of laughter in my stomach. Just the same, I couldn’t
stop the smile on my lips. Yes, Caleb had been dangerously close to losing more than just his wallet and clothes, but what would be the point of me rushing in to throw myself into his arms, declaring my undying love, when I could get so much more mileage out this with just a bit of finessing on my part?

I would fish him out of his puddle of trouble and while he was still vulnerable, bring him back to the hotel, clean him up, listen patiently to his well-rehearsed explanation for leaving
me
at the altar. Then maybe, just maybe, I would succumb to his pitiful groveling.

I pocketed the keys to my dad’s Jeep, and softly closing the door behind me, took the stairs to pick up my erst
while fiancé.

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Chapter Eight:

I awoke with Caleb’s arm
slung across my chest, and morning sun strafing my face.

After seeing Caleb’s pitiful condition, his sunburned face, dry and cracked lips, m
y defenses crumbled. But it was when he said, “I wasn’t going to let a little inconvenience like no shoes, shirt or pants keep me from you
,
” that I threw my arms around him, sobbing and wetting his jail issued shirt with my tears.

I spent the next hour ministering to his blistered and scratched skin and listening to his pitiful tale of lurching through mesquite, brush and heat.

“But it was when I met Jerry Lee Lewis pounding out Great
Balls of Fire
on a white baby grand that I knew I had to find the road or I was going to die out there.”

“Poor darling,” I said, adding some cream to his sunburned scalp.

I had decided not to tell Caleb about the murders, knowing if I did that, we’d never get any sleep, and we both needed our rest. Tomorrow, I would call the detective, introduce him to Caleb, and maybe change his mind about allowing us to leave.

Too tired to do anything other than hold each other, I clung to him until we
drifted into dreamless sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~

A toilet flushed. My dad was up, and had to have passed the bed and seen Caleb with me. I looked at my watch—seven thirty, and for an aero-ag pilot it might as well be the crack of noon. I stretched and yawned, now very grateful that Caleb was safe and, better yet, that we were together again.

My dad came out of the bathroom, his gray hair wet from a quick wash up, still in yesterday’s dusty clothes from
his unplanned stay in the mine pit. Seeing I was awake, he tipped a questioning eyebrow at my sleeping companion.

I held up two fingers to indicate I needed a couple of minutes.

He nodded and went back to his foldout bed.

I did a quick wash up in the bathroom, slipped into my clothes, and
tiptoed into the sitting room.

“Let me call room service for some coffee,” I said, “and I’ll tell you everything.”

Then I told him how I’d gotten a late night call from the local county jail, the carjacking and his subsequent hours trying to get back to civilization.

“So you made up. Glad to see you came to your senses.”

There was a knock on the door and I hopped up to answer it. The waiter glanced at the Cochise county issued orange pants and top, and blanched.

“Just put it on the table,” I said, getting out my wallet.

Caleb sat up, rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Coffee? I sure could use some.”

The waiter didn’t wait for the gratuity; he simply ducked out the door, leaving Caleb shaking his head and me in a fit of giggles.

I poured for us. “Yep. I done sprung my lover out of the county jail so we could set ourselves up in this here honeymoon suite and order breakfast in bed.”

I had forgotten to ask for three cups, so I gave mine to Caleb and drank out of a water glass from the bathroom. He needed it more than I did, though last night I’d forced two more bottles of water on him just to make sure he was hydrated and had truly left Jerry Lee Lewis behind. My new friend, Karen Paquette, would be proud to know I’d done my duty as a newly minted
Arizonian.

“Anyone hungry?” I asked, looking at my two sleepy-eyed men.

Caleb rolled his tongue around his teeth. “I need to brush my teeth and I wouldn’t mind another shower, but all I’ve got to wear is this county outfit.”

“We’ll sneak you out the back door before that waiter reports the escaped jailbird
,” I said.

A solid knock on the door said it
was too late. I sighed and answered. Sure enough, there was Detective Tom, Stetson in hand, a wide grin on his face. “I was on my way to your place when I got a frantic call from the desk clerk about an escaped criminal holed up in the honeymoon suite. Good thing too. Saved me the trip.”

I backed up and waved him inside.

His chuckle limped to a halt when he saw Caleb’s cracked lips and sunburned face. “Ouch. If it’s any consolation, we’ve found your pickup, your wallet and your credit cards, but if I were you I’d change the passwords anyway.”

“Did they strip it or trash it
?” Caleb asked.

“
The truck? Nah, they were simply looking for an anonymous ride. And just our luck, the checkpoint for Highway 90 was closed last night, so they sailed right through. Here’s the phone number for the impound lot,” he said, handing Caleb the note card.

Caleb nodded, accepting the inconvenience. “Where would this be?”

“Phoenix. It’s the hub for dispersing illegals in Arizona. They will have contacts to hide them, feed them, get fake documents, whatever they need.”

“Thanks,” Caleb said, “I don’t suppose they left me my boots, did they?”

“Sorry, no clothes or shoes were found.”

“Well, it could’ve been a lot worse,” Caleb said.

“Yes, thank you, Detective Tom,” I said, “that’s good news. We can pick it up on our way to California.”

Caleb flicked a hard look at the other man, wondering, I suppose, why I was on first n
ame basis with the detective. Later, I would tell him that Tom was the man’s last name, but it was nice to see a little jealousy light his eyes.

The detective didn’t miss Caleb’s sudden interest, or my comment about going home to California.

“Uh, about that,” he said. “We still have two apparent homicides.”

Caleb gave me tha
t pained expression that asked, ‘
What’ve you done now?’

“Not me. Not this time,” I said
, pointing to my dad.

Dad shrugged like it was no big deal and told Caleb about landing in a mine pit w
ith a dead police chief, and the deputy taking us with him to a second crime scene.

“Can you tell us anything about these two murders, Detective?” Caleb
asked.

“The young woman who owns the place was found strangled in her own bed. There was no forced entry, but then she might not have been too careful about locking her doors. Autopsy will tell whether or not it was part of a sexual assault. The police chief died of blunt force trauma to the head, and while we’re rounding up suspects and sifting through possible evidence, I’ll make
sure your interviews happen today so that you folks can get back to your honeymoon.”

So he knew enough about us to know that we were supposed to be on our honeymoon, did he? Caleb and I looked at eac
h other and burst out laughing.

At his bemused expression, I said, “It’s a long story.”

My dad cleared his throat. “You better take a seat, Detective. I have some things to add.”

When
he was settled, Dad ran him through his suspicion that the killer had come back while he was still in the pit and why he thought his jacket was found at the second crime scene.

“So you see,” my dad said, “I couldn’t help but think
… well, it looks like ….”

“Yes, I see what you mean. I’ll put a deputy at your property today.”

“Do you think it will do any good?” Dad asked.

“It will give notice that we’re looking out for you.”

“Can I have my jacket back?”

“I think it’s safe to say that you can kiss that article of clothing good-bye. It will stay in evidence for the duration of this case.”

“Does my father need a lawyer?” I asked.

The Detective eyed Caleb, and then swung back to me. “Not at this time. My Cal
ifornia contacts say that you, Miss Bains, have come into focus for a couple of murders in the last few years, but there’s no reason to consider you, or your father, as suspects in either of these cases.”

I opened my mouth to ask a question, but as if he had read my thoughts, he said, “They are two separate cases, Miss
Bains. They will stay that way unless we find conclusive evidence to connect them.”

Happenstance? I didn’t believe it. This wasn’t New York
City where murders were committed on every other street. Or was he simply warning me off before I got started snooping where I wasn’t welcome?

He pushed out of his chair. “I have to get back to the office. Someone will call today about your interviews.”

With a light smile in Caleb’s direction, he said, “Management would be obliged if you left through the door to the alley. Just don’t lift any of the silver on your way out.”

He tipped his Stetson and left.

Caleb tried to stand, grimaced and sat down again.

“Did we miss some of the gravel in your feet?”
I asked.

“I don’t think so, but I could really use some peroxide to clean the cuts.”

“I saw a Safeway down the road,” Dad said. “They’ll have a pharmacy. I’ll pick up peroxide, some antibacterial cream, and bandaging material.”

“Thanks Dad,” I said. “Bring some breakfast too, will you?”

When he was gone, I turned to Caleb, “You’re a big fat liar.”

“I know,” he said, pulling me down next to him. “But we need to talk.”

I nestled close, my head in the crook of his arm, loving his scent, the soft chest hairs tickling my nose. “Whad’ya wanna talk about?”

“If what your dad said is true, his life could be in danger.”

I sighed. “Yeah. You’d think, after all this time, the Bains family would know when to keep their noses out of trouble.”

His response was somewhere between humor and exasperation. “Let’s back up a minute. Tell me everything. Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”

With interruptions every few minutes for his questions, I finished about the time I heard the hotel key working to open the locked door. My dad’s eyes danced as he carried the pharmacy and breakfast bags to the table.

“You didn’t interrupt anything,” I said, pushing off the bed. “He made me tell him
the whole story, all of it, from the beginning. It was pretty exhausting and I had to lie down.”

“Sure you did,” he said, opening
the bags from Burger King. “Breakfast is ready.”

I handed Caleb a breakfast sandwich, then wolfed down my own before dabbing peroxide and antibiotic ointment on his feet and wrapping it up with gauze and tape. While I admired my handiwork, I didn’t see how he was going to fit into a pair of new boots anytime soon. “This means you’re going to be wearing either slippers or sandals for a while.”

“I need to make a call to my bank and change my passwords.”

“W
e’ll take you back to the house,” I said. “You can borrow something of Dad’s until we can get you new clothes.”

He sighed. “I would’ve been happier if they’d have kept my truck and left my boots.”