The Shimmer (5 page)

"Yes, a story. Humor me--it's about my father. He used to be the police chief here in Rostov."

"What's that got to do with--"

"You still haven't sat back down, Mr. Page."

The intensity in the police chief 's eyes made him hesitate.

"And then I'll take you to your wife."

Page sat impatiently. "Tell me your story."

"One night my father got a phone call from a terrified boy who said his dad was beating his mom. When the boy gave his last name, my father didn't recognize it right away. The family had moved here from Fort Worth a couple of months earlier. The husband had been out of work, and a relative of his who lived here had found him a job at the stock pens.

"When he wasn't working, the husband liked to go to a local bar, get drunk, and pick fights. It was the hottest September anybody could remember, yet the wife always wore high, buttoned collars and long sleeves. Later it became obvious that she did that to hide bruises.

The boy was quiet in school, always fidgeting as if he was afraid he'd make a mistake and get punished.

"That night, when the boy phoned, afraid that his dad was going to kill his mom, my father got in his cruiser and hurried over there.

The house was near the stock pens, a run-down adobe with patches of stucco missing on the walls. The lights were on. When my father heard shouting and sobbing, he knocked on the door and identified himself as a police officer. That's how I imagine it anyhow. I've gone over it in my head more times than I care to think.

"The shouting stopped. My father knocked again, and a shotgun blast from inside tore the door in half. It pretty much tore my father in half, also. I doubt he lived long enough to feel himself hit the ground."

Page leaned forward in his chair.

"When my father didn't report back in a half hour, a deputy drove over to the house, where he found my dad spread out on the ground.

After the deputy threw up, he managed to control himself long enough to radio for an ambulance. At that time, there weren't any other local police officers. The deputy's only option was to contact the Highway Patrol, but they said they couldn't get there for another half hour, so the deputy sucked up his nerve, drew his gun, and went into the house.

"The wife was on the living room floor with her head shot off.

Blood was everywhere. The deputy went into the kitchen. No one was there. He went into the master bedroom. No one. He went into a smaller bedroom--the boy's--and the window was open. The father must have heard the boy leaping out. What the searchers found the next morning made clear that the father chased his son across the road and into a field. Why did he act that way, do you suppose?"

Page inhaled slowly. "A man like that blames his family for making him unhappy. Everything's their fault, and they need to be punished."

"You've been taking psychology courses?"

"Increases my pay grade."

Costigan looked beyond Page, as if remembering the night he'd learned that his father had been shotgunned to death. His eyes refocused.

"What you say makes sense. But here's another explanation. Some people are wired wrong. It's their nature to cause pain. They're so dark inside that maybe the only word to describe them is 'evil.'"

"Yes, I've met people like that," Page said. "Too many."

"The next morning, the searchers found the boy's corpse in weeds a half mile from the house. The father was lying next to him. After he'd killed his son, he'd put the shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Coyotes had gotten to them by the time the bodies were found."

Page tasted a familiar sourness in his mouth. He was reminded of the car that had been hit by the drunk driver, of the five children and the woman inside, killed instantly. He thought of the drug dealer who'd shot his friend Bobby, just two days earlier.

"I'm sorry about your father."

"Not a day goes by that I don't remember him. I'll never be the man he was. But he wasn't perfect, and what happened that night proved it. He shouldn't have let it happen. What's the most dangerous situation any police officer faces?"

"Family arguments."

"Exactly. Because they're so emotional and unpredictable. After my father knocked, he should have stepped to the side, away from the door and the windows. Or better yet, he should have stayed by his car and used his bullhorn to order the husband to step outside. If the guy had come out with a shotgun, at least my father would have had a chance to defend himself. It didn't need to happen the way it did. But my father had a weak spot. He couldn't stand bullies." Costigan looked directly at Page. "Especially when they picked on women."

"Okay," Page said. "I get the point. But I told you, my wife and I aren't arguing. This isn't a domestic dispute."

"So you say. But until I'm sure you're not a threat to her, you won't see her without me standing next to you."

Chapter 13.

Although the sun was descending toward the horizon, its rays seemed unusually bright. In the passenger seat of the police car, Page put on his sunglasses. He pulled out his cell phone and called Margaret to let her know that Tori was okay and that he was on his way to see her. He promised to have Tori call but wasn't sure he'd be able to keep that promise.

As they drove through Rostov, he glanced out the window at a muffler shop and a barbecue restaurant called the Rib Palace. Ahead, at the edge of town, a sign announced, TRAIL'S END MOTEL. A row of plain, single-story units formed a U, with the office in the middle.

"Your wife's in number 11," Costigan told him as the car crunched across the gravel parking lot, raising a cloud of dust.

But when they got to number 11, the parking space was empty.

Page felt hollow as he stepped from the cruiser. The drapes were closed, and he couldn't see past them to tell if there was luggage inside.

They walked across the gravel, pushed open a screen door with a loud squeak, and entered the office, which had a soft-drink machine and a small television in a corner. On the screen, a reporter was announcing sports scores.

"Jake," the police chief said to a gangly young clerk behind the counter, "the lady in unit 11. Did she check out?"

"Nope. Paid for the rest of the week. I saw her car go past twenty minutes ago."

Costigan nodded, then gestured toward Page. "Better save a room for this gentleman."

"No need," Page said, annoyed. "I'll stay with my wife."

"As long as it's her idea, but in case it isn't, Jake, save him a room."

The screen door squeaked again when Costigan opened it. Outside, turning from the sunset, he debated for a moment. "She's got a long night ahead of her."

Whatever that means, Page thought. "You said your deputy found her early in the morning. What was she doing until then?"

"That's something you need to see for yourself."

"Chief, I'm getting tired of this."

Costigan didn't seem to hear him. "Maybe she went to get something to eat. Let's try the Rib Palace."

They drove back to the restaurant, but Tori's SUV wasn't in the parking lot. Most of the clientele seemed to drive pickup trucks, Page noted. At the chief 's insistence, they went inside. Tori wasn't among the early-evening crowd.

"Fred," Costigan said to an aproned man behind a counter, "did a red-haired woman come in here about twenty minutes ago and buy some take-out food?"

"Sure did. A turkey-and-cheese sandwich, plus iced tea. Don't get much call for turkey. She's lucky we had some."

"You might want to stock some more of it. I have a hunch she'll be back. Give us a couple of burgers and fries to go." Costigan looked at Page. "You're not a vegetarian, I hope."

Page just stared at him. "Burgers are fine," he said. "I'm buying."

The stuffed paper bag had a grease stain on one side. He carried it out to the police car. They got in and drove east. Patchy brown grass stretched in every direction. Cattle grazed in the dimming sunset.

On the right, they came to a barbed-wire fence beyond which lay the rusted ruins of collapsed metal buildings. Signs hung at regular intervals along the fence.

PROPERTY OF U. S. MILITARY

DANGER

HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS

UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE

"That used to be a military training airfield," Costigan explained.

"Back in the '40s."

"I saw it when I flew in. I wondered what happened to it."

"They shut it down in 1945. Just left it. It's been falling apart ever since."

A short distance ahead, past what looked like a historical marker of some sort, Page saw a low wooden structure. It had a flat roof and resembled a roadside stand where vegetables might be sold. But in this case, the section that faced the road was closed, and the open side was directed toward a fence and the grassland that lay beyond. Try as he might, Page couldn't figure out what it was for.

Tori's blue Saturn was parked next to it.

"Yeah, she got here early," Costigan said.

They pulled off the road and stopped behind the Saturn. The wooden structure had a sidewall that prevented Page from seeing if Tori was inside. At the same time, it prevented Tori from seeing the police car.

"I guess she figured waiting here was better than waiting in her motel room," Costigan said.

"This is the observation platform you mentioned?"

"Yeah, where my deputy found her."

Page reached to open the cruiser's door.

"Wait," Costigan said. "It won't be long now. The sun's almost down. As soon as it gets dark, you'll understand."

Page stared at him. "Why should I . . ."

"You've indulged me this far. Is ten minutes longer going to make a difference?"

"What's so damned important about the sun going down?"

"Eat your burger before it gets cold. I promise you, this'll be a long night."

Chapter 14.

Earl Halloway sat in the air-conditioned control room, scanning the numerous monitors that showed closed-circuit images of the area around the observatory. Taggard sat next to him, chewing on a candy bar. The setting sun cast an orange tint over the array of dishes that towered aboveground. In a while, as darkness settled, the images would become green, indicating that the heat-sensing capability of the cameras had become active. Animals or people would show clearly as a glow, although at the moment not a single cow or even a rabbit was visible out there.

Halloway picked up the sports magazine that Taggard had been reading. Every minute or so, he glanced up at the monitors. Nothing was happening outside. Nothing ever happened outside, which of course was a good thing, especially compared to the ambushes and roadside bombs he'd dodged in Iraq. But God almighty, this assignment was boring.

Down the hall, Halloway heard a door close.

"I'll be right back," he told his partner.

Taggard nodded, taking another bite.

Halloway left the control room and walked along the hall to the door that he'd heard being closed. He knew which door it was because each night it was always the same door, the one marked DATA ANALYSIS.

During the day, Gordon leaves the door open, but at night he always closes it, he thought. Why? What's he hiding?

A renewed wave of boredom made Halloway reach for the handle, then open the door. The room was filled with the subtle hum of all the electronic devices that occupied the walls--and the even subtler vibration that he sensed everywhere in the facility and that interfered with his sleep enough to make him always feel on the verge of a headache.

Gordon wore a headset over his hairless scalp. Sitting at a desk that was turned away from the door, he studied rows of numbers accumulating on a computer screen.

When Halloway stepped closer, Gordon sensed the movement and looked in his direction. Surprised, he took off the earphones and pushed his glasses higher on his nose.

"Didn't I lock the door? I meant to lock the door."

"Just checking to see that everything's okay."

"Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be?" Gordon asked defensively.

"That's what they pay me to find out."

Halloway heard a noise coming from the headphones that Gordon had set on the table. It was faint compared to when it had come through the speakers during the afternoon. Even so, he could tell that it sounded quite different now, no longer a persistent crackle but a series of wavering tones pitched at various levels, some rising while others descended, many of them occurring in high and low unison.

They had a subtle, sensual quiver. Their languid, arousing rhythm made him step forward.

"Sounds like music," he said.

"I don't mean to be rude, but you need to get out of here," Gordon responded. "I have work to do."

Halloway held up his hands. "Sure. Sorry to disturb you, Gordon.

Like I said, I was just checking."

As he stepped back, the noises from the earphones changed again, sounding definitely like music. But it was unlike any music he had ever heard.