The Desert Behind Me Read online

  Jen recited, as if rehearsed. “We weren’t talking to anyone. You just, like, came out of nowhere, accusing us of, whatever. I don’t even know what.”

  I rubbed my temple and focused on the girls. “Okay. Give me Cali’s number and—”

  “What is wrong with you?” I knew before looking up it was Megan’s mother.

  What surprised me was Grijalva standing beside her. That’s why he hadn’t come with me. He was probably talking to Mrs. Thompson.

  The woman grabbed my arm and yanked me away from Megan before Grijalva stepped between us and forced her to release me.

  She pointed to me. “My husband talked to the Ranger’s commander. He said he’d take care of this. He told me he called the sheriff’s department, too.”

  Grijalva blinked in confirmation. “He did.”

  Mrs. Thompson stomped her foot, something I’d rarely seen a grown woman do. “She’s stalking my daughter. Arrest her or issue a restraining order or whatever.”

  “Let’s calm down here.” Tall and straight in his uniform, Grijalva carried a smooth assurance. Mrs. Thompson, face red and eyes shooting fire, held back from attacking me.

  I addressed Grijalva in my professional voice. “Cali. The girl I told you about, is not here.”

  Grijalva studied me a second, then addressed the two girls. “Did you talk to an older man, say around thirty, here on Thursday?”

  They both wore expressions of exaggerated purity. Megan’s eyes flicked to her mother before she spoke. “Like I told my mom, the officer came after us out of the blue.”

  Mrs. Thompson’s shield and sword came out. “I want you to stay away from my daughter. You’re some kind of sick pervert.”

  “It’s Cali. I’m worried—"

  White teeth, maintained with twice yearly checkups and cosmetic touchups, flashed like a Rottweiler at the junkyard fence. “Megan has nothing to do with Cali Shaw. They used to be friends when they were in junior high, but Cali got wild and my Megan knows she’d get her into trouble. She’s not allowed to hang out with Cali.”

  Megan stared at something in the distance beyond her mother. She’d learned to keep her face blank.

  “I saw them here. Leaving together,” I said.

  Mrs. Thompson’s lips pulled back in a snarl. “And you ‘saw’ a man about thirty years old talking to them. I don’t know what your game is, but stop lying about my daughter and leave us alone.”

  I pointed at Megan. “Tell her.”

  Megan’s mother narrowed her eyes in contempt. “Who are you, even? What’s Cali to you? That girl is nothing but bad news and she’s not missing, but it’s only a matter of time before she is. Or before she turns up pregnant. If you don’t make teenagers toe the line, they’ll get into trouble. And then what? Tragedy. I’m not going to let that happen to my daughter.”

  A thousand cuts left me bleeding and enraged. Go ahead and try, Mrs. Thompson. But I saw your daughter, her skirt too short, her smile too big, her juices flowing. If she survives, it’s by luck, not from your diligence.

  Mrs. Thompson spared a hateful glare at me before turning to Grijalva. “If I have to, I’ll sue. Keep her away from us.”

  Grijalva held a restraining hand up to silence me. Mrs. Thompson threw an arm around Megan’s shoulders and pivoted her away. Jen hurried after them, not giving me the same opportunity she gave me yesterday.

  I shouted at their backs. “Jen, for God’s sake. Call Cali. Now. See if she answers.”

  Mother and daughter hurried away.

  Gralva stepped in front of my line of vision. He lowered his face, forcing me to look at him and spoke in a voice like honey. “What’s really going on here?”

  “Cali is missing. She—”

  He shook his head. “I spoke to the girls. They say they’ve talked to Cali. There is no mysterious guy flirting with them yesterday. The only one upset is you. Why?”

  “How do you know they aren’t lying?” If I was really crazy enough I’d make it all up, I’d deal with that. If only I knew the girl was safe. “If Cali’s okay, why isn’t she here?”

  “Megan and Jen say she was upset about being cut from cheerleading and took off.”

  “Where? When?”

  Grijalva held up his hand in a whoa motion. “Apparently, she’s got a boyfriend in Phoenix but they don’t know his number.”

  “Did you get her phone number? Have you talked to her?” This wasn’t enough.

  Grijalva brushed a hand along my shoulder blades, directing me to walk toward the parking lot. “When I called it went to voicemail. The girls say she keeps her mailbox full so she can screen calls and no one can leave a voicemail. They promised to tell her to call me next time they talk to her.”

  “And you believe them?”

  He kept walking.

  “Did you call Cali’s mother?”

  He nodded. “The number on file at the school isn’t working. She didn’t give them a new number. The emergency contact information lists a person no one knows whose number is also no longer in service.”

  “This is a girl on her own. No one cares.” My voice sounded tight and anxious.

  “The school’s records show Cali misses frequently. This doesn’t seem to be unusual for her or her mother to go off-grid.”

  “Until I see Cali, I’m can’t trust she’s safe.”

  “You aren’t related to her and you aren’t a cop anymore. It sounds harsh, but it’s not your business. I’m looking into it.”

  Anger popped and fizzled inside me. “What have you found out?”

  He sounded too calm for this situation. “It’s not a public matter.”

  “You’re not doing anything, are you?”

  We made it to the fence into the parking lot. Grijalva stopped and stared at me, as if trying to see inside me. “Why are you so intent on this?”

  The voices whispered and argued, giving me their suggestions on what to say, what to do. At least now I recognized their bad advice. “A girl’s life is at stake. We can’t afford to take it lightly.”

  “You’re going to have to step back and let the cops do it.”

  I couldn’t tell him that my voices knew things my conscious mind didn’t, and they were shouting at me that something was wrong. He wouldn’t believe me and he’d probably tell Patricia, who would tell Mitch, and he’d give me the boot.

  I needed the Rangers. It gave me the only purpose left in my decimated life.

  Patricia caught up to us. “Rafe’s gonna hang with me for the rest of this shift. It’s only a half hour. We both think you should go home.”

  I waited while an angry mob erupted in my ears. I’d messed up again. “Yeah, okay.” They watched me walk to my Juke and climb in. With a final wave, they turned and headed back to the ball park. They laughed and Patricia punched his arm. Friends.

  I remembered friends.

  I started my engine, then quickly shut it off. They might want to get me out of their hair, but I couldn’t leave, yet.

  20

  The homeless guy ambled along the sidewalk in the park. I scrambled out of my car and set a course to intersect him.

  It didn’t take long to catch up to him. He walked like an old man, shuffling, with a slight limp. His tattooed arms stretched out from a plaid shirt with ripped sleeves. He wore grubby gray jeans thin as cheesecloth.

  “Hey, hello. Remember me?”

  He stopped but didn’t turn, as if wondering if my voice really called to him. Only his head turned, maybe so he could run if he needed. When he saw me, he spun all the way around and greeted me with a huge, mangle-toothed grin.

  “Hi, Jamie.”

  Mention of my name stopped me short. The Chorus rose with warnings and orders to attack or run. “Uh, hi.” I didn’t put a question mark at the end, but I was puzzled. In an attempt to put him at ease, I pointed to his arm. “That’s a beautiful tattoo.”

  Rotten teeth in a slobbery mouth grinned at me. “See the cars in the jungle? I love the cars. They all mean
something to me.”

  Green vines twisted through chassis windows and around tires of at least a half dozen cars, taking up most of his arm. My stomach twisted at the Jaguar hood ornament peeking through a cluster of red hibiscus flowers. I pointed to one different from the rest. “What is that? It looks new.”

  His laugh sounded deranged. “It is! All those cars and now I’m in love with airplanes. That is a B52. Big bomber in WW II.”

  “It looks sore. Do you have antiseptic for it?”

  “It’s fine. Just new. It’ll heal.” He touched it gingerly and exposed those awful teeth to me. “You must really like high school baseball.”

  I glanced behind me and then to the stands. “I’m. Yeah. Baseball is great.”

  He smelled of sour sweat and clothing gone too long without washing. Dirt streaked his face and collected in the folds on his neck. His skin had the copper glow of desert exposure. None of that seemed to matter to him as he continued the conversation. “Who’s your team? I’m guessing Ventana, since you’ve been to almost all their games.”

  He stepped too close and my brain twisted. He smelled like ruin and it felt as if the stench had a life of its own and might crawl away from him and slither up my nose, burrow into my sinuses and live with me forever. Just because fine cologne didn’t waft from him didn’t mean he wasn’t owed respect. “Did you find Petunia?”

  He tilted his head and paused. It was look I’d seen before and I waited patiently for his head to clear. “You remembered her name. That’s wonderful. She’s home and well.”

  He must have a place to live besides the park. It was good for him to have something to love and care for. “I’m glad she wasn’t hurt.”

  “No. She just got a good run, I guess.” It felt like he worked at the conversation, like maybe he wasn’t used to making small talk.

  Me, either. I hoped to put him at ease. “She’s lucky to have someone who cares about her so much.”

  His diseased grin made me cringe, but the compliment clearly pleased him. “I always take care of what I love.”

  “Thank you for asking after Petunia. You’ve always been nice to me.”

  We’d only met that once and I’d blown him off. Why did he seem so friendly to me? A thought jolted me. “How do you know my name?”

  His face fell. “Remember? The night Petunia ran away?”

  My head erupted in a roar. I’d gone home from the park. Ran on the desert, met Sherilyn and her children. Then I’d locked myself in my house. All night. Took a pill. Woke up stiff. “Sure.”

  No. I didn’t take a pill that night. Did I? The meds ate my life and confused me. I had to stop taking them if I wanted to really live. But sometimes I welcomed the blackness.

  He nodded with enthusiasm. “Yeah, I didn’t recognize you at first. That’s how it is when you meet someone in uniform the first time and then you see them in regular clothes, so it takes a minute. But at the end of the day, you were just as nice both times. So, you remember now? You got my name?”

  This made no sense. I was home Thursday night. He looked so eager for my friendship, though, I focused on our conversation. “I’ve always been bad with names. Sorry.”

  He waved that off. “Don’t worry. I can’t remember things like I used to, either. Shax. My name is Shax.”

  Frank and Maggie argued about Thursday night. Maggie held firm that I’d slept on the chair in the living room. Frank said I’d taken meds and used Shax as proof I couldn’t be trusted. A few others gave opinions. I closed my eyes and repeated to myself: “I’m Jamie Butler. I’m Amanda’s daughter. I’m a retired Buffalo cop. I live in Tucson. I like hockey.”

  When the voices returned to a low rumble, I opened my eyes. It couldn’t have taken more than three seconds, but Shax wore a suppressed grin.

  “You okay, Jamie?”

  Something about Shax felt familiar somehow but it must have been from seeing him at the ball park. The way he said my name made my skin crawl. “Fine.”

  Since he seemed to remember some things, even distorted, I decided to give it a try. “The other day there were three cute girls in yellow and black cheerleading uniforms.” I turned and pointed to the fence. “There, by the fence. They were talking to a man, maybe in his thirties. Dressed in a blue golf shirt and jeans. Do you remember them?” My description of the creep sounded generic, one of a thousand men.

  Shax squinted where I pointed, as if trying to see it now. He shook his head. “That was the day you got those girls in trouble. I saw that. By the fence. Those snotty girls, they were being nasty and mean and you stopped them. That was good, what you did for me.”

  He must be confusing me with someone else. “Okay. But that’s not what I need you to remember. Before that, they were flirting with that man. Have you seen him around since or before that?”

  Shax acted as though he wanted desperately to help me. He squeezed his eyes closed like a five-year-old might. Finally, he balled his fist and banged on his temple.

  I grabbed his arm. “Stop it. Don’t. It’s okay.”

  He searched my face with eyes almost desperate. “I remember….”

  The voices shouted at me to rattle him but I waited. “Take your time.”

  Tears formed in the corners of his eyes. “The girl.”

  Grijalva was suddenly next to me. I hadn’t heard him approach. “Is everything okay here?”

  Maybe he’d had training with the mentally ill. He had a calming vibe to him that worked better than many cops I knew on the force, who liked to come on strong, intimidate and overwhelm. I’d dealt with more than my share of people with a loose grip on the physical world.

  With Shax’s wrist still firmly in my hand, I answered Grijalva, but stayed looking at Shax. “It’s fine. I asked Shax a question and he was trying to remember. But it’s okay. It’s not important. You don’t need to answer me, Shax.”

  The distress melted off Shax like a candle left in the Tucson sun. His damaged smile returned. “I don’t remember any guy with those girls. Just you. Then later, when you came back with that girl.”

  That didn’t make sense, but not much about him did at that point.

  He nodded at me and looked delighted. “Is she your daughter?”

  I didn’t flinch outwardly but inside, I collapsed.

  “Cause, she looked like she could ‘a been your daughter, you know.”

  I croaked through a dry throat. “I don’t have a daughter.”

  Unaccountably, Shax threw his head back and howled with laughter.

  21

  Shax wouldn’t quit laughing. Slobber ran from the sides of his mouth and he bent over, slapping his knee.

  Grijalva took hold of my arm and directed me away. The residents of the park shrank from us as we trudged across the grass, in and out of the shade from the palms. Our uniforms didn’t make us a welcomed sight. Shax’s shrieks of hilarity dogged us.

  Grijalva’s voice cut through most of the racket in my head. “Obviously, the guy’s mentally ill. Don’t let him get to you.”

  Frank: “You’d miss a puddle in a rainstorm.”

  Shax was mentally ill. I felt qualified to identify it. But I was still missing something. It hid under the surface like a submerged stone. Waves of distraction rippled above it and I couldn’t make it out clearly.

  “I thought you were on your way home.” Grijalva sounded less irritated than I assumed he’d be.

  We stepped from the curb at the edge of the grass into the blazing parking lot. “I saw Shax and I wondered if he’d remember seeing that guy with the girls. He wasn’t any help.” But he knew something, I felt sure.

  We approached my Juke again and I hit unlock on my key. The car blipped and blinked its lights. “Okay, I’m really going home now.”

  With that same static expression, he said, “Do you have to? Pete’s shift is over and I was technically off-duty a couple of hours ago. We’re going to change and grab a drink someplace. Why don’t you join us?”

  You can’t
mix alcohol with meds. “I don’t drink.”

  His eyebrow barely twitched, and I was beginning to understand it as a sign of big emotion. “So have a seltzer water. Unless it’s too hard to be around alcohol and not drink. If that’s the case, we can hit a coffee shop.”

  Avoiding others’ drinking didn’t faze me. I did have shorts and shirt in the back of my car, since sometimes I liked to run at parks after my shift. The idea of hanging out with other people, especially with cops, made everything inside me quake. Was I ready for this? Maybe after this morning, with all the strain, it would be best to retreat to my pool and the mosaic. But I’d handled this morning and felt strong. And I wanted to be normal, sit with friends. Still, I’d probably make a fool of myself. I wouldn’t be able to carry a conversation. I opened my door. “It’s not a big deal.”

  He leaned on the door and his eyes twinkled. “You told me you’re new to Tucson and Pete said she didn’t think you had many friends. Why not spend an hour with us? What could it hurt?”

  Patricia appeared behind Grijalva. “I thought you’d gone home. Hey, why don’t you have a drink with us? I called Deon and told him he’s still on kid duty.”

  I eased into my car seat. “Thanks, but I can’t.”

  Grijalva’s eyebrows popped up. “Can’t?”

  Patricia got tough. “That’s bullshit. The one time I can get away for a little while and you’re going to bug out. No way.”

  Maggie seemed to be the only one urging me to go. The rest had varying reactions, all negative. But Tara thought I could trust Maggie more than the others. Grijalva and Patricia pushed together, staring at me.

  Patricia prodded. “Oh, come on. I’m going to change in the car. We’ll meet at a bar close to the cop shop, so Rafe can check out and pop over.”

  I’d probably be sorry. “Okay.”

  Patricia’s wide grin made me feel better. “Just for a little while. It’ll be fun.”

  Grijalva dipped his chin and gave me a gentle look. “You okay with this? I know I practically begged, but if you’re uncomfortable, you don’t have to.”

  “No. It’s fine. I mean, it’s good. I’d like to.” Frank wasn’t the only one laughing at my awkwardness. Wings of excitement and fear tapped my gut. I was out of practice being a regular person but I was eager to give it a try.