Cyanide Wells (28 page)

She followed the trail slowly and cautiously, but her thoughts moved at a furious pace. Something had occurred to her before Ard’s call, and she was now linking previously unrelated bits and pieces of information, discarding others. If she could only make the final connections—

A thrashing overhead, then a scurrying in the underbrush. The scream of a small victim.

Owl, probably a great horned, catching his dinner. I hate that sound.

She was nearing the Knob now, but still there was no sign of Ard’s rented van. She’d probably driven in on the fire trail to the far side. How she’d eluded the forest rangers while camping in territory that was closed to all but official vehicles, Carly couldn’t imagine. Or why, after Nat fell ill a week ago, she’d continued to stay here, where nighttime temperatures were always frigid. Her treatment of the child had become criminally negligent.

The trail began angling uphill, around boulders and over rocky ledges. Soon she spotted the ramshackle building that had once held the cyaniders’ equipment. Slag heaps rose to either side, and where the trail split, her flashlight picked out the boarded-up entrance to the old mine, now covered in a wild pattern of graffiti. She turned to the left and started around toward the lookout point.

The terrain was rougher now, and bulky shapes lurked in the darkness—a dumping ground of broken equipment and metal drums that had once contained cyanide, abandoned by the mining company and allowed to remain by the forest service as a memorial to the place’s history. Some people thought the area should be cleared, but Carly preferred it this way; to beautify and sanitize it would be denying the reality of what had occurred here…

She stopped, staring at the shapes without really seeing them.

As a memorial…

Reality’s starting to interfere with the writing…

He was a proud man…

This is so nice. I wish it could go on forever…

Suicide…

The connections were made.

She began walking faster.

“You’re ten minutes late. I thought you weren’t coming or had called the cops. So I hid up here.”

Ard’s voice came from a ledge above her. Carly shone the flashlight upward; she stood with her arms folded, legs planted wide, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that were insubstantial for the chill night. Even at a distance she looked tired and unkempt. There was no sign of Natalie.

“You know I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Did you bring the money?”

“Yes. Where’s Nat?”

“In the van. Leave the money there on the ground where I can see it. Drive back to the entrance, and I’ll deliver her to you.”

“You’re not getting the money till Nat’s safe with me.”

Ard was silent for a moment. “Well, it seems we’re at an impasse. If I don’t get the money, you don’t get the kid. If you don’t get the kid, I don’t get the money. How’re we going to work this out?”

“Maybe we can strike a deal.”

“What?”

“You answer a few of my questions—truthfully, for a change—then the money is yours.”

“Done.”

“First question: When you got to Ronnie and Deke’s that morning”—no need to explain which—“what did you find?”

“Jesus, Carly, can’t you think of anything better to ask? You know what I found: our friends murdered in their bed.”

“I don’t think so. You found Deke murdered in their bed, but not Ronnie. He killed himself. It was a murder-suicide pact.”

Ard was silent.

“Second question: What did you do then?”

No reply. “All right, let me tell you what you did. You removed the gun from wherever it was and replaced it in its case in the library cabinet—where it stayed until you took it out to kill Chase. You removed Deke’s medications and inspirational book from the nightstand so no one would know he had AIDS. And you probably removed their suicide note from wherever they’d left it.”

“There wasn’t any note—” She broke off, realizing her mistake.

“Is that a yes?”

Silence.

“A
yes?
”

“All right! It’s a yes!”

Carly crossed her arms, gripped her elbows with iron fingers. “And then what did you do?”

More silence.

“What did you do to their bodies, Ard?”

Ard continued to hesitate. Carly sensed what was going on with her: the trembling lips, the filling eyes, the silent weeping.

After all she’s done, she still thinks that will work with me.
“What did you do to their bodies?”

“Carly, it was awful. They were wearing their fancy Japanese kimonos, and they’d been drinking champagne, and I guess they thought they’d look peaceful and released from all of it, but they didn’t. Neither of them knew what gunshot wounds to the head can do, but Ronnie found out and—God, I don’t even want to think about how it must’ve been for him. Still, even our inept sheriff’s deputies would’ve been able to figure out it was a suicide pact, so I had to kind of…rearrange things. That was the really horrible part—touching them.”

Carly was shaking now—sickened and enraged both by how Ard had desecrated their friends’ deathbed scene and by her self-pitying whine. She said, “Last question: Why? Why did you do those things?”

“I didn’t want anyone to know about the AIDS. Ronnie only told me about it when he gave me my copy of his will. He and Deke were so private—”

“Bullshit. You wanted a story. The murder-suicide of a gay couple was good but not great copy. An unsolved murder of a gay couple was. You did those horrible things for a
story.
”

In the flashlight’s beam Carly saw Ard’s eyes narrow and her mouth firm. “All right, so what if I did? You’re a newspaper-woman. You ought to understand. Besides, why should you complain? It was your paper that got the Pulitzer, not me!”

“And you resent me for that?”

“For that and a whole lot of other things. You ordered me around at work from day one; you were so convinced you were the better journalist. And at home it was always
your
house that we lived in,
your
money that put food on the table. You even tried to tell me how to raise Natalie. It’s always been about you, you, you. That morning I saw my chance to have something of my own, make a name for myself—but then
your
paper won the Pulitzer.”

Carly stared up at her, unable to believe the depth of the woman’s anger. Had she really treated her so badly? And if so, why hadn’t Ard confronted her at the time rather than let her resentment fester?

“Then I got my book deal,” Ard went on, “but I couldn’t write the damn thing. That morning at Ronnie and Deke’s had finally caught up with me, and I just couldn’t get past it. And then Chase showed up, claiming he wanted Natalie, even though he didn’t give a shit about her. All he wanted was money to keep him from going to the cops about me kidnapping her. Kidnapping! I saved her life. At best she’d’ve become his punching bag; at worst…But I didn’t have any money; I’d spent the whole advance for the book.”

“You could’ve come to me for the money. You didn’t have to kill him.”

“Oh, sure, I could’ve come to you. And spent the rest of my life enduring your holier-than-thou attitude.”

Am I really that bad a person?

No, I’m not perfect, but I’m not the monster she makes me out to be. I’ve taken measure of myself in the past ten days, and I can live with what I’ve seen.

I can do good things—especially for Natalie.

She said, “That’s enough, Ard. Come down from there and take me to Nat.”

“Look, this stalemate isn’t doing Nat or me any good. She’s sick, she needs help. And I’ve bought some time, but not much.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gar Payne was arrested tonight. Seems the gun that killed Chase, Ronnie, and Deke was in the glovebox of his car.”

“You planted it there. And made an anonymous call to the sheriff’s department.”

“What if I did? It’ll keep them busy till I can get out of the county.”

Was there no end to what Ard would do? “Maybe the charge against Payne will stick. Then you could stay here. You’d still have control of the Talbot estate—and the gold.”

“Gold? What gold? The mine’s not part of the estate. Anyway, there hadn’t been any gold there since the thirties.”

Faking, or does she really not know?

Carly said, “Gold is the reason Payne and Rawson want that land. A rich vein of it runs through there.”

“…You’re lying. They want it for a development.”
She
doesn’t
know. But what about her notes on Noah Estes, Denver Precious Metals. Wells Mining?

Of course—simple reminders to research the history of the area where the murders took place. She’s always been big on history.

“I’m not lying. If you’d done your homework, you’d’ve known.”

Ard stood, hands loose at her sides, perplexed. Then she shook her head. “Well, gold, whatever—none of that matters now. Payne will wriggle out of the charges, and then they’ll be looking for me again. I’ve got to get out of here. Just give me the money, will you?”

“No.”

“But you said if I answered your questions—”

“I’m not the only one who can lie.”

Ard’s fists balled, and her face twisted with rage. “Then you won’t get Nat! I never intended for you to have her, anyway. She’s not in the van. You’ll never see her again!”

She whirled and disappeared from the ledge.

For a moment Carly stood stunned; then she began to run—around the Knob toward its northeast side, where the fire trail ended. She had a head start on Ard, who would have to make the long climb down. If she could find the van, she might also find Natalie; not having her along was probably another of Ard’s lies.

The ground was steep and treacherous. She skidded on stones, tripped over unseen obstacles. Fell once to her knees and dropped the flashlight, pawed for it, got up, and ran again. The terrain finally leveled off, and she caught a glimpse of the fire trail dead ahead of her. At its end she stopped and shone her light in a circle. Walked on a ways, and shone it around again.

A boxy shape was wedged into a stand of aspens to her right. The van. She moved cautiously toward it, tried the door. Locked. She aimed the flashlight through the windows. Empty. Dammit, Ard hadn’t been lying after all.

Circling, she tried all the doors. Also locked. She pressed the hood release, thinking to disable the engine, but it wouldn’t move. Finally she shut off her light and listened for Ard’s footsteps, but heard nothing.

Hiding. Staying still. But she knows where I am. The slightest sound carries for miles out here. No way I’ll find her.

She circled the van again, shining her light through the windows one more time. Its rear compartment was loaded with Ard’s and Nat’s luggage, a collapsed air mattress, a cooler, a familiar-looking Indian-weave blanket, a striped bag…

She went up on her tiptoes, staring intently. She’d seen that bag before, suspended from the ceiling of the walk-in closet off Ronnie and Deke’s bedroom. Caught in the pull-down stairs to Deke’s attic studio. It wasn’t a bag at all. It was a pillowcase, now stuffed with matching sheets from a set that fit Nat’s bed at home. And the blanket—it used to lie on a hassock in Ronnie and Deke’s living room.

Now she knew where Natalie was.

As she sped along in her truck, Carly used her cell phone to call the sheriff’s department central dispatch and ask them to send cruisers to the Talbot house. As she disconnected, she lost control and skidded on loose gravel. Stones flew up and bounced off the undercarriage; the truck pulled to the right, as if one of its tires was going flat.

Not now, dammit!

She wrenched the truck to the left, glanced in the rearview mirror. No headlights behind her. No taillights ahead. She slowed for the last curve and the turn into the Talbot driveway.

No van, and the house was dark.

She stopped the truck near the front door, stalled the engine, and jumped out, almost forgetting her key ring. When she got to the door her trembling fingers wouldn’t connect the key with the lock. She took a calming breath, then let herself in.

Her flashlight’s batteries were dying. When she tried the wall switch, nothing happened. The power was off. What a horror it must’ve been for Nat, who feared total darkness and always slept with a nightlight, to camp out here. She trained the flash’s fading beam on the stairs and moved quickly toward them.

“Stop, Carly,” Ard’s voice said.

Astonished, she froze. Ard was behind her, near the exercise room. She’d beaten her here somehow, hid the van out back.

She turned slowly, bringing the light around on her. Ard stood several feet away, pointing a small handgun at her—another from the collection, she supposed.

Ard said, “I saw you at the van. I wasn’t far behind. There’s a shortcut from the fire trail to the main road, so I got here first.”

Fear was making Carly’s mouth dry, her palms wet. “Ard, I’ll give you the money if you let Nat come home with me.”

“You can’t buy my child.”

Carly made an involuntary move, and Ard brought the gun higher. “Stay where you are,” she told her.

“All right. What happens now?”

“You give me the money.”

“And then?”

In the silence that followed her question, she stared at Ard’s face. The flash’s dim light showed it was composed, devoid of emotion.

She’s going to kill me. And it’ll be easy for her. She’s like an animal that, once it’s tasted first blood, is compelled to kill again and again.

“I’ve called the sheriff’s department, Ard. They’re coming here. Even if you get away before they arrive, they have a description and the license plate number of the van.”

“Give me the keys to your truck, then.”

“They’re in the ignition.”

“Bullshit! The key to this house is on your ring, and you used it to let yourself in.”

“I haven’t carried that key on my ring since—”

The sound of a car’s engine. Headlights turning into the drive, washing over the house.

“That’s the law now,” Carly said.

Ard turned her head but kept the gun aimed at her.