Desert Crossing (20 page)

The blue lights of the police cars flashed over Kit's face in a sudden strobe. He looked so serious, almost frightened. The knock on the door made us both jump.

When I opened it, the sheriff was standing there, and the cop with the nice eyes who had questioned me on the night of the accident.

“Miss Martinez?” Sheriff Durrell said. “You remember Sergeant Henderson. I understand you have some information for us.”

I nodded, opening the door wider. I held out the bracelet. “I—”

But Kit crossed over to me, grabbing it from my hand. “I took this from the girl,” he said, not even looking at me. He gave it to the sheriff. “The night of the accident. It was on her wrist.”

I stared at him. So many feelings hurtled through me that I didn't know what to do. And then, suddenly, I did. I reached for Kit's arm, and slid my hand down it till my fingers laced with his. “No,” I said. “I took it.”

Kit turned to me, but I didn't look at him.

The sheriff watched us. His face was unreadable. “Does one of you want to tell me what's going on?”

And so we did.

We sat on the edge of the bed and told them what had happened. About the bracelet and my sketch of the girl, going to the diner, finding out about the blue truck. The sheriff asked the questions, the sergeant took notes. The part we glided over, not giving the details, was the part about Elena, the waitress. We didn't want to get her in trouble. Kit just said we'd shown the sketch to people at the diner, and one of them had recognized the girl.

“Who?” the sheriff asked sharply. “Who identified her? Did you get the name of the person you spoke to?”

“Um, no,” Kit said. “Just some woman.”

“What did she look like?” Sergeant Henderson asked.

“I don't really remember,” Kit said. “I'm not too good at that.”

They looked at me expectantly. I bit my lip. “She had brown hair.”

But then we told them the rest of it: meeting Wicker on the road, going to his house, finding the box with the charm and the bottle of pills. I dug the pill out of my pocket and gave it to the sergeant, who squinted at it and handed it to the sheriff.

“It's…” I hesitated.

“I know what it is,” the sheriff said curtly. He and the sergeant exchanged glances, not saying anything.

I told them about putting the bracelet in Wicker's truck.

The sheriff stared at me, shaking his head. “And why did you do that?” he asked. “Miss Martinez? Why would you do something like that?”

“I don't know. I thought if you found the bracelet in his truck, and then the charm at his house, maybe you'd … maybe you'd know that the girl had been there.”

“I see. So you planted evidence?”

“No, it wasn't like that…” My voice trailed off thinly. It was exactly like that. “I mean, I knew it was wrong. That's why we went all the way to his house to get it back.”

I told them everything I could remember about Wicker, his pale eyes, his bristly gray hair.

“You don't seem to have any trouble recalling what
he
looked like,” Sheriff Durrell commented.

I swallowed. “I was scared,” I said. “He had a knife. I was watching him the whole time.”

The sergeant glanced up from his notes. “What kind of knife?”

“I don't know. It wasn't that big, but the blade was long.”

“How long?”

I shook my head. “I don't know. I couldn't see.”

The sergeant continued writing, his hand moving across the page.

*   *   *

When we finished talking, the room was quiet. The sergeant looked through his notes. The sheriff just watched us, a cold, assessing gaze. He took the pad from the sergeant and flipped through the pages.

“So,” he said.

We waited.

“Larceny.”

Kit glanced at me.

“Lying to a police officer.”

I swallowed.

“Breaking and entering.”

The sheriff turned another page.

“Illegal possession of a controlled substance.”

He looked at me, and I could only stare at the floor.

“That wasn't ours,” Kit said.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?”

Neither of us said anything. I tightened my fingers over Kit's.

“Do you realize how this information affects the investigation?”

Slowly, I raised my eyes. The sheriff's face was impassive.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered.

“Sorry? You're sorry?” He snapped the pad shut with such force the sound made me cringe.

“That girl has been dead for four days. Four
days.
Without identification, maybe with an incorrect finding of the cause of death. You had knowledge, information, an object found on the body of the victim that could have changed that.”

My throat ached. I could feel my eyes welling up.

“Listen to me, Miss Martinez. Suppose that girl was your sister. Suppose your sister was found dead on a road somewhere, and the person who found her took information that would have been helpful in identifying her and figuring out what happened to her. Information, in fact, that might show evidence of a crime.”

I could feel Kit shift beside me, sitting up straighter. “She said she was sorry,” he said.

The sheriff glared at him. “I'd advise you to keep your mouth shut, Mr. Kitson,” he said coldly. “I haven't even started with you. You're … let's see…,” he shuffled through pages, “just four months shy of being legally classified as an adult. Would you care to hear the consequences of these actions for someone over the age of eighteen?”

Kit said nothing.

The sheriff snorted. “I didn't think so.”

He shook his head and motioned to Sergeant Henderson. “All right,” he said to us. “Wait here.”

We watched them return to the police car, the bracelet dangling from the sheriff's hand. They sat in full view of the motel window, talking and paging through the notebook.

“Okay,” Kit said. “You can let go of my hand now. My fingers are cramping.”

“Sorry,” I whispered.

He half smiled at me, not his usual smile, but something. I knew he was trying to make me feel better.

*   *   *

It seemed a long time before they came back into the room.

“I'm going to take a ride out to this fellow Wicker's place,” the sheriff said. “We'll see what he has to say. Sergeant Henderson will stay here with you.” He looked at me sternly. “He'll be in the squad car outside. Neither of you will leave this room. Understand?”

I nodded.

“You'll have to come in to the station for further questioning.”

I nodded again.

When they left, the door clicked shut with finality.

36

“Man.” Kit let out a long breath. “I'm glad that's over.” He yanked his T-shirt over his head in one swift stroke and pulled off his jeans. I turned away, but he seemed oblivious, throwing back the bedspread and sliding under the sheets. He closed his eyes. “I'm really tired,” he said.

I sat on the edge of the mattress, twisting my hair. The small digital clock on the nightstand read 1:00 a.m. “I don't think I can sleep,” I said.

“Well, I can, so turn off the light.”

“But what's going to happen now? All that stuff they said, about—”

“Shhh,” he mumbled. “Not now.”

“But—”

“Turn off the light.”

I frowned at him, but his face was already soft with sleep, his breathing slow. I flipped the light switch and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I came out, Kit was asleep, so I changed into my nightshirt and crawled into the cool envelope of sheets. In the dark, I stared at the ceiling. I was thinking of all the things the sheriff had said, that long list of offenses. I tugged the sheets under my chin. I didn't think I would be able to sleep, but when I closed my eyes, the blankness was a kind of refuge.

*   *   *

I shot upright, shaking all over. For a minute I couldn't even tell where I was, and I whipped around, trying to make out something familiar in the blackness of the room. I'd dreamed about the girl again. This time, as she rose up in the middle of the wet road, she came flying toward me, her sad, dark eyes fixed on mine. I was afraid of her, afraid of what she wanted. I tried to run. Then I woke up.

Kit was still sound asleep, lying on his back, one arm flung over his head. Trembling, I crawled out of bed and groped my way to the bathroom for a drink of water. The white light burned my eyes, but I left it on, with the door cracked, so that the room wouldn't be so dark. The cold water tasted rusty. I carried a glass back to the nightstand and looked down at Kit's calm profile.

I found my sketch pad and took out my pencil. Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I began to sketch. There was just enough light to see his features—nothing sharp or distinct, only the vague contours of his face. I sketched the soft fall of his hair, the line of his forehead and nose. When I got to his eyes, I gently drew the lashes, painstakingly, as if it mattered that I capture every one. Faces looked different in sleep. They became more their true selves, relaxing into their old innocence, without any of the layers of disguise that people wore when they were awake.

Asleep, Kit could have been a saint or an angel. His face was all beautiful lines and curves. He didn't stir the entire time I was drawing him, not even with the harsh light shining from the bathroom. By the time I finished, I knew his face by heart.

*   *   *

I slept so late in the morning that the room was bright when I opened my eyes. The phone was jangling angrily. Kit's bed was empty, and I could hear the whining rush of the shower through the wall. I pushed my hair away from my face and fumbled for the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Miss Martinez?”

I sat up straighter. “Yes?”

“Sheriff Durrell here. We're going to need you and Mr. Kitson to come in to the station and answer some questions.”

“Oh. Okay. But … did you talk to Wicker?”

“We've brought him in for questioning also.” I shivered. The “also” made it seem like there was no difference between us, like we were accomplices.

“I don't know where the station is.”

“I would have Sergeant Henderson escort you, but I had to call on his services last night.”

I looked out the window. The other police car was gone.

“Why? What happened?”

“Miss Martinez.” His voice was cold.

“Sorry.”

“The station is in Quebrada. It's about twenty miles west of Beth Osway's place. She can direct you.”

The shower noise stopped abruptly and the bathroom door swung open. Kit stuck his head out. “Who are you talking to?” he whispered.

“Police,” I mouthed. I concentrated on the phone again. “Should we come right now?”

I could hear him pause, thinking. “You can go to Ms. Osway's house for the time being. I'll leave instructions for you. But you need to go there directly. Understand?”

Stupidly, I nodded, then I remembered to say, “Yes, sure, we'll leave now.”

“I'll speak with you later today, Miss Martinez.”

“Okay.”

Kit came out of the bathroom in his jeans, toweling his hair. “So what did he say?”

“They want to talk to us again,” I said glumly. “They've got Wicker at the police station.”

“
Again?
” Kit said. “Jesus Christ! We told them everything. I mean, we solved their frigging case for them. What do they want now?”

He looked so outraged, I almost smiled. “I don't think they see it that way. But they said we can go back to Beth's. They'll call us there. So we need to leave.”

He frowned and wadded his clothing into a ball, shoving it back in his duffel bag.

We took a different road back to Beth's, narrower and even less traveled, because we were both sick of that same highway. It looked like a short cut, but it seemed to take longer. Kit called and told them we were coming, and I listened to him avoid Beth's frustrated questions with a vague “Yeah, yeah, we'll tell you when we get there.”

I sat with my feet on the dashboard and my sketch pad in my lap, drawing a new line of mountains. These were smaller than the others, gentle rises covered in dark shrubs, nestling close to the road. “Do you think the police will charge us with anything?” I asked.

Kit shook his head. “No way. We didn't do anything wrong.”

I glanced at him hopefully. “We didn't?”

“Well, I mean, we did … but it was for the right reasons, you know? That should make a difference.” He sounded like he was trying to convince both of us.

Up ahead, I saw a gas station, and on the side of the road, a hand-painted wooden sign with a woman's face and puffs of smoke all around it. It read “Jinjee, Dream Interpreter—$10/ dream.”

“Kit!” I said. “Stop!”

“Why? We don't need gas.”

“No!” We were zooming past it. I grabbed his arm. “For the other thing.”

He frowned and braked, turning into the gas-station lot. “What other thing?”

I looked away, embarrassed. “The dream interpreter. I want to talk to her.”

“Huh?”

I sighed, finally meeting his gaze. I leaned over the back seat and pointed to the sign. “Look. I've been having the same dream every night since the accident. It's about the girl. I want to know what it means.”

“I'll tell you what it means. You were totally freaked out when we found the girl, so now you're dreaming about it. Big deal.”

“No, it's more than that. In the dream, she always holds out her hands to me. She wants something from me, but I don't know what it is.”

“And you think some kook at a gas station is going to give you the answer?”

“I just want to try it,” I said. It sounded pathetic even to me. “I mean, the Indians do dream interpretation, right? It's part of their whole culture. Maybe she can help me figure it out.”