The Taint (6 page)

EIGHTEEN

Something was wrong.

Candy Burroughs walked determinedly toward the campground restrooms, her filmy robe billowing behind her, the satin high-heeled bedroom slippers digging into the loose topsoil.

Married less than twelve hours and already he was taking her for granted. She was beginning to think that she had made a mistake.

She knew a lot about being taken for granted, having learned it at her mother’s knee. It was dangerously close to being mistaken for the furniture . . .

She hadn’t expected it from David.

But the signs were all there. Married half a day and he was asleep in the tent, dead to the world, and there she was in her forty-five dollar negligee, reeking of Chanel No. 5.

She knew she shouldn’t have slept with him before she had a wedding ring on her finger. Her mother had told her.

Of course, there was the way he looked in tight jeans, and the way his body moved when they danced. He was something to look at. And this fiasco was getting worse every minute. Pretend you like the same things he does, they told her. Be a good sport.

Well, she was a good sport, and look where it got her; in the middle of nowhere, sleeping, and
only
sleeping, on a thin air mattress in a smelly old tent. No water bed, no adult movies, no champagne. And . . . no David.

How could he go to sleep like that?

She stumbled over a rock, twisting her ankle, and she stopped, taking off the heels. The dirt was cool and squished through her toes.

Well, he wasn’t likely to want to kiss her feet tonight, anyway.

The restrooms were well-lit and she went into the ladies section. Her mother had taught her how to use a public restroom without ever sitting down, something she was grateful for, especially now that they said that the disease germs probably lived longer on the toilet tissue than anywhere else. Maybe she’d take a wad of it to the tent and shove it into his pants.

The mirrors above the sinks were uniformly warped and there were no paper towels to dry her hands. She had only brought enough tissues to take care of number one. She stood, waving her hands in the air.

Back outside, she sat on the wooden bench which ran along the front of the building, examining her sore ankle. No swelling. Too bad. It might have made him sorry.

That was her mother’s trick as well. Mother had a lot of them, and she’d had a lot of husbands to try them on. Mother would probably know what to do.

She sighed, and began brushing the dust from the satin slippers.

What she really wanted to do was go back to the tent, wake him up, tease him and then tell him to go to hell.

No, what she really, really wanted was his hot little body. All night long.

“David,” she said, standing up, “you are going to get it.”

She didn’t remember this turn in the road, or the grove of trees. She slowed her pace, trying to find a familiar shape in the dark. A faint light shone in the distance but it seemed too far to be the guidepost. She had been walking for a long time.

She pulled the robe around her, holding the front together at the neck, and stopped walking. If she was going in the wrong direction she would only make it worse by continuing on. She turned around.

The restroom lights were not visible.

A whisper. She held her breath, listening hard. It was the wind in the trees.

She started back the way she had come. Very strange that she couldn’t see anyone’s campsite. There were lots of people in the park; someone must have a light on.

She was beginning to get scared. It was pitch black, even the moon obscured by the trees. She thought of crying out for help but decided against it. If something was out there she did not want to call attention to herself. The white nightgown and perfume were bad enough.

She came upon a turn in the road and the dirt was just enough lighter than the surrounding ground so she could see that the road split in three directions. She had taken the wrong fork.

Now she knew this one was the wrong one, but which of the others was the right one? She stood in the center of the road and peered down the others. Nothing struck her as familiar.

She found a large rock and placed it in the middle of the wrong path. Process of elimination, she thought, and took the right fork.

If she hadn’t been so upset with David, she might have paid more attention to where she’d walked. Again nothing looked right.

She was about to turn back when she heard a sound behind her, like twigs snapping, and felt eyes upon her. Her legs carried her forward.

What was it?

She moved faster, the negligee threatening to tangle around her legs, and she lifted it, gathering the material in her free hand, the slippers clutched in the other.

She could sense it behind her, moving stealthily, gaining ground.

She broke into a run, the gown up to her thighs, now, breathing hard through her mouth. A stitch in her side but she ignored it.

In front of her, a light. The guidepost, her guidepost, and beyond, perhaps four hundred yards, was the tent and the car. A trailer was across and two spaces down.

She ducked through the opening into the tent and fell to her knees gasping. She could not bear to look out and see what it was. She pulled the nightgown off; it was damp with sweat.

David lay on his back on the air mattress. He was dressed only in cutoffs, and the covers were twisted at the foot of the bed.

She crawled into bed beside him, pulling the blankets up around them and ran her hand across his chest and stomach before doing what mother never told her.

NINETEEN

Jon parked the Bronco in front of the town hall and entered the building through the side door, deliberately making enough noise with his keys so the night dispatch clerk could hear him.

“That you, Sheriff?” Sally Rose was a big woman, well over two hundred pounds, and she’d been dispatching long before he’d ever shown up in town. Rumor was that one night one of the deputies had shown up unannounced and she’d knocked him cold in anticipated defense of her virtue.

“It is, and how are you?”

“Can’t complain.” A pause. “Well, I could, but what good would it do me?” She laughed and winked at him. “It’s been real quiet tonight, Sheriff, not even complaints about barking dogs.”

“Good.” He unlocked the door to his office.

“Oh, wait. Here’s a report from Dr. Adams.” She held out a manila envelope. “Reverend Frey brought it by . . . he’s a good man.”

“Dr. Adams?” He opened the envelope and scanned the report.

“Reverend Frey. Always thinking of others.” She went back into the communications room, shaking her head in wonder.

“That’s his job,” Jon said under his breath and went into his office.

The report said essentially what Nathan had told him, if in more technical terms. Death caused by a broken neck. Shortly before the accident, as determined by the absence of post-mortem lividity—the gravitational pooling of blood in the body.

He tossed it on the desk and leaned back in his chair, putting his feet on the desk.

It had been a long time since he’d had anything to do with a murder case. As a patrol cop he was often first on the scene, responsible for preserving the integrity of the evidence, but homicide took over from there. This one promised to be a lulu.

Wendall Tyler was in no shape to talk. If he could talk to the family, he might uncover a reason why Tyler might want to kill his wife. Maybe he’d planned the whole thing; killed her and then ran the car off the road to make it look like an accident. He could be faking this entire speechless bit. They’d heard him yelling.

And Randy Cruz. Nathan had verified that the blood was human. Cruz had gone looking for something, and apparently he’d found it. But where was the body? Nothing he knew of would destroy every trace of it. Unless, like Rachel said, he had crawled off somewhere and was helpless.

He would organize a more thorough search in the morning. Earl could call a couple of the reserves and the park rangers might be able to round up some volunteers among the campers. There was a lot of land to cover.

The office was warm and he allowed his eyes to close, intending only to rest for a moment.

Tim was alive.

He was back in the LAPD uniform, driving his unit through the streets, and he heard Tim’s voice on the radio, calling in a traffic stop. Routine. Standard procedure.

For some reason, though, he turned and headed toward where the stop was made. His car glided along dark streets as he twisted his way through the city. There was steady traffic on the air, but nothing for him.

He was getting close now, pausing to let an old man cross the street in front of him, his jaw tightening.

He could see, ahead, the flashing lights of the patrol car, brilliantly bright. The other car was in front, all four doors standing open.

Where were they?

An alley ran through the middle of the block, and he could see it in his mind, dark, foreign.

He pulled up alongside Tim’s unit, his lights flashing now, and was out of the car, gun drawn, and running toward the alley. He saw three of them, but not Tim.

The flash of a gun.

He pulled the trigger, again and again, emptying the gun at them, and they fell. He began to reload, walking into the alley, trying not to smell the rotten stink of them.

Dead. He had killed them, blasted their faces away.

And Tim. Standing.

He had saved him this time.

He woke, throat aching.

Sally knocked on the opened door. “Sheriff, they’ve found Randy Cruz. Down at the rock quarry.”

Ranger Malloy stood in the middle of the road and flagged him down, coming around to the window.

“He’s over just beyond my jeep.” Malloy’s face was grim.

Jon got out and followed Malloy, his boots crunching gravel. A fine mist had settled near the ground, reflecting back the light from Malloy’s flashlight.

Randy Cruz was face down, arms and legs splayed. There was a great deal of blood. A rifle was just beyond his right hand.

Jon knelt by the body. “Did you move him?”

“God, no.”

Jon flashed the light at Cruz’s face and then at the hands. A thin wedding band shone on the left hand. “Shit.” He got up and regarded the rifle. “Why the hell didn’t he use it?”

Malloy didn’t answer.

He got back to the office as the sun was rising. The body of Randy Cruz was now in the morgue at the hospital, only a couple of halls away from his wife and child.

He would have to call Rachel, so she could tell the wife. It was not a job he envied.

Earl was due in any minute, and it was clear he’d have to call in one of the reserves. The work was piling up fast.

The day dispatcher showed up five minutes later, with Earl hot on her heels.

“Damn,” Earl said when he told him.

Jon picked up the phone to call Rachel but the line was busy. It wouldn’t take more than five minutes to drive over there. “I’m going to stop by the Adams house on my way home,” he said, “but I want to make sure you call me at twelve-thirty.”

“That’s not much time to sleep,” Earl said.

“It’ll be enough.” Then he was out the door.

Saturday

TWENTY

Joyce Callan took the thermometer from between Peter Thomas’ lips, noting the fine sheen of sweat on his forehead and the high color in his cheeks. 102.6. She held her hand against his face. Unscientific, but she needed to touch him, to reassure him.

She went back to the station and picked up the direct line to Nathan, pushing the button so the line would ring.

Rachel Adams answered the phone.

“Doctor, this is the hospital.” She resisted the urge to ask for Nathan. “Peter Thomas is running a temp of one oh two six.”

“Was it up at all yesterday?”

Joyce flipped the chart back to the vitals sheet. “Normal on admission, ninety-nine, ninety-nine point two, and then it spiked during the night.”

“He’s how old?”

“Twelve. Admitted for observation . . .”

“Yes, I remember; he thought he could fly. Give him two adult aspirin and I’ll be down in half an hour.”

“Thank you.” Joyce replaced the phone, and went to the medication cabinet to get the aspirin.

“Who was it?” Nathan asked, coming into the kitchen.

“The Thomas boy is running a fever.” She poured coffee into a mug and handed it to him. “I’d better get dressed.”

“I can take care of it.”

She stopped at the door. “I thought we agreed that I’d take over the patients for a while.”

Nathan nodded. “Yes . . . but . . .”

“And you’re taking tomorrow off to go fishing.”

Again he nodded. “But you need to get the radio installed in your car before I go.”

Rachel leaned against the door. “You’re right.”

“So take care of that first and then you can come and play doctor.” He drank the coffee and pushed aside the kitchen curtain. “It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

She was getting dressed when she heard voices from downstairs and she hurried when she recognized Jon’s.

Nathan was at the door, ready to leave, as she came down the stairs. “Jon says he’ll install your radio for you,” he informed her.

“But you’ve worked all night,” she protested.

“It won’t take long. I came by,” he continued, “to tell you we found Randy Cruz.”

She looked at Nathan and back at Jon. “He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

Nathan cleared his throat. “Would you like me to tell Tina?”

Rachel shook her head. “I’ll tell her.”

“I’d better get going,” Nathan said and went out the door.

For a moment they just stood, looking at each other.

“Did he look as though an animal had killed him?”

“There was a lot of blood, but it looked like knife wounds to me.” He ran a hand through his hair. “He wasn’t the type of guy to have someone hating him.”

“That makes it worse,” she observed.

“Yeah. Well, I’d better get your radio in so you can get on your way.”

He was half-lying on the floorboard of the Porsche, fixing the radio brace under the dash. Rachel sat in the driver’s seat examining the radio, which she held in her hands.

“What’s band one and two?”

“One is the private frequency that the hospital uses; they’ve got a transmitter in emergency. Two is county communications, the open channel.”

“Is that you?”

“Sometimes. We’ve got a private band, too. Can’t let everyone know our business.” He connected a protective case around the brackets. He put his hand up toward her. “Okay, it’s ready to go in.”

She handed him the radio and watched as he installed it. His shirt had slipped up, an inch of bare abdomen was exposed. Fine dark hair. She looked away.

He attached the microphone to the radio case and made the final electrical connections, then slid, maneuvering until he was able to sit in the passenger’s seat. He handed her the mike.

“Try it,” he said, and reached to turn it on.

There was only silence on the air. He switched bands, and turned the volume up.

“You’re not receiving. This must be a dead zone.” He closed the car door. “Start it and drive up the road a way; see if it works.”

The engine caught, running smoothly, and she pulled away, a cloud of dust rising behind her. She pushed the gas pedal almost to the floor, shifting gears quickly, the little car hugging the road, and then stopped, allowing the car to slide just a little.

“I am the law,” he said.

It was close in the car and she reached up, touching his face with her hand. Her mouth was inches from his.

“Arrest me.” She smiled and picked up the microphone.