Point Deception Page 18

  “You never did show me the rest of the canyon,” he said.

  The only times Rho had ventured into the far end of the canyon were during daylight, in the company of her fellow deputies as they searched for evidence they might have overlooked on the night of the murders. Then she’d gone with a horror of viewing the abattoir where Bernhard Ulrick had died, and an equal horror of appearing weak in front of her colleagues. Now she moved steadfastly along the path, strengthened both by her resolve to find out what had happened to Chrystal Ackerman and by the presence of Guy Newberry, who seemed a stranger to fear.

  The sound of the waterfall guided her, and she kept her light trained on the two sets of footprints. Shortly after they passed the fall, the path narrowed and the prints stopped. She paused, shone her light ahead at a wide pool of water.

  Behind her Guy said, “What?”

  “This is as far as the prints go. The end of the canyon’s flooded.” She raised the torch and aimed it at where the drug lab should be. The shed had listed to the left. If the rains were heavy this year and the stream rose, the shed would collapse, and at least one of the monuments to the crimes perpetrated here would vanish.

  “She could’ve waded over there,” Guy said.

  “Maybe. But why? There’s nothing inside but some broken-down furniture.”

  “She had no way of knowing that.”

  “True.”

  “Something happened here, though. Something that made her run.”

  Rho sighed and stepped into the pool. It was about six inches deep with a mucky bottom. Cold water rushed into her athletic shoes. After she sloshed forward a few steps she said to Guy, “You coming?”

  “I’ll hold down the fort here.”

  Naturally.

  As she got closer she saw that the shed had badly deteriorated. She shone her light through the door, noted that part of the roof had fallen in. Water covered the floor and mildew obscured the blood-spatter patterns on the walls. She hoped never again to witness such a scene: so much blood, bone, flesh, and brain matter.…

  She shook her head, forced the image away. Tried to step up into the structure. The weight of one foot made it pitch violently. When she withdrew, the shed settled at a more acute angle.

  “I don’t think she came this far,” she said to Guy.

  “Then come on back before you get so soaked you catch pneumonia.”

  She waded toward him. “So what happened here?” she asked. “Why’d she run?”

  “Someone was chasing her?”

  “There’s only one set of prints.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t a person.”

  “An animal?”

  “No.”

  “What, then?” She took the hand he offered and stepped up onto the bank.

  He said, “A memory. I’ve been talking with the old man down at Point Deception. Gregory Cordova. He claims that the family who were squatting in that cabin on the ridge that your department raided were here on the night of the murders.”

  A chill that had nothing to do with her wet feet stole over Rho. “Why didn’t he tell us that?”

  “I suppose because they were already gone, and he didn’t want to get involved. Anyway, he doesn’t know the parents’ names, but he remembers that the little girl was called Chrissy.”

  Chrissy. Chrystal. Of course, she knew that. Oriana Wynne had given them the name; it was in the casefile. “Ackerman was the right age,” she said.

  “So why’d she come back here after all these years?”

  She studied Guy. He was arrogant and could often be irritating, but there was something likable about him as well. And he was very good at what he did. She could use his powers of observation and keen logic.

  “My friend,” she said, “that is exactly what you and I are going to find out.”

  Chrystal: Before

  Friday, October 6

  12:21 P.M.

  God, this place is spooky. And quiet. So quiet I can hear every car on the highway, the way they take the curve too fast, bump over the centerline. Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump.

  Okay, Jude’s instructions. Follow the driveway past the little shingled house, and—

  There it is. Eric’s house. Only he didn’t spend much time there those last few months. His folks were always fighting, and Eric was always crying in the kid boxes. Lots of fighting going on back then. Devon Wynne and her boyfriend till he beat her up so bad and they threw him out and he went to live at Westhaven. And then Forrest beat up Bernhard before they threw him out. I remember crying that night because even though I was just a little kid I knew the good times were over and bad stuff was gonna happen. Sorta the way I’ve felt all the way up here, only there haven’t been any good times and the bad stuff that happened here was years and years ago.

  Wish I hadn’t come, though. Wish I hadn’t got pissed off by Jude’s “you’ll never get away with it” talk and decided to show her.

  So show her, Chryssie. Get a move on—

  Oh my God! I don’t believe this.

  One of them hawks sitting real still on the power line and the tree branches meeting over the driveway. I’ve drawn that! Over and over, with different angles and light, while I sat on the phone letting men fill my ears with garbage. Drawn it without knowing it was a real place.

  Was I trying to remember?

  Tuesday, October 10

  The clatter of the small apartment’s air-conditioning unit competed with a siren on the street. Rho ignored both, transfixed by the wall of charcoal drawings in Chrystal Ackerman’s living room. They were all landscapes: some of the desert, others of the mountains, but the best were reminiscent of Soledad County. The one she focused on was of Cascada Canyon. She recognized the utility line where a long-tailed hawk perched and the avenue of trees that arched over the curving dirt track.

  Behind her, Guy Newberry said. “What a waste.”

  “She had talent, didn’t she?”

  “With training and effort she might’ve been really good.”

  Rho indicated the canyon scene. “Recognize this?”

  “Of course.”

  There had been a message at the substation that morning from Ronald Stevens, the Clark County detective, saying his court order had come through and he was free to enter Ackerman’s apartment. Did Rho want to be on hand for the search? She immediately asked Ned Grossman for permission to fly to Las Vegas, then called Guy and told him he’d be welcome to join her on the trip. It was irregular, she knew, to allow a civilian—let alone a journalist—to come along, but she suspected that Grossman would understand should he find out. Besides, Guy had offered to save the department money by paying for a rental car.

  From the moment she spotted Las Vegas from the air, the visit had taken on a surreal quality for Rho. Mostly low and flat, it sprawled in the middle of the desert, golf courses and parks contrasting with the surrounding barren terrain. But what caught her attention were the buildings that reared up near its center like an overblown Disneyland: the fabled Strip, spiritual home to America’s dreams of instant wealth and all the things that luck would shower upon those it favored.

  In the airport the electronic tones of slot machines were disorienting. At one of them a man pleaded with his wife to stop playing, as their plane had already boarded. “But I’m winning!” she protested. After he dragged her away Guy went over and dropped a coin into the machine, which refused to give up its bounty. He grinned at Rho and shrugged, clearly stimulated by the charged atmosphere.

  It was early afternoon and the outside temperature was in the eighties. Rho’s sweater felt prickly against her skin. The air was clear, the sunlight pale, as if both had been refined for the pleasure of visitors. Even the rental car was faintly perfumed—a scent that made Rho roll down her window, even though Guy had put on the air conditioner.

  Ackerman’s street, Paradise Road, extended north from the airport, past the University of Nevada Las Vegas campus. Her building resembled an old motel and stood defiantly between tw
o more imposing and luxurious structures. Stevens, a tall black man with horn-rimmed glasses and an obvious toupee, was already there with a locksmith. Within minutes they were inside. The apartment was a basic furnished unit with beige walls, worn dark brown carpeting, and cheap appointments. Its postage-stamp balcony faced a parking lot and the next building. Its only distinction was the wall of artwork.

  Now Rho heard Stevens rummaging in the drawer of a small table next to the sofa. “No cards, no letters, no address book,” he said. “Your victim must’ve been one lonely lady.”

  She turned away from the wall and went to the kitchen. The cabinets contained cheap glassware and dishes; there were few utensils, fewer pots and pans. Bags and boxes from fast-food outlets were crammed into a trash can under the sink, and the fridge held nothing but jug wine, a tub of margarine, two containers of yogurt, and three apples. A loaf of bread in a basket on the counter had grown mold.

  There were two bedrooms, one of them empty, the other in chaos. Unmade queen-size bed, clothing heaped on the floor and hanging over a chair, empty wineglass and coffee cup on one nightstand. The closet was full of clothing ranging from basic jeans and tees to skimpy sundresses.

  As Rho was checking the bathroom Guy came in, holding an ashtray. “Marijuana roaches,” he said.

  “Doesn’t surprise me. There were roaches in the Mercedes too.” She closed the door of the medicine chest, lifted the lid of the toilet tank and saw nothing concealed there. “All in all I’d say Ackerman led a pretty solitary life. She mainly ate takeout, drank cheap wine, and smoked dope. Judging from her clothing, I doubt she got dressed up and went out on the town. She slept alone, at least at home—no condoms here and that other nightstand’s got enough dust on it to prove nobody’s set anything there in months.”

  “So she just sat in this apartment and took phone calls and drew pictures.”

  “Except for when she was turning tricks for clients like Sean Bartlow.” She went back to the living room to look for the phone. Stevens indicated two instruments, one white and one beige, at either end of the sofa. The white phone had an answering machine hooked up to it.

  “Must be her personal line,” he said. “She’s got nine messages.”

  Rho went over and hit the play button.

  “Chrys,” a voice that she recognized as Sean Bartlow’s said, “some cop in Soledad County, California, just called me. She said you abandoned my car on the coast highway. What the hell happened? Call me.”

  “Chrys.” Bartlow again. “Come on. I know you always check for messages. I need to talk with you.”

  “Ms. Ackerman, this is Cerini Jewelers. Your watch is ready.”

  A dial tone.

  “Chrys, this isn’t funny! I’ve got to do something about my car, but that cop knows the plates I put on it are stolen, and she said something about a felony. I’m afraid to call her back till I talk with you.”

  “This is Hillcrest Dental, calling for Chrystal. You’re due for a cleaning. Please call to schedule.”

  A receiver being slammed down emphatically.

  Another hangup.

  “Ms. Ackerman, this is Alfred Parkins at Better Care Nursing Home. We regret to inform you that your mother passed away this morning. Please contact us regarding arrangements.”

  That message had come in today, at ten twenty-five.

  Guy hated nursing homes, and he particularly hated Better Care. On Cheyenne west of North Las Vegas Air Terminal, it was a low-slung concrete-block structure with a flat roof upon which perched dozens of noisy swamp coolers. Not so much as a flower or shrub relieved its grim high-windowed facade. Inside was worse: corridors full of vacant-eyed people being warehoused in wheelchairs; cramped rooms devoid of comforting personal touches; medicinal smells overlying the stench of filth; officious personnel who treated their charges as if they were retarded children. Maybe his next book should be about a system in trouble: a healthcare system that abused and humiliated the infirm and elderly. Get in his licks and expose the shame before he became one of its victims—

  Self-interest again, darlin’.

  “Be quiet.”

  “What?” Rhoda asked.

  He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Oh, I thought you had.”

  Thank God this awful place had her sufficiently distracted to accept his denial. He didn’t want this competent and rational woman to realize the man she’d allowed to participate in her investigation frequently carried on lively conversations with his dead wife!

  Mr. Alfred Parkins, director of the home and most officious of all, led them into a room containing three beds, two of them occupied by motionless shapes that huddled beneath their covers, silent and seeming not to breathe. The space Judith Ackerman had occupied was tiny: narrow hospital bed; small locker and nightstand; TV mounted high on the wall. But next to the bed was a framed charcoal drawing, a sketch of Cascada Canyon similar to the one in Chrystal’s living room. The choice of medium was appropriate, the charcoal creating a brooding aura.

  They’d already spoken with Parkins in his office and learned that Judith had died of a stroke, brought on by complications of multiple sclerosis. When he asked who would be handling the funeral arrangements since “that daughter” was also deceased, Rhoda told him he would have to search for other relatives. Her reply displeased Parkins. He steepled his fingers and put on a lugubrious face. A search would take time, he said, and time was money. Couldn’t she—

  No, Rhoda told him, although her department would share any information they uncovered in the course of their investigation.

  Now Guy watched as she opened the locker and sorted through Judith’s scant possessions. There was a gentleness in her touch, a respectfulness that pleased him. She seemed to care about this woman whom she had never met, in much the same way she cared about the daughter she’d only once seen alive.

  “What kind of a person was Mrs. Ackerman?” she asked Parkins, fingering a fringed scarf in brilliant colors shot with gold thread.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “What was she like?”

  “She was… a patient. I didn’t have much contact with her.”

  “Who did?”

  “The orderlies. The nurses.”

  “Her doctor?”

  “She wasn’t assigned to any particular physician. They rotate.”

  Guy saw Rhoda’s fingers tighten on the scarf. Angry, he thought, in the same way he was.

  “She wasn’t being cared for by a specialist?” Now her voice carried a critical edge.

  Parkins flushed. “This isn’t a medical center, Deputy Swift. Our resources are limited, the patients’ even more so. Besides, her condition was terminal.”

  Rhoda flashed Guy a stormy look. She removed the scarf from the locker and placed it on the stripped mattress, then turned her attention to the nightstand. Guy watched her sift through its contents. Eyeglasses, paperback romance novel, lurid-covered true-crime magazine, small photograph album, loose-leaf binder. She glanced through the latter items and said to Parkins, “I’ll have to take these, as well as the drawing on the wall, as evidence. Of course, I’ll give you a receipt.”

  She had, Guy knew, no jurisdiction in Las Vegas and couldn’t legally take the items; she was probably claiming them as much out of anger as need. But Parkins either didn’t know that or wasn’t concerned.

  The director moved his hand in dismissal. “No receipt will be necessary. Even if we locate a relative, I doubt they’d care about them.”

  Rhoda’s expression said she doubted the word “care” was used with any frequency within the walls of this institution.

  Rho moved quickly across the parking lot of the nursing home, glad to be out of the wretched place. Las Vegas was making her edgy—the heat, the traffic, the flatness, the often shabby neighborhoods. Guy, who had been cut off at the door by an aggressive orderly with a wheelchair, caught up with her at the car.

  “Why’d you take those thing
s?” he asked. “You know it’s not legal.”

  “I know, but I didn’t want to have to wait around for Stevens, and besides, Parkins made me so mad.”

  “That’s why you took the scarf too.”

  “I guess.” She waited impatiently for him to unlock the door, slipped onto the hot passenger’s seat. It burned clear through her trousers. “I knew Parkins was right: Nobody’ll care about Jude’s things. She must’ve valued the scarf highly to bring it along to the home, where she had no use for it. I couldn’t see leaving it to be thrown out or stolen by one of the staff. Somebody ought to have it to remember her by—if only me.”

  As she finished speaking she realized how foolish she must sound, but Guy glanced at her with eyes full of understanding. “It was a lovely thing to do. What was in the album and the binder?”

  “Handwritten poetry and pictures taken with the other families in Cascada Canyon. They prove the Ackermans were the family who were squatting in the cabin on the ridge.”

  “May I see them?”

  “Later. I want to get to that diner Parkins mentioned and interview Sandy Viera before she finishes her dinner break and goes back to work.” Viera was the nurse who had known Judith Ackerman the best.

  The diner was only a few blocks away: a desert-motif operation decked out in fake saguaro cacti and cattle skulls displayed in wall niches. A bank of slot machines, two of them in use, stood to the right of the door, and at the lunch counter a man in cowboy boots and Levi’s hunched over a beer, figuring what looked to be odds in a well-thumbed notebook. A blast of chill air penetrated Rho’s clothing. Another thing that bothered her about Las Vegas was the constant abrupt transition from heat to cold, cold to heat.

  She scanned the room for a black-haired woman in a nurse’s uniform and spotted her alone in a booth by the windows. When she and Guy approached, the woman’s eyes grew wary, but after Rho explained why they wanted to talk with her, she nodded sadly and asked them to join her.

  Sandy Viera looked to be in her mid-fifties, a plump woman with a round, relatively unlined face and dangly purple earrings that looked out of place with her crisp white uniform. Her mouth drooped as Rho told her about Chrystal.