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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

7:20 a.m.

Shirtless, sitting on the edge of his bed in room fourteen of the Desert Inn, Joe stared at the phone, barely able to stay awake. He had to make the call. Already the room was hot. He picked up a glass of ice water, gulped it down. He turned on the air conditioner, sat on the bed again. His hand drifted from his lap to the phone. He dialed nine; after the tone he dialed the number. Only fatigue held back his nervousness at having it answered. In the middle of the second ring, Teddi Weldon's flat voice said:

"Hello."

"Teddi. Joe."

"Joe, good morning," she said, sounding relieved. "I didn't expect a call so soon. How's it going? Any news yet?"

Joe swallowed. "Yes. It's not good news." He paused long enough to arouse the possibilities, to alert her. Maybe she'd say it and all he'd have to do is affirmatively intone Mm-hmm. Teddi said nothing, though. He'd have to say it.

"Teddi...she's...not alive."

"Not alive?" Her voice trembled. "Not...Jackie's dead?"

"I'm sorry." As if she were hyperventilating, her breathing turned to gasps. A muffled cry stuttered over the phone. Joe sipped his water, feeling her breath on his face as if she were standing there in the room. "I'm sorry," he repeated earnestly.

Her voice pinched. "You're...you're sure it's her?"

"I made the identification."

"Oh, Lord Jesus, no."

Several moments passed. Joe couldn't find any unmechanical-sounding words of consolation.

"How did she...?"

"I don't know–exactly. She was, uh...she was murdered."

"Oh, no, no. It was that–" She must have put her hand over the mouthpiece, because no sound came over the line. He thought at first she'd hung up.

"What can I do?" Joe asked finally.

She didn't answer. He pictured Teddi composing herself. This was a strong woman, a tough woman. No doubt she was digging down past her grief and denial. This sort of digging was best done in silence. He let her have it.

And then the sound opened on the phone. In the background he heard Jayne's voice say:

"Mom? You all right? What's wrong? Who is it?"

Teddi Weldon's weeping hurled out. A wailing that sent chills through him, awakening his sympathy from a long hibernation.

"Hello," Jayne said anxiously into the phone. "Who is this?"

"It's Joe Cox, Jayne."

"Why is my mother–?"

"Jayne," Joe cut in. "It's your sister. It's bad."

A beat. "She's dead, isn't she? She's dead."

He didn't answer. There was a loud clunk, clunk, clunk. She'd dropped the phone; it was hanging and banging against something.

Teddi came back on the line. A deep breath rattled up from her chest. She sniffed and said: "Who killed her?"

"I don't know. There's a detective assigned to the case. With your permission, I'll assist him. I want to find who did this."

"Yes," she hissed through a resurgence of sobs.

"Autopsy's in progress. I'll know more this afternoon."

"Do they have to do that?" she whimpered.

"Yes."

"Where are you?" she asked suddenly in a harder tone. Joe told her. "I'll be there by two."

"I understand why, Teddi, but at this point–"

"I'm coming!" she blurted.

"You won't be able to see her."

"I'm coming. To bring her home. Like I hired you to do."

The stab surprised him. He tried to understand. He apologized–again. And as he mumbled those two humble words–I'm sorry–his emotion welled up without warning. Tears streamed down his face. He was speechless. He wished he had the guts just to hang up. But his guts were lifeless muck.

Then, softly, Teddi said: "I didn't mean that–I'm sorry–oh, Lord Jesus–" And she hung up.

Joe cradled the receiver. The cool air blew over him. As he laid back on the bed, from Leah's room next door, he heard her phone ring. Then her muffled, "Hello." He closed his eyes, curiosity lost, wiped his face on the pillow.

Sleep swept him out of reality.

* * *

It was a two-seater like Lucilva said it was. Adams buckled himself in the left seat, Reggie in the right. They stared down the short dirt runway between a gauntlet of dead fruit trees.

Behind them was the hill where Jackie had stayed in the motorhome. A road paralleled the runway and struck out through the desert below, winding off to nowhere. Adams had fueled the ultralight from a tank perched on a homemade stand built from scrap two-by-fours and plywood. The stand sat beside a shed storing tools and hoses for caring for the orchards. The spider webs he saw netting over everything said a lot for the condition of the grove.

"Ready?" Adams said, spreading a grin.

"As I'll ever get."

He fired up the engine. It popped, sputtered and zinged to life. Sounded like a team of gardeners storming a neighborhood. Before he knew it, the ultralight was bumping down the runway. The wind rushed his face as they reached the end of it. The front wheel sprang up and the aircraft tilted back. Reggie's stomach rose with the airplane, which barely missed the split-rail fence at the end, and just as suddenly as it took to the air, Adams banked it hard to the left.

"Like flying in a Weedeater!" Reggie called out over the propeller noise. Adams nodded. He handed Reggie a tube.

"Hold these." Premium Ping Pong Balls it read on the side. His expression let Adams know what he was wondering. Adams straightened their direction and said:

"They help me land."

Reggie wished he hadn't been told that. He didn't ask how. He didn't want to know how ping pong balls could be so aeronautically important. Instead, he gripped his seat, looked down between his legs at the ground passing under them only a hundred feet below. It was a slow ride, like sailing, made rough by the jarring motion of the aircraft as it met with the hot wind currents and rattled. They followed the Cady Mountains, occasionally dipped down to their level to skim along their slopes. Reggie discovered that his fear settled to a manageable excitement and asked: "How easy is it to fly one of these?"

"Ten hours, I'll have you flying solo." Bear let go of the stick. "Take it."

"No, no, I couldn't!"

"Take it!" he ordered. "It's a trainer! Feet on the pedals! Hand on the throttle!"

Reggie obeyed. The aircraft dipped suddenly.

"Back! Pull it back, that's it!" Adams said, making an adjustment with the pedals. "Good, good. Hold it there. Feel the change like a car. Slowly adjust. Slow. Keep the nose up. More, more. That's good. Right there."

He felt his control over the motion. It was an exhilaration he didn't trust. The aircraft lifted violently, the wings clacking in their frame, and they began to roll to the side. The ground below his right shoulder came up at him. Reggie's panic was instantaneous. "Take it!" he screamed.

Adams laughed, took the stick, and quickly adjusted the ultralight, guiding it back on course, flattening it out. "Are we having fun yet?" he laughed heartily.

Reggie looked at him. He wasn't looking for fun. Fun was the last thing on his mind.

Not another word was spoken. Adams sung a silly song Reggie had heard from a cockamamie movie as a kid. Those daring young men in their flying machines, they go uptidy-up-up, they go down-diddy-down-down!" Reggie held his seat tight. Even tighter to the tube of ping pong balls. Over the desert, Reggie felt completely disoriented. But the view was humbling. The desert's awesome size, its emptiness, carried his attention away from his fear of crashing. Even the meth deal seemed insignificant. Although the thought of being cut out of it stirred his anger, he resigned himself to changes in his plans, to new purposes. And, mostly, to finding Jackie's killer.

Three or four miles from the hangar, Reggie recognized the landscape. First, the dry lake. Then the road snaking beneath them. In the shimmering heat, the outline of what looked like a building. From the air, the hangar and Quonset hut were nearly invisible, blending well with the terrain. The ultralight descended, the wings tilting right, left, right. Adams flew over the hangar. Reggie noticed that the orange windsock was gone.

"Don't you have to know the wind direction to land?" he asked, as the aircraft banked and circled around into position to fly over the hangar again. "Lucilva said these things have to land into the wind–or you crash."

Adams pointed to the ping pong balls. "Drop one!"

Reggie tipped the tube, a ball rolled out and he dropped it. It fell in a severe arc behind them. Over his shoulder, Adams watched it fall.

"Another one!"

Reggie dropped another ball. It floated down in the breeze, appearing to careen off invisible pinball bumpers. Adams scrunched his nose. He wasn't sure.

"One more!"

This time the ball drifted straight back like the first one. Almost immediately, the narrow road came up at them as Adams dropped the ultralight to just inches over the pebble-packed dirt. The wheels bit the ground hard and the engine throttled down like a toy plane.

Adams wiggled his eyebrows at Reggie. Reggie relaxed as the aircraft rounded a tree and parked in the turnout. They covered the ultralight with a camouflage net kept in a box under the tree. The Hispanic biker and his anorexic girlfriend were asleep on the ground in the shade of the hangar, curled up on sleeping bags. Nearly everything from inside the motorhome had been yanked out and stacked inside the hangar. They walked through into the Quonset hut. Bearish snoring rumbled from the make-shift room in the corner.

Adams whispered, "Josh." He went straight for an ice chest and got a beer. It made a splursh when he popped the top. Lucilva popped her head up from the other side of the couch. Her puffy eyes blinked. Her brown hair was powdered white. Reggie stepped around the couch for a better look. She lay beside King on one of the mattresses from the motorhome. Her pillow had been pushed aside, leaving her head in a pile of dusty, white lime. King slept. His sleeping bag was pushed down to his waist. A trail of pubic hair ran from his belly button down under. A tattoo of a mooning pirate covered his chest. Lucilva raised her eyebrows at Reggie, daring him to say something. It wasn't worth it, so he turned to find I.Q.

"Where've you been?" she asked. "You were supposed to come back with Bear last night. You missed all the real work–again. Wasn't easy ripping the heart out of that beast out there." She turned to Adams. "Where was he?"

"Showed up early this morning."

Lucilva looked from one to the other, stood up, revealing that she wore lime green jogging shorts and a white tank top, and flopped into a chair at the dining table. The room was filled with a warm, musky stale odor. Reggie needed fresher air. Even if it was hot. She followed him to the motorhome. As he opened the door to it, she took hold of his arm.

"What's going on?" she demanded, her eyes showing no concern. Neither did they reveal knowledge or guilt. She stepped back. "Why're you looking at me like that?"

Reggie quietly told her, "Jackie's been murdered."

A streak of shock broke from her face. She muttered something unintelligible. Reggie wondered if she was reacting or playacting.

"Where?"

"Your fucking lake."

"Wasn't an accident?"

"What do you think?" he growled. Smoothing the edge off his anger, he said, "She was leaving on the shuttle Friday. This morning, she's found in The Plunge. I guess she decided to take a dip in the ten minutes before the bus left?"

"Of course not, I'm sorry."

"She left Doone's with a cop."

"Did you talk to Chief Karl?"

"Not after she was found. Before, though, they were no help. No record of an arrest–not even that she was picked up. I don't know who to believe. This whole town's dirty, far as I can see. Scum City."

"That isn't necessary," she said sternly.

"None of this is."

"I'm sorry," Lucilva said, looking at her hands. "In the short time I talked with her...she seemed like a nice girl."

"Would you know a nice girl if you saw one?"

She slapped him. It stung for several seconds, but he didn't let it show.

Finally, he asked: "Who knew I went to town?"

"All of us."

"Do you know where I stayed last night?"

"No. Where?"

He watched her face. "Cabins."

"Makes sense. That's where I dropped you off."

"So you figured I'd stay there, right?"

"Figured? You told me to stop there, remember. Wasn't my idea to stop at the cabins. What...what're you driving at?"

"The killer's trying to frame me," he replied and stepped into the motorhome. He was startled to find that it had been turned into something out of a mad scientist movie. A long table was set up down the middle of the compartment. Only some shelves and the sink remained of the original guts. Even the appliances had been disconnected and removed. He'd known it was being gutted, but he thought there would be something left. And there was. His bed in back. And I.Q. was in it, wheezing in his sleep. His glasses hung from a cord on the knob of a drawer overhead. On the table, I.Q. had constructed his intricate lab: hoses and beakers and all the accouterments of a chemist. In the bathroom stall sat a large missile-like propane tank with a hose attached and several other hoses branching from the main hose to bunsen burners.

"Who? Who'd want to frame you?" Reggie put his finger to his lips. She whispered, "And if it's true, maybe he knows what you're doing out here. What if the police are on to us already?"

Reggie tapped an odd-shaped Pyrex container. It clinked. "Yeah. What if."

* * *

The room was cool. Joe's eyeballs hurt. The drone of the air conditioner brought the motel room into focus. He rolled on his side, checked the clock: 1:35. He'd slept for six hours! His mouth was clammed shut with sleep-paste. The glass on the night stand was empty. His call to Teddi Weldon loomed back at him in that empty glass. The thought of that call sent his memory into the next room. Leah's phone. He remembered it rang. She answered it...as he dropped off to sleep. He got up, tapped on the door between their rooms. No answer. He opened the door. Her room was empty. Tacked to the mirror over the dresser was a note:

Joe. Melissa called. Worried, now that Jackie's dead. Gone fishing. Back soon. L.L.

Just don't use your brains for bait, he thought.

Joe rose and felt his legs shake. The blood came into them slowly as he walked into the bathroom. He was splashing cold water on his face, when the refreshment was arrested by a rapping on his door. Had to be Teddi. She was early. Her anxiousness was understandable, of course. He quickly dried his face and slipped on the shirt hanging on the back of the vanity chair.

He opened the door.

"Hi, Mr. Cox." Robby Catlin solemnly saluted.