Desert Vengeance Read online

  The rain began at dusk, right around the time I heard the first notes of Native American flute music drifting up from Debbie’s yellow house. CD or a musician playing for her own enjoyment? Then I heard chanting. Women’s voices, not a CD. I pulled out more granola bars from my pocket and ate dinner, enjoying this odd serenade before the rain began to drown out the music.

  The Genoveses’ lights went out at ten; the RV’s blue TV glow vanished almost immediately afterwards. By then, the downpour had become so heavy I could barely see past the surrounding brush. The worsening storm obliterated my view of the house, the pasture, and the Winnebago. Normal people would deplore such weather. Not me; I celebrated the fact that if someone in the house woke up, or if Genovese and Shana returned home early, they could not see past their noses.

  Around eleven-thirty, the Winnebago became visible again. Wycoff, awakened by the storm, had turned on a light, and the glow pierced even the curtain of rain. Insomnia? I hoped all his dreams were nightmares. His light stayed on for nearly an hour, then blinked out.

  After transferring several items from my backpack to those roomy cargo pants pockets, I slipped on a pair of latex surgical gloves—who knew what kind of nasty disease Wycoff had picked up in prison—then waited another half hour before making my move. The combined roar of rain, wind, and the near-deafening runoff down Black Canyon Creek covered my footsteps as I sloshed down the hill. My first stop was at Wycoff’s Honda Civic, where I squatted down by the passenger-side wheel well, fished out the GPS module, and stashed it in one of my pockets. The transponder was no longer necessary, so no point in letting the authorities trace it to me. Not that I hoped to commit the perfect crime. Within hours of Wycoff’s body being discovered, the police would come calling at Desert Investigations, and when they didn’t find me there, I’d be the APB Star of the Day.

  Maybe, after confessing to the Wycoff revenge killing—which I would do immediately—I would even confess to killing Norma. Whoever had done that deed deserved a medal, not a prison sentence. Perhaps it had been another now-grown foster child the Wycoffs had victimized. As for myself, I had only one regret—that I had decided not to use my Vindicator to take Wycoff out. Knives are messy. Although I had never met Mario Genovese in the flesh, over the past two days I had grown to like him, and I didn’t want to splash blood all over his nice Winnebago.

  GPS module secured in one pocket, Mag light in another, and my .38 nestled in the largest, I entered the pasture. Before leaving Scottsdale I hadn’t thought to bring along rain boots, and by the time I made it ten feet inside the gate, mud and manure saturated my Reeboks, but that was the least of my worries. Since I couldn’t actually see the Winnebago in the blinding storm, I could only guesstimate its location, which if I remembered correctly, was roughly a half mile south by southwest from the gate. If the wind and rain hadn’t been so loud, I could have simply followed the roar of the swollen creek, but all I could do now was lower my face and head straight into the wind.

  Despite everything, it was the longest walk of my life, even worse than…

  I have a memory…

  ***

  I was four years old. At least that’s how old I think I was when my mother shot me in the head and left me for dead on that Phoenix street. After several months in a coma, I woke up. Unable to talk. Unable to walk.

  I remembered learning how to walk again. The blue-dressed nurse in the room with all the bad machines had started off being kind, but today I heard an edge in her voice as she urged me on toward that hated padded walkway. “You’re a big girl. You can do it.”

  To my young eyes, the walkway looked miles and miles long. I clung to the railings, afraid to move. My legs were matchsticks, and matchsticks couldn’t hold up a little girl.

  I shook my head. “Nhnnn!”

  “Come on now, Missy. Left leg, then right leg.”

  What was left? What was right? I couldn’t remember.

  Mean Nurse put her big hands on one of my legs, pulling it forward. Unable to shift my balance quickly enough, I fell.

  She hauled me up and none too gently placed my hands on the rails again. “We’re going to do this until you get tired of not trying, Missy.”

  Missy. Was that my name?

  “Nhnnn!”

  “Complaining will get you nowhere.”

  “Nhnnn!” I hated Mean Nurse.

  She knew it, too, but just said, “Watch the birdie.”

  Birdie? There were no birdies in this awful room.

  “Look at the birdie, Missy!”

  When I looked up, I saw something new. On the gate at the end of the narrow walkway someone had hung a cartoon of a big brown bird. Above Big Brown Bird were marks I recognized as words. I didn’t know what they said, but I remembered the bird from the early morning cartoons one of the nurses, a nicer nurse than this one, always let me watch. Big Brown Bird was smart and fast and always outran the hungry coyote. Big Brown Bird made a noise like “Beep, beep!” so maybe that was what those words said.

  I liked Big Brown Bird. He reminded me of me.

  “Eeep, eeep!” I mimicked.

  And took my first step and…

  ***

  Now, as I staggered across the Genoveses’ pasture, the rain hit me in the face so hard it felt like sleet. Maybe it was. The thermometer does strange things during a monsoon. It plays first with your skin, then your mind. Every now and then the wind—heightened by its sweep along the narrow valley—gusted even higher, making my rain slicker billow out around me. After traveling a few yards, I was soaked. But still I trudged forward, not knowing for certain if I was headed in the right direction.

  As it turned out, I wasn’t. The wind had tricked me, pushing me closer to the creek than was safe, but a lucky bolt of lightning lit up its rampaging surface. The only thing between me and that dangerous runoff was a cottonwood tree, mere feet from my face. Huddled beneath the tree was a lone horse, its eyes wide with fright. In the peal of thunder that followed the lightning flash, I could hardly hear his hooves as he bolted away. An even brighter flash revealed Mario Genovese’s cattle, bunched tightly together under another tree, their backs to the wind. Standing apart from them were the three other horses and the Shetland pony.

  I still couldn’t see the Winnebago.

  Using my flashlight was out—light can sometimes be seen through the densest rainstorm, and I didn’t want the people back at the house to suddenly awaken and see a light bobbing across their pasture. But alert now to the dangers of walking blind, I halted beneath the cottonwoods, turned in the what I thought was the direction of the camper, and waited.

  It didn’t take long.

  The next lightning bolt struck frighteningly near, reminding me how dangerous it was to stand under trees during a storm. Lightning loves tall objects, and the cottonwoods were the tallest object in the valley, so I moved out of the grove, leaving the animals to whatever mercy the storm might show them. But the lightning had done me a favor.

  It had illuminated the Winnebago, less than fifty feet away.

  I was about to become a murderer.

  Taking a deep breath, I staggered forward again, ignoring the screams of the storm. My focus was on that creature in the Winnebago, that destroyer of innocence, that killer of dreams.

  One step. Two. My mouth shut tight against the driving rain.

  Mud and manure creeping past my ankles from the boggy ground.

  Three steps.

  Four.

  Other steps followed, and soon the Winnebago loomed in front of me. My heart beat so loudly the world fell silent.

  Could I really do this? Remembering Bethany’s innocent face, I nodded.

  Yes, I could.

  And would.

  I reached into a rear pocket for the kit of burglar’s tools I’d fished out of my backpack, but when I tested the door handle, I discovered it unlo
cked. Wycoff must have felt secure, camped out here within shouting distance of his adoring sister.

  Big mistake, perv.

  I transferred my flashlight to my left hand and fished out the Taser with my right. I’d stun him first, and when he went down my garrote would end it.

  I opened the door. Closed it softly behind me. Clicked on my flashlight.

  Only to discover that someone else had done the job for me.

  Chapter Seven

  An hour later, with my wet clothes hung up to dry, I lay warm and snug in my bed at Debbie Margules’ butterfly trailer, pondering my next move.

  I had seen worse murder scenes, but not many. The killer, whoever he or she was, had not shown as much concern for the Winnebago as I’d planned to, and blood had spattered and dripped all over the floor from Wycoff’s severed penis. Then there were the burns, eight of them evenly spaced an inch apart in an orderly row along his bare thigh. Approximately three inches long, their black-edges and blisters suggested they were administered while he was still alive.

  Whoever had done this held more hate in his heart than even I did.

  Outside, the storm raged on. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and the rain hitting the trailer’s thin metal shell sounded like bullets. How long did I have before the sheriff banged on my door, too? I had signed my own name in the Desert Oasis guestbook and paid for my stay with Desert Investigations’ Visa. At Coyote Corral, I had even handed my business card to Shana Genovese Ferris. Yet the idea of being hauled off to jail on suspicion of murder didn’t alarm me. Something else did. I didn’t believe in miracles but I hoped for one—that the swollen creek would jump its banks and sweep the Winnebago away, tearing it and its hideous cargo to pieces. Then there would be a chance that the cause of death would never be determined, and the killer would walk free. As far as I was concerned, hip-hip-hooray for him.

  Or her. Women could be vengeful, too. Just ask any cop.

  Maybe miracles did exist. For the first time in three decades I fell into a nightmare-less sleep.

  ***

  The sun was shining when screams woke me up.

  I tumbled out of bed, threw on clean clothes, and rushed out the door. The racket had awakened the other denizens of Debbie’s Desert Oasis, and several of us, along with Debbie herself, followed the noise to see what was going on. When we reached the crest of the hill and peered through the early morning light into the valley below, we saw Grace Wycoff Genovese gesticulating wildly, running through the pasture toward her house. Mario Genovese had already made it through the gate and was running to meet her, clad only in his tightie whities, while Shana and her two children huddled together on the porch. Alarmed by the racket, the cattle and horses had retreated to the far end of the pasture, as far away from the Winnebago as the barbed-wire fence would allow them.

  While I watched Grace make her way across the field, I marveled at her ability to scream so loudly and run at the same time. Her lung capacity must rival an opera singer’s.

  “What in the world’s going on?” asked the redhead I’d seen the day before cleaning a fish on the steps of Fishin’ Frenzy. Despite the activity below, I couldn’t stop staring at her translucent complexion.

  “Damned if I know, but from the screeching, you’d think somebody got murdered or something,” replied the heavily tattooed brunette in Mustang. The grip of a Glock peeked out of the leather holster strapped to her hip. Earlier, as I’d zig-zagged my way through the mesquite grove to Monarch, I’d noticed a blacked-out Harley-Davidson Iron 833 parked in front of it. Biker chick? Or lone wolf?

  The other denizens of the B&B hung back, a couple of them nervously eyeing the brunette’s Glock. I didn’t blame them.

  “I’ve already called the sheriff,” Debbie announced. Considering the caterwauling below, she sounded oddly nonchalant, which made me wonder if trouble was a common occurrence at the Genovese homestead.

  The two Genoveses finally met up at the center of the pasture, and Mario wrapped his burly arms around his still-screaming wife. In movies, men slap women when they carry on like that, but Mario didn’t. He just kept holding her. Eventually Grace’s screams ceased, and with one arm still tightly wrapped around her, Mario led her toward the house.

  “Show’s over, folks,” Debbie said. “Whatever’s happened, Mario’s taking care of her. The authorities will handle the rest.” With a shooing motion, she ushered us back down the hill to her Desert Oasis.

  Just before we reached our trailers, two sheriff’s cruisers passed by, sirens wailing. The other B&B-ers stopped for a few seconds to watch their progress, but I kept walking, aware that I had already learned something interesting. Debbie was on a first-name basis with the Genoveses. Understandable, I guess. Despite its name, Black Canyon City was a small hamlet, and everyone here knew everyone else. Still…

  Less than an hour after I returned to my butterfly trailer to rinse out the clothes I’d muddied the night before, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department came knocking at my door. I had drawn a plainclothes female detective and two grim-faced male deputies, so it came as no surprise when the first words out of the detective’s mouth were, “Ms. Jones, we’d like you to accompany us to the sheriff’s office.”

  “All the way to Prescott?” I asked.

  The detective—the shield she flashed said EASTMAN—smiled. “Oh, but it’s such a pretty drive.”

  ***

  Prescott is famous for its gingerbready Victorian houses, so before the big SUV pulled into the sheriff’s office parking lot, I took time to enjoy the view. Victoriana may seem odd in the desert, but in 1864 the town had been designated the capitol of the Arizona Territory, and building then began in earnest. Those beautiful old homes, proof that the city’s prosperity had become its bane, attracting Californians fleeing that state’s outrageous real estate prices. Now Gen X-ers clad in overpriced pseudo-Western wear bellied up to the same Whiskey Row bars as did the area’s real life cowboys.

  “Sure is a nice day,” Detective Sergeant Linda Eastman said, after directing me to a metal chair in an interview room. The stiff chair, and the fact that the cop at the front desk had relieved me of my .38, made me uncomfortable, although I was determined not to show it.

  “Love the sunshine,” I responded. “Especially after all that rain.”

  If you’ve seen one interview room, you’ve seen them all. They’re bare and ugly for a reason. Get trapped in one of those things and you’ll say just about anything to get the hell out. Cognizant of the video camera trained on me, I decided to watch my mouth.

  Looking very much at ease, Eastman leaned back in her chair. “As you’re no doubt aware, there was an incident on the Genovese property sometime during the night.”

  “Horse get loose? Cow?”

  “Now, now, Ms. Jones. You know better than that.”

  “I do?”

  The door to the interview room opened and a uniformed deputy handed her a manila folder. She opened it and scanned through some papers, all the while humming something that sounded like “Maria,” from West Side Story. An odd musical choice for an Arizona law officer, but maybe Eastman was originally from New York. Prescott didn’t only attract Californians.

  When Detective Eastman looked up, the smile and “Maria” were gone. “Says here the decedent’s name is Brian H, as in Howard, Brian Howard Wycoff, once known to several children, including yourself, as ‘Papa Brian.’ That was before his trial for child rape, of course. He hasn’t been known as ‘Papa Brian’ for, hmm, almost thirty years. Released from Florence Correctional Facility this past Monday.”

  “‘Decedent,’ did you say? He’s dead? What was it? Heart attack? Snakebite?”

  She ignored me. “Says here Mr. Wycoff’s wife, Norma Wycoff nee Wilson, predeceased him by four days. Shot to death. Isn’t that fascinating?”

  “Recent statistics show there’s been a rise in vi
olent crime.”

  “Hmm. From what I read about that earlier case, when Mr. Wycoff was charged in multiple child rapes, there was talk of bringing Mrs. Wycoff to trial, too. You know, re several foster children, aiding and abetting, et cetera, et cetera. Due to her denials and a lack of evidence, that never happened.” She put the folder down with a look of distaste. “Hardly the Beautiful People.”

  “Nice understatement.”

  “See, Mrs. Wycoff died pretty much in your own backyard, and now her husband turns up dead less than a mile from where you were spending the night. Cops don’t like coincidences, Ms. Jones.”

  “Yet life is full of them.”

  Eastman flipped through the folder again, humming another bar of “Maria,” this one slightly off-key. Was she trying to irritate me into a confession?

  “It also says here Mr. Wycoff’s sexual activities with children became known to the Scottsdale Police Department—that’s where the Wycoffs were living at the time—after you tried to kill him with a kitchen knife.”

  “It was ruled self-defense.”

  She ignored me again. “You were on the witness list at his trial, but after two children testified against him, his attorney, no idiot, talked him into taking a plea deal.” With that, she dropped the folder down on the table with an expression of distaste. “Besides you, four more children were about to testify, making seven kids total. Seven rape victims. Seven, for shit’s sake! All of them ten years old or younger.”

  “I seem to remember something like that, yes.”

  Eastman leaned forward, as if about to share a secret just between us girls. When I was a cop, I had pulled that same trick.

  “There were eight burn marks on Mr. Wycoff’s body, Ms. Jones.”

  “Strange.”

  “One for each victim, perhaps?”