Empty Places, page 1
EMPTY
PLACES
Martin Roy Hill
EMPTY PLACES
Copyright © 2013 by Martin Roy Hill
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles or reviews.
Published by
An imprint of
M. R. Hill Publishing
San Diego, California
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover illustrations: Canva
Cover design: RebecaCovers
Paperback ISBN: 978-1484058381
Other books by Martin Roy Hill
Duty: Stories of Mystery and Suspense from the Cold War and Beyond (2012)
The Killing Depths (2012)
Eden: A Sci-Fi Novella (2014)
The Last Refuge (2016)
The Butcher's Bill (2017)
DEDICATION
For Robert Wade, alias Wade Miller and Whit Masterson. Mystery author, book reviewer, mentor, friend and father-in-law.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
—Robert Frost, Desert Places
PROLOGUE
Coachella Valley, California
July 1987
ATHREE-QUARTER MOON bathed the dunes with a blue white light. It shimmered through ghostly rays that rose like apparitions from the still warm desert floor and gave the desolate landscape a spectral quality. Shadows moved in the haunting light, and the warm soft breeze gave rise to disembodied voices wheezing through dry, brittle creosote bushes. She turned at every sound, each crack of a broken twig, saw monsters in the movement of each rolling tumbleweed, and shivered in the warm desert night from the chill of her imagination.
Occasionally a car raced down the unlit two-lane road, its headlights slicing slivers of light out of the black night. She watched each one approach, wondering if this was the one. Then, as the red tail lights faded into the dark distance, she scanned the road again for the right one, the one that would slow and turn into the narrow dirt access road. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote wailed.
"Never meet a contact in an out-of-the-way place," Peter once told her. "Always meet them somewhere where there're a lot of people. People die in lonely and empty places."
She could almost hear his voice telling her that. After all the years, Peter's voice still came to her in small phrases. Short fragments of sentences, spoken in his quiet, halting manner, explaining what she should do, warning what she shouldn't. "Never meet in out-of-the-way places."
She hadn't much choice in choosing the rendezvous. The man she was meeting was very explicit: here or nowhere. And there were other conditions. No camera crew. No sound crew. No one but her. If he spotted a van or truck other than her own car, the meet was off. If he saw a helicopter flying over and a video transmission could be beamed to it, she could just color him gone.
In all honesty, she appreciated his precautions. The little she had told him of her findings had obviously convinced him that no one could be trusted. No one, not even those who worked for him. She was certain if anyone knew of the information she had, her life wouldn't be worth the dirt she was standing on.
She thought of Peter again. Maybe he was right. Maybe the two of them should have left this place together. Maybe it would have been better for her career. Better for her and Peter. Maybe.
The young woman shook her head and fingered the small tape recorder in her hand. The thought of the recorder's contents made her mouth twist with distaste. She still felt unclean, but what else could she have done? She was desperate. She needed this story badly and it was the only way she could get the confirmation she needed. She shook the images the recorder conjured from her head and tried to look forward, into the future. This would be the story that lands her a job in a bigger market, she told herself. Maybe Los Angeles. Maybe a network. The indignity would be worth it.
"I just can't take this place any longer," she said aloud to no one, not certain whether she meant the patchwork of small communities she lived and worked in, or the empty desert surrounding them where she now stood alone.
Automobile lights appeared at the crest of a hill, then rolled down the incline and raced along the two-lane road. The car slowed and turned into the access road, its headlights flaring momentarily as it bounced over a rut. It was a large vehicle, a four-door model and, by the way it bounded over the dip, sturdily built. That, and the heavy roar of its powerful, supercharged engine, indicated it was well suited to both speed and the tortuous going of desert driving. It didn't slow as it approached. Its headlights glared directly at the young woman, growing brighter as it streaked forward, blinding her to all. For a frightful moment she thought she had been betrayed, that the driver was aiming for her with no intention of stopping. She thought of jumping out of the way, but she could not move. In the heat of the desert night, she was frozen stiff with fear.
The car braked and came to a screeching, dust-swirling halt just yards from the woman, the headlights still washing her in a blaze of white light. The glare revealed the features of a blonde in her late twenties, attractive but not beautiful, not even strikingly pretty. Her face was a shade too wide in the jaw, the nose too flat to be truly pretty, and her pale skin—bleached colorless by the headlights—was slightly pocked by a severe adolescent bout with acne. Her figure was tomboyish from years of high school and college athletics but appealing in its slender firmness. Her looks were her nemesis; she could easily attract men, but producers didn't believe she could attract viewers. So, she was relegated to being a reporter, a couple-minutes-a-night face on the local evening news, deprived of the anchor spot she wanted so badly.
Raising her arm against the glare, the young woman tried to see beyond the headlights. It was like trying to see beyond the sun. The car stood motionless for what seemed minutes, then the driver's door opened. The woman tried to see inside the car, but the interior light failed to go on. The door closed with a loud crump, and a large, dark figure strode forward. At first, he was only a dark shadow against the darker night, then a silhouette against the edge of the headlight's glare. Then he walked into the light, and she recognized the man.
"Miss Anderson?"
"You," she answered. "Good."
"You were expecting someone else?" the man asked.
"No, but—" She turned and looked back at the empty road. "But out here there's no telling what you could run into."
Her contact turned and studied the road, nodding as if he admired the desolate location. "That's true. You never know, do you?" He turned to face her. In the light his eyes looked hard, threatening. She had seen him angry before, but his eyes never struck her as they did just then. Cold, dead. The eyes, she thought, of a killer.
"You have the tape you told me about?" he asked.
"I have an excerpt."
His eyes seemed to grow meaner, angrier. "An excerpt? What do you mean an excerpt?"
She turned slightly on her heel and cleared her throat. "Some of what I recorded was of a—a personal nature," she said. "I brought you an edited version with the pertinent conversation."
She showed him the tape recorder, then turned it on. The machine came alive with the voices of two people, a man and a woman. The woman's voice was her own. It was coy and teasing, the voice of intimacy, the words of a lover. The male voice responded in the guttural tones of male intimacy, yet with the bravado of a small boy bragging of his deeds. The young woman looked away as the tape played, afraid the flush she felt in her face would reveal her embarrassment. The man's eyes slowly dropped from the recorder to the ground, his mouth turned down in disgust. Then the tape died out, and there was a long moment of silence.
"That's a very interesting recording, Miss Anderson," the man finally said. "You have an interesting way for getting information."
"I use whatever means are available to me," she answered defiantly. She made a production of stopping the tape and rewinding it. "As you can see—or heard, I should say—my methods work."
"And very well, too." The man looked back at the car and nodded, then turned back to the woman. "Very well, indeed."
The young woman's eyes followed the man to the car. The passenger door opened with a creak, and another figure climbed out. She heard the crunch of footsteps in sand, then the figure emerged from the dark. The glare of the headlights revealed his identity.
"My God." She half choked on the words. "What are you—"
The second man raised his right arm and pointed a large revolver at her. Her mouth formed in an attempt to scream, but the pistol shot cut her off. It was followed by another, each sounding like the roar of a cannon in the quiet of the desert night.
The double punch of the bullets threw the woman backwards. Two dark wounds appeared on her chest. The one nearest the heart spurted bright red blood. The second, farther to the right, oozed darker red. Twin exit wounds burst through her back, disgorging blood, muscle, flesh, and bone. She was thrown four feet before hitting the ground on her back. Then she tumbled several more feet, finally coming to rest
His pistol still extended like a shield, the gunman walked up to the body and bent over, examining his handiwork. After a moment he stood straight and turned to his companion. "She's gone."
"She'd better be." The first man stooped and picked up the tape recorder where it had fallen, then switched it on. Disgust twisted his features again as he listened. When it finished, he looked at his partner. The shooter dropped his head sheepishly, like a school boy caught red handed in some misdeed. "Brush this area down, then let's go," the first man ordered.
The gunman looked around and found a broken piece of desert brush that he used to sweep away their footprints. The first pocketed the recorder and climbed into the car, backing it slowly down the dirt road as the other man swept away both the tire tracks and his own retreating footsteps. When they reached the asphalt road, the gunman threw away the limb and climbed back into the car. Within seconds, the car disappeared into the darkness.
Robin Anderson, the young reporter, lay in the dirt unable to move. For what seemed a long time she lay there stunned and without a thought. Then she sensed someone near. She tried opening her eyes, but they were as lifeless as her arms and legs. She heard voices and tried to speak, but her mouth was frozen.
Nothing would work, nothing would move. She could feel her wounds, feel the life oozing from them. "My God!" she screamed, but there was no sound save her own thoughts and a deep throated rumble followed by a strange sweeping noise. The reddish light she seemed to sense rather than see faded away, as did the two strange noises she heard. Then there was quiet, pure silence like she'd never experienced before. Even the voice of her own thoughts seemed to be drifting inexorably away, as if falling into some deep canyon.
She realized suddenly her worst fear was coming true. She was dying, alone and without anyone she could call out to, anyone who would hold her, who could save her.
Alone in a dark and empty place.
CHAPTER 1
THE TELEX, REWRITTEN INTO news wirese, read: Cable from Matt Banyon, Palm Desert. Informs ex-wife Robin Anderson died two days past. Requests you return ASAPest for burial.
The cable was sent by my Mexico City office to the stifling hotel where I was staying in the capital of Honduras. A few miles outside the city, the American army was openly practicing for war. A few miles beyond that was the real thing. The cable ended with a personal note from Henderson, my bureau chief, written in typically terse wire service prose.
Permission for two weeks’ vacation. Take leave ASAPest. Sorriest for your loss. Regards, Henderson.
So, there it was. Not do I want to go or will I go, but just go. It was Henderson's best attempt at being friendly since I joined his crew. I give him credit for that. Besides, how was he to know how I felt? Not that the emotions the cable dredged up were so unusual. Most people don't like being forced to confront their past failures. I'm no different.
Even now, I'm not certain why I went back. I'm not the type to jump across foreign borders on a whim, to return to a place I thought was better left smothered in my past. Certainly, it wasn't to bury the ashes of a failed marriage. If I were to concede that any one of the dozen or so emotions dancing dizzily in my head led me to make that trip back, I'd have to say it was my belief in Matt. If Matt thought I should come back, then there had to be a good reason, one much better than saying good-bye to an ex-wife I had been trying to say good-bye to for years. And so, I went.
✽ ✽ ✽
The rented car veered off the interstate onto Highway 111, the long winding road that crawls along the floor of the Coachella Valley, first through Palm Springs then through the smaller cities to the south. Flying clouds of sand billowed across the highway as I approached Windy Point, the outcrop of the San Jacinto Mountains named for its hurricane winds that, on more than one occasion, have been known to rip camper shells off pickup trucks. I rolled up the window and switched on the air conditioning. This was going into July, and the soothing comfort of the desert's first blast furnace gusts of wind were quickly followed by the twinges of a chill that shot down my spine and, seemingly, deep into my soul. It was the warning sign that the heat would soon become oppressive.
Windy Point marks your entry into the palm-spotted resort towns of California's lower desert. First comes the big resort of Palm Springs, known less than affectionately by locals as The Springs, the city that Hollywood made, chock full of limousines and designer-name clothing stores, where everyone on the street behind dark glasses is somebody rich or famous—or so the legend says. There were a lot of people who believed that to be true, and a lot more who wanted to believe it. I certainly didn't. Never did.
In Palm Springs, the highway becomes Palm Canyon Drive, the main drag. In the heart of town, the road splits into two one-way streets with Palm Canyon continuing south and its sister street, Indian Avenue, running north. The two streets run parallel to each other, and Indian Avenue is so wide and straight you can stand at one end and damn near see the other end of town.
The two roads join again at the south end of The Springs and, joined, roll into Palm Springs' closest neighbor, Cathedral City, back then a newly incorporated city still trying to live down the fact that its biggest landmark was a gay bar called the GAF. The local prank was to send tourists and newcomers looking for a little action to the GAF, assuring them it was the hottest place in town. And it was, if you were into that sort of thing. It usually took those hapless tourists only a few minutes to realize what the bar's name spelled when reversed.
After Cathedral City the road, again called Highway 111, rolls along the base of the mountains through Rancho Mirage, a city of restaurants and walled-in country clubs. Then comes Palm Desert, followed by Indian Wells, another walled city built for the rich. Twelve miles farther south is Indio, a misfit in this land of resorts, known more for its agriculture than its accommodations. From there, the highway quickly passes through Coachella, the small farm community this valley was named for, then on to the Salton Sea, the saltwater lake fed during heavy rains by the Whitewater River.
The first time I drove this road, a young reporter starting my first job with the local daily, most of the land bordering this highway was barren desert. That was quite a bit less than ten years ago. These days you had to strain your eyes to find a creosote bush. You used to be able stand on Palm Canyon and see the towering San Jacinto Mountains that back-dropped the city like a giant movie set staged for kaleidoscopic cinematography, topped in winter by a snow cap of pure white edged in blue, and so large they seemed within easy reach when, in fact, they were miles away. Now all you saw was a high-rise leviathan of a hotel.
Gone with the view were many of the shops, boutiques, and restaurants that had crowded Palm Canyon's sidewalks. Vacant glass facades spotted the main thoroughfare, dull empty reminders of a city that had passed its prime. Years of national recession and double-digit unemployment had taken its toll on the city, as they had on the country. People were staying closer to home, if they still had their homes, and the movie stars had all slid south to the smaller cities where you could still stand on the sidewalk and see the mountains—at least for the time being.
Cat City, was well on its way to becoming one massive shopping center, despite the bad economy. In Rancho Mirage, the citizenry once fought hard to pass a restrictive growth ordinance that they hoped would preserve their quiet desert lifestyle. But as I passed through, I saw apartment complexes and condominiums scaling the mountainsides. Palm Desert was no different. Where once lay empty desert sprawled thick green lawns and golf courses spotted with waterfalls and lakes.
This was the absurdity of life in The Springs and its environs. So many people spent so much money to live in the desert and spent even more money to make the desert look like Minnesota, the land of a thousand lakes.
