56
Ghostly letters spelled out the words CHIRICAHUA PAINT CO. in canary yellow on the dark red brick just under the roof line of the warehouse. Below that were two rows of multi-paned factory windows, all of them either blacked-out or broken. The property was wrapped in chain link. Behind the warehouse, an east-bound train rattled past. Laura wished she could scream to them. But even if she were able, they were too far away.
Mickey Harmon un-padlocked the gate and swung it open, waiting for Galaz to drive through. They jounced across the potholed parking lot around to the back and parked in the shadow of the building. Mickey got out of the 4Runner and into the backseat. Galaz left the engine running so he could run the air conditioner.
“Where’s Musicman?” Galaz asked Harmon.
“Parked down the road between a couple of trucks. Must think he’s invisible.”
Galaz laughed. “I’ll bet he’s waiting for it to get dark. You should leave the gate open, make it easy for him.”
“He might call the police,” Harmon said.
“He won’t. He wants her for himself. There’s no way he’d give her up—not voluntarily.” A smile flickered on his face, not reaching his eyes. “What do you think, Laura? You’ve been hot on Dale Lundy’s trail for some time. You think he’s going to give up now?”
“No.”
“See, Mickey? Cardinal knows her quarry.”
She stared at him, feeling the ache in her eyeballs. Tried out her voice again. “You used me to find him.”
He laughed. “It pays to have a crack investigator on the home team. At a certain point I didn’t need you anymore, though—Jay tracked down his ISP before Charlie did.” He turned to Harmon. “Just remember, Mickey, I want Lundy alive. I want the last thing he sees to be me doing Summer. I want him to know he’s been dominated. He’s got to learn that he can’t defy me.”
He tapped the steering wheel, the only sign that he was nervous. “I’ve got to figure out what to do with Laura here. Any ideas?”
Harmon grunted.
“I didn’t think so. That’s why you never got higher than the third level.”
The third level? He must be referring to the game Dark Moondancer. Pushing forty, and he was preoccupied with a kid’s game. It was the first thing about this whole situation that made her want to laugh out loud. The feeling didn’t last long.
Galaz’s fingers drummed on the steering wheeclass="underline" Tap, tap, tap. “Jay was easy, but if one of our criminal investigators disappears, that’s going to look bad. I really wanted to have some time with Summer, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen now.”
“I dunno. You could maybe take her someplace else—“
“No. There’s the time element. I’ll be lucky if I have a half hour. Laura here is the head of a task force, people will be calling, they’ll come looking for her. This whole thing could blow up in our faces. Better just go ahead and cut my losses.”
Laura asked, “Why Dark Moondancer?”
“Why? Because it’s more than a game, that’s why. Dark Moondancer transcends fantasy. To get to the highest level and become Dark Moondancer, you have to make it real. Things you would never dream of doing in your regular life—you’ll do if you want to win. This game isn’t for the faint of heart.
“The problem with Mickey here, and Jay—they always pulled their punches. They had no commitment. No vision.”
Across the empty lot east of the warehouse, Laura saw cars crawling along a road that paralleled the railroad tracks, the last rays of the sun flaring off their back windows. Too far away to signal. She traced their movement with her eyes, though, watching them turn and go out of view, becoming swallowed by the rise of land and the creosote. One of them was a brown Caprice, the kind Buddy Holland drove. Now she wished she’d brought Buddy with her.
She said to Jay, “After all these years, you’re still playing this game?”
“It’s not just a game. It’s a way of life. There are smart people and dumb people, powerful people and losers. Dark Moondancer is a metaphor for power.”
“Do you still play it, Mickey?” she asked.
Mickey grunted something intelligible. Scared to say anything in front of Mike Galaz?
“Did Jay?”
Galaz said, “Jay was nothing but a rich crip who outlived his usefulness. Although he did buy me this warehouse for my extracurricular activities.”
“Did he have anything to do with Julie’s murder?”
“You saw the note.”
“The one you wrote and planted?”
He smiled. “You think the three of us did it? That’s what you think? Jay, Mickey and me?”
Even through her pain, Laura was amazed at her own curiosity. She wanted to know how long Galaz had been killing. She wanted to know if Jay had helped him kill Julie Marr.
She had to know.
Galaz sensed that need and abruptly changed the subject. “You’re not so different, you and the pedophile. There are a lot of things I can take, Laura, but being patronized is not one of them. I don’t take that from anyone.”
What was he talking about? “Patronize you?”
“Come on, Laura. Don’t play that game.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what you think I did.” In her mind she reviewed her actions of the last few months. She had always been polite, always did as she was told, was very careful in fact because she didn’t know him well. She’d gone out of her way to stay under the radar, to do what he wanted, even going outside the department and working with Jay Ramsey because he asked her to. She had done everything—except show up at his party.
He couldn’t be that petty, could he? Why would the fact that she didn’t show up to his parties make a difference to him either way?
Galaz glanced at his watch. “Times a wasting. Mickey, you’re going to have to do the honors.”
Mickey Harmon got out and opened the passenger door.
“Better take the cuffs off. That would look bad if anyone driving by looked too hard. Laura, can you walk under your own steam?”
“I don’t know.”
“Get her on her feet and see.”
At 22nd and Park, Buddy Holland got caught at the light. By the time he made the turn onto Park, both the Suburban and the 4Runner were gone.
He put on the afterburners, gunning it up to eighty to catch the cars ahead, but none of them were the vehicles he was looking for. Galaz must have turned off somewhere in between. He backtracked and found himself cruising through the warehouse district, his instincts telling him they were here somewhere. But where?
The sun was going down and it was getting harder to see. He scanned the roads, empty except for big trucks and semis parked for the night, the blank-windowed factories and warehouses. Then he saw something out of place—a small white car tucked in between two trucks.
A white GEO Prizm crammed to the ceiling with junk.
He drove down the road and pulled in behind an empty office building to think.
Buddy didn’t know what kind of connection there could be between Dale Lundy and the meeting between Laura Cardinal and Lieutenant Galaz. Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what. And now, here was this amazing coincidence. A ’94 GEO Prizm parked between two trucks.
He got out of the car and slipped behind the empty building. He walked to the next block, cutting back between two warehouses, following an internal alley. He emerged fifty feet or so from the car.
Getting darker by the minute.
He drew his weapon, using the back end of a big tractor trailer for cover. He went from one truck to another until he was behind the truck parked to the left of the GEO. This gave him a good back view of the GEO, including the driver’s side.
No signs of life. No movement inside that he could see, but with stuff piled that high, it was impossible to see past the back seat. Buddy squinted at the license plate. He didn’t need to call in to get Dale Lundy’s plate number; he knew it by heart.