As soon as the medics loaded Mark into the helicopter, I hiked back to my Jeep and zipped back to Desert Investigations. When I’d copied the Erik Ernst file, I drove up to Scottsdale North and turned it over to Captain Jocelyn Alcos, Kryzinski’s replacement. She was a hard-eyed woman whose abrupt demeanor boded ill for my future relations with the Scottsdale Police Department.
“Don’t think we’re not going to look carefully at your involvement in this,” she snapped, staring at the business card I’d attached to the file. “I don’t approve of private detectives acting like one-woman police departments.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. “They wouldn’t have to if you guys would do your jobs.”
Her eyes narrowed further. “Keep yourself available for further questioning.”
“You know where to find me.” Fighting the urge to genuflect, I walked out of Kryzinski’s old office for the last time.
Then I went home and showered the Wilderness away.
***
Warren had a fit when I met up with him on the set later and told him what had happened. His sharp voice turned everyone’s attention toward us, but I didn’t care. I was too tired, both physically and emotionally.
“Jesus, Lena! When you said you were going out for a hike I never thought…What did you think you were doing, going into those mountains alone?”
“My job,” I answered quietly.
That shut him up for a moment. Then, “Some day you’re going to get killed!”
“Goes with the territory, Warren. If you want a relationship with a private detective, you’d better get used to being scared.”
He took a deep breath and sat down on a boulder with his head in his hands. I said nothing, just let him struggle through his emotions. This was my life, and however dangerous, it was the only thing I knew.
When he looked up, the expression on his face told me he loved me enough to accept that.
***
After leaving Warren’s motel room the next morning, I battled my way through rush hour traffic to Shady Rest Care Home. With the morning newspaper tucked under my arm, I walked the dank halls to Chess Bollinger’s room, praying that his wife wasn’t there. My prayers weren’t answered. There Judith sat, malicious as an adder, in the corner.
“Well, if it’s not the famous detective. Think you’re a big deal, don’t ya?”
I ignored her. Lifting Chess’ untouched breakfast away, I leaned over the bed. “Chess, can you hear me? It’s Lena Jones.”
His eyes were open but I couldn’t tell if there was anybody home. Maybe he was hiding in the only way he now could from his victim-turned-persecutor, but maybe he had slid back into the twilight world of lost memories Alzheimer’s patients inhabit until their hearts forget to beat.
I held the newspaper open so that if he was awake and aware, he could see the front page.
Old Murders Solved! the headline screamed, over pictures of the Bollinger family, both Schanks, and the 1939 Oldsmobile as several Navajo law officers and FBI agents pushed it out of a shed on the Navajo reservation where it had been hidden away for more than sixty years. It still gleamed.
I read every word of the two-page article aloud to Chess, my voice rising to cover the sounds of his wife’s sulky departure when I reached the part about the arrests of Gilbert and Mark Schank and the part where it said that Chester Bollinger was now officially cleared of involvement in his family’s murders. Mark was now residing in Rada Tesema’s old digs at the Fourth Avenue Jail, but Gilbert had been sent straight to the jail’s medical clinic, a smart judge deciding that the combination of piles of money and a current passport made him a flight risk. However, I doubted he would live to stand trial for the Bollinger killings.
Once I was through reading, I folded the newspaper, headline out, and laid it next to Chess on the bed. “Now everyone knows you didn’t do it, Chess. Everyone.”
No awareness crossed his features. He lay there staring at the ceiling, his eyes blank.
On my way out, MaryEllen almost ran me down in the hall. She had a newspaper in her hands, and was in such a rush to get to her father’s room that the presence of another human being in her path barely registered. I almost called to tell her that her father was out of it again, but stopped myself in time. Perhaps the sound of his daughter’s voice would temporarily lift the descending curtain of Alzheimer’s.
I wished her luck, in more ways than one.
***
After being released from the Fourth Avenue Jail, Rada Tesema spent only enough time at his apartment to pack his meager belongings and tender his resignation at Loving Care. He’d received permission to use the money raised by his synagogue and Reverend Giblin’s church for a one-way ticket back to Ethiopia.
“America not for everyone,” Tesema said, as we sped along the Hohokam Freeway to Sky Harbor Airport two days later. I’d volunteered to take him to the airport, since I couldn’t bear the thought of going to Desert Investigations and seeing Jimmy’s empty desk. Today was Jimmy’s first day at Southwest MicroSystems.
I pulled my attention away from my own sorrows and focused on Tesema’s. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Tesema. Maybe if you gave it another chance?”
He shook his head. “I miss family. This place, it not for me.”
He was right, of course. America wasn’t for everyone. Despite the myths, our streets were not paved with gold, hard work did not always guarantee success, and perfect justice remained more of a dream than a reality. Those of us born here accepted these truths. For immigrants, they came as a shock. As my Jeep barreled along the freeway and the exhaust from other cars almost choked us, I fleetingly wondered if no dreams at all are preferable to dreams denied. Then I pushed that heresy away. For good or ill, we Americans are defined by our dreams.
When I let Tesema off at curbside Delta check-in, he gave me a smile that just about finished breaking my heart. “You a good woman, Miss Jones. My family, we will offer up prayers for you.”
Considering the way things were going, I’d need them.
But maybe not, because as soon as I drove back to Desert Investigations, I found Jimmy at his desk. Working.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought…”
He gave me a sad-eyed smile. “Esther and I broke up yesterday. Right in the middle of Ethan Allen. She was determined to go Early American and I made the mistake of saying, ‘Whose Early American, mine or yours?’ Then we were off and running. It soon became pretty clear we were operating from totally different philosophies. Esther has this idea in her mind of what life should look like, and I have this idea of what life should be like. There’s a big difference, you know.”
Yeah, I knew. All of my foster parents had taken great care to look loving on those rare occasions when the social workers came to call. What went on after the social workers left was the real deal, and it wasn’t half as pretty as the picture my foster parents painted.
Almost afraid to ask Jimmy what he planned to do now, I stared down at the mail on my desk. One letter was from Beth Osmon, and it bore a Birmingham, Alabama, postmark. Intrigued, I opened it to find a short note.
Dear Lena,
I’m writing you from Birmingham, where I’m spending some time with Eddy Joe. Oh, he’s so cute! I just can’t get enough of that accent.
Tomorrow, we’re going to drive up to Hamilton to meet with Alea Rinn and do something about her situation. The poor girl has been devastated by all this.
Maybe you’re surprised by my actions, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I couldn’t let Jack’s pretty babies starve.
No, she couldn’t. Beth wasn’t that kind of woman.
Warmed by the reminder of another woman’s courage, I summoned the nerve to ask Jimmy what I needed to know. “Now that Esther’s no longer in the picture, what do you plan to do?” Unasked was the question: Are you still leaving me?
He smiled. “The same thing as before. Live in my trailer on the Rez. Work with you.”
Somehow I refrained from letting out a whoop. “You’re not going to take the job at Southwest MicroSystems?”
“Nah. Me and big corporations don’t mesh all that well. I’d have to cut my hair, buy new clothes, maybe even get rid of my tatts. Who needs that? Besides, I was only taking the job to please Esther.”
“Maybe she’ll be back.” In my selfishness, I hoped not.
He shook his head. “It’s over, Lena. I’m running toward something, and she’s running away.”
Running away. I had already come to that conclusion about myself. If I moved to California to be with Warren, I’d be running away, too. And Lena Jones doesn’t run. In the meantime, however, thank God for Southwest Airlines and Angel’s offer to consult on Desert Eagle. I could stand to make some real money for a change. Maybe I’d even make enough to buy some snazzy classic car to tool around Hollywood in. But not a ’39 Olds.
For now, I had to get busy. Putting my chrome dreams aside, I called out to Jimmy, “Hey, partner! What’s the next case on the table?”
***
Filming is seldom done in sequence. The final day of filming on Escape Across the Desert included a scene from the beginning of the documentary, where the German POWs were standing in the blind spot by the compound fence where the guards couldn’t see them, finalizing their plans for the escape. Behind them, sunset’s pink light tipped Papago Buttes with fire. With Warren watching carefully, the actor playing the role of Kapitan Erik Ernst told his men what he expected of them that night. “Gunter, you will go first, and I will follow behind. Josef will bring up the rear. Once we are through the tunnel, we will immediately assemble our boat. If all goes well, we will be in Mexico by next nightfall.”
The actor playing Josef replied, “Jawohl, Kapitan!”
But the actor playing Gunter did not look convinced. As Warren directed the camera closer, he asked, “What if all does not go well, Kapitan?”
Das Kapitan scowled. “Under my command, all things will always go well!”
Gunter looked up at the Buttes, stared at their fiery glow. “This land looks little like Germany, Kapitan. Its hardships may be more than we can bear.”
Das Kapitan spit on the ground. “Fool! There is nothing a German soldier can not bear. Especially among weak people in a soft country. Although we will ride our boat south, we will keep our eyes toward the east—toward our dear Fatherland.”
Above the three actors, a red-tailed hawk, its presence an unrehearsed gift of nature, swooped down to make its final kill of the day. It missed, and the rabbit it had set its sights on scampered safely into its burrow.
I saw Warren smile.
“That’s a wrap!” he called, as the hawk rose back into the sky.