Janelle covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “But he was breathing. His pulse was strong.”
Sanford returned his phone to its pouch. “I’m sorry. They said he went into convulsions on the way to town.”
“It must have been an internal head bleed. That’s the only thing that would have made him go so fast.” Janelle trembled.
Chuck gripped her arm and said to Sanford, “Two deaths now, in one day.”
The chief ranger shook his head. “Maybe I deserve this.” His tone was muted. He looked at his feet. “This whole idea of using the pictograph to make a big statement—I’m not sure what I was thinking.”
“Don’t go there,” Chuck cautioned. “The pictograph is entirely separate.”
Janelle added, “As for people falling from ladders, Nora was right. It’s one of the most common household injuries of all.”
“The cave is still secret,” Chuck said. “I’ll keep working on the contract. Nothing about that has changed. The guy on the ladder was an accident, like Janelle said. Which leaves you with the collapsed arch.”
Sanford raised his head, meeting Chuck’s eyes. “And Megan.”
“Megan?”
“You talked to your mother, didn’t you?”
Chuck gave a reluctant nod. “She denied knowing anything about what happened this morning.”
“So you still don’t know who Megan is, or was?”
“I take it she’s the woman who was crushed beneath the arch.”
“That’s right. She was your mother’s best friend, too. Your mom has made quite an impact in town. Megan was a large part of it. I called your mother as soon as we lifted the boulder and got an idea of who it was. Sheila helped confirm the ID.”
Chuck arched his eyebrows. Sheila’s best friend in Moab had just died, and Sheila had known about it—yet she had acted as if the death hadn’t happened when she’d hosted Chuck, Janelle, and the girls at her home, and she’d gone on to deny any knowledge of the death to Chuck as well.
“What sort of impact?” Chuck asked Sanford, though the velvet-covered table in the darkened room at the end of the hall in Sheila’s condominium gave him a good indication.
“Your mother started out calling herself a massage therapist when she moved to town a few months ago. But it turns out she’s a lot more than that. She put up posters around town announcing her arrival. She was forced to take them down, of course, but not before everybody saw them. People went to her. They told others. Pretty soon, there was a steady stream of folks headed to her condo.”
Janelle asked dubiously, “For massages?”
“That’s apparently what got the first round of people in the door. But she’s a talker, mostly. She figures out what people want to hear, and she tells them in a blunt way that really works.”
“She calls herself a seer,” Janelle said. “That’s what she told us this morning.”
Chuck said to Sanford, “You quoted her voicemail message to me word for word, where she pitches herself to ‘seekers of truly enlightened energy.’ What’s up with that?”
“Elsie,” the chief ranger said by way of explanation. “She was one of the first to go to your mother. After a couple of sessions, she made me go to her, too.”
Chuck shook his head, incredulous. “When we were at your house, Elsie told us she talks to Sheila nearly every day. I find that hard enough to believe. But you, too?”
“Your mother’s not so bad as it sounds like you think she is. Besides, I wasn’t alone. By the time I went, Sheila had been in town for about a month, and it was already tough to get an appointment.”
“She was fully booked?”
“She said she was, anyway. It added to her mystique, if nothing else.”
“So you went to see her?”
Sanford avoided Chuck’s gaze. “She offered to squeeze me in, on account of Elsie. I was pretty doubtful. But it was about what I expected. Tough love, mostly.”
“Tough love?” Chuck put his fingertips to his temples and shook his head. Was Sanford really talking about the woman who hadn’t shown Chuck an ounce of love his entire childhood? He lowered his hands. “What about the massage part?”
“I never would’ve let her lay her hands on me. I’m not a massage kind of guy. What Sheila offers—what has made her so popular around town so quickly—goes far beyond that sort of thing.”
Chuck exhaled, forcing air through his nose. Sheila’s voicemail message urged callers to describe to her their “desires for fulfillment,” concluding with her promise to provide “complete satisfaction” to those who reached out to her.
Sanford continued. “I imagine she still does massages, if that’s what people want. But what she’s really known for around town is tearing into people verbally. That’s her game, and I’m telling you, it works.”
“On you?”
“Not so much on me, to be honest. I went because of Elsie. She was convinced whatever your mom was doing for her really helped. I think she was right; Elsie has a spring to her step after her sessions with Sheila that I haven’t seen in a long time. So I went, too. I played along.”
“Your wife seemed to be doing fine today. She’d just baked cookies when we got there. She played with the girls. She’s quite the drummer.”
“She drummed while you were there?”
“On the coffee table,” Janelle said. “It’s beautiful, by the way. All the artwork you have in your home is gorgeous.”
“That’s all thanks to Elsie. She’s got a real feel for that sort of thing.”
“She cares,” said Janelle. “That much was evident. It was sweet of her to have us over just to thank Chuck for being here.”
“That’s just like Elsie—and why I’m not looking forward to telling her about the arch and Megan.” The chief ranger sighed, his cheeks sagging. “Elsie knew her, of course. Everybody knew Megan.”
Chuck said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe that’s where Sheila can help.”
“Maybe. Sheila might already have broken the news to Elsie, for all I know. They’ve grown remarkably close.”
Janelle asked, “When you went to see Sheila, did she light the candle in the back room, take your hands in hers, that whole bit?”
Sanford nodded. “She said she could see what needed fixing inside me. She fed me a few lines about believing in myself—the sort of mumbo jumbo that plays well with newcomers in town, and with Elsie, too, for that matter. I went a couple of times. That was enough. But Elsie has continued to go to her, so I’ve kept tabs on what she’s been up to. Sheila is focused mostly on folks her age, all the retirees moving to town. They hike and bike and volunteer for cleanup days along the river. They’ve got plenty of money. That’s something I’m sure she’s fully aware of.”
Chuck said, “The money part, at least, sounds like the Sheila I’ve known all my life.”
“She’s good at up-charging,” Sanford said. “People show up for massages, and she works them into talk sessions, with the candle and hand-holding. She’s been encouraging Elsie to come to her more than once a week, but I’ve been pushing back from my end. So far, at least, Sheila hasn’t been charging for the phone calls between them.” He rubbed his beard with his thumb and forefinger and said to Chuck, “She’s not cheap, your mother.”
“What about Megan? You said they were best friends. Was she one of Sheila’s customers, too?”
“Just the opposite. Megan sent customers to your mother. I’m sure she was getting a referral fee of some sort. Megan was a sponsored outdoor athlete, a rock climber and canyoneer. We always have a few of them based here in town. They make money using gear and wearing clothes of various outdoor companies and posting about it online. They get by, but they don’t get rich off it, that’s for sure. Their whole game is networking. Megan was good at it. She joined clubs, went to events. She took over as director of the Moab Counts 10K. That’s the citizen’s race along the river every spring. I don’t know who’ll take it over now. It’s the combined fundraiser for all the local nonprofit organizations. Thousands of people show up for it. Being in charge of Moab Counts put Megan in the middle of everything in town, and got her to know just about everyone on a first-name basis. As near as I could tell, Megan recommended Sheila’s services to almost everybody she knew, too. She was your mom’s fixer, I guess you could say.”
“Why would Megan have gone out on the arch like she did today?” Chuck asked.
“That would have been just like her. She had to post stuff online all the time, for her sponsors, about everything she was doing—her daily runs, her stretching routine, her camping trips in the desert—even when it wasn’t extreme rock climbing or canyoneering. That’s how she made her living, along with the little bit she got for organizing Moab Counts, and whatever your mother may have been giving her.”
“She was married,” Janelle noted. “She had a wedding ring on her finger.”
“That just happened at the end of the summer. She and a guy named Paul Johnson. He’s a rock climber, too. Ex-military, crew cut, tightly wound. Quite the beefcake. He and Megan got hitched up on top of the cliff overlooking Castleton Tower in Castle Valley at sunset a few weeks ago, after climbing up there with a bunch of their friends. They posted pictures of it all over social media. You couldn’t miss it. They even put their picture and announcement in the Moab Times-Independent, the old-fashioned way. Paul is a good enough guy. The sheriff’s office made the call to him this morning, after we verified the ID through Sheila. I followed up with a call of my own. He’s devastated.”
“Just like George Epson,” Chuck muttered.
Sanford shot him a sharp look. “If we’re back to that, then it sounds like we’re about done here.”
“Agreed,” Chuck replied. “I’ll stay on top of the contract for you, like I said. That, at least, you won’t have to worry about.”
Chuck set out alone from Devil’s Garden Trailhead half an hour later, ostensibly headed back to the cavern to maintain his contracted work schedule despite the late-afternoon hour. He had another plan in mind, however, one he wasn’t ready to share with Janelle until he answered a few questions on his own.
He left the trail beyond the walled corridor north of the trailhead, out of sight of the parking lot, and worked his way southward, angling back across the open desert toward Devil’s Garden Campground. He kept his eyes down, casting for sign in the drying soil.
A few hundred yards from the campground, he spotted what he sought—a set of footprints. He bent over the prints. They were pressed lightly into the soil. The soles were those of running shoes, the heels rounded from heavy use.
The footprints undoubtedly were those of the emaciated man who’d fled the campground after coming to Harold’s aid. The tracks headed north, away from the campground, across an open expanse of sage and rabbitbrush and on through a stand of piñons and junipers. Chuck followed them, hidden from the campsites by the three sandstone bluffs that rose side by side north of the campground. The matching vertical walls at the end of the three bluffs towered above the desert like giant tombstones.
The last of the storm clouds had passed. The late-day sun cast long shadows across the damp earth. A red-tailed hawk circled above Chuck’s head. Sparrows chirped in the trees. From the safety of a rock crevice came the descending bell-like call, tonal and liquid, of a canyon wren, a close cousin of the Sonoran Desert’s noisy cactus wren.
The tracks neared the loop trail’s right-hand branch—the portion of the loop that passed near the hidden cavern. Chuck’s gut churned. Did the homeless man somehow know about the pictograph? Had he followed Chuck and Janelle to the site earlier today?
The tracks veered west, away from the cavern. Chuck exhaled with relief.
The man’s stride, revealed by his footprints, was long and purposeful as he crossed the mile-wide sagebrush flat north of the trail junction, away from the hidden cavern—and straight toward the toppled remains of Landscape Arch.
The tracks detoured where required by low rock outcrops or shallow water drainages, then returned immediately to their fixed westward route. Halfway across the flat, Chuck paused and put his hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the sun. He saw no signs of movement ahead. He shifted his shoulders, adjusting his gear pack on his back, and resumed trailing the footprints.
He again came to a halt where the young man, too, had halted, his footprints planted side by side, facing west, upon encountering the left branch of the loop trail on the far side of the flat.
Chuck stood where the young man had stood. What had brought him here? What had he sought?
After the stop, the footprints continued, now following the trail, the tracks imprinted over those of the emergency responders who’d trod through the mud earlier in the day. Chuck followed the tracks into the cliff-walled passage leading from the broad flat to the arch.
The man’s strides remained long and steady; he had made no effort to conceal himself as he approached the toppled arch. Chuck, however, slowed as he proceeded through the passage, peering ahead. He’d started out following the homeless man to convince himself the girls were safe; he wanted to be able to report back to Janelle that the man had fled far from the campground. But the man’s trek to the toppled arch baffled Chuck, which in turn set his nerves thrumming. He put his back to one of the facing cliff walls, edging sideways up the last of the passageway. Each sidelong step brought him closer to the end of the corridor, affording him a wider view of the small open area beyond.
Chuck stopped where the cliff walls opened onto the flat. The trail extended across the desert to the wooden fence at the arch viewpoint. Beyond the fence, the toppled blocks of stone that had comprised the span lay in an uneven row, silent testimony to the morning’s collapse and Megan’s death.
Nothing moved among the blocks. In the post-storm quiet of the waning afternoon, the trail and viewpoint were deserted as well.
Chuck put a palm to the cliff wall at his back, preparing to leave the passageway and cross the opening. He pushed himself away from the stone just as a gunshot rang out.