part0019

DETECTIVES Cassidy and Walker attended the scene of what they now knew to be where two suspected bank robbers had been killed when a rock slide had taken out the front of a Ford Explorer that they believed to have been the getaway vehicle. The mountain road had been closed, and still was, although the wreck was due to be loaded up on a carrier within the hour and taken to police headquarters in Phoenix for more thorough inspection by forensic personnel.

“What the hell are we doing out here in the boonies?” Zack said. “There’s nothing for us to investigate. We know what went down, and the CSIs found all that there was to find.”

“When they clear the road, we can drive along it and see if there is anywhere that the perps could’ve feasibly been heading for,” Heather said. “I think that they had a place to go to after each robbery, to lay low for a while before heading back to the city.”

“That’s a needle in a haystack call,” Zack said. “If they’re somewhere where they can watch TV, then they’ll have caught the news and know that we found the vehicle, and that the bodies in it will be identified. Their association with the dead guys will be enough for them to cut and run with the money.”

“We’ve got to remain positive and go with what we’ve got, Zack. There aren’t many properties out here, so if we call at every place we come across, we could strike lucky.”

Zack sighed and hiked his shoulders. “Whatever,” he said. “I just hope that we find a place that we can get a bite to eat and a cup of coffee.”

Forty minutes later, two guys arrived in a low loader trailer, to winch the remains of the SUV up on to it and drive away.

Slowly, carefully, Zack inched the unmarked sedan past the massive rock that had been winched a few yards to the side of the narrow road, away from the crushed remains of the Ford, to grimace as with a squeal of metal against sandstone he scraped the offside bodywork of the Crown Victoria, with the nearside wheels just a few inches from a drop-off that he avoided looking down at.

“That was too close for comfort,” Heather said. “I had my hand on the door handle, ready to abandon ship if you took us over.”

Zack smiled, but knew that his partner was telling him the truth and would have saved her own cute ass if he had fouled up.

Zack drove north along the narrow, winding mountain road for over three miles before descending hundreds of feet to flatter and open surroundings, to where they began to look for outlying ranch houses, cabins, or even motels off the beaten track. There weren’t many, but they checked every one until they reached Payson.

“There’s no chance that they’d have stopped until they were well away from the area,” Heather said. “We’ve got nothing to go on. All we know is that they were heading this way.”

“If they were planning on passing through Payson, then why didn’t they stay on 188, instead of taking a slower back road?”

“Because they most likely have a hideout somewhere between where they were hit by the rock fall and Payson. Probably off an unnamed back road. These bad boys aren’t tourists. They had a destination in mind, which narrows it down.”

“To find and check out every dwelling in an unknown size of area like that would take us weeks; maybe months.”

“We can do some digging and see if any of the four suspects own property out here.”

“These guys were laid off and finding it hard to make ends meet,” Heather said. “You think one of them would hold on to some place he owned when times got hard?”

“One of them could own a fishing shack or maybe a mobile home. Some place that’s old and not worth shit.”

“It’s something to work with. Let’s get back to headquarters and see what we can dig up.”

“Let’s eat first,” Zack said, pulling off W Main St into the parking lot of Mackey’s Grill. “I could murder a fully loaded burger, a pile of cheese fries and a gallon of coffee. How about you?”

“A chicken salad and something long and cold to drink would be good,” Heather said. “I don’t know where you put all the junk food you eat. You look too slim and fit.”

“Most of the time I eat so-called healthy food, and I work out at the gym three times a week. But you need to have treats to stay happy as well as healthy. To my way of thinking it’s all about balance, Heather. Life’s too short to be a fanatic about anything. We get one shot at being here, so why sweat it and take anything too seriously?”

Heather found Zack’s take on living profound. She worried too much about almost everything, and so his point of view hit home. He was a couple of years younger than her, but what was twenty-four months between friends. It occurred to her that he was the kind of man that she would like to know better; not just as a colleague. She knew that he was single, and so was she. Perhaps in time they would become more than just partners fighting crime. It suddenly made her tingle to imagine being Zack’s lover, and more. Life had no fixed rules. Every day threw up choices. You did not have to conform to the limitations that you put upon yourself. She had noticed on many occasions how Zack had looked at her, appraising her. As he lifted up his coffee cup she looked into his eyes, and for a few seconds they held each other’s gaze and some frisson of mutual attraction passed between them, disconcerting but full of depth that in an instant subtly changed their relationship.

Zack put his cup down and quit on his half-eaten meal. He had fancied Heather for months, but had not imagined that the feeling would ever be reciprocated. But now he knew that if he took the next step, they would become much more than two detectives working together. It was in some way scary, though, and needed more than a little consideration. Having the odd short-lived fling or even a one-nighter was as close as he had ever come to a relationship. It would work out one way or another, though, because everything did.

Zack paid the check and they left Mackey’s and took 87 southeast to the city. Neither of them said a lot. They both now had more on their minds than the current case.

“I think we’re going to find them,” Heather said as Zack pulled into the police headquarters parking lot.

“We’ve got hunches and not much else,” Zack said. “They could have kept to dirt roads until they reached Flagstaff or even farther north into Utah. They could be anywhere.”

“I don’t buy that. Foxes go to earth, and as far as they know we haven’t got a clue as to their identities. The only press releases are about a team that wears masks to carry out the robberies. The two survivors will probably be counting up their blood money, getting loaded, and making ready to go back home and carry on with their lives.”

“Three survivors,” Zack said. “Mitchell’s stepson is missing, so is most likely with them.”

“Do you believe that he knew what they did?”

“Seems likely, but I don’t want to prejudge the boy’s complicity with Mitchell and the others.”

“We could talk to teachers and pupils at the school he attended, to get some insight as to what kind of youngster he is, and ask them if he ever mentioned going to a regular place for weekend breaks or vacations with Mitchell.”

It was a little before nine p.m. when Heather and Zack left the squad room and took the stairs down to the parking lot.

“See you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning,” Heather said as they split up and headed to where they had parked their own vehicles five slots apart in the yard.

“Do you fancy a drink to round off a hot day in the Valley of the Sun?” Zack said, stopping and turning to address Heather as he reached his cherry red Toyota Camry.

Heather hesitated, looked at him long and hard and said, “Are you sure you want to go this route, Zack?”

“What’s in a drink and a little light conversation that isn’t work related?”

Heather followed Zack to the Sidebar on N Seventh Ave and parked her Buick Cascada alongside his Toyota. The lounge was dimly lit and had a dance floor. They talked about family, movies, music, and a great many things that they liked or didn’t, and laughed a lot, and eventually got up and danced to middle of the road music that they both liked. Willie Nelson was singing Always on my Mind when their lips met and the two cops became much more than detectives that worked together.