Book Excerpt
Chapter One of Roadside Attraction by thriller Author J. Carson Black
Wyatt Earp lives with his mother in a duplex on Gleeson Road, drives a ‘73 Dodge Dart, and works as a silversmith at the Golden Eagle Silverworks Shop on Highway 80, where his earnings, along with his disability check, keep him in enough gas and cheap motor oil to make it into Tombstone every day to greet the tourists. Per terms of his probation, he is required to attend weekly meetings of a Vietnam vet support group, the local AA chapter, and to stay out of bars.
This last requirement Wyatt Earp a.k.a. Derek Tully is constitutionally unable to fulfill. How can he find an audience, if he can’t catch people off guard, sitting down, and with preferably a beer or two into the afternoon? A place like Big Nose Kate’s or the Crystal Palace offers an ideal forum; a cool spot for tourists to rest their feet and slake their thirst after trudging through the OK Corral and Boot Hill. Just try striking up a conversation with someone you don’t know on a crowded street, the sun beaming straight into your good eye.
As his probation officer, I was sympathetic, but it didn’t stop me from following him as he clanked down the boardwalk, his long, black coat swinging with each spur-ringing stride. It was my day off, but I’d taken a detour over to Allen Street to pick up a prescription for my new dog and that was when I caught sight of the Old West apparition heading straight for the Crystal Palace. I glanced at my watch. A little after ten o’clock on a Saturday morning: prime tourist-buttonholing season.
I stopped just short of the bar, studying the window of the shop next-door: tee-shirts imprinted with war chiefs holding feathered lances aloft. The sun was warm on my back and I caught the aroma of breakfast cooking somewhere, making me hungry. I’d give him time to get settled, then see if his violation of probation extended to buying an alcoholic drink.
He was sitting alone at one of the tables in the Palace. He’d slid his chair out so that it was almost touching the chair at the next table, where a handsome family was talking animatedly while the dad checked the images on the LCD screen on his camera. Wyatt was straining to catch an eye, get into the conversation, even though they were speaking in German and engrossed in the wanted posters they’d picked up at one of the shops. The bartender was setting clean glasses onto the saloon’s 1880s mahogany back bar. I didn’t recognize him. “What’s Wyatt over there drinking?” I asked him.
He saw the badge clipped to my duty belt. “Sarsasparilla.”
At that moment, Wyatt looked up and saw me. His chair tipped, and he had to grab the table to keep from falling into the woman next to him.
This brought him to the attention of the family, who looked as if they’d been suddenly sprinkled with fairy dust. They all started talking at once, this time in English. He’s dressed like Wyatt Earp! Are you in a play? Is that a real gun? Is Wyatt Earp your ancestor?
I leaned over and spoke in his ear, spoiling the moment. “Out of here, now.”
He glared at me. “Come on, Maggie, I’m not drinking. It’s just sarsasparilla.”
He’d conveniently forgotten the bar fight that got him put on probation in the first place. “I’m not going to argue with you. You’re violating your probation. Out. Now.”
As he preceded me out the door, I caught the wistful glance he flung in the direction of the German family.
Outside, I told him, “I want you in my office at eight o’clock Thursday morning. And this time, you’d better make sure you get there. I’m this close to filing a petition to revoke.”
He got that look of righteous indignation, the emotion he knew best. “I told you what happened last time—”
“I’m not going to play games with you, Derek.”
“You can’t blame me for that! I told you I was too shook up to come in. It’s been giving me nightmares—now I’m getting flashbacks again!”
I looked at him, trying to fathom his meaning.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about. That truck that nearly run me off the road. He came this close.” Two grimy fingers came together like pliers. “Guy sideswipes me, I nearly go off the mountain, I’m suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and the police don’t even take a report!”
I remembered now. “That was two days before you were supposed to come in.”
But he was off on a rant. “What kind of a world is this when a citizen of this town gets run off the road and nobody does anything about it? Tell me that!” Spittle landed like a dewdrop on his handlebar mustache.
A stagecoach rattled by, trace chains jingling. “Eight o’clock,” I repeated. “Thursday morning. You better be there this time.”
He was still sputtering as I walked back up Fremont Street to my truck.
Blue stuck his head out the window of my Ford Explorer, his tail beating a tattoo against the seat.
“Got your prescription,” I told him, dropping the bag on top of the junk on the passenger side floor. You’d think I’d offered him the keys to the Taj Mahal instead of eye medicine. He put his forepaws on the front seat-back and tried to lick my face, then bounced around the backseat in paroxysms of pure joy. After having cats all my life, I was learning to become a dog owner.
Temporary dog owner. Freddie Valenzuela, Blue’s real owner and one of my probationers, might still come back.
I turned onto US 80 going north. It was another perfect Arizona day, the sky so blue it throbbed. I knew every curve and dip in this road, so it was easy to go on automatic pilot and ponder the problem that had been nagging at me for a month now.
I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that Freddie Valenzuela had skipped out. Freddie had tried so hard. He’d agonized over every decision, checking in with me constantly, just to let me “know what’s going on.” In fact, his frequent communications with me had—I’m ashamed to say—reached the saturation point. One day I’d snapped, “You don’t have to call me over every little thing!”
I could imagine his woebegone expression even over the phone. “I’m sorry,” he’d said, making me feel so shitty I stumbled over myself apologizing to him.
Freddie was that rarity, a probationer who had made one mistake and was determined to put it behind him. I was so grateful that someone on my caseload was seriously trying to improve his lot in life, I tended to make allowances for him. Maybe I’d been too lax, giving him permission to visit his family in Mexico so often. Maybe he had abused the privilege this last time, making me look like a soft-hearted fool.
It was hard to believe he’d just take off. He’d found a good-paying job. He was almost off probation. He was going to enroll in the art program at Cochise College this fall.
But the main reason I couldn’t believe he’d skipped was Blue. Despite his personal problems, Freddie had managed to feed, care for, and license the bluetick hound. His care for Blue was a major source of pride.
My throat tightened as I remembered the day I went by his house after Freddie missed an appointment. It was a cold February day. Blue was out in his chain-link-fenced yard, looking miserable. A half-inch of water stood in his dish, and there was no food. He’d resorted to trying to dig himself out of the pen and was covered with dirt. His nails were blunted by the hard caliche.
But if he didn’t leave voluntarily, that left only a couple of explanations. Either someone was after him and he took off in a panic, or something bad—really bad—had happened.
“Don’t blow this thing out of proportion,” I muttered, as we hurtled past a white Buick Enclave dawdling along at the posted speed limit. “I must be missing something.”
Ahead, the San Pedro Valley spread like a wrinkled, blue-gray blanket to the Whetstone Mountains. At this time of year, the cottonwoods were just getting their halo of green buds, and the checkerboard of brown and green fields near the river hinted at coming fertility. My spirits lifted. Spring is my favorite time of year.
A truck pulling a fifth wheel was rolling to a California stop where the Twin Lakes RV Park met the highway. I put on an extra burst of speed, knowing if he pulled out in front of me I’d most likely end up following him the six miles into Benson. The elderly driver’s face showed surprise as he realized he’d really have to stop. One of the drawbacks of this job is a permanent lead foot.
St. David, where my dad lived, whizzed by: huge cottonwoods, artesian wells, and the Church of Latter Day Saints.
The road straightened out and arrowed through the outskirts of Benson. From this direction, it looked as if some giant, cosmic garbage truck dumped a trail of litter on either side of Route 80. The clutter of tacky buildings, trailer sales and industrial sites ended pleasantly, if abruptly, in a village green of clipped grass and shade trees at the freeway interchange.
I glanced at my watch. I’d made good time.
The adult probation office is housed in a motor court-turned-shopping center on the main drag just west of Oakley’s Garage & Towing. I was surprised to see Larkin Grady’s beat-up Firebird out front on a Saturday. But Larkin kept different hours—he was assigned to Intensive Probation, which required a lot more interaction with the probationers.
He was just coming out and almost knocked me over. Larkin is a big guy with stringy, shoulder-length hair; a freckled bovine face; and a paunch that must have taken every one of his thirty-three years to develop. He feigned surprise by raising his hands—eek, a mouse! Overacting is his specialty. “Well, if it isn’t me old friend, Maggie O’Neil,” he said in a hideous parody of an Irish brogue. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this on a Saturday?”
I ignored his flirting.
We have a pact. He flirts with me all he wants, and I ignore him completely. “I’m going by to see my dad, so I thought I’d check for messages. What about you?”
“Looks like you got a certified letter.”
My heart stalled. I’d sent a certified letter out to Freddie Valenzuela, telling him to come in. It was my last-ditch effort before revoking his probation. “Did it come back?”
“All’s I saw was a green and white envelope in your box. So you still don’t think he took off?”
“It’s just not like him.” How many times had I made that lame argument?
“Then I guess you don’t believe he did it.”
“Did what?”
“You know that girl they found last month? The one they think was tortured?”
I vaguely remembered something about it. “In Sierra Vista?”
“Yeah, some mountain bikers found her in a ditch by Moson Road. Her name was Shari Slater, used to be one of Rudy’s probationers. She was Freddie Valenzuela’s girlfriend.”
