Telling Fortunes in Phoenix

The Last Chapter

Blake and Gavin were in a hurry to get the Mexicans out of the country; they broke all speed limits racing their cargo to the border. Gavin drove while Blake made phone calls once cell service was available, calling Stepan to get the get the kids back with their parents and pulling favors to get Sara and Ruby Jenkins released from Tent City.

Once they’d dropped off their cargo they were even more anxious to get back. Gavin was worried about the rancher woman and so was Blake, but for different reasons.

“So we need to come up with some kind of story,” Blake said as they finally pulled onto the Johni’s dirt drive to return her van. They drove past their car, still stuck in the sand, and they’d agreed to write a report about domestic violence and leave the whole Mexican thing out of it when their headlights showed the dark yard. Gavin slowed and stopped but left the motor running in the eerie silence.

“I’ll check in the house,” Blake said.

The house was empty but for the signs of hasty packing. The shotgun was gone. The burro was wandering around the back of the stable and kept the night lively with his calls until he was stabled and fed.

When it seemed clear that truly, no one was here, Gavin turned off the van and the two men stood in the yard, heads bowed.

“So,” Gavin said, “I’m thinking we screwed up.”

Blake nodded his head.

Gavin drove and by the time they were back in Phoenix Blake had been debriefed over the phone and had appointments with his superior and with the FBI. He turned off his phone and went to Tent City. He still had to get the women out of jail.

It was midnight and once again the moon, just past the full, rode high in the sky.

“Where can I drop you, Ruby?”

“I left my car at the Sam’s Club near Bell and 19th,” Jewel said.

It was midnight and once again the moon, just past the full, rode high in the sky.

“Where can I drop you, Ruby?”

“I left my car at the Sam’s Club near Bell and 19th,” Jewel said.

Blake’s phone rang. He ignored it. There was a little silence as Blake made the turn south onto 7th Street. They passed apartment houses and were heading up the little rise to Pointe Hilton. Blake’s phone rang again. He pulled into the entrance to North Mountain Park while the phone rang insistently. He looked at the screen and turned off the ringer.

“Important?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Let’s take a walk,” said Sara. “I’ve been cooped up all day.”

Blake laughed. He’d been up since six, breaking and entering, interrogating, hallucinating, dodging bullets and illegally transporting citizens of another country, helping criminals escape justice, listening to threats from his own superiors and members of the FBI, pressured the system to release his prisoners Sara and Ruby and was now receiving more late night phone calls which he’d decided not to answer, should have been anxious to get to bed but found the idea of a moonlight stroll in the desert soothing.

“The park is closed,” Blake said.

“There’s just a car gate,” Sara said. “We can walk around it.”

They got out and passed through the gate. The moon blazed down on the empty park and a little breeze sighed through the chaparral. Sara inhaled deeply.

“That is so much better than down at the dog pound.” The three rode in silence. After dropping Jewel at her car and waiting to see that it ran Blake swung his car onto Bell and headed for 7th Street to run Sara back home.

“So?” Sara said.

“So what?”

“How was your day?”

“Busy.”

“Come on, Blake,” Sara said. “I told you what I knew.”

“You didn’t tell me anything.”

“In the daydream.”

“If I had a daydream and if you told me anything, it was damned useless,” Blake said, “but if you did something there (and please god don’t ever do that again) I guess at least you were trying and I might as well tell you. I’ll be sacked soon, anyway.”

So he told her. Leaving out only his illegal search of Nik’s apartment he spilled the entire thing.

“So you rescued the Mexicans and broke up the trafficking operation,” Sara said when he’d finished. By now they were sitting in the car outside of her house. “Pretty good work.”

Blake smirked. Then sighed. “Well, I can tell you about my day. Don’t spread it around, though.” He knew she could keep a secret.

He did not tell her about breaking into Nik’s apartment and he slid over the disturbing hallucination, which he really didn’t want to think about right now, but otherwise he recounted as much as he knew. Sara listened silently until the part where Nik picked up the kids.

“What?”

Blake explained as much as he knew, as much as Cody had been able to tell him which wasn’t much.

“He just saw Chui, the oldest kid, on the side of the road with a cart full of drugged children and Chui let him take the littler ones.”

Sara shook her head. “That Nik man must be a very good person for Chui to trust him like that.”

“Well, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I had my doubts about Nik, myself, but he did a good thing.”

“So you had his phone number and you called him up and that’s when he told you he thought something was going on?”

Blake squirmed inside. They had gone past the visitor’s center and were now on a broad path that glowed whitely in the moonlight while the city lights outlined the hills.

“I went to see Mrs. Sturgis to clarify what she knew. Certainly Nik could be selling drugs but Cody had already told me the two men were a couple so it was important to figure out what all she knew.” He hurried on to tell her about the two men asking him to come down and glossed over the trip down and his hallucination, getting to the shootout and ending.

Sara was very quiet for a while and asked that they turn back. She was ready to go home, she said.

As they approached the visitor center again she said, almost as if to herself, “So you didn’t need me to tell you anything.”

She stopped still and said in a louder voice, “I did not do a damn thing in this affair. Chui rescued the kids, then Nik helped him out, then you scared off the woman.” She still seemed to be talking to herself. “Why have I been haunted about this? I could understand if I had something to contribute but other people took care of the whole thing!”

Blake thought about this. Of course he was perfectly happy to think that his fine detective skills had saved the day but he was at heart an honest man.

“Well, first off you made Maureen so mad that she called the cops.”

“Yes, that might have helped.”

“And you made me so mad that I started looking into what you had suggested, the trafficking.”

“And mad enough to throw me in jail.”

“Yes, and that. So you have been instrumental in making people angry.”

“A hitherto unknown skill,” she said. “Is Jewel’s father getting off scot free?”

Blake saw Eddie Wyatt’s golden boy face in his mind’s eye and shuddered. “Who’s Jewel and who’s her father?”

Sara shook her head and started moving again. Blake kept up and had the door open when she got to the car. It seemed no time before he was opening it again at her house. She had been muttering darkly during the rest of the ride and Blake walked her to her door.

“Well, next time the universe needs my help I’d like to remind it that it’s doing fine without me,” she said as she turned to say goodbye.

Blake reached over and patted her avuncularly on the shoulder. “You’ll get better. It’s only your first case.”