Michael Prescott - Stealing Faces

She didn’t like to believe there was no justice in the universe. She had seen what such a belief did to people, the bitterness it bred, the cynicism and ugly despondency.

But when she thought of Cray writing about the human psyche and finding an audience for his views, she almost couldn’t stand it. There was a limit to the unfairness a person ought to be asked to accept.

She was unable to find a news station, only a lot of pop music and a couple of talk shows dealing with national affairs.

There would be local news updates at four o’clock, she supposed — nearly an hour from now.

Too long to wait. How about the TV? She turned it on and used the remote control to search through more than twenty channels. She found news, but again nothing local.

“Damn,” she muttered.

She switched off the TV and felt herself trembling with impatience and frustration and the desperate need to know.

She told herself to relax. It was over now. That was the thing to remember.

Cray had not won in the end. All his triumphs had been temporary. She had outsmarted him, and now he was in custody, in custody, in custody, where he belonged.

But she had to be sure.

Well, there might be a way.

Tucson had two newspapers, and one of them, the Citizen, came out in the afternoon. It was just barely possible that the details of Cray’s arrest had been reported in time to make today’s edition.

She grabbed her purse and the room key, then left in a hurry.

The day was warm and bright. Blinking at the glare, she fished sunglasses from her purse, then headed east on Speedway Boulevard in search of a newspaper.

Traffic rushed past in an impatient stream. The street was wide, six lanes with a landscaped median, and lined on both sides with strip malls and family restaurants. Not a ritzy neighborhood, to be sure, but in comparison with the grime of Miracle Mile and the blighted desolation of the frontage road along the interstate, it seemed like Rodeo Drive.

She felt herself smiling. Things had worked out. Last night had been a close call, very close, but she had survived, and she had won.

Then she passed an auto dealership, and abruptly she remembered that Sharon Andrews had worked at a car lot somewhere on Speedway Boulevard.

This car lot? Elizabeth didn’t know, couldn’t recall.

But if not this one, then another just like it.

Sharon had left at the end of her workday and had simply disappeared, and no one had known what became of her. Even after her body was found, nobody could say precisely how she had died. Even Elizabeth hadn’t been sure.

But now she knew. Cray had told her.

He had driven Sharon Andrews high into the White Mountains and set her loose on a desperate run, and in the starlight he had tracked her, remorseless as any predator on the hunt, and he’d shot her, and as she lay wounded, he had used his knife — the knife from his satchel, the knife in the leather sheath — to strip her face away.

Elizabeth wasn’t smiling anymore. It felt wrong to be happy. Disloyal, somehow.

Disloyal to Sharon and to the other women, however many there might be — all of Cray’s victims, down through the years.

At the corner of Speedway and Wilmot, in a small shopping center, she found a row of newspaper vending machines.

The Tucson Citizen was displayed in the nearest one. She bent for a closer look, her heart pounding hard and fast in her ears.

Through the Plexiglas panel she read the headlines.

A road project was over budget and behind schedule. A senator was under investigation for campaign irregularities. A local software firm was hiring two hundred new employees.

Nothing else.

Maybe the news had come in too late to allow the front page to be redesigned. There still might be a story inside.

She found coins in her purse and fed them to the machine, then pulled open the bin. The paper in the display window was the last copy left. She slid it out of its bracket and tried to flip through the pages, but the wind kept crumpling the newsprint and she couldn’t see anything.

Calm down, Elizabeth. Take it easy.

The soothing words came to her in a calm male baritone. It took her a moment to realize that it was Anson’s voice she had heard.

His advice was sound, as usual. She drew a deep, slow breath, then another.

When she was back in control, she found a bus-stop bench shaded by a kiosk and sat down with the paper. The kiosk sheltered her from the wind, and she was able to flip through the pages methodically, hunting for any reference to the Sharon Andrews case.

On the second page of the Tucson & Arizona section, she found it.

POLICE DENY BREAK IN WHITE MOUNTAINS CASE.

Deny.

She had to read the words three times before they made any sense.

A shudder rippled through her, and she felt a bulge of nausea at the base of her throat.

There had to be some mistake. But of course there wasn’t. Her hope had been only an illusion.

With effort she refocused her eyes on the trembling newsprint in her hands and read the article itself.

A Tucson Police Department spokesman was quick to dismiss reports of a major break in the ongoing White Mountains Killer investigation.

Earlier today, three Tucson-area radio stations reported that a suspect had been arrested and charged with the slaying of Tucson resident Sharon Andrews, whose mutilated remains were found by campers in the White Mountains last August.

The department’s official spokesman, Sgt. Benjamin Graves, called the reports inaccurate. Graves speculated that the misunderstanding may have arisen after the arrest of a homeless man on unrelated charges.

A homeless man. It was never Cray.

The story never had anything to do with Cray at all. She almost stopped reading, too tired to continue. But on the radio, they’d said it was a 911 call. Her call — it must have been.

Scanning the article, she saw 911 embedded in the text two paragraphs down.

The story may have been blown further out of proportion by a separate incident involving a 911 call. Graves confirmed that the department received a call early this morning from an anonymous tipster claiming to know the identity of the White Mountains Killer.

“Somebody’s wires got crossed,” Graves said. “It looks like the arrest and the phone call were both reported at around the same time, and the impression was left that there was some connection between the two. It’s an unfortunate example of the confusion that sometimes occurs in a high-profile case.”

Graves said that the 911 tip was unlikely to represent a legitimate break in the investigation. “Without going into detail, all indications are that the call was one of many false leads we’ve received in connection with this matter. There is no evidence, absolutely none, that would give any credibility to this particular call.”

Graves stressed that members of the public are encouraged to phone the department with any information that may be of value…

Elizabeth lowered her head.

For just one moment she wanted to toss aside the newspaper and walk away, leave town, hear nothing more about the White Mountains case, and never, ever know if the man who had killed Sharon Andrews had been brought to justice.

One of many false leads, the cop had said. No evidence. Absolutely none.

But she had given them all the evidence they could possibly need.

All they had to do, the damn fools, was look at the satchel, just look at it, for God’s sake — was that too much to ask? Was it unreasonable? Was she wrong to expect any help at all, from anyone, ever?