J. Black: Laura Cardinal - 01 - Darkness on the Edge of Town

She felt both dread and anticipation. Needing to get there, see it for herself, but knowing that when she did, the image would haunt her for the rest of her life. The sight of the dead girl would be imprinted on her eyeball as if it were caught in the flash from a camera.

It would have plenty of company.

Laura reached the ADOT yard, where the Arizona Department of Transportation kept road machinery, at a little after ten a.m. A Bisbee PD Crown Vic was parked just outside the Mule Pass Tunnel. The officer, female and twenty-something, leaned against the Crown Vic’s door. When she saw Laura’s unmarked 4runner pull in behind her, she walked up to the window. “I have to advise you that you are not allowed to park here.” Her face was peeling from a severe sunburn.

Laura showed her badge and told the officer—her nameplate said Duffy—that she would follow her. They drove through the tunnel and down into town and parked in a lot populated by law enforcement vehicles from four different agencies. Everybody and his brother was here.

Officer Duffy was out of her car in an instant. She strode across the lot without looking back, headed toward the staging area set up outside the mining museum across the street. Laura was used to this kind of rudeness. A state agency, the Arizona Department of Public Safety could only assist small town police departments if the chief requested it. The chief usually asked for help either because his force was too small or they weren’t equipped to do the job. Laura encountered resentment every time she set foot in one of these small towns.

Sometimes she thought her job description should read Professional Pariah.

She opened up the back of her vehicle and took out her camera bag, wishing she hadn’t worn dark clothes that absorbed the heat. The sky above was an unrelenting blue; no sign of the storm clouds she’s seen on the way down. The mountains above the town were so high, they probably hid them from view. Laura entered the park and introduced herself to the cluster of men in the roped-off area.

Rusty Ducotte, who served twenty-five years with the DPS before his current stint as Bisbee Police chief, spoke in the subtle Arizona drawl that Laura had grown up with. He was long-faced with receding hair and red-rimmed eyes that reminded her of a rabbit’s.

Ducotte made it clear that she was the lead, that it was now her scene. “I’d like Detective Holland to walk the scene with you, though, if that’s okay.”

Although the chief put it in the form of a request, Laura could sense steel behind it. He wanted his detective to work the case with her. Laura didn’t see why not, as long as he didn’t get in the way. She couldn’t depend on Victor; his wife had just had a baby, and he’d already told everyone who would listen that he wanted to stay close to home.

As she listened to the first officer at the scene describe how he had secured the area, Laura assessed Buddy Holland. He had the cop look: hair clipped short, razored whitewalls, mustache. He also had a grim jaw and watchful eyes. Wary.

He didn’t say much. Just kind of sat back and waited. Figuring out with those small narrow eyes which way to jump?

Officer Billings, the responding officer, paused in his dissertation. Looking at her for approval.

“You’ve made my job a lot easier,” she told him. He deserved praise. By her standards, a lot of street cops weren’t careful enough at crime scenes, mostly because they weren’t trained well. Officer Billings had probably trained himself.

“I plan to be a homicide detective someday. That’s my goal.”

Buddy Holland smirked.

Twenty minutes later, Victor breezed in, trailing expensive cologne behind him. “I guess you’re wondering why I called you all here today,” he said, crisp white shirtsleeves already rolled up. He walked up to Detective Holland and held out his hand. “Victor Celaya.”

The Bisbee PD detective straightened up from the tree trunk on which he had been leaning, his face instantly animated. “Buddy Holland.”

They shook hands like long-lost brothers. Victor had an unerring sense for which person in a crowd needed to be won over. Now he paused and shot a glance at Laura, just to be sure she was still charmed by him. Impossible not to be.

It was decided that Laura, Detective Holland, and Officer Billings would walk the crime scene, and Victor would interview the two female witnesses detained in a conference room at the Copper Queen Hotel. Victor usually did the interviews. He was the best interviewer/interrogator in the unit.

Laura glanced up the street lined by two-story brick buildings: Brewery Gulch. From their vantage point on OK Street, news photographers aimed their telephotos down the hill at the park. OK Street marked the eastern boundary of Bisbee; after that, there was no place to go but straight up. This odd topography had the effect of making the corner of Brewery Gulch and Main Street both the city center and the edge of town.

They walked up the Gulch, Officer Duffy leading the way. The narrow canyon seemed to telescope until Laura’s gaze was trained solely on the blue uniform of Duffy ahead of her, twenty pounds of duty belt, service weapon, flashlight, and handcuffs shifting from side to side on her compact girl-body. Duffy seemed sure of herself, as if she knew exactly where she was going. Laura got the impression it wasn’t just Bisbee the officer was sure of, but her future as well. Laura envied the girl’s certainty. Her own future seemed to disappear somewhere up ahead in the mist; she’d suffered too many body blows to take anything for granted in her personal life. Or maybe her personal life and her professional life were one and the same. The only thing she seemed to be good at was this job.

Ahead, yellow crime scene tape blocked the road, leaving space for people to turn their cars around. Their little group passed the open door to a bar. The beer smell billowed out, enveloping Laura in a dank, underworldly current.

The closer she got, the greater the dread she felt. The game of push-and-pull went on full force inside her: the urgency to see the scene, the equally strong desire to turn away. Whatever Jessica Parris had been thinking, feeling, or doing—stuff as simple as hanging out with a friend or planning what to do for the weekend—all of it had been cut short like a snipped thread.

At least nothing could hurt the girl anymore. Her family was another matter. In the aftermath of the tornado that took their daughter’s life, their entire world would be blown apart, shattered into tiny pieces. Laura knew from experience that you could pick up the pieces, but you could never put them back together. She was here to get Jessica’s family the only thing left that had any meaning: justice.

A knot of people had gathered at the edge of the tape. A uniform held them back, unassailable as a block of granite. She saw he had been assigned to keep the crime log.

Laura took photographs of the people crowded near the tape, making sure to get every face. You never knew who would be there, thinking they were invisible.

A hot wind spiraled up the canyon, bringing with it the smell of impending rain.

She let the camera hang down from the ribbon around her neck.

Her stomach tightened.

Time to begin.

3

When she was in grade school, Laura’s parents took her to the Tucson Metro Ice Rink for ice-skating lessons. She remembered walking gingerly on her blades across the black rubber apron to the edge of the rink. The delineation between rubber and ice was inviolate, a law of nature. First you were clumping, and then you were gliding.

Like an ice rink, a crime scene was something apart. City Park had been transformed forever from what it had once been. The evil that had visited here would linger in the hearts and the minds of the people who frequented it, long after the body was carted away and the crime scene tape taken down. Legends would grow up around it. The crime scene was hallowed ground.