All The Way Down

Chapter 47

When I returned to Brick's house, Sandy's little four-door Pontiac sat at the curb. I parked in the driveway, locked the car doors, and went over to her car. I climbed into the passenger seat and let out a heavy breath.

"Drive out to the parking lot at White Sands," I said.

"My God," she said. "You smell like a corpse. Where have you been?"

"Lighting the fuse," I answered.

She started the car, rolled her window halfway down and turned the vent on. The gloves, the coveralls, and the plastic bags had helped, but the smell of Ray's body clung to me anyway.

"You're going to get us both thrown in prison," she asked. "You know that?"

I didn't answer. The holster under my sweatshirt was jabbing me in the kidneys. I shifted my position in the seat to try to get comfortable.

Traffic was thin on I-70 as we passed the entrance to Holloman AFB. From that point on it was just us and the semi trailers headed for Los Cruces. I had plenty on my mind, and didn't feel like I needed conversation. Sandy didn't seem to mind the silence.

A few minutes later, she pulled the car into the parking lot of White Sands National Monument. It was eleven thirty when she jerked the car to a halt. Sandy didn't say anything, but I could sense the anger and tension in her. I got out and went over to the phone booth.

The fluorescent light over the phone had attracted dozens of small gray moths. I batted them away, pulled the slip of paper with Bullard's home phone number on it from my pants, and shoved a quarter into the slot. I dialed the number and Bullard answered on the third ring.

"Yeah?" Bullard said. His voice had panic in it. I waited a second.

"This is Marty," I said, choking my words out through clenched teeth. "You takin' good care of Ray?"

The line was silent.

"Your ass belongs to me, Bullard. You left me for dead, you son of a bitch." Bullard started to say something, but I interrupted before he could get it out.

"I hope you don't mind. I made a withdrawal at the bank of Bullard." Then I hung up on him.

I got back into the car, and told Sandy to drive on down the highway towards Las Cruces. When she had the car back on the road, she spoke.

"If you don't tell me what's going on, I'm out of this. I mean it. I'll let you out here and you can self-destruct on your own."

"All right," I said. "I parked Ray's body in front of Bullard's garage. I just called him a minute ago and told him I was Marty, and that I was going to even the score for him killing Ray and trying to kill me."

"What…What’s this?" she asked. "Marty's alive?"

"No," I said. "They're both dead. I found Ray and Marty's bodies yesterday near White Sands. Bullard killed both of 'em. Marty lived long enough to crawl a couple hundred yards from where Bullard shot him. My guess is that Bullard will be out here inside of an hour to see if Marty's really dead. If Bullard comes, that proves beyond a doubt that he killed them both. How else would he know where to look?"

"What if he doesn't come out here?" she asked. "What if he gets on the phone, calls the chief of police, and says 'Hey! Get over here! Some lunatic left a body in my driveway?’"

"In that case, I was wrong about him and he needs to have his driveway steam-cleaned. But I'm not wrong, he'll be here."

She was quiet again, and I watched the road. I didn't say anything until we reached the speed limit sign. The sign was just before we needed to turn off the highway to go to the copper ore dunes.

"Slow down and turn off to the right up here," I said. "There are tracks leading into the desert. Just follow them."

She eased off the gas and hit the high beams. "This thing isn't four-wheel drive. We'll get stuck or lose a tire."

"Just stay in the grooves from the trucks," I said. "You'll be okay."

She spotted the marks on the highway shoulder and eased the car off the highway embankment into the grooves in the crusty desert surface. She kept the speed at about twenty-five. We reached the copper dunes about three miles later.

"Drive around past this first bunch of dunes and park behind some big ones," I said. "I don't want Bullard to know we're here."

She grudgingly pulled the car from the ruts left by the trucks and eased the car around the piles. The tires made a crunching sound as they cut fresh tracks through the crusty surface. We made a slow arc of several hundred yards around the piles before pulling behind several large ones in a cluster.

She shut off the engine and headlights. It seemed very quiet in the car, and neither of us said anything.

"Now what?" she finally said.

"I'm going back to where we pulled off the trail," I said. When Bullard shows up, I'm going to make a citizen's arrest."

"You're not thinking straight," she said. "If he does show up, he'll blow your head off when you confront him. If he's already killed several people, what's one more?"

"Stay out of sight and watch me," I said. "You're my backup. If Bullard kills me, you can get him for that."

She shook her head. "I think you’ve lost it. You’re crazy," she told me.

I got out, closed the door, and leaned in the opened window.

"One way or the other, this thing is going to end tonight," I said. I started back towards the highway, walking along the grooves her car had cut into the hard desert surface. The noise of my shoes crunching against the baked earth was the only sound I could hear.

I hadn't gone far when I heard her door close.