Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

again. I wondered how long it would be before he proposed marriage to yet another damsel in distress.
    “And Lena, we have an even worse problem,” he continued. “Captain Kryzinski called this morning and told me the court’s cleared Esther’s extradition back to Utah. Sheriff Benson’s deputy is on his way down here as we speak. You have to wrap this case.”
    He added that he had tried the online investigative services again, but couldn’t find additional information on anyone at the compound. “I’ve done everything I can, and now it’s up to you.”
    “Gee, thanks.” I gave a bitter laugh, then told him about my latest misadventures with Earl Graff. “So you can see that I’m not at the top of the Polygamy Pop Charts right now. Except for Davis and a few women, hardly anyone is talking to me, let alone telling me their deepest secrets.”
    Jimmy moaned. “Maybe you should come back. We might be able to figure out some other way to help Esther.” His voice carried no conviction.
    “No can do. I’m here for the duration.” I was just about to hang up, when he stopped me.
    “Lena, there’s something…There’s something…”
    More bad news, I was sure. “What?”
    “Remember you told me to keep an eye on that South Mountain Citizens for Clean Air case?”
    “Yeah, I remember. So how’s my favorite firebug? Still in business?” In my concern over Rebecca, I’d almost forgotten about that case, but now Miles Alder’s face rose up before me like the Ghost of Christmas Past.
    “No, he’s not still in business.”
    I didn’t like Jimmy’s tone. “What do you mean? Did he get picked up again?”
    “Lena.”
    Then I knew. “Miles is dead, isn’t he?”
    A pause, then, “Yeah.”
    “Oh.” The room blurred momentarily. How strange. I’d thought I hated the spoiled creep. But for all the grief he caused the world, he’d been little more than a kid.
    While I collected myself, Jimmy filled me in. “From what the Phoenix P.D. could tell me, Miles tried to start another fire in the storage yard. He got a pretty good one going, but then something happened. By the time the firefighters got there, the kid had third degree burns over eighty percent of his body. He lasted two days.”
    With great effort, I held my voice steady. “How’s his father doing?”
    “That’s the really weird part, Lena. Dwayne Alder acts like it’s all the police department’s fault, that if they’d done their job, none of this would have happened.”
    I wasn’t surprised. Like most parents, Dwayne Alder couldn’t admit the role he’d played in creating such a troubled child. And Miles himself, with the usual teen’s belief that he would live forever, had been incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his own actions. As Jimmy gave me details I didn’t want to hear, I thought back over my own troubled teenage years. The shoplifting, the promiscuity, the anger. It was a miracle I’d survived.
    “Poor Dwayne,” I said, breaking into Jimmy’s description of Miles’s melted face.
    “Poor Dwayne? That man could see a chicken and say ‘cat.’”
    “Denial. After all, it’s probably rough realizing your kid might still be alive if you hadn’t stuck your head in the sand.”
    “I guess.”
    We chatted a little more about other doomed kids we’d known, and finally hung up, each as depressed as the other. I needed to make another phone call, but I didn’t like my luck so far. So I sat there just staring at the phone for a few minutes, part of me nagging to make the next call, the other part holding back. The nagger won. I punched in one more number.
    “Happy Trails Dude Ranch,” Slim Papadopolus answered.
    I forced cheer into my voice. “Hi, you sexy thing. It’s Lena. Dusty back from his little sojourn in Vegas yet?”
    The long pause should have told me everything I needed to know, but like someone with a hangnail, I couldn’t stop picking at it. “Spit it out, Slim.”
    “Lena, you know Dusty.”
    “Yes, I do. And that’s why I’m asking you straight out. What’s going on?”
    “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”
    “Sure you did. Give it up?”
    A sigh. “If you make a promise under duress, is it still a promise?”
    “Of course not. Where is he?”
    Another sigh. “Hell. I hate to be put in the middle of these things, but this just isn’t right. You’ve been awful decent to me in the past. Too decent for me to let this go on.”
    By “the past,” Slim was referring to the