“Cindy, let go of the ring!” He cried. “Jesus! Let go!”

  But Cindy's fingers were frozen to it; her eyes saucer-wide.

  And then the motion-sick kids above them really let loose -

  “Damn it, Cindy!”

  He pried her fingers away just as what must have been five buckets of putrid hot dogs and soda and half-digested treats unknown sluiced over them.

  Eventually their cage on the ride Donovan would never ride again locked into the unload position and they were free once again to stumble, sticky and stinky, back onto stable asphalt. The crowd of kids quickly opened a wide space for them to move through... And just when Donovan was sure he couldn't possibly feel worse he saw Cassandra Worwick walking quickly away from them.

  The ride operator groaned behind them. Sadistic or not, that kid would have to clean the cages.

  Good for him.

  Cindy, small shoulders slumped, shiny black hair matted with yellow-nastiness looked like a latrine-drenched rodent. Donovan knew he looked pretty much the same. They both stank to high-heaven as they slunk to their respective restrooms.

  Bathing, then washing your clothes in the sink of a public restroom is likely an art, especially for the unusually tall.

  Donovan quickly realized he had no talent for it. The desert sun was a godsend today – at least his shirt and shorts would be dry before the end of the next ride, if he could even handle another ride...

  The fun had drained out of the day.

  What a dweeb he was. What a doofuss. Every time Cassandra saw him he did something gross.

  He checked his watch. It was almost time for the Wallace and Ladmo show. Everybody would be there. He sniffed his already drying shirt. The soap had only added stiffness, and a weird sweetness to the putrid odor. Oh, man.

  The sun burst into his eyes as he opened the door.

  When his sight came back, there was Cindy, wet hair dangling and drying on her forehead. She wore a brand new Legend City T-Shirt with a picture of Wallace and Ladmo emblazoned on the front. She held a similar one out to him.

  “Man, thank you…”

  He liked Wallace and Ladmo, but a shirt with their faces on it was kind of a “little kid” thing...still, he tore his stinking shirt off and tossed it into a nearby trash can without too much regret. He pulled the new one on.

  But he still only had three dollars on him.

  “Geez, how much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing. Cassie Worwick bought them.”

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  “Come in, Pat. Door's not locked.”

  “Maybe it should be. Anyone could just walk in here.”

  Deanne uncurled herself from the sedan, setting her glasses on top of the newspapers piled on the coffee table. She slid last night's watery drink out of sight as she stretched some life into her stiff back.

  Her cousin's visit was the perfect excuse for a fresh pot of coffee.

  Barely nine AM on a Saturday morning and it had already been a long day for her.

  Father Patrick Mulhenney, looking distinctly unpriestly this morning in Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, carried the saddest-looking bouquet of lilies she'd ever seen through her entryway.

  “What's that for?” She lifted her coffee mug toward him as she made her way to the kitchen, and he followed her.

  “Sure...I'll take a cup.” He said. “These aren't from me. They were on your doorstep. One of your many fans, I’m sure.”

  Now she realized his comment about locking her door wasn't just one of his quips.

  “I have no fans.”

  “Apparently.”

  He laid the limp bouquet next to the stone sink.

  “I'm pretty sure those are past needing water,” she said, dumping fresh grounds in the basket. She turned up the heat and took a good look at the sad bouquet; a mix of pink, white, and red lilies in various stages of decline. Seven in all.

  “Who sends anyone lilies? Let alone, me?” She said.

  “A lovesick boy longing for mommy?”

  “Hah! None of those in my immediate circle.”

  “Well. One thing is certain – they weren't delivered by a florist. These were unceremoniously dropped in front of your door – I just gathered them up.”

  “Okay...that IS creepy. I will start locking that door. No note?”

  “I just saw the flowers, but I wasn't really looking for one.”

  Behind her, the pot began to perk.

  “You sure you want coffee?” She asked.

  “I'll take what you were having.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Straight up or on the rocks?” She popped the door on the overhead cabinet, revealing a wealth of colorful bottles. “Sure you wouldn't rather have a Bloody Mary?”

  “I'd love one. Lots of pepper; no salt, I need to watch that.”

  “You got it.”

  “I know you didn't come by to scrape a bunch of dead flowers off my doorstep – but, since you did...and I know you like a mystery – seven flowers - anything you can think of?”

  “Plenty of things... if you're looking for a religious answer: The Seven Deadly Sins, if you include the day God took to recover from it The Creation really took seven days, the Sabbath being of course, the seventh day. Have any Seventh Day Adventist friends?”

  “Can rule that one out.”

  “Well...maybe it isn't the number. I mean...lilies. Lilies have associations themselves. Easter. Funerals. Death, resurrection, the return to innocence.”

  “Okay. Now I'm getting a bolt on that door too.”

  “Seriously, Deanne. You have, well, pissed a lot of people off.”

  “A lot of your people, Father Pat.”

  “You attacked the Church.”

  “I attacked abuse, Pat. The Church owned those crimes when it covered them up. That's on the Catholic Church not me.”

  “Are you going to make those drinks now or later?”

  She pulled two glasses from the cupboard, withdrew a stalk of celery and a half-empty pitcher from the refrigerator. She snapped the stalk in half, poked one in each glass, dropped in ice and poured.

  She shook black pepper into both and handed him a glass.

  “Let's look for a note.”

  There wasn't one. Not under the doormat, nor the Terracotta planters.

  Beyond her low adobe wall, the Praying Monk, a lone outcropping of rock that also comprised the “eyelash” of the resting camel that gave Camelback Mountain its name, continued his endless devotion.

  It was already hot, the early morning sun already whitening the sandstone, glaring off it. They retreated inside, back to the kitchen and the wilted offering on her counter.

  “Weird joke?” Pat mused.

  “Maybe.”

  But the sleuth in neither of them believed it.

  “So...no weird boyfriend.”

  “If there were one he most likely would be...but no.”

  “Well, you've been covering the Worwick campaign. You'll find this hard to believe, I know...but not everybody likes what you write. Maybe he doesn’t either.”

  They toasted.

  “There isn't anything new I can find on Goldwater. So…like they say, Worwick’s Our Man.”

  “Todd Worwick is a good looking fellow though, isn't he?”

  “Spare me. But I haven't found a good angle there either.”

  “But you are devoting a lot of ink to him.”

  “Come on, Pat. I work for The Tucson Gazette. He's a Democrat, they love him.”

  “Well...maybe that's what those flowers are about. Maybe someone doesn't love him so much. Maybe that's the message. They are lilies after all - a flower associated with death.”

  “They're pretty much dead themselves. Jesus, Pat,” she said without a hint of concern he'd take offense at her casual blasphemy. “What if someone is using me to announce an assassination attempt? It's only been five years since Dallas.”

  “Good Lord, I touched them...” Her cousin blanched. “I just carried them in!”

  “I’m just throwing it out there. They’re just dead flowers. There's no crime...yet.”

  Still, Deanne retrieved the camera gear from her bedroom.

  As she snapped pictures of the flowers from various angles, the various stages of their decline, of death, became even more obvious.

  These flowers had been picked several days apart.

  Chapter 6

  “Cassie?”

  Cassandra’s door opened into a room still princess pink.

  It made Todd smile. She was still his princess. For how much longer he wondered? One day this door would be locked.

  A poster of the sexually-harmless Davy Jones from The Monkees still dominated that space beneath her doll shelf these days.

  “Let her sleep, Todd,” Sondra whispered over his shoulder. “She's had a full day of fun.”

  He took in the slow, even rise of his daughter's breathing; a sound more purr than snore, and the sweet cascade of golden hair over her pillow. He nodded, closing the door gently behind him.

  The call he'd been waiting for had come – and it had come not from one of LBJ’s lackeys, but from Lyndon himself. Vietnam, the rising tide of civil unrest, the old man finally had enough. Johnson wouldn't be running for President. He would announce his abdication in a matter of days.

  Sondra stood at the end of the hallway, thin robe loosely tied at her hip. She held a tumbler in each hand. Behind her, the panoramic window opened to mountains silhouetted against a blanket of stars. A cooling breeze swept sweet spring desert air over the narrow pool at her bare feet, rippling its surface.

  “We have a lot to consider,” she said. “This is good for you.”

  But was it? Todd Worwick had caught the attention of party bosses and of Lyndon Johnson in particular with his support of the Central Arizona Water Project. Positioned as a centerpiece of an even broader infrastructure initiative, CAP, as they were calling it, was a source of pride, and even more important, a source of income and control of even broader initiatives going forward. It had brought Todd very far in a very short period of time – but without Lyndon Johnson to back it, where would the party’s priorities be?

  CAP couldn't die on the political vine. It had to happen.

  Todd wasn't ready for this. His looks, his ability to read others and exploit weakness when he could had brought him this far, but he was a political novice at best.

  Once more in his life he stood on the brink of disaster.

  The red Samurai mask glowered at him from its pedestal on the stone mantle.

  Did he still have enough of the warrior in him to do this? Was this sudden vacuum in the party really good for him?

  With Lyndon on the way out and the convention only months away, it was that little shit Bobby's show now. Bobby had the Kennedy pedigree not to mention a deadly powerful political machine. Civil Rights, not make-work projects like CAP, would be his platform.

  Still, Todd nodded, taking her hand with the glass she’d offered as he guided it to his lips. The bourbon was sweet and her hand was warm and soft against his lips.

  “Good for us,” he corrected.

  Cassandra's eyes were wide open now.

  Whispers had given way to open talk as her father had closed her bedroom door and that woman had walked with him down the hall. Words she couldn't quite make out, and then the words had given way to other sounds from the pool outside. Lovemaking.

  She thought of her mom. The thoughts came in colors, sometimes hot red colors, but mostly sad purples and blues.

  She pulled Penny, the stuffed pony who had been her friend for as long as she could remember, to her chest and filled her head with images from her day, the smells, frights and wonders, the laughter, the candy and hot dogs, the rides. The images were yellow-white with sun. Behind the tints of color – she saw the tall boy, Donovan, who always seemed to make her laugh. He was like Wallace and Ladmo, or even a cartoon character. No matter what he tried to do, he always wound up in some sort of trouble, in the middle of something embarrassing, even gross. The tortoise thing was really gross and embarrassing for her too – but it made her laugh, even though she had to replace her shoes.

  She wished she could laugh now.

  Outside, in the pool...it was getting really loud now…

  Cassandra closed her eyes, crying softly as she drifted into the dull gray of her dreams.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Deanne urged her fire-engine red Starfire convertible up the hill and eased it into a space just below Sedona’s Chapel of the Cross. From here the view of the red rock formations dotted with juniper, mesquite and chaparral, was stunning.

  She'd kept the top up this morning. It was a cold spring day by Arizona standards, and as she popped open the door and stepped out of the car, Deanne wished she'd grabbed more than a scarf before she'd made the trek north.

  She climbed the hill quickly, huffing a bit more than she should.

  When she pulled open the door and stood before the altar, all her childhood feelings of awe and dread of the crucified Christus came as powerfully, as darkly, as they had the first time she'd seen this frightening statue.

  Growing up Catholic she was used to images of martyred saints, and of the Crucifixion. Even through the agony of arrows, stones, and fire, a certain serenity, a promise of eternal life always came through the faces of the martyred – but there was no such promise with the Christus over the altar in the Chapel of the Cross. This was Christ as though he never had, never could rise again. A rotted twist of tendon and bone, his chest cavity a wide, black, open wound of decay, the sculpture had sparked both horror and praise from the moment it was installed.

  A teenage girl knelt in the first pew, a tiara of desert flowers adorned her raven black hair.

  The girl rose when she noticed Deanne and the already diaphanous dress she wore, also strung with flowers, nearly evaporated in the powerful sunlight that poured through the panoramic window.

  The naked paganism of the girl beneath the Christus was nothing short of shocking. Deanne felt herself draw a breath, take an involuntary, unsteady step backwards.

  Circled by the unmistakable scents of pot and strawberry incense, the girl smiled up at her with stoned green eyes.

  “I’m Deanne Mulhenney. I was expecting Susan Worwick.”

  The girl leaned in and kissed her cheek, the pungency of the flower girl came along with the kiss.

  “I know. I'll take you to Susan,” she said.

  Down into the lush tangle of Oak Creek and winding westward into the red hills beyond, the girl coughed short commands of “tighty-righty,” for “turn right,” and “hang a Louie,” for left, barely glancing upward from a ring of manzanita, reeds, and feathers in her lap as she busily weaved reeds, vines and beaded feathers into a wreath.

  “It's a dreamcatcher,” the girl explained. “The Navajo came up with the idea.”

  Deanne smiled.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Porter.”

  “So you're Agnetha. You’re Porter Hudson's daughter?”

  “Aggie, please. But, uh huh.”

  “You call your father by his first name?”

  “Of course,” she smiled vacantly up at Deanne. “That's his name.”

  Deanne shook her head, “I guess you go with what you're taught.”

  “'Guess.”

  “I'm pretty sure it was the Chippewa or Sioux.”

  “Who?”

  “The Indians who began weaving Dreamcatchers.”

  “Oh,” the girl said as though the distinction made no difference at all. “Hang a Louie on Sluice Road.”

  The road was narrow, barely more than a steep, gravel-filled crack between the pines and oak. With trepidation, Deanne nosed the big car over the edge, the rear wheels kicked rocks and dirt, hammering the wheel wells and sending clouds of dust high into the air. Deanne wondered if the Starfire would keep any of its paint through this day.

  Dust and pine gave way to a disheveled hillside studded with mounds of rock, and crosses. A taller, rockier hill beyond, held the rust-crumbling maw of an abandoned mine. Just below the cemetery, a single street lined with what could have been the decrepit remains of an abandoned Hollywood western set.

  “You live here?”

  “Cool, huh?” the girl said with no trace of sarcasm. “Welcome to Piñon Rim.”

  They sat outside on the back balcony of what the old-west goldminers likely called a “house of ill-repute.” Open walls revealed a re-piping and wiring work-in-progress. Other than that, the wainscoted, gaudily-papered original insides, the pressed-tin ceiling, seemed more or less intact. A gas-powered generator chugged just below the deck, and chickens pecked and ran freely in the grassed area beyond.

  A breeze brought the clink and bong of clay and bronze wind chimes. Bright rainbow-colored shapes danced over every surface, cast from crystals dangling like sparkly stalactites from every available perch.

  If you didn’t mind the spooky cemetery and rotted out mine several hundred yards from the balcony, their view of the forest and rock formations, the clear blue sky rising above them, was as spectacular a sight as any she'd seen.

  “It's beautiful isn't it?”

  “It is that.”

  “But...it's a ghost town, yes.” Porter Hudson, his button down shirt open to reveal gray chest wool that matched his mutton-chops, served tea in fine bone china. “Susan is finishing her sun salutations. Would you like breakfast? I was just scrambling eggs. They're fresh.”

  Just at the mention, her stomach growled. She'd left early. Her breakfast had been coffee this morning.

  “If it's no trouble, thank you – I'd love some. And yes, as pretty as it is, there is literally nothing living here but your family and those chickens.”

  “Oh – there is plenty of life,” he laughed. “We have everything here. Mountain lions, wolves, quail – you name it.”

 

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