Deadly Stakes

7

By the time the ten o’clock news came on that night, A.J. was glued to the television set in his bedroom. Somehow he had made it through his two-hour shift at work and through dinner without blowing apart. His mother had made carne asada burritos. That was his favorite meal and usually he gobbled down several. That night he barely managed to eat one.

“Since when did you stop liking carne asada?” his mother asked.

“I’m just not hungry,” he said.

“I made the amount I always make,” she said. “So we’ll have the same thing for dinner again tomorrow night.”

A.J. helped with the dishes and then went into his room, ostensibly to do homework, but the words on the pages made no sense. What he kept seeing in his mind’s eye were those vivid green eyes staring blankly up at the sun.

Who was she? A.J. wondered. Who killed her and why?

He wasn’t at all surprised when news about the Camp Verde homicide was the lead story on the broadcast.

“The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department is investigating an apparent homicide near I-17, south of Camp Verde,” the news host reported with a white-toothed smile that A.J. found completely inappropriate. “Our reporter Christy Lawler has been on the scene. What can you tell us, Christy?”

Another smiling face appeared on the screen. “Around noon today, officers responding to a 911 summons arrived at a location just off General Crook Trail, where they discovered the body of an unidentified woman. The death, which has been labeled a homicide, occurred inside Yavapai County, and the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department is investigating. Mike Sawyer, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, told me earlier that officers are following up on clues found at the scene in hopes of identifying the victim.”

A young man with a serious expression appeared in front of a bank of microphones. “Homicide investigators are actively seeking the identity of the person or persons who sent a text message to 911 operators, letting them know the location of a seriously injured person. By the time help arrived, the person who sent the message was no longer at the scene. That Good Samaritan, also unidentified at this time, is not considered a suspect in the case, but he or she is regarded as a person of interest. We are urging that person or anyone who knows who that person might be to do the right thing and contact the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department.”

The broadcast quickly moved on to another story, that of a multicar pileup on I-10 just outside Casa Grande. A.J., staring at the screen, heard nothing about that story or the ones that followed it. The words “person of interest” kept running through his brain. That meant the cops were actually looking for him. He had sent the text for the best of all possible reasons-in hopes of getting help for the poor woman-and now he was part of it. He was involved.

They wanted to talk to him, but what good would “doing the right thing” do? A.J. had no idea who the woman was. He hadn’t seen the killer. He had seen no other vehicles in the area, and he knew nothing that would help in the investigation. If he came forward, first the cops would learn that he had ditched school to be somewhere he shouldn’t have been. Then they’d want to know why he was at that particular location at that particular time. Answering the question would mean letting the world and his mother know about his father’s letter, as well as the buried-treasure story, which was sounding more stupid by the minute.

A.J. could imagine cops standing around and staring down at the shovel-at A.J.’s mother’s shovel. It was easy enough to figure out what they’d think-that the person who had attacked the woman had come to the scene of the crime prepared to bury her. Once they examined the shovel, whose fingerprints would be on it? A.J.’s, of course, and maybe his mother’s as well. It was an old shovel, but if they somehow traced it back to him, his fingerprints on that and on the telephone would place him at the scene of the crime. Suddenly, he’d be more than a person of interest-he’d be a prime suspect.

Panic rose in A.J.’s throat, fear mixed with shame. His mother knew nothing about the letter he had received from his father. He had kept quiet about the earlier meeting, too, the one that had led to the Camry. If he went to the cops and told them about his father’s letter, everything would come out, and his mother would know that he had betrayed her not just once, not just twice, but several times. His mother had always been in A.J.’s corner. She had been the one person in his life he knew he could count on, no matter what, and he had let her down.

There was a tap on his bedroom door. Startled, A.J. jumped as if he’d been shot. A moment later, Sylvia poked her head into his room.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “You never watch Jay Leno.”

Jay Leno was already on? When had that happened? A.J. grabbed the remote from his bedside table and switched off the TV. “Sorry, Mom,” he said quickly. “I must have dozed off.”

“Glad I checked on you, then,” she said. “Good night.”

That night was not a good night for A. J. Sanders. After tossing and turning for what seemed like hours, he finally fell asleep. Instead of being lost in a waking nightmare, he found himself in the regular kind, with the same dream cycling endlessly through his fitful slumber. In each one, the light went out of those haunting green eyes as they stared emptily back at him. Each time they did, he jarred himself awake only to find his body drenched in sweat. When A.J. staggered out of bed the next morning, he felt as though he’d barely slept at all. He wondered if he’d ever be able to sleep again.