had in mind for the security detail were former cops and knew how to run crime scenes and interview witnesses. “With all of us on it, we’ll build a solid case, enough to put him away for a long time. We’ll have more people and resources on this than Scottsdale Homicide.”
And, Christ, the fee’ll probably be the same as their annual budget.
York gave the man his and Carole’s general daily routine, the stores they shopped at, restaurants and bars they went to regularly. He added that he wanted the guards to keep their distance; he still hadn’t shared the story with Carole.
“She doesn’t know?”
“Nope. Probably wouldn’t take it too well. You know women.”
Eberhart didn’t seem to know what his boss meant exactly. But he said, “We’ll do the best we can, sir.”
York saw the security man to the door, thanked him. The man pointed out the first team, in a tan Ford, parked two doors down. York hadn’t even noticed them when he’d answered the door. Which meant they knew what they were doing.
As the security specialist drove off, York’s eyes again looked into the backyard, at the desert horizon. Recalling that he’d laughed about snipers earlier.
Now, the thought wasn’t funny. York returned inside and pulled closed the drapes on every window that opened onto the beautiful desert vista.
As the days went by there were no further incidents and York began to relax. The guard details watching York and Carole remained largely invisible, and his wife had no clue that she was being guarded when she went on her vital daily missions — to the nail salon, the hairdresser, the club and the mall.
The surveillance team kept a close watch on Trotter, who seemed oblivious to the tail. He went about his life. A few times the man fell off the surveillance radar but only for short periods and it didn’t seem that he’d been trying to lose the security people. When he disappeared the teams on York and Carole stepped up protection and there were no incidents.
Meanwhile, Lampert and Alvarado continued to look into the list of people with grudges from York’s past. Some seemed likely, some improbable, but in any event none of the leads panned out.
York decided to get away for a long weekend in Santa Fe for golf and shopping. York chose to leave the bodyguards behind, because they’d be too hard to hide from Carole. Eberhart thought this was okay; they’d keep a close eye on Trotter and if he left Scottsdale a team would fly to Santa Fe to cover York immediately.
The couple hit the road early. The security man told York to take a complicated route out of town, then pause at a particular vista east of the city, where he could make certain they weren’t being followed, which he did. No one was following.
Once away from the city York pointed the car into the dawn sun and eased back in the Mercedes’s leather seat, as the slipstream poured into the convertible and tousled their hair.
“Put on some music, doll,” he called to Carole.
“Sure thing. What?”
“Something loud,” he shouted.
A moment later Led Zeppelin chugged from the speakers. York punched off the cruise control and pushed the accelerator to the floor.
Sitting in his white surveillance van, near Ray Trotter’s pink adobe house, Stan Eberhart heard his phone chirp. “Yeah?”
Julio, one of the rent-a-cops, said, “Stan, got a problem.”
“Go on.”
“Has he left yet?”
“York? Yeah, an hour ago.”
“Hmm.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m at a NAPA dealer near the landscaping company.”
Eberhart had sent people to stores near Trotter’s house and business. Armed with pictures, they were querying clerks about purchases the man might’ve made recently. The security people were no longer in the law enforcement profession, of course, but Eberhart had learned that twenty-dollar bills open as many doors as police shields do. Probably more.
“And?”
“Two days ago this guy who looked like Trotter ordered a copy of a technical manual for Mercedes sports cars. It came in yesterday and he picked it up. The same time, he bought a set of metric wrenches and battery acid. Stan, the book was about brakes. And that was just around the time we lost Trotter for a couple of hours.”
“He could’ve gotten to York’s Mercedes, you think?”
“Not likely but possible. I think we have to assume he did.”
“I’ll get back to you.” Eberhart hung up and immediately called York.
A distracted voice answered. “Hi.”
“Mr. York, it’s—”
“I’m not available at the moment. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Eberhart hit disconnect and tried again. Each of the five times he called, the only response was the preoccupied voice on the voicemail.
York was nudging the Mercedes up to a hundred.
“Doesn’t this rock?” he called, laughing. “Whoa!”
“Like, what?” Carole shouted back. The roar of the slipstream and Robert Plant’s soaring voice had drowned out his voice.
“It’s great!”
But she didn’t answer. She was frowning, looking ahead. “There’s, like, a turn up there.” She added something else he couldn’t hear.
“What?”
“Uhm, maybe you better slow down.”
“This baby curves on a dime. I’m fine.”
“Honey, please! Slow down!”
“I know how to drive.”
They were on a straightaway, which was about to drop down a steep hill. At the bottom the road curved sharply and fed onto a bridge above a deep arroyo.
“Slow down! Honey, please! Look at the turn!”
Christ, sometimes it just wasn’t worth the battle. “Okay.”
He lifted his foot off the gas.
And then it happened.
He had no clue exactly what was going on. A huge swirl of sand, spinning around and around, as if the car were caught in the middle of a tornado. They lost sight of the sky. Carole, screaming, grabbed the dash. York, gripping the wheel with cramping hands, tried desperately to find the road. All he could see was sand, whipping into his face, stinging.
“We’re going to die, we’re going to die,” Carole was wailing.
Then from somewhere above them, a tinny voice crackled, “York, stop your car immediately. Stop your car!”
He looked up to see the police helicopter thirty feet over his head, its rotors’ downdraft the source of the sandstorm.
“Who’s that?” Carole screamed. “Who’s that?”
The voice continued, “Your brakes are going to fail! Don’t start down that hill!”
“Son of a bitch,” he cried. “He tampered with the brakes.”
“Who, Stephen? What’s going on?”
The helicopter sped forward toward the bridge and landed — presumably so the rescue workers could try to
