X (Kinsey Millhone 24)

He got up. The absence of pressure was so sudden, I thought I might be levitating. I didn’t hear the office door close behind him, but I knew he was gone. I pulled myself up onto my hands and knees and then to my feet. I staggered shakily as far as the guest chair and sank into it. My chest hurt. I could feel darkness gather, my peripheral vision closing in. It would be odd to faint when I’d just stumbled back from the brink of unconsciousness.

I put my head between my knees and waited for the shimmering blackness to go away. I was clammy at the core and a line of sweat trickled down my face in a rush of heat and ice. I could still feel the weight of his knee. I could feel the warmth of his palm across my mouth, the fleshy clothespin of his fingers pressing my nostrils shut. My heart was still thumping hard, apparently not in receipt of the news that we were alive. Or perhaps not convinced.

AND IN THE END . . .

In my final report, I must warn you there’s good news and bad. In the bad news department, Ned Lowe vanished. By the time Cheney Phillips reached the Lowes’ residence in Cottonwood, he was already gone. While Cheney was quizzing Celeste about Ned, he was busy burking me on my office floor.

Celeste said her husband had packed everything in the Argosy Motorhome after dinner the night before. At two in the morning, she’d been awakened by the sound of the vehicle pulling out of the drive. No note, no good-bye, no hint as to his destination. When Cheney suggested she call the bank, she discovered that Ned had emptied their checking and savings accounts, which suggested he was on his way out of one life and onto something else. Maybe this was the big change he’d mentioned to her.

Cheney put out immediate calls to the California Highway Patrol, the Arizona Highway Patrol, and the Nevada Highway Patrol. He also notified the Santa Teresa PD and the Santa Teresa County Sheriff’s Department to be on the lookout. The Argosy, with its FOTO BIZ license plate, was not only highly visible, but a notorious gas-guzzler. The expectation was that the vehicle would be spotted the first time he was forced to stop and refuel. It didn’t happen that way.

Two weeks after Ned Lowe left the area, the Argosy was discovered in a remote area of the Mojave, gutted by fire, its chassis warped by heat, its flammable components reduced to ash. The vehicle identification number on the front of the engine block had been obliterated, but a second VIN in the rear wheel well was still legible, having been shielded by the tire.

There was no sign of Ned. The assumption was that he’d fled the area on foot, and had perhaps hitched a ride with a passing stranger when he reached the nearest highway.

He’s now been linked to a number of disappearances, all young girls between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. Twenty-three photographs were developed from negatives he left behind in his darkroom. Those pictures were published in newspapers across the country, flashed on television newscasts, along with appeals to the public for their cooperation in identifying the subjects.

Family members were quick to spot their missing loved ones. A few young women even recognized themselves and stepped forward, not appreciating until that moment how close they’d come to disaster. There was no way to determine why some had survived the encounter with Ned Lowe and some had died. I number myself among those spared for reasons I can’t fathom.

In the good news department, Edna and Joseph Shallenbarger were arraigned in Perdido Superior Court on April 12, 1989. She was charged with felony grand theft, forgery, and failure to appear. He was charged with forgery as well, along with aiding and abetting the embezzlement and failure to appear. There were a few additional charges thrown in just to sweeten the pot. I’m not sure what happened to all the money Edna stole, but she claimed indigence. The pair requested and were assigned a public defender, who asked for a continuance to allow him time to prepare his case.

I wasn’t present, but I heard about their brief appearance from an attorney friend who was in the courtroom for a hearing later the same morning. Joseph was once again confined to a wheelchair, claiming an injury suffered at the time of his arrest. I could have told him he was too out of shape to make a run for it. His new chair is electric, equipped with a sip-and-puff delivery system. According to my friend, Joseph sat slumped to one side, his head atilt, his right hand clawlike and immobile in his lap. It was all fake, of course, but he did a good job maintaining the fiction.

I can only imagine the conversation that took place in the judge’s chambers, the assistant district attorney dreading the inevitable courtroom contretemps. Who wants to be the heartless bastard who prosecutes an eighty-one-year-old woman whose only concern is the welfare of the husband she’s been married to for sixty years, who’s now having to puff and sip his way through life, barely able to lift his head?