Valley of Shadows

by Cooper, Steven

  Scott Hurley is the squeaky clean mayor of Phoenix, the one who defines himself by how many “lowest crime” lists the city makes in one year. Murders. Rapes. Drugs. And gangs. He’s got the pie charts in his head, the spreadsheets on the wall behind his desk. If it can be measured, Scott Hurley will measure it and put it in Excel.

  “He doesn’t want Viveca Canning to be emblematic,” Woods tells them.

  “Emblematic?” Mills asks.

  “His word not mine. Hurley doesn’t want the valley defined by dead socialites.”

  “The body is barely cold,” Powell groans.

  “I know,” the sergeant says. “He’s jumping to conclusions. You know how he is. ‘I keep Phoenix as safe as I keep my family. We are meticulous with crime.’ He just wants to be sure we’re being meticulous.”

  Mills laughs. Not ha-ha funny. More like what-an-asshole funny. “And you really needed to tell us this?”

  “Yeah,” Woods says. “Because Hurley wants to know that this is an isolated case.”

  “At this point there’s no reason to believe it isn’t,” Mills says.

  “And it doesn’t look random. Does it?” Woods asks him.

  “We can’t say for sure,” Mills replies. “But it looks like she was probably targeted. You know this already.”

  “I do,” his boss concedes. “I’m just fielding a lot of questions from reporters. Grady and I will probably have to do another press conference soon. No pressure.”

  Mills plants himself squarely, firmly, takes Woods in from an angle and says, “No pressure inferred, Jake.”

  Confusion crosses the sergeant’s face, like he doesn’t know how to respond, and then, awkwardly retreating, he offers the detectives two thumbs up.

  At the home of Viveca Canning, Mills and Powell supervise the orderly upheaval of the place. Officers come and go with computers and phones, notebooks, a Rolodex, folders and documents, bank boxes full of paper. Myers is here taking notes. Preston is logging the items collected. Most of the jewels are gone. Not stolen—there’s no sign of a secondary break—just swooped up, probably, by the vacuuming hands of an heir or heiress.

  He dials.

  “Bennett Canning? This is Detective Mills. I’m the one working your mother’s death.”

  “Right. I remember. What’s up?”

  “I just need you to confirm that you removed the rest of the jewelry from your mother’s house, you know, the stuff we left behind.”

  “I thought you took all the jewelry that was laying around.”

  “We did,” Mills says. “But we had observed jewelry boxes and cases all over the house, even a cabinet. It’s all gone.”

  Dead silence. Then the kid clears his throat and says, “I have everything.”

  “Bad move, Mr. Canning.”

  “I was just securing her stuff,” he argues. “I have a right to protect the family’s investments, don’t I?”

  “I could arrest you for disturbing a crime scene.”

  “But you’re not going to do that are you?”

  “That depends. We’ll need to see where you’ve stored the jewelry, and we’ll need to inventory every piece.”

  “That’s easy,” Canning says.

  “And if we need to take some of it, or all of it, we have a warrant. So don’t get creative.”

  Then he hangs up before the kid can say another word. He studies the empty space on the wall in front of him, the Dali territory, and wishes he knew more about fine art. There has to be a reason. Or a symbol. That painting has to be a symbol of something to someone. It occurs to him to reach out to ASU and get with a professor of fine arts, or maybe to call the Heard and get with a curator or whatever they call the experts over there. He and Kelly don’t have expensive art around the house. Not on their salaries. They have some decorative stuff they picked up at Z Gallerie, but that’s about it, except for Kelly’s new obsession with pottery. They have a lot of pottery, particularly pots for plants that sit empty without plants. She’s been living among pottery of the American Southwest all her life and now, all of a sudden, she’s a collector. He turns when he hears his name. It’s Powell approaching.

  “Check your email,” she tells him. “We heard from the OME. They retrieved the bullet from the brain. Same as the bullet found at the scene. One gun, two bullets. Analysis by Firearms shows it was a 9 millimeter. A Smith and Wesson—”

  “M and P Shield.”

  “Most probably.”

  “I shoulda bought stock.”

  The ride to the Church of Angels Rising Cathedral, or C-ARC as it’s known locally, takes him just under fifteen minutes from the Canning home. The monstrosity of glass and brick sits in a nest of land just off the Hohokam on the approach to Sky Harbor. You can’t miss it. He turns onto 44th Street, drives a block or two before turning into the gaping acreage that becomes church property. C-ARC made news, and enemies with its closest neighbors, when it purchased several surrounding buildings and had them bulldozed. The result is huge unpaved parking lots, the size of football fields, on all sides of the C-ARC; the church leaders argued they wanted to expand the perimeter around the cathedral to give their members a greater sense of privacy and sanctity in their worship. To many Phoenicians that argument had the hollow ring of a cult calling its members to the Kool-Aid fountain. The Phoenix City Council, itself a home to several religious lunatics, ruled in C-ARC’s favor, however, and now has an eyesore to commemorate its unpopular decision. C-ARC never groomed the lots it annexed. Its immediate grounds are a botanist’s dream, but the surrounding football fields are empty stretches of clayish dirt and rocks. They didn’t even plant a fucking palm tree. Or a cactus. On windy days the lots swirl to the sky in menacing dust devils, blowing debris on nearby cars, pedestrians, and businesses. Preston is waiting in his car when Mills arrives. Mills pulls up beside him. Both men emerge into the blistering sunlight.

  “Shit, it has to be over a hundred and it’s not even noon,” Preston says.

  “And you’ve lived in the valley how long?”

  “All my life. But it never gets easier.”

  Mills nods, but he disagrees. He hates the heat, but it’s not disabling.

  As if reading Mills’s mind, Preston says, “Just wait to you get to be my age. It’s different.”

  “Well, let’s get you inside, then.”

  Inside the huge atrium of the cathedral, Mills takes in the expanse of soaring glass. There are supposedly a thousand windowpanes throughout the building; that’s what he’s heard on the news. It’s not like he’s going to count, but Mills has never been in the cathedral, and the lobby alone is a pyramid of crystal.

  “King Tut meets Liberace,” Preston says.

  “What’s Liberace?”

  “You’re pathetic,” Preston says.

  Mills just shrugs and approaches the receptionist who’s sitting against the far wall, a slab of granite serving as her desk. She looks up, wide-eyed and ingratiating. “How can I help you?”

  “We’re here to see Gleason Norwood, ma’am.”

  Her lipstick matches her fingernails, Merlot.

  “Is this about membership?” she asks with that catatonic smile most often associated with Gleason Norwood.

  Mills pulls out his badge. “No, ma’am. We’re with the Phoenix Police Department. We need to speak to him about a case.”

  She folds her diamond-encrusted fingers and winces. “Without an appointment?”

  “Yes, without an appointment,” Mills tells her. “Is there some problem?”

  She adjusts the cuffs of her sleeves. Her blouse is silky, her skirt, from what he can see, tight. “He may still be taping his show. And any visits need to be cleared with his publicist.”

  Mills leans against her desk and smiles. She smiles back. And the smiles just hang there outdoing each other. It’s like a staring contest with teeth. Mills is the first to break when he says, “ma’am, this is not an optional meeting. We’re officers of the law. If he’s on the premises, please l
et him know we’re waiting.”

  She hops off her stool and lands on heels that give her a six-inch lift. Her legs are what old Hollywood would call “nice gams,” and they’re perfect for her elongated strut as she disappears behind the two doors to the left of the lobby.

  “Are you staring at her ass?” Preston asks.

  Mills bristles. “What? No, of course not. You know I don’t do that.” “How could you help it?”

  “I can help it, Ken. I don’t do that.”

  “Your eyes were all over her.”

  “Yeah. I admit that. But not lasciviously. I’m just a bit surprised to see such a, what would you call it, skimpy skirt in a place like this.” “Skimpy is an understatement.”

  “See what I mean?”

  “Oh, I saw it, Alex. If it were any shorter, I’d have to go to confession.”

  Mills laughs. “I know. I just find it odd in a place like this. What would Jesus think?”

  “Oh, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of Jesus here.”

  “No?”

  “No. I don’t think it’s that kind of religion,” Preston tells him. “Right. If rumors are to be believed it’s a cu—”

  They hear footsteps approaching. Mills turns and sees the receptionist coming through those same two doors followed by the church’s illustrious leader, Gleason Norwood, his championship smile nearly five steps ahead of them both.

  Mills shakes the man’s hand and introduces himself. “And this is my colleague, Detective Ken Preston.”

  “Your smile precedes you,” Preston says to the preacher.

  Mills steps back and surreptitiously pushes an elbow into his partner’s belly. Meanwhile Gleason Norwood unleashes a fit of laughter and says, “Oh yes. I’ve been told my smile is more famous than my church!”

  “We’re here to talk to you about Viveca Canning,” Mills tells him.

  “Ah, yes, I knew you’d be coming by,” Norwood says.

  “You did?” Preston asks.

  “Of course. Viveca is a member of our board, has been for years. We want to help in any way we can.”

  There’s more to the man than his teeth. Like his leggy receptionist, he’s wearing miniature cathedrals of diamonds on his fingers. His hair swoops back from his forehead and dovetails to the nape of his neck, actually below the nape, longer than Mills would expect from a man of the cloth, but Gleason Norwood appears more a man of fashion than religion. His suits are perfectly tailored to outline his athletic body. His shoes have that made-in-Milan cachet. Norwood stands just shy of six feet, Mills estimates, with a spray tan covering nearly every inch.

  “It was her children who suggested we reach out to you,” Mills tells him.

  “They surely would. Viveca and I were very close. I’m grieving,” Norwood says. “Let me assure you the whole congregation is grieving.”

  And yet he’s still brandishing that fucking smile.

  “Is there someplace we can talk privately?” Mills asks him.

  “Oh sure. Of course. Follow me.”

  They follow Gleason Norwood through a set of doors recessed into the back wall to the right of the reception desk. Mills hears the clack of heels. “We’ll be fine,” Mills tells the woman, who stops short and almost falls off her stilettos. Her arms are swinging a bit as she tries to maintain her balance; her eyes roll with a kind of adolescent indignation. Seeing this, the preacher offers her a few quick affirming nods and says, “I’ll let you know if I need anything, Valentine. This shouldn’t take too long.”

  Her name is Valentine.

  Norwood escorts them down a hallway, glass on one side, offices on the other, then through another set of doors that open to a circular vestibule ringed by Greek columns and statuary, all festooned with tropical flowers. The floor is marble, an inlaid star at the center, each point stretching to the base of a column. Everything is splashed with white paint and sunlight, just like Greece itself. The flowers pop.

  “This will lead us to my office,” the preacher says, pointing toward the sloping marble ramp.

  The office is palatial. Probably the size of a modest Phoenix home. There’s a kitchen and a dining area. From there, the flow goes into a formal dining room with an elegantly carved table and ten chairs. At another end of the office, television screens hang from the ceiling, below them a fully stocked mahogany bar with five stools of matching wood. A wide spiral staircase twists toward an upper level. Mills eyes the winding ascent and finds that it ends in a dome of light. “If you’d rather talk up there, that’s fine,” Norwood says. “It leads to my balcony overlooking the stadium.”

  “Stadium?” Preston asks.

  “Sanctuary, I mean, but it’s as big as some stadiums.”

  “We’re fine here,” Mills tells him. “I was just admiring the architecture.”

  “But if you’d be more comfortable, I also have a living room on the other side of the bar.”

  “I said we’re fine here.”

  The man settles in and sits, indicating the others should do the same. Then he pulls in closer, rests his elbows on his desk, clasping his hands to his chin. He exhales a mournful sigh. “We’re doing a memorial service for Viveca next Monday night. You’re welcome to come of course. I’ll introduce you to the rest of the board and some of her closest friends.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Mills tells him. “But Ms. Canning’s daughter says Viveca would likely confide in you, first and foremost, if she were in trouble or in harm’s way . . .”

  The man considers a far corner of the room, then the ceiling. As he brings his eyes back to Mills, he says, “I don’t know if I’d say first and foremost, but she would certainly come to me if something was bothering her.”

  “And did she? Lately?”

  “She did not,” Norwood replies. “I know she would have said something if she thought her life was in danger.” His eyes begin to fill. He wipes a brimming tear and smiles.

  “Her children weren’t members of the church,” Preston says, a question embedded.

  “Not true. Her son is a faithful member,” Norwood says. “Her daughter defected. A source of much sadness for Viveca.”

  “Defected?” Preston asks.

  “Just the angels talking, sorry. She left the church.”

  “Did Viveca tell you why?” Preston persists.

  “Well, you know with her lifestyle . . . We love the sinner, but hate the sin.”

  “Because she teaches yoga?”

  Good one, Preston.

  “Because of her identification as a member of the gay movement,” Norwood replies, seething through the panels of his Colgate smile. “It’s just not compatible with what I teach at the church.”

  “And that makes you judge and jury?” Preston continues.

  Norwood looks at his Rolex, a diamond per minute. “I don’t have a lot of time, gentlemen, and this is not relevant to Viveca’s death. Why don’t we stick to that?”

  Mills leans forward, rests his elbows at the edge of the desk. “We have to consider everyone and all motives. Perhaps Jillian wanted her mother dead. Perhaps it was retaliation.”

  “Retaliation for what?” the preacher asks, his eyes narrowing.

  “For being ousted from the church.”

  “We did not oust her,” Norwood says defiantly. “She left the church.”

  “Her choice?” Mills asks.

  “She could have chosen to renounce her lifestyle. But she chose to leave the church instead.”

  “But she couldn’t stay and be her true self?” Preston asks.

  Norwood laughs. “Not that true self.”

  “We understand,” Mills tells him. “She was banished. Excommunicated. Ousted. It’s all semantics. But whatever you call it, Jillian Canning might have had a motive, after all.”

  “Are you asking if the Cannings cut their daughter off financially?”

  Mills shakes his head. “No. That’s not what we’re asking. But did they?”

  The preacher’s hands go palms
up. “I have no knowledge of the family’s finances.”

  “Except how much of their finances they donated to this church,” Preston says like a cross-examining attorney, which momentarily reminds Mills of his wife and her promise of outstanding posttrial sex tonight.

  “Again,” the preacher says. “Relevance?”

  This line of questioning is testing the limits of Norwood’s smile. And perhaps the limits of the Botox (not much has moved on Gleason Norwood’s face, certainly not a furrowed brow). “No relevance if you know nothing of the Canning’s finances,” Mills tells him.

  “I don’t,” Norwood says, rising from his desk. “But I really must be going. I have a meeting.”

  Mills and Preston take his cue and stand. “Thank you for your time,” Preston says.

  “No, thank you. I certainly appreciate you coming by. And I certainly appreciate you pursuing this. We’re devastated. And I’m at a complete loss at how this could have happened.”

  Mills shakes his hand. “I’m sure you are. It’s a shock.”

  “Don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything. And the memorial service will begin at seven, Monday,” he reminds them.

  They silently retrace their steps to the front atrium. Another round of handshakes and, as Mills and Preston are about to turn to the front door, Norwood says in a low murmur, “I do think you should look into their finances. Their wealth was no secret. And money breeds trouble, I’m afraid.”

  “You say that as a moneyed person, yourself,” Mills says.

  “Yes,” Norwood concedes, his eyes brimming again with grief.

  11

  At precisely four o’clock, Gus hears a knock at the door. He finds Aaliyah Jones standing there and escorts her to his office. He offers something to drink.

  “I don’t want to trouble you,” she says.

  “No trouble.”

  “You’re very kind.” She looks at him in a fetching way and it throws him a curve.

  “Iced tea? Water?” he stutters.