South Phoenix Rules

by Jon Talton

  For that, I’d be grateful.

  That was the only rub about Jax and Robin. They were very loud when they made love. It had put an end to my winter ritual of sleeping with the windows and the screen doors to the inner courtyard open. Robin was a screamer. My first wife Patty had been one, too. We could never stay in a bed-and-breakfast. Men treasure this attribute, especially when it is genuine, and Robin sounded very genuine, and I didn’t want to hear. Some people you can’t imagine having sex—Peralta is one. Some you don’t want to imagine having it—Robin fit there. So tonight might be quiet.

  I opened the book and began to read, cradling it in one hand, letting my other arm stretch across to Lindsey’s side of the bed. Herbert Hoover got a bad rap from the history mostly written by hagiographers of FDR. That was true enough. I could have written a book like this. The era was my focus in graduate school. But I didn’t write this one. Hoover the great engineer, the progressive, the pain-in-the-ass as Calvin Coolidge’s Commerce Secretary. He was elected president and the house fell in. Just like life. Then he was overwhelmed by events, by his own inability to think into the future, and then by his increasing isolation, intellectually and from the people…

  …I felt so isolated sitting in the car at McDowell and Central, stopped at a red light. I needed to pick up Lindsey but I didn’t know where she was. Light rail was gone. Central was just a wide highway again, choked with traffic. I looked northwest into Willo and it was gone, clear-cut, covered by gravel. Even the coppery Viad Tower was gone. The only sign of habitation was a new, four-story condo complex that looked as if it had been built by scavengers from a junkyard. Somehow all this seemed totally normal but it still made me feel sad. All those historic houses just gone, including mine. I wished the light would change so I didn’t have to look at the emptiness.

  Robin’s scream woke me.

  It was not a sexy scream. It was sharp, primal, terror-ridden. High voltage shot up my spine. I yanked open the bedside table drawer, grabbed the Colt Python, and rushed out the door and into the dark living room. She screamed again, called for help. I ran up the stairs with both hands on the grips of the pistol, arms crooked, barrel in the air. When the door swung open I almost brought the barrel down and shot her.

  She slammed the door and smashed her body into mine. She was shivering uncontrollably. As we stood on the interior landing, I held her tightly with my left arm, keeping the gun ready and staring at the door. I tried to push her away.

  “No, no, don’t go back there. Please, no, don’t go…”

  She said this as a cascade of hysteric words strung together, as I tried to disentangle myself from her and go to the garage apartment.

  “No, don’t!”

  I pushed her back on the landing and got as far as my hand on the doorknob.

  “No! Please, David! Don’t go back there!”

  She decisively locked the door, flew back into my arms crying, and I held her tightly until she calmed down.

  Robin is slightly taller than Lindsey. We were both completely naked.

  2

  We were dressed and the revolver was back in the bedside table drawer by the time the first cops arrived, one a compact young Latino and the other an Anglo woman with her yellow hair in a bun. They regularly worked the beat in the neighborhood. I felt as if I’d been on ten thousand crime scenes, far more than the college classrooms I had taught in, a map of the twin forks my life has taken that I didn’t want to think about too much that winter. Too many crime scenes, and this one happened to be at my house, the house I was raised in. And I was just one of the “subjects,” as the police would say, at best a “complainant.”

  They strode up the staircase two steps at a time with their Glocks drawn. More cops than you realized accidentally shot themselves with their Glocks. It lacks an external safety. The internal safeties, meant to keep the semi-automatic from discharging if it’s dropped, can be disengaged by a slight or accidental pull of the trigger. These two managed fine. They left the door open and crossed to the garage apartment, ordering me to remain in the living room. That was as it should be, but I wasn’t used to being on the other side of the yellow tape. For years now, my deputy’s badge had been the best backstage pass in town.

  I already knew enough. Robin had responded to my initial questions before the first units got there, so I knew the basic information. Now she sat sullenly on the sofa next to me, having regained some of her toughness. But her eyes were still wide and she sniffled every few minutes. Robin was not a crier, much less a “hysterical female,” as the dispatchers might have termed her if I had allowed her to make the 911 call. She was wearing a pair of Lindsey’s sweat pants and one of Lindsey’s T-shirts. I didn’t like that. Now I had more questions for her, somewhere shy of a hundred, but I didn’t ask. My hands shook slightly and I felt gin and tamales at the back of my throat. I realized I was in a little shock, too.

  My cell was still in my hand and I had scrolled to a familiar number. Robin shook her head.

  “Don’t bother Lindsey Faith,” she said. “It’s midnight in D.C.”

  I put the phone away.

  The Anglo cop strode back through the living room, her black shoes squeaking on the hardwood floor, and then outside. In a few minutes she was wrapping the yard with crime-scene tape. To me, it was an overreaction, but the policing business had changed since I had been a young uniformed deputy. Through the picture window, I saw a few neighbors standing on the sidewalk. It’s not as if they had never seen law enforcement vehicles at our house, with both Lindsey and me working for the Sheriff’s Office. A couple of years ago, a new neighbor asked around if we were having marital fights, she had seen so many cop cars stop by. We had laughed at the time. But the three hundred block of Cypress hadn’t seen this. I counted the people I knew, lingered over some that I didn’t. Three couples, one woman alone. Unlike most of Phoenix, Willo was a real neighborhood with plenty of walkers and it was still fairly early, not even ten o’clock.

  Then we were getting the initial interview for the incident report. The female officer wrote in a tight hand. Robin did most of the talking. But this was just preliminary: names, addresses, the basic scenario—before the homicide detectives showed up.

  They weren’t long in arriving. My stomach gave a distinct kick when the first one walked through the door.

  “Mapstone. God, I live for the day when I show up and you’re in handcuffs. It might happen tonight.”

  “Happy New Year, Kate.” I said it with just enough snark that it hit her but didn’t damage any innocent bystanders.

  Phoenix Police Detective Sgt. Kate Vare glared at us, hands on her hips. Underneath a PPD windbreaker, she was still compact, pinched, venomous. We had a history.

  “Did you get kicked off the cold-case unit?” I smiled.

  “No such luck, Mapstone. Budget cuts mean everybody’s having to do more. So I have the pleasure of coming to your pile of rocks in the ghetto tonight.” She ran a hand through her hair, which she had fried into a red color not found in nature. She was enjoying being taller than me for a change. “You just sit there.”

  “I want to go have a look.”

  “No way, sir,” she said. “You’re involved in this.” She smiled widely. I had never seen Kate Vare smile before. “Anyway, you’re not even a deputy any more.”

  I let out a long breath.

  “News travels fast around the cop shop,” she said, and mounted the stairs.

  After she was gone, her partner, a big young guy who might have been nicknamed Moose by my parents’ generation, gave me a sympathetic look. His badge was hung around his neck—one of the new ones, made to imitate the LAPD shields. It had a number in the 9000s. It made me feel old: I remembered when PPD badges were numbered in the 4000s.

  He cocked his head. “It’s okay.” I followed him up the stairs.

  Outside the wind was waving the tree branches and the overcast sky had been turned into a washed-out pink by
the reflected city lights. A few stray raindrops hit my forehead. The air was cool and clean, blowing down from the High Country. Fifteen feet away, the door to the garage apartment was open and all the lights were on. One of the abstract paintings Robin had hung on the wall faced me. It was a pink moon against a green sky. She had bought it at one of the galleries on Roosevelt Row.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, no fucking way!”

  Vare charged out of the room, squared her small shoulders, and blocked us halfway. She jabbed a finger into my solar plexus. Technically, I had just been assaulted.

  “This is a crime scene, you bastard. I told you to wait downstairs!”

  “C’mon, Kate.” Moose spoke gently. “Professional courtesy.”

  After a long pause, she closed the short distance between us. “If you touch anything, I swear to God…”

  “I’ll be good,” I said. “I watch Cops on television all the time.”

  “You’re not a deputy any longer, get it?”

  Oh, I got it. I had turned in my badge to Peralta that morning, signed a sheaf of papers on his desk, given him my star and identification card, then spent the afternoon cleaning out my office in the old county courthouse, the room one floor below the old jail, the one that sat at the end of the corridor restored to its 1929 grandeur, with the nameplate that read David Mapstone, Sheriff’s Office Historian. I would miss that room. The boxes in the Prelude held some of my work. It reminded me of the car of boxes I drove from San Diego, six years before, when I lost my teaching job and returned to Phoenix. This time I also crammed in my old metal report clipboard, my battered black Maglite, and a side-handle police baton I hadn’t used in a couple of decades.

  It was time to leave. I didn’t want to wait until the new sheriff was sworn in. “The new sheriff.” Just the words made my mouth sour up. But it was true. Peralta had been defeated in the Republican primary. I had always thought Mike Peralta would be Maricopa County Sheriff for as long as he wanted, and then become governor if he chose. But that’s why historians still have jobs. When you’re living events, it’s hard to get perspective. And the changes that had been creeping into Phoenix for years came crashing down on my friend. Changes I had noticed, but not fully appreciated. Peralta’s loss had only been one in an autumn of sorrows.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Vare lectured.

  On reflection, I think the only reason she let me go in was the hope that she could find some reason to jam me. But she turned and I followed.

  Robin had decorated the large space with paintings, contemporary furniture, and a bookcase overflowing with art books. But in my mind it was still grandmother’s musty sewing room. I crept behind the cops, who were gathered around a desk that sat against the east windows. The box from the front doorstep was on the desk with its flaps open. Vare and her partner had their latex gloves on and carefully examined what was inside. It was only one thing.

  From the vault of cardboard, the once-handsome features of Jax Delgado faced us like the display in a macabre shadow box. Blood was smeared across his chin. His eyes were wide open.

  3

  We had no time to contemplate what had happened. More cops came, crime-lab technicians joined them, our statements were taken, the garage apartment was sealed off. It was four in the morning before we were alone again. I had a brief conversation with Lindsey, who was getting ready for work. She wanted to talk to Robin. When Robin handed the cell back to me, Lindsey said, “She’s staying in the guest bedroom. Please don’t argue with me about this. I’m tired.” So I didn’t. Her voice had sounded so unfamiliar.

  The banging on the front door began at five minutes after seven. I had just come back from Starbucks with a latte for Robin and a mocha for myself. The caffeine did little for my headache and the toxic dump I felt in my stomach. Some would call it a hangover. Kate Vare stood on the front step with the rigidness of the indefatigable. She had changed into a black pants suit and had her nine in a holster on her hip.

  “Come with me.”

  Robin looked at me apprehensively. I shrugged. Outside it was sunny and pleasant, the air dry and cleansed by last night’s rain. I saw the blue-and-white Phoenix Police cruiser parked in the driveway.

  “Leave those drinks,” Vare commanded.

  “Fuck you, Kate.” I was exhausted and cross even before this petite gift of hell had shown up on my doorstep for the second time in less than twelve hours. “Arrest me if you don’t like it. Come on, Robin.”

  Vare stomped ahead and opened a back door.

  “The brass take away your ride?”

  “Get in.”

  I knew her game. Make us ride in the prisoner compartment. Make us nervous. Oh, and repay me for all the alleged slights over the years when my work on cold cases had somehow crossed the red line of her jurisdiction and her ego.

  “Watch your head.” She put her hand on top of Robin’s head as she scrunched down and slid onto the seat, just like it happens with real prisoners.

  “Watch your head, sir.” It didn’t work quite the same with me. I was too tall for her to guide me down, so she didn’t try.

  “Thank you for your concern, officer.”

  She ignored me and slammed the door. It lacked any visible locks, of course. We were essentially prisoners. The backs of patrol cars had changed since I was a young deputy, on my first sojourn into law enforcement before going back to graduate school. In those days, the older cars lacked any protection; suspects just sat in the back seat. The newer ones had rudimentary cage wire to protect the officers sitting in front. Now the prisoner compartment was much more elaborate, and confining, with Plexiglas ahead of us and heavy bars protecting the side windows, to keep suspects from kicking out the glass, wiggling out, and running away. I had seen it happen. Now I just sipped my mocha as Vare drove fast down Fifth Avenue to the Papago Freeway.

  “Are you taking us straight to the tent jail?” I spoke through the Plexiglas. She wasn’t driving toward downtown.

  “God, how I wish.” And that was all she said.

  She drove west, took the 35th Avenue exit, and turned toward the South Mountains until she reached Lower Buckeye Road. A collection of ramshackle houses, tilt-up warehouses, and junkyards provided the scenery. The big county complex was off to one side. I avoided looking that way. The inside of the car smelled; it was better for my stomach not to attempt to pick out the origins of the odors. Robin made the mistake of touching the thick vinyl of the seat and withdrew her hand. Her face was tense, her mouth compressed into a thin line barely holding in emotions. Her coffee sat undrunk, her free hand balled up in a fist.

  She had thought she was getting a gift from her lover and had waited to open it until after dinner. She hoped he would be joining her as a surprise. She undressed, lit a candle, and poured a glass of wine in anticipation. The X-Acto knife cut easily through the packing tape. Jax’s head had been covered with a layer of bubble wrap that had made identification impossible until she had pulled it off—and there he was. Robin had told me this story before the cops arrived and hadn’t deviated from it despite hours of Kate Vare’s badgering. I didn’t trust Robin for my own reasons, but she had nothing to do with this crime.

  At 51st Avenue, a large field was still left on the southwest corner. I couldn’t identify the crop—maybe alfalfa?—but the view was a time machine into old Phoenix, the place where I had grown up. If you blocked out an ugly brown subdivision a couple of miles south, the vista was magnificent. Green field running toward the rough, treeless mountains in the distance under a vault of pure Western sky. It gave me a moment’s solace. I just watched the land and felt my chest fill with breath. Then Vare jerked the car to the right and we were inside a housing development.

  One way in and out, surrounded by an outside wall, curvy streets, look-alike stucco houses with large driveways, big garages, and small front doors. No shade. It was unremarkable for what passed for a “neighborhood” in most of Phoenix, except that it looked mostly un
occupied, with a trail of For Sale signs along the street Vare drove. I saw two PPD units sitting in the asphalt gulf where the street curved north. It held three houses closely sandwiched into the bend. The door to one tan house was standing open, guarded by a uniform.

  Vare turned in the seat. “Does your friend recognize this house, Mapstone?”

  “She’s got a name and she can speak for herself. Unless you’re arresting us and then we’re not saying a damned thing…”

  Robin interrupted. “I’ve never been here in my life.” She took a long draw on the latte and ran her other hand through her tousled hair, pulling it back over her shoulder, trying to tuck part of the strands under her ears. She watched me watch her as the car door opened.

  Vare led us beneath the festive yellow tape and into the house. At the entryway, we all put on light blue crime-scene booties. I didn’t like the smell. But we followed her through the narrow entry hall and back into the sunny, high-ceilinged Arizona room. There was no furniture, no drapes. She pointed into the kitchen, where a body was slung over the top of the center island. It was the body of a man, completely naked. Blood had dripped down the counter tiles onto the new floor. It was mostly dry. Robin gave a small animal’s alarm call, covered her mouth, and ran back outside.

  “Crime scene’s on the way. Don’t touch anything.” Vare laid her hand on the butt of her Glock.

  “Don’t accidentally shoot yourself, Kate,” I said. I breathed through my mouth, which would help for a while, before I started to taste the rotting odor. Thank God it wasn’t in summer. The body hadn’t been here long—long enough for rigor to go away, twelve hours give-or-take as I recalled—but not long enough to putrefy and swell. I kept my distance, walking slowly in an orbit of six feet away. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen bodies. I just didn’t want the tightly wound living body in the black pants suit to freak out and make me leave.