By four o’clock Ollie had ripped out the bathroom vent all the way into the crawl space. After he muttered briefly about meeting himself coming around the other way, he retreated to the kitchen and went to work on the larger vent pipe there.
Sarah had finished a second look at the bottoms of all the furniture and begun opening and closing the old-fashioned wooden windows, shining a flashlight along all the sills and the grouted tunnels that carried the sash supports. Closing the last one in the back wall, she paused for a moment, watching Jason pick up river stones out of the ditch. He turned each one over in his hands, stuck a green marking circle on the bottom and set it aside. A row of green-dotted stones stretched behind him to the fence that bordered the alley. A longer row of unmarked stones lay ahead, stretching toward Oscar, who was working in from the street, turning over stones along the same ditch, marking his with blue dots. Sarah shook her head, thinking, In case there’s an argument later about who looked at which stone?
She noticed that Jason’s last bottle of water lay empty nearby him on the gravel and thought that in a minute she’d take out a fresh bottle and remind him to keep drinking.
A movement caught her eye – a spotted cactus wren, hopping from post to bush to power line, flicking his tail. She thought idly, how do they always seem to know which lines are safe to sit on? The line ran down from the big pole in the alley to the post at the back corner of the yard that held the power feed for this house. The wren hopped off the line on to a smaller green post, deeply buried in the weeds, that she would never have noticed if he hadn’t sat on it. It must be the metal cover that kept rainwater out of a junction box – probably the TV feed, since Calvin had no computer.
Sarah stepped away from the window and out the back door. As she walked past Jason’s bent back, she said, ‘Did you look at that junction box in the alley?’
Jason stood up with sweat dripping off his face and said, ‘What?’
‘You look a little dizzy,’ she said. ‘You’d better go inside for a while and get some more water.’ But she kept on walking, to the little metal gate that led into the alley, through it and around, kicking her way through tall weeds. She had to search again to find the green metal tower, barely as tall as the weeds. When she bent over it and lifted, the cover came off easily – it wasn’t bolted on.
And when she turned it over and looked inside, she saw a clear plastic baggie, small, snack-sized, duct-taped to the side, high up near the top.
Heat radiated against her back suddenly as if a fire had sprung up. She turned quickly and saw Jason standing behind her left shoulder, looking at what she’d found. She thought again he should get inside, at the same time reaching for the baggie. But the long tube tilted away.
‘Hold this, will you?’ She handed the closed end of the cover to Jason and he held it, shaking a little. He really needs to get inside. The duct tape peeled off neatly, bringing the baggie along. She pulled the baggie off the tape, unzipped the plastic track and turned it over.
The key that fell into her hand was three inches long and heavy for its size, a chunky brass key with the tumbler pattern serrated along one side. Oscar was with them now, radiating heat along her other side. All three of them said at once, ‘Padlock key.’
Then Jason exploded. ‘Oh, for shit’s sake!’ he yelled and threw the green cover across the yard. ‘I’m out here all these hours turning over these fucking rocks’ – he turned and began kicking the rocks he’d piled so neatly along his section of ditch – ‘and she walks out the door and finds that key without even breaking a sweat? What kind of fucking justice is that?’ He kicked his rock pile again, as hard as he could. The rocks barely moved but on his second kick he hurt his foot. He yelled even louder then, hopping around holding his toe.
Ollie came around the corner of the house round-eyed and stood watching. A couple of neighbors came out of their houses and gaped, and then Delaney, hearing the noise, came out of the house frowning, saying, ‘Jason, for God’s sake, what—?’
But Oscar had been through the torment of the rocks too. He saw what was happening to Jason and he’d been a street cop long enough to know the beginning of hysteria when he saw it. In two long strides he had caught the smaller detective, had his arm around his shaking shoulders and was saying, as softly as a loving uncle, ‘Jason, Jason, come on now, it’s very good luck. It means we don’t have to lift any more stones, don’t you see? Come on, now, we need to get inside and cool off.’
As one unit, radiating heat, Oscar and Jason entered through the back door and sat down at Calvin’s round, bloody table. They stayed there for some time, talking softly, gulping bottle after bottle of cold water.
In the yard, meanwhile, Delaney looked at Sarah standing awestruck in the blazing sun. ‘You found something?’
She held up the baggie and the offending key.
‘Where was it?’
‘Inside the—’ Ollie had gone across the yard after the thrown cover and was coming back with it. ‘That,’ she said when he reached her. ‘It goes on that junction box out there in the weeds.’
‘We all think it looks like a padlock key,’ Ollie offered and ventured a smile.
‘It does, doesn’t it?’ Delaney said. ‘Hey, cheer up, Sarah, I think you just earned yourself a big attagirl.’
Sarah said, ‘You think he’s going to be all right?’
‘Who? Jason? Sure, he’s just a little overheated, isn’t he? Talk to me about this key.’ He turned it over in his hand, admiring it. ‘It probably opens a padlock on a rented storage space, what do you bet?’
‘Yes,’ Sarah said. ‘And there can’t be more than a few thousand of those in Tucson, do you think?’
‘Oh, come on,’ Ollie said. ‘Don’t let a little yelling make you go all negative. You keep saying Calvin liked to keep things simple. I bet his stash is close by.’
‘I think so too,’ Delaney said. ‘But let’s go inside before we start making the list. This yard really is just a slice of hell, isn’t it? I should have thought about it earlier. I wonder if I should send Jason to one of those urgent care places and get him rehydrated.’
Jason had recovered by Tuesday morning, but even so Delaney didn’t want to send him or Oscar on any more outdoor assignments for a while. So Ray and Ollie, the two most cheerful detectives on the homicide crew, drew the tedious job of searching for the padlock that would open with the mystery key. They found an association that listed storage vendors by zip code and made a long list of phone numbers and addresses that spiraled around Calvin’s house in an extended oval. Then they loaded a crime-scene van with energy bars and fruit, and a whole case of bottled water in a tub of ice. Sarah ran out at the last minute, carrying a fresh tube of sunscreen.
‘Use plenty,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid most of these places are outside.’
‘We’ll call for backup if we feel ourselves growing faint,’ Ollie said. He turned the A/C on high and added, ‘Actually, this beats vent creeping by a mile.’
‘When we find that big pile of cash,’ Ray said, beaming down at her, ‘we promise not to steal more than a few thousand apiece.’
Sarah went on the hunt for Jack Ames. She had his address and phone number so she took an hour to make a list of questions before she placed the call. When he didn’t answer his phone she called Mabel to ask where he might be at nine-thirty on a Tuesday morning.
‘Playing bridge, I expect, at the rec center,’ Mabel said. ‘I’ll put out the word that you’re looking for him. We’ll round him up.’
He didn’t answer his messages on Tuesday. Sarah wasn’t ungrateful for the free time. By five o’clock she had a clean desk and was current on case reports.
Ray and Ollie were a little less perky when they parked the van at four o’clock. ‘You were wrong,’ Ollie told Sarah. ‘There might be more than a few thousand of those freaking spaces and they all look a lot alike.’
They went out again the next morning without any jolly farewells.
By noon
on Wednesday, when Jack Ames hadn’t answered any of the messages Sarah had scattered in his path, she told Delaney she was feeling snubbed.
He said, ‘I bet I can fix that.’
He had a friend in the Marana Police Department, he said, with whom he’d shared a training course. They’d kept in touch and traded a few favors over the years. Delaney reached out to him now and his old buddy said, ‘I bet I can fix that.’
When Sarah got back from lunch at one o’clock there was a message from Jack Ames waiting for her. Before she had time to place the call her phone rang and a man’s voice said, ‘Detective Burke? This is Jack Ames.’
‘Well, hello there. For a guy who lives in such a small town you can be very hard to find, Jack Ames.’
‘I sure didn’t mean to be, Detective. I apologize if I’ve caused you any anxiety. I just happened to have a whole list of people I’d promised to do things for and I was working my way down a list. Is this an emergency? Mabel said you just wanted to chat.’
‘It’s a police enquiry, Mr Ames. That’s a little more serious than a chat.’
‘Well, please accept my apology and tell me what I can do to make amends.’
He sounded so nice she was tempted to cut him some slack but reminded herself it had been a long wait. ‘You can meet me at Marana Police Station. Do you need directions to find it?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Can you make it by one forty-five?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. See you then.’ She hung up on his monosyllables, called the Marana dispatcher to reserve an interview space and walked around the corner to find Jason typing fast in his workspace.
She said, ‘You got time for a trip to Marana?’
Without taking his eyes off the monitor, he said, ‘To do what?’
‘Interrogate an innocent man in a cool, quiet room full of clean tables and chairs.’
‘You must have me confused with someone else. I’m a homicide detective, accustomed to work with hoodlums in sordid bloody spaces full of heat and bad smells.’
‘But couldn’t you make an exception just this once to please a colleague who admires your work?’
He took his nose out of his keyboard then and sat back laughing. ‘Hell, yeah,’ he said. ‘I bet you admired the way I put the fear of God into that pile of rocks, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. So can we go right now? Because I’ve kind of got this guy on the defensive and I’ll lose my advantage if I’m late.’
‘Well, hell, we can’t have Sarah losing her edge. Let’s go.’ He limped out of his cubicle then and she saw he was wearing an orthopedic frame instead of a shoe on his bandaged right foot.
‘Oh, Jason,’ she said.
‘Broke the big toe. Serves me right. Now will you drive and can we please never talk about it again?’
‘My fondest wish.’
‘Now,’ he said when they were strapped in their seats, ‘tell me more about this innocent man, will you? I don’t believe I’ve ever met one of those.’
‘Point taken – he’s probably not innocent of everything. But he does sound like an exceptionally nice guy.’ On the trip west she summarized some of Mabel’s great sailing stories and her glowing description of how much her friend Jack Ames had helped her during the sadder times just past.
‘He does sound like a wonderful friend,’ Jason said. ‘So why do you think you need me along?’
‘I just like to have a second set of eyes on interviews,’ Sarah said. ‘Especially when I have to question somebody who sounds a little too good to be true. I usually pretend I’m considering buying his used car. Will you do that for me today? Ask yourself if you believe everything he’s saying about the tires and transmission.’
‘You’re putting up a high wall for him to jump over, Sarah. I never believe what guys say about their cars.’
But when they saw him standing in the shade of a mesquite tree with a small dog sitting primly by his side, he did look very likeable – a slender, white-haired man with bright blue eyes talking softly to his well-groomed Sheltie. Mabel was right about one thing, Sarah saw at once – Jack’s dog trusted him absolutely and was ready to follow him anywhere.
After they introduced themselves all round, Jack Ames said, ‘I hope you don’t mind waiting just a minute while I set Meggie up in her favorite waiting spot.’ He walked her across the parking area to a row of leafy acacias in a divider. He put down the small plastic dish he was carrying, filled it with water from a bottle, unclipped her leash and hung it from a low branch. He leaned and said something, patted her head and left her there in deep shade.
‘Will she stay there?’ Sarah said.
‘Yes. I volunteer with Search and Rescue and we train in this area once a week. I’ve taught Meggie to wait in this planting strip while we practice. It’s got nice shade and a little grass so she’s happy here. Everybody who works up here knows her – she’ll be safe.’
They checked in with the duty sergeant and were directed to a room down a short hallway. Two patrolmen greeted Jack warmly as they signed in.
‘It’s not locked,’ the officer said. ‘Go right in. There’s water on the table. Anything else you need?’
‘Not a thing, thanks,’ Sarah said. To Jack Ames, she said, ‘Looks like you’re well known around here.’
‘Well, I drive for Meals on Wheels too, and I groom trails with the hiking club. Just about everything we do in Marana revolves around this city center.’
‘So you’re doing what Mabel said, moving on after seeing Fred Conway through his final illness.’
‘I was doing that before she began talking about it. Mabel was too deep in grief to notice anything else for a while. It’s hard to get over losing a mate you’ve had for forty-some years.’
‘I guess you know about that from experience, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Not quite thirty years, for me, when my wife died. And I have to admit, Mabel’s doing better at it than I did. I was kind of a wreck for a while.’
‘But Mabel said the boat trips helped you recover. Is that how you remember it?’
‘Well, yes.’ A little ironic chuckle. ‘Either of you ever spend any time on a live-aboard sailboat?’
Sarah shook her head. Jason said, ‘Always wanted to try it but never had a chance so far.’
‘Well, when you do you’ll find out there’s not much time to think about anything but survival. It’s great fun but it’s also a lot of work. So yes, I’d call it a sure cure for the blues. One human brain can only hold so many thoughts at once.’
‘And you met some interesting people down there?’
‘We sure did. Some wonderful people and a few I hope I never see again.’ The chuckle again – he seemed to enjoy his sailboat memories.
‘Which was Bill McGinty?’
‘Oh, Bill was a fun guy when he was more or less sober. Some of his party-hearty friends I could live without.’
‘Did you take a lot of pictures? Any chance you might have a picture of McGinty?’
‘No. Fred and Mabel took a lot of pictures, I remember. Did you ask her if she kept them?’
‘Slides, she said, that they threw away when the technology changed.’
‘That’s life in our times, isn’t it? I got rid of a lot of eight-track tapes back in the day.’
‘But you never took any snapshots?’
‘I was single-handing so … I suppose I must have had a camera on the boat but I don’t think I ever took any pictures. I remember it all very well, though – better than some of those people who had their eyes stuck in a viewfinder all the time.’
‘Could you describe him?’
‘Who, McGinty? Sure. Big, handsome guy, black curly hair, solid build, very strong – he was a great swimmer and a tremendously capable sailor. Also a free-spender – loved to party.’
‘And his wife? Pauline, was that her name?’
‘That may have been the name on her birth certificate but I never heard her called that. Bill and all the
ir friends called her Poppy. Or Baby, Bill called her that a lot – he had that way of talking, you know, kind of like Humphrey Bogart? Imitation gangster style.’
‘Did she enjoy living on the boat?’
‘Oh, yes. The free and easy life down there – that was their style.’
‘So they got along well?’
‘Most of the time. He loved to give her orders – fetch me another drink, Baby. Wear the blue outfit, Baby, that’s the one I like. Their boat was called Pretty Baby and he said it was named after her. “You might have noticed,” he said to me once, “my wife is quite a dish.” Like she was part of the equipment.’
‘Did you like her better than him?’
‘Yes. Everybody did. Poppy was sweet to everybody. Bill was … He could be kind of crude sometimes.’
‘And yet Mabel said they always had crowds of friends around.’
‘Sure, because he had a big, well-appointed boat that was always loaded with good things to eat and drink. And great music playing. They had a killer sound system on board and piles of tapes.’
‘You seem to be describing plenty of money.’
‘Oh, yes. Their dinghy ran into shore every day and came back loaded with goodies. In between times they took deliveries from the harbor vendors. If you wanted big shrimp and lobster with your margaritas the Pretty Baby was the boat to be on.’
‘Was Poppy working all the time, then, serving up all this hospitality?’
‘Oh, no, Poppy was no galley slave. She was a real party animal – she liked to dance and have fun. When they started one of their mock arguments, Bill always said, “Come on, now, Baby, don’t I take good care of you?” And in his way he did. They never carried a crew along but every port they went into Bill recruited some locals to do the cooking and cleanup.’
‘But Mabel said he was gone a lot.’
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