Murder Under the Desert Moon

by Maria Grazia Swan

  Mental note number two: next time bring a towel to sit on.

  It got worse. The steering wheel was too hot to handle. I used tissues from my purse and only employed two fingers until I turned on the AC at full blast.

  Big mistake.

  I hadn't had the car's air conditioning on since last summer. It smelled awful, like moldy socks. The shot of humid, stinky air hit me in the face. I wanted to scream.

  I didn't. I counted to ten and then shifted into reverse and left the complex, to look for a place to calm my spirits.

  Ah, Camelback Road. Should I go left or right? Larry had turned left when we went to downtown Phoenix, so that would take me west. Okay then, time to see what the east side looked like. Camelback Mountain was to the east and on the north side of the road.

  I was making progress.

  I found myself driving through an intersection under a sign that said Forty-Fourth Street, and to my right there was a very interesting one-story building that looked like it had sprouted giant concrete mushrooms. Very modernistic. Sadly, the building seemed vacant.

  I kept going east, and now Camelback Mountain offered me a sight I hadn't seen before. The mountain was devoid of natural vegetation except for palm trees and colorful splashes of bougainvillea and oleanders surrounding various homes built on the sheer rocks. I found a street leading toward the homes on the cliffs, so I followed without hesitation.

  Each house was unique and rather old, though not as old as the houses in the downtown area by Encanto Park. The homes on the rocks were probably built in the sixties—many had exposed block walls, flat roofs, and arches. None had the front porches or the luscious lawns of Encanto. These homes had pebbles and rocks covering their front yards.

  Cat litter.

  The image crossed my mind although I knew that wasn't the case. As the road climbed up the mountain the structures grew larger, with lots more character. I pulled to the side of the deserted road. Looking down I could see blue pools, like big eyes staring at the sky above.

  There was even—a castle? Oh my God. It was indeed a castle but not the Cinderella type of romantic castle. This one was sort of plain, reminding me of some of the coastal structures than can be seen in Italy or Spain, dating back to the Moorish era. It blended perfectly with the mountain.

  I realized the castle's stones must have come from the mountain. What an interesting concept. Did the castle have dungeons? A moat? Someone had put a lot of love and a lot of time in to building that castle. I fantasized about a young man building the castle, piece by piece, to win the heart of some mysterious princess.

  For the first time since I'd arrived in this city in the desert, I could see that perhaps I'd been too hasty in my judgment. I was here—I might as well take pleasure in discovering new habits and habitats.

  I made a U-turn and went looking for a drug store, with a whole new attitude.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I kicked the passenger door closed, my hands occupied with the stuff I'd bought at the Scottsdale Fashion Square. It was such a pleasant surprise. All I did was drive east on Camelback Road, mostly out of curiosity. The road seemed to follow the base of Camelback Mountain. When I ran out of mountain I kept on driving east and voila, I found myself smack in sight of this wonderful mall. The first familiar name? Nordstrom. I managed to find a parking garage, and from there I walked straight to the Nordstrom café, where I enjoyed a leisurely lunch and sort of forgot where I was. Not due to old age, but to the sense of familiarity Nordstrom evoked.

  Scottsdale Fashion Square was the name of the huge mall. The directory was a who's who of a big spender's paradise. From Gucci to Bulgari and Bottega Veneta, all the pillars of Italian fashion were well represented. I was happy just admiring their displays.

  I did get some sunscreen, a pleated foil-like shade screen for my Mustang windshield and one for Larry's rental, and a large floppy hat I planned to wear if I ever managed to make it to the pool. Oh, I also bought some tea. Okay, tea bags. Maybe I could make sun tea. I'd read about it in one of those home and garden magazines.

  By the time I made it back, it was afternoon. I glanced around the guest parking of the complex and recognized most of the same cars that had been there when I'd left, but not the Lexus. Logan-the-ferret-lover must be on his way back to the office. Good for him.

  There had to be a different way to get from the parking lot to my unit without walking by Vivian's front door. I was pretty sure that fire and safety regulations were the same in Arizona as in California: more than one access route to the units was needed, gated or not, it didn't matter.

  My shopping bags were bulky but light. I would find a different path. I followed what looked like a back wall or fence, and soon I heard laughing and splashing. I turned a corner and found myself by the pool gate.

  Ah, the pool. Wonderful.

  A child in a bright pink swimming suit and pink pool floaties armbands splashed and giggled on the steps at the shallow end of the pool. Some adults seemed to be either sunning or napping on lounge chairs. It looked inviting, if one could forget about the hundred-plus-degrees scorcher. Maybe they were locals and were used to the heat? No one seemed to notice me.

  Good, I liked that.

  I kept on walking, passing an in-ground spa and a building inside the pool fence. Public bathrooms? With showers? I would come back and check it out after sunset. Maybe Larry could try out his fancy black swimming shorts. I had to smile remembering how proudly he'd shown them off.

  All was quiet as I approached my patio, and I didn't even have to walk by the neighbor. I closed the door behind me and went to put my bags on the bed. Flash was nowhere in sight. Well, unless she could travel through walls or doors, sooner or later she would come out to eat. I had the feeling she'd been pretty ticked off.

  That reminded me of Kyle, also mad at me. How about that? Two for two, and I wasn't even trying.

  The clock on the night table said 4:30. Larry had been gone most of the day. I hoped that meant good news. I couldn't wait to hear about the meeting with Miguel Carillo. What would it be like to meet face-to-face with a man you helped send to prison seventeen years ago, especially if the man happened to be innocent?

  The unrelated thought compelled me to call Kyle. I fished my cell phone from my purse and just like that, it chimed. Except it wasn't Kyle, it was Larry.

  "Hi sweetie, what are you doing?"

  "Believe it or not I just got home. I drove all the way to the town of Scottsdale, found this wonderful mall, and I had a ball. I even had lunch at Nordstrom. It was as if I'd never left Southern California, until I stepped outside the mall, of course. How about you? How did it go?"

  "Oh, I had a very interesting day." He lowered his voice. He wasn't alone. "I was going to ask if you'd care to join us for happy hour, but maybe you're too tired." I knew him well enough to understand he was suggesting my answers more than asking.

  "I am. Just kicked off my heels, and the idea of getting dressed again and getting in the car somehow doesn't sound very appealing. But if it's important for me to be there—"

  "It's fine. Really." Relief in his voice. "I'll have a drink, and then I'll head on home. See you soon."

  Happy hour must have been someone else's idea. My not joining him gave him an excuse not to linger. I heard a knocking at the front door.

  What now?

  I wasn't lying when I said I'd just kicked off my heels. Luckily I still had my dress on. I went to open the door.

  "I brought you this." My neighbor handed me a thin book. It looked worn, with dog-eared pages.

  I glanced at the smudged cover, and two ferrets looked back at me. It was a book about ferrets.

  "Since you've never heard of ferrets I figured this would help. It's a very good book. It tells everything you need to know about these wonderful little creatures." Her eyes teared up.

  I felt guilty and mean for the clueless remarks I'd made about Lucy. It was obvious she really cared about her pet.

  "Oh, that's
too kind of you." I didn't know what to say. "Won't you come in? Larry won't be back for a while. Come in and sit down. It's my turn to uncork the bubbly."

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and I noticed how thin her skin looked, transparent-like, bluish veins showing through. Vivian stepped into the main room without much hesitation. I supposed that living in identical spaces made it easier to know where everything was.

  Flash paraded in as Vivian sat herself on the sofa. My cat ignored me completely and instead went to rub her head against my guest's caftan-covered legs. Traitor. That garnered her a nice scratch behind the ears. My guest sure knew how to befriend people's pets.

  I busied myself getting stem glasses and the open bottle of cold Asti Spumante we had in the refrigerator. Vivian's fingers kept on scratching the cat, but I felt her eyes following my every move. What a strange woman.

  "You can keep the book," she said.

  "That's really kind of you, but as you well know, ferrets are illegal in California. I'll stick to cats for now, but I will take it with me when I go the pool. I'm sure it's a very interesting read." I poured the sparkling, sweet wine and handed her a glass.

  She sipped, seemingly focused on some blank spot on the wall behind me, and yet I sensed her brain churning. What was she really here for?

  "Sooo." She inhaled deeply. "You and…Larry…are…" She waited, her eyes on me.

  Lovers, was my word choice. "Mates," was the word I said.

  She nodded and studied her fingernails sporting a shiny, colorless polish. "Are you staying for the length of the trial?" Whatever hesitation she may have felt vanished. She asked the question while staring straight into my eyes.

  Caught me totally unprepared. "Trial?" Playing for time.

  She rested against the back of the sofa, looking perfectly at ease. "That nice young man, Logan, the lawyer who visited you this morning, he was telling me about your m—Larry being in town for the retrial of Miguel Carillo. A very interesting case."

  Just wait until I caught that blabbermouth Logan. "Looks like you know more about that than I do. I came to Phoenix to retrieve my vagabond cat and sort of got roped into staying a little longer."

  "It was cement, not rope, that held you here." She laughed that happy laugh of hers. "According to Logan, of course."

  "Of course." I gulped my wine. What else did the stupid kid tell the neighbor? He may be young but he was a lawyer after all. Maledizione. This must be how it felt having your dirty laundry exposed, even if it wasn't my laundry. "I honestly know very little about the Carillo case. It all happened years ago, way before I met Larry." Why did I feel compelled to justify myself?

  "Seventeen years ago." Her voice was so low I strained to understand.

  "Sounds to me like you're familiar with the story."

  She looked at me, her eyes filled with sorrow. "To some it's a story. To others a tragedy. Thanks for the wine—better go check on Lucy—she gets anxious when I leave her alone for too long." And just like that she got up and left before I could say good-bye.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Larry brought home take-out Chinese, and I didn't argue. He noticed the book about ferrets before I ever mentioned Vivian's visit.

  "Tell me about Carillo," I said without giving him time to ask about the book.

  He scowled, more surprised than upset. "Seriously? You're not just making conversation?"

  I shook my head. The whole Carillo saga had become personal. Why? What was it that Vivian said or did to change the way I felt about an unknown man's ordeal? Then I remembered the sorrow in her eyes, so deep and raw it siphoned me in like rubble in a vortex.

  If Larry sensed my changed attitude, he kept his cool, filling me in on the meeting while eating the now lukewarm and soggy take-out. We did use real dishes and silverware, and we drank the last of the Spumante.

  "Where were you when you called me about joining you?"

  "At The Compass. I know, it sounds like a dorky name, but it's actually a pretty cool place, so much so I want to go back there for dinner with you, just the two of us. It's a round restaurant on the rooftop of the Hyatt, and it revolves. I'm told it takes about an hour for the complete revolution, and the best time to get there is at sunset. I just know you'll like it, a lot. That's the main reason I didn't insist on you joining us there. It's a place for lovers." He stroked my hand.

  He never said the word "romantic" while describing the restaurant, but I knew it was implied.

  "Tell me about Carillo," I insisted, holding onto his hand.

  Neither of us seemed hungry. We used the plates as props, toying with forks and food instead of our emotions?

  "Since when have you become invested in Carillo's fate?" Under the shadowy glare of the chandelier everything seemed unreal. "When did all of this happen? I thought you'd spent the day at that mall in Scottsdale. No?"

  Was he amused or annoyed? Maybe neither.

  Time to give him the condensed version of the events, starting with Logan Thompson's visit. Had the roles been reversed, by the end of the story I would have grabbed the phone, dialed up Dennis, and given him a piece of my mind, the Italian piece of it. But not Larry, he was coolness personified.

  He went to get a new bottle of bubbly, filled both glasses, and suggested we move to more comfortable seating where he would tell me all about Miguel Carillo. And once again, the mention of the man's name aged Larry instantly. He massaged his temples, his distress on full display.

  I forced myself to curtail my hugging instincts—I had to let him handle this his way. Time ticked by.

  "We met in one of the rooms reserved for lawyers and inmates, for private consultations—a drab, windowless, oversized cell, if you ask me. Here in Arizona most of the prisons are run by for-profit corporations."

  He rubbed his forehead. To erase the memory of the encounter?

  "It's all about money! Sorry, I don't mean to preach. Didn't recognize him at all. Yes, seventeen years is a long time, but time alone couldn't have done that."

  I had the feeling he wasn't going to expand on the meaning of that. Not now, not ever.

  "Dennis had to be there, and two of the volunteers from the Innocence Free Project sat in, taking notes, although I'm sure they already knew all the details, those details being the main reason the old case is now going back to court. I felt no hate or resentment coming from Carillo. How he's managed not to resent me for involuntarily setting his nightmare in motion, I don't know.

  "What do you do, day after day, sitting alone in a six-by-eight cell waiting for your life to end? To his credit he's mastered the channeling of his feelings, or so it appears. And he thanked me, profusely. I felt everyone in the room staring at me while he did that."

  He drank his wine, his eyes mere slits looking at a blank point on the wall. This was like a rehash of Vivian's afternoon visit. What could they find so special about the blank wall?

  "He thanked me for the money I'd sent him over the years. Except, I never did. And then I remembered that someone from the Innocence Free Project had contacted me, maybe a year ago, about some money coming from Carillo's grandmother. It started with small monthly amounts that came in regularly, apparently from his grandmother. Since she was living in California and Carillo was serving his sentence in Arizona they only communicated by mail.

  "By reading between the lines, he was able to figure out that the money came from a third party, a benefactor, according to grandma. Carillo assumed it was from me because his gut told him I believed in his innocence. The grandmother died three years ago. No more monthly deposits."

  I waited.

  Darkness had reached the outside walls of our place. Shivers ran up my spine. Damn air conditioning. I went to close the drapes to keep the darkness from creeping in. I turned to look at Larry, his head tilted back against the sofa, his eyes closed, the sadness palpable.

  "There's more to the story, isn't there?" I said, and my voice echoed in my brain.

  He nodded yes.

&nb
sp; "The grandmother kept a safe deposit box at the bank. That alone was strange. When the box was opened it contained a will and fifty thousand dollars in cash. The cash was to go to the Innocence Free Project in exchange for their efforts to prove Miguel Carillo's innocence. The will didn't say they would get the cash if they proved him innocent. No, the money was going to the cause regardless.

  "The only other thing in the box was an envelope addressed to the Innocence Free Project and inside a plain sheet of paper with a name, handwritten. The bank manager recognized the grandmother's handwriting. And here we are, three years later, going to court with new evidence gathered by the group the grandmother had trusted so much.

  "Except, the woman barely spoke English, didn't own a computer or a car, hardly left the house, and no one can figure out how she would have been familiar with the Innocence Free Project at all, and…"

  "And the assumption was that she acted as the straw person for someone familiar with the case who wanted to see justice served without revealing his identity. Someone with money and knowledge of the law, someone like you."

  He turned to look at me, still standing with my back to the darkness.

  "You too? Yes, that's the general assumption, and it's the wrong one. For starters I didn't come into money until just before I met you, about four years ago. Okay, that would cover the fifty thousand, but really, I'm a detective, an officer sworn to obey and enforce the law! Sorry, here I go, making you the punching bag for problems you have absolutely nothing to do with. Sweetie, come sit by me, will you?"

  I did.

  Then a terrible thought entered my mind. "Dear God, Larry, does that mean the poor kid will stay in prison? The whole reopening of the case depended on you being the secret benefactor?"

  He pulled me close. "No, of course not. It would have simplified things for them, maybe. If you analyze this, it's pure genius, in a way. Even if the grandmother knew who the secret supporter was, and we don't know that she did, the whole thing about the money and the Innocence Free Project didn't come to light until after her death. It's hard to interrogate dead people.