Concrete Desert

by Jon Talton

  Lindsey ate a forkful of omelette. “This is very good, Dave.”

  “My theory?” I said. “Add Brent McConnico, the next governor, to our list of people who have landed in bad shit. I kept thinking this Copeland guy from the Metrocenter had to be tied into Phaedra’s murder. But I guess—and here’s where my theory runs out of track—he’s connected to McConnico, which means he’s connected to Rebecca Stokes, who was murdered forty years ago. But he’s no damned ghost.…”

  “Something from that long ago still matters,” Lindsey said. She put some preserves on a piece of muffin and fed it to me. “Something matters enough to kill for.”

  “So we get a break in one case, and it knocks the legs out of the other one. Shit. I just need to let that go. Let Peralta throw Julie in jail forever.”

  She read my face and said, “You know this isn’t going to be a happy ending with Julie, don’t you, Dave? Are you sure you want to go there?”

  I tried to smile. “You’re pretty smart for a computer nerd.”

  “It’s the database of the heart,” Lindsey said.

  “I’m with you,” I said, kissing her hand. “It’s where I want to be.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m glad for both of us.”

  Afterward, I took our plates to the kitchen and then climbed back into bed. Lindsey draped a long leg across me. Young, taut skin—the most amazing feeling.

  “So let’s tie up some loose ends,” I said. “Why did Julie say she was being followed?”

  “We know she’s truth-challenged,” Lindsey said. “But if she’s on the level, maybe she first saw this guy Copeland when he was actually watching you.” She smirked. “She obviously thinks every man wants her. Then Copeland sees Julie with you and decides to find out if she’s important, so he follows her.”

  Lindsey was under the covers, kissing my calves, running her fingers up my thighs. The exquisite softness of her hair brushed against me. Every pore of my skin was tingling. All my reasoning powers ran away and I just wanted to feel her wonderful lips and mouth.

  “What about—Oh God, that feels so good—what about Metrocenter? That was about Rebecca Stokes?”

  Lindsey popped her head out of the covers. “It made sense to think Copeland was after Susan Knightly and Phaedra. Actually, it looks like he was after you.”

  “Then he really is a bad shot.”

  “And I’m glad of that, too.” She smiled. “Now, stop thinking, Professor.”

  I lay back and did just that.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  In a small street-side building in the shadow of Camelback Mountain is Vincent Guerithault, one of the best restaurants in a city that has finally developed a reputation for world-class dining. They say Vincent’s is classy, not snobby. I guess so. On Sunday night, a twenty something, goateed maître d’ floated ahead of me through the restaurant’s small rooms, leading me to a nearly empty nook in the rear. Brent McConnico rose gracefully and extended his hand.

  “David, it was so good of you to come,” he said. “Please, sit.”

  A waiter hovered silently, unfurling my napkin for me.

  “I believe Dr. Mapstone will have a martini, Bombay Sapphire, as I recall. Very dry, right? One olive.”

  I nodded and the waiter went away. McConnico was drinking what looked like bourbon on the rocks.

  “David, you must forgive me,” he said. “I very much lost my head last Tuesday. I said some things I didn’t mean. I want to make amends.”

  I made an apology, too. I hadn’t meant to upset him about his cousin’s murder. But that might be the least of his problems after tonight. Over the past four days, I’d learned a lot about Brent McConnico—things that started as rumors and legends, recalled by Lorie Pope over drinks at Durant’s, then hardened into evidence with the help of Lindsey and hours spent gleaning obscure documents. For the moment, though, cordiality reigned.

  “All can be forgiven,” he said. I thought it was an interesting choice of words. “We all lose our heads. But you and I, we have a lot in common. We’re both real Arizonans, for one thing.”

  “There aren’t too many of us, I guess.”

  “No, there aren’t,” McConnico said. “I was reading a story in the Republic today about the professional sports teams. Do you realize Phoenix is one of eleven cities around the country that has all four major professional sports represented? God, I remember when the Suns first came to town, and that was all we had for years.”

  “I do, too. We went to a lot of games that first season. At the old coliseum.…”

  Brent McConnico smiled past me. “Anyway, this article quoted some academic type—no offense—sneering about Phoenix’s inferiority complex, and about how we’re a city of Jed Clampetts building ‘ce-ment ponds.’ No culture. No philanthropy. No history. People like that don’t understand this city, this state.”

  The waiter reappeared with the martini. Brent McConnico looked at him, annoyed, and he retreated.

  “You and me, David, our families. They mortgaged their land to build the first dam so we’d have water in this Valley. People today, they don’t even know where our water comes from, they take it so for granted. In our parents’ lifetimes, this city was built. It’s a miracle.”

  He was fairly drunk. He hid it well, until he got on a roll like this.

  “David, I hope you don’t mind, but I made some inquiries about you.”

  “I guess not.”

  “I felt so bad about what happened. I wondered what I might do to make things better between us.”

  “Senator, you don’t owe me anything.”

  “Brent, please call me Brent.”

  “Brent.”

  “Anyway, David, you’ve got quite an interesting history, no pun intended. Raised by your grandparents after your parents were killed. A sheriff’s deputy for four years in the early 1980s. Then you got your master’s and Ph.D. in history and left Phoenix to teach. You went to Miami of Ohio for eight years, right? Then to San Diego State. What a beautiful city San Diego is.”

  The waiter took our orders. I ordered the lobster quesadilla. McConnico asked for another drink and the duck tamale with Anaheim chile and raisins.

  “You wrote a modestly successful book on a history of American railroads. You were a popular teacher,” he went on. “You didn’t get on as well with some of your faculty colleagues, I understand. The politically correct types. God, I hate that kind of institutionalized intolerance.” He started on the new drink. “Married for five years to an heiress to a beer fortune. Patricia? Divorced, no children. And now you’re back in Phoenix, having turned forty. When most people are well settled down and connected, you’re very alone.”

  I picked apart a roll and ate a piece. “I guess you did your homework, Brent,” I said.

  “I did that to help, David,” he said. “You see, I have an interest in our university system, in the quality of education. It’s been one of the centerpieces of my career. I would love nothing better than to see a native Arizonan come back home and do what he does best. You know, that’s always been a problem in this state. We look outside for everything. We don’t look after our own. We don’t appreciate our homegrown talent.”

  He watched as a slender redhead walked past in a short black cocktail dress. She looked us over and smiled. I thought of Phaedra.

  “Anyway, David, I’ve been talking to my good friend Charles Harrington, who, as you know, is the dean of the college of liberal arts at ASU. He tells me they’d love to talk to you about a tenured position in the History Department.”

  “That’s interesting, Brent, considering that a month ago my alma mater wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

  He waved it away with a wave of his elegant Yale-in-3 hand. “David, it’s all who you know. This is a relationship-based world. You have to get the door opened, so people can see how smart and talented you are. It’s in the bag, David. The job is yours. Just take it.” He smiled warmly.

  I sipped the martini, a truly s
ublime creation. I thought about what McConnico was saying. It brought to mind the line in Dante’s Inferno: “For the straight path was lost.” Or as an old cop used to say to me, “Who knows what happens to people?”

  “Brent,” I said. “Tell me about the Rico Verde Cattle Company.”

  His mouth tightened imperceptibly.

  “Come again?”

  “The Rico Verde Cattle Company.”

  “You’re babbling now, David. Didn’t you just hear what I’m offering you?”

  “Rico Verde was a land swindle back in the mid-1980s, substantial even by Arizona standards. The profits were never found. A couple of people went to prison. But a newspaper reporter I know says the real kingpin of Rico Verde was a man named Sam Larkin.”

  Brent McConnico stared at me. His hand trembled and upset the bourbon. A puddle of liquor rolled across the tablecloth. The waiter silently cleared away the spill and brought another drink along with our food.

  “Sam Larkin was your political mentor, if my history’s correct. And the year Rico Verde went down, you were in need of money, so the scuttlebutt down at the newspaper goes. Something about a rape allegation involving a legislative page? It must have cost dearly to make her go away.”

  “You’d better stop right there, Mapstone,” he said. His finely sculpted cheekbones were flushed.

  “See, I couldn’t understand the link between Rebecca’s murder and you. I mean, you were just a kid when she was killed. But there had to be something. Something big enough to make you hire a goon named Dennis Copeland to warn me off, and, when I didn’t take the hint, to kill me.”

  I leaned in toward him. “And I didn’t understand why the things I said to you Tuesday upset you so badly that you got careless and drove straight from the capitol to meet the man in the black Mustang.”

  He stared at me, suddenly ashen. “You followed me?” he said.

  “You drive fast.”

  “You little bastard,” he said.

  He was actually indignant, as if I’d shown up at his country club or tried to date his perfect WASP daughter.

  “That man Copeland murdered a police officer after he left you. That makes you an accessory.”

  He shook his head deliberately. “I had nothing to do with that.” He lowered his voice and spoke more calmly. “No one will believe you anyway. One phone call to Mike Peralta will end your little law-enforcement adventure, Mapstone. I tell nobodies like Mike Peralta what to do. I can step on you just like a bug.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I said. “Which made Copeland even more puzzling to me. Why would somebody like you need muscle when you have all this power?”

  “Well, what on earth do you theorize, Professor?” he asked with extravagant sarcasm. “Pray tell me what you see.”

  I looked at him hard and said, “I see a loser in debt to the mob.”

  I expected him to shout or break down, but he just leaned back and regarded me with a disdainful patrician calm. “You are a fool, David. Two minutes ago, you could have had a cushy job—teach a couple of classes, fuck the beautiful young coeds, draw a check from the taxpayers. Now…”

  He paused and sipped his drink. Then he cut his food and began to eat.

  “Now,” he said pleasantly, “I am going fuck you like you have never been fucked. You won’t be able to find work as a school janitor when I get through. And then one night, when your guard is down, dear socially challenged Dennis will be back, and you will die. He has a real sadistic streak.”

  I said, “The Rico Verde Cattle Company, Brent.…”

  He shook his head and laughed softly. “You are very persistent, David.”

  “I have a thirst for knowledge.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do,” he said. “Rico Verde was very good to me. My name wasn’t associated with it, of course. But I made a tidy profit, which is essential for a young man with political ambition and no money.” He was picking apart the dried-flower arrangement.

  “What about your family’s money?”

  He snorted. “There was none. A college trust fund, tightly controlled. Then nothing. That was my old man. In the 1960s, everybody in America made money, except him. A former governor no less. He refused to profit from his name or connections. He was weak. Sam wasn’t weak. Sam knew money and power. If that put him into debt with unsavory people, it was worth it.”

  “And if thousands of people bought Rico Verde land that didn’t exist?”

  “I guess I don’t feel anything for them,” McConnico said. “I hope they voted for me. I remember calling that year for very strict sanctions against the real estate frauds that were ruining our state.”

  “So you are a hypocrite as well as a crook.”

  “Oh, David, to ascribe hypocrisy is to assume there is a just God and a moral universe. We know that doesn’t exist. If it did, where is my punishment? Where is your justice? History is written by the victors—isn’t that what they say?”

  “And what about your cousin, Rebecca?” I asked, feeling a numbness in my feet. “If you’re a victor, how do you live with that, McConnico? Just a kid, really, came out west thinking she could get a little freedom but still be safe with her family. Easy prey for your ‘strong man’ Sam, right?”

  He blinked at me twice, then blinked twice again. “Nobody knows what happened to Rebecca. You said it was a serial killer. I believe that.”

  “I believed it once,” I said. “Then I found out about Rebecca’s secret lover, a distinguished man who visited only at night. And I found out she was pregnant when she was killed. And I found out Sam Larkin came by his mob connections by marriage, so leaving his wife wouldn’t have been healthy—even if he intended to do it.”

  “Sam helped her,” he said, a hint of pleading in his voice. “When Dad got her the job at the law firm, she couldn’t even type.”

  “Helped himself,” I said harshly. “And when she came back from Chicago, knowing she was pregnant, she decided to confront him.”

  “He couldn’t leave Aunt Louise!” he hissed. “Rebecca knew that!”

  “First they made love. She’d been gone a month, after all. Then she told him she was pregnant. They fought. He flew into a rage.”

  “He never meant for it to happen!” McConnico hissed, boring into me with his eyes. “I’m the only one he ever told—when I was thirty years old. How do you think it made me feel! It was like this ‘thing’ I carried around inside me all these years. I wanted it all to go away—Jesus, I was a kid when this happened—and I thought it had. Then you show up.”

  There was a movement behind him, and Peralta slid out a chair and sat. McConnico looked disoriented. He looked at me and then at Peralta. For a long moment, all we heard was the luminescent hush that attaches to conversations in very expensive restaurants. McConnico’s face grew so red, I thought he was going to have a stroke.

  “You were recording this, weren’t you?”

  Peralta said, “Senator, you have the right to remain silent.…”

  “Don’t you Mirandize me, you son of a bitch!” he shouted. A waiter discreetly cocked his head in our direction.

  “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.…”

  “Peralta, your career is dead if you go through with this. Do you hear me!”

  “You have the right to an attorney.…”

  “If you want a future in politics in this state, Peralta, you are to forget this ever happened!”

  “If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

  “I own your ass!” McConnico cried. “You do what I tell you! You are to leave this room and get the tape and bring it to me. If you don’t…”

  He stared at Peralta, who was impassive and grim. McConnico was breathing faster. “Senator,” Peralta said, “let’s step outside quietly.”

  More time passed. McConnico started to sob silently. “This isn’t what you think, Mike.”

  “It’s time to go.”

  “He’s twisted ever
ything,” McConnico wagged a finger in my direction. “I had nothing to do with any of this!” He was outright bawling now, snot and tears running down his face. Peralta’s expression hardened.

  “Senator,” he said. “Since you own my ass, you know that if you don’t get out of that chair and walk outside quietly with me and Deputy Mapstone”—Peralta looked at me and his eyes smiled—“I’m going to handcuff you and carry you out like the sorry sack of shit you really are.”

  Peralta nodded to the waiter, who approached timidly. “Check, please.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The next night, a big storm swirled in from the south and east. Thunderheads congregated over the Superstition Mountains and spilled north to the peaks of the McDowells. But they just hung in the sky, looking fat with rain and promise. I pulled off the Red Mountain Expressway and turned north into Scottsdale, cursing the unchanging heat in the city. Maybe we would end up like the Hohokam. Maybe all our cleverness couldn’t overcome the eternal logic of the desert. The wind pushed a tumbleweed across the expensive cross-walk brickwork of Scottsdale Road. I veered onto Goldwater Boulevard and found the address Lorie Pope had given me.

  It was an old adobe house, set back from the exclusive galleries that lined the street. A relic of the old farm village of Scottsdale, soon to be gobbled up by the wealthy appetite of the world-famous resort city. I drove slowly past, pulled around the corner, and got out. I had the Colt Python and two speed loaders on my belt. I didn’t have to do this alone. Shouldn’t have, by Peralta’s later reckoning. But somehow, the past month had created its own little obsessive clockwork inside me. I was ready to see things through now—wherever they led.

  The door to the adobe was ajar. I was about to push my way through, when I heard men’s voices.

  “I can’t believe you’re still alive. You’re like some devil that won’t die.” It was an old-man’s tenor voice, driven as much by breath as by vibration of vocal chords. I sank back into the shadows of the porch.