by Jon Talton
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Why would you come to me? How did you even know about me?”
“I really was in your class, David,” she said, touching my hand. I drew it back. “You don’t even remember me.”
I couldn’t recall her at all. I wondered if I was lost in the fog of a brain in its forties, or if I were being played as a patsy.
I said, “So why not tell me the truth? Why lie?”
“I had to protect Tom,” she said, her eyes closed tightly. “He has enemies, you see. Any great man does. If I had gone to the real police, and told them I had paid blackmail money—it would have been all over the newspaper.”
“So instead of the real police, you came to the play police—me.”
“Please.” She touched my hand again. “Don’t be offended. I thought if I gave you a trail, you’d follow it and get these people who were doing this to us. I read the papers and watch TV. I know some of the big cases you’ve cracked. So I gave you the story that I did. If a man had been murdered and buried out there, you could get to the bottom of it. And it obviously worked. I haven’t gotten another letter or phone call.”
I angled myself to face her and moved in close. I didn’t want her to have a chance to look away.
“There’s just one problem,” I said. “If you suspected the Bell brothers of blackmailing you, then you had a perfect motive for murdering Louis Bell.”
Her eyes widened and she swallowed with difficulty. “What are you saying?” she rasped.
“Louis Bell was murdered last week. Somebody stuck an ice pick in his brain.”
She shook her head and said nothing.
“Do you know the name Alan Cordesman?” I demanded.
“No! What do you want from me?”
“The truth.”
“I am telling you the truth!” she screamed.
We just stared at each other. The men across the parking lot were sitting down now, letting the sun beat on them. I opened the door and dropped to the pavement.
“You’d better get me that blackmail note with the photo of the grave,” I said. “Or I will go to the sheriff, and I don’t care who your husband is.”
I looked back at Dana. She was red-faced, puffy-eyed and about to say something. But I slammed the door and walked away.
Chapter Eighteen
I tried to sort it out that afternoon with Lindsey. She had stopped by my office after lunch, looking like a million bucks in a black pantsuit.
“Maybe this woman is just nuts,” she said, sitting on my desk, facing me, while I rubbed her feet.
“Mmmm,” she said.
“Is that irritating you?”
“I’ll bear up,” she said. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”
I said, “Peralta says I’m the one who’s nuts. He was as angry as I’ve ever seen him that I had anything to do with Tom Earley’s wife. He didn’t want any explanations. He just ordered me to stay away. Why is he so afraid of Tom Earley?”
“Earley wants to destroy El Jefe,” she said. “He and his allies call the sheriff a liberal. Can you believe that?”
I shook my head. “Politics have become so extreme, especially in Arizona. When I was a professor, I was considered right-wing. In today’s Arizona, I’m what the Tom Earleys of the state would call a liberal, or a socialist.” I sighed. “Considering Earley was specifically questioning the need for me in the Sheriff’s Office, I should be the one who’s scared. I know Peralta’s just looking out for me. But the whole thing is creepy. Tom Earley uses me as political cannon fodder, and his wife shows up in my office. If Dana’s story is true, and she was a blackmail victim, she wouldn’t be a cooperative witness. She’s got to protect her husband.”
“Maybe she’s protecting herself,” Lindsey said.
I gently caressed her finely sculpted ankles. I could see why the Victorians thought the sight of a woman’s ankle was a scandal.
“I just need to get out of it,” I said. “Pass this information on to the detectives. Let them sort it out. I told Peralta I’d find her, and I did.” I started on the other foot. “Or,” I said, “I could ignore Peralta and arrest her for filing a false report.”
“Don’t get in a fight with the East Valley, Dave,” she laughed. “That would hurt El Jefe’s reelection chances.”
“That whole suburban thing baffles me,” I said.
“It’s not your thing, Dave. Not mine, either. Why don’t you just give it to the detectives and go back to the book.”
“Peralta’s book,” I said.
“It’s my History Shamus’ book,” she said, smiling at me warmly. “I love the parts you’ve read to me. I lived some of those cases with you. Anyway, you’ve seemed contented when you’re writing. I like that.”
She leaned forward and ran her fingers through my hair. “But there’s bad news.”
“I’m going bald?”
“No, Dave. I do love your wavy hair, and it’s fine. But I just came from the federal building, and they want me in Washington for a week. There was a major breach of corporate computer systems yesterday. Cisco, Bank of America, a bunch of others. Who knows what the hackers got away with.”
“You’ll have fun,” I said, without enthusiasm.
“I’d have fun on vacation there with you, whispering history in my ear as we toured the city. Instead, I’ll be cooped up at the FBI in endless meetings with a bunch of propeller-heads. I hate to leave My Love. But when I get back, we get to leave on our real vacation. It’s going to be wonderful, Dave!”
She made me smile. “I am so looking forward to that, especially the time with you.” I kissed her hand. “In the meantime, I’ll be fine. Don’t be gone long.”
She put her hand on my cheek, looking at me with her dark blue eyes. “I need you, Dave. You keep me centered.”
I leaned up and kissed her, letting our tongues dance together. “I’m so proud of you,” I said. “Please be safe. Remember the Russian mafia…”
She sat back. “I think about it all the time,” she said. “Maybe we should make that life change we talked about. We could make some money off the house. Go someplace that’s not so screwed up, get real jobs.”
“We would have done that if I hadn’t failed in Portland,” I said.
“You didn’t fail. They were assholes who didn’t see how brilliant you are.” Then, “I hope it’s not a problem that Robin is still at the house.”
“I hardly see her,” I said. “It’s not a problem at all. Maybe I’ll take her to dinner with Peralta, be a chaperone.”
“He does like her,” Lindsey said. “She said today that I was a bitch.”
I just watched her. I reached above the fabric of her pants and massaged her calf.
“It’s a sister thing,” she said, running her hand through her hair. “Seriously, Dave. I know she’s kind of like the houseguest that won’t leave. But she’s been through a bad experience, and I haven’t wanted to nag her.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“I won’t be gone long, Dave. Just a week.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ll just be writing. Everybody can sleep better knowing they got the ice-pick killer. If they got him.”
She raised an eyebrow.
I said, “I could see Patrick Blair using a Taser on the poor guy’s nuts to get a confession.”
Lindsey just looked at me. Then she withdrew her leg.
Something had changed in the big room. I said, “I was making a joke.”
“Patrick is very professional and kind,” she said quietly. “He wouldn’t do that.”
“It was a joke, Lindsey,” I said, feeling my face flush. “I’m sorry I offended your friend. I’m glad he has you to defend him.” My voice had an edge to it. I could hear that.
“What is it about you and Patrick?”
Before I could answer, she added quickly, “I know you’re after some trip to the dark side. I don’t know why.”
I stammered, “I was just joking.”
The office air was filled with static electricity of things unsaid, unasked. A long time passed in silence. Then Lindsey touched my hand lightly and left. She didn’t slam the door.
Chapter Nineteen
The next night was a Friday. The sunset took over the entire sky, starting with a subtle pink in the east, then turning to ever more lurid oranges and crimsons in the west. The colors spread out across ripples of high thin clouds that seemed drawn by gravity into chasing the end of the day. If you haven’t seen it, you wouldn’t believe it. I didn’t get the best view, driving northeast to Carefree. By the time I reached my destination, all that remained was a pencil-line of flame across the horizon and the beginning of the long deep indigo desert twilight. I hadn’t intended to be there, but I had no place else to be. I had taken Lindsey to Sky Harbor that afternoon for her flight to Washington. Unlike me, she wasn’t afraid of flying. So until I got the call that said she had reached the hotel in D.C., I would be at loose ends. From the airport, I went back to the courthouse. The phone was ringing when I unlocked the door.
“David. I need to see you. Can I see you tonight?”
I recognized Dana’s voice without prompting.
“I don’t keep office hours on Friday nights. Or don’t you remember that from college?” She wasn’t to blame for my mood, but hearing from her wasn’t helping.
“David, please…” I could almost see her watery eyes tearing up.
“I’ll be happy to give you the name and number of a detective who can handle this case,” I said. “It’s not good for my career for us to be seen together.”
“But I have the proof you asked for. I have proof of the blackmail.”
I just let dead air fill the phone. Somebody was pounding on the floor above, where the old jail was located before it was closed in the 1960s. I could claim a ghostly visitor and just hang up.
“I have more for you. Maybe my information can help you find who really killed Louis Bell,” she said.
“So tell me. I’m listening.”
“I can’t say this over the phone.”
“So tell a detective.”
“No.” Her voice was lower, harder. “I need to see you, damn it. Don’t you give a damn about that kid taking the fall for murdering Louis Bell? You know he didn’t do it.”
I stared at the ceiling, toward the old jail, then acquiesced. She gave me the name of a shop at El Pedregal, a fancy shopping center that’s attached to the Boulders Resort. She didn’t want anyone to recognize her, she said. I wasn’t looking forward to the drive. I was dreading trying to explain to Peralta why I was making contact again with Dana Earley. But I was more than curious. If it hadn’t been for Dana’s lie, I would never have known Louis Bell. His murder would have been one more macabre Phoenix cop tale, even though it echoed close to home, in the similar killing of my neighbor, Alan Cordesman. With Dana, the coincidences became too much. She had launched me into something that was still playing out.
El Pedregal looks like a cross between an adobe Anasazi village and a Cold War blast shelter. But there was nothing to complain about with the natural surroundings: buttes made of gigantic boulders, each unique in its construction and the image it might concoct in the eye of an imaginative viewer. I had first seen all this before it was part of one of the priciest resorts in town, before the dry sun-bleached boulders were spectators on the edge of an emerald golf course. This night, there was not much to see beyond the black silhouettes of the buttes and the Carefree Mountains. The parking lot was mostly empty. As I walked toward the shops, most looked closed.
I checked the cell phone on my belt, wishing I would get Lindsey’s call. I couldn’t say that we had parted coolly that day. But neither had we gone beyond our brief spat of the day before, over my Patrick Blair comment. That night, I had made overtures with my fingers and mouth as we lay in bed. But she had kissed me and turned over. It wasn’t a big deal. She hadn’t refused. She had merely declined. A fine thing, words. Why was I reading anything into it? Was something more on her mind? Had I opened a line of a dangerous memory for her? Why did men never turn down sex? All important questions for which I had no answers.
I walked across the different plazas, pavilions, and ramadas. Here were the galleries and stores that made the tourists salivate: Canyon Lifestyles, the Blue Sage, the Desert Paradise Shop, Adelante. Every door was shut, although inside a few stores, a last employee was ending the day. A handful of resort guests strolled along, enjoying the low prices that the swanky hotels use in the hot weather. But low here was still out of my price range. A security guard gave me the once over and decided I was okay, for now. The temperature had dropped into the high nineties, but I was still sweating.
Finally, I came to the place Dana had mentioned, and it was open. Milagro Glass Works was etched on a large slab of glass outside the entrance. I stepped inside, said hello to a clerk sitting behind a counter, and looked for Dana. I was the only customer. I checked my watch and looked around. Several large Dale Chihuly blown-glass sculptures sat on display, with their colorful pipes and horns looking like the serpent-hair of Medusa. For those who didn’t want to spend tens of thousands of dollars, several shelves held smaller items. There were flowers, shells, bowls, beads, and vases, in everything from the traditional to the wildly abstract. These were not exactly cheap, either. There was a lot of money in the world, and none of it going to honest cops. I was looking at a twisty sculpture called Rites of Summer when I saw something in my peripheral vision.
Some ancient reflex caused me to pull my head aside, and something heavy swooped past my ear. It still nicked me and a bubble of sharp pain burst along the right side of my head. I stepped back to see a tall, broad-shouldered man standing before me in a crouch. Taking up his right upper arm and shoulder was an elaborate, multicolored tattoo. He had a shaved head, a red bandanna over half his face, like in the Old West, and he held a long, black sap in his right hand. I hadn’t seen one of those since my patrol days: a heavy piece of lead in a thick leather wrapping, attached to a strap that fit neatly in the hand. Some of the old cops had carried them.
“Asshole,” he hissed, and lunged at me, swinging the sap at my head. I ducked and heard a crash that crossed several notes of the musical scale. One of the Chihulys disintegrated, sending orange, purple, and yellow shards like hard confetti into my face. I heard the clerk scream as I stumbled backward. He came again, faking punches with one hand while trying to get a good shot at me with the sap. My throat felt nearly closed off with panic, and I fought to get my wits back. Another fake punch and I grabbed his fist, trying to pull him down. Instantly my forearm exploded in agony as he brought the heavy weapon down on me. I let go.
Now there was about six feet between us, and I kept retreating toward the back of the store. He screamed in rage and tore down one of the shelves, scattering glass and display easels. I knew from academy days that the trick was to get close to the assailant, to step inside the reach of his arm so he couldn’t swing, then do the takedown. I knew that. But for a few moments, I was nearly paralyzed with surprise and fear. My hand found a heavy slab of glass and I heaved it at his face. He ducked, but I used the moment of distraction. I willed my legs forward. Sure enough, when he realized what I was doing, it was too late. His hand came up holding the sap, but I was too close. With my left hand I grabbed his wrist, then brought my right arm behind his swinging arm. He pushed back but I was in a T-position, with my right foot planted securely behind me. I gave a rough push on his wrist, and the tension with my arm behind his elbow brought him down backward.
This is the point where the deputy quickly subdues the suspect, rolls him over, and cuffs him. But I was out of practice. We both crashed down to the hardwood floor, and somehow his knee ended up in my solar plexus. I rolled, so avoided the worst of it. But he scrambled out from under me, and by the time I got to my feet he was at the front door. I saw a flash of white and heard a groan. By the time I reached the thres
hold, I saw a guard on the concrete with a nasty gash in his head. Another guard was running my way. I flashed my badge and ordered him to call nine-one-one, then ran flat out after the tall man. I formed a description in my brain: six-four, shaved head, blue eyes, late twenties, wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and carrying a red bandanna. The tattoo—I would need some time to remember details.
I lost him by the time I reached the parking lot. Suddenly I heard a guttural roar of a diesel engine and saw a jacked-up pickup round the corner. My assailant was at the wheel. I raced to Lindsey’s Prelude. Its bumper sticker said, “Keep Honking, I’m Reloading.” Inside was the Colt Python I had desperately needed moments before. I cranked it and sped toward Scottsdale Road. The truck was a black Dodge Ram, and the license plate was conveniently missing. Something was hanging below the rear bumper. It looked like a large set of testicles. He caught the green light at Carefree Highway, and I slammed through just as the amber was turning red. It was only then that I realized my cell phone had been knocked off in the melee. I only had a moment to worry about Lindsey in Washington. There was nothing to do but follow the truck.
It would have been nice if he had thought he was alone. But he was doing eighty and weaving in and out of traffic. He knew I was back there. To be sure, eighty miles an hour in Scottsdale on a Friday night was not much ahead of the flow of traffic. So much for my hope that he would attract the attention of Scottsdale PD. Still, the road was dark and treacherous. My ear and arm were really starting to hurt now, and my right hand was feeling a little numb. He just kept heading south. I knew what he wanted: the 101 beltway, which we would reach just before Bell Road. There, he could go anywhere he wanted.
He turned left at the 101 and really put on the power. I followed him and was doing nearly one hundred heading up the ramp. I had half a tank of gas and no plan other than to shoot him when he got where he was going. The freeway made its turn to the south and I was still on him. Traffic was thick as the highway went into the cut by Via Linda and curved, but he was quick and fearless. He threaded every needle, jumping into this lane, then the other, bullying any other vehicle out of his way. The oncoming lights blinded me at just the wrong time, and I lost his taillights. I had a sea of taillights, but I couldn’t see the right ones. The description of a jacked-up diesel pickup truck in Phoenix, Arizona, was as bad as no description at all.