David Mapstone Mystery: The Night Detectives Part 2

I dialed as he trotted back to our office. The excitement over, my body resumed sweating.

In the distance, I heard sirens.

5.

It was ten p.m. when the Phoenix cops finally cut us loose. Out on Grand, it had been a full response: half a dozen marked cruisers, chopper, news helicopters, Phoenix Fire paramedics, crime scene, and the avenue blocked for hours. Back in the air conditioning of the office, two young detectives had interviewed us. Peralta was cagey. No, he outright lied. n.o.body could tell when Peralta was lying, certainly not this pair. He had come back outside and taken control of the narrative and of me.

Here's the way he told it: we were waiting in the office for a potential client when we heard the shots and went out to find the Benz and the dead body. That was when we called the police. Had this potential client given a name? No, Peralta said. It was a man and he didn't give his name. Peralta didn't think to ask for it. We were here and he told him to come on by. Were the detectives thinking this was the man?

They didn't say. They did ask if we knew a subject named Derek Zimmerman.

"Is that the D.B.?" Peralta gave them his best command stare and they responded.

"Maybe, Sheriff."

"Never heard of him. Have you, Mapstone?"

No. I hated him. Why was he lying? I felt all this, forgetting that I had wanted to muck with the investigation by reading the recent calls on our late client's cell phone.

"How about Felix Smith? James Henry Patterson?"

"Who are they?" Peralta asked.

"We're only starting our investigation," one detective offered. "But you might be glad you didn't get this case. The guy was carrying multiple driver's licenses."

I thought about the Desert Eagle on his pa.s.senger seat.

They left their cards. If we remembered anything else, please call us at this number...I had done the routine a hundred times myself, when I was on the other side of the badge. Then they left.

"Why did you do that?" I whispered it, as if the detectives were listening at the door.

"I want a trip to San Diego."

"Our client is dead."

"Exactly."

Afterward, I drove east a few blocks on Encanto Boulevard and was enveloped in the trees and gra.s.s of the park and the historic districts. The temperature dropped ten degrees. This was a good thing considering that the air conditioning in Lindsey's old Honda Prelude had seen better days. On the north edge of Palmcroft, I sat through the long wait at the Seventh Avenue light, brooding over what had happened. Then I crossed into Willo, past the old fire station, and headed home. A right on Fifth Avenue and a left on Cypress. The street was quiet and most of the houses were dark. Normal people had gone to bed. My house was dark and not inviting. I vowed again to get some lights on timers and drove on.

At the Sonic on McDowell, I ate a foot-long Coney dog and drank a medium Diet Cherry c.o.ke. The bright lights and blaring bubblegum music gave a false sense of protection. The condition of the car gave me no choice but to turn off the engine and open the windows. The climate could thank me later.

An AK-47 was a c.r.a.ppy a.s.sa.s.sination weapon, so Peralta told me after the cops left. In all but the most expert of hands, it had a tendency to ride up and have bad accuracy. On the other hand, who could miss at that range? Smith/Zimmerman/Patterson had pulled onto Grand and another car came alongside. Did he recognize the car and stop to talk to its occupants? Did the encounter have something to do with the phone call I had seen him making?

Peralta didn't offer any theories. He did say, "Somebody who uses an AK that way, it's his preferred weapon. He likes it."

I ate the wonderful crunchy Sonic ice, marinated in cherry, and took a little comfort that I was the only car in the place. A little comfort.

Oh, I wished Lindsey would call and ask, "How are you, Dave?" and being Lindsey she would know from my voice that I was not fine, nowhere near it, not even in the same state as fine. But my cell phone was silent.

There was nothing to do but go back to the house, which I did after driving around the block four times.

The 1924 Spanish Colonial on Cypress was lovely and forlorn. The old locks and new alarm system were fine, but I still swept through the rooms with my revolver out. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that ran the length of the stairway looked at me indifferently. More bookshelves lined the study, books acc.u.mulated by my grandparents, by me alone, by Lindsey and me.

Except for the few years I was away, I had lived in this house all my life, and my grandparents before me. Yet the walls silently said, "You are only pa.s.sing through here. We will remain." The walls didn't care about the tragedies this house had endured.

In the kitchen, I pulled the Beefeater out of the freezer and stirred a martini, the perfect chaser to diet cherry c.o.ke. The only thing I had done to the house lately was to put up new curtains that completely hid the back yard from view when one was standing at the sink. They still did provide privacy, but I couldn't avoid pus.h.i.+ng them against the gla.s.s as an extra measure of safety.

I have stopped turning on the lights. I have stopped listening to jazz. I have stopped reading books. The outside world holds no appeal, either. I've made myself go to several movies at the AMC downtown at Arizona Center, but I left each one after a few minutes. I couldn't stand any of it. So I sat in silence in the living room, sipping the cold gin, staring out at the street, trying to keep my mind locked down. At least the neighbors had stopped their well-meaning water torture of relentless expressions of sympathy over Robin's death and inquiries about when Lindsey is coming home.

I went to the bedroom and stripped down without turning on any lights. I lay down on Lindsey's side of the bed. It turned into Robin's side, too, b.a.s.t.a.r.d that I am. Over on the bedside table sat John Lewis Gaddis' biography of George F. Kennan. I felt all of Kennan's emotional shakiness and had none of his brilliance. My "long telegram" would not be about the Soviet Union but about my own union that was breaking up, if not hopelessly broken. I picked it up and tried to read. Nothing caught the gears of my brain. It wasn't Gaddis' fault. So I tried to sleep. Peralta would be here at seven, packed for San Diego.

Too soon, I found myself on a Central Avenue bus. No, it was an airliner. I didn't recognize anyone around me. But I dropped my cell phone on the floor and it slid backwards. What if Lindsey suddenly called? I got on my knees and found the phone two rows back.

Then I was out on the street. The sidewalk was broken and I had to watch my step. New buildings were going up and others were being restored. Bright paint was being applied. The city had never looked better, with a huge downtown skyline against majestic, snowcapped mountains. I would have to stop criticizing it.

A door was open and I walked in. Instantly, I was in my former office at the old courthouse. The big room was nearly empty and I felt sad, until I saw Robin sitting at the desk. She looked up and gave me that roguish smile. She stood and I took her in my arms, brus.h.i.+ng back the long, tousled blond hair and covering her with kisses, sobbing and holding her while she laughed and we talked over each other. She put a finger over my mouth and I was silent, listening to her tell me... Tell me...

Then she was gone.

I was in a hallway painted blood red, looking for Robin. I walked for what seemed twenty-five paces, trying locked doors, and then turned into a narrower pa.s.sage. I was completely alone. In my pocket, where my cell should have been, was only a wallet. I pulled it out again and it was a pack of Gauloises, the brand of cigarettes Lindsey smoked.

My gut was in full panic gear now but I kept walking, finding new hallways, each one smaller than the one that came before it, turning and turning. Where was I? It seemed as if I was going in circles. There was n.o.body to ask for directions. My cell phone was gone and my legs moved only with ever-greater effort. I kept going. Behind me was only darkness. Then I could barely make it through the hall; it was so narrow I turned sideways to make it into the next section. Finally, the walls tapered together in a "V" and I was at the end.

I knew by now that I shouldn't push against the drywall, but I did.

I couldn't stop myself.

I always did.

That was when the explosion came.

We were in the back yard on Cypress. Night. Robin was on the ground and I was on my knees, trying to resuscitate her, trying to stop the bleeding. Her blouse was wet from the blood and it was all over my hands.

I looked up and this time the woman with the gun was still standing there.

This time the woman was Lindsey.

Then the dark bedroom greeted me and I was awake, in the dimension where the mountains were low and the city was not reclaiming Central. Where the downtown skyline was still squat, monotonous, and ugly and the only real event of where I had been was Robin's death in the back yard from a single gunshot.

I had this dream nearly every night. I called it my maze dream.

6.

Peralta slid into my driveway at precisely seven a.m. I walked out with my bag and the surly att.i.tude of a non-morning person, stowing my gear in the extended cab of his gigantic Ford F-150. I would leave the argument about his personal contribution to greenhouse gases and climate change for another day. He surprised me with a venti non-fat, no-whip mocha from Starbucks, my usual drink, and one he has disparaged on many occasions as virtually anti-American. He, of course, was drinking black coffee. We backed out, cruised through Willo and Roosevelt, and then slid onto Interstate 10 where it pops out of the deck park by Kenilworth School. It was only ninety-nine degrees. I was in my tan suit with a blue Brooks Brothers polka-dot tie, about to keel over from heat exhaustion.

Neither of us said a word as the suburbs fell away and the truck turned onto Arizona Highway 85 for the short but dangerous connection to Interstate 8. The state was gradually widening what had been a two-lane highway, but people still drove like maniacs and fatalities remained common. Today, the road was nearly empty. If only my head were that way. Jagged bare mountains rose up on either side. I remembered from Boy Scout days that one was called Spring Mountain. I also recalled it was about 355 miles from Phoenix to San Diego. I adjusted the vents again to get the most out of the truck's air conditioning.

When he caught I-8 at Gila Bend, I made my first attempt to breach the battlements of his stubborn personality.

"What about the lawyer Felix mentioned?"

"I called him. He never heard of any of those names."

I asked him if he had given the lawyer a description and he shot me a cutting glance. I thought about Felix sitting there yesterday, so straight and self-possessed in his expensive suit, French cuffs, tattoo, and prosthetic leg. He was not someone to forget.

"So tell me what again we're doing?"

"Driving to San Diego."

Five more miles brought a pa.s.sing Union Pacific freight train and flat desert.

"You know what I mean." The mocha was finally cool enough to drink.

He declined to answer, so I settled into the seat and watched for more trains. We rode high and mighty along the highway, a steady eighty miles per hour, dwarfed only by semis.

The retiree tract houses and fields of Yuma trickled out to greet us, hotter than h.e.l.l, and ugly. We went through a McDonald's drive-through and ate on the road like two street cops as we crossed the Colorado River and entered California.

I tried again. "Why did you give a false report to the police, saying Smith, or whatever the h.e.l.l his name is, was never in our office?"

"It was easier." And that was all he said between mouthfuls of a Quarter Pounder with cheese. Peralta was the most by-the-book hard-a.s.s peace officer I had ever known. I told him this.

"Don't be so quick to judge, Mapstone." Bite, chew, swallow, steer with one hand. "And don't get grease on that arm rest. As I recall, you did a little selective application of the law after Robin was murdered."

That was true, but I wasn't going to let him get me into that dark alley.

"I'm talking about now. We don't owe this guy anything."

"You wanted to break the law yesterday by tampering with evidence."

He was right. I wanted to see the number Felix had called from our parking lot. I was a long way from being a Boy Scout.

Peralta shrugged his big shoulders. "He put us on retainer for ten grand. Our obligation is to the client, and that includes privacy."

Sand dunes loomed up on the south. I knew that a plank road was built here in 1915. I didn't know anything about being a private investigator. Listening to our conversation made me question myself again about joining him in the rough little building on Grand Avenue. Robin had suggested it. She expected to live to see it. I violently shook my head.

"You have a headache?"

"No." I ate the Big Mac and daintily wiped my fingers to protect his fake leather or whatever the h.e.l.l it was on the armrest. "What would you as sheriff have done to a PI who pulled the stunt you did?"

"Probably prosecute him."

"But now you're applying situational ethics."

"Don't be using your fancy academic language on me, Mapstone." The burger was gone and now his right hand was grabbing French fries. Peralta always ate one fast-food course at a time. "I'm just a simple boy from the barrio."

I cut him off. "You went to Harvard." He knew very well what I meant. I gave up for the moment.

We were now in the Colorado Desert, a very different place from the lush Sonoran Desert that surrounded Phoenix and Tucson: no saguaros or any of the other hundreds of plant and animal species of my home country. It was sun-blasted moonscape, a sea of tranquility: long vistas, distant mountain ranges, few colors beyond off-white, ochre, and brown-and in this spot it declined into a sink that was below sea level.

We finished lunch at eighty-five miles per hour. I policed all the containers and napkins, and then the flat, green fields of the Imperial Valley surrounded us, all irrigated, quite irrationally, by a ca.n.a.l running from the Colorado River. If not for the geology of the Colorado's delta, the Sea of Cortez would go all the way north to Indio. It was an amazing thing to contemplate. North of us was the Salton Sea, accidentally created in 1905 when the Colorado, as it would do before being nearly killed by dams, flooded into crude irrigation ca.n.a.ls dug to divert water into what had been the dry Salton Sink. The "sea" became a major bird destination, created its own ecosystem. Now it was dying, helped by the Imperial Valley's toxic runoff. I read the other day that the noxious air from a ma.s.sive fish kill drifted as far as Los Angeles.

We stopped to relieve ourselves in El Centro. No offense to the local chamber of commerce, but that seemed all it was good for, even though the town now had a Starbucks. The air was hot and hazy and smelled of agricultural chemicals.

Ahead were Plaster City and the startling escarpment of the Laguna Mountains. San Diego had one of the finest natural harbors in the world, but the railroads couldn't easily get there in the nineteenth century because of that mountain range. Instead, they went to Los Angeles and that was that. We pa.s.sed over one track at Plaster City and it reminded me of the railroad that was finally built to San Diego from the east. If memory served, the sugar baron John Spreckles underwrote it, and the San Diego and Arizona line was one of the most ambitious engineering accomplishments of its day. But it never made money and the land it traversed was so harsh, including a perilous crawl through Carrizo Gorge, that maintaining the railroad was prohibitive.

The wall of mountains and its forbidding canyons beyond did not intimidate Dwight Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System. So I-8 was built in the mid-1960s and San Diego finally had its connection to the east. Every year it brought more Phoenicians to the coast in search of relief from the summer heat.

None of this would have interested Peralta.

We started the serious grind uphill and then we were climbing through terrain strewn with giant boulders, the marble game of the G.o.ds. Behind us, the Imperial Valley spread below like a dry seabed. The Interstate twisted and curved, an unwelcome intruder. The sun was on his side, glinting off his thick hair and bringing out the aristocratic profile. I knew this highway well, but the majestic land never ceased its ability to move me.

"So we're going to San Diego," I said. "Do we know if anything this guy told us is correct? He lied about who he was. How do we know this Grace Hunter even existed or killed herself?"

"We don't. We'll find out."

Robert Caro writes about how Lyndon Johnson was a reader of men. n.o.body could read Peralta, not even LBJ, and certainly not me. Only occasionally did a "word" reveal itself to a careful observer of his professional mask. As I studied him, I could see an unusual determination in the set of his thick jaw. To be sure, "determination" with Peralta was like saying "deep" about the Grand Canyon. It was always there and spectacular to behold, much less try to hinder. Now, however, the canyon of his tenacity was unusually on display. But I saw something else, too, another word. Concern.

I said, "What if we're being set up?"

"Then it's better to take the initiative."

"What if we're being set up by going to San Diego?"

"I told you, you're not going to see Patty."

When I lapsed into silence and he realized his effort to p.i.s.s me off had failed, he spoke again.

"Whoever did this would expect us to give a full report to the police and lay low in Phoenix. That would be logical. So we'll do what they don't expect. All you have to do is your history thing."

This was what he used to say when he would barge into my office in the old Court House. It became a longstanding joke. But I blew. "What history?!" It was amazing how his luxurious cab absorbed the sound of my tantrum. "The dead man in front of our office didn't have any history! This isn't a historical case."

As usual, my outburst failed to move him. In as soft a voice as he could manage, "Mapstone, everybody has a history. You need to find it. 'The only new thing in the world is the history you don't know.' Saint Paul said that."