Arizona Dreams (2 page)

3

“I didn't know Lindsey had a sister,” Peralta said.

“Nor did I.”

“‘Nor did I.' You talk weird, Mapstone. Like some college professor. No wonder Tom Earley doesn't like you.” He didn't smile. He inclined his head to one side, as if a weight had attached itself to his ear. “Is she good looking?”

I stared at him.

“No,” I said. “Well, maybe. I don't know. Jeez, she's my sister-in-law.” The words still sounded strange. The lost sister that I'd never heard of. Robin and Lindsey. Our encounter lasted all of five minutes. No sisterly embrace. No invitation back to our house. I had never seen Lindsey so uncomfortable, or, later that evening, so quietly withdrawn.

“What does she do for a living?” Peralta demanded.

“She says she's an art curator.”

“You mean like in a museum?”

“No,” I said. “For some rich person out in Paradise Valley. And, no, I didn't know there were jobs like that, either.”

Peralta made a dissatisfied grunt. I knew what he meant. We were sitting in my office on the fourth floor of the old county courthouse. Behind the county-issue nameplate that read
Deputy David Mapstone, Sheriff's Office Historian
. I was behind the old walnut desk. But he had his feet on it, propped from the straight-back chair in front, in a proprietary way. My desktop was hosting highly polished black cowboy boots, attached to a big man in a dark suit. He still had a full head of hair, and it was as lustrously black as the first day I met him, so many years before. He was one of those men who grew handsome as they aged, and his face was distinguished with strong cheekbones, a powerful jaw and large black eyes that could intimidate with a half-second glance.

He went on. “So did you meet her before or after the murder?”

I told him the timetable.

“Ice pick, huh,” he said, his fingers entwining across his big chest. “I bet it was a fruit salad thing.”

“Fruit salad?”

“Sure,” he said, making an obscene gesture. “Lover's spat that got out of hand. Maybe some new sex toy experiment.”

“You are such an automatic reactionary,” I said. “I dare you to say those things to your voters. What have I said that makes you think gay?”

“Man living alone in the Willo District. A lawyer, no less. In bed. Strange device. What more do I need to say?” He glared at me smugly.

“I'm not gay, and Lindsey's not gay, and we live in Willo. It's a city neighborhood with diversity and tolerance. Unlike your mansion on the Phoenix Mountain Preserve.”

“‘Reactionary.' ‘Diversity.' You sound like my ex-wife.” His eyes refused to meet mine.

I didn't let the silence gather. “You might be interested to know that an ice pick into the brain was one of the methods used by Murder Inc. You know, the organized crime outfit back in the 1950s?”

“That's why I pay you, Mapstone. For all the history lessons.” He gave an exaggerated yawn.

“Of course, Murder Inc. took the ice pick with them. The idea was to make it look like a cerebral hemorrhage,” I said halfway to myself. “This one was done so we'd see it and pay attention. Nothing appeared to be taken. The house wasn't in disarray, no sign of a fight or struggle. The door was standing open. The alarm had not been tripped.”

“That makes my point,” the sheriff said, leaning back farther in the chair, daring gravity.

“Might be a psycho killer.”

“You watch too much TV,” he said. “Actually, you don't watch TV—that's your problem. Look, it's a gay thing, and you know it.” His eyes locked onto mine. “Now, don't go being a nosy neighbor or acting like a hotdog rookie. This is a city case and you have plenty to do here. How is our book coming?”

“Our” book was supposed to be about the big cases I'd worked on since coming back to Phoenix and taking the job at the Sheriff's Department. My odd personal history consisted of five years as a deputy sheriff, much of it as Peralta's partner, then 15 years as a college history professor. Back with a badge, I worked on the old unsolved cases, using a historian's techniques to budge them, if not solve them. It had turned into a little media bonanza for the sheriff. Now he wanted the most notorious cases we had solved compiled in a book. For which he, of course, would write the introduction.

“I'm getting to it…” I started.

“Getting to it?” Peralta said. He pulled down his legs and sat up straight.

“I've got other work.” I pointed to a pile of manila folders on the desktop. “You wanted me to go back and look at the 1976 Don Bolles case, remember?”

“That can wait,” he said.

“I'm supposed to start teaching at ASU this fall, a course on urban American history. I need to prepare for that. It's just one course, but it will be nice to be back on a campus again.”

“Why do I care?”

“Because you want me to be happy?” He frowned. “I didn't think so. It will be good publicity for you. And I've been contacted by a bank in Chicago—this is kind of cool. They want me to research whether one of the banks they bought in Louisiana was ever connected to slavery.”

“Quit fucking around!” he barked, his voice deepening with finality. He smoothed his thick hair back and pointed a meaty finger at me. “There's an election coming up, and don't assume the next sheriff will need a history professor.”

“You'll be sheriff until you decide to become governor,” I shot back. “And I serve at your pleasure, if such a thing is possible. If you didn't want me to stay, why did you try to talk me out of the job at Portland State?”

“You didn't get it anyway,” he said. “You don't have enough of that precious diversity you talk about.” His eyes narrowed smugly. “I was defending you the other day against the county supervisors.”

“Me, personally?”

He nodded. “They were questioning your salary. Why pay it when DNA and forensic evidence is the way other counties are clearing cases today. They also didn't like keeping your office here after the building was rehabbed.”

I watched his face for a hint that he was joking: a slight lift in his eyebrow, an extra watt in the eyes. His expression was impassive. My stomach was suddenly hurting. Our conversation had gone from idle to nasty in racecar time.

“I thought that nut Earley was just grandstanding.”

“That nut represents a lot of voters,” Peralta said, leaning forward and sketching something indecipherable on my desk.

I said, “So he wants to cut funding for public schools and Child Protective Services, then decry why we have so many young people who end up in your jail.”

“That may be true,” Peralta said, “but it doesn't seem to matter when people vote. They respond to this stuff that Earley says. He's the face of the new Republican Party, Mapstone, and you'd better believe they want to knock me off in the primary. And I mean as sheriff. Forget about governor.”

“That's ridiculous. You're an institution. A legend.”

He grunted and shook his head. “Times change, and in their eyes I'm just somebody with brown skin.” I looked at him. Peralta was incapable of irony.

“This town runs on two engines,” he said, “conservative politics and real estate. And Tom Earley is big in both. He made a fortune developing shopping centers. He's incredibly connected. He's ambitious as hell…”

“So what do you want me to do?” I asked, my voice rising. “Give him a campaign contribution? Resign?”

“If you lose your job, you can sell that house,” he said. “Have you seen the price appreciation for those old houses? I don't get it. But, hell, you could sell it, buy a bunch of rental houses, leverage the hell out of your equity…”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said.

He sniffed and cleared his throat. “The main reason I tried to talk you out of going to Portland was your wife. I couldn't lose Lindsey. She's my star. She's one of the top computer crime experts in the country now, Mapstone. She works with the feds as often as she works for me. She means a half-million-dollar grant from the feds to the Sheriff's Office. I'd have had to make her divorce you if you went to Oregon…” He sat back and drummed his big fingers on his belly. “Do you get my point? These guys like Earley are gunning for me and for you. So if you want to keep playing cop and playing historian, you'd better…”

“I'll write the goddamned book,” I snarled. “So you can run for governor.”

He was about to say something when a knock came at the office door.

“Dr. Mapstone?” The voice went to a woman, who leaned her head around the door. I beckoned her in. Peralta stood and strode out with the grace that only certain big men can manage.

4

“Was that Mike Peralta, the sheriff?” the woman asked.

“No,” I said. “It was Mike Peralta, the asshole. They're often mistaken for one another.”

She looked at me wide-eyed, and then filled the room with laughter. A nice laugh.

“You haven't changed a bit.” She shook her head fondly and sat in one of the straight-backed chairs. “You're also just as tall, dark, and handsome as I remember.”

Pleasant-looking, you'd call her. In glasses, with tortoise-shell rims. Maybe around thirty-five, with strawberry-blond hair, parted on one side and falling to her shoulders. Dressed in a copper-colored sweater and navy skirt. The sweater made her pinkish skin seem more flushed. It was a pleasantly forgettable face. You'd have to spend a lot of time with that face to find it remarkable. I had no idea who she was.

“Miss…?”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” She stood hastily and thrust her hand across the desk. I shook it. “There's no reason you should know me. I was one of your students, Dana Underwood. I was Dana Watkins, then. At Miami. I guess I look different now.” She smiled. Smiling, it was a better face.

I smiled back and invited her to sit down. As an itinerant history professor I had taught at Miami University in Ohio, the University of Denver, and finally San Diego State. At Miami, I was not much older than my students and teaching the kind of survey courses where the class size is not as large as the crowd at a Suns game. I must have made quite an impression for her to look me up.

“This is a beautiful old building,” she said. “I didn't even know Phoenix had any old buildings.”

I told her it was built in 1929.

“My gosh,” she said. “They didn't even have electricity then, right?”

I couldn't tell if she was joking or not. You never knew these days. So I just smiled. If she had been one of my students, she hadn't had much aptitude for history. In a moment, she started talking again.

“My husband was transferred out here with Motorola a few years ago. He was laid off, but that's a different subject. Anyway, I started seeing your name in the papers, as the history expert who worked as a deputy. I always thought there's no history here, it's so new. But when I'd see your name, I'd say, ‘I was in that guy's class.'”

“Thanks for remembering,” I said. I wasn't a good listener just then. I was stuck back in Peralta World, thinking of what I should have said to him.

She said, “You were a wonderful teacher, Dr. Mapstone.”

“How about David.”

“David,” she said, and folded her hands neatly in her lap. Her eyes were watery, making her seem on the verge of tears even when she smiled. Her eyes made a track of my office. It was not much different from when it opened in 1929, with sumptuous dark wood paneling, deco light globes, and tall multi-paned windows with curved tops. I had scavenged the furniture from county storage, and added too many books.

“I can't believe how much time has passed. I see you're married now.” She pointed to my wedding band. “Do you have kids?” I said I didn't. “I have two, can you believe it? Madison is seventeen and a senior, and Noah is a junior. They're great kids. I never thought I'd be a soccer mom.”

“Good for you,” I said.

She cleared her throat, and started again. “I came here today because I need help.” I didn't recognize her, but I recognized her voice. Even serious, it had a lilt, as if you could turn butterscotch into sound. Where did that voice fit in my past?

I thought about what Peralta had said. It wasn't like I had time to be helping former students. But I said I'd do anything I could. David Mapstone, always happy to help the taxpayers of Maricopa County and avoid sitting down to write.

Dana Underwood pulled an envelope from her purse and set it carefully on my desk. It looked unremarkable, a white No. 10 envelope. I half wondered if she was here to contest an old grade with me.

“Now, David, it takes me awhile to get to the point. This drives my husband crazy, but it's just the way I am.” Her hand brushed back her hair, tucked it behind a small pale ear. One reddish strand still fell against her glasses. “You see, my father died last year. Cancer.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Thank you, but after he died it was up to me to go through his things. He was a pack rat, and mother was in no condition…this is all back in Rocky River. I can't say I was close to my dad. I didn't really know him. He was a self-made man. He'd started out working the ore boats out of Cleveland. And he saved enough to buy some old rental houses and fix them up. That's how he got his start. He never even graduated from high school. But he did really well in real estate, which is how he could pay to send his children to places like Miami. He even bought land out here. It's still in the family.”

I put a finger on the envelope. “Is this about your father?”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I warned you. Yes. It's a letter. To me. He wrote it, and left it in the drawer by his bed. As you can see, it says, ‘to be opened after my death.' When I found it, I was a little afraid.” She paused and looked around the office again. “I mean, what was it going to say? You know, you get older and see something of life, and you realize that your parents…nobody's parents are saints. So I let it sit for a few days. But then one day I read it.”

She reached for the envelope, lifted it toward her, then seemed to think better of it and set it back on the desk.

“David, I think he killed a man. I think, I fear, my father killed a man.”

“And you didn't know about this?”

She shook her head. “If he did, he got away with it, David.”

I let out a breath, too loudly. “He confesses this in the letter?”

“That's all the letter is about,” she said. “It's very matter of fact. I would rather have learned that he had a mistress or that I had been adopted…”

“Why would he write it down?”

Her hair had come loose again. She swept it back and said, “I think he finally wanted me to know. After he'd been diagnosed, and knew he didn't have long. He knew I'd take charge, and I'd find it. But the crime—if it happened—was in 1966.”

“Was your father the kind of man who would kill somebody?”

“I thought he was when he found my boyfriend in bed with me when I was seventeen,” she said. “And I mean that. He had a bad temper. And he'd had to have been tough to make it in Cleveland. But, no, nothing like that.”

“Who was this man he killed?”

“It doesn't say. Now, don't dismiss me. I know what you're thinking. He only refers to him as ‘Z.' He writes that he felt he had no choice, but nobody would have believed him. But there's so little to it—just a few sentences. No sense of really why this happened, what drove him to do it. There are so many questions.”

“Dana,” I said, “I'm sorry to hear this. I know it's got to be a shock, coming on top of losing your father. And I'm honored you'd look me up. But I don't really see how I can be any help.”

“This is what you do, David,” she said, her eyes bright. “Crime and history. I remember you said that every historian's dream is to discover a letter in an attic.”

“I think I probably said something like a letter from Abe Lincoln or George Washington…”

“Well, it's not that,” she said primly. “But I need to know if my father really did kill a man.”

I tried to watch her closely, but instead I felt the largeness of the room around us. My eyes drifted to the
Republic
on my desk, with headlines about continuing drought, a twenty-car pileup on Interstate 10 and a six-year-old boy found chained by his parents in a box. So much trouble in my city. I said, “Do you really want to know? Sometimes it's better not to know everything.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I have to know. Wouldn't you want to know if your father was a murderer?” She pushed the envelope at me. I didn't touch it. She said, “Anyway, that's not all. The other thing he writes is where we can find the body.”

I felt relief. “Then it's clear. If you really fear that this is possible, you've got to go to the police back in Ohio.”

She shook her head violently, unleashing a small cascade of hair. “No, David. I came to the right police. The man is buried right here in Arizona.”