Desert Shadows (9781615952250) (17 page)

“It was rough on Zach, not having someone to lean on. I think that's why he and Megan are so into the rescue work with those abandoned animals. They both can relate to the poor things. But Mother. I've not done her justice, I'm afraid. Maybe she wasn't maternal, but she was no monster. She made certain Zach's needs were taken care of, but other than that.…She wasn't too negligent unless she was caught up in one of her obsessions. Then she'd forget the poor little guy was even alive. When she was on the trail of whatever she'd fixated on, nothing else in the world mattered, not even her own grandchild. At least Zach had Rosa.”

Gloriana's Fevers, shoving away the pain, but creating misery for everyone else in an ongoing cycle. “When you say obsessions, are you talking about the Barbie dolls or the Hacienda?”

“Either. Both. It wasn't only things, though. Sure, she'd take off on month-long buying trips without warning, leaving me, and then Zach in his time, to whatever maid was around. One year she became fixated on baseball. Baseball! Can you believe it? She decided that, given our Plymouth Brethren origins, she should root for the Red Sox, so she'd fly all over the country to watch them play.”

“She never took you along?”

“No, and I hate baseball to this day because it took her away from me.” She sounded fragile, and I could see her as a lonely child with only maids to talk to.

I remembered the handsome man in the photographs, Sappho's father, and decided to double-check something. “I heard your father died at the Phoenix Open.”

Her answer was odd. “Technically, yes.”

My radar blipped. “What do you mean, technically?”

“He'd been feeling pretty ill earlier in the day and thought about staying home, but Mother told him to go ahead.” Sappho's voice held that note of caution every detective learns to recognize.

“Why, if he was sick?”

She flicked a look at the set and saw the camera people still fussing with the equipment. Then she sighed. “She and my father had been arguing for a week, and I think she simply wanted to get him out of the house.”

“What were they arguing about?” A private detective is nothing if not nosy.

“A woman. Satisfied? He'd been having yet another affair.”

“You knew this for sure?” I had a vision of a little child cringing against her bedroom door, hearing her parents brawl over sex. Then she straightened me out.

“Oh, everyone knew. The woman, like a couple of his others, was one of the cocktail waitresses at the country club.”

“You hung out at a country club?” It was hard to envision Sappho with the Ladies Who Lunch.

A strange smile. “We had a family membership, of course. But that's not how I found out. The woman told me herself. She was my lover, too.”

I took a slug of my Diet Coke. It didn't help.

“Daddy died in happy ignorance, sipping on his fifth bourbon with Arnie Palmer. Mother began collecting the dolls right after that. Lord, Mother owned at least three of each Barbie ever manufactured, literally thousands of the creepy things.”

She gave a theatrical shudder. “All those beady eyes blinking and blinking at you. Like female versions of Chuckie, the Killer Doll. They gave me nightmares when I was a kid. But those Barbies are probably worth a small fortune today, so who am I to criticize Mother? Anyway, after the Barbie era, she started on pewter, then antique books. She has…had…a library full of first editions, many of them signed. Zach got those. And somewhere along the line came her film noir posters, which she left to me because she knew I loved them, too. And lately, of course, there was all the Jeffersoniana. Lord, Mother was into anything and everything to do with Thomas Jefferson. She bought paintings of him, books about him, she even bought a chamber pot he supposedly used. You know, ‘Thomas Jefferson shat here.'”

I remembered the pretty object I'd mistakenly identified as a soup tureen. Well, live and learn. “Zach told me Gloriana believed you Alden-Taylors are related to him.”

Her smile seemed forced. “That was Mother all over for you. Before an obsession could run its course, she would always take it to the most ridiculous level. Something she heard along the way, heaven knows what, made her decide that Jefferson was one of our ancestors, so a couple of months ago she sent one of her lackeys up here to swab out my mouth. I don't know why testing her own DNA wasn't enough.”

But I did. The compulsive Gloriana wanted everyone in the family tested as a matter of course. I was about to say so when the brunette actress I'd noticed earlier approached Sappho and laid her petite hand on the film-maker's arm.

“Darling, I hate to spoil your little trip down Memory Lane with this lovely blonde, but we need to get my scene in the can before we lose the light.”

Sappho covered the tiny hand with her own and looked up at her. This time the smile was genuine. “Thanks, Lainie.” Then to me she said, “Here I am telling horror stories about my obsessive Mommie Dearest, and I'm such an obsessive talker that I damn near blew the shoot! Now, if you'll excuse me I have to get back to work.”

We both stood up and said our goodbyes. As I walked toward my Jeep, Sappho called out, “Have you talked to my aunts yet?”

I nodded.

Her laugh was harsh. “Then I'm sure you noticed that they have their own obsession. Plastic.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

She was still laughing when I drove away. But underneath the laughter I detected a well of sadness. For all her Hollywood sophistication, Sappho remained a lonely little girl who needed her mother.

Chapter 17

I have a memory…

A memory of green.

I am walking across green with a woman, her filmy blue skirt rippling in the breeze. She is laughing. Now and then she stoops to toss a ball to a small yellow dog, its fur almost the same color as the woman's hair. We are in a pasture. There are cows in the distance, some horses. Framing them, tall glossy-leafed trees with big white blossoms.

A male voice calls. “Helen! It's time!”

My mother turns, calls back something I don't understand. Then she calls to the dog, picks me up, and we all return the way we came, the grass still bent under our footsteps.

The dog barks, begs her to throw the ball again.

My father waits for us, smiling, his eyes almost the same color as the grass.

Chapter 18

I pulled into the parking lot at Desert Investigations in time to lead the drywall guy up the stairs to my apartment. He turned out to be another of Jimmy's cousins, and like Jimmy, he was almost unflappable. He expressed no curiosity about the bullet holes, simply set to work.

“It'll take a couple of days to fix this,” he said. “And it's going to be noisy, so at least while I'm working, you might want to be somewhere else.”

A good idea. I decided to pay a visit to Emil Ramos, and then David Zhang, whose Scottsdale Air Park offices weren't far from each other. First I stopped by Patriot's Blood to see if the copier had been fixed. I still needed to read the remaining pages of Gloriana's memoirs. The door to the office was locked, but when I tapped on it, Poor Sandra peeped out.

“We're closed until Monday, Ms. Jones.” She looked more harassed than usual. “The toilet's not functioning and the copier's still down, so Zach gave everyone the day off. I'm not even supposed to be here, but I figured I'd sneak in and get some extra work done in all the peace and quiet.”

She turned down my request to read Gloriana's memoirs on site.

“Sorry. I really can't let you in. Like I said, I'm not supposed to be here myself. Even Casey stayed at the Hacienda with Zach.”

It took me a moment to remember that Casey was the office dog. I told her I'd be back Monday.

After stopping by Phylos &Phalafels for a late lunch, I drove to Scottsdale Air Park, where a small publishing center had grown up around Spanish tile showrooms, real estate offices, and cryogenics labs. Somewhere in one of these warehouses, Walt Disney reportedly dangled upside down in a liquid nitrogen solution and Ted Williams' frozen head stared blindly at a blank wall.

David Zhang was half-buried behind a stack of paper when I walked through the door of Arizona Trails Publishing. He gave me a blank look which only slowly slid into one of recognition. His act was good, but not good enough.

“Ms. Jones, what a delight to see you again,” he said, pushing the manuscripts aside. “I've been so inundated with mule's ear, yarrow, and bladder campion that I hardly recognize myself anymore, let alone anyone else.”

“Bladder campion?”

He gave me a slick smile and pointed to one of the manuscripts. “Native Arizona plants. I'm thinking about buying this manuscript. It's the diary of a Viet Nam vet who lived alone in a one-room cabin in the mountains for twenty years. Trapped and shot everything he needed, didn't talk to one human soul for all that time.”

I settled myself into a chair. I felt almost at home in his office because it had no more personality than my own. Everything was beige and fake. Whatever Zhang was spending his money on, it wasn't office furniture. “What happened to the guy?” I asked. “He finally started pining for civilization?”

“Not exactly. Some hikers found his body when they broke into the cabin to take refuge from a sudden snowstorm. He was mummified by that time. They were trapped up there for almost a week, and after hauling his corpse to the woodshed, they read his chicken scratchings to keep themselves from going crazy. When the weather cleared, they hiked back out with the manuscript and reported the death to the authorities. Turns out the guy had a wife and a grown daughter he hadn't seen in years, so after probate cleared, the manuscript reverted to his widow. One of the hikers was familiar with Arizona Trails' books—he happened to be carrying
Guide to Arizona's High Country
in his backpack at the time. Anyway, he suggested she send it to us. The manuscript is pretty good, considering.”

“Considering?”

“The poor guy thought he could communicate with bears. He'd talk to them, they'd talk back, that sort of thing. I have an appointment with the widow tomorrow so we can figure out what to do. Leave the bear conversations in or edit them out? I need to determine the direction I want the book to take. It could be either an Arizona version of Dr. Doolittle or the standard how-to-survive-in-the-wilderness book.”

That didn't make sense to me. “Why can't it be both?”

He shook his head. “Every book needs a focus. No book can be all things to all people.”

Myself, I'd like to read what the bears had to say, but publishing was Zhang's business, not mine. After a little more chat about mountain men and bears, I brought the subject back to Gloriana. “Where were you immediately before dinner that evening?”

“At a seminar. That's where we all were, even Gloriana.”

“Hmm.” I looked at his hands. They were playing the piano on the bare desk. “You know, Mr. Zhang, we ran a background check on you.”

The piano playing intensified. “My record's clean.”

“I know. What I don't know is where you got all your money after you went broke.”

The temper I'd noticed at WestWorld flared. “That's none of your damned business!” With a great effort, he brought himself under control. Even his hands stopped moving. “Sorry about that. My financial problems and their eventual solution had nothing to do with Gloriana Alden-Taylor. I'd tell you if they did.”

Somehow I doubted that, but I let it slide.

“I made some good investments,” he finally offered. “And then got out before the market tanked.”

I was about to ask him something else, when he snapped his fingers. “Hey, I remember something. The only thing is, I don't know if it's relevant. And besides, it probably didn't have anything to do with the murder.”

I told him everything was relevant in a murder investigation.

“If you say so.” He took a deep breath, and began. “There was this guy Brookings, he was an editor for Patriot's Blood. A pretty good writer himself, I hear, but she hired him to make major repairs on maybe half the books on the list. The guy's full name was John Alden Brookings, and he told Gloriana he was a direct descendant of
the
John Alden, you know, the Mayflower wimp. Only it turned out Brookings made up the Mayflower stuff simply to get the job. His ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower any more than mine flew here on the Space Shuttle. So Gloriana fired him.”

The information sounded promising. “How long ago did it happen?”

“Couple of years, I think.”

Less promising. If Brookings had wanted to kill Gloriana, he'd probably have done so long before now. I said as much to Zhang.

Zhang didn't want to let it go. “Gloriana didn't only fire him. I'm sure you've heard what an obsessive bi…woman she was, so firing him wasn't enough for her. She wanted to completely destroy the man. She faxed his corrected resumé—there were some other exaggerations and misrepresentations on it, I believe—to every publishing house, magazine, and newspaper in the state. I received a copy myself. After that, Brookings' career was trash.”

Gloriana was lucky such behavior didn't get her sued, and I said so.

“He threatened to sue, all right, but since the information she faxed was true, nothing came of it.”

“You know where Brookings is now?”

Zhang nodded. Much too enthusiastically, I thought. “Yeah, he finally got a job, although it's only part-time. You'll find him two buildings down from here, at Verdad Press.”

“Isn't that…?”

“Yep, Emil Ramos' publishing house.”

“
Brookings
doesn't sound Spanish,” I pointed out.

“The guy's fluent. So am I, as a matter of fact. After all, this is Arizona. If you don't already know Spanish, you'd better learn.” He then rattled off a long passage which I, with my embarrassingly rudimentary Spanish, had difficulty following.

“Sostenemos como evidentes estas verdades: que todos los hombres son creados iguales; que son dotados por su Creator de ciertos derechos inalienables.…
”

The Spanish translation of the Declaration of Independence.

“Beautiful,” I said, meaning it. “Look, before I leave, maybe you can clear something up for me.”

Zhang tensed. “If I can.”

“I'm a little confused about something. Before I started working on this case, I didn't know much about publishing. Still don't, actually. But there appears to be more money in it than I'd realized. Am I wrong there?”

He relaxed. “Publishing is a multibillion-dollar business, Miss Jones. When you say ‘publishing,' people tend to think in terms of the big New York houses. But believe me when I tell you, those guys are merely the tip of a very, very big iceberg. We little guys make up a full two-thirds of the publishing industry. There are around 75,000 independent presses like mine, and last year we had sales upward of thirty billion dollars.”

My surprise must have been apparent, because Zhang grinned. “Not all of us are rich as Gloriana. Some of us prefer to bring quality material to the table, as opposed to her racist swill.” He paused, then added, “As you can see, I don't mind speaking ill of the dead.”

***

When I reached the parking lot, my mind was swirling. Above the airport runway, private aircraft floated down from the sky, their noisy little engines churning up the polluted air. Below, a roadrunner high-tailed it across the parking lot toward the brush, a squirming gecko in its beak. Casually dressed workers strolled back and forth between upscale sedans, chatting about blended funds, trunk modifiers, and human popsicles.

I finally figured out what was bothering me. The minute I'd begun pressing Zhang for his own movements the evening of Gloriana's murder, he'd drawn my attention away from himself by offering up Brookings. Coincidence? Or cleverness?

Before heading over to Verdad Press, I pulled my cell phone out of my carry-all and dialed Myra Gordon's number again. Still no answer. This time I didn't bother leaving a message.

I followed Zhang's directions and, after winding my way through the business complex, found Verdad situated in a stucco-sided building designed to look like a pueblo from the front, a generic warehouse at the rear. When I opened the door, an old-fashioned bell dinged my arrival, followed quickly by the tippy-tap of high heels.

“May I help you?” asked a pretty Hispanic woman who bore a faint resemblance to Emil Ramos. His daughter?

I asked to see Ramos and handed her my card. She frowned at it, then disappeared into the back, leaving me to study the hand-carved Mexican credenzas and bookcases. Just as I started to pluck a book from a shelf, Ramos emerged from the hallway, his hand stretched toward mine. “Miss Jones, how nice to see you again.”

I shook his hand, wondering where all this pleasantry came from, private detectives not usually being known for bringing joy into peoples' lives.

“I'm fine, Mr. Ramos, but I need to ask you some more questions.”

“Come, we will be more comfortable in the conference room.”

After a final hand squeeze, he led me into a long, narrow room where the Mexican design motif continued. Yaqui masks, from the humorous to the horrifying, hung on the walls, which were lined with even more glass-fronted bookcases filled with Verdad publications.

“How many books have you printed?” I asked, as we sank into two deeply cushioned chairs on opposite sides of a long refectory table.

“You probably mean
titles
, not actual copies of books. We're up to almost two hundred titles now. Adult books, young readers, even a few graphic novels, which are the new big thing. There remain few areas of publication these days that do not interest us if they appear appropriate for the lucrative bilingual market. The rewards there, as we have discovered, have been quite satisfying. So has the respect our titles have been accorded. Verdad publications have been placed in schools and libraries nationwide. Native Spanish readers enjoy them because of the content, but increasingly they have become popular with Anglos who are learning Spanish as a second language. We've even begun our own book club, the Adult Easy Readers.”

“Adult? You mean…?”

“No, Miss Jones, I do not mean ‘adult' as in
Hustler
magazine. I mean ‘adult' as in grown-up, which few
Hustler
readers are, in my opinion. Our Adult Easy Reader Club provides books of mature content for adults whose Spanish reading skills are still in the rudimentary stage. Before we came along, these people had to read children's stories, which both bored and humiliated them. With our publications, they can read creative fiction and non-fiction with sophisticated content. Yet the language usage is uncomplicated enough for readers relatively unskilled in the language. Here, let me demonstrate.”

He opened one of the bookcases, took out a brightly colored book, and slid it across the table to me.
Las Mysteria de las Madonna Muerta: The Mystery of the Dead Madonna.
The novel was set in the Guadalupe section of Phoenix and featured a Hispanic police detective named Consuela Lopez. The first half of the book was in Spanish, the back half, English.

“The author was born and raised in Guadalupe,” Ramos said. “She still lives there and teaches English as a second language at the community center. We've already printed four books in that series. Our readers can't get enough.”

The cover photograph showed a woman who looked suspiciously like Ramos' daughter, crouched behind an ancient statue of the Madonna. She held a cocked .38 in her hand, so I immediately identified with her. I opened the book to the title page.
Many thanks to my friends at Verdad! Maria Elena Rodriguez. Muchas gracias mis compadres.

Handing the book back, I said, “It must be gratifying for you to be doing so well in this market.”

“Yes, Verdad is respected, and that is gratifying. But our marketing share is small and distribution is the key to profits, so we endeavor to keep expenses low. My wife does the accounting, my eldest son takes care of the shipping. And my beautiful daughter, who will soon have her MFA from Arizona State, is one of our copy editors and a sometimes model for our covers. The rest of our employees work part-time only.”