Concrete Desert (David Mapstone Mystery 1)

We had moved over to the sofa, where the pictures were spread between us. I used Kleenex and scotch to nurse Julie through the tears; then I put a Charlie Parker CD on low and we got to work. I knew she was mind-fucking me, but, hell, I was lonely and it was nice to be needed, if only for the moment and on unreliable terms.

The photos showed a young woman, pretty in a fair, red-haired way that stood out in Phoenix, with its battalions of tanned hotties. Her finely boned face had an intensely direct stare. Her smile had that ironic, mocking quality that reminded me of Julie long ago. And that hair: the natural shade of flame titian. Phaedra was beautiful in a way that would have been dangerous to me, but I was always a sucker for redheads.

Julie blew her nose and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights. “You’re sure this is okay?”

“It was never a problem,” I said, and she lighted it. “If I were more politically correct, I’d have tenure.” I poured two more glasses of McClelland’s and asked her to walk me through the past year of Phaedra’s life.

“She’d been living with a man in Sedona. His name is Greg Townsend. Twenty years older. His father made a fortune in real estate. Very well-off.”

“Takes after her older sister?” I have such a mouth.

Julie smiled unhappily. “Anyway, they’d been living together for about three months.”

“They met how?”

“Oh, who knows,” Julie said. “She just told me she was in love, and that she was moving to Sedona.”

“How did he treat her?”

“Oh, he took her to London, Paris. Mexico every other weekend, seemed like. He had his own airplane. Bought her clothes, Indian art, whatever she wanted, I guess. But who knows what he was really like. Some real bastards can spend lots of money on you.”

“You two talked?”

“She’d call.”

“Did she seem happy?”

“It was always hard to tell with Phaedra. At first, yes.”

“Did he abuse her? Hurt her physically? Make threats?”

“No,” Julie said, leaning forward, seeming to search for the words. “She never mentioned anything like that, although she had been in a relationship like that a few years ago. Greg was-I don’t know, he seemed like a flake to me. New Age. One of these going-to-extremes athletes. Lots of money. But nothing real underneath.”

“Well, you know what they say, ‘No money, no life.’ How’d it end?”

“Let me put it this way, David. Phaedra was always good at making her escape. I think she looked at Mom and Dad together, looked at all my disasters in love-God, what a bunch of role models! — and she decided she was never going to be trapped. Never going to be dependent on a man. She walked. Her relationships always had a short half-life. Greg was no different. Phaedra called me one Sunday and said she was back in Phoenix, asked if she could stay with me a few days.”

“That was when?”

“In the spring. April, I guess.”

Julie said her sister got a job as an assistant to a photographer who had done some work for the Phoenician. I jotted the photographer’s name below Greg Townsend’s on the envelope. Phaedra started seeing a therapist and attending family gatherings again. She found a one-bedroom apartment in Scottsdale. She and Julie talked on the phone almost every night.

“Did she meet anybody else?”

“Nobody serious,” Julie said.

“Flirtations? One-night stands?”

Julie shrugged like an older sister. “She was fairly burned out on relationships. She felt very suffocated by Greg.”

“And nothing struck you as strange in the days or weeks before her disappearance? Nobody new in her life? Nothing about her personality that changed? No sense she felt in danger?”

“No. She seemed to be very healthy about it all. Which was new for Phaedra, because when she’d break up with a lover, she would usually just fall apart for a while. I was very distracted, though. My ex and I were in court. Visitation, custody, all that. Work was a nightmare.”

We talked maybe another half hour. Then I walked her out to her car, just like the other night.

The sun was gone, and the street was deserted except for a few parked cars. I could hear a set of sirens over on Seventh Avenue, running north from downtown.