Concrete Desert (David Mapstone Mystery 1)

***

The Pointe at Tapatio Cliffs is a resort hotel perched in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve in the north part of the city. I walked past the spotless tennis courts, deserted in the midday heat, and made my way into the main restaurant and the blessed air-conditioning. I was wearing my best suit, navy blue with a thin pinstripe, and a Frank Sinatra tie that had been Patty’s last Christmas gift to me. I looked good, but this wasn’t the weather for suits. I sat for twenty minutes in the dim coolness near the hostess’s stand before Brent McConnico strode briskly in, spotted me, and held out his hand.

“You’re taller than you seemed on TV,” he said.

He had a firm grip, and his light blue eyes gazed at me with an easy directness. “Well, anybody would look smaller compared to Mike Peralta,” I said.

“Yes, dear Mike,” he said. “He’ll probably be governor someday.”

McConnico was shorter than I, maybe a little under six feet. But he

obviously worked out, his body neatly turned out in a gray sack suit. He had politician’s hair, perfectly blow-dried. Light brown, it fell just over his ears. He turned me toward the restaurant, where the breathtakingly beautiful blond hostess greeted him by name and breezily led us to “his usual” table. He ordered a club soda. I ordered a Bombay Sapphire martini. Before us, as promised, was a stunning view of the city, looking toward downtown and the South Mountains.

“When our families first came to the Valley, all this was farmland, David,” he said. “It just amazes me every day how much it’s changed. How much it’s changed even from when I was a boy.”

I agreed with him. He’d obviously done a little homework to say that “our families” had been among the pioneers. It’s natural in Phoenix to assume that everyone is from somewhere else. The joke says if you’re here for five years, you’re a native.

“But I know you can tell me much more history than I can tell you.” He smiled. “You went to ASU?”

“I think one semester I had more parking tickets than any student in school history.”

He laughed out loud. “Well, it’s a fine school. I wanted to go there, but my mother insisted that I go back east. Yale. Then Harvard Law. I hated it at first. It all seemed so phony.”

“School matters,” I said. “I wish I had gone back east.”

“It only matters so far,” Brent McConnico said. “Tell me how in the world you went from law enforcement to academia, and now I guess you’re back in police work again.”

I gave him the short version. Years of teaching had given me a good sense of how much to say before people got bored.

“I think my dad knew your family,” he said. “Your grandfather was his dentist for a while, before he retired. I remember he used to have his office just off Central, down by the Heard Museum.”

“Arizona’s a small world, even now,” I said. He hadn’t exactly put me at ease, but he didn’t seem like a total silver spoon, either. I found myself liking him.

“As I said on the phone, I wanted to thank you for what you did to help us understand what might have happened to Rebecca,” he said. “There have been a lot of questions all these years.”

“Did you know her?”

“I don’t have much memory of her,” he said. “I was about six when she disappeared. She was kind to me. What I mainly remember is how it changed things for our family. For about a year, Mother wouldn’t let me or my sisters play outside in the yard. I don’t think there was any danger, but Rebecca’s killing was…well, nothing was ever the same for us. That violence was always with us.

“As for Rebecca, I remember she liked to sit with me and help me play with my little trucks.” He smiled slightly and shook his head. “That made her seem okay to me. But I didn’t really understand what had happened when she disappeared and was murdered. We children weren’t told much. And Mother and Dad never really wanted to talk about it. They felt guilty, I think. She had come here from her family in Chicago, and Dad wanted to look out for her, help her where he could. He and his brother, my uncle James, weren’t especially close. But Dad really cared about Rebecca, I think, as if she had been his daughter rather than his niece. He got her the job at Larkin, Reading and Page.”

“The law firm, right?”

“Yes, she was Sam Larkin’s secretary.”

“The Sam Larkin who was your father’s political ally? I didn’t realize Rebecca was his secretary.”

“They called him ‘the Kingmaker,’” McConnico said. “You have studied your Arizona history.”

“He was a legend.”

“And he deserved that label.” McConnico said.

The waitress brought the drinks and we both sipped in silence. I was a little surprised that Rebecca had worked for Sam Larkin. I imagined his secretary would have been a severe middle-aged keeper of secrets, and young Rebecca a pretty face in the typing pool. But she was the niece of an important ally. I guess it made some sense.

We talked for maybe an hour, through a so-so meal of “south-western cuisine.” He seemed genuinely curious about how I had put together the threads, missed clues, and hunches involving Rebecca’s case. So I gave him the whole drill, from the first trip up to the attic of the old courthouse to my computer work with Lindsey. At the end, his cell phone rang and he had a terse conversation, called for the check, and pulled out his gold card.

“You know, crime is a terrible thing today,” McConnico said, setting down his napkin. “What I hear most from my constituents is that they don’t feel safe. When we were kids, the only real crime to speak of was the Mafia down in Tucson. Today, we can’t keep track of the gangs-Crips, Bloods, that little bastard Bobby Hamid.” His voice was suddenly taut with emotion. “When Rebecca was killed, it was a crime that seemed virtually without precedence in Phoenix. Today, it wouldn’t even warrant mention on the evening news. Look at how those killings out in the Harquahala Desert seem almost routine now.” He shook his head. “My God.”