Concrete Desert (David Mapstone Mystery 1)

“I went to Brown, but I never much took to the classroom thing,” he said. I didn’t respond. “So you’re a history professor? I trust you have left behind the prison of linear narrative and the Western conceit that there is such a thing as truth?”

Jesus, I thought, is this how he picked up Phaedra? “I think historical questions have historical answers,” I said. “The conceit that everything is relative has led to most of the mass murder of this century.”

“Mmm,” he said. “How did you ever get tenure?”

He extended his arm and we walked.

“Phaedra loved it up here,” he was saying as he led me around the place, from one spectacular view of the canyon below to another. “She was a restless soul. You could see that aura about her. Amazingly creative. Anyway, somehow this place calmed her a bit.”

“When was the last time you talked to her, Mr. Townsend?” I asked. We settled onto a large futon in the main room; it faced a wall of glass and another fabulous view. Around us were photos of Townsend climbing, cycling, and skydiving with various young women. I didn’t immediately see a photo of Phaedra.

“I told you on the phone, it was April, when she moved out.”

“You two had a fight? That was why she moved out?”

His blue eyes flashed for just a moment, and his face became red. “You know,” he said, “I didn’t want to invite you up here, and now you’re asking things that are really not any of your business.”

I thought about playing a tough guy, but I just let it sit for a minute. I could hear a siren down in the canyon.

“You didn’t know Phaedra,” Townsend said. “The negativity just grew in her. She was very difficult, very tumultuous. Of course, she was very bright and talented. They all go together. Such a tortured soul.

“Yes, we fought before she left. But that didn’t seem unusual, because we fought a lot. That was just Phaedra. But the next morning, she was just gone. She never gave me an explanation.”

“Why do you think she left?”

He shrugged. “Maybe she was ready for a change. She lived a very episodic life, Deputy Mapstone. She would go through phases in her clothes: hats and loose skirts one month, tight Armani cocktail dresses the next. People came and went, too, men especially. She never had trouble turning the page.”

“What did her state of mind seem to be?”

“Moody. Sometimes she seemed happy, but lonely, too.”

“And other times?”

“She never reached a oneness with herself. That wonderful state of being I tried to teach her. Why should I know why?” He sounded whiny, like he must have sounded in fifth grade.

“Oh, just because you lived with her,” I said dryly.

“Yeah,” he said, staring past me out the window. “There were times she sounded really down. She could have the blackest moods. And that sister…”

“Julie.”

He looked at me strangely and said, “Very bad news.”

“Did you ever have any sense she might be in trouble?”

He shook his head. We watched as a hawk hunted in a lonely arc down the canyon.

I asked him about how he’d met Phaedra.

“The personals, Deputy Mapstone. Or is it Dr. Mapstone? Professor? Haven’t you tried the nineties way of meeting people?”

“I answered a couple of ads in San Diego a few years ago. I can’t say I met anybody like Phaedra, at least if her photos don’t lie.”

“Oh my God, she looked much better in person,” Townsend said. “She was the kind of woman who, when you saw her walk past or in an elevator, could make your whole day if she gave you a smile.

“I’ve known a woman or two like that,” I said.

“I’ve never seen anyone who was vibrating as high as Phaedra. She was channeling unbelievable things…” He stopped and looked at me. “But I guess you don’t believe in such things, do you, Professor Mapstone?”