Concrete Desert (David Mapstone Mystery 1)

“I don’t mean to go on like a lonely old woman. I just haven’t talked to a soul for days, except the police. And I know you are the police, but you’re also someone I know.”

“I thought you never liked me.”

She spread her hands. “Oh, those were hard times. I know Julie used to bring you over to dinner to keep the peace, knowing with an outsider we’d all behave ourselves.” She smiled just a little. “I knew. But you were the only boy Julie ever brought home who seemed to have some substance to him

. A little intimidating perhaps, but smart as a whip.”

I mumbled some thanks.

“I always loved to read, you know. That’s where I found Phaedra’s name. I always loved that name. I tried to instill that love of learning in my girls.” She looked me over for the first time. “You’re how old, David?”

“I’m forty.”

“I remember that time so well,” she said. “Everything will change for you now. I don’t mean you’ll buy a sports car and run off with a blonde. But over the next few years, things will change. I don’t know if it will be for the better. But maybe you can lose some of that anger and pain that’s inside you.”

I started to say something, but she smiled again. “Once upon a time, I thought you might be my son-in-law. I didn’t know what the hell we’d talk about, but I knew you and Julie would make smart children. It’s so funny the way life turns out.”

Outside, I thought of Avis Riding’s words: “It’s so funny the way life turns out.” I leaned against the side of the Blazer and cut and lighted one of Peralta’s cigars. So funny. I remembered the rages Julie would have about her father. I remembered the way she would cling to me in the night, when sleep took away her hatred and left her with nothing but fear. I am forty years old, I mused, and I honestly can’t say how I got to this point. My peers now have teenage children and careers and settled marriages and graying hair and maybe, maybe a sense of place, a truce with the dreams we have to give up, most of us anyway. I’m just me, here. The way things turn out. Funny.

As I drew the tobacco across my palate and felt sorry for myself, a cruiser slowly crept down the street and stopped by me. The shift snapped into park. The window came down. “You have business on this block, sir?” the deputy asked, her hand obviously down at her holster.

I handed her the wallet with my star and ID.

“Sorry,” she said. “Mapstone.” Then she lowered her sunglasses a bit and smiled-a nice smile. “Hey, you’re the history guy.”

Yeah, I’m the history guy.

Chapter Thirty-one

I reached Sedona a little after 3:00 P.M., and was able to throttle back the air-conditioning, being more than three thousand feet above the desert floor that holds Phoenix. Every few miles were signs warning about the high fire danger-the biggest reminder being the plume of smoke on the northwest edge of the Verde Valley, which the radio said was part of the wildfires that had consumed a million acres of forests in the West this summer. A million acres of fire. A million dollars in the trunk of Phaedra’s car.

I had lunch at a Mexican place on the Tlaquepaque, the town square near Oak Creek. I fortified myself with two Negra Modelos, a beer that tastes incredibly sublime when consumed with a plate of enchiladas in a dark, cool, adobe-protected space. Then I walked over to the Coconino County Sheriff’s Substation and asked for Deputy Allison Taylor. She was about my age, with light brown hair the style and texture of Lauren Hutton’s and a very large Magnum on her hip.

“David Mapstone of the MCSO,” she said, extending a tanned, slender hand. “I’m impressed.”

“Oh, no.”

“You’ve made it respectable to be a deputy sheriff and be intelligent.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“I studied premed at Wake Forest,” she said, leading me back to a squad room cluttered with desks, paperwork, and a large, ancient fax machine. “Then I made my first trip west and decided I didn’t want to be a doctor after all.”

“Life plays those funny tricks on us,” I said.

“And I take it you don’t want to teach college anymore?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I love writing and teaching. I just can’t get a job.”

“Marry a millionaire, that’s my advice.”

“Tried it. Didn’t work.”

She made an exaggerated O with her mouth. I liked her.

“So you want the Townsend case,” she said, fishing in a file cabinet.

“We think it might be tied to another homicide down in the Valley.”