High Country Nocturne (David Mapstone Mystery 8)

“Trouble was, he was a drunk. A mean drunk. He beat his wife, a saintly woman. And you know what I did? Nothing. Not a damned thing. I let him off once when I stopped him for DUI. The guys and me didn’t arrest him when we were called to their apartment and he was being abusive. It was the code. So I understand where you’re coming from.”

“Peralta isn’t a drunk and doesn’t beat his wife.”

He watched me attentively, gave a few sympathetic nods of the head.

“You want to have your friend’s back, Dave. I totally get it. I respect that. But Oscar, that was my brother-in-law, he never had my back. See where I’m going?”

Having been on the other side of countless interrogations, I did.

“You seem kind of nervous, Dave.”

I realized that I had unzipped my jacket, then I had rezipped it. It wasn’t much, but this was how it worked. If I seemed nervous, it was because a woman had come close to killing me forty-five minutes before, but he didn’t know that and I wasn’t saying anything about it. If I seemed nervous, it was also irritation. I was not a “Dave.” Only Lindsey got to call me that. Otherwise, I suspected my body language was neutral and he was fishing.

“Things aren’t too far out of hand yet,” Mann said. “You can help yourself. All you have to do is tell the truth. What really went down?”

I ran my fingers through my hair and picked at some imaginary lint on my jacket. I turned away and shook my right leg. Now I had his attention, although he did a good job of concealing it. Then I smiled at him.

“The Reid technique has been debunked as junk psychology, Horace. It produces false confessions. It won’t produce a confession here because I have nothing to confess. I got to our office after Peralta had left for the diamond run. It was routine. He’s been on six or seven of them since we became PIs. I didn’t know anything else until your people showed up with a search warrant.”

His hands came off the steering wheel. “You think you’re smart. Doctorate in history, all that. You’re playing it really stupid. But that’s the way you want it. I can’t help you.” He let the quiet fill in, and then, “This truck being dumped up here, that surprises you?”

I nodded.

“How do I know you didn’t drive the truck up here yourself and then slip back to Phoenix.”

“I was at home all night.”

“With your wife, Lindsey?”

I didn’t like him bringing her name into the conversation. I nodded.

“Let’s say you’re telling the truth. Why would Peralta abandon his truck up here? What does he have going here?”

Nothing, as far as I knew. We had never worked a case in or near Ash Fork. I told Mann that.

“Dave, you know Mike Peralta better than anyone.”

“That’s why I know that he’s innocent. He’s the most by-the-book cop I ever knew. He may be under duress. Or he’s working a case that is above your pay grade and your bosses haven’t clued you in.”

“Dave…” he started again.

“David.”

“Dave, we have witnesses and video footage showing Mike Peralta shoot a guard at Chandler Fashion Center, then carry away a million dollars in diamonds.”

I shrugged.

“He was on duty, Horace. He was one of the two guards protecting the diamond shipment.”

“He told you he was going to do this?” Ask the same question, again and again, try to find an inconsistency in the answer.

“Guard the shipment, yes. It was routine.”

“The diamonds are gone,” Mann said. “Peralta took them.”

“Your people keep telling me that.”

“It’s all on the video. You’ve seen it.”