High Country Nocturne (David Mapstone Mystery 8)

But by that time, the FBI would already be involved and Kate Vare’s life would be a jurisdictional goat fuck, as Peralta would say. Peralta, who had answered the phone that went with the number on the inside of Pennington’s matches. The number his killer had been seeking.

Downtown, I parked the Prelude in the CityScape garage and crossed to the courthouse, showing my identification and being let past the metal detector as if I really worked there.

Beside the door to my office, the county had placed a new placard:

DAVID MAPSTONE

Sheriff’s Office Historian

It was much like the one that sat on the wall outside my old office, including the MCSO star emblem. Below was added: Christopher J. Melton, Sheriff. Even Peralta hadn’t thought of that granular bit of self-promotion. Seeing the thing made me queasy.

For ten minutes, I admired the restoration—high ceiling, art deco light fixtures, dark wood moldings, frosted glass panel of the door. Someone had hung a large photo from the 1950s showing citrus groves spreading out below Camelback Mountain, not a house in sight. Behind my desk was a photo of Chris Melton in his black uniform, furled American flag in the background, Hollywood smile.

Then when there was a tap, like a doctor about to come in the exam room, and Melton stepped in.

“You didn’t have to dress up,” he said.

“I like to.”

Melton was dressed up in black BDUs—battle dress uniform—with baggy cargo pants, combat boots, and ballistic vest. Cops playing soldiers. I thought about Peralta’s rising concern about the militarization of law enforcement, and that was even before the Department of Defense started showering even the smallest police forces with gear.

“I was tagging along with SWAT.” He pulled up a chair.

“Everybody safe?”

“Sure. We were serving a warrant.”

I remembered serving warrants alone, but said nothing.

“Turned out there were no weapons,” he said. “But we got fifty dollars’ worth of marijuana.”

I wondered how much it had cost the taxpayers to mobilize the SWAT team for a petty drug raid. He went through the motions, asking about Lindsey, and I went through the motions, telling him the basics. He wanted to know if I liked the “historic photo” and I told him that I did.

“You did an outstanding job digging into that case.” He slid a UBS flash drive across the desk. It was black, like his uniform.

“What’s this?”

“Paperless office, remember? The new county policy. So this,” he tapped it, “is the murder book for your case.”

“Wait a minute, Sheriff…”

He smiled and switched his index finger at me.

I tried again. “Wait a minute, Chris. You have a homicide unit this should go to if you think Frazier’s death was suspicious. I’m not a homicide investigator.”

“You sell yourself short, David. How many murders did you solve for Mike Peralta? Fifty?”

“Sixty-two.”

“There you go.”

I felt as if I had rubbed against poison ivy but the itch was deeper than my skin. I wanted him out of this office. I wanted out of this office.

He pulled a clear plastic bag out of one of his commodious pants pockets and placed it beside the data stick. It said EVIDENCE in red. Inside there appeared to be a wallet.

“Check it out,” he said.

I held up my hands. “No gloves.”