High Country Nocturne (David Mapstone Mystery 8)

I could have picked her up and fucked her against the wall right then. She was small and I was tall and as our romp continued we would knock down the dead man’s golf shirts, rolling around on them.

I crossed my arms.

“I was a horny young woman, David. I still like sex. I need it. Don’t you?” Her voice was husky. “Elliott liked that at first. After we’d been married for a year, we might have sex every eight months. If I was lucky. Believe me, I counted. But I liked the life he paid for. Do you think that makes me a prostitute?”

“No.”

“Then Zephyr came along. I didn’t want her to be raised in a broken home. I suppose that was foolish. There was no prenup. This is a community property state and I could have taken half of everything. But I stayed.”

I nodded.

She ran her other hand through her hair. It fell back in place perfectly. “You know what’s strange? He always had male assistants. Good-looking guys. I mean real hunks. I never gave it a second thought at the time. I was happy that he didn’t have little babes that would bring out the green-eyed monster. Women who might replace me if he grew bored. But when I saw those photos, it all made sense. I wanted to throw up.”

“Why did you bring the wallet to Sheriff Melton?”

She dropped her hand from my slacks. The electricity shut off.

“I looked at the driver’s license and did a Google search. I found a little article about this young man being found dead in the desert in 1984. It was his wallet. I thought his family might want it.”

She walked out, brushing past me, now more with impatience than flirtation.

I followed her into the bedroom.

“Do you suspect your husband was involved with Tom Frazier?”

“Who the hell knows?” She sat in an armchair and crossed those slim legs. “I don’t even know Elliott, I realize now.”

“He never mentioned the name?”

She shook her head.

“This is a suspicious death,” I said. “Probably a homicide.”

Her face lost color. She stared at me, opened her mouth but no words came.

“Was your husband violent?”

She nearly jumped out of the chair. “What the hell are you implying, Deputy?” The “David” stuff was gone. “How dare you? Who do you think you are to say that Elliott could have murdered this young man?”

“You said that. I asked if he was violent.”

She whirled around and strode to one of the French doors. For a long time she stared out at the mountain. The top of the camel’s hump had disappeared in the clouds.

Finally, a small voice: “Elliott

was a man of extremes and he could be very generous. When I told him that I hated north Scottsdale, he bought this property and built this house for us. The more I learned about Native American and Mexican art, the more he bought me pieces. Very expensive ones.”

She turned back and her face was composed.

“I’m terribly rude. May I get you something to drink?”

“No. Thank you, though.”

She fixed me with her enormous beautiful eyes. “The answer to your question is that Elliott had a bad temper. It was worse when he was drunk, which was a lot. He hit me more than once. My dad had been an alcoholic, too. He beat me with a belt when I was fifteen years old! Shit, I thought it was normal. With Elliott, he would slap me and the next morning turn sweet and give me an expensive present. He’d want to take me out to dinner even if I had a black eye. I had worse than yours, believe me.”

“If he was involved with Tom Frazier and something went wrong, do you think he was capable of hurting him?”

Her shoulders rose and fell. “We always want to think the best of the people close to us, don’t we? But those pictures showed me how little I really knew the man. So the honest answer is, I don’t know.”