Arizona Dreams (David Mapstone Mystery 4)

“I’m compiling a manuscript,” I said grudgingly. “About the historic cases. Peralta wants it.”

She laughed loudly, a surprisingly humorless sound coming from Kate. “You are such a bad liar, Mapstone. You were looking at the Alan Cordesman homicide file.”

I could feel my face flushing. David Mapstone, master of deceit. Wait until Lindsey asked me if I kissed her sister or let her massage my crotch. Yes, while I was at the PD working on the book, I had stopped by Homicide and asked to see the file.

“Why do you care?” I said, finally sitting at my desk. I sipped the mocha, which was starting to go room temperature.

“Prove to me that I shouldn’t,” she said. “For all I know, Cordesman ties back to a cold case, and you’re doing one of your famous end-runs. All the glory to Mapstone and the Sheriff’s Office.”

“I’ve never…”

“What the hell are you holding out?” she demanded. “I swear to God I’ll complain to Chief Wilson, get a court order, arrest your ass right this second!”

Now it was her turn to flush. I thought she was going to have a stroke right there on the desktop.

“Kate, you really need to relax. I don’t have anything. The guy was killed a block away from my house. I was curious.”

“You discovered the body,” she said.

“I was called by a neighbor who discov…”

“You should have been arrested as a material witness. That’s what I would have done.”

I said, “You really have this thing about handcuffs…”

“You know something,” she went on. “I don’t know what the hell it is. I went through the computer, checked all my red-flag files. I can’t find anything that involves an ice pick through the ear. But I obviously missed something.”

“You didn’t,” I said. “There’s no historic case involved.”

“Yeah, well, then without that there’s no case for the state,” she said, leaning forward, her small hands on her lap. She went on, “The county attorney’s not going to prosecute this. There’s no physical evidence linking Esparza to the Cordesman crime scene, like there is with Louis Bell. Not one hair. Not one fiber. Not one print.”

“Well, I didn’t think Esparza did either one.”

“You bastard,” she said quietly, standing. “I knew you were holding out.”

“I’m not!” I nearly shouted. “Esparza has the mind of an eight-year-old, and this is a smart crime. Sure, they caught the kid with the wallet. But none of the rest of it adds up. And why would the kid kill these two very different victims in such different places?” I didn’t mention Dana or the fake letter that led me to the dead brother in the desert.

“Esparza is a burglar,” she said.

“That just makes my point. Cordesman wasn’t missing anything.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Not true, Mapstone. Burglary got a call from an insurance company on Friday. Their initial inventory of his possessions had been wrong. Cordesman owned a diamond ring. It belonged to his great-grandmother, and it was insured for twenty-five thousand dollars. It’s missing.”

“That’s it? From what I could see, he had some expensive electronics, a computer, stuff you could fence easily. Why leave all that and take the ring?”

“You tell me, Barney Fife.”

I felt my stomach aching that Kate Vare ache. I said, “Maybe he lost it. Maybe he pawned it.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I called Cordesman’s brother in Reno. He’s the beneficiary. Apparently Alan had a new girlfriend. But he didn’t tell his brother her name or anything about her. Maybe he gave it to the girlfriend. Or maybe she took it after she shoved the ice pick in his brain.”

I sipped the mocha and said nothing. Two’s company and three’s a crowd. Louis Bell and Alan Cordesman murdered in the same manner. And then there was Harry Bell, apparently dead from natural causes. But he was the bait used by Dana to draw me into…what? Something important enough to make somebody toss my office.

“Earth to Mapstone!” Vare said. She was standing before me, hands on her hips. “This is not a one-way street, Barney Fife.”

“True, Thelma Lou,” I said. She squinted and turned her small mouth down. I doubted her Mayberry knowledge was that complete. “Fair is fair, but so far there’s nothing about this case that should interest either of us…”

“Give it up, or I swear to God…”