Arizona Dreams (David Mapstone Mystery 4)

“A what?”

“A blackjack.”

“How do you…?”

I was about to tell him when I heard Peralta’s heavy, even tread.

26

The sheriff walked with us toward the school bus. He was wearing black slacks and a black polo shirt that blended him in with the desert night. As we walked into the bright floodlights, I could see the anger percolating at the sides of his large eyes. He ignored Blair and Snyder, walking with a meaty hand on my shoulder.

“Mapstone, the responding officers found the victim’s wallet. He had a driver’s license, a debit card, twenty-two dollars, a picture of his mom, and a sheriff’s office business card with your name on it.” We paused a few feet from the school bus door, where untold numbers of children had once climbed aboard. “Why did he have your card, Mapstone?”

I looked around. The scene was a mess. The hippie rescuers had ruined any chance to get shoe imprints when they boarded the bus. Now the inside was floodlit, and I could see evidence technicians moving slowly from the rear. The seats were mostly gone, replaced by a bed, an old sofa, a table with a hotplate, and stacks of water bottles. Ah, the simple life in rural Arizona. Snyder hadn’t been exaggerating the worst. I saw two skinny legs, pushing out of dusty pants. The wheelchair was tossed aside below the bus steps. The faded vinyl seat was folded and dusty. In the background, I heard the chatter of the police radio. Many people were dying in the county tonight, whether in a robbery gone bad or a hospital bed. And I had seen death so many times as a young deputy. There was no logical reason that the death of this young man named Davey Crockett should mean more to me than any other. But a part of me wanted to cry.

I explained things to Peralta, who kept muttering under his breath, “what about the book, Mapstone…you were supposed to be working on a book.” I just talked over him. I could see the alarmed looks on young deputies and evidence techs.

“So,” Peralta said, “you put a civilian in danger.”

“I didn’t put him in danger,” I said testily. My insides weren’t so sure. I felt a wave of nausea. I swallowed heavily and made my best case, to Peralta and to my gathering guilty conscience. “He told me he felt safe. He told me the man in the truck hadn’t seen him spying on the Bell brothers. I wrote all this up and forwarded it to the detectives, and to the tribal police. I did my part, and then I went back to your book.” I emphasized the “your.”

“So what’s your hypothesis?” he said mildly.

I gave it to him as best I could. Some of it just had to be improvised. “The tattooed guy in the Dodge truck appeared to be intimidating Louie Bell. That was what Davey thought. He seems a more likely suspect for the casino murder than the pickpocket. We know he came back and went through the Bell trailer after Louie was murdered. But he still wasn’t satisfied. He was looking for something, or worried that Davey had seen him. So he came back earlier tonight.”

Blair added, “Or maybe the kid surprised him over at the Bell trailer again, and he followed him back to the school bus.”

“Go check that trailer,” Peralta ordered.

“There’s something else,” I said. “I’ve seen this man with the big tattoo on his arm.” I told Peralta about the night at El Pedregal, and the woman I was intending to meet.

His jaw tightened but he said nothing.

“The inside of the bus was pretty trashed,” Snyder said. “Somebody was taking the place apart looking for something.”

I looked over Peralta’s shoulder. “Has anybody looked in there?” I pointed to the compartment built into the side of the bus. Blair and Snyder looked at each other, then we all walked over. Snyder gave it a couple of strong pulls and the metal door fell open. A flashlight showed rusty tools, old rags, an ancient jack, and a bulky, legal-sized envelope.

Thirty minutes later, after the envelope had been photographed, logged into the chain of custody, and gone through other hoops designed to foil clever defense attorneys, its contents were spread out on the hood of a sheriff’s office SUV. I had gone from wide-awake to wired to fading in the course of a couple of hours. My body wasn’t twenty years old anymore, although Lindsey had made me feel that way a few hours before. The contents of the envelope didn’t contribute to my alertness. It looked like the kind of papers you might get at a house closing. Then I saw a name.

“Holy…”

Peralta and the Bobbseys crowded around. Everybody was sweating but Peralta. The sheriff demanded to know if I was wearing gloves.

“I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck,” I grumped. My fingers were leafing through legal documents. I walked them through.

“This is a deed transfer for a piece of property in Maricopa County. The grantor is Louis Bell. The grantees are Tom and Dana Earley.”

“The supervisor?” Snyder said.

I nodded. Peralta said, “We don’t know that. It’s a common name.”

“Not when it’s Tom married to a woman named Dana,” I said. “And look, here’s their address in Gilbert. It’s the same guy.” I flipped pages. “But look. It was never signed by Bell, never filed.”

“What property is it?” Peralta asked, pushing closer to the documents on the SUV hood. “You’ll have to go online. Maybe go down to the plat books at the county.”

“I already know the plat number,” I said. “It’s the Bell land west of Tonopah.”

“Where the old guy wanted to be buried,” Snyder said.