Cactus Heart (David Mapstone Mystery 5)

“I’m so glad I bring something useful to the department,” I said sourly.

“You do!” he said, stuffing another forkful into his mouth. “We’ve got the chain gang, the tent jail, the women’s chain gang. And we’ve got the nation’s only cold-case expert who’s a history professor and a sworn deputy—just to show we’re gentle and intellectual, too.”

“Oh, Christ!” I dreaded the hostility of the city cops to an outsider.

“Just do that history thing you do.” He waved a meaty hand. “Write the local and national stuff going on at the time of the case, give a nice timeline, list of characters, new evidence, what it all probably meant, blah, blah, blah. The media eat that shit up. Your buddy Lindsey can make it a PowerPoint presentation and we can do color handouts.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” I mocked him.

“David.” Peralta hardly ever called me by my first name. He sighed deep within himself and his broad, expressive face seemed instantly old. He rapped his knuckle on the newspaper. “We’re taking serious heat on this serial killer. Harquahala Strangler. The media’s even given the cocksucker a name. It’s a sheriff’s investigation and we’re sucking wind.”

“How many now?”

“Twenty-six women. All strangled, sexually assaulted, and mutilated, dumped in the desert west of the city. Last week he murdered a housewife from Chandler.”

“And you’ve got nothing?”

He glared at me. “We’ve got file boxes full of reports. We’ve got computers full of reports. We ain’t got dick. We have an FBI serial-killer team living in my shit, an

d they think we’re morons.” He made an extravagant wipe with his napkin and slurped coffee. “So we need some good press. This is a notorious unsolved case, a rich family. If you help close an old kidnapping—remember, you were front-page news during the Riding case—maybe we can buy some time before the politicians start calling for our hides.”

“The trained egghead, to the rescue.”

We settled up and walked to the parking lot in silence, my ankle shooting pain bullets into my brain with every step. Peralta’s shiny black Ford sat officiously next to my silver BMW convertible, the flotsam of a failed marriage.

“This car, Mapstone.”

“Don’t start…”

“No deputy can drive a BMW. People will think you’re dirty.”

“Patty bought it for me. You know that.”

“No way would I let a woman buy me a car!” Peralta snorted.

“Your wife makes ten times what you make, and she’s bought you everything but your guns.”

“That’s different,” he sniffed. “Anyway, Patty’s your ex now. And it’s…” He waved his hand at the car. “It’s just not what we drive in this family.”

“I need a good beat-up jeep, huh? With a gun rack and a ‘Peace Through Superior Firepower’ bumper sticker?”

“Exactly. You know, you could have gotten killed last night, being unarmed. It’s department policy for deputies to carry a piece at all times.”

“Even consultants?”

“Well, you’re kind of in a gray area.” He took off his suit coat, exposing the nine-millimeter Glock automatic in a shoulder holster. He tossed the coat into the Ford.

Finally, he said, “That woman died.”

I looked at him blankly.

“The doctor’s wife. She never came out of her coma. Died of massive head trauma. So now it’s a murder rap.”

“Oh, no.”

Peralta said, “When you and I started out in this business, the world was still safe enough that there were some places where you had to carry heat and most places where you didn’t. And you could tell the difference, know what I mean? Nowdays, hell, nobody knows when you’ll meet some sociopath who doesn’t even know enough to be afraid. Carry a gun, Mapstone. I don’t want to have to save your ass over and over. It was hard enough when you were twenty-one.”

Chapter Four