Dry Heat (David Mapstone Mystery 3)

“That’s about right,” Hardin said, still facing Lindsey. Then, softer, “It doesn’t really matter now, does it? All these years? I still remember it like it just happened. It was a warm November, and Mom and Mr. P.-that’s what we were told to call him-took us for a picnic. He drove us in his Buick. We drove out of town, and spread a blanket under the cottonwoods.”

Peralta locked eyes with me, but I had no information to telegraph.

“We ate these little sandwiches with thousand island dressing,” she continued. “And we played by the canal. Mom made me watch Georgie while they walked a ways down the bank. I don’t know when they started arguing. They argued a lot. That was nothing new. But I hated it. The voices. The things they said. I knew it upset Georgie, too.”

“What happened next?” Lindsey asked.

“Mr. P. hit her. He hit her so hard that she fell on the ground, and she cried. He was such a son of a bitch. Later, I realized that was the moment when he told her he wasn’t going to leave his wife. And that was it.”

“You never saw Pilgrim again?”

Her voice changed. “He had left his gun in the car’s glove compartment. His badge, too, I guess. After he was shot, he staggered a little, and fell into the canal. Mom got us back in the car and we drove back to town. Then we left the car and walked back home. And she cried a lot. I never knew what happened to his gun or badge.”

“Your mother shot him,” Lindsey said.

Hardin shook her head, her small mouth in something like a smile. “I was eight years old, and my daddy had taught me how to fire a gun. And that man never hurt my mother again.”

Epilogue

“Salud!” Peralta said. “Or vashe zdorovie! In honor of our Russian.”

“I taught you that,” Lindsey said.

Peralta bought celebratory drinks across the street, at Tom’s Tavern. It was the oldest political hangout in the state. But unlike mere mayors and governors, who might merit one photo on the wall, Peralta was the subject of three photos and a lush portrait. Lindsey called it “the shrine.” If he was self-conscious, he hid it well.

“So how the hell did you know?” Peralta demanded, a quarter of an inch into his gibson. He nodded to Lindsey. “Did you know?”

“History Shamus rocks!” Lindsey beamed, squeezing my hand. “But I don’t know how he did it.”

“It was her wrist,” I said. “She had old scars on her wrists just like George Weed did.”

“That was a hell of a roll of the dice,” Peralta said.

“Not really. I just had to understand what I was seeing. I saw the scars when I went to her house in Tubac. I saw, but I didn’t pay attention. Has that ever happened to you?”

Lindsey nodded. Peralta said, “No.”

“But then I remembered a Phoenix Gazette newspaper clipping from Christmas 1948. It was about a mother who tried to kill her two children, and succeeded in killing herself. She slit their wrists.” Lindsey gasped and gulped her martini. I went on, “We think of these things as happening only today, and they probably do with more frequency. But this was 1948. The article didn’t name them. But it said the mother was despondent over a failed romance. I didn’t put it all together until she reached down for the report and I saw her wrist again.”

“Not bad, Mapstone,” Peralta said.

“Kate Vare taught me something after all,” I said.

“What? Well, I knew you two could work together.”

“What will happen to Amelia?” Lindsey asked.

“I don’t know.” Peralta started tearing his napkin into tiny strips. “I’ll turn it over to the county attorney, and see what she wants to do. But Hardin was eight years ol

d when the crime happened. She gave us a confession without being Mirandized. What a mess. Sounds like something for my wife to fix.”

“You ought to visit her,” I said.” She misses you.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Yes, she does. You don’t know everything, as much as that might surprise you.”

We drank two rounds each and then Peralta put down his credit card.