Camelback Falls (David Mapstone Mystery 2)

“I know you’d rather be drinking martinis at the Phoenician,” he said. “But this is a sentimental thing.”

“You, sentimental? When we were deputies together I had to re

mind you to get Sharon a card for your anniversary.”

His glare hardened. I was one of the few people who dared mess with him.

He said, “I went to first and second grade here, before they had to close the school. My father went to high school here. Who knows how much longer it will be around before your yuppie friends gentrify the neighborhood?”

He added, “And holding the reception here is not a bad way to shore up my support with the Latino voters.” He arched his eyebrow, a gesture of enormous humor for him. “I’m just a simple boy from the barrio.”

“You’re about as simple as quantum physics,” I said. I nodded toward the people waiting behind me. “You have lots of VIPs who want to congratulate you, Sheriff,”

He ignored me. “See, Mapstone, I know you. You can’t revise your past with me like some professor’s resume. You always should have stayed in law enforcement. So you took a fifteen-year detour as a teacher? Now you’re back in Arizona, back home at the S.O. Where you always should have stayed. Even if you’re a pain in the ass sometimes and you read too much. Admit it, Mapstone, you’re happy here.”

He was right. The “black dog moods,” as Churchill called them, came less often. I was teaching myself that tomorrow’s misfortune wasn’t an inevitable byproduct of today’s happiness. Lindsey made me feel terrifically lucky. The turn of a new millennium had come and gone benignly, as had my twenty-fifth high school reunion. I was even feeling better about Phoenix, a place that could break your heart if you grew to love it.

The noise picked up, with a mariachi band and the sheriff’s office bagpipers engaging in a merry duel.

“But we need to make some changes in the department,” he said.

“People may not like it. And I’m serious when I say I expect you to step up when asked.”

“Yeah, security at Bashas’,” I said “I can also help carry groceries. I know you’ll make all the right changes for the department, Sheriff.”

“I’m a lawman, Mapstone,” he said. “I’m no politician.”

“Well, you did pretty well, then. Getting 70 percent of the vote.”

“Oh, hell, I’d just have to break in somebody new as sheriff if I didn’t do it myself.”

I shook my head, awash with affection for this impossible, stubborn, lionhearted man, and I couldn’t suppress a wide smile.

“What the hell are you so giggly about?”

“You,” I said. “Never mind.”

He let go of my arm. “Come by my office tomorrow. I really do need to talk to you about something.”

“A new case?”

He gave his head a half nod, half shake. “Come by. You’ll find out.”

I nodded, then my eyes went to a small, intense flash in the air above Peralta’s left shoulder, and I remember thinking he’d be freshly annoyed that I wasn’t looking him in the eye. Only later would I recall two distinct, terrible cracks sounding above the clutter. Suddenly Peralta fell into me heavily and we both crashed backward hard on the floor.

I felt the quick panic of having the air knocked out of me. Something wet shot into my eyes. My back screamed in pain from the weight that quickly sandwiched it with the floor. A woman gasped and called for God’s help. As my mind refocused and my lungs refilled, I feared Peralta had suffered a heart attack. Then I saw the blood all over us.

Chapter Two

Lindsey commandeered a patrol car and we sped the mile up Seventh Street to Good Samaritan Hospital. The digital clock on the dash said the trip took four minutes. To my internal clockworks, it felt like about a decade.

“I didn’t even hear the shots,” she said over the siren. “I got there as soon as I could.”

I touched her leg. The buildings and traffic flew by, but in my mind was the image of Peralta bloody and unconscious. Maybe he was dead and the paramedics just had to go through their little show.

“Could you see a shooter?” she asked, slowing suddenly. A minivan meandered through a red light, oblivious to the lights and siren of our onrushing sheriff’s cruiser.

“A flash, maybe. That’s all.” It occurred to me she was trying to distract me, focus me on the job rather than the heap of shallowly breathing, traumatized flesh that was my friend. Did I look distraught? I kept my voice steady.