Camelback Falls (David Mapstone Mystery 2)

“David, we found one of Peralta’s new business cards there in Nixon’s trailer. One of the cards with him as sheriff, not chief deputy. I checked and those were only delivered two weeks ago. So within the past two weeks, Peralta and Nixon have had contact.”

“Well, if Peralta was going to kill Nixon, would he leave a damned business card?”

“Maybe it didn’t start out that way,” Kimbrough said. “Maybe they had an initial meeting and just talked. Something went wrong. Nixon tried to put the squeeze on Peralta, whatever.” Kimbrough made a gun barrel out of his finger. “Bam, end of problem. But maybe he’s interrupted before he can clean up the evidence.”

“It sounds to me like Peralta was investigating this case himself!” I heard my voice echo angrily off the wall.

“Hear me out, if you’re going to play Lone Ranger,” Kimbrough said through gritted teeth. “Think of the pressure Peralta could have been under. He’s about to be sworn in as sheriff, and here’s this scumbag Nixon blackmailing him.”

Lindsey said, “So then Peralta finds a way to shoot himself on the day of his swearing in? Just to make it look good?”

“No.” Kimbrough’s eyes were large and earnest, incapable of irony. “There was obviously some kind of double-cross. Maybe Peralta had threatened to implicate the other dirty cops, those other badge numbers. And one of them had to take him out. David, I have seen the list of badge numbers in the logbook. There are nine current Sheriff’s Office employees among them. Nine. Including Peralta. There are fourteen former deputies, including Matson and Bullock.”

“Damn it,” I said, “none of this is proven yet. I didn’t even want to know that information before Internal Affairs completes its investigation. These deputies deserve due process.”

“The point is,” Kimbrough said, “who knows what kind of shit these cops were into twenty years ago? Maybe they were still in it this year. Those kind of people would go to any lengths to keep it covered up.”

I poured myself some orange juice and put some salmon spread on a bagel. My stomach hurt.

“There’s just one problem,” I said. “Yesterday’s prime suspect, Leo O’Keefe.”

“He’s probably involved somehow,” Kimbrough said. “Maybe O’Keefe is the tie-in at this Camelback Falls thing. But in the real world, we have to go for the quickest path that’s going to break a case. Who has the bigger motive for murder here, some convict or some dirty cops who could lose everything if their past comes out?”

My anger boiled back up again. “One of them shot at me. So I am presumed dirty, too? How the hell did they even know I was going out at three in the morning to meet O’Keefe?”

Kimbrough said, “You do keep public company with Bobby Hamid.”

“Oh, Jesus!”

“Didn’t you have dinner at Durant’s with Hamid?”

I held out my hands. “Put the cuffs on me. You got me, copper.”

Kimbrough slapped the tabletop. “Damn it, Sheriff. How do you explain Peralta’s badge number in that book?”

“I can’t,” I shouted. “Yet. How can you believe this man, who we have both worked with for years, is dirty? Not only that, but that he is in so deep that he’s willing to order a murder? Then the other dirty cops could shoot him in retaliation?”

Kimbrough silently studied the table. “I don’t know what I believe,” he said. “I’m just telling you what the feds are talking themselves into.”

“You sounded like a believer.”

“I don’t know who to trust,” he said. “The whole department is just crazy with talk and paranoia about this logbook. You saw it yourself with Abernathy. How the hell did he find out? None of it makes any damned sense. I wish O’Keefe would contact you again.”

“That’s not likely with your guys always on my tail,” I said.

“What?”

Lindsey said, “White Crown Vic. It’s been tailing us for a couple of days. We assumed it was you or Phoenix PD.”

Kimbrough fell suddenly silent, studying his hands. “David,” he finally said. “We haven’t had any units following you. The most we’ve done is ask for extra PD patrols past the house here. Phoenix detectives don’t even have Crown Vics now. They make ’em drive Chevy Cavaliers.” He sighed. “Jesus Christ, what is going on?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “The next damned time you see that car, I want you to call backup. It may be the feds, or it may be connected to whoever took a shot at you the other night. Call for help.”

I nodded and tried to eat. The bagel was warm and flavorful, but my insides felt cold and vulnerable. I instinctively stepped away from the kitchen window.

“Shit,” Lindsey said. “If it’s not the good guys following us…”

“There’s something else,” Kimbrough said, tapping the folder he had placed on the kitchen table. He traced invisible horizontal lines on the top of the folder. “Look, it takes a lot to make me blush, get it? But we found this stuff with all the trash and wine bottles inside Nixon’s trailer. It’s pretty heavy duty.”

I took the orange juice and pulled up a chair. Kimbrough pushed the folder at me. “I figured since you knew Nixon way back when, maybe this might mean something.”