Camelback Falls (David Mapstone Mystery 2)

“Why can’t I find his statement in the case file?” I asked. “Was that entered in the defense?”

“That sounds like a Sheriff’s Office screwup. Imagine that.” He chuckled humorlessly. “He claimed he was set up. That something was going on between the deputies who got killed, and the two fine, upstanding prison escapees who shot them.”

I asked him what was going on.

“It was a long time ago. Some dirty cop thing. It was in his statement.” I could almost hear him impatiently looking at his Rolex. “Look, he didn’t have any family, didn’t have any money. He was a long way from home and he hooked up with some bad people.”

“What about Marybeth?”

“Oh, the girl? She had a moneybags daddy in the oil business. He hired a big-time lawyer out of Tulsa. They cut her off from Leo so damned fast. Made it sound like she was a kidnap victim-and let me tell you, she had the devil in her. But Leo was seen as the bad guy.”

“Was he the bad guy?”

“How the hell should I know, Mapstone? Do you know how much this conversation would cost if you were one of my clients?”

“Consider this a public service, counselor.”

“Yeah, right,” he said. “No, I thought the kid was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and everybody abandoned him.”

“Including you?”

“Hey, screw you, acting sheriff,” he snarled through the digital circuits. “I did my part. This is your problem now.”

The hostage-taker came out before the evening news. A crew of deputies dressed like Robocop wrestled him into the dust, and Lindsey and I carried out two scared little kids. The public affairs officer said it would make a great photo-op. I was just trying to be useful on a scene. Or maybe I was trying to get ahead of the news cycle, before the shitstorm hit over the logbook and the badge numbers.

We got back in the Prelude and headed to the Superstition Freeway, then turned west into the pink remains of the sunset, headed downtown. Leo O’Keefe was still out there, alive as of this afternoon and still carrying his secrets. I was at a loss as to how to get to him, if he thought the cops were the bad guys. By the time we reached Good Sam to check on Peralta, the cell phone rang again. The battery was nearly dead, and I half expected it was Gutierrez demanding to know where he could send a $1,000-an-hour bill.

“It’s Deputy Stevens in the communications center, Sheriff. Captain Kimbrough left word that he needs to meet you tonight. Do you have something to write with?” Lindsey passed me a notepad. I was amazed she actually had old-fashioned paper in the car. “He needs to see you at the Crown Plaza Hotel downtown at nine P.M. tonight.”

“And he wants me to meet him there?” Lindsey’s blue eyes followed my writing on the notepad. She raised her eyebrows.

“He said it’s important, sir. Said you’d know what it was concerning. He didn’t give me any further details. He said to meet him in the parking garage on the fourth floor, by the elevator.”

Then the phone died.

We walked across 12th Street to the hospital, me musing about our enslavement to technology, how we couldn’t get by without gadgets that a few years ago seemed like frills. Suddenly I felt something rushing toward us. Surprise and panic jolted through me. I pushed Lindsey back toward the curb, reached for the Python. It was a Mercedes-Benz the size of a starship, black with black-tinted windows. One of the windows came down with a soft electronic whisper and Bobby Hamid’s handsome face peered out.

“You seem tense, Dr. Mapstone.”

I muttered something obscene and took my hand off the revolver. I looked around to see how many county supervisors and investigative reporters were there to witness our exchange. But the street was empty in the crisp air of the gathering January night. Bobby opened the door, slid over. Lindsey and I exchanged glances, then we climbed in. What the hell.

“You looked quite heroic on television,” he said, turned out in a three-button black coat, jeans, and gray silk T-shirt. “Saving the children in prime time. I do believe the sheriff’s hat is growing on you.”

“Come on, Bobby,” I said, settling into the soft leather of the seats. “You don’t want to be my agent.”

He regarded me with his amused, feline eyes. Bach was quietly coming out of the car speakers. “How is your little mystery coming along? The River Hogs and all that nostalgia for the disco era?”

“I’m feeling less nostalgic.”

“Oh, come, come,” he said. “‘Disco Inferno,’ ‘Love to Love You Baby,’ K.C. and the Sunshine Band.”

“I was more a Springsteen-Eagles-Linda Ronstadt fan,” I said, letting Bobby play his game.

“Yes, Linda. ‘Love is a Rose.’ You know her brother was the Tucson police chief?” Suddenly his eyes went completely opaque, like the windows of the Benz rolling up. “David, someone wants to kill you.”

I sat back in the seat. Bobby had sources in law enforcement, don’t ask me where. Somehow he had found out about the shots at Kenilworth School. I said, “It’s not clear who those shots were directed at.”

He looked at me quizzically. “You are obviously giving me credit for knowing about some recent adventure of yours. I am talking of something different.”