City of Dark Corners

“Because you have brains, Hammons.”

Great. Kemper Marley considered me a brain. I tried to steer the conversation gently back, asking which sources had told him about the dead girl. But he leaned in to lecture me on the danger of “bums and communists and shines” on the move across America, that even our womenfolk weren’t safe from their depredations.

I silently added Kemper Marley to Frenchy Navarre on my list of suspects. Either one of them could have procured my business card and planted it in the victim’s purse. Why either man would want to set me up was a different question.

“I’m not done with you, Hammons,” he gave his benediction and tossed the money back. “As I said, it’s a retainer.”

“For what?”

His eyebrows squirmed. “Something will come up, trust me.”

I didn’t trust many people, especially after being kicked off the police force. Victoria, I trusted. Don, most of the time. Marley, never. I left the money beside my tea and left, declining his invitation to show me his horses.

Outside with his steeds, he called, “I can take one of these out on the range and survive on jerky and beans for weeks.”

I shook my head and walked to the car. He’d be a clown if he weren’t so dangerous. But I never much liked or trusted clowns.

Now, after lunch and back at the office, I saw Marley’s envelope on my desk again, wrinkled from its repeated journeys like an old man’s face. I’d heard of a bad penny. This was a bad five C-notes. Gladys said a delivery boy had dropped it off. I sighed and put it back in the safe.

More important matters required my attention. I tightened my gut and wielded my letter opener like a trench knife, mercilessly slitting open the envelope and letting the photograph and a sheet of paper spill onto my blotter.

It was her.

The black-and-white photograph showed an image of a ravishing blonde in a light-colored dress, sitting on a bench in a garden. She was stunningly alive, with a broad smile. I studied her features, trying to wish this ugly reality away like the morning after a vivid nightmare. But it was no good. The paper answered the basic questions I had asked: nineteen years old, five-feet-four inches tall, one hundred ten pounds, blue eyes, a birthmark on her left arm.

It was her.

The dead girl.

“Our body.”

I picked up the phone and dialed. For once, Don answered.

“Come to my office now, please.”

“On my way,” he said.

* * *

Don locked on the photograph. His shiny, expensive new shoes were propped up on my desk. He took his time.

Finally: “Ezra Thayer is big in mining. He sold the Monte Christo mines in Yavapai County back in ’26 for a million bucks. He might wi

sh he had them back if Roosevelt goes to silver coinage after he’s inaugurated in March. The man also lives in Phoenix.”

I remembered that now. Thayer was a major player in the Arizona mining industry. “How could he have a nineteen-year-old daughter? Thayer is older, right?”

“Mid-seventies.” He lowered his feet on the floor and reached for the phone.

“Long distance,” he said. That would be money I didn’t care to spend. “I want to speak to the operator in Prescott, Arizona.” He lit a nail while waiting and took a drag. “Hello, this is Detective Hammons of the Phoenix Police Department. Can you tell me if there’s a number in the Prescott exchange for an Ezra Thayer?” He spelled both the first and last names. “What about other Thayers?” Then he thanked her and dropped the earpiece into the cradle.

“No Thayer by any first name in Prescott.” He dropped his ash into the ashtray on my desk.

“What about at the St. Michael Hotel? That was the telegram address.”

He called again. No Thayer at the hotel.

I tried to conceal the squirm of my body in the office chair. “I’m being played.”