City of Dark Corners

“Yes. Of course.”

“How do you keep your faith with all the terrible things you see?”

I changed the subject. “You handled yourself well under fire.”

“Thanks,” she said. “That’s never happened to me before. Here’s what I don’t understand, Eugene…” I slipped on the ice, and she caught me.

“What don’t you understand?”

“Sudden sounds make you jump. A car backfire or a slammed door. Thunder. But back there, you were a cool cucumber.”

I smiled. “I don’t know. When the stakes are high, maybe I fall back into the training and experience of a combat infantryman.” I had never cared for the nickname doughboy. “The same was true in the gunfight with the jail escapees.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Yes. Only a fool isn’t afraid.”

“Good.” She linked her arm through mine as we plowed the snow with our new boots. “I was terrified.”

* * *

Victoria took some photos of the courthouse and downtown Prescott. Back at the hotel, the desk clerk handed me a note. Ordinary paper. The handwriting—I’d seen it before but couldn’t remember where. I scanned it and laid it flat on the countertop for Victoria as he checked in another guest.

“Don’t touch it.”

She read in a whisper, “You’re in dangerous territory, Hammons. Stop before it’s too late.” She leaned closer. “What does that mean?”

“It means we’ve been followed.”

When the clerk was free again, I asked him who had given him the note. He didn’t remember. He had stepped away and found it sitting on the counter when he came back.

We went upstairs and read through Carrie’s letters and diary. The diary was faithfully written every day, at least a paragraph, but only through high school. She made elliptical references to her father’s “illness.” Otherwise, the content was what you’d expect from a girl her age.

The letters to her father were about school, how different Phoenix was from Prescott, and each one pleaded with him to take better care of himself. The last one was dated a week before her murder. The letters from the fall semester were shorter than she had written the previous year. They were not in keeping with Pamela’s description of an aspiring author or artiste. I’d have expected pages of reflections, observations, and stories. Instead, they contained little more than what a postcard would hold.

That night, although mindful that someone might be watching us, we enjoyed a fine dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant. We sat at the back, both of us in a booth facing the door. Just in case.

“It doesn’t smell right,” Victoria said over cheese-and-onion enchiladas, refried beans, and Mexican rice. “Everybody up here says Carrie is such a sweet girl. But how does that jibe with the house we saw, with the alcoholic father?”

“Or with the transformation that was described by her friends at the teachers’ college,” I said.

We tried to piece together a timeline of Carrie’s last months but it was full of holes. Then we went back to our room, warmed up, and tried not to break the old bed.

Thirteen

The next morning, I wanted to take another run at Ezra Dell. Maybe the shock of his daughter’s death had worn off enough to jog his memory, or a long, cold night alone had made him willing to tell us something he had withheld the previous day.

But when we hiked up to Park Avenue, two cars were sitting in front of Dell’s house, the door was open, and a policeman stood on the porch. I was cold already but now a chill ran up the back of my neck.

“You’ll need to stay back,” the cop said. “What’s your business here?”

I held up my badge. “Phoenix Police.”

He looked barely out of high school and worked to conceal being impressed, curious, or plain disgusted with the interruption. “Stay.” He said it as if we were two pooches and disappeared inside. No smoke was coming out of the chimney.

In a couple of minutes an older man in plain clothes came out and waved us forward. Introductions were made. He was the Prescott Police chief. I abbreviated myself to Detective Hammons and again recklessly flashed my buzzer. But it would get me further than showing up as a private eye.

“Dell is dead,” he said. But I suspected that already. “Suicide.” That, I seriously doubted, but I had to handle this gently. No “big-city know-it-all detective” from me.