Concrete Desert (David Mapstone Mystery 1)

She followed me into the kitchen. “When did you start drinking martinis?”

“When I was married to a millionaire’s daughter.”

“Dorothy Parker said martinis lead to all sorts of sexual misjudgments,” Julie said absently, then added, “What was her name?”

“Dorothy Parker?”

“Your ex-wife, you goof.”

“Patty,” I said.

“Good boomer name,” Julie said. “All those fathers in lust with P

atti Page. Kids?”

“No.”

“And you’ve been divorced about a year?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“I can tell it in your voice,” she said. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I looked out the window at the garden courtyard, where a palm tree was dancing slowly in the wind. We weren’t going to get any rain. Julie Riding in my kitchen, talking about my divorce. “Tell me about you.”

“What’s to tell?” She smiled. “Life goes on. I’m divorced. My daughter’s fourteen, and she just made cheerleader. I’m in marketing at the Phoenician resort, and I work all the time.” She made it sound like a neat package.

Finally, she asked, “Do you remember my little sister? Phaedra.”

Now we were down to the “wanting something” part of the evening.

I said I remembered an eight-year-old kid.

Truth was, I barely remembered her sister at all. A skinny kid with red hair who played the cello and had an odd name. She was in the background one night when Julie took me home to meet her parents, and they all had a big fight. Mostly, I remembered her name, Phaedra. Not a popular boomer name.

“She’s twenty-eight now, David,” Julie said. “And she’s missing.”

“Have you been to the cops?” I asked.

“Yeah, they took a report. What does that mean? They told me she was an adult and that unless there was some indication of foul play, there wasn’t much they could do.”

“So what can I do?”

“I know you have friends in the Sheriff’s Office. Even if you’re just a consultant. Maybe you could ask around?” The blue eyes implored. “It’s been two weeks since she was supposed to come over for dinner. I haven’t had a call, nothing. Her apartment hasn’t been slept in.”

“New boyfriend?”

“That’s never made her drop off the face of the earth.”

“What about her job?”

She shook her head. “Phaedra was kind of in between careers. She was working at a photo studio. She had a lot of gifts, but she never did well playing the game at work, you know what I mean?”

As a matter of fact, I did. I asked, “Do you have any reason to suspect something bad has happened to her?”

Julie paused and the tip of her cigarette glowed contemplatively. “This is a very dangerous city, and she’s a pretty young woman. What more do you need?”

I promised to ask some questions around the Sheriff’s Office. Julie smashed out the cigarette, and it was time to leave. I walked her out to her car. The storm had blown through, and the night was dusty, hot, and expectant.

“You’re back in time for the monsoon season,” she said, aiming her key chain at a silver Lexus, which beeped attentively.