Concrete Desert (David Mapstone Mystery 1)

“You’re obsessed.” Peralta finished his bourbon and motioned for another. “You do it if you want, but it’s gratis. And I have new work for you to do.”

He knocked off an inch of fine ash and smiled a wolfish grin. “Tell me what the old son of a bitch was like.”

Monday morning, I drove to the Phoenician. Julie’s desk was empty when I walked into the marketing office. I asked to see the supervisor and was greeted by a pleasant-looking woman with high cheekbones and bobbed blond hair. She was wearing a trim gray suit. She introduced herself as Karen Dejulio, the director of sales. When I showed her my ID, she led me into a spacious private office overlooking the unreal green of the resort’s vast golf course.

“Deputy Mapstone, is it?” She sat opposite me in front of the desk, crossing elegant legs. “A real-life western deputy.”

I smiled and she went on. “I moved here last year from Michigan, and everything is still new and wonderful. My God, all the places to go rock climbing-I’m seriously into the lifestyle!”

I sunnily agreed, then asked about Julie Riding. First, she told me Julie was off today. Then, when I persisted, she told me it wasn’t the Phoenician’s policy to discuss personnel matters. I hated threatening beautiful women with search warrants, so I told her I had a mean boss-hell, that part was especially true-who wanted Julie for questioning in a case. Her smile went away, which was a loss. Then she closed the office door and came back. The elegant legs crossed again, this time the other way.

She sighed. “I wondered how long it would take for something like this to happen, Deputy Mapstone.”

When I said nothing, she continued. “I mean, we’ve worked with Julie over and over. We have a very good employee assistance plan, and she’s been referred to it twice. I suppose I was too indulgent.”

“Why do you think I’m here, Ms. Dejulio?”

“Karen, please,” she insisted. “Why, about Julie’s cocaine habit, I assume. I mean, it’s no secret, God knows. I just didn’t think it would lead to the law getting involved. I mean, frankly, it’s not as if a lot of the leading lights of Scottsdale don’t like their nose candy. The back-to-basics nineties? Yeah, right.”

I asked her if Julie had worked straight through the day Townsend was murdered.

“Yes, she was in at eight and stayed in the office all day,” Karen said, “although she said she had to leave for a family emergency around four that day.” I didn’t exactly feel relieved. “We specifically worked on promptness and absenteeism with Julie during her last performance evaluation.”

“You know her sister was found murdered that day?”

Karen Dejulio put her hand to her mouth and uttered a small gasp. “Oh, dear, I didn’t even know she had a sister. That’s horrible.”

“Tell me about the cocaine,” I said.

“Well, Julie had been here about six months when I took over, and it was obvious something was wrong. Her mood would change a lot. Some days her eyes just seemed rolled back in her head. And she was missing a lot of work. At first, I thought it was drinking, but then one day I caught her doing a line in the bathroom.”

“Why didn’t you fire her?”

“Well, she was very good when she was herself. I didn’t want to lose her. And our lawyers felt we might be open to a lawsuit if she was found to be disabled by her addiction.”

“But this was going on for at least the last year, right?”

“Deputy Mapstone, I think it was going on last week.”

I left a business card with Karen Dejulio and asked her to call me if she heard from Julie. Then I walked out into the heat, feeling like a chump. What else had Julie lied to me about? Right that minute, in the harsh judgments the Arizona sun encourages, it felt like I had spent a lifetime being misled by Julie Riding. But it was hard to stay mad at her, not after all the pain she had confessed to me over the past several days. I just felt sad for her.

I got on the cellular phone and advised Peralta that she had been at work all day the day Townsend was killed. He ordered me to see him Wednesday for a new case. He and Sharon were going to fly over to San Diego tomorrow, he said. San Diego made me think of Patty and my mood got darker still. I shook my head and drove west.

When I pulled up at home, the front door was standing open. I jammed the Blazer into park, then pulled the Python from the glove compartment and unholstered it. I walked quickly to the side of the house and looked through a window. Inside, drawers were pulled out and shelves rummaged through. I couldn’t see anybody. Insanely, I thought about the spike in the air conditioning bill the open door would cause. I cocked the Python and edged to the door.

I came through low and quick, then moved immediately behind the big leather chair. Nothing. Not a sound. There were papers and books all over. Somebody had given the place a real going-over, somebody with the balls to do it in the middle of the day no less. I made it room by room, checking under the bed, in the closets, behind the shower curtain. I was breathing very hard for no reason. I uncocked the revolver and walked to the front door to close it. The lock had been picked, not broken. It relatched itself with no problem. But whoever had been there didn’t want to conceal the fact.

I dropped into the big chair and surveyed the mess. My family’s home, violated. For what? This was no burglary-the valuables, such as they were, were all still here. Someone had been looking for something.

The phone made me jump.

“You’re still looking where you’re not supposed to look,” came a man’s voice. It was the voice from the carport, measured and detached.

“Who is this?” I asked stupidly.

“You’re all alone in the world, Mapstone. No wife or family. No real job. Nobody’d miss you if you just disappeared into the desert. Leave it alone.”

“Looking into what?” I demanded, but he had already hung up. And in my head, I could hear Julie’s strange trill, hear her saying, “I think we’re in great danger.”