Camelback Falls (David Mapstone Mystery 2)

I smiled, too, and said, “Well, don’t expect me to get any work done.”

Chapter Nine

The phone’s ring broke me out of a nightmare about Peralta, shadows at my office door, and suffocating on the end of a respirator hose. But when I picked it up there was only silence on the line, silence in the dark bedroom, Lindsey’s hand against the sweat cooling on my back.

Then a voice said, “David Mapstone?”

“That’s me.”

“Acting Sheriff David Mapstone?”

If this was a telemarketer, I was going to get homicidal. Instead, the voice, a man’s voice-average, unremarkable, baritone-said, “This is Leo O’Keefe.”

I sat up straight, turned on the light and mouthed the words “Leo O’Keefe” to Lindsey. She angled out of bed and disappeared down the hall.

“Leo, we need to talk to you.”

“I saw the news,” he said. “You’re after me.”

“You’re an escaped convict,” I said. The little pinpoint of pain pushed at my middle. “You know the detectives suspect you shot Sheriff Peralta.”

“I didn’t,” the voice said calmly. “Who are you, David Mapstone? Why are you the acting sheriff?”

Beats the hell out of me, I thought. Lindsey came back in the room, a cell phone at her ear. She pantomimed with the other hand: Keep him talking.

“I’m nobody, Leo. I’m the department historian. I was the one they got to fill in after the sheriff was wounded.”

“I’m sorry he’s hurt,” the voice said. He didn’t remember me from Guadalupe, or my name, anyway.

“What about Dean Nixon,” I said. “Did you try to contact him?”

The line went silent. Finally, “That’s right. Have you talked to Deputy Nixon about me?”

“Leo, you’ve got to turn yourself in. I give you my word, you will be treated well.”

He laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “I know about that.” His voice picked up momentum, edged up half an octave. “Mapstone, they can’t let any of this come out. That’s why Peralta was shot.”

I started to speak, but he cut me off.

“I have information

for you,” he said, now speaking frantically. “I can’t explain now. If you’re interested, walk to the pay phone at the Jack in the Box at Third Avenue and McDowell. I can see if you come alone or not, and I can see if cops are in the parking lot. Make sure you walk.”

“Leo…”

“Come now, Mapstone. Your life depends on it.” And the line went dead.

Lindsey was speaking quietly into the cell phone, incandescently nude. Then she shook her head. “Not enough time. Shit! We should have had this number wired up in advance.”

I stood up and pulled on some jeans and a sweatshirt. The house was quite cold, the way we keep it so my Arizona body heat doesn’t smother Lindsey in bed beside me.

“What are you doing?”

“Going to the Jack in the Box down on McDowell, the pay phone. That’s what he said to do. He’ll call again.”

“No way.”

“I’ve got to, darling.” I pulled on socks and laced up running shoes.