Cactus Heart (David Mapstone Mystery 5)

“Beats the hell out of me. I told him I’d call today. Then I thought about it—he hasn’t been cooperative and now he wanted to talk—so I drove out here. No answer at the gate. So I drove home. You were already asleep.”

“This was what time?”

“Maybe ten-thirty.”

“Did he want to talk about the skeletons, or what?”

“He didn’t say. He said he’d only talk in person, not on the phone.”

Peralta shoved his hands into his pants pockets and stared down at the brown cloud enveloping the city.

“He had enough enemies,” he said. “You’ve heard about this new copper mine? He had the environmental whackos on his ass.”

“I don’t get the sense there are very many environmentalists in Arizona, much less whacko…”

“Well, the neighboring property owners aren’t too happy, either. They wanted to develop subdivisions.”

“When I first interviewed him, he said the company had received threats. He had some major-league bodyguards in the office.”

Peralta crooked his mouth down as he mulled it over. “Well, he was all alone out here last night. But he had a state-of-the-art alarm system, and a .38 in his desk drawer. When the housekeeper showed up this morning he was like this.”

“Maybe it’s the Yarnell curse.”

“I only worry about bad luck that shoots back, Mapstone. I want to know what progress you’ve been making on this case.”

“Not much,” I said. “The pocket watch belonged to Hayden Yarnell, according to his son, James. I can’t find any other twins who would have been missing and buried in a basement in downtown Phoenix during that same time. Yarnell’s businesses were having cash problems…”

“That’s not good enough,” he said harshly. I felt a flush spread up my face, angry and embarrassed to be brought up short by him. He went on: “Max Yarnell had a stake driven through his damned chest last night right after he told you he needed to talk to you. Doesn’t that raise your curiosity a bit, professor?”

I looked at the smog. “I’ll get you some answers.”

“I want to know if this homicide had anything to do with what you’re working on. This isn’t just a little Phoenix Police matinee anymore, Mapstone. It’s a real case. Try not to fuck up.”

“I’ll see if I can measure up.” I turned and strode to the door.

“Mapstone,” he called. When I turned, a mischievous grin momentarily played across over his dark features. “Hope you got a good night’s rest.”

I shrugged and walked back into the big room. I wanted out of Max Yarnell’s big house, back into my big bed with Gretchen where all the violence of the world couldn’t reach us. I sidestepped a Scottsdale cop making a diagram and an evidence technician setting up some high-tech contraption. I made my own mental notes. The room was neatly arranged considering the physical violence that had occurred. Whoever attacked Max Yarnell did it with suddenness and precision. He was probably someone Yarnell knew and let into the house. Yarnell was dressed in slacks and golf shirt. I looked around for a glass that might have held his libations, and sure enough one sat on a table by two leather chairs on the other side of the room. A cordless phone sat nearby. The evidence technician was preparing to bag them up.

Then I saw it.

Something cold crawled up my shoulders and slithered slowly up the back of my neck. I didn’t say a word. But Hernandez, the evidence tech, was watching me, and he

followed my eyes.

“Christ!” he said, and then all the cops were looking, too.

It was on one of the shelves behind Max Yarnell’s desk. You might have missed it in the sheer size of the room and the distraction of a man sprawled on the floor with a piece of petrified wood sticking out of his chest. But I knew what it was instantly. A doll. Just like the one that had been delivered to my office a week ago, only this one didn’t have a little sheriff’s star. Instead, its hands were smeared bloody red.

I sensed Peralta behind me. “What the hell is that goddamned thing?”

That was when I realized how long it had been since I took a breath.

Chapter Twenty-three

Patrick Blair dropped me off at home a little after five. Gretchen was gone and the house felt huge and forlorn and freighted with the knowledge of how quickly life turns against human beings. I wanted to call her, but I realized I didn’t even have her phone number. And for a long moment, I was relieved that I didn’t. I couldn’t say exactly why. Then I didn’t want to be alone. Even Peralta would have been welcome.

The dusk gathered outside the picture window, a fading, unfocused, weightless part of the day. Even the winter lawns looked dead. The lights hadn’t come on in the neighboring houses and it looked as if the neighborhood had been abandoned a long time ago. I sat on the living room staircase and thumbed through the books on the tall shelves. The Price of Admiralty by John Keegan, one of my books. The House by the Buckeye Road, one of Grandfather’s. A heavily thumbed Modern Researcher by Barzun and Graff, a classic when I was being trained as a historian. Inside lurked a five-by-seven color photo of Lindsey, the desert wind whipping her dark hair. Back in the days when she was smiling at me with lust and joy.