High Country Nocturne (David Mapstone Mystery 8)

“They have you.”

“Doing what? Domestic terror cases, mostly.” The three wrinkle-ravines deepened. “Nobody here knows I’m FBI—except Pham, Peralta, and you. Sharon doesn’t know, right?”

“She doesn’t.”

The ravines disappeared. “Make sure it stays that way.”

“What about Paradise Valley?” I said. “There were two dead bad guys. You made me leave and you stayed.”

“Two bad guys you killed,” he corrected. “I untied Peralta and gave him the gun you handed me when I told you to get the hell out of there. I told the

cops I was homeless, camping out on the property, and that was that.”

I shook my head.

“Play to people’s prejudices and it gives you an advantage, David. I’m the crazy old drunk Indian living out in the desert, selling guns, and working as a private eye who can get things done.”

“And you don’t care if your clients are aboveboard?”

“That’s how you catch the bad guys.”

The breeze made the palo verde leaves quiver. He stopped and looked at the hulking buildings and abundance of asphalt. Half a block ahead, a young Hispanic woman in scrubs jaywalked where Third Avenue made a wide curve around Park Central.

“Look how ugly this town has become. This was a better place when the Apache ruled.”

“No doubt,” I said. “Tell me about the Russians.”

“We met at a café in Wickenburg, me and two Russians. They knew I acted as a courier for Markovitz and Sons when they brought in diamonds for shows. They’d give me a hundred fifty thousand dollars if I’d handle the shipment for Chandler Fashion Mall on Friday. All I had to do was retrieve the rough, which would be concealed in the suitcase.”

“How did it get there?”

He shook his head. “They wouldn’t tell me. Markovitz is one of the top outfits in the country. Vertically integrated manufacturing, design, and distribution. But every organization has its bad apples. However it happened, the Russkies knew that rough was going to be there. They wouldn’t tell me how they knew, or who it was intended for. Once a shipment is delivered to the jewelry store the salespeople lock it in a safe until it’s time to set up the displays. The empty suitcase sits in the back. It’s supposed to be empty, right? Grab the rough and nobody would be the wiser.”

“And give it to the Russians.”

“Right,” he said. “So I took the job. Easy money for the U.S. Treasury and the Russians would never know what hit them when they were eventually arrested.”

I asked him how Peralta got involved. Cartright steered us north, across another street and into the big parking lot that had once served Park Central when it was a shopping mall.

“After I met the Russians, I ran the deal up the chain of command and got a call from the director. Not every day I get a call from the director. He tells me fifteen million in rough had gone missing three months ago from the evidence control unit.”

“Inside job?”

“Had to be,” Cartwright said. “I don’t even need to tell you the kind of bad press this would cause for the Bureau. Remember the forensics lab scandal? The Washington Post, New York Times…”

I said, “There were also wrongful convictions based on tainted evidence.”

“I’m trying to explain how they think at the top. They’re thinking about the press, being called before congressional committees, seeing their careers implode. So, back to the evidence theft. A very quiet investigation was launched and produced a list of ten agents and technicians that had the clearance, opportunity, and skills to have done it. They were about to go after each one hard-core when my little Russian deal popped up. ”

“So they wanted to set up a sting.” I said.

He nodded. “The trouble was, the thief might have been high enough in the Bureau to know that I was deep undercover. Unlikely, but we couldn’t take the chance. So we needed a distraction that took the spotlight off me.”

“Peralta.”

“Yes,” he said. “The concealed rough would only come if I was at Sky Harbor to receive it. Otherwise, the Russians would get suspicious. But if I stayed in the loop too long, the suspect within the Bureau might see red flags. So the plan was for Peralta to steal the entire shipment and get the rough. Make a big deal of it in the media. See how each suspect was reacting to the news by monitoring their phone calls, emails, and movements. Watch the Russians. Peralta would contact them, demand a cut, and set up a meet. We’d roll up the Russians, recover the evidence, and have enough to arrest the insider who stole it.”

He ran through the robbery scenario. Once they were inside the service hallway at Chandler Fashion Mall—and on camera—Peralta was supposed to shoot Cartwright to make the theft look real and establish his bona fides as going rogue. Peralta had hand-loaded the bullet he would fire into Cartwright’s shoulder so it would pass through cleanly without fragmenting. Without making a dirty wound.