Arizona Dreams (13 page)

25

The city kept growing. Slogans and euphemisms played as big a role as “Go West Young Man” did in the nineteenth century. Now it was selling a dream “set within a stunning landscape…As rare as the splendor of the Sonoran Desert…Designed for your active lifestyle…A distinctively styled collection of homes…Draped with lush greens and rolling fairways…Miles of walking paths and hiking trails.” Lowly subdivisions had been upgraded to “master-planned communities.” Add gates to the subdivision and it became even more alluring. The city grew on glowing articles in the newspaper about Phoenix leading the nation in job creation and in attracting Californians who were cashing out the equity in their houses and moving here. Other words were less welcome: the occasional warning of a real-estate bubble or threat to water supplies, the regular reports that showed per-capita income was below the national average, that most of the jobs being created paid badly, and Phoenix lacked the diverse economy needed for a big city to compete. No, this was a story about promise and hope, floated on thirty-year mortgages or ARMs. It was the American Dream. The people who moved in didn't remember the citrus groves or desert that the houses replaced, and they didn't miss what they couldn't recall.

Lindsey came home on the evening of July 3. We are not a couple that meets at curbside. So when I saw her walk past the security checkpoint, in her black jeans and black top and luminous smile, I set aside all my fears and misgivings to just feel her in my arms again. This was the woman I knew. Once again, our talk was easy and comfortable, as if we'd never been apart. Then we went home, to a room lit only by a candle and the cool kiss of the air conditioning on our warm skin. Robin wasn't around, and she found little space in our happy conversation. The newspaper was full of crisis: one of two pipelines that brought gasoline to the city had broken, and gas lines were already appearing at the pumps. Seven homeless people were dead in one day from the one-hundred-seventeen-degree heat. A shootout between rival immigrant smugglers left two children dead. But for a few hours, my life was nothing but right.

When the phone rang later, it pulled me out of such a deep sleep that at first I had the consciousness of a houseplant. By the time Lindsey handed me the receiver, I was awake enough to hear the voice of a sheriff's office dispatcher, and she was telling me where to go.

“What is it, Dave?” Lindsey asked, looking sleepy and freshly ravished. It was a nice look for her.

“I'm supposed to meet Patrick Blair,” I said. “All she said was it's related to a 901-H.” That was the radio code for homicide. In a two-cop household, you use jargon without even realizing it.

Fifteen minutes later, I was waiting in the deserted parking lot of Park Central, the former shopping center turned offices half a mile north of our house. The temperature seemed to have dropped below one hundred, so I lowered the air conditioning off high/max. There was no crime scene, no flashing lights. But this was where the dispatcher said Blair would meet me. I turned off the lights and sat. Leave it to Blair to ruin my romantic evening. I looked around the deserted lot. When I was a kid, this was the biggest retail center in the state besides downtown. Now all the stores had moved out, and Phoenix had all the big city retail ambiance of Fargo. My bicycle had been stolen at Park Central when I was nine, my first encounter with crime. I couldn't say that put me on a path to become a sheriff's deputy. But there I was, having historical thoughts—or at least the memories that come from moving back to the neighborhood where you grew up. All these thoughts were helping me avoid wondering why Patrick Blair had called me out in the middle of the night.

Middle-of-the-night anxieties weren't long in coming. What about Robin's information that Blair had been in Washington at the same time that Lindsey was there? A man she liked and defended, an old beau perhaps. She had given me no reason to mistrust her. Robin was playing a game. I wanted to think so, but the nervous shaking of my right leg indicated otherwise. Maybe Lindsey's passionate return to me had been fueled by guilt. Maybe that night with Robin I had been angry enough with Lindsey to earn some guilt myself. I could still feel the distinct contours of Robin's breasts against me. I shook my head, hard. What the hell would Dr. Sharon say? She'd say I was tired and acting silly.

To the west, I saw the landing lights of a helicopter, bringing some poor soul into the trauma center at St. Joseph's Hospital. I glanced over at the hospital's rooftop helipad, which already held two choppers. Soon the rotor noise and lights were insistently in my face. Then the Prelude's windows were vibrating and the car was being rocked by rotor wash. I had just enough time to imagine a medical helicopter crashing on the asphalt in front of me, when the chopper descended to a level where I could see the sheriff's star and insignia on the side. Then it was on the ground, a compact steel insect with some kind of jet stabilizer that eliminated the need for a tail rotor. It sent out a wave of gritty dust, and when the rotors stopped a man stepped out and motioned me over.

“What's up, Blair?”

“Sorry to get you out,” he said, with just the solicitous manner of someone who had cuckolded me. I tried to put that aside. He asked, “You know a kid who lives in a school bus, out near Hyder?”

“Yeah, he calls himself Davey Crockett. He was near Louie Bell's trailer, gave me the description of the guy in the Dodge truck who might have been…”

Blair's look stopped me. He said, “The kid's dead. Homicide. Tony's already out there. It's apparently pretty bad. The sheriff wants us both out there as soon as possible.”

We were already walking to the helicopter. The air took on the scent of aviation fuel.

I had not been a passenger in what was called “Peralta's air force,” and given my unease even in an airliner, I had no desire to go. But damned if I would let Patrick Blair know it. So I gamely boarded, and took a seat in the back, pulling the harnesses tight. Blair retook his seat beside the pilot, the engines loudly engaged, and we quickly lifted off. It was too loud to talk. We went straight up, shimmied a little and turned southwest. I held onto the seat, feeling vaguely dizzy as every air pocket and wind gust seemed magnified by the small airframe. I was steady, though. As had been true since I was young, real crisis calmed me. It was only in silence, in repose, what most people called “peace,” that I was vulnerable.

I recalled Davey Crockett's small, fragile face and imagined what we might find. Out the window, the world was sharply divided between dark and light. A dense galaxy of city lights flowed out beyond the horizon. But we were low enough to make out the details on skyscrapers—the window-washing rig sat on the top of the Viad Tower—and the red and green of traffic lights. Low-riders chased their headlight beams along McDowell Road. In the distance came the telltale talisman flash of red TV tower lights on the South Mountains. After a few minutes, we left the center of the galaxy and what remained were a few arms of stars that were subdivisions, and finally the wayward outlying solar systems of the few remaining farmers' lights. Then we were in darkness. It was a moonless night and the earth was void. I could only imagine the empty desert below as we felt the updrafts from the mountains. Now light came from real stars above. It was a shame we couldn't just ride in the night and enjoy the view.

We touched down on the road a ways from the Bell trailer, and walked toward the old school bus that had been Davey's home. It was lit up like a movie location set at night, and the characters moving about were all wearing the tan uniforms of the MCSO. I walked beside Blair, hooking my star over my belt like a real cop.

“How was your trip to Washington?” I asked him.

“What are you talking about?” he said. I couldn't see his face in the darkness. He continued, “The only trip I've had in the past year was one to bring back a murderer from Yuma.”

By that time, we had reached a perimeter of yellow tape and uniformed deputies. Tony Snyder, Blair's male model Bobbsey Twin partner, met us with latex gloves on his hands. He was drinking out of a liter-sized bottle of Arrowhead water. I was instantly feeling dehydrated.

“His brains are beaten out all over the inside of that school bus,” Snyder said. “Roof, windows, floor. It's a hell of a fucking mess. My wife wanted me to look at new houses later today, and I'm on brain cleanup detail.” We stood looking at the bus. Its long side faced the road, but was set back maybe fifty feet. It had been decades since it had been painted, but you could make out
casa grande schools
on the side. Snyder was still talking: “Whoever did it was interrupted. There's all these old hippies who live out here. Guy drives by and hears screaming coming from the bus. So he stops and yells, ‘Hey, you all right in there?' Somebody from inside takes a shot at him, so he high-tails it to Hyder and gets some buddies. They call us and come back with guns. But by then, it's too late. What a mess. We're looking for a pipe or something like that, whatever was used to beat him.”

“You won't find it,” I said. “And it wasn't a pipe. It was a sap.”

“A what?”

“A blackjack.”

“How do you…?”

I was about to tell him when I heard Peralta's heavy, even tread.

26

The sheriff walked with us toward the school bus. He was wearing black slacks and a black polo shirt that blended him in with the desert night. As we walked into the bright floodlights, I could see the anger percolating at the sides of his large eyes. He ignored Blair and Snyder, walking with a meaty hand on my shoulder.

“Mapstone, the responding officers found the victim's wallet. He had a driver's license, a debit card, twenty-two dollars, a picture of his mom, and a sheriff's office business card with your name on it.” We paused a few feet from the school bus door, where untold numbers of children had once climbed aboard. “Why did he have your card, Mapstone?”

I looked around. The scene was a mess. The hippie rescuers had ruined any chance to get shoe imprints when they boarded the bus. Now the inside was floodlit, and I could see evidence technicians moving slowly from the rear. The seats were mostly gone, replaced by a bed, an old sofa, a table with a hotplate, and stacks of water bottles. Ah, the simple life in rural Arizona. Snyder hadn't been exaggerating the worst. I saw two skinny legs, pushing out of dusty pants. The wheelchair was tossed aside below the bus steps. The faded vinyl seat was folded and dusty. In the background, I heard the chatter of the police radio. Many people were dying in the county tonight, whether in a robbery gone bad or a hospital bed. And I had seen death so many times as a young deputy. There was no logical reason that the death of this young man named Davey Crockett should mean more to me than any other. But a part of me wanted to cry.

I explained things to Peralta, who kept muttering under his breath, “what about the book, Mapstone…you were supposed to be working on a book.” I just talked over him. I could see the alarmed looks on young deputies and evidence techs.

“So,” Peralta said, “you put a civilian in danger.”

“I didn't put him in danger,” I said testily. My insides weren't so sure. I felt a wave of nausea. I swallowed heavily and made my best case, to Peralta and to my gathering guilty conscience. “He told me he felt safe. He told me the man in the truck hadn't seen him spying on the Bell brothers. I wrote all this up and forwarded it to the detectives, and to the tribal police. I did my part, and then I went back to your book.” I emphasized the “your.”

“So what's your hypothesis?” he said mildly.

I gave it to him as best I could. Some of it just had to be improvised. “The tattooed guy in the Dodge truck appeared to be intimidating Louie Bell. That was what Davey thought. He seems a more likely suspect for the casino murder than the pickpocket. We know he came back and went through the Bell trailer after Louie was murdered. But he still wasn't satisfied. He was looking for something, or worried that Davey had seen him. So he came back earlier tonight.”

Blair added, “Or maybe the kid surprised him over at the Bell trailer again, and he followed him back to the school bus.”

“Go check that trailer,” Peralta ordered.

“There's something else,” I said. “I've seen this man with the big tattoo on his arm.” I told Peralta about the night at El Pedregal, and the woman I was intending to meet.

His jaw tightened but he said nothing.

“The inside of the bus was pretty trashed,” Snyder said. “Somebody was taking the place apart looking for something.”

I looked over Peralta's shoulder. “Has anybody looked in there?” I pointed to the compartment built into the side of the bus. Blair and Snyder looked at each other, then we all walked over. Snyder gave it a couple of strong pulls and the metal door fell open. A flashlight showed rusty tools, old rags, an ancient jack, and a bulky, legal-sized envelope.

Thirty minutes later, after the envelope had been photographed, logged into the chain of custody, and gone through other hoops designed to foil clever defense attorneys, its contents were spread out on the hood of a sheriff's office SUV. I had gone from wide-awake to wired to fading in the course of a couple of hours. My body wasn't twenty years old anymore, although Lindsey had made me feel that way a few hours before. The contents of the envelope didn't contribute to my alertness. It looked like the kind of papers you might get at a house closing. Then I saw a name.

“Holy…”

Peralta and the Bobbseys crowded around. Everybody was sweating but Peralta. The sheriff demanded to know if I was wearing gloves.

“I didn't just fall off the turnip truck,” I grumped. My fingers were leafing through legal documents. I walked them through.

“This is a deed transfer for a piece of property in Maricopa County. The grantor is Louis Bell. The grantees are Tom and Dana Earley.”

“The supervisor?” Snyder said.

I nodded. Peralta said, “We don't know that. It's a common name.”

“Not when it's Tom married to a woman named Dana,” I said. “And look, here's their address in Gilbert. It's the same guy.” I flipped pages. “But look. It was never signed by Bell, never filed.”

“What property is it?” Peralta asked, pushing closer to the documents on the SUV hood. “You'll have to go online. Maybe go down to the plat books at the county.”

“I already know the plat number,” I said. “It's the Bell land west of Tonopah.”

“Where the old guy wanted to be buried,” Snyder said.

Peralta had a letter in his hands. I read over his shoulder. It was from the Earleys' lawyer. “They had a tentative deal, and then Bell refused to sign,” Peralta said. It was dated two weeks before Louie Bell was murdered.

“I know what you're thinking, Mapstone,” he said. “Stop.”

I leafed through the other contents of the legal-sized envelope. If there was any doubt remaining, there were two Tom Earley business cards. One in his role as president of Earley Development Group, and the other as Maricopa County supervisor. A color brochure of the Arizona Dreams development was stapled to another business card, for someone named Shelley Baker. On a single sheet of legal paper the name Earl Rice was written in pencil, and underlined.

“Look at this.” Blair was talking. He pointed to the signature of the lawyer for Louis Bell, at the bottom of the deed transfer. My spine expanded at least an inch: the name was Alan Cordesman, and the date of the document was a month before he was found murdered in Willo.

“We need a warrant tonight,” Blair said. “We've got to get access to the Earley house before they realize we know, and start destroying evidence.”

“Wait,” Peralta said.

“Earley and his wife are connected to three homicides by these documents,” Blair said. “This is what the suspect was looking for. Bell probably gave this to Davey Crockett for safekeeping. Earley clearly had a financial interest…”

“No,” Peralta said.

“Blair's right,” I said quietly. Deputies were crowded around us, nervously fingering their leather belt accessories, snapping and unsnapping items in the timeless fidgeting of cops. Peralta glared at me. “I want that evidence sealed for now,” he said. “Mapstone, you can go.”

I didn't move. He glared at me more. His face would have been at home among the heads on Easter Island. It didn't intimidate me. We had been patrol deputies in another life, and I claimed some prerogatives of a former partner. I looked him back in the eye. No one spoke. After what seemed like five minutes, he said, “Talk to me over here for a minute,” and stalked out to the road. Then he walked fast out into the night. I had to trot at first to keep up. The air was cooler than in the city, and as we gained distance from the floodlights, the canopy of stars emerged. Grand eternity enveloped us, courtesy of the dry atmosphere. On the earth, we might as well have been a hundred miles from even a drink of water. The empty land cascaded outward in every direction, contained only by the eerie black shapes of mountains and buttes that occluded the fantastic constellations and billions of distant suns that lit our walk.

“Tell me a historical story, Mapstone,” Peralta said. “That's what you're supposed to be here for.”

“You'd be bored.” I was all out of history for the moment. Davey Crockett was dead and the Alamo had fallen.

We walked on in silence. Finally, I said, “We're not too far from the site of the Oatman massacre. It was 1851, I think. An Apache war party attacked a group of settlers headed for California. A little girl named Olive Oatman was kidnapped. She was later sold to the Mohave Indians, and then…”

“What have you gotten us into, Mapstone?”

He didn't wait for me to answer.

“This man is a very powerful politician,” he said.

“You're the most powerful politician in the county,” I said.

“Times change,” he replied.

“What do you mean times change?”

“Mapstone, look at who's running the country. People like Tom Earley. These are the kind of people that don't sweat when they fuck. Understand? But I have to get along with them.”

I stopped and stared at him. I could only see the wide planes of his face illuminated by starlight. “Are you telling me you're afraid to investigate this?”

“I am afraid,” he said. “But it doesn't matter. This is political dynamite. Even if I decided the evidence was worth looking at, I'd have to turn it over to another law enforcement agency. DPS or the Pima County sheriff. There can't be any charge of conflict of interest.”

“The Earleys aren't above the law,” I protested. “Dana came to me with a fake letter from a fake father. Then she claimed she was being blackmailed. When I asked for the evidence, she wanted to meet at El Pedregal. I nearly got my brains beaten in, and she never called me again. And all you can talk about is politics?”

“Go home,” he ordered.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I erupted. “These documents link together three separate murders. When have you ever been cautious or political? You're not. It's why people respect you and love you. Something is going on. My office was broken into. The lock was knocked out clean as surgery. Who did that, in a guarded county building, and what were they looking for? Last time I checked you were the sheriff. And now you want to go hide behind protocol?”

“You're out of line.”

“I know. But I'm right.”

“You sound like Sharon.”

I kicked at the sandy dirt, just to be kicking something. “You had a good thing going there, and you screwed it up. I know, I'm out of line.”

“She wanted to move on,” he said. “I was holding her back.”

I let it be. I said, “Why don't you let Blair and Snyder look into this.”

“I can see the headline,” Peralta said. “SHERIFF INVESTIGATES POWERFUL POLITICIAN WHO IS CRITIC OF DEPARTMENT.”

“So let me quietly look into it,” I said.

“No.”

“Give me a few days.”

He repeated, “No.”

I was tired and angry, and I was rapidly pushing through the boundaries that even old partners respect. “Damn you,” I said. “That young man back there was abandoned by everybody in the world. When he fell off a roof while he was working for his father, his dad cut him loose. God, I hate what Arizona has become. And now he can't expect justice from the Maricopa County sheriff.” I finished and bit my lip and stared out at a mass that I believed was Fourth of July Peak. It was now the Fourth of July, three in the morning. Peralta just grunted.

He asked, “What ever happened to the little girl who was kidnapped?”

“What? Oh, Olive Oatman? She was eventually rescued. She lived into her sixties.”

“How could wagon trains have come through here? It's so barren and dry.”

“They followed the Gila River and there were a few wells along the way. It was very difficult. Stop changing the subject.”

Peralta started walking back toward the scene. “Get back to the book, Mapstone. It'll be good for you.”

“What if I do other things on my own time?” I asked. “Check out some names. You don't need to know anything. I'm just the crazy professor, working on his own.”

“No,” he snarled. “And I mean goddamned no!”

I let him stalk ahead. He got about ten feet and stopped, just standing there, his back toward me, his broad shoulders rigid with tension. Out into the night he said, “It might take a few days to sort everything out here. I'd say four days. You know how this damned bureaucracy works.”

He turned back to me and said, “Take Lindsey with you.” Then he walked on. A few more steps, and I heard, “And don't be stupid.” All in all, I took that as permission from the sheriff.

Then he walked into the floodlights, and I followed to bum a ride back to the city. It was Independence Day, after all.