Desert Run (19 page)

Since Jimmy didn't seem like a Persian Pink kind of guy, I said nothing. Then I remembered that my own “new” furniture was due to arrive tomorrow morning. A sofa, two chairs, an end table and a cocktail table. What should I buy next? A kitchen table? Since I always ate my ramen noodles while watching CNN, I'd never owned a table. What kind of table would go with cactus skeleton living-room furniture? Oak? Pecan? Pine? Or maybe I should continue the Fifties theme and get one of those chrome and vinyl sets I'd seen, the kind with pictures of horseshoes and lariats on the plastic seat cushions. And maybe even a Roy Rogers cookie jar to put in the center of it.

Plates, too. I needed crockery! Did they make dishes with spur-and-lariat designs? Excited by the realization that my formerly cold apartment was developing a Fifties Western theme—however childish—I began jotting down everything I would need to build a new Lena nest. Pots and pans (I'd learn to cook), salt and pepper shakers (cactus shapes would be nice), maybe a few rugs (Navajo, of course), and a…

My phone rang and when I picked it up, I heard the Alabama drawl of Eddy Joe Hughey. “My, my, y'all cowboys sure do work late out there.”

He always made me smile. “Not as late as y'all, since y'all have two hours on us. But something tells me you didn't call to congratulate me on my work ethic.”

“Why, sweetie, I called just to hear your sexy voice.” The drawl lightened as he got down to business. “And to tell you that I found some disturbin' info on our Mr. Jack Sherwood, AKA Jack Rinn. That Beth Osmon of yours is in for some cryin' time.”

So I was right. Jack Sherwood
had
been too good to be true. “Let's have it.”

“I drove over to Hamilton this morning and talked to the woman who calls herself Mrs. Rinn, a pretty little gal named Alea. Looks somethin' like my second cousin, once removed. Anyway, after I told her some cock 'n' bull story about me lookin' into an inheritance issue on her husband's side, she was thrilled to tell me all about him. Oh, and there's no doubt we're talkin' 'bout the same ol' boy. The pictures of Mr. Rinn, musta been a dozen all over her livin' room, look just like the pictures you faxed me of Mr. Sherwood. So do the kids.”

“The kids?”

“Yeah. Four. The skunk.”

Poor Beth. “Go on. Tell me the rest.”

“I'm not sure Alea's in on her husband's little scam. In fact, I tend to think she isn't, but it looks like Mr. Sherwood/Rinn brings home the bacon by romancin' rich women all across the country, then, while they're pickin' out their trousseaus, he talks them into investin' in some get-rich-quick scheme of his.”

“Such as shopping centers, right?”

“Oh, yeah. He's used that one several times. Anyway, once he has his mark's ‘investment' money, which can run into the hundreds of thousands, he flies out of town ‘on business' and is never seen again.”

The way Eddy Joe talked, it sounded like Sherwood/Rinn had been running his scam for some time. “Do you have any idea how many women he's done this to?”

“Hard to say 'cause he prolly uses a different name each time. Now, I don't mean any disrespect toward y'all Scottsdalians, but guys like him tend to work transient cities like yours. You know, places where nobody knows nobody else's daddy and the past is a big, blank slate. Sherwood/Rinn blows into these places with nothin' but a good suit and a smile, hangs out where the money hangs out, and cozies up to lonely divorcees and widows. He's slick, I'll say that for him. I could use some of that charm my own self.”

I didn't think Eddy Joe was lacking in the charm department, but that was neither here nor there. “Were charges ever filed?”

“Not that I've been able to dig up. The boy's a genius when it comes to knowin' what woman to pick. It's always someone who'd rather be dead than let anyone know she's been played for a sucker.”

Eddy was right when he said that the Sherwood/Rinns of this world were drawn to places like Scottsdale, small but wealthy cities where roots ran shallow. Almost nobody was born here; their birth certificates were on file in places like Minnesota, North Dakota, New Hampshire and Ohio. I'd once read a report which said that the majority of Scottsdale's citizens had moved here from out of state, and that percentage seemed to be increasing all the time. The city's physical beauty and mild (except for summer) climate attracted not only people who'd earned the lush life, but also people on the run from old ghosts and failures. Hot on
their
heels came jackals like Sherwood/Rinn, ready to take advantage of everyone's vulnerabilities.

“Beth might be different,” I said to Eddy Joe. “She comes from tough pioneer stock, so maybe she'll be mad enough to file charges.”

“He ask her for money yet?”

I winced. “No.” There was the rub. A man could call himself any damned thing he wanted to as long as there was no fraud involved. And since Sherwood/Rinn hadn't put the touch on Beth yet—accent on
yet
—he was in the clear.

“Listen, baby cakes, I'm gonna fax you the newspaper article that ran when Mr. Sherwood/Rinn married Alea. Got a big picture of the happy couple. If that's not enough for Mrs. Osmon, I can scramble around and get some pictures of him with other women, too. I'm figuring he's made the society pages in various cities.”

I doubted it. In this jet-friendly age, where the rich all tended to hang out at the same watering holes, Sherwood/Rinn would probably prove camera-shy. “Let's go with what we have. I'll call Beth in the morning.”

Eddy Joe sighed. “Yeah, you do that. Too bad I always have to be the bearer of bad tidings. In the meantime, don't you go thinkin' all men are skunks just because we've trapped one stinker in the barn. Most of us are OK fellas.”

“Thanks for those reassuring words.”

“Keep the faith, Lena. Even a PIs gotta believe in love sometime.”

“I guess.” I hung up, wondering if he'd given me good advice or bad.

***

As I was getting ready to leave for the day, the phone rang again. This time it was Warren, calling from L.A. People were talking in the background. None of them sounded happy, especially not Warren. “I could use you over here in L.A. Maybe you could shoot me a couple of people and resolve this mess.”

“That bad, huh?”

He groaned. “And how. Anyway, I called just to hear a friendly voice and to tell you how much I miss you.”

Miss you
? We'd seen each other mere hours earlier.

Before I could formulate an appropriate answer, he said, “The usual formula is for the responding party to answer, ‘I miss you, too.'”

I was going to have to start studying how normal people behaved. “OK. Me, too.”

He laughed. “Lena Jones, you are the most self-contained woman I've ever met, which is why I'm so crazy about you. You're such a change from what I'm used to! But you're also a terrible liar. Tell you what. As soon as I get things ironed out here I'll fly back and we'll have dinner someplace romantic. Then I'll show you why you should miss me when I'm gone.”

When I laughed, Jimmy made a disgusted noise. I ignored him. “Uh, me too.” Warren and I laughed some more, until Jimmy turned around with an expression his ancestors must have worn when they were hiding behind mesas, waiting for the wagon trains to come by.

That silenced me. “Call when you get back.” With as much dignity as I could muster, I said good-by and hung up.

“You white people are disgusting.” But Jimmy smiled when he said it.

“Yeah, and I'm sure you never are.”

A blush darkened his already dark face. “Touché.” He turned back to his computer.

I checked my watch again. It was still only six-thirty. Figuring that a man his age would be home in the evenings, I called Harry Caulfield, only to be told by his answering machine that he wasn't in. I left a brief message about my interview with Ian Mantz, and asked if there had ever been any scuttlebutt around the sheriff's office about anonymous letters accusing Ernst of the Bollinger murders. As I hung up, I noticed Jimmy shutting down his computer.

For once, dinner alone looked bleak. “Say, since Esther's all tied up, what are you going to do for dinner tonight?”

“Maybe heat up the barbeque leftovers and watch some TV. One of Warren's old docs is on PBS tonight.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Which one?”

“Native Blood, Foreign Chains.
I saw it once and wouldn't mind seeing it again.”

Maybe I should do the same, leaving out the barbeque. But watching one of Warren's films tonight would only remind me of his absence. That's when I realized I was lonely. Maybe my therapist was right, relationships were habit-forming.

Jimmy already had his hand on the door so I stopped him with a shout. “Jimmy! Why don't we have dinner together? We could walk over to Malee's on Main for some Chicken Pad Thai. I'll even pick up the check.”

He paused. “That sounds better than leftovers.”

“And we can talk. Really talk.”

He looked less optimistic about this. “There's no agenda here, is there? I'm still taking the new job.”

Life always has an agenda, but there was no point in telling the truth. “Of course not. We've we've both been so busy lately, you with Esther, me with my cases, that we haven't had time to just be friends again.”

His face relaxed. “Chicken Pad Thai it is.”

***

Malee's was less crowded than usual because most of the snowbirds had departed for Minnesota and other points north. The aroma of mysterious Asian spices filled the air, untainted by tobacco smoke, and the low murmur of conversation served as a counterpoint to the Thai music that emanated from the restaurant's sound system. The hostess seated us at a table in back, where a Thai waitress arrived almost immediately to take our orders. As we waited for our food, we sipped creamy Thai tea. Lit only by candlelight, the tribal tattoo on Jimmy's face looked blacker than ever, and I tried to envision him with it removed. He'd look like a stranger. “So, Jimmy. Other than looking for furniture and houses, how's Esther doing?”

“Fine.”

“How's Rebecca?”

“She's fine, too.”

“Great.”

Now it was his turn. “How's Warren?”

“In L.A.”

“How's Dusty?”

“God only knows.”

“How's Kryzinski?”

“Packing.”

“How's Rama Tesema?”

“Miserable.”

Before I grew more depressed, the waitress arrived with our Chicken Pad Thai. We busied ourselves eating for the next few minutes, then attempted a more promising line of chatter.

“Does Esther get a good furniture discount from Neiman Marcus?”

“Sure, but the prices are still a little high for us, so we're getting the bulk of our things at Ethan Allen.”

“What are you taking along from your trailer?” I pictured the paintings of Pima petroglyphs which adorned his kitchen cabinet doors. Perhaps he could hang them in his den, alongside the photographs of both his biological and adoptive parents. Then the new house would still feel like home. I told him this.

He looked down at what was left of his Chicken Pad Thai. “They're not Persian Pink.”

Time to switch to a safer topic. “Ah, I never filled you in on what I discovered when I interviewed that dentist. Did you know that one of those two Germans who escaped from Camp Papago and were never caught actually survived?”

“Are you talking about Erik Ernst? He didn't exactly give himself up, you know. A couple of farmhands nabbed him when he stole food from a shed. And as for survived, better ask the Maricopa County medical examiner how lively he is these days.” He gave me a wicked smile.

This is what happens when you don't take the trouble to update your partner, even when your partner is leaving you in a matter of days. “No, no. I'm not talking about Das Kapitan. I'm talking about Gunter Hoenig, one of Ernst's U-boat crew members.” As we finished up our Chicken Pad Thai, I relayed everything Ian Mantz told me.

Jimmy frowned. “That's an interesting story, but what about the other guy?”

“What other guy?”

The waitress came by and removed our plates. We ordered home-made coconut ice cream for dessert, which she brought almost immediately. Someone in the back put a cool jazz station on the music system, and the soprano sax of Kenny G drifted out. Relaxing, maybe, but I missed the Asian music.

After the waitress had gone away again, Jimmy said, “Gunter's friend Josef Braun. He was on the same U-boat, remember? We know that Ernst was eventually captured and was transferred to a prison camp with stronger security until the end of the war, and now you tell me that Gunter Hoenig melted into the local German-American community. But where'd Josef end up?”

My spoon stopped halfway to my mouth. “You know, partner, that's a good question.”

What
had
happened to Gunter's friend Josef Braun? If he was alive and living somewhere in Arizona, was he still strong enough to beat a man to death?

After dinner, Jimmy climbed into his Toyota truck and headed back to the reservation while I climbed the stairs to my apartment above Desert Investigations. Out of habit, I turned on CNN but quickly grew tired of the non-stop violence in the Middle East. Seeking a more soothing brand of mind candy, I flipped through the channels until I arrived at TVLand, and sat happily through
Leave It to Beaver
and
Here Come the Nelsons
. On neither show did anyone decapitate anyone else or announce that he had AIDS. The most serious problem either program dealt with was the Beav not being invited to a friend's sleep-over. Had life really been that easy in the Fifties? Or were both programs lies designed to take that generation's mind off its own woes?

Whatever, the past sure looked rosy in retrospect.