Arizona Dreams (3 page)

5

A few days later, I checked out a Ford Crown Vic from the sheriff's motor pool. Lately I'd been riding the bus in anticipation of Phoenix finally finishing the light-rail line on Central; when that happened, I could take the train the mile-and-a-half between the house and my office in the old courthouse. With this well-used piece of county property, I drove west and left the city. I tried to leave the city, but it kept spreading out. The cotton and alfalfa fields that stood when I was a kid had long since been covered with subdivisions. Now many of them, once new safe suburbia, had become slums. The little farm towns had turned into cities, densely packed red tile rooftops stretching to the horizon. Farther out, the remnants of farms sat like an unwanted tenant as the shopping strips, car dealerships and houses encroached. Signs hawked new developments from a dozen builders. A billboard half the size of a football field and as well constructed as a city hall promised yet another project, the words standing out in ten-foot gossamer, “Arizona Dreams.”

Where Interstate 10 curved around the booming suburb of Goodyear, the horizon opened up. The White Tank Mountains spread out in front of me, a vast purplish expanse slathered with the distinctive pale rocks that give them their odd name. The mountains, which I usually saw as a smudge to the west, suddenly looked majestic and wild. Behind them, the sky was an electric blue, ornamented with similarly bright fluffy white clouds. It was a scene increasingly rare in my town, with its dirty air. But the land I passed through was not empty. The sun glinted off the rooftops. Elsewhere, every empty parcel of land had a sign that proclaimed “available.”

As traffic lightened up, I let myself hear Lindsey's voice in my head. She had awakened me at three that morning to hear the rain. It was a rare and lovely sound in the thirsty land. I slipped out from the covers to watch the drops fall with increasing force on the dark street outside. Then I came back to bed and she had warmed me. Then our hands conjured their usual magic, but later, as she lay panting, sprawled atop me, I knew her mind was someplace else.

After she had tucked her toes under my legs, as was her custom, I ventured, “Are you okay?” She just pressed her head against my shoulder and said nothing. The rain had settled into a gentle brushing sound on the roof. I listened for a while, then whispered, “Is it Robin?” But again, she had been silent, and she became so still that I thought she was asleep. I just held her, feeling her heart beat against mine.

“I spent so many years trying to escape it, Dave.” She spoke in a whisper, as if she didn't want the room to hear. “Why is Robin here? Why was she on our street?”

I just listened and stroked her soft hair. Knowing that Lindsey had a tough childhood didn't help me understand her reaction to this mystery sister. I knew other things might have been on her mind, too. She was indeed the valuable one in the family, as Peralta noted. Lately she had helped bust a money-laundering operation working through a small bank in North Scottsdale. But there was nothing small about the players. The feds claimed the money was part of a complicated financing scheme involving Mexican drug lords, the Asian sex-trade, and Middle Eastern terrorists. It reminded me of the eighteenth century trade triangle of slaves, rum, and molasses. It worried Lindsey. Robin worried Lindsey. For that matter, there was an unsolved murder just down the street. There was a lot to worry us all. But it didn't seem like the right time to ask her for anything more. I could feel her tears on my skin. And then I felt her breathing smooth out, and pretty soon I was asleep, too.

Now I was so far west that the mountains had shifted. The White Tanks were to the east, and south of them the Sierra Estrella piled up massively, an unfamiliar view. Due south was a low ridge of bumpy tears in the horizon; the Gila Bend Mountains, I think. When I came off the interstate, the city was gone. After a mile of driving on a two-lane road, even the scruffy trailers and junkyards of the desert rats had been replaced by chaparral and brittlebush and empty country. The bones of an old gas station passed my window. The freeway didn't exist when Dana's father allegedly killed “Z” and buried him. The way into the desert would have been longer and more tortuous, but the directions were clear enough.

Stashing bodies in the desert was nothing new—this Harquahala Desert had been the dumping ground for a serial killer a few years back. Lindsey had finally stopped him. That had been when we were first getting together. This desert had memories, secrets. And yet another one, courtesy of a dead man's letter. I still had it locked in my desk drawer. It was one page of inexpensive white paper. The writing was in blue ink, in a jaggedy script. But it was legible, and, as she had said, it was matter-of-fact:

Dear Dana,

If you've found this letter and opened it, then I'm gone. I'm sorry to give you another shock. But it has to come out. I killed Z in March 1966. I had to. You have to know he left me no choice. I took his body out to the property west of Tonopah and buried him. It wasn't a proper burial. Just rocks.

There was one sentence in a different tone. At the bottom of the page. It read:

Don't hate your old man, Dana. I had to do these things, for you. I loved you whether you knew it or not.

Dana didn't know who “Z”' was. All she knew was the directions to the property, which the will had made hers. Her father had a notion of raising cattle on it. But this was rough country, with little more than creosote bush covering the hard, rolling ground. Not even a Texas longhorn would last out here, which is why it was so unappealing to settlers in the nineteenth century. They passed through, if they had to, on the way to California. Yet after another thirty minutes of bumping over a dirt road, I was pretty sure I was there, and the country had changed. Several saguaros with multiple arms towered over dense stands of prickly pear, pincushion, and cholla cactus. Beyond were palo verdes, hackberries, and even a couple of cottonwood trees. A creek was nearby. Bright orange flowers were starting to bud on the long fingers of ocotillo and gnarled deep green branches of buckhorn cholla. Even the ubiquitous creosote looked greener. I could see why the land had appealed to Dana's old man. An ancient wooden gate parted a long, disheveled fence of barbed wire. Behind it, maybe half a mile away, was a smooth butte the shape of a fez. I parked the Crown Vic in front of the gate and was grateful to stretch my legs.

Dana said the property was an even thousand acres. As the desert floor swept up to the butte, it became craggier and strewn with burned-looking boulders the size of a Mini Cooper. Closer to me, it was especially thick with the yellow-white fuzz of teddy bear cholla. Jumping cactus. It made me glad I didn't go out in the desert like a tourist from the Midwest—in shorts. The land was utterly silent. It was almost a frightening sensory experience for a city boy. Although the soil was dry and the sky was bright blue with fluffy February clouds, the ground smelled of rain.

The gate was no problem. Although it still kept watch with a rusty chain and padlock, one post had pulled away enough for me to slip through. I walked along a trail toward the butte. Sure, I could have tried to bring out a team of forensic specialists. But that would have required permission from Peralta. And I was supposed to be writing his damned book. And I didn't know what I thought of the letter. An old man's ravings—stranger things had been imagined by the dying and committed to paper. I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

The trail took me through the cactus stands and across the undulating, sunblasted ground. In a few months, it could be fatal to be out here. Today, it was cool—almost chilly to thin-blooded Arizonans. I liked it, though. The old Boy Scout in me couldn't help but think of rattlesnakes and listen for a telltale sound. But the snakes were hibernating, and all I heard was the breeze through the arms of the ocotillo and my boots scuffing against the rocks and sand. The ground was dry. The rain of the previous night had spurned this place. I walked alone surrounded by nothing made by man.

My plan was to look around. Look around, go back and talk to Dana. And then turn her over to the sheriff's detectives. Maybe Peralta was right—I was doing any task to avoid sitting before that blank computer screen and writing. A task like seeking an old homicide victim in a thousand acres of wilderness. But the instructions in the letter were true. I walked a couple of hundred yards on the trail, heading for the butte. Then, as promised, I found a metal fence post, alone in the ground. Turning left, I could see an odd break in the ground, off to my right.

I wandered toward it, and in a moment an arroyo appeared. It was maybe 20 feet deep and held a dry wash. But its walls were steep and sudden. I didn't want to stand too close to the edge. The arroyo's edge was flush with the desert floor. A casual hiker would never know it was here. I started thinking of the hidden canyons where the Apache had eluded the cavalry. And then I saw a formation of bowling-ball-sized rocks exactly the shape and size of a man. They were maybe ten feet from the arroyo edge, and on the hard dirt of the desert floor. I looked around for similar sized stones, and none were nearby. These had been placed here. For a grave.

That was when I heard footsteps.

“This is private property.”

The voice went with a giant. I'm six feet two, and I swear my eyes were on the level of his chest. With him, was a skinny kid wearing a football jersey bearing the lettering
ghetto
.

I started to speak and the giant shoved me to the ground. My hand blazed in pain at breaking my fall against an outcropping of shale. But that was nothing compared to the kick in the ribs, and then I felt cholla biting into my arm. The kid was laughing, a high-pitched keening. I tried to roll off the cactus, but something sharp erupted into my stomach. I saw a large hiking boot flash between the ground and me.

Then I wasn't seeing anything.

6

By the time I made it home, the sky was rippling in deep scarlets and oranges. It would be a sunset for the record books, but right that moment I just wanted a martini with Lindsey. My right hand was on fire from the jumping cactus, and my left side felt as if it had been caved in by a rockslide. I kept touching it, and was surprised my ribs were still there. But every time I touched it, a bolt of pain zagged across my chest and up my neck. So much for helping old students. No good deed goes unpunished.

The lights were already on, glowing warmly through the picture window that faces Cypress Street. But when I came through the door, I heard muffled sobs. A look around the archway into the living room, and I saw Lindsey and Robin sitting close. Lindsey's arm was around her sister, who had her head down and was hunched forward on her elbows. I quietly closed and locked the front door, and took the right turn into the hallway that led to our bedroom, there, to pick out the remaining cactus spines with tweezers and take stock of my mess of an afternoon.

When I'd come to, I was about an inch from the edge of the arroyo. I was still woozy, and the wrong twist would have deposited me two stories down into the wash bed. I was surprised my attackers hadn't thought of it. But they were gone. As I spat a mouthful of bile into the sand and tried to rise, I could hear a distant buzz. Motorcycles, or all-terrain vehicles. Fading away.

By the time Lindsey came in, I had washed the worst of the desert off me. I managed to kiss her and let her snuggle into my arms without getting my ribs involved or letting her take hold of my injured hand. She offered to make martinis, and I let her.

“Do you feel better about Robin now?” I asked, after we had settled on the leather sofa that faced the picture window.

“Oh, Dave,” she said, a small smile. She lithely swung her legs onto my lap while hanging onto her drink, and lolled her head back against the arm of the sofa.

“Are you all right?” She must have noticed I winced. I said I was. I was getting better at least. Despite a kick in the stomach, my system eagerly accepted the gin.

She said, “I guess I feel a little better. I know I've been acting weird. Seeing her for the first time in years…it brought back a lot. But time really can help things.”

“You don't have to tell me.”

“Dave, you know I have to tell you everything.” She sipped her drink and ran one of her long, elegant fingers around the rim of her glass. “She's my half-sister, you know? She had a different dad. She's two years younger, but by the time she came along, Linda was already living with some new guy. I know you think it's weird to call my mother by her first name…”

“No,” I said. “From the way you describe it, you kind of had to raise her.”

“The dutiful daughter Lindsey,” she said, an ambiguous shade in her voice. “Robin was a sweet girl, so creative. That all changed. She got into drugs by the time she was about thirteen. It didn't help that we moved to a new school every year, and Linda always had some new man she was self-destructing over. You've heard this a million times.”

“I didn't know you had a sister,” I said gently.

She sighed. “I know. I'm sorry.” I stroked her feet with my free hand. In a moment, she continued. “For so many years, I felt like an orphan. When I found you, I just didn't want to dredge all that up. I never thought I'd see her again.” She took an uncharacteristic gulp of her drink. “When I was twenty-five, I was leaving the Air Force. And Robin showed up. It was bad. She was still doing drugs, lying. Oh, Dave. My family sounds like a white trash reality show. I'm not like them. But I knew Robin was going to turn out just like Linda. God, I knew that when I was fifteen years old.” By this time her eyes were full of tears.

“We don't choose our families, darling,” I said. “I was lucky. But even so, I lost my parents when I was a baby. Then I lost my grandparents. Sometimes I almost wish some long lost brother or sister would arrive.”

“I chose you,” she said. “And I had a good visit with Robin. Maybe she has changed. Everybody gets older, and some people even grow up. She went back to college. My gosh, she's lived in New York and Paris. She sounds very accomplished.”

“I'd call that a change for the better.”

“Me, too,” she said. “So when Robin showed up at the door today, I either had to treat her like the enemy, or like my sister.” Lindsey says “eye-ther” and I say “eeth-er”; somehow we worked the whole thing out. She said, “So I invited her in, and we talked. I always wanted to save Robin. But I couldn't make her save herself. Now I think that's happened. Do you think I'm a fool?”

“Definitely not,” I said. “You have a kind heart that I love.”

“Oh, Dave…” And she was in my arms before I knew it. I let out something between a gasp and a yelp, and the remains of the martini flew onto the floor.

“Dave, what's wrong? Stop that—leave the martini glass alone. I'll get that later. What's wrong? Are you hurt?”

“No…yes…” And so I told her.

“Oh, my God…we're going to the ER…” This as she was taking an inventory of the dark red crescent spreading across my side and my swollen hand and arm. Then we fussed back and forth—I wasn't going to wait for eight hours in an overrun Phoenix emergency room. I promised I'd call the doctor in the morning if things got worse. Lindsey said I'd call the doctor no matter what.

“I feel like such a dolt,” I said.

“They assaulted a deputy sheriff!”

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Tough Cop.”

“Were you armed, Dave?”

I shook my head.

“Oh, God, they might have killed you. What if they had been armed?”

Then I tried to distract her by making a fresh martini for me, while telling her about the visit from Dana Underwood and her father's letter.

“Do you remember her?”

I shook my head. “Maybe I remember her voice. I don't know.”

“She's a strawberry blonde, Dave,” Lindsey teased. “You used to have a weakness for those strumpets.”

“I have a weakness for you. And she looks like some soccer mom from Ahwatukee.”

“Soccer moms can be hot,” she said.

I said, “
Cherchez la femme
.” Lindsey wrinkled her nose. “Look for the woman. The subtle power of a woman.”

Then, a teasing gleam came into her blue eyes: “Did you ever sleep with your students, professor?” By this time, we were at the built-in breakfast booth at the back of the kitchen.

“Do you really want to know?”

“I'm not sure.” Lindsey was something of a moralist, in a gentle way.

“Well, I didn't sleep with my students. Although that certainly happens.”

“Dr. Mapstone, the dutiful teacher. But, Dave, you really think there's a body out there?”

“I saw those rocks. And the father wrote in the letter that he buried this ‘Z' under rocks. They could have sat undisturbed there for forty years, the place is so isolated.”

“Except today.”

“Except today,” I agreed. “And what the hell were they doing out there, saying ‘private property,' when that land belongs to Dana.”

“Maybe they're really aggressive real-estate agents.”

“Maybe,” I said, and sipped the martini. “But nobody gets killed over real estate. Not even in Arizona.”

“So what are you going to do now? Tell Peralta?”

“Are you kidding? He'll go postal. I don't need to be reminded again, in his special way, what a complete failure I am. I'm going to quietly turn it over to the detectives. I'm going to call her and have her come in and make a statement, then go back to my book work.”

“Well, call her now. Maybe you can find out who those goons were. Then, I can nurse you with a healthy dinner. Later, I'll examine your privates, just to make sure they came through your ordeal. It might take some time…”

So after I finished my drink, I retrieved Dana's phone number from my old black briefcase, and sat in the study to call her. When Lindsey came in, she saw my face.

“What's wrong, History Shamus?”

“The number she gave me is wrong. It goes to Arturo's Llantera in Mesa.”

“Maybe she's a big wheel.”

“Ha-ha. I'm sure that's the number she gave me. Now I dial it and get a hubcap store. I tried the phone book—no Dana Underwood.”

It made no damned sense, but I was already thinking what Lindsey now said.

“Maybe she didn't want you to contact her again.”