Cactus Heart (19 page)

39

The rain stayed all week, under a sky that looked like boiling lead. On Friday morning, I walked across Jefferson Street to the sheriff's administration building, showed my ID at the deputy's entrance and used the back hallway to reach the private entrance to Peralta's office suite. His space held the comfort of the familiar: the big Arizona flag furled in its coppery sunset behind his desk; the framed photos of a storied career on the wall; a bulletin board on wheels with the latest case reports; a wall-sized map of Maricopa County; the contrast of his credenza piled high with files, law books, and used legal pads with the utter emptiness of his big modern desktop. He was leaning back in his chair, black cowboy boots on his blotter, sipping a caffeine-free Diet Coke.

“Where have you been? I've eaten all your leftovers at home.”

I dropped a two-inch-thick file folder beside his boots. I said: “Progress.”

He lifted his dark brow a quarter of an inch. I sat down and gave my report.

In the end, he wanted to talk to Luis Paz himself. All the way down, Peralta quizzed me rapid-fire. Turned my ideas on their head. Turned my words against me. Questioned the sequence. Questioned the motives. He could demolish the careless truth-seeker in one sentence, and I needed that. He reminded me we would face tougher questions from the county attorney—and from Superior Court Judge Arthur C. “ACLU” Lu, if we were to get the court order we must have.

But after spending an hour with Paz in the living room of the modest, well-kept home, Peralta was uncharacteristically silent. All the way back downtown he was as pensive as Mike Peralta can get. Only when we got to a dark booth in a deserted corner of Majerle's did he speak.

“I'll go to Judge Lu for a court order this afternoon,” he said. “How do you want to play this?”

I laid it out and he listened with his eyes closed and his hands folded, a massive tent of fingers on the tabletop. He asked a couple of questions. Made a couple of changes. Finally, he gave a sniff, set his face and hardened the dark eyes.

“You'd better fucking be right.”

I just shut up and sipped my beer.

40

Gretchen's apartment was dark except for the yellow-blue flame in the fireplace. It was just cold enough outside, otherwise she would have had to use the air conditioning. I came in at the sound of her voice, closed the door behind me and locked it—it had one of those old deadbolts, turned by a delicate T-shaped latch in the hardware. Then there was Gretchen, standing in the archway, backlit by a gentle lamp in the kitchen and the remnants of a scarlet sunset, wearing a short black cocktail dress and carrying martinis. Was that Coleman Hawkins on the stereo?

“I know you like these,” she said, holding out a drink.

“Definitely the whole package,” I said. I crossed the room and kissed her passionately, toasted her, and then felt the gin on my lips, cold and warm at the same time. She smelled vaguely of old rose petals and clean bedsheets.

She had a body made for the look: long and leggy. Right down to the expensive black pumps. I'd never seen her in a short skirt before, and as much as I appreciated the rough-gentle denim she wore like a uniform, this was something else again. Gretchen!

“Are you close to solving your case, deputy?” she asked, sipping her drink, animating those lips and dimples.

“I think so,” I said.

“I'm very proud of you,” she said. “I'm very honored to know you.”

“I couldn't have done anything without the help of the city archaeologist's office. Specifically, one archaeologist…”

She started unbuttoning my shirt with one hand. She was good with one hand: long, elegant fingers dominating the buttons of a man's shirt. She should have played the piano. Instead, she dug up the remains of ancient civilizations.

“I don't want to know more,” she said. “I won't put you on the spot. I can read about it in the newspaper, and then I can smile to myself and say, ‘I know that man.'”

She slipped her hand in my shirt and caressed my chest, teased my nipples.

“I have more plans for you,” she said, taking another ounce of gin.

I set my glass down and took hers, too. “Maybe I have plans for you,” I said.

I lightly kissed her lips. Her tongue came out to meet me, but my mouth moved on to her high, aristocratic cheekbones, to her long, warm neck, to the loamy-smelling province where her neck met her shoulders. She pressed herself against me and gasped. I could feel her nipples harden like pebbles under the dress.

Men underestimate the sensual power of kissing. For a long time, I just kissed her—long and deep, short and teasing and anticipatory. Using the tongue, a circle and a thrust. The subtle turns and tenses of the lips. Gentle bites on her lower lip. Nothing much else. Not much caressing or hugging, yet. The room felt ten degrees hotter. Then she let me push her to the sofa, and slowly ease her down. She smiled a far-away smile. Her pupils were black and wide. I knelt down and used my tongue.

“Oh, my,” she gasped.

This was my show. Starting at the ankles—the exquisite planes and facets of the ankles of a woman gifted with athleticism and good DNA. Moving up to the smooth, taut surfaces of the calves. Behind the knees…The intimate, dangerous, tender skin of the inner thighs. Then starting all over again on the other leg, slowly moving up.…

***

She came awake with a start. We were on the rug in front of the fire. It had cooked to embers, like a little burned village. I pulled her back down to me, smoothed her mussed hair, and pulled the comforter back up.

“That wasn't like me…” she whispered.

“You were wonderful.”

“I have a hard time giving up control.”

“You sounded like you had fun.”

“I'm very loud,” she said. “My previous boyfriend didn't like that.”

“I love it,” I said, wondering about this previous boyfriend. So much I didn't know about Gretchen Goodheart.

“I had a dream about you,” she said. “About you and those two little boys trapped in the wall.” She shivered against me.

“What was it about?”

“It's bad luck to tell a bad dream. You'll make it come true.”

She stood and put on a Lucinda Williams CD, the volume low. The fireplace snapped and sizzled. Then she came back and nuzzled against me. I held her tight. The old building creaked. A train whistle sailed through the window.

“Why did they put that woman in prison and keep her there her whole life?”

“I don't know,” I said quietly.

“The Yarnells had all the power. Frances had no power at all.”

“They didn't have enough power to stop the kidnapping,” I said. “I guess none of us is safe.” I thought of Bobby Hamid:
None of us in the world…

“Do you believe in justice, David?” She raised up and looked at me. Her eyes were bright with imagined starlight.

“I wouldn't do this if I didn't.” Women were asking me about justice this week.

“I mean real justice.”

I thought about that. I said something lame. Something egghead-stupid about fallible human institutions, the rule of law, and the razor edge between justice and vengeance.

“I believe in vengeance,” she said, a catch in her throat. “Don't you, really?”

Before I could answer, she had me on my back and was pulling my clothes off. Then she straddled me, guiding me inside her with one sure move.

“Come here, my cactus heart.”

“What?” I was into more than hearing at that moment.

“You know what I mean.”

She rode me gently, an achingly tight sensation coursing up from my groin. She still had on the cocktail dress. I moaned and stroked her smooth knees and forgot about thinking.

“Could you ever love me like you do Lindsey?” she whispered.

“I…” She slid down on me with a twisting motion.

“Don't lie to me, David.”

“You feel so goddamned good,” I gasped.

“That's better.” She kissed my chest, circled my nipples with her tongue.

“You have just the right amount of chest hair,” she said. She rode me slowly, then fast and deep, tossing back her head, brushing that straight, fine hair against her shoulder blades.

“I love to play with you,” she said, slowing down again.

“I love to play with you.”

“I believe you,” she smiled, her white teeth gleaming in the half-dark.

She moved up and down, met my stroke, tensed and released. I grasped her hips, syncopated our movements.

“I want you to love me, David,” she said, quickening her pace a bit. I reached up and caressed her breasts through the fabric of the dress.

“Don't be afraid. Don't you see what kind of life we could have together?” She put her hands hard against my chest for purchase and moved against me with more urgency.
My God, what a feeling!

The fire popped. “I want your heart.” She was breathing faster. “The heart you hide behind all those books and thoughts. You keep it from me right now.” She gasped and shuddered. Then, “It has thorns around it because you've been hurt before, and you are very conflicted now. I can feel that. You hold back.

“But I know it's a good heart, like mine is a good heart…” She giggled. “Goodheart.”

She moved faster, an irresistible rhythm. Lucinda Williams sang “Right in Time.”

“I want you to come back to me when this is all over, and let me in David's cactus heart…”

“Gretchen…”

“I love the way you say my name!” A moaned anthem. “I love you, David!”

I knew I was too far gone. I was ready to say anything. And I did.

41

Saturday the sun returned to a sky scrubbed flawlessly blue by the rain. It would take Phoenix at least a day to dirty up the air again. Downtown was deserted as usual on a non-sports weekend. I was sitting on the old broken curb in front of the Triple A Storage Warehouse when a gleaming new silver Mercedes drove past, parked and disgorged a tall, snowy-haired driver.

James Yarnell walked up. “I could be through nine holes by now, Mapstone. On the other hand, it's good to know I can be out in the world and nobody's trying to kill me. What's this all about?”

“I think you'll agree it's worth your time,” I said. “Let's go inside.”

I led him through the side door into the old building. It smelled different after the rain: dust stirred on bricks, ashes tamped into mud, a vague scent of rot and disuse. Our footsteps echoed in outsized sounds. Inside, the big room was once again visible thanks to bare bulbs, far overhead. A strand of temporary lighting followed a heavy orange cord down into the elevator shaft.

“This is where you found them?” Yarnell said, putting his hands on the hips of his tan chinos and looking around. His eyes followed the orange cord to the frame of the freight elevator and to the square hole in the concrete.

“Come down,” I said.

He hesitated.

“It's not far,” I said, walking to the ladder. I started down, and after a minute James Yarnell followed me.

Then we were down in the passages. It was noticeably colder, the cold of a violated grave. Every six feet, a small fluorescent light attached to a spindly aluminum stand beat back the blackness. We tramped down the main tunnel, made the now-familiar turn, came to where the bricks had fallen away. Yarnell stepped around me and just stared at the opening. The only sound was a slight hum from the lights.

“Is this how you spend your weekends, Mapstone?”

“Actually, I've been spending my time trying to figure out this case.”

“I didn't think that was in doubt. The handyman was tried and convicted.”

“That's what everybody keeps telling me,” I said. “But the more I looked, the less made sense. Talbott couldn't have kidnapped the twins. He was in jail that night.”

“He was? How do you know that?”

I told him about the booking and release records. “I'm not saying he wasn't involved somehow. He just couldn't have been the initial kidnapper. Then I heard about Bravo Juan, who ran the numbers in the Deuce. It seems your uncle Win was in debt to him.”

“My God, do you think he was the one?” Yarnell was absently scratching his forearm. “Let's get out of here. You can tell me more upstairs.”

I just let the dusty creepiness of the place be. “Bravo Juan's real name was Juan Alvarez. I spent a lot of time finding out about him. You see, Mr. Yarnell, there weren't a lot of records left about this case. So I've had to run a lot of stuff down. And I thought I had hit a brick wall.” I said it without irony. “I thought I'd never get the information I needed.”

“So? Did this Juan kidnap my brothers?”

“No. There was a very good Phoenix detective on this case named Joe Fisher. He ran down several suspects, including Juan Alvarez, who had an alibi and was also a good police informer. I didn't know that.”

“Can we leave now?”

“Just a sec,” I said. “You see, Fisher's notes had disappeared from the case files. But I learned that detectives in his era dictated their notes to a stenographer, and they were sent to the old I Bureau.” Yarnell sighed impatiently, rested his hand against the bricks and drew it back. He stared into the burial chamber as I continued. “The point is, there was a duplicate set. Fisher was running down other suspects because he never believed Talbott acted alone. He didn't believe Frances Richie was involved at all.”

Yarnell turned back to me, a stream of sweat dropping down onto his fine temple. He started back out but I barred the way.

“What?”

“You've been here before, haven't you, Mr. Yarnell?”

“What are you talking about?” He pushed around me and walked quickly back to the main passage, where he could stand up straight again.

“Thanksgiving night didn't happen the way you told me,” I said, following him.

“Joe Fisher didn't believe you, either. In his notes of your interview, he wrote that you seemed to be covering up something, that you made contradictory statements about your whereabouts that night. That's because you were here. After the house had turned in, you and Uncle Win took the twins out to the car and drove away and brought them here.”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” he said. “Jack Talbott took those boys! Your dead detective didn't know anything but that.”

“What did you tell your brothers? That they were going on an adventure with you and Uncle Win?”

“Jack Talbott!”

“Jack Talbott was in the city jail sleeping off a drunk. He was nowhere near the house that night. The boys were taken out by you and your Uncle Win.”

“That was more than fifty years ago,” Yarnell spat.

“And the man who saw it is still alive,” I said, watching the words register on his face. “He's already signed a statement.”

Yarnell's mouth opened, a dry paste clinging to his lips. He said, “Paz.”

“Paz saw you and your uncle carry Andrew and Woodrow out to a car and drive away that night.”

“I…”

“How did it go down?” My voice was quiet but still echoed off the walls.

Yarnell found his poise again, folded his arms and looked at me contemptuously. All the Scottsdale charm was gone. I wouldn't be invited back to the gallery.

“You're the history professor,” he said. “Tell me a story. I bet it will be a good one. Then I'm going to get the best law firm in Phoenix to sue Maricopa County and you personally for harassment.”

The closeness of the underground chambers seemed to advance on us as I started talking. “How's this story? Win Yarnell had been thrown out of his father's company because he couldn't keep his gambling under control. Then he was thrown out of the will. He staged the kidnapping to get enough money to repay Bravo Juan. Or maybe as leverage to get back into the will. Either way, the twins were the only assets he could grab.”

I stared hard at James Yarnell. “Where does a sixteen-year-old snot-nose kid come in?” I asked. “Maybe you liked to come down here and gamble with your uncle. It must have been very forbidden and exotic to hang out with gangsters, even the small-timers Phoenix was growing then.”

“Jack Talbott…”

“Jack Talbott was an accomplice,” I said. “Nothing more. He was your uncle's gambling buddy. My guess is that the plan was for Talbott to hold the twins until the money was paid. Maybe he was just the bagman. Either way, somebody screwed up. Talbott implicated your uncle as he was being led to the gas chamber. Only your grandfather's influence kept it out of the newspapers.”

Yarnell smiled with a perfect set of teeth. “Is that the best you can do?”

“Isn't that good enough?”

“No,” he said. “To hell with you.” He started up the ladder.

I said quickly, “Maybe you didn't care about Andy and Woodrow because they weren't really your brothers.”

He took a hand off the rung and faced me with fury in his blue eyes.

“I have the birth certificates. It names twin boys born on Andy and Woodrow's birthday in 1937.” A muscle in his neck started throbbing. “The mother is named as Frances Ruth Richie, age twenty. The father is listed as H.W. Yarnell. Senior. Your grandfather. Andy and Woodrow weren't your brothers. They were your uncles.”

“Those records were sealed!” Yarnell hissed. “No one was supposed to…”

“Frances Richie was Hayden Yarnell's mistress,” I said. “When I met her, she kept talking about this man she loved, and I assumed it was Jack Talbott. She meant your grandfather.”

“He was an old fool, a dangerous old fool.” He shook his head violently. “And that little whore.”

“Nothing new under the sun,” I said. “Families have been killing each other since Cain and Abel.”

Before he could turn to climb out, I fired my right fist at him, a nasty hook. If it had connected, it would have broken his nose, easy. I was counting on something else.

He caught my fist with his hand, a fast, graceful motion. He was strong, damned strong.

“Appearances are deceiving,” I said. “You're a lot tougher than you look.”

He pushed my hand away, then drove the flats of his palms into my chest to push me back. “Leave me alone!” he shouted. It hurt like hell, but I wouldn't let him see it. I cuffed his wrists away with an outward swing of my arms, then I shoved him roughly against the ladder. It clattered but stayed in place.

“You think we're talking history here, Yarnell? You seem strong enough to drive a stake into a man's chest. I think you killed your brother. Max started asking questions after we found the remains. You couldn't have that, could you?”

A new expression rippled across his face, almost like a weather front changing from hot to cold. Something like fear appeared. Then he quickly pushed it down deep.

“A punk named Hector gave you up,” I said.

“You don't…”

“Oh, I do. I was in a motel carport with him alone, just him and me with guns on each other. He told me all about you. That shooting at the art gallery was just an act.”

“You're bluffing.”

“I checked Hector's cell phone records. He made a dozen calls to your gallery in November. He made five in October.”

He cursed under his breath. Then: “So why the hell aren't I under arrest?”

“Because nobody else knows yet,” I said. “The cops came bursting in and shot Hector to death, and you must have seen that on TV and thought you were home free. They think Hector did it. Or some environmental terrorist. Or both. But, see, Hector told me before they got there. Only I heard it. And if you fuck with me, everybody will know it.”

Yarnell stepped back and smiled. He shook his head and chuckled. “So this is what this is about.”

I was silent for a long time. Neither of us moved. Finally, I said, “It's a fifteen-year bull market and the only people who haven't gotten rich are teachers who didn't buy Microsoft stock and honest cops.”

His face relaxed a notch. He shook his head. “You have to think about your future. You're probably sick of shits like me living an easy life while you live paycheck-to-paycheck. You didn't make any money as a historian, and now you can't make any as a cop.”

I didn't answer.

Yarnell rubbed his shoulders. “And what if I don't go along?”

“You go down for your brother's murder.”

“That's bunk,” he said. “I didn't kill Max.”

He started up the ladder and I let him go.

I heard his voice from the top. “You're just a dirty cop who made a big mistake.” Then I heard his footsteps echo through the big room and the heavy door clanged shut.

I waited five minutes, then climbed up the ladder. The place was empty as a looted tomb. A layer of dust hung in the air at eye level. I reached down in my shirt, pulled up the little microphone and spoke into it.

“He's gone. I don't know if he went for it or not. I'll meet you over at Madison Street in a few minutes.”

I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled the rig off, a little strand of fiber optic held by surgical tape and a battery down by my belt. I wrapped it up and slid it into my pocket. Then I shut down the lights, listened for a moment to the silence of the awful place, and quickly stepped outside.