Desert Wind (10 page)

“No single-family homes?” I wondered aloud.

“Oh, yes.” Derek waved his hand again, this time toward the golf course. “We can’t see them from here because they’re hidden in the trees on the other side of the golf course. Very exclusive. To get in there, you have to go through another gate.”

“A gated community within a gated community?”

“Cool, huh?” He rattled off the names of several film and music stars, some of whom I’d actually heard of. “The celebrities have their own private pools, of course. Private planes, too.”

By the time we arrived at the leasing office, my desert-dweller eyes had gone into shock from all that green. It was a relief when a thirty-something brunette wearing a nametag identifying her as KATHERINE ushered me into a reception area as sleek as she was. But my eyes continued to be dazzled because the large picture window overlooking the pool area let in harsh sunlight that bounced off the room’s chrome and leather furniture. Scattered here and there were steel sculptures resembling crashed space satellites. A large abstract painted in somber tones of gray and black sneered at me from the wall. The room’s only homey touch came from a silver laptop humming away on a chrome and glass desk.

“Welcome to Sunset Canyon Lakes, Miss Jones,” Katherine said, her Boston accent modulated into a soft purr. “How do you like our little resort?”

“Impressive, but I’m here on business.” I handed her my card. “I understand Hank Olmstead called you about my visit?”

An elegant nod. “Re the matter of Mr. Donohue’s death and the problems Ted subsequently encountered. Very unfortunate. We’re fond of Hank. And of his son, too, of course. My husband and I consider them both friends.” Her face, which had assumed a tragic mask, switched to brisk business mode. “How may I be of help?”

“A map would be nice.”

“Certainly. Sunset Canyon Lakes is labyrinthine enough that newcomers frequently get turned around. Most of our units are owned by their occupants, but we always have a few available for lease. As well as the timeshares, of course”

Her elocution was so superb she made me feel like a hayseed. “On my way here, I didn’t see any children. Is this an age-restricted community?”

“Correct. Anyone wishing to buy a unit here must be fifty-five or older. You can, however, arrange for a one-time rental of a timeshare, as long as you do not bring children. A nice summer camp is located within driving distance, and most parents are happy for the respite.”

“She’s one of the timeshare people then?” I pointed out the window toward a bikinied and familiar-looking beauty basking on a chaise by the Olympic sized pool. Mia Tosches, the woman who’d accused Ted of roughing up Ike Donohue, was surrounded by a phalanx of young men who looked as good as she did. “Surely she can’t be more than twenty.”

This time Katherine’s smile revealed a feline gleam. “Mrs. Tosches is older than she looks.”

Feigning ignorance, I said, “Really! Then does Mrs. Tosches’ husband fulfill the age requirement to live here?”

“Most certainly, but his age is irrelevant since he’s the man who developed Sunset Canyon Lakes.”

As owner of the Black Basin Mine
and
the developer of a high-roller resort, Roger Tosches had to be quite the moneybags. “Good point,” I conceded. “What about those body-builder types Mrs. Tosches is talking to? They don’t look like senior citizens to me.”

“They work here,” she said dismissively. “And they’re on their lunch break. Well, a couple of them are timeshare people, and as you noticed, they’re fitness-oriented.” She paused, then added, “Mrs. Tosches does admire fit men.”

Meow.
“The Tosches don’t have their own pool?”

“Of course they do.”

“Pardon me if I seem dense, but then why is Mrs. Tosches using this one?”

“She likes young company. She also likes horseback riding, and spends a great deal of time over at the guest ranch.”

I wondered why Olmstead hadn’t shared that information with me. “Mr. Tosches doesn’t ride with her, I take it.”

“With his varied business interests he has little free time, but when he gets the chance, he plays golf with his friends.” She gestured toward the young men talking to Mia. “
Her
friends see to it that she’s never lonely.”

Young woman, older husband, possible different sexual interests, and Katherine Dysart wanted me to know all about it. This made me curious about Katherine herself. Given her demeanor, she’d once led a different life than the one she led now: ushering prospective renters around someone else’s money-maker.

“Where do you live?” I asked her, apropos of nothing other than that
Nosy
is every PI’s middle name. “In Walapai Flats?”

The question amused her. “Where my domicile of choice would be either a trailer or tract home? Hardly. My husband Trent, who also isn’t fifty-five, is the recreation director here, and as such, he is required to live on the property. Trent organizes various entertainments—book clubs, wine tastings, trips to Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, that sort of thing. For the horsy outings, Ted has been of invaluable help to Trent, and that is only one of the two reasons we want to see him out of that vile jail and back at the ranch. The other reason, well, we simply like him. He’s an honest, straightforward man, and those qualities are in short shrift these days.”

Leaning over the chrome and glass desk, she picked up several brochures along with the promised map. “Perhaps you could pass these out to your friends? They highlight the ownership portion of the resort and are perfect for those who are more, ah, mature, and no longer have children cluttering up the house. As I’m certain you’ve noticed, Sunset Canyon Lakes is a marvelous place to retire for anyone who wishes to escape from the hustle and bustle of the city.”

When she glanced down at the business card I handed her in return, her voice took on a wistful tone. “I see you’re from Scottsdale. It used to be so lovely. But now…”

She didn’t need to finish because we both knew the end of that sentence: “But now it’s just another traffic-clogged city.”

Because of its car-control philosophy, Sunset Canyon Lakes certainly wasn’t traffic-clogged, not unless you counted the myriad golf carts scooting along its paths or the open-air trolleys shuttling residents back and forth. The resort, Katherine informed me, was not the ecological nightmare it first appeared. Fewer cars meant fewer gas omissions, and the golf carts and trolleys were all electric. The lake, where motor craft were also banned, provided the water for the golf course, trees, and the greenbelts lining every pathway.

“So you see, Sunset Canyon Lakes is not simply a pretty face,” she finished, smiling at her own witticism. “We’re an eco-friendly community that contributes to the environment, not subtracts.”

Not quite won over, because most of the irrigation would evaporate into the hot desert air, not settle into the water table, I said, “Hey, if I had the money, I’d buy a unit right now.”

Her intimidating elegance fell away when she winked. “To purchase, you’d have to scrounge up an older partner, Miss Jones. But we do have some wealthy widowers in residence if you’re in the market.”

“I’ll give it some thought. Let me ask, do you know the Donohues very well yourself? I’m wondering how Mrs. Donohue is bearing up, and frankly, if she’ll even talk to me.”

“I had only a passing acquaintance with Mr. Donohue. As for Mrs. Donohue, yesterday, while I was showing a prospective lessee one of our better properties, I saw her and her friends on their way to the golf course, which leads me to believe she’s bearing up quite well.” That feline gleam again. Katherine didn’t like Nancy Donohue any more than she liked Mia Tosches.

Having gathered as much information as possible, I headed out, wondering again how a woman like Katherine Dysart had wound up in a leasing office. Her accent was Boston, her demeanor Old Money. But since the recent economic collapse had claimed some surprising victims, I temporarily pushed my curiosity aside.

Catching a trolley to the Donohue’s condo on the other side of the resort turned out to be easy. All you did was stand at the curb looking lost, and within seconds, one of the things trundled along and scooped you up. I showed the map Katherine had given me to the handsome young driver, who identified the Donohue’s neighborhood as The Lakes, and promised to call out my stop. Feeling less adrift, I walked past several rows of gray-haired seniors and took a seat in the back.

My comfort proved short-lived. As we bumped along through the ever-present greenery, I found myself growing unsettled again. The whole resort seemed “off.” Too many lined faces, too few young ones. With its perfectly clean streets, perfectly neat condos, and perfectly groomed landscaping, Sunset Canyon Lakes was a childless Disneyland. While I did admire the almost car-less streets, I balked at the childfree yards. In some ways, they seemed even more unnatural than a green desert.

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t crave kids, and my biological clock has long since forgotten to tick. I’m closing in on forty, have no children, and don’t yearn for any. There’s a reason for that. My own early years had been so miserable that I’ve never been able to equate childhood with anything other than pain. But childless streets? To me, other people’s children were visible proof that despite life’s frequent grotesqueries, most people still had faith in the future. Sunset Canyon Lakes was all about the past, about money already made, marriages accomplished or lost, travels finished, hunters home from the hills and kicking back for their remaining time on Earth.

“The Lakes!” the bus driver suddenly announced.

Relieved to be pulled out of my philosophical funk, I clambered off the trolley and onto a wide pathway that meandered through a spindly forest of palm trees. As I trod the path to the Donohue’s concrete and glass condo, I saw the lake glimmering in the distance. Behind it, red and purple mesas reached up to the sky. Chez Donohue had a killer view.

At my knock, the big oak door opened immediately, but instead of being confronted by a grieving widow, I saw a strong-jawed woman holding a martini in her hand. I’m five foot-eight, yet she topped me by almost four inches.

“Mrs. Donohue?”

She waved the martini at me. “That’s me, kiddo. You must be Cassie, Arnie Brinkman’s new wife. Welcome to the Book Bitches. Food and drinks are on the sideboard, courtesy of the other Bitches.”

“Actually, I’m…”

But she was already headed into the living room, where six carefully groomed women had gathered. None of those hothouse roses held anything resembling a book, and judging from the slurred bits of conversation that drifted toward me, they were well on their way to getting soused.

Grief takes people different ways. In my days as a police officer, I’d often delivered bad news, standing close to the next-of-kin in case they began to crumple to the floor. Some erupted into hysterics. Others stood there blank-eyed, unable to take in the fact that their lives had changed forever. A few even laughed. Experience had taught me that none of those early reactions meant a thing. One of the laughers slit his jugular within minutes of my leaving his house. Two criers turned out to be wife-killers. So I didn’t judge this widow. For all I knew, Nancy Donohue deeply loved her husband and had organized this drink-a-thon to keep from throwing herself into Sunset Canyon Lake with a cinder block tied around her neck.

However, I couldn’t forget that newspaper photograph of her holding a rifle, her foot triumphantly placed on the neck of a dead elk.

Before trailing after Mrs. Donohue, I took a moment to study the sunken living room ahead. The decor was Southwest Standard: pale earth tones relieved here and there by Indian-print toss pillows. A collection of dusty woven baskets and Kachina dolls were spread along the half-wall that divided the living and dining areas. The double doors off the entry hall stood open to reveal a den with a more idiosyncratic personality. In this very male room I saw a bookcase stuffed with what appeared to be manuals, a plain wooden desk, and an ancient recliner held together by duct tape. Arranged in a haphazard pattern on the walls were a series of black and white photographs of various men shaking hands, but I was too far away to make out their faces. The only spot of color among the photographs was one depicting something red and gold and blurry.

“Don’t stand there gawking, Cassie! Come join us!” Mrs. Donohue called.

Deciding to let the mistaken identity situation play itself out, I followed her orders. Stepping away from the den and down into the living room, I noticed that one of the overstuffed chairs had begun to fray along the seams. The wooden coffee table sported a deep gouge, as if something sharp had fallen across it. No attempt had been made to repair the flaw, which made me suspect a lack of domesticity on Nancy Donohue’s part, as well as the absence of household help. Maybe she was difficult to get along with?

As I sank into an elderly chair, I spotted a possible thorn in Donohue’s collection of hothouse roses, a thin woman in her late thirties whose Goth appearance separated her from the others. Black tee shirt, baggy cargo pants, Doc Marten boots, spiky black hair, nose ring, Celtic tattoos marching up her spindly arm, black-polished fingernails bitten to the quick. No trophy wife, she.

“Tell us more about your exciting life in New York, Olivia, and don’t leave out a thing,” a face-lifted redhead somewhere between fifty and seventy, demanded of the Goth. “Especially the newspaper part. Is it true you once interviewed Osama bin Ladin?”