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“Was she turning tricks?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think it’s one of the Harquahala killings.”
Lindsey looked at me quizzically.
“I know this sounds nuts, Lindsey. But something about this isn’t right. Peralta called me out to the scene yesterday to identify Phaedra’s body. And it was like she had just been murdered.”
“One would think that would be enough,” Lindsey said.
“Her body, the crime scene, they had been”-I searched for the right word-“‘arranged.’ Like serial-killer performance art. It was the same way the bodies were found back in the late 1950s.”
“You’re getting weird on me, Dave.”
“You read the reports. You’ll see it.”
There was a detective standing in the doorway. “Mapstone.” He cocked his head toward the hall. “Chief Peralta wants you.” He turned and walked away.
Lindsey pulled me close to whisper, “I’m glad you’re not one of those knuckle-draggers.” Her dark shoulder-length hair was very soft.
Chapter Twelve
Peralta hunched down in his big chair, head propped on his hands, staring at a can of caffeine-free diet Coke, gnawing his cuticle. He didn’t look at me when I came in.
Then, in a little high-pitched sneer, he said, “‘Oh, gee, Sharon, Julie and I are just friends now.’”
“We are,” I said. “Sometimes things happen between friends, especially during times of stress.” My head was throbbing. I sat down. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“It is my business, since you are a Maricopa County deputy,” Peralta said. “And you’ve really stepped in some shit here. Two bodies in two days. Julie can’t account for her whereabouts when Townsend was killed. And when I come by to ask you about it, she’s climbing out of your goddamned bed. I thought I’d been sent back twenty years in time.”
“It was a case you didn’t give a shit about, Mike. While we’re digging up unfortunate quotes of the past month, I recall a certain chief deputy saying something like ‘Phaedra’s just shacking up with some guy and she’ll turn up.’ Now you’re acting like I somehow created this situation.”
His eyes darkened visibly and I knew I was in for it. But he just sighed and leaned back in his chair. Up came his legs, and his fine lizard-skin boots claimed the desktop.
“I suppose you have a hypothesis?” he asked.
“I thought this belonged to the task force.” I didn’t have a clue.
“It does, for now. But Townsend complicates things. If he was Phaedra’s lover, it’s hard to believe it was just a coincidence. There were thousands of dollars’ worth of art and electronics in his house up there, and it was all left. This was no robbery gone wrong. Maybe big sister decided to give paybacks to little sister’s nasty-boy lover.”
“Wait a minute.” My head was spinning. I vowed never to take another drink as long as I lived. “When was Townsend murdered?”
“Best guess until the lab work comes back is yesterday afternoon. Probably not long after you left.”
“So you’re saying Julie already knew Phaedra was dead, drove at ninety miles an hour to Sedona to ice this guy, turned around and drove at ninety miles an hour to get back to the hotel so she could be there when I told her about finding her sister’s body?”
Peralta’s face tightened. “I don’t know what I think,” he said. “Something’s not right about this, David.”
“Have you gotten lab work back on Phaedra?”
Peralta shook his head. “The medical examiner takes his time because he knows this thing is going to be seen by everybody, including the feds. Hell, it only happened half a mile from the La Paz County line, so I’ve got this little-town Buford Pusser busting my chops. And it’s only a matter of time before the Republic starts doing more on this serial killer than the isolated stories about the body of a suspected prostitute turning up in the desert.”
My stomach did a little free fall. “What did the evidence technicians find?”
Peralta looked disgusted. “They didn’t find dick.”
“The car? Blue Nissan Sentra?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
