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“Chief Peralta,” Bobby Hamid said. “There is no need for your anti-Persian bigotry. Anyway, I am an Episcopalian; we have no ayatollahs.”
Peralta stood and leaned over Bobby Hamid’s chair. I imagined what he’d do if the lawyer wasn’t there. Instead, he said, “Greg Townsend. He was a business associate of yours, I believe?”
“I don’t know the name,” Bobby Hamid said.
“Townsend was a pilot and his phone records show repeated calls during the month of June from his Sedona home to Tiffany’s, a topless bar on Van Buren where you are known to receive business calls,” I said. Lindsey had come through again.
“He was flying in cocaine,” Peralta said. “And now he’s dead and tied to a million dollars left in the back of a car. Somebody used a twelve-gauge shotgun to paint the walls of his bedroom. Meanwhile, his girlfriend turned up in the desert, raped and strangled. It’s murder, and it’s got your name all over it, Bobby.”
Hennessey said, “Mr. Hamid doesn’t have to answer any of this, Peralta. If you have a case, charge him. I’ll have him out in two hours.”
“Bruton, please.” Bobby Hamid put a manicured hand on the lawyer’s arm. “I have nothing to hide. I was in Aspen during the time you say this Townsend fellow and his girlfriend were killed, and Bruton here can produce the documentation and witnesses. I honestly didn’t know them. I’m sorry they’re dead, truly I am. But I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
He smiled at Peralta. “You know, the illegal drug business is very dangerous, I hear.”
“We found a million dollars in the trunk of a car in Glendale,” Peralta said. “If somebody stole a million dollars from me, I’d be tempted to use a twelve-gauge on him. I wouldn’t want to get a reputation in the drug business as somebody you could rip off with impunity.”
“That’s because you are a brutal man, Chief Peralta.” Hamid smiled.
“The phone calls?” Peralta demanded.
“Come, come, Chief. That club is a little tax write-off for me, one of three dozen enterprises I own. Are you really expecting me to know who calls every business? That would be a little like expecting Bill Gates to know every call that comes into Microsoft, no?”
“If Microsoft sold cocaine,” Peralta muttered.
Bobby Hamid continued: “Why, your pilot was probably calling because he had a crush on one of the girls.” He laughed, and so did Hennessey. Peralta looked at me. We had shot our wad, and it wasn’t much.
“Do you remember a young woman named Phaedra?” I asked.
“Phaedra.” Bobby Hamid studied his cuticle. “In Greek mythology, she was the daughter of Minos. Met a bad end, as I recall.”
“Hey, raghead!” Peralta shouted, “this ain’t Western Civ one oh one. Do you know a twenty-eight-year-old woman named Phaedra Riding? Red hair, pretty.”
Something flickered in his eyes. He smiled sadly at Peralta. “I don’t know any Phaedra Riley.”
Shut up in his office, Peralta was momentarily serene.
“Bobby’s one of the many things that have changed about the Valley since you left,” he said, sitting behind his desk, twirling in his chair, mashing a stressball in his massive hand. “Changed for the worse. At least we put Charlie Keating in prison for awhile.”
“Bobby knows about Townsend,” I said.
Peralta nodded. “The sheer size of the cash we found points to a major player like Bobby. And the CI report on Townsend makes it even more likely. But I don’t have enough to take to the county attorney. It would be a waste of the taxpayers’ money. Someday, Bobby will get careless, and when that happens, I’m gonna see they lock him up for the next thousand years.”
I asked about Phaedra’s car, and he pointed to a file folder on the corner of his desktop. I opened it and read.
“Dirt and cholla spines on the carpet on the driver’s side,” I said aloud. “Consistent with the soil and vegetation of the murder scene?”
Peralta nodded.
“The ministorage lease is in the name of Jamie Johnson. Three nine seven seven East Bethany Home Road?”
“It’s a fake name and fake address. The clerk who rented it left the company, and we can’t find him to ask what the person looked like, or even whether they were female or male.”
I was reading on. “Prints.”
“Lots of Phaedra’s,” Peralta said. “Electrostatic gear picked up some others. But it could be weeks before we get anywhere on that. It could be never.”
“So, we think the car might have been driven out to the desert, maybe to do the body drop. But otherwise, we’re basically nowhere.”
