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“I know that,” she said. “I also know I have a right to counsel. Just like Leo did.” She sobbed and rubbed her nose. “I waive my rights. Don’t you get it, Mapstone? While I distracted those old guys, Billy and Troyce got out of the car and came up and shot them. Right there. It happened so fast. Then, they started going through their pants to get the car keys, to get the coke out of the trunk. But it was too late. You guys charged in. I guess Nixon finally got the coke. Maybe the detective did. I don’t know.” She shook her head against the implacable wind. Then she shouted, “So, you see, I’ve had a lot to try to run away from all these years.”
“You didn’t know they were going to kill those cops,” I blurted suddenly, inappropriately chivalrous.
She looked at me, a look like the young girl Marybeth had in that vivid photo from Camelback Falls.
She said, “Yes, I did.”
Chapter Thirty-two
We delivered Beth to the huge, glassy Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Building in downtown Phoenix. To me, it still looked like a call center in the suburbs. Inside, we sat through hours of interviews with the U.S. Attorney’s staff, through a magnificent Arizona sunset out the big windows, and then Beth went off into protective custody with two marshals. What I really wanted was a shower, a drink, and a long sleep with Lindsey curled up against me.
“Sheriff!”
It was Kimbrough, waiting at the foot of the escalator as we descended into the enormous glass shell of the atrium. He shook my hand, then gave Lindsey an awkward hug.
“Congratulations,” he said, “We’re not waiting for federal indictments, either. We’ve already picked up two of these bounty hunters. And they’ve given up two other scumbags, former deputies, who were working with them. And we have arrest warrants issued for all the ones you said on the phone.”
He looked at my face. “Man, that must hurt,” he said. It did. It looked worse. On a trip to the men’s room, I spent several minutes scrutinizing the colors of my shiner.
“Don’t ask about Peralta,” he said. “I don’t know anything new.” We walked past the metal detectors and out onto Washington Street. Outside, it was nicely brisk-balmy compared to the weather in Denver or out on the Navajo Reservation with Beth by the roadside.
“You know Beth cleared him,” I said.
He bit his lip. “I know she backed away from saying he stole that cocaine.” We stopped on the street, facing each other. “Look, don’t make me the bad guy in this, Sheriff. I’m just doing the job. We still have to deal with Peralta’s badge number in Nixon’s payoff book.”
“Maybe we don’t,” Lindsey said. A little clot of traffic passed by, and she went on.
“While Dave was getting beaten up, I took all the badge numbers in the book and set up a database to handle other information we had about East County deputies for April, May, and June 1979. Things like personal logs, court appearances, overtime reports, sick time. Then I created a program to make some comparisons.
“Here’s the thing: It doesn’t make any sense the way Nixon recorded it. He lists a payoff of $1,200 to Peralta’s badge number on April 3, but for most of that month Peralta was at an FBI school in Quantico.”
I remembered. He was.
“The same result comes out in several other instances. A payoff is given to a badge number, but the deputy is on sick leave. Another payoff is listed, but that badge number goes to somebody who’s been transferred to the West Valley.”
“So,” Kimbrough said, “you’re saying it’s all bogus?”
“Not necessarily,” Lindsey said. “It might be pretty simple. They might have thrown in some innocent deputies on that list to provide cover, just in case they were ever caught. Or it might be a code. For example, maybe Peralta’s badge number in the logbook actually means somebody else. I ran some scenarios that way, and they came out in a way that would make sense. Maybe not airtight for a courtroom, but enough to point us to the real dirty cops. Certainly enough to clear Peralta.”
“Wait a damned minute,” Kimbrough said. “I want this to be a happy ending, too. But you’re using technology that didn’t even exist twenty years ago, and if it did no damned sheriff’s deputy knew how to use it.”
“They wouldn’t have to,” I said. “It would be as simple as a sheet of paper with the real dirty cops and their badge numbers on one side, and the decoy badge numbers on the other. Just a simple key. Now I don’t know why that key wasn’t with Nixon’s book. But the bad guys obviously thought we had it.”
Kimbrough stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at the sidewalk. “OK, Sheriff,” he said. “Maybe it gives us a starting point.”
I leaned over and whispered to Lindsey, “You’re pretty smart for a propellerhead.” She lightly stroked my cheek.
“Sheriff Mapstone!”
It was a federal guard, walking briskly from the building. “You got a message. It came through the security office. From a woman named Sharon at Good Samaritan?”
“Yeah?” I felt a cold bolt driven into my legs.
“She wants you at the hospital. Said it’s urgent. Does that make sense?”
“I guess so,” I heard myself say.
“Here,” Kimbrough pointed us toward the curb. “We can take my car.”
