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Pham wrapped his voice in the timbre of calm diplomacy. “Dave, I asked you here today to tell you that things have changed. I have to tell you that we won’t be needing your help on the case after all.”
“I get it,” I said, not unkindly. “If you tell the media the case has been solved, then it really has been. Image becomes reality.”
“It’s not solved,” Pham said, his voice dropping an insistent octave. “Look, this whole thing sucks, OK?”
He stared at me. All the win-win consultant lingo fled from his voice. He spoke so softly I could barely hear him.
“When the badge was found, I had no idea what I was getting into,” he said. “I acted in good faith bringing you in. I wanted this case solved. I’d never heard of it before. But I absolutely wanted to run it down. I knew you’d help us do that.”
He paused and stared at me. I stared back, and after a few beats he continued, his lips barely moving.
“As it turns out, the John Pilgrim case is still a sensitive matter in Washington. My bosses didn’t like the press conference any more than you did. And now they want the whole thing to go away.”
I thought about what Lorie Pope had told me of sealed records and stone walls, even though the case was more than fifty years old. I said, “There’s a chance to solve the murder of an FBI agent, and they just want it to go away?”
Pham nodded slowly.
I asked why.
Pham leaned in as if he were going to share a confidence. It was the kind of body language that makes the listener lean forward, too.
“Phoenix is a strange place, isn’t it?”
There were too many lines to read between. I said, “It’s an acquired taste, Eric.”
“I came here a year ago from Seattle,” he said. “The real estate people said the only place to be is North Scottsdale. So I live behind a wall-‘gated community,’ they call it-and I don’t know any of my neighbors. The homeowners association is like the Soviet Union, watching every aspect of how you landscape or roll out the recycling. The whole front of the house is taken up by a garage door-and this isn’t a cheap house. It’s all strange.
”
“I live a mile from here,” I said, “on a real street, with front porches and neighbors who know each other and look out for each other. That’s the side of Phoenix I prefer.”
“I know,” he said, setting his silverware with military precision on the plate. “You live in the same house where you grew up. Although you haven’t been home for two weeks…”
I felt the illogical rush of the paranoid. It must have shown in my face.
“I wanted to check you out, Dave. To know that I could trust you.”
I just looked him over. I had always liked Lindsey’s use of “Dave”; somehow it foreshadowed greater intimacy to come, something I had greatly desired with her. With others, I had never cared for “Dave.” I was not a “Dave.” except with Lindsey.
Pham said, “John Pilgrim killed himself.”
I shifted my weight in the chair. My eyes wandered to other tables. Jerry Colangelo, the owner of the Diamondbacks, was in a hushed conversation with a very tall, expensively dressed black man. The president of Bank One walked by, followed by her pin-striped assistants. China rattled back in the kitchen.
I said, “If that’s true, why did the records indicate this was an open homicide investigation?”
“In J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, the special agent was supposed to be a superman,” Pham said. “His integrity, above reproach. His steadiness, unquestioned. In reality, John Pilgrim was a problem. He was a drunk and a disciplinary nightmare who was sent to Phoenix to clean up his act. He had symptoms of what we’d call depression. He’d threatened to kill himself before.”
“How do you know this?”
“It’s what my bosses told me,” he said. “Get it? Pilgrim was bad for the FBI’s image. They wanted this case forgotten as quick as possible in 1948, and nothing’s changed.”
“That’s nuts,” I said. “That was fifty years ago. The FBI’s had a few problems since then that are worse than an agent killing himself. Why is this such a big secret?”
“Because it’s a family secret,” Pham said. “And you’re not family. No offense. But you’re not only local law enforcement, you’re unorthodox, and an outsider. I find that appealing. But this wasn’t my call to make.”
“So Pilgrim stands in front of a canal, shoots himself, and falls in?”
Pham shrugged. He had his orders.
