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I visited almost every day, and read to him from Robert Caro’s Lyndon Johnson biography, Master of the Senate. Milton was often groggy and sometimes in terrible pain, but he had lost nothing of his incisive mind. He made me see the book in new ways, made me see Caro’s shortcomings as well as triumph, even as I watched my professor slide into darkness.
“He never forgave me for leaving teaching, for not making something of myself as a scholar,” I said aloud. “He never said so, but I know…”
Lindsey laid her head on my chest, letting her dark hair sweep against my skin. I went on, “Milton wants me to take a lecturer job at Portland State.” I corrected myself, “Wanted me. He talked to the dean and recommended me. It’s a two-year appointment, in American history. It’s some kind of interdisciplinary deal with the criminal justice program. Milton said it was tailor-made for me, and the class load is light enough to do research and writing, too.”
“Do you want to do that?” Lindsey asked, not facing me.
“I don’t know,” I said, looking into the murk of the ceiling, listening to the wind. “All the politics and political correctness drove me nuts before. But I didn’t have you before. Oh, it’s probably silly to even consider it. You wouldn’t like the rain…”
“Oh, History Shamus,” Lindsey stroked my head. “You’re tired. You’re grieving.” She held me close, and her body heat was a wonderful force field against a cold world.
Finally, she said, “You can do anything you want, Dave. Even as an old guy.”
She smiled at me, and sipped the last of her drink. “I know what will cheer you up. I got takeout at the Fry Bread House. Let’s eat Indian tacos, drink cerveza, and screw all night.” She sat astride me, and my body quickly responded.
“I’ll make some history with you, Professor.”
Chapter Four
“Can you help me out? Some change to get something to eat?”
I shook my head like a heartless bastard and walked into Starbucks. The man lingered for a moment, staring at the big Oldsmobile. Then he walked toward Safeway, slipping into a forlorn limp as he approached a woman getting out of her car. She hurried into the store and he resumed a normal walk, wandering across McDowell Road into the park.
It was Friday morning, a day after the body was found in the Maryvale pool. The storm’s aftermath was a yard littered with downed palm fronds, and the neighbors anxiously cleaning their pools, but the day dawned clear and mild. My apocalyptic environmental visions of the previous day were replaced by fond, familiar appreciation for my hometown. At the foot of the broad streets, mountains glowed vivid purple and brown. The ascending morning sun turned wispy clouds from pink to alabaster. Even the last remnants of citrus blossoms were lingering in the seventy-degree air. So I put the top down on the Olds, slid in an Ellington CD, and got to work.
The first twenty-four hours are critical in a homicide investigation. But in my line, the first fifty-six years are critical, at least for a body carrying an FBI badge that disappeared in 1948. From the quiet of my office in the old county courthouse, under high ceilings, big windows, and the gaze of Sheriff Carl Hayden from his 1901 photograph, I imagined my battle plan. Its basics had evolved as I had learned the job, invented it really, over the past several years since Peralta had taken pity on my untenured, unemployed state and given me an old case to research. I would need a timeline, a gallery of the major players in the case, lists of key evidence, plus all the case records and newspaper clippings. My job was to find connections as a historian and researcher, bringing something to an investigation that the regular detectives might miss, or so I told myself.
But as I sipped a mocha, my legs went up to the desktop and laziness set in. I didn’t look forward to falling all over the feds, and I sure as hell didn’t want to deal with Kate Vare. I picked up the phone, eager for a shortcut.
As it happened, my friend Lorie Pope was in the newsroom over at the Republic. She was yelling even before I finished the first sentence.
“John Pilgrim!” she exclaimed. “Do I know about John Pilgrim? Jesus Christ, David, this case has been driving me crazy for my whole career!”
She had a big voice, one that had gotten raspy with years and too many cigarettes since the first day I met her, back in the ’70s when she was a cub reporter and I was a rookie deputy. I moved the receiver closer to my ear again and continued.
“Why driving you crazy?” I asked.
“Because the whole thing is…Wait a minute, David. Why? Why do you want to know?”
“I’m just naturally curious.” I could already imagine the explosion from Peralta if the story of the found badge appeared on the front page of the local newspaper.
“Bullshit,” she said, glee in her voice. “David, you were a lousy liar when you were my boyfriend…”
“Was I your boyfriend? I recall there were several of us.”
“What can I say,” she said. “I’m loveable. But I guess you’re happier now with Leslie.”
“Lindsey,” I said.
“Don’t try to change the subject. You’ve got something new on Pilgrim.”
Now it was my turn to be obstinate. “’Bye, Lorie.”
I held the phone out just enough to hear her hollering. “Stop! Don’t hang up!”
I said, “So give me the short version of why this case matters to you, and I’ll try to help you, too.”
“Bastard,” she said, not without affection. “OK, it’s the only unsolved murder of an FBI agent in Arizona history. John Pilgrim was found floating in an irrigation canal on November 10th, 1948. He had a single gunshot to his heart. The locals and the FBI interviewed more than a thousand people, and they never made an arrest in the case.”
