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“Yeah, sure.” Blair made an unhandsome snorting sound. I looked to see if snot had emerged from his perfect n
ose. “He’s just as dirty as Sheriff Peralta has always said.”
“More than you would know…” I said.
He looked at me sharply, then asked, “How’s Lindsey?”
Before I could answer, or even feel a rush of male jealousy, there was a commotion off through the creosote bushes. A uniformed deputy emerged and gestured for us to come. I followed Blair, my hands instinctively pulling in, even though I was steering well clear of the numerous cholla and prickly pear. My arm was still red from cactus needles. We walked up the trail and turned at the lone, rusting metal fence post. Once again I could see the edge of the hidden drop. Now a deputy was starting to string yellow crime-scene tape, and another burly uniform with a shotgun was leading the inmates out. Seeming to follow them was a foul, telltale odor. A man who looked like Patrick Blair’s twin brother met us.
“Hello, Mapstone,” Detective Tony Snyder said, then, “Patrick, we got a body. Mapstone, you can leave. No way has he been there forty years.”
I ignored him and followed them. Approaching the dead is just another cop task, even if you’re the guy who works on forty-year-old homicides. And I’d seen some nasty scenes in the five years I spent as a patrol deputy, what now seems so many years ago. But I guess I never got used to it. My legs seemed heavier as we walked the final fifteen feet. About a third of the rocks had been removed. Most of the grave was still covered, but I guessed that Snyder had stopped the inmate labor for fear of contaminating what was now a crime scene. The excavated rocks sat lined up like deformed eggs. Beyond them, something had been uncovered. Blair was snapping on latex gloves and bending to look into a shallow pit.
I could see a head and the top of a torso, lying face up. The stones had done some damage, but enough was recognizable. It was a man with a small white moustache. Just lying there staring up at the flawless Arizona sky on a perfect winter day. Just like he was lying by the pool at the Sanctuary, waiting for a drink with an umbrella in it. Except his eyes were gone, replaced by things I didn’t want to think about too much. And his ears were well chewed. The Sonoran Desert was full of critters small enough to skitter through rocks just as if they were weaving through rush-hour traffic on the way to dinner. And his skin was green, and the consistency of a dried tortilla, something the resorts definitely frown upon. And his view was spoiled by the boyish, handsome features of Patrick Blair and Tony Snyder studying him. It was all wrong.
8
Napoleon said he wanted lucky generals. I couldn’t tell if my luck was getting better or worse. A likely homicide victim had been discovered in Maricopa County—that was a plus. The sheriff was distracted elsewhere, so he wouldn’t be bothered with more concern about my writing habits—definite plus. But then there was the missing Dana, no phone number, no address. That was my carelessness. Big minus. And the timetable. This was no historic crime; the body had been there for no more than a few weeks. I could just walk away. That was good, right? I had other things to do. It seemed smart not to push my luck. I walked back to the car and started out to the highway.
About a mile down the dusty road, the desert started to roll and the vegetation became nothing but spindly creosote bush. I was thinking about Dana. This pleasant nobody woman. I could run her name through the Miami University alumni association. Maybe I also should check the NCIC—maybe she had a record beyond a college transcript. But I had a gut feeling, the part of my gut that wasn’t still aching from the impact of a large boot, that I wasn’t going to find her. So the question was why she put on the pose. We’d find easily enough who really owned the land. No, I corrected myself. Blair and Snyder would find it. I was free.
That’s when I saw something bobbing above the brush. Something moving. I slowed the car so I wasn’t making a dust trail, and rolled down the window. That buzz again of ATVs. My body kicked up the panic juice. It’s amazing how one beating can make you feel more afraid. Make you feel vulnerable and old. Funny old Mapstone, it was probably just some kids out for a harmless ride. I was about to roll the window back up and get going when there was a break in the creosote brush, and I saw them. They were about five hundred yards away, and moving on an angle toward the road. Somehow I thought I would pick out the giant if he had been five miles away. I looked at the police radio hanging from the dashboard. Reached for the microphone, heard it scrape out of its metal clip. Then I put it back. My mouth was suddenly dry. It had been years since I’d had a drop of water. I made myself slow my breathing and make a plan.
This time I made sure to make dust. I drove about half a mile, keeping an eye on the pair, then stopped in the middle of the road. There wasn’t much time. I stepped out of the car and grabbed the three-cell black Maglite from the passenger seat. By then, the two ATVs muscled into the road, leaving behind four tracks indelible in the ancient desert soil. They stopped on the other side of the car and slowly dismounted. Gunfighters dropping from their horses—although a quick scan showed no shooting irons. This time I had a better look at them. Not being face down in the dirt getting kicked will allow that. The younger one still had on a white football jersey with ghetto in blue letters. Obviously no time for laundry out here. He looked about twenty, had a sandy buzz cut and a mouth that looked prone to drooling, and probably thought the girls adored him. The big one didn’t look so big on second viewing. He wouldn’t stand out in a big-city skyline. He had that pumped up look you get courtesy of the state prison system. Besides the black mullet, the other thing I noticed was his eyes. Worlds could be lost in those eyes.
They started around the car from different directions. I walked to the rear, toward the giant. I had no time for David and Goliath musings, although as I recalled, David had superior technology. By the time we met at the back bumper, I had my right side away from him, just the way I wanted it. He started, “You don’t…” But by that time I had made an uppercut into his crotch and the Maglite was attached to my hand. He let out a massive burst of breath, foul enough for me to smell it. Next I jammed the heavy steel flashlight into his ribs, a pain center they teach you at the academy, if not in academia. And he was on the way down to the blond desert dirt.
I wheeled on the kid and had the Colt Python .357 Magnum in my hands.
“Get on the fucking ground!” I commanded, trying to lower and steady my voice. My blood was up and I was barely containing my own terror. So I was careful to keep my finger outside the trigger guard, unless he gave me a reason to shoot him. He was about one second from giving me a reason, but he immediately stopped, and pissed his pants. I could actually hear it, then see a large dark stain spread down the leg of his khaki cargo pants. He stuttered something. I backed away so I could keep an eye on both of them.
“Reach in that car and get the handcuffs that are in the glove box. If you take more than five seconds, I’ll shoot you.”
“Yessssir…” Ghetto stammered, and did as I asked him.
“Now, get down on the ground, facing me, face down. Do it now.”
When he was face down in the road, I moved closer to the heap that had been Goliath. He was on his knees, in a kind of face-down fetal-position, moaning. I kicked him in the side as hard as I could.
“Were you going to say I don’t listen too good? My boss says that all the time.” I would face the police brutality charge later. I needed him to stay down. And my foot felt broken from the impact with his tree-trunk of a body. I walked over and retrieved the handcuffs from Ghetto.
“If you stand up I’ll shoot you. If you roll over I’ll shoot you. If you look up I’ll shoot you.”
“Yesssssir.”
“Keep your goddamned face down in the dirt. Shut up.”
I holstered the Python and cuffed the giant, barely. I double-locked the handcuffs. As a young deputy, I had seen big guys break out of handcuffs. But he didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Then I popped the trunk, found another set of cuffs and did the kid.
“Stand up, get your feet under you.” I leaned him against the car, facing me. After I read him his rights, he was wide-eyed.
“You’re a cop? We didn’t know.”
“Well now you know.”
“We’d a never…”
“Oh, you just beat up civilians?”
