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When she gave me the address, I grew colder still. Grace Hunter’s cell phone was in evidence storage at the Phoenix Police Department.
She said, “I answered all of Peralta’s questions and it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.”
I let out a long breath. “You’re fast.”
She put her hand on my private parts. “I can be.”
31
We were at the Good Egg having breakfast four hours later. Like its neighbor Starbucks at Park Central, it was an institution in Midtown Phoenix. Unlike Sunday, the offices inside the nearby towers were open and the restaurant was busy. The morning was cool enough to sit outside, a dry seventy-nine degrees under the umbrellas, not even hot enough to require the misters. A pleasant dry breeze was coming in from the east. Light-rail trains cruised by on Central, clanging their bells. In her round, nerd-girl sunglasses, Lindsey looked like a spy.
Here we are, I thought, easy targets in assassination range. But the tracker on the Dodge Ram was far away and three Phoenix Police units were in the lot out front, the cops having coffee next door. It would take the bad guys at least a little time to break into the briefcase and even longer to figure out the flash drive.
To figure out they had been played for fools.
A pickup truck did arrive: Peralta’s. He was in a suit again and gave us a tiny nod as he walked toward the breezeway and the entrance. I knew it would take time for him to get out on the front patio. He was past his period after leaving office where he didn’t want to come here, didn’t want to see the assortment of politicos and officials who used the Good Egg for morning meetings. He had shifted his morning routine over to Urban Beans on Seventh Street.
But apparently he was willing to be seen again. I looked back and, sure enough, he was working the room, shaking hands, slapping backs, everyone having a great time. Where were they when he needed them? Now they had a sheriff who was a national embarrassment. He had a long conversation with Henry Sargent, who was sitting at the lunch counter. Henry was a retired honcho from Arizona Public Service.
“Lindsey!” Peralta sat down, full of morning pep. “What have you got for me?”
She went through it as the same waitress who had served him for the past fifteen years poured coffee and went off to place his order.
I read his face: satisfied, impressed, interested, troubled, more interested. An outsider would never know this from his seemingly immobile features, ones that could elicit confessions from criminals or compromises from county supervisors—or, this being Arizona, the other way around. But after so many years, I could see the slight rise of the right eyebrow, the tightening of his mouth, and the easing of a frown which didn’t mean his mind was easy. I wondered what troubled him. For me, it was the whole thing.
I asked, “When are we going to interview Zisman?”
He acknowledged me for the first time with a glance of disdain at my Starbucks mocha. “Not yet.”
“When?”
“Mapstone, you sound like an annoying child on a trip. ‘Are we there yet?’”
“Maybe. That makes you the dad who’s lost and is too stubborn to ask for directions.”
It was only me and Peralta being ourselves. Lindsey interrupted.
“Boys. I think the targets are definitely in the nest.”
She handed over her new iPad, to which she had added Google maps. Peralta studied it, and then handed it to me. Sure enough, both red dots had converged.
“They’ve been in this same location for several hours,” she said.
I worried that they might have discovered the trackers and discarded them at the spot on the map. But Lindsey said she had modified each to send a different signal if anyone fiddled with it.
“What time did they get there?” Peralta handed the tablet back to her.
“Around two a.m. They spent a few hours at a bar in Sunnyslope before that.”
He nodded.
The two red dots had nested less than a mile from the bar.
“Excuse me,” he said, and walked back inside the restaurant. The next time I caught sight of him, he was in the breezeway, which once held scores of shops when this was a mall. He was leaning against a pillar, his phone to his ear.
Back at the table, he took his time with breakfast. I had no choice but to do the same, even though I wanted to kick down their door an hour ago.
At last, Peralta gave instructions: take the Prelude home and park it. We would ride with him to greet the kidnappers. I hoped they were good and hung over.
