Cactus Heart - [14]

Now there were new neighbors to know. Most of the old owners had left or died in the years I had been away from Phoenix. Many of the houses had been restored beyond any former splendor, pools added, and all in all Willo was much more affluent than it had been. Yet the neighborhood had gained a self-conscious quality, too: It was a historic district, an urban homesteading success story. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. I felt a constant sense of familiarity and strangeness, and tonight the block just felt empty and sad.

Lindsey’s old white Honda Prelude was parked in front of my house and Lindsey was sitting inside. She had a key to the house but didn’t use it. I parked and met her on the sidewalk, where she held her hand gently against my chest as if she were taking some internal reading, then she ran an index finger down my nose, across my lips, into my mouth. She wore baggy jeans and a gray sweater, and her pale skin glowed from the street light. Without a word she led me up the walk and we went inside.

***

Later, we sat on opposite ends of the sofa, our bare feet resting on each other’s laps, easily naked together, sipping the Macallan from shot glasses. We were in the living room, the grandest room in an otherwise small house, with a twelve-foot ceiling and bookcases rising behind a wrought-iron staircase. Sometimes I could feel Grandfather and Grandmother in the room, not as ghosts but as missed beloveds. It was a room that put me in a mind to realize the fleeting preciousness of our connections.

“How was your day, honey?” She arched an eyebrow in parody.

“Oh, the usual, dear. Returning to the scene of the crime. Picking through old bones, serving the public trust. The Phoenix cops don’t like me, but they also don’t have much interest in old bones.”

“I read today that in ancient China the historian held an honored place in the emperor’s court,” she said.

I smiled. “Born in the wrong time and place, I guess.”

“History Shamus.” She stroked my leg. “What time and place would you be born in?”

“Oh, I’m greedy. I’d want to see everything: Rome, the time of Christ and Mohammad, ancient China. I’d want to swap stories with Dr. Johnson and serve with George Washington. Live in the thirties and forties, ride the great old trains, see Arizona before we spoiled it.”

“You could stop by and prevent the Yarnell kidnapping,” she said.

“But I wouldn’t want to live in another time because I couldn’t be with you.”

She smiled and looked away. “You’re a romantic, Dave. I like that.”

“And I wouldn’t want to live in the past because I’d give up the benefit of modern dentistry.”

She laughed out loud, a wonderful sound. “Spoken like the grandson of a dentist.”

I told her what I had learned today about the kidnapping. Then we sat in silence, listening to the house breathe and, outside, sirens run down Seventh Avenue. I studied her face, a face so different from the battalions of fresh-eyed, tanned sun-bunnies that Phoenix seemed to produce like General Motors produced Chevys. Hers was a face of contrasts: dark lipsticked lips, full but set in an economical mouth; creamy skin and precise dark brows; cheek-bones appealingly wide; a classical tapering toward the chin; her dusk blue eyes too far apart to be considered conventionally beautiful. All this was framed by the stunning black hair parted in the middle and falling with the barest hint of a curl down to where her neck met her shoulders. And that gold stud in the left nostril-someday I would ask about that, if we had enough time together. The first time we met, I was a year out of my divorce. I watched that face as she did her computer magic for me. And then one day I found her watching me.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Important things,” I said. “How was your day?”

“A new assignment, actually,” she said. “And I am so glad to get away from Y2K.”

“If I had your skills, I’d be rich.”

“You’re good looking.” She smiled. “You’re great in bed, on the floor, whatever.”

God, she made me feel lucky. “All because of you,” I said.

“It’s the Harquahala Strangler case,” she said, her voice half an octave lower. “El Jefe”-her secret nickname for Peralta-“has assigned me to help. I’ve been teamed up with Patrick Blair.”

“Whoa, the alpha hunk detective of the sheriff’s office?”

Lindsey smiled a passable Mona Lisa impersonation. “Are you jealous, Dave?”

“No,” I lied. “Hell, I thought he and that partner of his-what’s his name? Tony Snyder-were gay. They both look like they stepped out of GQ. Remember they’re in that calendar the sheriff is selling? Beefcakes with Badges, or something like that.”

“I thought it was cute,” Lindsey said. “Anyway, Tony has a nice wife and two babies in Peoria. He’s on leave to finish his master’s thesis. I think you’re jealous, Dave.”

I felt a hotness moving across my face and knew I was busted. She gave a delighted giggle.

“So why are they teaming you with Patrick Blair? He seems about as interested in database research as he’d be in studying history.”

“They think this dirtbag gets his victims over the Internet.”