Cactus Heart - [15]

“Serial killers keeping up with the times.”

“If you tell Peralta I told you that, he’ll murder me. It’s the biggest clue we’ve held back from the media.” She gave me a mischievous smile. “And no leaking it to that old girlfriend of yours, Lauren.”

“Lorie.”

“Whatever.”

“I think you’re jealous, Lindsey.”

We made love again, a slow, wordless, carnal thing that was the basis of us, as much as the books and the dry humor and the cynicism that hid some shocking hopefulness. Like home: that’s how it felt.

Then she was up and sliding back into her clothes, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. I was half asleep and reached out a hand.

“Stay with me, Lindsey.”

“I can’t, Dave,” she said. “I’ve got to go to work.”

“You always worked bankers’ hours.”

“New job, new hours.”

I stood and cinched up the robe. “Peralta’s degrading my quality of life. I can’t believe he’s making you do this.”

“I volunteered, Dave.” She pulled me toward her for a kiss. “No lectures, History Shamus. I don’t want to just be seen as some propellerhead nerd girl doing computer systems.”

“I think you proved that Monday night.”

“Dave, don’t worry. I’m a deputy sheriff, too. And this murderer is out there, right now.”

And then she was gone, the front door echoing hard after her.

I wanted to say, “Please be careful.”

***

I fell into a deep sleep, and I was hiking across huge grassy hills strewn here and there with piñon and scrub oak. A California landscape, not like Arizona. I was acutely aware of the carpet of rough grass beneath my feet and the nervous sense of height, the world falling off in every direction down hillside and arroyo. It was getting dark and a few lights were visible far down the valley, but I felt compelled to walk. I fell, grabbed a scrubby branch, pulled myself back up, set out again. I wasn’t afraid. Then there was a banging and jangling that didn’t go with the dream, and finally I realized it was the doorbell. I swung off the sofa, slipped on my old, dark-blue Nordstrom robe and walked unsteadily toward the door. I noticed it was two in the morning, and something made me go to the bedroom and get the Colt Python.357 magnum.

I opened the little wrought-iron peephole in the door, saw Peralta, and wondered if I was still dreaming.

“Mike?”

“It’s not the fucking Girl Scouts.”

I opened the heavy door and he walked in. He was wearing a rumpled suit and carrying a gym bag.

I had seen Peralta in meetings and interrogations and even gun fights. But I had never seen him with the bare hint of vulnerability that surrounded him this moment. He seemed to read me and merely held out a finger, commanding silence, as he moved into the living room and sat heavily in Grandfather’s old green leather chair.

“I need a place to stay,” he said. “I don’t want to talk.”

“Are you okay? Is Sharon okay?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. I held up my hands in surrender and we sat in silence. Finally, I went into the kitchen and came back with two beers. He took one in his massive hand, studied the label with disgust-it was a Sam Adams-but he drank.

I was suddenly aware that I was naked under the robe and my crotch was still delightfully wet from Lindsey, and all in the presence of the chief deputy. He didn’t seem to notice. I had never been good at guy talk, where everything real was submerged subtly beneath words of sports and work and women. And I was particularly at a loss in Peralta’s company, where his sheer presence overwhelmed everything like a mountain dropped into flatlands. So we sat. I thought of Lindsey, of her body and expression as she pleased herself atop me. The twelve-foot-tall bookshelves that Grandfather had built kept watch over us.

“Tell me you own a television, Mapstone,” he said at last. “Even you’d want to watch the History Channel.”

So I took him into the little study and he took over Grandfather’s desk chair. With the tube on ESPN, he became a contented self-contained unit. I went back into the living room and read for a while, James Morris’ Pax Britannica, immersing myself in the adventures, characters and follies of the British Empire. It was the kind of book I wish I could write, but now, at forty, I knew I might never have the time or the talent. Still, Lindsey gave me a bookmark with George Eliot’s quote: “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

Later, when I could hear Peralta snoring, I went to the linen closet, pulled out a comforter, carefully spread it over him and shut down the house for the night.

9

The trill of the phone pulled me out of a hard, dreamless sleep into a sun-filled room. I was just in my bedroom, seven forty-six on the digital clock next to the photo of Lindsey from the San Diego trip.

Lorie Pope’s voice jumped at me. “David, did I wake you?”

“No,” I groaned and swung out of bed onto unsteady feet.

“You always needed at least seven hours of sleep, as I recall,” she said. “So last night must have been interesting.”

“Not the way you think.”

“Really?” she said. “Isn’t that a wonderful word? Interesting. May you live in interesting times.” She laughed her fine, crystal laugh.