Cactus Heart - [21]

At first he ran a doughnut shop, but his immigrant’s success story quickly verged into owning topless bars that were notorious for prostitution and drugs. Around the mid-nineteen-eighties, he was reputed to have had a lock on the cocaine trade for half the city. Along the way, there was a trail of cruel murders of assorted informants, rivals, and narco-groupies. Yet he could never be tied to any of it-never did a day in jail, as Peralta put it. And he slowly bought himself into respectable business and civic life. He was Peralta’s obsession. I could understand why.

Finally, he said, “Tell me what you thought of the Yarnell heirs you met.”

“You know I can’t discuss a case.” The truth was, I still couldn’t get an appointment to meet Max Yarnell.

“You do know that Yarneco, the family development company, owns that warehouse.”

Well, no, I didn’t. Against the coolness of the room, I could feel sweat forming against my chest.

I said, “The records say a real estate investment trust in Baltimore owns it.”

“And Yarneco is majority owner of the REIT,” Bobby said. “Just thought you’d want to know. They own a lot of the property down there. Once they were produce warehouses. Now everybody wants the land. Even the county, to expand Chief Peralta’s jail.”

I felt a flush spreading into my cheeks, hoped the dark of the office concealed it.

Bobby said, “You are an intelligent man, David, not merely a prisoner of books and ideas like most intellectuals. Sometimes things are not as they seem. It would be worth your time to reconsider your assumptions about me, about many things.”

He stood up and bowed slightly. “Dr. Mapstone, it is always a pleasure. Do have a happy Thanksgiving.”

I wanted to have a smart-ass comeback but all I could think of was getting him out of the office.

“By the way, someone left you a present.”

“What are you talking about?”

I followed his gaze over to the court table I had set up for the Yarnell case.

“What the…”

It was a doll. An ordinary baby doll, maybe a foot tall, with a big head and a silly smile. It had a little blue bow tie and blue overalls. And a little sheriff’s star. It made my skin crawl.

“Are you mind-fucking me, Bobby?”

“Oh, the English language is wonderful, isn’t it?” he smiled, perfect teeth looking predatory in the half light. “Farsi has many wonderful words and sayings, but not like this. ‘Mind fuck.’ No, Dr. Mapstone, I am not mind-fucking you. This doll was sitting on your doorstep when I came in. No card attached. I merely brought it inside. It is from a friend with a peculiar sense of humor, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

“I have never liked dolls,” Bobby said. “Those dead eyes.”

Then he was gone, his footsteps echoing like gunshots down the hall.

12

The worst sound in the world is a ringing telephone after midnight.

“Dave.”

Lindsey. “Are you all right?”

“Did you read the fourteenth Canto without me?” she asked. We’d been reading Dante to each other, a little bit at a time in bed. I said, “I’d rather wait for you.”

“That’s why you’re my History Shamus.”

A minute passed by with nothing but the electronic buzz of the phone line.

“Are you okay, Lindsey?”

“I guess I’m not.”

I sat up in bed, awake with worry, the house silent and dark around me.

I waited for her. She said, “So how was your day?”

Something bad. Lindsey is the most direct person I’ve ever known. When her conversation turns elliptical, it is a bad sign.

“I tried to call you,” I said. “I figured you were tied up.”

“Tell me about your day, Dave.”

I imagined the bit of frost that came into her dark blue eyes when there was only one path she was prepared to take.

“I found Frances Richie, the woman arrested with Jack Talbott in the kidnapping? She’s still alive. Still in prison.”

I could hear her faintly breathing. Steady, shallow.

“She didn’t have much to say. She remembered a slouch fedora that was taken from her by a jail matron after the arrest. I want to know how the bodies got in that wall, and she remembers the hat.”

“Do you remember what you wore the first time we ever made love?”

“I remember more what you were wearing,” I said. “And then not wearing.”

“You wore chinos and a light blue shirt,” she said softly, “and you looked impossibly preppy. But I knew inside you were a bad boy.”

I felt myself smile against the cool plastic of the phone.

I waited a moment, hearing the line buzz emptily, and went on. “I learned that the building where the skeletons were found is owned by the Yarnell family.” Thanks, Bobby. “I also tried to find out something about the pocket watch you noticed.” I paused. “I guess it’s all a fool’s errand. When the DNA profile comes back, we’ll know for sure. PPD is testing the DNA found on the skeletons against a sample from the surviving brothers. Then the case can be closed. I’m just trying to keep Peralta off my back.”

“Why is El Jefe so freaked out by me?”

“Oh, he’s that way with everybody. Even his wife.”

“Well, she doesn’t like me, either,” Lindsey said. “But that I can understand. It’s that thing with older women who are insecure about their husbands.”