Cactus Heart - [6]
Peralta was decked out in Brooks Brothers and had the annoying energy of a morning person. I was in a suit, too, charcoal gray with a subdued navy tie that had been an early gift from my ex-wife, Patty. In my years away from Phoenix, I had come to love suits. Now it made me stand out as an oddball in a town of golf-course attire. I didn’t mind.
“Mapstone, your mind is a wondrous thing.” His tone was ambiguous. “How do you know these things?”
“I wrote a paper on Hayden Yarnell in college. Then my dissertation was on the Great Depression in the West, remember? Of course not. Anyway, he was one of the most important cattlemen in the state’s history.”
“This Hayden Yarnell is related to Max Yarnell, the businessman?”
“Where do you think Max got his money? Max Yarnell is a grandson. If I’m not mistaken, he’s a brother of the twins who were kidnapped.”
Peralta crooked his mouth down and squinted at me. “So why the hell haven’t I ever heard of this Yarnell kidnapping case?”
I shrugged. “I only know about the kidnapping because my grandparents used to talk about it. It happened in 1941, right on the eve of World War II. The cops caught the guy and he was executed, so there was no real mystery aside from where the bodies were buried. Then the war changed this town forever. You know ancient history in Phoenix is three years ago.”
“I can’t imagine not seeing Jamie and Jennifer grow up,” he said, speaking of his grown daughters. It was a stunningly introspective remark for Peralta and I made no reply. He went on, “Don’t you want to have kids, Mapstone?” He didn’t even wait a beat. “You seem to know a lot about this case. So go down and help our friends at Phoenix PD. You can use the money.”
It was my deal with the county: two thousand dollars if my research into an old case led to some substantial new information; five thousand if it closed the case. I did need the money. But I ate my omelet in silence, which would annoy him; he was a quick-answer man. Finally I said, “There’s nothing to be done. We have the bones. Find a Yarnell relative and test the DNA. Looks pretty open-and-shut.”
“That’s even better,” Peralta said.
I was losing my appetite. “This is a city case, and the only thing they want less than a sheriff’s deputy sticking his nose into it is a sheriff’s consultant.”
Peralta shook the ketchup bottle violently and doused his concoction of eggs, ham, peppers, and potatoes. “Let me see your wallet.” I played along and handed it over. “I see a star-a good-looking badge, if I may say so-that says ‘Maricopa County Deputy Sheriff.’ I see a deputy sheriff’s ID card with your name on it.” He tossed it back at me. “As I recall, you graduated from the academy and worked on the streets for five years before thinking you wanted to go off and teach college.”
“Four and a half years.”
“Any teaching jobs out there you want?”
“I got a call from a Bible college in Houston,” I said. He almost smiled.
“Anyway, your help on the case has been requested by Chief Wilson himself.” The big enchilada of Phoenix PD. Peralta added, “After I volunteered you. He liked the work you did on the Phaedra Riding case.”
Peralta was just being himself, but I couldn’t hide my annoyance. “You are the master of the hidden agenda. I should have known we weren’t just having breakfast to raise our cholesterol levels and gossip.”
“We work for America’s Toughest Sheriff, remember? So theater is important.”
“I’m so glad I bring something useful to the department,” I said sourly.
“You do!” he said, stuffing another forkful into his mouth. “We’ve got the chain gang, the tent jail, the women’s chain gang. And we’ve got the nation’s only cold-case expert who’s a history professor and a sworn deputy-just to show we’re gentle and intellectual, too.”
“Oh, Christ!” I dreaded the hostility of the city cops to an outsider.
“Just do that history thing you do.” He waved a meaty hand. “Write the local and national stuff going on at the time of the case, give a nice timeline, list of characters, new evidence, what it all probably meant, blah, blah, blah. The media eat that shit up. Your buddy Lindsey can make it a PowerPoint presentation and we can do color handouts.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” I mocked him.
“David.” Peralta hardly ever called me by my first name. He sighed deep within himself and his broad, expressive face seemed instantly old. He rapped his knuckle on the newspaper. “We’re taking serious heat on this serial killer. Harquahala Strangler. The media’s even given the cocksucker a name. It’s a sheriff’s investigation and we’re sucking wind.”
“How many now?”
“Twenty-six women. All strangled, sexually assaulted, and mutilated, dumped in the desert west of the city. Last week he murdered a housewife from Chandler.”
“And you’ve got nothing?”
He glared at me. “We’ve got file boxes full of reports. We’ve got computers full of reports. We ain’t got dick. We have an FBI serial-killer team living in my shit, and they think we’re morons.” He made an extravagant wipe with his napkin and slurped coffee. “So we need some good press. This is a notorious unsolved case, a rich family. If you help close an old kidnapping-remember, you were front-page news during the Riding case-maybe we can buy some time before the politicians start calling for our hides.”
