High Country Nocturne - [12]
I felt the hard plastic inside one part of the robe, “Is that a baby Glock in your pocket or are you glad to see me?”
“Both.”
I kissed her and un-mussed her pin-straight dark hair. My eyes stayed on the simple diamond of her wedding ring.
Diamonds.
So much trouble.
“You look exhausted, History Shamus.”
“Staying up all night doesn’t have the appeal that it did when I was fourteen years old.”
She led me into the room. It was a good deal nicer than a Holiday Inn, with expensive furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows looking north onto Central Avenue.
Phoenix is on the farther edge of the Mountain Time zone, so it was still dark outside. The view showed tired city lights but one of the first light-rail trains of the day was heading up the street. It was a view we didn’t get from our house in the historic districts.
Neither of the queen-sized beds had been slept in. I slid off my jacket and collapsed onto one of the beds. Lindsey curled up next to me and I told her everything that had happened.
She was skeptical about my traffic-stop reaction, which irritated me.
“I’m not making it up.”
“I know. But your tale…I’m sorry. Your description of the night has a dream quality to it. You were under tremendous strain. You were tired.”
“That woman was going to shoot me.”
“Strawberry Death.” She gave me that ironic half-smile. My testiness evaporated. Lindsey had the ability to tease without hurting.
“She had strawberry blond hair, yes.” I thought about it. Had I overreacted? “So you’re pissed that I made you leave home?”
She propped herself on her elbow and swung a long, naked leg over me. Her skin was not quite porcelain, but very fair, a beautiful contrast with her nearly black hair.
“I’m never mad when you’re concerned about me, Dave. This is a pretty nice safe-house, too.”
“But you didn’t sleep…”
“Could you have slept? You were a long way away and I didn’t hear a word from you.”
“I was afraid they were listening in.”
“Dave, I altered your cell to make it a totally dark device. The data are encrypted and your conversations are scrambled. Nobody can listen in. Not even the feds.”
She was right. She was put out with me. But she didn’t move her leg. She was five feet eight and I was six two and we had the same inseam. I stroked the soft, perfect skin of her thigh.
She said, “Peralta obviously ditched his cell so they couldn’t track him. He shot a guy in one of the most crowded malls in town and made a clean getaway. Mike Peralta, international jewel thief. Kinda sexy.”
“Lindsey, this is serious.”
“You have to smile or you’ll cry, Dave. I don’t think you have to worry about Strawberry Death. She was only a scared rookie on a traffic stop facing my dark dangerous lover. You’re very intimidating, you know. You don’t realize it.”
She sat up on her haunches. “Take a shower and let’s go home.”
It sounded like a good idea.
I stripped down, stepped into the commodious shower, and let the hot water sluice off my aching body. In a few minutes, Lindsey joined me, and we got friendly.
Afterwards, we got in bed long enough to watch the sun come up. It was worth it. Light revealed Camelback Mountain, Piestawa Peak-formerly Squaw Peak-and the North Mountains. Sunrise draped a coppery glow over the Viad Tower, the only interesting skyscraper in the city. The air was clean enough that we could see the Bradshaws, the muscular blue mountain range where the High Country began. It made me think of my travels last night. Dreamlike, yes.
Once the sun was higher, it showed off the emerald carpet of trees running north to the bare mountains and Phoenix didn’t seem so bad.
Lindsey had taken a cab to the hotel and Sharon had dropped me off. So we rode the light rail up to Park Central and ate breakfast at The Good Egg. While Lindsey waited at our table, content with the house coffee, I walked next door to Starbucks for a venti mocha. I smiled involuntarily at all the times Peralta had made fun of me for ordering the drink, wondering where he was now and whether he was safe.
Then I saw the stacks of Arizona Republics and the top headline on page one, “Peralta Linked to Gem Heist.”
I was angry before I read the subhead, “Former sheriff shoots diamond courier at crowded Chandler mall.” I bought a paper and got my mocha.
Lindsey read it on my face before she saw the newspaper. I tossed it into an empty chair. “I can’t stand to read it.”
She read the article. “Ah, they’re calling it the ‘crime of the century.’ Don’t we have a few more decades to go? Hey, doesn’t your old girlfriend work at the Republic?”
“They pushed her out in a reorganization years ago,” I said. “You know that.”
“You know the drill, Dave. Keep asking the same question and try to trip up the suspect. Don’t be so serious. An omelet will do you good.”
“Showering with you did me good.”
She smiled, then her brow furrowed. “Did you try to convince Sharon to leave town for awhile? She could be with her daughters in San Francisco.”
“I did. She won’t go. Said she wants to take care of you and me. Anyway, the FBI is staked out in front of their house.”
In this "prequel" to the popular David Mapstone mysteries, author Jon Talton takes us back to 1999, when everything dot-com was making money, the Y2K bug was the greatest danger facing the world, and the good times seemed as if they would never end.It was a time before David and Lindsey were together, before Mike Peralta was sherriff, and before David had rid himself of the sexy and mysterious Gretchen.In Phoenix, it's the sweet season and Christmas and the new millennium are only weeks away. But history professor David Mapstone, just hired by the Sheriff's Office, still finds trouble, chasing a robber into an abandoned warehouse and discovering a gruesome crime from six decades ago.Mapstone begins an investigation into a Depression-era kidnapping that transfixed Arizona and the nation: the disappearance of a cattle baron's grandsons, their bodies never found.
The private-detective business starts out badly for former Phoenix Deputy David Mapstone, who has teamed up with his old friend and boss, Sheriff Mike Peralta. Their first client is gunned down just after hiring them. The case: A suspicious death investigation involving a young Arizona woman who fell from a condo tower in San Diego. The police call Grace Hunter's death a suicide, but the client doesn't buy it. He's her brother. Or is he? After his murder, police find multiple driver's licenses and his real identity is a mystery.
Cheryl Beth Wilson is an elite nurse at Cincinnati Memorial Hospital who finds a doctor brutally murdered in a secluded office. Wilson had been having an affair with the doctoras husband, a surgeon, and this makes her a aperson of interesta to the police, if not at outright suspect. But someone other than the cops is watching Cheryl Beth.The killing comes as former homicide detective Will Borders is just hours out of surgery. But as his stretcher is wheeled past the crime scene, he knows this is no random act of violence.
A handsome young New York professor comes to Phoenix to research his new book. But when he's brutally murdered, police connect him to one of the world's most deadly drug cartels. This shouldn't be a case for historian-turned-deputy David Mapstone – except the victim has been dating David's sister-in-law Robin and now she's a target, too. David's wife Lindsey is in Washington with an elite anti-cyber terror unit and she makes one demand of him: protect Robin.This won't be an easy job with the city police suspicious of Robin and trying to pressure her.
Cincinnati homicide Detective Will Borders now walks with a cane and lives alone with constant discomfort. He's lucky to be alive. He's lucky to have a job, as public information officer for the department. But when a star cop is brutally murdered, he's assigned to find her killer. The crime bears a chilling similarity to killings on the peaceful college campus nearby, where his friend Cheryl Beth Wilson is teaching nursing. The two young victims were her students. Most homicides are routine, the suspects readily apparent.
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