High Country Nocturne - [18]
Remembering the thugs that had shouted Peralta down at one debate, the vicious online comments about him from Melton supporters and all the “dark money” from anonymous out-of-state donors, I started to get wound up.
I forced my voice to stay even. “I don’t approve of the way you won the election or how you run the department. And I don’t take clients that I don’t like and trust.” I thought about it and added, “No disrespect.”
“Call me Chris.”
“If I did take your case, it would be a five thousand-dollar retainer up front, then five hundred dollars an hour after that. I would want total control of the case. No second-guessing.”
He laughed from below his diaphragm and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. His beer was still untouched.
“That’s not what I had in mind.”
His hand went back into the bag and pulled out what looked like a wallet. I realized what it really was only when he placed it on the table atop the file and opened it: a star and identification card. My old badge and credentials.
“You’re coming back to the Sheriff’s Office, David.”
I sat back, feeling the little revolver against my shirt, and marveling at his chutzpah.
“And I would want to do this, why?”
“Open the file.”
He slid the folder toward me again.
I swept the badge case aside and flipped to the first page. It was an incident report dated July 24th, 1984. It looked like a museum artifact. At the bottom was my signature and badge number.
He tapped the paper. “Do you remember this?”
I nodded. A body of a twenty-something male had been found in the desert not far from the Caterpillar tractor proving grounds in the White Tank Mountains west of the city. Today the area is overrun with subdivisions, but then it was empty. The dead man had parked his car and walked on foot without water before he had collapsed.
I had been the first deputy to respond to the call, the one who had secured the scene and written the incident report. There was no obvious evidence of a crime. People did strange things in the desert. And then the desert did unmerciful things to their remains. Then the case had been turned over to the detectives and I had lost track of it. This was when I was finishing my master’s degree and preparing to leave the department and Phoenix.
Now, under the enchanted metropolitan sky with blessed ice water sitting next to the beers, I shrugged. “So?”
“There’s been a new development in the case.”
“Turn it over to your cold-case unit. I’m sure they’re quite capable.”
He shook his head. “I want you to investigate this. It requires your special skills.” He leaned in and touched my arm. “David, this is your home, your hometown. You belong with us at the Sheriff’s Office. I’ll warn you, the county is going paperless. I should have given you the documents digitally. But I thought the paper files might be easier.”
I drained the glass and stood. “Thanks for the beer, Sheriff.”
I was halfway out when his voice stopped me.
“Lindsey.”
I turned to face him. My feet felt heavy.
He beckoned me back with a flipping of his fingers, as if he were summoning a child. “Call me Chris. And you forgot your star, Deputy.”
I walked back and stood over him. “Why did you mention my wife?”
“Sit down, David.”
I did.
“Your wife is a hacker. She has been all her teenage and adult life.”
“You’re being cute with words,” I said. “Lindsey was a sworn deputy in the Sheriff’s Office cybercrimes unit and then she was recruited by Homeland Security. What made her so valuable is that she’s a ‘good hacker,’ if you want to use the word. A knuckle-dragger going by some manual from Microsoft isn’t going to have that expertise.”
“That’s what made her so effective. She’s one of the best hackers we ever encountered.”
A coldness spread in my limbs as I wondered who this “we” was.
“Your wife’s time in Washington, D.C., was not what you believe, David. I hate to put it this way, but sometimes it’s better get the truth out there. She wasn’t faithful.”
“My marriage is not your business.”
“There were several instances where she strayed. I know it hurts, but my sources are golden. You need to know this.”
“Good-bye,” I said, but made no effort to leave the chair.
I knew Lindsey had played and strayed, knew it because I had found a confessional letter she intended to mail to me but never did-and then I had tucked it back in her things and never spoke of it. It had been a mad time for both of us. Her sister Robin had been alive then. If the sheriff was trying to mind-fuck me to do his bidding, this wouldn’t work.
He lowered his head. “She was unfaithful to the country, too.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“You know about the F-35 fighter? It’s our most advanced jet. We’re fortunate that Luke Air Force Base was chosen as the primary training base.”
I looked him in the eyes.
“You’re giving me a chamber of commerce pitch,” I said.
“Unfortunately not.” He leaned in a few inches. “You may also know that China stole important information about it. An airplane we thought would give us a twenty-year advantage. Now the Chinese are incorporating its features into their advanced fighters, especially the Shenyang J-23. Try explaining that to the young men and women who will die in combat if push comes to shove in the South China Sea or over Taiwan…”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Однажды Борис Павлович Бeлкин, 42-лeтний прeподаватeль философского факультета, возвращается в Санкт-Пeтeрбург из очередной выматывающей поездки за границу. И сразу после приземления самолета получает странный тeлeфонный звонок. Звонок этот нe только окунет Белкина в чужое прошлое, но сделает его на время детективом, от которого вечно ускользает разгадка. Тонкая, философская и метафоричная проза о врeмeни, памяти, любви и о том, как все это замысловато пeрeплeтаeтся, нe оставляя никаких следов, кроме днeвниковых записей, которые никто нe можeт прочесть.
Выйдя на улицу, чтобы немного прийти в себя после бурного выпускного вечера, шестнадцатилетняя Мария Вестон исчезает навсегда. Девушку считают погибшей, однако спустя двадцать пять лет одноклассники начинают получать от нее письма с угрозами. Неужели она жива и долгие годы скрывалась, но зачем? Больше остальных напугана успешная предпринимательница Луиза Уильямс, которая уверена, что страшная судьба Марии целиком и полностью лежит на ее совести. Роман Лоры Маршалл — это будоражащее кровь погружение в бездну страхов, сомнений, амбиций и не изжитых комплексов.
Кен Фоллетт — один из самых знаменитых писателей Великобритании, мастер детективного, остросюжетного и исторического романа. Лауреат премии Эдгара По. Его романы переведены на все ведущие языки мира и изданы в 27 странах. Содержание: Скандал с Модильяни Бумажные деньги Трое Ключ к Ребекке Человек из Санкт-Петербурга На крыльях орла В логове львов Ночь над водой.
В самой середине 90-тых годов прошлого века жизнь приобрела странные очертания, произошел транзит эпох, а обитатели осваивали изменения с разной степенью успешности. Катя Малышева устраивалась в транзитной стадии тремя разными способами. Во-первых, продолжала служить в издательстве «Факел», хотя ни работы, ни денег там почти не наблюдалось. Во-вторых редактировала не совсем художественную беллетристику в частных конторах, там и то и другое бытовало необходимом для жизни количестве. А в третьих, Катя стала компаньоном старому другу Валентину в агентстве «Аргус».
Наталия Новохатская Предлагает серию развернутых описаний, сначала советской (немного), затем дальнейшей российской жизни за последние 20 с лишком лет, с заметным уклоном в криминально-приключенческую сторону. Главная героиня, она же основной рассказчик — детектив-самоучка, некая Катя Малышева. Серия предназначена для более или менее просвещенной аудитории со здоровой психикой и почти не содержит описаний кровавых убийств или прочих резких отклонений от здорового образа жизни. В читателе предполагается чувство юмора, хотя бы в малой степени, допускающей, что можно смеяться над собой.
