High Country Nocturne - [21]

But it is a house, nothing more, and sentimentality disables me.

What fool would mourn Phoenix? It makes as much sense as pining for Muncie, Indiana, in the nineteenth century.

My fool’s punishment is that I am from nowhere.

“David, this is your home, your hometown.”

I have no hometown.

I am a fraud.

I’ll never make it home again.

Had I not come back, I never would have met Lindsey, the young Sheriff’s Office computer genius with the nose stud and wicked sense of humor. She would have been so much better off without me.

I should not be here.

It’s not healthy.

It’s not sane.

I am like a mad archeologist trying to conjure ruins back to their past glory.

Or like a dog that can’t leave his master’s grave, ending up a stray that howls all night in the cemetery, crying, loss…loss…loss…

So help me, God, I am so lost.

The water shut off, as if on a timer.

I made my legs stand and take the steps two at a time up to the grand arched main entrance where I buzzed the night bell.

“Mapstone! I haven’t seen you in forever. How the hell’s it hanging?”

The deputy didn’t even realize I had left the department.

A metal detector and X-ray machine with a belt had been installed inside, but otherwise the lobby and airy atrium looked the same. No, better. The county had actually done a good job restoring the building to its period beauty. The brass elevator doors glimmered beyond.

Instead, I took the staircase that wound up the atrium, walking on the brown Mexican saltillo tiles, gripping the railing that so many thousands of justice-seeking hands had touched. The decorative tiles on the risers had been polished and replaced where needed. The wrought-iron chandeliers burned through yellow panes set off with colored medallions.

When Peralta had first put me over here, the building was an afterthought holding a few county agencies. Now, I guessed it was busy on weekdays. Tonight, it was silent enough for my footfall to echo. I reached the fourth floor and walked past the doors of dark wood, pebbled glass, and transoms. Overhead were white globes spaced every few feet.

My phone vibrated. A message from Lindsey: “You ok?”

I texted back, “Yes. Home soon.”

I was anything but okay.

Then I found the correct door, slipped in the key, and went inside.

My new office was perhaps ten feet by twelve feet, a comedown from my old digs. But it had a large window looking north. I turned on the lights and there they stood, the antique wooden desk I had scrounged from the county warehouse, swivel chair, and two other straight-back chairs in front. Against one wall was the 1930s courtroom bench I also had appropriated. Another wall held the historic map of Phoenix that was yet another of my finds, one I didn’t take with me when I left the job.

It was as if Melton had planned it all before we ever talked.

And I had fallen into the snare.

Treason, indeed.

I switched the lights back off, crossed to the desk chair, and slowly lowered myself to sit. The empty desktop received its first employment since I had resigned and cleaned out my old office-the case file Melton had given me. I thought about reading through the case now, thought better of it, and instead spun around to watch the cars moving along Washington Street.

I wondered where Peralta was, if he was safe, what the hell was going on. I needed to be working on finding him, deciphering the messages on the cards, not rehashing a thirty-year-old case.

The dread had hold of my throat and chest before I realized it. My heart galloped insistently inside my chest. I was conscious of every chamber of my heart opening and closing, opening and closing. In only seconds, it seemed, the trap door to oblivion would open beneath me. Yes, Sharon, I still get panic attacks.

The only remedy was to move, to get up and flee the building, get into the night air and see some other human souls. At Central and Washington, I boarded a train so full of them that I had to stand all the way home.

On the way, I tried to figure out what to tell Lindsey.

Chapter Ten

Our block was awash in white lights and hemmed in by the dark silhouettes of satellite trucks bearing the logos of television stations. As I drew closer, I saw that the lights were from television cameras and pointed at our house. The house looked good. Lindsey looked even better, standing on the front patio and talking into microphones that five reporters held to her very telegenic face.

Setting aside my initial alarm, I held back on the sidewalk.

“Sheriff Peralta is a man of the highest integrity,” she said. “I worked for him for a long time and my respect for him grew with every year. I’m sure a logical explanation will come out about what happened.”

Logical explanations. I was all for that.

“Why would he shoot a man and steal the diamonds?” A woman’s voice.

“These are allegations,” Lindsey said. “I only know what you people have reported. The police are investigating.”

“Have you heard from him since the theft?” A man shouted the question.

“Of course not.” Not a second’s hesitation, her tone earnest. She turned her head to move the hair out of her eyes.