High Country Nocturne - [22]

“Not a word? Your husband is his partner in their private detective business.”

“Not a word.”

She was a good little liar, my wife.

I walked on to the end of the block as they ran out of questions and packed up. Not one word I could say to them would make things better.

The neighborhood was as magical as the surprised deputy had found it. The period revival houses had all been restored and were some of the priciest real estate in the city now. It seemed as if only Lindsey and I had not put in a pool.

Willo had been built slowly, almost one house at a time, a huge contrast to the industrial-scale subdivisions laid down elsewhere, later in the life of the city. A couple of blocks over were bungalows that dated back to before statehood. Most of our block had been built in the twenties. The City Beautiful Movement even infused the sidewalks, which ran between small “parking lawns” on one side and the larger lawns that extended to the houses. Only philistines put in desert landscaping. This had always been the oasis.

Ten minutes later, the street safely in darkness, I unlocked the front door and stepped inside.

“You were impressive.”

“Thank you.”

She tilted her face up and I kissed her.

I said, “I wondered how long it would take for them to show up. Better you speaking to the media than me.”

She looked at the brown file folder. “Is that from the High Sheriff of Maricopa County?”

I nodded.

“And?”

After hesitating, I showed her my star.

“No, Dave.” She pushed it away and shook her head. “Why would you go back to the Sheriff’s Office? For Sheriff Meltdown. My God, that’s not right. What happened?”

I sighed. “Oh, Lindsey, talk to me, and I’ll rub your feet.”

The temper drained from her face. “Deal.”

We went to the sofa and I pulled off her shoes, running my fingers along the perfect facets of her cheerleader ankles. I avoided her concerned look. I kissed the left foot, sucked her toes for a few moments, and began to massage.

“Ooooo, History Shamus…”

“Why is the FBI investigating this case?” The question suddenly entered my crowded mind.

“I don’t know. It’s not an interstate crime yet. The FBI has really changed since 9/11. It’s very focused on counterterrorism. Now that you mention it…” She shook her head.

“This should be Chandler P.D.’s case. Not one Chandler detective was in Ash Fork early this morning.”

“So I’ll give you one, Dave. Why would Mike Peralta need a million dollars?”

I pressed my fingers into her calves and attempted to study her face. Only one lamp was on and her expression was shadowed. I turned away and meditated on the tall bookshelves on the far wall and the stairway that went up beside them.

Oh, for time to do nothing but read books and hang around with Lindsey, free from the outside world, free from the burden that had been hung around my neck beside that perfectly still rooftop pool.

“A million isn’t what it once was,” she went on. “Like when you were young, my older man. Not only that, but it’s a million in stolen, traceable, hot-as-hell diamonds. You can’t exactly take that to the pawnshop. So I did some digging around.”

The bottom fell out of my stomach.

“Keep rubbing.”

I did as I was told.

“The Peraltas have a net worth of 2.4 million,” she said. “Part of that is in their home, which is paid off. Sharon still gets more than a hundred thousand a year from the sales of her self-help books, DVDs, and speeches. Mike’s pension is ninety-two thousand a year. In the past six months, the private detective work has brought in a net sixty-seven thousand, twice what it did when you guys were starting out.”

I moved to worshipping her right foot. I would never get used to the tattoo on the top. “Emma.” She got it in D.C., after the miscarriage, after she nearly bled to death and saving her meant we could never have children, after she fled from me. But there was that ink, in one of the places where it was most painful to get a tattoo. And on her perfect fair skin. To me, tattoos were trashy or belonged on sailors, especially in Moby Dick. I was a dinosaur from the twentieth century. I also wouldn’t have chosen Emma. But there it was. I had never mentioned it.

She said, “If you dig deeper-oh, right there, that feels so good-the Peraltas have 1.25 million dollars in what you would call ‘investable assets,’ money that can be put in stocks and bonds and mutual funds. And all this is as of the latest account statements. Nothing has been pilfered. No evidence of accounts being drained for, say, a gambling habit or to pay off a blackmailer. They have no debt. Imagine that in today’s America.”

I said, “So why would he need a million bucks in diamonds? It’s more evidence he didn’t turn rogue.” Or, as Lindsey had suggested earlier, that he had committed the crime to prove something, to stick it to the voters that had betrayed him. But I didn’t say that.

She smiled. “Are you proud of me? Wait until I tell you about Matt Pennington.”

I nodded and rubbed her feet. Maybe that would be enough, we could wind down and go to bed, and none of this would be real in the morning.