High Country Nocturne - [48]

Definitive. Hardly anything else in this case was.

She sipped her coffee and continued. “He probably expected to come back and get the diamonds once the initial response died down. Or, he had her tag number, so he could have come to her house. She might never have known the diamonds were there if she hadn’t checked her trunk.

“I was wondering where you were,” I said. “The FBI called me up to Ash Fork in the middle of the night when they found Peralta’s truck. I kept looking for a Chandler detective.”

Her face scrunched up.

“What bullshit. I’ve dealt with fed interference before-they never play well with others-but nothing like this. They swooped in and took the case. I protested and got stuck deeper on the bad-girl list. Command folded like a cheap suit, is that the expression?”

I nodded.

“I didn’t get it,” she continued. “What was their jurisdiction? But we were forced to back off. Since 9/11, their powers have expanded to the moon. When they found the truck, they didn’t even tell us until twelve hours later and by that time they had towed it back to Phoenix.”

The green eyes lasered me. “Why do you think they took my case?”

“You’re giving me more credit than I deserve. Peralta was close to the old SAC, Eric Pham. It was an unusual collaboration with a fed. After he became a private detective, Pham threw him a few jobs.”

“You, too,” she corrected. “You’re his partner.”

“Fair enough.” Then I felt obligated to say I had been brought back to the Sheriff’s Office. It’s temporary. To consult on an old case. I’m not a racist. I don’t hate Hispanics.

She laughed, a fine melody that reminded me of Lindsey. “Is that going to be how you identify yourself every time? It might take awhile to get all that out when you’re breaking down a door.”

Before I could do more than smile, she added, “Horace Mann is an asshole.”

“Yes,” I said. “How did he react to you finding the diamonds?”

“Like an asshole.” She looked at the ceiling and blew out a sigh of exasperation. “He came out with his entourage, waited long enough for the diamonds to be verified as the stolen property.”

“How did he seem?”

“What do you mean?”

“Happy? Relieved?”

“Not at all. He was pissed. The hicks in Chandler solved the case.”

There might have been other reasons he was vexed but I kept them to myself. A dead man was attached to a doorknob in an office half a mile north of us. Somebody on the phone who was expecting those diamonds had told me that “Mann’s window was closing.” I didn’t know enough yet to advance a theory and didn’t want to dig myself in deeper.

She chuckled.

“Do you know what this was?”

I shook my head, unsure of which “this” she was talking about.

“When the call first came in, I expected the shipment was a bunch of engagement rings, something like that. But the jewelry store manager told us it was a closed show for their most exclusive customers.”

“Chandler has changed,” I said.

“Lot of money,” she said. “Not quite Scottsdale, but getting there.”

“Enough rich women to be exclusive customers.”

She frowned. “That’s a sexist thing to say.”

I started to apologize, but she tapped my knee. “I’m kidding. Relax. You know what you call a woman flying an airplane?”

“No.”

“A pilot, you sexist pig.” The fine laugh rang out again, and then her face grew serious. “Here’s the thing. This wasn’t any ordinary diamond show. It was ice. Bling. Hip hop stuff. Amazing, gaudy, huge. The big deal was a pair of rings that Tupac Shakur had worn, 3.6 carats, top clarity and color. You know who he was?”

“Even I know.”

I told her it didn’t fit with the white-bread image of the suburbs.

“That’s probably where most hip-hop music is bought,” she said. “It’s all my son listens to. Ugh. How many talks have I had with him about the misogyny and hate for the police in the lyrics. He thinks I’m so out of it. He talks about how it’s poetry of struggle and oppression. Do you have kids?”

“No.”

When I said the word, something closed in her face and she thought differently about me. In Chandler, what married man wouldn’t have children? She didn’t know anything about Lindsey or me. Now I was simply strange, beyond comprehension.

I pushed the thought away and said, “Hip hop has gang connections. Tupac was somehow tied in to the Bloods. Or maybe it was the Crips. Could they have initiated the robbery?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I did some research. A couple of years ago a music producer was robbed of a fifty thousand-dollar diamond necklace, plus a Rolex worth another fifty K. But I didn’t find anything this large or audacious. Anyway, the people invited to this show are all respectable, rich, white. For all I know, real rappers aren’t so much into bling any more, so it’s become a collectable for the housewives who watch reality television.”

“And all this was worth a million dollars?”

“That’s what the expert from New York said.”

“Only a million…”

“Yes. I don’t know about you, but in my life that’s a lot of money.”

I took it in and we settled into silence.

“Well, thanks for telling me,” I said, extending my hand.

She took it. Her skin was smooth and cool. “Have you heard from Peralta?”