The Night Detectives - [3]

Outside, sixty-year-old asphalt was the best you got for parking. It was as much potholes and the crumbled remains of petroleum products melted and reformed, summer after summer, as it was a parking lot. A carport next to the office was for our vehicles. Mine barely fit thanks to the size of Peralta’s extended-cab pickup truck. The only other improvements had been a heavy-grade fence with a section that rolled across the driveway to seal things up tight when we were gone and restoring the old motel sign of a cowboy throwing a lariat. The neon was new and blinked happily into the night. And some well-concealed security cameras. We both had made enemies over the years.

Across the wide, divided avenue stretched railroad tracks and an industrial district. It was two miles and a new lifetime away from our old world: Peralta’s palatial suite of offices, and my beloved aerie on the fourth floor of the art deco 1929 county courthouse. No more badge. No more cold cases to solve. After I had left academia-or was I thrown out?-I had taken Peralta’s offer of a job in the Sheriff’s Office reluctantly. I hadn’t even intended to stay in Phoenix. I would be back long enough to sell the house. But I stayed.

It came to seem natural. Deputy David Mapstone.

Then it went away with great suddenness. Much else did, too.

“The point is,” Felix said, “I want another opinion. A deeper investigation. I couldn’t think of a better person than the former sheriff of Maricopa County. I want the best. Your reputation is very good, too, Doctor Mapstone.”

Doctor Mapstone. That had been my grandfather, a dentist. I was merely a guy with too many history degrees. Once I had been mildly proud of the honorific. Now, for reasons I didn’t fully understand, it irritated me. Like when somebody other than Lindsey called me “Dave.”

He would be getting the best with Peralta, no doubt about that. Perhaps he was pleased that neither of us was awed by Zisman. I recalled now that Zisman’s nickname had been “Larry Zip” and he had led many thrilling comebacks when he was at Arizona State. But I wasn’t a rabid sports fan or sports historian, and Peralta’s passions were golf and baseball. So we wouldn’t approach this case as hero worshippers. Still, flattery seemed very out of place coming from this rough-looking, expensively dressed man.

“Was she suicidal?” Peralta asked.

“No.”

“Bi-polar? Any mental illness? On any anti-depressants?” Spoken like the former husband of a psychologist. “Did she have a history of emotional problems?”

Felix shook the big head sparingly several times. “She was a sweet girl.”

“Did she have enemies?” I asked.

“Of course not.” It was the first time his voice had showed anything other than a careful detachment.

I asked other questions. When was the last time he had spoken to her? Two days before her death. How was she? Everything seemed fine. No change in her voice? Nothing new going on in her life? No. No. His voice grew more taut.

Expanding on my winning interpersonal skills, I continued.

“What was she doing in Zisman’s condominium?”

“What the hell business is…?” He stopped himself.

“We’re going to need to know.” This from Peralta’s deep, authoritative voice, before which the toughest cops had quailed.

Felix allowed the slightest sigh. “I don’t know. I know what you’re thinking. I didn’t even think she knew the man. She had a boyfriend in San Diego. I can give you his name.”

Peralta leaned back and said nothing. Felix rolled his head and knocked out a kink with such force that his neck emitted a sharp pop and I wondered for a second if he might have injured himself.

He was fine. “Money won’t be a problem.” He floated the fee schedule back across Peralta’s desk.

Peralta tapped his pen against the pad. He didn’t need a case. Sharon, his ex, had made sure he was set up with money for life and his only vices were guns and beer. I did. I was already digging into savings that had never been plentiful. Lindsey had a good job and her paycheck dropped into our joint checking account every two weeks. But I was reluctant to use her money. I had never thought of her money and my money during our marriage, but that was before the annus horribilis we had gone through. Money would be nice right now, but I wasn’t sure I wanted it from this particular case.

“Let me take down a little more information and we’ll make a preliminary investigation,” Peralta said. “After that, I’ll decide if we’re going to continue.”

“Fair enough,” Felix said.

The “little more information” took another forty-five minutes.

Afterward, Felix pushed across a thick envelope. “I hope ten thousand is enough for a retainer.”

My greedy heart leapt. My nervous leg didn’t celebrate by calming down.

Peralta studied the contents. I could see hundred-dollar bills.

“I didn’t want to wait for a check to clear,” Felix said. “I’d appreciate it if you can start now.”

Maybe Peralta nodded, but the man stood. He handed each of us a card with his name and number. No address.

“What’s your line of work, Mister Smith?”

“Between jobs.”