I could do it. I had stopped by home for a change of clothes when the phone rang. It was the sheriff’s communications center and a message had been left for me: Mr. Max Yarnell, chairman of Yarneco and brother of the kidnapped twins, would see me at eleven o’clock. I changed clothes again, this time into a suit.
Yarneco took up the entire 20th floor of the Yarneco Tower on North Central, only a few blocks from my house. The skyscraper had been built for Dial Corp. in the early 1990s, and it resembled a copper-colored deodorant stick, or a vehicle for deep-space travel, or maybe a marital aid-anyway, it was the most dramatic building on the Central Corridor. I liked it.
When the elevator opened, Hayden Yarnell was waiting for me. He was entombed in an oil painting that took up the better part of a darkly paneled wall in the reception area. Snowy-haired and dressed in a dark suit and stiff Herbert Hoover collar, he gazed out at a future that had seen the Yarnell Land & Cattle Co. evolve into an international concern. His eyes looked black. A gold watch chain dangled tantalizingly from his vest.
Next to the patriarch was a museum-quality display of the company’s history and present-day structure. This was the age of the dot-com, but somehow Yarneco made piles of money the old-fashioned way. Yarneco owned mines in Arizona and Chile, defense contractors in California and Ohio, and a land development division responsible for huge projects around the Southwest. It was, a panel said, the largest privately held company in the state.
Before I could read further, I was met by a pleasant-looking young blonde in a very pleasant-looking powder-blue suit with a short skirt. She introduced herself as Megan, Mr. Yarnell’s assistant. He was running late, but I could wait in his private conference room. She led me through another dark-paneled room, where I couldn’t help noticing behind a counter two muscular, short-haired young men in suits with roomy jackets-roomy like Peralta’s, designed to conceal substantial firearms. They looked me over carefully as I followed Megan up a spiral staircase and through two heavy wood doors into the Yarneco inner sanctum.
The room was dominated by a sleek boardroom table big enough to accommodate a minor-league hockey game. Then there was the Indian art, large, intricately carved kachinas. Luminous Acoma pottery on dark pedestals. Basketwork that looked old enough to be very pricey. And two walls of glass.
From up here, Phoenix looked like the exotic capital of an imagined land of sun and prosperity. Glittery towers, a sea of green treetops, the mountains bare and rough and purple-black, witnesses to their volcanic heritage. Maybe this was what Coronado was after when he roamed the Southwest in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola. Only he was four hundred years too early. I could easily see my house three blocks away on Cypress.
I broke out of my reverie when a tall man strode into the room and gave my hand a peremptory but solid handshake. He had his grandfather’s long nose and full head of hair, but his hair was the color of lead and his face was tan and handsomely lined more from sailing the Greek islands and golfing at Pebble Beach than from driving cattle to the High Country. I’d seen this face all my life, among the top donors profiled in the programs of the Phoenix Symphony and Herberger Theater Center, smiling like a desert lord from a decorating article in Phoenix Magazine, discussing a huge new development or copper mine in the business section of the Republic. It was the face of the West’s moneyed establishment. It wasn’t smiling.
“I’ve already talked to a policeman named Hawkins,” Max Yarnell said. “My brother and I agreed to help with this DNA fingerprinting. So I don’t really know how I can help you.”
His voice was Toastmasters, with a dash of executive-suite impatience. His athletic frame mirrored it: practiced and toned, but a little coiled, a little tense, packed nicely into a monogrammed French blue dress shirt, and a tie with a tight pattern of gold and blue that looked a little like deranged DNA. Maybe I had DNA on the mind. I told him my job for the Sheriff’s Office.
“I never did well in school,” he said. “And I never lived in the past. Quickest way to waste your life away.”
“I get that,” I said. “Do you remember anything about the kidnapping?”
Men who reach the heights of the Yarneco Tower are accustomed to giving quick orders and moving on. Short attention spans are as important as MBAs. And they expect their minions to get the shorthand, take the hint. I pulled out a chair and sat. He really focused on me for the first time, as if a lamp had talked back to him. His eyes were a fierce light blue. “I was five years old when that happened. How much do you remember from when you were five?”
Quite a lot, actually. But I just sat there silently.
“Andy and Woodrow were my brothers. We played together. Sometimes they drove me crazy. We fought over who got to sit in the front seat with dad. I’ve tried not to dwell on what happened.”
“You know we found them in a building that’s owned by Yarneco?”
He sighed and pulled out a chair, compressing himself into it. “Yarneco owns a lot of property,” he said. “Actually, no, I didn’t know that.”
“One of the things I’m trying to figure out is how they got into the tunnel in that old building.”
“Only the man who kidnapped them would know that.”
“There was never any speculation in the family about what happened?”
I could see the cords in his neck tighten, but his face and voice stayed calm. “What happened? What happened was that my father and grandfather died within a few years of that awful crime. My brother and I were raised by relatives back East. The family was nearly destroyed.”
“Do you remember the night your brothers disappeared, Thanksgiving night?”
“I already told you no. My brother James is older, so maybe he does.” He crossed his arms and bore those light blue eyes into me. “This is just an academic exercise for you.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I’m not trying to revive your pain. I am trying to wrap up an open kidnapping and homicide case, and there aren’t many people still living who can give the information I need.”
Whether that satisfied him or not, I don’t know. He stared at the doors, maybe wishing Megan would appear in her nicely cut powder-blue suit and elegant legs. Hell, I did, too. I asked, “Did your father carry a pocket watch?”
“No, he wore wristwatches.”
I showed him the photo of the pocket watch with the HY brand. “That’s grandfather’s brand,” he said. “But I’ve never seen that watch. What does it mean?”
“We found it with the remains.”
He shook his head a couple of millimeters. “What can any of this mean?” he said. “They caught the man and executed him. This is all history.”
“They caught a woman with him, too,” I said. “I talked to her yesterday.”
He sat back, stared out the window toward Camelback Mountain and gave the top of his right hand a savage scratching. Then he stopped and regarded me again.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Frances Richie is still in prison.”
He raised his hands as if to let the information slip through.
“She’s nearly senile,” I said. “She wasn’t much help.”
He was on his feet. “I have another meeting, Mapstone. I’m sure you understand. You read the paper, so you know Yarneco is involved in a very difficult project at the moment. Lots of controversy. We’ve received threats.”
I rose, too.
“What kind of project?”
The thin executive lips pressed hard together. Then, “We’re in a consortium to build a new copper mine in the state. It will be the first new mine here in decades. I’m sure you can understand, this has angered some environmental groups.”