“Merry Christmas, Chief,” I said. “You need to be with Sharon, and she needs to be with you…”
He started to speak.
“No, that’s the way it is on holidays,” I said. “This is for Sharon.” I put a package with avant-garde wrapping in his hands. “And this is for you.” A traditional wrapping, with the box of Anniversario Padrons I knew he would love.
“Call me tomorrow,” I said.
He started to protest. He wasn’t accustomed to being bossed around. But a small change softened his eyes.
“You’ll be the next sheriff,” I said. “I’m honored you’re my friend.”
“You’re a good cop, Mapstone,” he said. Then he gave me a rough abrazo and walked out to his truck. After he drove off, I stood for a long time on the quiet street. The sidewalks were marked with luminarias from Central to Seventh Avenue, gentle, warm footlights for the vault of metropolitan sky. They made me feel less alone.
It was the way it should be. Holidays are for family. Mike should be with Sharon. Lorie Pope was back in New Jersey at her mother’s. Kimbrough and his wife had a three-year-old at home this year. Carl the courthouse guard took the train to Los Angeles to be with his daughter. Hawkins was off in his soccer suburb, with his wife and his kids. Even Bobby Hamid had a wife and children and home.
And I was at home, in the house my grandparents had built, home to me and too many books, in my city, in the last week of the last year of the last decade of the last century of the millennium. I fixed a martini, limped back to the living room and willed myself not to cry alone. The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice. If that is so, then why did I feel such a hole inside me?
The doorbell rang.
I was ready to be angry at Peralta for chickening out. But when I swung open the heavy front door, Lindsey was standing on the step.
“History Shamus,” she said. “You alone?”
I nodded.
“No snow and jingle bells?” she said.
“The first Christmas was in the desert,” I said. “The desert never forgets that.”
She took my hands. “You’ve been beaten up,” she said.
“You’ve had some adventures, too. I read about you in the paper.”
“You’re right about one thing, Dave. Patrick Blair is a beautiful-looking man.” She smiled. “A crappy shot, too. I found myself missing a man who would read me the classics in bed…teach me history and bring it alive…make me a martini…”
She started talking faster, trying to outrun the tears filling her eyes. “It’s Christmas Eve. It’s the time when we want to be home with our family, with the ones we love. The people who connect us to everything good we can be. And the one person in my life, the only person, who fits that description…” She almost didn’t get it out. “…is you, Dave.”
I was beyond words, so all I could do was take her in my arms and swear to God I’d never let her go. Take her in my house, in our house. Make peace with our individual histories and try to write a new one together. Hope for all the luck in the world. Let her into my cactus heart. It was cold in the desert that Christmas Eve, and it was enough that we could hold each other all night long.
Acknowledgments
Paying my debts: The retired Phoenix Police officers of the Big Apple breakfast club, especially Glenn Martin, provided valuable insights into law enforcement in the 1940s. The Phoenix Police Museum helped me see and touch the era. Any errors or deliberate changes in descriptions or procedures are my responsibility.
Retired Phoenix officers Steve Fotinos and Cal Lash, along with retired Mesa detective Bill Richardson, have regaled me with stories of Arizona law enforcement history, which inform this and future Mapstone novels.
Also, I’m grateful to Jana Bommersbach for her path-breaking work on the Winnie Ruth Judd case, which provides a window into the often sleazy workings of old Phoenix. Bill Stephens, a legendary Arizona lawyer, was generous in his memories of the city. Dr. Jack August, Jr., the director of the Arizona Historical Foundation, continues to inspire me with what a real-life historian can accomplish.
Finally, I give special thanks to Barbara Peters, my editor, who in no small measure made Cactus Heart possible.
Jon Talton
Jon Talton is the author of the David Mapstone novels, which follow the adventures of a historian-turned-deputy, working the mean streets of the urban West.
Jon's first novel, "Concrete Desert," was hailed by Kirkus as "an impressive debut." The Washington Post said it "is more intelligent and rewarding than most contemporary mysteries." The series has continued with "Camelback Falls," "Dry Heat," "Arizona Dreams" and "Cactus Heart." "Dry Heat" received Arizona Highways magazine's best fiction award in 2005.
