“Did you ever meet him?”
“No,” she shook her head. “He told me Nixon was a crazy dude, and I needed to stay away from cops anyway. I always wanted to meet his friends, to have him take me out with the boys, show me off, maybe. I was very fearless and stupid. But it sounded like they’d have fun. Get off duty and go down to the riverbed with a keg of beer. It wasn’t like there was a lot to do in Phoenix back then. They even had this cute name for their parties. The River Hogs.”
Chapter Seventeen
Driving home, Lindsey and I had a short, sharp fight about the ’70s. I found myself in that worst of debating positions, defending an argument I didn’t really believe. Resolved: The decade of the 1970s was a pretty good time, after all.
“How can you be saying that?” Lindsey shot back, and not quietly. “Are you envious of Peralta for having a chick on the side?”
“Of course not,” I said. “That’s not what we’re talking about. Infidelity has occurred in every decade.” Ah, the debater’s half-Nelson. It only made things worse.
“That doesn’t make it right,” she said firmly. Then, “Dave, you’re making me sound like some kind of prude. That’s not fair.”
“I just get tired of the X-ers blaming everything on the Boomers,” I said. “And ten years of complicated events and social forces can’t be reduced to one or two cliches.”
“I didn’t say that,” she said. Like all fights between people who love each other, this one was full of ciphers and code strings, and not at all about what it appeared to be. In a softer voice, she added, “You know, I had to raise myself because of all those good times and complicated social forces.”
“I know.” It was all I could say. She spoke the truth. “I didn’t have much fun back then myself,” I said. “I could barely get a date. The young women didn’t seem interested in me. I never had the great lines that the personality boys have.”
“Oh, you’re a personality boy, Dave,” Lindsey said. Out of my peripheral vision, I could see her luminous smile. “A thinking woman’s personality boy.” She put her hand on my neck and rubbed-oh, that felt good!
“Now you’re flattering me. Don’t stop rubbing.”
“And,” she said, “true personality boys don’t have lines. They have stories.”
“That unmarked car is still behind us,” I said, as we exited to the Seventh Street ramp and paused at the light. Two homeless men, with clothes, beards, and skin the same color as a paper bag, stared at us from behind hand-lettered cardboard signs. Several car lengths back, the Ford had also taken the exit and now prepared to shepherd us home.
“Kimbrough is nothing if not efficient,” Lindsey said. “I guess they don’t trust me to be your bodyguard.”
“Should we stop at Good Sam?”
She stroked my arm. “You know they won’t let us up at this hour, Dave.”
“He’s the only one with the answers.”
“I know,” she said, as the light turned green and the traffic surged onto Seventh. “I’ve started a database for you.”
“You are so good to me.”
“Seriously, personality boy.” She poked me gently in the ribs. “I took a month out of Nixon’s logbook, May 1979, when the Guadalupe shooting happened. I also scanned in the duty rosters and beat lists for the East County patrol district for the same time period.”
“So that we can see if any interesting patterns emerge when we compare everything?” I said.
“Exactly. That may give you a few more answers, at least.”
The stucco houses on Cypress Street gave off a happy, Friday night glow. I drove around the block once, just to make sure everything looked right at home. It did, and I was really ready for a drink, a book, Duke Ellington on the stereo, and a warm bed with my woman, who is definitely no prude.
***
Kimbrough brought bagels and bad news to the doorstep next morning. We all migrated into the kitchen, which was bathed in sun before noon, where I fixed coffee for Kimbrough and Lindsey.
“The Justice Department is on our backs,” he said, settling into one of the white straight-backed chairs at the kitchen table, and setting a file folder before him like a place mat. It was Saturday, but he was wearing a blue blazer, and a subdued burgundy tie with a crisp white shirt.
“About?”
“The logbook.”
“So they won’t even give us time to complete our own Internal Affairs investigation?”
“I’m just telling you what I heard from a friend at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
I opened up the Republic, half expecting to see giant headlines about a scandal in the Sheriff’s Office. But the front page was full of idiot consumer news. Plus a prominent smog story. The Phoenix Open promoters must be getting worried.
“It’s obvious to me,” I said, “that Peralta was already looking into the Guadalupe shooting and whatever Nixon was involved with.” I told Kimbrough about Camelback Falls, the file in Peralta’s desk drawer, and the conversation with Lisa Cardiff Sommers.
“Jesus,” he said. “You’re supposed to be holding together a department that’s about to come apart. Instead, you’re running your own little private investigation here.”
Irritation was wired all through his body language. I poured coffee, trying not to let a defensive little tremor show in my hand.
“I had some hunches, that’s all.”
“Well, let me give you another interpretation,” he said. “Peralta’s dirty.”
“What?” Lindsey jerked her shoulders back.
Kimbrough knotted his brow and plowed ahead. “I know the man is lying in a coma, and I care about him, too. But I can’t just wish away his badge number in that log book, entered next to sizable amounts of money. And we’re running out of time.”
He sampled the coffee, then sipped deeper. “Maybe Nixon was blackmailing Peralta? Maybe Nixon raised the stakes too high and Peralta killed him, I got the lab work back yesterday, and Nixon was dead at least twelve hours before Peralta was shot.”
I felt blood rushing into my face. “This is nuts.”
“David, we found one of Peralta’s new business cards there in Nixon’s trailer. One of the cards with him as sheriff, not chief deputy. I checked and those were only delivered two weeks ago. So within the past two weeks, Peralta and Nixon have had contact.”
“Well, if Peralta was going to kill Nixon, would he leave a damned business card?”
“Maybe it didn’t start out that way,” Kimbrough said. “Maybe they had an initial meeting and just talked. Something went wrong. Nixon tried to put the squeeze on Peralta, whatever.” Kimbrough made a gun barrel out of his finger. “Bam, end of problem. But maybe he’s interrupted before he can clean up the evidence.”
“It sounds to me like Peralta was investigating this case himself!” I heard my voice echo angrily off the wall.
“Hear me out, if you’re going to play Lone Ranger,” Kimbrough said through gritted teeth. “Think of the pressure Peralta could have been under. He’s about to be sworn in as sheriff, and here’s this scumbag Nixon blackmailing him.”
Lindsey said, “So then Peralta finds a way to shoot himself on the day of his swearing in? Just to make it look good?”
“No.” Kimbrough’s eyes were large and earnest, incapable of irony. “There was obviously some kind of double-cross. Maybe Peralta had threatened to implicate the other dirty cops, those other badge numbers. And one of them had to take him out. David, I have seen the list of badge numbers in the logbook. There are nine current Sheriff’s Office employees among them. Nine. Including Peralta. There are fourteen former deputies, including Matson and Bullock.”
“Damn it,” I said, “none of this is proven yet. I didn’t even want to know that information before Internal Affairs completes its investigation. These deputies deserve due process.”
“The point is,” Kimbrough said, “who knows what kind of shit these cops were into twenty years ago? Maybe they were still in it this year. Those kind of people would go to any lengths to keep it covered up.”