“You lied about not talking to Leo. You lied about Camelback Falls. You lied about that night in Guadalupe.”
“I lied to save my life!”
“Dave…” It was Lindsey. She came around the back of the truck, having climbed out the other side.
Beth glanced at Lindsey. “He’s just putting on a show for you because I offered to suck his cock,” she said. Then, back to me: “Calm down, big fella.”
“No more bullshit, Beth,” I said, leaning in to her face. She turned away.
I said, “You told us you watched a deputy take cocaine out of a patrol car.”
“I did,” she yelled. The wind pushed her hair straight back from her forehead. I could see intricate canals of worry wrinkles running horizontally in her pale skin.
“The car that was driven by Matson and Bullock.”
“Yes!”
“Where were you sitting?” I demanded.
“In the squad car! They put me there.”
“Where was the car?”
She hesitated. Two patches of dark crescents emerged under her eyes. Finally, “It was parked right there, where I could see…”
“That’s bullshit, Beth! You were in Nixon’s patrol car, and that was parked out on the street, not in the alley where you could see Matson and Bullock’s car. You didn’t see Peralta take the coke.”
Beth shouted, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m telling the truth. I saw it. I was there.”
“I was there, too, Beth.”
She stared at me, a wild look on her face. The wind was so cold, my eyes felt like they were drying out. An ancient car full of Indians slowed to see if we needed help. Lindsey waved them on.
“No!” Beth shouted.
“Yes. I was a young deputy. Before I left to teach. I’m the one who handcuffed you. I stuck you in a patrol car where you couldn’t have seen anything.”
She thumped me hard on the chest, and crumpled backward onto the side of the truck. “You bastard,” she sobbed. “You tricked me, you son of a bitch.”
“You didn’t see any of that, did you, Beth.” I persisted. I grabbed her and shook her. She felt like a rag doll in my arms. “Tell me the damned truth!”
I pushed her away. She bent over, hands on her knees, breathing heavily and sobbing. I signaled to Lindsey, and opened the driver’s door.
“What are you doing?” Beth screamed.
“Leaving you,” I said. “You’re no good to me as a witness. I’ll tell the tribal police you need a ride.”
I closed the door. Lindsey climbed in the passenger side. I slid the Suburban into drive. Lindsey said quietly, “Cocksuck your way back to Denver, baby.”
Beth pounded on the driver’s window. “Don’t leave me!”
I started rolling forward slowly.
“Bastard!” She hit the window hard. “They told me to tell that story!”
I stepped on the brake and lowered the window two inches.
“They told me, if anybody ever asked, to say a deputy named Peralta stole that cocaine,” she said, breathless. “They told me again last week to say the same thing. They said he was the sheriff now. They said they’d kill me if I didn’t.”
I lowered the window halfway, my finger on the remote-control button like it was a torture device.
“Who is they?”
“The detective! I don’t know.” Her fingers were red and raw from the cold, clutching the top of the window.
“Who is they, damn it!” I let the truck start to roll.
She screamed a name. I felt a new chill.
“I want to know what those goons were after,” I pushed.
“You were there,” she said. “You heard. They wanted to know where Leo was.”
“That’s right,” I said into the wind. “I was there. I heard them say ‘Give it up.’ Not ‘Give him up,’ but ‘Give it up.’ What is it, Beth?”
“How would I know? This is insane!”
I let up the brake and the truck rolled. The highway was empty to the horizon in both directions. “No!” she yelled and sobbed. “Don’t leave me!”
“The truth, Beth.”
“They wanted the letter.”
I put the truck into park.
“Dean Nixon wrote me a letter six weeks ago. How he found me after all these years, I don’t know. He and Leo had been in contact, and he said he wanted to make things right for Leo. I guess he wanted to do one good thing before his life was over. He said he was going to tell what really happened in Gaudalupe, what really happened with the cocaine. He was going to go to the new sheriff, Peralta. But he was afraid. And he was afraid for what might happen to Leo. The River Hogs had gang contacts inside the prison, and they could kill him if he seemed like he was going to talk.”
“Where’s the letter, Beth?”
She looked at me, red-eyed, and more tears came down her cheeks. She reached into her pants and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She handed it to me carefully, and I handed it to Lindsey. I stepped out to open the back door for her. She fell back against the side of the truck and said, “I’m so tired of this.”
“Get in, Beth.”
“You may as well know, things that night didn’t go down the way I said.”
I faced her. She looked wrung out, her skin bloodless.
“We were going to rob those old cops. Me and Billy and Troyce. We were going to double-cross Dean. We had Jonathan’s money, and the cops had the stolen drugs, and we were going to take both. Jonathan wouldn’t miss it, and Billy and Troyce wanted to go to Mexico. Poor Leo was just along because he loved me.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, when those deputies, Matson and Bullock, pulled in behind us that night, they thought they were just going to get cash for the drugs they took from the evidence room. I got out of the car…”
Her words sunk in. I suddenly said, “Beth, anything you say-” She held out a hand in a violent “stop” gesture. “Don’t read me my fucking rights. I got out of the car and walked back and smiled, and they were just stupid fucking men.”
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“I know that,” she said. “I also know I have a right to counsel. Just like Leo did.” She sobbed and rubbed her nose. “I waive my rights. Don’t you get it, Mapstone? While I distracted those old guys, Billy and Troyce got out of the car and came up and shot them. Right there. It happened so fast. Then, they started going through their pants to get the car keys, to get the coke out of the trunk. But it was too late. You guys charged in. I guess Nixon finally got the coke. Maybe the detective did. I don’t know.” She shook her head against the implacable wind. Then she shouted, “So, you see, I’ve had a lot to try to run away from all these years.”
“You didn’t know they were going to kill those cops,” I blurted suddenly, inappropriately chivalrous.
She looked at me, a look like the young girl Marybeth had in that vivid photo from Camelback Falls.
She said, “Yes, I did.”
Chapter Thirty-two
We delivered Beth to the huge, glassy Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Building in downtown Phoenix. To me, it still looked like a call center in the suburbs. Inside, we sat through hours of interviews with the U.S. Attorney’s staff, through a magnificent Arizona sunset out the big windows, and then Beth went off into protective custody with two marshals. What I really wanted was a shower, a drink, and a long sleep with Lindsey curled up against me.
“Sheriff!”
It was Kimbrough, waiting at the foot of the escalator as we descended into the enormous glass shell of the atrium. He shook my hand, then gave Lindsey an awkward hug.
“Congratulations,” he said, “We’re not waiting for federal indictments, either. We’ve already picked up two of these bounty hunters. And they’ve given up two other scumbags, former deputies, who were working with them. And we have arrest warrants issued for all the ones you said on the phone.”
He looked at my face. “Man, that must hurt,” he said. It did. It looked worse. On a trip to the men’s room, I spent several minutes scrutinizing the colors of my shiner.