Diane stifled a look of boredom. Zephyr winked at me. I didn’t care if they were interested. I was interested. This photo had hung in my office for years when I worked for Peralta. Now, with Hayden in Stetson, straight serious mouth, and expressive dark eyes looking down, I felt reassured.
The women turned when two knocks came on the pebbled glass. Chris Melton walked in. He was actually wearing a suit.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Damned federal racial profiling case. Had to testify. It’s all trumped up by the media.”
He looked around, found no place to sit, and leaned against the wall.
“Who’s that?” His eyes quickly found his competition on the wall behind me. I told a shorter version of the lesson I had given to the Whitehouse women.
Melton said, “Of course.”
He had no idea who Carl Hayden was.
I said, “I asked you to come here today to discuss what I’ve found concerning the wallet that Mrs. Whitehouse discovered in her husband’s closet.”
Melton shot me an icy glance. Why are you surprising me?
Zephyr said, “This is very sexy. Like one of those Masterpiece Mysteries on PBS. But that might make us potential suspects!”
“Settle down, dear,” her mother said. “And call me Diane, David. You know that.”
Zephyr ran her hand in front of her face, turning her amused look into one of mock seriousness.
Several files were laid out on the desk. Screw the paperless office.
I laid down a photo of the wallet.
“This is it. It’s been logged in as evidence so the photo will have to do. When Diane found it, she was curious enough to do some research. She said she discovered it went with a man who died in 1982. At that point, she contacted the sheriff.”
I opened another folder and started laying out photos of men, some quite explicit.
“When I interviewed Diane, she showed me where the wallet was found. These are some of the photos that were also in the drawer…”
Diane turned toward Melton. “Chris, I didn’t think these were relevant.”
I continued. “I thought they might be, so I also placed the originals in evidence. These are copies.”
“And they say size doesn’t matter.” Zephyr eyed the photographs and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, smiled, and fiddled with the factory torn fabric of her jeans.
Melton folded his arms. “How is this relevant, David?”
“Among these photos was a smaller snapshot,” I said, placing another picture on the desk. “This is the young man who died, Tom Frazier.”
“He has clothes on,” Zephyr said.
I nodded. “That’s one curiosity. Another is that the snapshot is torn in half. Someone else was in this photo, but that part was discarded. Then there’s the problem that none of these other photographs fit.”
Diane started to twirl her hair but put her hands back in her lap. “What do you mean?”
“Every other photo can be found on the Internet, from gay porn sites to Flickr. They could have been downloaded and turned into physical photographs, even aged to look as if they had been sitting in that closet for decades. So if Elliott Whitehouse was gay or bisexual, and these were meant to be keepsakes from former lovers, it doesn’t fit.”
“Mother!” Zephyr stood, angry enough to dispense with using her mom’s given name. “Daddy wasn’t gay! He hated gay people. How could you have said such a thing?”
I held out a hand and lowered it. Zephyr sat.
“I never said any such thing,” Diane said.
“You did imply it,” I said. “Your husband wasn’t interested in sex. He always had very handsome male assistants. ‘Real hunks,’ in your words. I’ll be happy to read the report I wrote of our discussion to refresh your memory.”
“I think it’s very tragic he had to live a double life,” she said.
“This is such bullshit!” Zephyr said.
“Let’s set that aside for now,” I said. “As I investigated this case, I did run across a woman named Stephanie Webb. She told me that she had a ten-year love affair with your husband, Diane. It went right up to the time of his death. In fact, when he had his fatal heart attack, he was at her condo in Scottsdale. She told me you forbade her to attend his funeral. She also told me she had found no evidence of him being interested in men. Quite the contrary…”
“You motherfucker!” Diane rose out of her chair and looked about ready to climb over the desk. She had dropped the mask of Arcadia gentility with ease. Melton put a restraining hand on her shoulder.
He said, “Is there a point here, Deputy?”
I was relieved we were beyond the forced casual first names. “I didn’t ask for this case, Sheriff. In fact, you brought me into it under false pretenses, but that’s another conversation. Diane started this by bringing you the wallet. As it turns out, that’s a good thing.”
“My private life is none of your goddamned business!” Her shout echoed into the high ceiling. Zephyr lost her tan.
“As a matter of fact, it is.” I let that sink in for a few seconds. She stared at me, then looked down. “I was the deputy who found Tom Frazier’s remains in 1982.”
Diane’s sharp intake of breath was noticeable.
I continued, “He was in the desert at the foot of the White Tank Mountains. That area was completely isolated back then. The death was ruled a suicide. The medical examiner found a fatal dose of heroin in his system. And that’s where the case sat until you found this wallet.”
“I don’t understand.” She attempted a laugh, about as droll as a Gila monster. “I was only trying to help. What on earth does this have to do with us?”
“I kept trying to figure that out myself,” I said. “You see, the problem is that there was no drug paraphernalia found at the scene. Not in the desert and not in his car. We performed a grid search that day of the area between where the car was parked and where the body was found. No needle, no spoon, nothing. When I found the body, I followed his tracks through the desert. I assumed he was alone. But the soil was hard and it hadn’t rained. So another person might have been with him. Someone petite who wouldn’t leave obvious footprints.”
“Who was Tom Frazier?” This came from Zephyr, in a small and tentative voice.
“He was about your age,” I said. “An EMT who worked on the ambulance. He wanted to go to college.” I pushed forward another folder. “These are interviews I did with six of his colleagues. Facebook has a page for Phoenix EMS veterans. It’s an amazing resource. I was able to find people who actually knew Tom.”
“What are you getting at, David?” Diane had regained her poise. “I think we’ve been very patient. I have things to do. If there’s something you want to tell us about Elliott, we can find a way to handle it.”
“Good,” I said. “Tom was an excellent medic. Skilled, good under pressure, never missed a day of work. That isn’t the behavior of an addict. In fact, they told me he wouldn’t even smoke pot. Put all this together and we have a suspicious death at the least, a homicide more likely. That’s why Sheriff Melton had me make this into a murder book.”
I let those words settle over the room before continuing.
“Tom was also straight. He was awkward with women. Who wasn’t at that age? He had an affair with a nurse who was ten years older. She broke it off. He was really hurt. You can read the statements here.” I tapped the folder.
Diane looked at me, then at Melton. “So are we done? I don’t really understand the point but I appreciate David’s diligence in this, Chris. Really, I do.”
She hastily stood. “Come on, Zephyr.”
“I’m not done.”
I might as well have pulled out the Colt Python and fired it. All the color drained from Diane’s face. She slowly lowered herself into the chair.
“Two people told me that Tom had started dating a girl his age. He had met her on a call. She overdosed on heroin and he helped save her life. After she got out of the hospital, he started seeing her. Seems as if he wanted to help birds with broken wings. That’s how his partner put it. The girl’s name was Diane.”