FIND MATT PENNINGTON
I pocketed it and stepped off the curb as a Flagstaff cop cruised slowly past. By the time I slid into the driver’s seat, he had picked up a call and sped off silent code three, emergency lights but no siren.
I showed Sharon the card. “Ever hear him mention this name?”
“No. It doesn’t sound familiar at all.”
My phone vibrated. A message from Lindsey with three numbers.
It was time to get back to Phoenix.
Ninety minutes later and a mile lower, we passed through the enormous freeway interchange on the north end of the metropolitan area. Sharon was asleep. Some civic wrecker had climbed onto an overpass and written in black capital letters: OMENVILLE.
Chapter Six
The Westin was the one of the new swanky hotels in downtown Phoenix, occupying the lower floors of the bland Freeport-McMoRan building. The glass-sheeted box had been finished as the Great Recession blew up.
In the go-go years before the crash, one in three jobs had been connected to real estate. It was the only conversation at my gym in the basement of Central Park Square. Even the woman who cut my hair was flipping houses. For me, it was like Joe Kennedy’s anecdote about shoeshine boys trading stock tips in 1929. Anybody could see it coming if they cared to look.
The result in Phoenix had been a straight-up Depression. Now it had mellowed into a prolonged recession, whatever the boosters said. Phoenix had seen nothing like it since the bad years of the 1890s. The perpetual-motion growth machine had broken down.
Thousands of people were still underwater on their mortgages, owing more than the houses were worth. Thousands more had simply walked away. Entire subdivisions within the “master planned communities” of suburbia had been empty. Then Wall Street had moved in and bought the houses as rentals. Even this didn’t stop the economy’s bleeding and many of the rental houses, already built on the cheap, turned shabby fast. Wall Street flipped the properties to new slumlords. Talented young people and empty-nest baby boomers with means were moving to cities with real downtowns, places like Seattle and Portland. Fewer retirees had the money to move to Phoenix and brag about not having to shovel sunshine.
Phoenix embodied Eric Hoffer’s remark, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
But the Westin’s lobby looked modishly elegant, if empty, when I walked in at six a.m. The friendly young woman at the registration desk said hello and I responded as if I belonged there and went to the elevators.
When I stepped out on the eighth floor, the hallway was empty. The space was quiet. Not even a sound of a couple making early-morning love. I walked to the room number Lindsey had texted and knocked.
The door opened two inches, the security latch in place.
“House gigolo,” I said.
“Please come in. I called hours ago.”
Then she was in my arms and for that moment the world was right and safe. I felt the contours of her body through the plush white robe she wore.
I felt the hard plastic inside one part of the robe, “Is that a baby Glock in your pocket or are you glad to see me?”
“Both.”
I kissed her and un-mussed her pin-straight dark hair. My eyes stayed on the simple diamond of her wedding ring.
Diamonds.
So much trouble.
“You look exhausted, History Shamus.”
“Staying up all night doesn’t have the appeal that it did when I was fourteen years old.”
She led me into the room. It was a good deal nicer than a Holiday Inn, with expensive furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows looking north onto Central Avenue.
Phoenix is on the farther edge of the Mountain Time zone, so it was still dark outside. The view showed tired city lights but one of the first light-rail trains of the day was heading up the street. It was a view we didn’t get from our house in the historic districts.
Neither of the queen-sized beds had been slept in. I slid off my jacket and collapsed onto one of the beds. Lindsey curled up next to me and I told her everything that had happened.
She was skeptical about my traffic-stop reaction, which irritated me.
“I’m not making it up.”
“I know. But your tale…I’m sorry. Your description of the night has a dream quality to it. You were under tremendous strain. You were tired.”
“That woman was going to shoot me.”
“Strawberry Death.” She gave me that ironic half-smile. My testiness evaporated. Lindsey had the ability to tease without hurting.
“She had strawberry blond hair, yes.” I thought about it. Had I overreacted? “So you’re pissed that I made you leave home?”
She propped herself on her elbow and swung a long, naked leg over me. Her skin was not quite porcelain, but very fair, a beautiful contrast with her nearly black hair.
“I’m never mad when you’re concerned about me, Dave. This is a pretty nice safe-house, too.”
“But you didn’t sleep…”
“Could you have slept? You were a long way away and I didn’t hear a word from you.”
“I was afraid they were listening in.”
“Dave, I altered your cell to make it a totally dark device. The data are encrypted and your conversations are scrambled. Nobody can listen in. Not even the feds.”
She was right. She was put out with me. But she didn’t move her leg. She was five feet eight and I was six two and we had the same inseam. I stroked the soft, perfect skin of her thigh.
She said, “Peralta obviously ditched his cell so they couldn’t track him. He shot a guy in one of the most crowded malls in town and made a clean getaway. Mike Peralta, international jewel thief. Kinda sexy.”
“Lindsey, this is serious.”
“You have to smile or you’ll cry, Dave. I don’t think you have to worry about Strawberry Death. She was only a scared rookie on a traffic stop facing my dark dangerous lover. You’re very intimidating, you know. You don’t realize it.”
She sat up on her haunches. “Take a shower and let’s go home.”
It sounded like a good idea.
I stripped down, stepped into the commodious shower, and let the hot water sluice off my aching body. In a few minutes, Lindsey joined me, and we got friendly.
Afterwards, we got in bed long enough to watch the sun come up. It was worth it. Light revealed Camelback Mountain, Piestawa Peak-formerly Squaw Peak-and the North Mountains. Sunrise draped a coppery glow over the Viad Tower, the only interesting skyscraper in the city. The air was clean enough that we could see the Bradshaws, the muscular blue mountain range where the High Country began. It made me think of my travels last night. Dreamlike, yes.
Once the sun was higher, it showed off the emerald carpet of trees running north to the bare mountains and Phoenix didn’t seem so bad.
Lindsey had taken a cab to the hotel and Sharon had dropped me off. So we rode the light rail up to Park Central and ate breakfast at The Good Egg. While Lindsey waited at our table, content with the house coffee, I walked next door to Starbucks for a venti mocha. I smiled involuntarily at all the times Peralta had made fun of me for ordering the drink, wondering where he was now and whether he was safe.
Then I saw the stacks of Arizona Republics and the top headline on page one, “Peralta Linked to Gem Heist.”
I was angry before I read the subhead, “Former sheriff shoots diamond courier at crowded Chandler mall.” I bought a paper and got my mocha.
Lindsey read it on my face before she saw the newspaper. I tossed it into an empty chair. “I can’t stand to read it.”
She read the article. “Ah, they’re calling it the ‘crime of the century.’ Don’t we have a few more decades to go? Hey, doesn’t your old girlfriend work at the Republic?”