Cactus Heart

Epilogue

Peralta didn’t come home that night. The next morning, I found out why.

STRANGLER KILLED IN GUNFIGHT WITH DEPUTIES, the headline said. Photos showed Lindsey-it was a mug of her in uniform that was at least two years old-and Patrick Blair, looking gorgeous. And the strange, round-faced man who followed me that night in the Ford Econoline van. “Alleged serial killer,” proclaimed type under his face. I looked at Lindsey’s face and was suddenly afraid to read more. I felt a deep stab in my stomach.

I made myself read:

A 38-year-old Mesa man about to be arrested as the notorious Harquahala Strangler shot it out with sheriff’s deputies Tuesday night. One deputy was wounded. The suspect, Mark Wayne Bennett, was fatally wounded.

The firefight took place at the suspect’s apartment on North Val Vista after sheriff’s detectives attempted to serve an arrest warrant. After the suspect opened fire, Det. Patrick Blair was wounded. He was listed in guarded condition at Desert Samaritan Hospital.

Chief Deputy Mike Peralta praised Deputy Lindsey F. Adams, for saving Blair’s life and preventing the suspect from escaping. Peralta said “substantial evidence” links Bennett to the slayings of 26 women in the Phoenix area. The alleged murderer had become known as the Harquahala Strangler because most of his victims were left in the Harquahala Desert west of the city.

On Christmas Eve, Peralta walked in the door just before six. I shook his hand and congratulated him on solving the case.

“From your new buddy.”

He handed me a box with blue gift-wrapping. It was a bit smaller than the kind of hatboxes Grandmother once favored.

“Who?”

“Bobby Hamid,” Peralta sneered. “You know, he closed the purchase on the Triple A Storage Warehouse today. Says he wants to preserve the building. He’s even going to excavate the tunnels.” He eyed the package. “You going to open that or am I going to have to call the bomb squad?”

I slipped off the wrapping and opened a box filled with Styrofoam worms. I reached in my hand and caught the edge of something smooth.

“Good Lord, Mapstone,” Peralta said.

It was a piece of Santa Clara pottery that glowed blackly in my hand. He bought the building and he’s going to excavate the tunnels, and take whatever might be hidden down there…

“I’ll be damned,” I said.

Peralta looked at me a long time, then he just shook his head and walked into the living room.

“What I really want is a well-made Gibson,” he said. So I hobbled to the kitchen and made drinks. When I came back out, the tree was lit and the picture window open to the street. Out on Cypress, the other Christmas lights glowed merrily back at us. I put on the Messiah again, the Boston Baroque recording. Peralta settled into the big leather chair, and I closed my eyes, reflecting on a year of so much change, so much loss, so many close calls and blessings.

Peralta wanted to read from the Bible, from the Book of Luke, because that was the way his father did it on Christmas Eve. Peralta had his formal occasions, and deviation was unthinkable. It had been the same tradition with Grandmother and Grandfather. I retrieved the heavy King James Version from the bookshelves.

Peralta drew himself up in the chair and read, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus…” He really had a beautiful voice, rich with intonations and possibilities.

Then he passed the book to me.

My voice was still raw from the talk with Gretchen, and all the wide-awake hours after that.

“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people…”

Fear not. Be not afraid. When the Pastoral Symphony came around, I went to get Peralta’s presents. Then I got him on his feet and took him by the shoulder. He glared at me uncomfortably.

“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.