Concrete Desert

Chapter Sixteen

John Rogers was dozing in his hospital bed when we walked up, but he quickly roused himself and took Lindsey in.

“The deputies look a hell of a lot better than when I used to see ’em,” he muttered. I guess I was surprised he remembered me. He was still looking Lindsey over. “What the hell’s that gold thing in your nose?”

“This is Deputy Adams,” I said.

“Lindsey.”

“Sit, sit.” The big man waved his hands. “They told me yesterday this cancer in my prostate has gone too far. Sorry, miss. Anyway, they tell me there’s nothing they can do that won’t just kill me outright. I say, just keep me from the damned pain.”

“I’m sorry, John. I didn’t even realize-”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Wish I could see my son and daughter. Wish we hadn’t all gotten so far away from the old ways. Never mattered to me when I was younger. Hell, it’s all over. Red folks, white folks, black folks. The whole goddamned thing is falling apart.”

“John, we hate to bother you, but we had some more questions about the Creeper cases.”

“I saw the newspaper. You did okay.”

“I talked to Harrison Wolfe.”

John Rogers visibly stiffened. “My God, Mr. Wolfe is still alive?” I nodded. “I always wondered if he was really human.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, don’t matter. Mr. Wolfe always respected Indians. He was a friend of mine, as much as anybody ever was his friend.”

“He said the women killed by the Creeper were mutilated. True?”

Rogers looked at Lindsey and back at me. He nodded slowly.

“But Rebecca Stokes wasn’t?”

“As I remember it, she wasn’t. It wasn’t my call, but you know how the guys talk about cases.”

“So her murder wasn’t related?”

He sighed and splayed his big hands.

“Cops always talk, Officer Rogers,” Lindsey said softly. “What did you guys think?”

Rogers smiled a toothless smile at her. “My first sergeant said, ‘You ain’t paid to think here, chief.’ Let me put it to you this way. It was an embarrassment to the Phoenix Police that the Stokes case was never solved. But we wasn’t exactly beating the bushes. All my snitches on the street were totally dry. There was no talk about it on the street.”

“Wolfe said her luggage was found inside the apartment door. So she wasn’t snatched between the taxi and the front door, even though that’s what had always assumed.”

“Don’t know that.”

“Wolfe said the county attorney took the reports.”

Rogers stared at me a long time, his eyelids steadily drooping. “You’re a smart fella,” he said finally. “Why would that happen?”

“Because she was the governor’s niece,” Lindsey observed, “and they were hiding something.”

Rogers snored softly and we watched him for a while, hoping for more, knowing we wouldn’t get it. We walked out quietly, and I told Lindsey about a surviving witness to Rebecca’s life.

Opal Harvey insisted on getting us iced tea and cookies. We waited in the cool dimness of the living room as Lindsey picked at the doilies on the furniture arms and looked at me with one eyebrow raised. “Frozen in 1930 middle-class earnestness,” she said softly. “Kill me if I ever do this.”

“I promise,” I said.

“I sent a copy of the newspaper to my granddaughter,” came the mechanical voice. “I said, ‘I was part of that.’”

“I appreciate your help, Mrs. Harvey. There’s just some loose ends we’re tying up.”

I led off half a dozen times with questions about Rebecca’s habits, family, friends. About the neighborhood. About the Creeper. Nothing.

Finally, Lindsey asked, “I bet she was pretty lonely, Rebecca. Living so far from home. Only twenty-one years old. Back then, everybody was supposed to be married by that age.”

Opal Harvey started to put the wand to her voice box and then stopped, looking out the blinds for long minutes. “Oh, honey,” she finally said. “Rebecca had a lover.”

She sipped some tea and went on slowly. “I’ve never told anyone that. I didn’t want to hurt the family. I didn’t want anyone to think she was cheap, because she wasn’t. She was a good girl.…” The thought trailed off.

“Who was he, Mrs. Harvey?” Lindsey asked.

“I never knew.” She studied her hands. “Rebecca kept him a secret and I never intruded on that. I think he was married, because he only came at night, and he never stayed with her. It was still a small town back then, and people would have talked. I know this: He was older. He dressed well and drove a nice car. I always wished he would have picked her up at the train station that night-I guess I assumed he would, since Rebecca said she didn’t need a ride from us.”

“Did you ever see him again after she disappeared?”

Opal Harvey shook her head.

Afterward, out in Lindsey’s Prelude, waiting for the air-conditioning to cool things down, I felt the rush of discovery, however slight. But Lindsey was quiet, her eyes unreadable. “Most murder victims knew their murderers,” she said.

“The lover?” I said. She nodded.

“But we know she was picked up at Union Station that night by a taxi. The driver was a moonlighting Phoenix policeman.”

“Maybe the lover was waiting for her at home. Maybe she went to him.”

“Motive?”

“Who needs a motive when you’re in love?” Lindsey said.