Concrete Desert

Chapter Twenty-eight

Peralta’s black Ford swept into the narrow passageway nearly an hour later, a red light rotating lazily on the dash, reflecting off the orange doors all around us. The sun was all the way down, and the Crime Scene Unit guys had set up floodlights around the storage unit, which only made things hotter, if that was possible. The big man shook hands with the Glendale officers and then walked over to us, losing his smile.

“This is not one of the Harquahala ones, Chief,” Krugell said. “Phaedra Riding is not one of our serial victims.”

“What, Krugell, do I look like a moron?” Peralta said. “I’ve known that for days.” That was news to me. He looked over me and Kimbrough. “Well? Any new gunfights involving 1950s homicide investigations tonight?” It was asked without humor.

“No, but we have three bags full of money,” I said. “I always knew I’d get rich off the SO.”

Peralta snorted. “How much?”

“Rough guesstimate, a million, million two,” Kimbrough said. “We haven’t had time to count it.”

“I should have known our ‘Phaedra like Phoenix’ was running dope if she wasn’t turning tricks,” Peralta said.

“We don’t know that, Mike.”

“I really think you have a thing for this girl, Mapstone,” he said. “Too bad the department shrinks don’t work with part-time deputies.” He looked over the car.

“Prints,” he shouted. “I want prints.” The evidence technicians put their heads down and dusted.

“So it’s drug money?” he asked.

“Lindsey found the DEA file on Greg Townsend. He was Phaedra’s boyfriend. Rich boy, part-time pilot. And, according to confidential informants, he was a mule for Bobby Hamid, flying in cocaine from Mexico.”

Peralta’s jaw tightened. “Bobby fucking Hamid. I should have known he’d eventually turn up. Who is Lindsey, and why is she looking at DEA files?” He looked at me. “Never mind. Jesus, were you this much trouble when you were a history professor?”

“Probably worse,” Kimbrough said, but the edge was gone from his voice.

I asked, “Have we checked in with Coconino County on the progress of their investigation of Townsend’s murder?”

Everybody was silent.

“What’s so hard about this?” said Kimbrough’s partner. “Chick and boyfriend are supposed to carry the cash down to Mexico and bring back cocaine, whatever. Instead, they keep the cash, rip off Bobby Hamid, hide the car here, and wait for the heat to cool down. Bobby finds ’em first, kills ’em both.” He made pistols out of his fingers. Pop. Pop.

Peralta and Kimbrough looked at me.

“Doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Phaedra was plainly on the run. But if Greg Townsend was, too, why was he waiting at home in Sedona when I found him?”

“Cause mules are stupid,” Kimbrough said.

“This guy wasn’t stupid,” I said. “Ignorant, perhaps, but not stupid. And a million bucks is a lot for a mule to be entrusted with, don’t you think? And Phaedra hated drugs. Everybody says that. And why would Bobby Hamid leave Phaedra’s body where it would be immediately found, posed like Rebecca Stokes’s was?”

Peralta pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “So what do we know? Tell me what we know.”

“We know she was on the run for approximately a month, most of the time living with her new boyfriend, Noah. She kept in sporadic touch with Susan Knightly, her boss, who said Phaedra admitted to overhearing something she shouldn’t have, something she was afraid of.”

I added, “And we know she met her sister at a coffee place in Tempe the night before her body turned up.”

There was a long, awful pause. “I want her,” Peralta snapped. “I want Julie Riding.”

I started to say something, but I thought, Why? What argument can I make? What argument would I want to make? God, I felt tired.

“And,” Kimbrough said, “we know Phaedra’s car was hidden in this storage unit with a million dollars and a machine gun in the trunk. If that doesn’t tie Phaedra to the deal, I don’t know what does.”

“Noah-that’s the latest boyfriend-said Phaedra was without a car, that her sister had borrowed it,” I announced.

“Jesus!” Peralta shouted. “I want this bitch in jail by morning! Why didn’t I arrest her that first day?”

“Mike…”

He stabbed a thick finger at me. “Goddamn it, David, if you know where she is, you’d better have her booked into the women’s unit by the next time I see you. Do you hear me? If you go thinking with your johnson on this, you’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

Fifteen faces looked up at me. I started to say something, but Peralta cut me off. “I want her in jail. Got it? You wanted to be on this case. Well, consider yourself on it. I want Julie Riding.”

He walked to his car, shouting as he went. “I want Julie Riding in jail. I want those prints. Fibers, mud, semen, anything in that car. I want that cash inventoried and locked up. I want that car impounded and torn apart. I want the paperwork on this storage unit. And I want Bobby Hamid down at Madison Street tomorrow morning with that high-priced mouthpiece of his.”

He climbed in his Ford, slammed the door, and gunned the engine, disappearing around the corner of the rat’s maze, trailing exhaust fumes and dust.

Where was Dr. Sharon when I needed her?