Dry Heat

Chapter Nine

That evening, I walked on a sidewalk laid down in 1948. I had walked on it a hundred times, going from my office in the old court-house to the county lot where I parked. But this time I noticed the date chiseled into the concrete block I wondered if Special Agent John Pilgrim had walked this sidewalk when it was new. I thought about the world of John Pilgrim in Phoenix in 1948. Men wore suits, ties, and hats, even when not at work. Women were rare in offices and factories, even though the war had added to their numbers. The diversity we take for granted in any American city and town in the early twenty-first century was not found in Pilgrim’s Phoenix. It was an overwhelmingly Anglo place, with the blacks and Mexicans “kept in their place.” Society was similarly fixed, men worked, women raised children, everyone married, and roles were clear. Authority still meant something, ruling with a combination of respect and fear. For entertainment, people went to movies and listened to radio; only a few well-off families could afford the new televisions. A middle-class family owned one car, not three or four. But the mode of travel preferred by most Americans was still the train, with the new streamliners promising more luxury than ever. And Phoenix-it was little more than a big town, instead of America’s fifth largest city. John Pilgrim’s world, America a mere half century ago, seemed more foreign than some distant historical epoch.

Those were the musings that took me to the parking lot, to the back of the Oldsmobile.

I sensed movement behind me. Even though I had been carrying the Colt Python in a nylon holster on my belt, I felt nauseatingly vulnerable. I’m sure I visibly jumped.

“I’m not going to hurt you, mister.”

“I know,” I said, pride quickly replacing terror. The Russian mafia had not fallen on such hard times that they had sent a bag lady to kill the husband of their nemesis, the brilliant Lindsey Faith Mapstone.

The woman must have been concealed by some of the vans and SUVs nearby. I leaned against the car door and took her in: straight, dirty blond hair; broad, sunburned face; a stocky, medium-height body Throw her in a shower, dress her differently, and put her in a minivan in Chandler, and she might be mistaken for a soccer mom. If you didn’t look too closely. Someone had knocked one of her teeth out. Her tan was raw and uneven. The collar of her T-shirt was filthy.

I don’t have any money,” I said, and started to get in the car.

“I don’t go hitting up cops,” she said. But she didn’t move on. She just stood there, watching me.

She said, “You were looking for Weed.”

I stopped, gently reclosed the door, and faced her.

“They said at the shelter you were looking for Weed,” the woman said. “Two cops, a woman and a man. They said the man was tall and looked like a schoolteacher, and he drove this big yellow Olds 442.”

David Mapstone, the master of concealment.

“You know Weed?” I asked.

She folded her arms tightly around her breasts, causing them to balloon out beneath the faded purple T-shirt. “I hang out with him sometimes.”

“Around here?”

“He liked the deck park,” she said. Margaret Hance Park, which sat above the freeway a mile north of us, and was home to festivals, joggers, sunbathers, and drug dealers. “We’d sit there by the library. I like to read books.”

“Was Weed a nickname?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It was just his name. What’s your name?”

“David,” I said. “David Mapstone.”

“I’m Karen,” she said. “You’re a cop, right?”

“I’m a deputy.” I asked her what she could tell me about him.

“He was nice to me. I’ve been on the streets four years now. He helped me find food, a place to sleep that was safe. He’d share cigarettes. We’d talk.”

“Any idea where he was from? How long he’d been living on the streets?”

“He had family in California, I think. Somebody told me he had been in the Navy. He never said much about himself.” She kept her arms clasped tightly and tilted slowly from side to side. She asked, “What are you looking for him for?”

I looked behind her into the blue-black of the western sky. We had been deprived of spectacular fiery sunsets for months. Even so, the sky seemed supernaturally large over our heads, the dry air conducting light intensely but with none of the velvety intimacy of the sky back east. Over Karen’s shoulder, the downtown towers still glowed from the last of the sun.

“Weed is dead,” I said. “He died last week. We’re trying to find next of kin, or anybody who knew him.”

Her eyes widened for several seconds. “Shit!” she whispered, stamping the gravel. “You got a smoke”

I shook my head.

Her shoulders suddenly sagged. She stared at the ground.

“He never hurt anybody.” She licked her chapped lips. “Somebody finally killed him.”

“What makes you think somebody killed him?” I asked.

“What, you live on the streets and you expect to die a natural death? I don’t think so. Not in this town. I’ve been in county hospital so many times, beaten up, robbed, raped, anything they think they can do to me. You cops figure I got it coming to me because I’m homeless. People in this town will kill you for five dollars.”

I couldn’t argue the point. After a moment, I prompted, “Tell me more about Weed.”

“Did he have his jacket?” she asked suddenly.

I nodded.

“I always thought he might get robbed and killed for that jacket.”

I asked her why.

“He had something sewn inside it,” she said, her eyes wide and gray. “I never knew what the hell it was, but he was sure protective, and secretive. He wore that jacket every day, even when it was the hottest day in August. One time, I felt something in there. Something sewn into the lining. When he caught me, he just went crazy. Slapped me down.”

“What do you think was in it?” I asked.

“Maybe jewelry,” she said. She added, “From his old life maybe.”

“Which was?”

She shook her head. “He never said. I never asked.” She rubbed her eyes. “Shit,” she said. “Poor Weed. I hadn’t seen him in days, and when I heard you were looking for him…”

“Did he ever mention the name John Pilgrim?”

She shook her head.

“What’s your last name?” I asked.

“I’m Karen. I told you.”

“Just Karen.”

“Yeah,” she said, suddenly sullen. She turned and walked away.

“Karen,” I called. “What if we need to talk to you again?”

“You don’t need me,” she said. “When I came to find you, I thought maybe if I told you about Weed, you might help me, too. Maybe you could talk to the caseworker and let me see my daughter.”

“Maybe I can,” I said, feeling uncomfortable, like a cop in the middle of a family dispute.

“Bullshit,” she said. “Weed is dead. Life is fucked up. I can’t get off the streets. You don’t care.”

I let her go. Whatever had impelled her to seek me out was now evaporated.

I called to her as she walked: “How can I talk to social services if I don’t know your last name, or your daughter’s name?”

No answer.

I watched her become a shadow against the streetlights. But then I heard her voice.

“The Reverend knew Weed,” she called. “You should talk to the Reverend.”

“Who is the Reverend?” I yelled. “Where can I find him?” She yelled back an address. It wasn’t in the nice part of town.