Goodnight, Irene

26

IT WAS ABOUT 2 P.M. when we got back to Phoenix. We had four hours before our flight back. Pete got talkative again, this time about an ex-wife who could have doubled as any of your basic shrews. He wound down on it pretty quickly, though, ending up on a long spiel about how tough it is to be married to a cop. Again meaningful looks.

“Pete, do you like being single?” I asked, thinking I could get him to see the possibility that I might enjoy it as well.

“Sure I do. I mean, once in a while I wish there was somebody special, but I keep busy. And I’ve got friends. I’m not such a lonely guy. But I get you. You think I’m nagging you about being single at your age. Well, you know, they say you got a better chance of being hit by an A-bomb than gettin’ married at your age.”

“I don’t think they call them A-bombs anymore, Pete.”

He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “I mean, especially if you’ve never even been married once. Hell, if I were you, I’d run around telling people I was divorced. At least it would sound like somebody took an interest at one time, if you know what I mean.”

“I know exactly what you mean. I just listened to a half-hour speech on what a crappy marriage you had. Gee, is this the great kinda stuff I’ve been missing all my life? And to think I’ve been such a wallflower the whole time, never knowing so much as the blush of romance! You got a date Friday night, oh, man-in-whom-someone-once-took-an-interest?”

“So what if I don’t. You don’t either.”

“Like hell I don’t. I’m going out to Sheffield Estates to see how the other half lives, on the arm of a tall dark stranger.”

“Who the hell are you talking about? Frank’s laid up, I know for damn sure he’s not going out to the Hollingsworths’. Probably some nerd from the paper, going with you to cover some political powwow.”

“Ha! Some detective.”

“So who is it?”

“Figure it out for yourself.”

We were in downtown Phoenix at this juncture, and the temperature outside the car could not have been any hotter than the one inside. We pulled up to the headquarters of the Phoenix Public Safety Department in silence.

“Pete-”

“Aw, forget it. We got work to do. We can fight all the way home on the plane.”

“Truce then?”

“Okay, truce.”

We shook on it.

I followed him into the tall building. His call from Gila Bend had prepared the Phoenix police for our visit. We were escorted down a long hallway to a little room with burgundy couches and chairs. We sat there for a minute, fidgeting as if we were in church, when a statuesque beauty opened the door. She was tall and thin and had a single streak of gray that came out of one side of her long raven hair. She was a knockout.

A heavyset man stopped behind her and said, “You using this room, Pazzi?”

She told him she was, then turned back to us.

“Pete Baird, Las Piernas Homicide?” she asked in a husky voice. “I’m Detective Rachel Giocopazzi, Phoenix Homicide. Or, as you’ve heard, ‘Pazzi’ around here. But that’s because Italian and words of more than two syllables are too much for these guys.”

“Not for me,” said Pete, “my mother’s maiden name was Gigliotti.”

“Ah, paesano!” she said with a smile that apparently came close to rendering Pete unconscious, as he just grinned back shyly. I couldn’t believe it. She looked over at me.

“Irene Kelly,” I said, extending a hand. “Not half-Italian, not even a cop. But happy to meet you.”

“Same here. I hear you’re following up a very cold trail?”

“It’s heated up.” I gave her a brief version of the story of Jennifer Owens and the last few days in Las Piernas.

“I’d say you’ve had a rough week, lady. So you want to talk to the cousin?”

“Right,” Pete managed to say.

“I think that can be arranged without much trouble,” Rachel said. “The family’s fairly prominent, but you’re not thinking of bringing charges against anyone in the family, are you?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, “strictly trying to figure out what might have happened to the Owens girl.”

“You’re going to have to stop calling me ‘ma’am.’ If I ever introduce you to my mother, call her ma’am. Meanwhile, I’m Rachel.”

“Rachel.”

“Buono! Shall we call first? She’s Elaine Owens Tannehill now. Her parents still live in the area, but they’re out near a country club in the desert. She and her husband live in the old family mansion.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to drop in unannounced,” Pete said.

Rachel looked at him. “Why not? The maid will just give us the heave-ho if the lady of the house doesn’t want to talk to us.”

She took us out through a blast of heat to a white police car and we drove off to a ritzy section of Phoenix. We wound our way up a road to a hilltop that overlooked the city. A long wrought-iron fence covered with vines ran for some distance. We came to a break in the fence where two brick pillars stood. I could see a similar set a little ways down the road. We turned right and drove up a sloping circular drive to the front of a place that could have been used to film Gone with the Wind, a white Georgian-style mansion that commanded a magnificent view in every direction. I found myself looking down at my simple outfit and immediately felt out of place. How had young Jennifer felt, coming here from the silver trailer?

We went to the front door, a massive carved affair. Rachel seemed perfectly at ease. She rang the doorbell. As we waited I turned around and looked out across the perfect lawn to the road. I grabbed Pete’s arm in panic when I noticed a car at the entrance we had just come through. The driver was staring at me, grinning. As Pete turned around, the car peeled out, but not before I’d recognized the driver. “Hawkeyes,” I said aloud.

“Who?” asked Pete.

“Sorry. Name I made up for the guy on the plane-the last one on.”

“Shit.” Pete pounded on the door.

“Am I not clued in on something?” Rachel asked.

“Irene just saw someone watching the front of the house-he may be someone who was on our flight from Las Piernas,” Pete explained. He looked around anxiously. “You know if there’s any other way in? This Elaine Owens could be in danger.”

“You think he’s alone?”

“Couldn’t be positive, but I think so. Irene, stay here.”

“And let him come back and find me standing out here by myself? Forget it.”

“Capa tosta!” Pete exclaimed and ran around to the back of the house.

“Hardhead,” Rachel explained, and we started to run after him. I tried to keep up with her long strides as she followed Pete through a small gate. We rounded the corner of the house just as he made his way through an open sliding glass door. He ran back out almost immediately. “Rachel! Call for an ambulance!”

He ran back in and Rachel went full speed back to the car. I followed Pete to a room nearer the front of the house, but I followed slowly, afraid of what I would find there. As I came through the doorway of the room, I saw a woman tied to a chair. An ornate dining-room chair. Her shoes were off and her head was bent forward. On the top of her head a dark-red patch matted her platinum-blond hair. Pete grabbed a beautiful lace napkin from a formal table setting and pressed it to her head. “Mrs. Tannehill!” he shouted. “Elaine!” again and again.

I stared, suddenly realizing that this woman in her fifties was Elaine Owens Tannehill. Unlike her cousin, she had aged.

Pete stopped shouting. Elaine Tannehill was no longer breathing. We both heard her make a gurgling noise. He looked at her with alarm. She coughed once, and as I watched in horror, blood gushed out of her mouth and down the front of her elegant suit.

Pete frantically looked at the back of the chair. “Goddamn-son-of-a-whore! He shot her in the back! Her lungs have been filling up with blood the whole time I shouted at her like a dumb son-of-a-bitch!” He held his face in his hands for a few moments, calming himself. “Stay here,” he said. “And don’t touch anything.”

He ran out of the room. I tried to look anywhere but at the dead woman. That was how I noticed something odd. An iron was plugged into the wall. In the dining room. Near Elaine Owens Tannehill’s feet.

From a distance I heard Pete say, “Oh, sweet Jesus Christ.” It was not a prayer.