High Country Nocturne

Chapter Twenty-two

After an hour, they let me in to see Lindsey. Her police guard had been cut to one officer. Inside the intensive care unit, I had to wear a gown, gloves, booties, and a mask. “Nothing from the outside goes in except to stay,” I was told. “Nothing from the inside leaves.” I packed my jacket and guns in a locker.

Tubes were still running in and out of her, connected to IV and plasma bags, and she was still on the respirator. A couple of additional machines kept watch. Her catheter bag was half-full of urine and I thought how horrified my immaculate Virgo wife would be to know this.

The medicos explained the plastic blanket that shrouded her body: it had water running through it to help her cool down. I could feel the heat of her hand even through the gloves.

Her beautiful hand was different, palm clenched inward, digits at odd angles. I tried to keep my voice from shaking when I asked about this and they told me it was normal. What about this was normal?

I rubbed her thumb, squeezed her misshapen hand. She didn’t squeeze back. No miracles today.

Through the mask, I whispered, “Please come back to me.”

To the nurses, I said, “Does she dream?”

“Probably.”

I stared at the floor and prayed for her to enjoy sweet dreams.

God doesn’t owe me anything.

But maybe for her…

I stayed as long as I could. Unfortunately, they were very punctual monitoring the time. After I retrieved my stuff from the locker and left the ICU, I stepped into the hall and had walked twenty steps when I heard the ruckus coming from around the corner.

Several people kept saying, “Sir!”

As I got closer…

“Sir, you’re going to have to leave. You can’t be up here.”

My pulse jacked up and I reached inside my jacket for the Python but kept it in the holster as I heard slurred profanities.

Someone whispered, “Hell, drunk Indian.”

Another voice: “Call security now, please.”

I walked to the L in the corridor, turned, and saw Ed Cartwright.

“Not goin’ anywhere. Trying to keep the red man down. Stole our land. Sons of bitches. But the Apache were never defeated! You needed Apache scouts to beat the other Indians!”

He was weaving among three nurses and aides, putting on a great show. He wore a red ballcap and a blue sling, neatly pressed Western shirt and new blue jeans, tooled cowboy boots. His right hand held a pint of cheap whiskey.

“I’m a deputy sheriff.” I flashed the blood-caked badge. “I’ll take care of this man.”

“Hey, watch the shoulder, po-po!”

“Come with me, sir,” I said, steering him by the uninjured right arm toward the elevators.

“Racist!” he shouted toward the audience, his face a mask of tragedy. “You heard what he called me! I’m gonna get rich off this! Sue the Sheriff. Sue the County. Sue this pale face! You’re all witnesses. Racist po-po! Oh, feel like I’m gonna throw up.”

He weaved and bent over.

I whispered, “If you puke on me, I’m going to break your good arm.”

The car arrived empty and I pushed him inside. Instantly, he stood in a posture suggesting authority.

“You make a subtle entrance,” I said.

He smiled.

“It’s a good thing the Phoenix cop guarding Lindsey didn’t get involved.”

“Where’d you get that deputy’s badge?” he said.

“Long story.” I pointed to his cap. “Redskins” was emblazoned across the front. “Political statement?”

“Huh? I’m a Washington fan. Have been since I was assigned to FBI headquarters in D.C. I can’t find any love for the Cardinals. Who beat the crap out of you?”

“The same woman who shot Lindsey.”

He assessed me in silence. Cartwright must have been very handsome when he was younger, with his high cheekbones, black oval eyes, dark sandstone complexion, and rugged look. Now, in his sixties, his face was cut into hundreds of rivulets and the eyes were bordered by puffy skin that left him with a permanent and intimidating squint. His hair was the color of lead, tied back in a ponytail.

“How is she?” he said.

“Bad.”

He patted my jacket.

“Still carrying that wheel-gun artillery?”

I nodded.

“You have a backup?”

“On my ankle. The woman who shot Lindsey had one, too. That’s what she used.”

My mind was back on Cypress Street, Saturday night-why didn’t I take the shot?

When we reached the first floor, he dropped the whiskey bottle into a recycling container and I followed him outside into the perfect day. We moved at the fast stride that I remembered from the first time I had met him, when he had showed me his survivalist bunker built into the side of a hill. Back at his house, he had a formidable library. I liked him instantly.

“Wait,” I said. “I can’t leave Lindsey.”

“This is why I had to put on the act to get you out of there. You love her. Family is everything. I get that. But I need you to walk with me. Give me ten minutes and then you can go back. There’s nothing you can do for her now.”

“What if she dies and I’m not there?”

“She’s not going to die.” Any passerby would think he was looking at me, but I saw his eyes subtly scanning the street, something I should have been doing. Then he spoke again. “Have you heard from Peralta since Friday?”

“Not exactly.” I told him about the business card in Ash Fork, the disguised voice on Sharon’s landline, and the message on the dictaphone.

I asked if Peralta had made contact with him.

“No.” He spat on the sidewalk and watched it evaporate in the ten-percent humidity. “Three days now and no contact. This has turned into a real goat fuck.”

I stopped. “This? There’s a this?”

“Walk with me.”

I reluctantly complied. When Third Avenue was clear of cars, we crossed without speaking. Stepping off the curb seemed like a betrayal of Lindsey. Her skin was so hot. I stared at my feet moving through the crosswalk across the asphalt. So damned hot.

Now my eyes were scanning the street and buildings, too. I felt jumpy. I was seething, too. That Cartwright had been a part of this scheme with Peralta and I was left in the closet like a discarded garment. That Strawberry Death had disappeared and Kate Vare had, too. Where was my update on Lindsey’s assailant? Let her come for me. Give me another chance…

On the other side of the street, Cartwright broke through my brooding.

“Three weeks ago, the Russian mafia contacts me. Fifteen million in gem-quality rough coming through town. Could I steal it?”

“Rough?”

“Uncut diamonds,” he said. “What you see on an engagement ring or in a woman’s earlobes has been cut and polished. Rough is the way they come out of the mines. You probably wouldn’t recognize it.”

I was hardly shocked to hear about the Russian mafia. Phoenix was a mob town going all the way back to Al Capone’s organization during Prohibition. It was a convenient back office to tally Las Vegas casino skimmings after World War II. With so many people coming and going, Phoenix was an easy place to reinvent yourself and remain hidden.

Today, in addition to the cartels, it was hard to imagine a gang that didn’t have an outpost in the metropolitan area. Crips, Bloods, outlaw bikers, Mexican mafia, tongs, and other Asian criminal organizations. We were so diverse. All this and Phoenix had a lower violent-crime rate than most other large cities, despite the occasional hysteria from some politicians. Maybe it was because of this. Too much killing was bad for business.

Cartwright seemed to read my thoughts.

“Things are getting worse,” he said. “Budget cuts. Cops laid off. The aviation unit cut back. Phoenix PD disbanded the old Organized Crime unit for the flavor of the month. Violent Crimes. Homeland Security. Organized crime investigations pretty much died.”

I sighed. “So much for the people who voted in Melton because they were afraid of their Mexican gardener.”

“Don’t even get me started on Crisis Meltdown. He disbanded Peralta’s OC unit.”

“He’s one of yours. Retired FBI.”

“Not mine,” Cartwright said firmly. “Younger generation and different Bureau. When he was running for sheriff, he made such a big deal about being a decorated FBI agent. I had never heard of him. Turned out he never did shit as a field agent but he was quick to claim the spotlight for small busts. They called him D.Q. Melton.”

“D.Q.?”

“Drama queen. He couldn’t find a real collar in a shirt factory.”

I laughed but he spat again and continued: “Russians. You drive to the right places in this town and it’s like out of that movie, Eastern Promises, I shit you not. They own barbershops, nail salons, and other fronts, taking in all kinds of stolen goods, but mostly precious gems, diamonds, gold. They steal credit card and debit card numbers. The younger ones stake out public Wi-Fi locations and grab user information. We have a ton of other ethnic mafia crime, including the traditional Italian gangsters, and nobody is doing anything about it. Makes me fucking disgusted.”

“What about the FBI? Why don’t you do something?”

“Terrorism sucks most of the manpower. And most of that turns out to be a BFWAT.” He pronounced it as BEE-fwat.

I cocked my head.

“Big Fucking Waste of an Agent’s Time.”

“They have you.”

“Doing what? Domestic terror cases, mostly.” The three wrinkle-ravines deepened. “Nobody here knows I’m FBI-except Pham, Peralta, and you. Sharon doesn’t know, right?”

“She doesn’t.”

The ravines disappeared. “Make sure it stays that way.”

“What about Paradise Valley?” I said. “There were two dead bad guys. You made me leave and you stayed.”

“Two bad guys you killed,” he corrected. “I untied Peralta and gave him the gun you handed me when I told you to get the hell out of there. I told the cops I was homeless, camping out on the property, and that was that.”

I shook my head.

“Play to people’s prejudices and it gives you an advantage, David. I’m the crazy old drunk Indian living out in the desert, selling guns, and working as a private eye who can get things done.”

“And you don’t care if your clients are aboveboard?”

“That’s how you catch the bad guys.”

The breeze made the palo verde leaves quiver. He stopped and looked at the hulking buildings and abundance of asphalt. Half a block ahead, a young Hispanic woman in scrubs jaywalked where Third Avenue made a wide curve around Park Central.

“Look how ugly this town has become. This was a better place when the Apache ruled.”

“No doubt,” I said. “Tell me about the Russians.”

“We met at a café in Wickenburg, me and two Russians. They knew I acted as a courier for Markovitz and Sons when they brought in diamonds for shows. They’d give me a hundred fifty thousand dollars if I’d handle the shipment for Chandler Fashion Mall on Friday. All I had to do was retrieve the rough, which would be concealed in the suitcase.”

“How did it get there?”

He shook his head. “They wouldn’t tell me. Markovitz is one of the top outfits in the country. Vertically integrated manufacturing, design, and distribution. But every organization has its bad apples. However it happened, the Russkies knew that rough was going to be there. They wouldn’t tell me how they knew, or who it was intended for. Once a shipment is delivered to the jewelry store the salespeople lock it in a safe until it’s time to set up the displays. The empty suitcase sits in the back. It’s supposed to be empty, right? Grab the rough and nobody would be the wiser.”

“And give it to the Russians.”

“Right,” he said. “So I took the job. Easy money for the U.S. Treasury and the Russians would never know what hit them when they were eventually arrested.”

I asked him how Peralta got involved. Cartright steered us north, across another street and into the big parking lot that had once served Park Central when it was a shopping mall.

“After I met the Russians, I ran the deal up the chain of command and got a call from the director. Not every day I get a call from the director. He tells me fifteen million in rough had gone missing three months ago from the evidence control unit.”

“Inside job?”

“Had to be,” Cartwright said. “I don’t even need to tell you the kind of bad press this would cause for the Bureau. Remember the forensics lab scandal? The Washington Post, New York Times…”

I said, “There were also wrongful convictions based on tainted evidence.”

“I’m trying to explain how they think at the top. They’re thinking about the press, being called before congressional committees, seeing their careers implode. So, back to the evidence theft. A very quiet investigation was launched and produced a list of ten agents and technicians that had the clearance, opportunity, and skills to have done it. They were about to go after each one hard-core when my little Russian deal popped up. ”

“So they wanted to set up a sting.” I said.

He nodded. “The trouble was, the thief might have been high enough in the Bureau to know that I was deep undercover. Unlikely, but we couldn’t take the chance. So we needed a distraction that took the spotlight off me.”

“Peralta.”

“Yes,” he said. “The concealed rough would only come if I was at Sky Harbor to receive it. Otherwise, the Russians would get suspicious. But if I stayed in the loop too long, the suspect within the Bureau might see red flags. So the plan was for Peralta to steal the entire shipment and get the rough. Make a big deal of it in the media. See how each suspect was reacting to the news by monitoring their phone calls, emails, and movements. Watch the Russians. Peralta would contact them, demand a cut, and set up a meet. We’d roll up the Russians, recover the evidence, and have enough to arrest the insider who stole it.”

He ran through the robbery scenario. Once they were inside the service hallway at Chandler Fashion Mall-and on camera-Peralta was supposed to shoot Cartwright to make the theft look real and establish his bona fides as going rogue. Peralta had hand-loaded the bullet he would fire into Cartwright’s shoulder so it would pass through cleanly without fragmenting. Without making a dirty wound.

“Still hurt like a son of a bitch,” he said. “I think he actually enjoyed doing it.”

Cartwright bought Peralta time to escape by acting more injured than he was. It was more than two hours before the courier-turned-robber was identified. To further camouflage the sting, the FBI instantly removed Eric Pham because he was Peralta’s friend. They brought in a senior agent from the outside to take charge.

“Horace Mann,” I said.

“He’s a supervisory special agent. Flew in from Minneapolis on a Bureau jet and took charge.”

“Does he know who you are?”

“He might find out I was quietly forced to retire ten years ago or face charges for bribery.”

That was the cover story that allowed Cartwright to go undercover. I said, “No chance he could know you’re still on the job.”

“There’s always a chance.” He momentarily looked back at the hospital. “But it’s a reasonable risk. Remember, the idea was to get be out of this early so I’d be nothing but a bit player, a victim at that.”

“Is Mann a suspect?”

“That’s an interesting thought, but no,” Cartwright said. “The prime suspect is named Pamela Grayson. She’s a senior agent in evidence control. Two years ago, she was investigated when eight pounds of very high quality heroin went missing, but she was cleared. So she was already on the radar for the diamonds.”

“Already?”

Cartwright nodded. “It gets better. She served as a field agent in the Central African Republic. That’s one of the centers of diamonds used to fund wars, drugs, you name it. Here’s a sweet part: she was already in town when the robbery happened, staying at the Phoenician. Vacation, she said.”

“What color is her hair?”

He looked at me curiously. “Brown. I’ve only seen the pictures.”

People can color their hair.

I thought more about all he was telling me. “But this meant she had to know what the Russians knew. So either she had lost the diamonds to the Russians and was trying to get them back. Or she was working with the Russians, and why did they need you? Plus, all this drama would make me stay as far away as possible.”

“Maybe you’d make a bad thief, David. When this much money is the itch somebody needs to scratch, he-or she-will take chances. Get reckless.”

It sounded too complicated. Too many unanswered questions. Too much that could go wrong.

I said, “But what if the real thief was Mann?”

Cartwright squinted at me. “Why do you have a hard-on for him?”

“We had a nice little chat,” I said. “I don’t like him. He also strikes me as a control freak. Did he volunteer for this, or was he assigned?”

“Cartwright said, “He volunteered to a priority request but…”

“So if he stole the diamonds from evidence and was working with the Russians, he’d be in the perfect position to steer the investigation wrong. As it is, Grayson has been tipped off by the robbery and if anything happens to her, she can claim entrapment.”

“Don’t play high-school lawyer, David. This was moving fast. I wasn’t totally comfortable with the plan.”

Then I told him about the voice on Pennington’s phone. “Mann’s window is closing.”

“Are you sure you heard right?” he said. “Horace Mann has a clean record. He’s been decorated for valor. Maybe your caller said ‘the man.’ Something like that.”

“I know what I heard. If Horace Mann is dirty, what next?”

“If that’s true, Pham has it covered.”

“Pham’s not in Alaska?”

“Hell, no. That’s disinformation, same as using the media to make sure the Russians and the bad fed knew Peralta was the robber. The director wanted redundancy and secrecy because this evidence theft involved a compromise of Bureau security. So he had Pham handpick a very small team that could go dark and be Peralta’s guardian angels. Mann doesn’t know.”

“What could possibly go wrong?”

“Smart ass. Peralta has a GPS homing device concealed in his shoe but it never activated. The trackers on his vehicle didn’t function, or he removed them. We haven’t heard anything. The messages he left for you at least show he was still alive as of Friday night. I have no idea why he went to the High Country.”

“And he willingly got into a sedan that headed back to the Interstate. That’s what the witness told me. He could be in Southern California by now.”

“Hell.”

I recounted my conversation with the Chandler detective, how the official shipment had been found but the hidden compartment was empty. He said he already knew.

Then I asked him who was shadowing Sharon. Phoenix field agents working for Mann. That gave me little comfort.

“But nobody was watching our house. Why not?”

“I’m not sure. Might be a manpower issue. Peralta was trying very hard to keep you out of this, keep you safe.”

A stream of bile started creeping up from my stomach. “That worked really well. If they had been there, Lindsey wouldn’t have been shot.”

“I’m sorry, David. There’s a lot of moving pieces.”

“Yeah. This was a pretty damned big moving piece. What about this woman,” I pulled out the Phoenix PD sketch. “Pamela Grayson?”

“No.”

I pointed at Strawberry Death. “How does she fit?”

He shook his head. “I saw that on TV. I have no idea.”

“That’s not good enough.” My tone was full-on angry now. “She’s connected to this. When she confronted me in the front yard, she said, ‘Where are my stones?’ When I told her I didn’t have them, she talked about having to keep a promise to Peralta.”

“Did she sound Russian?”

“Southern accent.”

“There was nothing in the intel about her.”

“Well, your intel sucks. Somehow she’s connected with Peralta. She knew his name. She knew he had the diamonds. What is this promise?”

I told him about first meeting her when she impersonated a DPS officer. And about Kate Vare finding a kit on the lawn that the woman had left behind, with handcuffs and tranquilizers. About her preference to “suicide” her targets.

“She’s a professional,” I said. “She’s done this before.”

Cartwright took it in without speaking.

I said, “Who is Matt Pennington?”

Although his eyes didn’t change, I saw the tension knotting up the small muscles in his neck. “Where’d you get that name, David?”

I told him about the message Peralta had left for me in Flagstaff, my walk to the zombie skyscraper, and what I had found.

We paused in the shade and he put his hands on his hips.

“You’re full of surprises, David. For years, we had heard that the biggest diamond fence in the Southwest was operating here. Mostly selling gem-quality diamonds to retailers. There was a list of potential suspects Pham’s people was working on. Pennington was not one of them.”

“But you suspected him?”

“I heard his name from some of the circles I run in. I did a little checking and never found a thing. He worked at a call center. Led a boring life. His back story interested me.”

Cartwright told me how Pennington had served as a liaison officer with a Mexican Navy drug interdiction unit. The Sinaloa Cartel penetrated it, a major intelligence breach, and Mexican marines ended up getting killed on a raid where the cartel had advanced notice. Although nothing was ever proved, Pennington was sidelined and left the U.S. Navy. That’s when he moved to Phoenix.

I said, “Now the man who called me in his office thinks I’m Pennington and he’s expecting me to call him back.”

“And you will.”

“No.” I stopped and forced down the volcanic anger inside. My voice was dishonestly steady. “I won’t. Lindsey was nearly killed and I’m only now learning this is all because of an internal FBI fuckup? And you don’t even know who shot her? This is where I get off.”

I started to turn back when he grabbed me hard by the shoulder with his good hand. His grip was strong enough to push me down if he’d been inclined.

“Look, boy,” he shouted like a drill sergeant, “Mike Peralta loves you like a son!”

His words stunned me. That word again, love, coming from the most improbable source.

His grip tightened until my shoulder, arm, and hand were immobilized with pain. I would have hated to be on the receiving end of his strength if he hadn’t been shot three days before.

The onyx glare fixed on me. “We’re not going to leave him out there. You are not going to leave him out there.”

He let go and walked ahead. “He’d do the same for us.”

By this time, we were fifty yards into the parking lot and approaching an ancient RV. A bumper sticker said, “Ask Me About My Grandkids.”

I followed and caught up with him.

He put his hand on my back and in a gentler voice said, “Come sit with me for a few. Then you can get back to the hospital.”

Unlocking the side door, he beckoned me in with a tilt of his head.

I reluctantly stepped up and inside. A poster directly ahead showed a nineteenth-century photograph of four warriors with rifles. It was bordered by the words, “Homeland Security. Fighting Terrorism Since 1492.” It wasn’t easy to read because the shades were drawn, including flaps to keep anyone from seeing in through the windshield. The air was stale.

A sound-was it a sniff?-caused me to turn my head left and through the gloom see the figure sitting on a bench. A black hood was over his head.

Something in the primal brain reacts to a hooded man whether he is the reaper or the reaped.

I started to turn back and speak, or flee, but Cartwright gave me a decisive shove and slammed the door behind us.