The Night Detectives

32

The afternoon sun was cooking toward one-hundred by the time I was waiting for Peralta at the Deer Valley Airport in far north Phoenix, on the other side of the mountains. Since the city had turned Sky Harbor exclusively into a commercial aviation hub, this had become the major general aviation airport. It lacked the cachet of the Scottsdale Airpark, but it was one of the largest general aviation airports in the country. It was also probably the place where UNKNOWN had taken off and landed on his mission to drop the bloody baby doll on me.

But he wasn’t unknown now. I had met Artie Dominguez for lunch downtown at Sing Hi. I left the Prelude on Cypress and took light rail downtown. No reason for all my movements to be known. The train was packed as usual. The light-rail system was one of the few elements of progress to arrive in recent years and its popularity made its critics more hysterical in their opposition. I liked it.

It only hurt a little to get out at the stop by the old courthouse. The building was as handsome as ever, although I wouldn’t let myself look up to my office. It was a crime that they had ripped out the old palm trees, grass, and shade trees years ago. Downtown needed more shade. And they had added more parking on the south side, more concrete to help make the summers hotter and last longer. For all this, it was the best-looking building downtown. Across Washington Street, a little band protested against the new sheriff.

Sing Hi was two blocks south. Dominguez wasn’t worried about being seen with me because the venerable Chinese restaurant had lost a good part of its clientele of deputies and prosecutors to the new restaurants at CityScape, the boring mix-used development to the north. I still liked Sing Hi’s chow mein.

He played at being aggrieved over my hurry-up request, but he was clearly interested.

Bob Hunter and Larry Zisman came up pretty clean. Each had accumulated a few speeding tickets. The same was not true of Zisman’s son, Andrew. The son had two juvenile arrests for assault and weapons at ages sixteen and seventeen. His father had paid a top criminal lawyer to get him out of both. He joined the Army but was discharged for being part of a white supremacist cell at Fort Hood, Texas, that was blamed for the beating of a black non-com and the rape of a female soldier. Three of his buddies had gone to military prison. Andrew Zisman had been sent back into the civilian population. His last known address was his father’s condominium in San Diego but over the past year, he had racked up two moving violations in metro Phoenix.

ViCAP was no help on either anti-personnel mines or women being pushed from balconies.

But I had also emailed Artie the list of Grace Hunter’s clients.

“It’s like the Forbes 400,” he commented.

The list contained chief executives, investment bankers, a venture capitalist, doctors, lawyers, and one Indian chief.

The one exception was named Edward Kevin Dowd, age thirty-six.

Yes, Edward.

“This one has an outstanding federal warrant.” Dominguez showed me the intelligence report. “He’s suspected of involvement in the theft of anti-personnel mines from Fort Huachuca.”

A sheet of paper had never felt so heavy.

“Dowd left the Army six years ago after serving for a decade in Special Forces. He had seen multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Then Obama became president and Dowd started recruiting what he called the White Citizens Brigade among other disaffected soldiers. He was no redneck, but a trust-fund baby from back east, attended Andover and Yale. He was a captain. It was two years before the military got a hint of what he was doing on the side and brought him up on charges. But the investigators didn’t find any laws broken, yet. So the Army quietly pushed him out.”

Dominguez slid a photo across the table. Dowd had a lean face, a full head of reddish-brown hair, a narrow soul patch that looked like a Hitler mustache that had fallen to his chin, and small, mean eyes.

“This guy is a killing machine,” Dominguez said. “He’s also a licensed pilot.”

Killing machine. I thought about what Ed Cartwright had told me.

“I need those back.”

I reluctantly slid the material back across the table.

“Did Dowd know Andrew Zisman?”

Dominguez shook his head. “Unknown.”

What was known was that Dowd had been a client of Grace’s, meeting her a dozen times.

“So Artie, where was Dowd last operating?”

He smiled crookedly. “Phoenix and San Diego. What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

It was a lethally pertinent question, but when Peralta arrived at the airport terminal we had no time to talk. Two tough, big men in suits came inside and called our names. They led us outside where an imposing Gulfstream jet was waiting on the tarmac.

“I’m going to have to ask for your weapons,” one said.

“No,” I said. It was one of Peralta’s cardinal rules: you never give up your sidearm.

“It’s all right, Mapstone.” Peralta handed over his Glock. I reluctantly did the same. On a pat-down, they found my last-option knife and confiscated that, too. Peralta glared at me. I glared right back. We stepped up inside the jet, visions of being tossed out in the desert dancing through my head.

“Mike, how the hell are you?”

Mister Fortune Magazine, whose name was Jim Russo, looked older than his photograph, even though he appeared very fit with a golf-course tan. He led us to a sumptuous seating area where a young woman brought us bourbon.

“It’s been too long,” Russo said. “How’s Ed Cartwright doing?”

Now I was confused and paranoid.

“Crazy as ever,” Peralta said. To me: “We were all in the same unit.”

“That crazy Indian saved my ass more than once,” Russo said.

“Mine, too.” Peralta savored the bourbon. The small talk continued for an interminable time. He even got around to introducing me.

“I appreciate you flying over here,” Peralta said.

Russo stared at the floor. “I’m sorry, Mike. I should have contacted you sooner. But if this had gotten into the financial press…” He shook his head. “After Felix was killed, I didn’t know what to do.”

He had my attention.

“Felix was the head of my security detail,” Russo said. “He was a Navy SEAL who lost a leg in Afghanistan. Won a Silver Star saving his comrades after an IED attack. He was a good man.”

“Why did he have multiple driver’s licenses?” I asked.

Russo explained that sometimes he needed to check into hotel suites under assumed names. Apparently like many billionaires, he was a target of threats and would be a tempting catch for kidnappers. I tried to pay attention while wondering how the situation in Sunnyslope was progressing.

“Scarlett.” Peralta let the name drop ever so lightly.

Russo made a face. “Foolish old rich man, huh? I know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything, Jim. She was a pretty girl.”

“I have a wife and children,” Russo said. “But my wife and I drew apart sexually a long time ago. Grace…” He hesitated. “Grace helped me.”

“Grace?” I said.

He smiled sadly. “I knew her name. Felix provided a complete dossier on her background for me.”

“We’re not here to judge,” Peralta said. “Hell, I envy you, you horny wop. It might have helped to know you were the one hiring us instead of Felix.”

“He did it,” Russo said. “I only gave him your name. He didn’t trust the police, and he was mindful of my privacy. I thought if anyone could help, you could.”

“Was he seeing Grace, too?” That was my fart in church.

“Oh, no,” Russo said, “Felix was gay. But he was the one to give Grace a ride to my place in Rancho Santa Fe and back. They got to know one another. Felix did love her, but like a brother. You see, when he was deployed his real sister was abducted and killed. He never forgave himself. He became very protective of Grace, especially after he learned she was being pimped out. He got her out of that situation and back together with her old boyfriend. I hated to have to give her up but she deserved a real life.”

We waited. Peralta and Russo received refills.

“In the months that followed, Felix would keep an eye on her. He’d check up from time to time. Of course, her husband didn’t know. Grace was very good at keeping secrets and compartmentalizing. About two weeks before her death, she called Felix. She was afraid somebody was stalking her. She didn’t know who, or she didn’t say. She didn’t want to worry Tim, so I’d be surprised if she even told him. Anyway, Felix took a leave of absence, got an apartment in Ocean Beach so he could be close…”

“A guardian angel,” I said.

“Exactly.” Russo looked me over for the first time. A mixed verdict. “I didn’t think it was necessary. Grace was smart and away from that life. But Felix was adamant, and he was a very good employee. He had also served the country. I felt I owed this to him. He gave her a panic button to push if she got in trouble. He was usually about a block away.”

Peralta asked what happened on April twenty-second.

“For the first time, Grace pushed the panic button. It had a tracker and Felix was able to get to her…”

“What do you mean?” I was too impatient.

“He ran the car she was in off the road, onto a side street. But it was three against one. They beat him up pretty bad, which would be no easy feat, and they left him there. I didn’t realize how bad when he called. He held it together, told me some guys had taken Grace and gotten away from him.”

“Why didn’t he call the police?”

“I told him to do it. I also gave him your number. I told him Peralta could get results.”

He didn’t call the cops, but he did phone us, getting the answering machine.

I took a tentative sip. It was very expensive bourbon. “But he called us from Grace’s phone.”

Russo nodded. “In the fight, he was trying to get Grace. Part of her purse spilled on the street. He ended up with her cell, which looked exactly like his.”

Peralta said, “Why wouldn’t he know it wasn’t his phone when he didn’t find you on the favorite calls?”

“My number had to be memorized,” Russo said. “Security. Felix didn’t realize he had the wrong phone until he had called me and was in the middle of calling you.”

But he never made a second call to us. I asked why not.

“He passed out. You’ve got to understand, he wasn’t as physically capable as he once was. He wore a prosthetic leg and was in constant pain. The next thing he knew, he was in the hospital. And Grace was dead. It was two weeks before he could come to Phoenix and see you. He still had her phone.” Russo paused and suddenly slammed his fist into his leg.“And now he’s dead, too.”

I went through the names: Larry and Andrew Zisman, Bob Hunter, and Edward Dowd. They drew no reaction from Russo.

Peralta said, “And Felix?”

Russo set his glass down carefully into the brass cup holder on the teak table. “I helped arrange for his mother to bring his body home for a funeral in Indiana. I promise you, she’ll never want for anything. She’s lost both her children. It’s a hell of a thing.”

He seemed like as decent a master of the universe as there probably was, and he was at loose ends. Still, I couldn’t finish his premium booze. I kept thinking how far ahead we would have been if Peralta’s old war buddy had called us sooner. Tim might still be alive. The baby would be safe. It was all I could do to keep from exploding.

He ran a hand down his face and stared at Peralta. “Shit, Mike. How could this happen? I’ve lost them both. Who would do this? Why?”

I had a pretty good idea who had done it. I didn’t know why.