by Jon Talton
“That,” I said, coming up for air, “is the first kiss I ever had on Camelback Mountain. Thanks for fulfilling a fantasy.”
“Take me home, Dave, and we’ll take care of more fantasies,” she whispered.
I slipped the BMW into drive and started down the mountain. It was at the curve into Arcadia Drive that I noticed the white Ford Crown Victoria sitting beside the road with two figures inside. A block farther on, I saw headlights behind us.
Chapter Fourteen
Lindsey left me at the door to my office at the old courthouse. She managed a great kiss despite having a laptop slung over one shoulder and a bag of files over the other. “Anything you want from central records?” she asked. As a matter of fact, there was.
Ten minutes later, I went over to the sheriff’s headquarters building on Madison Street myself. It was Friday, five days since Peralta was shot, and I was damned if I was going to hide. My office was claustrophobic. Sheriff Hayden’s stern face on the wall demanded answers I didn’t have. It felt good to walk, to be out in the warm morning air. The most dangerous thing I encountered was the traffic trying to cross Jefferson Street.
I signed in at headquarters and avoided a covey of civilian employees trying to direct me to meetings. That wasn’t why I was there. Three days before, I had ordered Peralta’s office locked. I didn’t know why Jack Abernathy had been in there the day of the shooting, but I did know I wanted Peralta’s aerie off limits to even the senior commanders. Now I used Peralta’s keys-Sharon had given them to me yesterday-and let myself in.
His Daytimer sat undisturbed on the credenza: “Mapstone-Camelback Falls.” I sat in his big chair, feeling the indentations his body made in the leather through years of staff meetings, phone calls, report reading and late-night brooding. He had settled into that chair the day three years before when I had just returned to Phoenix and accepted his invitation to come downtown to visit. My old partner in the Chief Deputy’s office. The world had turned around quite a few times. As I talked about my life, he sat in this chair, swinging back and forth or shaking his leg nervously. He had always been that way. Antsy. Uncomfortable in an office.
But I realized by contrast how much he had changed since I had left the department in 1980. It was something that hadn’t been fully disclosed by exchanges of Christmas cards and brief visits every year or two. He seemed to have conquered the moody anger that hid just below his preference for silence. I noticed him bark at a young deputy, but send the man away with a smile and a back pat-definitely a skill the old Peralta didn’t have. He had acquired polish and connections, whether from Sharon’s rising affluence or a closer relationship with his father or his own grit. He greeted me in a suit and seemed comfortable in it. He took me to lunch at the Arizona Club. Back at his office, I noticed a photo on the wall of him laughing with an elderly Barry Goldwater.
When I ran out of words that day, he merely reached into a drawer, produced a thick file folder, and tossed it to me. “Look into that, will you?” he said. “I just want to know what you think.” It was a forty-year-old murder case, unsolved. I don’t know if he really expected anything from me. But he had the instincts of a proud man, and he gave his gifts accordingly. At the end he needled me. “Mapstone, I hope all those years chasing young skirts on campus didn’t fry your brains.”
Now I thought, You would know about that, my friend, wouldn’t you?
I shut out my interior voices of doubt and caution, and began a gentle inventory of the room. The bathroom was spotless and empty, save for a can of cheap shaving cream, a safety razor, and a uniform hanging in its cleaning bag. A closet held file cabinets and a safe. But the file cabinets were stuffed with personnel records-I resisted the temptation to check mine-and the safe was empty, its door open. Over at the conference table, I found a well-worn county budget, along with architectural renderings and blueprints for the new Fourth Avenue Jail. They were probably just as he had left them Monday before going to the swearing-in. I lifted seat cushions, looked behind the furled Arizona flag. Various law enforcement magazines sat on a coffee table in front of the leather sofa.
I returned to his desk, sank into the big chair again. Swiveling it, I attacked the credenza, with its geologic strata of files and reports. I didn’t have time to inventory every file, but the labels didn’t draw my attention. Murder, mayhem, and memos. Then I turned to the desk drawers. A Smith amp; Wesson 9mm pistol sat in the top drawer, barrel facing toward the front of the desk. I popped out the magazine-loaded, all right. I replaced it and moved on.
The bottom drawer was locked. I worked my way through his heavy key ring until one key fit. Inside the drawer were ammunition, mace, handcuffs, cigars, and a file folder. A bolt shot up my spine when I saw the hand-written label: “Leo O’Keefe.”
I set it aside and walked in a wide circle, adding more wear to the institutional carpet. I leaned into the narrow window and stared down to the street. If I went further, I might be interfering with the integrity of the Internal Affairs investigation. Outside, a little boy and an elderly woman were crossing at the light. I thought of me and Grandmother. I didn’t know why that made sad down to my bones. Why did Peralta have a file on Leo O’Keefe? Why had I come here today? The neat historical analogies that would give me some confidence stayed frozen in my head.
I went back to the desk and opened the file.
I’d seen some of this before, the reports on the Guadalupe shooting, the plea bargain with O’Keefe. But some was new. Peralta had highlighted a memo from the county attorney noting that O’Keefe should get prison time because he had been arrested at the scene of the shooting armed with a.38-caliber pistol. That was all wrong. I had searched him myself, and there was no gun. Indeed, the next sheet of paper was the evidence log from Guadalupe, with no mention of a pistol in O’Keefe’s possession. On this sheet, Peralta had highlighted all of the items logged in from O’Keefe: cigarettes, wallet, $4.32 in cash. No gun. I had never seen the memo on the gun before.
The file also held a patrol car inventory log. It was routine for deputies to check out the equipment in a car when coming on duty each shift. They noted all this in a log that was filed with the shift supervisor. This one was for unit 4-L-20, dated May 31, 1979, and signed “V. Bullock.” Otherwise, it looked unremarkable. At the start of their ill-fated shift, Bullock and Matson found a cruiser with a full tank of gas, engine fluids OK, siren and lights OK. The trunk held flares, traffic cones, and inflated spare tire. The deputies brought their 12-gauge shotgun, report case, and first-aid kit, all duly noted for the sergeant. What could have interested Peralta about this inventory after all these years?
Beneath that was the beat sheet from May 31, 1979. I hadn’t seen one of these in years: the assignments, car by car, beat by beat. The 3 P.M. to 11 P.M. shift was commanded by Sergeant Peralta. The watch commander for the station in Mesa was listed as “J.B. Abernathy.” I shook my head hard, trying to restore memory. I had forgotten that Abernathy, then a lieutenant, was filling in that month in the East County.
Peralta also had a copy of the radio log from that awful day. With a yellow magic marker he had noted every movement called in by Matson and Bullock. But not the traffic stop that caused their deaths-they never notified the dispatcher they were out with a stopped vehicle. That was against the rules-any stop was supposed to be called in-and it was the cause of our desperate uncertainty that night about who needed assistance. In the wake of the deputies’ murders, that breach had been forgotten. Still, it seemed to be what had attracted Peralta’s attention. Why hadn’t they called in the traffic stop? Were they stubborn old veterans flouting the rules, or was it something else?
Then a letter on departmental stationary, dated May 6, 1979: “Re: Reserve Deputy Harold Matson.” It looked like something out of a personnel file. Some brass hat on Madison Street was upset that the Sheriff’s Office was getting dunned by Matson’s creditors. Most reserve deputies had day jobs or owned businesses. The reserves were a cheap way for the SO to
augment its forces and reward political friends of the sheriff. I gathered from the letter Matson had some kind of towing business that had gone sour, and now the lenders were in full cry. It put Matson on thirty days’ probation.
The letter was getting brittle. It resisted turning. And behind it was a note. On it, in Peralta’s handwriting: “Jonathan Ledger-Camelback Falls.”
I let out a long breath. For the first time, Camelback Falls was linked to the Guadalupe shooting. But how?
I was jolted by the soft trill of the telephone. Who in the state of Arizona could think Peralta would be here to answer his telephone? But suddenly the room felt close and breathless. The phone kept trilling. I checked the digital readout: an extension in the building.
I picked it up. “Yeah.”
“What’s taking you so long? Did you find it?” a man’s voice came back. I felt a second of disorientation and exposure. But I pulled my wits back together.
“Yeah,” I said. “Where should I meet you?”
There was the briefest pause on the other end of the line. Then, “Who the hell is this? Who is this?”
“This is Sheriff Mapstone. Who are you?”
He hung up before. I got the last sentence out.
I dialed the operator, asked about the extension. “It’s an unassigned number in the custody bureau,” she said. “Do you want me to ring that number?”
I said no. It was time to go. Past time to go. I closed the file folder, thought about taking it with me. But I locked it back up in the desk drawer. The rear hallway was deserted as I stepped out and secured the door to Peralta’s office.
In the lobby, I ran into Lindsey. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I figured I’d be safe in a police station.” I smiled. “Did you find what I needed?”
She nodded. “No Social Security number, no date of birth, but that doesn’t stop your intrepid cyber-searcher.”
As we walked out into the midmorning sun, Lindsey handed me the address of Lisa Cardiff.
Chapter Fifteen
Outside, we had barely crossed the arid plaza of the county courts building when we were intercepted by Jack Abernathy.
“Give us a minute, Deputy,” he said to Lindsey. The way he said “deputy” made me think he really wanted to say “missy” or “girl,” but maybe I was judging the man harshly based on surface impressions. That had gotten me in trouble before.
But there it was. Abernathy, a high-ranking law enforcement official in the nation’s sixth-largest city, looked like a Southern sheriff who had stepped out of a sequel to Smokey and the Bandit. At best, he was an ancestor mask in the tribe of the police.
In a way, I felt sorry for him. He must have been an embarrassment to the former sheriff, who turned the department into a trendy place of mission statements, media events, and master’s-degreed deputies. And he sure didn’t fit Peralta’s mold. But somehow he hung on. Abernathy was a head shorter than I was. His jowly face was a patchwork of reddened skin, as if he constantly scratched himself. His hair was close-cropped like a dry lawn and going white. All his weight congealed into his belly, which stretched impatiently against the fabric of his uniform shirt. And that Texas in his accent. I half expected him to address me as “boy.”
“Sheriff, we got a problem at the jail.” He nodded toward the massive brown fortress of the Madison Street Jail complex. I waited and he went on. One inmate had attacked another last night, nearly cutting his head off with a homemade knife. Both were leaders in respective African American and Latino (“Mescan” in Abernathy’s butchered language) gangs. Everyone expected reprisals and tensions were high.
“What do you think we should do?” I asked. He pulled his chin back into his heavy neck, seeming surprised someone, even the greenhorn acting sheriff, had asked his opinion.
“Move some of ’em out,” he said. “Disperse ’em to other facilities.”
“Well, let’s do that, and find out how this moron got a knife into our main jail.”
Abernathy pursed his lips and nodded. It went on a long time. A cool breeze was blowing down Jefferson Street from the west. Maybe it would push some of the smog away. Over Abernathy’s shoulder, I watched workers finishing the new Federal Building. It was a massive glass objet d’art. I guess the famous architect intended it to convey openness in a democratic society, rather than the respect and awe inspired by government buildings even into the 1930s. But to me it just looked insignificant and ugly, like a credit-card call center in the suburbs.
Finally, Abernathy said, “How are you feeling after that dude took a shot at you?” It came out harsh and confrontational. I said I was OK.
“I can’t believe Phoenix PD and Davidson’s people, and all Kimbrough’s detectives, can’t find this little scumbag,” he said. I didn’t want to take the time to explain, again, why I didn’t think Leo O’Keefe had shot at me.
“How is Chief Peralta?” he demanded.
“The sheriff is the same,” I said. “In a coma.”
“I ought to go by,” he said, thrusting his hands into his pants pockets. “You know, he and I go way back.”
I let that one sit on the concrete between us. Lindsey was across the street smelling flowers by the old municipal building. She gave me a little wave.
“This logbook from Nixon,” he said. “This is not good.”
I felt the balls of my feet tense. “That’s confidential information, Jack.”
“Word gets around the department,” he said, working his jaw like he was chewing tobacco. “You know, Dean Nixon was trouble. Long time before we finally got him out. You check his file. I know he was a friend of yours.”
“I don’t know if he was a friend…,” I stammered. “We knew each other in high school.”
“He recommended you,” Abernathy said. “I sat on your review board for the academy, remember?”
Actually, I didn’t remember.
“I voted against you,” Abernathy said, not unkindly. “I thought you were some egghead who would get bored with law enforcement. Those kind of people don’t like rules, don’t like routines. They’re a pain in the ass for the supervisors…”
“They probably can even read the little card that has the Miranda warning.”
He laughed once, high and breathy and alien. “You’re a clever one.”
“Well,” I said, “Lucky for you I don’t hold a grudge.”
“Nixon would go crazy, you know.” Abernathy didn’t meet my eyes. He stared over my shoulder, at the early lunch congregants at Patriot’s Park. “One time I saw him nearly beat a suspect to death. Would have, if I hadn’t stopped him. He was drinking all the time. Probably taking drugs, too. Then he fell in with those bounty hunters…”
“Jack, what do you think this logbook means?”
He kept his gaze over my shoulder. “How the hell would I know that?”
“You brought it up, Jack.”
“Shit.” His face reddened, evening out the patches of red and white. “I don’t have a clue what it means. I don’t know what you’re getting at.” He fixed me with his little eyes. They were liquid gray. “Don’t you know what this kind of thing can do to this department? Look what’s happened over in L.A. with the Rampart scandal. Months and months of allegations, careers ruined. Politicians make hay over this. And in the end nothin’ changes. I tell you one thing, the only people it helps is the politicians and the bad guys.”
I started to speak but he cut me off. “You ain’t never gonna get cops to roll over on each other.” His voice had changed. Never polished, it had dropped into a rougher clone of itself. I could almost imagine him interrogating a suspect back when he was on the streets. “There’s a code of silence, Professor. You think anybody’s going to talk about this log, even if it’s true?”
I said, “I guess if we have badge numbers, that might lubricate some memories.” He worked his heavy jaw again. Maybe he didn’t know that detail. I went on. “This isn’t some petty-ass IA investigation, like over
in Mesa where the male and female officers were taking breaks on duty to go off and fuck. We’re talking about murder and attempted murder.”
“You don’t know that,” he squealed. A pair of young women walking by stared at us. “You got your suspect in both shootings. This O’Keefe character. And, hell, with Dick Nixon, nothin’ he was involved in would surprise me.” I hadn’t heard someone use his nickname in years. “Bad things have a way of comin’ back around.”
“What were the River Hogs, Jack?”
“Bunch of idiots drinkin’,” he said, no hesitation. “When they’d get off duty, they’d drive down into some deserted spot in the riverbed, drink and party all night.”
“Did you ever go with them?”
His mouth puckered and he shook his head. “I know you’re tryin’ to get the old white guy. I’m not ‘with it’ in this department. I don’t read the same books as you. I’m not politically correct. But I’m sure as hell not a dirty cop.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I supported you for acting sheriff.”
Thanks, I guess, I thought.
Suddenly, he calmed down. “OK, Sheriff,” he said. “I’ll get moving on those prisoner transfers. That oughta help. We wouldn’t want a jail riot your first week in office.” He added, “You looked good on television Wednesday. We need somebody like you, clever.”
He clapped me on the arm and walked away.
“Jack,” I called, and he turned to face me, all belly and jowls. “What about it? You ever go out with the River Hogs?”
He just gave me a little smile, raised a fat finger to his lips-shhhhhhh-then turned and walked on.
There was a disturbance off to my left, and my involuntary muscles sent my hand reaching for the Python under my coat. But it was just some domestic thing, woman and man and their lawyers arguing. A pair of burly young deputies intervened. The male deputies like their hair cut close these days. When I was a young deputy, the fashion was just the opposite: The old guys like Abernathy had crew cuts and the young cops tried to get away with hair as long as possible. I had lived long enough to see a cycle.
