High Country Nocturne

by Jon Talton

  Yesterday, I had driven to the Beatitudes on Glendale Avenue. It was a large assisted-living center not far from where Susan’s Diner once stood, one of our cop hangouts. Inside, it seemed clean and well kept. I showed my star and they led me to a room.

  Mrs. Pennington’s room.

  The woman inside was so frail it looked as if she might shatter from the slightest breeze. If old age was a shipwreck, as Charles de Gaulle said, then she was clinging to the last fragment of timber. And this was before I walked in.

  Kate Vare was thorough, but no one had bothered to tell Matt Pennington’s mother that he was dead at age forty-five. I had done the next-of-kin notifications before but somehow this was harder. I thought about what Cartwright had said. I’m getting too old for this, too.

  “He was a good boy, my Matt,” she said over and over. I agreed with her. Now that I knew the information Lindsey had hacked about his undercover work, I should have said it with more conviction. What a hell to outlive your only child.

  I didn’t ask for much: only if she had a key to her cabin in Payson. She did. I took it and promised to return it. I already knew of the cabin’s existence and location from a helpful clerk at the Gila County courthouse.

  Now I studied my map. I was a map nerd, had been since discovering Grandfather’s subscription to National Geographic, back when each issue contained one. So I could have entered the address into the advanced GPS device in the Lexus. But no, I would use the paper map. I was a dinosaur.

  Before driving away, I rechecked the rounds in my Colt Python and slid a Ka-Bar combat knife on my belt. I loaded a carbine and shotgun from the duffle and made sure my Maglite batteries were good.

  Be prepared.

  With the little light left, I drove west-northwest out of town. The many cheaply built newer houses slowly fell away as the road turned to gravel and the pines enveloped me. Off to the left side, the east fork of the Verde River ran as a narrow stream.

  The Pennington cabin emerged off to my right. Trees and underbrush nearly concealed the house and the nearest neighbor was a quarter of a mile east. It was a modest A-frame, probably from the 1960s. The downstairs had a log facing and two simple windows on either side of a door with a porch in front. The windows were draped. Above, the beams and rafters looked hand-hewn.

  No lights were visible. A junker car was parked in the dirt beside the house. Orville Grainer’s vehicle, I assumed. I drove on to an intersection with a dirt Forest Service road, turned around and waited fifteen minutes. I used the Steiner binoculars to study the road and forest. No one was behind me.

  I crept back to the A-frame and pulled in behind the old car, very conscious of the breathing making my chest rise and fall.

  Outside, the air was colder and clouds were overhead. It was nearly dark, a sensation exaggerated by the four-story-tall trees. I hefted out the heavy duffle and pulled out the Colt Python, then walked to the front door. Why not? My feet crunched over pine needles and pinecones, then went up to the porch reached by three steps.

  The door was solid wood with a peephole. You never stand directly in front of a door. That’s a good way to get shot. So I stood beside it, remembering another time and another door. My great-grandmother had ESP. That was the family story, at least. When she dreamed of flowing water in a river, someone she loved was going to die.

  I couldn’t claim such a gift, but when I was a young deputy I was the first officer to respond to an unknown trouble call. I had approached a darkened house with a peephole door and my Python drawn. The door had been opened three inches and beyond was only darkness. But something, some small voice inside me, had said, Don’t open that door. So I didn’t. It turned out a man with a shotgun had murdered his family and had been sitting on the sofa with the weapon pointed at the door.

  And I heard that same voice this time.

  But I ignored it, stood to the side, knelt down on my haunches to make myself less of a target, and knocked.

  “It’s open!” Peralta’s voice.

  No need for the key after all.

  I turned the knob, hearing the rhythmic purr of water tumbling over slick rocks in the river across the road, and stepped inside.

  Chapter Forty-two

  “What took you so long?”

  I only heard his voice in front of me. The room was black. I lowered the duffel bag to the floor and closed the door.

  “You asshole,” I said. “I could have been here a long time ago but you said I had the wrong number and hung up. When you called back, you wouldn’t talk to Cartwright, either.”

  “I meant the drive up here,” he said mildly, all innocence. “I can get from downtown Phoenix to Payson in an hour. I assume Sharon told you why we had to wait.”

  “She did.”

  “Do you think I’m a diamond thief, Mapstone?”

  I slid the Python into its holster. “No.”

  “Well, crap. I did my best.”

  “Everybody else seems to believe you are.”

  “That’s good. What about the woman?”

  I told him she had shot and nearly killed Lindsey.

  He cursed. He actually apologized, a rarity. If he hadn’t, I might have strangled him.

  He said, “I was trying to keep you both safe.”

  “Right. But you were nervous enough that you left me the message on the dictaphone.”

  My eyes adjusted enough to see him sitting in an armchair facing the door. He had several days of stubble growing out on his face but otherwise looked good. In front of him was a steamer trunk coffee table. Three straight-back chairs were arrayed in the room. Behind him was the kitchen. Up above was a railing for the sleeping loft.

  “No electricity?” I asked.

  “It’s on. Better to keep things dark. Pham roped me in on this case. The plan was for me to check into a motel on Black Canyon and wait for Pennington. He would contact the Russians and we would have a meet to exchange the diamonds for cash. If everything went well, that would be when the bad-apple agent would show himself and Pham’s people could move in and bag them all. But it seemed like there were a dozen ways it would blow up in our faces.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “The moment that woman tried to ambush me in the parking garage. I got rid of the tracker in my boot. Then I made up my own Plan B. Get out of town and wait.”

  “For?”

  “For you to find Pennington.”

  I shook my head. “You took a hell of a chance. What if I hadn’t found your note in Flagstaff?”

  “Then Sharon would have found a way to tell you,” he said. “Anyway, I knew you couldn’t resist the trains. Look, if I had told you about this ahead of time, you not only would have been in danger, but you couldn’t have stopped yourself from immediately jumping supersonic. I needed to slow you down, but keep you going.”

  “You’re a devious man.”

  He smiled. “Tell me I’m wrong about you. This is why I texted you so you wouldn’t ask questions at the outset.”

  “That was the first thing that seemed suspicious,” I said.

  “I’m not an analog, Mapstone. This is also why I dropped Pennington’s name but no other information. If everything went well, I’d be back in the office before you could find him. If it didn’t, he’d know how to contact me, who was clean, who was dirty and we could find a way out. Only he and I knew about this cabin. But he never showed up.”

  “He’s dead. The woman killed him.” I filled in some details about Amy Russell.

  He was silent for a long time. I found a wooden chair and sat.

  “Well, if the world didn’t suck, we’d all fall off,” he said. “Do you have the rough?”

  “In the bag. Why was the weapons compartment empty in your truck? That bugged Horace Mann.”

  “Good. I cleaned it out and transferred the stuff to Orville’s
car. Guns, food, beer, and cigars. All the essentials.”

  “I did a check of the Danger Room. Nothing was missing.”

  “I brought guns from home,” he said, “Anyway, I made this place as secure as I could. Only one way in or out. Solid walls unless you’re upstairs and they start shooting through the glass. Do you trust Pham?”

  I thought about it and answered yes. “He was tracking you with a drone on Friday. They screwed up in not realizing it couldn’t pass over Sky Harbor airspace. That’s how he lost contact. Then you disappeared. I believe him. I think Ed believes him.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s fine. Pissed that you shot him.”

  “He’ll get over it. We needed to protect his cover at all costs.”

  He stood and walked to the bag, unzipped it and pulled out the socks. He hefted them in his big hands and shook his head.

  “So do you have Plan C?”

  I said, “Only the hope that I was followed by the bad guys.”

  He nodded and pulled an M-4 carbine with an optic sight and laser from the bag. I had already put a magazine in. He locked and loaded a round into the chamber and handed the rifle to me. Next he passed over two extra magazines. I put them in my pockets.

  “If you’re right, it won’t be long,” he said.

  I was about to say something when a high-pitched tone sounded.

  “Motion detector,” he said. “I set up a couple outside. Get over there on the stairs. Take the duffle. Move.”

  I scrambled four steps up to a landing, turned, and took another four. It put me in total darkness with an unobstructed view of the living room. By the time I had taken up the position, Peralta was sitting back in the armchair with a blanket over his lap.

  Four raps came on the door.

  Once again, Peralta said two words. “It’s open!”

  I thought about the flash bang grenade in Cartwright’s RV. If that was about to be thrown into the room, we were screwed. If an FBI tactical team followed with orders to shoot on sight, we were double screwed.

  Instead, a large silhouette stepped inside.

  He said, “Don’t move an eyelash.”

  It was Horace Mann. He stepped in three paces and stopped, a semiautomatic pistol trained on Peralta. I silently switched the safety off the M-4 and took dead aim at Mann’s head. Nobody was going to use body armor against me again.

  Peralta said, “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

  This would be the time for Horace Mann as good guy to produce his credentials and identify himself.

  Instead, he said, “Where’s Mapstone?”

  “I had to kill him,” Peralta said.

  “You’re one cold-blooded dude, Peralta.” Mann used his left hand to swing the door closed. The latch snapped shut.

  “Body’s in the kitchen if you want to see.”

  “I’ll stay right here,” he said. “I believe you have something that belongs to me.”

  The athletic socks were two feet to his left.

  Peralta said, “That something belongs to the FBI.”

  “Nobody knows who those stones belong to,” Mann said. “That’s the beauty of it. The rough was shipped FedEx from Vancouver to Seattle, concealed with some student rock collections. It was an accident they were ever discovered. The package came apart and Customs got curious. The diamonds were turned over to the Seattle field office, their investigation went nowhere, and they ended up in evidence.”

  “Where you took them.”

  Mann hesitated.

  “That’s how it went down,” Peralta said. “Otherwise, you’d be here with a SWAT team and a dozen agents.”

  “It was easy as hell to spend ten thousand on a tech at the evidence center to look the other way while I took the diamonds and substituted junk. Then sprinkle some bread crumbs to throw suspicion on another agent. I was surprised they discovered it missing, but by that time it was with the Russians and headed to Phoenix.”

  “Why didn’t you just take them?”

  “And do what?” He looked like he wanted to spit. “Cut glass? The Russians had the means to move them here. They already owed me.”

  “Not a fifty-fifty split?”

  Mann grinned grimly. “Not even close. But they had a fence here who could turn the rough into real money.”

  “Offshore account?” Peralta asked. “Or will you piss it away on your gambling habit? I’m surprised the Bureau didn’t know about that.”

  Mann licked his lips. He was starting to get rattled. “It will be a nice supplement to my pension. Officially, the rough will never be recovered. When we find your and Mapstone’s bodies, I’ll theorize that one of the cartels got to you first and took the diamonds. I can’t fix everything for the Bureau. I can finish out my career as SAC in Phoenix and spend half my time on the golf course. Maybe play some poker, too, asshole. Losing the diamonds has been a huge embarrassment. The Bureau will want to move on.”

  “Where are your agents?”

  “Working,” Mann said. “It’s my day off. Figured I’d follow your boy and he’d lead me to you. Where are they?”

  Peralta didn’t answer. The room pulsed with the gravitational pulls of two big men. Mann scanned the room, ignored the socks.

  “Why did you kill Mapstone?” he said. “I thought he was your friend.”

  Peralta shrugged. “He brought me the rough. That’s all I needed.”

  In the dim light, I could see the confusion course through the veins on Mann’s high forehead.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I handed off the diamonds back in Phoenix,” Peralta said. “Did you think I was going to keep them on me? That would have made it too easy for you. You’re playing in the big leagues now.”

  “I’m here now.” He stepped closer. Now he was about five feet from Peralta. He kept the gun on him.

  Peralta said, “They’re on the floor beside you, in those socks.”

  Mann quickly glanced to his left then refocused on Peralta. Five long seconds passed and he couldn’t resist. He backed up to the wall and knelt down, feeling through the fabric of the socks with his left hand. He lifted one and gave an ugly smile.

  “That’s sweet. All that money inside a three-dollar pair of socks.” He stood. “I sure don’t like it that I can’t see your hands.”

  Peralta didn’t answer.

  “I said, I don’t like it that I can’t see your hands.” His tone was commanding.

  “My hands are cold,” Peralta said. “What makes you think you’re going to get away with this?”

  Mann moved forward again, gun at Peralta’s middle.

  “What makes me think I’m going to get away with it? I have so far.”

  “What about the Mountie?”

  Mann looked confused.

  “Those are the Mountie’s stones,” Peralta said. “She still wants them. Made me a promise to kill everybody I loved until I turned them over. Probably willing to kill the ones I dislike, too. She’s not willing to move on.”

  He cursed under his breath. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about but I’d say the Mountie’s out of luck. And so are you. You’re a fugitive and if I shoot you where you sit, nobody’s going to ask questions.” His voice turned to a shout. “Now show me your hands!”

  The blanket fell away and Peralta had his .40 caliber Glock trained on Mann.

  “Now, hold on there,” Mann said. “I’m a federal agent.”

  “You admitted to stealing fifteen million in diamonds,” Peralta said. “You can’t have it both ways.”

  Mann’s eyes widened and he knew he was caught.

  “Yes,” Peralta said. “Everything you said has been recorded. Thank God for stupid criminals.”

  I could have taken him down right then but I waited.

&n
bsp; “We could reach an understanding.” Mann tried to soften his tone. “Half and half. I let you go. Clear your name. Blame the cartel.”

  “Tall order.”

  “I can make it happen.” Mann’s voice was no longer steady. “My fence is the best. He can set you up with a nice nest egg.”

  “He’s dead.”

  Mann’s gray pallor intensified.

  “You killed him, too?”

  “The girl did.”

  He opened his mouth and closed it without making a sound.

  “So,” Peralta said, “we have this multi-ethnic standoff and the only way to end it is for you to slowly put your weapon on the floor, back away, and put your hands behind your head.”

  There was another way and I saw Mann’s gun arm start to tense.

  I lit him with the laser. A red dot appeared on his forehead.

  I said, “You’ll be dead before you can squeeze that trigger.”

  When he had set the gun on the floor, he said, “What are you going to do now? I don’t see any help on the way. You’re both civilians. You can’t hold me or arrest me. And I don’t think you have the balls to shoot an unarmed FBI agent. So I’m walking out that door.”

  “That would be a big mistake.” Peralta was up and roughly pushing him to the floor, handcuffing him. His face was pointed in the direction of the socks, which he continued to eye with lust.

  “You’re both nothing but civilians! This is kidnapping!”

  I walked down the stairs, cradling the M-4.

  “That’s actually not true,” I said. “Thanks to your friend Chris Melton, I’m a Maricopa County deputy sheriff with statewide powers of arrest.”

  Peralta glanced at me curiously.