lid on.
I asked, “Anybody know who he is?”
“Homeless guy, looks like. An Anglo, I’d bet. But he’s got no ID that we could find. Looks like his wallet was taken, if he had one.”
“Homicide?”
Markowitz shrugged. “Hard to tell. He’d been down in that water a few days.”
It didn’t seem like my kind of trouble. That is, trouble with a past. I’m a failed history professor, or maybe a failed lawman. In any event, I make my living doing a little of both, working for the Maricopa County Sheriff, my old friend Mike Peralta. Now they call me a cold case consultant, researching unsolved crimes that can be as old as the city. But I also carry a badge as a sworn deputy, and sometimes a gun.
I could have written a fascinating paper on the evolution of the American automobile suburb in Phoenix, how the places like Maryvale that once seemed so full of promise had evolved into postmodern slums. How abandonment of place in the West is as old as the Hohokam, the ancient Indians who first settled in the river valley that became Phoenix, and then disappeared. It would be fascinating to me, at least. But I didn’t see any need for that skill in what looked like one more dreary west-side killing-the “curse of the Avenues,” as my wife Lindsey called it, referring to Phoenix’s grid of numbered avenues on the west of Central, numbered streets on the east.
I said, “So why do you need me?”
“That’s exactly what I was wondering, Mapstone.” Kate Vare emerged from the patio and marched toward us, her jaw set to confront me as an intruder. Sgt. Kate Vare of the Phoenix Police cold case unit and, “Christ, what’s he doing here?” She was a businesslike blonde with short boyish-cut hair and brown eyebrows. As usual, she wore a pants suit with shoulder pads, exaggerating her natural angularity, making her look like an androgynous toy soldier.
“We don’t need any history lessons,” she said. “And this is a city case.”
“Give it a break, Kate,” Markowitz said. “Mapstone is here at the request of Chief Wilson, Sheriff Peralta, and the feds.”
As if on cue, a group emerged from the house, better dressed than your average city detectives. The leader came out and shook my hand.
“Mapstone, I’m Eric Pham,” the man said. He had a strong grip but a face of fine-boned details. “I’m special agent in charge of the Phoenix FBI. I’m a big admirer of your work.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But why do you need me or the sheriff’s office? Detective Vare is as good a cold case expert as you’ll find.” I fantasized about pushing her into the pool. “Not that I see an obvious cold case.”
Vare glared at me.
Eric Pham said, “Our John Doe there was found with this sewn in his jacket. And this has been missing since1948.”
Pham held up an evidence bag containing a single metal object. I took the bag and studied what was inside. It was tarnished and battered, but unmistakable.
“Is this real?” I asked Pham. He nodded, his lips pursing together until the color drained out.
It never ceased to surprise me-how small an FBI badge is.
Chapter Two
The rubber bag held a misshapen fat man. But the bones of his face, with their narrow planes and prominent juts, seemed to go with a man of average, even lean, build. The sun had done its relentless job bloating, burning, breaking down the remains. Even a few days in this heat were enough to do it. I searched the sore-ridden face, darkened by the pooling of blood. It was an old face with wrinkles around the mouth. He had spiky yellow-white whiskers, like the weeds in the yard, maybe a week’s growth of beard that would grow no more. The pupils were blown out black, the tear ducts large. Parts of his face had a hint of fair skin. A mole was still distinct on the crease running below his right cheek. The smell was god-awful, rotting human flesh. I fought my gag reflex and breathed through my mouth.
Pham handed me a pair of gloves, but I didn’t put them on. What I knew about forensics I had mostly learned as a young deputy on the street years ago. When I got my Ph.D. in history, emphasis on America from 1900 to 1940, I thought it was my ticket away from dead bodies. Funny how things turned out.
I asked, “How do we know he’s homeless?”
Markowitz pointed to a raggedy backpack and two white plastic shopping bags on the ground nearby. An evidence technician was starting to separate and inventory their contents. Another technician used a digital camera to record each piece of evidence.
“We found those near the edge of the pool. Old clothes inside. No wallet or ID. No logos on the clothes. But there’s a meal voucher for Shelter Services.”
“Name?”
He shook his head.
“But the badge was sewn inside his jacket?”
Pham nodded. “He was wearing the jacket, too.”
Just the thought of it made me instantly hotter. I edged toward the dust-caked wall of the house, trying to at least catch as much shade as the small roof overhang would allow. The sliding glass door stood open and hot air drifted out. I thought, Turn on the damned air-conditioning and let’s go inside.
I said, “How do we know he’s not some undocumented alien who fell in the pool and drowned, or he died here and the coyotes threw him in the pool?”
Pham said, “Next-door neighbor, a Mrs. Morales, said this old homeless Anglo had been out in the alley a couple of days ago. She’d never seen him before. She didn’t talk to him. But she says he had some plastic shopping bags, and white whiskers.”
The sky had lost all color. It was bleached white. The air felt under pressure. I looked around the yard. It was a hell of a place to die. Sun-blasted dirt. Back fence faded and broken. The house looking like it had been abandoned years ago. I tried to imagine the happy suburban memories, tried and failed.
“So what do you guys think?” Pham asked, his hands on his hips.
Kate Vare had been silent through all this. She suddenly said, “We just don’t know enough to know yet. I don’t work with guesses. Let’s trace the badge number.” She looked at me like a small dog that had intimidated a cat. Then they all looked at me expectantly.
“I don’t know much,” I said. “There was one FBI agent killed in the line of duty in Arizona. It happened in 1948, and the case was never solved. The agent’s name was John Pilgrim.”
“Go on,” Pham said.
“That’s all I know,” I said. “So is that Pilgrim’s badge?”
“Yeah,” Pham said. “The badge was never found in 1948. That fact was withheld from the public report. I’m just learning all this in the past half hour.” He studied me. “We hoped you could be a help.”
“Well, that’s what I know,” I said, starting for the street. “If you don’t mind, I just got back from a trip, and I’d really like to go home and change.”
Markowitz put a gentle, heavy hand on my shoulder. Pham said, “I can understand, Dr. Mapstone. But we asked Sheriff Peralta for you to be assigned to this case. You have some skills we might need. So don’t leave us quite yet.” He turned to Kate Vare. “You don’t mind a team that includes Dr. Mapstone, do you, Sergeant Vare?”
She was all smiles for the head fed, a talent called “managing up” that I had never mastered. She said, “We’re always happy to have David.”
That was when the air force arrived. A yellow helicopter swept in over the trees and did a pivot maybe a thousand feet above the backyard, swinging around to view us. It had the markings of a TV network. The heat seemed to push the engine sound downward until it was as prevalent as the smell of the body.
“Goddamned TV stations,” Markowitz said over the din. “Must be a slow news day, if they come out for a stinker in a Maryvale pool.”
The first chopper took up station to the northeast, and in a few seconds another one appeared. Kate tried to
