Concrete Desert

sorrows.” A brother killed himself when he was seventeen.

“Mom was useless,” Julie said. “Pills and booze. She was worse after the divorce. And”-she choked a bit-“Phaedra got the worst of it. Phaedra always felt that abandonment, so she was determined never to trust, always to be the first to leave.”

Outside, a sparse rain was starting to fall, hitting the palm trees with big dusty drops. It made me feel a little better. Even a little change from the constant oppression of the heat was welcome.

“I’m so tired, David,” she said, and she looked it. “I don’t know what else to tell you right now.”

We drank in silence. Then we walked through the dust and lightning back to the Blazer and I started to drive her to her car. Instead, we ended up at my place, where we drank too much. She cried a long time, then finally came to my bed, where we made love with the peculiar frenzy of the lost and the grief-stricken.

Chapter Eleven

I am running through my neighborhood in the eternal twilight of dreams. All the houses are familiar but darkened, and I can’t run fast enough to catch up with Phaedra. She has always just been there before I arrive. And she is in danger. I know this. And I run into my house, thinking I will find Mother and Dad and Grandma and Grandfather, and there is so much I need to tell them now, now that I’m a forty-year-old man.

But the house is empty except for the twilight, the loneliest part of the day, the lonely Sunday night of the clock. But then I know I’m not alone, and I see someone, and I know we are in danger. And I fire the Python and watch as the bullet moves too slowly, too slowly, and falls to the floor.

And then I am in bed, my legs entangled in Phaedra’s legs, exhausted from lovemaking. She laughs when she makes love. She runs that red hair across my chest. The neighbors keep pounding, pounding on the wall, but we laugh and don’t care.

The door. I sat up and pulled away from Julie, who was still out. I looked back again. Julie Riding in my bed. Last night had really happened. I pulled on a robe and walked to the front of the house. Peralta was at the door. The clock on the wall said 2:15-in the afternoon.

“Goddamn it, I’ve been banging on the door for fifteen minutes,” Peralta said, walking past me. “You never used to be a heavy sleeper.”

“Good morning to you, too.” God, my head hurt.

“It was a shitty morning, and now it’s a shitty afternoon. You have any coffee? Oh, shit, do you still not drink coffee?”

He was wearing a dark blue suit and a crisp white shirt, a grim expression on his face. I offered to make some coffee.

“I will.” It was Julie. She appeared in the hallway, wearing my ASU T-shirt.

“Julie.” Peralta waved a little wave. He seemed uncharacteristically awkward.

“Hello, Mike. Just like old times, isn’t it?” She ran a hand through her tangled brown-blond hair and padded into the kitchen. Peralta arched an eyebrow at me and nodded toward the living room.

“Where were you yesterday morning when I called you on the cell phone?” Peralta sat heavily into the sofa.

“I went up to Sedona to see Phaedra’s old boyfriend. I thought he might have a clue as to where she was.”

“And what made you do that?”

“What’s going on, Mike?” I began, but his look caught me short. “He called me the night before.”

Peralta sighed heavily. “Greg Townsend was found dead this morning.”

“What?”

“You heard me, David. Murdered. His cleaning lady found him this morning in the bedroom at his place in Sedona. He’d apparently been tortured with a raw electrical chord before he was given the business end of a twelve gauge. The Coconino County deputies found your name and phone number written on a pad on his desk. And naturally, they wanted to know what a Maricopa County deputy had been doing on their turf.”

I sat carefully in the leather easy chair. I told Peralta what Townsend had told me.

“Goddamn it, David, I told you to stay out of this case!” He was headed to the blowup point, which I didn’t want to see.

“It wasn’t anything but a missing persons case when I talked to Townsend, and you gave me permission to look into that. Remember?”

Julie walked in with coffee for Peralta and herself and a diet Coke for me. I patted her hand.

“Julie, sit.” It was Peralta. “I’m really sorry about your sister. But I have to ask you this. Where were you yesterday before David brought you downtown?”

“Is this an interrogation, Mike?” She tossed her hair a bit and sat opposite me. Her eyes were red and puffy.

Peralta sipped the coffee. “Good coffee,” he said, then: “It can be if you want. Should I read you your rights?”

“Wait a minute, Mike,” I said. “I picked her up at the Phoenician, where she works.”

I turned to Julie and said, “Greg Townsend was found murdered.” Peralta shot me a dirty look.

“I didn’t kill him, Mike, if that’s what you’re asking,” Julie said. “Not that I hadn’t thought about it, the way he treated Phaedra.”

“Julie! Jesus.”

Peralta said, “I think you should come downtown with me and talk to us about this.”

“Are you arresting me, Mike? Is that easier than looking for the son of a bitch who murdered my sister?”

He finished the coffee and stood. “David will be happy to drive you down when you two, uh, finish here.”

***

I was supposed to lecture at Phoenix College that afternoon. Instead, I canceled class to take Julie back to Madison Street. Not that I had taken any time to prepare the lecture. Not that I had made much progress on anything. I was no closer to selling the house than I had been two months ago. I was no closer to getting a new job. What I had accomplished was to land in this strange little drama with characters out of my past-my old partner, my old girlfriend. And the drama had a body count that was rising.

I spent a frustrating hour being interrogated by two young detectives from the Harquahala task force, who wanted to argue over every sentence in my report on Phaedra. One kept reminding me that he had a master’s degree.

They went away, and I logged into the sheriff’s computer and read a fragmentary report from the Coconino County deputies on Greg Townsend, who was now neither vibrating nor channeling. It sounded very ugly. Blood on the walls, literally. And the place was just isolated enough that nobody was likely to have heard a thing. Suspect number one in Phaedra’s murder was dead himself, leaving nothing. Maybe the Harquahala task force would make sense of it. Maybe I could let it all go. Let Julie make another statement, straighten out her whereabouts yesterday. And I could get back to my life.

“Hello, History Shamus.” It was Lindsey. Her black miniskirt was even shorter than usual. She looked me over. “You look like you were out all night. I hope sex was involved.”

I could feel the blood rushing to my face. She gave a me conspiratorial smile. “Way to go, Dave.” I showed her the report from Sedona.

“Shit,” she whispered. “He pissed somebody off. Execution city. Are you involved in this?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “He’s some guy who dated the little sister of an old friend of mine. The little sister turned up dead yesterday.”

“Phaedra,” Lindsey said. I nodded.

“I saw the report come through. Neat name. The daughter of Minos.”

I smiled at her. “Lindsey, you are always full of surprises.”

“I’ve read Racine,” she said with an endearing smugness. “This Phaedra found a world of trouble, too. It’s been assigned to the Harquahala task force.”