“No.” I sighed. “No, I stayed with it.”
“Why?”
“I can’t really say. Something about Phaedra got under my skin. Something mysterious, maybe. Something tragic.”
“I think she had that effect on people. She did on me.
“Look,” she said, pushing back her hair, “I’ve been working since I was fourteen years old. Otherwise, God knows what kind of a mess I could have gotten into. I remember when I was Phaedra’s age. There’s no end to the trouble that can find you…especially where men are concerned.”
“And you think it was her boyfriend Greg Townsend who got her into the trouble?”
“I never met the man,” Susan said. “And Phaedra was afraid to tell me much. But once she got drunk with me and said she had dated a man who flew in cocaine from Mexico. She said she felt like a fool because she didn’t even realize it at first; she just thought they were flying to Mexico every other weekend to have a good time.”
“But?”
“But something happened. She never told me what. But somehow it became clear to her what Mr. Wonderful was doing. So she told him adios and came back to Phoenix. That’s when she went to work for me.”
“Did she ever mention somebody named Bobby Hamid?”
She shook her head.
“So what went wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Susan said. “After she’d been working for me a couple of months, she said one Friday that she was going to Sedona for the weekend. I must have looked at her like, Are you nuts? because she said, ‘Susan, don’t worry.’ That following Monday, she was late, and when she finally came in, she looked like hell. She never seemed the same. About a week after that, she said she had to go away to take care of some business.
“After that, she might call me once a week. I saw her twice. She told me she had overheard something she shouldn’t have. She said she was afraid she was going to be killed.”
“By whom?” I asked. “By Greg Townsend?”
“She wouldn’t say. It was never clear. But as I told you at the mall, she was convinced the cops were paid off and that nobody could be trusted.”
“And now Greg’s dead, too,” I said. “So where does that leave us?”
Susan was silent for a long moment and then said, “I want to show you something.”
The sun was nearly gone when I pulled off Grand Avenue into a vast ministorage facility, a rat’s maze of low concrete buildings and orange doors. Gang graffiti was splayed across some of the white walls. I drove slowly through the passages until I found two white Ford Crown Victorias sitting bumper-to-bumper, their engines idling. Four detectives got out when I parked and stepped out into the heat.
“John Ford, Glendale Police,” said a tall blond man in jeans and work shirt. He nodded to his partner, a short, beefy woman with a sour expression. “Sgt. Carol Quarrels,” she said. I showed them my star and ID. All jurisdictional courtesies would be followed.
“You’re Mapstone?” This from a member of the second pair, a salt-and-pepper team of sheriff’s detectives. I nodded. “We’re Kimbrough and Krugell, Sheriff’s Homicide, Harquahala task force,” the black deputy said. “Got the warrant?”
I pulled out the paper and handed it around. We were in a section of large storage units, accessible through roll-up metal doors. I stared for a moment at the unit I wanted. It had a strong-looking padlock on the door.
“Excuse us for a moment.” Kimbrough nodded to me and we walked maybe a dozen paces away from the group. He was tall and handsome, with a shaved head and skin the color of expensive coffee. He looked me over and obviously found me wanting.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but this is our case. If the sheriff hadn’t taken a liking to you for some fucked-up reason, I’d arrest you for interfering in a police investigation. Posse members like you are supposed to ride in parades and help raise money for the sheriff’s reelection, and leave the police work to professionals.”
“Well, if we find any professionals around here, I’ll let you know,” I said. He stuck a finger in my chest and gave me a warning look. “And take your goddamned hand off me. I’ve had a really bad month.” I turned away and walked back to the group.
“Let’s execute this,” I said. “It’s hot out here.”
Sergeant Quarrels pulled out some bolt cutters, nudged them into the padlock on unit 1663, and snapped the lock off smartly. Her partner slid back the bolt and pulled up the door. Gazing into the gloom inside the storage unit, I could plainly see the dusty hood of a blue Nissan Sentra.
“That’s it,” I said.
“Call the crime lab. And run that tag,” I could hear Kimbrough telling his partner.
We walked in, two on the driver’s side, Kimbrough and I on the passenger side, flashlights cutting through the dimness. It smelled of dust and hot concrete and mold.
“Locked this side,” said Ford, the male Glendale detective. We shined our lights into the windows and looked through several weeks’ worth of dust. “Don’t touch anything,” Kimbrough told me.
“When did you graduate from the Academy, Kimbrough?” I asked.
“In 1986,” he said.
“I graduated in 1979,” I said, and walked to the back of the storage unit. Only the car was here. The place was otherwise totally empty, not even trash on the floor. Our steps echoed faintly.
“Why don’t we have keys?” Quarrels asked.
I lapsed into cop talk: “Subject stated that victim Riding, who was her employee, left behind only an address for the car, not the keys. Let’s pry open that trunk.”
“No way,” Krugell, the other sheriff’s dick, said behind me. “We’re waiting for the evidence techs. Tag comes back to the victim, Phaedra Riding.”
I glanced at Kimbrough and shrugged.
Kimbrough looked at me for a moment and then pulled two pairs of latex gloves from his pocket, handing me one pair. “Go get a crowbar,” he said to his partner.
In a moment, Krugell came back with a crowbar.
We were all really sweating now. My hands felt especially strange inside the latex in such heat. I grasped the crowbar under the trunk latch and jammed it in deep. Then I leaned down. At first, the lock held, fought me. Then there was a
“Always be prepared,” he said, checking the action. “Loaded, full magazine.”
“I’m opening one of the bags,” I said, finding a zipper and pulling it toward me. Even before I opened the bag all the way, I could see the bundled stacks of hundred-dollar bills inside.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Peralta’s black Ford swept into the narrow passageway nearly an hour later, a red light rotating lazily on the dash, reflecting off the orange doors all around us. The sun was all the way down, and the Crime Scene Unit guys had set up floodlights around the storage unit, which only made things hotter, if that was possible. The big man shook hands with the Glendale officers and then walked over to us, losing his smile.
“This is not one of the Harquahala ones, Chief,” Krugell said. “Phaedra Riding is not one of our serial victims.”
“What, Krugell, do I look like a moron?” Peralta said. “I’ve known that for days.” That was news to me. He looked over me and Kimbrough. “Well? Any new gunfights involving 1950s homicide investigations tonight?” It was asked without humor.
“No, but we have three bags full of money,” I said. “I always knew I’d get rich off the SO.”
Peralta snorted. “How much?”
“Rough guesstimate, a million, million two,” Kimbrough said. “We haven’t had time to count it.”
