existence compared to the complexities of human relationships.
She looked back down the steep trail toward the trailhead, now a tiny spot in the distance, and out over the city. She saw someone moving up the path toward her with a familiar gait. She held the binoculars to her eyes and watched Matt Albright making the steep climb. He wasn’t doing too badly, considering how unprepared he was for the hike. He didn’t wear a hat, which is the very first hiking rule, and didn’t carry water, as far as Gretchen could see. Obviously, a beginner. Or perhaps he hadn’t anticipated climbing a mountain today. Had he been watching her all along? Following her from home?
Matt looked up in her direction, and she reluctantly waved, wishing instead to slide down and flatten into the rocks. He hadn’t exactly been the bearer of good news lately. Matt lifted a hand as a shield from the sun and waved in return. She watched him pick his way through the rocks.
“You obviously never joined the Boy Scouts,” she said, when he stopped before her, breathing hard. Lines of perspiration ran down both sides of his face, but he managed one of his dazzling smiles. He could make a living as a tooth model.
“Their motto is Be prepared,” she continued, handing him her water bottle. “You’re a classic dehydration victim and potential buzzard food.” She watched him tip the bottle back and take a long drink.
“The fire department needs the extra business,” he managed to say. “They’d be happy to come up and get me.” He sat down on a boulder. “I should have trained for this assignment. Keeping up with you isn’t easy. A triathlon would be less work.”
“I see you’re a walking advertisement for social issues,” she said, pointing at his T-shirt, reading the inscription Follow Your Own Path-Leave Only Footprints. She remembered the Indian Youth Fund T-shirt he wore a few days ago. “A cop with a social conscience.”
“You make it sound like we aren’t human. Maybe I can prove you wrong.”
“My cousin, Blaze, is a sheriff in a little town in the Michigan Upper Peninsula. He kind of gives the profession a bad name, He’s Neanderthalish and loudly self-righteous. I’m going to the top. If you want to make sure I don’t commit a crime against Phoenix, like littering on one of your premier tourist attractions, you’d better go up with me.”
Matt stood and gestured up the mountain. “After you.”
Gretchen hiked fast, determined to make it to the summit as quickly as possible and start the descent before the sun crested over Camelback. “I was hoping to see a gila woodpecker,” she called back, noting that the gap between them had widened. “I’ve seen the holes in the cacti, but I’ve never seen the bird.”
“They have zebra-striped backs,” he called up to her in short, choppy words. A period punctuated every word, each a sentence of its own. “I didn’t know you were a birder.”
“I’ve never considered myself one. I just like to look. It’s an excuse to be outdoors.” She stopped and waited for him to catch up.
“There are eighteen species of hummingbirds in Arizona,” he said, looking miserable, his smile subdued and strained. “Arizona is a bird haven in the winter.”
“Why are you following me?” Gretchen asked. “You aren’t a hiker, at least not at this skill level. You could have waited at the base for me.”
“I could, but I like the challenge.” He lifted his shirt to wipe his face with the edge of the cloth, and Gretchen glimpsed a well-toned midsection. Too much weight lifting and not enough aerobic conditioning, she thought.
“Sapsuckers, whiskered owls, quail, Arizona has it all,” he said. “In answer to your question, your Aunt Nina mentioned that you like to hike. When you weren’t home, I thought I might find you here.”
“On the way down you can tell me why you’re visiting so early in the morning. Come on, let’s go.”
He smiled with relief. “You’ve made my day. I thought I’d have to finish the climb to get your attention. I’ll buy you breakfast to show my gratitude.”
The Waffle House was crowded, but the waitstaff knew Matt and found them a table almost immediately. Gretchen, her early morning healthful dieting resolution temporarily forgotten, dove into an enormous platter of pecan waffles.
“Nina says you’re peladophobic,” Gretchen said between bites. “Is that true?”
Matt laughed. “Are you asking me if I have an unnatural fear of bald people or are you asking me if I have pediophobia?”
“The fear-of-dolls one.”
“Pediophobia.” Matt poured more syrup over his waffles and handed the bottle to Gretchen. “It’s weird, but I’ve always had a problem. I’m surprised you spotted it, since I go out of my way to hide behind daring bravado.” He thumped his chest. “You know, the big bad cop that’s afraid of a little doll doesn’t exactly improve my image. My mother tried to break me of it when I was young with no luck. Facing my fear, in this case, didn’t work.”
“Maybe she made it worse,” Gretchen said, thinking of bewigged, gossipy Bonnie forcing dolls on her son.
“Maybe,” he agreed pleasantly, not particularly concerned with resolving his issues or delving into the reasons. “But the symptoms mimic those of the flu-nausea and sweating-and I avoid those feelings whenever possible. I couldn’t believe it when I was assigned to this case.”
“Speaking of the case,” Gretchen said, her waffle-filled fork midair. “Any progress?”
“That’s why I came to see you,” he said. “We have a suspect in custody.”
Gretchen sharply lowered the fork, and it clattered to her plate. “My mother?” she said, not sure what answer she wanted to hear. She had little doubt that her mother was alive and well, but her physical presence would be confirmation, an erasure of that tiny bit of lingering doubt, unspoken and consciously ignored, yet there all the same. Gretchen craved living proof. On the other hand, she couldn’t bear the thought of her mother behind bars, caged like a dangerous mountain lion.
Matt shook his head. “No, not your mother. Theodore Brummer turned himself in late last night. He confessed.”
“I never heard of him.”
“Well, he said he did it.”
“He confessed to Martha Williams’s murder?” Gretchen sighed with relief, noting the assertion in Matt’s expression. It was over. Her mother could come home, and she could return to Boston and the life she had made for herself there. She tried not to think of the recent negative qualities of that life. She could put it back together again, find a job, salvage her long-term relationship. She would consider it a new beginning, a starting point for the next phase of her life.
“Yes, he could only communicate in Spanish, no English at all. He says he did it.”
“Did he say why he killed her?”
“Apparently they knew each other from the Rescue Mission. He says he was drunk, she had a bottle of whisky and wouldn’t share. A physical fight ensued, and he pushed her.”
Gretchen’s eyes narrowed, and her brows furrowed. Killed for a bottle of whisky? Something felt wrong about that. The homeless lost their lives occasionally, and sometimes they did lose it over a bottle of booze.
But Camelback Mountain was miles from the area the city’s destitute frequented. Why chase her all the way up a mountain and then push her off?
A disturbing thought struck her, and she knew the answer before she asked the question. She sensed what Nina would have called her special inherited talent, a certain unspecified intuition. Goose bumps dotted her arms as she braced herself to cross paths once again with a duplicitous transient.
“What does this Theodore Brummer look like?” she asked suspiciously.
“Scruffy, smelly. Usually the homeless are nondescript and tend to blend in, but this guy has a large lump on his head that distinguishes him from the rest, some kind of growth.” Matt cupped his hand on the side of his head.
Gretchen stared at him.
She was right.
Nacho.
“What about the witnesses?” she managed to ask. “The ones who saw my mother on the mountain when Martha died?”
“If you’re asking if their sighting is credible, it is. She’s still wanted as an accomplice based on their accounting. She was on the mountain, and she’s guilty of something. Maybe not murder, but certainly she withheld information and obstructed the pursuit of justice. I’m not buying his motive. He didn’t kill Martha Williams over alcohol. And
