Part 17 (1/2)

South of Old Town, the shopping strips became more downscale and behind them were ordinary tract houses built in the sixties. At Roosevelt, I crossed over into Tempe and the street changed names: Rural Road. It had once been rural. Now all the fields were long gone. The main Arizona State University campus loomed on the right, including the stadium where Larry Zisman had thrown his legendary pa.s.ses. Then the big new Biodesign Inst.i.tute. Who knew what they were working on?

By then, I was ready to chew my arm off from the traffic. The average Phoenician made this kind of drive or even longer every day. How did they stand it? The only place I felt comfortable was in the old city. This was my hometown, but it didn't feel like home any more. The j.a.panese Flower Gardens were gone. The miles of citrus groves were gone. Why did I stay here? I would miss my friends in the old neighborhood, the familiar diorama of mountains, the smell of citrus blossoms in the spring, not much else.

Larry Zisman lived at The Lakes, a series of subdivisions that took over the farm fields south of Baseline Road starting in the seventies. The tract houses were built around little lakes, hence its namesake. Tempe had made a fetish of artificial lakes, most notably Town Lake, contained within dams on the Salt River.

After some wandering along the curvilinear streets, I found Zisman's house. Unlike some of the houses in The Lakes, it lacked any old-growth shade trees. One pitiful little tree was planted on a small, square lawn. Beyond that stood a stucco house with one window, a door through an arch, and the mandatory large garage door and driveway. Above the garage was a second story.

The lights were off. Modest and relatively small, it seemed like an odd home for a one-time football star, but maybe he lost most of his money. Maybe he preferred it here, not far from his college glory days. I pulled directly in front, shut off my lights and engine, and checked in with Peralta. My stomach became a sea of acid. This was as risky as Paradise Valley. Everything about Lindsey's old Prelude screamed ”Does Not Belong Here.” Signs proclaimed a neighborhood watch. I didn't know how long I dared sit.

Not long.

The Tempe Police cruiser slid in behind me and a spotlight swung white light into the Prelude.

I put my hands on top of the steering wheel and tried to mentally untangle my internal organs. The officer or officers would be looking me over, typing my license plate in for wants and warrants, wondering if the driver was armed. That was my first problem. My second problem: if the person following with the GPS tracker had me in sight, he might misinterpret this interaction. He had ordered me on Sunday to bring no law enforcement. Now here I was, with law enforcement come to me.

”Turn on the overhead light please.” A female voice. She was right behind me, in a proper protective stance. I flipped on the dome.

”David Mapstone!”

She came into sight and slid her flashlight into her equipment belt.

”Hey, Amy.”

Amy Taylor had been a patrol deputy for the Sheriff's Office. I had worked with her on a number of occasions before she left for a better-paying job in Tempe. She looked the same, attractive and strawberry hair in a tight bun. I glanced over at the truck-stop phone sitting on the pa.s.senger seat, willing it to not ring at this moment.

”How's the Sheriff's Office?”

”It sucks.”

”That's what I hear. What are you doing?” Her tone was friendly.

So I told her part of the truth. I was working with Peralta now as a private investigator. A young woman had fallen from Larry Zisman's condominium in San Diego, handcuffed and nude, and we have been engaged to find out whether it was a suicide or something more.

”Holy c.r.a.p!” She put her hands on her hips. ”Zisman's married. You know he's a reserve officer in Phoenix?”

”I do. He also owned the handcuffs.”

A burst came over her radio and she keyed her mic. I was being saved by a call: a burglar alarm a mile away.

She touched my shoulder. ”Gotta roll, David. Call me sometime and we'll catch up. Good luck with Larry. Good guy in my view. Not so much his son.”

”Yeah.”

”I'm surprised the Army accepted him. Don't tell Larry I said that.”

All my senses kicked to a higher gear. The Army. ”Of course not. Stay safe, Amy.”

In a few seconds she was back in the cruiser, where she executed a U-turn over the rounded curbs and zoomed back out toward the exit of the subdivision. I turned off the dome light and tried to breathe normally again.

28.

I drove back to the center city on surface streets, sick that Peralta's plan didn't seem to be working. My phone was charged and had plenty of time left. It wasn't ringing.

Through downtown Tempe on Mill Avenue, across the Salt River, Galvin Parkway took me through Papago Park, the two iconic b.u.t.tes backlit by the city, preserved desert all around. I thought about what Amy Taylor had said-not the ”call me sometime” part, but about Zisman having a son. That was another new angle. Or it was Occam's Razor and Zisman was the john, even if he wasn't on the flash drive, and Grace had tried to blackmail him exactly as Detective Sanchez had said.

But did that explain why Tim Lewis had been tortured, every finger broken? Somebody thought he had information. Information to kill for. If it were simple blackmail, the problem would have been solved with Grace's supposed suicide. ”Death solves all problems,” said Joseph Stalin, who had yellow eyes. ”No man, no problem.” Well, no woman, but there was still a problem. Larry Zisman, former football player, could easily have subdued Grace and thrown her over the balcony. The torturing of Tim Lewis had taken a crew.

At McDowell, I turned left and entered the Phoenix city limits, then drove uphill between the b.u.t.tes and was greeted by the dense galaxy of lights stretching all the way to the horizon. Phoenix was beautiful at night. On the downhill drive, the iPhone rang.

”I think I've got your tail,” Peralta said.

My pulse kicked up. ”Do tell.”

”A truck followed you though Tempe, made every turn, and then kept going as you went up Galvin through the park and turned on McDowell. He's probably a mile behind you. A black Dodge pickup. California plate. He's got a tag frame that says 'I love Rancho Bernardo,' with a heart thing instead of love, you know.”

I did know. It was the truck that had pa.s.sed me the night I got out of the cab in Ocean Beach, the one I thought was simply looking for a parking s.p.a.ce.

”Let's box him in,” I said. ”Do a felony stop.”

After a long pause, Peralta's voice came back on. ”No.”

”Why?”

”First,” he said, ”because we're not the cops anymore. Second, because when I hired you many years ago, I hired your whole toolbox, not just the hammer. Since a year ago, all I get is the hammer.”

Now it was my turn to be silent. His words stung. His words were accurate.

”So what's the plan?” I asked, and he gave it to me.

”Stay on the phone,” he said.

I drove back through downtown and went north on wide, fast-moving Seventh Avenue. Numbered avenues and drives run north and south west of Central; numbered streets and places run north and south east of Central. Now you know how to get around Phoenix. I a.s.sumed the pickup driver was learning this from our excursion.

At Northern, I turned west again and after about two miles reached the Black Canyon Freeway, which ran in a trench below grade level. A Motel 6 sat a few blocks up the southbound access road. Getting to it required turning north into the K-Mart parking lot, then pa.s.sing through the Super 8 parking lot, and finally reaching the Motel 6 parking lot. We didn't even need streets with so many seas of asphalt.

I parked away from the motel building and stepped out into the heat. I had a cell phone in each pocket as I walked the fifty feet to a room on the ground floor right in the middle of the ugly four-story box. It had none of the charm of the old motels that had once lined Grand and Van Buren with their Western themes and neon signs.

Three other cars were parked in the lot, all of them empty.

Precisely as Peralta had said, a key card was slipped into the edge of the door all the way down at ground level. I retrieved it, unsnapped the holster holding the Colt Python but, against my better judgment, left the gun there. I popped the card into the lock and stepped inside.

n.o.body shot me.

Turning on the light switch, I surveyed a cheap motel room looking like every other cheap motel room in America. It had been the scene of countless a.s.signations. Bring in an ultraviolet detector, and the pattered orange bedspread would have revealed an army of old s.e.m.e.n stains, dead in mid-slither.

I spoke into the headset. ”Where's my tail?”