High Country Nocturne (24 page)

Chapter Thirty-five

I awoke suddenly in a panic attack. The playlist had run through and shut off.

The waiting room was empty, silent, the perfect petri dish for my corrupted brain chemistry. My heart banged against my breastbone, every breath seemed fraught, and I felt as if I were being buried alive.

Pull off the earbuds.

Stand up.

Breathe and walk.

Engage in the movement of the living.

I went to the elevator and rode to the lobby where the crowd snapped me out of it. Then I found the meditation garden. I wasn't alone. A couple of nurses were talking on one bench. I sat away from them, the dream still vivid in my memory.

I was in Matt Pennington's office again. Outside, it was night and through the windows the city was glowing like thousands of Christmas lights. I could smell the body decomposing. I could hear his Naval Academy ring scraping the floor from the movement of a dead hand. The phone rang and it was the same man as before, talking to me…

Fully awake now and calmer, I studied the landscaping and the slant of the sun. It was a beautiful place. My neck ached from where my head had fallen forward as I had conked out. My watch said three p.m.

But what the man in the dream said…

And he said it in a voice I nearly recognized…

Then I realized, part of this was not a dream. He had actually said it yesterday on the phone in Pennington's office. I only remembered it now.

“They say she was a Mountie, you know.”

He had said that about the hitwoman, that and her name.

It didn't jibe with the Southern accent, but people can imitate dialects.

Ottawa, headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was on Eastern Standard Time, two hours earlier. I didn't know who to call or what to ask and anyone in authority was probably going home right now.

Instead, I pulled out the MacBook Air and started searching for keywords.

“Amy Morris” and “Mountie” wasted several minutes. “Amy Morris” and “RCMP” only showed me some news stories about a dog bite in Surrey, British Columbia. This Amy Morris was “policy and outreach officer” for the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

So I dropped the “Morris” and spread a wider net. After twenty minutes of different keywords, I found the first promising lead. The Google summary was about the murder of an RCMP officer's husband and daughter in Calgary.

I pulled up the story and there she was.

The news was three years old, but the photo was unmistakable. A woman with straight, reddish-blond hair parted slightly to the right and falling to spread out a couple of inches onto her shoulders. Heart-shaped face, blue eyes, so-so nose, and full lips in a slight smile. She was wearing civilian clothes.

The girl next door, teacher of the year, young mom at the park.

She would catch your eye and you would think she's attractive, but the memory wouldn't last. Men caught a glimpse of Lindsey and didn't forget her.

The caption said, Sergeant Amy Lisa Russell.

The woman in the photo was Strawberry Death. There was no doubt.

I read the story, read it twice. The sergeant had been on duty when her husband and child had been found “slain” at their home in the Bridgeland neighborhood. I had visited the city only once, years ago, to lecture on the Great Depression at the University of Calgary. It had reminded me of Denver.

I searched for more stories about the homicides but there was nothing but rewrites of the original news.

Then I matched “Amy Russell” and “RCMP.” Her name came up in some official documents regarding something called the Immediate Action Rapid Deployment unit. It sounded like a national SWAT team, very elite. If she had served in this branch of the Mounties, she would have learned the moves she showed when we fought on the front lawn and I lost.

By this time the garden was empty, so I called the RCMP headquarters and got the runaround, nothing could be done until Wednesday at the earliest, I would need to speak to superintendent so-and-so, did I want to leave my name and agency? I did.

Then I went to the RCMP home page and tried to find some other options. The Mounties were organized into four separate districts for the province of Alberta. Calgary had its own city “police service.” It had investigated the killing of the husband and child.

The next call went straight through to the Calgary homicide unit. I gave my name, department, and badge number. Two minutes later, a man picked up and identified himself as Inspector Joe Mapstone.

We spent a few minutes trying to find adjoining branches in our respective family trees. When we discovered no common ancestors, I asked him about the Bridgeland murders.

“They were never officially solved,” he said.

That was a telling word. “Officially?”

“Amy Russell was in the RCMP organized crime task force. Her work sent three members of the Malicious Crew to federal prison, box cars for every one of them.”

I asked about the slang. “Box cars” meant two consecutive life terms.

“The Malicious Crew is one of our worst outlaw motorcycle clubs,” Inspector Mapstone told me. “Our theory was that the homicides were revenge. Amy might have been killed, too. She should have been home but was called to her headquarters that day. Her husband picked up their daughter at school and went home. That's where the killers were waiting. We never released the details but it was nasty stuff.”

“Which was?”

His tone stiffened. “What exactly is your interest in this case, Deputy?”

There was no reason to soften it. “She's a suspect in a murder here.”

“Amy?” He almost shouted her name. “That's preposterous. I worked with her. Everybody loved Amy.”

“That may have been true but there's no question. The identification is positive. It's the same woman pictured in the
Calgary Herald
story about the murders.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because she pointed a gun at me. She said she would have preferred to ‘suicide' my wife and me. Then she shot my wife.”

“My God…”

It was a good two minutes before he spoke again. I waited him out in silence. By then he had mastered his emotions.

“Her husband was bound with duct tape,” he said. “He was forced to watch their six-year-old daughter raped, burned with cigarettes, and then slit up the middle from her vagina to her sternum. Six years old. Who would do such a thing? They covered him with her intestines. Then they started on him. It took awhile. A message was being sent.”

“Who found the bodies?”

“Amy did, when she came home that night. We haven't been able to make the case yet. This is still active and open. Because it involves a police officer, it continues to merit special attention.”

Civilians didn't realize how often cases were called “open,” but the cops were pretty certain about the suspect. Certainty didn't always make a case.

There were probably hundreds like that here. Bob Crane of
Hogan's Heroes
fame had been killed in Scottsdale in 1978. Add in videotaped sex and it had caused a national frenzy of news coverage. Almost from the start, the detectives had identified a suspect and had begun gathering evidence.

But convincing a prosecutor and a grand jury is another, more difficult matter. They finally had enough evidence to take the suspect to trial in 1994, but the jury acquitted him. The case remains officially open.

I asked, “What kept you from making arrests?”

“The prime suspect killed himself.”

My breath caught in my throat.

He said, “Legal name Aaron Henry Edmonds, street name Chaos. He was the top enforcer of the motorcycle club. We had him in our sights as the prime suspect. But two weeks later, he slit the throats of his two children and his old lady, the common law wife. Then he shot himself in the temple.”

Or he was “suicided,” Amy's first.

“Is Amy still a Mountie?”

“No,” he said. “She resigned afterwards. You can understand why.”

“You said you knew her.”

“Yes. A fine officer and she served in top units. We had occasion to work together. Everybody respected her. After this… Well, she had to get away. She took a private-sector job. Making more than the Mounties could ever pay. At Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories”

I felt cold merely hearing the words.

The microwaves carried the sound of him turning pages of a file and then he gave me her telephone number.

“What's in Yellowknife?” I said.

“The Ekati diamond mine,” he said. “She became chief of security.”

Chapter Thirty-six

After I set down the phone, I made a note of our entire conversation.

Then I heard my name and turned to see Lindsey's top surgeon. I had never seen him at this time of day and a spike ran into my solar plexus, my hand gripped the wooden arm of the bench.

Maybe if I didn't acknowledge him, didn't turn around and stand up…

He said, “I have good news.”

I almost leapt off the bench but he sat me back down.

“I don't use the word miracle lightly but your wife's recovery comes pretty close. A medically induced coma and hypothermic treatment…In other words, lowering her body temperature. It can take up to two weeks. But we're ready to start bringing her out now.”

“Let's go!”

“Hang on.” He put a firm hand on my arm.

“This will be very gradual and intermittent. In stages. Think of it like a deep-sea diver being brought up.”

I curbed my enthusiasm, at least on the outside.

He said, “The goal is to bring her to general sedation until she has recovered enough to sustain herself. She'll come off the ventilator as soon as she's strong enough to breathe on her own. We're thinking twelve to twenty-four hours, but if anything looks bad, we'll need to resume the hypothermic treatment.”

I nodded too many times. I must have looked like an idiot.

I said, “What will she be like?”

“Her brain didn't sustain any oxygen loss. That's very good. Toward the end, she should be able to respond normally. Her memories may be affected.”

He sat with me for a surprisingly long time, saying nothing.

Finally he stood. “We can't declare victory quite yet, Mister Mapstone. But your wife is a very strong woman.”

I knew that.

Chapter Thirty-seven

After a few minutes, I had to get out of the hospital. The claustrophobia was overwhelming. In the waiting room, the television made it impossible to think, sleep, or write a report.

I needed to walk. So I went two long blocks to the light-rail station and rode the train down to the courthouse. Stepping off, I passed through a joyous flock of young girls in colorful
quinceanera
dresses, laughing and talking. I steered my briefcase through the extravagant flowing skirts. When I was fifteen, I couldn't have imagined the adult me in this mess.

In the atrium, I saw a young woman in a miniskirt arguing with the guard. Seeing me, he said, “Here he is.”

She turned around. It was Zephyr Whitehouse.

I suppressed a sigh and said, “Come up to my office.”

She followed me to the elevator and we walked down the long hallway in silence.

That changed once I closed the door.

“I owe you an apology for this morning,” she said. “I didn't realize you were a deputy sheriff. I had to rifle through Diane's purse to find your business card. Then I called Chris and he told me you are a historian, too. I'm impressed.”

Good old Chris.

“No apology necessary.” I sat behind the desk. “No need to be impressed.”

“My therapist has told me about sexual competition between mothers and daughters,” she said. “It's always been there between me and Diane.”

She called her mother by her first name, like Lindsey and Robin had done. Did anyone say “mom” anymore?

I invited her to sit but she walked around inspecting, pausing to look out the restored 1929 windows. She had that combination of beauty, grace, money, and—if she didn't read serious books—at least a feral intelligence that allowed her to effortlessly be the sun of any solar system she entered.

She alighted on the 1950s photo of Camelback Mountain with nothing but citrus groves flowing out to the south.

She pointed. “Our house is right here now. Amazing. You must despise my father. Even though I loved him, I hated growing up with his last name. I thought about taking Diane's maiden name, Jacobi. You know last names only became common in Europe in the sixteenth century, as people left their home villages? Of course you do.”

I would have nodded but her very nice back was still facing me.

She turned. “We both have the same middle name, mother and daughter. Colleen. Do you like that?”

“Colleen is a lovely name.”

She smiled. “But I'm a Zephyr.”

“Yes, you are,” I said. “What do you want, I'm-a-Zephyr?”

She straightened her shoulders. “You're very direct, Professor. No time for postmodern irony and cynicism? Or maybe that's what you did and I missed it.”

I put my hands flat on the desk. “This is not Stanford and these are not office hours. Please sit down and tell me…” I smoothed out my insides and finished with “…how I may help you.”

She sat, the skirt rode up, and long tanned legs crossed. I kept my eyes on her face.

“Your investigation of Chip. I'm assuming that's why you came to see Diane this morning.”

“Chip?”

“Elliott Whitehouse, Jr., my half brother. Chip. He and James are sons of Daddy and the sainted first wife, Kathryn. The woman done wrong when Daddy left her for Diane, who was nothing more than a secretary in his office. It was a scandal. Very sexy. Kathryn and my half brothers hate me. James goes by the nickname Tanker, don't ask me why.”

Diane Whitehouse had told me that she met Elliott while she had been working at Diamond's.

I asked Zephyr to tell me about Chip.

“Nothing you probably don't suspect.” She played with a thick strand of tawny hair. “He did bribe county officials to get land rezoned for his warehouses. He's mean and lazy, but he's also careless. I have copies of the checks.”

She reached in her purse and slid across sheets of folded paper.

I scanned them. They showed checks written on E2 LLC and signed by Chip Whitehouse. Each was made out to a different individual. I recognized one name from the Planning and Zoning Board and another who was a county commissioner. Each check was in the amount of ninety-eight hundred dollars. The payment was below the threshold where the bank would be required to report it to the feds.

I said, “Why are you doing this, Zephyr? He is your brother. What's your angle?”

Her face flushed. “Chip destroyed an eight-hundred-year-old Hohokam site to build those warehouses. Never disclosed it.”

“You're that passionate about historic preservation?”

Her face assumed an adult seriousness. “As a matter of fact, yes. And about the environment. Chip did all this and flipped those ugly tilt-up warehouses for twelve million dollars before the bust. He didn't even have tenants. I don't need an angle, David. It's the right thing to do. It's what I was taught by my father.” The legs uncrossed and her perfect knees met demurely.

“May I keep these copies?”

“Please,” she said.

County corruption didn't figure into the wallet Diane had found in Elliott Whitehouse's closet. I did come down here to write up the report for Melton, so I decided to turn the conversation to my needs.

I said, “Why would I despise your father?”

She nodded to the photo. “He's one of the developers who took all this away. I'm a serious environmentalist and it's hard for me to reconcile.”

I thought about that issue, not for the first time.

“Historians might call that ‘presentism' and it gets in the way of understanding,” I said. “Men like your father were part of a moment in history.”

“Meaning?”

“The mass-produced subdivisions that started with Levittown back East were in vogue. Gasoline was cheap and driving was pleasant. Phoenix had a serious housing shortage after World War II and plenty of land.”

I paused to see if she was bored. Her eyes were engaged and bright. Or she was a good actress. Either way, I continued, “It was growing, and men like Elliott Whitehouse and John F. Long provided good housing for the former GIs who were starting families. Not only that, but Arizona was rife with land swindles. These men operated honestly.”

“So they didn't know what it would become, or the external economic and social costs of sprawl.”

“That's the objective way to approach it.” I said. “What's happened in recent years is more unforgivable. Now we know the consequences. It became a Ponzi scheme.”

“The American Dream.” Sarcasm tinted her voice. “And look at all that's lost. I wish I could have seen it the way you must have when you were young. The Japanese flower gardens. Superstition Mountain without all the houses.”

“It was a beautiful place.”

She gave an exaggerated shiver. “I would never live in the Valley again. Once I graduate, I'm staying in the Bay Area. None of my friends are coming back, either. Why do you stay?”

I didn't answer.

Her lips made a sad smile. “You're a sucker for lost causes, David Mapstone.

I asked Zephyr what her father was like.

“He doted on me.” The smile widened, showing perfect teeth. “I was a daddy's girl. Diane was jealous of me. But what was he like?” She stared at the high ceiling. “He was sixty when I was born, so I get the sense he had mellowed. He was very kind. I got a very different father than Chip and Tanker grew up with. He would get down on the floor and play with me. This big man playing like he was six again. He built me a very elaborate dollhouse. I still have it.”

“Was he faithful to your mother?”

She nodded to my ring finger. “Have you always been faithful to your wife, David? Don't worry. I won't put you on the spot. I know he and Diane fought about one woman she was sure he was having an affair with.”

I wrote down the woman's name.

“What about men?” I asked.

“Men?” She laughed and stroked her knees. “Are you kidding me? Daddy was a terrible homophobe. Racist. Anti-Semitic. He was a privileged white man of his generation. My half brothers aren't much different and they don't have any excuses. They support the ‘Papers Please' law, think all our problems are because of illegal aliens, even though they employ them and pay them dirt. Hypocrites. You probably think I'm a hypocrite, too, growing up in the big house, copping to environmentalism from privilege.” She paused. Then, “What's Daddy got to do with this?”

A shadow appeared behind the pebbled glass and I tensed. Then Kate Vare burst in without knocking. I made introductions.

“Is she leaving?” Vare said.

“Yes,” Zephyr said, standing. She was a head taller than Vare. “It was very nice to meet you, Sergeant Vare. Thanks for all that you do, David. I'll text you my number.”

When the door closed, Vare put her hands on her hips and smiled with malice.

“Your next girlfriend? She's too young for you.”

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you. But she's Elliott Whitehouse's daughter.”

“Well, enjoy it before she kicks you to the curb.”

“She's not…!”

Vare held out a hand. “It's your business,
David
.” She imitated Zephyr, with an extra dollop of sweet sexuality, no mean accomplishment for Kate Vare. Her voice sounded like a completely different person. Back in her normal tone, she continued, “Walk right into the propeller. I won't stop you.”

Before I could say more, she changed the subject. “So the boys pick up a suicide in Midtown, an office in the old United Bank tower on Central. Subject named Matt Pennington. He hanged himself from a doorknob with two neckties.”

My middle wound in a knot but I kept my face neutral. “Did he?”

“They were willing to buy it. I called it bullshit. No note. His computer is missing. No cellphone. Who doesn't have a cellphone attached to them at all times now? I thought about your girl, Miss ‘Suicided.' Then I found the fake file cabinets. I pulled them open with a pry bar. It wasn't easy. But there's a very elaborate safe behind them. We've got techs working to open it right now. What do you want to bet we find some diamonds?”

I said, “Who's Matt Pennington?”

“You tell me.” She sat and leaned forward on her elbows.

“The name hasn't come up.”

“Liar.”

I kept my eyes straight on her and repeated the sentence.

“Well, you're not making enough trouble, Mapstone. Pennington was a Navy SEAL assigned to the Mexican marines on drug interdiction. Five years ago they tried to nab Chapo Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa Cartel…”

“I know who he is.”

“Intel said that he was staying at a mansion on the Gulf of California. They went in from the ocean and immediately came under fire. Two Mexican marines were killed. Chapo got away. The bad guys had advanced information about the raid. The marines are the best agency in Mexico. I don't know what went wrong, but Pennington was assigned to a desk job and then left the service.”

“So he was blamed.”

She nodded. “I called in a favor from an old boyfriend in the DEA. Don't look at me that way, you jerk. Lots of men find me attractive. I wouldn't sleep with you if we were the only two humans left on a dying planet. If I hadn't had sex for a hundred years and you showed up at my doorstep naked with a rose in your teeth. If you had Old Glory draped over your face…”

“I get it,” I said. “Your DEA buddy.”

“He said Pennington was in the cartel's pocket. Specifically Sinaloa. But they could never prove it.”

“So why did he end up here?”

“His mother was sick. Get this, he worked in a call center. The turnover rate at most of those places is one hundred percent. But he drove a new BMW every year and he had this secret office in Midtown. No name on the door.”

“Now a dead man inside.”

She leaned back.

“I showed you mine. You show me yours.”

So I did, with only a few omissions.

When I was finished, she liked me a little better.

“That explains a lot,” she said.

“Such as?”

“Such as the call I got this afternoon from Horace Mann. He wanted to know the whereabouts of a man named Matt Pennington.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said we'd check.”

I asked her why she didn't tell him that Pennington was dead.

“Because I don't trust feds. Everything you told me shows why I'm right.”

After she left, I made some phone calls, used the badge, and took a drive.