Magic Line (3 page)

His pockets yielded a few rumpled bills. He counted them carefully, tucked them in a safe pocket and found the men's clothing section. He bought a T-shirt in size XL that said ‘Go Wildcats' and looked like it would cover most of his tats, found a baseball cap with a Diamondbacks logo, and picked out the biggest pair of sunglasses on a rack.

After he changed in the restroom he stuffed his sweat-soaked, many-pocketed Money Bag shirt into one of the Walmart bags and dropped it in the trash can near the door. Carrying a tall iced drink from a vending machine, he went outside and found a bench under a mesquite tree.

Sipping his drink in the busy parking lot, he did what his mother had been urging him to do for some time. He thought hard about his situation.

TWO

S
arah Burke, driving home, heard the heads-up tone on her radio and felt her pulse jump. Out of long habit, Sarah's muscles grew tight, her whole body getting ready to act.

Seconds after the tone ended, the radio rattled with urgent orders to patrol cars. Something big was happening on the south end of town – ‘See the woman' and reports of shooting at an address in the Midvale Park district.

Forget it, she told herself. Urgent call-outs were not her problem anymore. Being a homicide detective was no cake walk, but at least she was no longer expected to turn on her siren and race to crime scenes. And she had earned the treat she was headed for – getting home to Bentley Street in plenty of time for dinner. She'd even left a little unfinished work on her desk and cut out early, because she'd been called to a crime scene at six that morning and the department was insisting that detectives avoid overtime whenever possible.

Inside her front door she called hello and walked into her bedroom to lock her Glock and shield away. She hung up her work clothes, got into a soft old T-shirt and shorts. Stretching and yawning, she got comfortable, slowed down and began the transition to non-vigilent, slack-jawed civilian. ‘Releasing my inner slob,' her buddy Kate Kerry called it. Kate was a shift commander now on the West Side, but they had gone through training together and remained close. ‘Coming down from cop mode used to be a tough transition,' Kate boasted, ‘but these days, let me get barefoot in something with a stretch waistband – I can turn into a couch potato in under five minutes.' Sarah wasn't quite that down with it yet, but getting close.

Hearing voices where her family was clustered, in the kitchen end of the house, Sarah walked toward them, saying, ‘Something smells good and I am so ready to stick a fork in it.'

Will Dietz sat by a window in the old wooden rocker, a relic from the ranch of Sarah's childhood that was becoming his favorite chair in this house. Only his feet and hands showed; the rest of him was buried in the morning paper. She touched his shoulder as she passed him and he made a small sound, ‘Mmff.' This being Monday, he'd go back to work with his night detectives' squad in a couple of hours. Monday through Thursday, they saw each other only in passing. He spent most of his afternoons puttering with shelves and closets, doorsills and moldings, getting them settled in this sixty-year-old house they'd just moved into.

‘Come and taste this, will you?' Aggie said, out in the kitchen by the stove. ‘Tell me if it needs more of anything besides salt.' Recovering from a stroke, Sarah's mother had resumed cooking but told them all to add their own salt.

‘Ah, meat sauce, good.' Sarah leaned over the pan, sniffing the garlicky steam. ‘And what's that, penne? Wonderful.' Pleasure in the food didn't quite block the little spurt of alarm she often felt these days when she stood close to Aggie.
Damn, she seems to keep shrinking.

‘Points off if you drool in the sauce,' Denny said, setting the table.

‘Too late,' Sarah said. ‘I worked all day on a prune Danish and a Clif bar. Your dear old auntie is a ravenous beast.' She mimed fangs and claws and Denny giggled.

‘The kid is checking deportment now, do you love it?' Aggie blew on a small pasta cylinder, stuck it in her mouth and muttered, ‘Not quite.' She wasn't annoyed; she and Sarah had agreed they were glad to see Denny begin to show a little sass. When they joined forces to take the child in last fall, living with her substance-abusing mother had left her skinny and silent, pulling her own hair out and scratching sores on one thumb.

Will said, from deep inside the sports section, ‘You work all day on that Circle K thing?'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘Kinda toasty in that parking lot this afternoon?'

‘Yep.' When he turned a page she got a glimpse of the pink scar that slanted across his scalp, like a second part in his mouse-colored hair.

Quiet again. What is it?

Will had talked her into moving all of them into this house, insisting he had no problem living with her fragile mother and abandoned niece. She had put aside her doubts because the arrangement solved so many time and money problems. But their unlikely household vibrated sometimes with competing needs – the wall calendar in the kitchen was covered with Aggie's doctor's appointments and Denny's school events, which had to be combined with Will's night shifts and Sarah's unpredictable schedule as a homicide detective.
Fifty ways to lose a lover
, Sarah had thought more than once.

The personal relationships seemed to be working fine, though. Aggie in recovery, Denny powering through fifth grade; both relied on Will for everything from kitchen repairs to moral support at soccer games. And he seemed to enjoy his role as fixer and factotum. But the last couple of weeks he'd turned even quieter than usual. They were still fine in bed, the rare times they got there together. But plainly, Will was thinking about something. Sarah was waiting for one of their infrequent private times to find out what it was.

‘OK, soup's on,' Aggie said. They each took a plate as she dished up, and moved to the round table Aggie had brought with her from her house in Marana. It was becoming a focus of their family life, almost constantly in use for meals, homework, card games and conversation. Denny had dictated its placement in the bay window near the kitchen. Sarah hung bird feeders in the trees outside, and the centerpiece was usually a pile of bird books. Sitting there, Aggie said, felt like a picnic without ants.

Left to themselves, Will and Sarah might have talked about work, but Aggie claimed the details of law enforcement ruined her appetite and Sarah thought Denny was beginning to enjoy them a little too much. So she asked Will about his efforts to get their air conditioning up to speed, and he explained why he thought the main duct had a block in it somewhere.

‘I know all about blocks,' Denny said quickly. ‘I've got a kid in my class who's got a logic block in his brain.' She liked Will's cop stories but had told Sarah she thought she could live without another word about house maintenance ever.

‘How do you know?' Aggie finally asked, since both Will and Sarah had ignored her interruption and were still discussing ducts. ‘What does it make him do?'

‘He says dumb stuff like “I believe Italy's in South America.” And when we tell him that's wrong and show him a map,' Denny rolled her eyes to the ceiling, ‘he says that's not the Italy he's talking about.'

‘You probably need to soak his head,' Aggie said.

Denny said, ‘I think that's called waterboarding now, Gram.'

The phone rang. Will answered, said, ‘Yes,' and passed it to Sarah.

‘Burke,' Sarah said.

Delaney said, ‘Sorry to do this to you.'

Will made a pot of strong coffee. Sarah drank a cup while she dressed and took the rest along in a thermos. Aggie nuked a soft taco, rolled the last of Sarah's dinner in it and handed it to her, wrapped in foil, as she left the house. She ate it, making small sounds of pleasure during the twenty minutes it took her to reach the already swarming crime scene in the Midvale Park neighborhood.

Recession had hit this part of town hard. Ten years ago it had been a thriving blue-collar area of modest single-family houses, its parks and playgrounds noisy with healthy kids and pregnant mothers. Now roofs were breaking down, gates sagged on peeling fences and cars on blocks littered some of the yards. And the drug trade was moving in.

‘You're the closest of my crew I can find,' Delaney had said, ‘so will you go as soon as you can? The lab crew should be there already, and Ollie'll be right behind you. He's up on the north side. I'm down in Green Valley at a swim meet with Dylan; I'll come as soon as I can find a ride home for him. Everybody else is out someplace. I'll keep after them – we're going to need everybody for this one.'

They said nothing about being tired. What was the use? It just dragged you down, made it worse.

The street was blocked at both ends. An officer stood by the barriers on Chardonnay, directing traffic and giving cryptic answers to long questions. Sarah showed him her badge. He held up the crime scene tape so she could drive underneath it and pointed to the little parking that was left.

There was the usual bustle of dark blue uniforms, vehicles coming and going. An information officer made the rounds inside the tape, carrying a recorder and notebook, getting enough preliminary information to feed the evening news shows. Sarah saw Gloria Jackson's bright copper curls bobbing and swooping above a body in the front yard, a camera at her eye. So the lab crew had arrived.

The officer on the tape copied her badge number and timed her in. He was new this year; she'd only met him once. But rookie cops liked to be remembered. Sarah squinted a minute and pulled up his name, Bobby Clark.

‘How many victims, Bobby, do you know?'

‘Two out here in the yard,' he said. ‘I never got inside before they put me to work on the tape here, but I heard three in the house.'

‘Who's the field sergeant?'

‘Oh, um, it's that old guy . . . Zimmerman. Over there near the door.'

‘I see him. Thanks.' She located a chevron on a blue sleeve and walked toward Phil Zimmerman, a little jolted to hear him described as ‘that old guy.'
I guess he is
getting kind of lean and grizzled.
But for her the sergeant still had the powerful aura she'd admired when she was a rookie – strong, capable, always on an even keel.

Behind him, on the blood-drenched front doorsill, a heavy handgun with a brass slide lay beside the dead body of a bald white male. Zimmerman squinted at his phone as he punched in a message.

Sarah said, ‘Hey, Zimmy.'

He held up one finger and said, ‘Lemme finish this so I don't have to . . .' and went on texting. She waited till he quit punching buttons, closed his phone and said, ‘Sarah B, how you been?' He still used her nickname from ten years ago, when there had been three Sarahs on patrol in Tucson.

‘Medium well.' She was glad to see him on this wild scene – though come to think of it he had transferred to the East Side some time last year. ‘How come you're pulling field sergeant duty way down here?'

‘You heard about the Great Recession? We're only down about twenty guys on this shift. The duty sarge said she didn't have anybody else to send. She said, “Run over there and supervise that crew for a couple hours, till Delaney gets there.”'

‘Which is going to be a while yet, I'm afraid. He was still in Green Valley when he called me. So what do we have here?'

‘Well, we're calling it a home invasion but as you see . . .' He gestured toward the house front full of bullet holes, the door gaping open on carnage, ‘this was no ordinary home.'

‘Stash house, huh?'

‘One bedroom stacked high with weed. Little over a liter of coke and some paraphernalia in the kitchen. Two victims out here in the yard and three in the house. Enough weapons and ammo to start a war and it looks like it did.'

‘Who got the first call?'

‘Barry White. He's down there by the body near the sidewalk – you want to talk to him first?'

‘Might as well. I don't know him – is he new?'

‘Yeah. Recruit from Sierra Vista, wanted to try a bigger town. Here, I'll introduce you.' He walked with her down the yard and told the square-cut young patrolman in a too-tight uniform, ‘Sarah's the first detective here. You were the first responder, right?'

‘That's right. That house on the corner called it in. Number one female in there with two babies, hiding under the bed with them when I got there, scared to come out. Name's Josephina Quintana.'

‘Did she see the shooting?'

‘Um . . . hard to tell. Even after she came out from under the bed she didn't want to talk, just kept saying, “You fix, OK?” Probably got no papers.'

‘So . . . you're getting a quick indoctrination in the big city.'

‘Tell me about it. Two blocks away when I got the call, I got here in just over a minute. Yard was still full of smoke! The whole place smelled like a firing line. I called for backup right away.'

‘Who was your first backup?'

‘That's him over there, Barney Gross. You'll want to talk to him, too. He says he saw a guy running along Oak Tree Drive as he approached. He was told he was needed over here urgently, so he chose not to pursue.'

‘How urgent was it?'

‘Turned out I didn't really need him at all. Everybody that's lying here now was dead when I arrived. We went around this yard very cautiously and then cleared the house, but not one of them ever moved; nobody had a pulse. From the first shot to the last heartbeat, this entire incident must have gone down in less than ten minutes.'

‘Wow.' Her eyes met Phil Zimmerman's for a bleak moment. ‘Everybody's getting better at this, huh?'

‘Uh-huh. Practice makes perfect.'

‘And from what I hear we'll all be getting more practice soon.' There had been fifteen homicides in Tucson in the past thirty days, and the department had received notice that the city council would soon be forced to make further cuts in the budget.