The Night Detectives (20 page)

Nothing happened.

He threw it at me and in those quick ticks of confusion, I allowed the distance between us to close. Rookie mistake—I had worried he would make a move for the AK on the bed—but it was too late. He dove at me and ferociously grabbed for my revolver. It quickly cost me my balance. We fell together onto the hard tile of the floor and I struggled to keep my panic from overwhelming my training. There was also the danger that Cartwright would use his shotgun on both of us.

Dowd's face was that of a feral dog and he was strong. So strong that he was close to gaining control. We sweated, grunted, and cursed. His face turned dark red. My attempt to knee him in the groin failed. So did his try at head-butting me, but he succeeded in rolling me onto my back and getting astride me. Every muscle in my arms and hands screamed as I watched the gun twist toward me.

That's when I released my left hand and grabbed the last-option knife.

“Ooof.” He expelled bad breath in my face as I drove the sure little blade into his abdomen. Blood trickled onto my fingers. He still fought but his strength left him. The revolver came loose in my hands and I fired one shot point blank into his chest.

After an eternity that was probably five seconds, I pushed him off with difficulty. Cartwright just watched.

Grabbing Dowd's shoulders, I shook him hard.

“Where's the baby, you son of a bitch?”

A trickle of blood rolled out the side of his mouth.

“I tried to warn you…”

His eyes flickered and closed. He didn't deserve to die with his eyes shut. I shook and cursed him, but I was just yelling at a cadaver.

Cartwright waited a long time to speak. I realized that I must have had a wild look on my face. I patted down Dowd's body out of habit and forced my breathing down.

“Where'd you get that Airlite, kid?”

I told him: at a gun show.

He held out his hand. I gave it to him.

“You got Speedloaders?”

Digging them from my pocket, I put them in his other hand.

“And the knife.”

I rose unsteadily and gave him the knife and sheath.

“Now pay attention,” he said. “I did the shooting here, not you. Right?”

I slowly nodded, feeling my senses return to human. The room smelled of discharged ammunition and vaporized blood.

“The Indian's here,” he said, “and the cavalry are on the way. So you best be gone.”

“Peralta's in there.” I indicated the panic room.

“I'll take care of him. It won't be the first time. You go.”

His voice stopped me at the door.

“You did okay, kid.”

I nodded, then walked back through the house and slipped out into the darkness.

38

In the ensuing days, the FBI made a dozen more arrests and confiscated more weapons and explosives. It was being called the biggest domestic terror conspiracy in modern American history. Peralta gained major cred with the bureau, which promised it would lead to business for us.

The house on Cypress was back to something resembling normal. Did I dare trust it? Lindsey was reclaiming the gardens, fighting against the rising heat. I was cooking and reading. At the moment, we were both naked in the bedroom and sipping martinis. Coleman Hawkins was on the stereo with perfect synchronicity,
Cocktails for Two
. Among the things Lindsey had purchased on her shopping trip were two sets of garter belts and sheer stockings: bad-girl black and virginal white. She was wearing the black and draping one leg over me.

“Are you going to stay?” I asked the question that had been metastasizing inside me, fearful of the answer.

She held out her glass. “If you'll take me back, History Shamus.”

I clinked my glass against hers. “Gladly.”

Oscar Peterson came on. The Maharajah of the Keyboard, as Duke Ellington called him, sealed the deal.

“You're crying.” She held my face close and wiped my wet cheeks. “Are they good tears?”

I nodded. But they were, in fact, a mixed bag.

“Happy that you're back,” I said. “I want to do everything I can to put us back together…”

“Me, too.”

“And I'm sad for all the ones we lost. At least some could have been saved if we'd been faster or smarter. I can't say we covered ourselves in glory on our first case. Grace, Felix, Tim, Larry Zip, Bob Hunter, his wife, all dead. We might have stopped some of it.”

“Dave, you can't take all that on yourself.”

“The only one who got away was Addison.”

Lindsey cocked her head.

“Grace's friend,” I explained. “Aside from Tim's parent's, she was the only one Grace and Tim had contact with while they were hiding out in O.B. She left school and went home to Oklahoma they tell me. A good thing. But I can't forget holding that baby after I changed him. Now he's in some hole out in the desert. What a shitty thing.”

And I cried.

Lindsey held me close for a long time.

Finally, she said, “Addison is a really bad name.”

“That's what I think.”

“Mind if I try a hunch?”

39

We drove east from San Diego through Poway and Ramona on the old Julian Road. Suburbia slipped away and the hills and mountains surrounded us. Ahead were the Anza-Borrego Desert and the little town of Borrego Springs. We climbed around Grapevine Mountain, huge rocks leaning in on us, and then the desert valley emptied beneath.

Patty and I had been here many times. We made a ritual of staying one weekend a year at a little inn at Borrego Springs. It was a single-story speck in the desert surrounded by rocky, bare mountains. I remembered that it had a traffic circle. And I remembered a photo that Patty had taken of me on a hot day, surrounded by barrel cactuses in bloom.

But our trip to the badlands today was not for pleasure. The temperature was over one-fifteen and the town was emptied out of all but the hardiest year-round residents. A room would be cheap this time of year.

The traffic circle was still there: Christmas Circle, and a little beyond was a simple little motel with statues of desert bighorn sheep out front. Patty and I had stayed at the tonier Borrego Valley Inn, with its Southwest architecture and private patios. But I had seen this motel many times, never giving it a second look.

“There,” Lindsey said.

She pointed to an older Toyota sedan parked in front of the ranch-style block of rooms. It was the only car in the lot. Peralta parked fifty feet away and we all piled out of the pickup truck.

“Let us go first.” By this, Lindsey meant Sharon and her.

Peralta and I were well-armed, but I didn't think we would need firepower today. He nodded, and we watched the two women walk to the door directly in front of the Toyota and knock. They talked to the person who opened it, and after a couple minutes they went inside.

Peralta and I found some shade and waited, saying nothing.

Lindsey had followed her hunch and it pointed true.

Addison Conway's car was not in Oklahoma. It was sitting a few paces from us under the mid-day California sun. Thanks to Lindsey's black magic, the Chinese had hacked the phone company again and tracked Addison's cell phone. Last Friday, it had been in Ocean Beach, at Tim's apartment, an hour after I had left. Then it had taken the same route we had just driven and stayed here.

Sharon stepped out and smiled at us: come on in.

Lindsey sat on one of two double beds cradling little David Lewis in her lap. A young woman sat on the other bed. She turned her face to greet us. She was attractive in a girl-next-door way, no Southern California glamour, none of Grace Hunter's looks hot enough to warm your hands by. She was crying. Lindsey was crying.

“This is Sheriff Peralta,” Sharon said, her voice so soothing. “And his partner David Mapstone. You're going to be safe now, Addison.” She put an arm on the girl, who leaned into her as if she were a surrogate mother.

Sharon looked at us. “She's been out here with nothing but her fears.”

I thought my insides were going to drop out on the floor. I tightened my diaphragm just to make sure it was still there. Lindsey's hunch had been more than rewarded.

Addison Conway spoke with a slight twang and no one would mistake her for a Rhodes Scholar. She had been operating on primal fear these past days, not logic or reason.

“I went to see Tim and Grace,” she said. “I hadn't heard a word from Grace and I was worried. I knew about her… You know. I was always afraid it would get her killed. When I got to the apartment, Tim was packing up to leave. He was very scared. He told me what had happened to Grace and I just…”

Sobs took her over and Sharon lightly stroked her hair until she could speak again.

“Tim was getting out, going to hide with his parents.” Her voice rose. “It wasn't my fault!”

The baby started crying, and Lindsey expertly rocked him into happy little murmurs.

Sharon told her nobody was blaming her. We just wanted to understand what had happened.

“It happened so fast. Tim told me to take the baby and go down to the car, you know, it was in the covered spaces in back? So I did. He said he was going to pack up a suitcase and come right behind me. Only…”

We waited beneath the sound of the air conditioning and the baby gurgling contentedly.

I spoke for the first time. “What happened next, Addison?”

“They came for him!” She looked at me with a red face, puffy eyes. “Two men. They called out at the door that they were cops, and then they barged in. I heard Tim yell. Something broke inside.”

She shivered. Sharon coaxed her to continue.

“Tim yelled, ‘Go!' I knew he meant me. I didn't want to leave him. And then David started crying and one of the cops looked out the window.”

It was still jarring to hear the baby's name.

She said, “I ducked behind a wall and I got lucky. Right then, a garbage truck turned into the alley and stopped right there. It was making a racket and I went behind it and ran for my car. I was parked a block away and I've never run so fast. I was afraid to look back, but they weren't chasing me. Thank god for that trash truck. I left the city and I drove to the desert. I thought we'd be safe here. Then I saw the television, the explosion at the apartment and Tim dead. They called it terrorism. I didn't know who to call or how I could explain what happened, why I just ran…” Her voice trailed into a pitiful whisper: “How did you find me?”

Nobody answered.

“The next day, I was going to call the FBI, but I got a call. He said he was a San Diego detective but he didn't sound right. He wanted to know where I was. I freaked. I told him I was in Oklahoma…”

I thought:
Good old Detective Jones
.

Peralta showed her photos of Edward Dowd and Andrew Zisman. “Are these the men you saw going into Tim's apartment?”

“Yes!”

“They're not police. And they'll never bother you again.”

I realized that Dowd never had the baby. He thought we did. The baby was gone when he got to Tim's apartment. Dowd's elaborate air show, dropping the baby doll and the blood, had indeed been a threat. But he had never been in a position to carry it out.

She sniffled loudly. “The baby was my priority. I had to keep him safe. I didn't have the phone number for Tim's parents. You've got to believe me.”

“We do,” Sharon said. “It's going to be all right.”

And it would, I supposed. Peralta pulled out his cell phone and slipped outside. I watched my wife cradle the baby with such natural love and wondered what might have been, wondered how she could ever doubt she would make a good mother.

40

The next morning, Mike and Sharon drove us to the ornate Santa Fe railroad station in downtown San Diego. He was healing quickly from the beating he had received in Paradise Valley. He made sure that I knew he had been ambushed and fought through two Taser shocks before he passed out and they got his gun. Beyond that, I was certain that we would never discuss it. I already knew that no bad guys would ever get his firearms without a hell of a fight.

Lindsey and I had tickets to Los Angeles, where we would catch the Coast Starlight to Seattle. We had a sleeping compartment reserved. I carried a bag full of books.

“You two have fun in the cool weather,” Sharon said. After she hugged us, Peralta shook my hand and I saw the gratitude in his eyes. Nothing more needed to be said. Then he slipped his hand into Sharon's and, if even for a moment, everything seemed right with the world.

“When you get back,” he said, “we've got work to do.”

I had no doubt. I offered my arm, and Lindsey stepped up into the train car. I followed her and we found seats. From inside, we watched our friends wave one more time as the locomotive whistle sounded and we started to move.

I turned to Lindsey.

“Have you ever had sex on a train?”

“Not yet, Dave.”

That night, as the train rolled through northern California, I made love with my wife and slept without dreams.

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Paying My Debts

My editor Barbara Peters saw the possibilities in this series from the start. I owe her for encouraging me to keep it going, and especially for the skills, intellect, and inspiration that make her America's top editor of mysteries. She styles herself the Evil Editor, but I have only received the good. The Poisoned Pen Press is a treasure, and I am particularly grateful to Rob Rosenwald, Jessica Tribble, Nan Beams, Annette Rogers and Suzan Baroni.

Cal Lash, retired Phoenix Police detective and a private investigator, once again was exceptionally helpful and patient with my questions. Maricopa County Deputy County Attorney David R. Foster likewise provided valuable assistance.

Even before I finished my previous book,
Powers of Arrest, A Cincinnati Casebook
, readers wanted to know when the next David Mapstone Mystery would be coming. So I owe you all my biggest debt, whether you started the series at its outset in 2001 or recently got hooked. It's humbling to see how many people are moved by the lives of these characters, including the biggest of all, Phoenix. Thank you.