Jon Talton - Cactus Heart

“Oh, baby…”

“I was very fortunate with my grandparents. And who knows about great wealth. There’s that whole business about the rich man passing through the eye of a needle.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, no religion during the holidays.”

I couldn’t tell if she was being ironic. How could you know these days?

Just then my cell phone rang. The number was unfamiliar.

I excused myself and went to the little alcove off the Los Olivos bar to return the call. A mariachi band was playing Christmas tunes in the sound system.

“Deb Boswell.”

“It’s David Mapstone with the Sheriff’s Office,” I said.

“Mapstone, you’re quite something.” Her voice was brighter than the dour academic I remembered from Hawkins’ office. “Your grandfather was a dentist?”

“That’s right.”

“And he treated these boys? Andrew and Woodrow Yarnell?”

“Apparently.”

“Why would that be? Why would he have treated them?”

Suddenly I felt like I was in an interview room with the cops, on the bad luck side of the table.

“He was a dentist,” I said. “Phoenix was smaller then. It probably had 40,000 people during the Depression, and not that many dentists. I don’t know.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m from Detroit, so it’s hard for me to have a sense of this place.”

“I found the records stored among Grandfather’s files. I immediately logged them into evidence.”

“It was pretty unusual to see dental X-rays in 1940,” she said.

“These were rich people,” I said. “And Grandfather loved gadgets.”

I was bursting with anticipation, but something told me not to rush her.

“Well,” she said, “it’s the jackpot. Based on the dental records, the skeletons you guys found are indeed the remains of Andrew and Woodrow Yarnell. Each little boy had a silver filling in a molar.”

“And the DNA profile?”

“Both tests are telling us accurate information,” Boswell said. “Deputy, you have a mystery on your hands.”

I walked Gretchen to her truck, reveling in the cool, dry evening. She wore a lightweight leather jacket over a dark blouse and tight blue jeans. The leather felt soft and supple as I slipped my hand around her. She leaned into me. The Christmas lights were up in downtown Scottsdale, and tourists sauntered along window-shopping, pairs of shadows down the street.

“Do you want some company?”

She put her hand in my back pocket. “That would mean I would have to give you my address.”

“Do you trust me, Gretchen?”

“If you came to my place, you’d fuck me,” she whispered, her voice husky. “You might just fuck me crazy.”

I ran my hands down her sweet, denim-encased hips, pulled her closer.

“That would be the idea.”

She checked her watch. “Why don’t I come to your place later? Will your high-powered roomie be put out?”

For a moment I wondered if she were married. That might be one reason to not give me her address, to not ride out here with me. We stood beside her big white SUV. I caressed her face and she leaned in, kissing me deeply. As we were parting, I told her the latest news on the twins.

“It is definitely them,” I said. “Either the DNA test was inconclusive, or they had a different mother from Max and James.”

She turned her head away and I could see her eyes were full of tears. They gleamed off the streetlights like new stars.

“Gotta go, David. Thank you for a nice evening.” She gently but firmly pushed me away, and soon the Ford’s taillights disappeared around the corner. I was left alone on the street.

I drove slowly down Main Street, past the rows of tony galleries. The car was a warm haven for a man mellowed by two Negra Modelos and aroused by Gretchen’s kisses. Clots of white-haired tourists milled along the street. Then, past the traffic circle with the bronze of the bucking bronco, Main Street emptied out. I was just about to accelerate over to Goldwater Boulevard when another white head caught my eye. A man in a checked shirt and khaki pants, sitting on a bench. It was James Yarnell.

“I’m seeing you more often than I see my wife,” he said after I stopped and got out. We had interviewed him on Sunday.

“Are you all right?”

He looked me over in an unfocused way. I could smell booze on him.

“I’m just closing up for the night.” He gestured over his shoulder to the Yarnell Gallery’s large, well-lit windows. I sat on the bench beside him, and for a long time we just listened to the night noises in a city of cars.

“Eventually you lose everybody,” he said.

“I’m very sorry about your brother.”

“I didn’t love him,” he said. “I won’t pretend that.” I thought of Lindsey’s anguished words about her mother. “It’s just he was family. We were the last of the famous Yarnell brothers.”

James stared into the sidewalk. “Max wasn’t always the man he became, the man you met. He was a link to my parents and my grandpa and my little twin brothers.”

A little group of tourists speaking German walked behind us, wowed by a large painting visible in the gallery.

“What do you think happened to Andrew and Woodrow?”

He shook his head, his handsome face a mask.

“Deep inside, I always knew they had to be dead. But when you never have a resolution, you never really know. So you always hold out hope. Grandfather hoped nearly to the end. He’d been able to do so much in his life out of sheer will. Then, he just seemed to give up one day. This great life force went out of the man.”

The tourists moved down the street and we were alone again. I said, “You don’t talk about your father much.”

He leaned back on the bench and sighed. “Morgan Yarnell had the misfortune to be the son of a larger-than-life man, and the husband of a very strong woman, my mother. Even his brother, Uncle Win, was colorful and loud. Dad wasn’t a bad person. He was just so…” he searched for the word, “…eclipsed. I guess he deserves more memory than that from his son. But, you see, when you’re a boy, those big personalities stay with you. By the time I came back from the war, Dad was dead. I guess I never really knew him.”

I hunched down, feeling suddenly cold. “How much did you know about your family’s affairs back then?”

“How much does a kid know?” he said. “We weren’t the happiest family in the world, but we weren’t the unhappiest either.”

“The records you let me see, they show a company that was in trouble.”

“It was the Depression.”

“Morgan took more of a role in the company.”

“Yes, Dad was the reliable son.”

“What about Win?”

“Win wasn’t in the business.”

“So no problems with the Yarnell Land & Cattle Co. other than the general economy?”

James shook his head. “Mapstone, I had my head more on horses and girls, not necessarily in that order, than the family business. In fact, I couldn’t wait to get away from it. Max was the businessman, always was. Let’s walk down the street and get a drink.”

“I’ve got to go,” I said. “One more question. Are you sure your brothers were blood kin?”

For just a moment, he looked remarkably like Max: the piercing, impatient glare. “What are you talking about?”

I told him about the dental records.

“That’s impossible.” He stood and started to walk away.

I followed him. “Why would it be impossible?” I demanded. “People are adopted all the time.”

“You’re crazy,” he shouted, in a breathy, drunken voice. I was surprised by his reaction. Gone was the easy-going demeanor of that night at Gainey Ranch, when I had first asked about the adoption issue.