Jon Talton - Cactus Heart

“I’d do it,” Kimbrough said, “if we had a scrap of evidence.”

“We don’t have any fingerprints? Nothing?” demanded a voice from off to the left.

“Not on the petrified wood,” Kimbrough said. “It was wiped clean. Family fingerprints in a family member’s house don’t mean squat. Can you say ‘reasonable doubt’? Ask the county attorney.”

We were getting nowhere. I wondered if Bobby Hamid would solve the case before three police agencies.

“Look,” Carrie said, a new edge to her voice. “We have one of the most prominent men in the state murdered. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling major heat to get some damned results, and soon. And I’m also feeling heat to treat the Yarnell family with tender loving care.”

Everybody stared at Kimbrough. He adjusted his bow tie and looked at me.

“Hawkins may be getting at one thing,” I said. “There’s something simple and straightforward in all this. We’re just not seeing it yet.”

That night, Peralta came home and announced we were going to get a Christmas tree. So we drove over to a little lot on Seventh Street and wrestled a six-foot-tall spruce into the back of his Blazer. Back at home, Peralta cooked steaks-I avoided the urge to fuss over him about his diet-while I dug out old Christmas lights and ornaments from the garage. We put the tree in the center of the picture window, just where the trees stood when I was growing up. And we trimmed it while the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang carols-Peralta vetoed my Blues Christmas CD. He restrained his bossiness. I restrained my guilt, and my memories of Sharon’s lips, fingers and lustrous black hair. I had allowed something secret and scary into my life.

After dinner, we lit the tree and, armed with scotch and cigars, we carried lawn chairs out by the street so we could sit and enjoy our handiwork. The night was suitably cool, almost crisp.

Peralta luxuriated in the lawn chair. “Want to come on a raid of a skinhead organization tomorrow? You haven’t been in a good gunfight for a few hours.”

“I’ll pass.” I lit the cigar and watched the tip glow festively in the night.

“C’mon, Mapstone. Drop your socks and grab your Glock.”

“I saw Sharon today.”

“How is she?”

“She’s okay. She’s worried about you.”

I am the most loathsome man on the planet.

“Well, that was nice of her.”

“I think she was reaching out to you.”

I am unworthy of any friendship.

“Well, she could try picking up the phone. That would be a first.”

“I know it’s not my business…”

Your wife kissed me. Your wife, who I have tried for 20 years to view like a sister and a friend, kissed me. And I kissed her back. And I liked it. I am lower than a worm.

“Mapstone,” Peralta said mildly, “you’re right. It’s not your business. Hell, she probably just came to see you.”

I started to say something but he held up a finger. Shhh.

Up and down Cypress Street, we could see Christmas lights coming on, festive little reds, blues, and greens from windows, self-conscious whites wrapping the orange tree two houses down. Our tree was traditional and comforting, filling the picture window with a poignant magic. The year had gone by too fast. There were too many people I was missing.

The address Gretchen gave me went to a four-story, red-brick apartment building on the corner of Twelfth Avenue and Adams. The place was eighty years old if it was a day-big windows closely spaced together, sleeping porches on the upper floors. She surprised me every time. At first, I imagined her in a single-family house in Ahwatukee, then maybe in a condo up around the Biltmore. It was that pleasant sensibility she carried around with no urban edge.

But her real home was in one of the toughest parts of the inner city-or it would have been if much were left. These old buildings from Phoenix’s early days once decorated the neighborhoods between downtown and the capitol. Brick replaced adobe as a sign of the frontier town’s progress. Now adobe was the sign of progress and Gretchen’s building was alone on the block, with a row of thick-trunk palm trees at the curb, half of them lacking tops. I parked, set the car alarm and went inside.

Her place was on the top floor, and she met me as I stepped onto the old hardwood of the hallway. She was wearing a white robe and maybe nothing else underneath.

“This is an amazing building. Something in Phoenix older than 1975.”

“An architect bought it and she’s restoring it floor by floor,” Gretchen said, coming into my arms and giving me a gentle, brush-across-the-lips kiss, then something deep, wet and lingering. “I love it here. Come in.”

The big front room was dominated by an Edward Hopper print. I’d seen it before, but it wasn’t one of his popular ones. It shows a woman sitting on a train. She has a dark hat, dark suit, fair hair. She’s reading and you can’t see her eyes. Out the train window is a stone bridge.

“It’s called Compartment C, Car 193 ,” Gretchen said, putting her arm around me. “I’ve always loved Hopper, once you get past seeing Night Owls everywhere.”

“We both like trains, I see.”

“I love trains,” she said. “One of the pleasures of living this close in is I can hear the whistles at night. I can even hear the cars banging together sometimes.”

She watched me as I walked over to a framed portrait on a table. It showed a young woman in bulky coveralls with a pack in front and holding a helmet. She was smiling broadly. Gretchen.

“I’ve read that smoke jumpers are the elite,” I said.

“It’s true, and there still aren’t many women who do it. I was very proud to get to be one of ‘the bros.’ Then I lost my passion for it. My youthful adventure.”

“Jumping into fire.”

“I’ve been known to do that.”

Her lips again came up. She was a woman who knew just how to tilt her head to meet the kiss from a taller man. “I was worried about you,” she said. “After you told me what happened the other night after we had dinner. Am I allowed to worry?”

“I want to be cared about,” I said. “I want to care in return.” She nuzzled my neck.

“Maybe you’ll come meet my parents sometime. I’ve told them about you. Don’t be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“Come on, I’ll give you the tour.”

She showed me around: a spacious workroom with a wooden table serving as desk; big bathroom with a claw-footed bathtub; a sleeping porch with wicker furniture and plants, and the bedroom set off with a comfy-looking queen-size bed beneath a curvy, wrought-iron headboard. Another Hopper on the wall, this one I hadn’t seen: a nude woman with reddish-brown hair, alone in a room and staring out a window, the sun bathing her skin in an alabaster glow. The woman wore black shoes and nothing else. Plants were everywhere, filling the space with a cheery greenery. I started to ease Gretchen toward the bed, but she said, “I have plans for you.”

She took my hand and led me through to the bathroom again. She started water in the tub. Then she turned and did that melting thing in my arms, where we totally merged. I reached inside the robe and caressed her warm skin.

“Thank you for trusting me to tell me where you live,” I said.

She kissed me, gently bit my lower lip, unbuttoned my shirt and ran her hands over my chest. “I do trust you,” she said. “But I want you very relaxed.”

She dropped to her knees in one fluid move and undid my jeans. They fell in a heap at my feet. The floor was small tiles of black-and-white ceramic.

“Boxer man,” she whispered, burying her face in my shorts, running a finger around the band, up inside the legs. She nibbled and licked around my belly as she eased the boxers off, too.