Jon Talton - Cactus Heart

It was a hardcover book, but it looked self-published. My Years on the Phoenix Force , by Joe Fisher. Using the skimming technique familiar to any former graduate student, I leafed through. It was badly written, although, hell, throw in some statistics and you could probably get it published in a professional history journal today. Fisher wrote about his role in the 1931 case of Winnie Ruth Judd, the trunk murderess. There he was again helping the Tucson cops arrest John Dillinger and his gang in 1934. If the writing hadn’t been so dry, I would have been tempted to linger. I knew that Fisher had been repeatedly decorated for bravery. He brought the most modern techniques to the force. And he had amazing success in coaxing confessions. Unfortunately the book seemed to offer no insights on these things, and I didn’t have the time. I moved forward, looking for the Yarnell kidnapping.

It wasn’t there. No index, damn. I went back through, but it still wasn’t there, and the book was nothing if not chronological. One of the most famous cases of his career, and he didn’t write about it. The book ended with a murder in 1943, and a typewritten insert in the back gave Fisher’s bio, including the fact that he had died in 1947.

I gave the book back to the curator, explained my dilemma, bought a museum membership, and lingered over a photo of the detective bureau, circa 1940. Fisher was identified, a short man in a fedora and suit with a broad, forgettable face. He didn’t look like a tough guy at all.

I spoke to him under my breath. “What the hell were you up to?”

“Deputy,” the curator called out and I walked over.

“I have one other idea for you,” he said.

“What do you mean Frances is dead?”

“She had a stroke the afternoon after your visit, Deputy.” Heather Amis’ voice was raw as sunstroke. “She slipped into a coma, and she died last night.”

It was Thursday morning and I was back at my office in the old courthouse, and suddenly the cavernous room felt claustrophobic. My travel plans for that day were evaporating.

“So now she’s finally free. Fifty-seven years she spent in here. I just can’t believe the cruelty. This poor, poor woman. And please spare me your speech about the rights of the victims.”

“I wasn’t going to make a speech. What happened to her sounds rotten.”

“You have no idea.”

I felt all my theories crashing into the wall of silence that developed on the phone. Finally, I asked, “Did you get a chance to ask her any of the questions I left for you?”

“No. You got her to talk more than I had ever seen. And she never said another word before she had the stroke.”

“Do you know about the crime?”

“I learned everything I could,” she said. “I also went back in her medical records.”

“I’ve learned a few things.” I shouldn’t have been discussing the case with a civilian, but how could my luck get any worse? “I learned that Jack Talbott couldn’t have been there the night of the kidnapping.”

Heather gasped, and I told her more.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “So old Hayden Yarnell must have suspected his son Hayden Jr. had done it. My God, that explains everything.”

“I can’t go that far,” I said. “I don’t know Talbott’s involvement. He was found with some of the ransom money in Nogales and the boys’ pajamas. That would still sway a jury today.”

“But Frances!” she nearly yelled. “My God, Frances was just caught up in this.”

“Maybe. She was an accessory. She went to Nogales with Talbott. Why?”

“I don’t know!” Heather’s voice was taut with frustration. “But I believed in her! It’s not like she had any family or even a lawyer. Nobody was fighting for her. And don’t think I’m a pushover, David. I know every inmate says she’s innocent. I think Frances really was.”

“Did she ever say so?”

“No. But have you found anything new that implicates her?”

I had to grant her that I had not. But if Frances had explained her innocence at the trial, told how she was caught up in something with which she had nothing to do, it was on pages of lost court transcripts. That was possible, but the newspaper accounts had no mention of it. She also never took the stand.

Heather started talking even before I was finished. “Maybe she was covering up for someone!”

“But then to not talk for all those years in prison? Why? Why still be covering up in the sixties, even the nineties, for God’s sake.”

“You’re dealing with the Yarnell family. Anything is possible when money and power are involved.”

“So why didn’t they have her killed, or have her released and buy her off?” I said. “Her silence was an act of her power, when you think about it. She made this choice. Most of the ransom money was never recovered. Maybe Frances knew where it was hidden, and she thought she would get out someday and retrieve it. That’s a powerful motive to keep silence.”

“God, I’m sick of men talking about power and women living without it! Do you believe what you just said?”

After a pause I had to admit I didn’t.

“I’ve been reading some of the notes the lead detective made in the case,” I said. “Joe Fisher. I just found some of his files. He had reservations about whether Frances was involved in the kidnapping. He testified at her trial for leniency.”

“My God…”

“But he couldn’t get past the fact that she was found with Talbott, with some of the ransom money and the pajamas. I have no idea whether he knew that Talbott was in jail the night of the kidnapping, but he did interview a lot of people about the possibility that others were involved.”

“Why didn’t he…?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to do the right thing, but he could never make the case.”

“You cops,” Heather said. “Always sticking together. Can’t you do anything, Mapstone? This woman was a victim! She never got justice. Don’t you care?”

I just listened. Anything I said would seem insincere.

“Mapstone?”

“I’m here. I do care, Heather. That’s why I’m asking these questions. I just can’t figure out what would have caused Frances to keep silent.”

Heather said, “I can think of one thing.”

The rap on the door was tentative, almost like someone made a mistake. Still absorbing the news from Heather Amis, I wanted to let them walk on. Whoever it was couldn’t want me that bad. But I set aside my notes and went to the door.

Before me stood a small, dark man in a starched white shirt and a bola tie. His face looked as lined and cracked as the desert itself, but his hair was vividly black and slicked back on his scalp. He carried a Stetson in one hand, a large, powerful-looking hand for such a small man.

“I am Luis Paz.”

I invited him in and sent Carl down to the marriage license bureau to get him a cup of coffee. Carl wouldn’t like it, but I was afraid the old man might walk out if I kept him waiting. Or he might just disappear like the apparition he seemed to be. I led him to one of the straight-back wooden chairs and invited him to sit. He put the Stetson on my desk.

“My son gave me your card.”

I told him that I appreciated that.

“He didn’t want me to come here. To open up things that should have been closed so long ago.”

“But you came anyway,” I said. I sat cautiously behind my desk. He regarded me in a long appraising glare.

“You work for Chief Peralta?”

I said I did.

“He’s a good man. I knew his father, the judge.”

“Mr. Paz, you worked as gardener…”

“I worked for Mr. Yarnell for nearly twenty years.”