Jon Talton - Dry Heat

“It’s nice,” I said.

“Well, don’t be too damned self-satisfied,” he said. “All you did was prove to be an adequate pursuit driver and a fair arresting officer. Otherwise…”

Lindsey smiled slyly at me, her blue eyes keeping me calm.

“We’ll just never know about that FBI badge,” Peralta continued.

“I turned in my report.”

“Oh, right,” Peralta said. “The Chicago Outfit murdered Pilgrim. Even though there’s no evidence.”

“It’s what the best evidence shows.”

“How much did the taxpayers of Maricopa County pay to send you to the Bay Area?” He folded his arms across his big chest and glowered at me. With Peralta you never knew where the theater ended and the real-life asskicking would begin.

“Admit it, Mapstone. You couldn’t solve this case.”

“I did my best.”

“You failed. I bet a rookie in patrol could have gotten further than you. All that book learning and you still failed.”

“He didn’t fail,” Lindsey said.

There was a slight tapping on the door.

“Come!” Peralta said. Every office was Peralta’s office.

A gaunt lined face appeared around the doorjamb. A.C. Hardin. Wearing a sun dress and bangles on her wrists.

“I said I’d come by for my file. Is this a good time?”

I motioned her in and made introductions. She sensed the plume of anger hanging in the room and was eager to leave. But Peralta held her with his presence, although his bulk remained folded in thirds in his seat like a deck chair.

“So you studied this case?”

She nodded, then said, “Yes,” as if more reinforcement was needed.

“What do you think happened to Pilgrim?” Peralta asked.

Hardin looked uneasily at me. I just raised my eyebrows and smiled. I was daydreaming about Lindsey. My fingers were still happy from stroking her hand, her wrist…How could something as ordinary as a wrist tell so much?

Hardin was saying, “Like I told your deputy here, it was the mob out of Chicago, and the FBI covered it up.” Peralta gave a noncommittal, “Umm.” Then he stood and started out. Hardin came closer to my desk, her hand out for the folder. It was like guests leaving the party. I pulled out the papers she had lent me-none too helpful, frankly-and reached across the desk. She reached her slim, young-girl arm, to take it. And her bangles slid up on her forearm.

And I noticed.

It made me sit back in my chair. Hardin swiveled and walked toward the door. She was wearing high-heeled sandals that clacked against the dark wood of the floor. Peralta held the door for her. Lindsey was standing, too, closer to the bulletin board. She was watching me.

I said, too loudly, “Amelia!”

Hardin stopped in the doorway, turned, and looked at me curiously.

“Stay just a sec,” I said, rising and quickly crossing to the bookshelves. “I just want to ask one last question.”

My finger raced across frayed book spines. There: a 1948 Phoenix city directory. I thumbed it. Found the page. And damned if the name wasn’t there.

Hardin had stepped back in the door. The hundred lines in her face seemed to deepen. I closed the book, with my finger keeping the place. I was afraid to move.

“Didn’t you tell me that you grew up here?”

“That’s right,” she said. “That’s a lot of what I paint. What I remember about this place, before they ruined it.”

“On Verde Lane, right? 2320 West Verde Lane?”

She nodded. “Before it was even in the city limits.” Then she gave a little drunken lean against the doorjamb, looked at me, and started out. But Peralta was there. The top of her head came up to the midpoint of his necktie.

“I need to go,” she said, trying to push past him. “I have to…” He gently herded her into the room.

“It’s funny you say that because the city directory lists an Aimee Weed at that address. And that’s the mother of the man we found carrying Pilgrim’s badge.”

Hardin’s mouth tightened, but she said nothing, refusing to look at me. Peralta said, “Let’s sit down for a minute,” and he guided her to a chair.

“Am I under arrest?” she asked quietly.

“We’re just talking,” Lindsey said, sitting on the edge of the desk. “You can go if you like.”

Hardin folded her arms tightly across her chest.

“Amelia,” I said. “I can get your birth certificate.”

“I always hated that name,” she said.

Big rooms hold quiet strangely. Sometimes it’s as if the quiet of decades ago still lives in the highest pockets of the high ceilings.

“I had a brother named George,” she said at last.

“Why did he have the badge?” Lindsey asked, her voice diamond-cutter gentle.

“My mother was a very stupid woman,” Hardin said. “After dad died, she had to go to work. She became a secretary in the federal building. That would have been 1947? I can’t believe how long I’ve lived.”

Then silence. Finally Lindsey said, “That doesn’t sound stupid. She did what she could, I’m sure.”

“She was stupid to fall for John Pilgrim.”

“They were lovers?” Lindsey asked.

“He promised her he’d leave his wife and marry her,” Hardin said in a louder voice. “And Georgie and I would have a new daddy.”

“So,” I said, “Pilgrim gave George the badge, maybe to hang on to for a few days?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“I didn’t know Georgie took it,” she said. “He was such a sweet little boy. The perfect little brother. I hate the world, the way it wads up people and throws them away…” She glanced at the photo of the dead homeless man on the bulletin board and quickly looked away.

Peralta said, “So let me get this straight: the homeless man was your brother? And you and he were children when your mother was dating this FBI agent?”

“That’s about right,” Hardin said, still facing Lindsey. Then, softer, “It doesn’t really matter now, does it? All these years? I still remember it like it just happened. It was a warm November, and Mom and Mr. P.-that’s what we were told to call him-took us for a picnic. He drove us in his Buick. We drove out of town, and spread a blanket under the cottonwoods.”

Peralta locked eyes with me, but I had no information to telegraph.

“We ate these little sandwiches with thousand island dressing,” she continued. “And we played by the canal. Mom made me watch Georgie while they walked a ways down the bank. I don’t know when they started arguing. They argued a lot. That was nothing new. But I hated it. The voices. The things they said. I knew it upset Georgie, too.”

“What happened next?” Lindsey asked.

“Mr. P. hit her. He hit her so hard that she fell on the ground, and she cried. He was such a son of a bitch. Later, I realized that was the moment when he told her he wasn’t going to leave his wife. And that was it.”

“You never saw Pilgrim again?”

Her voice changed. “He had left his gun in the car’s glove compartment. His badge, too, I guess. After he was shot, he staggered a little, and fell into the canal. Mom got us back in the car and we drove back to town. Then we left the car and walked back home. And she cried a lot. I never knew what happened to his gun or badge.”

“Your mother shot him,” Lindsey said.

Hardin shook her head, her small mouth in something like a smile. “I was eight years old, and my daddy had taught me how to fire a gun. And that man never hurt my mother again.”

“Salud!” Peralta said. “Or vashe zdorovie! In honor of our Russian.”

“I taught you that,” Lindsey said.

Peralta bought celebratory drinks across the street, at Tom’s Tavern. It was the oldest political hangout in the state. But unlike mere mayors and governors, who might merit one photo on the wall, Peralta was the subject of three photos and a lush portrait. Lindsey called it “the shrine.” If he was self-conscious, he hid it well.