Kissing Arizona (18 page)

‘I said, “Gee, I was so hoping to make new friends.” Chuy said, “See, now you running your mouth again,” and hit me on the ear. He put some kind of a special snap into it, hurt like hell. I said, “Hit me again, punk, you can peddle your own junk.” He started telling me how many ways he would kill me if I gave him any trouble, but then the pilot spoke up for the first time and said, “Chuy, you fuckhead, will you shut up and load this airplane so I can get out of here?” He was very nervous. Later, when Chuy disappeared, I realized why.

‘The pilot alerted me when we were a few minutes out. I called the number Chuy gave me to call, told them to meet us. We were near the ocean in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, that's all I ever found out. I could see the pilot getting tense and I saw why: it was a very short runway. For a couple of minutes I was sure we were going right into the sand dune. Then the wings wobbled in the wind and we were down and I was surprised my pants were still dry.

‘Three white guys with funny accents were waiting in a beat-up truck that said Al's Yard Service on the door. Slatted sides hung all over with gardening tools, sacks of mulch in the back, tarp over it. Perfect camo.

‘Two of them pulled samples out of all the bricks, sniffed it, tasted it, got out their little tester kits and went to work. They didn't shoot up, they didn't look like users – no sniffy noses and they weren't jumpy. When the tester said OK the third one climbed in the plane with me and opened a briefcase. I counted the money and put it in Chuy's bag, three hundred beautiful thousands, banded in little tight stacks.'

‘Bet that gave you a hard-on, huh?' Cruz asked him. ‘Did you manage to palm a few bills?'

‘I thought about it, who wouldn't? But the pilot had bragged to me how many weapons he had on him. And I figured Chuy would count it as soon as we landed and he did.'

‘The Carolina people give you any trouble?'

‘Nobody said anything friendly but nobody shot at us either.

‘We slept in the plane that night, took off at first light. Stopped for fuel again, somewhere in Oklahoma, and went right on. We had snacks in the plane and we were more relaxed going back, we talked some. The pilot told me about José, the guy who usually went on these flights with him, said he was home in Mexico now because his mother was sick.

‘That's what gave Chuy the idea for this extra trip they were making, that the real dealers, Rafi and Huicho, didn't know about. While they were in Florida and José in Mexico City, Chuy made this deal for an extra shipment, using his own supplier and their customers. “You and I can split the profit,” Chuy told the pilot, “and they'll never know.”

‘We got back to Tucson by mid-afternoon. Chuy took the briefcase, counted it right there in front of both of us. I said, “Don't I have a little tip coming out of that?” Chuy said, “Your pay is, my cousin don't break your legs over that lousy check.” I said, “At least give me a ride back to town,” and he said, “Get lost, we gotta get this plane serviced before tomorrow morning.” They were in a hurry, but he enjoyed treating me like dirt, too.

‘I walked back to the main terminal and cleaned up in a rest room. When a big flight came in I climbed on the airport shuttle bus, told him the plane lost my luggage but I was going to the downtown Hilton. I rode to the hotel, went in the front and out the back and walked home from there. I was so tired, I slept all day and all night.'

‘But not too tired, I hope,' Phil Cruz said, ‘to write down the call numbers of that airplane and put them in a safe place.'

‘And the hangar number. As well as the address on that gardening truck, Special Agent,' Calvin said.

‘All of which you are willing to give me.'

‘Just as soon as you get me out of here.'

Calvin Inman's natural high color, Sarah thought, was coming back.

Back at the station, Leo Tobin followed Sarah into her workspace saying, ‘Don't sit down, OK? Come with me to Delaney's office.'

Ollie and Jason were waiting by the door. They stood around Delaney's desk in the cramped space while Leo said, ‘I just found a copy of the check for the gun purchase in Frank Cooper's file. It was attached to a list – one thing you gotta love about Frank Cooper, he kept neat lists. This one has one more gun than we've ever found.'

Delaney asked him, ‘Purchased at the same time as the others?'

‘Uh . . . yeah.' He read off a five-year-old date and the description of the piece: ‘S&W model 60 LS, .357 Magnum Chiefs Special.'

‘Aha,' Ollie said, smiling his prankster smile, ‘the LadySmith. Now isn't that interesting?'

‘Niiiice.' Jason lit up, dragged the word out while he wiggled his butt and patted the top of his head. ‘Uses the same ammo as his gun. Hey . . . his and hers shooting excursions, whaddya think? Pretty Freudian.'

‘I wouldn't know about
that
,' Delaney said, looking as if he didn't think Jason should either. He turned to his computer saying, ‘Remind me, Sarah, what day did you file your interview reports?'

‘You don't need to look them up,' Sarah said, ‘I remember what everybody said.' She stared into a corner while she recalled. ‘Nicole said her father gave her the same weapon her mother had, a Beretta Bobcat. We brought it in for testing. Just as she said, it hadn't been fired – or cleaned – in years. She hates guns, she put it in a drawer and forgot about it. Tom Cooper owns the same model gun as his father, shared some shooting excursions with him when they first got the weapons, but they didn't get along any better at the shooting range than anywhere else. Tom claims he quit shooting a couple of years ago. We tested his gun. It hadn't been fired in some time and hasn't been cleaned since the last time it was used. Andy said he thought it was dangerous now and should be destroyed. Lois's sister Fran said Lois never wanted the gun Frank gave her and never used it. Fran says she feels the same way her sister did, never owned or fired a gun. Everything about her lifestyle says she's telling the truth.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Doilies on chair-arms. Quilts everywhere. Bingo at the church Wednesday nights and a china teacup collection in a hutch . . .'

‘OK, OK, I got it. What about the manager at the second store?'

‘Phyllis Waverly. I asked her. She said Frank offered her a gun but she didn't want it and said no.'

‘Well,' Leo Tobin said, ‘somewhere there's a lady with a LadySmith.'

‘Or anyway a LadySmith. We need to dig deeper into Frank Cooper's life,' Delaney said. ‘Are you sure you've got all his computers? Look for an extra bank deposit box, or a numbered account – follow the money trail. Wasn't there something in those interviews about bankers not being happy with his bottom line? Maybe the LadySmith lady got more than shooting lessons. Sarah, give him a hand with this, will you? I've got everybody else working on the stash house.'

Walking back toward their workspaces, Leo Tobin's voice sounded as if it was coming from the bottom of a well. ‘I'm not a damn CPA,' he rumbled. ‘He could have a dozen accounts hidden around. Where the fuck do we start, even?'

‘I think I should start with Nicole,' Sarah said, ‘since I already know her, a little.'

‘Doesn't she have a vested interest in covering up any funny business, though?'

‘Of course. Which is why
you
have to start where you just said, with his CPA.'

‘Whose name I suppose we get from Nicole, right?' They stopped and faced each other. Leo's eyebrows twitched. ‘We keep running into feedback loops, don't we?'

Besides, Delaney pointed out when they asked him, there was no money in his budget for a CPA. ‘You'll have to handle it in-house,' Delaney said. ‘Get somebody on the support staff to help you add up the totals. Then we'll look at them and –' he waved a hand vaguely – ‘see what we think.'

‘Which will be
nada
,' Leo said, as they walked away again. ‘What a crock. This is a job for a specialist.'

‘Actually it isn't,' Sarah said. ‘Happily enough, this is just exactly the right kind of a job for Genius Geek.'

‘Who?'

‘Tracy Scott. Part-timer on the support staff.'

‘That flamboyant kid with the big mouth and acne? I always try to stay away from him.'

‘Ah, but if I told you he was a genius at searching files . . .'

‘In that case I love the little creep. Is he working today?'

‘Ask Elsie.' Elsie Dobbs ran the support staff and like Delaney was constantly being asked to do more with less money.

‘He's not coming in unless I call, these days,' Elsie said. Her look said she might not call any time soon. ‘I'm on orders to cut back where I can, and Tracy's certainly one of those places.' Tracy's noisy wackiness annoyed her, and he compounded the offense by being better at all her jobs than she was.

‘But if I sign a request form you could get him in here tomorrow, right?'

‘Oh, yes.' Elsie sniffed. ‘Whatever Homicide wants, Homicide gets.'

‘Why didn't I know
that
before?' Leo said, walking away. ‘You think we'll get the weird kid some time tomorrow?'

‘Probably. We have to work around his class times, he goes to Pima College. But he's fast and wicked smart. Tell Tracy what you're looking for, he'll find it if it's there.'

Sarah heard his clatter and wild laugh in the hall the next morning. He came into her workspace making his own breeze, scattering papers as he bent over her hand.

‘My savior! I was afraid I'd been frozen out of the halls of justice forever. Thank you for calling, dear lady!'

‘No thanks necessary. We have urgent need of your smarts this week.'

‘Genius Geek is yours to command.' He rose to his full height, which was about five feet nine on tiptoes, and made a sweeping bow. ‘Unfortunately I left my cape at home but . . . what anomalies can I ferret out for you this time?'

‘You're going to be working for my associate, to begin with. I want to warn you that he's pretty, um, straight arrow? So to succeed in this job I would urge you to be a little . . . circumspect.'

‘Ah, circumspect.' He smiled widely, his braces gleaming in the sunshine. ‘Is that Sarahspeak for “shut your big bazoo”?'

‘How precisely you take my meaning.'

‘Fear not, dear lady. I can do starchy decorum when I have to. From your expression I gather I have to.'

‘'Fraid so.'

Tracy sighed. ‘The things I do for love. Where do I go for this torture?'

‘Follow me.'

Leo was stiff and forbidding while she introduced them. When they were all sitting uncomfortably in his small workspace she began, ‘We have this apparent murder-suicide of a couple with a spotless public record . . .' Sarah described the domineering father with the argumentative wife and icy children. Tracy said he'd read accounts of the crime online, then sat with eyes half-closed while Leo told him about the many guns found and the LadySmith not found, the successful business with the big cash flow and skinny bottom line. When Leo paused Tracy said, ‘Are his computers all here?'

‘On a table behind those two cold-case detectives over there.' Leo led the way to a table wedged into a dark, inhospitable corner. Industrial-strength power cord snaked along the wall, duct-taped against a baseboard so Leo wouldn't get sworn at any more by people tripping over it. On the table, a big Dell Dimension sprouted external drives and USB memory sticks all over itself like spring shoots on a palo verde. Sarah saw Tracy's fingers curl with delight. ‘Over here is the little desktop he kept at home. He kept his personal banking records on here, correspondence about gun clubs and such. Otherwise he seems to have used it mainly to explore for new ideas on the Internet. And then he had all these other gadgets,' Leo said, showing him an iPhone, a Kindle, and an iPad. ‘I don't know how much time he spent on any of these, but have a look, huh?'

Aglow, Tracy asked him, ‘Is there a chair?'

Leo Tobin, suddenly all charm, went around the section borrowing a chair, a clip-on desk light, a yellow legal pad and a couple of ballpoint pens. Before he even had the chair, Tracy began booting up, making small, happy sounds. When Leo pushed the chair behind his knees he put his skinny butt on it and never spoke another word. They left him typing at awesome speed.

Back in his workspace Leo said, ‘Weird kid knows the wired world, huh?'

‘Just wait,' Sarah said.

‘I've got the night off,' Will Dietz said. ‘So don't worry, I'll get Aggie home.'

‘What would I do without you?' Sarah said, and kissed him so he never wanted to find out. She and Denny packed that night, duffels full of their clothes and gear to take to Marana, to stay as long as Aggie needed them. She gave Will a grocery list and another list of things to do in Aggie's house so it would be comfortable when she got there. With each list she asked him, ‘Are you sure this is all right with you? I do thank you for all this work,' she said.

‘Sure,' Will said. ‘My other phone's blinking, I'll talk to you later.' His other phone wasn't blinking, but sometimes when Sarah started trying to run the entire known world at once, he needed an excuse to seek refuge.

A wheelchair pusher brought Aggie to the front door. Her hand was a little shaky, but not bad, when she stood up and took his arm. She slid into the passenger seat and buckled up with no trouble. ‘Ah, sunshine,' she said, as they pulled out of the parking lot, and started a rant about hospitals. ‘I know I owe those people my life, but I do hope I never see any of them again.'