Desert Noir (9781615952236) (2 page)

Feeling my stomach churn with rage as I thought of Jay, I tried to calm myself with memories of Clarice. She'd been the first of the gallery owners to welcome me to Main Street, the only one who hadn't been initially nervous about sharing the neighborhood with a private detective lured there by the reasonable rent. While I'd been intimidated by her rich-girl beauty, her democratic personality eventually won me over. As I remembered her generous smile and outgoing manner, I caught myself frowning at something that had bothered me at her funeral. Hardly anyone had been in attendance. Had Clarice devoted so much time to her art gallery that she'd neglected her family and friends? Still, it was unusual that people hadn't turned out, given the sensational way she died.

Refusing to think about it any more, I turned back to the front page of the paper and studied today's headline. COYOTE BITES TODDLER! Underneath was a picture of a crying child, adults hovering around him in a nervous circle. The story's sub-head read, NEIGHBORS DEMAND PROTECTION!

“What the hell's all this?” I pointed to the paper.

Jimmy turned around, his mahogany eyes sad. “You know those new condos along Indian Bend Wash, just west of the new freeway?” 

I nodded. The Pima Freeway, which separated Scottsdale from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Reservation, was named in honor of Jimmy's tribe although recently, an effort had been launched to rename it the “John Wayne Highway.” Since Wayne had spent much of his movie career slaughtering Indians, the Pimas—who had always been peaceful farmers—were not amused.

“Well, the freeway and that new development are poking into the coyotes' territory,” Jimmy continued. “It's annoying the javelinas, too. None of the animals out there have enough to eat now so they're all starting to come into town, raid the Dumpsters.” He shook his head again. “We won't have any wildlife left at all in a year or two. Maybe just a cactus wren or something flying down from the Tonto National Forest.” 

I feared he was right. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe the wildlife rescue folks can do something about it.” 

“You wish. You know those people in the condos are always screaming rabies.” 

I did wish. All too often these days coyote corpses were seen lying alongside Scottsdale's eastern border, sometimes even in the city itself. Only last month a Mercedes broadsided a young javelina as it oinked its way across the street in back of the IMAX Theater. Bit by bit, we were destroying the West.

Suddenly I didn't feel like arguing anymore. I sighed and looked out the front window past the big gold DESERT INVESTIGATIONS letters, hoping to catch a little pre-scorch sunshine. Instead, I was rewarded with the sight of a disheveled tourist propped against a lightpole coyly shaped to resemble a carriage lamp. If I wasn't mistaken, that vomit-stained rag he wore was an Armani suit.

“Pale face drink too much firewater,” I said.

Jimmy laughed. “I'm surprised the cops haven't scooped him up by now.” Then he returned his attention to the computer screen. He was trying to break into Seriad Inc.'s security system, all on the legal up-and-up. Since computer crime was such big business these days, large corporations paid big bucks to companies such as ours to see if we could find weaknesses in their systems. As it said on our business card, “If we can't break in, no one can.” I still couldn't get over how much money we were making.

As if Jimmy's words were father to the deed, a blue-and-white wheeled around the corner with its lights flashing and stopped in front of the drunk. Two uniforms got out, raised the man up, brushed him off, and gently helped him to the squad car. They probably wouldn't arrest him, just take him back to his hotel. Jailed drunks don't shop.

I was getting ready to share this bit of social commentary with Jimmy when the office door opened and a lawyer walked in. You could tell he was a lawyer by his immaculate baby blue linen suit over an even paler blue shirt, the whole business ornamented by a burgundy bow tie. Although gray as a badger and pushing sixty as hard as he could push, the man was lean and fit with a tennis player's body. Money there, I thought. Big money.

Big Money looked at Jimmy, then at me, eyeing the two-inch scar above my right eyebrow. Geez,
two
people with messed-up faces. “Are you Lena Jones?” “You don't have an appointment.” I don't like walkins, no matter how much money they represent.

“I'm here on Clarice Kobe's behalf.”

I blinked. Why would a dead woman need a private detective? “Mister-whoever-you-are, I've met Clarice's attorney and she didn't look anything like you.” Big Money gave me a sour look. “Is there some place we can talk in private?” For a moment I was tempted to have Jimmy throw him out—which he could have easily done since Jimmy, like most Pimas, was a large man—but my curiosity won out over my irritation. Matching the attorney's sour look with my own, I led him into the small office set aside for client consultations, and used exactly twice since Desert Investigations opened. Gesturing him into a chair, I moved to the bleached oak desk I'd bought in a fit of temporary insanity. I took another sip of my coffee but didn't offer him any.

“On Clarice's behalf, you say?”

He raised his shoulders. “In a manner of speaking. I'm actually here on behalf of Jay Kobe, her husband.” 

I stood up. “You've got three seconds to clear out of this office, then I call Jimmy.” 

The lawyer remained seated. “Whatever problems were between them, Clarice wouldn't want her husband to go to prison for a crime he didn't commit.” 

“Oh, come on. She was divorcing him, as you well know, because for years he beat the holy living hell out of her. And just in case your client didn't tell you, there was a restraining order in effect against him when he killed her. And let us not forget the bloody shoes they found in his alley. His shoes.” Remembering Clarice's savaged body, it was all I could do to keep from spitting in his face.

Big Money smiled. “Now, Lena. You know better than that. Just because a man beats his wife doesn't mean he'll actually kill her.” 

“Tell that to Nicole Brown Simpson. And it's
Miss
Jones to you.” 

Another sour look, then he rustled around in his pocket, pulled out a business card and slapped it down on the desk. The card was Albert Grabel's, CEO of Seriad, Inc. On the back was a note in Grabel's handwriting which said, “Lena, Jay Kobe is my wife's nephew. Please help him.” 

I looked around the office, at my expensive—if tacky—furniture, all courtesy of the computer chip magnate who'd set me up in business after I took a bullet in the hip. True, I'd been shot getting his foolish, drug-addicted son out of a self-inflicted mess, but still…I was a cop and protecting fools was my job. Grabel hadn't looked at the situation that way. After the doctors released me from the hospital, he shipped me off to a fancy clinic in California. And when the head of the Violent Crimes Unit moved me to a desk job despite my protests, Grabel stepped in again and convinced me my future lay in preventing computer crime.

The fact that I was scared of my own Macintosh didn't faze Grabel. He knew somebody who wasn't, he said, an Indian genius with a tattooed face who had just spent the morning spooking the hell out of Seriad's personnel director.

I handed Grabel's card back to Big Money and sat down again. “So what's your name?”

“Hal McKinnon.
Mr.
McKinnon to you.”

I smiled. “Well, Hal. Convince me that shithead didn't kill Clarice.” 

By the time McKinnon finished talking, I was worried. Jay was screaming frame—no surprise there—but some aspects of the case bothered me. True, Jay was an evil-tempered thug who'd beaten his wife on numerous occasions, a hearty partier with recreational drugs. And true, as a widower instead of an ex, he was now the beneficiary of Clarice's will—one hell of a motive for anybody. Clarice was worth, what? Several hundreds of thousands? A million? Motive, means, opportunity. They were all there. But didn't the whole case look a little too slick?

Unlike detective fiction, real murder cases leave loose ends dangling all over the place. McKinnon had made a pretty good point.

“Let me reiterate,” he finished with a smug look. “At the time of the murder, Mr. Kobe was in bed with his girlfriend, who will probably swear to that in court. And even if she doesn't, I'm betting the toxicology tests done on him will prove he was simply too drunk to leave the house. As for those bloody Nikes, they could have been planted.” 

“Who by? Elvis?”

He ignored me. “And don't forget about the gallery's back door.

It was halfway open, right?”

I nodded carefully, wondering where he was going with this.

“The door was smeared with blood, yet there were no fingerprints. Now, Le… uh, Miss Jones, don't you think that's odd?” 

Yes I did and the thought didn't cheer me. I wanted Kobe to be guilty. Clarice's face haunted my dreams, perhaps because I hadn't done enough to save her. In the six months I'd been her neighbor on Main Street, I'd seen bruises on her face more than once. But every time I'd tried to talk to her about it, she'd changed the subject. And I'd let her.

I sighed.

“Well?” McKinnon sounded impatient.

“Well what?” Just because he said his client was innocent didn't mean
I
needed to do anything about it, Albert's note or not. If Kobe hadn't killed Clarice, it was only because he hadn't gotten around to it yet.

McKinnon leaned forward and the flush that began at his neck rose slowly to his cheeks. Now he didn't look quite so healthy, more like a heart attack waiting to happen. “I'm trying to save this man's life. You were a cop. Didn't you ever save someone's life?” 

“Several times, as a matter of fact, but none of them were wife beaters.”

The flush intensified. “There's a lot of money involved here. You could get a goodly chunk.”

I shrugged. “I already have a car that runs, a two-year, paid-up lease on this office, and I don't collect Picasso. So exactly why would I need that, as you call it,
chunk?” 

McKinnon looked like he was about to stroke out. Then, after taking a few deep breaths, he surprised me and said, “Then let's see how this strikes you, Miss Jones. Albert Grabel told me how you got that scar on your face, and…” His flush now had nothing to do with anger. “Well, what I mean to say is, you help me and I'll help you. As I'm sure you realize, in my years as a defense attorney I've had some interesting clients. Maybe one of them knows somebody who shot a little girl in the head thirty years ago.” My scarred face must have revealed my sudden interest because McKinnon nodded and said, “Now that we've got our pissing contest out of the way, maybe you should go down to the Madison Street Jail and talk to my client.” I sighed again.

It seemed to be my day for sighs.

As soon as McKinnon left, I called the Scottsdale Violent Crimes Unit and asked to be put through to Captain Kryzinski, my old boss.

“Jay Kobe? You workin' for Jay Kobe? You nuts or what?” His Brooklyn accent always thickened when he was upset. “I thought you hated that dirt bag!” 

“Actually, I never met the man, so for now I can only hate him in the abstract. Will you help me or not?” 

Kryzinski breathed heavy for a moment. “If you were still one of my detectives you'd already have the information you're wantin',” he snapped. “So why don't you come on back?” 

I didn't want to be bothered covering old territory. “I'd like to see the case file. The lab test results, the notes from the investigating officers, the photos, everything. And I'd like to know the results of the AFIS check you ran on Jay when you booked him.” 

AFIS was Scottsdale's laser-based Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which was linked electronically with all other state and federal fingerprint identification systems around the country. The suspect put his fingers on a glass plate smaller than a post card, the laser scanned them, and the results came back almost instantaneously. You could book somebody for a D.U.I. and within an hour find out if they'd killed their Aunt Tilly in Winnetka—even if they'd given you a phony name and were driving under a phony license. Cops loved it. Suspects hated it.

Kryzinski grumbled. “Well, I don't got any problem lettin' you know 'bout that since that crazy Indian you're working with can find it out in a New York minute. Yeah, Kobe had form. Back seven years ago, before he became an artsy-fartsy type, he worked as a nightclub bouncer out in Bakersfield. One night he got a little too rough with a patron and put her in the hospital.” 

“Her?”

“Yeah, her. Some shaved-head punker with more piercings than Arizona's got snakes. She was drunk and making a total ass out of herself, but shit, he didn't have to go and do what he did. Busted her jaw, knocked out a few teeth. She came out of it okay, sued the club for a bundle. As for Muscle Man, he pulled six months.”