The white and blue City of Phoenix PD cruiser blew south on Highway 10 at 80 mph, the flashing lights and piercing siren pushing traffic aside like a dog scattering chickens from a path, until a semi-truck moved aside to reveal an ancient gray van wobbling down the center lane at 30 mph, its roof piled high with a couch, three chairs, a kitchen table and, improbably – or perhaps exactly right – a kitchen sink, all lashed together by clothesline with various lamps and doodads crammed into the mix. The back doors of the van held a large hand-painted picture of Christ.
“JESUS!” deputy investigator Tasha Novarro screamed, cranking the wheel and sending the cruiser into a tire-screeching sideways skid, the rear of the vehicle aiming dead-center at Jesus’s bearded chin until Novarro goosed the gas and yanked the wheel hard right, the cruiser’s tires catching concrete as it straightened out and passed the van on the driver’s side, Novarro’s adrenalin-charged mind photographing the driver: Hispanic, wizened though likely in his forties, a woman beside him in the van, two infants on her lap.
The pair had looked at Novarro with surprise: Qué estás haciendo aquí? – What are you doing here?
Novarro exhaled a breath and stared into the rear-view. A tough life, she thought. Traveling with the crops. Moving north with the harvest, stoop labor, picking beans or grapes or tomatoes or perching on a flimsy ladder to pluck oranges or grapefruit from the tops of trees. Not much had changed since Steinbeck. She shook her head in sadness, sighed and blasted down the exit to Baseline Road, tacking her way south, Phoenix’s South Mountain Park off her left shoulder, the craggy peaks rippling in the morning heat.
Novarro continued through several blocks of small houses with battered vehicles in the drives and angled uphill, passing a small ranch long past its prime, the split-rail fence tumbled, stalls once holding horses now storing a rusted tractor and a faded motorboat.
The road climbed a hundred feet in elevation. The address was in a dozen-home enclave sharing ten acres of north-facing mountainside abutting the park. Novarro pulled through an open wrought-iron gate set in high rock walls to see the kind of home she figured she’d buy someday, that day being the one right after she won the lottery: double-story hacienda-style with adobe walls, a tile roof, and acres of glass, a valley view from the front, the park in the rear. The front yard was landscaped with agaves and barrel cacti, bee brush and bursage, a line of white thorn acacias flanking the south side of the structure. Three City of Phoenix cruisers plus vans from forensics and county medical examiner jammed the circular drive.
A fourth vehicle caught her eye: an SUV from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Novarro heard herself groan.
She passed the ornate wooden door, open, nodding at the pair of forensics techs checking the knob for latents. The room was large and sun-bright and through a side window she saw cops checking for footprints in the sand and pebbles.
“Back here, Tasha.”
Novarro turned to see Agustín Sanches, a tech from the coroner’s department, enter from a room to the rear. Sanches was a friend, late thirties, moderate height, his cooking hobby displayed in a touch of pudge at his belt. His naturally black hair was tinted with just enough red that it could be noted under sunlight. He was one of the very few openly gay people in the department.
“Bad, Augie?” Novarro asked, meaning level of violence.
“Not butchery, but certainly not pleasant.”
Sanches handed her paper booties and she followed him to a marble-tiled solarium off the living area where a woman’s body sprawled on the floor, looking like she was running, upper leg extended, lower one bent back. She wore a threadbare sweatshirt and blue runner’s shorts. The body lay in a dark pool of dried blood, and Novarro gingerly circled it until she discovered the neck cut from ear to ear. Novarro winced: she could see into the windpipe. Drawers had been pulled from cabinets and emptied on the floor, a jewelry box there as well. Flies buzzed throughout the room.
“Dr Leslie Meridien,” Sanches said quietly. “Forty-four, psychologist. Unmarried. This is her home and office.”
Novarro batted away a fly and continued to circle the body, leaning close while jotting in a notepad. She pulled the victim’s sleeve up two inches, frowned, and made another notation.
“Blood’s dry, Augie. No rigor. Got a TOD estimate?”
“I’m a tech, Tash, not my place to—”
“C’mon … give.”
“She’s been dead two days, give or take.”
That made the death on Friday night or Saturday. “How’d she get discovered?”
“It’s cleaning day and the Mexican housekeeper let herself in like always,” a different voice answered. “Felicia Juarez ain’t having a good Monday.”
Novarro looked up to see Sergeant Merle Castle in the doorway, thirty-five, close-cropped brown hair and dark eyes with lashes so thick they could have been ads for Maybelline. Six feet and then some, with iron-pumper biceps crowding the short sleeves of the beige uniform shirt of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and ankle-high boots polished to a mirror gloss. Beside him was Burton Claypool, an officer with the Phoenix PD, and buddy of Castle.
“Little out of your new jurisdiction, Sergeant Castle?” Novarro said. “If I remember correctly, you left the Phoenix PD two months back.”
A smile. “I was on Baseline Road when the call came through, got here five minutes before PPD. It’s all Maricopa County, right?”
“That means you’ll take the case and the paperwork?”
“Funny as always, Tasha.” Castle clapped Claypool on his back. “Plus I wanted to say howdy to my old buddies.”
“Gracias for the assist, Merle, but the City of Phoenix PD is here now.” Novarro shifted her eyes to Claypool. “Where’s Ms Juarez now, Officer?”
Burton Claypool was twenty-seven, medium height, but with a chest and shoulders that seemed to expand an inch a month. He’d started out with a normal physique eighteen months ago, but like several younger male recruits in the South Mountain Precinct, Claypool consciously or subconsciously emulated Castle: his cockiness, his Western swagger, and his physique, not cartoonish, but impressive.
“Juarez got freaked out by the body, Detective,” Claypool said, standing straighter. “I got the name of one of her niños and he came by and got her.”
Niño meant child, a youngster, generally. “How old was the kid? Novarro asked.
Claypool frowned. “I dunno. Thirty or so.”
Another something Claypool had subconsciously or otherwise taken from Castle: an Anglocentric worldview. Novarro saw Sanches study the Claypool-Castle duo, roll his eyes, and return to cataloguing his findings.
“You couldn’t have someone drive the poor woman home, Officer Claypool?”
“She lives in Gilbert, a half hour there and back. We’re short on manpower, Detective.”
She pulled out her notebook and began writing her initial thoughts.
“Want my take?” said a voice at her shoulder: Castle.
“Thanks for stopping by, Merle, but I’ve got it from here.”
A grin. “So when everyone’s gone, we’re back to first names, Tash?”
A waggle-finger wave. “So long, Sergeant Castle. Have a nice day.”
“Some assholes broke in and got surprised by the owner,” Castle said anyway. “It’s a shithole neighborhood. Put a big expensive house on the hillside and every low-life that drives by starts salivating at what’s inside: TVs, computers, jewelry, cash.”