The Night Detectives - страница 22

“Did you get their address?”

“Yes.” I said it a bit too testily.

“What’s wrong?” His Mister Innocent voice. Then, “Look next to you, on the desk. It’s the entire case file on the girl’s suicide.”

I swiveled to see several thick folders bound with a large red rubber band.

“Man, you have the pull,” I said. “How is Kimbrough doing?”

“He’s happy.” He slurped on a Diet Coke. “I’d like to say it was my pull, but remember that suicide in Coronado? The girlfriend of the millionaire from north Scottsdale who allegedly hanged herself?”

I remembered. It had happened at the Spreckles Mansion in the rich, idyllic town that sat on a spit across from San Diego. The rich guy had purchased the iconic house. As I recalled, he made his money from acne products and cosmetics. The girlfriend, young enough to be his daughter of course, had been alone when his young son had tripped and fallen over a balustrade in the mansion. The child had died.

The next day the girlfriend had been found hanging from a second-story balcony, naked, a cloth in her mouth, and her hands bound with rope. As with Grace, the authorities had pronounced it a suicide.

Peralta shook his head. “I can see your mind making connections, Mapstone. They’re not there. It has nothing to do with our case. Bill Gross is a good friend of mine.” That would be the San Diego County Sheriff. “His department was called in because Coronado PD doesn’t have the expertise for a complex death investigation. The media put Bill through hell on this one. News choppers overhead got pictures of the body and pretty soon it was on the Internet. Everybody became an amateur sleuth. They even got Dr. Phil involved.”

He shook his head. “But the woman in Coronado really did kill herself based on the evidence. Hell, the sheriff’s department even put up a special page with the information on their Web site. Kimbrough said his chief didn’t want Grace Hunter to turn into another media circus. So we lucked out and have copies of everything.”

“So what about our young woman?” I asked. “Suicide?”

“You’ll have time for light reading.” He pointed at the stack of case files, in case I had forgotten. “The short answer is they believe it was a suicide.”

“What do you believe?”

He shrugged the big shoulders. “I’ll wait for your report. Kimbrough brought along the night detective who was the first to respond to the call.”

“Night detective?”

A quarter of one side of his mouth attempted a smile. “I’m showing my age, Mapstone.”

I looked at the rumpled sheets and doubted that.

He continued, “Departments used to have night detective bureaus to cover the late shift, so the investigation into a major crime could begin immediately. Now it’s almost all in-house with each unit, so, for instance, homicide has its own people on call. That’s the case here. I was using old-time cop talk. Did I ever tell you about the night detective I met when Miranda bought it?”

He was being so uncharacteristically loquacious, and actually talking about himself, that I stifled my impatience.

“It was 1976, and Miranda was out of prison. He actually went around signing Miranda warning cards. Somewhere I have one he signed for me. Anyway, I was a green deputy and was serving a warrant down in the Deuce. The old La Amapola bar. Means ‘little poppy.’ I must have gotten there the second after Miranda got in a fight and was stabbed. People were scattering. The first PPD unit was a night detective. This tall guy named Cal. They called him the Red Dude on account of his hair. He marched my ass out in a hurry. We became friends later. Never did find the suspect I was trying to arrest.”

If I had my geography right, the bar where Ernesto Miranda died was located where the Phoenix Suns arena now stood. Mike Peralta, historian. It made me wish he would talk more about his past, but we had business and he moved right along. I tried to imagine a time when he had ever been a rookie and uncertain of himself.

Night detective. It had a nice ring.

“Anyway, I talked to the detective. You would have liked her. First name Isabel. Cute little chica. Make you forget about Patty.”