The Corpse in the Cactus Page 4
And he shared her joys in the best of times.
She loved him like family.
After leaving headquarters Maggie drove through the west end of town, up one street and down another, keeping an eye out for trouble in what was unfolding as a trouble free day. The monsoon had let up and the sun was shining. Her time with Rocco the night before had gone okay. Better than expected. The door remained open despite everything and she was feeling good about the prospect of their growing closer. It was looking like this was one chance she was taking where the odds were stacking up in her favor.
About damn time, she thought as she turned the corner.
The dispatchers voice cracked through the radio static, disturbing her reverie.
“ASDM,” the voice said. A body had been discovered at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. So much for a trouble-free day. Ambulance and personnel were on the way and Detective Maggie Reardon pulled a u-turn and headed farther west. She turned up Speedway and crossed Silverbell as she headed up the hill. Rocco. All she could hope for was that it wasn’t Rocco. He donated his time as a docent at the museum. Was this one of his days? He was always filling in on his off days for another docent who couldn’t make it, so he could be there at any time. She hit the gas and turned on the siren as she wound around the curves, climbing higher up the foothills toward the museum.
Speedway morphed into Gates Pass as she sped through mountains dotted with aged saguaros. They stood tall and silent, witnesses to the passage of time. Going down hill, the Old Tucson Studios stood in the desert valley below, surrounded by cotton farms and the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation. Kitt Peak towered in the distance. She could hear the pop, pop of gunfire from the shooting range as she hung a right onto Kinney Road. She’d driven at warp speed, cutting a twenty minute drive down to fifteen, all the time thinking of Rocco and what she’d do if she’d already lost him. The museum loomed on her left and she sped past the ironwood trees and down the narrow road that led to the parking lot, turned in, slammed on her brakes and exited the car. Maggie ran past the United States, Arizona and Mexican flags that fluttered overhead. She crossed the front patio area where javelina sculptures stood under the green palo verde tree, and approached the ticket window.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “But we’ve had to close unexpectedly.”
Maggie caught her breath, then pulled out her badge and flashed it.
“It would’ve been easier if you’d come through the back,” the woman said.
“How do I get there from here?”
“Let me call Gene,” she said. “My God, this is a public relations disaster. Some guy managed to fall into the javelina enclosure. How stupid is that?”
Maggie grunted.
She paced, waiting for Gene, whoever he was and wondering why he was necessary.
A middle-aged man pulled up in a golf cart and waved her in his direction. He wore a Tilly hat and tan Dockers and his white shirt had an ASDM emblem sewn onto the sleeve.
“Hop in,” he said. “I can get you there faster. It’s quite a walk from here.”
She slid in beside him.
“Why didn’t you drive up through the back?”
“I didn’t know there was a back,” she said. “I’ve only been here once and came through the front.” More memories of Rocco surfaced. How confident he’d been talking to the crowd that day. She’d found herself attracted to him, despite the large snake he held in his rough hands. The look he’d given her said he felt the same.
“I’ll get you there quick, officer.” Gene said, speeding up the cart.
“Detective,” she corrected. “Was it an employee?”
“Nobody we recognized is all I know. How the hell he managed to fall off that bridge is beyond me. Must’ve been one clumsy fellow.”
Maggie was relieved. Rocco was safe. Now she could concentrate on the business at hand. Let the cop take over and get the job done. Logic over emotion, just how she liked it. One less complication. She was heading into her comfort zone. A dead body was easier to deal with than a live person any day.
* * * *
Things were in full swing and yellow crime scene tape was already laced around a large area.
Gene stopped the cart. “It looks like this is as far as I can go,” he said.
“I appreciate it.”
“This is the most excitement we’ve had around here since 1987.”
“87?”
“It was all over the news.”
“My memory doesn’t go back that far. What happened?”
“Two big horn sheep were killed. Bloody nightmare of a mess. Some bastard severed the head and a leg of our six year old ram. You guys never did solve it,” he continued. “They guessed it was some satanic ritual, but I think it was some sicko getting his kicks.”
“They should’ve tried harder, but animal abuse doesn’t get the attention it should. That’s bad enough, but nine times out of ten it’s just practice.”
“How’s that?”
“They graduate to people. Damn near every serial killer out there cuts his teeth on animals. It’d be nice to put ’em all away before their taste for blood escalates. It’s horrible.”
“Evil always is,” he said. “How can you deal with that stuff?”
“Somebody has to.”
“You must have a strong stomach.”
The yellow crime scene tape stopped Gene in his tracks.
“I guess this is as far as I can take you,” he said. “It’s a short walk. Just follow the path down.”
“Thanks again, Gene. You’ve been a big help.”
Mid-morning was heating up in more ways than one. She wiped the perspiration from her brow with her shirt sleeve as she walked, glad it was a downhill path. The brittle bushes bloomed with cheerful yellow flowers and the air smelled fresh from yesterday’s rain. It would have been a perfect morning if there wasn’t some dead guy in the mix. She could see the police and emergency vehicles below. She paused to catch her breath, then headed down the path that lead to the bridge.
Just one more day in paradise.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Corpse
Jerry Montana was the first officer to approach when Detective Maggie Reardon reached the scene. She and Jerry had formed an uneasy truce, but it took a lot of work and their attempts were mediocre at best. His young trainee, Aaron Iverson, followed puppy-like behind him, his pale mid-western complexion rising to a brilliant pink. It might have been caused by the Tucson heat. Or the shock of confronting his first dead body. At least he wasn’t throwing up in the bushes, a response she’d seen more times than she cared to remember. She’d damn near lost it herself the first time, but being a woman she wouldn’t give the other cops the satisfaction. They’d fought her at every turn, so she’d just swallowed hard and gotten down to business. The boys club would never know that first body gave her nightmares for weeks.
Being a cop was tough. Being a woman cop was tougher. Like they say, Fred Astaire could dance, but Ginger Rogers did all the steps backwards and in high heels. A woman was expected to prove herself ten times more than if she were a man. And for half the recognition. But the captain was supportive and that’s what mattered, so she learned to suck it up. And they learned she could dish it out in equal portions, if not worse.
She got even by making detective in record time.
And they learned when to back off.
“You’re still pretty bruised up,” Jerry said with a smirk. “But that shiner’s starting to fade.”
“Thanks again, both of you, for showing up when you did,” she said. She’d have liked smacking the smirk off his face and giving him a clever come-back, but she bit her tongue. After all, they had shown up and crashed through her door right when Marty the ex was about to get the best of her.
She unconsciously lifted her hand to her swol
len lip.
Keeping her mouth shut was never easy. Back in school she pulled down A’s and B’s, but there was always a teacher who scrawled “Margaret must learn self-control” across the bottom of her report card. One semester five teachers all wrote the exact same thing. She was sure they put their heads together in the teacher’s lounge and wrote it in unison just to tick her off. Her occasional outbursts and disruptions were beside the point. Her father blamed the hot-headed Reardon genes and let it go at that. Her mother said that the qualities that drove everybody nuts were the qualities that would give her the strength to take on an adult world. They were both right.
She never liked being called Margaret. She was a Maggie through and through. Margaret was some sissy girl who wore ruffles and little velvet bows and never had skinned knees. Or she was Sister Mary Margaret, shrouded in black, holding a ruler to protect her from the world when she wasn’t using it to rap across some kid’s knuckles until they bled. Even her mother came to realize that Margaret was a poor fit and they started calling her Maggie before she graduated from diapers.
Maggie looked at Aaron. The Arizona sun was losing its battle to toughen his skin, poor guy. His complexion slowly drained from carnation pink back to his usual Minnesota pallor. There are some things a person gets used to, but the sight of a lifeless body wasn’t one of them. When the cops found them they weren’t made up with rosy cheeks and a peaceful smile glued on by some funeral parlor. More often than not, they were bruised and bloody and surrounded by an aura of violence. It was never pretty, but you learned to deal with it.
It was part of the job.
“It just looks like some freakin’ accident,” said Jerry.
“A freak accident,” Aaron echoed.
“Dumb guy just fell over the rail. End of story,” said Jerry.
Maggie looked over the railing to the body below. An employee was herding the last of the javelinas into their enclosure, clearing the area so that the police could safely enter.
“We’ll know more when we get down there,” she said.
The body was crumpled under a patch of cacti. Most of it anyway. The attendant kicked the last straggler from where it stood nibbling at an unattached arm that lay in the dirt. When the last of the beasts entered the enclosure the man snapped the gate shut and yelled up to them.
“All’s clear.”
Jerry started to head down and she stopped him.
“Who found him?”
He pointed to a couple with a young boy standing several feet away.
“I want to speak with them first.”
“I already did,” said Jerry.
“A couple more minutes won’t kill you,” she said, heading over to where they stood.
The young boy wandered off, entranced by the police cars and emergency vehicles. Maggie approached the parents. Their wardrobes screamed tourist. The woman’s polyester and two inch heels fought the rising temperature. The man wore inappropriate shoes for a desert hike. She asked them to repeat their story.
“We just want to get out of here,” said the husband.
“This’ll just take a few minutes,” said Maggie as she took out her pen and flipped open her notepad.
“Horrible, just horrible,” said the wife, looking over at her son. “Something like this could scar a child for life.”
“He didn’t understand, honey,” the husband reassured her.
“Would you tell me how you found the body?” asked Maggie.
“Let me do the talking,” he said. “You’re too upset. We thought this would be a nice place to bring Jimmy, to show him about nature. We want him to be aware of the world around him, you know?”
“Not this kind of world,” his wife mumbled. Her tears fell in a river of dark mascara from her painted eyes.
“Go on,” Maggie said.
“Jimmy saw those statues out front and wanted to see the real live pigs, so we headed this way.”
“He was so excited,” said the wife.
“Jimmy was running a good ten feet ahead of us and we were playing catch up when he reached the bridge.”
“I took out my camera,” the wife said. “I wanted to take his picture as he was looking down from the bridge. He’s so darn cute, we just can’t get enough pictures of him. They grow up so fast. It’s sad, really.”
“Anyway,” the husband interrupted, “Jimmy looked down and yelled back at me. He asked me why they feed the pigs clothes.”
Maggie resisted the urge to correct them. Javelina’s weren’t pigs. They were peccaries. But what would be the point? It hardly mattered considering the circumstances.
“Oh, God,” the wife moaned. “He thought they’d fed the pigs clothes.” The wife held both hands over her mouth, her body trembling.
“We caught up with him and looked down. The pigs were clustered in one spot and it looked like they were chewing on some cloth.”
“Jimmy was right. They were eating a shirt of all things,” said the wife.
“Yea, it looked like somebody’s shirt sleeve.”
“And then we, we…” the wife began.
“And then we saw that there was an arm in it.”
“I grabbed Jimmy’s hand,” said the wife, “And I led him away as fast as I could, all the while him telling me he wanted to keep watching the pigs. I told him it was impolite to watch them while they were eating. Stupid, but I didn’t know what else to say.”
“That was quick thinking,” said Maggie. “You did just fine.”
“We didn’t know what to do,” said the husband. “I was kicking myself for leaving my cell phone in the car. I just wanted to call somebody and scream for help.”
“I spotted the emergency phone,” said the wife, pointing in the direction of some dead saguaros. “So we went over and picked it up and reported what we saw. Can we go now?”
“Just a few more questions.”
“We already told the other officer everything we know,” he said. “We just want to get Jimmy out of here.”
Maggie looked over to where little Jimmy was standing, a typical boy easily entertained by the cluster of squad cars and emergency vehicles and flashing lights. He was overdressed, as though his mother had encased him safely into a cocoon. She turned back to face his parents.
“Did you see any other people? When you were walking towards the enclosure did you notice anyone passing in the other direction?”
“Have you ever tried to keep up with a rambunctious five year old?” asked the husband. “It’s like trying to herd cats. We weren’t paying attention to anything but Jimmy. He can be a handful, I tell you. We’ve got to watch him every second or he’s gone in a flash.”
“He can be playing in the yard one minute and the second you look away he’s gone. It’s enough to give me a heart attack.”
“So you noticed no one?” Maggie asked, trying to draw the woman’s focus from her obsession with her only child. No matter how hard one tries to protect them, the reality of life has a way of sneaking in. She hoped the father was right, that Jimmy was oblivious to what he’d witnessed. At least that would buy him one more innocent day.
“I think a few people passed us,” said the wife, trying her best to be helpful as she pulled at the dress that clung to her legs. “But I couldn’t tell you if they were men or women or the abominable snowman. It wasn’t our focus.” She kept shifting her weight from one aching foot to the other, pulling at the perspiration soaked fabric and glancing in the direction of her boy.
They’d had enough discomfort for one morning and she wasn’t getting any information that could be useful, so Maggie thanked them for their time. She wrote down their contact information and flagged over one of the officers.
“You’ve been helpful,” she lied to the man as his wife walked away to retrieve their son. “If I have more questions I’ll contact you.”
Maggie handed him her card. “I hope the rest of your trip is more pleasant. If you haven’t heard back from me, please give me a call before you go, in case I need to speak with you again.”
“I don’t know what we could add to what we’ve already told you. And that other guy,” he said, pointing in Jerry Montana’s direction. She could tell by the way he said that other guy that Jerry had left his usual impression. He wasn’t the poster boy for public relations.
When the officer approached she asked him to escort the family to the front gate, then returned to the bridge where Jerry Montana and Aaron Iverson stood. Jerry held a camera and was taking distance photos of the scene below.
“It looks like those doggies found themselves one hell of a new chew toy,” said Jerry.
The man who had herded the javelinas led them down the slope.
“I never realized that javelinas are carnivores,” Maggie said. “And I’m a Tucsonan.”
“Not as a rule,” he replied, “but they’re creatures of opportunity. Did you know they can gobble down prickly pear cactus spines and all?”
“I know they’re tougher than rawhide, but they don’t usually attack people.”
“Not usually. But when they wander through neighborhoods sometimes a snow bird or newcomer feeds them. Problem is, if they get used to it and someone comes along who doesn’t give them something, they get pissed as grizzlies and attack. And it ain’t pretty.”
“But this group is enclosed and well fed.”
He looked down to where the body lay crumpled in the enclosure.
“They’re omnivores. Like I said, they’re creatures of opportunity. And it looks like opportunity fell right into their laps.”
“Omnivore,” Jerry mumbled, “sounds like some kinda car.”