“Did you know this subject, Sheriff?” Vare asked, tilting her sharp chin toward the corpse.
“I met him once. Seemed nice enough.” Peralta slid off the gloves and handed them to one of the young cops. There’d been a time, when the Arizona Dreams case was busted open, when I thought Peralta and Robin might actually become an item. It had never happened and I didn’t know why. That was fine with both Lindsey and me. It would have led to too many complications. And we still missed Peralta’s ex-wife Sharon. Mike as chief deputy and then sheriff, Sharon as a psychologist and best-selling author: They were a power couple without airs. It seemed impossible to imagine him with anyone else. Knowing him, I suspected he didn’t want anyone trying to get close now. The cops, that was what he was all about, and now even that was gone. Of course, he didn’t lack for job offers, all of them paying more than the post of Maricopa County Sheriff. I wondered for a few seconds where he might end up. It helped shave the edge off my emotions.
Peralta stepped back and thrust his hands into his pockets, pushing back his wide-cut suit coat enough so that I could see the.45 in his shoulder rig. He faced Vare. “So why would Professor Delgado here have ended up with La Fam? Unless he wasn’t who he claimed to be…”
“That’s the whole deal!” Vare’s voice trembled in agitation. I felt my chest grow tight. “He’s a fraud. There’s no Jax Delgado on the NYU faculty, contrary to what Mapstone and the girl keep telling me.” She glared at me. “Oh, you’re surprised?”
“How…?” It was all I could manage.
“He’s not on the faculty. Nobody by that name. Nobody matching his description. We emailed a photo. No, Mapstone, we didn’t wait. We woke people up. This is a major case. Somebody beheaded by La Familia in Phoenix, or a La Fam copycat-whatever-and the head shipped to a woman who lives in a historic district? If the media get hold of this it won’t be just another forgotten asshole-on-asshole homicide in Scaryvale.”
“What about this cat’s ID?”
“No wallet, nothing on the body. No clothes left.” She leaned toward him. “Sheriff, I hate to tell you, but the girl is lying and I wonder about Mapstone here.”
“We all do, Kate. But I’m going to give them a ride home now. You got your positive ID. You know where to find Mapstone and Robin.”
“What’s that under the drill?” I said.
I had been desperately searching for gravity as they were talking and my eyes had wandered. Something the color of dull silver was sitting beneath handle of the power drill.
