Goodbye Dolly - By Deb Baker Page 0,48

thoughtful. Then his professional mask descended, and he gave her an inscrutable look. "Tell me the rest."

So she tried. She told him what Daisy and Nacho had told her. About the man who shoved Brett into the street's traffic, about the blue truck, and about Howie leaving the auction in a blue truck.

"You know how rumors start and spread," Matt said.

"Still . . ." He looked thoughtful. "I need the name of the witness who allegedly saw Brett being pushed."

"I don't exactly have a name."

"What do you have exactly?"

"A description."

"Okay, let's start with that."

"The man who saw Brett pushed into the street was sitting on the curb."

"What was he doing on the curb?"

Gretchen paused. "You aren't going to think he's credible."

"Try me."

"He's homeless."

Matt smacked his head with an open palm. "Jeez, Gretchen, that isn't what I wanted to hear. You know indigents are the worst possible witnesses? First of all, he probably won't even talk to a cop. If he does talk to me, he'll change his story. And a jury . . . well, I'm sorry if you don't want to hear this, but they won't believe him. Next I suppose you're going to tell me he was drunk. Gretchen, wait, where are you going?"

Gretchen marched off and joined a group of collectors standing by the makeshift bar. She saw several women encircle the handsome detective as he tried to follow her. Matt Albright was infuriating. Bullheaded, selfabsorbed, cynical, narrow-minded. She had almost shared the cryptic Kewpie doll messages with him. Imagine his response if he'd heard about

"Wag, the Dog."

From now on, she'd manage just fine without his help.

* 22 *

Daisy pushes her shopping cart filled with all her earthly possessions and turns toward the viaduct where Nacho usually sleeps. It's dark now, and so she hurries. Another fruitless day on the hot streets waiting for a talent scout to pick her out of the crowd. Even her new getup, purple flowered sundress and feathered wide-brimmed red hat, like those Red Hat Society ladies wear, hasn't attracted any Hollywood-style attention.

And the cart! She doesn't need any more weight to push around, what with her back about to break, but tell that to a man. Work, work, work, while they sit around drinking cheap whiskey and telling outrageous lies to each other, leaving her alone to guard the treasures in her cart.

She struggles along, the beams of light from the overhead streetlights casting a false sense of safety. But she isn't fooled. More than ever before, she needs Nacho's protection through the long, moonless night ahead. Poor Albert Thoreau had been beaten up pretty badly, she's heard. Both eyes swollen and punched black, nose flat and repositioned to the left of center, lips puffed, he laid motionless in the alleyway surrounded by fellow outcasts. Only the sound of irregular and ragged breathing proved that he had not departed for hobo heaven.

"Lucky he isn't dead," they say.

And if he has told, she will be next.

Has he?

"Cops! Don't trust them," someone in the group had said, disgust apparent in the wad of spit aimed at the ground. "Here's your proof. What did Thoreau ever do to anybody?"

Daisy has her suspicions about Thoreau's current condition. She hasn't lasted this long on the wild streets of Phoenix without her innate sense of imminent danger. The darkness of the viaduct's underbelly looms before her. Cars roar overhead even at this late hour. The shopping cart's wheels squeal as they jerk forward, and Daisy makes a mental note to find a little oil tomorrow and lubricate them.

She squints into the gloom as a form materializes from behind one of the viaduct's steel girders, striding toward her, arms swinging lazily, an unlit flashlight clutched in a muscular hand.

"Good evening," Daisy says, fighting the fear. "What brings you all the way down here?"

* 23 *

Gretchen rose before dawn, fed Nimrod and Wobbles, donned hiking attire, and headed briskly toward Camelback Mountain. Early morning was the only time of day to climb the mountain in relative peace.

Gretchen prided herself on her ability to tackle the most strenuous trails, so she struck out boldly for the extreme tip of Summit Trail. A quarter mile in, she passed a steep northeast-facing cliff and spotted creosote and brittle bushes clinging to the side. Only a few flowers came into bloom in October, but she did see scattered desert lavenders and yellow blossoms on a sweet bush. A Harris antelope squirrel scurried across the trail, its tail long and bushy, a white stripe