“Well, I guess we should just get this over with.”
The two men proceeded up the drive, passing between white marble columns to an enormous front door. After a few moments, Hodge himself answered. He wore a navy-blue polo shirt over tan linen slacks, and his silver-white hair looked freshly cut and styled. Hodge stared out at the detectives with a frown on his face.
“Mr. Hodge, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have to tell you this, but it’s about your daughter. She’s been the victim of—”
“What is this, some sort of goddamn joke or something? Who the hell is he?” Hodge sneered at Apkaw.
“My name is Detective Daniel Apkaw, sir,” Dan said quietly.
“I wish it was a joke, Mr. Hodge. I’m very sorry to tell you that your daughter has been the victim of a terrible crime. The injuries she sustained were fatal,” Conover said.
“That’s absurd,” Hodge replied. “Where is she?”
“She’s been taken to the medical examiner’s office downtown.”
“This is absurd!” the old man repeated, but this time his voice sounded less certain and his shoulders visibly sagged. “Kelly?” he said. “What did that fucking punk do to my little girl?!”
“Do you mind if we come inside for a moment?” Conover asked gently.
Ron Wheeler sat in the interrogation room across from Detective Apkaw. Tears streaked his face as his shaking fingers lit one cigarette after another. Grief and outrage alternated in his expression, struggling for dominance.
“I can’t believe he was fucking her! That fucking asshole! Jesus Christ!”
“You mean you didn’t know that Kelly Hodge was sleeping with Brian Cortaro?” Apkaw asked. “Wasn’t she your girlfriend, Ron?”
“Yes! Yes! She was my girlfriend. I loved her!”
“Did you kill her?”
“Kill her? What, are you fucking kidding me? No, I didn’t fucking kill her!”
“But you were mad at her, weren’t you?”
“Why would I be mad at her?!” Wheeler started to cry again. “I loved her. She was so beautiful,” he sobbed. “That son of a bitch!”
“Your boss said that you left work early last night … at, let’s see, approximately 2:45 a.m.” Apkaw said. “Is that correct?”
“Yeah, but I was sick! You can ask anyone, I was puking my guts out.”
“Boss said you were too drunk to work.”
“He did? Shit, yeah, I guess I had a few too many.”
“So here’s what I think,” the detective explained. “You get off work early and Kelly comes to pick you up. Brian was with her in the car. You’re really pissed off. This dude’s hitting on your woman. You go for a little ride, party a bit more … then—”
“No! Goddamnit, I went straight home. Boss called me a taxi. You can fucking check!” Wheeler slumped forward on the table with his head in his hands.
“—then you guys score some junk, shoot up a few speed-balls—”
“Speedballs? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
The door opened and Conover motioned for Apkaw to come out into the hall.
“Thanks, Dan. That’s enough for now.”
“No problem, Gene. Kid’s exhausted. You make him for this?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“I don’t believe Ron Wheeler had any idea what he’d gotten himself into.”
Several weeks later, Conover was in his office sipping a cup of coffee when the telephone rang. It was Blankenship. Some hikers had discovered a badly decomposed body out in the Harquahala Desert. The dead man hadn’t even been buried, just dumped out there. He’d been shot execution-style with a .45, and his face was nearly gone, but dental records identified the man as one Anthony Everett, a.k.a. Everett James, a.k.a. James Anthony, and various other aliases.
“Son of a bitch had a rap sheet a mile long.”
“Is that right?” Conover asked.
“Damn straight, Gene. He’d been indicted for all kinds of shit—assault, possession with intent to distribute. But here’s the thing, almost all of the charges were dismissed.”
Conover thanked Blankenship for the call and hung up. The detective sat at his desk, staring out the window a long time.
Later that afternoon, Conover picked up the red Camaro as it headed north on Tatum Boulevard. He lagged several cars behind in the rush hour traffic as the woman turned east onto Shea and continued toward Scottsdale. She pulled into a strip mall just before the light at Scottsdale Road and parked in front of a Nautilus Fitness Club. The detective backed his car into a space at the other side of the parking lot and watched Charlotte Hodge step out of the Camaro. She took a drag off