Tovrea stockyards, Pacific Fruit Express icing docks, the bridge over the Salt River—make sure the line was secure, whatever the hell that meant. It didn’t seem to have much connection with the severed foot. Logan was conveniently gone.
When I was finished, I walked back downstairs to the waiting room which was nearly deserted. Out on the tracks, a switch engine was moving baggage and mail cars, but the next passenger train wasn’t due to depart until 4:30. The high ceiling of the room held a fog of cigarette smoke and dust, caught in the rays of the sunlight. Over by the newsstand, a couple of young GIs were horsing around, their uniforms new, their faces untouched by death. For just a second I saw myself in a magic mirror, May 1918, and my shoulder throbbed and everything in the world seemed broken. A bird colonel brushed past, glaring at me as if he expected to be saluted. The big wooden benches looked lonely. On one of them, a bum pretended to snooze under a sweat-stained Panama hat. One of the ticket agents watched me from under his eyeshade, then cocked his head as if he were trying to toss it as a shot put. From that direction, two women were coming my way.
“You’re the railroad police?”
I said I was. The question came from a short, stooped old woman in a blue dress that was too light for the season, even in Phoenix. With her was a younger woman, blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, and pretty in a damaged way, like a china bowl that had been shattered but carefully glued back together, the cracks showing only on close examination.
“That man said you could help us. It’s our Mary.” The old woman stared at me as if I should understand, and somewhere something crawling in my gut winked at me.
“It’s my sister Mary,” the blonde said. “She was coming home from Los Angeles. She’s been in school, you see, and she was coming home for a visit. She was supposed to be on the train last night. She sent us a telegram telling us to expect her.”
The old woman grabbed my sleeve. “We’ve been here all night waiting!”
“She never showed?”
Two heads shook in unison, and I wondered if it could be that easy.
“Do you live here in town?”
“We live out a ways,” the mother said, sticking her chin at me. “In Palmcroft.”
I nodded: nice big houses by the new city park. She wanted to let me know money was involved. She didn’t bother with anything so unsavory as introducing herself to me. I sat them down on a bench.
Fifteen minutes later, Joe Fisher and Frenchy Navarre walked in and heard the story for the second time. Mary Becker took a train out of Los Angeles, due to arrive in Phoenix just past 9. The girl was nineteen. The younger woman, Anna, did most of the talking, with the mother nodding. Becker. I knew the name. They owned big cotton farms west of town.
“She’s a very sweet, innocent girl,” Anna said. “I just can’t bear to think that anything could have happened, that someone might have taken advantage of her.”
“Wouldn’t have been the first time,” the old lady said.
“Mother!” Anna looked at the two cops, then me. “You have to help us.” She reached in her handbag and passed us a photograph. It showed a pretty girl with curly dark hair and large, knowing eyes. She was standing on a pier, smiling at the photographer. “That’s Mary.”
Navarre took it and studied it, handed it to Fisher, who tucked it in his pocket. “Go up to the station house and make a missing person’s report,” Navarre said. “We’ll see what we can do. But you gotta understand, it’s wartime. Lot of people coming through, lot of people on the trains.”
“Maybe she was just delayed,” Fisher said softly.
The cops rose in unison and I followed. Navarre turned on his heel once we were through the front doors. “I can’t believe you’d waste our time with this shit.”
“I dunno, Frenchy. You have a missing girl and so do they. Maybe that’s too complicated for you.”
He pushed up his chest, showing the crossed shoulder holsters. “Don’t think you’re special because you’re with the railroad, you cocksucker. Any time you want to find out, let me know.” He strode angrily to the car.
“Show them the shoe, Joe. That’ll settle it, one way or another.”
Fisher looked at me sadly and said, “He thinks he’s got a lead. What’re you gonna