Phoenix Noir

The detective squatted down and studied the entrance wound on the girl’s chest, noting the size and shape of the powder burns. He was careful to avoid the blood, which soaked her lower torso and pooled out on the concrete floor. Conover also recognized fresh needle marks on her arm.

“I’d say whoever shot her knew what he was doing,” he said, glancing over at the gun lying next to the dead guy’s feet. One of the techs had already drawn a chalk circle around it.

“Why, because of the pop gun?” Blankenship asked.

“Easy to miss with a .22. The guy shot her directly in the heart. Couldn’t have been more than a foot or two away.”

“Did himself the same way from the looks of it.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Looks pretty straightforward, Gene. Scumbag boyfriend shoots the Hodge girl, then punches his own ticket.”

“You may be right,” Conover said. He stood up and stepped back from the two bodies. “Where are the shell casings?”

“Bagged and tagged already.”

“How many?”

“Just the two, and only two missing from the clip.”

“Interesting,” he said. “Who called it in?”

“Bouncer over at Angels heard the shots.” Blankenship consulted his notes. “Dispatch recorded the call at 3:55 a.m. Let’s see, guy’s name is Everest or Everett. Something like that.”

Conover looked out across the desert toward Washington. The all-nude club’s neon marquee was clearly visible a couple hundred yards away.

Blankenship bent down on one knee and crooked his neck to the side to read what was written on the girl’s shirt. “Wonder what the hell 45 Grave means,” he said. “Some kind of satanic shit?”

“Rock group’d be my guess,” Conover said.

“Think they’re in some weird cult or something?” Blan-kenship frowned at the young man’s appearance. The kid looked like a collapsed marionette, dyed black hair hanging in front of his eyes, face smudged with sweat and eyeliner.

“I seriously doubt it, Tom.”

“Well, it looks like our boy’s shirt is pretty accurate, anyway.”

Conover noticed the lettering on the young man’s shirt, nearly obscured by blood—Bad Brains. He humored Blanken-ship with a smirk.

The detective glanced at his watch. It was just after 6 a.m. He’d wait for the autopsy and ballistics reports to con-firm his suspicions. In the meantime, he refrained from saying much to the uniform. Blankenship was basically a decent guy, but he wasn’t too smart and he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. This was true of a lot of cops Conover had known over the years.

“It’s going to be hard to contain for very long. We’ll have to break the news to Hodge before the media gets wind of it,” Conover said.

“There’s gonna be a shit-storm.”

“Yes, I imagine there will be.”

“Perhaps we can hold off the vultures for a bit. I’ll see what I can do,” Blankenship said.

“I’d appreciate that, Tom.”

The detective ducked under the crime scene tape and walked out the front door. He stood for a moment looking up at the castle. Half the windows were broken or missing and graffiti stained the stucco walls. Must have been something back in the ’30s, he thought. But that was fifty years back. These days the property’s only occupants were junkies, prostitutes, and squatters.

Conover shook his head and proceeded down the weed-strewn path, Blankenship falling into step behind him. The sun finally appeared over the mountains to the east, and the decrepit, overgrown cactus garden lay exposed in the golden light.

“Anybody contact the Tovrea family yet?” Conover asked.

“We’re trying to reach the widow. She lives out in Paradise Valley.”

“Right.” Conover walked down to where he’d parked his car, an old ’73 Dodge Polara. There were now six or seven patrol cars parked in the dirt lot, and the detective noticed the first TV news truck pulling up to the gate out on Van Buren.

“Shit, here we go,” he muttered.

Ron Wheeler dug working at Brookshire’s Coffee Shop. It was one of the few twenty-four-hour restaurants in central Phoenix and the place was always packed with good-looking chicks, especially after 1 o’clock when the bars closed. The coffee was strong and drinkable, not like that watered-down shit they served at Denny’s, and for a greasy spoon the food wasn’t bad. He’d only been there for a few months but he was already popular with the customers and the tips were great.

Ron usually worked the graveyard shift, which suited his lifestyle. A few months back he’d moved out of his parents’ house into a studio apartment off Twenty-fourth Street and McDowell, just around the corner from the restaurant. In the evening he’d hang out with friends, maybe smoke a little weed, and practice the guitar. Then he’d work all night until 7 a.m., go home, crash until late afternoon, and do it all over again. His best friend Brian Cortaro had a bass guitar and they planned to start a band. Ron was thinking of asking his new girlfriend Kelly if she’d be interested in taking a stab at singing. He’d graduated from East High in ’82, two years back, and his twentieth birthday was coming up in a few days.