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history lessons.”
    “Sorry. It’s just interesting.”
    “Maybe to you,” she said. “You know, I am so unimpressed with the great Dr. David Mapstone.”
    “That makes two of us.”
    “Oh, please. Spare me the false humility, too. The famous David Mapstone is the genius who solved the disappearance of Rebecca Stokes from the 1950s, who discovered the bodies of the Yarnell twins who were kidnapped in the Depression. What else? Oh, yes, the David Mapstone who uncovered the scandal in the sheriff’s office from the 1970s and helped free an innocent man.”
    “He was killed,” I said quietly, stopping so a man in pink pants and a long yellow prospector’s beard could pull his two shopping carts laboriously across the potholed street.
    “You’re famous, Mapstone. I read about you in the newspaper. I see you on TV, even if you don’t watch. I’m just a police officer who plays by the rules and works as a professional. I work on real cold cases—crimes from 1982, say, or 1990, where real people are waiting for some word of what happened to a loved one. I can’t just deliver some bullshit scam graduate history seminar. Like I really have time to waste on this wild goose chase.”
    She went on, growing more animated. “I worked to get where I am. I didn’t go off for fifteen years to teach college and then come back so my buddy the sheriff could get me a job.”
    “Good for you, Kate,” I wished I could get out of the car. The top being down helped relieve the oppressiveness of the talk, but the sun was starting to broil us. We bumped across the Southern Pacific tracks. Off on one corner, as far from the technology economy as I could imagine, sat unattended stacks of shrink-wrapped computer screens. Maybe for recycling? Maybe “fell off the truck”?
    She said, “The point is, I’m working with you because I have to, not because I want to.” She readjusted her sunglasses and stared straight ahead. “And I hate this old car.”
    I pushed against the seat to ease my stress-made backache. “Gosh, Kate, I’m crushed. You’re so charming, even flirty, if I may say, that all this comes as a surprise to me.”
    “Fuck you.”
    I tried to ignore her. A good night’s sleep had helped me set aside the sadness of the past two weeks. Good night’s sleep, my ass—I got laid. The universal antidote to heartbreak, loss, anxiety, frustration, second thoughts, and fears of mortality. Anyway, Kate was right: I had a good gig. I had come home to Phoenix and found a sweet little niche for someone burdened by something as useless as a Ph.D. in history. In fact, my life was rich with blessings: Lindsey, a good marriage, a nice house in the Willo Historic District far from lookalike subdivisions, good health—I was still in good shape, even if I was undeniably in middle age. Lots of people would think my life was a fantasy come true. Looking around at all the suffering souls on these streets was reminder enough of that.
    I slid the big car slowly up to a group of men wearing layers of filthy old clothes. I showed them the photo and they asked for money. I showed them my badge and they went away. Another man, his face frozen in a desperate contortion and baked red-brown by the sun, swore he remembered a guy named Weed, an old guy who claimed he had come from a rich family in New York. No, he didn’t know his full name. A prostitute walked up in a short, dusty dress and asked us if we wanted a partner for a threesome. A patrol car gave us the once-over and drove away. We crossed the railroad main line a dozen times, going back and forth. So it went for an hour. Most police work was even more boring than this.
    “Pull in there,” Kate said, pointing to a shady area under the overpass, “if you won’t put the damned top up. I need to check my messages.” She pulled a cell phone out. “Jesus, I can’t even see the phone display in this glare.”
    I was sweating, too, so I drove slowly toward the shade, north from