Desert Noir (9781615952236) by Betty Webb

out of my reverie. “What?”
    â€œGoddamn skater almost ran into me.”
    I turned around and in the glow of a streetlight, saw a woman dressed in a Day-Glo bikini with matching kneepads flipping us the bird. “Probably some goddamn Californian,” I said.
    â€œGoddamn Californians are ruining this town.”
    I said the most optimistic thing I could think of. “But the statistics show that for every three Californians who move out here, two go back.” 
    â€œLeaving one more son of a bitch every half block to make us miserable.” 
    For the past decade, Scottsdale—founded after the Civil War by Winfield Scott, a U.S. Army chaplain, and which had once called itself “The West’s most Western town”—had been overrun by Californians fleeing earthquakes, New Yorkers fleeing crime, and Chicagoans fleeing snow. The city had grown from 130,000 to 180,000 residents in just six years, and while the influx was good for the tax base, Scottsdale now suffered from streets too narrow for the increased traffic. Not a day went by that some rancher didn’t sideswipe some underdressed immigrant on rollerblades.
    Nobody liked it, but there wasn’t a thing we could do about it. In twenty years, I figured, the Valley of the Sun would look just like Los Angeles.
    And smell like it, too.

    That night the pain in my shoulder kept me awake so I lay staring at the ceiling, thinking about Clarice and all the other battered women I’d come in contact with in my years with the Violent Crimes Unit. Each year, an estimated one-and-a-half million women were severely beaten by their husbands, and everyone in VCU believed that Scottsdale had more than its share of these dysfunctional couples. We’d arrest the batterers and refer the women to shelters, but nine times out of ten the next day the scarred and beaten women would be down at the jail bailing out their men. The psychologists told us it was because the women could see no way out of their situation, but while that theory might explain some victims, it didn’t explain Clarice. She was a childless, educated beauty with money of her own. She didn’t need to be dependent upon anybody else’s paycheck, she owned a house worth a half million, and she could get any man she wanted.
    Why had she wound up with Jay?
    A sudden rumbling pulled me from my reverie. I rolled over and nudged Dusty, to whom insomnia was a stranger. “You’re snoring, babe.” 
    â€œMmph.” He gave me a few minutes’ reprieve, then started up again.
    Careful not to wake him, I pressed my hand against his cheek and caressed it slowly, surprised as always by how soft his weathered skin actually felt. He turned his face into my hand and, eyes still closed, kissed my palm. I moved my hand away.
    I didn’t love him. I didn’t.
    I was still safe.

Chapter 7
    Dusty was gone by the time I crawled out of bed, but he’d filled a vase with water and arranged Cliffie’s yellow roses in it.
    My head still hurt, but not as fiercely. I showered carefully, keeping my bandaged shoulder out of the spray, dressed in jeans and a loose T-shirt, then limped downstairs to the office.
    Jimmy greeted me with a disapproving glare. “You should stay in bed. There’s nothing going on down here I can’t handle.” 
    I ignored him. “The Violent Crimes Unit ran an AFIS check on Jay Kobe and came up with a few things I want you to follow up. See if he owes money, stuff like that.” 
    â€œGreat minds think alike. The print-out’s already on your desk.” 
    â€œRemind me to give you a raise.”
    The glare vanished as he laughed. “You can’t give me a raise. We’re equal partners, remember?”
    I smiled, even though my shoulder was screaming at me. “You talk to the Golden Apple yet about that light-fingered manager?” 
    â€œThey’re very pleased, didn’t