Desert Lost (9781615952229) by Betty Webb Page B

grounds for a search warrant. Although Arizona’s attorney general deeply resented Rosella’s so-called interference in “child custody” matters, he would never be able to ignore a local, non-Rosella-connected polygamy situation. Scottsdale’s movers and shakers wouldn’t allow it: the polygamists might scare the tourists.
    I’d jumpstart that process tonight, then tomorrow morning, help Angel take care of the Dean Orval Nevitt situation. If tonight’s efforts were successful, by the time I returned from L.A., the Scottsdale authorities might even have fingered Celeste’s killer.
    I waited until traffic at the storage facility died down and most of the tenants had gone home. On my row, the last to leave was the potter, who continued to pedal her wheel to the accompaniment of Vivaldi until almost nine o’clock. Then, to my relief, she finally called it a day. As soon as she’d shuttered her unit and disappeared into the night, I gathered up my equipment and crossed over to the fence.
    The halogen lights illuminated the Kachina almost too well, and enough security cameras were stationed around the yard that I had to plan my route accordingly. In my earlier walk-through, I’d discovered that one area in the back of my locker had a blind spot, and that’s where I planned to set up my own seeing-eye. The Kachina cameras would pick me up leaving my unit, see nothing for around forty-five seconds, then pick me up again as I emerged from the blind spot on my way to the ladies restroom. I’d need to work fast, but I was familiar enough with my equipment that hurry-up presented no problem.
    The oleanders against the fence did their job well. Well enough, in fact, that it was necessary to trim away several branches to provide a sight line for my camera. After a quick peek inside the dark yard on the other side, I clipped the tiny lens to an oleander stalk, framed it with leaves, and repeated the same process for the mike. That accomplished, I trotted back into Kachina camera range, and strolled leisurely toward the john.
    So far, so good.
    Once back in my storage locker, with its metallic shutters rolled closed, I settled myself on the chaise lounge and clicked on the camera and backup recorder.
    The monitor revealed that the house in back of Ten Spot Construction, your basic rectangular ranch-style, didn’t appear large enough to serve as the usual polygamy dormitory. On closer inspection, I saw an extension at the rear that didn’t match the rest of the house’s architecture. I guesstimated that the addition brought the house’s square footage up to around thirty-two-hundred square feet, still small for a polygamist enclave, but with enough space to house several wives and some of their children if they didn’t mind being crowded. Not that they had any say in the matter. Toys littered the rest of the yard: a tricycle with missing spokes; a couple of plastic pails and shovels leaned against a sandbox; and near a swing set, a tattered Teddy bear. Most of the children would probably have remained in Second Zion. Not a happy situation for either the children or their mothers, but Prophet Shupe had never been known to consider the feelings of his followers, especially those of women and children. His brother Ezra cared even less.
    Little happened at first. For a long time, the voice-activated recorder merely caught the plaintive yowls of a lovesick cat and the rumble of another Kachina renter’s truck as it rolled along several lanes over, but the polygamy compound remained silent. Then, shortly after midnight, the monitor caught movement at the front of the house. A door opening, closing. Heavy feet crossing floorboards. At the sound of a cough, the recorder clicked on, conducting a deep voice into my earphones.
    â€œâ€¦thought that would work.”
    I studied the man’s image, reduced to a blue-gray ghost on the screen. Short and stocky; not