Dry Wash

The call comes in at 5:47 a.m., before the sun clears the Tucson Mountains. Dispatch says a jogger found something off Arivaca Road, wouldn't say what on the open channel. I'm already awake, coffee going cold on the counter of the single-wide, when my phone buzzes. I drive south with the windows down. The air smells like creosote and dust that hasn't seen rain in ninety days.

I pull onto the shoulder where the patrol unit is parked, flashers cutting through the blue half-light. Officer Kendricks stands at the edge of the wash, hands on his belt. He's twenty-three, grew up in Surprise, doesn't know the difference between a wash and an arroyo. When he sees me he nods toward the gully.

"Down there, Deputy. I didn't touch anything."

I walk to the edge. The wash is twelve feet across, cut deep by floods that haven't come this summer. The bottom is packed caliche, white as bone under the rising light. Dr. Walt Hennessy lies face-down near the center, one arm bent under his chest, the other flung out. He wears khakis and a short-sleeved button-up, the fabric dark with sweat or blood I can't tell from here. His briefcase is open beside him, papers scattered in a loose arc. A pair of reading glasses sits unbroken three feet from his head.