A couple of incidents were dramatic. Quentin DeKoven, Michael’s father, was the lone survivor of a small single-engine plane crash in northern Arizona. After dragging the dying pilot nearly three miles though rugged country and spending the night in frigid temperatures, DeKoven was found by the search team, nearly dead from exposure.

He subsequently lost two fingers on one hand and a foot to frostbite.

Tess read between the lines. Despite his heroism, Quentin DeKoven was not a nice man. He steamrolled over congressmen and governors, mowing down his opposition with money and lies. His businesses flourished. His business practices rode roughshod over the competition. He ran for governor and lost.

He and his wife, Eloise, had five children. The eldest, Quentin Jr., died at ten in a freak accident—a baseball hit him in the head during a Little League game.

According to the magazine, life was never the same again in the DeKoven household.

Zinderneuf was a beautiful place—but it was also an unhappy one. After Quentin Jr.’s death, Eloise rarely went out in public and wrote bitter letters to the editor of the local newspaper—screeds. Mostly about politics, but her vitriol regarding just about every subject, no matter how insignificant, was legendary.

She died at a relatively young age—she’d been ill.

Quentin DeKoven died ten years later almost to the day, when his private plane abruptly lost altitude and crashed into a wilderness area in the Pinaleño Mountains. The ensuing fire consumed a couple hundred acres of pristine forest.

Tess called Cheryl Tedesco at TPD. “Have you interviewed Michael DeKoven yet?”

“I’m doing it later today.”

“You mind if I come along as an observer?”

“Can you get here in an hour?”

“Make it an hour and twenty minutes, and I’m there.”

“See you then.”

Tess took I-19 to I-10, amazed as usual at the sprawl. Tan-colored houses spread like a circuit board across the desert valley. She’d been to Vail a few years ago, and was surprised by the change in the area. Once Vail had been a collection of old buildings and a beautiful Catholic church in a rural area. Now it was a sprawling outlet-mall-slash-fast-food jungle. She spotted Cheryl Tedesco’s car at a pull-out just off the freeway. Cheryl flashed her lights and pulled out onto Colossal Cave Road. Tess followed.

By the time they reached Old Spanish Trail, the jillions of Monopoly houses had disappeared in favor of more expensive homes on larger lots, and finally to open land. Tess glanced at the wrinkled flanks of the Rincon Mountains, still pristine for the most part, especially the higher you looked. The road curved and dipped in and out of a mesquite bosque. Now they were in ranch country. There was a sprinkle of expensive new homes in the foothills—Thunderhead Ranch. On the right a dirt road headed up into the wilderness. Cheryl turned onto the dirt road.

Tess dropped back to avoid the chalky dust funneling up from Cheryl’s vehicle—so dry out here. The road was a washboard. They went several miles. They rounded a curve and Tess spotted a house a couple of miles ahead, looking down at them from a high promontory. Shaded by giant eucalyptus trees and Aleppo pines, the walls in the afternoon sunlight were dull red brown.

Zinderneuf.

Up the hill and into a clearing for parking.

There were two cars in the lot. One was a silver Toyota 4Runner with a rack for bicycles on the back. The other still had the temporary sticker in the window. The car was a dark blue luxury sports sedan Tess didn’t recognize—but she knew it was expensive. It was also unusual—sleek and dangerous-looking. She leaned down to read the make and model just behind the front wheel: Fisker Karma. Both cars were parked outside, but there was a four-door garage, painted to match the house, at the edge of the lot. Tess wondered how practical a low-slung car like that was, given the flash floods that inundated Tucson in the summer. There were a few low spots in the dirt road up here.

“This guy really is rich,” Cheryl said.

“No kidding.”

The Moorish building could have been in Tangiers. Royal palms clustered around the entrance. A tall wall surrounded a courtyard. In the wall was a gate inset with a mosaic of peacocks. The house was two stories high and sprawled along the hilltop. Beyond, Tess saw a rectangular swimming pool that must have gone in in the forties, and a smaller, similar house on the other side.

“That must be their Mini-Me,” Tess deadpanned. With Danny out of commission, she felt it incumbent upon herself to be the wisecracker.

Cheryl pressed the doorbell. They waited. She pressed it again. “He said he would be here.”

Tess glanced back at the parking lot. She assumed the Fisker Karma belonged to Michael. It looked like something he would drive.

Then the door opened. Michael DeKoven greeted them. He was wearing a bathrobe. He said, “Don’t tell me. You’re here to sell me a magazine subscription.”

The inside of the house didn’t look as nice as it had in the Tucson Lifestyle spread. There seemed to be furniture missing, and some of the beautiful things Tess had noticed—like a Tiffany lamp—were gone.

DeKoven excused himself to change. Tess realized that this was the second time she’d met him when he was half-dressed.

He returned, wearing a Ski Aspen T-shirt, madras shorts, and boat shoes, sans socks. Tess had seen his well-developed cyclist’s calves before.

He caught her looking and smiled. “Real men shave their legs.” Then he said to Tess, “You get around, don’t you?”

Cheryl said, “How about the kitchen table? We might as well sit down.”

He led the way to a kitchen that had been remodeled to accommodate industrial-size appliances. They sat around the table. Tess farthest away, hoping to fade into the woodwork and let this be between the two of them. She would watch him for truthfulness, or any tells that might show he was lying.

Cheryl set down the minirecorder and made her introduction—the date, time, who she was interviewing, who was a witness, the case number, and the name of the victim. She started with asking him simple questions—his occupation, who was in his immediate family. Then she asked DeKoven if he knew George Hanley.

“I met him once or twice. He’s a friend of my sister’s.”

“Did you ever work with him professionally?”

“I thought this was about Barkman. You mentioned him on the phone.”

“We’ll get to that, but would you please answer the question?”

“I’ll tell you what I told Ms., uh…” He looked at Tess, as if he had forgotten her name. “My sister suggested I take Mr. Hanley on as a client. The old guy came in, we talked, and he left. I never saw him again.”

Cheryl asked if he knew Steve Barkman.

DeKoven folded his arms and pressed his index finger to his lips. “Mr. Barkman’s mother is a sitting judge in Pima County. I might have met him once or twice—maybe at the symphony. No—a fundraiser. His mother…introduced us.” He looked from one to the other, all innocence. “What does this all have to do with me? You weren’t clear on the phone.”

“What would you think if I told you that Steve Barkman was investigating you? Would that surprise you?”

He stared at her. Then he frowned—all innocence. “Investigating me?”

“He seemed to center around April tenth. Were you in town on April tenth?”

He looked bemused. “I’m sure I was.”

“You’re sure.”

He crossed his leg to the other side and rested his hand on his chin. “What are you saying here? Should I have a lawyer present?”

“These are just questions,” Cheryl said. “If you like, we could have a more official interview downtown.”

He absorbed this, then smiled—no harm, no foul. “No, that’s okay. I have nothing to hide. April tenth…I worked all day at DeKoven Financial—I’m pretty sure of the date because I had a big account that I had to ride herd on—deadlines are a bitch—and after that I came home for dinner here at the ranch. Ask my wife, she’ll tell you.”