Graham was exactly the sort of young deputy that we were losing to other law enforcement agencies. I was interested in his thoughts about pay. “It’s pretty tough to make it on a deputy’s pay. Are you married?”
“Polly and I plan to get married in about a year. She works at Wal-Mart in Cottonwood and lives with her parents too. We need a better income to be out on our own.”
“You’ll get a raise after six months,” I said to keep him talking about pay.
“Won’t do any good. I‘ll only net another hundred and ten a month. I’ll need to look at better opportunities in a year, but this is a great place to learn law enforcement.” He realized too late what he had said to a senior officer and let out a small moan. “Sorry sir, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
I appreciated that he didn’t just lie about it. “What would it take to keep you with the Sheriff’s Department? I’m working on next year’s budget, and I think we need to do more to retain young deputies.”
Now he was really uncomfortable. He pushed hard to brake when he realized a vehicle in front of us was turning into a campground. He avoided rear-ending the camper in a squeal of tires, and apologized again.
I mentioned the exceptional autumn foliage to direct the conversation away from a subject that was distracting him from driving. He would drive me home tonight, and I could bring up the subject again.
We got to the Law Enforcement Building without a further traffic incident. My first project was to arrange transportation for Mathew Andrews to Flagstaff from the Fourth Avenue Jail in downtown Phoenix. The Scottsdale police officer that I spoke with informed me that his pain-in-the-ass attorney, Bryan Goode, would be in Flagstaff to meet Mathew when he arrived at the Coconino County Jail.
Next, I called the District Attorney’s Office to discuss the case with the assistant who had been assigned to it. She had already spoken to the medical examiner about Dr. Cantor’s murder. After half an hour, she was not enthusiastic about the prospects for conviction. Even with a match between the rifle found in Mathew’s carport and the round from the elk, we had a serious problem. The bullet that actually killed Dr. Cantor had not been found.
Further, the forensic report was tainted by the post mortem damage to the corpse. Even the time of death was ambiguous because of the frigid and windy conditions at Doyle Saddle. She thought it would be a difficult case and asked if he would have private representation. When I explained that his father was wealthy and committed to helping, she grew even more hesitant but said she would do her best.
I called the network administrator and asked that access to Amanda Brandt’s web site be unblocked for my computer. I wanted to do some more follow up. I also called June and asked her if she had any more information on Trevor or Amanda. She sounded harried but promised to get right on it. I didn’t know what other research projects she had been assigned, but this was the only current homicide investigation and should be a priority.
All of the administrative staff reports to another captain. The third captain directly supervised the five substations and non-investigative staff of deputies. Sheriff Taylor had scheduled a lunch meeting in his conference room to discuss my proposal to adjust salaries for beginning deputies.
About 10:00, I began to review Amanda’s web site again. I didn’t know what I might find, but I thought it was worth another look. Frankly, I’d been uncomfortable spending more time on it at home considering Margaret’s reaction. The connection at the office was so much faster than my home computer that the review process was easier.
I spent half an hour looking for anything that might help the case. I found some things that might be relevant in the section of the site that showed simulated photos from Abu Ghraib Prison. Several had four men including Trevor in various gross prison poses. I noticed the men were nearly the same age and had the same pattern of tan as Trevor. Their faces and hands were very darkly tanned, but their arms and legs were not. I thought they were all soldiers who’d been stationed in a sunny climate. They’d worn long-sleeved uniforms in Iraq, Afghanistan, or a similar place.
I had no idea why they would want to simulate one of the army’s most embarrassing and disgusting episodes for Amanda’s porno site, but there must be some demand. The web site had a form for making special posing requests, and each photo listed the number of times it had been downloaded. This one had been viewed over two thousand times, the highest count I’d noticed. It cost twenty-five dollars to access the site for thirty days. Amanda also had sponsors who would have paid a rebate to her if you clicked on their pop ups. She was making good money from this trash.
One photo in another section was especially interesting. It was taken in a ponderosa forest like the one around Flagstaff. A man dressed only in a cap with cloth antlers was crouching on all fours by a lake as if drinking. It was probably Trevor, but I couldn’t see the man’s face. Amanda was nude except for a European-style hunting cap. She held a 338 Winchester Mag with scope in a parody of elk hunting.
I heard a gasp; a file folder fell from a limp hand; and I saw June standing in my doorway with her hand against her mouth. She started to flee down the hall, but I went after her.
“June, that’s the web site you found for me, the one owned by Amanda Brandt. That was her in the photo.”
She turned, her eyes full of tears, and nodded. She then fled into the ladies room where I couldn’t follow. I’d been pretty stupid not to shut my office door. I assumed that the whole Sheriff’s Department would know about my web tastes by lunchtime.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I returned to my office and retrieved the folder that June had dropped. Viewing Amanda Brandt’s web site might be important to this case; however, the department had very strict sexual harassment policies. Certainly, I should have been more careful not to put any employee into the situation where she would see pornography involuntarily. I e-mailed June an apology, with a blind copy to Sheriff Taylor, before looking through the information she had brought.
The top of the stack was a clipping from the East Valley Tribune. It’s the newspaper that covers activities in Mesa, Arizona and the other eastern suburbs of Phoenix. It showed an assembly that had taken place at Mesa High School two years ago. The caption said, “East Valley soldiers return to local school.” It showed Trevor and three other men in army dress uniforms standing on a flag-decked stage. The article explained that they had graduated together from Mesa High where they had been friends on the Jackrabbits’ soccer team. They enlisted in the army and spent their careers together as part of a Special Operations Team. They were back from the Middle East for two months to assist with a recruiting drive.
I took out my magnifying glass and focused on the faces of Trevor’s colleagues. There was a good chance they were some of the men I’d seen in the photos on Amanda’s site. I had wanted to know what Trevor had done in the service, but gotten little out of the Defense Department. I especially wondered if he was an expert shot who could hit an elk or man at extreme range. His friends would certainly know. I e-mailed June and asked that she find out where they were now. I also suggested that she contact the army public relations unit and say she was following up on this two-year-old article. She might be able to learn more from the PR people than through traditional channels.
The sheriff’s meeting on pay raises for entry-level positions was in his small conference room. There was a large bucket of KFC extra crispy chicken and all the fixings. A lunch meeting with fried chicken usually meant that there was something on the agenda that we wouldn’t like, but in this case, I quickly agreed with the sheriff’s proposal that the senior officers take over training responsibilities.
We decided to limit new recruit training to four months. We would eliminate the training staff. The three-person staff savings as well as funds saved from an extension of vehicle replacement schedules would go into entry-level salaries. It would close the gap with the local police by about half, assuming they made only inflation adjustments.
&n
bsp; I would be teaching investigation techniques, and for some strange reason, defensive driving and pursuit. I was also going to be responsible for weapons training. At one time I was an expert marksman, but I had gotten rusty because I hadn’t been practicing. I would need to sharpen my skills before the first class next month. The sheriff himself would teach law enforcement ethics and community relations, and the other captains most of the rest of the courses. It would add about eight days to my duties every four months. I actually liked the idea of being able to size up the recruits in each class for potential transfer into my criminal investigation unit. My only reservation was that the commitment was firm; I couldn’t dodge it if I was in the middle of an important case.
I had asked Sean to come to my office at 1:00 to discuss the Cantor case, and he was waiting when I returned from the meeting. I briefed him on the Mathew Andrews arrest. We both thought that we needed to continue our investigation in spite of the charges being filed against Mathew. He understood that the rifle could easily have been planted to incriminate him.
I asked Sean to take responsibility for finding someone who could establish that Trevor was in Flagstaff the weekend of the murder. I knew from his credit report that Trevor had no credit cards or a bank account. Using only cash made it difficult to trace his movements. If he killed Dr. Cantor, it was likely he spent the night before in Flagstaff in order to be at Doyle Saddle before dawn. Sean would canvas the local motels with a photo and check their guest registrations.
I had asked Sean to pull together a status report on Joe Banning from our department and from the Flagstaff Police, and he handed me a well-written report. Joe was still a suspect in the Cantor murder and wanted for assaulting a law enforcement officer. The Flagstaff police had discovered that Joe had purchased an old blue Mazda from a second cousin for a thousand dollars in cash. The police had issued an APB for it.
Everyone involved in the investigation was convinced that Joe had left Arizona soon after he bolted from our interrogation at his cabin. I called a contact in the LA Police Department and asked him to drive by Joe’s cousin’s house and see if the blue Mazda was parked nearby. After the call, Sean left to begin the tedious process of checking every motel in town.
When I phoned Mrs. Cantor’s Flagstaff home, her sister answered. I explained that I was calling to update Mrs. Cantor on the case. She put me on a speakerphone so they could both hear. I described the evidence that had led to Mathew’s arrest, but I also explained the problems. There was no round that tied the recovered rifle directly to Dr. Cantor because the round that went through his head was not recovered. I also explained that Mathew was likely to claim that he had no knowledge of the rifle in his carport. It could easily have been planted. This was a long way from an airtight case.
After explaining the current arrest, I asked some questions.
“Mrs. Cantor, do you know how Joe Banning and your husband met, and why he chose him as a guide to scout the hunt area? He’s still a suspect. Banning fled while I was questioning him about the murder. He may know something. His alibi didn’t check out.”
“I have no idea how they met. I assume some friend recommended him. He’s not the sort of fellow that Zack would know already.”
“Joe Banning maintained a hunting web site. Do you think your husband might have found him by searching the web?” I asked.
“Lord no. I use a computer some, but Zack had no interest in them. He might have looked in the phonebook, but it’s more likely he would have asked someone.”
I considered how much I could ask Mrs. Cantor with her sister present. I wanted to find out more about Trevor and Amanda, but I didn’t want to bring up the intimacy of their hot tub party. I decided to go about it indirectly.
“Mrs. Cantor, I was frank with you about the DEA’s investigation of your husband’s prescription practices. Have you thought of any reason he might have gotten involved, maybe a reason he could be blackmailed?”
“Zack was an ethical and caring physician. He was always very careful not to over prescribe, and he would never have gotten involved in a drug ring. We really didn’t keep secrets from each other. I would have known if he was being blackmailed. The allegations can’t be true,” she said.
“An FBI expert verified your husband’s signature on the questionable prescriptions, but actual drug descriptions were computer printed. Was that his normal method?”
“I don’t really know; I think he just wrote them out unless that was something that changed recently. Someone must have been fooling with them after he signed them.”
“I know you’re acquainted with Amanda Brandt and her boyfriend Trevor Joyce. What can you tell me about them?”
“My husband thought Amanda was a wonderful nurse and a great asset to the clinic. She was in our house many times, and he worked closely with her daily. We didn’t know Trevor well. He got out of the army last spring and moved in with her. Do you think Amanda might be involved? She is the one person that Zack would have trusted enough to give signed blank prescription forms, but I can’t imagine her caught up with drugs either.”
“As you suggested, if your husband wasn’t involved, it must have been someone at his clinic that he trusted. Do you know anything about Trevor’s military career?”
“Amanda had always described Trevor as a career military man who’d stay till retirement, but something happened last winter. When they attended the clinic’s holiday party in December, Trevor knew he was getting out within four months. He’d been transferred to Fort Hood in Texas to complete his enlistment. He taught marksmanship at Fort Hood until he got out of the army last July. He never said why he was leaving the service, but I had the impression that it wasn’t his choice.”
I thanked Mrs. Cantor. Trevor Joyce and Joe Banning seemed to be the only people in this investigation who were good enough marksmen to have killed both the elk and Dr. Cantor with perfect shots unless a professional hit man had been involved. Margaret’s question about how the rifle had gotten to Mathew’s carport made me doubt that was the case.
CHAPTER THIRTY
June e-mailed me information about Trevor’s high school buddies who’d joined the service with him. I assumed she didn’t want to come to my office for fear of seeing something upsetting. Two of the three were still in the service. She only found their military APO addresses, which didn’t even indicate in which country they were stationed. There was no quick way to reach them from that information. The other man, John Nordstrom, lived in Buckeye, Arizona, once a tiny farm town, but now a suburb of metastasizing Phoenix.
I phoned John’s home but got no answer. When I called his employer, a parcel delivery company, they gave me his cell phone. He was making deliveries in Sierra Vista, Arizona and would not be back in the Phoenix area until late in the evening.
When I called and identified myself, the reaction was cool.
“I haven’t kept up with Trevor since our enlistment was over in April. He lives over in Scottsdale with his girlfriend. I’m working long hours and too busy for socializing much.”
“Do you know why Trevor left the service? I was told everyone thought he was a lifer until last December.”
“You’d need to ask him,” John said. “He’s got it real bad for Amanda, and maybe he just couldn’t be separated from her any longer.”
“Have you seen Amanda’s web page, RED LIGHT NIGHT?” I asked. I’d seen photos that proved he had been socializing with Amanda and Trevor in a very intimate fashion.
“Never heard of it — I don’t even have a computer. No time for that sort of stuff, in fact I’m really busy right now. They keep us on a tight schedule,” he said.
“There’s a photo of you on her site that had to have been taken recently because it simulates the recent news story about a Texas congressman who was found in bed with his own son and his high school girlfriend.”
“What are you really after mister? This is a crock of shit.” He hung up.
I had not expected John to coopera
te with my investigation of his longtime friend. They had been buddies since high school. However, I was curious if he knew about Amanda’s web page; he sounded surprised.
I turned my attention to the other items in June’s folder. Most of the pages had been printed from the Internet. Amanda had moved to Arizona from Atlanta when she was twenty-two according to her driver’s license data. She listed her occupation as nurse. She’d never even received a parking ticket.
A clipping from the archive of an Atlanta newspaper explained that two of the finalists for Miss Georgia had been disqualified when they got into a brawl in the dressing room an hour before the contest’s final evening. Amanda Brandt had been arrested for assault and battery for provoking the fight. A crumpled aluminum coke can that Amanda jammed into the other woman’s cheek had left a scar. There were clippings about the civil suit, which was settled out of court. Maybe it had been too embarrassing to remain in Georgia. Her move to Arizona occurred the same month as the settlement. Amanda was not the cool and controlled person that she had seemed on the surface, but there was nothing to connect her to drugs and murder.
There was a notice in the Stars and Stripes, the army’s newspaper, that Trevor K. Joyce of Mesa, Arizona had been awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for action in Afghanistan in 2014. The notice said that the Silver Star was presented at a hospital in Germany where he was recovering. I wondered if the injury had driven him from his army career. It must have been fairly serious to evacuate him to Germany for treatment.
Frankly, the news of his personal heroism made me reduce him a notch on my suspect list. Silver Stars are rare, only given for exceptional valor under enemy fire. Maybe, my reevaluation of Trevor was not strictly rational, but a man who had shown personal bravery seemed less likely to ambush a physician he hardly knew, even if his girlfriend was trying to cover up a prescription abuse problem.
The only other clipping in the folder was a society page photo taken at a benefit for the Phoenix Opera at the Cantors’ home in Paradise Valley last month. Trevor looked out of place and unhappy standing a pace behind an animated Amanda. He was dressed in an ill-fitting business suit and holding a plate of cake. Amanda was dressed expensively and looked gorgeous even in the poor quality newspaper photo. They were talking with an Italian tenor in front of an elaborate display of desserts. The photo misidentified them as Mr. and Mrs. Brandt of Scottsdale.
The Dead Man at Doyle Saddle Page 13