Silence in West Fork: A small town police procedural set in the American Southwest (The Pegasus Quincy Mystery Series Book 5)

by Lakota Grace

  Cooper was tired of the fencing.

  “I’ll need to talk to you one at a time, if you don’t mind.”

  “Start with me,” Malcolm said smoothly. “You can leave, Harriet. I’ll handle it from here. I’m sure you have important things to attend to.”

  Malcolm waited until she left the room and then poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Help,” he said, looking in the direction of her disappearing figure. “What can you do?” He sipped reflectively and then looked at Cooper. “Fire away.”

  “It would help if you can give me some idea of the financial arrangements here at JCI.”

  Malcolm waggled a finger at him.

  “Jil-Clair Industries, please. Jill tried to change the name of the company once. Turns out somebody else already has the JCI designation. So we are stuck with the full title. Jill hated that she was paired with her sister Claire that way, but there you go.”

  “So the two didn’t get along?”

  “You’d have to ask Claire. But I never saw any evidence of it,” Malcolm said.

  “Who will get the company, now that Jill is no longer here?”

  “Good question. Normally something like this would go to the next of kin, but perhaps not, in this case.”

  “What do you mean?” Cooper asked.

  “The majority of the privately held stock is in trust, something that Jill’s father set up before he died.”

  “He didn’t trust his daughters to run it?”

  “Oh, he had written off Claire long ago, but Jill shined at her job. The old man was grooming Jill to take over the company. No, it wasn’t that. He was part of a fundamentalist religious group. Jil-Clair Industries may pass to them at his death. You’d have to ask the estate attorney. I looked up his name for you.”

  He passed over a slip of paper with the name Harold Stanton scribbled on it, along with a phone number.

  “Thanks.”

  “Not at all. I expected you to ask.” Malcolm tipped his head.

  “And how did you get on with these trustees?”

  “Frankly, I was hoping to get out from under their rule with the IPO, taking the company public.”

  Cooper made a note.

  “They were in favor of that?”

  “I assume so. Jill handled the day-to-day communications with the trustees. Perhaps Harriet could help you there although I doubt it.”

  Cooper noted his dismissive tone.

  “I take it that sometimes you and Harriet Weaver don’t see eye-to-eye?”

  “Sorry to have given you that impression,” Malcolm said quickly. “Oh, we disagree, but with an organization as small as this one is, we must rely on each other. Harriet and I, although not good friends, are part of a team moving forward.”

  Right.

  “It seems strange that Ms. Rustaine would have gone hiking rather than being here, preparing for such an important day,” said Cooper.

  He was fishing, not sure what the relationship had been between Jill Rustaine and her second-in-command.

  “Indeed.”

  Malcolm wasn’t biting. Maybe Cooper needed a better lure. He tried a different tack.

  “Any recent problems here at the company?”

  “Like what?” Malcolm asked.

  This man was worse than his wife, Geneva, about communicating.

  “Well, disgruntled employees, recent hires or fires, that sort of thing,” Cooper said.

  “There were some,” Malcolm admitted. “You must understand that someone of Jill’s brilliance does not always have the people skills to match. She believed that keeping employees off balance and competitive was the best way to promote creativity. Not that I always agreed with her.”

  “No, of course not.” Cooper made a note.

  Must be fun to work here. When he’d heard this was a high tech company, he’d pictured something like the Silicon Valley complexes: Gourmet dining rooms, rope swings and tricycle races in wildly decorated hallways, ways to encourage young brilliant geniuses. But what did he know?

  “I’ll need a list of the employees you’ve recently let go,” Cooper said.

  “I’ll have Harriet collect the records for you. She’s very efficient that way.” Malcolm paused. “Now that you mention it, I do have something here you might be interested in.” He pulled a sheet of paper from a leather portfolio. “I found this on Jill’s desk this morning.”

  He flicked the paper across the table to Cooper.

  “I hate you!” the note read. “And I hate this company! You’ll be sorry!”

  The note was computer generated rather than hand-written, but ended with a hasty scrawl of a signature. Cooper tilted the paper for a better look. The signature had gouged the paper, leaving ugly splotches of ink.

  “Wow,” he said. He raised an eyebrow to Malcolm. “Any idea who might have sent it?”

  “Well, I think it’s obvious, isn’t it? See, there at the beginning of the signature, a ‘T,’ and doesn’t the last name start with an ‘M?’”

  Cooper traced the letters with one stubby finger.

  “T. M. Yes, I do see that, now that you pointed it out. Who might have those initials?”

  “We had this young intern, Thorn Malone. I had high hopes she’d turn out, but she just couldn’t get along.” Malcolm sighed. “Very disruptive to staff morale. You might talk to her.”

  Cooper tried to hide his elation. Exactly the confirmation he had hoped to find. Thorn Malone was up to her eyeballs in this one, no matter what her friend, Peg Quincy, said.

  “I’ll need to keep this note.”

  “Not a problem. I have a copy.” He rose. “Anything else? I have company business to address. It’s been chaos here since we received the news of Jill’s death. In fact, a reporter from one of the Phoenix papers is scheduled to arrive soon.”

  “I do have one last question.”

  Malcolm resumed his seat.

  “Just for the record,” Cooper said, “and understand that I’m asking everybody, where were you between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. yesterday morning, Mr.—err, Malcolm?”

  “Of course,” the man said, obviously anticipating the question.

  “Normally I would have been sound asleep for most of that time, but yesterday, Harriet and I were both here in this room most of the day preparing for the board meeting.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Oh, you know, completing financial presentations, going over guest lists, checking out the caterers. All those details vital for a major event.”

  He rose again and reached for the card that Cooper offered him.

  “More coffee?” He gestured toward the pot. Cooper shook his head.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then. Harriet will be in directly.”

  The CFO disappeared, leaving his used coffee cup behind. It made an ugly watermark on the fine walnut table.

  Although Cooper was elated to discover another arrow pointing directly at his prime suspect, something didn’t ring true with this Malcolm guy. And something was wrong with this company, too. He intended to find out what.

  The door opened again, and Harriet Weaver came in. Cooper stood as she entered and gestured her to the seat at the head of the table.

  Before she sat down, she placed Malcolm’s cup on the credenza server with a look of disgust. Then she used a napkin to erase the ring on the table, placed the napkin in the trash, and sat down.

  She made a squiggle on the pad in front of her with a Mont Blanc pen. It looked like weird hieroglyphics.

  Shorthand? The squiggles were similar to the notebooks Cooper’s mother filled when she did secretarial work at their hometown law firm. Apparently, this woman had been similarly trained.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  She held up the expensive pen, assuming that was the target of his inquiry. “A present from Jill. We were very close.”

  Interesting.

  “No, I mean what you’re writing,” Cooper said.

  “I’m recording the date
and time of this conversation. It’s a version of Gregg shorthand. I used to be very fast, but there’s not much call for it today. I use it because I like to. It comes in handy sometimes.” She smiled as though remembering something.

  Cooper let the matter drop and moved forward.

  “Did Ms. Rustaine have any conflict with employees?”

  “Of course not. Jill had great affection for everyone.”

  “I’m sure she did,” said Cooper reassuringly. “But sometimes in the course of events, there are disagreements, differences of opinion. For instance, how did she and Malcolm get along?”

  “Fine! There were no problems between them. None.”

  The woman was emphatic in her denial.

  “Okay, then, what about employees? For example, was anyone discharged recently? I’d heard something about a Thorn Malone.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Your CFO.” Cooper handed over the sheet.

  “That’s not Thorn’s signature.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I processed her personnel records. She has this curvy, free-flowing hand. Not like this stiff script. I’ll check her application form. And for the record, she was suspended, not fired,” Harriet commented, as if that proved her point.

  “That’s not what Malcolm Vander said.”

  Harriet looked up in surprise. “You got this from him?”

  “The very same.”

  She hesitated.

  “If Malcolm said it, perhaps it’s so, but Miss Malone seemed like such a nice person. I hope not,” Harriet said. “But actually, there was something.”

  There was usually one person in a company who knew, if he’d pardon the expression, where all the dead bodies were buried. Cooper sensed that he had met the Jil-Clair Industries edition.

  “Jill called me into her office to listen to a message on her voice mail last week. She was quite upset.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Watch your back. I’m coming.”

  “Was it a male or female voice?”

  “I’m not sure, but male, I think. Deep.”

  “Is it still on the machine?”

  “No, unfortunately. Jill erased it after I heard it. I told her she should keep a copy, but she refused.”

  “Can you tie it to anyone?”

  “I’m not one to point fingers,” she said, “but I’ll be glad to check our personnel records. I do believe we had to release one of our security guards a week or so ago.”

  “Why?”

  “He had a hot temper. And was rude to the guests.”

  It sounded like this was an unforgivable sin to the executive assistant.

  “I’ll need a copy of his personnel records,” Cooper said. “Anyone else aware of the message?”

  “I didn’t bother Malcolm with it. I doubt he’d understand.”

  “I suppose not.” Cooper agreed with her, just to form a connection. This lady knew more than she was telling.

  “I’ll need a list of everyone with access to the building. Also, Malcolm said you could provide me with a list of recent hires and fires,” Cooper said.

  “That can be arranged. You aren’t going to arrest Ms. Malone, are you? She seemed like such a nice person.”

  “That’s not what Malcolm said.”

  “Malcolm Vander doesn’t know everything.”

  Her unspoken finish to that sentence was that she did, Cooper thought. She seemed sincere, and Cooper believed her. But he’d be back.

  “Please fax over the list when you get it together.”

  “Of course,” she said. “There aren’t that many. It won’t take me long. Is there anything else you need?”

  “Miss Weaver, I’ll ask you the same question I asked your colleague, where were you the morning your employer, Jill Rustaine, was killed?”

  “It’s Mrs., not Miss. Malcolm always forgets, but call me Harriet, please. I’m sorry,” she continued. “What did you ask me?”

  The woman seemed nervous, but Cooper could understand that. Her world had shifted when her boss died. He repeated the question.

  Harriet Weaver put down the pen and folded both hands in her lap.

  “I was right here. With Malcolm, completing financial presentations, going over guest lists, checking out the caterers. All those details vital for a major event.”

  Malcolm Vander’s exact words. Cooper had witnessed this before, where suspects would present a united front, us vs. them. Unfortunately, he was part of the “them” team. He made a careful note of her statement in his notebook, and Harriet did the same in her divided spiral book, in the strange curves of that totally foreign script.

  “If there’s nothing else, I have arrangements to make.”

  The woman’s eyes moistened and Cooper sensed a real loss there, unlike Malcolm Vander’s concern with the company, rather than its president.

  “Just get me the names and I’ll handle it from there.”

  Cooper walked out to his car with an unfinished feeling. He itched to get his hands on Jill Rustaine’s computer, although if Malcolm Vander had any say in it, such computer would be deemed “proprietary and confidential.” Back home in Florida, Cooper had two or three court judges who owed him, who’d allow the computer access without question. Here? He sighed. Being the new kid on the block meant he had zilch influence.

  He drove to a vacant parking lot and parked with clear views in all directions to finish his notes on the meeting with the Jil-Clair executives. Not as much there as he had hoped, but he’d follow up when he interviewed Thorn Malone.

  When he called his office, they told him a family liaison officer had been assigned to see Jill Rustaine’s sister, Claire Marks.

  “Name?” Cooper asked.

  “Pegasus Quincy.”

  The message Quincy left him hadn’t mentioned she’d taken the assignment. If she’d asked his permission he would have refused. Where he came from, experienced cops would have recused themselves from an obvious conflict of interest.

  On the other hand, the Quincy woman might have learned something talking to the sister that might save him some time. Time was everything right now. He’d find out what she learned and then warn her off the case. It was time to finish this thing.

  He dialed the number Quincy had given him.

  “Hello?” she responded.

  “Hey, I know we got off on the wrong foot, out there at West Fork. But look, we’re both professionals. Maybe we could meet informally before your friend Thorn comes in and compare notes. A courtesy between departments, like.”

  “Where are you right now?” she asked.

  “Out at the Jil-Clair Industries site. Learned some things that might interest you.”

  “Might be a good idea. It’s getting on noon. You ever been to Javelina Cantina? A good Mexican restaurant on the south edge of Sedona,” she said.

  Done. Now he’d find out how close Pegasus Quincy was to the Malone family and what the attorney planned as a defense. It might be the opening he’d been searching for to break the case wide open.

  Details. Details were everything.

  CHAPTER 13

  I drove into the parking lot for Javelina Cantina a few minutes after noon. I wasn’t certain about this lunch with Cooper Davis. I’d gone behind his back with the family liaison meeting with Claire Marks. On the other hand, if he’d not heard about it, I could pick his brain for what he’d learned at Jill Rustaine’s company. Worth a shot.

  The key was how much I wanted to give him in return. As little as possible, I figured. My goal was to distance myself from Thorn and her dad in his mind and see what cards Cooper might put on the table.

  And I’d listen, a lot. I was good at that.

  Claire Marks was a distant possible for a suspect to replace Thorn Malone in his bulls-eye target. She and her sister had serious conflicts although Claire said they hadn’t talked for years. I was positive she and her son had been in West Fork. I just couldn’t prove it.

  Tr
uth was I didn’t have a clue who besides Thorn might be a reasonable suspect in this murder case. We were running out of options. A superb time to have lunch with the enemy.

  Then, too, there was the business with the knife that stabbed Jill Rustaine. Melda, our dispatcher, called me first thing about the fire at the forensics lab, and two other sources added completed details later on the cop grapevine.

  Of course, the big news was what had been destroyed in the fire. I took a small measure of satisfaction that fingerprints on the knife in the Jill Rustaine case were among the missing. Would Shepherd have had a hand in the arson? It didn’t sound like him, but his daughter’s freedom was at stake. Yeah, he might just do it.

  The Cantina was located in an upscale Sedona shopping center. In front of me was a magnificent life-size bronze of kids walking a log, playing follow-the-leader. Next to them were elaborate metal and glass whirligigs, spinning in multicolored splendor. A swathe of cottonwood trees lined the banks of nearby Oak Creek, and the roar of fast-running water formed a noisy backdrop. There was a slight hint of a breeze as I hurried up to the entrance.

  I’d let Cooper’s department pay for lunch. He’d asked me. The least he could do.

  I pulled open heavy oak doors and stood for a moment, letting my vision adjust after the brilliant sunshine. The restaurant was painted in sage green and soft lavenders with Mexican serapes decorating the walls and rusted corrugated metal sheets creating a false half-roof over the bar.

  The aroma of frying fajitas came from the back grill, and in the corner, a group celebrated over pitchers of margaritas. My kind of place.

  Cooper waited at the entrance hostess stand. He didn’t notice me, and I stood for a moment, re-assessing him. He was tall and a little overweight. He needed a few more regular sessions at the gym. Rusty blond hair, unlike my own fire engine red. Dressed in an East Coast, formal sort of way. Not yet adjusted to our more casual way of looking at the world.

  He leaned an elbow on the counter, practicing high school Spanish on a passing waitress. Time to intervene before he made a fool of himself. I touched his arm and put a hand in front of my mouth to make a side comment.