by Dave Daren
“How old is this kid?” the judge asked.
“Ummm…”
“You don’t know?” the judge stormed.
“He’s three,” Gareth squeaked out.
“He’s three,” the judge said. “You should know his favorite toys, his favorite color, his teacher’s name at preschool, who his friends are, who their parents are, and where they live for playdates. Do you know those things?”
Gareth shook his head.
“And you want me to override your dad’s dying wishes for that?” the judge asked
Gareth just looked down.
“And you,” he turned to Emily. “Have some self-respect. You’re more than a pretty face. And that pretty face will get you everything now. But there will come a time when it doesn’t. Go to college. Get a job. Make something of yourself.”
Emily fiddled with her purse straps.
“And you,” he turned to Aiden. “I’m done telling you to stop booking my courts up with these frivolities. In light of these new accusations, I am dismissing this case and having you arrested with my personal recommendation that you be disbarred.”
Aiden looked shell shocked and another officer carted him off.
“Out of everybody in this case,” he pointed at me, “that one is the only with any sense. Take some lessons from him, and the rest of you get your acts together. Case dismissed.”
Chapter 20
After the court hearing, I went back to the office to tell Vicki and AJ the news. As soon as I walked in the door, they both glanced at me, and they knew.
“But it was brutal, though,” I shook my head. “Thatcher slammed those poor kids. Geez.”
“They needed it,” Vicki said. “The rest of us have to work hard for what we got. If their dad gave them money, well that’s one thing. But he didn’t, so they should have to work like everyone else.”
“So, is it true, Prescott was behind the tiger escape?” AJ asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “He told Shannon to pay Cindy to do it.”
“That’s why she made a big show of being in New York,” AJ concluded.
“Right,” I said. “She made sure her alibi was solid.”
“I wonder if the others knew,” she said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it will all come out in her trial. I’m just glad Prescott got busted. He won’t be darkening city steps anymore. Geez.”
“He what?” AJ asked.
I shook my head. “He was a scumbag. How did it go with Elena?”
“Good,” Vicki said. “She’s from Honduras, and the terrorists there... it’s like an old Viking story. The cartels really are pillaging and raping these villagers. That’s why they’re coming here.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s been going on since the 80s.”
“Right,” Vicki said. “Still, it’s sad.”
“Not an easy issue to solve,” I said.
“We can solve it for this one,” she said.
I shrugged. I guessed that I was a bit jaded with the immigration crisis. But I saw how much the case meant to Vicki and I wanted her to be happy. I decided that I would be there to help her if she needed it, but let
her take the reins.
“Now we just have to arrange that photo shoot,” I said.
AJ and Vicki both groaned.
“This should be interesting,” Vicki said.
We ended up setting the photo shoot at the mansion for that Saturday. With Neptune home safe and sound, we gave it a couple of days for him to recover from his ordeal. AJ didn’t need to be there, so it was just Vicki and me.
“Oh, my god,” Vicki stated as we pulled into the back drive. The place was crawling with people and camera and lighting equipment.
“Geez,” I said. “They’re going to spook the zebra. He’s already been through enough.”
Manuel met up with us and looked like he was going to come out of his skin.
“Mr. Irving,” he said. “I am glad that Mr. Bill has gotten Neptune back, but this is his home. It’s not a movie production facility. This-this-this is a circus! And Neptune is not a performing animal!”
Manuel’s face was tight, and his eyes flashed. In all of this, this was the first time I had seen him lose his cool.
“I know,” I said. “It’s just a couple hours, and then everyone will be out of here.”
“A couple of hours?” he said. “These camera crews have been here since six this morning!”
I smiled. “Manuel, why don’t you take the morning off? It’s been a hard few weeks for all of us. Let us handle Neptune for a while.”
“But—but,” he said. “I am the only one who knows how to handle Neptune. No one else does. I feed him, and I water him, and I take care of him.”
“I know,” I said. “But a person’s life is so much more than what they do for a living. Take some time for yourself.”
Manuel looked shocked. “Time for—?”
“Yourself,” I finished. “You’re not a zoo animal, you know.”
He looked like this was a dramatic revelation to him, and he wandered off in the direction of the house.
“Wow,” Vicki said. “That guy’s about to lose it.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “He’s already quit. We lost him weeks ago. We’ve got to figure out a new plan for Neptune.”
We approached the pen and found Bill. The cowboy bounty hunter was decked out head to toe in cartoonish western wear. He wore a brown cowboy hat with a drawstring around the neck. He had a white button-down shirt, but with a leather fringed lace-up vest over it. He was wearing blue jeans, but you wouldn’t tell with the full brown leather chaps, with fringe. He had a massive leather belt, and double holsters with revolvers.
“John Wayne would be proud,” I greeted him.
His face lit up. “Thanks. You think your friend at the Western Channel will be impressed?”
“Your guess is better than mine,” I said. A sound tech passed over me with a boom mic, and a photographer with a light meter ran around checking levels.
“What’s with all the crew?” I asked.
“We’re gonna do a full professional shoot of the zebra ride,” he said. “It’ll give me that leg up.”
I nodded. I had been on enough production sets to know this was far from professional quality, but I let him have it. A pretty blond make-up artist came by with a brush in hand.
“Mr. Flanagan,” she said. “We just want to do a bit of touch up.”
“Not too much,” he said. “I don’t want to look like no homo.”
“No sir,” she said. “We just want to cover up any kind of blemishes.”
“Blemishes?” he replied.
“Enjoy your ride, Bill,” I laughed. “You earned it.”
I joined Vicki on the sidelines who was chatting with the director. The director was a small man with dyed silver hair and square rimmed eyeglasses. He wore a suit and ran around in fifteen directions with a clipboard.
“Okay, people,” he clapped his hands and shouted over the various crew members that scurried about. “Let’s get into places.”
“Geez,” I said. “What did he have to say?”
“He thinks he could use a lawyer for his studio,” she said.
“What kind of studio does he have?” I asked.
“Local commercials mainly,” she replied.
“People, people,” the director yelled out with over the top impatience. “Can we get the talent on the zebra now?”
Bill looked frazzled, and Neptune stood patiently eating hay. Bill went into the pen, and Neptune trotted away from him. They chased each other around the corral for several minutes, while close to two dozen people watched with waiting cameras. The zebra brayed, and Bill did a stop and start dance trying to get close to it. The poor guy was flushed with embarrassment, and I felt bad for him.
“Shit,” I told Vicki. “I’m going to have to get involved.”
“You can’t control everything, Henry,” she said.
“Hmm,” I laugh
ed. “I’m going to have to ponder that nugget.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s going to take some time to let that one sink in.”
“Yeah,” I said. “In the meantime, I’ve got a zebra problem to fix.”
I hopped over the fence into the zebra corral and immediately regretted it. The production lighting washed the pen in crisp hot waves, and at first my eyes burned with the glare. Then the animal trotted right beside me with its assailant gasping for air. In all the finagling I had done with the zoo animals over the last few weeks, this was the first time I had been face to face with one, with no barrier in between. There it was, the black-and-white striped beast that belonged in the African savannah, not here in a pseudo movie set. Bill glanced over at me, with a pleading look, one of helpless humiliation.
I had no plan. I guess I should have thought of one before I jumped over the fence. But, now, here I was. I remembered everything in AJ’s report that said that zebras were aggressive and dangerous, and virtually impossible to tame and domesticate. Obviously Alister had done it, but how? And then I remembered. I raised my arms up and started to sing the only semi-Gaelic lyrics I knew.
“Auld lang syne, auld lang syne, my dear, auld lang syne,” my flat singing voice rang through the silent air.
Suddenly, the zebra stopped, and his ears twitched a bit as he listened. I motioned toward the waiting crew to chime in. Two dozen hesitant voices rang in the new year in April, and Neptune amazingly stood still. Bill hesitantly approached it and slowly touched his side. I made a continuing motion to the crew who sang with more gusto. The zebra stood still and Bill very carefully mounted the animal.
I didn’t remember Alister singing during his ride, so once Bill was on top of the zebra, I made a cut off motion to the impromptu choir. They silenced, and Bill grinned from ear to ear as the animal took a couple of steps. He was riding the zebra. I jumped back out of the pen and instructed the director.
“Get it, and get it fast,” I said.
“Got ya,” he said and then yelled out, “Action.”
With that, Bill’s confidence rose, and he took the reins like a horse, and trotted the zebra around the pen. The video cameras followed him, and there were flashes as still cameras caught images. After the first few minutes, he got into character, and turned into John Wayne on the zebra. The director’s face was ecstatic as he watched the monitors, and I kept hearing him mutter. “Good stuff, good stuff.”
Finally after about ten minutes of this, the director yelled out, “We’ve got it.”
Bill stopped the zebra, dismounted and got out of the pen. “That was harder than I thought,” he told me. “Thanks out there.”
“No problem,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” Bill assured me. “I won’t be doing that again.”
“That was just great!” the director came over and to show Bill the footage. I slapped Bill on the back.
“Good job out there,” I said and went to find Vicki.
“Well, that was close,” she said. “I can’t believe you jumped in the zebra pen.”
“What can I say?” I said. “I’m a badass.”
She laughed. “Okay, well the door on our cottage is only so big, so unless you want to spend the night with the zebra, you’d better make sure your head will fit through it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s something we should talk about, by the way, our tiny little cottage.”
“What about it?” she asked.
“Well,” I said. “I’ve been kind of thinking, now that we have some big regular clients, the zebra, Jasmine, and Coconino Brew, we’re growing some pretty good roots here. Maybe we should upgrade to something bigger, permanent.”
“You’re not thinking of Alister’s mansion are you?”
“Oh, God no!” I said. “The place is probably haunted by the ghost of tigers past.”
“Okay,” she said. “So what are you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We can think up something.”
“That’s a big commitment, there, Irving,” she said. “Are you ready for this, you, me, a mortgage together?”
“Yeah,” I said and I felt my face dissolve into a slow contented smile. “I think I am.”
She smiled and leaned into me, and we slowly walked out to our car in satisfied silence.
Chapter 21
Monday morning found us with an anti-climactic break in the schedule. Alister’s will was wrapped up nice and pretty. There was still a lot to liquidating the estate, but we had a two year timeline hashed out on that, so there was no rush. Vicki, AJ, and I had breakfast at Jitters for a change.
“Well,” AJ said. “At least now that the case is done, I have a leg up in my criminology class.”
“How is that?” I asked.
“The Alister O’Brien will has come up a few times in discussion,” she said.
“Is that right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Now I think I’ll do my term paper on the Aiden Prescott angle. I thought that kind of thing was something they only did in the movies.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Just be careful writing about our cases. You’re privy to sensitive information.”
“I know,” she said. “I’ll only use public sources.”
“You’re holding down the fort this morning, right?” Vicki asked her.
“Yep, you guys have fun,” AJ winked, grabbed her bag and headed out of the coffee shop.
“What, wait just happened there?” I asked.
“You know,” Vicki said. “The McGrath naming party?”
“That’s today?” I asked. “It’s a Monday morning.”
“Well, they live in a commune, they don’t do workdays, so they forget the rest of the world does.”
“What is with me and people who don’t work?” I muttered.
“They work as hard as anyone,” Vicki said. “They just don’t punch a time clock. Are you coming or not?”
I sighed. “I think I kind of have to. I missed the Earth Market meeting.”
“You did,” she said. “It went great, by the way. They loved Coconino, and Perry and Kristen did a great job presenting themselves.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I want you to be able to do more of that kind of stuff. Take the lead more.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You know,” I said. “The case with Elena, and other bigger cases. If you can take on bigger cases, we can all make more money.”
“Do you think that Henry Irving hidden massive ego could handle that?” she asked.
I sighed. “I’m working on it. Be nice to the massive ego. He’s dieting and working out, you know.”
“So your ego does laps on the track?” she said.
“He can’t help it that he’s overweight,” I said. “It’s the system.”
She laughed. “It’s the system?”
“It’s like this modest little ego went to L.A. after being a Sedona high school superstar ego,” I started.
“Modest?” she said. “I think you’re being too kind.”
“Well, anyway, he got off the plane, and was kidnapped by evil terrorists,” I continued.
“Kidnapped? Well that’s not good,” she said.
“And these terrorists chained him down, and shoved Hostess Twinkies down his throat for five years straight,” I said.
She laughed. “Well, I happen to be a great personal trainer for egos.”
“Don’t I know it,” I muttered.
We both laughed and now that breakfast was finished, we headed out to my car for the drive out to Tranquility. I had just pulled out onto the road when my phone buzzed. It was Earnie.
“Hey,” I said. “I was meaning to call you.”
“Pretty tough stuff we went through the other day,” he said.
“No kidding,” I said.
“Well, a couple of things,” he said. “First of all, how did the hearing go?”
“Like we expected,” I said. “The judge blast
ed all the O’Briens. It was sad, really.”
“Nothing about those kids’ life is sad except themselves,” he said.
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” I said.
“So, we’re in the clear on the will, then, right?” he said.
“Yep,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “The whole thing the other night… Did someone ever tell about the time I was kidnapped in Dubai?”
“No,” I said flabbergasted. “I did not know that about you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “When I worked for the copper mill, we had locations all over the world, and I would fly back and forth all the time. We had an office in Dubai, and very long story short, I was kidnapped by terrorists and held ransom for a year.”
I thought about the joke I had just made with Vicki. It didn’t feel so funny now.
“Wow,” I said. “How did you get out?”
“Alister had to pay the ransom,” he said. “But they would say one thing, and then another. It was terrible. So ever since then, things that I would have been able to handle as a young man, aren’t so easy to deal with.”
“No,” I said. “I get that.”
“That night was hard,” he said. “Too hard.”
“Okay,” I said, and I was getting the gist of what he was about to say.
“We’re going to Tahiti,” he said.
“When?” I asked.
“In a week,” he said. “I want you to work with me. I’ll show you everything you need to know about how the estate works. At least enough to liquidate it.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, I’m happy for you. Good luck out there.”
“Well,” he said. “I’m not leaving just yet. I still have to bore the shit out of you with a bunch of spreadsheets.”
“I can’t wait,” I said.
“Love the enthusiasm,” he said. “You’ll just have to figure out how to get an adrenaline rush from a cell formula.”
“That,” I began with a laugh, “is a problem I never want to have.”
“The other thing,” Earnie said, “I heard from Cindy.”
“How is your murderous executive assistant?” I said.
“Uh,” he said. “Incarcerated.”
“Good for her,” I said. “I’m sure she will find lots of like minded individuals.”