by B A Trimmer
“You should also know the police suspect Les may have had more to do with the murder Tuesday night than he let on. The investigation is still in the early stages, but the evidence is starting to come together.”
Elizabeth didn’t answer. She sipped her wine and stared out over the people and the lights on the terrace. After not speaking for almost a minute, I saw she was crying.
“I want you to know I’ll do my best to help,” I said. “I mean, help both of you. If Les doesn’t show up soon, we’ll need to contact the police and I’ll need to start looking for him. We’re also still representing him in this treasure hunt thing. Lenny, that’s my boss, is convinced the treasure is part of the reason Les was taken. If we can find the jewelry, we have a better chance of clearing this whole thing up. I know Les wanted to split the jewelry with you. Would you like to work together on this? I think I might have some clues that could help find it.”
“You’d still be willing to do that?” She took out a tissue and wiped her eyes. “I was sort of a bitch to you the other day. I’m sorry about that. It’s the effect my brother has on me. I’ll be honest, I don’t have any idea where the jewelry is, and I can’t spend more than a few days looking for it. I took vacation time to come here and I’ll need to get back by the end of next week.”
“Don’t worry about the other day. I understand families can sometimes have some tension. What happened between you two that started it?”
“If you seriously want to know, it started when I was a kid. I was five years old when Les was born. I can still remember when they brought him home from the hospital. My mom died about a month later. They eventually told me it was due to complications from the birth. I think I’ve always blamed mom’s death on Les. I know that sounds stupid, but I think it’s true. The latest round of issues started after Dad died back in two-thousand. I agreed to let Les be the executor of the estate. We were to split about six million dollars altogether. I suggested Les sell all of the stock and we put the cash into two bank accounts. One for him and one for me. Les, of course, had a better idea. He was going to keep everything in stock and he set up three brokerage accounts for me and three for him. He said it would spread our risk and we’d still keep making a lot of money. You have to remember, back in two-thousand the stock market was still going nuts.”
“OK, I can see that happening. What was the problem?”
“Les didn’t want to break up any of the blocks of stock, so he took some and he gave me the others. Unfortunately, most of the stock he gave me was from a company called Enron. Again, that was in two-thousand when the stock was over eighty dollars a share. By the end of two-thousand one, it was worth less than a dollar a share. I tried to sell it when I saw it was nose-diving, but the estate was still frozen in the final stages of probate. I tried to work out a deal to re-divide everything, but by then Les had dropped out of sight. I didn’t know where he lived or how to get ahold of him. I’ve tried to email him on his Facebook account but he’s always ignored me. Meeting him at the lawyer’s office this week was the first time we had talked face to face in over ten years.”
“Wow, I can see why this has stirred up some bad memories. I assume your granddad knew about the issues you and Les were having?”
“Yes and I know he felt bad for both of us. He was always sending me presents. Two years ago, a new car showed up at my house from Granddad.”
“Well, like I said, Lenny’s representing Les in this jewelry treasure hunt thing. Why don’t we have him write up a document that formally states how the jewelry is to be split, assuming we can find it. That way you’ll be sure to get your half this time.”
“I would appreciate that. Honestly, I keep getting visions of helping Les find the jewelry and then having him take off with it. Having something that spells out what each of will get would make me feel a lot better.”
“I’ll talk to Lenny tomorrow and have that taken care of.”
Elizabeth drained the rest of her glass. “I need to go up to bed. Things are starting to spin.”
“Would you like to get together tomorrow? We can start searching.”
“OK, but not too early. After the last couple of days, I think I need a morning to sleep in.”
“That works with me. Maybe meet for lunch. Say eleven?”
“Perfect. I should be up and going by then. Text me when you get close. I’ll meet you somewhere down here.”
“Why don’t we meet by that queen palm,” I said, pointing with my head toward a beautiful queen palm in the courtyard by the lobby.
She squinted and looked around. “Which one is that? The one next to the bar over there?”
“No, that’s a Mexican fan palm. Those have the short and round fronds, like a hand with fingers. The queen palm is the one next to the fountain with the long feather fronds.”
“Long feather fronds? You mean like the ones in the courtyard of Granddad’s house?”
“Sort of, those are date palms. They’re some of the most expensive palms in Scottsdale. All the best hotels and shopping malls have them. They’re sort of like status symbols.”
“Hey, I’m a tourist from Chicago. They all look alike to me. What about the coconut palms? Where are those?”
“We don’t have those in Scottsdale. Even a light frost will kill them.”
“You get frosts in Scottsdale?”
“Once or twice a year. Every few years we even get an actual freeze.”
“There’s a difference between a frost and a freeze? It seems like they’re the same thing.”
“Most plants down here will tolerate a frost. A freeze will kill a lot of things.”
“Well, what about the short palm over there, the one that looks like a pineapple?
“That’s a younger Canary Island date palm. Those actually produce dates, which most people don’t want to deal with. They’re really messy and they tend to attract ants and scorpions.”
“Scorpions? Seriously? You have scorpions here?” She eyed the ground around her feet.
“Well, you won’t see one here at the hotel, but you’ll see them around sometimes. Don’t try to pick them up. If you see one, just step on it.”
Elizabeth got the most horrible look on her face.
“Eeeeyuuuw, yuck,” she said. “The thought of stepping on a scorpion is so gross. And why would anyone try to pick one up? I tell you what. If I see one, I’ll just start screaming and I’ll let you step on it.”
“You get used to them. They’re not so bad in the established neighborhoods. You almost never see a scorpion there. But in some of the newer neighborhoods, there can be a lot of them. The areas around the old orange groves are the worst. It’s life in the desert. We don’t have blizzards, tornados, or hurricanes. We have monsoons, rattlesnakes, and scorpions.”
~~~~
I walked out to my car in the parking lot. It was after eleven and I knew Reno would probably be asleep. I’ve called him a few times in the middle of the night to meet for a quickie, but it’s usually better when we can take our time. Plus, after our escapades in Frankie’s parking lot earlier in the evening, I knew he wouldn’t be as receptive to being woken up. I decided to drive home.
Nine
I woke up to see my bedroom in bright sunlight. I glanced over at the clock and saw it was only six-fifteen. I didn’t have to be at the Blue Palms until nine, so I had set the alarm for seven-thirty. I rolled over to go back to sleep but then I started thinking about Max. I tried to shut him out of my mind but then I started thinking about Reno. I was starting to regret not being able to have make-up sex with Reno. The more I thought about it, the more it got me going.
After a half hour of rolling back and forth in bed, I got up and staggered into the bathroom for a long hot shower. While standing there, I had a brief, but passionate, affair with the shower massager. Finally, I got out and toweled my hair dry. I put on a pot of coffee and got ready for the day.
For some reason, I didn’t want to dress too casually for the FBI. I
found a knee length navy blue skirt and a V-neck cream knit top. I thought heels would go best with the outfit, but decided on a pair of flat sandals instead.
I grabbed my cooler and put half a dozen cold water bottles in it. I then fed Marlowe and I was out the door.
~~~~
The drive up to the Blue Palms was beautiful. There is something about driving on Scottsdale Road that makes you appreciate what a great place Arizona is to live. I called up Sophie at work.
“Hey Sophie. I met with Elizabeth last night and she’s going to work with us.”
“That’s good. Did you have make-up sex with Reno?”
“Well, not really. I needed to meet with Elizabeth.”
“Didn’t we talk about this? Elizabeth could have waited. You could have met with her today or even tomorrow.”
“Reno got make-up sex. Does that count?”
“Really? Did you do a parking lot thing on him again? You’re such a bad girl. But still, passing up on make-up sex was a bad move.”
I sighed. Sophie was right. The thought of missing out on make-up sex was starting to dominate my thoughts again. I could tell that the shower massage thing wasn’t going to last more than a day or so.
“I’m meeting with the FBI at the Blue Palms in a few minutes. I need to see if I can pump some information out of them.”
“Good luck with that. They never seem like the friendly sorts.”
“We’ll also need to have Lenny write up an agreement for Elizabeth splitting the treasure and real estate fifty-fifty with her brother. She’s worried that Les is somehow going to screw her out of the jewelry, assuming we can find it.”
“No problem, I have something standard already on file. I’ll get it printed up.”
“Let’s make sure it’s solid. The more I know about our client the more questions I have. Let’s make sure there isn’t any wiggle room for him to get out of it.”
As we were talking, I got a text from the 202 area-code number that I now knew belonged to Special Agent McCoy. It said we would meet in the Boardroom at the Blue Palms at nine o’clock.
I had expected more traffic and I got to the hotel about fifteen minutes early. I parked in the front lot and walked up the hill to the main reception hall. I checked the hotel directory and saw the Boardroom was a small conference room located down a long hallway from where I was.
I took a few minutes and looked around the lobby. I hadn’t been here since I had been investigating Alex Sternwood, six months before. I walked over by the grand piano and stood on the spot where Alex had switched a bag full of diamonds for an empty bag from a distracted Russian mafia courier. The Russian had paid with his life for losing the diamonds and Alex almost came to the same end as well.
I then wandered to the shops in the back lobby. I walked into the store that sold high-end dresses, purses, and shoes. As always, I wondered who would actually pay the outrageous prices of the hotel shops when the Scottsdale Fashion Plaza was a ten-minute ride by cab and they could get the same things at half the price. I saw there was still a display of Farucci bags against the back wall. I was slightly disappointed that the black Spy Bag wasn’t being shown. The thought it might have been discontinued made me a little sad.
At nine o’clock, I made my way to the Boardroom. It was nestled in with several other offices near where the main ballrooms were. When I walked in, I saw there were two serious looking men seated at the table. When I looked around the room, I couldn’t help but smile.
The conference room had been set up as a Hollywood designer’s idea of a corporate boardroom. The room was long and narrow with thick blue carpeting, dark wood paneled walls, wainscoting, and crown molding. The main feature of the room was the heavy and ornate wooden conference table surrounded with ten or twelve black leather executive chairs. The back of the room contained a nice wet bar with racks of glassware. Instead of alcohol, the hotel had provided a pot of coffee and a plate of cookies.
Hanging on the wood paneling of the walls were half a dozen oil portraits of famous Arizona business and political leaders. I recognized Barry Goldwater, the godfather of Arizona politics from the sixties, Alan Hald of MicroAge, Bob Parsons of Go Daddy, Joan Koerber-Walker of CorePurpose, and John Sperling of the University of Phoenix. What had made me smile was the image I saw when I first walked in the room. On the wall directly behind the two federal agents was a formal oil portrait of Tony DiCenzo.
Both men stood when I entered the room and made their introductions. Now that I had a chance to look at them, they were about as I expected. Both men were big and solid. They looked like they would fit in as detectives on almost any police force. Both had short military style haircuts. Both were dressed in inexpensive blue suits. The older of the two seemed to be the leader. He was a white guy in his late forties. We shook hands and he introduced himself as Special Agent McCoy. The other agent was an African-American guy in his thirties. He introduced himself as Special Agent Conquest.
“Miss Black,” agent McCoy said, “we know Lester Murdock has retained the legal services of your employer, Leonard Shapiro. We also know you have been assisting him since he came into Arizona on Monday night. Since you are a recognized member of the law firm, this gives you certain responsibilities with regard to this matter. However, it also allows us to reveal certain information to you on a strictly confidential basis. We would like to share this information with you on the condition you keep it strictly to yourself and share it with no one.”
“OK, I can do that.”
Special Agent Conquest pulled out a document from a folder and handed it to me.
“This is an agreement to keep confidential anything we tell you concerning this case,” agent Conquest said. “There are severe criminal and civil penalties for violating the terms of this agreement.
I glanced it over and it seemed straightforward. “OK, where do I sign?”
I not only had to sign, I also had to hold up my hand and swear an oath. Both agents witnessed the document then agent Conquest slipped it back into his folder.
“Alright Miss Black, agent McCoy said, we would like to talk to you about the activities of Lester Murdock. As you apparently have been aware, we are keeping track of Mr. Murdock on behalf of the Federal government. He is a material witness to the activities of a major criminal organization based in Illinois. We are not only here to monitor his activities, we’re here to help keep him safe and out of trouble. We know of the terms of his grandfather’s Will and about Mr. Murdock’s efforts to recover the property in his grandfather’s estate, primarily consisting of antique and historic jewelry.”
“What do you want to know?” I asked.
“What do you know about the Chicago organization and Lester’s association with them?” agent Conquest asked.
“Not a lot. The only one I met was a goon named Magic. He talked about somebody higher up called Morningstar. He also mentioned somebody named Frankie.”
“Magic would be Vannier Magic,” McCoy said. “He’s hired muscle for the organization. Morningstar is Horace Morningstar. He’s the top lieutenant. We have evidence that both are currently in the Scottsdale area along with Frankie ‘Two Guns’ Cantone, the man who was murdered Monday night.”
“Has Morningstar contacted you yet?” agent Conquest asked.
“Not yet,” I said. “Tell me about him. What’s he look like?”
“He’s short and he’s fat. He’s also a cold-blooded killer. He rapidly rose through the ranks by being the primary assassin for the group.”
“What do you want with Lester?” I asked.
“As I said, we’re only here to keep an eye on him,” agent McCoy said. “We want him to testify against the other members of his organization. We have evidence Lester Murdock was involved in several crimes that could easily net him several years in a federal prison. We’ve offered him immunity and a relocation package if he cooperates.”
“I take it Lester hasn’t decided if he’s going to play along or not yet?”
“Then you wouldn’t have any testimony. Not to mention my client would be dead.”
“We’d rather that not happen.”
“What do you know about the murder on Tuesday?” I asked.
“We know Mr. Murdock went to the house on Camelback Mountain by cab. We know Mr. Murdock then took the cab back to his hotel. We also know of the events later that night when you and Miss Bright Murdock were with him.”
“Do you know who killed the guy?”
“No, we have contacted the local police and the physical evidence is pointing to Mr. Murdock, but nothing is definite yet. We’ve asked the police to contact us before they make an arrest.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Keep us informed of what you know. We want to know what is going on with Mr. Murdock, but we are also interested in Miss Bright-Murdock, Horace Morningstar, and Vannier Magic”
“Anything else?”
“We would appreciate it if you did not attempt to lose us again,” agent Conquest said. “Don’t make us go through the process of having tracking devices installed on your car. The paperwork on that takes all day.”
“I hope you understand,” I said, “my first duty is for the client. I can’t do anything that isn’t in his best interest.”
“Miss Black,” agent McCoy said. “We understand your feelings toward your client. However, we hope you don’t do anything to hinder our investigation. That would be a serious matter. There could be prison time involved.”
“Alright, no need to get cranky. I’m just saying.”
“As to your client, keep in mind there is a good possibility he’s about to be charged with murder. If Mr. Murdock cooperates by testifying against his associates, having that charge removed could be part of the immunity package.”