Mile High Murder

by Marcia Talley

  ‘Great, great, don’t mind if I do,’ he boomed. He grabbed a plate off the stack and began loading it up with bacon. Phyllis wandered in looking fresh and pretty in white jeans and a pale pink sweater. ‘Hugh?’ she said, tugging at his sleeve to get his attention. ‘Hugh?’

  ‘What is it, my dear?’

  ‘There’s a police car out front. And an ambulance.’

  ‘I’d love an omelet.’

  ‘Ambulance,’ Phyllis repeated, raising her voice and standing on tiptoe to better reach his ear. ‘And a police car.’

  Hugh’s plate tilted downward at a dangerous angle. ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  Desiree gently explained the situation, carefully avoiding, for the moment, any suggestion that Daniel’s death hadn’t been from natural causes.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Phyllis exclaimed. ‘He seemed so jolly when we came in last night, talking, laughing, singing songs with that young man.’

  ‘Carpe diem,’ her husband said, and helped himself to more bacon.

  TEN

  I am very glad to hear that the Gardener has saved so much of the St. foin seed, and that of the India Hemp. Make the most you can of both, by sowing them again in drills … Let the ground be well prepared, and the Seed (St. foin) be sown in April. The Hemp may be sown anywhere.

  George Washington to William Pearce, 24 February, 1794.

  Although smoking pot was perfectly legal in the city, after the police arrived at Bell House, perhaps out of habit, most guests made themselves scarce.

  Some dawdled over breakfast in the dining room, especially after Marilyn declared it a ‘wake and bake’ morning and brought out the magic muffins wearing their festive flowered skirts. Others retreated to their rooms to read or watch television, waiting to be called down for an interview. Others, perhaps in the grip of cabin fever, eventually ventured outside to smoke on the garden patio, a luxury not afforded to me or to Claire, who had discovered Daniel’s body and were first on Detective Joseph Jacobs’ hit list. I didn’t envy Jacobs the job, interviewing folks who were either sleep-deprived, stoned or both.

  Through Austin, we learned that the crime-scene technician had estimated the time of death at between one and two in the morning, subject to confirmation by the medical examiner. Armed with that knowledge, as folks appeared for breakfast and were informed of the unpleasant situation, we compared alibis.

  Desiree alibied for Austin and Austin for Desiree. Both snored, apparently, turning their night into a jab-fest.

  Lisa had been sleeping soundly, her husband claimed, while he FaceTimed a colleague in Hong Kong for an article they were writing on olfactory reception in Drosophila melanogaster, or the common fruit fly. That would be easy enough for the police to confirm, I figured. The FaceTime call, not the fruit fly’s schnoz.

  Mark claimed he had had a migraine. He’d dragged himself to the solarium where he’d self-medicated with a little Blue Dream before saying goodnight to Cindy and retreating to their room.

  The Grahams had returned to Bell House around twelve-thirty, both agreed on that, stopping by the solarium to pick up more water before heading up to bed.

  After his late night, Colin must have been sleeping it off because, magic muffins or not, he never appeared for breakfast.

  And we all knew where Claire had passed the evening.

  Claire was summoned from the dining room first. ‘Break a leg,’ I told her.

  As she passed my chair, she grabbed my hand. ‘You’re coming with me.’

  I swallowed hard. ‘Is that allowed?’

  ‘I don’t care if it’s allowed or not,’ she said, tugging me to my feet. ‘I’m a politician. I never talk to anyone without a witness.’ Considering the fiasco that was Washington, DC at the moment, I could hardly blame her.

  Jacobs stood when we entered the sitting room, every inch the seasoned professional from short-cropped brownish hair and loosely-knotted tie down to his brown cordovan shoes.

  ‘Your name?’ he asked Claire after we got settled.

  ‘Claire Thompson. Thompson with a P.’

  ‘And you are?’ Serious blue eyes behind fashionable aviator frames bore into mine.

  ‘Hannah Ives.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘So, why are you two joined at the hip?’

  Claire put on her politician’s face, openly friendly but serious. ‘We’re part of a delegation.’

  ‘A delegation?’ He made a notation in a pocket-sized, spiral-top notebook.

  ‘That’s correct. From Maryland. I’m a state senator, and we’re looking into the legalization of recreational pot.’

  ‘Representative Mark King is part of our delegation, too,’ I volunteered.

  Jacobs’ head popped up. ‘The linebacker?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘Ah. I read that he’d gone into politics. Always wondered what made him quit football when he was at the top of his game.’

  ‘Injuries, I believe,’ Claire said.

  ‘A shame,’ Jacobs said. ‘I remember him in the playoffs. Oh, man!’ He whistled. ‘Recovered that forced fumble and ran it ninety yards for the touchdown! Classic.’

  Jacobs cleared his throat and studied me speculatively. ‘So … your role is?’

  That stumped me for a moment. What exactly was I doing there, other than taking notes and holding Claire Thompson’s hand?

  ‘Consultant,’ I blurted, figuring it was as good a title as any. ‘With legalization,’ I babbled on, slipping seamlessly into my role as consultant, ‘has Denver seen an increase in crime?’

  ‘It’s not my division,’ Jacobs pointed out, not seeming to mind the interruption from the task at hand. ‘But, from what I read, crime is actually down overall. Court dockets were crowded enough without overloading them with petty drug offenders. Leaves Narcotics time to go after the kingpins – the guys who traffic in the hard stuff.’

  Being a professional and not easily sidetracked, Jacobs quickly switched gears. He walked Claire through her account of the previous evening, paying particular attention to the comings and goings of bud-and-breakfast guests to the solarium, although Claire, no surprise, was a little fuzzy on the timeline.

  Me, not so much.

  Those disconcerting blue eyes were staring at me again. ‘So, Mrs Ives, you came downstairs at approximately three-oh-six, I understand?’

  ‘Exactly three-oh-six,’ I said.

  He arched an eyebrow.

  ‘Digital clock,’ I explained.

  ‘Ah. And you found Claire and Daniel alone in the solarium?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual?’ Pen poised over the notebook, Jacobs was ready to write.

  ‘Other than Fischel being dead, no.’

  Jacob’s head shot up. ‘Fischel? Who’s he?’

  ‘The dead guy,’ Claire squeaked. ‘Professor Daniel Fischel. From Atlanta, Georgia.’

  Jacobs’ eyes ping-ponged from Claire to me and back again. ‘That’s not what his driver’s license says.’

  I felt like snapping my fingers and exclaiming, ‘Ah ha! Just as I suspected!’ but wisely thought better of it. ‘It isn’t?’ I said, widening my eyes to appear as shocked as possible.

  ‘And he’s not from Atlanta, Georgia, either. According to the state of North Carolina, the victim’s name is Daniel Morecroft-Hill. Does that name mean anything to you?’

  ‘No,’ I said, quite honestly. ‘Ever heard of him, Claire?’ My fingers itched to Google the name, but that would have to wait until after the interview was over and I could retrieve my cell phone from upstairs.

  Jacobs turned his attention back to Claire. After ascertaining that Mr Morecroft-Hill was a stranger to her, too, he said, ‘So, Miss Thompson, let’s go over it again, please. Who was in the solarium when you, uh, dozed off?’

  ‘Colin and Daniel. The Grahams came back from their dinner around midnight, as I said before, but stayed just long enough to pick up some bottled water and say hi.’


  ‘So, Colin and Daniel.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Does Colin have a last name?’

  ‘Last name?’ Claire started to snigger. Damn, was the woman stoned?

  ‘Claire?’ I said. ‘Are you all right?’

  Claire gave me the evil eye. ‘Daniel and McDaniel. I never thought of that before. It just struck me as funny, is all.’

  High-larious.

  ‘When did Colin leave the solarium?’ Jacobs wanted to know.

  Claire shrugged. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

  ‘Anyone else come in?’

  ‘Could have, but I wouldn’t have noticed.’

  Jacobs looked up from his notes. ‘Is Colin in the dining room?’

  Once again, Claire and I exchanged glances.

  I spoke for the two of us. ‘He could be by now, I suppose, but we didn’t see him at breakfast.’

  Jacobs looked at me. ‘I have a few more questions for Miss Thompson here, Mrs Ives, but I’d like to talk to this Colin …’ He glanced at his notes. ‘McDaniel. Can you track him down for me?’

  I hesitated. If I agreed, Claire would be left without a witness.

  She must have been reading my mind. ‘It’s OK, Hannah. I’ll be fine.’

  I got to my feet, then smiled at the man agreeably. ‘Sure. If he’s not in the dining room, I’ll check his room.’

  As I left the room in search of Colin, I heard Claire ask, ‘Will we be able to leave as planned on Tuesday?’

  Jacobs grunted. ‘Don’t worry about it, Miss Thompson. We’ll know where to find you.’

  Colin was not in the dining room. When I checked the patio, I found Mark and Cindy stretched out in Adirondack chairs, smoking. When I asked if they’d seen Colin, Cindy gazed at me with languid eyes, took a moment to focus and said, ‘Not since last night.’

  So I trotted upstairs and knocked lightly on the young man’s door.

  There was no answer.

  I pounded harder, calling out his name.

  Colin was either not in his room, wasted or dead. Under the circumstances, I felt it wise to determine which, so I trotted back downstairs to find Desiree.

  I interrupted our hostess in the middle of loading plates into a dishwasher the size of a golf cart; she didn’t seem to mind. Together, we went up to Colin’s room and tried knocking again.

  ‘Maybe he’s in the bathroom?’ I suggested.

  Desiree made a fist and pounded on the door. ‘Colin McDaniel! Open up!’

  When Colin still didn’t answer, she got out her passkey and yelled, ‘I’m coming in!’

  Colin’s bed was neatly made. Naval Academy discipline was strict – beds always had to pass inspection – but who makes their bed when there’s a maid to do it? I figured Colin hadn’t gone to bed at all. The wardrobe, when I inspected it, contained only empty hangers.

  Desiree emerged from the bathroom, shaking her head. ‘Gone. Poof!’

  ‘I hope he paid in advance,’ I said.

  ‘His loss, our gain,’ she said. ‘But it is curious.’

  ‘More suspicious than curious,’ I said. ‘The timing stinks.’

  Desiree waited until I was out in the hall, then closed the door firmly behind us. ‘Daniel gets murdered and Colin disappears, you mean? Coincidence? I think not.’

  ‘I’m sure the police will look into it,’ I said, thinking – no – praying that Colin had taken the advice I’d given him the day before and simply packed up his things and gone home.

  At the bottom of the staircase, we ran into Austin. He’d showered – his ponytail dangled wet over one shoulder – and changed into a T-shirt from what I now gathered was an extensive collection. Borrowing a familiar meme, this one said, ‘KEEP CALM, IT’S JUST A PLANT.’

  ‘Colin McDaniel’s skipped out,’ Desiree informed her husband.

  Austin bobbed his head toward the sitting room. ‘Better tell Jacobs.’

  ‘Tell Jacobs what?’ someone growled.

  The owner of the voice was Jacobs himself, just emerging from the powder room under the stairs, adjusting his belt. Apparently he had finished interviewing Claire.

  Desiree flinched and pressed a hand flat against her chest. ‘Gosh, you scared me to death.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am.’ He turned to Austin. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘It may be a coincidence,’ Austin told the detective, ‘but one of our guests, Colin McDaniel, seems to have checked out prematurely.’

  ‘I expect you have contact information for him.’

  Austin and Desiree exchanged glances.

  ‘Uh …’ Austin began.

  Jacobs frowned. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t.’

  Desiree cut in. ‘We have the address he wrote down when he checked in, but he paid for the weekend with cash, so I don’t have any credit-card information.’

  Jacobs clicked his tongue. ‘Give me what you have, then.’ After a moment, he added, ‘I notice you have security cams. Are they in operation?’

  Austin bristled. ‘Of course. Twenty-four seven. With all that cash coming and going, we’d be crazy not to. There’s one out front and two in the back.’

  ‘We’ll need the tapes.’

  ‘No problem. My security people will see that you get them.’

  ‘Who are your security people?’ Jacobs wanted to know.

  Austin named the company, then added, ‘We have daily cash deliveries from the weedery, and weekly to the co-op, but the guards don’t stay on the premises.’

  ‘Are they here today?’ Jacobs asked.

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ Desiree pointed out.

  ‘Yesterday,’ Austin clarified. ‘They brought the day’s proceeds to the house in the late afternoon.’

  Ah, Nick and Borys, the Pawlowski twins. I’d run into ‘those boys’ myself around five, as I recalled. ‘I met them yesterday,’ I said, sticking in my oar. ‘If I had robbery in mind, I wouldn’t want to tangle with either one of them.’

  Austin formed his hand into a gun, then blew ‘smoke’ off his index finger. ‘Ex-Army Rangers.’

  ‘Austin, why do you keep all that money here on the property?’ I asked.

  Austin smiled indulgently, as if amused by my naivety. ‘I’ll explain it all shortly.’

  ‘Nine-thirty, right?’ I wanted to confirm that, in spite of all that had happened, his meeting with Claire and me was still on.

  ‘In my office.’ He checked his watch. ‘Ten minutes.’

  Detective Jacobs made a hurry-up motion with his hand. ‘If you all don’t mind, I’d like to speak to the Grahams next.’ He paused. ‘And Mr Norton? I’ll take that information on McDaniel whenever you have a minute.’

  ‘Desiree will make sure you get it,’ Austin said, glancing quickly at his wife, who nodded. ‘Anything else I can do for you, Detective?’

  I’d obviously been dismissed, so I hurried off to locate Claire.

  ELEVEN

  XI. Concerning Gnats. If you also lay a sprig of green hemp in blossom near you, when you are going to sleep, gnats will not touch you.

  The Geoponica: Agricultural Pursuits. Translated from the Greek by Rev. T. Owen, London, 1805.

  It’s a good thing I had convinced Claire to pass on the magic muffins. Keeping up with Austin’s discussion on the financial aspects of running a successful weedery required our undivided attention. No way one could do it stoned.

  The Pawlowski brothers were fresh on my mind, so as we settled into chairs in Austin’s office – a spacious, dark-paneled room with track lighting and library shelving that extended to the ceiling, I asked, ‘So, how come you risk bringing the money here? From what we saw yesterday, the weedery could withstand a nuclear attack. Surely money’s safer there than here.’

  ‘Convenience, really, as you shall see,’ he explained. ‘We require security at the weedery as well, of course. We have bags of pot, bags of cash. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. Once or twice we got followed home.’ He leaned back in his chair, propped his feet up on the an
tique desk and grinned good-naturedly. ‘But nobody messes with the Pawlowskis, as you wisely noted, Hannah.’

  ‘So it’s cash – all cash?’ Claire said.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Can buyers use credit cards?’

  ‘Nope. We’ve got two ATMs at the weedery for the convenience of our customers, but that’s as close as we’re allowed to get to a regular bank.’

  ‘How astonishing,’ I said.

  ‘Because growing and selling marijuana is still a federal crime,’ Austin continued, ‘no federally-insured bank is going to touch pot money. If they do, they risk being charged with drug racketeering.’

  ‘Sounds like a catch-22,’ I said.

  ‘You bet. And here’s another catch. I have to pay taxes on that income. By doing so, I admit that I’m violating federal law. How do you spell self-incrimination?’ He snorted. ‘Can’t even plead the Fifth. But if I don’t report the income, they can send me to jail for tax evasion. That’s how the feds got Al Capone.’

  ‘He didn’t fare well in prison, as I recall,’ Claire said.

  Austin snorted. ‘Cocaine will do that to you. Look,’ he continued, putting his feet down and leaning forward over the pale gray desk blotter, ‘marijuana growers like me have to pay their bills and meet payroll, just the same as any other business. In the beginning, some smaller banks were willing to handle financial services for pot shops if we didn’t talk about it too much. They didn’t want to be brought up on money laundering charges. Then the feds started rattling sabers – busted some totally legit medical grows out in California – and the banks started getting cold feet and pulling out. It wasn’t until 2014 when Colorado passed the Marijuana Financial Services Cooperatives Act that we got some relief.’

  ‘Co-ops?’ I asked. ‘How does that work?’

  ‘They’re more like credit unions than banks. But, according to the law, they can’t call themselves a bank or a credit union. Yet they have to have access to the Federal Reserve System in order to be licensed. Go figure.’

  ‘Do you belong to a co-op?’

  Austin nodded. ‘Happy Daze and eleven other growers. It’s working fine so far. But you want to know another dumb-ass thing?’