The Victim at Vultee Arch

by Charles Williamson

  Margaret was confident. “We have a friend who can find out what’s happening in the investigation without increasing their suspicion that you’re still working the case,” she said.

  “If you mean Chad, the sheriff insisted that he’s too close to me. He can’t be involved in the Thatcher case either.”

  “I mean Meg Hull. She offered to help, and this is really big news for the local paper. No one will be surprised if she regularly asks questions of the Flagstaff officers who’re working the case,” she said.

  I was mulling over Margaret’s proposal when my cell phone rang.

  The young woman who’d called earlier was on the line. “Detective, this is Heather Potter. I called this afternoon about Dr. Thatcher’s death.”

  “Yes, Ms. Potter. I remember your call, but I’m no longer working that case. You’ll need to contact Captain Horn. He’s now in charge.”

  Margaret interrupted, taking the phone gently but firmly from my hand and smiling. She said into the phone, “This is Margaret Damson. I’d love to hear what you have to say about that Bank E & A. Those bankers have so much clout that they got my husband suspended from his job.”

  Next, I heard Margaret say, “Oh yes Heather. Please tell me all about it.” Margaret walked into the living room leaving me gazing at her back in astonishment as she headed toward the leather sofa next to the fireplace. It was obvious that she planned to talk for quite awhile. Rather than have the frustrating experience of listening to only Margaret’s half of the conversation, I remained in the kitchen waiting for Margaret to return. I made some decaf coffee and searched the freezer for the richest ice cream I could find. It was twenty minutes and two bowls of Chunky Monkey before Margaret returned to the kitchen with a Cheshire-cat smile. It looked like good news.

  “This nice young woman is an MBA student at Columbia. She works as an intern in Dr. Thatcher’s office. Heather told me all about the two days leading up to Dr. Thatcher’s trip to Sedona. Someone at that bank killed him. Now, we need to prove it.”

  “Why does Heather think someone at the bank was involved? Does she know who killed him?” I asked, still skeptical that Margaret had jumped on the only murder suspect who might save the county from the lawsuit and save my job.

  “Don’t be silly, Mike. It’s not that easy. Heather didn’t say anyone at the bank was involved, but I still came away from our conversation convinced they’re behind it.”

  “Well, what did she actually say?” It sounded more and more like Margaret had jumped to the conclusion that she wanted to be true.

  “Oh, she talked a lot about derivatives, but I didn’t have a clue as to what all that stuff means. Heather agreed to talk to John and let him translate for us as long as no Bank E & A secrets are discussed.” I couldn’t help but smile. Not only was my wife leading a murder investigation, now my son, who worked at a competing firm, was going to provide the financial expertise to help me keep my job. It still seemed like wishful thinking, but I couldn’t see how it would hurt. Maybe we’d get lucky.

  “So why did Heather leave you convinced that the bank is involved?” I asked. I was mostly humoring Margaret, but the prospect of solving this case without violating the sheriff’s instructions was intriguing.

  “Heather is a bright girl from Iowa, who moved to New York to attend Columbia. Because she‘s one of the top students in her class, her business ethics professor recommended her for this prestigious internship at Bank E & A. Heather is writing a paper on corporate governance in international merchant banking. Anyway, Heather thought Quentin Thatcher was a wonderful boss. He was brilliant, ethical, and very hard working. He was acting as a mentor to Heather, and took her with him to a lot of meetings that someone at her level would not normally be able to attend.”

  I could see that Margaret’s explanation would take awhile. I got another bowl of Chunky Monkey and poured Margaret a cup of the decaf. “I want to hear all of the details, but do you think there was something more than a mentor role for Heather. Dr. Thatcher was recently divorced?” I asked.

  “No. Heather was describing the loss of a friend and mentor, definitely not a lover.” Margaret has never been wrong when making that sort of interpretation with that level of certainty. My wife is an exceptionally good listener. She can read the nuances of tone and word choice. She is better at it than anyone I’ve ever known.

  “Heather respected and admired Dr. Thatcher. Her boss flabbergasted her early Monday morning, the last time she ever saw him. Before Dr. Thatcher left for Sedona, he told Heather she should ask her faculty advisor to recommend an internship at another company.”

  “Maybe he said that because he wasn’t satisfied with her work, or maybe the company was reducing expenses. I don’t see how her comment is connected to Dr. Thatcher’s death,” I said.

  “But Mike, Heather is writing her master’s thesis on corporate governance and risk management in the investment business. She didn’t take his comment as a criticism of her own work. She thinks Dr. Thatcher had decided that the Merchant Bank of Europe and the Americas had some serious problems with risk management and that they weren’t a good case study for her to use in her paper.”

  Maybe the comment indicated a problem at the bank, but it was a long way from connecting the bank to the murder of a senior employee using a rattlesnake. The death seemed just too bizarre to be the work of some fancy New York investment bankers who made more each year than most people make in a lifetime. “That’s not a lot to go on,” I said.

  “Oh there’s more than that one comment. Heather works twenty hours a week, all in the morning. She’s often the first one in the Risk Management Department to arrive at 8:00. Last Friday, Dr. Thatcher was already at work when she arrived. In fact, she’s certain that he spent the whole night in the office. He hadn’t shaved or changed clothes. Dr. Thatcher normally had a very even and good-natured disposition. That morning he looked disoriented and worried. He canceled his normal Friday morning meetings and went to see the Senior Managing Director for North America, a guy named Sir Henry Griffin, as soon as Griffin got to work at 9:30.”

  “That’s the same ass who’s suing the county.” I wondered if those missing papers were part of the reason for the meeting. I asked, “Does Heather know anything about the papers that Quentin Thatcher brought to Sedona?”

  “Heather knew that Dr. Thatcher printed a lot of confidential stuff that Friday after he returned from his meeting with Griffin. Normally his administrative assistant took care of that sort of thing, but sometimes the information was so confidential that only Dr. Thatcher had computer access. He sent the reports to be printed on his assistant’s printer and stood next to it until the print jobs were finished. He didn’t want anyone else to see those documents. He borrowed his assistant’s CONFIDENTIAL stamp. It was the only time he’d ever done that. The whole office was talking about his strange behavior last Friday.”

  “Did Heather know why he came to Sedona with those documents?”

  “Heather told me that Dr. Thatcher mentioned to his assistant that he was flying to Arizona to meet with Jonathan Lacy. Mr. Lacy is a retired investment banker who lives in north Scottsdale. He’s on the board of directors of the domestic subsidiary of the Bank E & A. Apparently; Dr. Thatcher had been in e-mail contact with Mr. Lacy about the meeting. His assistant checked and found that the retreat center wasn’t being used that week, so she reserved the facility for Dr. Thatcher’s convenience in his meeting with Mr. Lacy. She also reserved the company airplane for his trip. Using the Sedona property without a customer meeting is one of the prerogatives of managing directors at the bank. It was the only time Dr. Thatcher had ever asked his assistant to reserve it for him.”

  We didn’t know for sure why Dr. Thatcher came to Sedona, but knowing who he met with should help answer that question. Mr. Lacy might even be able to tell us why those documents had upset the executive. “The sheriff’s instructions keep me from calling Mr. Lacy because he’s on the board of the bank. I’d sure li
ke a chance to ask him some questions,” I said.

  “Why don’t you write out your questions, and I’ll ask Meg to give Mr. Lacy a call in the morning. It’s probably normal for a reporter to ask if it’s OK to record her interview. It will be much easier to tell if Mr. Lacy is not being truthful if you can hear his replies.”

  “That’s good idea. I’ll write a couple of questions for Meg to ask Art Johnson and Captain Horn too.” This was a strange method of investigating a crime, but it would be interesting to see if I could do everything indirectly.

  “You said that Dr. Thatcher advised Heather to find an internship at another company. Is she doing that?” I asked.

  “Certainly not. If you were writing a paper on risk management and corporate governance, wouldn’t it be more interesting to describe a company that did it all wrong? Heather is excited about the prospect that there are problems at Bank E & A. That should make her thesis much more interesting, and she might even get it published. She’s staying at the bank to see what else she can learn.”

  The three bowls of ice cream and Margaret’s report on her conversation with Heather had me feeling much better by the time we were ready for bed. I had a strange and uncomfortable realization as I turned off the light. I did not need to report for work in the morning. I was only 55 years old, but I might never need to report to work again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I woke up as usual at 5:00 on the first day of my suspension. I enjoyed the predawn stars from the hot tub and then dressed in my jeans and flannel shirt, rather than the slacks and sports coat that I wear for work. The hour before dawn, I was in the kitchen making coffee and breakfast for Margaret. She usually gets an extra hour of sleep because she doesn’t need to be at the bank until 9:00, but she works two hours later on Fridays. I sat at the breakfast table and wrote out a list of questions as I waited for the frozen biscuits to bake.

  I also made a two-page list of projects to do around the house. It struck me that the list was not nearly long enough to last through the thirty-day suspension. However, I was excited about the first item on the list, reorganizing all of the tools in the garage. It was a project that I’d been putting off for the three years since we moved to Sedona. I would need to keep busy to avoid boredom during the day while Margaret was at work. Maybe when I finished my list, I could read some of the books that I’d always claimed I wanted to read, difficult Russian novels and English classics. But this morning, I planned to go to Ace Hardware and get started on my first project.

  I called Chad at home at 6:30 to explain my suspension. I wanted to let him know of Sheriff Taylor’s instructions for him not to be involved in the Thatcher case. I also didn’t want him to arrive at the office ignorant of my suspension. He would be in charge in my absence, and he needed to explain the situation to the others. Chad insisted that he buy me lunch and talk even though Sheriff Taylor had taken us both off the case. We’d go to an out of the way place where we could talk things over in private.

  Margaret, dressed for work and smelling of the perfume I gave her last Valentine’s Day, joined me in the kitchen at 7:00. “Sweetie, you made breakfast and it isn’t even my birthday.” She kissed me. It was great to have someone totally in my corner, someone supportive no matter what the situation. Margaret knows me better than any other person has ever known me. She would certainly understand the magnitude of my disappointment if my career were to end in this unfortunate manner.

  We huddled close to each other at the breakfast table discussing the questions for Meg until it was time for Margaret to leave for work. Meg is a competent and professional reporter even though she works for a small circulation paper. She knew how to follow up with probing questions in response to my initial ones.

  At 8:45, I drove Margaret to work. We were down to a single car with my Sheriff’s Department vehicle gone. I stopped by the hardware store on the way home. By the end of the day every shovel, hoe, and rake would have its own resting place on the tool wall I was going to install in the garage storage closet.

  When I returned from the hardware store, I relaxed and had another cup of coffee while sitting in the cool front courtyard in the bright morning sun. I was determined not to be depressed by my sudden change of fortunes. There was no prospect of staying in my original profession if we remained in a small town like Sedona, and both Margaret and I loved it too much to leave. Maybe it would be fun to be a handyman helping all of Sedona’s widows with their small repair projects, or maybe I could just be a volunteer who helped wherever I was needed. We really didn’t need my salary to live well. Maybe I wouldn’t be bored out of my mind.

  Margaret called at 10:00 to say that Meg was happy to be involved in our little Bank E & A project. Chad came by at 12:00 to buy me lunch. We went to a small Thai restaurant in the Village of Oak Creek where we were unlikely to see anyone we knew.

  “Mike, the whole Sedona office is astonished and upset at your suspension. Rose threatened to quit this morning. She’s gotten an offer from the Cottonwood Police Department for slightly more money. I talked her into staying long enough to discuss it with you when you return.”

  Chad was a friend as well as a partner. I decided to be frank with him. “The suspension is probably just a first step. I think the county manager and county attorney want me out of the department. They think it‘ll lower the risk from the lawsuit. The sheriff is elected, but the commissioners control his budget, and if they unanimously oppose him, his chances of winning reelection are nearly zero.”

  “That’s impossible. Sheriff Taylor could never find anyone as experienced to run the Sedona office. There is no way he could possibly intend to fire you.”

  “Unless those stolen documents are recovered, he’ll have no choice,” I said, “The lawsuit is too dangerous to the county’s financial condition to take any chances.”

  Chad looked very determined when he said, “Partner, we just need to find out what happened to the documents. The sheriff can order us not to be involved, but how is he going to know if we keep a low profile. I’ll see what I can learn without attracting attention. I talked with Art this morning about the case reassignment, and he confided that Captain Horn is investigating two main possibilities. The captain has a strong hunch that Thatcher’s wife hired a killer. That’s based on the viciousness of the crime; it shows real hatred. His other theory is that it was some group of crazies, like the KKK or American Nazi Party that killed him. Art also confided that one of the sheriff’s concerns is that you have a son working at a competing investment banking firm in New York. Captain Horn doesn’t want you involved in the case even if the lawsuit is dismissed.”

  “Chad, those are both reasonable things to check,” I said, “but I’m fairly certain that it was the damn bank that had Thatcher killed, and no one at the department is even looking at that possibility anymore. Stealing the documents and the lawsuit was their one two punch to cover their tracks.”

  I told Chad about the call from Heather Potter and about her impression that the documents were somehow incriminating to the bank. I explained that Dr. Thatcher was in Arizona to meet directly with one of the bank’s outside directors, a man who was retired from another investment banking firm and would be likely to understand an investment risk management problem.

  “So he wanted to go directly to the outside board of directors with incriminating information. It sounds right. Those papers were proof that something was rotten at that bank. They killed Thatcher before he could talk, swiped the documents from our office, and sued the county to get us off their back,” he said.

  “I’ve asked Meg Hull to call this outside director in order to interview him for an article about Dr. Thatcher. She’ll try and find out for certain why he wanted to meet with an outside director.”

  Chad looked relieved. “So you’re not exactly following the sheriff’s orders to keep your hands off. It’s clever to use Meg. Who would question that a reporter would ask questions about a local murder?”

  “That wa
s Margaret’s idea. I was going to keep my distance,” I said.

  When we finished our Pad Thai, Chad dropped me off at home and promised to call tonight to discuss the case. I busied myself with my garage reorganization. I was too busy with my project to think much about the case. I needed the answers to the questions that Meg was asking on my behalf before I decided on our next step. By the time I needed to pick up Margaret, every tool was in place.

  As soon as she got into the car, Margaret explained the dead-end that Meg had found in her call to Jonathan K. Lacy. Meg reported that Mr. Lacy knew Quentin Thatcher and thought very highly of him. Dr. Thatcher was regarded as the strongest of the young men at the US subsidiary. Unfortunately, Mr. Lacy reported that he’d had no contact with Dr. Thatcher since the September Board of Directors meeting where he gave his usual risk management report to the Audit Committee of the Board, which Mr. Lacy chairs. Mr. Lacy said he received no e-mails from Dr. Thatcher between meetings. He’d certainly made no arrangement to meet Dr. Thatcher in Sedona this week.

  I understood a little about how audit and control functions should work. “The chair of the Audit Committee is the logical person to approach with a problem that involves the top banking officer in the US. If Dr. Thatcher met directly with the CEO for North America and didn’t get the response he wanted, going to the Chair of the Audit Committee would be his next obligation,” I said.

  “How do you explain that Mr. Lacy said he wasn’t contacted? Could he be involved in the murder too?” Margaret asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll spend tomorrow learning more about Bank E & A and everyone who’s involved with it. A combination of some hours on the Internet and a trip to the Sedona Public Library is on my project list for tomorrow. I’ll also call John for any new Wall Street gossip. Dr. Thatcher was prominent enough and his death weird enough to attract a lot of comment. There can’t be too many managing directors who die from snakebites that are possible homicides.” I was feeling like my old pre-suspension self. Margaret was smiling at my change of mood and willingness to get going with the investigation in spite of Sheriff Taylor’s admonition to avoid anything to do with the bastards at the bank.