The Victim at Vultee Arch

by Charles Williamson

  “I have information that Quentin was traveling to Arizona to meet with Mr. Lacy who’s Chair of the Bank’s Audit Committee.”

  Mrs. Thatcher was very smart. She understood exactly why Quentin might have wanted a private meeting with the outside director who chaired the Audit Committee. She sat up straight in her chair and looked angry. “You think those bastards at the bank killed him. Oh my God. That Henry Griffin was always scary; people called him the Anaconda behind his back.”

  “That’s a possibility I’m investigating. Tell me what you know of Henry Griffin,” I said.

  “Quentin thought that Griffin was very smart. Since Quentin was a genius himself, that was quite a compliment. I think Griffin thought of himself as a mentor to Quentin, but the relationship was not actually close in a personal way. They never did things together outside the bank.”

  “I was told that Quentin went to see Henry Griffin on the Friday morning before he made plans to go to Arizona. When he returned to his office after the meeting, he was upset. He canceled all of his other meetings for the day and spent the rest of Friday printing documents that he wouldn’t let others in his office see. I believe he took those documents with him to Arizona. They were detailed trading records and derivative formulas that I only had a chance to glance at. The records were stolen from the sheriff’s office in Sedona a few days after he was killed.”

  “What did Jonathan Lacy have to say about the meeting?” she asked.

  “He denied that he’d had any contact with Quentin since his regular board meeting. He knew of no reason why Quentin was in Sedona.”

  “Why would Quentin go to Sedona to meet with Mr. Lacy? Scottsdale is down near Phoenix,” she asked.

  “Good question. I was told that the meeting was set up by an exchange of e-mails. Quentin asked his assistant to arrange for the use of the Sedona facility saying that Mr. Lacy suggested meeting there.”

  “How do you tell who’s on the other end of an e-mail when you use a corporate network? That’s something you’d have to ask an expert. Maybe someone intercepted the message and responded pretending to be Mr. Lacy,” she said. That was exactly what I’d been wondering. It was certain that it was possible to monitor every keystroke by a user on a corporate network. It was likely that you could also stop an outgoing e-mail and create a fake response.

  “Good point. I believe that you can fake e-mails in those circumstances. Did Quentin ever say anything that indicated that there were serious problems at the bank?” I asked.

  “No, I’m sorry I can’t help more. In the past year we stopped even talking about that damn bank; it was such a sore spot. It absorbed all of his time and energy. Henry Griffin is capable of doing anything to cover his own ass, but I don’t know about recent events at the bank. I think Quentin’s administrative assistant, Bev Lorry, would help. She was very protective of him. She came to see Jennifer after the funeral and wanted to do something to help. I’ll call her and ask her to meet with you.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Thatcher. I’d like to call you if anything else comes up,” I said.

  “I’ll help any way I can. Here’s Bev’s home phone number. I’ll call her to tell her about you,” she said.

  As she escorted me to the door, Linda said, “There’s been a lot of sorrow in this house lately, but Mrs. Thatcher is a good woman. She would never hurt anyone, especially her daughter’s father. You should look somewhere else for the murderer.”

  The sun was out and the previous day’s rain had cleared the haze from the brisk October air. I decided to walk back to the hotel. It would give me a chance to think.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  In Central Park, the late afternoon sun gave the autumn foliage a magical glow. The weather was warm enough to encourage joggers and bikers, and I saw several horsewomen ride by in formal riding clothing, such a tremendous contrast to the western riding outfits normal in Arizona. New York was a world away from my small Arizona tourist town where Quentin Thatcher was murdered.

  I sat awhile watching the Central Park carousel as if it somehow held an answer to Dr. Thatcher’s brutal murder. The most fearless kids would lean far away from their mounts as they tried to catch the brass rings. Quentin Thatcher may have grown up too poor over in Brooklyn to have ever ridden the Central Park carousel, but I bet he’d brought his daughter here. Dr. Thatcher would have been the boy who tried hardest for the rings, catching one every time his horse came around. He’d received a Ph.D. from one of the nation’s most difficult colleges, MIT. He worked extremely long hours and traveled so extensively for his employer that he damaged his family life.

  A man like that wouldn’t have destroyed his own career or risked his reputation lightly. Going over the boss’s head directly to the board’s Audit Committee was a career killer if your case wasn’t absolutely certain. Dr. Thatcher must have been convinced that Henry Griffin would not be around to retaliate. He must have had irrefutable evidence and been certain that Griffin would be fired. The motive was now clear, but motive wasn’t enough.

  I walked along busy Fifth Avenue with the carousel music still going through my head. I should bring my granddaughters to the park on Sunday. I was curious if they’d go for the rings or merely enjoy the ride. It was after 5:00 when I reached the hotel. We were going to John and Sue’s apartment for dinner, but I wanted some time to discuss the case with Margaret without the rest of the family present.

  When I got to the room, there was a message to call Chad. “Hi partner. Can you talk, any news on those phone numbers?” I asked. He was in the office, and I was not certain how comfortable he was in discussing a case that he’d been ordered to discontinue investigating.

  “Sorry Mike, I didn’t learn much. The calls were all from investment firms except for the one from the 928 area code. It’s a payphone near the Circle K in Cottonwood. Whoever called Griffin was very cautious.”

  “That doesn’t narrow the field of local suspects, but it certainly makes me think someone from Cottonwood is involved with the crime. I can’t think of any other reason for a call from one of the few remaining payphones in Cottonwood, Arizona to the private phone of a big shot investment banker in New York,” I said. I felt a twinge of guilt in not sharing all the phone call information with Chad, but if I found the sheriff wasn’t involved, I’d rather not let Chad know I’d suspected him.

  “Anything else new on the case?” I asked.

  “Yesterday, Captain Horn had a deputy from the Page Substation investigate a survivalist group on a ranch up in the Arizona Strip,” Chad said. “This morning, a Forest Service ranger found the deputy walking naked along a remote dirt road. The survivalist burned his clothing and police car and told him never to return to the sovereign nation of Freedom First. Horn is preparing a huge raid on the ranch with almost every deputy in Northern Arizona, but there’s nothing to connect these crazy assholes to the Quentin Thatcher murder. The ranch is more than a four-hour drive from Sedona. I’ll be out of the office all day tomorrow with Captain Horn’s raiders. The guy watches too many John Wayne movies.”

  “Doesn’t Horn remember Waco and Ruby Ridge? Surely, Sheriff Taylor won’t let him go in there with guns blazing,” I said.

  “Sheriff Taylor is bow-hunting up on the Kaibab Plateau,” Chad said. “He went yesterday after work and left Captain Horn in charge of things.”

  “Don’t get yourself killed. Those survivalist militiamen might have everything from Claymore mines to M-50 machine guns. They’ll expect a raid,” I said “There must be a way of arresting the person who burned the Sheriff’s Department vehicle without bloodshed.”

  “Mike, what can I do?” he said. “I just work here and take orders.”

  “If I were in town, I’d get in my car and drive to the Kaibab Plateau and look for the sheriff,” I said. “He needs to know what’s being planned for tomorrow. The Kaibab is a big area, but he probably stopped at Jacob’s Lake Store for supplies. A lot of people would recognize the sheriff because he was on TV so muc
h during the last election. Someone might know where he’s camped. Maybe his wife would have an idea.”

  “OK, you got me,” Chad said. “I’m on my way to look for him. Do you know his home number so I can call his wife?”

  It was exactly what I hoped Chad would do. I gave him the number and hung up just as Margaret came into the hotel room. She kissed me with a knowing smile, the kind she reserves for surprise parties and special presents.

  “You learned something,” I said.

  “Heather was wonderful,” she said. “She showed me around the office and introduced me to dozens of people.”

  “Any progress on the motive?” I asked.

  “Until the new Risk Manager arrives, Heather’s been given very wide latitude, and she’s putting her freedom to good use. She’s organized a regular conspiracy among Quentin’s friends at the bank. We should be able to reproduce Quentin’s analysis of the risk position within a few days,” she said.

  “Why does she need a conspiracy? The more people who know she’s looking for trading irregularities, the greater her risk. We don’t have any idea how many people at the bank may be covering up a serious problem.” Mainly, I didn’t like the idea that Margaret might be in danger if Griffin or someone else who knew of the problems caught on to the investigation.

  “Oh, it’s not really a big group. Trung Con Ky is a computer expert who translates the complex derivative formulas into computer code to monitor trading risks. Dr. Thatcher hired him, and Trung has tremendous respect for the murdered man. Trung’s help is needed to understand what’s happening within the computer risk model. He’s able to get into the computer code in a way no one else at the bank can.”

  “I see you’d need him. Who else knows about your project?” I asked.

  “Aaron Washington is an assistant interest rate swap trader who Quentin Thatcher helped get a job. He’s the only African American derivative trader in the New York City office. He understands all the formulas related to interest rate swaps. He can tell if something has been misrepresented in the swap information. Unfortunately, he’s not familiar with other types of contracts. However, it wouldn’t seem strange if he asked a lot of questions of the other traders since he’s been trying to learn other aspects of the business. The only other person who knows what we’re doing is Bev Lorry who was Quentin’s administrative assistant. She’s good friends with Henry Griffin’s administrative assistant and knows a great deal about office politics. She’s worked there for fifteen years.”

  “So you have an intern, a computer programmer, an assistant interest rate swap trader, and an administrative assistant. None of them are likely to be privy to what’s happening among the managing directors or other big guns. Have they made any progress?” I asked.

  “Sweetie, it’s clear that you’ve never worked in a business office. The administrative assistants are the ones who really know what’s happening. Interns are expected to ask a lot of questions, and new employees like me just seem eager when we want to know everything that’s going on.” Margaret had spent thirty years in business, becoming the manager of a twenty-person office before we retired to Sedona. She knew a lot more about that world than I.

  “We’ll make some progress tomorrow when we have the office to ourselves. Traders almost never come in on the weekend, and every one in our little group will be there this weekend,” she said with a level of certainty that I didn’t share. “Did you go and see Mrs. Thatcher this afternoon?”

  “Yes, she really seems to want to help, but she wasn’t in touch with Quentin in the week before his death. She’s unaware of any problems at the bank. She said that there was no way that Quentin was in Sedona on vacation. He would have wanted to take his daughter if it had been a vacation,” I said.

  “Not much help. Did she act at all suspicious?” she asked.

  “I don’t think she’s involved, but I can’t dismiss her as a suspect because she had so much financial incentive for Quentin to die before he changed his will and insurance beneficiaries. She thinks Henry Griffin is a snake and capable of nearly any sort of crime, but she didn’t provide anything specific.”

  We were preparing to leave for my son’s house when the room phone rang. It was Rose Rios.

  “Mike, I hate to bother you, but I thought you’d want to know that Chad’s left the office. He’s out looking for Sheriff Taylor,” Rose said in her melodious voice.

  “Call me any time Rose. What’s up?”

  “I heard from my cousin in Cottonwood that there was a body discovered this afternoon. A man named Reggie Neely. Isn’t that the same guy you and Chad went to see?”

  “That’s him. How’d he die?” I had considered Reggie a prime suspect, but it had never occurred to me that he was at risk of being killed.

  “He was found in a wire cage of snakes on the back porch of his house near the Verde River. There were twenty-seven rattlesnakes surrounding his body, and it took hours for the wildlife people to get there and remove the snakes before the body could be taken to Prescott. My cousin Isabella heard from one of the city police officers, that they don’t think the snakes killed him. He had a contusion on the back of his head, and ligature marks around his neck, maybe from a wire. The Cottonwood police are treating it as a homicide.”

  “Thanks for letting me know Rose. It’s probably related to the Quentin Thatcher case. If you hear anything else, please call. If Chad checks in, ask him to call me. I’m working nights, so I’ll be awake.”

  I explained the call to Margaret, and she said, “I think Reggie was the source of the snake. Griffin is eliminating people that can connect him to the crime.”

  I wasn’t certain if Reggie had been present when Quentin Thatcher was murdered, but I also thought he probably supplied the snake. His death was no coincidence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The dinner at John’s house was relaxing, and Margaret and I stayed until it was the girls’ bedtime. We took a cab back to the hotel and had a glass of wine together in the bar before I headed to work. It had gotten much cooler, and my walk to work was accompanied by gusty winds, but the drizzle of the previous day had ended. At midnight, I was at work monitoring the empty trading room. After I completed my 1:00 rounds, I was certain that no one else was in the office.

  At 1:30, I began my search of every unlocked drawer in or near Henry Griffin’s office. I carried a small digital recording device the size of a fountain pen for making notes. The office copy machine required a code to operate. I assumed Margaret had learned how to operate it as part of her orientation, but I hadn’t thought to ask her. I decided to make a note of where any useful documents were stored so that I could ask her to copy them tomorrow. My search went on for hours and I worked my way around the trading room and then moved up to the operations area on the floor above

  Most documents were in unlocked drawers and desks, in fact only the files marked Human Resources Department were locked in the operations area, but every cabinet in the bank of files behind Henry Griffin’s administrative assistant was locked, as were his desk drawers. I looked at the heading of each file folder as I went through each unlocked drawer and made a quick decision to read further or not.

  I made my regular rounds of the two floors occupied by the bank on the hour, and I received two phone calls from the security company office to check that everything was OK. Otherwise, I spent the whole night snooping. After many hours of reading in rather dim light, my eyes were losing focus. My attention was waning when I came to a file belonging to the Accounts Payable Department. In it were records for the expenses associated with the Sedona Retreat Center. Among the many utility and cleaning bills, I found a payment order for Art Johnson for $1,500 dated last March. There were several other Yavapai County deputies with payments of $1,000. I assumed these were to provide security to the annual meeting of the managing directors. It was good pay for less than a week’s part time work, but not an indication that Art or the other men were connected to a murder. There were monthly payment
s of $2,500 to Christopher J. Moore. The payments were recorded as contract labor. I assumed that it was for Chris’s ongoing activity in providing security to the property, and also not directly connected to the crime. It was very unlikely that Griffin would leave such an easy trail for the payments made for a murder, but I found something that might prove useful.

  There were payments to the fixed base operator at the Sedona airport for fuel each time the company airplanes delivered clients or employees to Sedona. I made note of each payment and the date and time of the refueling. I could tell which flights were from New York by the consistent size of the fuel bills. They’d provided a record of each visit to Sedona by a senior executive using the company jet.

  The bill for Quentin Thatcher’s fatal visit had not yet been paid; however there was a charge the Saturday before Quentin’s death, which had been paid yesterday. The company airplane had been refueled at 8:30 in the morning, indicating that someone may have traveled to Sedona that night. The airplane was made ready for a quick return to New York or to fly to some other destination. I wondered how to determine who was on the plane. Henry Griffin’s assistant took care of booking the company plane, but her files were all locked. If Griffin was on that flight, it was interesting. He could have gone to Sedona to arrange for Dr. Thatcher’s fatal encounter with a snake, leaving Sedona as soon as arrangements were made. If Griffin had left New York Friday evening, he could have been back Saturday afternoon.

  I made a note of the man who’d signed for the gas. It was a different name than the one that appeared on the rest of the fuel charge slips, but the model of airplane and volume of fuel was similar to other trips to Sedona from New York.

  I’d identified sixteen documents that I wanted Margaret to copy. Ten were trading records that had hand-written notes from Quentin Thatcher to various trading managers, usually pointing out some deviation from the risk management policy. Seven of the ten criticisms were directed to a woman named Florence and concerned records of over-the-counter natural gas contracts. The complaints were mostly about discount rates used in the calculations of future profits and net uncovered long or short positions. When Margaret copied them tomorrow, I wanted her to show them to Heather to interpret.