by J. A. Jance
One glance at that display of flowers was enough to make Haley cry again. She couldn’t help it. Carmen had told her about all the angry, disgruntled clients out there, but it turns out there were plenty of other people in town who were willing to give Dan and Millie Frazier the benefit of the doubt. That profusion of flowers was one way of showing they cared.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right now?” Julia asked, as Haley exited the car.
“Yes,” Haley said. “I will be. Thank you for everything—for coming to get me so I’d know what was up, and thank you for giving me a private place to stay long enough to pull myself together.”
Julia smiled. “Think nothing of it,” she said. “That’s what friends are for.”
Haley stood transfixed, watching as Julia King’s silver Lexus pulled out of the parking lot and drove away. Shaking her head, Haley couldn’t help but marvel. On this terribly appalling day, something entirely unexpected had happened. Life had handed her a precious gift—a brand-new friend.
14
When the interview door opened the next time, the person who entered was Sedona PD’s chief detective, a guy named Eric Drinkwater, and not necessarily one of Bob Larson’s favorite people. Drinkwater had hired on as a city cop after serving as an MP in Desert Storm and after working for the sheriff’s department in either Maricopa or Pima County—Bob wasn’t sure which.
When Eric first came to town and before he married, he’d been a regular at the Sugarloaf Café—a regular with a reputation for being a stingy tipper. Finally, after he’d stiffed the waitstaff of their tips once too often, Edie had called him on it. Much to everyone’s relief, he’d stopped coming by the restaurant altogether after that, something the café’s employees regarded as a personal favor. Bob hadn’t minded having Hank Sotomeyer ask him questions, but he wasn’t thrilled to see Eric Drinkwater.
Drinkwater activated the recording equipment and made the required announcement before addresing Bob directly.
“Ever hear of a guy named Charles Ponzi?” the detective asked, grabbing one of the two chairs on the far side of the table from Bob. He may not have been physically present in the room during Hank’s interview, but clearly he’d been following what had been said, word for word.
“Who?” Bob replied.
“Charles Ponzi, of Ponzi scheme fame,” Drinkwater said. “He conned people into investing with him by promising them huge returns. For a while he delivered. Early investors made out like bandits, because he paid them the large returns he’d promised. The only problem was, he siphoned a lot of the money into assets for himself. Then, when things started going south, he used funds from later investors to pay large returns to the early ones. The whole deal worked just fine right up until the money ran out. Which is why, when later investors came looking for their money, it wasn’t there.”
“You’re saying that’s what happened to Edie and me—we got caught up in a Ponzi scheme?”
“Textbook case,” Drinkwater said. “I just got off the phone with the SEC. According to them, Ocotillo Fund Management has been a Ponzi scheme from beginning to end. There’s no telling how big it is at this point. They’re guessing it’ll end up amounting to several thousand investors, a fair number of whom were clients of our homicide victim Mr. Frazier.”
“They’re probably as upset as I am.”
“I’m sure that’s true, Mr. Larson, but as my colleague Detective Sotomeyer just pointed out, of all those disgruntled customers, you’re the only one who happened to show up at the crime scene with blood all over your body and with a possible murder weapon in the back of your vehicle.”
“A what?”
“A possible murder weapon, Bob—a bloody knife.”
“And you found it where?”
“In the back of your Bronco.”
“Is this some kind of joke?” Bob demanded.
“Believe me, this is no joking matter,” Drinkwater replied. “So maybe you and I should take another crack at this. How about if you tell me again exactly what went on this morning?”
“My car was unlocked and the windows open,” Bob said. “The AC quit working years ago. Whoever did it must have tossed the knife inside as they were leaving.”
“So you believe that the killer or killers were still at the residence while you were there?”
“They had to be.”
“But you saw no one.”
“I was looking out for Millie and Dan,” Bob said.
“There were no signs of a break-in at the residence,” Eric continued. “Millie and Dan Frazier opened their door and let the killer into their home. That suggests their assailant was someone they knew, most likely someone they knew well and maybe someone they had known for years. Someone like you, perhaps?”
“I already told Hank all of this,” Bob insisted.
“Yes, that’s true,” Eric allowed, “but how about if you tell the same story to me, then, from the very beginning.”
Bob took a deep breath. The last thing he wanted to do right then was rehash the whole ugly story, but he could see that he didn’t have a choice.
“It all started this morning,” he said. “I was sitting in Edie’s and my apartment drinking coffee when I saw the piece on TV about Dan’s investment company, Ocotillo Fund Management, going belly-up . . .”
15
It took time for Ali to make her way back to I-17 through that tangled, forested maze. The moment she hit enough bars on her cell, her phone rang. “Ali!” her mother exclaimed. “Are you almost here? I was worried before, but now I’m downright frantic.”
“I’m still up on the Rim and just now getting back on the freeway,” Ali answered. “I went up to the homeless camp off Schnebly Hill Road to see if Dad might have stopped by there.”
“And?” Edie asked eagerly. “Had he?” There was such naked hopefulness in her mother’s questions that it made Ali’s heart hurt.
“No,” she answered. “No one up there had seen him, but what’s wrong now? You sound upset.”
“I just heard from someone here at the Shadows who got it off some kind of Internet news feed that there’s been a double homicide here in town today. In Sedona, no less. They’re not releasing any information pending notification of next of kin and all that, but I’m beside myself with worry. What if Bobby somehow got himself in the middle of it?”
“Why on earth would Dad end up in the middle of a double homicide, Mom? It’s just not possible.”
“Then why won’t he answer his phone?”
“There are a number of possibilities that don’t include a double homicide. Maybe he forgot to plug his phone in and it ran out of juice. Maybe it got turned on silent, and he doesn’t know it’s ringing.”
And maybe, Ali thought, he turned it off so he could have a few moments of peace and quiet.
“And maybe he’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere,” Edie fumed. “I’ve got half a mind to get in the car and drive around looking for him.”
“Going out looking for him is the last thing you should do right about now,” Ali cautioned. “Is Betsy still there with you?”
“Yes.”
“Stay there with her, then,” Ali said. Call-waiting buzzed in Ali’s ear. “Look, Mom,” she said. “I’ve got another call. Believe me, I’m coming as fast as I can.”
“Just so you know,” Edie said, having the last word. “Once I find Bobby Larson, if he ever pulls a stunt like this again, I’ll kill him myself!”
Cami Lee’s name appeared on the screen, and Ali switched over to the other call. “What do you have for me?” Ali asked. “Have you found him?”
“I’m not sure,” Cami replied tentatively. “I’ve got a lock on his cell phone. Right this moment it appears to be somewhere inside the headquarters for the Sedona Police Department.”
Ali’s heart skipped a beat. There had been a double homicide in town. If her father’s phone had been located somewhere inside the police department, did that mean her father was there, too?
&n
bsp; “At Sedona PD?” Ali asked. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Have you heard anything about a reported double homicide in Sedona?”
“I haven’t,” Cami said. “There might be something on Stu’s police scanner, but he’s been busy, and so have I. Do you want me to go check?”
“First tell me about Dad’s Bronco. It’s possible he may have been in an accident of some kind.”
“I’ve located no information on his vehicle,” Cami continued. “And there have been no reported MVAs involving a Bronco. I remember Mr. Simpson saying that he was going to put a GPS locator on your dad’s SUV, but that must not have happened.”
“It didn’t,” Ali said. In fact, her father had bristled at the very idea. “No way you’re putting one of those gadgets on my baby,” he’d declared. “If you can follow me around, so can the government. Where I go and what I do is none of their business or yours, either, for that matter.”
The GPS “gadget” stayed off.
“B. said we were gathering all this information for your mother,” Cami continued. “Would you like me to call it over to her?”
“And tell her that my father may have been connected to a double homicide?” Ali demanded. “Absolutely not!”
She pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and the Cayenne shot forward.
“Do not call my mother about any of this,” she continued. “And if she calls you, do not answer, understand? If you end up having to speak to her, tell her you’ve been too busy to check on this yet. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cami replied. “Loud and clear.”
“But do tell B.,” Ali added. “I want him to know everything that’s going on. Also, you might try calling the nonemergency number at Sedona PD, and see if they’ll give you any information.”
“Will do.”
With a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Ali drove on, disregarding all posted speed limits as she raced for Sedona. She had told her mother that there was no way on earth that her father would be involved in a double homicide. Now she wasn’t so sure. If he was involved, how involved was he?
The Sedona Shadows Internet source had reported a double homicide in Sedona. There was a chance, of course, that her father was one of the two victims. If he had died—if he was already dead—Ali knew that her mother would be utterly devastated. They had worked hard for all those decades, running the Sugarloaf day after day, seven days a week, telling themselves and anyone else who cared to listen that they’d be kicking up their heels once they hit their “golden years.” But what if Bob and Edie Larson’s golden years had just come to a screeching halt? That idea was more than Ali could handle right then.
On the other hand, if her father wasn’t dead, was there even a remote possibility that he was the perpetrator?
“Geez Louise, Dad,” she said, speaking aloud as though Bob Larson were right there with her on the front seat of the Cayenne. “What in the hell have you gotten yourself into? If you’re not already dead, I’m pretty sure Mom is going to kill you. And if she needs any help getting the job done, I’ll be right there giving her a hand.”
16
Driving at top speed on the freeway was one thing, but once Ali turned on to Highway 179, all bets were off. The posted limit was fifty-five mph, but the lumbering RVs and gawking tourists didn’t drive anywhere close to that fast, and the long stretches of no-passing zones made getting around slower vehicles impossible. It didn’t help matters that it was after five. Rush hour in and around Sedona was the same as rush hour anywhere else—glacial.
Ali was going through the first roundabout in the Village of Oak Creek when Cami called back. “I found something on the Internet. I googled ‘double homicide in Sedona’ and came up with a bunch of photos someone had posted on Facebook.”
“Photos from the scene?”
“That’s right. The house in the background is an address on Elberta Drive. My records show the owners of that property are Dan and Millie Frazier. Do either of those names ring a bell?”
“Of course the name rings a bell. Dan Frazier has been Mom and Dad’s insurance and financial advisor for years. But what exactly do the photos show? Are they the victims?”
“That’s not clear, but that address is where the cop cars and emergency vehicles were earlier, although they’re probably not there now. One police cruiser, parked in the driveway, was of particular interest. When it came down the hill, a bystander managed to snap a photo. The photograph was taken from a fair distance away, but you could see the profile of someone in the backseat. I had to enhance the image some before Stu could get a reading on it, but when we ran the image through our facial rec program, it came back as belonging to your father.”
“My father—in the back of a police car,” Ali muttered. “As in locked in the back of a police car at the scene of a double homicide? Did you tell B.?”
“I didn’t have to. Mr. Simpson was right there watching the screen when Stu got the hit. He said to tell you not to call him right now. He says he’s going to be on the phone locating a defense attorney. He’ll meet you at the police station.”
For the second time that day, needles and pins shot through Ali’s fingertips.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Ali?”
Several weeks earlier, a case involving black market LEGOs had taken Ali and Cami to Bisbee in the southeast corner of the state where Cami had come close to losing her life to one of the conspirators. There’s nothing like going to war with a stone-cold killer to create a lasting bond of friendship, which was where Ali Reynolds and Cami Lee were now. When it came to Ali, the “Ms. Reynolds” part had been x-ed out of Cami’s vocabulary. B., however, was now and most likely would always remain on the far more formal level of “Mr. Simpson.”
“Is there a time stamp on any of those photos, especially the one of the police cruiser?”
“Just a sec.” There was a momentary pause before Cami spoke again. “Yes, the one of your dad in the patrol car is time-stamped 11:43 a.m.”
Ali glanced at her watch. The side trip from the freeway back and forth to the homeless camp had taken longer than she expected. It was almost 5:30. That meant that her father had been in police custody of some kind for almost six hours—six hours during which he’d not been allowed to make any calls. That combined with his being locked in the back of a patrol car was enough to convince Ali that Bob Larson was being treated as a suspect rather than a witness. If B. was in search of a defense attorney, he’d come to the same conclusion.
When Ali pulled in to the lot at Sedona PD a few minutes later, B.’s Audi was already parked in a visitor’s slot. By the time she stopped her Cayenne next to B.’s Audi R8, he was standing there waiting to open her door.
“You must have talked to Cami,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “What took you so long? I was starting to think you’d come to some kind of grief out on the highway.”
“Sorry to worry you,” she apologized. “At the last minute I stopped by the homeless camp up on the Rim, just to make sure that Dad hadn’t been there. He hadn’t, of course. From what Cami tells me, he’s been right here in Sedona most of the time.”
“Not only in Sedona, but also in police custody,” B. added.
Gauging her husband’s mood, Ali was glad she hadn’t mentioned her close encounter with Luke and his twelve-gauge. With everything else that was going on right then, it was best not to add any more fuel to the fire.
“Should we go in?” she asked.
“Not yet,” B. replied. “We’re waiting for Dash.”
Ali knew that Dash—short for Dashiell—Summers was a local defense attorney. He and B. had struck up a friendship when they purchased neighboring homes on a golf course in the Village of Oak Creek and later discovered that neither of them actually played golf. Dash and B. were the same age. Dash’s wife, Kitty, was ten years younger than her husband, which made her twenty-five years younger than Ali. Kitty had far more in c
ommon with Ali’s daughter-in-law, Athena, than with Ali, so the two couples seldom did things as a foursome.
But the two men had a lot in common. Both were successful and outgoing, and both had spent lifetimes dealing with complex name issues. As a kid named Bartholomew Quentin Simpson, B. had endured years of “Bart Simpson” name-calling and bullying before he had dropped everything but the first letter of his first name. Dash, the son of a woman who loved Dashiell Hammett’s books beyond bearing, had ditched the name Dashiell for just plain Dash for much the same reason—due to constant ribbing from classmates.
“Dash said he’s tied up in a meeting, but he doesn’t want us going in without him. That’s all right, though. It’ll give me a chance to catch you up with what’s going on.”
“You mean about the double homicide?”
B. nodded.
“Cami told me some of it,” Ali said. “I also know that Dad and Mom are longtime clients of Dan Frazier. Is there more?”
“Unfortunately, there’s a lot more,” B. said grimly. “You ever hear of a company called Ocotillo Fund Management?”
“Sure,” Ali said. “That was the investment arm of Dan Frazier’s business. I’m pretty sure the folks had several accounts with them, all of them placed through Dan.”
“That’s very bad, news,” B. said, “because Ocotillo Fund Management declared bankruptcy yesterday. Whatever money your folks had invested with them is probably wiped out.”
“Wiped out?” Ali echoed. “Everything’s gone? Their IRAs, the money from selling the Sugarloaf, and everything?”
“All of it,” B. said with a nod. “Does your mom know about that?”
“I doubt it,” Ali said. “At least, if she did, she didn’t mention it. But is that what this is all about? My parents lost money with Dan, and the cops think Dad went after him because of it?”
“How much money are we talking about?”