Crystal Clear

by Jane Heller

  I couldn’t get over this. Billy and Amanda weren’t having an affair. Billy and Tina were having an affair. What’s more, they were planning to kidnap Amanda while they were all in Sedona, but they never got around to it because someone else got around to it first! “Did they ever tell the police why they were planning to kidnap Amanda?” I asked Michael.

  “They wanted bigger bucks than what she was paying them,” he said. “So the motive was money—and the fact that they hated her.”

  “Wouldn’t finding other, higher-paying jobs have solved both problems?” I asked.

  Terry took my arm. “Let’s go inside and get our interviews over with,” he suggested. “And then let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Among those waiting outside Detective Whitehead’s office when Terry and I arrived were Marie and Jennifer. Marie was sitting on a bench—her hair tangled, her dress rumpled, her eyes the color of Bloody Marys, what else was new? Jennifer, on the other hand, was standing near the closed door to the detective’s office, looking bright and perky, her gleaming white teeth providing the only illumination in the otherwise dimly lit waiting area.

  “Is someone in there with him?” I asked her, referring to Detective Whitehead.

  She nodded. “Mr. Reid is in there.”

  I should have known. I should have felt his greatness. “He must be terribly upset,” I said. “First his wife disappears. Then he finds out that two of her closest associates had actually planned to kidnap her.”

  “Oh, he’s devastated,” she confided, “so devastated that he’s asked me to cancel all promotional appearances for his new book.”

  “You know, it’s an amazing coincidence,” I observed. “Harrison Reid comes out with a collection of humorous essays about death, and, what do you know, he’s looking at the very real possibility of his own wife’s death. Go figure.”

  “What are you implying?” Jennifer asked, her smile fading.

  “She’s implying that Harrison Reid may have had something to do with his wife’s disappearance,” Terry said, cutting to the heart of the matter.

  “That’s ridiculous!” Jennifer said huffily. “He was speaking at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan the night before last. He didn’t know Amanda was missing until I called him yesterday morning.”

  “You called him?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” said Jennifer.

  “I thought it was customary for the police to contact the next of kin,” I said, having spent many a Sunday trapped in my father’s den, watching a cavalcade of “B” cop shows.

  “Oh. Well. I guess I misspoke,” she said, backpedaling. “I meant that I called Harrison—Mr. Reid—moments after the police phoned him. To offer my sympathies.”

  “And then he hopped on a friend’s private plane and flew out here,” Terry said. “With his lawyer.”

  “Yes,” said Jennifer. “Mr. Reid and Mr. Jantz are dear friends.”

  I was about to ask if the great and legendary Mr. Reid knew that his wife had changed her will yet again, when the door to Detective Whitehead’s office opened and out walked the novelist himself.

  I had seen photographs of Harrison Reid over the years—in newspapers, in magazines, on book jackets—but when he appeared before me, only a few feet away, I was taken aback by his size and stature, by how formidable a figure he was.

  He was well over six feet tall and weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds. But it was his scruffy gray beard and wild green eyes, as well as his heft, that made him seem larger than life. And, of course, there was his trademark white suit. Winter, spring, summer, fall, the man wore that goddam white suit no matter what the occasion. I shuddered when I thought of his dry cleaning bills.

  And then there was the aristocratic, upper crust-y way he spoke—a sort of George Plimpton-esque, WASP lockjaw that made you feel as if you were violating some immigration law.

  “Harrison,” Jennifer said, rushing to his side. “Was it terribly difficult for you in there?”

  He patted her head as if she were a small child, insignificant, a bother. “They’re still searching for her,” he said, dropping his r’s. “They haven’t given up hope, but they’re not optimistic about finding her alive. They think the Indian guide who took her up to that canyon could have—”

  “He not only couldn’t have, he didn’t,” Terry interrupted. “The only thing Will Singleton is guilty of is wanting to help your wife achieve her goals.”

  Harrison Reid peered down at Terry. “Do we know each other, sir?” he asked through pursed lips.

  Jennifer inserted herself. “This is Terry Hollenbeck, Harrison. He owns the Jeep Tour company. He’s the one who introduced Amanda to Will Singleton.”

  I cleared my throat.

  “And this is Crystal Goldstein,” Jennifer added. “She was a passenger on the tour with all of us. She’s an accountant from New York.”

  He nodded, then leaned over and whispered something to his lawyer, a heavily toupéed creature. They conferred for a minute or two. Then Harrison said, “I understand you both believe that Mr. Singleton is blameless in this matter.”

  “That’s what we believe, yeah,” said Terry. “Will Singleton took your wife up to Cathedral Rock and left her there because she asked him to, because she paid him to.”

  “Then where is she now?” Harrison asked. “He was the last person to see her alive. That doesn’t bode well for him, does it?”

  Before either Terry or I could reply, Marie rose from her bench and zigzagged over to Harrison.

  “Monsieur,” she said, grabbing his arm to steady herself. “You must be tired and hungry, no?”

  “I had a bite of breakfast at my hotel, Marie,” he said, then smiled at her. His teeth were yellow compared to Jennifer’s, although practically anyone’s would be. “It’s a French country inn, you know. I felt right at home with the cuisine, as if you had prepared the meal yourself, my dear.”

  “You must be staying at L’Auberge,” said Terry, referring to Sedona’s most exclusive lodgings.

  “Yes,” said Harrison. “Jennifer here made the arrangements for me.” He patted her head a second time.

  Just then, Detective Whitehead stuck his white head—he could have been Phil Donahue’s double—out of his office and asked Terry to step inside.

  “Mr. Jantz and I will be back at my hotel if there’s any new information,” Harrison told the detective, who promised to call him the moment there was a break in the case.

  “I’ll go with you, Harrison,” Jennifer said eagerly. “I’ve already spoken to Detective Whitehead this morning.”

  “That’s very thoughtful,” he said and allowed his publicist and his lawyer to escort him out of the building.

  While Terry took his turn with Detective Whitehead, I sat with Marie.

  “You haven’t been interviewed yet this morning?” I asked her.

  “Yes, I was interviewed over an hour ago,” she said.

  “Then what are you still doing here?” I said.

  “I did not know where else to go,” she said, then threw her head into my lap and began to sob.

  “Back to the hotel maybe?” I suggested. “You have your room at Tranquility, don’t you?”

  Her head bobbed up and down. She said something but I couldn’t make out what it was.

  “I can’t hear you, Marie,” I said, trying to pull her head out of my lap without yanking her by the hair.

  She sat up. “I am at the hotel but I am the only one of our little group left to confront all those reporters,” she said. “Tina and Billy are gone, Mon Dieu. Jennifer has been working with Monsieur Reid at his hotel. And Madame Reid—” Her head fell back into my lap. There was more sobbing.

  “Madame Reid what, Marie?” I urged. “You were going to make an observation, I think.”

  Up went her head. “Madame Reid is dead, no?”

  “No. I mean, not necessarily.”

  She shook her head. “She is dead. And I am responsible.”

&nbs
p; I stared at her. Was it a confession that was about to fall into my lap this time?

  “I killed her,” she said. “I did.”

  “Okay, Marie. Okay. Let’s take this nice and slowly,” I said, afraid she’d realize what she was saying and clam up.

  “I killed Madame Reid as certainly as if I had stabbed her in the heart,” she said, wiping her tears with the back of her hand.

  “So you stabbed her somewhere else, is that it?” I said as gently as possible under the circumstances. “In the back? The abdomen? The carotid artery maybe?”

  She shook her head again. “I wanted to stab her. I dreamed about stabbing her. She threatened to put me out on the street, no?”

  “Yes, Marie. You told me that the other night. You said you were hanging onto your job for dear life.”

  “Exactement. I was so desperate to keep my job with Monsieur Reid that I wished to kill Madame Reid. I am guilty, no?”

  “No. Not if you didn’t kill her. Wishing someone would die isn’t very spiritual but it’s not a crime.”

  My words elicited more tears. Buckets of them.

  “What, Marie? What is it now?”

  “I did more than wish Madame Reid dead,” she said between sobs. “I had a plan to make her dead.”

  Jesus. Another botched murder plot. “Go on,” I said. “How were you planning to make her dead?”

  She looked to her left, then to her right, checking to see whether anyone was listening. When she thought the coast was clear, she said, “Madame Reid used to tell me my food tasted like rat poison. I decided to return the favor.”

  “And put rat poison in her food, you mean?”

  She nodded. “I carried the plastic bag all the way from New York. It made the clothes in my suitcase smell, no?”

  “Yes,” I said, finally placing the foul odor that always seemed to accompany Marie.

  “I never had the opportunity to use the poison, with Madame Reid dead now, but I will always blame myself for the crime I almost committed. I am ashamed.”

  “Have you told the police any of this?” I asked, suddenly homesick for the lunatics at Duboff Spector, even Otis Tool.

  “No,” she said. “I told Monsieur Reid. I had to unburden myself to him, to apologize to him for my bad thoughts.”

  “How did he react?”

  “He was understanding.”

  “Really?” Your chef tells you she was planning to murder your wife and you’re understanding?

  “He said he did not believe I would have gone through with my plan. He said he felt it was time for me to retire. He said he would give me some money so I could go back to France to live. He is a gentleman, you see.”

  A rich gentleman, if he gets his hands on Amanda’s estate, I thought.

  Marie spoke about France for a while, how she was looking forward to returning to her native country but would carry her guilt wherever she went. I suggested she see a therapist.

  Eventually, Terry emerged from Detective Whitehead’s office and I had my turn with Sedona’s Finest. I told the cop virtually everything I knew about everyone in Sedona. He took notes and raised his eyebrows and said: “Is that right?” But in the end he stood firm in his belief that Will Singleton murdered Amanda Reid.

  “Will didn’t have a motive for killing her,” I protested vehemently. “In fact, he’s the only one who didn’t.”

  “He was at the scene,” the detective countered. “In fact, he’s the only one who was.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “What’s our next stop?” I asked Terry as he hustled me through the reporters, into his Jeep, and out of the parking lot.

  “We’re taking 89A south to Cottonwood,” he said, steering us back onto Sedona’s main drag.

  “I passed through there on my way into town,” I recalled. “I didn’t see much except a few dozen billboards for a swanky new golf resort.”

  “Funny, isn’t it?” he mused. “Some genius sticks a golf course where grass doesn’t grow and where there’s no water to water it even if it did. But we’re not going to Cottonwood for the golf course.”

  “No?”

  “No. We’re going for the casino.”

  “I knew it,” I said, slapping my leg. “You were starting to seem just a little too stable, Terry. You have a gambling problem, is that it?”

  He laughed. “No, I don’t have a gambling problem, Crystal. The Yavapai-Apaches run a casino in Cottonwood, and the guy who works one of the blackjack tables is a buddy of mine.”

  “And?”

  “And there isn’t a whole lot that gets by him. I’m hoping he’s heard something about Amanda, about who might have killed her.” He patted the newspaper resting on his lap. It was the latest issue of the Red Rock News. The entire front page of Friday’s paper was devoted to “The Disappearance of the Millionaire Heiress,” complete with a flattering—i.e., ten-year-old—photograph of Amanda. Of course, the article wasn’t your basic news story. Not in Sedona. It was a veritable Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, filled with wacky theories of what could have happened to Mrs. Reid. One person quoted in the article swore that Amanda had been abducted by Martians. Another person suggested that she’d been swallowed up by an enormous sink hole. Still a third person was convinced that she’d been kidnapped by rabid movie fans who mistook her for Tippi Hedren, to whom, I had to admit, she did bear a striking resemblance.

  “What’s the name of this buddy of yours?” I asked.

  “Buddy,” said Terry, who wasn’t kidding.

  The Cliff Castle Lodge & Casino is actually a Best Western motel, a gambling casino, and an Indian reservation, all in one. Now, I realize that Indian tribes all over America are getting into the casino business these days, but the Yavapai-Apaches have gotten into it in a rather colorless, unglitzy way. In other words, their casino is more trailer park than Las Vegas.

  “How do we know Buddy is here at this hour of the morning?” I said when we drove up to the complex. It was only 10:30.

  “He’s always here,” said Terry. “This place is his life, his Command Central. Everybody comes in to talk to him, ask his advice, pick up a little information. He’s the Liz Smith of the reservation.”

  “I can’t wait to meet him,” I said as Terry parked the Jeep.

  I didn’t have to wait long, as it turned out. Buddy—I’m not sure he had a last name because no one seemed to know it—was standing by the door, deep in conversation with another man, when we walked in.

  What did Buddy look like? Picture a tall fifty-year-old wearing a leisure suit, cowboy boots, and a huge headdress. I hadn’t seen so many feathers since my down comforter sprang a leak.

  “Hey, Terry. What’s the good word?” he said after he finished up with the fellow he’d been chatting with. “Business good?”

  “Business is fine,” Terry said, shaking Buddy’s hand. “What’s with all the feathers?”

  Buddy chuckled as he patted the headdress. “For the tourists,” he said. “They love this stuff. Gotta make a living, right?”

  Terry smiled knowingly. “I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine, Crystal Goldstein.”

  Buddy swung quickly around to face me, his headdress nearly decapitating Terry. “A pleasure,” he said, shaking my hand, too. “You here to play a little blackjack, Crystal?”

  “Actually, we came to talk to you, Buddy,” Terry answered for me. “To pick your brain about something. Could you come outside with us for a couple of minutes?”

  If Buddy was surprised by Terry’s request, he certainly didn’t let on. He simply nodded, as if people sought his counsel on a regular basis.

  We stepped outside the casino and stood together in the parking lot. A dry, dusty breeze had kicked up; I hoped the headdress wouldn’t land on somebody’s car antenna.

  “You wanted to talk, my friend? Be my guest,” said Buddy.

  Terry showed him the front page of the Red Rock News, which he’d brought with him from the Jeep. “You’ve heard about this?”

&
nbsp; “I’ve heard about it, sure,” said Buddy.

  “She was on my tour, was one of the passengers,” Terry said, pointing to Amanda’s photograph. “I introduced her to Will Singleton, too. You’ve met Will?”

  “I’ve met him, sure,” Buddy said.

  “The police think he killed her and buried the body somewhere, but if you know Will, you know that’s not possible,” said Terry. “There has to be another explanation.”

  “There’s another explanation, sure,” said Buddy.

  “Any idea what it might be?” I said, wondering if there was anything Buddy wasn’t sure about.

  He took another look at Amanda’s picture, stroked his chin, and said, “Now that you mention it, I had a guy come in here the night before last, bragging that he knew the woman.”

  “Bragging?” I asked. “What did he say?”

  “He said he sold her a talking stick a few days ago,” said Buddy.

  “He sold her a what?” I said.

  Buddy looked at Terry. “Your friend Crystal is not from around here, right?”

  “No, but she’s a quick study,” Terry smiled.

  “A talking stick is part of Native American tradition,” said Buddy. “The one who is in possession of the stick is the one who gets to talk—everyone else must listen.”

  “I see,” I said, doubting that this talking stick had anything to do with Amanda’s nonstop chatter about her New Age clothing line. “So the guy who sold her the talking stick works at a store in Sedona?”

  “He owns the store, opened it up recently,” said Buddy. “He sells crystals, incense, souvenir red rocks, you know. Just what Sedona needs, huh? Another store like that?”

  Terry agreed.

  “Anyway, this guy was in the casino the night before last telling people how much he overcharged the woman for the talking stick,” Buddy went on. “He said she had plenty of money and didn’t notice.”

  “She had plenty of money,” Terry concurred. “Let me ask you something else, Buddy. Do you remember how late this guy stayed at the casino the other night?”

  “I remember, sure,” said Buddy. “He played blackjack until six o’clock the next morning, that’s how late. He’s a drinker, that guy. He got so loaded we had to put him to bed at the motel. He didn’t get up until noon, I hear.”