by Sylvia Nobel
The first page listed the threatening letters sent to Riley Gibbons. I frowned as I read them again. FALSE WORDS ARE NOT ONLY EVIL IN THEMSELVES, THEY INFECT THE SOUL WITH EVIL and BEWARE THOSE WHO FEAST AT THE TABLE WITH THE EVILDOER. It seemed so obvious now. La Donna had full access to Riley’s extensive library and they certainly had a lot more meaning when one thought of them in the context of Riley’s infidelity. I turned the page to the last group, which was particularly intriguing. I kind of wished Grant was still here so I could bounce my thoughts off him. I was pretty sure we were on the right track, surmising that it was Riley’s intent to bring these four people together for some reason. The quotes given to Ruth puzzled me the most. Which of the three women was he referring to when he wrote, PURE OF SOUL, SHE RESTS IN SOLITUDE, HER LONE COMPANION THE ETERNAL SILENCE OF UNTOUCHED BEAUTY? Were any of them pure of soul? I was sure the key word in the phrase, THE TREASURE OF THE YEARNING HEART IS REVEALED THROUGH REVERENT EYES was treasure but the reverent eyes part was baffling. It almost had a religious overtone. Again and again I read WHEN YOU HAVE ELIMINATED THE IMPOSSIBLE, WHATEVER REMAINS HOWEVER IMPROBABLE, MUST BE THE TRUTH. Okay, so all I had to do was start eliminating what seemed impossible. A lot easier said than done, I thought, stuffing the notes in my purse.
In the lobby, I stopped to chat with Tugg’s daughter, Louise, and then asked Ginger if she could take a rain check for lunch figuring I’d best hit the road early. I could tell she wasn’t very happy about it, but I waved goodbye and hurried outside to the parking lot before she could protest further.
While it was still sunny, weather forecasters had issued a high wind advisory and predicted falling temperatures preceding the arrival of yet another storm. Driving Joe Talverson’s red and white 1978 Ford truck turned out to be a kick. Even though it didn’t have all the modern amenities and the suspension wasn’t the greatest, the engine had a solid growl. Tally had mentioned that it could sometimes be tricky to start and warned me not to pump the gas pedal too much or I might flood the carburetor and have to wait to restart it. Thank goodness, I only had to drive it until I picked out my new car on Saturday. Quite a few admiring glances from some of the seasoned citizens came my way as I cruised through town towards the copy shop. The owner apologized again for the delay, but I was so happy with the results I couldn’t complain. Myra would be pleased too, I was sure.
Just to be on the safe side, I took time to stop by my house to pick up extra water bottles, snacks, a spare cell battery, flashlight, gloves, boots, a blanket and my heavy winter coat. I set out an additional bowl of cat food for Marmalade, kissed her goodbye, turned on lights and was on my way by one o’clock, the escalating wind whipping up an impressive rooster tail of dust behind me as I sped along Lost Canyon Road. While I still had a good cell signal, I tried Myra’s number a second time but again got her voicemail.
Sipping a caffeine-charged soft drink, I sailed along the highway, tapping my fingers to a lively rock song. I’d just passed through the tiny community of Congress and was smiling at the quirky green-painted rock known locally as the ‘Congress Frog’ when I heard my cell phone play its energetic melody. I glanced at the caller ID, surprised to see it was Ginger’s brother, Brian.
“Hi, Kendall, how’s it going?”
“Doing okay. How about you?”
“Hanging in there.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now, right?”
“You mean about those two people being arrested?”
“Yeah. Hey, I really appreciate all the effort you put into researching those cases for me. I’ll get a check in the mail to compensate you right away. Sorry it was such a waste of time.”
A slight hesitation then, “I’m not so sure it was.”
His provocative tone of voice made my pulse hike up a notch or two. “What do you mean?”
“I came across something you might want to hear about anyway.”
“Fire away.”
“Did Walter tell you about the Harrison Reese homicide that was never solved?”
“The defense attorney from Phoenix.”
“Right. Well, when I began pulling up all the cases where he’d appeared before Judge Gibbons, I came across one I think you’ll find pretty interesting.”
“Go on.”
“About ten years ago there was a high profile hit and run case in Phoenix involving an ASU college sophomore named Sarah Scarborough. She and a girlfriend were walking home late from a movie when she got run down in a crosswalk around one-thirty in the morning. The guy behind the wheel was a young attorney fresh out of law school by the name of Anthony Lazar. He’d been bar hopping all evening with two friends and was traveling about sixty miles an hour when it happened.”
I vaguely remembered reading about the case in his previous e-mail, but didn’t remember specific details. “I assume she was killed on the spot.”
“Yep. He slammed into her so hard she was nearly decapitated.”
A feeling of distinct unease came over me. “Good Lord.”
“He barely missed the victim’s friend and she was pretty freaked out but gave police a good description of the car and the last three numbers of the license plate. She claimed the guy stopped, got out, looked at her friend and then jumped back in his car and took off. He hid the car at a friend’s house and waited three days to turn himself in.”
“Clever lawyer,” I said, nodding in disgust. “He knew he would have flunked a field sobriety test so he delayed long enough so there’d be no possible trace of alcohol in his system.”
“You got it. During the trial, Lazar’s defense attorney, Harrison Reese, alleged that Sarah had not been in the legal crosswalk and that his client had no knowledge that he’d hit a person. Said he thought he’d struck an animal. The eyewitness refuted his version, but when Reese put Lazar’s two passengers on the stand neither could recall him hitting anything. They did, however, admit that they’d also been drinking.”
“Where are you going with this?” I asked, accelerating up Yarnell Hill again, wondering in the back of my mind if I’d be able to see the mangled remains of Tally’s truck visible among the numerous snowdrifts still clinging to the side of the mountain.
“Hang on, I’m getting there,” Brian muttered. He didn’t say anything for a while and I could hear him tapping on the keyboard as powerful wind gusts pounded the truck. I grabbed the wheel tighter and wound my way higher up the serpentine road, feeling a slight twinge of anxiety when I passed the orange traffic cones that marked the damaged section of guardrail that was in the process of being repaired.
“Okay, here we go,” he finally said. “The prosecutor’s office was going for vehicular manslaughter with a maximum 25 years in prison, but it was brought to Judge Gibbons’s attention that the prosecution had failed to turn over exculpatory evidence to the defense, something about the witness’s prior statement to police being inconsistent with her testimony and the judge was forced to declare a mistrial.”
“Justice deferred is justice denied,” I commented dryly.
“No kidding. Now, here’s where the second part of the story starts. According to newspaper accounts the dead girl’s parents were in court every single day of the trial and when the mistrial was declared the father of the victim…let’s see…yeah, the guy’s name was Roger Scarborough…it says here he was the range master at a Scottsdale gun club…anyway, the article says he went absolutely ape shit and punched out Harrison Reese while the girl’s mother, Jean, lunged at the judge screaming that justice had not been served and threatened to kill him. They both had to be restrained by court security. Because the key witness in the case disappeared shortly thereafter, the prosecution was unable to move ahead with the case. Fast forward nine months and I find a small story detailing Roger Scarborough’s apparent suicide. A couple of months later his widow, Jean, was arrested for stalking Judge Gibbons. She stood trial and was convicted, but apparently she suffered some sort of psychotic episode while in custody and was subsequently inst
itutionalized—”
“This is all fascinating stuff,” I cut in, “but I’m still not getting—”
“Hang on. Five years ago the body of the defendant Anthony Lazar was found at a campground near Santa Fe, New Mexico. He’d been shot in the chest, it didn’t appear that any of his possessions had been taken and here’s the weird part. Both of his hands had been cut off.”
27
Brian’s startling news rattled me so much I had trouble concentrating on the road and had to force myself to calm down. The fact that three major players in this one case had died mysteriously by gunshot wound and each had particular body parts removed struck me as mighty questionable in the coincidence department. My thoughts jumped back to my first meeting with La Donna Gibbons. Hadn’t she mentioned that her daughter and husband had both been killed as a result of a drunk driving accident? The thought also occurred to me that because of her status as a flight attendant, she could move about the country with ease, which meant she had the opportunity to have committed the homicides in neighboring states and within hours be thousands of miles away from the crime scene. She was also familiar with her husband’s penchant for proverbs and could have been responsible for sending him the threatening quotes. Her motive for murdering Riley seemed pretty obvious, but I was stumped as to how that would apply in the other two cases. “What happened to Jean Scarborough? Is she still institutionalized or was she released?”
“I found a related article on that too. She escaped from the Arizona State Hospital three months after she was locked up, was recaptured only to escape again, and of course there’s been an outstanding warrant out on her for almost seven years, but nobody’s seen her since. That’s not totally surprising though, ’cause if you go to the FBI website, you’ll see that there are over a million fugitives nationwide and 30,000 in Maricopa County alone. They just don’t have enough law enforcement people to serve all the outstanding warrants and she’s probably dropped to the bottom of the list by now.”
“Anything else of interest?”
”Well…I could e-mail you a picture of the victim right now. She was real pretty.”
I couldn’t imagine how that would serve any purpose but he’d roused my curiosity. “Okay. I’m not going to have very consistent cell coverage in another couple of minutes, but send it along to me and I’ll check messages later.”
“Sure thing.”
“Thanks, Brian, you’ve certainly given me something to think about.”
“I thought so.”
There were very few people stirring as I drove through the quiet streets of Yarnell. Dirty snowdrifts lined the streets while the nearby hills still sported wide patches of snow. I turned onto the narrow road leading to Myra’s place, my mind straining to apply what I’d just learned from Brian to the known facts of the Gibbons case, but for the life of me I could not come up with a logical explanation to connect the three events.
I drove on along the deserted dirt road, my eyes straying now and then to the dark line of thunderheads draping shadowy capes across the distant mountain peaks. Combining their fast approach with the ferocity of the wind foretold the arrival of more unsettled weather. Oh man. Was I going to have to tackle yet another snowstorm? Relief filtered through me when the crooked smokestack popped into view and moments later I parked the truck in front of the ancient brick building. All around me, the foliage thrashed in the stiff wind as I hurried across the muddy parking area. As I stood knocking on the wide metal entrance doors, my hair whipped into a tangled mass around my face. There was no answer, so I moved to peer in the kitchen window. No movement, no sign of anyone, only the melodic drone of the rising wind.
Now what? If I left the posters propped outside the door they’d blow into the next county. Feeling foolish that I hadn’t been patient enough to wait one more day, I looked around for somewhere to safely leave them, but could find no place suitable. Trotting back to the truck I suddenly recalled Myra’s complaint that the lock on the back door had not been repaired. Surely, she wouldn’t mind if I slipped the posters inside.
As I drove towards the rear of the building, it occurred to me that I might as well make use of the time and take some exterior shots of the old Ice House for my proposed article. Camera in hand, I stepped outside and looked up at the blackened bricks and blank windows. Yep. The place definitely had character. Even on a sunny day it possessed a brooding quality. I snapped about thirty pictures from several different angles. Thank goodness for digital cameras. I had to delete a dozen or so images because my hair kept blowing in front of the lens.
I trotted back to the truck, parked on the south side of the building and when I slid to the ground holding the posters, the insistent wind threatened to tear them from my grasp. Passing by the garage, I noticed that Myra’s silver sedan still sat nestled beside the trailer. If she was here why hadn’t she heard me knocking? But I answered my own question as I approached the door. The panel truck was gone.
Just to be courteous, I rapped again and hollered, “Myra! Are you in there? It’s Kendall O’Dell!” When no response came I entered the cavernous room. It was a struggle to push the heavy door shut behind me. Grateful to be out of the wind, I stood in the silence for several seconds watching disturbed dust motes swirl in the narrow columns of sunlight streaming in the windows, then weaved my way around two big yellow handcarts and a stack of packing boxes. It appeared that Myra was serious about relocating to new quarters. As I moved past scores of Myra’s lifelike creations towards the little table, it was disconcerting to imagine their inquisitive eyes following my every step. I shook off my sudden unease, thinking that these old places really did get my imagination juices flowing.
I set the posters down and was writing an explanatory note to Myra when the short beep on my cell phone broke the deep silence, alerting me that a text message was waiting. Ah, the photo from Brian. I dug the phone out of my purse and tapped the VIEW button. As I studied the smiling image of the striking young brunette’s oval face and wide brown eyes, an odd premonition stirred inside me. This girl had been dead for ten years, so why did she look vaguely familiar to me? I stared out the window, mentally sorting through my memory files, struggling to pin down where I’d seen her before, but every time I just about had it the thought slipped away. At a loss, I snapped the phone shut, finished writing and then placed the folded note on top of the posters.
At that moment, a cloud obscured the sunlight, plunging the room into semi-darkness. I checked my watch. Probably ought to get going before the storm closed in. But then as long as I was here, why not get a few interior shots of the old building while Myra was away? It was doubtful I’d get another opportunity any time soon. I’d be careful not to disturb anything of hers, so what harm could there be? And anyway, she’d already said she didn’t plan to stay much longer, so why would she care?
I wandered along the hallway and entered the kitchen, which didn’t seem as warm and cheerful without the fire. Except for the whistling wind rattling the windowpanes and the steady tick of the wall clock, the building seemed wrapped in funereal silence. Yep, this was a great place for an introverted artist like Myra, but a little too isolated for my blood.
I aimed the camera, framing a nice shot of the baker’s rack and ancient gas stove. The copper teakettle added a nice touch. An empty cup sat on the kitchen table next to several hardbound books and adjacent to them what looked to be a journal or diary lying open. I cocked my head sideways to read the titles and recognized the name of the famous poet Robert Frost. The second volume featured poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. My mother would have approved of her choices. I decided that the exposed brick wall would make a nice background for a photo. I moved the books, cup, borrowed a candle from the baker’s rack and arranged them into an interesting shot. Nice.
While replacing the books, my gaze involuntarily fell on the open page of the journal. What was this? The words THE SPAWN OF EVIL MUST PERISH written in bold dark print tweaked my curiosity. Strange. I was te
mpted to look further but my conscience tugged at me. I had no right to intrude in Myra’s personal thoughts.
Moving on, I snapped several shots of the antique wall fixtures on the way back to the studio and as I headed towards the back door, a stunning sculpture depicting a Native American dancer in a ceremonial feather dress caught my eye. Mesmerized by the outstanding detail of the piece, not paying attention to where I was walking, I suddenly found myself face down on the floor, breath slammed from my lungs. When I regained my wits, I pushed to my knees, thankful that I hadn’t injured myself, and, more importantly, that my clumsiness hadn’t damaged one of Myra’s sculptures.
I looked around to see what I’d tripped over and only then noticed the orange extension cord snaking across the floorboards. Uh-oh. Apparently my fall had dislodged it from the electrical socket. I reached under the table and when I plugged it in, an immediate humming sound reached my ears. Puzzled, I rose and followed the winding cord into the shadowy alcove, underneath the table where Myra’s collection of cherubic angels sat staring back at me, and continued several more feet before disappearing beneath a partially open door. I leaned in close, listening intently to what sounded like the far-off drone of a refrigerator compressor. Wait a minute. Wasn’t this the entrance to the basement? How odd. Hadn’t Myra told me that it was too dangerous to enter because of water seepage? If that were the case, how safe could it be to run any sort of electrical appliance in standing water? I pushed the door open a little further. The hinges gave out a raspy squeal and I wrinkled my nose at the dank smell wafting up from below. I fumbled around on the wall for a light switch. Click. Click. Nothing happened. In the dim light from behind, I could see the outline of a stairway leading down into the darkness. I knelt down and ran my fingers along the first two steps. They felt solid and dry. So why had Myra told me they were rotted and unsafe? Something wasn’t right.