Desert Shadows (9781615952250)

by Webb, Betty

  I fished a business card out of my carry-all. “I’m a private detective, and I’d like to speak to Mr. Al…Zach for a few minutes.”

  The hand she reached toward my card trembled. A hangover, or anxiety? Could have been either. Her fingernails had been bitten to the quick.

  “A detective? Wha…what do you need to see Zach about?”

  “I’ve been hired by Owen Sisiwan to look into Gloriana’s death.”

  She relaxed. “Owen wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “You know him well, then?”

  She nodded, revealing dark roots at the base of her blond hair. “Oh, yes. Gloriana worked him half to death. Tell you what. I’ll ask if Zach can see you now. Anything I can do to help Owen, I will.”

  When she rose from her desk and walked toward the back, I saw that the hem of her dress had ripped away. It flapped around her stout legs like a ragged banner. Did she not know, or did she not care?

  Soon she returned, trailed by a tall man in his mid-thirties. With his tanned skin, sun-streaked brown hair, and a Kirk Douglas chin, he bordered on handsome, but his eyes were red and his too-flat nose skewed to the side, as if he’d once taken a blow to the face and decided not to have it fixed. He looked more like a boxer than a publisher.

  “Hi, Ms. Jones, I’m Zach,” he said, holding out his hand for me to shake. “Great work you did up at that polygamy commune, getting that little girl out of there. Too bad the attorney general didn’t follow up and arrest those perverts.”

  My relief that Zachary Alden-Taylor knew who I was almost wiped out the memory of my fury at Arizona’s cowardly AG. Almost, but not quite. “He said something about polygamy being a matter of religious freedom.”

  Zach snorted. “Since when is the rape of underage girls a matter of religious freedom? No, you can bet that money’s involved in it somehow. It usually is when serious crimes aren’t prosecuted.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said, trying to stay calm. Every time I thought about my last case, my stomach churned. “But right now, I need to talk to you about your grandmother’s murder.”

  Like his receptionist, Zach sounded more than willing to help. “Follow me back to my office so we can leave poor Sandra here to her many miseries.”

  Poor Sandra threw him a grateful look and settled her wide bottom back on the chair. Zach nudged me along a narrow hallway made even narrower by the dozens of cartons lining its walls. Stacks of loose books and manuscripts were piled on top of the cartons.

  He ushered me past a closed door and into a tiny office lit by a flickering tungsten lamp where even more manuscripts moldered upon the battered desk, the floor, and the ripped Naugahyde visitor’s chair. A computer hummed on a chipped, faux wood credenza behind the desk. I decided that Zach’s office was little neater than his home. Just with less hair.

  He cleared the chair for me. “I kept intending to do something about this, but.…Now I’ll be moving into my grandmother’s office soon, so there’s no need to clean.”

  As I sat down, a cloud of dust puffed upward from the chair. “I guess not,” I said, once I was through sneezing. “As I told your receptionist.…”

  He gave me a bleak smile as he sat down in his own chair, which appeared to be held together by duct tape. “Receptionist? Sandra’s my cousin and she’s a senior editor, in charge of the other people you saw out there.”

  “Sorry. I thought.…” I stopped myself from saying that she looked like an accident that had already happened.

  As if oblivious to Sandra’s appearance, Zach chattered on. “Most small publishers like us don’t enjoy the luxury of a receptionist. Everyone here does several jobs, including Sandra, who coordinates the reading of all new submissions.”

  He then launched into such a detailed description of Sandra’s duties that I grew restless. “Zach, do I need to know all this?”

  “Probably not. It’s only my long-winded way of saying please don’t call my poor overworked cousin a receptionist. Now, what can I do for you?”

  I explained the situation, told him about my earlier interview with Megan, and watched his face for any sign of alarm. After all, with Owen in jail, the police had stopped looking for other suspects. If I proved Owen innocent, Zach might wind up as the next candidate.

  But Zach’s face displayed only approval. “Great! The more people who work on this, the better. When the police told me they’d arrested Owen we were all shocked. Just yesterday Megan begged me to get him an attorney. After I made a few calls, I realized we could. Since I already sign the checks around here, the estate’s executor—Gloriana’s attorney—gave me the go-ahead for the bail money a little while ago. In fact, I was getting ready to drive down to the bail bondsman’s office when you arrived. I’m hoping to get Owen back to his family by the end of the day.”

  I wanted to cheer in relief, but the celebration would have to wait. Making bail was one thing, being cleared of murder charges another. “Your wife told me you’re Gloriana’s primary heir.”

  He smiled. “Which makes me the primary suspect, too. Right?”

  Right, but I wasn’t about to admit it. His forthrightness, like Megan’s, intrigued me. By admitting to his obvious motive, Zach Alden-Taylor VI was either the dumbest murderer I’d ever met, or an innocent man. I didn’t know enough about him yet to figure out which. Then again, not everyone killed for money. Passion and revenge made dandy motives, too.

  “I imagine the estate is sizeable?”

  The figures he rolled out weren’t quite as high as I’d expected, but impressive nonetheless. In addition to her house, the publishing company, and a tidy stock portfolio, Gloriana also owned that forty acres of undeveloped desert land near Pinnacle Peak, an upscale enclave near Scottsdale’s northeast border. Once the will cleared probate, Zach and his wife would enjoy a more comfortable life. I said as much.

  Zach’s smile broadened, and a tendril of brown hair fell fetchingly across his forehead. “The Hacienda is five times the size of our current house, and since you’ve seen Megan’s menagerie, you can appreciate how much we need the space. As far as Patriot’s Blood goes, well, I’m changing the company’s entire publishing philosophy. Later today I’ll draft a letter to some of our authors canceling their contracts. I imagine there might be a few lawsuits coming our way after that, but the desert acreage will give us a nice financial cushion.”

  “You can do that, cancel book contracts?”

  He nodded. “The librarians we’ve been selling to sure won’t weep bitter tears. The bookstores, they’ve been through this kind of thing before and we’ll straighten it out. As for everyone else.…” He laughed. “I don’t give a damn about the disappointment of the National Alliance and its fellow travelers.”

  His comment gave me the chance to clear up the confusion I had experienced since speaking to Megan. “It’s nice to know they’ll have to go elsewhere for their reading material, but I’m curious. Given your own obvious feelings about these books, how could you stand working here?”

  He shifted in his seat, and one strip of duct tape on the chair peeled away. I noticed that he had stopped meeting my eyes.

  “When my grandmother lured me away from my job at ASU, Patriot’s Blood was an entirely different kind of house. The magazine was a product any publisher could be proud of, and the books were reputable. But after 9/11—which was after I’d come on board, you have to understand—everything changed. Gloriana saw a way to cash in on tragedy, and so she did.”

  “Why you didn’t leave?”

  The flush deepened. “You’ve heard that story about the frog in the saucepan, haven’t you? At first the water is cool, so he’s comfortable and doesn’t try to hop out. Then it warms up a little, he’s still comfortable. By the time the water gets hot, it’s too late to move. Well, I’m that frog. The first few, ah, worrisome titles Gloriana purchased weren’t that bad, merely distasteful. I figured she was trying something out, so I didn’t say anything. The next few titles we had words over, bu
t it was like spitting in the wind. The new line was bringing in so much money she ignored everything I said.”

  He still hadn’t answered my question. “Couldn’t you have gone back to ASU? Resumed your academic career?”

  After a bitter laugh, he answered, “Au contraire, Miss Jones. The head of the creative writing school had a long waiting list for my position. And now that my resumé includes Losing America and its nasty brethren, no university will touch me. In case you didn’t notice when you were out at the house, Megan and I aren’t rolling in dough.”

  He sighed. “By the time I realized my grandmother had no intention of listening to my complaints about her progressively scarier author list, it was too late. Megan was pregnant, and Patriot’s Blood was our insurance carrier.”

  The frog, trapped in boiling water; sounded like a great murder motive to me. “I saw some of your titles when I stopped by the SOBOP booth at WestWorld, so I know how hard it must have been for you.”

  “Then you only saw the books, which account for a mere fraction of our income. Most of the company’s profits come from our computer games and music CDs. I halted production on those first thing this morning.”

  “Computer games?”

  Zach got up and walked over to a gray steel bookcase, which, I now realized, held as many software boxes and CDs as it did books. “Let me show you,” he said, turning his back to me and inserting a disc into his computer.

  After the prerequisite hums, the screen filled with red letters on a black background, proclaiming we were about to play BORDER RUN. Zach double-clicked something on the menu at the lower left of the screen, and as I watched over his shoulder, the letters were replaced by a crudely animated version of a rifle-toting skinhead wearing a T-shirt decorated with the American flag and the numbers 311.

  The National Anthem began playing from the computer’s speakers, and a deep voice filled the room. “SOLDIER OF FREEDOM, IT IS YOUR JOB TO KEEP AMERICA PURE. SHOULDER YOUR RIFLE AND GET READY TO DEFEND YOUR COUNTRY.”

  The black background morphed into a cactus-strewn landscape reminiscent of the arid borderland between southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. A few chunky rabbits jerked across the bottom of the screen, but the skinhead ignored them. I had the feeling he was waiting for bigger game. I was right. The National Anthem died, replaced by “La Cucaracha,” as several Hispanic-looking people—men, women, and even children—began running back and forth between the saguaros. When Zach exchanged the mouse for a joystick, the skinhead began firing. Blood spatters appeared on the foreheads of the “border runners” as his shots found their mark.

  Zach released the joystick. “That’s the Hispanic version of the game. Click on a different icon and you get your choice of Asians, Native Americans, African-Americans, Jews, Arabs. Anyone who’s not flagrantly Anglo-Saxon. The purpose of the game, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, is to keep America, ah, racially pure. Under my grandmother’s leadership, Patriot’s Blood manufactured more than a dozen games like that, each one worst than the last. But that’s not all. Would you like to hear some of our music CDs? We’ve recorded groups like American Nation, Manifest Destiny, Power Police, and Aryan Arms. Gorgeous stuff.” His bitter voice belied his words.

  “Holy crap!” I finally managed, as Zach grabbed the joystick again and the last standing Hispanic’s head exploded in a blossom of red.

  “That holy crap brought my grandmother a couple million dollars in gross revenue last year,” he said, shutting the program down. “Hate is big business in America these days, and domestic terrorism has become downright chic in some quarters. If al-Qaeda doesn’t destroy us, our own fanatics will.”

  I cleared my throat. “You plan to replace this, ah, lucrative sideline with…?”

  “With nothing, unless I can figure out how to design a video game starring Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe competing in a poetry slam at the Old Globe. My wife wants us to concentrate on books, to sign some of those midlist authors who lost their contracts when the big publishers began their merging frenzy, but I.…”

  Midlist authors? I guess my puzzled look showed on my face, because he immediately stopped his rush of words.

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

  I shook my head.

  He took a deep breath and began to explain. “Do you know about the mergers?”

  I repeated what Megan had told me.

  “Good. Here’s what she left out. Up until the mergers, books were seen as an art form, or at the very least, a craft. But the MBAs the publishing consortiums brought in saw books merely as commercial products, no different than dish detergent or cars. Products that didn’t sell were dropped from the production line. Authors who didn’t increase their sales volume more than fifteen percent each year lost their contracts, regardless of their standing in the literary community. This happened to.…” He rolled out the names of several authors I recognized.

  “The good news for Patriot’s Blood is that all this writing talent is still out there hunting for new publishers,” Zach continued. “Megan’s been pressuring me to sign some of them, especially the mystery authors. Business-wise, she’s probably right. She does seem to have a good head on her shoulders where money’s concerned.”

  I heard the hesitation in his voice. “But?”

  “But that’s not where my heart is. I’m more interested in literary non-fiction and non-linear transformative works.”

  Non-linear transformative works? “Is there money in, uh, non-linear…?”

  “Who knows? Not enough material’s been printed to find out. But Patriot’s Blood will start publishing real literature again, not racist rants. I’ve never believed that the word ‘patriot’ should be a synonym for hate.”

  My sympathies were with him there, but I had a job to do, and bemoaning the current state of American publishing wasn’t it. “As you said earlier, it sure sounds like you have an excellent motive for murder.” I watched his face carefully.

  “People have killed for less,” he agreed, snapping the “Border Run” CD into its plastic case and tossing it into a waste basket. “Not that my denial will mean anything to you, but rest assured I didn’t murder my grandmother. Someone else did, and I don’t have the foggiest idea who, except that it wasn’t Owen.”

  “You were on the hike, and you were sitting near Gloriana at the banquet.”

  “Yes to both. Before you ask, no, I didn’t pick any plants. And at the banquet, everyone at my table was so deep in conversation that we didn’t notice anything wrong until my grandmother collapsed.”

  “You didn’t see anyone fooling around with Gloriana’s salad?”

  “How could I? I’d been next door attending a seminar on offshore printing, and by the time I made it into the banquet hall, the salads were already on the tables. Anyway, haven’t you ever been to one of these things? They’re zoos. People are always walking back and forth between the tables, going over to say hello to friends, keeping an eye on competitors, that sort of thing. A kangaroo wearing a tutu could have hopped by singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and I wouldn’t have noticed.”

  It sounded reasonable, but most lies did. I switched tactics. “You don’t seem too broken up over your grandmother’s death.”

  He frowned. “Then you’re not a very good observer, Ms. Jones. Despite her faults, and they were legion, I was very fond of my grandmother.”

  Was he referring to his red eyes? Well, Dusty had frequently sported red eyes, too, and I had just learned that they had more to do with a drinking problem than grief. No point in alienating Zach, though. “I’m sure you were. By the way, was that Gloriana’s office we passed on the way in here?”

  “Want access?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  His frown turned to a smile. “No problem. I have nothing to hide, do I?”

  I spread my hands and smiled back, but said nothing.

  He chuckled. “You’re a hard woman, Ms. Jones. Tell you what. I’ll unlock everything fo
r you, but then you’re on your own. I’ve got a date with a bail bondsman. Owen’s been in jail too long.”

  Startled, I said, “You’re going to leave me alone in Gloriana’s office?”

  “Why not? As I told you, I have nothing to hide, other than some pretty embarrassing books and games, but since those were all Gloriana’s projects, not mine.…”

  He let the sentence trail off as he ushered me down the hall to Gloriana’s office, calling to his cousin to give me any kind of help I needed after he had left for the bail bondsman’s. Most people would have interpreted such openness and cooperation as signs of innocence, but past experience had taught me better. Any sensitive information in Gloriana’s office would have already been erased.

  But I was wrong.

  Chapter 8

  Gloriana’s office was the opposite of her grandson’s. Large. Light-filled. Luxurious. Obsessively neat.

  Sun streamed in from a pair of tall French windows, creating creamy rectangles on the hand-tied carpet covering the saltillo-tiled floor. Against gold brocaded walls, glass-fronted floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves groaned with Patriot’s Blood’s products, almost but not quite overpowering her massive, hand-carved desk. Several leather-covered chairs anchored the rug, the largest of which sat behind the desk. I imagined Gloriana sitting in it, dreaming up new vehicles of hate. The only incongruous element in the room was the battered old Underwood typewriter that squatted in the center of the desk.

  “My grandmother didn’t trust computers for her own writing,” Zach explained, as he unlocked the drawers to the desk, then did the same for the closed bookcases and the bank of steel file cabinets underneath a large oil painting of Gloriana herself. I’d seen posed photographs of her on the society pages of the Scottsdale Journal, of course, but society shots seldom reveal their subject’s personality. This portrait did. The artist had portrayed her seated in her mahogany-on-mahogany office, dressed in a gray suit, holding a gold pen in her hand. In the only apparent concession to aesthetics, the bulky Underwood had been replaced by a vase of red, white, and blue peonies.