by Betty Webb
“Like both of Dick’s other children,” Ada interjected.
“I know how successful Casey is, but what about when he was younger and in foster care?”
Fairfield paused, then said, “All kids go through a stage.”
“Can’t argue with that. What kind of a stage did Casey go through?”
“Damned if…Uh, darned if I know, seeing how I was in prison through most of the time he was fostered out.”
“Even in prison you must have heard things.”
When he shrugged, his wife gave him a worried look. “Only that he borrowed a couple of cars for some joy-riding. Nothing serious.”
No car thefts had appeared on Casey Starr’s juvenile record, thus proving my suspicion that he’d used his hacker skills to wipe it clean. “Anything else? Violence, for instance?”
“Nah.” Fairfield shot a quick look toward his wife, who suddenly found something of interest on the perfectly vacuumed carpet.
“He had a bad time in foster care, didn’t he?” Such as being raped by Brian Wycoff.
A shame-faced expression was Fairfield’s only reply.
“Tell me about your ex-wife.”
“Etta Mae? Crack addict, not that I have any right to judge. Still, I shoulda divorced her earlier. Come to that, I never shoulda got mixed up with her in the first place. Paid too much attention to how good-looking she was.”
“Pretty is as pretty does,” Ada said, her face rigid with disapproval.
I agreed with her. “When did you find out Etta Mae was abusing Casey?”
“When he got taken away.”
“You didn’t notice before?”
He looked like he was about to cry. “Etta Mae said he was clumsy, always falling over things. And me, I had my own problems going right about then.”
Such as a heavy meth habit. “Did you ever try to get your son back?”
“Told you. I was in prison.”
“How’d you feel when you found out he’d changed his last name?”
He shrugged. “Can’t say I blame him. Who wants to walk around named after an ex-con? Kid needed a fresh start.”
“You felt no resentment about that?”
“When I walked out of the prison, guess who was waiting for me in a brand new Cadillac? My boy, that’s who.” He cleared his throat, then clanked to his feet. “Now excuse me, ’cause I gotta go stir the chili again. And check on the rice and the corn. Complete protein’s important for growing kids. Gonna finish up the cornbread, too, and get started on the salad.”
“Dick’s a wonderful cook,” Ada offered as her husband clanked into the kitchen. “Last night we had chicken crepes for a main dish and peach crepes for dessert. But the kids…”
The door to the trailer opened and two neatly dressed children walked in. The boy, a handsome younger version of Fairfield, was lugging a stack of library books and vanished with them down the hall without so much as a look around. The girl headed straight for the telescope and began fiddling with it.
“Super moon’s tonight,” she said to her mother. “Dad said he’ll drive me further out in the desert where the city lights won’t bother us. We want to take a better look at the Copernicus Crater, see if I can tell…” Belatedly she noticed me. “Oh. Hello. I’m Avalon. And you are?”
“Lena Jones, I’m a…”
“Private detective. Saw you on the news once, you took down some guy after he’d murdered three people. Major cajones, you!”
“Language!” Ada reproved.
“Sorry,” the girl said, not sorry at all. “But why’re you here? Is Casey in trouble again?”
“Avalon!” her father yelled from the kitchen. “What did I tell you?”
The girl grinned. “Oops.” To her father, she said, “Chili night, right?”
Fairfield clanked back into the living area. “Chili it is, with homemade jalapeño cornbread. Now go clean up.”
“But I already…”
“Obey your father,” Ada said.
After throwing her mother a dirty look, the girl skulked off down the hall.
“What did she mean when she said Casey was ‘in trouble again’?” I asked Fairfield.
“Avalon’s got an over-active imagination. Both kids do. Now, uh, sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Dinner’s done and we’re getting ready to eat.”
With that, he politely but firmly steered me to the door before I could ask him if he knew a biker chick named Jacklyn Archerd.
***
Jacklyn Archerd worked the day shift at a bar called the Iron Cross, and I doubted she’d be home yet, so I decided to talk to her at her place of business. You learn a lot when you catch people at work.
The Iron Cross was on Glendale Boulevard, across town from the Fairfields’ trailer, tucked away in a strip mall that had seen better days. There were more Harleys in the parking lot than cars, so my senses went on high alert. As I entered the bar, a wall of sound and smell hit me. Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind” played at an ear-bleeding level on a cheap sound system. The acrid odor of sour beer and sweat was almost, but not quite, overpowered by the tang of Lysol. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the bar’s dark interior, but when I did, I saw several rough-looking men clustered around a pool table, at least a dozen more at the tables. Most shared pitchers of beer, but a few holdouts clutched longnecks. The jackets hanging on the chairs had the name MOGULS emblazoned on the back.
Jacklyn Archerd appeared to be the only woman in the place, unless you counted the naked pole dancer grinding away to Seger’s raspy baritone. Her eyeliner was black and so was her lipstick. She didn’t look happy to see me, but then neither did anyone else. As I crossed the room, all conversation stopped—never a good sign.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” Jacklyn said when I reached the bar. She was in black leather again, which looked more appropriate at the Iron Cross than it had at Daisy’s Desert Oasis. She still wore her Glock on her hip. I wondered if she wore it in bed, too.
I could hardly hear her over Seger’s yowls, so I said, “Is there someplace we can talk in private? Someplace quieter?”
She waved a tattooed arm, taking in the crowded room. “This is it, other than the john or the stockroom, but I can’t leave the bar, anyway.”
“You the only one here?”
She gave me an incredulous look. “Do I look like I have a death wish? Rollo and Gus are in the stockroom taking inventory.”
“What time do you get off?”
Checking her watch, she said, “In forty-five minutes, and I’m going straight home. Didn’t get much sleep last night, what with…” Then she thought better of what she was about to say and made a sharp segue. “I live at…”
It’s never wise to let someone know you’ve already been checking them out, I let her finish giving me her address, and told her I’d meet her there in an hour and a half. It would give her time to shower off Eau de Iron Cross.
***
I had been starved ever since smelling Fairfield’s chili, so I killed time at a Mexican eatery on Glendale Boulevard about a stone’s throw from Jacklyn’s house. The beef enchiladas were a cardiologist’s nightmare, smothered in cheese and served with a huge helping of cheese-covered refried beans. To make the meal more heart-healthy, I dug deep into the fresh tomato salsa with greasy tortilla chips.
My mouth was full of enchilada when my cell buzzed. Jimmy.
“Got some info for you.”
“Mph,” I said.
“You eating?”
“Mph.”
“Here goes, then, and you don’t have to talk back. Nicole Beltran, that real estate attorney you wanted me to look up? Clean record, of course, since the ABA isn’t big on admitting felons. No minor infractions, either, other than a couple of speeding tickets, both on that speed trap over on Linco
ln. You know, that spot where the radar cameras are lined up like the Radio City Rockettes. I did find something interesting, though.”
“Mph?”
“Ms. Beltran started out as a criminal defense attorney but only lasted three years. Then she went back to school and got certified in commercial real estate. Worked for a big RE firm for a while, you might have heard of it—Jacobson, Schaffner, and Ross, they specialize in high-end malls—then struck out on her own. Has an office near Hayden and Indian Bend. House is close by, in McCormick Ranch. Lakefront, so she’s not doing too shabby.”
I swallowed a lump of spicy beef. “Give me the address.”
“The office? Attorneys work late.”
“House. She’s on vacation. Maybe I’ll just drop by.”
A grunt. “Then I’d better feed Snowball.”
We said amiable goodbyes and I went back to my enchiladas. I was halfway through when my phone buzzed again. Expecting another call from Jimmy I almost answered it, but at the last moment I noticed the display.
Dusty’s picture smiled out at me.
I put the phone back down as quickly as if I’d picked up a rattlesnake.
***
Six o’clock found me driving up to Jacklyn’s tiny stucco, a house she had inherited from her mother two years before her son vanished into thin air. The blue-collar neighborhood seemed quiet, but several signs posted in windows along the street announced that the residents were members of the local Neighborhood Watch. Some of the vehicles in the driveways—mostly pickup trucks—sported bumper stickers that warned PROTECTED BY SMITH & WESSON.
Jacklyn greeted me at her door, freshly showered and changed into an ankle-length sundress. No Glock. Her hard makeup had been scrubbed off, replaced by only lip gloss. She looked ten years younger.
Her house’s décor also came as a surprise. The walls—all of them decorated by studio portraits of the same gap-toothed boy—were pale blue, and the carpet a deeper shade of blue. A hand-knitted afghan covered a baby-blue velvet sofa, and blue-patterned pillows leaned against the backs of two elegant Queen Anne-style chairs.
“Stevie loved blue,” Jacklyn said, seeing me look around.
Stevie, her seven-year-old son who had disappeared from El Camino Park nine years earlier. Stevie, who had been insured for five thousand dollars.
Jimmy’s check on Jacklyn had revealed that after seven years, she had her son declared dead. The insurance company subsequently paid up, but not without a fight.
The Iron Cross had been so dark I hadn’t been able to see much, but here in Jacklyn’s brightly lit house I could once more see the two-inch-high STEVIE tattoo that stretched from collarbone to collarbone. A mother’s reminder to never forget, or an act for the cops?
She broke into my suspicions by asking, “Would you like to see his room?”
“Of course,” I answered, even though I dreaded it.
The room wasn’t a room, it was a shrine. Painted the same blue as the rest of the house, it looked like the room of a boy who was expected back home any minute for dinner. Sitting on the blue print bedspread was a collection of teddy bears, one of which had the name STEVIE embroidered across its chest. Above the bed hung several sports banners testifying to Stevie’s love for the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Arizona Cardinals, and the Phoenix Suns. On another wall, Stevie himself smiled from a dozen framed snapshots.
Thank God none of us can see the future.
Back in the living room Jacklyn bucked the Arizona habit by serving me hot, not iced, chamomile tea. “I read in Modern Health that you cool off faster if you drink hot beverages,” she explained.
I’d read the same article and wondered if its author had ever lived through Arizona’s one hundred-fifteen-degree Augusts. Probably not. I sipped my tea anyway. On my way home I could always stop at a Circle K for a cold Thirst Buster.
“Go ahead and tell me what this is about,” she asked, setting her tea cup down. “Nicole called and said Debbie had been released from jail, so shouldn’t that be it? I mean, who cares who killed that creepoid? As far as I’m concerned, they deserve a medal.”
“Did Nicole also tell you someone tried to kill us?”
The color drained from her face. “What are you talking about?”
She was either an Oscar-worthy actress, or she really didn’t know.
I told her what had happened, then asked, “Do you have any firearms other than your Glock?”
“If you have a Glock you don’t need anything else.”
“Mind telling me where you were at ten o’clock yesterday morning?”
Her eyes narrowed as the grieving mother disappeared, replaced by the toughened biker chick. “None of your business.”
“Maybe you were you at work. I can find out easy enough.”
“What did I just tell you?”
“That it’s none of my business. And you’re wrong there. When someone shoots at me—and Nicole, too, by the way—it becomes my business.”
Since Jacklyn liked Nicole better than she liked me, it worked. She closed her eyes for a moment, then said, “I was at the Iron Cross. Just like today. Around thirty Moguls can testify to that.”
Before I could refute the veracity of one of the state’s most notorious biker gangs, she added, “And I punch a time clock. In at ten, out at six. Theoretically. Yesterday I pulled a double shift. Hell, all I fucking do these days is work.”
“The police can get a warrant,” I bluffed. “They can come down to the Iron Cross and collect the time clock for evidence.”
Her smile had little humor in it. “That would be fun to watch. The Moguls play rough. So do I.”
I believed her.
All my other questions elicited negative answers, so I wrapped up the interview and headed for the door. Just before I reached it, I asked one more question.
“Jacklyn, do you know a man by the name of Richard Fairfield?”
She shook her head.
But she couldn’t hide the shock in her eyes.
Chapter Twenty-four
By the time I made it back to Scottsdale it was almost eight, a little late to just drop in on an attorney. Besides, the area of McCormick Ranch where Nicole Beltran lived was gated, with a guard shack by the gate to make certain you didn’t try any funny stuff.
So I called.
“Missing me already?” she quipped, picking up.
“Something like that. I need to talk to you.”
“Sounds serious.”
“Not at all, but hey, you’re not that far from me, so if you’re not busy right now, I could swing over there.”
There was a long silence, and just as I was about to reframe my request, she said, “I’ll tell the guard to let you in.”
***
McCormick Ranch is one of Scottsdale’s prettiest neighborhoods. Once a working Arabian horse ranch owned by the grandson of Nelson D. Rockefeller, most of the acreage had been subdivided in the seventies. It was now an upscale community that sported seven artificial lakes, two championship golf courses, and lots and lots of green, a color relatively rare in this desert city. But I could see little of the lush landscaping when the guard let me through the gate, just lights reflected in water.
Nicole’s house, a triple-decker Mediterranean, sat on an artificial island among other large homes, all reached by driving over a short causeway. As I parked my Jeep between a Bentley and an Aston Martin—I guessed their owners were attending the noisy party down the street—I wondered if Nicole had an additional source of income other than her real estate interests. Nice homes weren’t unusual in Scottsdale, but her mini-mansion wasn’t all that mini, a splashy choice for a single woman with no children.
At least no known living children.
My puzzlement must have shown on my face, because when she greeted me at the door, she smiled and said, “Relax. I’
m not the mouthpiece for the Sinaloa Drug Cartel.”
I pretended to buy it.
Which made her smile again, but this time it was a sad one. “This was originally my mom and dad’s house, but I raised Candice here. Yeah, it’s too big for one person but I can’t move in case…”
“In case she comes back.”
A nod.
She had changed out of the jeans she wore at Debbie’s Oasis, and was now garbed in yoga pants and a tank top. Barefoot. No visible tattoos.
Saying nothing else, she led me into a barn-sized living room where a glass wall looked out on the development’s largest lake. Decorative streetlamps lined the shore, giving the water such a fairy-tale beauty I half expected Tinkerbell to fly by waving her tiny wand. Instead of matching the lake’s dark elegance, the house’s furnishings were dated and worn. The room looked like a museum exhibit dedicated to the design choices of the Eighties, right down to the Thomas Kinkaide landscapes on the wall. Originals, not prints.
“So what’s up?” Nicole asked, gesturing me to a flower-print chair. “I’ll admit I’m a bit surprised to see you again so soon. Not that it isn’t pleasant, but I’d think you’d be tossing back a few brews, trying to forget about almost getting killed.”
When I sat, I half-expected to see a cloud of dust shoot into the air. It didn’t. Maybe she had a maid tucked away somewhere.
“Happens all the time in my line of work. When did you arrive at Debbie’s?” I asked.
She raised her eyebrows. “Boy, you’re abrupt. Want some tea? Fresh made.”
“Thanks, but I stopped at Circle K and had a Thirst Buster on the way over. Don’t you want to answer my question?”
She stood up again, to throw me out, I guessed, but no, she waved for me to follow her up a dark oak staircase to the next floor, then down a spacious hall to another room that overlooked the lake.
“This was Candice’s room,” Nicole explained.
Another shrine to a vanished child. Did all grieving mothers do this? Or just some?
Everything in Candice’s room was pink, except for the plush animals heaped on the pink canopy bed. I saw a stuffed elephant, a giraffe, a cheetah, several monkeys, and God only knew what else was under the pile. More stuffed animals were arrayed on a window seat overlooking the light-reflecting lake.