by Dave Daren
“But her son just killed a man,” I told him.
“That’s what I believe anyway,” he said. “Maybe it’s not true. Maybe it’s just coincidence.”
I didn’t think so.
“Thank you, Tony,” I said and Vicki and I both rose from the couch. “You’ve been a real help in this case.”
His expression was dubious.
“You saved a woman’s life today,” Vicki told him softly. “A woman, with two little boys. She’s free now. And those little boys will grow up without a father. But, because of what you did today, they’ll get some sort of justice.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I should see it like that. Thank you.”
He rose and shook our hands, and I noticed AJ relax. It had to have been hard putting her in the middle like this, and splitting her loyalties, to us, her conscience and her family.
“Thanks AJ,” I smiled.
AJ rose from the couch and stuck her hands hands in the pockets of her jean shorts.
“Yeah,” Vicki said. “We couldn’t have done this without you.”
Vicki hugged her, and they both laughed as they wrapped their arms around each other.
“Now without this case,” Vicki told her as they released. “We can start planning that wedding.”
“Yes,” AJ stated definitively, with a grin on her face. “I don’t know if any of your fancy California friends will do this, but I want to throw you a good and proper shower.”
“Ohh,” Vicki gushed and clasped her hands to her lips. “That is so sweet, AJ.”
“Thanks, AJ,” I winked at her. “No one has said anything about that yet.”
“That’s because no one knows, goofy,” AJ laughed. “You’ve got to get the word out about the wedding. Everyone in Sedona’s talking about that ring, and no one knows anything about the wedding.”
“We did just come from the wedding planner’s office,” Vicki said. “She wants to do a wedding website.”
“Totally,” AJ said. “Mandatory. I’ll get Landon to help you with it. We’ll link it to all your social media accounts, and yes, Henry, I know you hate Facebook.”
I laughed. “That is true.”
“But people have to know,” she said. “All those people you went to law school with, and...oooh...you could invite Jasmine Stone.”
We both laughed. Jasmine Stone was a Sedona native who had signed on with us shortly before she went on tour with Lady GaGa. She now battled with Katy Perry neck and neck for queen of the pop airwaves.
But, her interest in us representing her, I always suspected had less to do with our firm, and more to do with...me.
Nothing was ever said to that effect, but I secretly wondered that once I was officially off the singles market, if we would lose her as a client. In any event, I wasn’t sure if inviting her to our wedding would be the best idea.
“We’ll see,” I said.
“You don’t want Jasmine Stone at the wedding?” Vicki asked me.
“It’s your day,” I said. “Do you really want to be upstaged by the reigning queen of pop?”
Vicki snorted. “Please. I can take her skinny ass on auto-tune any day.”
Everyone laughed and whistled, even Tony and Ana. We said our goodbyes, and left the Castillo house. I took Vicki’s hand, and smiled as we walked out to my car. For the first time, I was excited about the wedding.
“We have phone calls to make,” Vicki said as we settled into the car.
“Yes we do,” I said. “Many of them. You take Kelsi, I’ll take Durant.”
“Gotcha,” she said and pulled out her phone.
I navigated through the city streets of Sedona with my palm while I pulled up the police chief’s cell phone number.
“Hal Durant,” his tone was flat.
“Officer Durant,” I said. “Henry Irving. Sorry to bother you on a Saturday.”
“Well, you got the Feds to start packing up,” he said. “Fingers crossed, I’ll get my station back by the end of the week. So we’re even.”
I laughed. “Well, there’s more to that story.”
“There always is,” he said.
I heard Vicki on the phone with Kelsi, speaking in a soft consoling voice. I was so glad she was around to make calls like this. I tried, but soft and sweet just wasn’t my style.
“We’ve got a lead on the Matthews murder case,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “We looked at the coroner’s report, and there’s definitely something fishy about that.”
“I’ve got an anonymous witness,” I said, “says he’s got reason to believe the mouthpiece of the trumpet was poisoned with the borrachero plant.”
Durant gasped. “Is that Devil’s Breath, that turns people into zombies?”
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “You know about that?”
“I just saw a documentary on it yesterday,” he said.
“This witness was approached by Gary Zimmerman,” he said, “who also plays in the band, to get the plant. The witness didn’t comply. The witness also said the trumpet mouthpiece was found to be missing the day of the taping, and noticed that the death coincided with the insertion of the trumpet in the mouth.”
“Zimmerman, huh?” Durant whistled. “I never have liked those people. I’ve been wanting to bust them for years, can’t get anything on them.”
“They would be hard to pin down,” I said. “Considering they don’t believe in birth certificates or social security cards.”
He snorted. “I don’t even know if they’re considered citizens without those.”
“Eh,” I said. “I think they still are.”
“Well,” he said. “If I bust these people, I’m making them all get in the system. Every last one of them. We’re talking birth certificates, social security cards, driver’s licenses, public school, immunizations, the works. And how are these people driving on my streets without legitimate driver’s licenses? That’s what I want to know.”
“I don’t know,” I laughed. “But good luck with that.”
“Thanks for the tip, Irving,” he said. “See you around.”
“See you around, Durant,” I said.
I ended the call and Vicki was still on the phone with Kelsi. She glanced over at me.
“Right,” she told Kelsi. “Henry just got off the phone with the police chief. They’re going to investigate it and get to the bottom of it. They’ll help you get some answers.”
Vicki wrapped up the call and then whistled.
“She’s a basketcase,” she told me.
“You didn’t tell her about Gary, did you?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I told her that we got an anonymous tip regarding the borrachero plant, and she knew instantly.”
“How did she know?” I asked.
“She said Gary’s been a stalker to her for years,” she said. “And he’s mentioned the plant before.”
“Wow,” I said. “Did you confirm the story?”
“No,” she said. “I just told her the anon tip didn’t give a name.”
“Probably better that way,” I said. “We don’t have proof of anything.”
Chapter 22
Two weeks passed after Tony spilled his beans to us and to the FBI. In the ensuing days, agent Winslow arrested half of Sedona, it seemed. Well, just the three, Montague, Oberland, and Levinson. Levinson wasn’t even from Sedona, but they found him when Jannette called in a domestic disturbance at her apartment.
They took Levinson in drunk and screaming in his underwear. All the news sites ran an image of his contorted and enraged pervy face, while two agents physically restrained him and his lily white hairy legs flailed in a dress shirt and socks. I thought it was the most fitting way for him to go down.
They said Oberland cried like a baby when they picked him up. I’d have paid good money to see that.
Montague’s blaze of gunshot glory was well covered by local media, and I got a nice little cameo in the coverage. I declined to comment, as I didn’t want my
name to be associated with FBI shootouts. I might have sold out my ethics on gun control, but I wasn’t about to announce it to the world.
There was talk of getting me some sort of civic commendation, but given my history with SPD, I doubted it would even come to fruition.
But, James Matthews’ death stayed shrouded in mystery until the Friday before Halloween. The city was putting together some kind of Halloween festival downtown, and traffic was a bitch again. Not L.A. kind of traffic, by any means. I could handle that kind of traffic, since it was a compromise of living in one of the largest, most influential cities of our time.
But, traffic jams in Sedona just seemed to be unnatural and blasphemous. It was up there with the latest rumor that they were putting a shopping mall near the Red Rocks. Come on now, really?
Putting together the Halloween festival took a week’s worth of semi trucks and vendors and God only knew what else that backed up traffic and blocked off roads. The quarter mile commute from our house to the office, now required three detours and took close to half an hour.
“Let’s bike,” I told Vicki that Friday morning. “It’s a pretty morning. Great day to do it.”
“Geez,” she said. “We’ve been meaning to do that since we moved here.”
“I know,” I said. “And we’re moving now.”
She laughed. “Well, in February.”
“You know, I used to be quite the bike meister,” I said.
I wrestled my old mountain bike out from behind a pile of boxes in the garage. We didn’t even park in here, because there was still so much crap we hadn’t unloaded from the move.
“Did you just use the word ‘meister’?” she rolled her eyes as she found her own bike.
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,” I chirped.
“That’s such a pretentious word to say,” she laughed.
“What can I say?” I laughed. “I’m a snob.”
She laughed. “That’s okay. As long as you use your powers for good.”
It was a gorgeous fall morning, I thought as I eased on my bike and pedaled down the driveway to sidewalk. A biking trail ran straight from our house and went past our office. Vicki joined just behind me, and we let the crisp morning air fill our lungs.
On the corner of our street, right before it morphed into downtown, they were setting up a seventy foot outdoor screen and pavillion. They did this for the film festival in February as well. But, I guessed the Halloween festival would include a film component.
“They’re doing a trick or treat scavenger hunt downtown,” Vicki said. “They’ve asked if we want to be a location.”
“Is that right?” I asked. “What do we have to do?”
“They’ll give us some items,” she said, “and people have to film themselves when they ask for it. So we have to wear costumes and get into character.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Let’s get AJ to do that. She’ll be into it.”
“Come on,” Vicki laughed as we hit the final stretch toward the office. “You own a film studio now. You have to be a little quirky. No one will take you seriously if you don’t.”
“Quirky, huh?” I smiled as I slid the bike into the rack near the office.
“Yeah,” she said as she removed her helmet and shook out her hair. “It couldn’t hurt. Give you some edge in this town.”
“Edge, huh?” I said. “I think this town’s got enough edge on its own.”
We locked the bikes up, and I put my arm around her as we crossed the street to our office.
AJ had gone all out with the Halloween decorations. We had spiderwebs on all the windows, and a vinyl skeleton plastered in the glass door. Inside, groups of neatly arranged pumpkins and harvest gourds sat with fall leaves in corners.
She and Leila had worked pretty hard on the pumpkin display. It looked so great that they even put an ad online that people could come have a fall photo taken for ten bucks.
We’d had a few takers. It was mostly young couples, and inevitably one of them would have a DUI or some other rowdy nonsense they wanted free legal advice about.
It was still locked up when we arrived, and I thought that was odd. AJ was usually here before us.
“AJ’s taking a personal day,” Vicki reminded me as I unlocked the door.
“That’s right,” I remembered. “What’s she doing?”
“She didn’t say,” she shrugged.
“Hmmm,” I said. “That’s odd. She’s been taking a lot off time this past week.”
“Whatever,” she said. “We jumped up and took a month off to go to Tahiti. It’s not like we have much room to talk.”
I cocked my head in agreement. Still, it wasn’t like AJ to take so many days off. What was going on with her?
We flipped on the lights and got ready for the day. No sooner had I sat down at my desk, when Kelsi came in. She looked better, although I could see she had been crying. She wore a red cotton sundress and strappy sandals.
“Kelsi,” I said. “Come in, have a seat. How’s it going?”
“Hi,” she said as she sat down in front of my desk.
“Can I get you some water or coffee?” Vicki asked.
“Water would be great,” she said.
Vicki fished a mini water bottle out of the fridge, and handed it to Kelsi and sat down next to her.
“What’s going on?” Vicki asked her.
Kelsi sighed and she opened the water.
“Well,” she dropped an envelope on my desk. “I thought I’d come pay my bill in person and tell you that you were right.”
“Right?” I replied as I opened the envelope and glanced at the amount. It was right. I handed it to Vicki who slipped off to her desk to close out the invoice.
“About what?” I asked Kelsi
Kelsi swigged the bottle and her dark blue eyes were actually very pretty.
“About James,” she said, “and how he died.”
I leaned back in my chair and Vicki and I both listened, while Vicki tapped away on her computer.
“I know James’ death wasn’t what you were working on,” she said. “But I know that you had a lot to do with finding the truth.”
“What was the truth?” I asked.
“I’ve been at the police station all morning,” she said. “They have Gary Zimmerman in custody.”
I raised an eyebrow. “They think it was Gary?”
“He confessed,” she said flatly. “I would have never have thought to have been so betrayed.”
My immediate thought was that he would need a lawyer. Vicki caught my eye, and her expression said she was thinking the same thing. We both snickered and shook our heads at each other. Hell, no.
“Gary and I go way back,” she said. “His family lived next to mine, and we grew up in the same homeschool co-op for a while. No one liked the Zimmermans. People picked on them, and called them weird, and I just thought they were mean. So, I somewhat befriended Gary. That is, I was kind to him. And, you know, we were kids, we didn’t know we were doing, and yada, yada, we might have shared a few kisses behind the barn.”
She sighed and shook her head. My only thought was that this woman seemed to get around in this band.
“But,” she said. “It didn’t mean anything, and we were just dumb kids, playing around with things we had no business playing around with. We got older, and grew apart. I went to public school, he stayed in the co-op and graduated from there. My life changed. I started a band. I met Roy. I got pregnant. Roy left. I met James. I got married. I had a baby. Yada, yada. All that time, Gary would keep up with me, and I was always kind to him.”
She swigged the water and was silent for a few moments before she continued.
“Then,” her voice continued with a resigned steadiness. “Things started to get rocky with James. He knew Elias wasn’t his, but he didn’t know whose it was. He found it that Roy was Elias’ dad, and he started to change. He toured more. He avoided us.”
She rubbed her face and stood, and paced t
he small room as she talked.
“Then,” her voice warbled, “right before Africa, James told me he wanted a divorce. I was devastated, and I begged him to say. In the end, we decided we were going to go to counseling and try to work it out. That’s why I went to Africa with the band. For us, that tour was a vacation to save our marriage.”
She stared out the window for a few minutes. A city decorating crew wrapped orange and black tinsel around a light post in front of the office, and another worker rose in a crane to add a banner at the top.
“But things in Africa weren’t going so well,” she said. “It just got worse. We were fighting worse than ever, and the band was all around, taking sides. Mostly his. That’s why I ended up that night in the pool with Roy. It was a bad choice, I know. But James had said things that…”
Her voice trailed off and tears welled up in her eyes.
“James had said things,” she continued in a whisper, “the kind of things that you can’t take back.”
She composed herself and came back to sit in front of my desk. I leaned back and crossed my legs and rubbed my chin as I listened thoughtfully.
“So,” she said. “According to Gary’s testimony, Roy had gotten drunk, and told Gary all about how he had this deal with La Vista, and he was going to leave me and that I was this horrible, horrible person.”
She wiped her eyes, and Vicki handed me the closeout paperwork off the printer and then grabbed a tissue for Kelsi. Kelsi smiled and took the tissue and Vicki sat beside her.
“You’re not a horrible person,” Vicki told her. “You were just stuck in a bad marriage.”
Kelsi raised her eyebrows in doubt.
“I think the jury’s still out that, excuse the cliche,” she chuckled lightly. “So, now I know that James signed the contract in Africa, and faxed it Brent to as soon as we got home.”
“So he did sign it?” I clarified.
She cocked her head. “There’s the silver lining. But, then we got back home, and Roy was smuggling stuff in for Brent, and snuck it in my luggage because he thought the Feds were onto him. Turns out he was right. So, we get to the show, and then…”
She sighed and shook her head again. She wiped her eyes with the tissue. “James was always very possessive of his trumpet. No one could touch it. But, that night, James and Roy got into a big argument, and Gary stole the mouthpiece on the trumpet. Roy had to go Flagstaff to get another one, and in the meantime, Gary coated with that Devil’s Breath plant, believing it not to be traceable. All during rehearsals, James used the new mouthpiece. But, right before taping, Gary switched it the mouthpiece to the identical poisoned one. When the gear was packed, I remember Gary giving this whole song and dance about how important the trumpet was to James, and how he was going to make sure it was packed properly in its case. I thought it was sweet of him. Now I know why.”