by Dave Daren
“You Henry Irving?” a young woman in some sort of delivery uniform asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“You’ve been served,” she said.
“Shit,” I said as I signed for the delivery. I should have picked up on that, as many times as I’ve had people served.
“What is it?” Vicki asked, after the server left. She made a cup of coffee and now wore nothing but a button down dress shirt.
“A subpoena,” I said.
“No,” she said. “Those go the other way. We issue them, we don’t receive them.”
“Right?” I replied and I opened the envelope.
“Prescott,” she read. “That’s Cindy’s lawyer.”
“Yep,” I said as I skimmed the subpoena.
It said pretty much what Aiden had told me on the phone. They were claiming that the will should be thrown out because Alister was not of sound mind and suffered from dementia. I was slightly concerned that maybe there was a doctor somewhere who had diagnosed him with dementia.
“Apparently, we’ve got a hearing date in two weeks.”
“That is some bullshit,” she said.
“Yeah, I said. “It’s against the entire trust. It looks like we all have to appear, but I can get the rest of them out of it.”
“Geez,” Vicki said. “What kind of lunatic would file a frivolous lawsuit against Marvin Iakova? And George Ticari, really? Between the two of them, they own the whole state. And Quentin Alucio? You have got to be suicidal. You said they’re Southwest Cattle right?”
“Basically, yeah,” I said. “Red Matador used to be part of Southwest.”
“I know Southwest Cattle,” she said. “It’s in the U.S. history books.”
“You paid that much attention in history class that you actually remember that?” I asked.
“I did a white paper on big business and the foundation of American industrial capitalism,” she said. “Ford, Vanderbilt, Rockefellers... there was a section on agriculture and the Southwest’s part of that. I got an A minus and was grounded for a week.”
“You sure went to a different school than I did,” I said. “In my U.S. History class, to get an A on a paper like that, you would have to argue that Ford and Vanderbilt destroyed the founder’s intent by establishing a feudal system consisting of elites who use a spending economy to dupe the peasantry into a lifetime of work and debt. If you wanted an A plus, you would have to further connect the elites to any fascist regime, and bonus points if you could successfully throw the American government into the scheme.”
She nodded as she sipped her coffee and looked me over. “I can see that about you.”
I laughed. “What does that mean?”
She eased herself on a barstool and crossed her bare legs. “That’s where the cynicism comes from. You’re more Sedona than you realize.”
I cocked my head in agreement. “Probably.”
She nodded slowly as if in realization and then laughed. “Oh my gosh, I totally have you figured out.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How is that?”
“You’re just as anti-establishment as all of them,” she gushed. “Only the establishment to you is Sedona. You’re such a rebel, you’re a conformist!”
I laughed. “Wow...I... never thought of it way. Maybe.”
She looked me over and licked her lips seductively. “Do you have any how fucking hot that is? There’s a reason women liked James Dean.”
“Is that what I am?” I asked. “A rebel without a cause?”
“I think you might be,” she said. “You tell me.”
“I’ll tell you whatever gets you naked,” I said.
She was so beyond turned on, she didn’t even laugh. We spent the rest of the morning devouring each other in every room in our cottage. Considering there were only three rooms, I contemplated that perhaps a bigger house would in fact be advantageous for my sex life.
In the early afternoon, my phone started blowing up with texts, and we decided to start the day. Vicki brought up the subpeona while we got ready.
“I wouldn’t want to mess with people like Alucio,” she said. “You don’t know who they know. It’s lunacy.”
“Lunacy is a good way to describe the entire chain of events since St. Patrick’s Day,” I said.
“And, okay, I can accept that maybe Cindy and the O’Briens have dollar signs blinding their vision, but Prescott? Really? He should know better.”
“He doesn’t,” I said. “I’ve heard things about him. We’re up against a crazy, money-obsessed lunatic.”
“Zookeepers are coming to get the animals today,” I said as I read a text that had just come in from Manuel.
“What time?” she asked over the whirr of the hair dryer.
“I don’t know,” I said as I texted Manuel the same question myself.
I would need to be there to sign off on the donation. It would be the first time I made a decision on the estate without Earnie.
Vicki turned off the hair dryer and applied make-up. “Is Earnie still being weird?” she asked.
“I haven’t talked to him,” I said. “I think all of this is hard for him.”
“It would be,” Vicki said. “He was Alister’s best friend, and you’re the new guy. I’m surprised he handles it as well as he does.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m just trying to give him some space. Let him grieve. He wants to move to Tahiti.”
“Too bad,” she said. “I can tell you really like him.”
I shrugged. “He’s a good guy.”
“We have that dinner with all our parents tonight,” she said. She had a smaller mirror and stared deep into it while she plucked her eyebrows.
“When are your parents leaving again?” I asked.
“Tomorrow morning,” she said. “Remember, that’s why they wanted to have dinner tonight, because it’s the last chance?”
“Did we ever settle on a restaurant?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she said. She was still sitting at the vanity going through tubes and bottles. “We’ll figure it out.”
Meanwhile, I was dressed and ready to go. “Alright,” I told her and pecked her cheek. “I’m out. I’ll see you out there.”
“See ya,” she said as she held a mascara brush to her eye.
I grabbed my bag and drove the quarter mile to the office. I thought about the things Seoyon had told Vicki. Some of that had to have gotten in her head. It had gotten in mine.
She had said that Vicki was burning through the best years of her life, working as a small town junior lawyer, while playing house with no regard for creating a family. Despite the cruelty of the words, I had to admit it was all true. I started to think about my role in all of that. Was I holding Vicki back?
Our personal and professional lives were so intertwined, it was almost impossible to separate them. At work, I admit I took all the challenging cases and left her with the grunt work. But, there just wasn’t enough work coming in for us to both take on big, complex cases. We could take on one big case at a time, and divide it among the three of us, with me taking the lead.
Was I keeping her from growing by doing that? Should I assign her our next big case and let her divvy up the work? She had just gotten licensed. Could she handle that? Could I handle that?
At home, it was a different story. I had never thought I had wanted a family. But, especially these last couple of days, without her constantly by my side, I missed her. I thought about what Joowon had said. Success is fleeting. Without someone by your side to enjoy it with, it’s hollow.
I had always been on the fast track career lane. Now that I had more or less found my place in the world, maybe it didn’t need to be taken in a Porsche at seventy-five miles an hour. Maybe being a successful lawyer in Sedona is more like a forty-five mile an hour joyride down a long, ambling back country road, in an SUV with a wife and kids.
Either way, Seoyon was right about both of us. Our best years were slipping away like sand, one cactus farme
r case after another. Was it time to start thinking about marriage? I could see myself marrying Vicki. But in the future. Right now, things were great the way they were. Why did Seoyon have to mess with our heads? The whole thing was pointless anyway. If Vicki wanted more, then I should trust her to communicate with me. I couldn’t base my thoughts based on her mother’s interpretation of her feelings. That was ridiculous.
I arrived at the office and AJ was already there.
“Okay,” she said as soon as I walked in the door. “I have news.”
I raised an eyebrow and set my bag down. “Shoot.”
“I took the phone in to my friend,” she said. “He did this whole thing. He took the SIM card out, and put it in a smartphone where he had an app on it that unblocks calls. Then he messed with the kidnappers, texting them and calling them until they texted back. Then he was able to get the number and an approximate GPS location.”
“Whoa,” I said. “What’s the number?”
She handed me a sticky with the phone number on it. “Well, that’s the number we had. But, once we called back, and they realized it, they were on to us, they disconnected it. So the number is no longer valid, but we got a GPS location in Holbrook.”
“Holbrook?” I said. “That’s a start.”
She passed me an address. “Well, we looked this up, and it’s to a Denny’s in Holbrook. But, we know they visited there. So, it would be worth checking in and seeing if they’ve seen anyone on our suspect list.”
“That’s good thinking AJ,” I said.
Vicki arrived, and I found myself uncharacteristically uncomfortable around her. I didn’t quite know how to reconcile everything that had been rolling around in my head ever since the stuff that Seoyon said.
“Vicki!” AJ smiled. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in years.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s been a whole two or three days. How’s your life? You married yet?”
They laughed and the word ‘married’ didn’t do anything to ease my awkward feelings.
“Hey, you, pencil pusher man,” Vicki greeted me. “You’re quiet.”
I raised an eyebrow and for once couldn’t think of anything to say.
“What’s with him?” AJ asked.
“He’s just pissed off because he got sued,” Vicki said.
“You got sued?” AJ asked.
“Well,” I said. “The estate got sued. We were served papers this morning.”
“No way!” she said. “What’s the lawsuit?”
“It’s Cindy and the O’Briens,” I said. “They’re saying the will is bogus because Alister was senile.”
“I never met him,” AJ said. “But based on what I’ve heard and seen online, I think it’s entirely possible.”
Vicki shook her head. “There is a line between weird and crazy, and we’ve been around enough people that knew him and knew him well to know he was on the right side of it.”
“How do we prove that?” AJ asked.
“Well,” I said. “That’s not really our responsibility. It’s their lawsuit, they have to find proof. My only concern is knowing what cards they hold. If we know what they know, we can refute it in court.”
“Okay,” she said. “So what we do?”
“I think Vicki summed it up pretty well,” I said. “We know the people who knew him best, and they’re on our side. They were pretty intent on backing the will yesterday, so I think we’re covered. Wouldn’t you say?”
I turned to Vicki who was now sitting on my desk.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think that’s how we should handle this one. We should let it play out.”
I sighed. The plan seemed a little reckless, but there was not much we could do right now.
A second or two later, we had a visitor come through our door.
“Elena,” I instantly recognized Alister’s housekeeper. Elena was a short, stocky hispanic woman. She had her hair in a bun and wore a long black skirt and a floral blouse. She smiled awkwardly and Vicki sprang into action.
“Elena,” she said. “Welcome, good to see you. Can we get you something, water, coffee?”
Elena shook her head and held her off-brand blue leather handbag close.
“Have a seat,” I motioned toward a chair in front of my desk. I suspected the visit had to do with whatever she couldn’t say to me yesterday. Elena silently sat down in the chair and placed her handbag in her lap. She still looked unsure.
“What can we do for you, Elena?” I prodded, leaned back in my chair, and toyed with a pencil.
“Mr. Irving,” she finally said. “I know about the zebra.”
AJ and Vicki stopped what they were doing and gathered around my desk. Elena smiled at the crowd, and it gave her confidence.
“What do you know?” I asked.
She drew a deep breath. “On the night the zebra disappeared, I was out visiting my daughter. She was having a party, so we stayed late, ten o’clock maybe. After the party, her husband drove me home.”
“Do you live at the mansion?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I have a little apartment on the grounds. It is near the zoo. So, my son-in-law drives me home that night, and there is a back way to get to the house, through another gate. It is shorter, and Mr. O’Brien used it himself when he would work around the property.”
“And everyone on the property is aware of this gate, then?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “It’s a big place, so if you are not going to the main house, it sometimes makes more sense to use the other gate.”
“Okay,” I said. “Go on.”
I grabbed a pen and notepad and scribbled, “back gate,” and it occurred to me I had never gotten a blueprint layout of the property. Then again, this has all just happened two days ago, and we were just now getting to this part. I wrote down “blueprint.”
“So, we got to the back gate, and it is wide open,” Elena continued. “This is not normal. Usually the back gate is locked and shut at all times. We all have a key to open it. So, we go through the gate, and I get to my apartment and my son-in-law leaves. Sometime later, I hear people talking. This is also not normal, because without Mr. O’Brien, and with the girls gone, there is hardly anyone there.”
“Mila and Emily are gone?” I asked.
“They come and go,” she said. “I have not seen them in several days.”
I wrote this down. I needed to know if they were living at the mansion.
“I grab my gun and I go outside to check on the noises,” she said. I raised an eyebrow. I wouldn’t take her for a gun owner, but then again, this Arizona.
“I heard the zebra braying very many times. It only does that when there is something wrong, so I followed the noise down to the zebra pen. That’s when I saw them. There was a blue truck and a red horse trailer. Two men were trying to get the zebra inside the trailer.”
“What did the men look like?” I asked.
“I didn’t see their faces, I just saw two men,” she said. “I thought that maybe Manuel had told them to do something with the zebra. Maybe the zebra was sick or something. I didn’t know. Manuel does good work, so I trust him.”
“Right,” I said. “Did you ask him about what you saw?”
She looked down guiltily. “Not right away. I felt embarrassed that I got so scared. So, I went home and went to bed. The next day, when Manuel couldn’t find the zebra, I thought about what I had seen. So, I told Manuel what I saw, and he said I should tell you right away. But I was scared, because, well…”
I nodded because I knew what she was about to say. I’m from Arizona, so I could spot it the second I met her at the mansion. She smiled awkwardly at me when she could tell I knew her secret.
“Well,” she admitted, “I’m not... legal.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re the good guys. We’re not trying to ruin anyone’s lives here.”
“Where are you from?” Vicki asked.
“Honduras,” she said. “I applied for asylum, but…�
��
But the application process is screwy, inconsistent, confusing and makes people wait years in limbo for a denial, I finished for her in my head.
“Okay,” I told Elena, “Can you tell us anything about the truck? License plate, or make or model, anything?”
“I know that the trailer has a black star with a circle around it,” she said.
“And about what time was this?” I asked.
She nodded triumphantly. “I called my daughter when I saw it,” she pulled her phone out and looked through the log. “I called her at 11:10.”
“Okay,” I said. “Can you tell us anything about how or when they might have left the property?”
“I guess through the back gate,” she said. “I don’t know.”
“Who has keys to the back gate?” I asked.
“Oh, everyone,” she said.
“Who is everyone?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Everyone who works there, lives there, everyone.”
I turned to Vicki and AJ. “You guys have anything?”
They looked at each other and shook their heads. Vicki turned back to Elena and smiled. “Thank you for coming forward, Elena. I know it was hard.”
Elena smiled self-consciously, but didn’t say much, and Vicki walked her out the door chatting kindly. After they left, I rubbed my face. It was great that she had given us a clue on the kidnappers, but she threw in a couple of curve balls.
First of all, we were about to lay her off, but then she brought us a lead. Secondly, she lives at the mansion, so when we do lay her off, she will have nowhere to live. Finally, now that she admitted to being illegal, I really shouldn’t keep her on my payroll. But her days with us were numbered anyway, so I decided that problem would solve itself. Vicki came back in and saw the perplexed look on my face.
“No,” she said. “Just no.”
“What?” I asked.
“You’re not going to throw that nice lady out on her ass just because she’s illegal.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m going to throw her out on her ass because her job is being eliminated.”
“I want to help her,” Vicki said.
“How?” I said. “We can’t let her stay at the mansion for no reason.”
