Scottsdale Squeeze: a romantic light-hearted murder mystery (Laura Black Mysteries Book 2)

by B A Trimmer

  As we were driving through the Goldwater bombing range, I asked her about the phone call. I hated to upset her, but I needed to find out what was going on.

  “The phone call doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would anyone want to kill you? Do you have any enemies? Even if it was the man you think it was on the phone, did you ever do anything to piss him off?”

  “It’s what I’ve been asking myself all week. Truthfully, I’ve been expecting someday to get a call from an angry mother who’s upset I deflowered her twenty-one year old son, but I have no idea where this came from. It was so sudden and he sounded so angry. I just don’t know what to make of it.”

  “I agree, staying with your friend will help, but it’s only a short term fix. You can’t hide forever.”

  “I know, but I’m not sure what else to do.”

  “I work at a law firm run by a guy who has a lot of connections within the Scottsdale bureaucracy,” I said. “If you wanted to have him look into it, maybe he could get the police involved at a higher level. Then they won’t just think you’re a hysterical woman calling in a crank phone call. He’s kinda expensive, but it could be an option.”

  “Money isn’t a problem. Roger sends me three times what I need to live on. Most of the money he sends me just goes straight to the bank. Maybe I’ll take you up on it. I’m really not sure what else to do.”

  ~~~~

  We got into Scottsdale about noon. The temperature was in the mid-eighties, there was only the faintest hint of a breeze, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. You gotta love living in Arizona.

  “I need to grab a couple of things from the house before I head to Pammy’s,” Jackie said. “Would you mind coming with me? I really don’t want to be alone until we figure out what’s going on. I’ll drop you off wherever you want after that.”

  ~~~~

  We pulled into Jackie’s driveway and she hit the button for the garage door. As the door slid upward, we could see the garage floor was littered with open boxes and piles of smashed and broken stuff everywhere.

  Jackie let out a loud gasp, bolted from the car, and ran into the house through the garage entrance. I was right behind her and almost ran into her when she came to a sudden stop, three steps into her living room.

  We both stood there, mouths open, our eyes refusing to accept what we were seeing. Jackie then made a strange high-pitched noise. I couldn’t tell if it was a scream or the start of choked hysterical laughter.

  Shit.

  The house had been trashed. The living room was a shambles and from what we could see, the kitchen was too. Everything from the bookshelves had been tossed on the floor, the cushions from the couches were shredded, the lamps were broken, and everything was overturned. There were even a couple of large holes bashed into the walls.

  Shit.

  Unfortunately, I’ve had experience with this. I told Jackie to go outside while I looked through the house. Odds were whoever had done this was long gone, but there was always the possibility they were still waiting for us upstairs. Since we had just come up from Mexico, I wasn’t carrying my 9-mm Baby Glock. Instead, I went out to the garage and grabbed a five-iron from a set of clubs emptied out onto the garage floor.

  I first went into the kitchen and saw every cabinet had been opened and everything had been pulled out and thrown on the floor. The contents of the refrigerator and freezer had been tossed and everything had been ripped open. The sink was full of rotting hamburger, vegetable medley, snow peas, carrots, milk, and orange juice. A putrid stench of rotting meat was wafting up from the sink and there were dozens of tiny fruit flies circling the pile of rancid food.

  I looked through the rest of the first floor but didn’t find anything other than destruction. I went back into the living room and slowly climbed the stairs.

  The upper floor consisted of an open game room with a sewing table and an overturned big screen TV. From here, bedrooms and bathrooms branched off in all directions.

  Whoever had made the mess downstairs was just as destructive upstairs. Everything that could be pulled off the bookshelves had been pulled off and ripped open. Every piece of furniture was turned over and gutted. As with the rooms downstairs, it looked like someone had taken a crowbar to the walls.

  As I walked through the house, holding my five-iron like a baseball bat, I quickly became convinced the people who had done this were not just kids or vandals. Whoever had done this was looking for something specific. Every time they found a wall that sounded too hollow or some furniture that could have held whatever they were looking for, it was bashed, ripped open, and shredded.

  I checked two of the bedrooms. One was set up as a guest room and the other a storage room, but found nothing in either. I then walked down the hall to the master.

  The door to the bedroom was closed. I slowly opened the door and looked in.

  The destruction here had been taken up a notch from the other rooms. Several chunks of the wall had been pulled off and were laying in pieces on the floor. Splintered furniture, clothes, and books littered the floor. But what my eyes were drawn to was not the mess, but to a man. He was laying over what was left of the shredded mattress. From what I could see, he had been shot several times and he looked very, very dead.

  Shit, Shit, Shit.

  It was then the smell of the body hit me. He had apparently been laying there for several days and once the putrid smell registered, I couldn’t think of anything else. Little black spots danced in front of my eyes and I staggered from the room. I made it back to the game room and went down to one knee. I then made a determined effort not to throw up.

  ~~~~

  I’m not sure how long I was in the game room but I eventually made my way back downstairs and stumbled out onto the driveway. I sat for a minute on a plastic chair next to the garage. Jackie walked over to me. She looked shaken and confused, tears silently sliding down her face.

  “I need to call the police,” I said. “There’s been a murder.”

  ~~~~

  I made the call on my cell phone, and then went over to Jackie. She had moved to a chair on the front porch and was vacantly looking down the street. From the rapid and shallow way she was breathing, I suspected she might be on her way to a panic attack. I held both of her hands and talked to her.

  “I know this is terrible. But, we’ll still need to go through the formal process. The police will be here soon and this will take all afternoon. When they get here, there will be four or five people who will talk to us and they’ll all ask us the same questions. Some of the questions may sound mean or angry, but that’s only to get a reaction from you. Try not to get too frustrated with them. Keep in mind this is all routine to them and it’s nothing personal. Answer whatever they ask you as truthfully and completely as you can, even if they ask the same question three or four times. They’ll also ask a bunch of questions having nothing at all to do with this, but that’s the way they do this.”

  Jackie nodded her head to show she understood.

  “At this stage, everything we say is background information to help them figure out what to do next. Don’t worry if something you say sounds bad or puts you in a bad light. It’s always best to get it out now, rather than in the middle of the investigation. If anything they ask makes you uncomfortable, let them know you’d like to discuss the question over with council before you answer. We’ll get through this together, I promise.”

  ~~~~

  About five minutes later, a Scottsdale patrol car pulled up. Chugger McIntyre climbed out, followed by his partner Arny Hernandez.

  Chugger and I had both grown up in the Granite Reef section of south Scottsdale and I had gone to school with Chugger, starting with Navajo Elementary. He’s six foot four and easily weighs two hundred and forty pounds. As always, Chugger had a huge smile on his wide, freckled, and sunburned face. The sunburn and freckles were both a result of his Irish heritage clashing with the Arizona sun.

  I’d only known Arny for a few years. Arny
was originally from Mexico and had become an American citizen a few years back. Where Chugger is always smiling and laughing, Arny is the quiet serious one, always sticking to business. Together, they made a good team.

  “Hey Laura,” Chugger said. “When dispatch said a woman had called in a dead body we volunteered to take the call. Somehow, I knew you’d be here. It’s been a couple of months and you’ve been overdue.”

  “Hey Chugger,” I said. He’s upstairs in the master bedroom. I didn’t touch anything and I don’t think there’s anyone in the house.”

  “You didn’t happen to put an extra slug into this one, did you?” Chugger asked, a wide grin on his face.

  “Ass. I was startled last time and the gun just went off. It’s not like I enjoy shooting dead bodies.”

  Chugger looked over at Jackie. She was now openly crying and still had a confused and helpless look on her face.

  “Jackie Wade,” I said, “the homeowner.”

  “Thanks,” Chugger said, “I’ll secure the scene then expect homicide, forensics, and the M.E. to show up. Looks like there’ll be a lot of paperwork on this one.”

  Chugger went into the house and Arny started the formal paperwork process by getting both of our ID’s. He then handed us each a clipboard along with the standard forms to write out our initial statements. He then started typing our information into his patrol computer.

  After about five minutes, Chugger came out of the house. His smile was gone, replaced by the stoned face look all cops seem to develop. He motioned me over to where he was standing in the garage.

  “I pulled the ID from the victim,” he said. “His name is Roger Wade. Is he related to her?”

  Oh no.

  “Shit,” I said. “That’s Jackie’s husband.”

  ~~~~

  Within an hour, Jackie’s house was swarmed by uniformed police, two homicide detectives, the medical examiner, a forensics team, and every neighbor on the block. After five minutes of hysterical sobbing, Jackie had settled down to sniffles and a blank stare.

  Fortunately, the detective in charge had decided to transport us to the district station before the news vans had even started to set up their live feeds. Enough had gone wrong today and I was glad Jackie’s crying face wasn’t going to be the lead story on the local news.

  On the way to the station, I called Sophie and downloaded her on what had happened. I’ve tried to call Lenny directly on things like this before but with his constant questions and bad attitude, it takes forever to give him the information. Sophie said she would tell Lenny and see how he wanted to handle it.

  “Thanks,” I said. “This really sucks for Jackie and I want to do whatever I can.”

  ~~~~

  Jackie and I were each questioned by a separate detective for almost two hours. Finally, we were given the OK to go home. I called Sophie to collect us and she showed up twenty-five minutes later.

  Rather than going back over to Jackie’s house to pick up her car, I asked Sophie to drive us directly to Pam’s house. I didn’t want to see the crime scene again today and I didn’t think Jackie did either. On the way, Jackie asked about Lenny.

  “From the questions the detective kept asking me, I may eventually need a lawyer. Is Lenny as good as everyone thinks he is?”

  “Lenny has a terrible personality,” I said. “But he’s connected with everyone important in Scottsdale and he goes all out for his clients. You could go in and talk to him and then see if you wanted to take it any further.”

  “Lenny comes in about eight-thirty and doesn’t have an appointment tomorrow until eleven o’clock,” Sophie said. “I could pencil you in at nine.”

  Jackie nodded this would be OK with her.

  We dropped Jackie off at Pam’s house. Pam met us at the door and invited Sophie and me in for a glass of wine. It sounded wonderful but we passed. Sophie had a date she was already late for and I still had a lot of work to do.

  “Try to get some sleep tonight,” I said to Jackie. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow about eight o’clock and we’ll head over to the office. You can talk with Lenny and then we’ll figure out what to do next.”

  ~~~~

  Sophie dropped me off at the office, and then took off for her date. She had left my car there, plus I needed to talk to Lenny. After I called Sophie and told her about the murder, she’d spent the afternoon doing research on both Jackie and Roger Wade. So far, she hadn’t found anything helpful. She said Lenny had been on the phone all afternoon trying to piece together what the police had on Jackie.

  Lenny was still in his office when I got there. As I walked in, he was sitting at his desk, drinking a Jim Beam on ice. When he saw me, he got up, went to his office bar, dropped an ice cube in a glass, and poured three fingers of his sixteen-year-old Glenlivet scotch. He handed over the drink and smiled at me. Seeing him smile was kind of a creepy feeling but sipping the wonderful scotch helped me to get over it quickly.

  “Laura,” Lenny said, still with the big smile. “I gotta tell you. You’re getting good at this. When you first started working here, Gina said you could be a great investigator and I’m starting to believe her. I send you out to find Jackie Wade and you find her, just like that. I’ll be able to collect the full fee from Terry Lennox. Now Jackie’s husband, Roger Wade is dead and things don’t look so good for her.”

  “But Jackie didn’t have anything to do with his death,” I said.

  Lenny only shook his head and counted off on his fingers.

  “Roger Wade was killed in Jackie’s house. She’ll gain the most financially from Roger’s death. Apparently, she can’t verify her location when Roger was killed and a lot of people are looking at her running to Mexico as suspicious, to say the least. Plus, if my sources are correct, Roger was killed by a .38, which is the same caliber as a pistol registered in the name of Jackie Wade. I’d say it’s pretty obvious she is currently the chief suspect in Roger’s murder.”

  “I was there when she walked into her house. She was as surprised as I was.”

  “Well, if she’s innocent, then it will make our job somewhat easier. But in any case, your friend Jackie is going to need a good lawyer to get herself out of this, which I just happen to be.”

  “You want to represent her? Sophie made an appointment for nine o’clock tomorrow but I wasn’t sure you’d even want to talk with her.”

  He saw the puzzled look on my face and registered disappointment I hadn’t put it together for myself.

  “What Jackie probably doesn’t realize yet but I’ve spent the afternoon verifying, is she will soon become an exceedingly wealthy woman. The actual ownership and finances are rather tangled but it appears Roger Wade was either the part owner or full owner of half a dozen Scottsdale resorts, along with several prime parcels of undeveloped land. Not as many resorts as Tough Tony DiCenzo, but he wasn’t doing too badly for himself. Upon his death, these properties will presumably all go to Jackie. Well, that’s assuming they don’t sentence her to lethal injection for his murder.”

  Jackie will own half a dozen resorts? Wow.

  “Here’s what I need you to do,” Lenny said. “Tomorrow morning when you drive her over here, let Jackie know it’s likely she’s going to be charged with the death of her husband. But, also let her know I’m already working on it. It will put her in an extremely receptive mood when we have our initial consultation. I’m glad you’ve hidden her away at her friend’s house; otherwise, she’d already be getting phone calls from the other vultures in town. When you bring her in, we can get this started. You’ll be lead on this. Gina is booked solid for at least another week, but consult with her and have her help out if she does get any free time. You can even use Sophie, if you need her.” His smile was back. Getting a wealthy client who has a hopeless case is what Lenny lives for.

  ~~~~

  I went back to my cubicle and sat. I felt exhausted. This was coming too fast for me to take in all at once. I pulled out my phone and called Reno. I was glad when he picke
d up. I always hate talking to his voice mail.

  “I need to see you,” I said. “I’m having a really shitty day.”

  “I heard you were the one who found the body at the Wade murder. Why is it always you?”

  “I didn’t look for it.”

  “You never do,” Reno said. “Actually, I was expecting you to call ever since I heard about it. I need to be back on scene at ten o’clock tonight but you can have me until then.”

  “Which part of town?”

  “I’ll be down by you.”

  “Great, meet me at Zipps? I’m starving and a burger would be perfect. Mind if I eat while we talk?”

  ~~~~

  Zipps Sports Grill is a friendly neighborhood bar on Camelback, about a mile from the office. It has a relaxed atmosphere, lots of big TV’s, and great food. It’s where I go for burgers when I don’t feel like driving down to the Chuckbox in Tempe. It’s also where I end up whenever the ASU Sun Devils are playing in a big game. Somehow, the games always seem more exciting when you are watching with a big crowd of people.

  I got there first and ordered a green-chili burger, fries, and a Diet Pepsi.

  Reno arrived ten minutes after I did. He was dressed in jeans and a faded Aloha shirt, his typical outfit for blending in with the Scottsdale tourists. As usual, when I saw him come through the door, my heart stepped up a few notches and my tummy started feeling a little fluttery. I really like those feelings.

  Reno has the kind of body you usually see on the cover of a fitness magazine. As a rebellious youth, he would spend his free time boxing and working out in the gyms of south Scottsdale. Now that he’s gotten older, he’s stopped boxing, and he’s not as steadfast about going to the gym. Fortunately, he’s lost the lumpy bodybuilder look he had as a youth and instead has filled out into beautiful hard-bodied man.

  Reno walks with confidence and is always in control. Part of it is his police training, part of it is his great smile, but most of it is simply the way he is as a person. He’s one of those people with charisma and natural leadership abilities. It’s always drawn me to him. He’s the one people always turn to in a crisis and he doesn’t take shit from anyone. Well, anyone except me.