by Dave Daren
“Now what?” Vicki bellowed over the engine. “The emergency dispatcher says to drive safely towards the town, and a unit is en route.”
Vicki put her phone down, and I pressed the gas pedal down as far as it would allow as hard as I could until my calf muscles protested with the effort. We advanced forward, but not to any speed that the pursuer could not make up for. He maintained his sinisterly close distance from me, working to angle himself to collide with me again.
“Ha--” I started.
“Don’t you tell me to hang on one more time, Henry!” Vicki yelled.
I kept the pedal on the floor and my hands on the wheel. This couldn’t go on forever.
Eventually, growing in the distance, I spotted a red boulder jutting up from the sand to the side of the road, just bigger than my van.
“I don’t suppose we can hide behind that,” Vicki suggested.
“No, I suppose not,” I stared down the lone rock.
I heard the engine roar to life of the car behind as the pursuer gained on us again. It rammed into the back of the car again, jolting Vicki and me forward. I struggled to keep control of the car as the tires swiveled back and forth on the sand.
“Haaa-old on?” I stumbled.
“Ugh,” she replied simply, gripping onto the seat.
I adjusted my grip on the wheel and drove directly toward the big red rock jutting out of the ground.
“Um, I have a question?!” Vicki cried.
“I got it,” I said without looking over at her, focusing on the rock.
“I did not consent to going out in a blaze of glory,” she fretted. “I’m a much bigger fan of living to fight another day with damaged dignity.”
“That’s the plan,” I promised.
I jammed the ball of my foot into the gas pedal and pushed as far down as I could manage. The car behind us powered forward again and tried to send us swerving, but I gripped the wheel tightly, keeping our momentum moving forward.
The rock loomed closer to us. Vicki clutched the edges of her seat, either not comprehending my plan or having very little faith in it.
The rock was only a few feet in front of us. With several inches to spare, I finally jerked the wheel to the right. The bus skidded on the sand as it tried to lurch out of the path of the rock. The turn was lagging and slow, about what you’d expect for the clunky car.
But just as the van turned, the car behind us rammed forward again into the back right corner of the vehicle. The impact sent the back end of the car forward, spinning the whole car. I straightened the steering wheel and powered forward again, away from the rock and away from the pursuer.
The pursuer still had the momentum of trying to hit us and struggling to skid to a halt as he approached the rock. The car tried to spin away from the oncoming hazard, but was unable to stop in time. The car’s driver side crunched into the red surface of the rock with an impact that made me flinch.
“Whoa...” Vicki exhaled as she stared out the back window. “Is he dead? Whoever that was?”
“It’s not likely,” I shook my head, not entirely sure if I was disappointed or relieved about this. “The impact wasn’t strong enough. What’s important is that he won’t be following us anytime soon.”
Vicki settled back into her seat.
“Was that someone who just really hated Slurpees?” she pondered. Now that the danger had passed, her sense of humor roared back to life.
“No,” I answered. “I know exactly who that was.”
I had recognized the car. It was an unassuming, barely noticeable car. I would have missed it had it not been literally trying to kill us. A tan Toyota-something with an equally nondescript driver I’d met at Slinger’s Saloon with AJ.
It was the car that I’d seen the forensic analyst, Justin Pell, climbing into after I’d finished questioning him.
Chapter 10
Just before five in the morning, the police arrived at my parent’s house in order to question us about the incident. Leonard, the literary buff detective was among them, and I stood with Vicki on the front porch and relayed to them all I’d deduced from the situation.
“The car belonged to Justin Pell,” I informed them. “I have reason to believe he’d want us out of the picture.”
“The picture?” Leonard repeated. “What picture is that?”
“It’s because we’re representing Harmony Irving,” Vicki explained.
“Why would Justin care about this enough to try to kill you with a vehicle?” the cop quirked an eyebrow.
“I have every reason to believe that Justin Pell is involved,” I assured him. “I know that this is his car. And I don’t think he wanted to kill us with a vehicle. He probably wanted us to stop so he could shoot us.”
“Unfortunately for your story, it wasn’t him driving,” he informed us. “Justin was at the Department working the overnight shift.”
“Is his crashed car at the scene not suspicious?” Vicki frowned.
“Yeah, if that was true,” Leonard shrugged. “Maybe you’re both tired and are suffering from some paranoia. The sheriff’s deputy went to the location you described, and there was no car there at all.”
“We-- we didn’t make this up. Look at the damage to the bus. I’m sure you can hear the collision on the recording of the 9-1-1 call,” Vicki pointed out.
“We’ll be looking into it,” he assured us in the same tone he would tell a senior citizen that he will get the neighbor kids to stop playing on their lawn. “Just try to get some sleep. I’m sure you’ve both had a long night. We’ll be seein’ ya.”
Leonard stepped off the porch and departed. Vicki watched him go fretfully.
“Do you think he’ll actually look into it?” she asked.
“There’s not a lot of other crime going on, so he has to,” I comforted her. “He’s just tired and skeptical right now. That’s all.”
“I’m going to be so livid when I’m not exhausted,” she predicted.
We climbed into the treehouse, which was a much more concerted effort at five in the morning. Then we shoved textbooks and highlighters off our respective mattresses and collapsed down onto the beds. I was asleep before I hit the pillow.
When we woke up later that morning, Vicki had found the energy to be upset again, which was an understandable reaction to a murder attempt.
“So people who want us dead and are out in the world right now, just actively wanting that,” she said the next morning as she paced back and forth across the cushions and mattress.
“We know whose car it was,” I explained for both our benefits, “but we don’t know who was driving it.”
“The standard procedure of car ownership is that you drive the car you own,” she said.
“But I met this guy,” I recalled. “He was a hundred pounds soaking wet, and I don’t think he had a car chase in him, plus he has an alibi. Probably the most rock solid alibi a person could have.”
“Who the eff else could it be then?” Vicki offered. “All evidence indicates that the mostly likely suspect was this Justin guy or at very least the investigation starts with him.”
“Of course, Justin is the first lead and at the very least has something to do with it, but based on his alibi, someone else has to be involved,” I told her.
“You’re just guessing, though,” she said. “We have no evidence to tie it to anyone else other than Justin right now.”
“Just like we have no reason to believe anyone but Harmony killed that art critic?” I sighed.
“You know that’s different,” she put her hands on her hips and looked down at me.
My phone buzzed in my jacket pocket, and I fished it out as Vicki glared.
“Oh, crap, it’s AJ,” I read.
Vicki and I exchanged worried looks as we recalled our epiphany yesterday that AJ was the only other person who knew how much we knew about the case.
“What did she say?” Vicki asked.
“She’s waiting for us at the gallery,” I read
.
“She’s really eager about this,” Vicki noted. “And she’d never met you before. Why would she agree to do this much unpaid work for a stranger?”
“I don’t think she’s involved, if that’s what you’re implying,” I told her. “She hates getting into any amount of trouble.”
“That’s what someone who is in some amount of trouble would want you to think,” Vicki suggested.
“She’s a teenager,” I told her. “She’s not exactly equipped for a high-speed chase. We should meet up with her and tell her what we know.”
“Alright, but if she murders us, you owe me,” Vicki jokingly warned. “Should we tell her what happened?”
“I don’t think so, she is pretty skittish as is, and I don’t want to spook her unnecessarily,” I concluded.
As we took our turns showering, getting dressed, and eating breakfast in the house I reminded myself I needed to sit down with Harmony and get a timeline of her activities on the night of the murder to compare to the official police report. She was, unfortunately, still asleep, and the rest of the house was quiet as my mom was off at the yoga studio teaching a class, my dad was at work at the co-op, and Phoenix was… probably out finding himself or fighting “the man.”
After we got ourselves together, Vicki and I drove to the gallery together in the rental car, and she quizzed me on Bar exam questions along the way. There was no real traffic on the mid-morning roads of Sedona, even now during tourist season. Compared to my daily drive on the 405 in Los Angeles this commute was heaven on Earth. When we arrived, AJ had her laptop opened on the paper cutting table.
“Hey, AJ,” I greeted her as I pushed the glass door open and entered the gallery with Vicki right behind.
She startled up from her laptop as if she hadn’t noticed us walking up to the door.
“Hey!” she replied. “I thought meeting here was, like, a regular thing. Sorry if I assumed.”
“Don’t even worry about it,” I waved her concern away. “We just overslept. We had a long night.”
“Oh, yeah,” she nodded, as if understanding our meaning.
“You… know about it?” Vicki quirked an eyebrow.
“Yeah, you guys mentioned that you’d be studying for the bar, right?” she clarified.
“Ah,” Vicki nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. Hard stuff.”
“I can’t even imagine,” AJ chuckled. “After I get all my basic credits out of the way, I want to major in criminology, but not in a pre-law kind of way.”
“What are you working on?” I asked her and then bent down to see her laptop screen.
“I was just updating the visual elements of my blog and stuff,” she told me. “I thought my font and background color didn’t make it super readable, you know?”
“Makes sense, when this is all said and done I’m sure you’ll be getting a ton more traffic. Did you finish the background checks for Justin and Freddie?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Nothing super-suspicious, but a couple things stand out. Freddie has a couple drunk and disorderlies, and Justin is in, like, a crazy amount of debt. Oh and he was barred by several casinos in Vegas.”
“Barred? He must have either cheated or not paid some bills,” I thought outloud. “I’m guessing it's the latter.”
“To whom is he indebted?” Vicki asked.
“Everyone,” AJ replied. “Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex, Udinova Loan Processors.”
“One of those things is not like the other.” I frowned. “Who is Udinova Loan Processors?”
“Some company out of New York,” AJ shrugged.
“Wait a minute,” Vicki walked closer to us, growing comfortable around AJ again. “I recognize that name. When I looked up Harmony’s records, forty percent of her sales were to a private art gallery in New York by the name The Udinova Collection.”
“Kind of a unique name for it to be a coincidence,” AJ noted.
“So Justin owes money to the same people who are throwing their money at Harmony’s work,” I pondered. “This is starting to get really stinky.”
AJ typed the name into her laptop and scrolled through the results.
“The Udinova Collection,” she read off the results. “Owned by Danila Udinova.”
“Who is he?” Vicki asked as she walked over to get a better glimpse of the computer.
“He just looks like some rich angry Russian guy,” AJ observed as she examined the image results for him. Most of the pictures were of his companies or art he’d bought, but there were a handful of him. He was a stoic man in his late thirties who did not smile in a single one of his pictures . “His two companies connect Justin and Harmony,” Vicki noted.
A breeze of warm air filled the gallery. Vicki and I turned to the entrance where Gerard was coming in with a huge smile on his face.
“Hello again, you two,” he said as he smiled at us. “I hope you’re enjoying experiencing all the lovely pieces while you can. I’ve managed to sell a few more.”
I observed the walls of the gallery. They did seem notably emptier than they were at the beginning of the month.
“Same buyer?” I asked as I raised an eyebrow.
“Ummm hmmm,” Gerard agreed as he ambled around the studio, gazing up at the art still remaining in the studio. He seemed a bit misty-eyed about his dwindling supply.
“You mentioned when we first met that you never left Sedona, but have you ever make it up to New York?” I asked. “I read that there’s a pretty big art scene up there.”
“Oh New York is the biggest scene, but I never leave Sedona,” Gerard said. “Too much keeping me here. You should definitely check it out if you get the chance though, I’m sure the galleries and museums are grand. Let me know how it is.”
“Can do, Gerard,” I nodded.
After a few more minutes, Gerard seemed to have finished taking inventory of Harmony’s pieces, and then he left the gallery again. I watched him leave, then turned back to AJ’s laptop screen. One of the pictures depicted a particular piece that hung in a New York museum. Danila Udinova and another viewer stood candidly before the piece, admiring it thoughtfully.
This viewer in the photo was Gerard Chamberlin himself, who’d just lied to me that he never, ever left Sedona.
Chapter 11
“Alright, gang,” I addressed the office. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”
“Gang?” Vicki repeated. “Did you just refer to us as a gang, like we’re spunky teens solving mysteries?”
“Well, we are solving a mystery,” I pointed out.
“And I am a teen,” AJ added with spunk.
“And we HAV a hippie van…” Vicki raised her eyebrows.
“I really appreciate how you are running with the group name,” AJ commented.
“I HAV a wonderful sense of humor,” Vicki said as she polished her nails on her blouse.
“Let’s focus,” I redirected. “We have a few points of interest now: Justin’s car just tried to kill us, Danila Udinova links Harmony and Justin together, and Gerard has met with Danila, even though he lied straight to my face about it.”
“All suspicious, but nothing that gets Harmony off the hook,” Vicki noted.
“AJ, can you run another background check on Danila Udinova and on Gerard?” I requested.
“Oh, yeah, I know how to do that now,” she chirped.
“Figure out what places Justin visits and where he throws his money away,” I said. “Follow him around if you have to.”
She nodded eagerly, and really seemed glad to be of service.
“Vicki, I have a friend from back in law school,” I asked. “If I give you his contact info, can you arrange to have a blood sample from the scene sent to the forensic examiner he uses so we can get our own expert witness?”
“I can arrange that,” Vicki nodded. “I hope you’re not just going to sit around looking pretty.”
“Of course not, but I can’t help how pretty I am,” I assured her as I took my pho
ne out of my pocket.
While Vicki and AJ got to work on their tasks, I leaned against the cutting board and dialed Toby. He answered on the last possible ring.
“Yes, Henry?” he answered hesitantly.
“Toby, hi,” I greeted him. “Can I get you to subpoena the art critic’s phone records?”
“What will that prove?” Toby sighed. “He didn’t call anyone and order them to murder him.”
“I’m just following a lead Toby,” I said.
Toby grumbled and griped a little, but ultimately agreed to do as I asked. As I hung up the phone, Vicki asked me about my intentions.
“Phone records, huh?” she asked. “Why?”
“AJ, can you pull up the security footage from the time of the murder again?” I requested.
AJ obliged and opened up the security footage of the night of the murder on her laptop. It displayed Harmony ambling around the gallery, just like we’d observed before.
“See, her phone is sticking out of her back pocket here, and she hasn’t made or received any phone calls,” I pointed at the screen. “If my hunch is right, I bet that the critic received a call from Gerard or Justin just before the murder. Why else would he be outside the gallery at two in the morning?”
AJ typed away at her laptop as she made a note of this.
“She’s not visible on-screen the whole time,” AJ noted. “She could have made a call off-camera.”
“Vicki,” I began, “can you--”
“I’ll call up Toby again and ask to subpoena Harmony’s phone record as well,” she finished for me.
“You’re the best,” I proclaimed and shot her a wink.
“I hope you still think so when I have to cut this short,” she said. “The bar exam is tomorrow, and if you’ll recall, our studying was cut short.”
“Go study,” I permitted. “I’ve got some things to take care of back home as well.” We said our goodbyes to AJ who had finished ordering the background checks, and was going to begin digging into Justin’s life.
When Vicki and I arrived back at my parent’s home, Vicki split off to the treehouse to study in seclusion, and I entered the main home. I was immediately assaulted with the smell of paint fumes, and saw Harmony perched on top of the living room couch, dragging a pair of paint rollers down the walls. Half of the walls were a pastel green now, and her formless t-shirt was stained with the matching color paint.
