by Betty Webb
I thought back to Dr. Teague’s confessed lack of close human relationships. Even if Ali was eventually found guilty of all charges, she was still only fourteen, and Arizona judges tended to be lenient toward minors. White, non-gang-affiliated female minors, anyway. If, despite all Zellar’s legal and medical arguments about a teenager’s “unformed cerebral cortex,” Ali wound up serving time, she would need a stable and loving person to come home to when her sentence was up. It was hard to see her uncle fulfilling that role.
Harder still, Ali’s biological mother—the Honorable Juliana May Thorsson, if the polls were correct, would be busy in the U.S. Senate.
Poor, messed-up kid.
“Even if the kid does time, guardianship is more of a job than you’d think,” I pointed out, after taking another sip of the god-awful brew. “But then it would be mainly legal stuff, not actual day-to-day supervision. I don’t want to think of what might happen when she’s finally released, so let’s not go there. Tell me about Dr. Cameron’s secret bank account. You finally hacked your way in?”
He waved some papers. “Child’s play, since we had the account number on the deposit slip. Turns out this was the doctor’s private account. His wife’s name isn’t on it.”
“Sounds to me like he was keeping a mistress.” I remembered the portrait of Mrs. Cameron over the mantel of the murder house. How could a man married to a woman that beautiful stray?
Unaware of my thinking, Jimmy said, “For all we know, the doc was keeping a half dozen mistresses, but not with this account. Turns out it’s a savings account he set up three years ago. No withdrawals. Ever. Now here’s what’s interesting. He made a total of four eighteen-thousand-dollar deposits this year, not counting, of course, the money you found in his house. Before that, he made only one deposit early last year, and four the year before that.”
“Sounds like business, whatever it was, was getting better.”
“Maybe.”
“Just maybe? Don’t keep me in suspense.”
A slight smile. “Those deposits were made at irregular intervals. This year, he made two in January, one each in March, May, and July. Last year, only one, in January. The year before that, one each in April, May, June, and July. All made in cash, like the bundle you found in that pillow.”
“It was a bolster.”
“Whatever.” Jimmy leaned even closer, and for a moment I thought he would touch my face, but at the last second his body bent down and to the right, as he picked up the fallen papers from the floor. Straightening, he added, “As you know, cash deposits are untraceable.”
“Unless you can find the original account the money was withdrawn from. Good luck with that.”
He put the papers back on his desk. “Or we could get a copy of the victim’s tax returns. The IRS demands specifics, even if the money comes from gambling or hooking. Drug dealers, the small-time ones, anyway, sometimes declare their income as gambling winnings.”
It was hard to envision Dr. Cameron a drug dealer, but these days, anything was possible. What argued against a drug connection, though, was that each deposit was for the same amount: eighteen thousand dollars even. Drug-running tends to be an up and down business, not to mention more profitable. And there are seldom year-long breaks, the cartels not being in the business of giving their employees sabbaticals.
“However Cameron got the money, it looks like he was saving up for something big,” I pointed out. “Otherwise, why not just blow it on a vacation with the wife and kids? Answer: he didn’t want his wife to know about this extra income. Or its origins, or its purpose.”
“That’s my thinking, too.”
Then I remembered the ruined Corvette and Thunderbird in the family’s garage. “Another car, maybe?” I asked. “His computer searches showed he was looking at some pretty ritzy newer models. Maybe he figured once he brought it home, the deed was done and his wife would have to lump it.”
Jimmy raised his eyebrows, which made the curved tribal tattoo on his temple almost disappear into his ebony hair. “Have to be one heck of a car, Lena. There was already a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in that account, and your dead man was about to add another eighteen thousand to it.”
“So what kind of car costs more than two hundred thousand dollars?”
When Jimmy grinned, his teeth were a startling white against his bronze skin. “Let’s start with an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish, or a Lamborghini Gallardo, or…”
I lifted my hands in surrender. “Stop. Please. Since when do you know so much about high-end cars?”
The smile grew broader. “Every man has his dreams.”
The idea of Jimmy, a dedicated Toyota truck man, lusting after a Lamborghini made me smile, too. “Be sure to give me a ride in your new Lamborghini as soon as you buy it. Seriously though, is there any way you can backtrack that cash? I took close-ups of some of the bills in case you were able to trace the serial numbers.”
“I’m working on it. The timing of the deposits, too. If I can connect the deposit dates to a recurring series of events, we might—just might, mind you—zero in on who he was doing that under-the-table business with. And whatever services the good doctor was providing for them.”
“Has to be something illegal, Jimmy. Another thing. I want you to see if anyone has posted something negative about any of the victims, especially Dr. Cameron. And check to see if there were any malpractice lawsuits against him. I didn’t see anything like that in the case file.”
“He wasn’t in private practice, and it’s those physicians who usually get hit with big malpractice suits. Like, ‘You misdiagnosed my mother with an ulcer and it turned out to be stomach cancer, but by the time they found out what was really wrong, it had metastasized.’”
“Granted, but some sketchy people wind up in ERs, people getting shot because they were doing something they shouldn’t be doing, gangbangers, et cetera.”
He looked dubious. “Not a lot of that going down in Scottsdale.”
“Except Cameron worked at Good Sam in downtown Phoenix. Lots of gunshot victims there. On weekends, it’s a regular assembly line. Maybe somewhere along the way he let the wrong person die and now the dead banger’s buddies…”
Jimmy interrupted. “Aren’t you forgetting the confessions? Ali’s and Kyle’s? Plus there’s that note you showed me, the one where Ali not only wished her family dead but suggested that Kyle kill them. And by the way, have you given the note to her attorney yet?”
“I will.” Maybe. Possession of the note would place Zellar in a dicey legal position, something I wanted to avoid. “For now, forget the note and think about the confessions. Conflicting confessions, I’d like to point out. Here’s the thing. On my way back from the meeting with the brother, it occurred to me we’re taking too much for granted when it comes to Ali. Her story about paying a hit man with her allowance money is bullshit, so what other lies could she be telling? And what about Kyle’s version of events? We need to compare Ali’s story with his, but I haven’t yet figured out a way to get to him. Sending him questions via his aunt might have worked, but he doesn’t want to see her. Kyle’s foster parents can’t help, either, because so far, the judge is denying them permission to visit.”
Jimmy frowned. “You’re kidding me? They’re his guardians.”
“Foster parents. Which means that technically, the kid’s still a ward of the court, not them, so what the judge rules goes. I called Kyle’s attorney first thing this morning and he told me he’s appealing, but right now, the kid remains in a state of legal limbo. Still, there is one bit of good news. Kyle’s guardian ad litem says she’ll go with the attorney to talk to the judge, but it might take a couple of days. The judge has a full docket.”
Jimmy frowned. “Kyle’s attorney actually talked to you? Gave you information? Geez, Lena, he could get disbarred for that. And you could lose your license.”
“I’m not going to lose my license.” I recapped the conversation, ending with, “And at this point in Racine’s career, he’s more interested in the truth than in ethics.”
“And here I thought truth and ethics were one and the same. Silly me. But back to the kids. Kyle…” Something outside drew his attention. “Well, will you look at that!”
A truck from City Towing was passing by, with Big Black Hummer loaded onto its flatbed.
“You can move your pickup out of the sun now,” I gloated.
He gave me a disapproving look. “Please don’t tell me you called the city.” Left to his own devices, Jimmy would rather park in the hot sun than turn in a parking space thief. He had always been too tenderhearted for his own good.
“Whoever keeps parking in our spots didn’t pay any attention to my notes, so yeah, I called. Someone had to. But what were you about to say when we were so pleasantly interrupted?”
He turned away from the window. “I was going to remind you that Kyle wouldn’t be the first teenager to kill for his girlfriend.”
“You think I don’t know that? But something…” I shook my head. “Something’s off about this case. Way off. I just can’t figure out what.”
“Well, let me know when you do.” He grabbed his keys and went outside to move his truck.
***
The hours passed slowly while I informed various clients on the status of their cases. Gerald Jenks, the human resources director at Charge-O-Matic, who’d been suspicious about the behavior of a stockroom employee, was shocked to learn that the man had done time for grand theft in Kansas, been arrested for shoplifting from a Phoenix Costco, and missed his last appointment with his parole officer.
“Didn’t you run a background check?” I asked him.
Jenks’ long silence was my answer.
I sighed. “Here’s the good news, Mr. Jenks. Since he handles money, even if it’s only the petty cash, you can let him go for cause and not worry about getting sued. But in the future, you might want to run these sorts of checks before you hire someone, not after. Or at least check their references.”
“But he looked so honest,” Jenks mourned.
“Good crooks usually do.”
Human nature never ceases to amaze me. Despite a recent deluge of newspaper articles about upright church deacons caught watching kiddie porn and sweet-faced grandmothers on trial for running meth labs in their basements, most people still judged the human playbook by its cover. The fact that a simple Internet search could reveal the guilty truth behind innocent masks never occurred to them. Whatever the reason, their naïveté kept business booming at Desert Investigations.
I heard the same sort of story again, one client after another ruefully admitting to trusting the wrong person, lonely men trusting the wrong women, lonely women trusting the wrong men. After a couple of hours of this, I was ready to tear my hair out in frustration.
Finally, in late afternoon, after myriad attempts, I reached the Honorable Juliana Thorsson, who had either been ducking my calls or doing what politicians love to do—making life more complicated for the rest of us.
“Keep it brief,” she said in a hurried whisper. In the background, I heard the buzzing echo of voices in a large room. Another fund-raiser, probably. What did that make—four this week? Every time I turned on MSNBC, there she was, surrounded by her minions, pretending she hadn’t already made up her mind to run for the Senate.
“There’s not much to tell you yet.” I gave her a quick rundown on what I’d discovered so far, finishing with Ali’s damning note to Kyle.
“I don’t believe it,” Thorsson snapped.
“Don’t believe Ali wrote it, or don’t believe she meant it?”
“Just a minute.”
I heard the clippety-clop of high-heeled shoes, what sounded like doors opening and closing, then her voice returned at a more or less normal level. “I’m in a restroom stall now so I can talk freely.”
“Did you check the other stalls?”
“I’m famous for my attention to detail. But back to Ali. I don’t know how familiar you are with teenagers, girls especially, but there’s a lot of frustration that goes on at that age, a lot of unfocused anger, especially toward authority figures. I’m sure she was just blowing off steam. She didn’t mention her younger brother, did she? But whoever broke into the house killed him, too.”
“Then why did Kyle hide the note?”
“Didn’t you say you found several other love notes with it? Regardless of all that emailing and texting, kids still love to pass notes to each other. Maybe a lot of that intensity came about because Kyle’s foster parents didn’t approve of their relationship, and Ali knew it. She was having the same kind of trouble on her own home front, so that would just double her angst.”
I suddenly became aware that I hadn’t discussed Ali with Fiona, the boy’s foster mother. I needed to remedy that. “Good point, but…”
Over the phone I heard a door opening again, laughter, two women discussing a third. They weren’t being complimentary.
“Talk to you tomorrow,” the Honorable Thorsson whispered before she killed the call.
***
Six o’clock found me parking my Jeep outside Jimmy’s trailer to carpool over to his cousin’s new restaurant.
Louise’s Fry Bread Shack was located just off the eastern boundary of the rez in a commercial area hard-hit by the recession. It sat next to a second-hand furniture store, across the street from a failed shopping center where the only signs of life were two coyotes snuffling through an overturned dumpster. The out-of-the-way location hadn’t hurt the restaurant’s business, because when we arrived, a long line of Pimas and Anglos were waiting for service at the takeout window. We bypassed them and went inside.
Like many fry bread restaurants, Louise’s place was bare bones. Other than the large framed print of Geronimo that hung on one wall, there was no décor to speak of, which only highlighted the large, hand-printed sign above the order counter: IF YOU ARE TALKING ON YOUR CELL PHONE WHEN YOU TRY TO PLACE YOUR ORDER, WE WILL TAKE THE ORDER OF THE PERSON BEHIND YOU.
Pimas take good manners seriously.
The menu wasn’t complicated. Fry bread is a popular Southwest Indian staple and the Pimas cook up some of the best. Plate-sized slabs of dough deep-fried until golden, then slathered with mixtures of your choice. In my case, I opted for the chorizo, beans, lettuce, and cheese combination. Louise, a cheerful Pima beauty with mahogany eyes that perfectly matched Jimmy’s, suggested I might be happier with the milder green chili chicken entree, but I didn’t want to seem like a wuss, so I stayed with the chorizo. Jimmy, even less cautious than I, ordered the house special, which included just about everything—chorizo, mutton, chicken, and God only knows what else.
When I looked appalled, he just smiled: “I’ll still have room for dessert fry bread—honey, butter, and cinnamon.”
“That’s two days’ worth of calories,” Louise warned, before she headed to the kitchen. “You’ll get fat.”
“Fourteen hours a week at L.A. Fitness says I won’t,” he countered.
“How come I never see you there?”
“Different schedules, Lena. You’re a night owl, I’m a morning person. Anyway, haven’t you been spending more time at Fight Pro lately? Working on that, what’s it called, Cro Magnon stuff?”
“Krav Maga. It’s an Israeli form of martial arts.”
“You and your…”
I interrupted. “Hey, Almost Brother, I just had a thought.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“What? Interrupt you?”
“Have one of your ‘thoughts.’ They always wind up causing trouble.”
I made a face. “Seriously, how long has Big Black Hummer been trespassing in our space?”
“About a week. Why?”
&nbs
p; “That’s when Fight Pro started resurfacing its parking lot, and finding a parking space got tough. I’ll bet the Hummer belongs to one of the members.”
“Could be. But wouldn’t that…?”
At that moment, our food arrived and all conversation ceased. As Jimmy had promised, the fry bread was delicious, if spicy, so I downed three glasses of iced tea to offset the heat. It didn’t help.
Louise joined us for a few minutes while she and Jimmy discussed all things Pima. The tribe’s new casino and resort on the northern edge of the rez was raking in big bucks. Their child-friendly Butterfly Pavilion, located near the new Diamondbacks spring training facility, was doing well, too.
When I facetiously asked if the tribe would eventually build a Disneyland Pima, they both laughed.
“The Mouse got rich without our help,” Louise replied, brown eyes sparkling. “But don’t discount a Pima Magic Mountain. I’ve always been partial to roller coasters, and wouldn’t mind living within walking distance to one.”
Hanging out with the mellow Pimas always calmed my restless soul, so by the time we’d finished our meal, I felt relaxed and happy. It wasn’t to last.
On the way back to Jimmy’s trailer to pick up my Jeep, the chorizo-laced fry bread took its revenge.
“Uh, I need to use your bathroom,” I said, as he pulled his pickup up next to my Jeep.
Jimmy gave me a pitying look. “Didn’t I warn you about the chorizo?”
“Always one to say, ‘I told you so,’ aren’t you? Now are you going to let me in there or do I have to find a friendly ditch?”
Ordinarily I like to see the sights at Jimmy’s trailer, which is decorated with Pima designs, but this time, I rushed straight to the bathroom, where I spent the next few minutes contemplating my gastronomic sins. Finally, I emerged and joined Jimmy outside. He’d pulled two lawn chairs together and sat looking up at the stars. They were bright tonight, especially the Milky Way, a broad spackling of white against the indigo sky.
“Feeling better?”
