Desert Rage

by Betty Webb

  His smile grew hesitant. “Um, may I ask your business?”

  “Certainly. I’ll tell you what it is as soon as you ring me up.” I didn’t want to get thrown out of DuCharme’s until I had those chocolates.

  Once the deal was done, and he’d placed my treasures into a chocolate-colored tote decorated with DuCHARME CHOCOLATIERS printed in metallic gold, I handed him my business card and watched the remnants of his smile fade away. He took a quick look around. No one was near, but when he spoke his voice was so low I could hardly hear him over the noise of the chocolate-making machinery in the back.

  “You’re the investigator who upset my mother the other day.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Leave. Us. Alone.”

  “But…”

  The visitors’ door to the factory opened and several women walked in. Each had salon-treated hair, wore expensively casual clothing, and carried an empty DuCHARME CHOCOLATIERS tote. Back for a fill-up?

  “Hi, Carl!” one of the women said, sashaying up to him. “We were talking about Original Sin at our last meeting, and we’re just dying to try it. Since we all came in together, we thought you might give us a group discount. Pretty please?”

  Carl’s frown vanished into a big hail-fellow-well-met grin, but before he could answer her, I seized my chance. Leaning toward him, I whispered, just loud enough for him to hear, “I can ask my questions right here and now, or we could go someplace private. Your choice.”

  For a brief moment he looked like he wanted to throw me into one of the filler machines and squash me into a truffle. But after a hesitation, the smile came back, although I doubt it was for my benefit.

  Turning around, he said to a Hispanic woman replenishing the truffle stock, “Herminia, would you please help these lovely ladies from the Scottsdale Racquet Club? And when you ring them up, be certain to give them our Loyal Customer discount.” Then, to me, “C’mon, Ms. Jones, we’re going to my office.” After giving a brief apology to the racquet club ladies, he headed toward the back without asking me to follow him. I guess he knew it wasn’t necessary.

  Carl DuCharme’s office was as clean as his factory. Maybe too clean. Offices should look worked-in, but the surfaces of his chrome-and-glass desk and the matching credenza behind it were bare of any papers, rubber bands, or paper clips—none of the usual refuse of the busy worker bee. The man didn’t even have file cabinets. The only décor hung on the wall: several certificates for something or other; a photograph of his mother and deceased father, Blaine DuCharme II; one of his grandfather, Blaine DuCharme I, the founder of DuCharme Chocolatiers; and a photograph of himself and another man in a dog show ring setting, both holding large, purebred boxers on short leashes. Unlike his mother, he was no Chihuahua man. All photographs had glass-and-chrome frames that perfectly matched his chrome-and-glass desk, and like everything else in the room, gleamed as if they’d been polished for hours. Other than the compulsive sterility, one thing caught my eye. Or rather didn’t catch my eye.

  There were no pictures of Blaine DuCharme Three.

  “Sit down if you want,” he said, pointing to an overly modern chair that looked too spindly to hold up a gnat, “but I’d prefer you didn’t. This conversation is going to be brief. There’s another tour starting in a half-hour, and I really don’t have time to discuss my brother. Not that I’d discuss him even if I had the time.”

  “Okay. Where were you between noon and three, Monday, July 8?”

  “Huh?” His cross expression morphed into one of bewilderment.

  “It’s a simple question.”

  “Monday, July 8? How the hell do I know?”

  “Maybe you were working.”

  He made a sound of disgust. “No shit, Sherlock.”

  I motioned to the iPhone his hand. “Could you check?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” But he punched in the date on his phone. “Yep, I was here. All day, as a matter of fact.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  A sour look. “Only everyone in the factory, including my mother. We had a big shipment going out to Seattle and…Hey, what difference does it make where I was? You told Mother you wanted to talk about Blaine.”

  “The brother who was executed for killing two police officers and a civilian.”

  “Yes. And he paid the ultimate price for it, too.”

  “I’m wondering how you felt about that. Seeing him die like that.”

  “Felt? How do you think I felt?”

  “The witness list said you were the only family member present.”

  “Correct. Mother refused to go, so I had to. It wasn’t pleasant.” He looked at his watch. “Next question. And it better be your last.”

  “Do you, or did you, know Dr. Arthur Cameron? Alexandra Cameron? Alec Cameron?”

  A blank look. “Who?”

  “You heard me.”

  He stopped in the middle of an annoyed head-shake. “Wait a minute. Those names…Isn’t that the family…?” When he made the link, he didn’t look happy. “Hey! Just what the hell is this?!” His rage growing, he stood up and stabbed a finger at me. “You! The nerve! Come into my plant and threaten to embarrass me in front of valued customers, then bring up that poor murdered family as if it had anything to do with me. Get out of my office right now, you hear? Get out of the whole damned building. And from now on, buy your chocolates elsewhere.”

  I got out before he snatched my DuCHARME CHOCOLATIERS bag out of my hands.

  But I wasn’t fast enough. Before reaching the end of the hall, I spotted an elderly woman walking slowly toward Carl’s office. At first I mistook her for one of the tour group who had become separated from the others, but as she drew closer I recognized her: Lorraine DuCharme. From her expression—which suddenly devolved from a mask of patrician politesse to fury—she recognized me, too.

  “You!” she snapped.

  “I just wanted to talk to your son about…”

  She didn’t wait for me to finish. Shouldering roughly past me, Mrs. DuCharme hurried into her son’s office. She was still screaming at him as I reached the exit.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chocolate doesn’t do well in the desert heat, so after leaving the DuCharme factory, I made a side trip to the Best Western and dropped off my belt-expanding—but healthful!—bag of goodies. Then I hit the road again in search of the delivery boy whose name was printed on the receipt found at the murder scene. Zhou’s Mandarin Wok was located less than a mile east of the Cameron house, probably the reason the Camerons and their neighbors, the Newberrys, used their delivery service so often. The food must have been good, too, because as I drove up, a satisfied-looking group of office workers was leaving. Most carried takeout containers, the same kind found at the murder scene.

  Inside, the scents of sesame oil and ginger reminded me I hadn’t eaten lunch. Well, that could be remedied. After taking a quick look around—eight tables, six booths, deep red walls with a gold dragon emblazoned on the farthest one—I walked up to the counter, perused the menu, and ordered the special: General Tso’s chicken with fried rice and egg roll, and a large Diet Coke.

  “Tso spicy or not?” asked the middle-aged Chinese woman taking my order.

  “Spicy.”

  “Extra spicy or regular spicy?”

  “Extra.”

  “It gonna burn your mouth.”

  “I can deal with it.”

  “That what they all say. No refund if too hot!”

  Convinced by her attitude I was talking to the owner of Mandarin Wok, I asked, “Are you Mrs. Zhou?”

  “Who wanna know?” She gave me a glare that could have stir-fried shrimp. “You a cop?”

  “Used to be. Now I do private investigative work.” I handed her my card.

  When she looked at it, her face softened. “Ah, you a P.I. then. L
ike Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry.”

  A movie fan, thus her son’s name: Clint Zhou. “Yes. Kind of like Clint Eastwood, except in that movie he played a San Francisco police detective, not a P.I.”

  “Not important. Boss always mad at him. Funny. Yeah, I Mrs. Zhou. You been P.I. long?”

  Boy, we were getting along like a house afire. “It seems like forever, Mrs. Zhou.”

  A glimmer of a smile. “I like you stick to stuff, not like kid always goofing off like youngest son. So what you want, Miss Forever Detective?”

  “I’d like to speak to your son, if I may?”

  “Got six sons. Only one daughter, damn. Girls more careful drivers.”

  “The son named Clint.”

  “Ah! You lucky. He just back.” She turned around and bawled something in Mandarin through the kitchen service window. Almost immediately, a jumpy teenager joined her behind the counter. From the iPhone clutched in his hand, I could see he’d been interrupted while texting.

  “What’d I do now?” he asked, trying to hide the phone behind his back. He hadn’t yet grown into his Adam’s apple, and it bobbed up and down as he spoke.

  Mrs. Zhou missed nothing. “You tell Miss Forever Detective what she need to know. You hear? And stop that text stuff.” To me she said, “We make General Tso extra hot. You no say I not warn you.” Looking thrilled at the chance to show me up, she shooed us to a booth by the window.

  “This is about the Camerons, isn’t it?” Clint Zhou said, slumping as far down in the booth as he could while still staying upright. “I’ve already talked to the police.”

  “But I’m a private detective.”

  “Same thing.”

  I let it slide. “You didn’t tell me, so tell it again.”

  He did, reciting almost word for word the interview in the case file. According to the computerized receipt, at 11:30 a woman identifying herself as Alexandra Cameron called in an order for almond chicken, moo goo gai pan, and egg rolls. She specified she needed enough to feed four people.

  I interrupted. “Four? Not three?” Ali had told me she was expected back for lunch.

  “Yeah, four.”

  “What time did you leave the restaurant?”

  “Around ten minutes later. Mom makes sure we get the orders right out.”

  “How long did it take you to drive to the Camerons’ house?”

  “Same, I guess. Ten minutes. I had another order, this one for the Lindells, but I hit the Camerons first because they were on the way.” He flushed. “And Mrs. Cameron always tipped better than the Lindells.”

  “So that put you at their house at about noon?”

  “Yeah. Around that. Maybe a few minutes earlier.”

  I thought for a minute. “When did you deliver the next order? The one for the Lindells.”

  His Adam’s apple began bobbing, and his eyes slid away as if he’d spotted something interesting on the other side of the small restaurant. I looked. Nothing was there. Their last customer had straggled back to work.

  “Clint? Answer my question. When did you deliver the next order?”

  He looked down at the table. “Um, a little after 12:30. Maybe 12:40. Something like that.”

  “How far is it from the Camerons’ house to the Lindells’?”

  The phone in his pocked buzzed, signifying an arriving text. He fished it out of his pocket, read it, and typed a reply until his mother saw him and screamed something in Mandarin. Muttering under his breath, he put the phone back in his pocket. Then he sank back into his seat and sulked.

  Teenagers.

  Thanks to Ali, I was getting used to the species. “C’mon, Clint, how far is it from the Camerons’ house to the Lindells’? And tell the truth.”

  “Pretty far,” he told the table.

  I whipped out my own iPhone and punched up a Scottsdale street map. “Give me the name of the street the Lindells are on.”

  He mumbled something I couldn’t quite hear.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Pinto Lane.”

  According to the map, Clint’s next delivery was less than a mile from the Camerons’ house. Exasperated, I said, “Are you telling me that it took you thirty or forty minutes to drive from Yellow Horse Drive to Pinto Lane? A route that’s all quiet neighborhood streets, except for that one intersection at Scottsdale Road?” I held the screen up so he could see for himself. “What’s wrong with this picture, Clint?”

  There had been no comments about this time discrepancy in the police file, no explanation of why it took so long for the Zhous’ delivery van to get three-quarters of a mile from Point A to Point B. Then again, thanks to the confessions of two idiot teens, the cops believed they already had their killers.

  Clint shot a look back at the counter, where his mother was screaming again at someone through the kitchen service window. Probably another son, God help him.

  “Should I discuss this with your mother?”

  From the expression on the kid’s face, you’d think I’d just sentenced him to the Death of a Thousand Cuts. “Well, I wasn’t driving all the time.” he whined.

  “Then what were you doing?”

  His cell phone buzzed again. This time he ignored it. “I, uh, I kind of got in a wreck,” he told the table.

  “Kind of got in a wreck? Where?”

  “When I was turning from Palomino Circle, uh, the big roundabout near the Camerons’ place, back onto Indian Bend to make my next delivery.”

  That would have been the entrance to the Camerons’ circle of cul-de-sacs. I leaned so far forward across the table that my forehead almost touched his. “Who, or what, did you get in a wreck with? Bicycle? Horse? Car? UFO?”

  “Some van.”

  It was all I could do to keep breathing. “Tell me about the wreck, and don’t you dare leave anything out or I’ll tell your mother.”

  He opened his mouth to explain, but Mrs. Zhou picked that very moment to personally deliver my lunch. “You try now,” she said, with a smirk of satisfaction.

  I tasted. Although I could feel blisters blooming all over my mouth, I smiled up at her. “Best General Tso’s chicken I ever tasted.”

  “Not too hot?”

  “It’s just the way I like it.”

  Crestfallen, she walked away.

  “All right, you,” I hissed at Clint, after chugging down my entire glass of Diet Coke. “On with it. I don’t have all day.” And I needed to go buy some Mylanta.

  “Well, I was pulling out of Palomino and I, um, hit this van.”

  “Palomino Circle is a wide street with no parking on either side. How the heck could you hit anyone? Were you driving blindfolded or something?”

  His Adam’s apple began bobbing again. “I was, um, well, I was kind of texting my girlfriend.”

  “You were ‘kind of texting’ your girlfriend. While driving.”

  “If you tell my mother she’ll kill me.”

  “Okay, I won’t tell her, but don’t expect to live to a ripe old age if you continue texting while driving. I’m sure they told you as much in Driver’s Ed.”

  His face turned as red as the peppers in my General Tso’s chicken, but he plunged on. “So I stopped. I mean, that’s what you’re supposed to do after a wreck, right? Stop and exchange information?”

  “Oh, yeah. Especially when you’re dumb enough to text while driving. That’s if you live through the accidents you cause.”

  “You shouldn’t call me dumb,” he whined. “It’s not nice.”

  I looked toward the counter, where Mama Zhou was screaming at someone on the phone. Another son, no doubt. I rose from my seat.

  With a yelp, Clint grabbed my wrist. “Oh, Jesus, please don’t go over there!”

  I sat back down. “Then cut the crap and tell me what happened.”

&nbs
p; He gulped, and started again. “Like I started to say, I opened the glove compartment and took out the registration and insurance card, then I got out my driver’s license and exited the van, just like you’re supposed to do.”

  “Gold star for you. So what’d the guy, if it was a guy in the other van, do? And by the way, did you see more than one person in there?”

  “Maybe a couple of people, maybe just one, the windows were tinted pretty dark. Anyway, the driver didn’t stop, just, like, kept going, didn’t slow down or anything.”

  “Kept on going? After you’d run into him?”

  “I swear!”

  I managed to keep a straight face when he flashed the Boy Scout salute. “What’d you do next?”

  The words poured out. “Got back in the van and split. Then I, uh, went over to my girlfriend’s house, she lives right around there and she, uh, she’d been out of town for two weeks and I hadn’t seen her and I missed her so much, and she, uh, she texted me while I was handing the delivery to Mrs. Cameron, so as soon as I got back to the van I texted her back, but I wasn’t driving then, I swear I wasn’t, just sitting parked outside the Cameron house for maybe five minutes, until we were done, and I put the phone back in my pocket. But then she texted me again and I texted her again and, uh, I remembered I had to get over to the Lindells’, so I drove off…”

  “Still texting.”

  He took a deep breath and started in again. “Yeah, but you can’t tell Mom, because then I had the wreck, and I knew she would kill me if she found out, so I drove over to Sandra’s house…”

  “Sandra?”

  “My girlfriend. We, uh, after we said hi and some other stuff, we checked out the van’s fender. There was a big dent, but heck, there were already so many dents on our van you couldn’t really tell unless you looked hard that I’d just put in a new one, so I figured I didn’t need to tell Mom.”

  Or the police. “She’d have found out once she got the insurance bill. You think of that?”

  He looked horrified. ‘Uh, no. I guess I was too upset. Oh, geez, oh my God, if she…”

  “How long were you at Sandra’s house?”

  Pulling himself together, he said, “Fifteen minutes? Twenty? I was really worried about the van, so I, uh, I kind of popped the fender back out a little. I thought it’d be easy to do, but it wasn’t. It took longer than I’d planned.”