by Alex Harris
Chapter 13
The receptionist called Fred to tell him someone was there to see him, but refused to give his name. Fred walked down the hall and looked through the glass door to see a tall, gray haired man of about 50 waiting in the lobby pacing back and forth in front of the bench. Fred walked out to greet him, “Gary? I’m Detective O’Neill, let’s go back to my office. Detective Wolfe is waiting for us.” Fred made a correct assumption the distinguished gentleman was indeed “the”.
“Detective Wolfe, this is. I’m sorry, Gary, what’s your last name?”
“Do you really need this information? I’m here trying to save everyone embarrassment and confusion. I came here voluntarily. What do you want to know about Marvin?” The anger and sarcasm were apparent in his voice and actions.
“Let’s have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?” Fred made nice in an attempt to diffuse the situation.
“What and give you my DNA or fingerprints? Look what do you want of me. I barely know Marvin. I met him a few months ago. We had a couple drinks and that’s all. Is there anything else you want? I’m busy.” His right hand went to his hip and his left flailed in obvious frustration.
“Let’s have a seat. Can I get some information from you? What’s your last name?” Fred sat down opposite Oriole leaving the third chair next to her empty for “the”.
Gary sat down, crossed his legs, checked the crease on his gabardine slacks. “My name is Patterson, Gary Patterson.”
“Mr. Patterson, we appreciate your assistance. I understand this is sensitive. We’ll honor that. When did you meet Mr. Stutz?” Oriole had her pen out and was making notes of nothing important in order to keep Mr. Patterson from clamming up.
“I met Marvin a few months back on Whiskey Row. Maybe January, February. Something like that. I bought him a drink, he bought me one. We exchanged phone numbers. We met a few times after that. We seemed to have lots in common. He was busy and I was busy. That’s all I know.” Apparently, the gabardine slacks needed re-checked, because he grabbed the crease at the knee and re-aligned it.
“Did Mr. Stutz seem concerned about anything?” Oriole asked looking sideways at “the”.
“Concerned? What do you mean? What are you looking for here?”
“Did Mr. Stutz confide in you about any troubles he was having?” Fred tried to move the questioning along.
“Wait. What is this about? Where is Marvin? Why are you asking me these questions?” ‘The’ had uncrossed his legs, leaned forward placing both forearms on the table and glared at Fred.
“Mr. Patterson, I’m sorry to inform you, Mr. Stutz is deceased.” Oriole gently explained.
Patterson whipped back in his chair, placed a hand on his forehead, then on his mouth, then drew in a deep breath, and turned deathly white. “Deceased? When? How? Oh, my God. How did you come across me?”
“His daughter thought you might be able to shed some light on it.” Fred non-committingly said raising the ever present one eyebrow in question.
“Marlene? What does she have to do with this?”
“How well did you know Marvin Stutz?” Oriole brought the questioning back on topic.
“I didn’t really know him. I mean, we were just new friends. Ya know? We liked similar things, doing things together, hanging out. He was a great cook. We enjoyed each other’s company. We were not an item or anything like that. You have to understand Prescott is a small town, any gossip of this could ruin me. I don’t know what you want from me. What else are you looking for?” Patterson had begun to stammer and sweat, even though the air was on in the interview room.
“Mr. Patterson, when was the last time you spoke to Mr. Stutz? And could we get your cell phone number to cross check records?” Fred was working to get “the” back on track.
“Spoke to Marvin? Umm, must have been last Tuesday. I think I called him and he called me back. I’ll give you my card it has my cell phone and office phone. We were planning on getting together for a drink about 9. But we never firmed up where. I didn’t see him.” “The’s” obvious nervousness was palpable, not unusual for a novice at investigations. He shifted in his seat and couldn’t seem to get comfortable.
“Did he seem worried about anything? And if he was, would he have shared that with you?” Oriole wanted to keep the interview moving.
“Worried? How would I know that? It wasn’t like we were bosom buddies. Oh, God, did I really say that? What I meant was Marv and I didn’t share intimate thoughts. Well, what I mean is, what I’m trying to say is. Can’t you help me here? I’m having difficulty putting into words what we were to each other.”
Both Oriole and Fred waited without interrupting Patterson knowing that the longer they waited the more information they might obtain.
“We had planned a long weekend trip to Las Vegas, no date certain. We thought it would be an opportunity to get to know each other away from the nosy interference of Prescott. We were both mature and had a sense that this could be a long term friendship. We didn’t want to rush it. I had some big jobs coming up that I needed to finish before we could take the time to get away. He had the pipeline to work on and felt he couldn’t turn it over just yet. There were some problems out there that needed to be handled. So we had to wait. Looks like we waited too long.” Patterson finished sadly, brushing his hand across his face.
“Did he talk about his family?” Fred wanted to keep the interview moving.
“You mean that money grubbing wife and those two ungrateful kids?”
“What did he say about them”?
“We talked a little about his situation, being separated and that she wasn’t about to give him a divorce. He spoke a little about Jeremy and Marlene. I’d met Marlene once by accident I ran into them when they were at dinner and I was at the restaurant for a business meeting. Never met Jeremy. Wait. How did Marv die?” The shock was wearing off and Gary began processing information.
“We can’t go into that right now. But it wasn’t an accident.” Fred didn’t want to give more than he had to right at the moment.
“I’m having trouble processing all this right now. My kids had met Marv and really liked him. My kids and his kids are okay with our life decisions. Mary was the only one who couldn’t get past it and get on with her life and let him get on with his. What a loss. Do you have an information about services?” It was obvious that Gary cared about the deceased, more than the wife.
“The remains have not been released at this time.” Oriole provided.
“Tell me about the problems out at the pipeline.” Fred wanted to keep on keeping on.
“Troubles? Oh. Marv was pretty close about work. But several times when we would meet, he’d get phone calls that bothered him. I got the feeling that there was something happening that he didn’t like, but he couldn’t quite get a handle on it. It wasn’t anything he said as much as what he did when he got these phone calls. And then there was this one time when he thought someone was following us when we were on our way to Sedona. You know? I think he was right. But I tried to cajole him when it happened. It was so Sherlock Holmes. Then he said something about getting an auditor in because he was concerned about missing inventory, but he wasn’t sure whether to go to the company or just hire someone out of his pocket. I think, now he never said, but I think it might have had something to do with Marlene. He asked me for the name of a good accountant that could keep his or her mouth shut. That’s what made me think it might have to do with Marlene. She was the office manager accountant out there. It seems like he would have asked her. But he said he didn’t want to. “ Gary finished and looked at both detectives for directions.
“Mr. Patterson, were there other instances of Mr. Stutz feeling threatened or afraid or anything like that?” Oriole asked as follow up to the incident in Sedona.
“Well, now that you mention it, it seems that there was an incident out at High Desert. We went out there together one Saturday to look at the plants for some work I had to do to make
this office look natural with landscaping and such. I picked him up about nine and we stopped for a Starbuck’s. There was someone in there he was worried about seeing, so I went in and got us coffees. He kept looking in the mirror to see if we were followed. There was a lot of traffic going out Watson Road, so it was hard to tell if there was someone back there. But he was real edgy. I gave him a bad time about it cause I thought it was because of our life decision. Later I knew it wasn’t about that, it was something else.”
“What did you think it was about?” The conversation seemed to be moving toward something, but Fred wasn’t sure what.
“That incident in Sedona and the one at Watson Lake, it seemed like someone was keeping an eye on Marv on his off time. But I don’t know why and I don’t really think he did either. I think if he had known, he would have told me. Not that we shared everything. But we did talk about stuff, ya know.”
“Anything else you can think of, Mr. Patterson?” Oriole was concerned they’d got all they were going to get.
“No. I’ll think about some of the places we went, things we did. If anything comes up, I’ll be sure to let you know. I appreciate your kindness. You treated me with dignity, without judgment. Thank you.”
