Sedona Law 5

by Dave Daren

  “Hey there,” a voice came from the darkness. Then the figure came into the full light.

  “Jesus, Horace,” I grumbled. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

  “Sorry about that, I didn’t expect anyone to be in here either,” he chuckled. “Henry, AJ, what are you guys doing here?”

  “We just wanted to take some photos,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  Horace shrugged. “Jerry’s assistant said I could have any props and costumes for my theatre. So, I just thought I’d stop by and see what was worth taking. What’s to take photos of?”

  “We don’t think The Count killed Jerry,” AJ blurted. “There’s not enough evidence, and you of all people know how quick the police are on these things.”

  Horace snorted. “I do know that. I don’t think he killed Jerry, either. Alfred’s kind of a wussy man, and I know every man’s got his breaking point, but I just don’t think he has it in him.”

  “What do you think happened?” AJ asked.

  “Who knows?” Horace shrugged. “Jerry had lots of enemies. It could have been anybody.

  “Really?” I said. “Like who?”

  “Oh,” he hummed and shook his head. “Nobody liked him. If you stood out on the street, and threw a rock, you’d probably hit somebody who hated Jerry Steele.”

  “Specifically who?” I pressed.

  “Well,” he mused as he scratched his head. “Let’s see … like, Jake, or Billy, or Alton, or Mikhail, or his kid Makayla, or Smokey, or Jeff, or Crazy Eyed Bob, or the other Bob or--”

  “Wait, wait,” I interrupted. “Slow down. Who are all these people?”

  “He used to be a newspaper reporter,” Horace said.

  “I knew that,” I replied.

  “And he did one of those ex-po-say thingies one day about this construction company,” he continued. “He made them sound real, real bad, and it caused the whole company to shut down, and all kinda people lost their jobs.”

  “Well, that would upset some people,” I said.

  “Yup,” Horace said. “And so now none of those guys, and none of the guys who know those guys, like him, and they all got bad, bad beef with him. ‘Specially the owners. They like to go to the bar and talk shit about Jerry Steele all night long.”

  “So, what was the name of this construction company?” I asked.

  “Uh,” he squinted his eyes as he searched his memory, “Wright Way Construction, owned by Peter and Paul Wright. I don’t know how to get in touch with them, being as they went bankrupt and all, but you might be able to find them on the Internet or something, or they’re always at the bar. You could chance it that you run into them.”

  I knew which bar he was talking about. Slingers. It was a cowboy saloon, complete with spurs and bar wenches. My casework had taken me there a few times, and I was sure I would have to patronize it again.

  “Okay,” I said, and I noticed AJ scrawling away. “That’s a good start. Anyone else you know of we should talk to?”

  “Yup.” He placed his hands on his hips and again searched his memory. “You might want to get in touch with Clare Clearmont, too. She might know something.”

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “That’s his ex-wife,” he replied. “He had a baby with her a few years back. Well, I say baby, he’s probably coming up on middle school now. Gee, they grow up fast.”

  “Do you know how to get in touch with her?” I asked.

  “I know she does yoga at that new snooty shop downtown,” he answered. “That’s all I know.”

  “LotusWorx?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that’s it!” Horace said with a snap of his fingers. “That’s where all the rich snobby ladies go to buy their booty shorts for the gym.”

  I smirked as it occurred to me all the women in my family apparently qualified under Horace’s definition of rich and snobby, though my mom and sister were far from rich.

  “Then,” Horace went on, “there’s a few others you might want to talk to. Here, let me write it down.”

  AJ handed him a piece of paper, and he wrote down a list of about twenty names and narrated each one.

  “You talk to all these people,” he told me, “and I guarantee you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

  I looked over the list and was sure he was right.

  “This really is half of Sedona,” I remarked and raised my eyebrows.

  “I told you,” he chuckled. “Throw a rock.”

  “Thanks,” I said again.

  “You bet,” he replied with a smile and a wink. “Anything for you, Henry.”

  “Come to think of it, Horace,” I mused and furrowed my brow, “how did you get in here?”

  “Oh,” he glanced at me quizzically, “the side door.”

  “The side door?” I echoed.

  “Yeah,” he said and gestured over his shoulder. “There’s a side door over there, and it has one of those keypads that opens it.”

  “So, you have a keypad code?” I asked.

  “No,” he looked at me in confusion, “I used Jerry’s code. Everyone has that code. It’s his license plate.”

  AJ and I glanced at each other, and I cleared my throat.

  “Where is the door again?” AJ asked Horace.

  “This one right here,” he said.

  He took us down a hall and toward a side door. Then he opened it and showed us the keypad on the other side.

  “See?” he said. “It’s TGF 146. You just enter it right in there. I can’t believe you didn’t know that. I thought everybody in the whole town knew that.”

  “Well,” I said, “I guess we do now. Thank you for showing us.”

  “Anytime,” he replied. “Well, I got to get back to my stuff.”

  “Good luck, Horace,” I said as I clapped him on the shoulder.

  He smiled. “Good luck to you, too.”

  Then he disappeared into the building, and AJ and I looked at each other.

  “Well,” I said, “we’ve definitely got our work cut out for us.”

  “That’s good,” she chuckled dryly, “because we have, like, no time.”

  Chapter 5

  Tuesday morning, Vicki, AJ, and I were in the conference room, surrounded by the breakfast of champions--donuts and coffee.

  “Sugar,” Vicki remarked. “Great way to start the morning.”

  “We’re going to need it this week,” I said. “We’ll have a company wide gym week once this is over. But, now, we need the sugar rush.”

  AJ stood at the whiteboard with a donut in her hand.

  “So,” she said, “based on Horace’s list, this is what I’ve compiled.”

  She gestured toward columns and boxes she had drawn up.

  “There are three categories of people,” she continued. “We have personal, we have business associates, and we have news casualties.”

  Vicki and I laughed at the last category.

  “I didn’t know what else to call it,” AJ giggled. “So, under each of these categories, we have four to five contacts. Now, here’s the thing. I have found full or partial contact information on all of these people and entered it into our contact list, which is of course, synced to all of our phones.”

  I smiled and nodded. “This is good. This is really good. How did you find all of this?”

  She shrugged. “Following Facebook leads, and a lot of these people either I know, or I know people who know them. So, it was just a lot of phone calls.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Have you contacted any of them?”

  “No,” she shook her head, “that’s our next step. We need to set appointments with all of these people.”

  “I don’t know if we have time for appointments,” I said. “We might just have to do this ambush style.”

  “Ugh,” Vicki groaned. “I do not look forward to being ‘that’ person.”

  “I guess it’s fitting,” I chuckled, “considering Jerry lived that way.”

  “So, where should we star
t?” Vicki asked.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s split it up between all of us. Let’s take one category, and see if we can track these people down.”

  “I’ll take news casualties,” Vicki replied.

  “Are you sure?” I asked and cocked my eyebrow at her. “Those guys might be aggressive.”

  “I’m a sweet little Asian woman,” she laughed. “You think a bunch of good ol’ boys who work construction are going to give me any lip?”

  I snorted. “You’re not that sweet.”

  “I know that,” she said and flipped her hair. “But I’m a damn good actress.”

  “Geez,” I muttered. “I was afraid women secretly think that way.”

  “We do,” AJ and Vicki said in unison.

  “Alright,” I shook my head, “I’ll take personal. I’ll go wrangle with the ex-wife and whatnot. AJ, you okay with contacting Jerry’s business enemies?”

  “I can do that,” she agreed with a nod.

  “Good,” I said. “Then let’s get on the phone.”

  The three of us pulled out our phones and our newly loaded contacts and started making calls. As it turns out, locating Clare Clearmont wasn’t hard at all. She picked up on the first ring.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “I’m looking for Clare Clearmont,” I said.

  “Speaking,” she replied.

  “Hi, Clare,” I greeted amicably. “My name is Henry Irving, I’m an attorney with Sedona Legal. We are working with SPD on the investigation regarding Jerry Steele.”

  “Oh, yes,” she answered, and her voice was soft and low at the mention of his name.

  “I would love to meet with you,” I said, “if there’s anything you might know that might help us.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “What do you want to know?”

  “Would you be available to meet with me today?” I asked.

  “Today?” she repeated dubiously.

  “I know it’s short notice,” I said, “but we’re trying to kick up dirt while the trail’s still hot. I know you and your son are probably really looking for some answers, and we want to get those to you as soon as we can.”

  “Of course, of course,” she said. “If you would like, you can come to the house. I’ll be home this afternoon.”

  “Perfect,” I replied.

  She gave me the address and we set a time.

  “Thank you, Clare,” I said. “I’ll see you later on today.”

  We said our goodbyes and ended the call. Then I got online and started researching her. Her real name couldn’t possibly be Clare Clearmont. Clare meant “clear” in French, and “mont” meant “mountain.” So, her name was “clear clear mountain?” No one named their kid that. It had to be a fake name. This was red flag number one.

  According to her Facebook profile, she worked for the hospital as a music therapist, where she played guitar and sang. I watched a video of her singing to a group of Down Syndrome patients. It was a simple guitar song about the steps to brushing teeth. Honestly, it was delightful.

  Clare also belonged to a handful of music therapist associations and she even wrote an article for a music therapist’s blog. I read the blog post, a decently written piece about how learning to play an instrument can help a child through their parents’ divorce.

  Based on her other Facebook information, her child was a ten year old named Thad, who did sketches and entered in art competitions. Of course he would be artistic. His mother was a musician, and his father was a filmmaker.

  I spent the rest of the morning preparing questions for this woman. Based on what I saw, and the short phone conversation I had with her, I doubted she could be the killer. She seemed more like a nice lady who got screwed over by Jerry Steele.

  I met Clare later that afternoon at her home. She lived in a modest one story wooden brown house, surrounded by a chain link fence. I parked and entered through the gate toward what looked like it had once been an ample flower garden. Now, they just looked like brown weeds. A child’s blue bike lay in the grass, and an older model silver Land Rover sat in the driveway. I took the concrete steps up to a wooden front door, and Clare answered promptly.

  “Hi,” I said with an easy smile, “Henry Irving.”

  “I’m Clare,” she replied, “come in.”

  I recognized her instantly from her Facebook photos. In her mid-thirties, she was a tall, slender blonde woman in maroon floral pattern nursing scrubs. She had her hair piled on top of her head in a quick fix, and her manner was harried and stressed.

  “Sorry about the mess,” she apologized as her eyes roved over her home.

  The living room was dimly lit, with brown leather couches and clutter strewn everywhere. I could see why a marriage between her and Jerry might be a very practical problem.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked as she motioned for me to come into the kitchen.

  “Coffee would be great,” I answered.

  I looked around the room, and noticed photos on the fireplace mantle. Clare and Jerry posed with Thad, who held a painting a first place ribbon. But the subtle body language cues in the photo spoke volumes. Clare on one side, Thad in the middle, and Jerry on the other, with a large space in between.

  She served me a steaming mug, and we both sat at the table.

  “How are you holding up?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know,” she said and didn’t finish her sentence. She just stared into her mug.

  “How long had you and Jerry been divorced?” I inquired.

  The question was too personal in any other context, and I felt invasive even asking it now. But, given the investigation we were doing, it was relevant.

  “Jerry and I split up, oh … ” Her eyes searched the wall as she tried to remember. “The first time, I want to say Thad was … three, I believe.”

  “And how old is he now?” I asked.

  “He’s ten,” she replied.

  “And when was the last time?” I asked.

  “We finally made it official two years ago,” she sighed, “but we hadn’t been living together for a good three years before that.”

  “So,” I began, “it’s been five years since you were actually together.”

  “Correct,” she said, “and even before then, we were on and off. He was a hard man to love, and a hard man not to love at the same time, if you can imagine that.”

  “I barely knew him,” I admitted, “but from what little I know, I can imagine it would be a difficult relationship.”

  “Oh, that’s putting it lightly, let me tell you,” she chuckled as she sipped her coffee.

  “Tell me about it,” I urged gently.

  This part wasn’t particularly relevant to the murder. But the past often held important clues to the present. I’d also found once witnesses start talking, they can warm up to me and say all sorts of things they didn’t intend to say.

  “Oh, Jerry,” she shook her head, “he was a live one. You wouldn’t know it from how he is, or was … ”

  A shadow passed across her face as she remembered to change tenses.

  “But,” she went on, “he could be a real charmer. We met in college at UC Berkeley. He was a film student, and I was studying music. What I remember most about him is that he was so passionate. I was political at the time, and so was he. And we would protest together, and it was just magic between us. And the chemistry between us was electric. In those days, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”

  I raised an eyebrow as I thought about someone feeling that way about the Jerry Steele I had met.

  “So, we got married right after graduation,” she continued as her eyes went hazy with memories, “and then he got offered a job with Starbright at a station in Phoenix. That was when things changed between us. It was like … Berkeley held us together. Once we were in Phoenix, we both became different people. He was working long hours at the station, and I was trying to write music and play in bars, and it just wasn’t working between us. Then I got
pregnant. It was a surprise, but I thought it would bring us back together. It didn’t. Once Thad was born, it was almost like it was the nail in the coffin of our marriage. I was at home with the baby, he was out chasing stories, and we were living separate lives.”

  “How did you get to Sedona?” I asked.

  She laughed. “That’s a good question, with a complicated answer. Let me see if I can simplify it. Basically, Jerry was being … well … Jerry, and he lost his job at Starbright. It had to do with him getting them sued for libel. So, he hit bottom for a while, worked as a high school janitor even. And we were fighting like cats and dogs. I mean, it was … god … it was awful. We threw dishes at each other … ”

  “Whoa,” I said and raised my eyebrows.

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “It was bad. That’s the thing with Jerry, he’s passionate. So, it’s either really good, or really bad. There’s no in between.”

  “Did he ever hurt you or Thad?” I asked.

  “Oh, God no,” she said and vehemently shook her head. “No, he was never like that. He was just everything else.”

  “What was all the fighting about?” I asked.

  “A lot of things,” she confessed. “I felt like we were growing apart, and I was trying to fix it. All the while, I was giving up my music for our child, and I felt like he wasn’t even interested in our boy. Which, looking back wasn’t true. Jerry loved Thad, he just didn’t know how to show it. And then for a while, it was about money. So, eventually, I got him to beg for his job back at the station. They wouldn’t give it to him, but they told him the only opening they had was at a news site in Sedona.”

  “The Herald,” I supplied.

  “Yes,” she said with a nod. “So, we packed up and moved out here, and he worked for The Herald for a long time. But, by the time we got out here, I was just so done with the marriage. I felt like I’d made him move out here, though, so I had to stay with him. We lasted about a year together here, before he moved out.”

  “Was there a specific inciting reason for the separation at that time?” I asked.

  “He was seeing another woman,” she told me with a frown. “And you know what? The truth was, I didn’t care. And that scared me. So, we split up, and I got the job at the hospital, and he moved into the house he has now.”