Sedona Law 2 Page 4

  “No, please, go ahead, I understand,” she said with another nod. “Your job is to make sure justice is served, and I’m all for that.”

  I smiled weakly because I knew where my line of questioning was headed, and also because I knew she shouldn’t be talking to me voluntarily without her lawyer present.

  “I know you did this out of loyalty,” I said, “but the bills still have to be paid, and your personal needs still have to be taken care of. Did you receive any income from him?”

  She shifted awkwardly in her seat. “He had a military pension and some retirement accounts. I used that to make sure all financial matters were attended to. He took $1 a year from the festival because he believed…” She choked up again and started over. “He believed it should be about art, not money.”

  “What about you? Did you take a salary?” I asked.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I just … took care of things.”

  “So, you paid the electric bill and bought groceries out of these accounts,” I began.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “But what about if you needed gas for your car out there,” I went on, “or a new pair of shoes, or a night out on the town? If you did this full time, where did the money for those come from?”

  “I told you I took care of things,” she responded defensively, and her mouth twisted into a frown. “Clifton was generous, and that’s what he wanted.”

  “I see,” I said.

  She stood.

  “E-excuse me, I need a minute,” she stuttered and left the room.

  Landon shot me an angry look. “Dude, seriously,” he said. “This isn’t A Few Good Men.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry,” I replied with my best faux sincerity.

  I wasn’t being hard on her, I was just asking honest questions and it upset her, but I also had to be aware of Landon’s feelings because this meeting wouldn’t be possible without a deposition if it wasn’t for him.

  Brook came back in, and then she motioned around the room.

  “You’re asking about money.” Her voice was hoarse and weak. “The worst part of it all is that because of his death I will lose all of this.”

  “Did he not name you in his will?” I asked.

  “He did, but … ” she trailed off and then took a deep breath. “By the time he died, he was going bankrupt. Now, the bank will seize all his assets, including the rights for the film festival. The festival will fall to the city council. If the festival falls to the city council, they will restructure the grant. It will reduce the film festival to a fraction of what it should be, so they can focus on other city arts projects. I know those people. You know what city arts projects it will focus on? Lining the council members’ pockets, like that snooty Reba McQuaid.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Reba McQuaid,” she repeated. “She’s head of the city council arts committee. If the grant is restructured, she’ll take a massive cut of it. It’s all in the budget.”

  I jotted down the name. I hadn't heard of her, but it appeared she had a vested interest in the death. I also made a note to find out about all the city council and art league members.

  Brook bleakly stared off into the distance before she continued. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe it. It’s one of those times when you wish life was like an Internet browser, and there was a ‘back’ button you could push to go back to the way things were.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?” I asked.

  She searched the ceiling for the memory. “The night before. It was a Thursday. That’s the thing, there was nothing out of the ordinary. My boyfriend Shawn has been living with us for a while. So, I made dinner for all of us. We ate, and then we watched his favorite show, Yard Hunters. I remembered the new episode came on and he was so excited because--”

  Brook shook her head out of her rabbit trail and got back on track with her story. “Well, anyway, then I helped him bathe and get dressed for bed. Shawn and I stayed up a little later, and we had a few drinks out on the porch. Then we went to bed, too. In the morning, Shawn and I needed to run some errands. He had a doctor’s appointment early, so Clifton was still asleep when we left.”

  “Did you see him that morning?” I asked.

  “Well … no,” she admitted. “His door was still closed, and he didn’t usually wake up until around ten in the morning anyway. I left his breakfast out for him, and then we left. We ended up not coming home until the afternoon. And, when we didn’t see him right away, I worried he had wandered off again. He’s done that a few times. So, Shawn and I started looking for him. Shawn drove around the block, and I called neighbors to see if anyone had seen him. That’s when I got the call about…the … ”

  She sobbed uncontrollably, and Landon tried to console her. He looked like he was ready to kill someone.

  “I don’t understand why he would do this,” she said.

  “Horace, you mean?” I clarified.

  “Yeah.” She nodded as she wiped at her eyes. “Those two have been at odds for years, and that’s one thing. But, a man’s life? Really? A man’s life? And to go in such a way…”

  She cried more.

  “It’s okay, Brook,” Landon said, his teeth clenched. “That’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to get this asshole behind bars so he never does anything like this again.”

  “It still won’t make it better,” she sniffled. “How does ending one man’s life for another help anything? It won’t bring Clifton back, and it doesn’t make him any less … gone.”

  Her facial muscles contracted into the spasms of soul deep and gut wrenching anguish. Landon pulled up a chair next to her and comforted her.

  I motioned to Landon that I was going to have a look around, and he absentmindedly nodded. The first floor was a living, kitchen, and dining area. I took the wooden staircase to the second floor. There were two bedrooms up there and a tiny bathroom. The floor creaked with every step, and I found a few disconcerting soft spots in the hall.

  One of the bedrooms was open, with both men’s and women’s clothes strewn everywhere. I guessed this was Shawn and Brook’s room. The other had a closed wooden door.

  I opened it to find an immaculately clean bedroom. An adjustable queen-sized bed was neatly made with a pea-green comforter, and the bedside table sported multiple prescription bottles.

  I looked in the closet and everything seemed together. Clothes neatly hung on racks, everything organized and neat.

  “He was a military man. He liked everything just so,” a man said from behind me.

  I turned around. “You must be Shawn,” I said.

  He nodded. Shawn appeared about five or so years younger than Brook. He was stocky, looking like he had at one time been muscular, but was currently out of shape.

  His head was shaved, and he was dressed in diamond studded jeans and an untucked gray button down shirt with the top two buttons undone. The entire left side of the shirt was emblazoned with an oversized iron cross, not as a religious symbol, but as the logo of an edgy lifestyle brand that had once been popular with the Gen X crowd.

  “I gotta tell you,” he said as he shook his head and stared off toward the window. “This has been so hard on Brook. I want to--”

  Anger flushed his face, and his eyes darkened.

  “I want to kill that guy,” he spat, and then he followed up with a string of meaty, man-sized curse words.

  “Well, we’re not sure he did it,” I clarified.

  “Oh, he did it,” Shawn insisted. “He damn well did it. And he’s going to pay.”

  At this point, we heard stifled arguing coming from downstairs. Shawn and I went to check it out. Landon and Brook were standing against the kitchen wall in each other’s faces, trying to curb their yelling.

  “I told you not to bring them here,” she was telling him in tight, urgent words.

  “What was I supposed to do? It just--” Landon’s words were cold and hard.

&
nbsp; “Oh, it ’just happened.’ That’s bullshit, Landon. I don’t need this stress.”

  “You know what?” He threw his arms out in resignation. “I’m done. Next time you need someone to clean up your messes--“

  Shawn knocked on the doorframe to get their attention. “Everything alright in here?” he asked.

  They turned away from each other, but avoided looking at us. I caught Landon’s eye, but he quickly looked away.

  Brook rubbed her neck. “Yeah, yeah. We’re good, Shawn. Just ironing out some wrinkles.”

  Landon regained his poise and smiled. “Old family drama. Nothing to worry about.”

  Then Brook grabbed a pack of cigarettes sitting on the counter. “I need a smoke,” she said. “You guys can see yourselves out.” She exited the back door of the kitchen.

  I eyed Landon, who shook his head and held up a palm in a gesture clearly meaning, “don’t ask.”

  I let it go, at least for the time being anyway.

  We walked out the door and both got into my car. Neither of us said anything for a few moments, but something was bothering me about the conversation. Well, lots of things were bothering me about the conversation, so I pulled out my phone and searched for the show Yard Hunters.

  New episodes aired on Tuesdays.

  Clifton died on a Thursday.

  Chapter 4

  We arrived back at the office, and AJ and Vicki were gathered around the paralegal’s desk.

  “I’ve never had that happen,” AJ said excitedly. “It’s every blogger’s dream. What do you do with that?”

  “What’s going on?” I asked as we walked in.

  “AJ’s blog has gone viral,” Vicki told me.

  “Nice,” I said with an impressed nod.

  “It’s the first post about the Harmony case,” AJ said with a broad grin.

  We originally met AJ when her local crime blog, AJ’s Corner, had been the only ray of hope in my sister Harmony’s murder case. AJ joined up with Vicki and I after that, and she always said she was going to write a book about the case.

  “So, you’re finally going to write that book?” I asked.

  “Well,” she started, “I was going to do a test market online and see where it went. You know, like in Sherlock, when Watson blogs about their cases after they solved them? Of course, I would never write about the actual cases, just inspired by, which makes it even more fun.”

  “Sherlock? Two words--” Vicki said.

  The two women looked at each other and said in unison, “Benedict Cumberbatch.”

  Landon and I laughed, and he swiveled her screen around.

  “This theme sucks,” he said.

  “What do you mean? It’s only a blog template,” AJ told him with a furrowed brow.

  “I know, that’s the problem,” he said as he wrinkled his nose. “I hate it. Ugh, I hate it. I hate this font, what is this?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It’s just what came with it.”

  “It’s terrible,” he said, “and this header--”

  “Leave my blog alone,” she whined as she took back her screen.

  He smiled. “It’s not your blog, it’s the shitty design template. It’s a designer who didn’t know what they were doing.”

  I smirked. Graphic design snobs were a generational staple. I decided to mess with Landon and one of his well known pet peeves.

  “So, Vicki,” I drawled as I surreptitiously winked at her, “I was thinking about our new Word template. We should do everything in Comic Sans.”

  Vicki caught on. “Yeah, I love Comic Sans. It’s my favorite font.”

  Landon fell into silence and looked like he wanted to kill us. “Blasphemy,” he said. “You guys are blasphemous on a whole new level.”

  Vicki, AJ, and I died laughing and he shook his head.

  ”Comic Sans is never an acceptable font, unless you are an eight year old girl writing poems about unicorns,” he grumbled. “You guys don’t deserve Fawkes. I’m outta here.”

  We all continued to laugh as he grabbed his mug and headed out the door mumbling about Comic Sans. After Landon left, we got down to business.

  “So first day on the case, where are we?” I asked.

  AJ put on her serious face. “So, I spent the morning at the county clerk’s office. I’ve gotten some of it filed, but I’ll have to go back when they re-open this afternoon.”

  “Great. And what about the autopsy report?” I asked.

  “That’s the thing,” Vicki said. “I went to the coroner’s. They haven’t done an autopsy.”

  “What?” I asked as I blinked in surprise.

  “Apparently Brook won’t let them,” she replied.

  “Well she can’t do that.” I frowned. “Where are we on Irwin and Jarvis?”

  “I have an interview with them today,” Vicki said.

  I nodded. “I’ll go with you. What do we know about them?”

  AJ piped up. “I looked up their Facebook profiles. They are into antiques, and one of them works as a decorator for Ethan Allen.”

  “Well,” I sighed, “that’s a start.”

  Vicki and I left AJ to finish the paperwork on the case, and we drove to the address Vicki had. It was another small brown clapboard house just a few streets down from Clifton’s. I knocked on the door, and Irwin answered. We could hear Jarvis in the background.

  “Tell them they can’t come in the house,” he yelled.

  “He says you can’t come in the house,” Irwin related matter-of-factly.

  “They can’t come in the house,” Jarvis shouted again.

  “I already told them that!” Irwin hollered back.

  Vicki and I looked at each other.

  Then we heard more yelling from inside. “I have nothing to say. Tell them no comment.”

  Irwin smiled uncomfortably. “You’ll have to forgive my partner. He’s just a little … high maintenance.”

  “What did you say?” came the answer from deep in the house.

  Irwin yelled back inside, “I said you’re high maintenance!”

  Jarvis gave a wordy response that, while incoherent to us, was clearly not to the tune of “I’m sorry.”

  Then Irwin laughed and stepped fully outside to meet us. “Let’s talk out here.”

  He motioned for us to sit. The patio looked like something extra from the Ethan Allen catalog. The whole porch was covered by garden netting. We walked through the zippered entrance to an off-white padded sectional, with wrought iron legs curling in shapes underneath. The sectional surrounded a matching wood finished coffee table. Rare and exquisite flowers filled the entire area, with the crowning piece being a sprawling zen garden in the corner. We settled in, and Irwin crossed his legs and looked us in the eyes.

  “Now, tell me, what can I do for you?” he said.

  “We’re investigating the murder of Clifton Melbourne,” Vicki started.

  He nodded. “We’ve established that. Go on.”

  She continued. “We understand you were the one that found the body.”

  He nodded again. “Correct.” But then he made no attempt to fill in the pregnant silence that followed.

  Vicki jumped in. “What can you tell us about that day?”

  “Well, everything I have to say I already told to the police. But, I will repeat it if you would like,” he said.

  Vicki nodded. “If you could. We often find people remember more details after the fact.”

  “There is nothing wrong with my memory, honey,” he replied.

  “Well, I’m not saying there is, it’s just, sometimes—”

  I rescued her. “We have a client charged with second degree manslaughter. We need to know everything possible about that day. Since you were an eyewitness, you can either cooperate, or we will subpoena you, and you will be forced to cooperate or face jail time.”

  “Well, since you said ‘please,’” Irwin scoffed as he rolled his eyes.

  “I said nothing of the sort,” I retorted a
s I stared him down. “A man’s life is at stake here. You can cooperate now or from behind bars.”

  “Okay, so Jarvis and I were out bargain hunting,” Irwin admitted as he wilted a bit.

  Vicki mouthed, “Thank you,” to me, and I winked at her. Then Jarvis’ voice suddenly came yelling through the window.

  “We are collectors!” he corrected Irwin. “Tell it right!”

  “I am telling this story,” Irwin shouted back through the window. “If you want to say something, why don’t you just come out here?”

  Irwin waited a beat and Jarvis didn’t respond, so he continued. “So much drama with that one. Anyway, we love to go to antique shops, but we have a hobby of going to yard sales for pieces. Most of the time it’s only junk, but once in awhile you will find someone who has no clue what they had.”

  “I love shopping,” Vicki said. “Please go on.”

  “So, on Saturday morning, we woke up early and scanned our app to find the morning yard sales. We went to three or four of them before we found Horace’s. We pulled up to the sale, and I saw the suitcase sitting on the side. I could tell it was clearly antique. It looked like an original Louis Vuitton from the 1940’s. French made. It’s worth thousands. I asked the owner how much he wanted for the case. He seemed overwhelmed and didn’t care so I told Jarvis to give him a $10 bill and call it even. While Jarvis was handing him the money, I loaded the case into the car. Once we got it loaded, it popped open, and the dead body fell out. Of course I immediately--”

  “Wait,” I said. “You didn’t discover the body until the case was in the car?”

  “Right,” he answered, “it popped open while I was loading it.”

  “But,” I continued with a frown, “you told the police you opened it when it was still in the yard, and that was when you noticed the body.”

  “That’s what I said. I opened it in the yard.” Irwin scowled. “Who would buy a suitcase without opening it first? Do you think I’m an idiot? Do I have the word ‘idiot’ scrawled across my forehead? I don’t think so.”

  Jarvis suddenly popped out the front door. “He’s not an idiot. He said we found the body while still in the yard. We would never buy a suitcase without checking the inside. You never know. There could be something like a dead body inside. Ewww.”