Sedona Law 2 Page 6

  I searched for any clues. There was no can of spray paint and no clear indication of what they may have been after. Vicki arrived first, with AJ hot on her heels.

  “Do we have any idea of a motive?” Vicki asked me.

  “Looks like they want me to go home,” I laughed as I gestured to the spray paint.

  “No for real,” Vicki groaned.

  “I think it was just a scare tactic,” I said with a shrug.

  “Omigod!” AJ shouted as she ran inside the broken doors. “This is crazy! Who would do this?”

  Vicki and I were getting used to this sort of thing, but this was the first time AJ had been through it with us. When we were working on Harmony’s case, a car tried to run us off the road and smashed up my parents’ van. I was starting to actually get into the rush.

  “I think we have a pretty good suspect list,” I said.

  The cops arrived, and I was giving them my statement when my phone went off. It was a blocked number, so I declined the call. They called back. Twice. I let Vicki and AJ handle the cops and stepped inside to take the call.

  “Henry Irving,” I answered as I brought the phone to my ear.

  There was heavy breathing on the other side of the line, and I could hear someone typing.

  “Who is this?” I demanded.

  A computer answered and read a message in text-to-speech mode.

  “Let-sleep-ing-dogs-lie-stay-away-from-Cliff-ton’s-death-or-you-will-be-sorry.”

  “Who are you? Are you the asshole that broke into my office?” I interrogated.

  “I-am-no-one-you-know-you-can-call-me-Mac-because-that-is-what-I-am.”

  “Okay, ‘Mac,’ what do you know about Clifton’s death?” I asked as calmly as I could.

  “Never-mind-about-that-you-just-got-your-fam-ily-back-what-if-your-bro-ther-was-caught-with-co-caine?”

  “What are you talking about?” I frowned as my brow furrowed. “My brother doesn’t do drugs.”

  “Phoe-nix’s-film-is-a-bout-drugs-who-would-be-lieve-him-if-he-were-caught?”

  “Are you saying that you want me to back off on a capital crime case, or you will plant highly illegal narcotics in my brother’s possession?” I asked as I clenched the phone tight in my hand.

  “You-are-a-quick-one-no-wonder-you-made-it-through-law-school.”

  Then the phone went dead. I went back to the scene outside, and the cops were gone. Vicki and AJ were cleaning up the mess, and I told them what just happened.

  “Holy cow!” AJ said as she covered her mouth with her hands. “We are definitely on to something.”

  “Do you think ‘Mac’ would really do that?” Vicki asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “I think it’s probably just another scare tactic.”

  I helped Vicki pick up a desk, and then I grabbed a task lamp off the floor and plugged it in to see if the bulb was still good. It was, so I replaced the lamp on the desk it came from. Then I knew what we needed to do.

  “We’ve got to see the festival financial records,” I said as I turned to my team. “The only motive that makes sense is that someone killed Clifton over the Festival money. If there was dirty money coming in and out, we need to be able to trace it.”

  “That’s the only motive that makes sense, assuming Horace is innocent,” Vicki corrected me.

  “As he is our client, we have to assume he is innocent, so we need to explore the alternatives here,” I responded, “and that means figuring out who had their fingers in the film festival’s cookie jar.”

  “How can we get that?” AJ asked. “The festival board isn’t just going to hand it to us. And neither is Brook. Landon may be able to get them. He has a key to Clifton’s house. In fact, he could just go get them.”

  “If Landon stole the books from Brook, if she even has them, anything we found in them wouldn’t be admissible in court anyway,” I explained. I didn’t know what I thought about Landon, and the last thing I wanted to do was involve him. On top of which, the likelihood that the ninety-four year old man with a full-time caregiver had accurate books in his home office was pretty low.

  “Soooooo … then what?” AJ asked as she swept the floor.

  “Brook had the power of attorney,” I mused and leaned against the window sill. “So Landon would have to go through Brook. We need to get Brook to make the festival board give them to us.”

  “How can we get them to do that?” Vicki asked as she began to sort through scattered legal documents and put them back in our filing cabinet.

  I didn’t reply, but I had an idea. I remembered Erin’s play from the night before. I thought it could be a dead end, so I decided to look it up first.

  Without a response, Vicki got on the phone with the window repair contractor.

  I opened my computer and searched online for the case Erin mentioned. It didn’t take long for me to find an online record. It wasn’t the official records, I would have to go to a law library to find that, but I read through the story.

  On July 12, 1918, Frances Maricopa, along with several of his cohorts, filed suit against Yuri Cramer, among others. Cramer and company were accused of stealing unbranded cattle and incorporating them into their herds.

  They bred and sold them, and they made quite a sizable fortune on their exploits. Over the course of a decade, Cramer and a band of miscreants incorporated livestock and sold them to Southwest Cattle in exchange for part ownership of the brand. Southwest Cattle thus became the leading cattle brand in the marketplace, and they made it nearly impossible for smaller businesses to break in.

  Maricopa and his contemporaries, however, stumbled upon the way Southwest Cattle was acquiring its business, and pressed charges against Cramer for theft. Cramer was arrested, and Maricopa also sued Cramer for damages but Southwest Cattle denied any knowledge of Cramer. Maricopa knew this wasn’t true and that Southwest was paying Cramer.

  He knew the real money was in Southwest Cattle, and he also knew the relationship between Southwest and Cramer was the key to both cases. Maricopa petitioned the judge to open both cases at the same time to reveal the link simultaneously. Because of the economic impact the high profile case had to the community, the judge agreed, and the cases were investigated simultaneously. However, contrary to Erin’s report, they were tried separately.

  “A civil suit,” I said aloud.

  “What?” Vicki asked as she turned to me.

  My words came out slowly as I processed through the idea. “If we can get the festival board to sue Horace for damages, they would have to prove it. Then, as the defense, we would have full access to those records.”

  “So we would need to manipulate a civil suit against Horace from the festival board?” Vicki asked as she raised an eyebrow.

  “We would have to get the judge to approve opening up discovery on a civil case before a criminal trial has ended,” I added. “That’s rare, but it’s been done before.”

  “That is rare,” Vicki echoed. “Do you have a precedent?”

  I nodded. “There was a case in Sedona in 1918. I’m sure there are others.”

  “What?” Vicki asked incredulously. “How are you going to bust out something from 1918?”

  I swiveled around my screen, and Vicki read the article.

  “Wait, what?” AJ asked as she walked over to join us. “Break it down for the little people.”

  I laughed. “It’s the same principle as when you get in an at-fault accident. You have to deal with breaking the law, like running the red light or driving recklessly, right?”

  “Right,” AJ replied with a nod.

  “But,” I continued, “the person you hit can also sue you in civil court for damaging their vehicle.”

  “Right,” she repeated.

  “In the same way,” I said, “we can get the festival board to sue Horace for damaging the festival in a wrongful death suit. If they can claim they were financially hurt, they would have to prove it, giving us access to their records.”

&n
bsp; “Yeah,” she drawled slowly as I watched the wheels turn behind her eyes.

  “When we have access to their records,” I went on, “we can prove what we already know: Clifton’s death was some sort of financial cover up.”

  “So what’s this about 1918?” she asked.

  “Well,” I admitted, “normally you can’t investigate both cases at the same time, but there have been cases where it’s been done. We just need to argue that to the judge.”

  Vicki finished reading and sighed. “Well, it’s an idea. You think we can pull it off?”

  The room silenced as the next move fell clearly to me as the brains of the operation.

  “The key,” I said as I thought aloud, “would be getting the festival board to file.”

  “And why would they do that?” Vicki asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Same reason whoever killed Clifton did it. Greed,” I said. “Anyone desperate enough to kill a nonagenarian for money is desperate enough to sue Horace for wrongful death.”

  The office was mainly back together now except for the broken window and the paint.

  “We need to talk to Horace,” I announced as I shut the computer.

  This was going to take some convincing because it left him doubly exposed. He could go to jail and lose his financial life. AJ volunteered to stay back to tackle the office repairs. This freed Vicki and me to go meet with Horace and convince him to let us pursue this strategy.

  We drove out to meet Horace, and the festival preparations were in full swing. The main drag through downtown was blocked off because they had crews hanging a banner from the streetlights.

  Traffic was at a standstill as we were rerouted. We ended up half way behind a truck bed carrying bicycles.

  “There’s going to be a bike ride event,” Vicki informed me. “I think there are prizes.”

  “I want to do that,” I told her. “Let’s make time for that.”

  She smiled and took my hand. “Absolutely,” she said.

  We finally arrived at Horace’s house, the alleged scene of the crime. The crime scene tape had been removed from the yard, and the remnants of the sale were taken inside. Horace lived in the same cookie cutter neighborhood as Clifton, Irwin, and Jarvis, which made sense considering they were all connected by a fateful yard sale. Horace answered the door holding a tissue to his mouth.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I’ve been having breathing problems,” he said with a cough that ended in a wheeze.

  Then he collapsed onto a couch and motioned for us to follow as he hacked up a lung. Once we were all settled in and the coughing died down, he finished his thought.

  “It’s all this stress,” he said, “and the chakras and the meridians.”

  “The what?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “The chakras,” he repeated. “You know Dr. Servali right?”

  I shook my head.

  “She’s a holistic doctor, and she’s the best,” he said. “I’ve used her for years ‘cause these doctors don’t know nothing. She taught me all about the chakras. It’s an ancient Chinese practice. You see, all health problems come from an imbalance in your chakras. When we have negative emotions, our bodies build up energy and toxins and store it inside of us. When people don’t deal with their negative toxins and all, then they build and fester, and grow until it shows up as a health problem and they end up sick. Every part of the body has a chakra root associated with it. Respiratory problems come from anxiety and stress is what Dr. Servali says. She came over and helped me clear my blockage and gave me some herbal teas I’m supposed to drink. But, it’s this legal stuff that’s causing these problems. If I get to the bottom of all that, this sickness will go away.”

  I cleared my throat. “Horace, you don’t really believe all of that holistic medicine theory, do you?”

  He turned and looked at me gravely. “Of course I do,” he said.

  But his movement caused him to go into another coughing fit.

  “It’s ancient Chinese medicine,” he wheezed. “They know better than we do. They’ve been doing it for thousands of years.”

  I shrugged. To each his own, I guessed.

  “Now,” Horace continued. “What are we doing to get this legal mess over with?”

  “That we can talk about,” I said as I straightened up.

  I filled Horace in on everything that had happened so far. I told him about Brook and Shawn, and Irwin and Jarvis, and Reba.

  “In order to get the financial records for the festival,” I began slowly, “we need the festival to file a civil suit against you.”

  “What?” he asked as his eyes widened in shock.

  “Well,” I said, “the festival is going to lose a lot of money over Clifton’s death.”

  “But I didn’t have anything to do with that,” he said.

  “We know,” I reassured him, “but to find the culprit, we need to audit their finances. In order to audit their finances, we need to be able to subpoena them. In order to subpoena them, there has to be valid reason, not just suspicion. So we are going to create a valid reason. The valid reason would be we are defending you in a second suit, which would require us to look at their finances.”

  “I dunno about all of this,” he said as he rubbed at his forehead and coughed into a tissue. “Another lawsuit? I got enough problems as it is.”

  Vicki jumped in. She was always good at softening things up when I was too blunt.

  “Horace,” she said softly. “I know this is difficult. But we are going to be here every step of the way for you. And, you know, Clifton may not have been your friend, but you didn’t want him to go the way he did. So, by going along with this plan, you are helping us find the real killer.”

  Horace was quiet for a few minutes as he contemplated the idea. He eyed both of us searchingly.

  “I don’t got no fancy law degree,” he said. “So, I don’t know anything about these things. But I saw how you got your sister off when everybody else turned against her. I can trust you’re doing the right thing by me, right?”

  Vicki nodded. “We are. And we’re going to get you out of all of this. We promise.”

  Horace sighed. “Okay, I’m in.”

  “You’re making the right decision,” Vicki said with a smile.

  I had an uneasy feeling in my gut. Vicki just promised Horace the world, but I wasn’t totally sure he was innocent. If he wasn’t, the civil suit could make it ten times worse for all of us. Then again, if he was found guilty, they would sue him on the civil side anyway.

  “Just one catch, Horace,” I said with as serious a tone as I could manage. “If you want me to do this I need you to act in my play.” We stared at each other in unblinking silence for several seconds.

  “Now you’re fucking with me,” he chuckled, and then immediately began to cough.

  “You got me,” I said innocently as I grinned, and Horace responded by chuckling again and slapped me on the back as he walked Vicki and me to our car.

  When we arrived back at the office, AJ had bought paint supplies and was getting ready to start in on the wall. We filled her in on what happened with Horace.

  “How are we going to get the festival board to file the civil suit?” she asked.

  “That’s the million dollar question,” I said as I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “One I haven’t figured out.”

  “Talking about unanswered questions, your mom keeps texting me about dinner tonight,” Vicki said.

  I groaned. “You know how I feel about that.”

  “Well, I already told her we were coming,” she said.

  I groaned again. “Vicki, seriously? Now you’re conspiring against me with my mother.”

  “Am not! Besides, they’re your family, and they love you,” she said.

  “They did, until I went to law school,” I muttered.

  “They still do,” she corrected, “and if you don’t mend fences with them, you will always have a gaping h
ole in your heart.”

  “What? I don’t have a gaping hole in my heart,” I said with a frown.

  Vicki made a face and turned away.

  “AJ,” I said as I turned to my younger paralegal. “Do I have a gaping hole in my heart?”

  She shrugged. “Leave me out of this.”

  “Fine.” I sighed again. “Well then, guys, let’s take the rest of the afternoon off.”

  I heard no complaints on that one. Besides, apparently I had a dinner with my family to go to tonight.

  Chapter 6

  Vicki and I went back to our cottage, and I tried to get a nap in before the dinner party. It had been an exhausting day with the stress of starting way too early with the break-in. I laid down and fell into a dream.

  I was running down Sunset Boulevard in a towel, trying to find something. I didn’t know what, but it was important. I ran down an alley with cobblestone streets, like it was Paris in the Jason Bourne movies. Abraham Lincoln was there, sitting at an outdoor cafe, drinking herbal tea and telling me the chakras were killing him. He carried Clifton Melbourne’s suitcase with him, and I asked him who killed Clifton.

  “It wasn’t John Wilkes Boothe,” he said.

  “Who killed you?” I asked.

  “The government,” he replied.

  Then he laughed and turned into Guy Fawkes. Suddenly, I was in a courtroom in Los Angeles, and my mother was in the judge’s booth. She was in her twenties and dressed from her wedding photos. She wore a simple, long flowing white dress, and she had a floral headband like a sixties flower child.

  I was the defendant, and she looked at me, and said with the finality of a judge’s verdict, “You never come home.” Then she pounded the gavel, and AJ and Vicki were escorted out of the courtroom by police officers who had no face. Vicki was fighting the officer the whole way out the door and was screaming my name. I tried to run toward her, but I looked down and I was shackled in an orange prison jumpsuit.