Clawback (12 page)

“Just so you know,” Edie said, having the last word. “Once I find Bobby Larson, if he ever pulls a stunt like this again, I'll kill him myself!”

Cami Lee's name appeared on the screen, and Ali switched over to the other call. “What do you have for me?” Ali asked. “Have you found him?”

“I'm not sure,” Cami replied tentatively. “I've got a lock on his cell phone. Right this moment it appears to be somewhere inside the headquarters for the Sedona Police Department.”

Ali's heart skipped a beat. There had been a double homicide in town. If her father's phone had been located somewhere inside the police department, did that mean her father was there, too?

“At Sedona PD?” Ali asked. “Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.”

“Have you heard anything about a reported double homicide in Sedona?”

“I haven't,” Cami said. “There might be something on Stu's police scanner, but he's been busy, and so have I. Do you want me to go check?”

“First tell me about Dad's Bronco. It's possible he may have been in an accident of some kind.”

“I've located no information on his vehicle,” Cami continued. “And there have been no reported MVAs involving a Bronco. I remember Mr. Simpson saying that he was going to put a GPS locator on your dad's SUV, but that must not have happened.”

“It didn't,” Ali said. In fact, her father had bristled at the very idea. “No way you're putting one of those gadgets on my baby,” he'd declared. “If you can follow me around, so can the government. Where I go and what I do is none of their business or yours, either, for that matter.”

The GPS “gadget” stayed off.

“B. said we were gathering all this information for your mother,” Cami continued. “Would you like me to call it over to her?”

“And tell her that my father may have been connected to a double homicide?” Ali demanded. “Absolutely not!”

She pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and the Cayenne shot forward.

“Do not call my mother about any of this,” she continued. “And if she calls you, do not answer, understand? If you end up having to speak to her, tell her you've been too busy to check on this yet. Got it?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Cami replied. “Loud and clear.”

“But do tell B.,” Ali added. “I want him to know everything that's going on. Also, you might try calling the nonemergency number at Sedona PD, and see if they'll give you any information.”

“Will do.”

With a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Ali drove on, disregarding all posted speed limits as she raced for Sedona. She had told her mother that there was no way on earth that her father would be involved in a double homicide. Now she wasn't so sure. If he was involved, how involved was he?

The Sedona Shadows Internet source had reported a double homicide in Sedona. There was a chance, of course, that her father was one of the two victims. If he had died—if he was already dead—Ali knew that her mother would be utterly devastated. They had worked hard for all those decades, running the Sugarloaf day after day, seven days a week, telling themselves and anyone else who cared to listen that they'd be kicking up their heels once they hit their “golden years.” But what if Bob and Edie Larson's golden years had just come to a screeching halt? That idea was more than Ali could handle right then.

On the other hand, if her father wasn't dead, was there even a remote possibility that he was the perpetrator?

“Geez Louise, Dad,” she said, speaking aloud as though Bob Larson were right there with her on the front seat of the Cayenne. “What in the hell have you gotten yourself into? If you're not already dead, I'm pretty sure Mom is going to kill you. And if she needs any help getting the job done, I'll be right there giving her a hand.”

D
riving at top speed on the freeway was one thing, but once Ali turned on to Highway 179, all bets were off. The posted limit was fifty-five mph, but the lumbering RVs and gawking tourists didn't drive anywhere close to that fast, and the long stretches of no-passing zones made getting around slower vehicles impossible. It didn't help matters that it was after five. Rush hour in and around Sedona was the same as rush hour anywhere else—glacial.

Ali was going through the first roundabout in the Village of Oak Creek when Cami called back. “I found something on the Internet. I googled ‘double homicide in Sedona' and came up with a bunch of photos someone had posted on Facebook.”

“Photos from the scene?”

“That's right. The house in the background is an address on Elberta Drive. My records show the owners of that property are Dan and Millie Frazier. Do either of those names ring a bell?”

“Of course the name rings a bell. Dan Frazier has been Mom and Dad's insurance and financial advisor for years. But what exactly do the photos show? Are they the victims?”

“That's not clear, but that address is where the cop cars and emergency vehicles were earlier, although they're probably not there now. One police cruiser, parked in the driveway, was of particular interest. When it came down the hill, a bystander managed to snap a photo. The photograph was taken from a fair distance away, but you could see the profile of someone in the backseat. I had to enhance the image some before Stu could get a reading on it, but when we ran the image through our facial rec program, it came back as belonging to your father.”

“My father—in the back of a police car,” Ali muttered. “As in locked in the back of a police car at the scene of a double homicide? Did you tell B.?”

“I didn't have to. Mr. Simpson was right there watching the screen when Stu got the hit. He said to tell you not to call him right now. He says he's going to be on the phone locating a defense attorney. He'll meet you at the police station.”

For the second time that day, needles and pins shot through Ali's fingertips.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Ali?”

Several weeks earlier, a case involving black market LEGOs had taken Ali and Cami to Bisbee in the southeast corner of the state where Cami had come close to losing her life to one of the conspirators. There's nothing like going to war with a stone-cold killer to create a lasting bond of friendship, which was where Ali Reynolds and Cami Lee were now. When it came to Ali, the “Ms. Reynolds” part had been x-ed out of Cami's vocabulary. B., however, was now and most likely would always remain on the far more formal level of “Mr. Simpson.”

“Is there a time stamp on any of those photos, especially the one of the police cruiser?”

“Just a sec.” There was a momentary pause before Cami spoke again. “Yes, the one of your dad in the patrol car is time-stamped 11:43 a.m.”

Ali glanced at her watch. The side trip from the freeway back and forth to the homeless camp had taken longer than she expected. It was almost 5:30. That meant that her father had been in police custody of some kind for almost six hours—six hours during which he'd not been allowed to make any calls. That combined with his being locked in the back of a patrol car was enough to convince Ali that Bob Larson was being treated as a suspect rather than a witness. If B. was in search of a defense attorney, he'd come to the same conclusion.

When Ali pulled in to the lot at Sedona PD a few minutes later, B.'s Audi was already parked in a visitor's slot. By the time she stopped her Cayenne next to B.'s Audi R8, he was standing there waiting to open her door.

“You must have talked to Cami,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “What took you so long? I was starting to think you'd come to some kind of grief out on the highway.”

“Sorry to worry you,” she apologized. “At the last minute I stopped by the homeless camp up on the Rim, just to make sure that Dad hadn't been there. He hadn't, of course. From what Cami tells me, he's been right here in Sedona most of the time.”

“Not only in Sedona, but also in police custody,” B. added.

Gauging her husband's mood, Ali was glad she hadn't mentioned her close encounter with Luke and his twelve-gauge. With everything else that was going on right then, it was best not to add any more fuel to the fire.

“Should we go in?” she asked.

“Not yet,” B. replied. “We're waiting for Dash.”

Ali knew that Dash—short for Dashiell—Summers was a local defense attorney. He and B. had struck up a friendship when they purchased neighboring homes on a golf course in the Village of Oak Creek and later discovered that neither of them actually played golf. Dash and B. were the same age. Dash's wife, Kitty, was ten years younger than her husband, which made her twenty-five years younger than Ali. Kitty had far more in common with Ali's daughter-in-law, Athena, than with Ali, so the two couples seldom did things as a foursome.

But the two men had a lot in common. Both were successful and outgoing, and both had spent lifetimes dealing with complex name issues. As a kid named Bartholomew Quentin Simpson, B. had endured years of “Bart Simpson” name-calling and bullying before he had dropped everything but the first letter of his first name. Dash, the son of a woman who loved Dashiell Hammett's books beyond bearing, had ditched the name Dashiell for just plain Dash for much the same reason—due to constant ribbing from classmates.

“Dash said he's tied up in a meeting, but he doesn't want us going in without him. That's all right, though. It'll give me a chance to catch you up with what's going on.”

“You mean about the double homicide?”

B. nodded.

“Cami told me some of it,” Ali said. “I also know that Dad and Mom are longtime clients of Dan Frazier. Is there more?”

“Unfortunately, there's a lot more,” B. said grimly. “You ever hear of a company called Ocotillo Fund Management?”

“Sure,” Ali said. “That was the investment arm of Dan Frazier's business. I'm pretty sure the folks had several accounts with them, all of them placed through Dan.”

“That's very bad, news,” B. said, “because Ocotillo Fund Management declared bankruptcy yesterday. Whatever money your folks had invested with them is probably wiped out.”

“Wiped out?” Ali echoed. “Everything's gone? Their IRAs, the money from selling the Sugarloaf, and everything?”

“All of it,” B. said with a nod. “Does your mom know about that?”

“I doubt it,” Ali said. “At least, if she did, she didn't mention it. But is that what this is all about? My parents lost money with Dan, and the cops think Dad went after him because of it?”

“How much money are we talking about?”

“I'm not sure,” Ali said, “probably quite a bit.”

“If your father held Dan responsible for those losses, that would certainly give him motive.”

“My father is not a killer,” Ali declared, “no matter what the provocation.”

A Cadillac CTS pulled in to the slot next to Ali's Cayenne. As Dash Summers exited the car Ali and B. stepped forward to greet him.

“Thanks for coming,” Ali said.

“Glad to help,” Dash said. “Has anyone heard from your father?”

“Not that I know of,” she answered. “I certainly haven't, and if he'd called my mother, I'm sure she would have phoned us immediately.”

“Well, then,” Dash said, “we'd best go on in and see what's up. Just remember, I'm here representing your father, and I do the talking.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Ali said,

Dash led the way inside. The public lobby of Sedona PD looked more like a small-town credit union than a police department. The civilian support staff worked behind a wall of bullet-resistant glass barriers with slots underneath for passing paperwork back and forth and lip-level screens that allowed for speaking without shouting. At the far end of the room, seated behind a counter, sat a uniformed cop—the desk sergeant. Behind the counter somewhere was a button that opened the security door behind him, the one marked
NO ADMITTANCE
that led to the nonpublic part of the operation.

This particular desk sergeant—Al Kronnan—happened to be someone Ali knew. When her parents had announced that they were selling the diner, Al had been one of the most vociferous in worrying that Sugarloaf sweet rolls would immediately vanish from the planet. He was also someone who had reached his Peter Principle high point early on and had clung to it like lichen to a boulder ever since.

Ali was surprised to discover that Sergeant Kronnan and Dash seemed to have a reasonably cordial relationship. “Hi there, counselor,” Al said. “What can I do you for?”

“I'm here to see my client Bob Larson.”

Upon hearing Dash's request, a slight frown flitted across Al's broad features. “He's in an interview room right now,” Al said hesitantly. “I'm not sure I should interrupt.”

“Is Mr. Larson under arrest?”

“Bob under arrest? No, of course not. He's just talking with Detective Drinkwater,” Al said.

The cordiality disappeared from Dash's voice. “It's my understanding that they've been in that interview room for an extended period of time. I wish to see my client, and I wish to see him now. Is that clear?”

Al seemed taken aback by the sudden change in Dash's body language and demeanor. This was an order, not a request.

“Let me go check,” Al said at last, pushing his stool away from the counter. He set out a preprinted
BACK IN A MINUTE
sign and then used a keypad to let himself through the security door behind him.

Once Kronnan was gone, Dash turned to B. “This Cami person you mentioned earlier. Can she tell us exactly when Bob's cell phone first turned up at this location?”

“Let me check.”

While B. pulled out his phone to check with Cami, Dash turned back to Ali. “What do you know about your parents' financial situation?”

“Just generalities,” Ali said. “I know they've done business with Dan Frazier for years and years, both for insurance as well as investment purposes, but when it comes to the specifics about how much money they had invested with him, I have no idea.”