Clawback (10 page)

As far as Jason was concerned, the women he'd found along the way had proven to be arm candy—great as subject matter for the steady stream of photo ops that kept his name and face front and center. A few of the women were somewhat amusing for a time, although eventually he had tired of them all.

The thing was, none of them could measure up to Jessica Denton. Yes, he'd been warned she was dangerous. After today he knew firsthand that was inarguably true, but being dangerous was also a big part of Jessica's appeal—better dangerous and smart than safe and dimwitted.

It tickled Jason's fancy to think about entering some fabled room—like the Monte Carlo Casino for instance—with Jessica on his arm. Everyone else would see just what they were supposed to see—a somewhat older gentleman accompanied by a beautiful and much younger woman. What they wouldn't grasp was that Jessie, in addition to being young and beautiful, was also a lethal weapon.

B
ack in the interview room after visiting the restroom, Hank placed another unopened bottle of water on the table in front of Bob. “As I said earlier, I'll be recording this interview, Mr. Larson,” the detective said.

Bob nodded. For a fleeting moment it occurred to him that maybe this was the moment when he should ask for an attorney, but he didn't. The guys who were guilty were always the ones who lawyered up. Besides, Hank was from his old Cub Scout pack and his Boy Scout troop, for Pete's sake. How bad could it be?

Once the recording equipment was activated and Hank had supplied both his name and Bob's, the detective kicked off the interview.

“Why don't we start by your telling me exactly what happened this morning and how you happened to be the first one on the scene?”

“Edie and I . . . ,” Bob began. “My wife and I were clients of Dan's and have been for years. When he suggested that we move our IRAs to a different company, over to Ocotillo Fund Management, that's what we did. It's an outfit that has an office—had an office, that is—down in Phoenix. They billed themselves as a wealth management company.

“This morning, while I was watching the news, I saw that the company had suddenly gone belly-up—that the SEC had come in and shut the place down. I could barely believe my ears. Not only were Edie's and my IRAs there, so were the proceeds that came from the sale of the Sugarloaf. After all, we'd been with the company for years, and we were getting good returns—on paper, anyway—so when we sold the restaurant, we plowed most of the money from that over into OFM as well.”

“You say you were getting good returns,” Hank said, “so what kind of money are we talking about?”

“Twelve percent, maybe,” Bob answered.

“No, I meant how much did you put in?”

Bob sighed before he answered. While he'd been sitting there all that time, he'd been mentally adding it up. “One point two million dollars,” he said. “Give or take.”

Hank whistled. “That's a lot of money.”

“Yes,” Bob agreed ruefully. “Yes, it is.”

“Okay, so you saw this disturbing piece on the news,” Hank continued. “Then what happened?”

“I wanted to talk to Dan about it—to hear straight from the horse's mouth about what was really going on. I figured he owed me that much, anyway. I tried calling all his numbers, including the office number down in Phoenix, but that one had already been disconnected, and he didn't answer any of the others. That's when I decided to go to his house instead, not the one down in Paradise Valley, but the one up here.”

“You just stopped by, even though there was no answer at his residence?”

“It's easy to not answer a phone,” Bob said, “especially if it's someone I don't want to talk to. When someone shows up on your doorstep, that's a lot harder to ignore.”

“What was the purpose of your visit?” Hank asked.

“Like I said, I wanted to find out what was really going on,” Bob answered. “I wanted to ask Dan Frazier face-to-face and eyeball to eyeball exactly what had happened to our money and find out where the hell it went, even though I already knew it was no use—that the money was probably long gone. I still wanted to hear what he had to say about it in his own words.”

“You drove there right after the news broadcast?”

Bob nodded.

“What time was that?”

“I was watching a station with local morning news—probably the local Fox affiliate. I think that newscast ends somewhere around nine. I left a little while before it was over, so it must have been around nine or so.”

“You drove straight there—to the Fraziers' place?”

“Yes.”

“It takes what, twenty minutes or so to get from your residence to theirs?”

“About that, I suppose,” Bob agreed.

“You say you left your house about nine, but the call didn't come in until 9:52, almost an hour later. Did you stop off somewhere along the way?”

“No stops,” Bob said. “I drove straight there.”

“What took you so long, then?” Hank asked. “Was there highway construction along the way or traffic congestion, maybe?”

“No, nothing like that. When I got there—to his street, I mean—I stopped a couple of houses away for a while to think about what I was going to say, trying to figure out if I was going to talk to the guy or just walk up and bust him in the chops.”

“So you were angry?”

“Damn straight—was angry and still am. Wouldn't you be?”

“Angry enough to kill him?”

Bob looked at Hank and shook his head sadly. “Don't you know me better than that?”

The detective ducked his head and cleared his throat before he asked the next question. “When you arrived at the house, did you see any other vehicles nearby?”

Bob thought about that for a moment before he answered. “I believe there was a landscape truck parked across the street at the next house up from Dan's—a crew cab white Ford F-150. A nice enough truck, recent but not brand-new and not a Platinum model, either. I'm not sure how landscape guys can afford new trucks like that, but they do.”

“You're sure it was a landscape truck?”

“Of course. It was loaded with all kinds of gear—a mower, trash cans, rakes, shovels, the whole nine yards.”

“Did you see anyone outside working?”

“Nope,” Bob answered. “They could have been out back.”

“Did you see anyone in the yard at the Fraziers' house?”

“No. The only thing that struck me as odd was the fact that when I finally drove up to the house, the gate at the bottom of the driveway was wide open. Maybe a landscaping crew or delivery guy left it open, but Dan would have raised hell about that. Once Dan scored that Mustang of his, he kept the driveway locked up tight. He and Millie both had remotes, of course, but visitors had to be buzzed in or use the code on the keypad. As I drove through it, I remember wondering why it was open.”

“So you're familiar with that gate? You've seen it before and know how it operates?”

“Yes, I'm familiar with the gate,” Bob said. “I was Dan's client, but we were also friends. I've been to his house on numerous occasions.”

“Recently?”

“The last time I was there was a couple of months ago, just after he brought the Mustang back from Scottsdale.”

“Did you go inside the house that day?”

“Nope, we stayed in the garage so he could show me his baby.”

“But you've been in the Frazier house before.”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Back to this morning, then. What happened next?”

“Like I said, I sat there for a while trying to figure out what I was going to say to the low-down cheat. Then, just as I parked at the top of the driveway, one of the garage doors rolled open. Both cars were there—Dan's Mustang and Millie's Volvo—and I expected one or the other of them to shift into reverse, back out of the garage, and maybe slam into me, but nothing happened.

“At first, I didn't see anyone in either of the cars. Finally, I got out of my Bronco. I heard someone call for help, so I walked into the garage. That's when I realized that the Mustang was running—idling—but I still couldn't see anyone sitting inside, at least not at first. It wasn't until I was right next to the open driver's window that I spotted Dan. He was seated behind the steering wheel, but he had slumped over at an angle onto the passenger seat so his head wasn't visible from the rear of the car. His face was pretty beat up. Then I saw the blood on his shirt. At first I thought he'd been shot, but he told me it was a knife—that he'd been stabbed. And he said there'd been more than one assailant. Two at least. He said they'd used knives. Plural.”

For a moment Bob stopped speaking, thinking about the bloom of blood spreading across Dan's shirt and pants and leaking out between the dying man's fingers as he tried to hold back the tide. Sitting in the interview room Bob could almost see the blood again and smell it, too.

“Go on,” Detective Sotomeyer urged, drawing Bob out of his momentary reverie.

“Okay,” Bob said. “Let's see. The convertible top was open and the driver's window was down. At that point, although Dan was badly injured, at least he was still alive. I called 911 right away, then I reached inside the Mustang, thinking that if I helped him apply pressure to the wound, Dan might last long enough for the ambulance to arrive. That's when he asked me to go check on Millie.”

“He was conscious when you got there? He spoke to you?”

Bob nodded.

“Did he tell you anything about who had done it—who was responsible?”

Bob shook his head. “Just that there were more than one of them. He begged me to go check on Millie, so that's what I did.”

“While the perpetrators were still inside the house?” Hank asked.

“I never gave that a moment's thought,” Bob answered. “I left Dan right where he was. I went in through the garage door that leads through the laundry room into the kitchen, and that's where I found Millie—on the floor in the middle of the kitchen, lying facedown in a pool of blood.”

Once again, Bob paused to collect himself before continuing.

“Just looking at the blood, I figured Millie was already a goner. I was about to leave her where she was and go back to the garage to help Dan, when she moved a little—this tiny shudder you could barely see. I was amazed. With all that blood it didn't seem possible that she was still alive. I hurried over to see if I could do anything to help. In the process I slipped in the blood and fell. I landed right on top of the poor woman.” He paused again and put his hand over his eyes as if to shut out the memory.

“You're saying that's how Mille's blood got on your clothing—when you fell on her?”

“Then, and later, too, when I was trying to get up. I slipped and fell again. The blood was so damned slick it was like skating on ice.”

“But she was still alive when you fell on her?”

Bob nodded. “Barely,” he said.

“Did she say anything to you about who her assailant was?”

“I asked, but she didn't tell me. All she said was that Dan was a good man and that I should tell him she loved him. Those were her last words. ‘Tell him I love him.' A moment later she was gone.”

“What happened then?”

“Since I couldn't do anything more for her, I went to help Dan, but there was blood all over the tile in the kitchen. That's when I fell the second time. I ended up having to grab hold of the counter just to pull myself up. By the time I got back to the garage, Dan was dead, too. Somehow or other through all that, I had stayed connected to the 911 operator. I told her then that I was sure they were both dead. That's about the time the first patrol car arrived on the scene.”

“Dan didn't give you any hints about who was responsible, either?”

“I already told you, all he said was for me to check on Millie.”

“Is there a chance that this is a case of murder/suicide?”

Bob thought about that for a moment before he answered. “No,” he said. “I don't think so. Dan said he was trying to get help—that's why he was in the car. The problem is the Mustang's a stick shift. He somehow got the thing started, but I think he was hurt too badly to be able to operate the pedals and the gearshift.”

“But why go for help?” Hank asked. “Why not pick up the phone and dial 911? As badly injured as he was, wouldn't that have been a lot easier than attempting to operate a standard transmission?”

“I have no idea why he didn't call,” Bob said. “Maybe he was so badly hurt that he couldn't think straight.”

“What happened next?”

“Like I said, I was still on the line with the 911 operator when the first patrol car showed up. Two cops got out. I was covered in blood, so naturally they assumed I was responsible. I can hardly blame them for that. They took everything—my phone, my wallet, and my knife. Then they handcuffed me and locked me in the back of their patrol car. That's where I was when the fire truck and aid cars arrived. I sat there burning up for damned near forever before they finally brought me here. They took photos and swabbed my hands, then they had me strip off my bloody clothes. That's how come I'm dressed like this,” he added, gesturing toward the jumpsuit. “They said they needed my clothes as evidence, so I had to change. Then they brought me to the interview room and left me here.”

For what felt like hours on end
, Bob thought, but he didn't say that aloud.

“You had a weapon with you when you came to the house?”

“A weapon?” Bob asked. “I had my pocket knife with me—my Swiss army knife is all, and it's more of a tool than a knife. You can check it until hell freezes over. There's nobody's blood on it, except maybe a little of mine on occasion.”

“You already told me you hold Dan responsible for losing a big chunk of your retirement money,” Hank ventured. “Do you know of anyone else who might have a grudge against him or Millie and want to hurt them?”