Snake in the Glass (27 page)

The water boiled and I busied myself making coffee. When it was ready, I carried mugs back to the main part of the room. Denis and Frank were talking about gems, so I sat down next to Elizabeth.

“So you’re not a Tucson native?”

Her lip twitched with a barely concealed sneer. “No, I grew up on Long Island, but I came out here when Denis got the job at the university.”

“He said something about you working in insurance?” I felt as if I were following some outdated manual for social etiquette. She wasn’t making it easy.

“Yes. It was the best I could find out here.” She made it sound as though this was a corner of Outer Mongolia.

“We must have arrived about the same time, but I’ve come to love it here.”

“Lucky you,” Elizabeth muttered. Then she must have realized how rude she sounded. “I’m sorry. I appreciate the help you’ve given Denis, but I wish he’d never gotten into this crazy scheme.”

“The gems?”

“Oh, that, and this whole land deal. I think he honestly believed it would make him rich, but Denis isn’t much of a businessman. Or a judge of character.”

“You mean Alex?”

“I’m sure Alex would have come out of this just fine, but I don’t know about Denis. He’s just not lucky.”

How much did Elizabeth know? I wondered. Had Denis told her that he’d gambled it all on one last harebrained scheme with the peridot? He had said something about wanting to surprise her. Whether or not she knew the facts, she had some intuition that things weren’t going well. Poor Denis: I didn’t want to be in his shoes when he had to admit to the whole mess.

Somehow Elizabeth had finished her coffee while I was trying to puzzle out what was going on behind the scenes in their marriage. She stood up abruptly. “Denis, we’ve disturbed these people long enough. We should go home.”

Denis followed suit. “All right. Thanks for the information, Em, Frank. I’ll look into it in the morning.”

“Denis.” Elizabeth’s voice held a warning note now. “Thank you for the coffee, Em. I hope we won’t need to bother you again.” She turned on her heel and marched toward the door, Denis trailing behind. I had to scurry to let them out. When I heard them descend the stairs, I turned to Frank.

“What was that all about?”

“No clue, but I don’t think I want to be in Denis’s shoes. Not a happy woman, that.”

“I agree. Well, let me walk Fred and Gloria, and then I plan to crash for the night.”

As the dogs and I made our way through the half-lit streets, I had to wonder just why Denis had thought it was so important to come by this late. Or had it been Elizabeth’s idea? Was he watching out for her, or was she keeping an eye on him? I had no idea.

Cam and I were up and well stoked with caffeine
by the time Matt knocked on the door just before eight. When we were settled in Matt’s car, I said, “Denis came by last night—with his wife.”

Matt nodded. “I know. He already called me on my cell this morning to ask if it was okay to talk to the gem dealer.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I know of nothing illegal about the gem transaction. I mentioned he might need to take a look at his business agreement with Alex, but that’s not my problem.”

“So maybe Denis will sell his stones after all. Have you talked with the wife yet?”

“She’s coming in later this morning.”

“Ah,” I responded intelligently.

As we approached Beverly’s office building, Matt said, “Remember—you two keep your mouths shut and let me do the talking. This is still an official murder investigation.”

“Yes, sir. Understood, sir.”

“Em . . .” Matt’s tone was exasperated.

“I’m sorry, I’ll be good. I’m just excited to see all the pieces come together. This Beverly person knows something. Why else would she have turned up at the shop?”

“Because she wanted to buy something maybe?” Matt said wryly.

Cam sat glumly in the back seat and said nothing, staring out the window. I guessed he wasn’t as excited as I was. But then, he was the one who had been kidnapped and drugged, so I supposed he had good reason to take this more seriously than I did.

The Tucson Indian Center was housed in a relatively new building that dominated the block. It was full of crisp angles, with rows of windows facing the street; an Indian Village Trading Post occupied the corner diagonally across from it, and I wondered irreverently if it was connected somehow. Matt found a convenient parking space and led the way, with Cam and me trailing like ducklings. He stopped at the desk and said, “We’d like to see Mrs. Beverly Harrison, please.”

The very young receptionist looked startled by the appearance of three people at once, so early in the morning, and even without a uniform and badge Matt exuded authority. “Is Ms. Harrison expecting you?”

“No. Will you call her, please?”

“Uh, what name should I tell her?”

“Police Chief Matthew Lundgren.”

Matt’s announcement flustered the poor young woman. She had to hit the phone extension buttons three times before she finally connected. “Beverly? There’s a policeman here to see you.” She listened for a moment before setting the receiver down. “She’ll be right out.”

Time seemed to stretch while we waited, although it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds before Beverly Harrison pushed through the double doors that lead to the back of the building. I watched the woman’s face as she approached and saw who was waiting: polite curiosity followed by a flicker of something else when she saw Cam and me, but she maintained her composure. She stopped five feet away from us and said, “Can I help you?”

Cam looked at Matt and shrugged helplessly. Matt looked at me: I nodded. Cam and I exchanged glances, and he looked apologetic. Then all eyes returned to Beverly, who turned to the receptionist and asked, “Is the conference room free?”

The receptionist scrabbled through piles of paper on her desk until she came up with a calendar and riffled through it to find the right month. “Yes, until noon.” She looked up at Beverly, her eyes begging for an explanation.

She didn’t get one. Beverly said to us, “Will you follow me, please? We can talk in the conference room.” She turned on her heel and walked away, and we followed her to a small, windowless room dominated by a large, battered oval table surrounded by folding chairs. She turned to face us. “Can I get you anything? Coffee?” Was she stalling, maybe to get her story straight, or was she just being polite?

Matt spoke for us. “Nothing for us, Ms. Harrison. I have some questions to ask you. Please, sit down.”

We arrayed ourselves around the table. Matt and Beverly sat facing each other across the table, with Cam and I flanking Matt. I almost pitied her: it felt as if we were ganging up on her, three to one.

“What do you want to know?” she said.

Matt pulled out a small notebook. “Ms. Harrison, do you confirm that you are Beverly Ann Harrison and you live at 555 La Cholla in Tucson?”

“Yes.”

“Are you married?”

Her chin came up. “I was, but I’m divorced now. My ex-husband’s name is William Montoya. I took my own name back.”

“And where is he employed?”

“He works part-time at the Apache Gold Casino as a bartender.”

“Are you a member of the San Carlos Apache Nation?”

“Yes, I am,” she said with no expression.

“And your ex-husband?”

“Yes.”

“Is your family one of those granted the right to mine peridot on the San Carlos Reservation?”

She almost smiled, as though she was enjoying watching Matt stalking the reason he was really here. “Yes. My brothers work a mining claim there and own the organization that markets the peridot for the reservation.”

“Do you recognize the man to my right?”

She studied Cam gravely, again with little expression on her face. She hesitated before answering, “No, I don’t think so.”

“Cam, do you recognize this woman?”

Cam hesitated too, with a pained expression. “I can’t say for sure.” Was it my imagination, or did Beverly look relieved?

Matt pulled a copy of the photo we had all seen out of an envelope, and pushed it carefully across the table to Beverly. “Do you know the man in this photo?”

She glanced at it briefly. “Yes. That’s my former husband.” Then she looked directly at Matt. “Chief Lundgren, I know who you are. Can you tell me what this is about?”

“I’m investigating the murder of Alex Gutierrez and the kidnapping of Cameron Dowell. I have reason to believe that these two events are related. I also believe your ex-husband may have been involved in one or both events.”

“What does that have to do with me? We’re divorced. We don’t live together. I have little knowledge of his activities.”

She didn’t know he’d been hanging out with her brothers? I interrupted, ignoring Matt’s glare. “You came by the shop yesterday. Why?”

She turned her level gaze to me. “I had heard about your work, and I happened to be in the neighborhood.” She didn’t add anything else. Smart woman, I thought—it would be hard to disprove that.

Matt reasserted his authority by first clearing his throat—which I assumed meant he wanted me to shut up—and then asking, “Are you involved in your brothers’ gem business?”

“Not directly. I see them from time to time, and we talk about it. But I do not live on the reservation, and I have a position here, as you can see. What is it you wish to know?”

Matt sat back in his chair and studied the woman, as if weighing his options. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. Finally he said, “Ms. Harrison, we think that Mr. Gutierrez’s death was related to a recent gem find he had made, that he asked Mr. Dowell to consult on. Do you know Denis Ryerson?”

She shook her head. “That name is not familiar to me.”

“Ryerson was Gutierrez’s partner in this venture. Based on that photograph, we think that your ex-husband knew Gutierrez and quite possibly knew about the gems. We’re not sure where these gems were found, and we wonder if the reservation might be the source—illegally.”

“Chief Lundgren, as I’m sure you know, members of the reservation sell stones all the time. I can’t swear that residents would know if there were strangers at work there, but I can’t imagine that they would remain undetected for long. And I am not involved in that trade, as I have told you.”

“Tell us about your ex-husband.”

Beverly had relaxed a bit, but I thought I saw her stiffen again. “I assume you want something more than his employment history and his taste in beer. I’ll be blunt: Will has been known to ignore the law, if it suits him. That’s one of the reasons we’re no longer married. On occasion he has tried to involve my brothers in his dubious schemes, although they were usually smart enough to turn him down. It would not surprise me to learn that he was working on some kind of deal involving stones and that he had asked my brothers to participate. I’m sure they’d be willing to talk to you—they have no great love for Will.” Beverly hesitated again before going on. “My ex-husband is a weak and foolish man, but I do not believe that he is a killer. Even if he were, it would be in the heat of the moment, and it would be personal—not for the sake of money.”

I wondered whether any woman would admit to herself or anyone else that a man she had presumably once loved was capable of murder.

Matt continued. “Do you know if your ex-husband was acquainted with Alex Gutierrez?”

“I can’t say. Will and I have been divorced for some time, and I really don’t know what he’s been doing since then, apart from what little my brothers tell me.” She folded her hands calmly and fell silent. Stalemate. Beverly sounded credible, and it would be hard to prove any part of her story was a lie.

Matt’s cell phone rang. He glanced at it, then stood up and said, “Excuse me,” before leaving the room.

I couldn’t keep still. “How did you and Will end up together in the first place? You seem like an intelligent, educated woman.”

I wasn’t sure if she would answer me. After all, she had no reason to share her personal life with me. In the end she smiled bleakly at me. “Intelligence had little to do with it. What can I say? I was young and stupid, and Will was pretty nice to look at, twenty years ago. Maybe I thought I could change him, persuade him that there was something more than making a quick buck now and then. I was wrong. So I got a good job and hung on to it, and saved as much of my paycheck as I could, and made sure he couldn’t touch it. Will works when he feels like it. That job at the casino—he keeps it because it makes him feel like a big man.”

“What made you split up, in the end?”

“I got tired of making excuses for him, to myself, to others. He never did change, but I did.”

Matt came in then, his expression grim. “Ms. Harrison, can you tell me where I can reach your brothers?”

“Of course.”

“We have an address for your ex-husband.” Matt rattled off a street address I had never heard of. “Can you tell me if that’s current?”

Again, a tiny hesitation. “That’s where he lives, most of the time. It’s a place his family’s had for years, outside the reservation but not far from it. It’s pretty beat up, and I never wanted to live there. I would agree that it’s the best place to start looking for him. Although he has a number of friends on the reservation.”

She left unsaid the obvious implication: if he was holed up on the reservation, Matt couldn’t touch him.

“Ms. Harrison, has Will been in trouble before? Has he ever been caught, as you say, ‘ignoring the law’?”

She cocked her head at him. “Surely you’ve checked your criminal records?”

“Of course, but I also recognize that some issues are handled within the reservation, and we may not hear of them. Is he on good terms with the tribal elders?”