“I don’t know,” I laughed. “But good luck with that.”
“Thanks for the tip, Irving,” he said. “See you around.”
“See you around, Durant,” I said.
I ended the call and Vicki was still on the phone with Kelsi. She glanced over at me.
“Right,” she told Kelsi. “Henry just got off the phone with the police chief. They’re going to investigate it and get to the bottom of it. They’ll help you get some answers.”
Vicki wrapped up the call and then whistled.
“She’s a basketcase,” she told me.
“You didn’t tell her about Gary, did you?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I told her that we got an anonymous tip regarding the borrachero plant, and she knew instantly.”
“How did she know?” I asked.
“She said Gary’s been a stalker to her for years,” she said. “And he’s mentioned the plant before.”
“Wow,” I said. “Did you confirm the story?”
“No,” she said. “I just told her the anon tip didn’t give a name.”
“Probably better that way,” I said. “We don’t have proof of anything.”
Chapter 22
Two weeks passed after Tony spilled his beans to us and to the FBI. In the ensuing days, agent Winslow arrested half of Sedona, it seemed. Well, just the three, Montague, Oberland, and Levinson. Levinson wasn’t even from Sedona, but they found him when Jannette called in a domestic disturbance at her apartment.
They took Levinson in drunk and screaming in his underwear. All the news sites ran an image of his contorted and enraged pervy face, while two agents physically restrained him and his lily white hairy legs flailed in a dress shirt and socks. I thought it was the most fitting way for him to go down.
They said Oberland cried like a baby when they picked him up. I’d have paid good money to see that.
Montague’s blaze of gunshot glory was well covered by local media, and I got a nice little cameo in the coverage. I declined to comment, as I didn’t want my name to be associated with FBI shootouts. I might have sold out my ethics on gun control, but I wasn’t about to announce it to the world.
There was talk of getting me some sort of civic commendation, but given my history with SPD, I doubted it would even come to fruition.
But, James Matthews’ death stayed shrouded in mystery until the Friday before Halloween. The city was putting together some kind of Halloween festival downtown, and traffic was a bitch again. Not L.A. kind of traffic, by any means. I could handle that kind of traffic, since it was a compromise of living in one of the largest, most influential cities of our time.
But, traffic jams in Sedona just seemed to be unnatural and blasphemous. It was up there with the latest rumor that they were putting a shopping mall near the Red Rocks. Come on now, really?
Putting together the Halloween festival took a week’s worth of semi trucks and vendors and God only knew what else that backed up traffic and blocked off roads. The quarter mile commute from our house to the office, now required three detours and took close to half an hour.
“Let’s bike,” I told Vicki that Friday morning. “It’s a pretty morning. Great day to do it.”
“Geez,” she said. “We’ve been meaning to do that since we moved here.”
“I know,” I said. “And we’re moving now.”
She laughed. “Well, in February.”
“You know, I used to be quite the bike meister,” I said.
I wrestled my old mountain bike out from behind a pile of boxes in the garage. We didn’t even park in here, because there was still so much crap we hadn’t unloaded from the move.
“Did you just use the word ‘meister’?” she rolled her eyes as she found her own bike.
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,” I chirped.
“That’s such a pretentious word to say,” she laughed.
“What can I say?” I laughed. “I’m a snob.”
She laughed. “That’s okay. As long as you use your powers for good.”
It was a gorgeous fall morning, I thought as I eased on my bike and pedaled down the driveway to sidewalk. A biking trail ran straight from our house and went past our office. Vicki joined just behind me, and we let the crisp morning air fill our lungs.
On the corner of our street, right before it morphed into downtown, they were setting up a seventy foot outdoor screen and pavillion. They did this for the film festival in February as well. But, I guessed the Halloween festival would include a film component.
“They’re doing a trick or treat scavenger hunt downtown,” Vicki said. “They’ve asked if we want to be a location.”
“Is that right?” I asked. “What do we have to do?”
“They’ll give us some items,” she said, “and people have to film themselves when they ask for it. So we have to wear costumes and get into character.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Let’s get AJ to do that. She’ll be into it.”
“Come on,” Vicki laughed as we hit the final stretch toward the office. “You own a film studio now. You have to be a little quirky. No one will take you seriously if you don’t.”
“Quirky, huh?” I smiled as I slid the bike into the rack near the office.
“Yeah,” she said as she removed her helmet and shook out her hair. “It couldn’t hurt. Give you some edge in this town.”
“Edge, huh?” I said. “I think this town’s got enough edge on its own.”
We locked the bikes up, and I put my arm around her as we crossed the street to our office.
AJ had gone all out with the Halloween decorations. We had spiderwebs on all the windows, and
