Brash Endeavor, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 3

  Chapter 15

  THE WARNING

  The ride to Colorado Springs was not pleasant as I couldn't clear my mind of Kurt's deception. It did give me time, however, to recover from my initial panic and start to think of an appropriate course of action. As an attorney, under the canons of legal ethics, I couldn't disclose confidential confidences or communications of my client but on the other hand I couldn't participate in a fraud. The only thing I could do would be to terminate the attorney-client relationship with Kurt immediately upon returning to Dallas and then let the chips fall where they may.

  My major concern was the investors. If Worldwide Savings and Loan got defrauded, it was their own fault for not adequately inspecting the Panhandle Building and double checking Kurt's numbers. The investors, however, were not sophisticated and basically put their trust in Kurt and, unfortunately, in me although I cautioned them that I did not represent them. I wished there was something I could do to protect them, but I didn't have a clue as to what it would be.

  Once I got to Colorado Springs I tried to re-focus my attention on Melba Thorn. She was out there somewhere being held as a prisoner and I had to find her. My first stop was the Winchester Hotel and Resort, a world renown getaway for the rich, known for its great food, elegant accommodations, spectacular golf course and fine equestrian facility. I couldn't afford to stay there, so I got a room a few miles away at a Holiday Inn and then drove over to see if anyone remembered Melba Thorn.

  Not wanting to attract attention, I opted not to go the manager but decided instead to casually ask some of the housekeeping staff if they remembered Mrs. Thorn. After showing Melba's picture to eight or ten maids, I finally found one who remembered her. She wore a name tag indicating her name was Carmen.

  "Ma'am, I'm Stan Turner and I'm looking for anyone who might remember one of the guests here, Mrs. Melba Thorn," I said and then I flashed the photograph in front of her. "This is her photograph."

  "Yes, sir. I saw her. She was in the Palomino Suite."

  "When was the first time you saw her?"

  "When she got here I was across the courtyard working on the south wing bungalows. We were told by Raul, our supervisor, that it was a big family reunion and we needed to take good care of them since they were rich and powerful people. She came with the first group in a limousine. She seemed so happy to be with her family. I was so envious because my family lives in Mexico."

  "After they arrived did you have occasion to observe her anymore?"

  "Yes, I saw her every day. I even talked to her a couple of times."

  "Really? What about?"

  "She asked me about my family and my job. She was a very nice lady. Not many guests go out of their way to be nice to the staff."

  "Did you see her with any of her family?"

  "Yes, her son and daughter and grandchildren."

  "Did you see anything unusual happen at all between Mrs. Thorn and her family?"

  "She argued with her son and son-in-law a lot."

  "Could you tell what they were arguing about?"

  "No, sir."

  "I guess you know she was reportedly killed in an auto accident."

  "Yes, I was sick about it. . . . Such a nice woman to die so violently."

  "Did you ever see her drive an automobile while she was here?"

  "No, sir."

  "Did you see her on the day she died?"

  "Yes, sir. I saw her come back to her room very upset on the morning of the accident. Raul said he saw her arguing with her son just before that."

  "Did you see her leave her room?"

  "No."

  "Did you see her get in a car and leave?"

  "No, sir."

  "Was anyone with her or around her room when all this happened?"

  "No, except one of the limousine drivers."

  "Who was that?"

  "The man who drove Mrs. Thorn's daughter, I don't remember his name."

  "Is there anything else you can tell me about the day that Mrs. Thorn disappeared that was unusual or memorable?"

  "No."

  "Did you observe the reaction of her family after they found out she had been killed?"

  "Yes, I did. The grandchildren were very upset. You could tell they had really loved her. Mrs. Brown was so upset she didn't leave her room for several days. Mr. Thorn and Mr. Brown, well, . . . I don't know about them. I didn't see them that much since they stayed in a different part of the hotel. Raul said they met frequently and talked for hours. He said he overheard them laughing a couple of times."

  "Carmen, you've been a great help to me," I said as I pulled out a card and handed it to her. "If you think of anything else please give me a call. I'll be over at the Holiday Inn for a couple of days."

  She took my card, studied it carefully and replied, "Yes, sir, I will."

  Before I left the Winchester, I talked to Raul and one of the stable hands that had witnessed the confrontation between Melba and her son, Robert Thorn. They both agreed that Robert spent most of the day riding and to their knowledge never left the hotel on the day of Melba's death. They did not know, however, where Taylor Brown went after he quit riding about two in the afternoon.

  Having exhausted all my leads at the Winchester I decided to go inspect the site of the accident and talk to the Sheriff, Dick Barnett, who had handled the investigation. I took Highway 24 to Florrisant, Colorado where the sheriff had his office. The Sheriff wasn't in when I arrived, so I sat down and waited. While I was waiting, a pretty young secretary engaged me in conversation.

  "You're an attorney, huh?" she asked.

  "Yeah, I am," I replied as I stood up and extended my hand. "Stan Turner."

  "Hi, I'm Claudia Robertson, it's nice to meet you."

  "The pleasure is mine."

  "I always wanted to be a lawyer," Claudia said.

  "So why don't you do it?" I asked.

  "Me, become a lawyer. . . . Why I'm not smart enough and I don't have the money to go to law school."

  "I don't believe that."

  "Huh. . . . What do mean you don't believe it? You think I'm lying to you?"

  "No, that you're not smart enough. When I was a kid everyone told me I wasn't smart enough to be a lawyer but they were wrong. If you want to be a lawyer badly enough you can be one. Trust me."

  "Well, I don't know about that. So, what's a Dallas lawyer doing up here in the mountains anyway?"

  "Do you remember a car wreck about a year ago where a prominent Dallas lady, Melba Thorn, was killed."

  "Uh huh, I remember that."

  "Were you working for the sheriff back then?"

  "Yes, I had just started as a matter of fact. I remember all the reporters that came by asking questions and interviewing the sheriff."

  "Did any of the family stop in?"

  "Yes, one of the children and a daughter-in-law, I don't remember their names. They stopped in and talked to the sheriff for a while. Then later on the daughter came by with her chauffeur."

  "Do you know what they talked about?"

  "No, I wasn't invited to the meeting. But the sheriff said later they mainly wanted to know if it was an accident or not. Course the sheriff wanted to know why Mrs. Thorn was out driving alone."

  "Was there any reason to suspect it wasn't an accident?"

  "No, except there were more than one set of tire tracks near where the car left the road."

  "Oh really? You mean skid marks?"

  "Yes, there was fresh rubber from two different cars on the pavement."

  "Did the sheriff investigate the possibility that someone might have murdered Melba Thorn?"

  "No, he didn't have near enough evidence for that."

  The door opened and Sheriff Burnett walked in. He looked at me and then his secretary.

  "Who's your friend?"

  "This is Stan Turner from Dallas. He's an attorney checking into Melba Thorn's death."

  "You're a little late aren't you, Mr. Turner?” the Sher
iff noted. “Mrs. Thorn died over a year ago, didn't she?"

  "That's what I understand."

  "Understand? Believe me Mr. Turner she was dead when we pulled that charred body out of her Caddy."

  "I know the official report concluded her death was accidental, but what do you think?"

  "I'll stick by the report."

  "What about the extra skid marks?"

  The sheriff glared at his secretary. "Those could have been left by someone earlier in the day before this accident even happened."

  "Was there anything else that would make you think maybe this wasn't an accident?"

  "Before I answer that Mr. Turner, I'd like to know who your client is?"

  "I'm not at liberty to disclose that information."

  "Well then this interview is over. When I give out information I want to know who’s getting it."

  The sheriff got up and gestured for me to leave.

  "All right, I'll tell you if you promise to keep it confidential."

  "Of course, I won't tell a soul. Who’s your client?"

  "Melba Thorn."

  "Excuse me, is this some kind of joke? When I pulled Melba Thorn out of that Caddy she was dead, her body had been incinerated."

  "But are you sure that was her?"

  "Who else would it have been?" the sheriff replied irritably.

  "I don't know who it was, all I know is a woman keeps calling me up and saying that she's Melba Thorn and that I need to help her."

  "You haven't met her though?"

  "No."

  "Then it may just be a prank, but it does make for interesting speculation."

  "What do you mean," I said.

  "No one ever gave me a good explanation as to why Mrs. Thorn was out alone on a dangerous mountain road while the rest of her family was riding horseback fifty miles away," the sheriff said.

  "Particularly since she didn't normally drive at all," I added.

  "Let me go pull the file, so I can refresh my memory. It's been a while since this all happened."

  "That's a good idea."

  The sheriff left the room and I looked over to his secretary and said, "I hope I didn't get you in trouble."

  "No, this gives him a reason to dig a little deeper into this case. I don't think he ever believed it was an accident," she said.

  The sheriff returned with a legal size expansion file filled to the brim with papers. He set it down on his desk and began to look through it.

  "Let's look at the autopsy report to see if they made a positive ID on Melba Thorn."

  The sheriff pulled out a report and began to read it. "It says that a positive identification wasn't possible due to the condition of the body. Upon the request of the family no further effort was made since there was no reason to doubt that it was Mrs. Thorn."

  "So it's possible someone else might have died in that crash?"

  "It's possible, but who died down there then if it wasn't Mrs. Thorn," the sheriff said.

  "I don't know, but the important thing is that Melba Thorn may well be alive."

  "Anything's possible I guess," the sheriff said.

  When I left the sheriff's office he agreed to re-open his investigation based on the telephone calls from Melba Thorn. He asked me to keep in touch and he promised to call me if anything turned up. I drove back to Colorado Springs that evening, ate dinner at Denny's and then went back to the Holiday Inn to get a good night's sleep for my trip back to Amarillo and then on to Dallas. Once I was in my room I decided to call Rebekah and see how she and the kids were doing. Just as I had picked up the phone I heard a knock on the door. I put down the phone and yelled, "Who is it?"

  "Housekeeping, we've got an extra blanket for you," a female voice said.

  "Okay, just a minute."

  I walked over to the door and opened it. The door flung open and a tall man wearing a ski mask came barging in and grabbed me by the shoulder. He hit me hard in the stomach knocking the wind out of me, then he struck my face with his knee knocking me against the wall where I collapsed onto the ground. The pain was excruciating, blood came pouring out of my nose and I could hardly breath. I looked up at him wondering what was behind this assault when he kicked me again, this time across the face with his big black boot. I fell onto the floor, everything was a blur and then as he was leaving I heard him say, "Forget Melba Thorn or the next time I'll kill you!" Then I heard screeching tires as they made their escape.

  I must have passed out at that point because when I woke up I was in the hospital emergency room. I tried to sit up but the pain was too intense. I fell back onto the hospital bed. A nurse seeing me wake up came over to see how I was.

  "Hey Cowboy, how you feeling?" she asked.

  "Not very good actually. Where am I?

  "Colorado Springs County Hospital."

  "How long have I been here?"

  "Just about twelve hours. The doctor gave you a sedative since you were in so much pain."

  "If you would like to sit up I'll be happy to help you," she said.

  "Thank you."

  She leaned over and pushed a button and the head of the bed began to rise. She smiled and said, "You must have got someone real pissed off at you to knock you around the way they did."

  "Apparently. How did I get here anyway?"

  "Your neighbor at the motel heard the commotion in your room and called the police. They found you unconscious on the floor and called an ambulance. There's an officer outside who wants to interview you," the nurse said.

  "Oh really, I don't feel like talking right now," I said.

  "Well, he's been waiting about an hour, so I expect you best talk to him."

  "All right, tell him to come in."

  The young officer entered the room, walked over to me and smiled. He took out a note pad and started asking me questions.

  "Mr. Turner, I'm Officer Gray from the Colorado Springs Police Department. We're very sorry you were attacked and want to assure you we will do everything possible to apprehend the persons responsible for this crime."

  "Well, thank you. I appreciate your concern."

  "I know you're probably not feeling too well right now, but I need to ask you some questions about what happened to you."

  "Sure."

  "Could you tell how many persons there were who assaulted you?" he asked.

  "Two, a man and a woman."

  "Can you describe them?"

  "The man was tall, about six foot two and the woman was medium height, thin, maybe five foot four. They both were wearing blue jeans, the man had black boots and I didn't see what shoes the woman had on."

  "Did you get a good look at their faces?"

  "No, they both wore ski masks."

  "Do you have any idea who they might have been?"

  "Not really, they totally surprised me. It all happened so fast, I'm afraid I didn't see much of anything."

  "Did they steal anything?"

  "I don't know, I haven't had a chance to look through my things, but I wasn't carrying anything valuable."

  "What were you doing here in Colorado Springs anyway?"

  "Just doing a little research for a client in Dallas."

  "Maybe your client has some enemies he didn't tell you about?"

  "Possibly, I really don't know."

  "Okay, that's not much to go on but we'll do our best to find your attackers."

  "Thank you," I said.

  In the morning I was released from the hospital so I picked up my baggage from the Holiday Inn and left for Amarillo. Before I left, however, I did call Sheriff Barnett and report the incident to him hoping that would spur on his investigation. On the ride back to Amarillo I planned my activities for the following week. First I'd confront Kurt and then terminate any attorney-client relationship with him. I would then call each of the investors and explain the situation and strongly suggest they get independent counsel. Then I needed to go check on Gena Lombardi who hopefully had managed to get out of jail by now. F
inally, I had to get with General Burton and fill him in on the latest developments in the Melba Thorn case.

  The plane ride back to DFW was short compared to the long drive from Colorado Springs to Amarillo. When the plane landed I wondered how Rebekah was going to react when she saw my physical condition. I hadn't told her about getting beat up because I didn't want her to worry. As I walked up the ramp from the plane I saw her and the kids in the distance. When Reggie spotted me he broke away from Rebekah and ran toward me yelling, "Daddy! Daddy!"

  He stopped when he was close enough to get a good look at me and said, "Daddy, what happened to you?"

  "Oh, nothing, I'm okay. I'll tell you about it in a few minutes," I said as Rebekah and the rest of the family reached us.

  "Oh my God! What happened to you?" Rebekah exclaimed.

  "I was attacked in my motel room last night," I said.

  "Your eyes look terrible and you've got a horrible gash on your face."

  "I'll be all right, don't worry," I said.

  Rebekah began to cry. "Who did this to you? Oh, I am so afraid that gash on your face will scar. I know a plastic surgeon you need to go see. Oh . . . God! I can't believe they did this to your beautiful face. Does it hurt? Are you in pain?"

  "No, the doctor gave me pain medication," I replied.

  "You're never traveling again. It's too dangerous with all those maniacs out there. I can't believe this happened to you. What are we going to do?"

  "Hey, relax. . . . I'm okay. I'll heal, don't worry."

  "Daddy who beat you up?" Peter said.

  "Somebody trying to rob me, I guess,"

  I didn't dare tell Rebekah about the connection between my assailants and Melba Thorn or she wouldn't let me keep working on the case. It seemed best for now just to leave that part out of my story. We got my luggage from the baggage claim area and then found Rebekah's car. On the ride back to Dallas I dumped the rest of the bad news about my trip on Rebekah.

  "So now what are you going to do?" Rebekah said.

  "I'm not sure, I've got to talk to General Burton and get his advice," I said.

  "So did you find out anything of value on this trip or did you get beat up for nothing?"

  "Well, I'm afraid I haven't told you the worst yet."

  "You're kidding? . . . There's more bad news."

  "I'm afraid so. Kurt's been lying to everybody about the Panhandle Building. It's not nearly as far along in the renovation as he told everybody. There's no way he's going to have enough money to complete the project."

  "Oh shit! You mean Tom's going to lose his $100,000?"

  "I don't know. He might."

  "But he's such a nice man."

  "I know. All of the investors are nice guys, but they got into a risky deal."

  "They're going to blame it on you, Stan."

  "I know, but what can I do?"

  "You better call Kurt right now and get this straightened out," Rebekah said.

  "I'm going to see him first thing Monday morning but I don't expect I'm going to like what he has to say. I'm sure he figures he can get the money to cover the deficit on the building from some other source, but that's no excuse for outright fabrication of rent rolls and build-out reports."

  "That bastard, how could he possibly think he could get away with something like this?" Rebekah said.

  "It beats the shit out of me," I replied."

  Rebekah shook her head. "Damn him."

  I took Rebekah's hand and smiled trying to reassure her that everything would be okay. "So, did anything happen at home this week?"

  "No, not really. Peter got two goals Tuesday night in his soccer game. You'd have been very proud of him."

  "Two goals! Wow. Way to go, Peter."

  Peter leaned over the back to the front seat, smiled and giggled at me basking in the recollection of his athletic accomplishment.

  "Oh, your friend Blackbird called," Rebekah said.

  "He called the house?"

  "Yes, he said he couldn't get you at the office so he thought he try you at home."

  "What did he want?"

  "He says that Parker #3 is going to be completed next weekend and he wanted to be sure we could be there."

  "Oh good? What did you tell him?"

  "I said I couldn't go, I've got to work and we don't have anyone to take care of the kids. I told him you couldn't go either because I didn't want you within a hundred yards of his wife."

  "You didn't tell him that, . . . give me a break," I said.

  "Well, I almost did," Rebekah said. "You don't really want to go, do you?"

  "Yes, I know the well is going to come in. I saw it in my dream and you and boys were there."

  "Well, I'll have to see if Mom can babysit Marcia."

  "I'm sure she'll be happy to do it," I said.

  "And I'll have to get someone to cover for me at the hospital for the weekend."

  Rebekah shook her head and glared at me. "This is going to be a lot of damn trouble Stanley Turner. That well better come in!"

  "It will. I've already seen the oil raining from the sky. It's a sure thing."

  "Right. Oh, you got another call too, from Gena Lombardi. She said she's still in jail and her court appointed attorney sucks."

  "Oh God, what does she want me to do?"

  "Get her out of jail," Rebekah said.

  "Well if her criminal attorney couldn't get her out of jail what makes her think I could," I replied.

  "I don't know but she thinks you're some kind of God or something. After all you saved her precious Corvette."

  Finally, we arrived home and parked the car in the garage. The kids opened their doors and rushed inside the house. I got my bags from the trunk and brought them in.

  "Let's just go to bed and sleep right through next week, okay," I said.

  "Sounds like a good plan to me."