My laptop sat on a chair in my room next to my grandfather’s old T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings desk. Sometimes I imagined him sitting there putting the finishing touches on a piece of jewelry he’d made out of variegated rocks he found on one of his treks through the desert. The paramour of my collection included a necklace he’d made me out of tiger eye, but it wasn’t the bold yellowish-brown hue or even the look of the necklace that attracted me, I liked the way it sounded: tiger eye. It was powerful, and I felt powerful when I wore it. As a child I had no idea how much the pieces would mean to me one day when he was no longer there to make them.
I dug into my sheets with both hands and inched my way toward the edge of the bed. Five heave-hos later and I was there. I dangled my feet off the edge, moved my laptop over my legs, and performed a search of private investigators in the state of Utah by the name of Marc Benjamin. My efforts yielded one match. I dialed the number.
“This is Marc.”
“My name is Sloane. I wondered if you could help me,” I said.
“What can I do you for?”
“I’d rather discuss it in person, if you don’t mind. Can we meet?”
“How about tomorrow afternoon?”
“I need to speak with you today, if that’s possible,” I said.
There was a short pause. “I could see you an hour from now.”
“I’ll take it. See you then,” I said.
I wrestled with my clothes and managed to pull a hoodie over my head and slip on a pair of yoga pants. I gazed into the mirror. In the appearance department, it wasn’t my finest hour. My hair looked like I’d been in a fight with a porcupine. I did the best I could with a brush and a rubber band and dabbed some makeup on.
A horn sounded off in the distance.
A cabbie dressed in black from head to toe hopped out and opened my door. He had a clean-shaven, oversized head and a moustache that trailed down on both sides into a goatee. He stared at the bandage on my head but said nothing.
“Where to, lady?”
“University Avenue, across from the Riverdale Shopping Plaza.”
He nodded and started to drive.
The cabbie took the back way through Provo Canyon. We wound down past the double cataract waterfalls at Bridal Veil Falls. Most of the year the falls offered a magnificent display of cascading water that showered down into the Provo River. But it was winter, and the water had turned to spiky tentacles of ice.
The office of Marc Benjamin, PI, looked a lot more like a renovated old house when the cab pulled up. It was small but functional.
I walked in, staring at the stark-white walls in front of me.
The sound of footsteps approached from behind. “Like it?”
“Excuse me?”
“The walls? Painted ‘em yesterday; color is called Navajo White.”
He said Navajo like nav-ee-hoe. It looked like plain, ordinary white to me.
“Are you Sloane?”
I nodded.
He wiped his hand on his oil-stained jeans and offered it to me. I wasn’t inclined to take it, but for the sake of his gesture, I did anyway.
“Sorry about the dirt,” he said. “I just finished loading some bales of hay.”
“You are Marc Benjamin, right?” I said.
He tipped his hat. “At your service, ma’am.”
We walked toward a desk in the corner and sat down.
“What can I do you for?”
“Have you been in the business long?” I said.
“Not really, this is just something I do on the side.”
I suspected as much. His eyes shifted to the main attraction around my head.
“What happened, if you don’t mind me askin’?”
“Bull fight,” I said. “The bull won.”
He laughed.
“I wondered if you could give me some information about one of your clients,” I said.
“That’s preeve-il-eged information. I can’t give stuff like that out.”
“I would like to ask you a few questions about Charlotte Halliwell.”
His crooked smile turned to a frown. “Why are you asking about her?”
“You do know she’s dead?” I said.
The revelation startled him.
“No ma’am. Can’t say as I did. When did it happen?”
“A little over a week ago.”
“Charlotte sold my dad some horse property over in Heber Valley last year. That’s how we met and became friends. She planned to buy one of our mares this year. A few months back, she came out to the ranch. She said she rode as a kid and wanted to get back to the simple things in life.”
“I hate to tell you this,” I said, “but I believe she was murdered.”
He sighed. “How’d she die?”
I told him.
“Who in their right mind would want to hurt such a nice person?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. I need to know why she hired you.”
He scratched the back of his head.
“I’m a PI myself,” I said, “so I understand your loyalty, even in death. But in our business it helps when we can pool our information together. We both want the same thing, right?”
It wasn’t the best pep talk I ever gave, but it wasn’t the worst either.
“Truth be told, the kind of research I usually do is of the genealogical kind. I only took this on as a favor to Charlotte.”
He stood up, walked over to a plastic bin in the corner of the room, and dug through some files.
“Charlotte came to me about three months ago. She thought her fiancé had another lady friend in his life.”
“And did he?” I said.
He pulled out the same photos that I came across at Charlotte’s house.
“There were others all right. The man went after every woman in town from the looks of it.”
“How did Charlotte react when you gave her the news?” I said.
“She thanked me for the information, but she didn’t cry or even act like it bothered her much. I got the feeling she’d suspected it for some time and had already come to terms with it.”
“Did you witness Parker abuse the women in any way?” I said.
He shook his head. “I only tailed him for two days. Once I told Charlotte what I’d found, she didn’t want me to go any further.”
“Did you speak to her again?”
He nodded. “We talked again a few weeks later.”
“What about?” I said.
“She told me she’d cancelled the wedding.”
“Did she say how Parker reacted to the news?” I said.
“He denied it at first, the women I mean, but then she showed him a copy of the photos.”
“Can I get a copy of the file you have on her?”
“I can scan the pages if you like.”
He went into another room, and a few minutes later, he returned and handed me a manila envelope.
“You know, I planned to ask Charlotte on a date, but I thought she needed a little time first—you know, to heal and everything. Now I wished I had. If I can do anything else, just holler.”
He placed his hat back on his head, tipping it toward me. “You have a good day now.”