Excerpt



It was late autumn. The colors in the leaves had peaked a couple of weeks earlier. Icy cold winds had already begun to meander down to the valley floor of this Northern Utah community, leaving half the valley trees bare. For the majority of Logans residents, all was calm; all was right; all was as it was intended to be and in accordance with the cultural course upon which the community was set, dozens of decades ago.

All communities endured events that changed them, transformed them, forever altered their communal emotional security and exposed them to the sordid realities of corporate misbehavior. In Logan, such an event was now imminent. The communitys citizens were essentially unaware and questionably prepared to absorb what they were to learn about themselves, their neighbors and the notion of corporate responsibility. They were equally unable to predict how their lessons would be learned, from whom they would be learned, or from where their resolutions would emerge. Most importantly, they would learn how emotional crimes and injuries would translate into an exacting physical, or corporal justice. Nevertheless, just as nature provided inevitable pain to a young child during the course of losing its baby teeth, so also would she provide the maturing child an eventually comfortable existence. Logan, Utah was about to lose its baby teeth.



Darleens death was to ignite a communal back draft of unanswered questions. From time to time, a group of people shared thoughts of potential events they incorrectly assumed to be improbable. As such, was the predisposed denial in possession at the hospital that night: Darleens death was not merely improbable, it was simply unthinkable and wholly unexpected!

By virtue of this single event, lives, like random molecular gasses, invisible atmospheric currents and stray sparks, each previously afforded the luxury of harmless solitude, combined explosively to blend elements of Logans society which heretofore had been peacefully marbled. The resultant burn was to be more than the refiners fire for those who would find themselves tasked with understanding this single event. The grinding angst would come to ignite the acidic responses buried deeply within each of them.



Thank you, Mrs. Richards. Oh, one last question. You mentioned that there could be others, others who were friendly with Beverly who also could have a motive to kill Darleen, County Prosecutor, Dee Ell asked.

Yes. Anybody at the company, well not everybody, but plenty of people were disgruntled at the end. Darleen did so much to help all those people, and all they did was talk poorly about her and stab her in the back.

Tammy hesitated for a minute.

Now that I am talking about it, I can remember lots of times that Beverly stirred it up with employees, creditors and investors. There is no doubt in my mind that she could be working with any number of them or on their behalf. The more I think about it, the more instances of betrayal I can remember.

How should we go about discovering the relationships and conversations to which you are referring?

Talk to Matt at the company. Hes the CFO. I dont trust him all the way, but he knows everybody related to the company. The family is trying to get him replaced, given that he hurt Darleens feelings and all. Now I really have to go



We could always subpoena the records and attempt to figure it out ourselves. We could have a search warrant here within an houror would that lead to our spending all our time on the rumors versus the real issues? Better yet, why dont we just concentrate on you? Dee Ell asked Matt with a crooked smile.

If you did that, Matt responded, would you legally commit to reimburse this public company for the aggravation and distraction of its officers and will you take personal responsibility before the SEC for its competent operation during this period? I have to consider not only the merits of your investigation, but our responsibility to the company, its employees, creditors and shareholders. The obligations of my role are clearly defined by the SEC. Is your power superior to theirs? As you can imagine, free-for-all questioning could also cause great damage to these interested parties and to Darleen as well. You may force me to hire an attorney for the company. You know how much cooperation you would get then.

Well try to exercise restraint, Detective Strong said, trying to calm Matt down.

Dee Ell finally lost his patience. On the other hand, this company has taken a tremendous amount of money out of this community, it has never given the community straight answers, it has lived in a sea of accusations for years and its operations have never been properly sorted out for the investing public. It may be high time for all that to come to light, Dee Ell commented sharply.

You are sure that this, a potentially unrelated murder investigation, is the proper venue and forum for this type of corporate boil lancing and investigation, and by people ill-prepared to judge proper corporate behavior? Matt fired back.

You know, sometimes life friggin sucks. We have the authority to move in this direction and we will, if necessary. With your cooperation and guidance, we can minimize the negative impact to the company. Otherwise, you can probably kiss your investment, your position, and job goodbyenot only your investment, but that of everybody else as well, Dee Ell said as he drove a stake right into Matts heart.



The issue of Beverlys motive and the identity of a conspirator always seem to get tangled up in the company, Judge Bjorn said. No matter how we want to investigate or interrogate, the line of questioning always returns there. Somehow, the answer to the mystery of how Darleen died lies within that crazy company.