C
HAPTER 6
“L
IFE
S
TRESSORS
”
Moving to a different subject, Detective Norris said, “You brought up about Alan’s daughter or granddaughter taking riding lessons.”
Miriam said that Portia’s daughter took riding lessons at the ranch in Whitewater. Then Miriam said that this granddaughter lived in Delta, with Portia. Concerning how often Miriam saw Portia, she said about once a week, and she talked to her on the phone almost daily.
Detective Jarrell excused herself at this point and exited the room. Norris continued wanting to know about Alan keeping his work away from the home, and wondered if he had an office somewhere. Miriam said that he had an office in Delta, or at least he did until about six weeks before when he sold his interest in a title company there. From that point on, he did most of his work at home. In fact, he did it near the spot where he had been murdered. Miriam didn’t know of anything that Alan was working on, for which someone might want to kill him.
As far as the liquor cabinet went, Miriam said that she might have a glass of wine once in a while, and Alan only had a few drinks at the end of the day. He preferred Crown on the rocks or Jack Daniel’s.
Norris asked, “Did he get intoxicated every night?” Miriam said no, but that he would once in a while. And when he did, as she put it, “he was a happy drunk.”
Norris wondered if Alan had any “life stressors. Any financial problems with work?” Miriam said those weren’t really stressors. “He always had to have a project going. I know that he had a note due at the bank. I don’t know any more about it than that.”
In relation to having dogs at the house, they had two but neither of them was a watchdog. They were friendly dogs that weren’t aggressive at all, Miriam said. Then she added about the dogs that day, “They were outside. Alan doesn’t like to leave them in the house when I’m gone.”
Getting back to the wallet, Miriam recalled that Alan usually kept it on his desk. And when he traveled, he just laid it out on the car seat or truck seat until he had to exit the vehicle. Then he stuffed the wallet in a pants pocket, since it was cloth.
Norris asked, “Does he normally keep a cell phone on him?”
Miriam responded, “Mm-hmm” (meaning yes). Then she laughed, and said, “It’s pink.”
Norris was surprised, and said, “It’s pink?”
She laughed again and explained, “He liked the color pink.”
Norris wanted to know if she or Alan had seen anyone strange around the property in the last week. Miriam answered, “In front of our property, there is an open space, where people walk. Sometimes we see people out there. But no one was out of place or any problems.”
Getting back to Alan Jr., Norris questioned, “You said that Alan supported the mom on the adoption of Alan Jr.’s daughter. In what way did he support it?”
Miriam answered, “I think he went to Denver or wrote a letter to the judge. He told the judge that his son, Alan Jr., had no business being a father.”
“Do you know if any threats or problems came from that?”
Miriam heaved a big sigh. Then she said, “I don’t know. Alan didn’t really say. I just know that he said that his son still blamed him for it.”
“How long ago was that?”
“About two years ago.”
“Have things calmed down since then?”
Miriam replied, “I’ve never actually seen them at odds. Well, really, Alan didn’t give him much of a chance to argue over anything because he doesn’t want to get into it. Alan Jr. stayed with Portia for a while, but Alan told him to leave.”
“Anything we haven’t asked you about that you can think would be important for us to know?”
Miriam thought awhile and answered, “I can’t think of anything.”
C
HAPTER 7
“W
HO
W
OULD
W
ANT
TO
H
URT
A
LAN
?”
Both Detective Norris and Miriam sat quietly until Bev Jarrell returned. Once again, she sat down across from Miriam at a small table. Detective Jarrell said, “I’m not clear about your relationship with Josh and his relationship with Portia.”
Miriam responded, “He’s very quiet. Very private. From what I know of his relationship with Portia—it’s fine. I know a while back Alan was on Josh to get a job. Josh got a job with Halliburton as, I think, some kind of truck driver. And the rules are—he’s on call and has to be within twenty minutes of their office in Grand Junction. So that’s why he’s been staying with us.”
Jarrell wanted to know when the last time was that Josh worked. Miriam said that Josh had probably gotten up around six in the morning, and he was already gone by the time that she and Alan got up. Asked when he was expected home, Miriam thought that would be about 4:30
P.M.
Jarrell asked how Josh accessed the house, and Miriam replied that he used a downstairs door, and he practically had his own apartment down there. She didn’t see him very often in the main part of the house. Sometimes she would see him in the evening when she and Alan fed the horses. Asked if Josh had any firearms, Miriam said that she didn’t know. And as far as laundry went, she said that Josh did his own laundry and would use the upstairs laundry room for that. Then Miriam joked, “I don’t do his laundry, and I don’t do Alan’s.”
Caught off guard for a moment, Jarrell said, “Oh, I’m okay with that.”
Miriam added, “That was one of our agreements.”
Getting back to Josh, Miriam thought the last time he had done his laundry was on the previous Thursday night. And she said that Alan had told Josh to be more careful about not dropping lint on the floor. Alan wanted Josh to pick it up and put it in a garbage can.
Miriam said that she hadn’t seen Josh on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday morning. She had called Portia to see if Josh was all right. Portia told her that Josh had some time off from work and had been in Delta with her.
After nearly an hour and a half of an interview, Detective Jarrell said, “I know we’ve asked you a lot of questions. So let me ask you this, who would want to hurt Alan?”
Miriam sighed and responded, “I don’t know. Um, I don’t know how stressed he got with the sprinkler guy. They had done some work at the house. And they had asked for half payment up front. Alan always wanted a bill in writing. And they never provided that. So he didn’t write the check. Finally around April [2008], they came over to talk to Alan about the second part of the payment and finally produced a bill. This thing had been going on, back and forth, for nearly a year. So maybe that was an issue.”
Jarrell wanted to know how much of a bill it was. Miriam answered, “I don’t know. Alan never discussed the whole thing.”
Jarrell said, “Ranking people you found Alan to be contentious with—who would be at the top of that list?”
Without any hesitation, Miriam replied, “His son. I don’t know of anyone else he dealt with professionally that he was . . .” Miriam’s thoughts trailed off at this point.
Detective Norris asked, “What vehicles are supposed to be at the house right now?” (It was 3:04
P.M.
)
Miriam said, “The little maroon Dodge farm truck, his silver Chevrolet truck, the Oldsmobile”—the vehicle she had been driving—“One vehicle is in the shop. It’s a pink Buick Roadmaster.”
“What vehicles did the landscapers come in?”
Miriam thought for a while and said, “The sprinkler system guy came in a white pickup with maybe a camper-type top. His assistant has a little black pickup truck.”
Norris wanted to know, “How many bank accounts are there?”
Miriam replied, “There’s a bank account at American National Bank. And a bank account for Dance Junction. I have a dance studio downtown.”
Detective Jarrell was surprised by this and said, “Oh, ballroom dancing?”
Miriam responded, “Yes. It’s more than we can handle.”
For some reason, either the mention of bank accounts or Dance Junction made Miriam agitated. She began rocking back and forth in her chair. At one point, it almost looked as if she was ready to stand up.
Norris continued, “Is that a joint account?”
Miriam answered, “No, just in Alan’s name.”
Jarrell questioned, “Did you have any financial documents in the house? Something where someone could steal personal information?”
Miriam said, “No. He tried to keep it bare bones at home. He didn’t like to manage too many accounts.” And once again, she said that their money was in “dirt.”
Norris asked, “The credit cards were just in his name?”
“Yes. And I was very happy with that. He took very good care of me.” Miriam looked directly at Bev Jarrell when she said this, although Norris had asked the question. Miriam added, “I’m gonna start taking quarters out of the car, because all the money was in his name.”
Jarrell wanted to know, “Even though you had a prenup, you guys didn’t think of taking out a life insurance policy?”
Miriam answered, “No. We didn’t expect anything to happen. All we had was health insurance.” And then Miriam said that there was a life insurance policy, but that was only to pay off creditors, should Alan die unexpectedly. Miriam related, “He was going to get another life insurance policy, but his blood pressure would never come down. He had to wait for his blood pressure to come down, or at his age he would have had to pay astronomically for that policy.”
Regarding the one insurance policy Alan had, Miriam reiterated, “I think it was for one hundred thousand dollars and that’s to pay off creditors and anything like that.” Then she seemed to know a little more about his business expenses than she first indicated. Miriam told the detectives that Alan owed $275,000 to investors on one set of loans, and $140,000 on a bank note. As far as how much money he had in the bank, she thought he had $100,000.
Jarrell said, “Describe the little firearm you talked about earlier.”
Miriam responded, “Um, he had it in a little bag.”
“Did you ever handle it?”
“I did. But I never could pull the little . . .” She didn’t know the word.
Jarrell added, “Did it have a slide on it?”
That was the word Miriam was looking for. She said, “Yes.”
Jarrell stated, “Understand, Miriam, we’re looking for things out of place.”
Detective Jarrell had Miriam go over the timeline of her travels once again. Once she was done with that, Norris asked, “We talked briefly about what you first saw. You need to be very detailed about this.”
As Miriam related what she had seen, she became more and more teary in her conversation. Often it was punctuated by small sobs. Miriam said, “I saw him on the floor and thought he had a heart attack or stroke or something. I put my hands on his chest to kind of shake him and wake him up. I patted him on the side of the face. I saw that he had blood coming out of his nose. I got my phone and called 911.” At this point, Miriam broke down crying. When she could speak again, she said, “The operator told me to give him CPR. Empty his mouth and nose and do chest compressions. I turned his head . . . and . . .” Miriam completely broke down then.
Jarrell asked, “Are you going to be sick? Do you want me to get a trash can that you can use?”
Miriam nodded her head that she did.
Jarrell brought a wastepaper basket into the room and placed it near Miriam’s chair. Miriam lowered her head and retched for a while, but did not actually throw up. When she was through retching, Miriam continued, “His mouth had bloody liquid in it. The operator told me I had to do chest compressions four hundred times. I kept doing it. And I could hear the emergency person on the phone, but it wouldn’t work.”
Norris jumped in and said, “Did you notice any injuries on him beside what you’ve mentioned?” Miriam answered that Alan’s left eye was black-and-blue. Asked if she had washed anything besides her hands since she had left the house, Miriam said no.
Norris added, “Okay, because I’m preparing you. We’re going to have to do a test on your hands. It’s just for residue, if you were around where a gun was shot.”
Miriam nodded her head that she understood. Norris continued, “Also, I need to prepare you for . . . Well, I noticed there’s some blood on your clothing. So we’ll have to give you a change of clothing.”
Miriam looked down at her blouse and, with surprise, noticed blood there as well. She let out an “Oh!” but said she would hand over her clothes.
Jarrell said, “It sounds like Alan kept you pretty much at bay when it came to family, finances, and everything.”
Miriam replied, “He pretty much let me know what he thought I should know.”
Jarrell asked, “Were you okay with that?”
Miriam responded that she had been and added, “The only thing I did for him financially, well, he got the flu for a couple of weeks. And I called his engineer.”
Jarrell wanted to know if they ever went on trips together. Miriam answered that they went to Lake Powell, where Alan had a cabin cruiser. “Two weekends ago, we were down there with some friends.”
“These friends—did you have a good relationship with them?”
Miriam said the relationship was fine, so Jarrell asked, “Who are they?”
Miriam replied, “Bob Isom and his wife, Peggy. They’re from Delta. There was another couple, but I only knew their first names. Bob was a good friend of Alan.”
“Would Alan confide in him if there was a problem?”
Miriam answered, “Probably not.”
Jarrell asked, “If Alan were to confide in anybody, who would he confide in?”
“I don’t know. He’s very private. Kind of hermit-y. He was very comfortable just sitting on the porch, enjoying the view. I had to talk him into going to Lake Powell with those couples. We hadn’t planned on meeting up with them. We went, possibly knowing they would be there. So I had him drive around the marina, and we found them. There was an open slip, and I had him move into that one so we could socialize.”
Jarrell asked if it was “painful for Alan to socialize.” Miriam said no, but that he just liked to be by himself when not working. Then she added, “I kind of wanted to get to know Peggy a little bit more. Alan has been really good friends with Bob Isom since high school. I never really did know his wife.”
Asked about who the other couple was, Miriam only knew their first names, Phil and Christy.
After a long pause, Jarrell asked, “What questions do you have for us?”
Miriam thought and then said, “I was wondering when I get to go home?”
Jarrell replied that it wouldn’t be for a while. The house had to be thoroughly investigated for evidence. The sheriff ’s office would call Miriam when she could go back inside.
Miriam responded, “I didn’t drive here. I don’t have a vehicle. I don’t know where to go.”
Jarrell asked if Portia would come and get her. Miriam replied that someone would have to tell Portia about her father being dead. And then Miriam said that she didn’t think that Portia should be driving under those conditions. Asked if John Robert “Bob” Isom could drive her somewhere, Miriam thought that he would. But now it was a matter of where she could go. She didn’t know that many people in the area very well.
Finally Miriam said that perhaps she could be taken to Alan’s sister’s house. She lived in Grand Junction, and Miriam got along well with this woman. But once again Miriam could not think of the woman’s last name. “I know her name is Merredith, but I don’t know her last name. I’m bad with names.” All Miriam could come up with was that Merredith lived on Texas Street in Grand Junction. Jarrell said that they would try and find out where this Merredith lived and contact her.