by Hy Conrad
“Interesting.” Callie mulled over the new information. “I take it there is no one named Dylan Dane.”
“Not that we’ve been able to track down, no. We’re working with the bank, so we’ll see what they can provide.”
“And there’s no connection to Keagan Blackburn? In any of this?”
Her brother slapped his notepad shut. “For the hundredth time, no.”
“And yet he was trying to bury the body.”
“I am aware of that.” State glanced over at the bar. “Did you get anything more from your bartender?”
“Not as much as you’ll be able to get with your badge.”
“Good. I’ll get to him after I talk to the wait staff.” He stood up. “Fun talking to you – off the record. Enjoy your dinner.”
Callie turned to see Rodrigo looking her way, showing off a white square plate of scallops on a bed of linguine. State was already walking to the maître d’s station when Callie caught him by the sleeve. “Um, I may have told the bartender a few white lies. About Briana and me.”
“Can’t wait to hear them.”
CHAPTER 10
That night she turned the sound machine on high, took her Ambien, plus one and a half tabs of Xanax, which unfortunately had become the norm, and promised herself to stay in bed till noon. Her plan was to ignore the early morning cacophony as Yolanda and State forced the twins into their Sunday best then carted them off to St. Mary Cathedral where generations of McFees had gone to see and be seen. But as soon as the house was quiet, Callie was up.
She filched the last of the coffee from the Krups and perused the front page of the American-Statesman. By ten she was dressed and out the door. So much for promises.
Buddy had stopped going to church shortly after Anita’s funeral. Sunday mornings became a time for lounging on the veranda or in the sunroom, reading the Texas papers, sometimes to himself and sometimes aloud, railing against the stupidity of the state government and “that man in the White House”, whoever it happened to be. Callie never thought she would miss those mornings, but she had thought about them last night, all through her fitful sleep, and now found herself driving the familiar route over the Redbud Trail Bridge, toward Westlake Drive.
Somewhere along the way, she changed her mind. Callie eased onto the shoulder, looked up an address on her phone and turned on her GPS. A little detour, she told herself, for curiosity’s sake.
She had been to Keagan Blackburn’s estate several times during her adult life, usually for parties and fundraisers. She vividly recalled one Saturday evening, being cornered in the butler’s pantry by Ingrid, Blackburn’s third wife, who insisted on spilling out the intimate details of her life. Ingrid was a Norwegian beauty who had traded in her country’s values of modesty and self-reliance for the values of a trophy wife. It was not a match made in heaven, said Ingrid, but what could she do? Eventually, Ingrid did find something to do. According to the gossip columns, just this past fall, the third Mrs. Blackburn ran off with her riding instructor, a virile, polo-playing Argentinian, leaving Keagan Blackburn a bachelor for all practical purposes.
Callie turned off onto a dirt road and stopped in front of the closed, wrought-iron gates. The Blackburn manse was a solid brick and timber structure, relatively old and relatively modest. It sat on an artful but artificial hill, its own huge pitcher’s mound. The grounds were protected by a wall that overlooked large, scrubby lots on both sides. Callie assumed that someone in the Blackburn family had bought the lots ages ago, intent on preserving their privacy. On an impulse – what could she lose? – she lowered the window of her pickup, a silver GMC Yukon, proudly assembled in Texas, that Buddy had given her on her twenty-first birthday.
Through the gates, she could see the yellow sports car centered on the curving drive in front of the house. Callie had done her research. The CEO of Blackburn Energy and his favorite toy, a top-of-the-line Lamborghini – or was it a Ferrari? – had been on the cover of the local glossies more than once. She had taken this little detour with the vague plan of pushing the intercom button, but now decided against it. What would be the point? What would she even talk to Keagan Blackburn about? Whatever the pretense, he would consider it an odd sort of visit, a definite poking of the bear, as Oliver had warned her against.
Callie was in the process of rolling up her window when she became aware of a security camera, just inside the gates, pointed directly at her.
*
In contrast, the McFee ranch had no gate. There were stone pillars where a gate had once hung, and a two-storied residence in the French style, built by a pretentious great grandmother as a carriage house. This was the same great grandmother who had imported the live oaks from Louisiana in an attempt to give the ranch a more southern plantation look.
Now the carriage house was a gatehouse with no gate. The main house had a line of Italian poplars beyond the pond instead of a backyard fence because Anita McFee had thought a fence looked too suburban. In her childhood memories, Callie didn’t recall any locked doors or alarms. But then there had always been a servant or a gardener on the premises to keep an eye out.
When she wandered around to the back veranda, her father was there, but his Sunday collection of papers was gone. In its place was an iPad in a lime green cover, resting in his huge hands. Angus came over to greet her, tailbone wagging.
“Callie girl,” Buddy said. “What a treat!”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I came to see Angus.”
Buddy snickered. “You redheads stick together. You thirsty for a lemonade? If you are, go help yourself. You know where it is. I’m not getting up.”
Callie grinned. “Would you like a lemonade, Dad?”
“That would be sweet. Thank you.” It was one of the games he liked to play, being the attentive host while making someone else do the work. Callie leaned in, kissed him on the cheek and retreated into the kitchen. She emerged with two tall tumblers of lemonade with crushed ice and a garnish of mint from the one of the pots above the sink. She placed both on the side table then settled into the other rattan.
“Just thought I’d drop by. And how are you?” Callie’s question was quite heartfelt. Just how was Buddy McFee? Was he with her here in the moment or lost in the shadows?
“Well enough. Surprised?” he said, holding up the iPad. “Gil said I was killing too many trees. Must admit I’m getting used to the damned thing, although I do miss throwing the newsprint around. How’s everything over at State’s place? Boys not driving you crazy?”
“They’re angels.” She realized how ridiculous that sounded. “As much as two McFee males can be, which is a pretty low bar. Is that a cigar? Dad!” She had just noticed a fat Cohiba with a half-inch ash leaning into a pristinely clean ashtray.
Buddy’s morning cigar had been the subject of a legendary war. Early in Callie’s life, Anita had persuaded her husband to reduce his consumption to two of the illegal Cubans a day, one in the morning, the other right before bed. In the year or so before her death, she had gotten him down to one, in the morning with his coffee and papers. And on her deathbed, as the cancer ate away at her stomach, she had made him promise to give them up completely. “It is a cigar,” Buddy told his daughter. “Why don’t you try a puff?”
There was something about his tone. Callie bent over to examine the Cohiba and its half-inch of ash. When she touched it, the ash stayed stubbornly in place. “It’s wood. Why are you smoking a wooden cigar?”
“Because I promised your mother. But I like the feel of it. And the occasional puff of wood never hurt anyone.” The cylindrical sculpture was remarkable true-to-life, from the ash to the cigar band to the faux chew marks on the head. There was even a narrow hole drilled down the center. “Nice huh? Some artist in Travis Heights made a few of them for me.”
Callie handed him the cigar and watched as he took a deep, harmless draw. He grinned up at her as they fell into silence.
With all the most important subjects off-limits – Callie�
�s work, Buddy’s work, the last few years of estrangement – their conversation, when it started again, drifted into small talk. “Did you see the grill?” Buddy pointed down the length of his cigar to a stack stone wall at the end of the patio. “It’s a Kalamazoo Hybrid. Runs on anything you got – gas, charcoal, wood pellets. Probably nuclear fission, too. Top of the line.”
“Pretty spiffy,” she agreed.
“Damn right. Keagan Blackburn bought one, so naturally I had to get the same. Keeping up with a goddamn oil tycoon.”
Callie gave it a polite glance. It looked like any other shiny, big, built-in grill. “Have you been seeing much of Keagan Blackburn?”
“I don’t remember when he mentioned the grill to me. Probably at some charity thing. Seem to be more and more of those damn things.”
“Charity thing?” She couldn’t resist. “Are you sure it wasn’t when he came over to see you? Part of the non-retirement work you were telling me about?”
He reacted calmly, almost amiably. “Keagan asks my advice now and then. Is that the reason you’re here to visit your old dad on a lazy Sunday morning? I’m hurt.”
“You’re the one who brought him up.”
Buddy’s smile faded. “Keagan doesn’t own a Kalamazoo. I just wanted to see if you’d latch onto his name. State told me you were asking around.”
It had been a typical Buddy McFee trap. “Okay. I know he’s been consulting you about the body in the field.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I’m my father’s daughter. I find things out. I also know he has an alibi.”
“So that’s the reason for your Sunday visit? I’m hurt, darling. I’m hurt.”
“You are not hurt.”
“Don’t tell me what I am,” he barked. “My only girl shows up on the Lord’s day… Was that your plan coming here? To get your old dad to say something? Something you can use later on? You didn’t get me disbarred last time. Maybe this time.”
“It was an accident, Dad, please.”
“And maybe this will be another accident. If you don’t have the brains to avoid a goddamn accident, you shouldn’t…”
“Why is his alibi a secret?” She sensed that most of his outrage was fake and she wasn’t about to back down. “You think his alibi will get you disbarred?”
“You want to know his alibi?” Buddy calmed himself with a draw on his cigar, like a deep breath. “Keagan Blackburn was at home in his favorite chair, on a video conference – several calls back to back, between seven-thirty and nine-thirty p.m.”
Callie almost laughed. “He was Skyping? That’s his alibi?”
“Don’t interrupt. The M.E. puts her death at between eight and nine. The less time between time of death and a preliminary autopsy, the more accurate these things are, that’s what they tell me. But let’s give Dr. Cummings a half-hour either direction. That puts the poor girl’s death between seven-thirty and nine-thirty, which is pretty much the exact time as Keagan’s calls.”
“That’s a nice coincidence.”
“Coincidence or not, it’s real. Cummings will testify to it.”
“Could she be wrong about the time?”
“If someone wants to hire their own medical examiner and review the findings, that’s their right.”
Callie remained skeptical. “Who in the world has a conference call at that time of night? For two hours?”
“Someone who is working out the details of his company’s petroleum leases with his partners in Anchorage, where it was five-thirty in the afternoon, and his customers in Shanghai, where it was nine-thirty the next morning. Between the lot of them, they confirm Keagan’s presence in his living room, where they said he looked relaxed and was not in the process of killing anyone.” Buddy reported all of this without notes or hesitation, a reminder of the man he still was, when he was still himself. “And in case you’re wondering, the call was not a hurried thing set up at the last minute. It had been scheduled for weeks.”
“And less than an hour later, he was driving her body to an open field…”
“I’m well aware of what he did less than an hour later. It’s what happened in-between that is…” Buddy cleared his throat, taking his time to find the word. “…problematic. And for the record, I have no idea.”
“And off the record?”
“I have no idea.”
“Dad, at some point it’s going to come out, and if you’re involved in covering up a murder…”
“You’re wrong.” Buddy interrupted. “These things don’t always come out. Remember when you and State were kids and the Governor and that movie star, what’s his name, came to the house? What’s his name? The blond curly hair? I recall you had a crush on his sorry ass. You had a poster of him in your room. I think he came up and signed it. Kissed you on the cheek.”
“No.” She would have covered her ears, but there was a drink in her hand. “I don’t want to know. Was it something illegal?”
“Not per se, no. But it would have ended his career. My point is it’s been twenty years and no one knows. In this case, Keagan Blackburn is betting the young lady’s killer is never caught. His lawyers are talking to the D.A., doing everything to see he doesn’t get prosecuted. My guess is they’ll go for ‘failure to report a felony’, which is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by a four thousand dollar fine. He may also be faced with illegally disposing of a body, but I think we can make that go away.”
Callie couldn’t believe it. “That’s it? A stupid fine? How about failure to cooperate in a murder investigation?”
Buddy did his non-smile smile. “Did you just make that up?”
“That’s not against the law?”
“It’s not. In the good old U.S.A., you are not required to assist the police, as long as you don’t lie to them, or act to hide evidence or hinder the investigation through positive action. Keegan has done none of that. So, unless they can show that he did anything more than find a dead girl and try to bury her…”
“Then why won’t he say anything?”
“That’s his constitutional right. And I doubt the D.A. will make waves.”
“Because he’s Keegan Blackburn.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it…” Buddy McFee cleared his throat. “Blackburn Energy is the only major oil and gas company headquartered in Austin. A fluke. I think the city fathers are aware that, given the right impetus, or the wrong one, Blackburn could pick up and move shop to Houston and be with all the other players.”
“Is that your doing, Dad? Encouraging them to look the other way?”
“No, darling. My job is to keep the case quiet. Keagan is hoping everything is dropped and his name never comes up. I’m not sure if I can make that happen or not.”
An exasperated groan escaped her lips. “So, what do you think really happened? Be honest.”
“Honest? Okay, baby girl, you got it.” Buddy settled back in his rattan. “Here comes honest. It’s been my experience that people keep secrets like this for three reasons. One: for money, which makes sense only if the stakes are super-high, like Keagan losing his company. Two: to protect someone or something. It’s hard to imagine Keagan being so touchy-feely, since his third wife left and he isn’t that close to anyone, although he could be protecting something we don’t know about. Three: out of fear, the fear of a worse consequence if he tells the truth.”
Callie found this last possibility interesting. “What kind of worse consequence?”
Buddy gave his lemonade a thoughtful sip. “Could be blackmail, for instance. Or a death threat.”
“Someone forcing him to stay quiet about what happened?”
“It’s possible. Or he could be complicit without being the killer. Or he could be protecting some juicy secret of his own, one that would come to light if he told us what actually went down. Again, I don’t know.”
She mulled over the options. “Well, he must know who killed her.”
“Can you prove that?”
; Callie tried not to let her exasperation show. “Promise me you’re not breaking any laws. That’s all I ask.”
Buddy stared at her stone-faced for ten seconds or so then smiled. “Good having you back.”
“Lawrence!” came a shout from around the side of the house.
After Anita’s death, Gil was the only person left to call Buddy McFee by his Christian name, and only rarely, most often when he was annoyed. The short, energetic man rounded the corner, his cell phone coming off his ear and going into his pocket. “Callie.” He didn’t break his stride, although his voice did betray the slightest hitch. “I didn’t know you were visiting us.”
“What’s the matter?” said Buddy. “Can’t my little girl drop by and accuse her old man of a felony? What’s this world coming to?”
Buddy’s assistant regarded him with a practiced eye. “That was Felix Gibson on the phone,” he said, pointing to his pocket. “He says he called the office line this morning and you talked to him.”
“That I did. Felix and I used to confer all the time, about redistricting or the party slush fund or whichever senator couldn’t keep it in his pants. Now I think the only reason he calls is to brag about his kids. How low have we sunk, eh?”
Gil wasn’t amused. “He didn’t call to brag about kids.”
Buddy’s eyes twinkled. “Maybe not.”
“I don’t care why he called. That line doesn’t ring in your office anymore. It rings in mine, which means you were in my office, sir, answering my phone.”
Buddy shrugged. “It was ringing.”
“Am I going to need to keep my apartment locked? Is that it?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Boss.”
“What did you just say?” Buddy met Gil’s eyes with one of those stares no one in Texas politics ever wanted to be on the receiving end of. “Keep your apartment locked? Don’t you use that condescending tone with me.”
