by Dakota Kahn
“You’re not going to drink that.”
I heard Blake before I saw him, and felt him before I looked at him. The idea of Blake right that second was more comfort to me than actually seeing him, because just the idea of him couldn’t talk back, and tell me everything I’d done wrong.
And I’d done so much wrong.
He took my whiskey and drank it, then kissed me with whiskey breath. I gasped and laughed… then coughed because even that much whiskey was too much for me. By the time my coughing spasm was over, he’d gotten me a glass of water, himself another glass of whiskey and was taking me to a booth.
“I suppose it’s over,” he said, watching me while I sipped my water and tried not to look in his eyes.
“I suppose.”
“But?” he said, and it wasn’t with the rising tone of somebody running out of patience. Blake was just sitting there, watching me, waiting to hear what I had to say.
Even still…
“I thought I had it figured out, but what does it matter now? Rip Chiaki’s dead. He probably only had a few good months left in him anyway, the way he lived, but still… they were his. And now they’re taken away.”
“A lot of people would say good riddance. He’s a murderer, who needs him?”
My eyes flashed and I sat up, spoiling for a fight. “He’s no such thing! It’s all a mistake and…” Then I settled back down. What use was it getting mad, and at Blake, for Pete’s sake? Now was the time for moping.
“That’s it? That’s all the fight you got?” Blake said.
I eyed him suspiciously. “Hmm?” I said.
“I expected you to come out with a full-throated defense. Are you Kate the Defense Attorney, Kate Who Does What’s Right?” And then he leaned forward, his smile completely gone, his expression so serious it was almost a little scary. “Or are you a different Kate?”
I’m Kate who stands up on her own two feet… And who accepts a little help once in a while.
“Here’s what I know,” I said, suddenly feeling wind pick up in my lungs as I began to tell Blake everything I’d heard and found out since we’d parted company earlier. The illness of Mr. Greene, the woman driving away from the parking lot. The cufflink.
Blake took everything in without much reaction. He nodded, and occasionally his eyes would move up and down, like he was reading some personal, internal list. After I finished and wound down, he sat there quietly, but not still. He thrummed with an internal movement, like a conversation was going on in his head.
Then it was over. He downed the rest of his whiskey, picked up his hat and said, “Come on, we’re going.”
“Where?”
“The town meeting starts in a half-hour. Everyone’s going to be there,” he said, getting up and pulling on my hand to get me up.
“What, we’re going to storm the meeting, shout out accusations at the crowd?” I said, my eyes blazing. I could imagine myself up there, fingers pointing, righteous fury in my voice!
“No, silly. We take people aside into conference rooms and discuss things.”
“Oh.”
Oh well.
The scene at town hall was crazy. Mostly crazy, not 100% people screaming crazy. But there were protesters, and a counter-protest that I could only guess was paid for by Sparks or Wendover’s company, since they had very professional signs and college students that had to have been bussed in from a couple hours away. They carried signs that said “Allow Progress”, “Stop Stagnation” and things that weren’t quite appropriate, but I guess on a Monday evening in mid-Autumn in the mountains you rent whatever crowd you can get.
Blake and I pushed through both crowds, where I studiously avoided being seen by anyone I knew and got into the conference hall. The hall was already crowded, and packed with several more faces I didn’t want to encounter. Miguela sat up front, looking regal and not at all like a former underwear model.
Spark’s man was standing in the corner of the room, his bulldog expression unchanging as he watched over the crowd.
“How is he not in jail?” I said, whisper-shouting at Blake as we fished through the crowd. “He assaulted me!”
“Because Dulap and Sparks had a meeting,” Blake said.
“Well… what do you think of that?” I said to Blake.
“I can’t repeat what I think about it to a lady, and still call myself a gentleman,” Blake said, with just a touch of very-uncharacteristic growl in his voice that was good enough for me to show the man was on my side.
Whispering Pines town hall was built a couple of decades ago, and so it felt very modern and new compared to some of the other city buildings in town. The conference room had a modern, good looking stage. There were heavy curtain and a large set of TV sets hanging at various points, all of them showing views of the stage, in case people couldn’t turn their heads and look 20 feet down the way to actually watch the human beings talking.
“Pretty cool set-up, huh?”
As I was gazing up at the TV, Tyler Zane had come up to the both of us, smiling sheepishly at Blake, then reddening a little as he looked at me.
“Yeah, I suppose. Do you work here, too?” I said.
“Oh, yeah. It’s community service work. Not that I’m working off any time or anything, officer,” he said to Blake, his chuckle seeming a little too nervous. Who knows, maybe Tyler has a secret petty criminal side? Might help him with the ladies.
“Yeah, but this place is pretty sweet, the way we’ve got it wired up. Me, some of the guys from the TV station, we put together this system so you don’t only need those big cameras up there on stage. Look at this,” he said, and then pulled out his cellphone. He pushed a couple numbers on it, waited while saying, “Aw, come on.”
Then suddenly my face was on all the TV sets. Then Blake’s, as Tyler swiveled his camera phone around.
From somewhere in the audience, I heard someone shout, “Becker!”
“Crap,” I said.
“Whoops,” Tyler said, looking again like a wild and woolly sheep.
It was Liz Schwille. She was clear on the other side of the room, wearing her lady detective pant suit and a smug grin on her face.
“Run interference,” I said to Blake. “And you, take me to a conference room, after you get that darned camera off me,” I said to Tyler.
He apologized, explained it to me, made me download the app, all kinds of things I didn’t need to deal with while I was just trying to get to a place to do my awesome detective thing.
But Tyler couldn’t have planned it better, because where he took me was just where the Greenes and Wendover had been set up for their presentation.
Mrs. Wendover was in there all by herself, flicking through a large folder filled with papers on a desk. When we came in she looked up, slightly surprised expression on her face.
“Hello?” she said, calmly.
“Oh, crud. Sorry,” Tyler said, and he touched my wrist to pull me away. “There’s another room.”
“No, this is perfect,” I said, and walked in. Tyler made a few motions that were somewhere between worried and confused, and I turned back to him. “Go set up the show. I need to talk to Mrs. Wendover alone.”
Tyler nodded, pointed in the direction he was going to go, then went there.
When the door closed, I turned back to Mrs. Wendover. She had sat back down, and watched me come over with a weary, drawn out expression, like somebody who thought they were just about to get some sleep when the phone rings.
“Mrs. Wendover,” I said, and I leaned against her table.
She closed the large folder she’d been looking through, deliberately zipped it shut, then turned back to me.
“Mrs. Becker, I’ve heard the news about Mr. Chiaki. I can’t tell you I’m sorry, but…”
“He didn’t kill your husband,” I said.
Mrs. Wendover sighed. She grabbed her purse and played for a minute at opening it, and then chuckled.
“I was just going for a cigarette. I haven’t sm
oked in five years, but this weekend… I’m sure you can imagine.”
I had to stop myself from going into a “oh poor dear” routine, because I was not there to be friendly. I was there to get to the bottom of something.
“Look,” I said, “I’ve found something disturbing, some questions I need answered.”
“Should I call in my attorney?” she said, this time opening her purse and pulling out her phone. She starting typing something into it, so I had to jump in quick.
“You can stop me from asking them, I suppose, right now. Right this minute, but not forever. Because I’m not the only one that knows about the cufflink.”
Did the word stop her dead? Did she drop to her knees and confess?
She did not. She looked at me like she’d never heard the word before. “Cufflink?” She rubbed her fingers over her own cuff.
“A link for cuffs, like the kind Rip Chiaki always wore. Two of them were found on your husband. The other was left in the company car, and picked up by Maybell Greene.”
I just laid it out there, not even baiting a trap. Just… to see.
Mrs. Wendover closed her eyes, lowered her head. She set her phone down, face down, on the table, and took a deep breath.
“And a woman was seen driving out of the hotel, in a Wendover company car the night of the murder.”
“I did all I could for her,” she said.
“For who?” I said.
“Xena Greene. That night…”
She stopped when two doors on either side of the room opened. In one came the Greene’s, Xena pushing the door open and Lawrence coming behind her, standing up ramrod straight and not looking the least bit sickly.
She was wearing a sleeveless green gown that offset her hair and eye in a lovely fashion. Lawrence was in the same gray suit he always had on. It looked like he’d been born in the thing.
If Blake hadn’t come in from the opposite door, I might have been too scared to go on. But I had my backup.
“Don’t talk to her, Claire,” Lawrence said, rushing up in his bovine arrogance toward us.
“It’s too late. I can’t help it. Xena… I’m sorry,” Claire said, looking up at her with what seemed like real tears in her eyes. The first tears I’d seen this woman cry.
“What? What is this?” Xena said, looking at every face in the room, completely oblivious.
“Aw, hell,” Lawrence said, then he collapsed into a chair. For the first time, I thought I could see what Xena was talking about. He seemed to diminish, with shallow breaths and blood-shot, rheumy eyes.
“What? What happened? Is it… about James?” Xena said, her hand going to her mouth.
“At about 2 in the morning, I knocked on Xena’s door, and she wasn’t there,” Mrs. Wendover said. “I’d had… this terrible premonition. In my sleep, I could feel it when… when James died. I woke up, and went to see Xena, just to talk to somebody. She wasn’t there.”
Xena’s mouth dropped open, and then she laughed. “Come on, Claire. What in the world—”
“It doesn’t matter what she did to us,” Lawrence said, his voice now sounding as weak as he looked. “We can’t do this to her.”
“What have I done… Oh my God. Oh my God!” Xena backed up away from the table, looking at us all like a nest of vipers.
“I knew about you and James,” Claire said. “I can’t tell you how it hurt but for the whole family’s sake, and the company, I wouldn’t have done anything.”
“Wow,” I said, just perplexed beyond belief. I turned to look at Xena, to see if I could see any of what I was thinking confirmed in her eyes. But there was just confusion and terror there. “You drove to Craterton to pick up Rip Chiaki. How would you even know—”
“She asked me after the rally,” Blake said. “She came up and talked to me, asked me what I was going to do with that man. Xena Greene.”
“Because I was… wait. Yes, and I told you, Claire,” she said, her eyes going wide, almost nuts.
“Told me what?” Claire said, her words barely audible.
“No… no…”
“James and me had a rough patch, and we were getting things back together. I guess he called it off with you, and…” Claire buried her head in her arms.
James Greene looked like he’d been hit with a truck, and left in a chair to die.
Xena did another trip around the room, looking at their faces, at my barely comprehending stare. At Blake, who was cold and keeping one hand down near his gun, the other reaching back. For handcuffs?
“I heard her car,” Lawrence said, finally. “I heard her and I went out to see but… I couldn’t make the trip down myself. She sneaked passed me in the night, her and that man, I guess.”
Xena screamed. It was a blood-curdling, horrible sound, and then she lunged. Not at anybody, just away. Blake had his gun out and was shouting for her to stand down, but she was fast and strong. Before anyone knew what had really happened, she was out of the room, running away.
Blake raced after her, and I was left alone with the wreckage of Wendover Amusements.
Chapter 20
“Oh my golly,” I said, the silliest sentence I might have ever uttered. But there it was. And I said it again, like it wasn’t a ridiculous reaction.
“Oh my golly.”
“I have to talk to the mayor,” Claire said, getting up suddenly, blinking away her tears as if none of this had happened. “We have to make sure this doesn’t interrupt the decision, or—”
“What?” I shouted, my volume reverberating through the room almost as loudly as Xena Greene’s weird scream.
“The show must go on,” she said.
Lawrence glared at me like none of this would have happened if not for Kate Becker, then he struggled to his feet.
“I’ve got a kid. She still needs to eat. Being sad is not excuse for not getting your job done.”
I couldn’t believe it… but I guess it made some sense, assuming, as I did, these were creepy people. Creepy people who would tolerate an affair in their very small circle as long as they could keep doing their work. Who knew, almost certainly, what had really happened and kept it a secret for their work.
I hoped to Heaven and all that was good I never found a job I cared about that much. Too much to be human.
“There’s going to be a lot of questions,” I said. “You could have saved a lot of people a lot of time and effort and… one man’s life if you’d been forthcoming.”
Lawrence looked at me a little cross-eyed, like I was speaking Esperanto Pig Latin.
“Never mind her,” Claire said, taking Lawrence’s hand, then helping him to the door. “She’s a small town girl. No mind to speak of.”
Then they were gone, and I was there, alone in the room.
I had a stupid notion to call Blake, but he was obviously chasing a poor, misguided (and apparently murderous) woman in the middle of an enormous town meeting. I’d gotten as far as having my phone out before I realized he was probably a bit busy.
Then, out of nowhere, I got the idea to take a picture. This was the place where it had happened, this podunk nothing conference room in a podunk nothing town where I had semi-solved my case. Not that I brained out all the clues and had the definitive answer. So maybe the Landowner wouldn’t count it.
Still, the right person would be caught. The whole drama would be over.
And there was still tonight’s decision… which the Wendovers were going into, a presentation without their plans.
I took the folder and was about to grab it, and run with it, before I realized what it meant.
Wendover’s business wasn’t all in James Wendover’s head after all. It was all here, every tacky, terrible idea he had for every inch of our once beloved… or at least semi-liked and tolerated ghost town.
This was a chance I probably wouldn’t get again, so I opened it up and looked.
Were the ideas as ghastly as I had anticipated? Oh, yes. There was even a building called Maison de Chat. It was like
a Mel Brooks version of the West, only nobody told James Wendover Blazing Saddles was a comedy.
Flipping through, though, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the artwork. The detail. However terrible these ideas were, James Wendover had thought them all through. The garish hotel. The half-dozen saloons, all with menus already drawn up on the plans and drink names that sounded vaguely dirty. That terrible gallows that no planning commission in the country would allow to go through.
The Gallows that everyone had insisted was a spur of the moment decision, built right from James Wendover’s imagination. Except here it was in minute detail, a date on the plans several months ahead of time. Even a second page, with detailed mechanisms.
I remembered the big wooden base for the gallows arm when I was on top of it. The plans revealed a hidden panel on the side of that base, with mechanics and levers. One pull, swoop. Down goes the hanging arm.
No need to be particularly strong at all. There was nothing preventing anybody, regardless of their strength or stature, from lowering that arm, attaching James Wendover’s tie to it, then pulling it back up.
“Our plans.”
A door opened, and closed, and Claire Wendover was inside the room, looking at me with a queer kind of smile. Like she wasn’t sure just how to look at me yet.
“Your plans,” I said back to her, tapping the open folder. “All the ones that were just in your husband’s head, but here they are.”
“It was a miracle that Lawrence, however he’s suffering, was able to… recreate… what are you looking at?” she said, stepping closer, but gingerly.
“At the Gallows. The spur of the moment gallows that your husband created, as a demo for a Wild West show. That he was in, apparently.”
It all came to me in a sudden flash, what happened that night. Not every detail, but the gist, and two people up on that gallows, the man’s wife and his business partner, tying his neck-tie to the lowered arm, then cranking it up. Doing it together?
“Tell me, who tied him to the arm, you or Mr. Greene?”
Now she smirked. Then opened her little purse again.
“Going for another cigarette?” I said.
