“I am less concerned about the ethics of what happened than I am about the events themselves,” I said.
“Why?” he said with enough heat that Jean-Paul’s face quickly appeared over a walkway railing. “It’s over, done with. We were ruined a long time ago. What does it matter now?”
“Park Holloway was murdered only a few days ago. How can you say it’s over?”
He looked at his empty glass with such a desperate longing that I handed him my full one. As he closed his eyes and savored the first sip, I glanced around the room, not knowing where each tiny camera lens had been secreted by Guido early that morning. Because we did not know where Hiram might sit, or not sit, the entire room was covered by cameras. Each camera was fixed in place, so as he paced Hiram moved constantly from the field of vision of one camera into the field of another. The final edited sequence of this conversation in the finished film would have to be a cut-and-splice mosaic with tiny lacunae—gaps in coverage—interrupting the images in the same way that grout interrupts the pattern of a tile floor.
“Hiram, what was Park’s role in the art-for-arms deal?”
“Veneer,” he said. “He made the deal look pretty, and that’s all.”
“Are you protecting Park?”
“Dear God, woman,” he said, glancing at me with disdain. “Don’t you understand that Park Holloway was an empty suit? He was a hick with some book-larnin’ from a fancy Ivy League school who later got pushed to the top of the local manure heap by the boosters from some small cowtown by the mere fact that he didn’t get his degree from the local state college. He did nothing in Congress except warm a chair until I came along; when he was supposed to be studying bills before the House, he was studying Mandarin.”
“I thought he was your friend.”
“He was my front. My American credentials.”
“Why are you being so forthcoming now?”
He beat his fist against his chest. “What have I got to lose?”
“Your freedom?”
“I can arrange to be out of this country before anyone who can stop me could stop me.”
“I have some vague idea what you got out of the art scam. But what did Park get?”
“His life.”
“What does that mean?”
He drained the potent liquid from the tiny glass and took a deep breath, but instead of answering, he turned toward the window and watched the ebbing tide.
“You manipulated the college trustees to get Park hired as president at Anacapa College,” I said. “Why? What can you possibly get out of a cash-strapped community college?”
He stared out the window. “I thought you would have that figured out by now.”
“I’m still working on it.”
Jean-Paul had made his way slowly back downstairs. I glanced out the window and saw Detectives Thornbury and Weber on the beach near the edge of Mme Olivier’s deck, barefoot, baseball caps pulled low over their eyes as camouflage, wearing shorts and sweatshirts, half-heartedly chucking a football back and forth.
I walked over to the wet bar in the corner, picked up a highball glass and held it up to Chin.
“Scotch, light ice, fifty-fifty water,” he said.
It is unethical, in American journalism, to get a subject drunk during questioning. My goal was to keep him mellow; he seemed ready to jump out of his skin. Barring that, more strong drink might render him to some degree impaired in case he intended to do something stupid.
“Tell me about Francis Weidermeyer,” I said, putting the glass in his hand. “Where does he come in?”
As he took the glass from me, he gripped the wrist of the hand that offered it.
“You have slender wrists,” he said, holding on tight.
I pulled myself free of his grasp.
“You were going to tell me about Francis Weidermeyer.”
He looked up at me over the top of his glass. “I wasn’t.”
“Park solicited money to buy a really ugly sculpture that I believe was the work of your friend Weidermeyer’s son by his mistress, Clarice Snow.”
“The kid.” His tone was rife with derision. “Little Frankie.”
Again he looked out at the ocean, drawn by it, seemingly lost in its endless surge and retreat.
“The kid,” I said. “What about him?”
“Park did a lot of favors for Weidermeyer when he was in Congress,” he said. “Greased the skids for export licenses, government contracts, made introductions—that sort of thing. In return, Weidermeyer did a big favor for Park, probably saved his political career.”
“What was that?”
“Father, father, who’s got the father?” he said in a singsong tone, still fixated on the scene outside. It occurred to me that he was probably half in the bag before he came over for croissants that morning. “Isn’t that the game the children play? Father, father?”
“Father, button, whatever,” I said. “At the moment, Frankie Weidermeyer is in jail waiting arraignment. Will his father help him?”
“Can’t. He’s dead.”
He seemed to relax a bit—or at least to lose some starch—leaned a shoulder against the cold window and faced me, finally.
“His mother called me this morning,” he said.
“Did she ask you to help her son?”
“No. She asked me to help her. The FBI came calling last night. They have closed down her gallery.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jean-Paul edging closer. We were both nervous about Hiram; something about him was very off.
“What did Clarice want from you?” I asked.
“A ticket out of the country, a new name and a new passport; the Feebs took hers.”
“What about her son?”
“She can’t help him if she’s in jail, can she?”
I walked across the room and stood next to Hiram at the windows.
Looking at the side of his face, I asked, “What did you mean, ‘Father, father, who’s got the father?’”
He smiled, almost. “What do you know about the art of political mistresses?”
“Not much.”
“Here’s a clue.” He turned and leaned his back against the glass, hands in pockets. “What do Strom Thurmond, Thomas Jefferson, John Edwards and Arnold Schwarzenegger have in common?”
“They were all politicians who had children with mistresses,” I said.
“Bingo,” he said. He pulled his right hand out of his pocket. I saw Jean-Paul lunge for him at the same time I heard the blast of gunfire. Deafened by the explosion at such close proximity, all I knew about what had happened was the rain of fine strawberry mist that rose up out of the top of Hiram’s head and showered down on me. Hiram, his descent lubricated by his own blood, slid down the glass wall behind him until he was seated on the now pink-dappled white carpet. A single eye, fixed and dilated, stared at me with reproach: what should I have known before I cornered him that morning?
My ears rang. People were talking to me, but I had no idea what they were saying, there was so much noise. I saw Thornbury and Weber run into the house, saw that they left sandy footprints on the white carpet. Jean-Paul’s arm was around me, walking me because I seemed to have lost communication with my legs, following Mme Olivier’s elegant straight back in a rush out of the room.
In a marbled bathroom, Jean-Paul and Mme Olivier stripped off my spattered clothes, washed me, wrapped me in a thick terry robe, the sort you find hanging in the closet at some hotels with a tag warning that if you take it you will be billed some extravagant amount of money. That’s what I focused on: if I wore the robe home, was there enough in my checking account to cover the cost of the robe?
When I became somewhat sentient again, I was sitting on the bathroom floor between Jean-Paul’s outstretched legs, his arms around my middle, sipping very strong coffee with the encouragement of Mme Olivier.
I looked at her and said, “What a mess. I am so sorry.”
She laughed, a great, deep laugh full of bo
th relief and compassion. “My dear.” She reached down and stroked my cheek. “My dear.”
Jean-Paul kissed the top of my head. I turned to look at him and saw that his eyes were so full they threatened to spill over.
“Cooking shows are nice,” he said. “If you must continue in television.”
“But I’m not a good cook.”
“A game show, then?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Please do. I rarely see people hosting game shows face much danger.”
There was a knock on the door. Mme Olivier, who I realized had been sitting atop the toilet lid, reached over and opened the door a crack.
Thornbury’s face appeared.
“We okay in here?”
“I’m so-so,” I said. “But they seem to be a bit rattled.”
Both Jean-Paul and Mme Olivier had the grace to laugh; nerves.
“How are you?” I asked the detective.
“I’ve been on the job for almost twenty years, and I never saw anything like that.” He squeezed in and sat on the edge of the tub. “Man, I can go the rest of my life without seeing it again.”
I offered him what was left in my coffee mug, and he took it.
“I did not see that coming,” he said. He drained the mug and set it on the floor. “It happened so fast, I’m not even sure what I saw.”
“Everything was captured in HD-digital format,” I said.
He looked at me as if maybe he thought I was loopy, and probably I still was.
“There are ten cameras covering that entire room,” I said.
“You filmed it?”
“Yes. I thought I would probably only get one chance at Hiram, so I wanted a record of everything he said. But I had no idea....”
“Did he confess?”
“To killing Park Holloway?” I shook my head. “No.”
“You were talking to him for quite a while,” Thornbury said. “What was that all about?”
“Let me ask you something first,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“I suggested the other day that you might track down a man named Francis Weidermeyer. Did you?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Is he dead?”
“He wasn’t yesterday when I spoke with him. What’s the deal?”
“Do you remember when John Edwards was running for president, and his cookie-on-the-side gave birth to his baby? A friend covered for him, claimed to be the father.”
“I remember. But what does that have to do...?”
“Hiram was talking in riddles. But when I asked him where Frankie Weidermeyer’s father was, he said he was dead. I think that Park Holloway was the kid’s father, and I suspect that Weidermeyer took credit to cover for him.”
“Of course, yes,” Jean-Paul said. “That explains the ridiculous price Holloway paid for that very large and very ugly pile of bronze.”
“Does, doesn’t it?” I said.
I asked Thornbury, “Where did you find Mr. Weidermeyer?”
“In Vegas. He now manages a big construction project.”
“Does he?” I said.
I asked him the name of the company. When he told me, I dropped my face into my hands, didn’t know if I should laugh or cry, because there it was, the missing piece.
“You okay, Maggie?” Thornbury asked, solicitous.
Jean-Paul tightened his grip around me. I looked up at him.
“My foot is asleep,” I said.
He let out a deep breath, smiled, and helped me to my feet. One foot, anyway.
Mme Olivier rose and opened the door.
“Maggie?” Thornbury was still perched on the edge of the tub. “I’ll need that film.”
“I know.”
“Chérie,” Mme Olivier said. “Let’s find you some clothes.”
“Maggie has a bag in the car,” Jean-Paul told her.
She sent her houseman out to retrieve the bag, and led me upstairs to a guest room to change.
When we came back down, paramedics had arrived and determined that there was nothing they could do for Dr. Hiram Chin. Thornbury and Weber, who looked absolutely green around the gills, had cordoned off the far side of the room where Hiram still sat, slouched, with his back against the smeared window. Once again, the detectives, working a case on the far northern edge of Los Angeles County, had to protect the crime scene until the coroner and a team from the Scientific Services Bureau could find their way all the way from downtown.
Guido came to retrieve his film equipment but couldn’t get past the deputies at the gate until Thornbury went out and vouched for him.
“Damn, Maggie,” Guido said as he walked in and caught a glimpse of the scene. “Can’t let you out of my sight, can I?”
“Not for a minute.” I patted his cheek. “The police want all of the original footage, but we need to keep a copy.”
“Everybody will have to settle for a copy,” he said. “It’s digital. There is no ‘original’ footage unless they want the computer’s motherboard, and that won’t do them much good. All of the cameras fed live images into a system I set up in the garage that recorded and sent a simultaneous backup to a cloud file. I can go out to the garage now and make a copy, but the original file exists.”
“Would you please make the detectives a copy to take with them?”
We made plans to meet at the studio later, and excused by Thornbury, Jean-Paul and I left.
In the car, Jean-Paul put a hand on my knee.
“Why did you react so strongly when the detective told you where Weidermeyer works?”
“Until I heard that, I could not understand what two big-time operators like Chin and Holloway were doing at Anacapa College. Chin especially. The man lives large, right?”
“If he owns a house in this neighborhood, I have to say yes.”
“The college system is flat broke,” I said. “Except for one pocket.”
He stole a glance at me. “Yes?”
“Think Taj Ma’Holloway.”
Chapter 24
“So, you’re the woman who is trying to ruin my life.”
Francis Weidermeyer, a big, florid man with a giant’s chest and no discernible ass, walked around the massive desk in the construction trailer I had been directed to and offered his hand. He had to talk over the rumbling of heavy equipment outside; from international arms dealer to construction boss—quite a comedown.
“I’m only trying to earn a buck,” I said.
He threw his head back and laughed.
Late afternoon, it was hot in Las Vegas, humid for the desert. The sweater I put on at Mme Olivier’s that morning was uncomfortably warm; I was grateful for the arctic chill of the air-conditioned trailer.
I’d had too much day already. If Lana Howard, my executive producer, hadn’t arranged for the network’s jet to fly me to Las Vegas, I would not have gone. But Chin’s suicide had elevated the project, and me, in the network’s estimation. A news crew was sent to film me—with a security detail en train—boarding the sleek plane at Burbank Airport’s Executive Air Terminal. All of the fuss was window dressing that would be used to promote the film. As uncomfortable as that made me—was I the story, or was I the reporter?—I was happy for the ride.
“Will you give me a few minutes of your time?” I asked Weidermeyer.
“Hell, I’d like to take you home and play with you for a few days, but, yeah, I’ll give you a few minutes. What do you want to talk about?”
“Park Holloway, Hiram Chin, Clarice Snow, a boy named Frankie, you.”
“Junior. God, haven’t seen the boy since he was what? Twelve? And how is Junior?”
“He’s in jail, waiting arraignment on an attempted murder charge.”
“Attempted? The dumb fuck, never thought he’d amount to much. Who’d he try to take out?”
“Me.”
He dropped his head, smiling at some private joke.
“I hoped to run into you at Park Holloway’s memorial ser
vice,” I said.
“Yeah, well.” He looked up, seemed to focus on a point somewhere over my right shoulder before he looked directly at me. “I thought about it, but I didn’t want to run into the widow.”
“Karen wasn’t there,” I said. “There will be a second service in Gilstrap this weekend. She’ll be there.”
“Not much chance of me showing up in Gilstrap. I’m not exactly a favorite of the former wife.”
“Why is that?”
“Could be because I paid the rent on her husband’s Georgetown love nest for about a dozen years, took credit for his love child. Boy, when Karen found out about that...” He puffed his lips, let out a long breath. Then he gave me an abashed smile. “When she found that out, it was D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”
“When was that?”
“As soon as Park left Congress. Not much point in me carrying Clarice for him anymore, was there?”
“I thought it might have something to do with an arms deal that went sour,” I said, taking the seat he offered.
“It all went down at about the same time.” Facing me, he rested one haunch on the near edge of the desk, folded his arms across his chest. “You think you know something about that, do you?”
“Only in broad strokes. You want to tell me what happened?”
“Not really, no. That deal is how I ended up in this shithole, managing an army of guys who are working with fake green cards and borrowed Social Security numbers. They’re good workers, but every time the Immigration inspector shows up they all scatter and I lose a day’s labor.”
“How did Clarice end up with the collection of fakes the court awarded you?” I asked.
He grinned at me. “Honey, I just did my best to change the subject.”
“It was a pretty good effort. But I don’t have a lot of time, and I have a whole lot of questions.”
“How do you know Clarice has the fakes?”
“I figured it out for myself.”
He thought about that for a moment.
“I always liked Clarice,” he said. “The girl has a lot of spunk, you know? When she lost the Georgetown place, she moved out to the west coast with the boy.”
“To Santa Barbara,” I said.
“Yeah. Years ago, Park bought her a little summer cottage near the ocean—no one stays in D.C. during the summer—so he could see her during congressional recesses. Guess you could call it Love Nest West.”
The Hanging Page 25
