“Sometimes it is.”
* * *
Cheryl gave me a little wave and drifted out of the room. I turned my attention back to Kaufman and Palo. Palo was eating what looked like a Caesar salad from where I sat. Kaufman was attacking the first of two cheeseburgers and a plate of fries. They took turns glancing at their watches and watching the door as if they were expecting someone.
I studied my own watch for a moment. It was after normal business hours, yet I took a chance and made a call. I was relieved when the receptionist at Mrs. Barrington’s office answered.
“This is Holland Taylor,” I told her.
“The private investigator?”
“Yes.”
“No one’s here. I was just about to leave myself.”
“I’m sorry I’m calling so late. I should have called earlier, but I didn’t think of it until now.”
“Think of what?”
“Could you do me one quick favor before you leave?”
She didn’t answer.
“Please,” I said.
“What?”
“You keep Mrs. Barrington’s calendar.”
“Her business calendar. I have no idea what the woman does on her own time.”
“Can you check to see where she was about a year ago?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
I gave her the exact date Mayor Franson was killed.
“I’m going to put you on hold. Just a sec.”
My ear was immediately filled with the sound of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” I watched Kaufman and Palo while I listened. Why they didn’t see me seeing them I couldn’t say. Palo must have seen something he did like, though. He stood abruptly and smiled. Kaufman turned in his chair and saw the same sight as his partner. He stood, too, clutching his napkin to his chest.
And Cynthia Grey walked into the restaurant.
“What the hell?” I said aloud.
The “Ode to Joy” was replaced by the receptionist’s voice.
“Taylor,” she said.
I didn’t answer.
“Mr. Taylor, are you still there?”
I averted my eyes.
“Yes, yes, I’m here,” I said. “Sorry.”
“The date you gave me, Mrs. Barrington wasn’t in the office the entire week, including that day.”
“Where was she?”
“New York. She flew out early Monday morning and didn’t return until Thursday night.”
Mayor Franson was shot late Tuesday evening, I reminded myself.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“As sure as I can be. It’s not like she took me with her.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
I ended the conversation and looked up. Cynthia Grey was sitting now at the table with the two lobbyists. She was smiling. They were grimacing as they spoke earnestly to her, as if they were describing a problem that they expected her to solve. I had the distinct impression the problem was me.
I made another call. This time Freddie answered.
“Have you called the professor yet?” he asked.
“No.”
“What’s keeping you?”
“Dammit, Freddie. Business first.”
“What business?”
I told him that the receptionist in her office building said Mrs. Barrington was in New York when the mayor of Arona, Wisconsin, was shot and killed outside his house.
“What do you want me to do about it?” Freddie asked.
“Prove it.”
“Do you want me to contact David Helin?”
“I don’t give a damn who you call.”
“What’s with you all of a sudden?”
Apparently the boys knew I had been watching them after all, because they directed Cynthia’s attention to my table. She looked me directly in the eye from across the room. And winked.
“You should have my problems, Freddie,” I said. “You really should.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
She was dressed in black with just a hint of white showing at her collar and sleeves. That was her uniform, what she always wore in the office or to court; it was what she was wearing when Mpls St Paul Magazine took her photograph outside the Federal Court Building for an article entitled “The Black and White World of Cynthia Grey.”
She crossed the room, moving around and past the other tables with the self-assurance that money and limited celebrity can bring until she reached mine. She smiled—a perfect smile in a perfect face surrounded by perfect brown hair. Her perfect brown eyes glistened. She said, “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
“You’re a long way from home yourself.”
“You’ve frightened my clients.”
“Your clients? I remember when you only represented underdogs. DWIs that you thought needed counseling instead of jail time, sexual harassment victims, employees fired because of age discrimination. Now you’re working for the Man? You disappoint me.”
“What? Again?”
I took a sip of my bourbon, wishing I had ordered two.
“Are you going to offer me a chair?” Cynthia asked.
I gestured at the one across from me, and she sat.
“You didn’t really accuse my clients of murder, did you?” Cynthia asked.
“No, I didn’t. In fact, I actually defended them when someone else accused them of murder. Imagine that.”
“They seem to think otherwise. They seem to think you’re here to defame them at the town hall meeting this evening.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“The fact that you assaulted Richard Kaufman in full view of a couple dozen witnesses during lunch—”
“Talk about your unsubstantiated allegations. Anyway, why do you care?”
“They have my law firm on retainer.”
“No, I mean why you personally? Do these guys have enough juice that they can pick up a phone and have a senior partner come riding to the rescue?”
“The first call was to an associate. It got kicked up to a junior partner, who announced that we needed a presence in Arona to help U.S. Sand deal with a troublemaking private eye named Holland Taylor. I couldn’t resist taking a look for myself. Actually, it worked out nicely. Kaufman and Palo are very impressed that the firm thought enough of them to send a partner; no doubt word will get back to the home office in Chicago. Besides, I get to see you again.”
Just then my young waitress reappeared to take Cynthia’s order.
“The lady will have an iced tea, unsweetened, with a wedge of lemon,” I said. I pointed at my bourbon. “I’ll have another one of these.”
The waitress left.
“How are you, Holland?” Cynthia asked.
“Well. I’m quite well.”
“I’ve seen you jogging past my house from time to time.”
“I run several different routes. You’re on my three-and-a-half-mile track.”
“I’ve been tempted to meet you on the sidewalk with a towel and a bottle of water like they do in the marathons.”
“You should.”
The waitress returned with our drinks. Cynthia offered to pay—she was on an expense account. I said I’d pay, I had one, too. Yes, she said, but hers was going to be picked up by U.S. Sand. I let her get the check.
“How’s Annie these days?” Cynthia asked. “Assistant Chief Anne Scalasi, I should say.”
“Okay, I guess. Between the job and her new marriage, I don’t see much of her anymore.”
Cynthia nodded her head as if she believed me.
“How about you?” she asked. “Have you been seeing anyone?”
“No one seriously. A woman named Claire who lives in my building; a professor at the U named Alex Campbell. You?”
“Nobody.”
“Hard to believe. You’re such a beautiful woman.”
“You’ve always been so kind. No. I don’t have much time for a social life these days.”
“What I sa
id before, I was joking. I was very pleased when I read that you merged your law practice with the current outfit. Very proud. You’ve finally made it to the big time, just like you’ve always wanted, although”—I threw a thumb at Kaufman and Palo—“the riffraff you hang out with these days … I think I liked it better when you were defending addicts from draconian drug laws.”
“It’s not as different as you might think.”
“That’s telling.”
“Who are you working for?”
“Didn’t the riffraff tell you?”
“All they seem to know is that it involves the murder of Emily Denys—and maybe Eleanor Barrington.”
“Ahh.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You seem to be in a mood.”
“Yes, I have been for quite a while now.”
“With the world in general or just me?”
I shrugged in reply.
“I want you to stay away from my clients,” Cynthia said.
“I know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You didn’t ask a question.”
“Taylor.”
“Grey.”
“I know all of your secrets, Holland.”
“I know all of yours.” I nearly added, “That’s why we broke up,” but let it pass.
Cynthia stared at me for a few beats while she slowly stirred her iced tea with a fingernail. She smiled and sucked the tea off her finger.
“I swear, you’re enough to make a girl jump off the wagon,” she said.
“Can’t be as bad as all that.”
Cynthia stood.
“Are you going to the town hall meeting?” she asked.
“I wasn’t, but yeah, I wouldn’t miss it now.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Kaufman and Palo.
“Can I ask you for a favor?” she said.
“I’m not going to call ’em out, if that’s what you want to know.”
“Well, then I can safely tell them that I put the fear of God into you and you won’t be a problem anymore.”
“At least not until I’ve gathered more evidence.”
“Can I see you afterward?”
“Afterward?”
“After the town hall.”
“Sure.”
“Where?”
I came thisclose to giving her my room number. Instead, I tapped the tabletop.
“Right here,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Apparently they built Arona Area High School on the flattest piece of ground in the least picturesque part of town that they could find. It was a comparatively new building—the date 1992 was carved into a cornerstone—with a football field, baseball diamond, tennis court, and an asphalt parking lot big enough to accommodate the Mall of America. Beyond that, there were only empty fields and darkening blue sky.
I parked the Camry in the first empty slot I could find and followed the crowd to the school entrance. It was slow moving, and I couldn’t figure out why until I saw Chief McMahan and her officers running handheld metal detectors over each visitor and inspecting the contents of every bag. A man about ten years older than me objected to the search. He was dressed in a camouflage outfit identical to the ones worn by the only other Red Stone Patriots I’d ever seen.
“I have a legal right to carry a concealed weapon anywhere I choose,” he said.
“Not into a school,” the chief told him.
“So you’re saying no self-defense is permitted beyond this point. You’re saying, ‘I don’t care if you or your family is in danger, I will not allow you to defend yourself.’”
The man was speaking loudly, and some of the visitors stopped to listen.
“The beauty of the concealed carry law, Chief of Police Maureen McMahan, is that only a handful of citizens need to be armed in order to protect the greater part of society from harm. That’s because criminals are never really sure which of the law-abiding citizens around them may be carrying a weapon, and that deters their criminal activities. By insisting that no guns are allowed, you’re inviting criminals to come into this very school and commit whatever mayhem they desire without fear of facing an armed citizen.”
The chief stared at him for a long moment, and I was wondering if she was considering his argument. Finally she said, “Are you done, Curtis? Because you’re holding up traffic.”
Curtis stepped aside. Apparently he was unarmed. Yet he wasn’t done. While the chief and her officers continued to search the other visitors, Curtis spoke to those whose attention he had attracted earlier.
“The most dangerous place in town right now is the parking lot of this school,” he said. “Criminals know that every one of us leaving this place will be unarmed. We’ll be easy pickings for robbers and rapists. I wonder how many criminals might be out there right now, burglarizing cars to harvest the guns that permit holders like me were forced to leave behind because Chief of Police Maureen McMahan wouldn’t allow us to take them inside. Who’s going to protect us from them?”
“Who’s going to protect us from you?” one of the listeners asked.
“I’m not a criminal.”
“We should take your word for it because you wear camouflage everywhere and carry concealed weapons?”
“I live here.”
“You moved in thirteen months ago. That doesn’t mean you live here.”
Curtis stepped toward the listener; the listener stepped toward him. They stared menacingly at each other, like two boxers trying to hype a pay-per-view bout. If it were a playground, I’d expect someone to start chanting “Fight, fight, fight.” Instead, Chief McMahan stepped between them.
“The meeting is going to start in a few minutes,” she said. “If you want a seat up front…”
The two men separated slowly even as they sneered at each other, then went off in opposite directions. The chief moved back to the school entrance. I caught her eye as she did.
“Taylor,” she said. “I want to talk to you later.”
I nodded at her.
* * *
The floor of the high school auditorium had room for about two hundred people, and most of the seats were taken. I was up in the balcony, where there was space for one hundred more; most of the seats were empty. There were chairs arranged behind tables on the stage that were occupied by the acting mayor and other representatives of the city government, as well as Kaufman and Palo. Each of them had their own microphone. Probably they didn’t need them. The auditorium had surprisingly good acoustics, and I could actually hear them speaking quietly to each other. Another mic was set on a stand in the center aisle a few rows back from the stage. A line had already formed behind it that included Curtis.
Skip Zetzman was seated near the mic. I didn’t see a notebook, although he did have a digital camera and a leather bag filled with several different-sized lenses. There were also four video cameras scattered throughout the auditorium. They were manned by an older gentleman, an older woman, a young man, and a young woman. They could have been members of the same family by the way they looked and dressed. None of the cameras carried the logo of a local TV station. I guessed they were part of a public access operation, the Arona version of C-SPAN.
Esther Tibbits gave a bottle of designer water to both Kaufman and Palo. They thanked her before waving her away. She took a seat in the front row. Her dark blue skirt hiked up to there, yet she did nothing about it. By contrast, Cynthia Grey was next to her, a portrait of a lady sitting. She occupied only half of her seat, her legs crossed at the knee, her thighs touching, the hem of her black skirt pulled down, toes pointed toward the floor, her back straight, a notebook in her lap, and her hands folded over the notebook just as the etiquette instructor had taught her. I tried not to stare. It wasn’t easy, and not only because she was so damn pretty. She had been one of the few women who had been able to help me chase away the alone feeling after Laura and Jenny were
killed.
Finally Dawn Gischler opened the proceedings with a brief speech about decorum and common courtesy. I was surprised to see that she had exchanged her peasant shirt, jeans, and sandals for a pink business suit. She said she knew that many people in the auditorium wanted to be heard, and she hoped that the audience would be respectful of differing views. She also asked that they limit their remarks to three minutes or less so that everyone would have a chance to speak.
“We’re on cable TV, so please watch your language,” Gischler added.
While listening to her, I was reminded of what Bridgette Franson had said about the acting mayor and her lust for porn sex. I slapped my face twice to dislodge the image that formed in my head.
Doug Pinter was the first to address the audience and, as I expected, went well over the three-minute limit. He spoke about the environmental terrorism perpetrated by the hydraulic fracturing industry, the poisoning of water and land. “Fracking,” he said, “poses an unacceptable risk to our drinking water, to our health, and to the future of our communities.” He was quite eloquent and received a nice ovation when he finished.
What I didn’t expect was Allen Palo’s rebuttal.
“I agree with everything you said,” he announced. “Americans shouldn’t have to accept unsafe drinking water just because natural gas burns more cleanly than coal. I read that scientists at Stanford University have proven that some companies are fracking for oil and gas at far shallower depths than they’re supposed to, sometimes through underground sources of drinking water. They get away with it because of weak safeguards and inadequate oversight. This is unacceptable. U.S. Sand is for anything that’ll force these delinquent companies to play by the rules. It’s important that you understand, though, that we are not involved in the hydraulic fracturing business. We sell sand. We hope our customers behave responsibly. But if they don’t, there’s not a lot we can do about it.”
So it went. For every problem there was a solution; for every accusation, a counterargument. It was as if Kaufman and Palo knew every question before it was asked. I suppose they had been through enough of this kind of meeting that they did know. I had to give them props—they were very good at their jobs.
“According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, exposure to silica sand particles can cause lung cancer.”
Darkness, Sing Me a Song--A Holland Taylor Mystery Page 16
