Darkness, Sing Me a Song--A Holland Taylor Mystery

by David Housewright

  “What’s your name?” Colgin asked.

  “Holland Taylor.”

  “What the hell kind of name is Holland for a guy?”

  “My mother wanted a daughter.”

  “I can imagine her disappointment. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m a private investigator working a case that has nothing to do with the bombing.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that. Let me see some ID.”

  I showed it to her. At the same time, Colgin slowly nudged me away until the chief couldn’t hear us.

  “That woman,” Colgin said. “Where the hell did she get her badge? A box of Cracker Jack?”

  “I was told that she slept her way to the top.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “I like her, though.”

  “You like too many people.”

  “Actually, I’ve been accused of the exact opposite.”

  “My guys gave me a preliminary on the IED. Anhydrous hydrazine mixed with ammonium nitrate in a glass jar detonated by a cell phone. Sound familiar?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Makes you wonder where Curtis Blevins was when the bomb was planted, doesn’t it?”

  “We know he wasn’t at the compound; otherwise I wouldn’t have had to wait for so long. By the way, why aren’t you in Marquette?”

  “I was headed that way until this call turned me around. But you know what? I don’t actually need to go to Marquette to get a warrant. They have all these wonderful newfangled inventions now. Email, Skype, the telephone.”

  “When you start building your case, I recommend that you interview Esther Tibbits.”

  “Blevins’s niece?”

  “She’s a true believer. Give her an audience and she’ll talk her head off.”

  “Good to know.”

  “She claims that it was Julie who planted the bomb in Menominee.”

  “Does she?”

  “Yep.”

  “Does she also say that Blevins was innocent?”

  “No, she doesn’t say that.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “I’ll be getting out of your way now. I’m sure my guy will be contacting you soon. In the meantime, good luck.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “No, no, no. I want you to hang around for a while, at least until tomorrow.”

  “Forget it. I’ve had enough of small-town American values.”

  “What about your case?”

  “I have more than I need to help get Mrs. Barrington off.”

  “Seriously. Stay.”

  “Seriously, I’m outta here.”

  “C’mon, Taylor. Don’t make me get all large and emphatic.”

  “I don’t know what more I can do for you that I haven’t already done.”

  “You never know what tomorrow might bring. The sun might even come out.”

  “Is that an allusion to the musical Annie?”

  “Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun.”

  “I like a girl who likes her job.”

  “So, you’ll stick around?”

  “Since you asked so sweetly.”

  * * *

  By then, Richard Kaufman and Allen Palo had arrived. I figured they must have broken every existing traffic law to get there from the Cities on such short notice. They approached Chief McMahan and demanded action in voices loud enough to be heard by the media standing behind the tape.

  “This is an unforgivable act of domestic terrorism,” they said.

  Chief McMahan agreed.

  Colgin drifted toward them, probably to let them know that she was in charge. I followed because I had nothing better to do.

  “We demand a thorough investigation,” Kaufman said.

  “You’ll get it,” McMahan said. “In the meantime, I have some questions for you.”

  “What questions?” Palo asked.

  “I have been conducting my own investigation into illegal activities involving U.S. Sand…”

  Kaufman and Palo glanced at each other as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

  “If you prefer that we speak in my office…,” McMahan continued.

  “We have nothing to say,” Palo said.

  “I have Bob Barcott’s emails. The ones where you and he discuss how you want him to retaliate against Arona citizens who oppose the sand mines. I especially like the one where you tell him to write a scathing letter to the nursing home that you helped finance, demanding that it fire a nurse who complained about a sand mine near her property. What was it you wanted Barcott to tell her boss? That the nurse used her work email to file the complaint, which brought the integrity of the nursing home’s entire staff into question, especially management?”

  “We have nothing to say,” Palo repeated.

  “I’ll quote you when I send all my findings to the county attorney.”

  Kaufman and Palo glanced at each other some more.

  “If you think some rinky-dink small town cop—” Kaufman said.

  “Chief. I’m chief of police.”

  “What do you think that will get you?” Palo asked. “Hmm? This, this bombing”—he waved at the bomb site—“makes us look like the victims. We are the victims, too. That’s what ninety percent of the media reports are going to say, and the rest—no one cares about the rest. As for this paltry investigation of yours, how many people did you interview. Two? Three?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a hundred and twenty-seven. Do you know what’s going to happen at the end of it all? Allen and I will be suspended for three days and given mandatory ethics training. At least that’s what the company will announce to the media. Afterward, we’ll be sent somewhere else to do the exact same job that we’re doing here. You opposers”—he spoke the word as if it were an obscenity. “Frac sand is never going away. Never. Not as long as there’s a nickel to be made from it. Get used to the idea. Best you can do, the best you’ll ever do, is shut us down for an hour.”

  “Long enough to take a shower and get the shit out of my hair. This is a crime scene. Leave immediately.”

  “Who do you think—”

  Chief McMahan stepped backward and tilted her head at Rachel.

  “Special Agent Colgin,” she said.

  Rachel stepped between the chief and the boys. She held up her ID for them to see.

  “Move along, gentlemen,” she said.

  Kaufman and Palo glanced at each other again. They seemed to do a lot of that. They smirked and shrugged and turned and left.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Telling them what you’re going to do before you do it…”

  “You too, Taylor,” the chief said. “Beat it.”

  “Maureen…”

  “You heard the woman,” Colgin told me.

  I bowed my head and spoke as respectfully as possible.

  “Chief McMahan,” I said.

  * * *

  It took me some time to maneuver my Camry out of the now-crowded parking lot. I followed the county road toward the Franson farmhouse. Bridgette and Mark were still sitting on their stoop drinking from travel mugs. I slowed to a stop and powered down my window.

  “Good evening,” I said.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Bridgette said. “The way the setting sun reflects off all that golden sand.”

  “Peaceful, too,” Mark added. “Quiet. You can hear the birds calling to each other.”

  “Wooo, wooo,” Bridgette said.

  The two of them giggled just the way they had when I caught them fooling around in their backyard.

  I might have told them that if Kaufman and Palo had their way, the mine would be back to full operation before sunrise, except I guessed they already knew that. Instead, I wished them a good night and drove back toward the Everheart Resort, Restaurant, and Bar.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I was thinking of the food I hadn’t eaten for nearly twelve hours. And bo
urbon. Lots and lots of bourbon. I passed through the lobby of the resort and walked a straight line toward the restaurant. I nearly made it, too. Except I was intercepted by Cheryl Turk.

  “Detective Taylor? You said…” Cheryl held up a ledger for me to see. “You asked if I could tell you about Mereshack before the mayor was killed.”

  “Yes, yes I did. It’s kind of you to get back to me.”

  I nearly added that I had forgotten all about it, but managed to check myself in time.

  “Do you want to look at this?” Cheryl asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  Cheryl led me back into the lobby to a table that we both could lean against. Her ledger was actually a blue three-ring binder like the kind school kids carry that she used to keep copies of her invoices, a running tally of her income, and instructions from her clients. She showed me a page from over a year ago and proceeded to tell me what was printed on it.

  “It was a Sunday afternoon, and Mrs. Barrington was getting ready to leave, and she called me down to Mereshack to tell me what she wanted done while she was gone, and when I arrived she was standing on her deck, the back deck facing the woods, and she was talking to the mayor. Yelling at him, really. See here.” Cheryl pointed at a notation on the sheet that read Mayor Franson on deck during conversation.

  “Conversation?” I said.

  “What happened, I arrived and I parked my car and I was walking toward them, and Mrs. Barrington was shouting until she saw me, then she starting doing this with her hand.”

  Cheryl waved her own hand like Catherine the Great dismissing her subjects.

  “Mrs. Barrington was always doing that,” Cheryl said.

  She waved her hand some more.

  “I’m like, I came all the way down here on a Sunday. She’s like, it’s all a terrible mistake, you’re doing a wonderful job, I’ll call you next week. I’m like, fine. I wrote it all down, though. See?”

  Cheryl pointed at the ledger again.

  “She was always telling me to do stuff or not telling me to do stuff and then forgetting about it, so I write it down to, you know, cover my ass, like I told you yesterday.”

  “When did this meeting take place?” I asked.

  “Right here. I got the date right here at the top.”

  Cheryl tapped it with a fingernail in case I missed it.

  “Two days later, someone shot the mayor,” I said.

  “Except two days later, Mrs. Barrington wasn’t here. I know because…” Cheryl turned a page in her ledger. “Two days later—it was a Tuesday—I was out there cleaning the place and she was like gone. Only Devon was there, and what’s-her-face, the black woman. You know, Mr. Taylor, I know you’re a real detective and all that, but really, no one believes that Mrs. Barrington shot the mayor. I’m telling you, it was the wife. Maybe the brother helped.”

  * * *

  I managed to get into the restaurant. The hostess apparently preferred that I didn’t take up an entire table by myself during the peak dinner hour and suggested I sit at the bar. I told her I wanted a table, and she gave me the worst one they had, near the kitchen door. A few moments later, a waitress appeared with a menu and asked if I wanted a beverage before ordering.

  “Maker’s Mark on the rocks,” I told her.

  She shuffled away, and I began to study the menu. That’s when my smartphone chirped. Someone sent me a text. I rarely get texts and seldom send them myself. I checked. It was from Devon.

  How come you haven’t called?

  I replied, I was at a crime scene.

  Devon’s reply—Who was shot?—came with a smiling emoji.

  Not shot—a bomb.

  Who got blown up?—with two giggling emoticons and one with its fingers crossed.

  Oh, for Christ’s sake, I told myself. I called Devon’s number.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Who got blown up?”

  “No one. Just some equipment at the silica sand mine at the edge of town.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “The damage was confined to a storage silo and a truck. They’ll probably be back in business by tomorrow morning if not sooner.”

  “What does this have to do with my mother’s case?”

  “Probably nothing at all.”

  “Oh. Well, then, Taylor, have you eaten yet?”

  “No.”

  “Come over. Come to Mereshack. Ophira is making Cajun stew. It’s really good. Sausage and shrimp. Okra. The only time I ever eat okra is when I’m having Ophira’s Cajun stew. Taylor…”

  “Probably not a good idea. Your mother wouldn’t like it.”

  “What Mommy doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

  “What does Ophira say?”

  Devon’s voice sounded like she was a long way off, and I pictured her holding up the cell phone as she spoke. “Ophira, is it all right if Taylor comes for dinner?”

  Silence. A moment later, Devon was back on the phone.

  “She said it was all right.”

  “I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “That’s because she was nodding her head. Taylor, please?”

  Neither Mrs. Barrington nor David Helin would like it if they heard, but I needed to ask the girl a question for my own peace of mind.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said.

  The waitress arrived as I stood up and slipped the smartphone back into my pocket. She was carrying the glass of bourbon on a tray. I took the glass and drained its contents without pause. She looked at me as if I were the first raging alcoholic she had ever met.

  * * *

  I paid for the drink and headed to my Camry. My smartphone rang just as I reached it. I thought it was Devon calling back, but the caller ID read ALEXANDRA CAMPBELL.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Taylor? Is this a bad time?”

  “It is, but Alex, how are you?”

  “We’re still on the first-name basis, then.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. I know you called. I’ve been trying to get back to you, but it’s been one thing after another. Are you all right?”

  “I am. I had a couple of bad moments after the shooting. Now, though, looking back at what happened, I feel exhilarated. What does that say about me?”

  “It says you’re tough as nails. Alex, how did you get this number?”

  “I called your office the other day. Your partner—Freddie?”

  “Sidney Poitier Fredericks.”

  “No kidding? Sidney Poitier? Anyway, he said he’d tell you that I called. When I didn’t hear from you I decided, well, he’s not interested—”

  “No, no, honestly. I’ve been meaning to call.”

  “What I’m trying to say is, Freddie called me back, just a few minutes ago, and gave me your cell number and said it would be better if I called you instead of waiting for you to call me.”

  That sonuvabitch, I’m going to kill him, I told myself. Out loud I said, “Absolutely. I’m going to have to thank him for doing that.”

  “You said this was a bad time.”

  “I need to interview a suspect.”

  “That sounds like fun, interview a suspect.”

  “The suspect is an almost-seventeen-year-old girl who’s being guarded by a very fierce nanny, governess, I’m not sure what to call her. I doubt it’ll be much fun.”

  “More fun than what I do every day.”

  “I’d like very much to learn what you do every day, but—”

  “You need to go.”

  “I promise I’ll call you back.”

  “Don’t make any promises you can’t keep.”

  “I promise I’ll try to call you back.”

  “I’m a night owl, so if it’s late, don’t worry about it.”

  I told her I wouldn’t.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I turned off the county blacktop and discovered that the gate to Mereshack was open. I followed the road. My odometer told me that it went on for just over a mile, yet it seemed longe
r in the darkness. Finally I reached the clearing at the top of the hill. I maneuvered the car down the hill toward the collection of buildings that lay between it and the river. My headlights swept the forest as I turned. There was also a lamp on top of a pole near the center of the buildings.

  The only other bright light came through the sliding glass door in the back of the main house that opened onto the deck where the hot tub was located. I could see through the doors. Devon was studying a fistful of shirts on hangers and tossing them one at a time on top of the bed. She was dressed only in pink panties and a matching bra. Her hair was in a ponytail.

  I swung the car in a half circle so that it was facing away from the house and parked. I went to the front door and knocked. Ophira answered.

  “Dev, your date is here,” she said.

  “Don’t, don’t, don’t say that,” I told her.

  “Mrs. Barrington said to keep away from her children. What are you doing, man?”

  Before I could answer, Devon came bounding into the room. She was wearing shorts that displayed every inch of her long, slender legs and a top that was fitted to show off the rest of her. Her hair was undone and fell around her face to her shoulders. She grabbed my hand with both of hers and pulled me into the house. She didn’t let it go until Ophira shut the door behind me.

  “You’ve never been here before, have you?” Devon said.

  “I looked around the outside, but not the inside.”

  “I’ll give you a tour. Ophira?”

  “Devon?” the older woman asked.

  “When will dinner be ready?”

  “My biscuits come out of the oven in ten minutes.” Ophira looked me in the eye. “Maybe less,” she said.

  “Then we don’t have much time,” Devon said.

  She pulled my hand again, this time leading me up the stairs to the second floor, where she proceeded to show the place like a real estate agent, one bedroom at a time, emphasizing the highlights. Mereshack reminded me of a well-appointed bed-and-breakfast built to cater to an army of well-to-do visitors or businessmen on an executive retreat. I had to keep reminding myself that only one family used the place, and mostly on weekends and holidays.