Sid, the producer, glanced at a photo depicting a Cuban peasant loading sugar cane on a truck and then slid it to a man across the table. “Harry,” the producer began as the smoke from his cigarette floated slowly and crazily upward like windblown skywriting, already indecipherable. “Give me a piece from the sugar companies’ point of view…you know, how much they’ve done for Cuba, how long they’ve been there…how Ike looks on this as unlawful seizure. Mention the fruit companies, too. You know the drill.”
A man at the far end of the table, another writer, spoke up. “I guess you don’t want to mention how they’ve been bleeding Cuba…and a whole bunch of other countries…dry for years, do you?”
The producer took a long drag on his cigarette, his menacing glare providing the answer in advance of the words that spewed in a cloud of smoke, as if a dragon was actually speaking. “You’re damn right we don’t.”
It was time to move on to other topics. Allegra Wise had not paid much attention to the Cuba discussion; international relations were not her strong suit. National politics was, however, and the photo before her looked like her winning lottery ticket. That do-nothing congressman from her home state—Leonard Pilcher—was getting serious about a run at the Republican presidential nomination. Here he was in that photo, at some podium, with his steel baron father and some staffer standing behind him. And that staffer—that skinny, dapper guy—she knew him! Well, knew of him, anyway. Thaddeus Matusik was his name. Her older brother had been in the same high school class with him. She had had a prepubescent crush on him. He seemed so physically perfect, all smooth skin with sleek, rippling muscles underneath; that shock of beautiful, slicked-back hair, always a little too long. That fine face, like a Greek god—Okay, maybe a Polish god. She and her girlfriends had clandestinely followed him all around the lake that summer, giggling madly when they thought they had been found out, all the while hoping they would be.
But that was the summer that something bad had happened. It was all rumors, spoken in hushed tones in that upscale little suburb, but the story went like this: 15-year-old Thaddeus—Tad to his friends—had been caught in the bathhouse at the lake with a vacationing boy from a faraway town. They were both naked, but they were not showering—they were lying on a bench, one on top of the other. “Doin’ things,” her brother had said, with that asinine grin that meant he had no earthly idea exactly what they had been doing or what it might signify, but he took delight in knowing they were in really big trouble for doing it. Thaddeus Matusik never returned to the local high school; the gossips whispered that he had been shipped off to some private academy, maybe even a military school. It sounded plausible; his dad owned a successful business and was well-connected in local politics. He could afford the money but not the constant reminder of scandal his son’s presence would represent.
Oh, that’s him, all right, Allegra told herself. And to cap it off, they had something besides a home town in common: he had changed his name, too. According to the caption at the bottom of the photo, Thaddeus Matusik was now Tad Matthews.
When the producer gruffly asked for the next story, Allegra’s hand shot up.
“I want to cover this Pilcher candidacy, Sid,” she said. “I think I’ve got an in with his staff.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
An atmosphere of confusion hung in the half-filled auditorium. Obviously, something was not quite right, not going according to plan. The opening ceremonies were over. The VFW color guard had done their parading. The pledge of allegiance to the flag had been fervently recited by all present. A Catholic priest had beseeched God to bestow his blessing upon them. The winner of the county high school poetry contest had recited her piece—a simplistic ode to the natural forces that had constructed the rippling, parallel bastions of earth and rock that were the Allegheny Mountains—to tepid applause. The main event was well past due.
Yet, the stage remained empty except for the occasional appearance of that thin, anxious staffer who approached the podium, announced himself as Tad Matthews, senior aide to Congressman Pilcher, and told the murmuring crowd, “It’ll just be a few minutes more…Please bear with us. The Congressman will be here momentarily.”
Despite Matthews’s assurances, the crowd was becoming increasingly restive. Men shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Ladies with faces and hair that seemed to be set in stone fanned themselves lazily, more out of annoyance than stuffy air, for it was anything but warm in the auditorium on this January day. In anticipation of a large crowd, the heat had been turned down. Those few who had bothered to come expected to witness Congressman Leonard Pilcher announce his intention to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States. A few were diehard supporters—a very few. The rest just wanted to witness the launch of a campaign that would surely devolve into a train wreck fairly quickly.
It was rumored that Fred O’Hara, the new president of the Amalgamated Steelworkers Union, was slated to appear, in all likelihood to introduce the Congressman. That would amount to an endorsement of Pilcher’s candidacy by the ASW, an event as dubious as the Pilcher candidacy itself.
“Freddy’s probably gonna tell us not to vote for the son of a bitch,” a burly man in an ASW jacket said, loud enough for all in the auditorium to hear. Anxious, volatile men in matching union jackets seated around him began to chuckle. The outnumbered Pilcher supporters in earshot scowled in silence and checked once again to ensure that an ample number of police were, in fact, present to protect them from union thuggery.
Local newsmen in the back of the hall, cynical to a fault, scribbled idly in their notebooks as they exchanged wisecracks. Annoyed photographers milled about. No newspaper would pay for pictures of some congressman’s aide stalling for time or a schoolgirl reading her guileless verse.
The source of all this confusion was nestled backstage, behind closed doors. Congressman Leonard Pilcher was not en route to the assembly; he had arrived some time ago. Tad Matthews had personally seen to the uncharacteristic punctuality. Fred O’Hara, however, was nowhere to be seen, and the Congressman was enraged. Max Pilcher sat quietly in a corner, fuming, as his son ranted.
“Is O’Hara in the bag or not?” the Congressman yelled at his senior aide.
Tad Matthews felt like he was about to be pushed over a cliff. He was scrambling for a handhold. “Look…he’s supposed to be here. We have Houlihan’s assurances…”
Leonard Pilcher pounced. “Houlihan ain’t the fucking union president anymore! He’s just another retired crook now! His endorsement don’t mean shit!”
Matthews was still grasping for some salvation. “Look, maybe he’s been in an accident or something.”
“Accident, my ass! This is the son of a bitch’s way of crapping in my face…and old Houlihan’s face at the same time! Me and O’Hara ain’t exactly war buddies, remember?”
Max Pilcher held up his hand. Leonard and Tad stopped talking immediately.
“I’m sure it’s no accident O’Hara’s not here,” the elder Pilcher began. “If he thinks he’s got the balls to defy Houlihan, God bless him. We haven’t forked over any cash yet. If O’Hara doesn’t play ball, Houlihan’ll find somebody who will…if he wants his goddamn money. In the meantime, let’s cut our losses here and get on with the show.”
Max Pilcher paused to relight his cigar. “Now, Matthews,” he said, the first puff floating from his lips, “you go out there and introduce my boy.”
Within moments, as news cameras flashed, Leonard Pilcher stood onstage, announcing he was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President. His platform would be Strength and Leadership for America. He reminded the small crowd, and the empty chairs in their midst, that they lived in dangerous times: “The Russians, the Red Chinese, and their friends around the globe will do all they can to destroy our nation, our freedoms, and our way of life. But with the help of God, WE WILL PREVAIL!”
The applause was anemic, barely polite. Pilcher then sought to state his qualifications for that
high office. “I have served you in the House of Representatives for nearly four years…”
A voice rose from the ASW faction: “You’ve been serving your daddy, that’s all, rich boy.” The union men were in a boisterous mood now. The fear that had brought them here, that their leader would betray their union by endorsing some mill owner’s pampered offspring, had been set aside.
It was obvious right away that Leonard Pilcher was angered by the remark or perhaps just by the temerity that allowed an unspoken truth to be uttered aloud. A better politician might have easily parried that comment with a humorous aside or ignored it completely, without missing a beat. Instead, Leonard Pilcher became strident and condescending:
“I’ve been to war…I faced the enemy in the sky over Europe…I’ve cheated death. The wisdom I’ve gained…the courage I’ve demonstrated…will lead this great nation to greater things. God Bless America!”
And then he fled the stage, leaving a flustered Tad Matthews to face a barrage of flashing cameras and shouted questions from the newsmen, now driven to a frenzy by the whiff of freshly-spilled political blood.
Stomping about his father’s office in a blind rage, Leonard Pilcher looked ready to chew the carpeting. Tad Matthews was doing his best to ignore him. So was Max Pilcher. But the younger Pilcher was putting up quite a fuss. “I’ll kill that son-of-a-bitch O’Hara!” he said, kicking a plush armchair’s leg for emphasis.
“Oh, calm down, Lenny,” the elder Pilcher said. “The ASW endorsement would have been a nice little coup, but it’s not that important. O’Hara will be out on his ass in no time. Houlihan will see to that…if he wants his money, that is.”
“Fuck that,” Leonard replied. “He’s a dead man. I’ll see to that.”
Max Pilcher shook his head in disappointment, thinking: How could any son of mine be so terminally stupid? He tried to reason with Leonard. “Oh, that would be just great, wouldn’t it? Turn O’Hara into a martyr! Don’t I have enough trouble with those fucking union monkeys as it is?”
Leonard took those words like a petulant child, defiant chin jutting out, arms tightly folded across his chest. Tad Matthews found the vision amusing and not at all surprising. He had known Leonard Pilcher too well and far too long.
The elder Pilcher was not finished. “So you’ll do no such thing. It’s not necessary this time.” There was a short, ominous pause before he concluded, “Not like it was with Blanding.”
For a brief moment, Tad Matthews could not comprehend what the old man had just implied. Then it hit him full force: Leonard Pilcher had once before conspired to murder. So had his father.
It was only four years ago, during the congressional race for the 14th district seat. It was Leonard Pilcher’s first time vying for elected office, and the Republican nomination was not going his way. The opponent, Kent Blanding, had a sizeable, seemingly insurmountable lead.
Blanding owed his popularity to sheer visibility. He was an active pilot, with his own aircraft: a pretty blue and white Bonanza with the distinctive V-tail, which he named Kent’s Komet. He put the plane to good use, constantly commuting between his district and Washington, D.C. It enabled Kent Blanding to always seem to be in two places at once.
But Blanding had been making furtive overtures to the unions; the steel industry bosses that owned Pittsburgh were not pleased. That was all they needed—a congressman who catered to the hired help rather than the bosses, those gracious overlords who allowed bread on the tables of the rabble. If Kent Blanding could not be stopped at the ballot box, they would have to employ other means.
On a clear spring evening in 1956, Kent’s Komet nosedived into the hills of southern Pennsylvania on the westward leg of her usual commute. The small plane disintegrated on impact; there was little left of any appreciable size except the engine crankcase, buried eight feet deep in the hard, rocky ground. Not much to work with in a forensic investigation.
While the federal accident investigators hypothesized, throwing around terms like pilot error, spatial disorientation, structural failure, and improper maintenance, father and son Pilcher knew what really had happened. Blanding’s death was no accident. They had paid two shady characters to sabotage the intricate control mechanism that blended the pilot’s elevator and rudder commands into a unified input at the V-tail control surfaces. It had all been Leonard’s idea. He had not flown a plane since the war, but he still knew how to turn one into a deadly weapon.
In the final seconds of his life, Kent Blanding found himself suddenly unable to control his aircraft. And, as uncontrolled aircraft are prone to do, it began a brisk descent, for planes in trouble rarely go up. Lacking corrective input, the descent progressed to a full-fledged nose dive from which there was no recovery.
Tad Matthews could hardly find his voice. “You mean…he was…killed?”
Both father and son Pilcher seemed so unconcerned, so casual. Leonard smirked as he said, “That would have been quite a convenient accident for us, don’t you think?”
Just above a whisper, Matthews said, “But you attended his funeral, Leonard.”
The smirk stayed on Leonard Pilcher’s face. “Yeah. So? Wouldn’t it have looked ungracious if I didn’t?”
Tad Matthews had always believed that Max Pilcher was capable of anything. In all Tad’s years in his employ, though, the topic of murder had never surfaced. Now, here he was, admitting it without shame, without remorse, without fear of consequences. There must have been more murders, Tad thought—people who just vanished; moved on, they would say, never to be seen or heard from again. Now, Tad Matthews knew Leonard was just as willing and able to murder as a matter of course.
The Pilchers found the shell-shocked state of their legal advisor most amusing. Clearly, he found the concept of expedient murder a distressing revelation, but they had no fear of him running to the authorities. Surely, Tad Matthews realized he could end up just as missing—just as moved on—as any other adversary. But Leonard could not resist adding this one final tidbit of incriminating information: “Who do you think paid the guys who did it, Tad? Who hires all the private investigators we use around here?”
The answer to that question rang in Tad’s head like an alarm gong: I do…I do…I do. How many times had he posted the expense as private investigators in the checkbook ledger for any one of a number of shadow accounts, just as he had been instructed and just as he had believed? They frequently hired investigators—some legitimate and established, others fly-by-night—to snoop on people against whom they needed leverage. Now, he realized, leverage can involve more than information; it could mean death.
Yes, the Pilchers had committed murder as if it was just a normal part of business, Tad Matthews thought, still horrified by the mere suggestion. Even worse, he was complicit. An accessory to murder.
But the Pilchers seemed so matter-of-fact, so comfortable with it. Suddenly, Tad saw the whole Moscone situation in a new light: Maybe Kent Blanding wasn’t Leonard Pilcher’s first victim? Could he have really committed a murder in Sweden?
Tad could feel the saliva gushing to his mouth. Then a spasm in his abdomen. He was seconds from throwing up. Not here! Not in this office! He could not remember if he asked to be excused as he raced to the bathroom down the hallway.
Back in Max Pilcher’s office, Leonard seemed confused. “What the hell is wrong with him?” he asked, pointing in the direction of Tad’s hasty exit.
The elder Pilcher leaned back in his chair and pivoted toward the tall windows. His gaze focused well beyond the clouds of smoke being belched from the smokestacks of Pittsburgh, far into a future only he seemed to be able to envision. How would he ever get there with this idiot for an heir and the squeamish Tad Matthews for legal counsel?
He answered his son’s question without bothering to look at him. “What you’ve just seen, my boy, is the reason why people like Matthews can never be leaders. They just don’t have the stomach to do what’s necessary.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
&
nbsp; Allegra Wise was still kicking herself for missing the Pilcher publicity event that had devolved into the ASW endorsement fiasco. She had found out about it too late; there was no time to get to Pittsburgh. She was determined not to miss the press conference that followed two days later, but the plane trip from New York had been brutal. The “puddle-jumper”—a dingy, twin-engined prop airliner that dripped a variety of fluids all over the ramp, smelled like a musty cellar, and administered limb-numbing vibration in plentiful doses—had buzzed around and through the late winter storms, treating the passengers to a rough ride that left many nauseous. A scheduled 20-minute stop in Scranton turned into a 2-hour ordeal, as a grizzled mechanic in filthy coveralls, chomping a wisely unlit cigar, ministered to an engine that belched clouds of grayish smoke and spit unburned gasoline while refusing to start. By the time that engine finally came to life, allowing the plane to reach Pittsburgh, Allegra was exhausted, frazzled, and seriously contemplating a return trip to New York City by bus.
And it all seemed for nothing. The press conference was in its waning moments as Allegra Wise made her way into the hotel’s ballroom. Tad Matthews was now standing in for Leonard Pilcher, fielding the last few questions. The congressman and Republican presidential hopeful, after apologizing for being expected elsewhere, had already made his exit.
When Matthews asked for a final question, Allegra was shouting it before he could finish speaking. She might have been late to the press conference, but damn it, I’m not going to be shut out. Annoyed faces, overwhelmingly male, turned their glaring eyes to the tall, well-dressed woman shouting her question from the back of the room.
“Allegra Wise, CBS News,” she bellowed. “Does the Congressman have a comment regarding the man…as reported by CBS…who accused the Congressman of committing a murder in Sweden during the war?”
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