Stephen L. Carter

by New England White

  Bruce nodded and made a note. Then he asked, without looking up, “Do you have any reason to think Professor Zant was hurting her?”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  But Bruce was sure he followed just fine. “I mean, in recent years, say. Since Kellen Zant returned to campus. Had he hurt your wife in any way?”

  “I hope not.” Leaning back again. “I’d like to think I would have heard about it.”

  Bruce noted the careful wording, the lack of a clear denial, but decided, rather than pursuing it, to file the dissimulation away for future reference.

  “I just have a couple of questions about the night you found the body.”

  “Of course.”

  “You stopped the car because you had an accident.”

  “The embarrassing answer is yes.” A rueful shake of the head. The phone buzzed several times, but Lemaster ignored it. “All right, it’s a sharp turn and there was a storm. Still, I’ve been driving that road for six years. I never missed the turn before.”

  “Did anything special happen to make you miss the turn? A deer in the woods, something like that?”

  “I’m afraid not. I have no excuse.”

  “You didn’t slow down because you saw the body in the ditch?”

  Again the bonhomie vanished, and the icy careerist peeked out, the friend of Presidents of the United States and billionaires. “I understand why you need to ask that question, Bruce. I was a prosecutor. I know how the process works. Let me save you some time. I didn’t kill Kellen Zant. I didn’t arrange for anybody else to kill Kellen Zant. I didn’t know his body was there when I had my accident. All right?”

  “Yes, sir. I wasn’t going to ask those questions.”

  “But you wouldn’t be doing your job if you didn’t wonder.”

  Bruce allowed that one to slip past him, for he was bureaucrat enough to recognize that there was no right answer. “Just one more thing, sir, if I could.”

  “Please.”

  “According to people who were there, you left the dinner that night three times to take calls on your cell phone.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “The thing is, I’m told that ordinarily you’re quite scrupulous about not answering your cell during a meal, especially an official meal, except for emergencies. May I ask who called you, and whether there was an emergency that night?”

  He ticked them off on his fingers. “One call was from my daughter, who was out at the movies. She wanted to arrange a pick up time. One call was from the White House. I always answer when the President calls—the big President—but this time I told him I was busy on college business and asked if I could call him back.” The look on Bruce’s face amused him. “Yes, people do that. He’s just a person.”

  “And the third call?”

  Lemaster Carlyle frowned. “I only remember two. Are you sure there were three?”

  “That’s what I’m told.”

  “Well, I’ll consult my records and see what I can find out.” Smoothly, magically, Lemaster had moved Bruce to his feet and across the office. They shook hands. “Thank you for taking this on, Bruce. Really. We all appreciate it.”

  Bruce fired his last arrow. “Oh, I almost forgot.”

  “Please, Bruce. That’s an even older game.”

  They laughed together, but it was plain that the president’s good humor was fraying at the edges, which was probably what Bruce intended. The sprightly aide was back, his job plainly to usher the visitor out. It occurred to Bruce that he had seen him before, but he could not work out where. “Those cell-phone calls. Were they on your personal cell or your university cell?”

  A frown. “I’m sure my daughter would have called my personal phone. Probably the White House, too.”

  “And the third call?”

  “I told you. I don’t remember a third call.”

  (II)

  BACK AT THE OFFICE, Bruce went over the notes of his interviews. Yes, the witnesses agreed, Lemaster had taken at least three calls, and one witness thought four. Two had been short, which would account for the pick up time and telling the President of the United States he would have to call him back, a feat of confidence or hubris that left Bruce breathless. The third call had been a long one. Everyone agreed on that, too.

  Bruce longed to be official. To possess subpoena power. To be able to get into telephone records, bank accounts, credit reports, all the places where people leave their lives lying around. But he had no status. He was doing his bosses, and his university, a favor. All he could do was ask questions.

  That is, he could ask questions when he could find witnesses.

  In the back of his notebook were people he still had to see, including Nathaniel Knowland, who had lied about spotting Kellen Zant the night he died, and had not returned to school for spring term. He had interviewed Carol Lewin, who could prove she was out of town the night Zant died. But he was running out of witnesses.

  For some reason, Rick Chrebet’s warning was tugging at his mind: evidence had vanished from police custody, including Kellen Zant’s cell phone. But why? Surely the phone company’s records carried all the information anybody could want. Cell phones. Wait. Flipping back a page, he noticed a possibility he had overlooked. The first two calls Lemaster Carlyle had received the night Kellen Zant died were on his personal cell phone. Suppose, just suppose, that the third had been on his official one.

  Bruce pulled out his campus directory. Sure enough, the office of telecommunications fell under the domain of the secretary of the university. He placed a call to Trevor Land.

  “I was wondering, sir, if you could obtain the call records for a particular cell phone.”

  “Oh, well, Chief Vallely, I doubt whether the pertinent regulations—”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  CHAPTER 36

  HUEBNER

  (I)

  JULIA HAD ALWAYS KNOWN that Mitch Huebner was out there, as Granny Vee used to say, but until she stepped out of the Escalade in the dooryard of his lonely shack in the East Woods, she had not realized that the word crazy was too mild. She stood, looking around in wonder. He had a dog, of course, a filthy black monster named Goetz, who growled and drooled and stank when he was in the cab of the plow, and who huffed at her now, restrained by a choke chain that looked to her untrained eye too thin to hold him if he really got going. Cords of wood stood in haphazard piles, some covered neatly with tarps, some scattered on the ground, perhaps struck by a drunken plowman.

  The house itself was one story, of dark wood, with two cracked windows on the side facing her, and holes in the wall dabbed with creosote or tar. An unfinished totem, carved from a heavy log, stood next to the door, a face to frighten the devil himself. A cross lashed together from two large branches and painted gold was bolted upright on the roof, giving the grim house something of the look of a backwoods church in the Bible Belt, only without the raucous joy. Mr. Huebner’s truck was missing, but the body of an old Ford pickup sat on blocks, and Julia could tell at a glance that he cannibalized it for parts for the one he drove. Mr. Huebner was the sort of man who would only ever drive a car that he could fix himself. She had heard him lavish a special seething disdain on the new generation of auto mechanics, who plugged engines into computers to find out what was wrong with them, and downloaded patches from the Internet, while political Lemaster, who prided himself on being able to get along with anybody, nodded severe agreement.

  Julia did not want to be here alone, but did not see that she had much choice. The children were in school, except for Aaron, who had another week of vacation. Lemaster was out of town. She would never have a better chance to find out whether she was right, whether Kellen Zant had come here and picked up the diary of Arnold Huebner, long dead, who had been town constable when Gina died.

  Mindful of Goetz, who bared his teeth and snarled and spewed frothy strands of saliva but made no other move, Julia inched toward the house.

  “Nice doggie,” she m
urmured, having read somewhere that talking this way actually worked. “Good doggie. Nice doggie. Good boy.”

  The dog snapped at her, but from a safe distance. Maybe he was a scaredy-dog.

  “Good doggie. Yes. Yes. I’m friendly, see?” Holding up her hands so the beast could see their emptiness. She wondered whether he could smell cat on her, and what difference it might make. “Good boy. Nice doggie.”

  Goetz lowered his massive head to his hairy paws. He was shivering, perhaps from the cold, although his pelt was very rich. The doghouse off behind him looked far too small. He peered at her, tongue dangling from his mouth.

  “Yes. Good doggie. Good boy.”

  She had reached the door. A snow shovel stood beside it, the wooden handle so grimy and old it might have been a museum piece. Mitch Huebner had cleared a path, but a narrow one. She knocked, because there was no bell, and because she had already guessed that he was not home, which was probably what she wanted.

  “Mr. Huebner?” she called.

  No answer. She peered through the smeary glass, but it was like looking into someone else’s dream, for all was shadow, shot through with hints of whitish motion. She shivered.

  “Mr. Huebner? Are you here?”

  Nothing.

  “Mr. Huebner. It’s Julia Carlyle. I’d like to talk to you.”

  A harder knock. Something moved in the woods, and the dog’s head snapped around to look. So did hers. An angry bird had been disturbed, a red-tailed hawk from the look of it, and Julia tried to remember whether hawks went south for winter. She wondered, if they did, why this one had decided to stick around. Julia waited, but the snowy trees were quiet. She peered down the sodden dirt track along which she had driven but saw no sign of life. Snow crunched loudly out among the trees. The Eggameese, she thought irrelevantly.

  “What do you think?” she asked the dog. “Is your daddy here?” Which is what they used to call dogs’ owners back in her childhood.

  The animal glared, thick tongue pinkly lolling.

  “Are you here by yourself?” She knocked again. “Mr. Huebner, I only need a minute.”

  No answer.

  She hesitated, glanced around. Goetz watched passively, breathing hard. She wondered how old he must be. She wondered whether he was even a he. She wondered what Anthony Tice was doing. She wondered if Bruce Vallely was still working on the case. She wondered why both campaigns had targeted the same dirt, and which of the bad guys did it. She wondered whether Lemaster loved her or was simply doing his duty by her. She wondered just about everything she could think of, in fact, except why her hand was turning the knob, and why her instincts, usually right, had assured her that the door would be unlocked, which of course it was. She called Mr. Huebner’s name, but it was all for show.

  The toe of her boot touched the threshold.

  Without a warning growl, the dog charged. The only sound was the sudden snapping as the thin chain broke.

  (II)

  LEMASTER HAD ONCE SAID, partly in mockery, partly in awe, that Julia was like an insect, able to think with parts of her body other than her brain. Actually, he had made this observation on a long-ago tender morning in their marriage bed, but Julia, creature of instinct, knew that the same uncanny speed of choice afflicted her in everyday life. So she did not decide that there was no time to rush into the house and shut the door, she knew it already, when Goetz was still resting placidly in the dooryard, knew it the same way she knew which discs were in the changer in the Escalade, and which blouse Jeannie had on at breakfast, information toward which she would never cast her focus unless she turned out to need it. She could not outrun the dog, she could not evade it, she could not hide behind some barrier. She lacked sufficient time to come up with a plan. There was only the shovel, already seized tightly in her gloved hands, for she had swept it up without thinking at the first hint that the dog was in motion.

  Julia spun in place, nearly losing her footing as the beast leaped at her.

  She swung the shovel hard, like the softball player she had been at Hanover High, and made firm contact with the creature’s head.

  It was like hitting solid rock.

  The shovel stung her hands, and Goetz was knocked off course, onto the porch, where he shook his snout, scrabbled for purchase on the ice, then turned, dribbling furiously, and came at her a second time, growling now. She suspected that she had wounded only his pride.

  In a panic now, Julia swung a second time, missing the head and smacking the upper torso.

  The dog howled in pain but kept on coming. Heavy paws pressed her parka, and, with the bulk of its weight leaning into her, the creature tipped her over. Julia screamed. She and Goetz both hit the ice with the same shivering thud and, for an instant, were equally stunned. The blade of the shovel was between her face and the dog’s snapping jaws. The fall left her dizzy, but hot, fetid breath was in her nose and mouth, waking her as sharply as any smelling salt. The wild black eyes hated her as the snout kept pressing at the shovel, the beast too stupid to realize that it could just nose the metal aside. Sooner or later, Goetz would work it out by trial and error. Julia had known panic, but not like this. Her heart seemed ready to attempt an escape without the rest of her body.

  She tried to jerk upward, but she was too small, or the angle was too narrow, or, most likely, the dog was just too big. She freed the hand that was pinned beneath the shovel, but this only gave the monster a target, and he lunged for the fingers, teeth sinking into the glove. She yanked instinctively, and the glove came off in the dog’s angry mouth, the thick cold-resistant fabric confusing him, sticking in his teeth. He snapped and snarled and pawed at his own jaw, and Julia pulled a leg out from under him and kicked up, hard. Goetz tried to stay atop her but skidded again, and she rolled out from under. She tried to get to her feet, but the porch was too icy. Then he was on top of her again, this time on her back, and no shovel to protect her, nothing but the parka, and the fabric was too thin and his jaws were too close, and she screamed and slapped at him awkwardly and thought she heard a shout but it was probably her own and anyway Goetz was not slowing down so she just screamed again—

  And the gunshot came as a complete surprise.

  (III)

  THE WEIGHT WAS GONE. Julia lay there, heaving in terror, briefly unable to move.

  “Stupid bitch,” somebody said, which got her blood flowing again, and she rolled over, the panic yet shuddering through her though she was still ready for an argument, until she saw Mitch Huebner gazing sorrowfully at his dog.

  Goetz wasn’t hit. At least Julia didn’t think so, although with all that thick black fur it was not easy to tell. But he was cowed—no, she, she was cowed—crawling back toward the canted doghouse, the shotgun cradled loosely under Mitch Huebner’s arm having done its work of scaring her off.

  He was standing on the running board of his pickup, the dented yellow plow pointing toward the shack as though meaning to push it over, and he still had not looked in her direction. He shut off the engine, and she waited for him to slide the gun back into the rack above the seat, but he didn’t. She noticed for the first time that several of the stickers on the glass behind the driver’s headrest bore the names of organizations squeezed so narrowly into the right-hand margin that they made the National Rifle Association look like the National Council of Churches. He climbed down from the truck and made a great show of walking over to the doghouse, where Goetz continued to sulk, until her master crouched above her, murmuring some words meant to soothe, and gave her what Julia first thought was a bone, then realized was a hamburger. The dog sat up fast, offered that near-smile that dogs present when they want to be liked, and proceeded to tear into the meat with all the gusto she no doubt would have preferred to demonstrate by tearing into Julia.

  “Sorry about the dog,” said Mr. Huebner, standing a couple of feet from the porch now, still not looking at his visitor, an apology the last thing she expected, for in her mind she had already laid out a cover story or two. �
�Breaks every chain I put on her. Gonna hurt somebody one day. Never was much on self-control.” A heavy sigh. “Suppose I should have her put down, but I love the old hag.”

  “You could do a fence,” Julia suggested, sitting up and rubbing her bottom, sore from her collision with the ice. The adrenaline rush had her breath ragged. He never asked if she was all right.

  “I could at that. Costs money, though.”

  “You have to do something about her.” Huffing, huffing. “Like you said, she could hurt somebody.”

  “Doesn’t have much in the way of teeth no more.”

  “They looked pretty sharp to me.”

  “Nearly had to shoot the stupid bitch.” A shake of his head. The bill of his checkered hat hid his expression. “Never had to do that before. Guess you musta really spooked her.”

  “She’s dangerous.”

  “I don’t get many visitors. Wasn’t expecting one today.” Raising his eyes at last, the shotgun still cradled beneath his arm. His face was its usual bristly red, as though he had for the past few mornings preferred drinking to shaving. He wore old jeans and hunting boots that had a lot of miles on them, and a windbreaker, as though to prove that his roots ran too deep in the loamy New England soil for a little chill to scare him.

  “I didn’t mean to barge in. I couldn’t get you on the phone. I knocked, and, well, the door just opened, and then she—”

  “She wouldn’t do anything unless you tried to go inside.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Did you walk in my house, Mrs. Carlyle?”

  Caught by a white man, the thing she hated most. Mitch Huebner had her dead to rights. He also had a shotgun. Her mouth flapped for an instant before she got the words in the right order.