by Hugh Dutton
Brady formed a matching chin rest with his hands and held the eye contact. What the hell, he had called because she seemed tough and savvy, and she’d lived up to it so far. “A question first,” he said. “Does Leo Burgess own your paper or any part of it? More to the point, does he own anybody at your paper?”
She gave him a lopsided grin. “Sounds like you’ve done business with Leo.”
He laughed. She knew Leo. “Let’s just say I learned the hard way how he does things. Whatever happened on that land sale you were riding him about a couple of years back?”
“So that’s how you decided I would listen to you,” she said. She picked up a swizzle stick and jabbed at the table with it, then nodded as if to herself and looked back up.
“What happened was consummate Leo Burgess,” she said with another twisted smile. “He arranged an interview with another reporter where he explained how it wasn’t a question of his financial gain, it was about the one hundred families of the construction crew who would get a paycheck if the deal went through. Then he trotted out all these studies showing how the land was not home to any endangered species, or any unique species. So who’s going to listen to this one kooky environmental wacko in the face of all that?”
He felt himself mirroring her knowing grin by the end of the tale. “Sounds like the Leo Burgess I know and love.”
“Well, that’s a big fish you’re going after,” she said. “I have to admit I wouldn’t mind gumming up the works for him. He does own a piece of my heart for what happened to his daughter, but that does not change the fact that he is the environmental equivalent of Pol Pot. And no, he does not own my company, and no, I’m not afraid of him. He certainly has influence, he’s too rich not to, but the worst they can do is fire me. I’d have a job somewhere else the next day, and I could live off my blog anyway. There are too many readers out there who agree with my views, and ME’s know that. Now, how is all this going to help stop the channel from choking to death on silt?”
He liked the tough talk, but he had to wonder how well it would stand up to the kind of coercion Burgess had orchestrated for him. Not that he had much choice: he didn’t have the public forum or the depth of knowledge it would take to make this thing stick. If she said yes, he had to gamble on her backbone being as strong as the talk. “Have you ever seen Burgess’s house?”
She shook her head, coiling the swizzle stick around a finger.
“Well, you need to drive by it, see for yourself. He moved enough soil around to make a hill for his house to sit on. Near the water’s edge. I have it on good authority that he suffers constant erosion and runoff. Add to it this pool he has dug in twelve feet deep that’s even closer to the water. There’s your construction. Yeah, it was two years ago, but my reading tells me the build-up you’re seeing in the channel is often a delayed reaction. And with the piping and draining system you have there for that pool, it’ll take forever for the sand shifting and runoff to settle down.”
“This good authority you speak of,” she said. “Is it someone I can talk to?”
He pictured Pete, his gap-toothed smile and his ever-cheerful morning chatter. “No, he won’t be available. But I think I can offer something better.”
She raised her eyebrows in question.
“What if I know a guy, a federal guy, who loves taking down people like Burgess? He’s not EPA, but he promises he can get the EPA on it if we have any reasonable scientific suspicions. That way you can skip over the local people, bypass the Burgess influence. What my guy needs is an expert to talk with them if he sets it up. That’s where you come in. If you look it up, you’ll see there are precedents for proving a single individual homeowner liable for ocean damage. And you’ll like how much it cost some of these cats that got stuck with the bill. What do you say?”
She studied him for a minute, tapping her mangled swizzle stick on the table, and shook her head. “No, I can’t be your expert.”
“Why not?” he asked, thinking, great, all this for nothing. She lied. She’s scared of Burgess just like everyone else.
“Because I can’t,” she said. She tossed the tortured swizzle stick aside and leaned in, all that intensity lasering into him. “Look, Brady, I would crawl on my butt through a mile of broken glass to save that channel. And I told you I would love to stick a thumb in Leo’s eye. However, my job is to report the news, even write opinions on the news, but not to create the news. I cannot write a column about something I am personally involved in. That is what’s called a conflict of interest.”
“Well then, let someone else write it.” He realized he felt more disappointment at her passing on a chance to halt the destruction in the channel than his failure to enlist a potential ally against Burgess. Come on, woman, where’s the commitment behind all that passion?
“No, sir. It’s my story now. You brought it to me, I won’t give it up. And I think you’re missing my point here. I don’t have any credentials as a marine biologist or oceanographer. What I am is a damn good reporter. If you want Leo to take a hit, you want publicity. That’s where I’m your expert. Now, what if I can provide a true expert in marine matters? Someone credentialed both professionally and academically? Someone who wouldn’t be afraid to go up against an entire infantry battalion for a cause like this?”
Solitaire was just not doing it for Gerry Terence this time. He couldn’t find the focus to even recognize the pips on the cards, never mind keeping track of which one played where. His brain was too punchy from hearing the bizarre tale of Anna Burgess walking into the county house at ten o’clock last night and announcing that she had come to plead guilty to the murder of Pete Cully. Exactly how she said it, too—not confess, not even make a statement or give information, but plead guilty. Lord help him, Gerry could not stop expecting a director to step out onto the stage and holler, “Cut.” Just when he thought nothing could ever surprise him anymore, the ghastly farcical comedy of human behavior reached a new height of absurdity. So instead of solitaire, he amused himself by bending each card, one at a time, between his forefinger and thumb until it popped loose and fluttered to the floor.
Oh, he understood her motive, or could at least follow it, given the way she had calmly explained her actions to the flabbergasted sergeant taking her statement. But how in the hell did she arrive at that line of reasoning? Not that reasoning was the word for it. She thought Pete was trying to frame her son for rape? Well, horseshit. She thought Nick was as guilty as Cain, and she was afraid Pete could prove it.
He fluttered another card. Hey, almost across the room this time. His technique must be improving. Four of diamonds, he noticed when it landed face up. Anna would never face a murder charge, he felt sure. There was just no getting past the fact that she did not actually kill Pete. Hers was the worst attempt at murder in Gerry’s memory. Except that it worked. Pete was dead.
Anna was safely locked away in a rubber room while the shrinks dug around in her skull. Maybe she wouldn’t ever get out. From the way Gerry had heard the story she sure belonged there. One thing he dearly wished was that he could have seen Big Leo’s face when he learned second-hand about his wife copping to a homicide. According to Gerry’s source, Leo was not even aware she had gone down there.
Nor did the irony stop there. If Anna ever did face any charges, a jury would lap up the diminished capacity argument her lawyer would surely use, and not just because of the emotional trauma from Lexy’s death. No, now her lawyer could righteously point out that any mother would take action to prevent her poor, innocent son from being framed for rape in some vicious evil plot of Pete’s. Great. So Pete’s character gets trashed and his killer takes a walk, all thanks to the work Gerry did in proving Nick innocent by popping the Carrero puke. Ain’t that a cockroach in your salad.
Aagh. He could not decide whether to laugh or throw up. If he laughed, he feared he would never stop. The men in the white suits would come and get him and bundle him away in a straitjacket while he chuckled maniacally along. Maybe he could room next
to Anna.
He fluttered another card. Jack of spades. Sorry, Pete, old buddy. You wanted justice served for Sara Zeletsky and we did it, but doing so is going to give Anna a free pass. I’m guessing you wouldn’t want to exact your pound of flesh from an old lady who’s lost her marbles, anyway. The other thing you really wanted was Nick. What did you know that made you so sure he did it? It was something significant, because Anna believed it too. What died with you, locked away in that hardheaded skull of yours, bro?
CHAPTER FORTY
The two detectives declined J.D. Macken’s offer of drinks, politely, but in a manner that made him feel like an idiot for suggesting it. He sat on the sofa next to Ellie, facing his visitors, and noticed his wife sliding as far away from him as the sofa allowed. What an impressive marriage. No wonder he’d gotten sick of her. His palms felt sweaty, and he went for the sneaky swipe down his pant legs. He knew in the loan biz sweaty palms often meant the customer was ready to surrender and sign, and the last thing he wanted his guests to notice was any sign of surrender.
Today made the third time he’d talked to these two, but it was the first time he had a case of nerves over it. The previous questioning had been quick and matter of fact, no sense of him being a suspect. Even after he admitted to his affair with Lexy, knowing they would learn of it anyhow. But this one felt different, formal somehow, and their request for Ellie to be present seemed a bad omen. He had no doubt they would bring up the affair in front of her. He’d even considered refusing the interview, but didn’t dare risk pissing them off. Ellie learning about Lexy weighed in as a chickenshit worry compared to lethal injection.
The woman cop, a sharp-faced redhead named Bearcy, jumped right into it. “Now, how long ago did you begin your relationship with Lexy Burgess, J.D.?”
“We’ve already covered that,” J.D. said, feeling Ellie’s eyes on him. He didn’t look at her.
“We’re going to cover it again,” said the other detective, a guy named Godwin. He was a sleepy-eyed, beefy sort, hypertensive looking, like you would smell the sausage and onions if he belched.
“I met her almost two years ago, when we moved in here,” J.D. said, picking his words carefully. Maybe he could confuse the issue enough for it to slip past Ellie.
“No, we want you to tell us when your intimate relationship with Miss Burgess began,” Bearcy said. She gave him a smile that was supposed to look kind and friendly, but it didn’t fool J.D. for a second. This was a hard woman.
“I guess I would say we became intimate friends about a month or so later,” J.D. said, and hurried to add, “We want to do anything we can to help catch her murderer, but how is all this going to help?”
Bearcy let out a theatrical sigh and slumped her head down. All a bullshit act. She raised her face and said, “Okay, this isn’t working for me, J.D. Let’s try it this way. When did you start having sexual relations with Miss Burgess?”
J.D. felt his wife stiffen, and he risked a glance at her. She sat motionless, a tear trickling out of her tight-shut eyes, with her hands clenched into hard little fists in front of her. Time to get it over with, try to move on. “Five or six months ago,” he said, his whole body sweating now except for his mouth, which had gone dry as a sand dune. “Right around the first of the year. But you haven’t answered my question. How is that going to catch the killer?”
Bearcy smiled again, this one with no window dressing, just a straight-out vicious, flesh-eating show of teeth. “Because we know you’re our guy, J.D. We know you did it. We’re just trying to find out why.”
Ellie sprang off the sofa and backed away, pointing at him with a forefinger as rigid as a sword. “You bastard,” she screamed. “I can’t believe you were sticking her. Oh my God, I hope they give you the death penalty. You don’t deserve to live.”
J.D. was so blown out by her explosion that he had to turn his eyes away, and he caught the cynical, know-it-all glance Bearcy shot at her partner. And in that flash, he knew. He could not fucking believe it, but he knew.
“Is that why you killed her, Ellie?” Bearcy asked, her voice as gentle as the mother of a newborn. “Because she was sleeping with J.D.?”
Ellie whirled to face the redheaded detective, aiming the finger at her. “No. It was for love. What would you know about love, you hussy? She laughed at me when I told her I loved her. She wouldn’t tell me back. She laughed.”
Ellie collapsed into a cross-legged seat on the floor, sobbing into her hands. Her muffled voice came through in hiccups. “How could she let you touch her, let you degrade her like that? She was so beautiful. So beautiful.”
J.D. wanted to stand, but he felt nailed to the sofa, certain he was blacking out. He and his wife both in love with the same woman. Impossible, except it was so Lexy. He could hear in his head her patronizing laugh at Ellie’s offer of love, because he’d played that scene. And he could picture Ellie’s murderous rage, because he’d felt that, too.
Through the roaring in his head as loud as an airport runway, he dimly heard Godwin droning, “. . . the right to remain silent. Anything . . .” and remembered that he and Ellie had already been read their rights. Why twice? Funny, huh, he had assumed the first reading to be directed at him. But not as funny as the cruel joke Fate had played on him. All his scheming and now, with one enraged swing of a fireplace poker, he had lost it all. No Lexy, no Ellie, and no inheritance. Poof.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
It took almost an entire week to get all the parties together—Grant Thibideaux and his EPA contacts with Jeanette and her expert—but Brady finally hooked them up. Thank you, thank you, Maggie. Word of Ellie Macken’s arrest for the murder of Lexy Burgess had gone public. Brady was at long last out of the crosshairs, but now he had too much heart built into the ecology gig to let it die. Even without a need for leverage on Daddy Burgess any longer. All the research and learning had lit a fire in him, and now he obsessed about seeing this thing answered for. And corrected. Never had thought of himself as the tree-hugger type, but there you go.
He waved bye to Jeanette, who was already back on the phone again, and found his way out of her office and back to his Jeep. Woke it up and set off for his next stop, Gerry Terence.
During the brainless chore of driving, his thoughts wandered to Grant, Maggie’s brother. Boy, did she describe him right. That guy was ready to dice Burgess into little chunks, slow roast him, and eat him for lunch. Grant had seemed let down that Brady hadn’t found any shady finance stuff for him to dig into, but he brightened up a bit when Brady told him of the eight figure settlement the guy in Hawaii paid in a similar environmental case. Must have been some father they had—Maggie drinking herself to death in an effort to idolize men like Burgess, and Grant running around stomping on them. Just another happy, all-American family.
And how about Ellie Macken? Talk about your lurid headlines. He still hadn’t gotten a reality grip on that drama. Hadn’t even decided which was a bigger mind blower, the affair between the two women that no one suspected or the mental picture of quiet little Ellie whacking away with a poker. Though she did have the arms for it, he remembered. Which also reminded him of her heated comment about Lexy’s availability, a clue he totally missed.
He caught an empty parking slot, bailed out of the Jeep, and bounded up the stairs to Terence’s second-floor office. Wow, these weeks with Chaz had put him in killer condition.
Terence’s door was locked, with an envelope taped to it bearing Brady’s name on the front. Odd, Terence said he’d be in all afternoon. Oh, well. He pulled the envelope free, flipped it over to open it, and saw a handwritten note on the back. “Sorry, duty calls. Holler at me if you have questions. G.T.”
Brady gave the door a shrug and took the envelope back down to the Jeep, sitting there to open it. He pulled out two sheets of paper, the first one a letter from Terence. It read:
In your call, you requested your bill for my services. There won’t be one from me, but I thought you might be interested in writing a
check for this. Not another one of your rubber checks either, pal. Anyway, apparently this is something he had planned on doing during his lifetime, since he had escrowed money for years in a sheltered account. And he left his entire estate to it, so I will see that it is done as he wished. We don’t have enough yet, but added to the substantial insurance he carried, we have a start. The instructions are that no one person may give more than a thousand dollars a year, to avoid patron influence. I guess we know of whom he was thinking. I will inform you once the legal mumbo-jumbo is in place so you can deduct your gift. Best of luck.
Brady read it twice, then re-folded it and checked out the other enclosed page. It was a donation form for something called the Cully Foundation, a nonprofit organization established for the counseling and legal advocacy of date-rape victims. Brady smiled. Bet Pete would never allow it to be named the Cully anything if he were still around. Well, that was all right, then. It would be an easy thousand bucks to spend, if he ever saw that kind of money again. He tucked the envelope away in the dash and put the Jeep in motion.
He headed across town toward the Suncrest, figuring the time had finally come to say goodbye to the roaches and pack up his junk and split. At the intersection of Shoreline, he noticed a vaguely familiar guy walking along with his head down, a carryall in his hand.
Brady made his turn and drove past the man by the time recognition clicked. Last he saw that guy was in a BMW crashed up against a tree in his yard: J.D. Macken, playmate of Lexy, husband of her killer. He spun a U-turn right in the middle of Shoreline and pulled to the curb.
“Need a lift?” he called.
Macken’s head jerked up. He stopped and touched a forefinger between his eyes, then pointed it at Brady. “Hey, I know you. Barry, right? Don’t mind if I do, thanks.”
“Pretty close. It’s Brady, actually,” he said as Macken clambered in and tossed his bag in the back. “So where are you headed?”
