The Whole Lie

by Steve Ulfelder

  “Well,” Mikey said, sipping coffee.

  “Favor,” I said.

  “Aha,” he said.

  “I know,” I said.

  “The casual drop-in,” he said. “Not your thing.”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “Red Lumina. One-car wreck on the Pike, early this morning.”

  Mikey’s face went cloudy. That’s rare. “Yeah,” he said, stretching the word.

  “Any way I can get a look at that one?”

  “Want to maybe tell me why?”

  “No.”

  “Huh,” he said, and used his right foot to start a slow spin in his chair. He must have done it a lot, because he spun exactly 360 degrees. When he stopped, he was looking at me a different way. A thoughtful way. This wasn’t a pie-faced kid who’d lucked into his daddy’s company. This was a full-grown man whose small business was thriving in tough circumstances.

  “I’ve pulled nineteen cars off the Pike in the past week,” Mikey said. “That’s pretty typical. Year to date, let’s round it off and say I’ve hauled eight hundred vehicles off my little golden stretch of roadway, okay?”

  He waited for me to say something.

  I didn’t.

  “Of that eight hundred, the state cops have shown interest in about twenty. Usually they’re just looking for booze bottles to make a DUI case.”

  “The staties went through the car? Already?”

  “Worse,” Mikey said. “Some asshole claiming to be a statie.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I said, “What?”

  “Or ‘investigator,’ anyway,” Mikey said. “That’s what he called himself. Bullied the kid working the overnight. The kid’s new. Should’ve called me, but he didn’t want to wake me up.”

  “And the guy was intimidating. Kind of fat, but plenty big. Long hair, Southern accent.”

  “Yup.”

  “Did he have his look at the car?”

  “Yeah. Which is bad. We got a little shed where we hold cars the cops want to investigate. Keep ’em out of the rain, you know? Letting an impersonator in there to tear a car apart … it’s bad.”

  I said nothing.

  “Who is he, Conway?”

  I said nothing.

  Mikey sighed. “So you want the favor but you won’t tell me jack shit. That Lumina’s generating a lot of heat.”

  “I get it.” I began to rise.

  “Did I say no?”

  I sat.

  Mikey said, “Is this one of those wild-ass Conway missions I hear about from time to time? Saving idiots from their idiotic selves?”

  Mikey and I ran in the same circles, but he wasn’t a Barnburner. It’s the Barnburners I trust. It’s the Barnburners I’m loyal to. So there wasn’t much I could say.

  “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “But I hear a lot, and if a tenth of it’s true…” He stood and leaned heavily, both hands on his cheap desk. “I’m gonna skip my round of golf today, same as every day, to help those boys figure out the new crusher.” He checked his watch. “We’ll be down back for an hour, easy. Alice’ll be in around ten. You should be gone by then.”

  He straightened and left the office without turning.

  On his desk, where his right hand had rested while he leaned, sat a Schlage key the color of an old penny.

  * * *

  Six minutes later I put on my work gloves, tucked a flashlight under my armpit, turned the key, and opened the door of a cheapo sheet-steel building the size of a three-car garage. At some point, the door had been sealed by one of those heavy-duty stickers: MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE CRIME SCENE DO NOT ENTER REMOVE OR DEFACE. The kid working Mikey’s overnight shift must have put the sticker on—procedure, I figured, for any vehicle that was hauled inside. But the big mystery man who’d beaten me here had slit it.

  Inside: pea-gravel under foot, smell of power-steering fluid, one lonely fluorescent overhead.

  Nothing about the Lumina’s front end surprised me. The nose was destroyed from slicing through a guardrail and center-punching a tree. Radiator collapsed, transverse engine moved back a full six inches, unit-body warped, windshield smashed on the driver’s side by Blaine’s head. I knew if I flashlighted the cracks I’d see his hair and matted blood. So I didn’t.

  I walked around the car slowly. There wasn’t much to see until I reached the left rear corner. “I’ll be damned,” I said out loud, and squatted.

  Aft of the wheel well, the bumper cover and quarter panel were banged up. Deep dent, chewed-up plastic, shattered taillight.

  I closed my eyes, pulled up memories to be sure. Any chance this damage had been here before the crash, and I hadn’t noticed it? Thought about Blaine standing at his car in the gas station lot, Blaine pulling into a parking space after he followed me.

  Hell no. There’d been no damage. Most days I couldn’t tell you what color shirt I was wearing, but I always noticed busted-up cars.

  Blaine had been crashed out. Wrecked on purpose. Murdered. No surprise: just confirmation.

  Cops call it a California Stop or a PIT Maneuver, for Police Intervention Technique. But there’s nothing tricky or technical about wrecking a guy. You pull alongside him, lay your right front on his left rear, and turn right. He loses the back end of his car and spins. Period. The cops need to make it sound fancy and scientific, but go to your local bullring dirt track and you’ll see racers PIT Maneuvering each other twice a lap, all night long.

  I looked closer.

  In the bumper gouges and quarter-panel scratches, I saw two colors of paint: forest green and gold.

  Like the Ford Expedition that was turning up everywhere. Two-tone, the pimped-out Eddie Bauer model.

  The SUV had killed Blaine Lee. But who the hell was the driver? And why the hell had Savvy Kane been following him before she was killed?

  Checked my watch. I needed to be out of here, with the key back in the office, in fifteen minutes. I rose, knees popping, and looked in the open driver’s window.

  Jesus.

  Mikey’d told me the guy went through the car pretty well. It was an understatement. He’d torn the thing apart. The headliner was slashed. The dashboard vents, popular spots to stash drugs, had been busted out. Ditto the center console and ashtray. Even the plastic trim hiding the windshield pillars had been pried apart, the cavities inspected.

  Whoever he was, the guy had tried very hard to find something in this shitbox.

  What?

  And had he found it?

  Whether he had or not, I doubted there was much worth looking for now.

  Damn.

  I climbed out, stretched, decided to call it a wrap.

  But what the hell. I opened the rear door, climbed in, sat, looked around. It was torn apart back here, too. Door panels slashed, carpeting cut—he’d made big Xs, then peeled back the resulting flaps—hell, even the backs of the front seats were gouged, gray vinyl torn and peeled.

  I sighed and made a move to climb out.

  And felt the seat give.

  And not in a normal way. There was a small click as I transferred my weight. I finished rising, stood on gravel next to the open car door, pushed the seat with both hands.

  Click.

  Huh. I climbed back in and knelt on the Lumina’s floorboard, facing the rear seat. Tight fit: The front seats had been pushed way back.

  The bean counters who run car companies today don’t use a screw or a nut if they can help it. (The Germans are the exception, and I guess that’s why I love ’em.) This goes double for interiors. You’d be amazed at how much stuff inside your Acura or Infiniti just snaps together like Legos.

  I spread my arms to the far corners of the Lumina’s backseat, ran my hands down the gritty back where the pennies and Life Savers end up, felt around for clips.

  Bingo: My right hand found one. I finger-felt, figured it out, released it. That side of the seat cushion rose a half-inch.


  My left hand found a clip, too. As I’d expected, this one wasn’t closed properly; I didn’t have to release it. Whoever’d snapped it shut last had done a bad job, had left the seat springy.

  I tilted the seat up.

  Beneath it: stamped metal, wires for the fuel pump, sand, gum wrappers.

  Also a manila envelope, eleven inches by fourteen. Sealed.

  I set my flashlight where the car seat had been, pulled my multitool, slit the top of the envelope, shook it.

  Big pictures.

  Color pictures.

  Naked pictures.

  Well well well.

  Into the envelope went the pics. Into my jacket went the envelope.

  Down came the seat.

  Three minutes later, the Schlage key was on Mikey’s desk and I was in my truck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I knew just what to do with the pictures.

  When Floriano had sold me the F-150, I’d been in the middle of something that required a gun.

  I don’t have much use for guns. For every time a gun helps a man out of a jam, guns screw up fifty guys. Maybe they get a quick ride to jail because they had to be a big pistolero. Or maybe they blow a toe off. Or maybe they get shot in a bar fight that would have ended in nothing more than a good beating except that some jerk had a piece.

  At the time, though, I’d been working something hot, and I needed a semiauto where I could get at it. So I’d used sheet metal, rivets, and a piano hinge to rig a hidey-hole between the frame rail and rocker panel of my truck. Had stuffed a handful of giant Ziploc bags and zip ties in to secure whatever I was stashing.

  The gun was long gone, tossed in the Hopkinton Reservoir at three o’clock one morning. But the hidey-hole was still there, baggies and all.

  To make the big envelope fit I had to fold it in half, then roll it up. Into a Ziploc it went, then into the stash.

  I pulled away from Blackstone Valley Salvage feeling pretty good about myself. Feeling smug, feeling smart.

  Then a hundred questions hit me, and I didn’t feel so smart anymore. Called Randall. Straight to voice mail. Told him to call me.

  Saw a text had come in while I was dialing. From Charlene: Tower Hill 4:00?

  I texted back one letter: K. Smiled as I did it. Tower Hill was our place, our spot, even if thinking of it that way made me feel like Harry High School. It was a good place to work through whatever bad spell we were in, to get back on track.

  Drove east on back roads, shuffling all the questions raised by the pictures. Told myself I was driving slowly, aimlessly, because I needed to speak with Randall about our next move.

  Then the truth hit me and my shoulders dropped an inch.

  I once heard a rule of thumb for dealing with people: The thing you don’t want to do is always the right thing, always the thing you ought to do.

  The rule stuck with me for a simple reason: It works. Its truth makes it a pain in the neck, though. Once you learn it, you’ll never again buy your own bullshit excuse for not apologizing, or for letting something go unsaid, or for letting a grudge simmer.

  Or for not calling a family that just lost a son.

  Information had three Lees in Level Cross, North Carolina. I took down all three numbers. Tried Vernon and Margery first. The names just felt right.

  And were, I knew two seconds after a woman picked up. Even eight hundred miles away, filtered through satellites and towers and sine waves, she sounded like she wore an anvil on each shoulder.

  “Is this Margery Lee?” I said. “Blaine’s mother?”

  “Yes sir, this is.” Background noise told me she wasn’t alone. It was easy to picture a small house, a lot of family, casseroles. Everybody brings a casserole.

  I told her who I was. “I’m up here in Massachusetts, and I was sorry to hear about Blaine. I didn’t know him well, just met him the other night, but he struck me as a good kid.”

  “I do thank you for that.”

  “I know Max meant a lot to him. Max and Savvy both.”

  Long pause. “Max meant the world to him,” she finally said.

  “Time like this, it’s good he has you and Mr. Lee.”

  “When will Mr. Lee be coming back home, sir? Maybe you all know more than I do. Your state police are nice as can be, but it can be difficult getting information.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I assume Vernon is … making arrangements, doing what-all needs to be done?”

  “Not sure I understand you, ma’am.”

  There was a pause as Margery Lee realized I didn’t know things she’d assumed I knew.

  “My husband Vernon is up there, too,” she finally said. “Trying to keep Blaine out of trouble. Working on a project with Savannah.”

  Holy shit.

  “Oh sure,” I said, trying to be smooth. “Vernon. Big fella in the big green SUV.”

  “So you know him.” Her voice fluttered as she spoke. Was Margery Lee nervous about her husband? Scared of him, maybe?

  “I do,” I said. “I do know him.”

  Quiet.

  “Was there anything else, sir?” Margery Lee finally said. “Because I’ve got a houseful of hungry family and a confused little boy, and I’m afraid there’s much that needs tending to.”

  Anvils on her shoulders.

  I said again I was sorry. Clicked off.

  My heart rate was up. My breathing was shallow.

  Mystery man: Vernon Lee. Blaine’s father?

  But Vernon’s SUV had spun Blaine off the Mass Pike. Had killed him.

  And when I’d described Vernon to a tee, Blaine had claimed not to know anything about him.

  But the stolen plates on the Expedition fit. Vernon must have thought North Carolina plates would make him stand out. So he’d swapped a stolen Massachusetts plate, had grabbed a toll transponder while he was at it. It wasn’t a perfect plan—the lack of a state inspection sticker could give him away to a sharp cop—but it was damn good.

  Some family. Man, did I want to talk with Randall.

  I sighed and called Moe again, just to check in. Had called the night before. He hadn’t picked up.

  He didn’t pick up now.

  Huh.

  Randall called me back. Phew. Said he’d slept in Bellingham at his insurance lady’s place. I asked him to meet me in twenty minutes.

  He made it to the Honeydew Donuts in Hopedale just after I did. We grabbed coffees, sat in a booth.

  Randall nodded at the envelope, which held a loose tube shape. “Que es?”

  I flipped the envelope, pressed it, smoothed it. Looked over my shoulder. Slid pics across the table.

  It was quiet for twenty seconds. “Oh my,” Randall finally said.

  “Yeah,” I said, sliding the shots back into the envelope, tucking the envelope in my flannel shirt.

  “Know what you’ve got there?” he said.

  I waited.

  “An election lost. A political future derailed.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but I don’t care about that.”

  His eyebrows made a question.

  “What I care about,” I said, “is who killed Savvy Kane.”

  Randall blew on his coffee. Then he sipped. Then again. “Of course,” he finally said. “Mister One-Track.”

  “Blaine Lee and Savvy stashed those pics in Blaine’s car.” I explained how and where I’d found them.

  “Unless Savvy stashed them herself,” Randall said. “From what you’ve told me, she used Blaine as it suited her. She might’ve hidden the pics in his car without telling him.”

  “I thought about that,” I said, shaking my head, “but it doesn’t work. Blaine was a stereo installer. Those guys know car interiors like nobody’s business. It would’ve been his idea to tuck the pics under the seat.”

  He nodded, buying it. “Blaine and Savvy held the blackmail bait. How’d they come across it?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “Okay, TBD. However they got it, they had it. Somebody
wanted it badly. Savvy and Blaine are dead. So the finger points back at Tinker-Saginaw.”

  “Maybe. Are you ready for an insane twist?”

  Sigh. “Why not?”

  “I told you about the mystery man in the green Expedition.”

  “Yes?”

  Randall almost spit coffee when I told him about Vernon. He made me go through my phone conversation with Margery Lee line by line.

  “Huh,” he said when I finished. “Got any ideas? Because I feel like my head’s been turned inside out.”

  “Savvy, Blaine, and this Vernon,” I said. “Living small in North Carolina, feeling poor, tasting Bert Saginaw’s dough. They come north to work an angle. The partnership falls apart, the way those things always do. Why? Who knows? Maybe the boys didn’t like the way Savvy cozied up to Saginaw. Or maybe Blaine and Savvy planned to double-cross Vernon all along.”

  “She was capable of all that?”

  “Hell yes,” I said, no hesitation at all. “Savvy was driving this bus.”

  “Off a cliff she drove it. Sorry. Not funny. Keep going.”

  “What if Savvy got a look at those dirty pictures, saw her opening, and tried using them to chisel Saginaw? Without telling Vernon or Blaine?”

  “Huh. A blackmail handle that didn’t expose her little boy, is that what you’re getting at?”

  “Or herself. Which, tell you the truth, might have been more important to her.”

  “Charmer.”

  We were quiet awhile.

  Randall finally said, “You’re saying she made her play, and Saginaw killed her over the photos?”

  I shrugged. “Someone working for him, more likely. But yeah. Then Blaine panicked. Kid was crazy about Savvy. Plus he was in over his head, and he knew it. So he took off with the pics stashed in his car.”

  “Vernon freaks out,” Randall said. “Savvy already hosed him over the initial blackmail play, the love-child deal. Now she’s dead. For argument’s sake, let’s say the Saginaw campaign murdered her. Vernon’s meal ticket: dead. The pictures give him a second chance at the Bert Saginaw lottery, and now that opportunity’s slipping away. You can see how desperate he’d be. But…”

  I knew what he was thinking. “Could a man freak out enough,” I said, “to kill his own son?”