Not Death, But Love (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 3)

by Michael Wallace

  “Oh, no. That’s awful!”

  El looked around the restaurant. It was the period between the early breakfasters and the after-church crowd, and they had some speaking room if they talked quietly.

  “And it looks as if it may have been deliberate.” She turned to Gordon. “Shall we tell her?”

  “Might as well,” he said, “But you do the talking. I’m getting tired of telling that story.”

  El launched into it, just as the food arrived, and Gordon, as he listened, felt she was doing it justice — hitting the key points and making it coherent, without missing a critical detail or including an unnecessary one. Gordon, as he ate and listened, looked back and forth between mother and daughter. He was thinking he’d like to see Anna smile; that it would be something special. But despite a couple of opportunities for her to be amused by the sheriff’s bumbling, he saw no such thing. She was serious all the way through. When El finished, he cut in.

  “Did you have her as a teacher?” he asked.

  “Junior and senior years. Probably the best teacher I had here. A lot of the kids made fun of her and her obsession with books, called her an old bat — that sort of thing. But by the end of the year, almost everyone in her classes had fallen in love with at least one of the books she was teaching. She had a way of making you see what was there that you never would have seen by yourself.”

  Most people, Gordon thought, would have smiled at the old bat line, but not Anna.

  “And what book did she get you to love?”

  “Great Expectations. I identified with Pip, wanting to get out of his life, but I don’t know that I would have seen through the caricatures to the moral purpose of it, if she hadn’t made that come across. And taught me how to write about it.”

  “The writing is valuable,” he said.

  “It’s interesting. In the first year of law school, you could really tell who had a teacher like Miss London in their background and who didn’t. There are people in law school who are as bright as can be, but who really struggle to get something down on paper. Because of her, it’s been easy for me.”

  The check arrived. They were due at Sturges’ house in 20 minutes, and it was a 15-minute drive.

  “So what’s in the journal?” Anna said.

  “I’d rather not say right now,” Gordon replied. “I’m still trying to sort it out, and I’ll probably ask the group for guidance this afternoon. Do you have any thoughts on that?”

  “Well, you’re her literary executor, aren’t you?” He nodded. “That means she’s put you in charge of everything she wrote and left it to your discretion how to deal with it. If you wanted to publish that journal as a book, you could do it.”

  That might be legally correct, Gordon thought, but recalling a couple of Charlotte’s descriptions of amatory episodes, he would expect her to rise from her grave and haunt him if he did such a thing.

  “It’s pretty private stuff. I don’t know,” he said.

  “At any rate, it sounds like you’re doing something important here.”

  “We’ll see how it goes,” said El. “And I was thinking with your legal background you might be able to contribute something to our research.” She looked at Gordon. “What do you think, Gordon? Do we want her on our team?”

  Gordon was already uncomfortable about having made Anna’s acquaintance wearing intimate attire. He was becoming increasingly annoyed about the fact that she seemed incapable of smiling. And the way the investigation team kept growing (partly his fault, he had to admit) had him wanting to make a sarcastic remark about how they’d have to hire a hall for their meetings if the group got any bigger. But years of working at the brokerage had taught him not to say everything he thought, so he smiled (I can if she won’t, he thought) and said:

  “Sure. Why not? The more the merrier.”

  “That’s how I feel,” said El. “I’m a great believer in the power of the group. I think all of us together can come up with ideas that none of us could by ourselves.” She turned to Anna. “We’ll be meeting at the house this afternoon at 4:30. Can you be there?”

  “If you want me to, mom,” Anna said. “And if I won’t be interfering with anything.”

  Damn her, thought Gordon. She didn’t even smile when she said that.

  EVEN BY THE STANDARDS of The Peninsulas, Bart Sturges’ house was large and impressive. It was 4,000 square feet and sat on the west side of the West Peninsula, with a sunset view, looking across the lake to Arthur. It had a modern design, with high ceilings, facades of wood and river rock, and a cantilevered deck over the lake, clearly designed by an architect infatuated with Frank Lloyd Wright.

  Sturges answered the door himself. He was five-seven and in good shape, with brown eyes, a well-cut head of gray hair, and a square face with a strong jaw. Dressed in khakis and an aqua/turquoise polo shirt, he looked like a man on his way to the links. The razor-sharp part in his hair matched the razor-sharp crease in the khakis. Gordon, no slouch at dressing up when he wanted to, guessed the trousers (and shirt, too) had cost a pretty penny at one of San Francisco’s fine men’s stores.

  The Senator led them through a large living room and sliding glass doors that opened out onto the deck, where a round table with three chairs awaited. The deck was still in shade and was strewn with fragrant pine needles, blown loose in the previous day’s storm. Sturges offered coffee (which they accepted) and pastries (which they politely declined), then leaned back in his chair, waiting for his guests to begin the conversation.

  “Thank you for meeting with us on such short notice,” El said.

  “I always have time for The Clarion. Have I ever told you, El, that when I’m in Sacramento, I have each week’s paper flown to me overnight so I can keep up on the local news?”

  “You’ve told me about 20 times, Bart. But I don’t get tired of hearing it.” They both laughed.

  “Speaking of which,” he said, “I was going to introduce a resolution commemorating Charlotte London when the Senate reconvenes on Tuesday. It’ll be the only thing we pass unanimously all day. Can I count on your story about her for some of the facts?”

  “Nobody’s disputed anything yet. So it’s that bad in our state capital?”

  “Seriously, I almost didn’t make it up here this weekend,” he said. “We keep wrangling over the budget. It’s supposed to be approved by July first, but I don’t think we’re going to make it this year. After a meeting with the Republican whip yesterday morning, I concluded nothing was going to be accomplished until next week and came up. I always feel better here than I do in Sacramento.”

  “In two more years you won’t have to worry about it any more,” said El.

  His facial muscles tightened. “Don’t get me started on that. Term limits! What a crock. They go against the fundamental principle that the voters are smart enough to decide things for themselves. You know, if the people decide they don’t want me to represent them any more, I can accept that and sleep like a baby at night. But to be told I can’t run again in 1998 because I’ve served too many years — during which I might add, I’ve learned how to get things done for my constituents — that’s just bullshit. But it’s the law, so there you are.”

  Gordon interjected.

  “So, senator, do you think you’ll be running for another office in two years?”

  “Are we on the record yet, El?”

  “Not if you don’t want to be.”

  He leaned forward and looked at both of them. “Just between us for now, I’m looking at a couple of possibilities. What I’d really like to do is run for Insurance Commissioner, but that’s a statewide race and would take a lot of money. There’s some talk that our seat on the State Board of Equalization may be open in two years, and all my Senate district is in that district, so it could be more manageable. And, of course, if we elect a Democratic governor in two years, I could probably snag an appointment to a state commission. One way or another, I should be all right.”

  “And whatever happens,
will The Clarion be the first to know?”

  He put his hand over his heart. “Swear by everything I hold sacred.”

  “You’re touching the wrong body part for that,” she said. They both laughed again. “But you need your time off, so let’s get to what we’re here for. The Peninsulas.”

  He nodded without saying anything.

  “I’m afraid we dropped the ball on the 25-year anniversary of the project approval, but the silver anniversary of the groundbreaking is coming up soon, so we can do a little catch-up. That was a big issue and a big vote early in your political career, wasn’t it?”

  “Interesting that you missed the first date,” said Sturges. “That says something, don’t you think? The Peninsulas have become such an accepted part of this community that nobody remembers what all the fuss was about 25 years ago.”

  “It was quite a fuss at the time, though,” said Gordon. “I’ve been reading about it, and it seems the community was pretty evenly split, with strong feelings both ways.”

  Sturges nodded.

  “I wasn’t here then,” said El, “but from what I can make out, you were quite the focus of interest. Did you have a lot of dealings with the London and Paris families?”

  “Everybody wanted to talk to me,” Sturges said, appearing pleased by the recollection. “In the three weeks leading up to the vote, I was meeting nearly every day with either Ned London — well, before his tragic death — or one of the Parises, Roger or Ronald. The Chamber of Commerce was by to see me practically every day. So was Celia Strickland, who was leading the opposition, and Pearl Wilder of the Sierra Club, God rest her soul. There were so many people coming by my office it was hard to get to lunch some days.”

  “I’ve heard,” said Gordon, “that on the day of the meeting you had two speeches with you. One to read if you voted for it, and one if you voted against. Is that true?”

  “Now who told you that?” he said with a smile. “I think I can guess, but it doesn’t matter now, and it’ll make your story better, El. Yes, I had two speeches. I woke up that morning thinking I was going to vote for it, but I was willing to listen to all the testimony and change my mind if something new came up. It didn’t. But like Eisenhower at D-Day, I was ready with a speech, however it went.”

  “But again, Senator, it seems as if your vote surprised a lot of people. Looking back at the news stories at the time, you were pretty definite about opposing the project beforehand.”

  “Your intern has obviously done his homework. You hired well, El. But let me explain a little something to you about the facts of political life, Gordon.” He still had the smile, but his speech was becoming tighter and more intense.

  “I know what you’re talking about, but you have to remember one of the first things any candidate or elected official learns — sometimes the hard way. You always have to have an exit strategy, some way of changing your mind if it seems like the thing to do.

  “If you go back and read those articles closely, and if they quoted me right, which I think they mostly did, what I said was that I couldn’t support the project as submitted. Remember those last two words, because they’re crucial. What a lot of people forget is that after the election, when it looked like the county board was going to be against the project, the London/Paris group modified it. They moved the golf course back from the lake and removed about 30 building lots to do it. Over a period of six months, I’d been gradually coming around to the position that some sort of tourist/recreation development was necessary here to offset the decline in logging. Those changes allowed me to say that with the modifications made to the plan, I could now support it.”

  “But were the modifications really significant?” asked El.

  “They weren’t just window-dressing. The golf course being too close to the lake was the biggest environmental issue, as far as I was concerned, so moving it back was the right thing to do. And those 30 lots they cut came straight off their bottom line. I suspect that was Ned London’s doing. He was more willing to listen to public concerns than Roger Paris. But it gave me some cover to vote yes.” He stopped to take a sip of coffee. “The reality is, and don’t quote me on this, that if I’d decided the economic development issue was critical and I wanted to vote yes, they could have changed the color of the cover on the plan from red to green, and I could have said, ‘It’s a different plan now, and I can support this version,’ and voted for it.”

  There was a long break in the conversation, punctuated by the background noise of power boats zipping across the lake.

  “Isn’t that kind of cynical?” Gordon finally said.

  “You can call it cynical; you can call it anything you like,” said Sturges. “I just call it smart politics.”

  BY THE TIME THEY ARRIVED at Shore Acres, the temperature had climbed to the low 80s. Celia Strickland was dressed for the weather, looking more like one of her customers than the proprietor. A woman of middling height and weight, with long gray hair and a frequent scowl, she was wearing shorts, running shoes, and a T-shirt that read “Año Nuevo Run for Breast Cancer, October 5, 1991.” She brought Gordon and El into the fireside room in the main building, offered lemonade (which was accepted), and plunked herself down in a chair at an angle to the couch on which Gordon and El were sitting.

  “So you want to talk about The Peninsulas,” she said. “They’re there. We lost. The good guys don’t always win. What else do you want to know?”

  “I’m working on a story about the anniversary,” El said, “and Gordon is Charlotte London’s literary executor. He’s going to be responsible for the family history she’s writing. Both of us thought that as one of the leading opponents of the development you might have something to say that would help both of us.”

  “I could talk all day if you’d let me, but that would probably be more than either of you need. Maybe ask some questions.”

  “I’ve looked at some of the newspaper stories,” Gordon said after a brief pause, “and it’s not clear from them how extensive the opposition was. What’s your sense of what the community thought back then?”

  She shifted in her chair and took a sip of lemonade.

  “I’m guessing half the town was for it and half against. But it’s hard to say. The committee that organized the opposition had about a dozen members, but except for me, the others are all dead, moved somewhere else, or so old they don’t remember much. If I’m going to be the only source for that, I’ll try to be careful.”

  “The stories said some of the opponents wanted the peninsula lands to become a park.”

  “About three-quarters of the committee wanted a park; the rest didn’t want anything. Keep it wild, they said.”

  “And you?”

  “I could have gone either way. On the record, I supported the park because I thought it was politically the best alternative. It would look better if we weren’t just saying no.”

  “Was a park a real possibility?” asked El.

  She nodded. “Those were different times. The state had money then. Not like now. If the legislators who represented this area had pressed for it, the land could have been bought for a state park. There probably would have been a couple of hundred campsites built and a boat dock, but most of the land would have been protected from development. It would have been more in keeping with the character of the community.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Gordon said.

  “When the reservoir was built after the War, a pretty good little tourist industry grew up within a few years. Most of the places were like this. Shore Acres was built in 1952, and we bought it from the original owners in 1960. They established it as a place where working people could come for a two-week vacation they could afford. It catered to families, and there was a real mix of people who came here year after year. It was very democratic.

  “A state park campground would have been a democratic place, too — something that would have attracted all sorts of people from around the state. Not like those obscene houses in
The Peninsulas. The rents on those are two to three times what my cabins cost! Only doctors, lawyers and executives can afford that. It’s a playground for the rich now.”

  “Would a state park have done as much for the local economy?” El asked.

  “I’m not an economist, but I doubt it. That wasn’t our argument, though. If you made the argument about money, the developers won. We were concerned about quality of life. There are a lot worse things than being a sleepy little community that’s true to its own values. It resonated with a lot of people, but not enough to change the way things turned out.”

  “Looking at it from the family history perspective,” said Gordon, “I’m curious as to how you saw the players in the development. How did the Londons and Parises relate to each other, and what did they do in the process?”

  “It was Ned London’s idea at first. He saw the possibilities. I’ll give him that, even if his vision wasn’t mine. He obviously expected to make a lot of money from it, but I think in his heart, he felt he’d be profiting by serving the community. And he was the voice of the project. Without him being involved, it wouldn’t have had half the public support it did.”

  “And the Paris family?”

  “The worst kind of business people. Nothing mattered to them but the money. If they could have made more money by selling that land for a state prison, they would have done it in a heartbeat. I had a bit of a soft spot for old Ned, but none for the rest of them.”

  “How about Bart Sturges?”

  Her scowl deepened. “He sold out,” she said. “Plain and simple. I think he was really against it, but he wanted to run for the state legislature later and needed help from the business community. They got to him and changed his vote. The last few times we talked to him, he was wavering, but I was still shocked when he cast the deciding vote in favor. I’ll tell you something. I haven’t voted for a Republican for any office in a quarter of a century, but there’s one Democrat I’ve never voted for either, and that’s Sturges. My little vote doesn’t matter much in the great scheme of things, but I can’t bear to give it to him after what he did.”