“You deny you went back?” I was calm, superior.
He gave me what is known in the world of journalism as a non-denial denial: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I pressed my advantage. “So you haven’t told the police yet. That’s the only way you’d feel safe lying about it to me. Chief Cooper is going to love hearing about this.”
Grant said he still didn’t know what I was talking about.
I leaned into him, pointed a finger, and said, “Listen, jerk. I didn’t quit my job to play games with you. You were seen, Grant Simple as that.”
“I—I don’t believe you.”
It was time for another bluff. “Oh? Shall I call Brenda back and ask her?” Grant’s pretty face was starting to crumble. I went on. “No? All right, then. We’ll keep talking. Did you and Debbie fight again when you got back to the house.”
“No!” He wiped his forehead with his thumb. “I never went back inside the house at all.”
“Why not?”
“As I approached the carport, I saw that you and Morris were still there—I saw your cars. I decided there wasn’t any use in trying to patch things up with Debra when the causes of our argument were still there. I just turned around and drove off.”
“I see,” I said. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it? Of course, if you’d told the police at the time, they could have checked the drive and found a nice smooth set of tire prints showing how you made a U-turn and left without even stopping the car. Now, all the visitors offering condolences will have obliterated them. You probably figured that the police have the killer in custody, so why confuse them, right?”
He nodded. The expression on his face said he was surprised to see me so understanding.
“Well, Grant, I’m afraid we’re going to have to confuse them anyway. I’ll give you until Monday to tell them about your little visit. Tell you the truth, though, I hope you don’t. It will be so much better for Dan if they have to drag it out of you the way I did.”
“I’ll tell them, damn you.”
“Good boy,” I told him. “Now let’s talk about he other fight”
“What other fight? That silly bit of tension on Tuesday?”
“No. The one two years ago. The one that broke up your engagement to Debbie.”
He started to get angry again. “Really, Cobb. What possible difference can that make?”
“You tell me,” I said quietly.
He thought over the situation; I could see him hating it. He didn’t know how much I already knew, and he had to be wondering what lengths I’d go to to get him to come across with the information. I was beginning to wonder about that myself. I tried to imagine limits for my conduct in this case but couldn’t. It was an uncomfortable thought.
Grant was biting his lip. I decided to help him along a little. “It had to do with your deal with ComCab, didn’t it? You were going to use Debbie’s money, if you could talk her into it, to buy a big part of ComCab and go into competition with her father.”
Grant pulled himself together, at least externally, to the point where he seemed his old upper-class, superior self. “You do have ways of digging things up, don’t you?”
“You bet your ass,” I told him. It was a funny thing. The more patrician Grant became, the cruder I wanted to act. “Then I’m right? Good. The only thing that gets me is that you actually thought Debbie would go along with it.”
“It made sense from a business point of view,” he said. “An important New York broadcast executive like yourself should appreciate that.” He was practically urbane by now. “I simply underestimated Debra’s devotion to her family.”
“So she told you it was all over, never darken her door again, and ran home from her own engagement party. That must have been very embarrassing for you.”
“Oh, it was. Especially when she left her sister stranded. I had to take poor Brenda home; after Debra’s blowup and my drowning my sorrows, I was hardly in a condition to be driving at all, let alone with a passenger. I had to stop frequently. As Brenda can tell you—or has she already?—I didn’t get her home for hours, and that was nearly as great a scandal as the broken engagement.”
“Of course, with the wedding off, the deal fell through.”
“Of course.” Grant was looking at me shrewdly. I decided he’d figured playing along was the quickest way to get rid of me.
“And it was very open-minded of Mr. Whitten to keep you on after all that.”
“Oh, it was. But he never knew the reason for our breakup; Debra took it all upon herself. Which made me love her all the more.”
I heard gravel crunching from the walkway. I. looked past Grant to see Brenda coming back to us, limping along through the dappled sunlight and humming a happy little tune. The little girl had decided my time was about up.
“Made you love her all the more,” I repeated. “Even when she turned around and took up with Dan again? Said she was going to marry him?”
Grant grinned. It was a very handsome grin. You couldn’t find one thing wrong with it if you looked for a month. The venom was all in his voice.
“No, Cobb. I wasn’t worried, not for a second. Your friend didn’t have a chance. Debra kept him as a pet, that’s all. He gave her the same undifferentiated affection those ridiculous white dogs do. Debra belonged with me, and she knew it, and I knew she knew it. We stick with our own kind, Cobb.”
“So do cockroaches,” I told him.
Grant kept smiling. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “That would seem to fall under the expertise of you and your friend. All I know, Cobb, is that you’ll never get that social-climbing little bastard out of this, because he’s guilty and you know it. He couldn’t face the fact that Debra was through slumming, so he killed her like the hoodlum he is. You deserve each other.”
“Remember you said that,” I told him. I was grinning now, too. “Keep it fresh in your memory. Because someday, maybe not soon but someday, this hoodlum is going to bring it home to you. We guttersnipes have our ways—this civilized air is only a facade. A gentleman like you should know that instinctively, as I’m sure you do. So rest assured, Mr. Sewall, that those words will return to you. In a sandwich.”
I brushed my hands together as if I’d touched something dirty. I was still looking at them when I said, “That’s all, Grant. You may go.”
I got his reactions through sound effects. Dismissed by a guttersnipe! I wasn’t going to be allowed to get away with that. I heard him draw in a bushel of air, the better to issue a challenge, and I heard him spring to his feet, the better to sucker-punch me as soon as I stood up. My mouth started to water. As I’d told him already, we guttersnipes have our ways.
But I never got to use them. Brenda was back, and she’d heard the last part of our exchange. I’d been so involved I hadn’t even noticed her. Brenda spoke before Grant or I could say anything.
“Yes, Grant,” she said. “You may go. Matt will drive me home.”
Grant sniffed. “I have you to thank for this.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, “I’ll stay with the hoodlum, thank you. His manners are better.”
Grant spun on his heel in the mud and left. Brenda asked me if I’d found out anything useful.
“Useful? Too early to tell. I did learn one thing, though. Dan was right. If your sister had married that wimp, she would have been miserable for the rest of her life.”
Brenda looked at me with sad eyes. “Take me home, Matt.”
On the way, I checked Grant’s story about the party with her. “So someone found out the secret of the great fight, eh?” she said. “I never knew. I always thought it was some stupid thing of Debbie’s. I never knew Grant was—I felt sorry for him.” She sat there looking miserable. “Oh, Debbie, I apologize!” was all she said for the rest of the trip.
I pretty much got the silent treatment at the end of the trip, too. I delivered Brenda to her doorstep, handed her her crutches, then looked up to see A. Lawrence Whitten
glowering down at me. He walked down the stairs like a hundred-year-old man and slapped me in the face.
“I ought to kill you,” he said.
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t in the mood for a reconciliation with this old fool, but I wasn’t quite ready to punch him out either. Anything in between would have been a waste of time. I just met his glare for a few seconds to show I wasn’t intimidated. Then I got in the car and drove away.
And nobody tried to kill me until the next afternoon.
CHAPTER 18
“Now, what do we mean by that?”
“Yeah! Wadda we mean by that?”
–Soupy Sales and Frank Nastasi, “The Soupy Sales Show” (Syndicated)
I HAD A LOT of trouble sleeping Saturday night, and when I did sleep, I had crazy dreams again, including the one where Spot talks to me, telling me to pay attention to him. He got pretty abusive about it this time around. I was telling him to get off my back when I woke up.
At least I thought I woke up. I opened my eyes to see Spot again, with his bright brown eyes about three and a half inches from my face. It’s an interesting experience to awaken from a nightmare to find the subject of the nightmare right there before you. I greeted Sunday morning by saying something like “Arrgh!” I followed that with a moan when I took a look at the clock and saw what time it was.
The real-life Spot was much easier to get along with than the phantasm was, so I tried to get him to tell me what the hell he wanted in the dream. The Samoyed, however, was interested only in going for a walk. I obliged him; it’s part of our deal. In fact, I took him for a good, long walk, about a mile and a half to the nearest shopping center, where I got the Sewanka Sunday Sun and the New York Times. The Whitten case got a lot of space in the Times; they’re not that big on crime, and they’re even less big on out-of-town crime. The angle that got them interested in Dan was the way Mr. Whitten’s outlets were covering the story. I took a look at the front page of the Sun, and it was like picking up exhibit A. Les Tilman’s story was fairly balanced, for which God bless him, but the rest of the coverage was ridiculous. They did everything short of calling Dan a monster, and they could have even gotten away with that, considering the pictures they ran of him.
After a while, I gave up on the papers and gave the TV a try. I was invited to find Jesus on three local stations and five from out of town. Jesus works very hard on Sunday mornings on television. Of course, local stations love these TV evangelists. They take time nobody else wants, they pay full commercial rates, and, best of all, the station gets to log it as “Rel,” which means religious programming. It goes over big with the FCC at license-renewal time.
I remember one guy, who looked like Grant Sewall only thirty years older, telling me in a soft drawl to “give all my troubles to Jesus.” It sounded like a good idea, and I considered it, but I was brought up to believe in the Lord that helped those who helped themselves. I decided to hold on to my troubles a little longer. No hard feelings.
I was getting silly. I’m a danger to myself and society at large when I get like that. I needed to talk to somebody. Who did I know who’d be up at that hour (quarter to nine) who wasn’t at church?
Shirley Arnstein, of course. She’d probably be making the bed in her hotel room because she wasn’t happy with the way the maids did it.
She picked up the phone on the first ring. “Hello, Shirley,” I said.
“Matt! I’m so glad you called. I was going to wait until ten o’clock and then call you.”
“Oh? Anything happening? Did you hear from Harris?”
“Just that he arrived safely in Rochester. But I’m going to be talking with Roger Sparn about the things Harris found out. I thought I’d get your advice on how to handle it.”
That was interesting. When she was working for me, she asked for instructions, not advice. I generally asked her what she thought was best, then let her do it.
That’s what I did this time. She surprised me by saying, “I think it would be best if we spoke to him together, Matt. If you don’t mind.”
I thought about it for a second. It made sense. A talk with the former radio actor was on my agenda anyway. Shirley had her case and I had mine, but there was a significant area of overlap. If we took him together, he wouldn’t have time to rehearse any answers.
“Brilliant as usual, Ace,” I said. “Shall we have breakfast and plot strategy?”
She thought that was a fine idea, so I took Spot for a ride in the car, picked up Shirley at the Sewanka Inn, then drove out to a place on Route 13 that was famous throughout the Southern Tier for its home fried potatoes.
The crowd was made up of truck drivers and college students at the end of all-nighters, and Shirley and I didn’t exactly fit in, but it was a friendly place, and the waitress smiled as she led us to a Formica-topped table.
We never did discuss strategy. Shirley dug a spoon into an enormous bowl of oatmeal and said, “You know, Matt, I know you didn’t do this on purpose, but you hurt Harris pretty badly the other day.”
I sat there with the ketchup bottle in my hand and laughed. “I what? I didn’t know he could be hurt.”
“Oh, that’s just the way he copes. You should know that.”
“What did I do? I think you’re kidding me.”
“You told him if he ever made any friends, then he’d understand how you feel.”
“I was upset.”
“It was still a cruel thing to say. Harris—he’d never say this himself, you know—but Harris likes to think he is your friend. You’re the closest thing to a friend he’s got.”
Jesus, I thought, that isn’t very close. “What about you?”
She waved a hand, dismissing herself. “I’m just a girl who loves him. There are lots of those.” She looked down at her oatmeal, moved her spoon a little, and looked back up. “Matt, Harris admires you. He envies you.”
I shook my head in disbelief. I’d always envied him. For his cool competence. His detachment. His even temper and confidence.
I put the ketchup down. “What could I possibly have that Harris Brophy would be jealous of?”
“You feel things, Matt. You care about things. You can still get excited over a matter of right and wrong. And most of all, you’re willing to attempt something important you might fail at.
“Harris can’t do that. His whole life is structured around the idea that nothing is important, so it doesn’t matter what he does.”
“He doesn’t know when he’s well off,” I said.
“Or you don’t. All I’m asking is for you not to throw it up in his face anymore, all right? I mean, why do you think we came up here? The Network doesn’t need the two of us for some two-bit little cable hearings. Harris wanted us to be around to help you help your friend. That way he can borrow some of your commitment.”
“I thought he just liked to watch me make a fool of myself.”
Shirley smiled. She has a pretty smile. “That, too,” she said.
I grinned back, and we finished our breakfast.
Our discussion of The Hidden Anguish of Harris Brophy was a lot more enlightening than anything we were able to get out of Roger Sparn. He didn’t want to talk in the first place—he seemed to be in hiding. Shirley and I split up to look for him. I finally tracked him down in the lobby men’s room. I stood next to him and began to grill him. He conceded everything, then took the position “So what?” Yes, he knew his company had negotiated with Grant Sewall and that those negotiations had fallen through. He himself had met with Mr. Sewall frequently, in Rochester, New York City, and even in Sewanka.
“But I challenge you, Mr. Cobb,” he said, as he shot me a pop-eyed glance, “to tell me what possible bearing that can have on the hearings about the Sewanka cable franchise.”
Good point, I thought. It sounded even better in his rich, educated voice. Just so it couldn’t be said we surrendered without firing a shot, I took a stab at it.
“Well, suppose Mr. Sewall retains an option
to buy that stock, either under his own name or under the name of some corporation he’s formed for the purpose. On his own behalf or as an officer of Whitten Communications. Conflict of interest, wouldn’t you say?”
“How so?”
“Well, Whitten Communications has stayed out of the application process expressly because the committee wanted to diversify the number of information sources in this town. Imagine their surprise if they give the franchise to ComCab, and six months or a year later, ComCab is a wholly owned subsidiary of Whitten Communications.”
Since he was conceding things, he conceded that, too. “Yes, that would be embarrassing. Fortunately, it’s not likely to happen. Good day, Mr. Cobb.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Good day.”
I found Shirley and reported. She was angry at having been cheated out of her rightful share of the work, but she was excited at my theory. “You know, I’ll bet that’s just what it is! I’m going to get busy on it. Thanks, Matt.” She gave me a little kiss on the cheek, which was a bold move for her, and started off. Then she looked back over her shoulder and said, “You’re still doing good work for the Network, aren’t you? It’s like you never quit at all.”
If that was supposed to make me feel better, it didn’t work. All it did was remind me that with all the running around I’d been doing, I still didn’t have one solid thing that could help Dan out of jail.
Shirley’s words came back to me: “... willing to attempt something important you might fail at.” It was funny. I’d never considered my ability to fail one of my good points. I still didn’t.
CHAPTER 19
“Would they kill me? They’d kill me and go out for pizza!”
—Jack Klugman, “The Odd Couple” (ABC)
I STOOD THERE SIGHING for a minute or so, then started to walk around. I went out to Whitten College, toured the campus, revived some memories. After a few hours of that, I went back to the inn for lunch. Then I decided that if I wasn’t doing anything, I couldn’t even fail properly, so I decided to get back in business.
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