No pun intended; Milwaukee was a town where the Monarchs were king. For years the Rendells had been among its most prominent citizens. All things considered, I’d expected a lot more bowing and scraping with profuse apologies thrown in for intruding at this terrible time of tragedy. Indeed, the more I thought about it, the more I found the detectives’ hard-nosed and businesslike approach profoundly disturbing.
There are no secrets for the dead, especially the rich. Lawyers and accountants turn their lives inside out like a pair of pants, looking for loose change. As I made my way to Beau’s study I consoled myself with the fact that wherever Beau was, at least he was no longer in a position to object. Not that anyone familiar with Beau’s current balance sheet would have mistaken him for wealthy. Still, Chrissy was so furious at Feiss for presuming to speak for the family that she asked me to have a look through Beau’s papers. At least that way there would be someone who would be able to tell if something turned up missing later.
Beau’s study was a large, masculine room that was part office, part refuge, and part shrine to football. The massive credenza was crowded with power photos, honors, and awards. Autographed footballs sealed in Lucite sarcophagi, trophies, and plaques of every shape and size filled the bookshelves. Signed jerseys of famous Monarchs players were stretched, framed, and displayed on the walls like fine art.
Of course, all these were just token symbols of the much larger prize. When it comes right down to it, an NFL team is the biggest, best, and most testosterone-induced trophy of them all. After all, there are only thirty of them, and together the owners form the most exclusive old boys’ club in the world. This was the place where Beau had come to savor it. Looking around, I suddenly understood the desperation he must have felt at the prospect of having to give it all up.
The room still smelled of his cigars. The soft leather of his chair still bore the impression of his body. On his desk beside the telephone was a roll of blueprints held together with a red rubber band and a pencil that lay exactly where it had left his hand. What had he been thinking, ten days I away from losing it all?
I sat myself down in his chair and unrolled the blue- prints, expecting to see the architect’s drawings for the proposed new stadium in suburban Wauwatosa. Instead, I was surprised to find a set of ambitious renderings for the proposed renovation of the existing Monarchs Stadium downtown. Curious, I laid them flat and examined them one by one.
From what I could tell, it looked like a daring plan, one that called for the existing structure to be almost totally rebuilt and the field to be lowered eight feet. This would make way for a new deck of luxury seating. In addition, the present-day lower deck would be ripped out and replaced with restaurants and restrooms. I loved the concept, but then again, concepts are cheap. I wondered if the city also had a plan for how to pay for it.
I looked in the folder that lay underneath the drawings and found my answer. Inside was what looked like a scribbled term sheet, probably handwritten during the course of a meeting, which outlined a proposal that cobbled together a package of deferred tax credits, income from a naming fee for rechristening the renovated stadium, additional parking revenues, and an 8 percent sin tax on tobacco and alcohol. Quickly adding the numbers in my head, I realized that with a little bit of creative massaging, they might be stretched to cover the deficit with the bank, as well. Unfortunately, there was no way of telling whether what I was looking at represented what Beau had asked for or what the city was offering.
I made a mental note to call the mayor’s office, pleased at the prospect of possibly having another variable to play with. Then with a sigh I turned my attention to the rest of Beau’s desk. A cursory look through the first drawer was enough to tell me that it contained the story of a man pushed to the very edge of ruin. All the files were neatly labeled and arrayed in chronological order. The checkbooks were reconciled to the penny. I found it heartbreaking to see the full scope of the disaster laid out in such an orderly fashion.
I found records from five different banks, each with multiple accounts in the names of the various holding companies through which he conducted business. They were all shockingly overdrawn. Beau had also margined his stocks. Loan documents filed with the secretaries of state in Illinois and Wisconsin revealed heavy borrowing by Rendell using everything from NFL TV rights to athletic equipment as collateral. Although league rules set strict limits on how much could be borrowed against the team, they didn’t limit borrowing by the Stadium Corporation, which Beau also controlled, and the Monarchs had taken full advantage of the loophole. My heart leapt as I stumbled across a file containing a $2 million life insurance policy, but further examination revealed that it had already been completely borrowed against years ago. Even his credit cards were maxed out, and the dunning letters had acquired an ugly, hectoring tone.
It wasn’t until I got to the bottom drawer that I found the gun—a dull gray Glock 9mm semiautomatic with its distinctive flat composite finish. I picked it up, the composition grip fitting snugly into the palm of my hand. I checked the magazine. It was loaded.
I weighed the pistol in my hand and thought about Beau Rendell sitting where I sat now, filing the threatening letters from the bank. Had he thought about the gun? How could he have not? I opened my hand. The Glock lay across my palm. Perhaps I’d stumbled across another of Beau’s plans, the one he hadn’t shared with either Harald Feiss or his son, Jeff. I returned the gun to its place in the drawer and realized that I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Surely Beau Rendell would not have been the first man who’d contemplated ending his life rather than face public humiliation at the hands of a bank.
CHAPTER 7
Afternoon ground on into evening in the strange cocktail-party torpor that so often follows a death. People arrived to pay their respects, utter platitudes, and console each other in hushed whispers-—even as they pressed for details of the tragedy. Jack McWhorter arrived with the second wave of mourners. Gravely handsome and solicitous, he quickly proceeded to fill in for Jeff at Chrissy’s side. Chrissy, for her part, seemed grateful for his presence, if only to escape the further well-meaning ministrations of Coach Bennato’s wife. It had started to snow, and the front hall quickly filled with boots. Outside the reporters trampled the front lawn into mud.
The phone rang constantly, and I found myself answering it. Reporters called from all over the country wanting to confirm the details of Beau’s death and troll for quotes. In between, I spoke to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the death notice and obituary, set up an appointment the next day at the funeral home for Chrissy and Jeff, and tried to stay on top of things at my office. Every few minutes someone appeared in the kitchen with a fruit basket or another casserole until the refrigerator was full and the counters overflowing.
By dinnertime the visitors began drifting off, murmuring their farewells, their duty done. Even Harald Feiss, 'who’d worked the door like a host at a party, finally went home. For better or for worse Jeff slept through all of it. As Chrissy said good-bye to the last of the callers I hung up the phone and turned my attention to the gift baskets, trying to figure out which one contained the most chocolate. By the time I heard the front door slam and Chrissy’s exhausted sigh of relief, I had cracked open a box of Godivas and was setting up for a three-course meal—dark, milk, and truffles for dessert.
Chrissy walked into the kitchen, slowly pulling off her earrings. I offered her the box, but she shook her head.
“My feet hurt,” she said, pulling up a chair and kicking off her shoes, “and I’m sick of acting sad, and I’m tired of people telling me what a wonderful man my father-in-law was, and I can’t wait to get the hell out of this awful house.”
“Where’s Jack?”
“He left about an hour ago. I asked him to go back to my house and drive the baby-sitter home.”
“Are you sure you can trust him with the baby-sitter?” I asked lightly. “He’s probably got her parked in some dark alley right now telling her all abou
t big, bad L.A.”
“I make it a policy to hire only little old ladies to babysit. I mean, Jeff’s a Iamb, but why put temptation in his way?”
“So who’s with the baby now?”
“My housekeeper, Greta.”
“Another little old lady?”
“No, a two-hundred-pound German woman. She has arms like a stevedore and a little mustache—”
“I think it’s time for you to go home, too.” I laughed.
“I have to wait for Jeff. I don’t want him to wake up alone in his father’s house.”
“That’s okay. I’ll wait. You need to get out of here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll make sure the guest room’s all ready for you and I’ll even leave a mint on your pillow.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “Actually, I was thinking that I’d just get a hotel room downtown somewhere. You guys don’t exactly need company right now.”
“You aren’t company.”
“You know what I mean. I also figured that if it’s okay with you and Jeff, I might pay a call on Gus Wallenberg down at First Milwaukee first thing tomorrow morning. I figure that under the circumstances we might be able to get him to work with you on this.”
“You mean give us more time?”
“More time, maybe an opportunity to restructure the loan—we’ll have to see what I can talk him into....”
“Do you really think he might?” she asked. I found her eagerness almost heartbreaking.
“I don’t see why not,” I replied. “Beau’s death changes everything. But we won’t know unless we sit down and talk to him.”
“You have no idea how grateful I am that you’re willing to try to help us sort out this whole mess,” said Chrissy.
“Sorting out these kinds of messes is what I do for a living, my dear. It’s a pleasure to do it for a friend for a change.”
“I take it you haven’t finished with that deal you love so much, the one where you’re raising money for those strip clubs.”
“Soon, I hope.”
“I’ve heard that before. In the meantime, I don’t care what you say. I won’t have you staying in some hotel, ^our room will be all ready for you by the time you get home. Besides, if you’re going to the bank, you’re going to need something clean to wear.”
“I don’t think you have anything in your closet that would fit me. What size are you wearing these days?”
“Four,” she answered sheepishly.
“I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think I wore a size four when I was four.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we can let out one of my old maternity dresses....”
“You’d better leave before I hurt you,” I exclaimed, preparing to pelt her with a chocolate heart.
“You’re sure you don’t mind staying here while I go home?”
“Not at all. Who knows when Jeff’s going to wake up? Besides, you’ve had a rough day.”
“You have absolutely no idea. You know what the worst part is? It’s not just the shock of it—and lord knows that’s awful enough. It’s how quickly everybody has started jockeying for position.”
“You mean because you’re the new owners of the Monarchs?”
“You should have heard the people sucking up to me this afternoon. Don’t they realize how transparent it is? Do they think that I’m so upset by what’s happened that it’s made me stupid? I mean, even Coach Bennato—Jesus. Ever since Beau made Jeff general manager, Bennato and Jeff have been at each other’s throats. Bennato spent the entire preseason giving interviews saying that Beau had made a terrible mistake, that Jeff didn’t have the experience for the job. Now all of a sudden he shows up at the house with tears in his eyes, and he’s telling everybody who will listen what a great team he and Jeff are going to make, how together they’re going to turn the season around by dedicating the rest of the games to Beau’s, memory. It makes me want to barf.”
“Get used to it,” I said. “It’s only going to get worse. From here on in everyone is going to want something from you.
“You mean until they find out we don’t have any money.”
“Believe me, it’s not the money. You know what my mother always says: ‘There’s nothing more common than money.’ ”
“Unless you don’t happen to have any.”
“Lots of people have money,” I replied. “You and Jeff have something that’s much more desirable. Just think about it, Chrissy. Do you have any idea how many people would kill for an NFL franchise?”
As I waited in the dead man’s house I wandered from room to room gathering up empty glasses and dumping out ashtrays. The phone kept ringing, but I was tired of answering it. After a while I turned the ringer off and just let the machine pick up. Then I made one last foray through the food baskets and, armed with an apple, a pear, and a stick of smoked sausage (for protein), I went into the library and made myself comfortable.
A copy of that morning’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel lay on the coffee table, and I looked through it while I ate. The morning’s headline was about a threatened teachers’ strike. There was also an above-the-fold story about a toddler who’d accidentally locked himself in a Porta-John at a flea market over the weekend. On the sports page the articles consisted mostly of a series of scathing postmortems of the Monarchs’ defeat at the hands of the Vikings that alternately blamed Bennato and Jeff for the rout. There was also an article about the city’s proposed stadium renovation plan. In it Beau was quoted as saying, “I’m very excited about this project.” I sighed, thinking of what tomorrow’s headlines would bring.
Jeff Rendell came into the room so quietly that I jumped at the sight of him. His clothes were rumpled, and his eyes were still heavy with sleep behind the tortoiseshell frames of his glasses. The wrinkled bed sheets had left their imprint on his cheek, and his hair stood up at the back of his head in an absurd cowlick.
“Where is everybody?” he asked, his voice still thick with sleep.
“They all left around dinnertime. Chrissy finally went home about an hour ago to be with the baby. She wanted to stay, but she was just exhausted, so I sent her home.”
Jeff sank down into an armchair and buried his face in his hands. “I can’t believe it,” he groaned, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “I can’t believe I killed him.”
“What?” I demanded. Two things went through my head in rapid succession: that anything he told me would be protected by attorney-client privilege, and why I had decided early on not to go into criminal law. This was the kind of confession I never wanted to hear, especially from my best friend’s husband.
“What do you mean when you say you killed him?” I asked, willing myself to keep my expression neutral. “He’d be alive right now if it weren’t for me.”
“How do you figure that?”
“You must have heard by now about the big fight I had with him this morning.”
“A day didn’t go by without your father having a big fight with somebody. You know what your dad was like. He was the kind of guy who would never whisper if he could get away with shouting instead. It was his personality.”
“Yeah, but this time it was different.”
“Different in what way?”
“He had a heart attack and died afterward,” he replied bitterly.
“Is that all?” I demanded, unable to suppress an audible sigh of relief.
“What do you mean, is that all?” repeated Jeff, sounding shocked.
“I thought you were going to tell me something else, that’s all,” I said quickly. “What did you and your dad fight about?”
“I told him I was quitting.”
“Quitting as GM?”
“Quitting the team. I told him I was fed up with losing, sick of being treated like an errand boy, and I wasn’t going to hang around and watch him destroy the team that he’d spen
t his whole life building.”
“What made you decide you were going to quit? Why today?”
“I don’t really know. I guess things have been coming to a head for a long time. The money, the bank, the fact that Coach Bennato seems to have forgotten how to win football games—suddenly it all seemed impossible. It didn’t help that Dad still refused to even discuss the Los Angeles offer. I guess I was just feeling angry and frustrated.”
“So that’s what you went in there to talk to him about? The fact that you were quitting?”
“No. I wasn’t planning anything. He buzzed me to come into his office. He wanted me to run down to the bank and pick up some contracts he wanted from the safe-deposit box.”
“What kind of contracts?”
“We keep the player contracts locked up. That’s what got me started. I mean, here I am, the general manager of a National Football League team, and I’m still running errands for my dad.”
“So is that what the key is for?”
Jeff nodded.
“But why give it to me? Why not hold on to it yourself?” I took the key out of my pocket and went to hand it back to him.
“I think it’s better if you keep it, if that’s okay.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“I don’t want anybody else to get their hands on it.”
“Who’d want to?”
“The police.The newspapers.”
“Why? What’s in it? I thought you said it was just contracts.”
“There’s some other stuff,” he replied, licking his lips nervously.
“Team documents?”
“Personal documents.”
“You mean financial stuff?”
“For god’s sake, Kate. It’s personal. Private. What-ever’s in there has nothing to do with anything. It’s just that there are things in there that would be really embarrassing if anybody got hold of them.”
“Embarrassing to whom?”
“To Chrissy,” he whispered miserably. “It’s something she doesn’t even know about.”
Rough Trade Page 7
