by Katy Munger
"You mean the car was jerking back and forth?" I asked.
The old man shook his head. "No, the fellow was. He was one of those nervous types, you know. He talked funny, like through his nose, and his hands were shaking like this." The old man held up a dark, gnarled hand and it trembled in the firelight. "City boy, probably scared of the dark. But not that lady. Oh, no." He shook his head. "She was cool as ice. Queen of the night. And I was her slave. Got no truck with people like that." He stared into the fire, remembering. "Not even a simple thank you."
"But what did they look like?" I asked again.
The old man shrugged. "The fellow was tall. Younger than me. Kind of skinny. He wasn't much help with the car. The lady was short. Didn't get a good look at her.
She stayed in the shadows. I just felt her, you know, and could hear her voice. She was used to ordering folks like me around, I could tell that, and I was sorry I had bothered to help her. A man deserves a thank you, at least. I was not put on this Earth to serve her, but I guess God forgot to tell her that."
"What color was her hair?" I asked, frustrated. "Or his?"
He shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. The boy had on one of those baseball hats. It was white, I think, with black stripes on it. Not the Braves. Some other team. I don't know about the lady's hair. It was dark under the trees. I wasn't looking. I just wanted them out of there."
I sighed.
"Sorry," he apologized. "I mind my own business. You the police?"
"No." I threw a few sticks into the fire and watched them blaze.
"What did those folks do?"
"Never mind," I told him. "Just keep on fishing." Thornton Mitchell's death had screwed up enough lives. And this old man had been through enough changes in his lifetime as it was.
"I plan to," he said, spitting a wad of juice into the fire. It sizzled and disappeared. "I plan to keep fishing here until the day I die."
"Thanks for your help," I told him. "Thanks very much." I offered my hand. He took it gently, cradling it in a creased paw. "Good luck fishing."
He nodded silently and turned his gaze back to his bamboo poles.
As I made my way down the banks, I heard the sound of leaves rustling. I passed by the other campsite and found nothing but three small fires burning brightly. The clearing was deserted and silent in the stillness of the Carolina night.
Chapter Twelve
A tall man who talked funny? Who would the old man think talked funny? It could be Stoney, with his well-trained public speaking voice. Or Bradley Masters, for that matter, with his phony Boston boarding school accent. Maybe even Frank Waters with his asthma-laced television voice. I pondered the possibilities as I lay in bed that night. But not for long. I fell asleep for a well-deserved rest and didn't surface until Bobby D. woke me up with a phone call the next morning.
"Rise and shine, doll face!" His voice boomed through the answering machine, interrupting my dream of coonhounds chasing Mexican bandits along the banks of the Neuse. "We got a couple more days to solve this thing for that triple dinero bonus."
Only extra money could get Bobby so excited this early. I fumbled for the phone. "What's this 'we' crap?" I asked. "How are you helping any?"
"Hey," he protested in an injured tone of voice. "I'm calling with the goods. I've done my thing. It's time for you to do yours."
"What thing?" I asked sleepily. I found the clock wedged beneath the bed. It was nearly nine o'clock.
"Two shell companies invested in that failed Neuse Park project with Thornton Mitchell," he told me. "One traces back to another company called Acorn Enterprises and that's owned by a local construction company. Probably hoping to build the houses along its edge."
"Legit?" I asked.
"Sure, babe. The owner is married to the mayor's sister. Can't get more legit than that. But the other company is giving me trouble. It traces back to yet another company and the trail ends there. I can't get any information beyond that. Either the files are lost or they never filed incorporation papers and it hasn't caught up with them yet."
"Lost?" I asked incredulously.
"Lost as in 'get lost,'" Bobby conceded. "What can I say? Maybe someone got there first with a bribe. I tried my best. The last company listed was called Sand Dollar Limited. I figure there must be some tie-in to beach properties."
"Sand Dollar?" I repeated. "How much were they on the hook for?"
"Fifty grand," Bobby said. "A fourth of the development partnership. I've checked out the other partners. They've all invested with Mitchell before. This one's the only one that ain't adding up."
"Thanks, Bobby," I said before I could stop myself. Thank him too much and he gets intolerable.
"Like I said, babe," he bragged. "Follow the money."
I hung up and lay in bed wondering if thirty minutes was too long a drive to take for fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I needed a sugar infusion to jumpstart my brain. Instead, I dragged my sorry ass out of bed and rummaged through the kitchen in search of coffee. I finally found the can of Chock Full O' Nuts in the vegetable crisper—next to my missing pink bunny slipper. I didn't even want to know how it had gotten there. I made a pot of coffee, showered, and retrieved the morning paper from the stoop. For once, the paperboy had hit his mark. I pulled my sole chair up to the back window of my apartment and propped my feet up on the sill, jumbo mug of coffee in hand and the N&O at my feet. It was time for some serious thinking. Besides, Jack wouldn't be up for at least another two hours and there was no way he could come up with the medical records before mid-afternoon.
I tried to put it all together. What tall guy would hang out with what short woman? Stoney and his secret lady love? Thornton Mitchell's ex-wife or Stoney Maloney's mother and some young stud lover? None were likely scenarios. Shorty Shrimpboat from the SBI dressed in drag? An appealing but even more unlikely thought. Frank Waters and a contact from the Maloney campaign? I concentrated on what the old fisherman had said. The guy was tall. The guy talked funny. Stoney's father and his Eastern shore accent? Naw, he was old. But just about anyone could qualify as a young fellow to that old fisherman. Who knew?
I tried the other description. The woman was short. But how short? Maybe the old man had exaggerated. It was the middle of the night. Hard to see, but not hard to hear. And he had said that the woman talked nasty. That was Mary Lee Masters all right. Or Stoney's secret girlfriend. A campaign worker? I even tried casting Bradley Masters and a coed girlfriend in the starring roles, but failed when it came to a motive. I also wondered about the possible connection to Thornton Mitchell's Neuse River Park investor, Sand Dollar Limited. What did the name mean? Who had ties to the beach? I considered whether anyone of the gang was particularly suntanned and when I reached that point, I realized it was time to get a grip, preferably on something more concrete. I called Bobby back at the office.
"Can you get copies of the filing papers for Sand Dollar?" I asked.
"Sure. But I had my contact read them over the phone to me already. They aren't much help. The shareholders are two more companies: Sandman Properties and Dollar Inc. I hit a dead end on both of those."
"Get the filing anyway," I said. "Maybe there's a phone number or something. Have them fax copies over. I'll be in this afternoon."
"Have it your way," he said, hanging up to finish swallowing whatever it was he was chewing this time.
Maybe a run would help. I hated running. It was stupid. It was pointless. And a lot less fun than sex. But I had to kill some time and clear my head. Reluctantly, I pulled out my running shoes for a trip to the Duke campus where I could sneak onto their athletic track and at least be distracted by sweaty young bodies while I jogged. The run proved so invigorating that I was forced to stop and eat a huge late breakfast afterward. A pound of grits and butter later—never mind the fried eggs, sausage, and biscuits—I returned home and showered again, killing time until it was safe to call Jack.
At noon, I broke down and phoned him. He was groggy but at least he was hom
e. Jack's sleeping habits—and habitats—tended toward the erratic.
"Don't tell me you stumbled home alone last night?" I asked. "Will wonders never cease?"
"A man's got to save his strength when he hangs out with you," he replied.
I wanted to drive over and test his theory, but duty called. "Did you get the stuff?" I asked, feeling like I was back in the land of drug deals.
"She went for it," he said. "I thought I'd have to do her to seal the deal, but some drunken schmuck snaked me, thank god, and she wanted to make me jealous so she took him home instead. He probably offered her more in the way of incentive, if you know what I mean. I never touch the stuff."
"I hope to god she made it to work today," I said, alarmed. "I need those records this afternoon."
"She's there," Jack promised. "She's the type who thinks that if she can drag her ass into work, it proves she doesn't have a problem. She said she'd have the files sometime after lunch."
"Great. I'm picking you up in thirty minutes." I hung up before he could protest.
Jack hunched miserably in my front seat to let me know the sacrifice he was making to be up and conscious so close to noon. He pouted until I stopped at a Wendy's and refueled him with two double cheeseburgers, fries, and a large Coke. It never took him long to recover from a bad mood, especially when you bribed him with food.
Jack's best trait is his good nature—which is one of the biggest reasons why we remain friends. He is like a perpetual four-year-old, hiding his true intelligence, running around a giant playpen pulling all the pigtails he can grab and charming his way into being totally spoiled. But he is quick to repent when he crosses a boundary he should never have approached, and he is careful about his real friends' feelings. In the five years I have known him, Jack has never let me down. Which isn't to say he is perfect. I caught him sneaking looks at his hair in the side view mirror and was once again reminded of his carefully concealed vanity.
"Looking good," I told him as we arrived at Memorial Hospital. I licked the mustard off one corner of his mouth and fixed his hair with my fingers. "Just use your charm. And cold hard cash."
"Got it," he said, patting a pocket.
He was back within half an hour, holding a manila envelope. "Bingo," he announced. "But that bitch held me up for an extra hundred. Said one of the files was hard to locate."
"Should have gone home with her last night," I suggested. I reimbursed him three hundred dollars and he handed over the envelope. We like to keep our business relationship formal.
The package was fat and felt promising. I held it in my hands, reluctant to open it and burst the bubble of optimism rising within me.
"Who are these people anyway?" Jack asked, popping the last of his French fries into his mouth. "Their names sound familiar."
"No one important," I assured him. Hey, if Jack didn't think that the names of his current senator and one of the top candidates to replace him were important enough to remember, who was I to set him straight? I dropped Jack off at his apartment then drove to Duke Gardens to review the material. I was getting more than a little paranoid and wanted to be sure I was alone. It was too late in the year for the roses to be in bloom and the walkways were deserted. I found a bench in the middle of a cluster of silver oaks where I felt safe from prying eyes. Slowly, I unclasped the fastener and slid a stack of Xeroxed papers onto my lap. A hastily scrawled note on the top of the pile read: "You don't know what you're missing. Call me sometime. Love, Sylvia." She dotted her I's with little hearts. Barf. I spared Jack the trouble of replying by tossing the note into a nearby trash can.
The first few pages were short and to the point: the patient had been admitted briefly in 1974 while a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. When you cut through the medical jargon, the reason why was pretty clear: Mary Lee Masters had suffered complications following a routine first-trimester abortion, legally performed by doctors at a Memorial Hospital outpatient clinic. She had been referred by a resident physician affiliated with Student Health Services. The complications had not been severe. Basically she had been scraped, stabilized, and released.
Yuk. And no wonder she had freaked out at the thought of my snooping through medical files. If she had only kept her mouth shut and showed some restraint, I would never have asked Jack's contact to search for a file under her name as well. But now I understood Mary Lee's panic and her sudden interest in my progress. An abortion was not an extraordinary event in the 1970's for a college girl. But in the political climate of the 1990's, it was a most definite liability. She could hardly claim not to have inhaled. The voters would not be forgiving. Especially since she had failed to redeem herself by offloading a few kids as penance. So this was what she had been hiding. And this was why she stayed married to Bradley Masters. He was probably the father and knew her secret. If she cut him off or complained about his spending or his affairs, he could leak the news to the public. It was just what the Maloney campaign needed to seal their victory.
Aren't people grand? A man responsible for half a deed turns around and blackmails his partner for that same deed, knowing the public will condemn her while never thinking to look twice at him.
I couldn't decide whether to tell Mary Lee that I knew or not. Or that I might have a way out of the dilemma for her, thanks to Bill Butler and his investigative buddies. For now, I kept it to myself and began to thumb through the rest of the copied files. I was in for an even bigger surprise.
I was a little rusty on technical terms, but I could damn sure read a schematic when I ran across one. And a carefully marked map of the human body that traced the path of cancer through Senator Boyd Jackson's innards told me something I had never suspected: he was dying from lung cancer.
Now, you may be asking: lung cancer, stomach cancer—what's the difference? He'll still be dead in the end.
The difference is that Senator Boyd Jackson spent about fifty percent of his political life defending the interests of North Carolina's twenty thousand tobacco farmers and a handful of contribution-rich tobacco companies. If the world found out that the most visible champion of tobacco rights was dying from lung cancer, the war against cigarettes would never be the same. But I wondered if his motives for hiding the truth weren't even more personal: Boyd Jackson had devoted much of his life to defending tobacco interests. Would condemning tobacco now—or conceding its dangers—be too much like admitting he had sacrificed his life to an unworthy cause? I didn't know the man, so I didn't know the answer. But I knew that this was a secret that was possibly worth killing for. There was no way that Boyd Jackson or his overly proud family would have let his true illness be made public knowledge. I checked the rest of his records and had to give nervous old Frank Waters some credit—the television reporter had been right about Dr. Robert Dahler. He was the key to the trail that led to this file. He was listed as the treating physician and appeared on all forms, prescriptions, and assessments—in itself unusual, given the team treatment approach preferred in medical circles these days. But I knew why: he was probably a family friend and sworn to secrecy.
I tucked the papers back in the envelope and hurried home, anxious to confirm a few crucial facts that might help me connect the senator's medical condition with the murder. Just as I was walking in my apartment door, Detective First Class Bill Butler called and sounded so forlorn that I actually picked up the telephone. I could afford to be generous. I had a lead. All he had was his good looks.
"Having any luck?" I asked him.
"Nothing," he conceded. "The SBI is about to release Ramsey Lee and they don't like it. But there's no physical evidence to link him."
"That's because he didn't do it," I said.
"So you've been saying all along. But what else is there?"
"Did they question people along the river?" I asked, feeling sorry for him, but not wanting to give the old fisherman away. Besides, Bill played his cards pretty close to his chest. I wanted to return the favor.
"What
people?" Bill asked. "Except for Lee, no one lives there."
I was silent, weighing my conscience against my desire to upstage the SBI. "Okay," I finally conceded, "if I tell you something, you must swear, absolutely swear, that it is never to be traced back to me and that you won't try to contact my witness."
"A witness?!" he screamed, nearly puncturing my eardrum.
"Down, boy," I cautioned him. "Not a witness to the murder. A witness to two people at the murder scene on that night. I found an old man who says he saw two people, cars stuck in the mud, on the road leading up to the murder scene at about the right time."
"How do you know about the murder scene?" he asked.
I ignored the question. "He said it was a man and a woman." I described them both. Bill remained silent, his innate northern skepticism creeping through the wires.
"Not much of a description," he said when I finished. "Tall? Talks funny? That's the whole population down here."
"Speak for yourself," I told him. "I'd say most people down here think you talk funny with your Long Island drawl."
Then it hit me. Of course.
"Hey, are you a baseball fan?" I asked him.
"I've been to a few Durham Bulls games," he said cautiously.
“Relax. I'm not asking you out on a date. I just want to know if you know your baseball teams."
"Most of them," he admitted. "Why?"
"What team has a white uniform with black stripes?"
He thought for a moment. "None of them," he said. "The New York Yankees are white with dark blue stripes. That's as close as you get."
I didn't say anything more. I hadn't told him about the baseball hat the tall man had been wearing, but it gave me the answer I needed.
"I need to talk to your witness," he said firmly.
