by Katy Munger
I almost felt sorry for the old bird after that. She melted to the floor with a god awful sobbing and curled up on the carpet like a baby, gulping for air and moaning nonsense. For sixty-five years she had maintained that steely southern woman control and now that she was losing her shit, she was losing it big time.
I don't even think she noticed when the backup unit finally arrived, bursting through the front door about ten minutes too late to do anyone any good. They'd been too busy standing around outside arguing about what to do ever since Stoney had driven up and gone inside the house. What if he was in on it? They didn't want to blow their chance to get him on tape. No one had been too worried about blowing my chances, it seemed.
Stoney didn't have a clue as to what was going on. I was the lucky one who got to break it to him. "She killed him," I said when he tried to interfere with the female officer who was snapping handcuffs on his mother.
He stared at me blankly.
"Your mother shot Thornton Mitchell," I explained. "Ask him."
I nodded toward the sofa. Adam Stoltz was leaning over the arm of the couch, throwing up on the white carpet. He nodded miserably and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Something's the matter with that woman," he said.
Stoney stared after his mother. She looked shrunken and frail, hunched up between two officers as they practically carried her outside. He didn't say a word to me. He just turned around and went after her.
Frank Waters and his cameraman were waiting at the edge of the lawn. They were up and shooting before Bill Butler or anyone else could stop them, at least not without being captured on film attempting to squelch Frank's First Amendment rights.
The story led all the morning news shows, including the national ones. Footage showed Stoney Maloney comforting his mother as she was led to a waiting police car while arresting officer Bill Butler held court on the front steps, explaining how he had tracked down the killer of Thornton Mitchell. Frank Waters did an admirable job of filling in available background information and viewers could detect nary a wheeze as he rumbled on about Mitchell's connection to Senator Boyd Jackson who, by the way, he told an astonished nation, was dying from lung cancer.
His follow-up story aired a week later and it ended up saving the district attorney about $20,000 in investigative fees. Frank had done all the legwork for him. Thornton Mitchell, he reported, had long been contributing cash to Boyd Jackson's campaigns and, though it had been hidden from Stoney Maloney's knowledge by his own family, Thornton had also secretly bankrolled Stoney's tuition and expenses through his undergraduate and law school years at Duke as a way to compensate the Senator for favors rendered—without the public knowing. When Mitchell's business went sour once Boyd Jackson was too ill to protect him, he had approached Sandy Jackson for help. It was time to repay past favors and to help an old friend. She had responded by investing in his new project: the failed Neuse River Park. In typically efficient fashion, she had killed two birds with one stone, paying back her old family medical advisor, Dr. Robert Dahler, for his silence on Boyd Jackson's true medical condition by making him a partner in the venture.
When the proposal failed, it left her angry, Dahler without payment, and Thornton Mitchell still in the hole. Worse, Mitchell discovered that a local reporter was planning a story on his dealings. Frustrated, he had called the reporter numerous times, as Frank could personally attest, perhaps to trade information on Boyd Jackson in return for Frank's silence. But he had hung up without speaking and continued running scared.
Desperate, Mitchell had returned to Sandy Jackson with another ace card up his sleeve: he knew that Boyd Jackson was dying from lung cancer. He had spotted the senator at Memorial Hospital while attending a heart clinic there and uncovered the information he needed once he realized the family was trying to keep their visits quiet. He had agreed to meet Sandy Jackson in the most secluded spot they knew: the banks of the failed Neuse River Park plot. Both felt betrayed. One had a shotgun. The murder had been a surprise. Thornton had been killed in front of a terrified Adam Stoltz and dumped in Mary Lee's driveway in an attempt to discredit her campaign. Mitchell's car had been dumped on Ramsey Lee's land because of his past record and in hopes of promoting a conspiracy theory between the two cousins. Sandy Jackson herself had called the police, posing as a teenage girl who'd been out parking with her boyfriend.
It was, I thought, pure Sandra Douglas Jackson. That woman always tried to do a little too much at once.
By the time the show was over, Frank Waters had left the local stations of North Carolina far behind. He has his own national news show now. It airs right after "Firing Line." The fame didn't stop him from losing his hair.
Stoney Maloney came through the ordeal looking like an Eagle scout. He had never known of Thornton Mitchell's involvement in his life and his statements were convincing. So was the volunteer lie detector test he took to prove his innocence. He released the tape of the proceedings in their entirety and clips were played on the evening news. I recognized Stoney's father by his side. Without Sandy Jackson blocking the way, Albert Maloney had turned into a father at last. He looked like he was there to stay. Stoney had lost a mother, but gained a father. It could have been a far worse deal. Most of all, Stoney's unwavering support of his mother and his behavior following her indictment showed him to be a man who believed in doing the right thing, no matter how difficult or personally embarrassing. He was even discovered by the press visiting the daughter of Thornton Mitchell to offer his condolences on her loss and his apologies for the role his family had played in it.
This grace in the face of constant press coverage won him the election four weeks later—and I was one of the people who voted for him. I stood before the ballot machine finding myself the first family member in history to ever cast a vote in favor of a Republican. But I think my grandpa would have approved. He hated fat cats, but he hated phonies even more. Stoney Maloney was no phony. I think I finally knew who he really was.
Mary Lee remained a mystery. She never did get back into politics after she lost the race to Stoney. At least, not as a candidate.
I met with her the day after the arrest of Sandra Douglas Jackson. It was the only honest conversation I believe we ever had.
"So," I said to her. "You're Stoney Maloney's mystery woman."
"I don't want to talk about it, Casey," she said. "I really love him. If this gets out, he'll be ruined."
"I don't plan to talk about it," I told her, marveling that she was actually thinking about someone else for a change. "I wish you both the best of luck. You'll need it."
"Here." She slid a blank check across the desk toward me. "Fill in whatever you want. You've earned it. I know you don't like me, but you did a good job for me anyway. I'm willing to pay the price."
"All right," I agreed, filling out the check so she could see the amount. I billed her exactly what we had agreed on: triple my usual rate plus expenses. And I threw in another thousand for a new Anne Klein pantsuit as I was unlikely to discover another thrift shop bargain in this century.
Then I saved her about ten thousand dollars in divorce costs.
"I have a present for you," I told her. "It's on the house."
Her eyes narrowed. She was one of the few people in the world even more suspicious than me. "What kind of present?" she asked.
"You know those obscene phone calls you've been getting?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "Is there a connection?"
"In a way." I smiled. "Bradley's been making them. And I have the phone records to prove it."
"Bradley?" she said, astonished. "Who makes obscene phone calls to their own wife?"
"Bradley. I guess he really does feel threatened by your success." I shrugged. "You started moving up in the polls, his business started going south. He cracked. That's why the caller knew so much about you. But I think he was really getting off on it, Mary Lee. He even called you all the way from Nassau just to scare the shit out of you. That's how I caught him. And that w
as after he knew Mitchell's body had been found in your car. It turns out that Channel Five is the CBS affiliate down in the Bahamas. He saw the report on it and didn't even bother to come home. He stayed there boffing his coed and dialing your private number so he could talk to you about tying you up in your panties during your darkest hour. He's a true prince among men."
"What a creep." She stared out the office door, her mind calculating when he had called and just what he had said. And how she could get rid of him. And that was where I could help her out.
"Bradley's not embarrassed by his screwing around, is he?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I suspect he thinks it makes him look better."
"But he would be embarrassed if the whole world knew he was a weaselly pervert who got off whispering into the phone about high heels and lingerie?"
"Oh, yeah." Mary Lee nodded emphatically. "Bradley likes his country clubs and well-connected friends. He'd die if anyone knew. And his father would kill him. Bradley's already run through his share of his grandmother's money. His only hope is to inherit more when his father kicks off."
"Well, then, Mary Lee," I explained slowly. "Let's just say, for argument's sakes, that you and Bradley shared a past secret and that you were staying married to him because of that secret."
She stared at me but did not open her mouth. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
"Only now that you have something on him," I explained, "you can dump the bastard without fear, if you want."
She wanted. Within a year, she had gotten her divorce and moved to Washington, D.C. She arrived in the capitol the very same week that the former Senator Boyd Jackson died of lung cancer, his devoted nephew by his side. Mary Lee married Stoney Maloney the following autumn and every political reporter from here to California cracked the same dumb joke about politics making for strange bedfellows. I wondered if Mary Lee accompanied Stoney on his monthly visits to see Momma at the Women's Correctional Center in Raleigh. Somehow I doubted it.
Yes, Sandra Douglas Jackson was convicted. She was found perfectly sane, perfectly crafty, and perfectly guilty of first-degree murder. Mostly because Adam Stoltz crowed like a rooster on Easter Sunday once he took that witness stand. What a performance. But in a way, Sandy Jackson escaped punishment. They didn't give her the death penalty. They only gave her life. And that had already been taken from her.
Adam Stoltz survived with a better deal than anyone of us could ever have imagined. He wrote a best-selling book while in jail serving his time. It was supposed to be about politics. That way, Thornton Mitchell's family couldn't claim the profits. But it sold like hotcakes because everyone knew that the author had been there that cool October night when a genteel southern woman of the highest social order had pumped a round of shells into the chest of her oldest and most secret friend.
Thornton Mitchell had bought a lifetime of secret favors from Boyd Jackson, exchanging badly needed cash for forty years of closed-door deals. It had been an arrangement made as both men were just starting out, with Sandy Jackson serving as broker. But Mitchell had ultimately paid for the association with his life. Four decades of mutual corruption had ended with the jerk of a trigger finger and a pool of blood in the sand. Being a witness to this conclusion made Adam Stoltz a very rich convict.
The rest of us didn't do too bad, either. Ramsey Lee could have sued for false arrest but the SBI had been embarrassed enough, and he had better things to do with his money. He's still blocking development along the Neuse today.
Bobby D. got his cut of the fee but lost it betting on the Braves in the final game of the World Series a few days later. It upset him so much he couldn't eat for an hour and almost lost half a pound.
As for me, I waited over a week for Bill Butler to show up at my front door to say thanks and to ask if I'd care to share the rest of my life with him.
The call finally came early one Friday night as I was dressing to meet a new friend for dinner. "Casey?" Bill's voice filled my apartment, stopping my eyeliner wand a quarter inch from my left eye. "I know you're there. Pick up. I need to see you."
"How about you need to thank me?" I told him, cradling the phone in one hand as I untangled a pair of black fishnet stockings with the other.
"That, too," Bill said. "But it's something I feel I should do in person. Besides, there's something important I want to share with you. Can I come over? Just for a few minutes?"
"You're going to drive thirty minutes from Raleigh to tell me thanks?" I asked skeptically.
There was a silence. "Trust me, Casey," he finally said. "I know what I'm doing. And I want to come over."
I stared at the phone for a moment. A lot of thoughts went through my head. I thought of my ex-husband and how often a handsome face hid a spoiled heart. I thought of Bill Butler's dark eyes and his long hands, the way he moved like a big cat stalking the night. And I thought of his smile, so seldom seen, yet so spectacular when it finally appeared. It was the memory of his smile that did me in. I am a sucker for a great smile.
"All right," I said at last. "I'll be here until seven-thirty."
My doorbell rang barely thirty minutes later. I opened it cautiously and peered out. Bill had both hands hidden behind his back. "I brought you a present," he said. "It's my way of saying thanks." He flashed his smile and the door came open. I decided to let him into my life.
What entered my life, however, was the most astonishing excuse for a dog I have ever seen in my life. It was a large hound, completely covered in multicolored specks that made it look as if an ink bomb had exploded in the air above him. He had black spots sprinkled over his sway back, red freckles peppering all four tall legs, velvety russet ears as long as a basset hound's, and a gray-speckled snoot shaped like a beagle's. A large black dot marked the base of his long tail, which was turning in lazy circles as it curved inward like a plume without feathers.
"What the hell is that?" I asked as the hound staggered past me, bumped into my armchair, careened off the base of the bed, and flopped down in the center of my rug. The beast gave an enormous sigh and began to snore loudly, all four of his legs splayed out to the side as if he were 100 percent skin and no bones.
"That's Beauford," Bill explained. "He's all yours."
"Mine." I stared at Bill. My voice grew grim. "No way in hell."
"Casey, you have to take him," Bill begged, his voice rising in pitch until he sounded like a kid. "If you don't, they're going to put him to sleep. I can't take him home with me. I already have a dog and he hates other dogs."
"Who is going to put this animal to sleep?" I asked slowly. "And wouldn't it be redundant?"
We stared down at the huge mound of hound flesh, rising and falling as the dog snored lustily, his body a mass of multicolored ticking against the pale blue rug. I watched in horror as a trickle of urine spread from the center of the mound and leaked across the rug like a tiny tributary seeking the sea.
"That dog just pissed on my carpet," I pointed out. "No one pisses on my carpet, man or beast."
Bill looked momentarily ashamed. "He flunked out of DEA school."
"What?" Drug Enforcement Agency dogs sniffed out the presence of drugs in luggage and cargo holds, they did not go around pissing on people's carpets.
"He got kicked out of training school today."
"For what? Peeing on the instructor's leg?"
Bill looked uncomfortable. "He ate an ounce of evidence."
I started to laugh. "You mean that dog"—I pointed to the slumbering hound—"ate an ounce of marijuana today? Is that what you're telling me?"
Bill nodded solemnly. "Including the plastic bag."
I couldn't stop laughing.
"Does that mean Beauford gets to stay?" Bill asked hopefully. "He's really a good-natured dog."
"I'm sure he is," I said, trying to catch my breath, "but I'm not sure I can afford to keep him that way."
As if on cue, Beauford raised his head and stared sleepily at me, brown eyes large and glassy in his
stupor. He had enormous wattles that hung from each side of his jaw and a magnificent brisket of red-speckled fur. My grandfather would have adored him.
"Can he stay?" Bill pleaded. "Please, Casey. He's not the kind of dog people pick from the pound. They'll put him to sleep."
"Yeah, he can stay," I said. "I know a good home for him. But you have a mighty peculiar way of thanking your friends for services rendered."
Bill let out a long, relieved whistle. "Actually, I consider Beauford another reason why I owe you one. But this is partial payment on the debt." He brought a big bouquet of flowers out from behind his back. A bribe in reserve to convince me to take in the dog? Or truly a gesture of thanks?
"I thought maybe I could take you out to dinner tonight while I'm at it?" His eyes met mine and those long lashes of his were in fine form, framing a pair of innocent brown peepers.
Oh, mamma. This look was what I had thought about for many a night as I drifted off to sleep, my mind wandering from my work. Here was my chance to explore the long motif, my chance to check for silver chest hair, heck—here was my chance to date a man out of grade school for a change.
And, yet, thoughts of my ex-husband kept popping into my mind. I had waited for Bill Butler to call me just as surely as I had waited for that fatal call from the ex so many years ago. And Bill would keep me waiting again, I knew. He was a cop. He was the type. Was I going to keep doing this for the rest of my life? I had made promises to myself. How much did those promises mean?
More to the point, I needed Bill Butler in my debt more than I needed him in my bed.
"I don't think so," I said, surprising myself more than him.
"What?" he asked, the flowers rustling in his agitation.
"We're going to be working together," I said. "I don't think it's such a good idea."
"Casey." He stared at me. I stared at the dog. "The only women I meet are the women I work with. Or the ones I arrest."
"Well," I said brightly. "Think of the advantages. If you stick to the ones you arrest, you can preview them with a full body search."
