Vindicator

by Denney Clements

  Some western Kansas readers weighed in with anecdotal information about the senator. One noted that Barnes always traveled with a bodyguard even though he didn’t appear to need one, as “he is revered in these parts. He takes care of us in Topeka.”

  This comment made reminded Emery how Schroeder had met Michael Richards. He needed to talk to her anyway. So he called her.

  “Emery,” she answered, “I love it that you’re going after that fat old fart Vernal Barnes. You’ve finally gotten to the bottom of the scandal. Mrs. Hodge is pleased.”

  “Good. Say, a commenter on today’s post noted that the senator likes having bodyguards with him and I thought of …”

  “You want to know if Michael was guarding Barnes the day we fell in love?”

  “If that’s not too personal a question.”

  “No, I don’t mind answering. Yes, Michael was guarding Barnes in his capacity as a businessman that day. He had a contract for personal protection with the Richards company that he apparently paid for out of his own pocket instead of public money if you can believe it considering what a crook he is.”

  “By ‘crook’ do you mean Barnes or Michael? I got tangled up in your syntax.”

  “Screw your syntax, Emery. Of course I mean Barnes. Michael may have gotten caught up in illegal activities, but he wasn’t stealing from the people like Barnes does.”

  A distinction without a difference, he thought, swallowing his disgust. He asked, “Was Mrs. Hodge looking for a reason to get rid of Barnes? I got that impression when I talked to her this morning.”

  “Off the record.”

  “We’re already off the record. All our conversations are privileged, remember?”

  “Oh yeah. She was already wondering whether Barnes was the one telling Ernest and Eunice and the Ag Board what to do with the money. And you and that jerk Mike Harmon have already shown that the Alpha-Omega beatings benefited Vernal’s company. She thinks the KanTech grant is an outrage. She’s going to propose getting rid of KanTech in her State of the State speech next week. And she’s going to fire Dick Delano as soon as her second term begins.”

  “What about the dam explosion? We’re all but certain Alpha-Omega did that. Does she think Barnes ordered it?”

  “She’s never said anything to me about that.”

  Little liar, he thought. He said, “Look, I need to ask her some more questions about Barnes and get her take on the end of the scandal. Reckon she can see me tomorrow morning at 10?”

  “I think that time would work for her, Emery. If you don’t hear back from me, you can assume it’s on. I’ll put you on her calendar.”

  Barnes called a little after 4 p.m., while Emery and Carol were sipping chamomile tea in Stiggy’s kitchen. “Uncle,” he said.

  “What do you mean, senator?”

  “Your piece today, Mr. Emery, was a hatchet job, the worst I’ve ever experienced. Yet I can’t refute a word of it. There’s a lot you don’t know and understand. We need to talk.”

  “What about?”

  “I’d rather not say over the phone.”

  “I’m meeting with the governor in her office at 10 tomorrow morning to talk about the Gunderson dam incident. I think she has some information on who ordered Alpha-Omega to blow it up. We could get together afterward.”

  “How about before, at 9 o’clock? In my second-floor office, the one that used to belong to Ernest.”

  “Sure, senator. See you at 9.” He broke the connection.

  “It’s on, then,” Carol said. “You set the hook nicely.”

  Chapter 47: ‘Noble’ Barnes

  January 4, 9 a.m.

  Wearing his gray herringbone jacket, an old blue chambray shirt with big black buttons, relaxed-fit blue jeans, a belt with a big silver buckle and his cross-trainers, Emery entered Barnes’ temporary office promptly at 9 a.m. His cameras were running.

  Barnes’ receptionist was Ernest Complet’s former receptionist, Sissy. She sported a tight red suit, which showed a fair amount of cleavage. Her brunette hair was down, her face was pink and her brown eyes twinkled.

  The twinkle left her eyes when he told her his name and asked to see Barnes. “Your son,” she hissed, “is responsible for Mr. Complet’s death.”

  “No, he’s not. Someone in this building had Ernest killed.” Gesturing at the door to the inner office, he said, “He’s expecting me.”

  The door opened and Barnes’ head poked through. “C’mon in, Mr. Emery. Thanks for making time to see me.”

  Barnes was a fleshy mountain of a man with wrinkled jowls and white hair crudely cut short. The man’s hazel eyes, surprisingly large and limpid beneath bushy white eyebrows, regarded Emery with curiosity. His tan suit coat was hanging from a wooden tree beside his desk. A pale blue necktie played along the placket of his tent-like white shirt, its knot obscured by his jowls.

  As they entered his office, Barnes went to his desk and pressed a button on his phone. When Sissy answered, he said, “Send Buster in now, Sissy. I need to have him conduct a search.”

  The door opened and in strode a chunky shaven-headed man in a nice blue suit. Emery had expected something like this, but fear surged through him.

  “Be thorough but gentle, Buster. We don’t want to hurt Mr. Emery.”

  The man clamped a paw around Emery’s arm, just above the elbow, and squeezed, digging his thumb into the elbow joint. There came a flash of intense pain. “Be still,” Buster grunted, “and I’ll let go.”

  Emery nodded. The man stood before him and pulled the pen out of his front jacket pocket. “Camera recorder,” he grunted to Barnes.

  “Stomp on it, Buster.”

  The big man dropped the pen to the floor and crunched it with his left black Oxford brogan. Then he patted Emery’s side pockets. He removed Emery’s cell phone, one of the throwaways, and voice recorder. From Emery’s rear waistband, he removed the wireless recorder to which the pen-camera had been synced.

  “Smash them all, Buster,” Barnes said. As Buster noisily reduced the gadgets to scraps of plastic, metal and circuit boards, Barnes turned to Emery. “They warned me you were tricky. Please have a seat. He indicated a chair in front of his desk. Barnes sat behind the desk.

  Heart still pounding, Emery sat down.

  “Please wait outside with Sissy, Buster.” The big man grunted and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  “Now we can talk man to man,” Barnes said. “What make you so certain I’m responsible for those beatings, Mr. Emery? The responsibility lies with Mr. Complet, whose loss I truly am grieving.”

  “So you didn’t order Complet killed?”

  “I’d rather not talk about who’s responsible for that,” Barnes said.

  “Are you pretending you didn’t send Fred Richards and his hyenas to beat up the folks who got in Kan-Tel’s way? C’mon, senator. Think about how it looks. You’re the chairman of the Kan-Tel board. You controlled the ag money. Can you confirm that you did order those assaults?”

  Barnes spread his hands. “Like a lot of liberal media types, you seem to think capitalism is about competition and fair play. That’s bullshit, Mr. Emery, death for rural Kansas. I set out 10 years ago to build the finest rural phone and Internet network in the nation. This is a noble pursuit, Mr. Emery, because it’s about reinventing a way of life vital to America’s future, decent, clean rural life; it’s about repopulating and revitalizing the dozens of counties that lack the amenities of the cities and suburbs where most Kansans live. If it takes persuading a few people to give up their little dreams so thousands can realize a big dream, then so be it. It serves the greater good.”

  “So that’s how you rationalize cracking heads and killing people?”

  Barnes scowled. “Our goal was to kill no one, just to gain their cooperation.”

  “Your goons were trying to kill me when they drove me into the Kiowa River last October.”

  “Apparently, they were, but some of Fred’s associates were upset with yo
u for exonerating those environmentalist patsies so quickly. Mrs. Hodge was as appalled as I was that they ran you off the road. Fred apologized to us after we threatened to cut off his money and promised not to go after you again.”

  “They broke that promise on Thanksgiving, didn’t they, and in Garfield County when I drove by the ARC facility, and again when they ambushed me outside Ouimet?”

  “They acted according to plan on Thanksgiving. Complet told them to work you and your lady friend over because your blog was becoming an annoyance, and that’s what they tried to do. It’s unfortunate you resorted to gunplay. You overreacted.

  “As for the other two occasions you mention, they did go rogue on those. But who can blame them? You wrecked their organization and put them on the run. Fred blames you for the death of his son in Wichita although you and I both know it was the boy’s own fault. But generally we acted with restraint because excessive force is bad for business. We made clear to our associates that this was expected of them.

  “That’s why the Richards associate who hit Mr. Cannon in the head was finally dispatched into the next life. He just could not be made to understand that it’s natural for ordinary folks to object to physical persuasion. He kept losing his temper when they resisted. Also, this man could not get along with his associates, was always picking fights. He had to go, but Fred couldn’t get rid of him right away because he had a rare skill set.”

  Realizing that Barnes was talking about Lazlo Harrelson, Emery murmured, “Demolitions.”

  “Right.”

  “You realize, don’t you, that you’ve confirmed you did order the assaults on the people who stood in Kan-Tel’s way?”

  Barnes shrugged. “In here? Between us? Why not? Outside this office, it’s your word against mine.”

  We’ll see about that, Emery thought. He said. “What about the KanTech grant? Could you confirm that you arranged it with Dick Delano? Was the money spent as Gloria suggested, on taking Kan-Tel up-market?”

  “Well, my good friend Dick wanted to make it a loan, but …”

  “You persuaded him to give your company the money instead.”

  “Yes. And Kan-Tel did spend the money – three quarters of a million, was it? – on the trappings of power, just as Gloria told you: impressive offices, good automobiles and the like. If you want to wield power, you have to look the part. Poor Ferdy Cannon could not be made to understand that, so we had Fred send two men out to correct him. Unfortunately, that psychopath Lazlo got angry and conked him in the skull with an aluminum baseball bat.”

  “And now you’re an accessory to Cannon’s murder.”

  “That would be extremely hard for that officious ass Harmon to prove. Anything else, Mr. Emery?”

  “Tell me why and how you graduated to terrorism and murder with the sabotage of the Gunderson dam.”

  “Oh, no you don’t, Mr. Emery. You need to talk to Mabel Hodge about that. Fred had his son, Michael, coordinate it. I had nothing to do with the dam. I advised against it. Its destruction will return southwest Kansas to subsistence farming. Steve Jung was right about that.

  “But Mabel was dead set on associating her name with the symbolism of water flowing freely across the border into Kansas. And I do think it worked. Having me on the ballot helped her in western Kansas Nov. 2, but not as much as that damned Kiowa River water. Mabel turned me into a Democrat for nothing.”

  “I’m sorry, senator, but the evidence points at you. You had Fred Richards send someone to murder the Swindles because Kan-Tel was monitoring our house phone in Ouimet. Someone overheard her telling me that Complet forced her to funnel tax money to Alpha-Omega. You were afraid she’d tell someone else. Eunice might have been able to clear you with the FBI on the dam. She was certain that Complet was the one calling the shots. In her conversation with me, she told me you were out of it. If she were still alive, she could get you off the hook for terrorism.

  “The other person who could have saved you from terrorism charges was Complet. He could have tied Mrs. Hodge to the dam sabotage and the Los Llanos murders. Now it’s all on you.”

  “As I said, your word against mine. If Harmon and the KCID are going to hang my so-called crimes on me, they’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. If you report that I confessed (he made quote marks with his fingers) to any crimes, I’ll sue you for libel and I’ll win. You won’t have hard evidence to prove your assertions.”

  There came an urgent knocking at the door. Sissy shouted, “Vernal, Natascha Schroeder’s here. She says you’re on the Internet. Emery’s got you on camera.”

  The door burst open and Schroeder, dressed in a form-fitting black suit, marched in, accompanied by a slender man with wavy gray hair down to his ears, wearing a baggy gray suit. Buster was behind him.

  “You morons,” she screamed at Barnes and Buster. “You didn’t get the real camera. He was web-streaming live. It all went out on the Internet.” To the thin man, who had dead gray eyes, she said, “Check him again, Fred.”

  “So you’re Fred Richards,” Emery said. He was wearing his new contact lenses. Afraid the man would discover what Buster had missed, the stiletto taped to his inner left shin in a cardboard sheath lined with aluminum foil, he said, “The camera is in the glasses – same ones my son used to get that video of Ernest Complet.” He removed them and handed them to Richards.

  Richards looked them over. “Where’s the computer this is synced to?”

  “Up on the fifth floor in the state library. It’s a little Dell Latitude. Excellent Wi-Fi signal up there. And the transmitter buried in the left earpiece is really powerful.”

  “It’s nice equipment,” Richards said, smiling. To Buster, he said, “Go up to the library and find the computer. It’ll have a receiver connected to it in one of the USB ports.”

  As Buster exited, Richards buried a fist in Emery’s solar plexus. Emery collapsed into his chair, groaning and holding his abdomen.

  Richards said, “That’s for playing games with us. And for Michael.”

  Emery decided it would be unwise to goad the man. So he said nothing.

  Schroeder, who’d been watching all this with a nasty smile on her face, whirled to face Barnes. “You fat fuck. You told the Internet that Mrs. Hodge is responsible for the dam explosion. Now she’ll make me spin her out of it.”

  Looking at Emery, who turned to face her, she said, “You know she didn’t do it.”

  “Sorry, Natascha, that’s hard to swallow.”

  Barnes, who’d gone pale, said nothing. Schroeder turned to Richards and said, “Take this asswipe down to the governor’s office. Mrs. Hodge wants to see him. And don’t hurt him.”

  Emery stood up, ignoring the pain in his abdomen. To Richards he said, “No need for restraint, Mr. Richards. I’ll go quietly.” They marched out the door and down the hall to the governor’s office.

  Chapter 48: Tell it to the Kempfers

  January 4, 9:45 a.m.

  Emery refused Mabel Hodge’s invitation to take a chair, saying, “Sitting would imply a level of intimacy that we don’t have.” Now, he stood on the carpet before her ornate mahogany desk. She sat behind it, looking a bit frumpy in a baggy pink suit. Gold buttons adorned the jacket. Her hair was a shining gray helmet.

  Richards and Buster, who was holding the receiver and the Dell laptop, were seated in chairs flanking the closed door to the governor’s reception area. Schroeder leaned over at Hodge’s shoulder and whispered into her ear. Emery couldn’t make out all her words, but he thought she was telling Hodge that Barnes had left the building. In his shoes, Emery thought, I would have run, too.

  About 10 feet behind the left side of Hodge’s desk was the door to the Capitol’s back stairwell. Kansas governors sometimes needed to sneak in and out privately.

  “I seem to be early for my appointment,” he said, looking Hodge in the eye; she looked back unblinking. “But I think you’ve hauled me in here to discuss the same subject I wanted to discuss with you.”

&nb
sp; She scowled. “Well, I wanted to talk about the misconceptions that Vernal gave you about the dam. I only capitalized on what seemed to be a natural disaster for political purposes. That’s not a crime. I’m not responsible for anyone’s death.”

  “Oh, please, Mrs. Hodge. You ordered Fred here to get rid of Ernest Complet because you were afraid he’d tell the KCID that you initiated the plan to blow up the Gunderson dam. Complet was your fourth murder.”

  “Emery,” Schroeder shouted. “You have no proof of that.”

  “Natascha,” Hodge said. “Be silent.” To Emery, she said, “Tell me how you figure that I initiated the sabotage. It could be useful in repairing the damage your Internet stunt did to my public image.”

  “To escape the Big Needle, Fred here and maybe Buster – what is your last name anyhow?”

  “Lonigan,” Buster grunted.

  “These men would probably tell the feds that you told them to wait to kill Lazlo Harrelson because you needed his skills to carry out your plan. Demolitions experts with flexible morals are apparently in short supply. Since Lazlo brained Cannon in 2008 and didn’t blow up the dam until much later, killing poor Carl Kempfer and his dad, the only reasonable conclusion is that you planned the operation far in advance.”

  “These men are criminals who would sell me out for a liverwurst sandwich,” Hodge said. “I doubt that the KCID would find their word on anything to be credible.”

  “Well, it would be interesting to find out, Mrs. Hodge. As for Complet, you had Edsel and, I’m guessing, Mr. Lonigan here, kill him. Right?”

  “Hey,” Buster protested. Emery turned toward him. “Don’t hang that on me. The new guy, Wolfowitz, went over to Lawrence with Edsel on Christmas Eve.”

  “Shut up, Buster,” Richards said, giving the big man the evil eye.

  “Both of you shut up,” Hodge said. To Emery, she said, “Why do you persist in blaming me for Ernest’s murder? I did not want him dead. I had to fire him because, in that awful video, he implicated himself in the scandal. I wanted to put it to an end.”