Time's Witness

by Michael Malone

  According to a switchboard operator (presumably all alone on campus), Haver University was “closed for the holidays.” I called Brookside at home. “Briarhills?” said the maid who answered. Only Lee was there; the fast-traveling Andy was up in New York being the main speaker at a national teachers’ conference. But Lee was expecting a call from him and would give him the message to phone me. “You sound funny. Is something wrong? Is this about the letter I gave you?”

  I said, “No, it's about Cooper Hall. Your husband have much contact with him? Were they friendly?”

  “Cooper Hall? I don’t think so.…No, I never saw them together. Andy never mentioned knowing him. Why?”

  “Just a detail I need to clear up, that's all.”

  “Detail? Could Jack Molina help? He knew Cooper Hall well.” I said, “According to the grandma that the Molinas left home with their kids, the Molinas are up in New York too.” “Oh.”

  “These college types all tend to run off at Christmas, don’t they?” It’d be a lie to say I was suspicious of my motive in mentioning where the Molinas were; I knew what my motive was, and didn’t much admire it. It seemed more than likely, even from the little I’d observed at Rowell Hall the day of the funerals, that Brookside was, as they say, involved with Debbie Molina. I wasn’t sure if Jack suspected—though he did appear to be pretty nervous about his wife's whereabouts. I wasn’t sure if Lee suspected, and I wanted to be sure. I wondered if I didn’t even want to make sure.

  But all she said was, “I expect Jack's helping with the speech. He's very committed to Andy's campaign.”

  I said, “How about you? How’d you feel about your husband's resigning from Haver, and going for this long shot at governor? Well, they say it's a long shot.”

  “Andy thrives on long shots. He expects to win.”

  “I asked you about you. You want to be first lady?”

  She said, “As opposed to what?”

  “Well, Lord, I don’t know. Brain surgeon. Chanteuse in a night-club. Last I heard you wanted to be a newspaper reporter. ’Course, that was back in high school.”

  She laughed. “Oh God, that's true, isn’t it? Maybe I ought to ask Edwina Sunderland to hire me. I’ll see you there tonight, at Edwina's?”

  “Yep. Our hostess said ‘7:30,’ like we better not mistake it for 7:35.” My hand was sweaty on the receiver. “Look, Lee, would you like a ride, show me exactly where in those windy woods 1516 Catawba Drive is? Close to your place, isn’t it? I could drop by and give you a ride.”

  She said, “Well, I’ve already agreed to drive over with the Fanshaws.”

  “Oh, sure, okay. That's okay.”

  “But they always like to leave so early. Edwina loves people to just sit and talk…”

  I kept staring at Elvis on the wall. What I was seeing instead of him had taken place about as long ago as that picture on the poster. Lee and I making out for the first time—neither of us knowing what we were doing, neither of us believing there was a world beyond the glassed walls of her family's greenhouse where we’d hidden ourselves; neither of us imagining a future outside that April night. It had taken me years of that future to get over her.

  Now she said, “So, maybe you could give me a ride home, Cuddy.”

  And I said, “Fine.”

  After we hung up, I pushed the phone away from me, turned around, and told Elvis that after the way he’d messed up his own life, he had no call to sneer at my apparently dumb-headed willingness to do the same to mine.

  At 2:30, I officially announced to Mrs. Sunderland's newspaper, the Hillston Star, that Justin Savile, detective lieutenant of homicide, was in charge of the Hall murder, reporting directly to me. Bubba Percy, the Star's representative, who’d made himself at home on my couch, yawned and said, “That must gripe Savile's ass, working for you, when his people’ve been running this boonie state since they killed off the fuckin’ Indians; when they’ve been buying and selling your kind wholesale.”

  I said, “Bubba, now that's impressive; in one fairly short sentence you’ve managed to insult me, Lieutenant Savile, the upper class, the common folk, the native American, and the proud state of North Carolina. Get out of here. I’m busy.” I was wondering if he’d nosed out some rumor about Willie Slidell's death already, and was waiting to spring it at me.

  Bubba flapped his Burberry trenchcoat; maybe to show me the label, maybe to fan himself. Then he pulled out a clipper and began snipping his fingernails. “What’d you think of today's editorial?” He always assumed I spent every spare minute poring over his newspaper. “We’re endorsing Julian Lewis for governor. Snore, snooze.”

  “Little soon, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, everybody knows he and Brookside’ll take their primaries. But it's starting to look like a crapshoot about the real election. Brookside's coming on.” Bubba patted his crotch. “’Course ’ole Andy’ll have to keep his dick zipped. The Brodie Cheek moral Babbitts get hold of that little black book of his, they’ll nail our war hero to the cross by his hyperactive balls. Shit, I could die happy on a tenth of the pussy that man puts away.”

  I didn’t look up, but kept signing the forms Zeke had left on my desk. “What sewer's the source of your information, Bubba?”

  “Well,” he grinned, “one source said she was speaking from, let's call it, firsthand knowledge.” He leaned across the couch to brush nail clippings on my carpet. “Hey, big deal, right? I don’t care who Brookside fucks, as long as he fucks that asshole Julian Lewis. And if he’ll keep his yap shut on this death penalty junk, he may just go all the way. Probably got the Lewis money men nervous already.”

  “Probably.”

  “I was just talking to Mitch Bazemore; he's hinting around that Lewis is going to tap him for attorney general. True?”

  “Probably.”

  “Vomit. And Bazemore says y’all are close to making an arrest on the Hall case. True?”

  “No comment.” I found a tie in my “In” basket, and put it on. “I’m overdue at the mayor's. You planning to take a nap on that couch, you’ll have to sleep with Martha.”

  He laughed so affably, and his pretty, pudgy face turned so earnest, I knew he wanted a favor before he said, “I’ll go, but, look, I need a favor.”

  I said, “I need a lot.”

  “Tell me what you’ve got on the Hall shooting. I heard Raleigh police pulled in those goons joy-riding at the prison with Willis Tate, but it's near 100 percent they had zilch to do with the shooting.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know, Bubba.”

  “You tell me. Are you close? Slip me something, will yah? This could be big for me. I think I could go national with a real piece on Cooper Hall. I’m serious.”

  “Go national?” I walked over and moved his Italian boot off my couch arm. “I thought shallow triviality was the secret of happiness. Sounds like you’re coming down with that ‘last infirmity of a noble mind.’ If you read anything besides newsprint, you’d know what that was.”

  Bubba rolled off the couch, tucking his cashmere turtleneck into his pleated trousers. “It's ambition—according to an old blind man named Milton.” He grinned. “You’re always underestimating me, Cuddy. Just ’cause I’m gorgeous, doesn’t mean I’m dumb. Sometimes shallow waters run deep. Okay, okay, I’m going. Keep the peace, Captain Pig.”

  I caught the newspaper he tossed at me from the doorway. “Hold up, Bubba.” I tossed him back a copy of With Liberty and Justice, with Cooper's “House of Lords” article in it. “Read this. And do me a favor. Find out for me why Cooper had Bunny Randolph's phone number in his address book.”

  Percy winked a long-lashed eye, made some disgusting smacky kissing noises, and left me alone. The Star still had the Hall shooting on the front page. There was also a little piece captioned “BRODIE CHEEK TURNS TO TELEVISION.” In the popular evangelical tradition, Cheek was leaving syndicated radio behind for cable TV, where the real money was. If Brookside's information was right, Cheek's even realer money was fa
lling from the heaven of corporate industry, courtesy of the Constitution Club. While I was thinking about his motive in giving me a copy of that report, Brookside himself telephoned.

  I’m not sure why, but I got out of my chair and stood beside my desk to take the call when Zeke put it through. While I waited for Brookside to come on the line, I kept moving the wood chess pieces that Lee had admired, arranging them randomly around on the board. The bright-painted pawns were Costa Rican peasants, the castles plantations, the knights quixotic warriors on horseback, and by a touch I’d admired so much that I’d traded my admittedly defunct car for the set, the kings and queens looked suspiciously like modern wealthy Americans.

  “Hello, Andy Brookside speaking. Captain Mangum?” Brookside was pleasant, but wasted no time. “I’m in New York. I just spoke with Lee, who seemed to feel this was urgent. I have a moment now.”

  I took a breath. “This will only take a moment. In our little car ride recently, you told me you didn’t know Cooper Hall.”

  He was so quick I figured Lee must have mentioned something to him about my questions. “No, I recall you asked me that, and I recall I did not reply.”

  “You implied—”

  A warm chuckle. “As I believe your purist, Thomas More, reminded his interrogators, silence implies consent, not denial.” His voice had none of the tight tone that defensiveness usually produces. “In fact, I met Hall…on a few occasions. Jack Molina introduced us. Why?”

  I decided not to waste any time either. “Did one of those occasions take place in the air in your Cessna, about an hour before he was killed, and in the same vicinity where he was killed?”

  Well, I’d stopped him for about four seconds, but no more than that, and when he answered, he was succinct. He said, “Yes.”

  “You admit that you were with—”

  “Why should I deny it? You obviously know it to be true, some way or another. Who told you?”

  I thought about telling him he was in no position to ask, but it wasn’t worth shutting down the conversation. I said, “It came up accidentally during questions in a different investigation. A boy watching the planes happened to see the two of you together and recognized Hall from the news.”

  “Jesus Christ.” He sounded disgusted.

  “Right. A fluke. Now you tell me why he was in your plane.”

  “To talk to me, of course. Perfectly legitimate.”

  I was jumping a knight in and out of a cluster of pawns, and Brookside's cool formal easiness so irritated me, I broke the tip off the knight's lance. But I kept my voice down, and my diction up there with his. “Then why, Mr. Brookside, didn’t you inform me as soon as you learned of the shooting? There's nothing ‘legitimate’ about withholding material evidence in a murder. Spending an hour with the victim immediately before his death is, as you perfectly well know, material evidence. At the least, material evidence. I could have you arrested.”

  He wasn’t fazed. “Why? Do you suspect me of shooting this man?”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  I believed him. Not on faith. I’d already established his alibi. I asked, “Do you know anything about who did?”

  “No. Look, Hall wanted a meeting. In private. I was planning to leave for Asheville. We arranged for him to come to Lake Road Airport. He was interested in going up in my plane, so we did. For approximately half an hour. Then I set him down and immediately took off again. At 2:23. It's logged. He had his own car, and, I assume, left in it. I was flying over Raleigh fifteen minutes later, before—I gather—the time he was shot. I radioed their tower, checked the weather, and they cleared me through to Asheville. You can verify my Asheville arrival time.”

  “I already have. Also your conversation with Air Traffic Control in Raleigh.”

  “Jesus Christ.” He forced himself into patience. “Understand my position.”

  “Try me.”

  I pretty much knew what he was going to say, and he said it: “I hope to be governor of this state. A great many people share that hope, and have worked damn hard for it. This Hall meeting was the kind of awful coincidence that can do terrible damage.”

  “Withholding evidence can do terrible damage.”

  “Look. I was in Asheville. I didn’t know until Sunday morning that Hall had been killed, and I didn’t know until much later how and when he’d been killed. I did know that while our meeting had absolutely nothing to do with his death, the fact that I might have been the last person to see him alive, my being in any way involved in testimony in a homicide—” Brookside sighed, briskly. “I was wrong. I made a mistake.”

  “Because we happened to find out?”

  “No, I’ve been distressed about the whole thing. I planned to speak with you as soon as I got back from New York.”

  I didn’t know whether I believed this or not. At any rate, I assured him he was going to speak with me as soon as he got back. Meantime, despite the “quite a few people waiting in the next room” for his attention, I insisted that he talk to me before joining them. He did so as if he were taking questions at a hurried press conference.

  Did Hall come to, and leave from, the airport alone? Yes—as far as he knew. Was there anyone in the vicinity who might have been watching Hall? Not that he’d noticed; the access road was empty. Did Hall say where he was going afterwards? No. Did anyone else know about this meeting? On his end, no. Not Jack Molina? Hadn’t Molina set up the meeting on Saturday? No, Hall himself had. How far in advance? Not at all in advance, early that morning. How? By phone.

  I said, “Friday evening at the Hillston Club you didn’t seem to me all that interested in Cooper Hall. His brother gets reprieved later that night. Saturday morning Coop calls you up and you agree to meet him?”

  “You misinterpreted me if you thought I was uninterested. He struck me as a savvy young man of tremendous political potential. Anything else?”

  We went on, while I made up scenarios with the chessboard: Coop the black knight alone in the center face to face with Brookside the smiling white king. And me? I couldn’t see myself in any of the pieces.

  He said he’d naturally encountered Cooper Hall through the latter's political activities, but only in public settings. More recently, at Jack Molina's request, he’d agreed to see Hall, who’d asked him to take a position on George Hall's death sentence. Had that been what the two had talked about on their Saturday flight—George's stay of execution? In part. What about the other part? The guber-natorial campaign. Would he be more specific? No. Why? Their discussion was irrelevant to the issue at hand.

  “I’m not sure I can go with that, Mr. Brookside. Was the talk personal or political?”

  “It was not personal.”

  “Then why did this meeting need to be private?”

  He said I should be able to figure that out myself: many of his supporters, and even staff, strongly opposed his taking a stand on the George Hall execution; moreover, they felt that in general he should move his position further center, away from the left, and certainly away from such highly publicized representatives of the left as Cooper Hall was becoming.

  I said, “Seems like you claimed it was Coop who wanted the meeting private.”

  Now he chuckled. “I’m sure people on his side had similar feelings about his associating with a reactionary like me. Our talk was preliminary, speculative. A formal meeting would have been premature.”

  “Are you saying you were discussing Coop Hall's joining your campaign?”

  “It's immaterial now, isn’t it? Captain, I have fifty visitors waiting. I’ll be back in Hillston the thirtieth. Should I bring a lawyer?” He asked in the friendliest style, like we were in this together, and just had to say these formulas for the record.

  I said, “That's up to you. We’d just like a formal statement.”

  “Ah. Iron fist in the velvet glove. All right. Now, let me ask you something. Did you read the Constitution Club folder?”

  “Yes. What was your motive in gi
ving it to me?”

  “Why, to win you over to my side.” I could hear the smile in his voice, just as I could see him up at the phone in that New York conference suite, perfect features, perfect clothes, perfect tan; while behind a door the fan club of teachers milled about, clutching wine and crackers.

  I said, “Not because your data's sort of ‘speculative,’ and it’d be ‘premature’ to go public until somebody did all the footwork to check it out for you at taxpayer's expense?”

  “Of course.” Brookside's voice was warm as a soft scarf. “If I didn’t think you’d be interested in that kind of misuse of money and influence to manipulate people's worst prejudices; if I didn’t think you’d be interested in that old atrophied network's clutching power by keeping poor whites hating blacks and abortions more than they hate their own poverty—well, I wouldn’t want you on my side, Cuddy….I’ll see you then, soon as I get back. And by the way, I hear you’re going to Edwina's tonight. Tell her, will you, I’m disappointed that the Star's endorsed Julian Lewis. She won’t know anything about it. She owns that paper, but she never reads it. Bye.”

  The moon was already hanging dully around outside my window, though the sky was still gray enough for me to see the tops of the Haver Tobacco Company buildings off to my west and the Cadmean Mills off to my east. I didn’t hear Zeke knock, or maybe he didn’t knock.

  “Chief? Chief? Why don’t you turn a light on? I’m leaving now. You want that phone call typed up in the morning?”

  I said no, but to save the tape.

  He clicked on my desk lamp. “How come you got your black-board turned around?”

  I said because I hadn’t wanted Bubba Percy to read what was on it. Zeke laughed and flipped the board back to the front. He shook his head at all the names, arrows, question marks in chalk. “Chief, looks like you’re fixing to arrest everybody in Hillston.” Moving quietly around the room, straightening things, he kept shaking his head. “Know what, I wouldn’t want your job. It's too worrisome. I bet you got this whole blackboard jammed up in your brain all the time. You spending the night here again?”