Smoke screen, p.14
Smoke Screen, page 14
Attorney General Cobb Fordyce had a hard time keeping his mind on the heated discussion. The long, oval conference table had become a battlefield, opposing sides facing off across its polished surface like armies camped on either side of a DMZ. He held the neutral position at the head of the table.
Before the meeting commenced, he’d considered calling the parties involved and begging for a postponement. But it had been postponed once already. To ask for another delay would antagonize both sides. There would be speculation that his avoidance was politically motivated.
The issue was vitally important and polarizing. The legislators present were operating under a deadline. For those reasons, he’d let them assemble as scheduled even though his concentration was focused not on this topic but on another one.
After hearing the result of Jay Burgess’s autopsy this morning, that was all he could think about.
“Mr. Fordyce, the new bill on gun control needs your endorsement to get passed,” a constituent said when he could work the words in edgewise.
“It won’t matter whether you endorse it or not, Mr. Attorney General,” one of his opponents said with confidence, which to Fordyce seemed feigned. “As this bill now reads, this legislature will not vote it into law.”
“Then why are you trying so earnestly to persuade him not to endorse it?” one from the other side fired back.
Cobb stood up. “Gentlemen, let’s take a break before blood is shed over a gun-control bill. Wouldn’t that be ironic?” He flashed his vote-winning smile and received the expected chuckles. “Help yourselves to water, coffee. Those chocolate chip cookies are worth the calories. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He hoped none of them would follow him into the men’s restroom, and none did. He used the urinal, feeling obliged to after having interrupted the meeting under that pretext. At the washbasin, he held his hands under the cold-water tap, making certain that his starched cuffs, with the state seal cuff links, didn’t get wet.
So, he thought.
News that Jay Burgess had been murdered would blanket the state today. It would be blared from every newspaper headline and media broadcast. No one could avoid hearing about it, even if they wanted to.
When he’d arrived at his office this morning, his secretary had told him, with inappropriate excitement, that she’d heard it on CNN.
“You were mentioned, sir,” she’d said. “They showed that famous picture of the four of you with the fire blazing in the background.”
That fucking photograph. That fucking fire.
Since that day, there had been many times that Cobb wished he could roll back the clock, that he had an opportunity to opt against going to the meeting that had placed him at the police station that particular day at that particular time. On any other day, he would have been in his office at the courthouse, or on his way home. That day had been an exception, and he had rued it ever since.
But there had been just as many times-possibly even more-that he was grateful for the instant fame he’d received as a consequence of the fire. His political career would eventually have been launched, probably with success. But not with the velocity with which it had been. And he’d been awfully impatient to experience that soar to the AG’s office, hadn’t he?
He’d benefited from the fire, and consequently from the deaths of the seven people who’d perished in it. And, in the depths of his soul, where one must be brutally honest, he wasn’t all that sorry about it. What kind of man did that make him?
But thinking in those terms was an exercise in futility. Fate was fate, and there was no cheating it. When it was a person’s time to go, it was his time to go. He and his ambition were of infinitesimal significance when gauged against cosmic forces or, if one were religious, predestination.
That was what he told himself. That was the credo that allowed him to sleep nights. He’d made his peace with it. He could live with it, if everybody else could, if everybody else could just forget about the fire and move on.
It seemed, however, that it would never be extinguished. If Jay Burgess had gone out quietly, dying gracefully of cancer…
But, no, that wasn’t Jay’s style, was it?
Now an investigation was under way, the same excitement surrounding it as when Patrick Wickham was killed. Wickham’s assailant had never been identified, or caught. Eventually his murder ceased to be the lead story and then faded until it was no longer a story at all.
After honoring his fellow hero at his funeral, as was only proper, Cobb had let Wickham’s murder gradually fade from the voting public’s attention. As a candidate to become the chief law enforcement officer of the state, he could have spoon-fed the voters daily reminders of the policeman’s bloody slaying and used it to strengthen his campaign. He could have encouraged a full-fledged investigation until the cop killer was caught and brought to justice.
But he hadn’t. He couldn’t.
Staring at himself in the mirror above the basin where the cold water continued to splash over his hands, he saw reflected back at him a reasonably handsome face, graying temples, a physique kept trim with daily workouts. A face that bespoke clean living and integrity. Faithful husband, good father, churchgoer. That was what the public saw, too. A man who looked his role and inspired confidence in the judicial system, freedom and justice for all. But then people saw only what was exposed to them, didn’t they?
He doubted anyone hearing the circumstances surrounding Jay Burgess’s death would look beyond what appeared to be obvious: his philandering had caught up with him and he’d been smothered with his own pillow by a scorned woman.
Would anyone, he wondered, recall a man named Raley Gannon and the accusations made against him five years ago?
Avoiding his own eyes in the mirror, Attorney General Cobb Fordyce bent over the sink and splashed cold water onto his face.
Pat Wickham, Jr., worked up his courage and punched in the telephone number.
“ Conway Construction.”
“Is, uh, is George there?”
“I’m sorry. He’s out until later this afternoon.”
“Oh.” Pat’s forehead broke out in sweat. He blotted it with his folded pocket handkerchief.
“Is there a message I can give him?”
“Uh, no. I’ll try back later.”
Pat hung up quickly and peered over the wall of his cubicle, on the lookout for other officers, desk jockeys like him. His beat was a computer. He was a glorified file clerk. Guns scared him. Criminals revolted him. He carried a badge, but he wasn’t cut out to be a policeman. He’d never wanted to be, and he looked upon the next twenty-two years before he could retire as a sentence he must serve.
The coast being clear, Pat dialed a cell phone number. The phone rang three times before it was answered with a brusque hello.
“George? Pat Wickham.”
He could sense George McGowan’s displeasure, and for a moment he thought the other man would hang up on him. But then he grumbled, “Hold on.”
Pat heard a muffled conversation where George excused himself, followed by several seconds of silence while he sought privacy. Then, “How’d you get this number?”
“I’m a cop.”
A sound of derision, then, “I’m in the middle of an important meeting. My father-in-law is about to wrap up a contract to build the new athletic complex. You couldn’t have called at a worse time.”
“We need to talk about Jay.”
“Fuck we do,” George said under his breath.
“They know how he was murdered.”
“I heard.”
“That newswoman is saying she was given a date rape drug.”
“Heard that, too.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
Pat estimated that George McGowan outweighed him by seventy-five pounds. But at that moment, he wished for the physical strength to match his anger. He’d bash the other man’s beefy head into the wall for being so obtuse.
“Aren’t you worried?”
“Yeah, I’m worried. I had to play eighteen holes of golf and lose, then suffer through a two-hour lunch followed by a ninety-minute sales pitch. After all that, if this contract negotiation goes south, Les is going to blame me for interrupting his closing sales pitch to take this call.”
Pat saw through the other man’s bluster. George was just as concerned over their situation as he was. “Now Britt Shelley has gone missing.”
“Missing? What do you mean, missing?”
“Just what I said,” Pat replied irritably. “She wasn’t at home when Clark and Javier went to serve the warrant. She’s not at the TV station. She hasn’t been seen since yesterday afternoon. There’s an APB out on her car.”
George silently digested all that, then asked, “What do you expect me to do about it? Go beating the bushes looking for her?”
“What do you think it means, her vanishing like that?”
“How the hell should I know, Pat? First thing that springs to mind is that she didn’t want to be arrested.”
There was an implied duh at the end of that, which Pat ignored. “How much do you think Jay told her?”
In a different tone, one rife with uncertainty, George said, “I don’t know.”
The other man’s anxiety increased Pat’s own. “Oh, Jesus.”
“For crissake, will you get a grip? Don’t fall apart.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Nothing. We’re going to do nothing except act as though everything is normal. Do nothing, Pat, you understand me?”
Pat resented the other man’s bullying tone. Who did he think he was, talking down to him like that? He, who everybody knew was his father-in-law’s whipping boy. He, who had a wife with a leg problem-she couldn’t keep them closed.
George had been one of Pat Sr.’s best friends when they were fellow police officers. By extension, he became a family friend and was often a guest at their house for dinner. Pat could remember George socking him playfully on the arm, teasing him about girls, talking to him about baseball, and playing video games with him. He was loud and rambunctious and fun.
That was before he married Miranda Conway. Before he and Pat Sr. became heroes. Before the fire.
After that, they didn’t see much of George McGowan around the Wickham household.
“I gotta go now,” George said. “And don’t call me again. The less contact we have, the better. You got that?”
He hung up before Pat could counter. Pat’s palm was damp as he replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle. He pretended to be studying the file on his computer screen in case another officer happened by.
The call to George hadn’t allayed his nervousness, as hoped, but escalated it. The big man’s bravado was phony. Pat would bet that if you scratched the surface of George McGowan’s brawny body, you’d find a coward as fearful as he was.
Like him, George was afraid that someone would trace Jay Burgess’s murder back to the police station fire. Would anyone make that connection? Was there any suspicion that the two events were related?
Was anyone watching him?
Pat Wickham, Jr., often wished he had eyes in the back of his head.
And not just at work.
CHAPTER 12
SITTING ON THE TREE STUMP AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS, Raley watched Delno take the dead rabbit and his trio of hounds and tromp off in the direction of his cabin. The dense foliage seemed to swallow him whole and left nothing to indicate his passage except a cantankerous, territorial blue jay.
Around Raley’s cabin, hardwoods fraternized with evergreens. In the spring, blooming trees and wild bushes created splashes of white and pastel. Even in the dead of winter, the palmettos and live oaks stayed green, giving the illusion of eternal summer.
The place could be really pretty, if one had a mind to spruce up the cabin, modernize the kitchen and bathroom, furnish it properly, add some amenities, some homeyness, some more sweet potato vines.
Impatient with himself, Raley pushed aside the daydream and the pleasing images it conjured.
He’d used his irritation with Delno as an excuse to get out of the cabin for a while. But even if Delno hadn’t interrupted, Raley would have fabricated a reason to go outside. He was used to living without air-conditioning. The summer heat and humidity no longer bothered him. Except today. Today the air within the four walls of the cabin had been stifling.
But the atmosphere couldn’t be blamed for his claustrophobia any more than Delno could. It was talking about the fire, and Suzi Monroe’s death, and all the crap that followed that had caused anger and resentment to build inside his chest until it became so constricted he could no longer breathe.
And then there was Britt Shelley.
He’d had to take a breather from her, too. When she’d asked what she could do to make up for all the ills she’d imposed on him, several possibilities had sprung immediately to mind. All of them tantalizing. All of them prohibited.
Last night, when he forced her to sleep beside him, he’d done it to make her uncertain and uncomfortable. Call it payback for all the grief she’d caused him.
But in all honesty, he’d also done it because he couldn’t resist lying down with a woman with whom he’d had a conversation-even a hostile one-that went beyond “How much?” or “I’ll be gone in the morning. This is just for tonight.” And usually he left long before morning.
Now, he thought sleeping beside Britt had probably been a gross strategic error. While the tactic had served its original purpose, it had also inflamed his imagination.
But skulking outside was taking a coward’s way out to avoid her, wasn’t it? He forced himself off the stump, across his yard, and up the steps. He went inside.
She was standing in the dead center of the room, arms at her sides, as though she’d been ordered to wait there for his return. She was backlighted by the western sun coming through the kitchen window. The ceiling fan caused strands of hair to lift and fall around her face in an airy dance.
She said, “It’s getting late. I should go back now.”
“Right.” He’d talked through all the morning hours and into the afternoon. Only now did he realize that most of the day was gone.
Self-consciously she tugged on the hem of the chambray shirt. It fell to midthigh on her. The sleeves had been rolled to her elbows. She’d buttoned all but the collar button. “I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed this. I couldn’t find my windbreaker.”
It was hotter inside than out, so she hadn’t put on his shirt because she’d caught a chill. More likely she’d finally realized how abbreviated her sleeping attire was. It wasn’t a slinky see-through negligee, all the critical parts were covered, but by lightweight fabric that clung and looked like it would dissolve if touched. Last night, he’d done the gentlemanly thing by putting the windbreaker on her before carrying her from her house.
“Your windbreaker is on the ground out by the truck,” he said. “I think one of the hounds used it for a pallet.”
“It’s okay.”
“Are you ready?”
She nodded.
“Need the bathroom before we head out?”
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll be right with you.”
In the bedroom, he changed out of yesterday’s shirt and put on a fresh one, realizing as he reached into his tiny closet that she must have recently rifled through it to get the shirt. He wondered why she’d chosen the chambray. It was old and soft from being washed so many times. Maybe it looked comfortable. Maybe she thought it would fit her better than the others. Maybe she thought the rest of his shirts were ugly.
He used the toilet, washed his hands, and was about to leave the bathroom when he decided to brush his teeth. He noted that the cap on the tube of toothpaste had been replaced since he’d used it that morning. Her doing, because he had a bad habit of leaving it uncapped.
She had cleaned her mouth, too. For some reason, knowing that stirred him.
He turned off the fan and locked the cabin door. She had already climbed into the cab of his truck by the time he got outside. He picked up her windbreaker, shook off the dirt before tossing it into the bed of the truck, then got in.
She’d found her purse on the floorboard. Taking a small hairbrush from it, she ran it through her hair, checked her reflection in the mirror of a compact, and sighed over what she saw. However, she didn’t bother to make repairs. After returning the compact and hairbrush to the handbag, she replaced it on the floorboard between her feet.
They rode in silence for as long as it took them to cover the four point seven miles to the main road. As he turned onto it, he said, “I’ll drop you at your car.”
She looked at her bare feet and pulled on the stringy hem of his shirt. “If I’m arrested before I get home, I’ll be taken to the police station like this.”
He glanced at her legs. “That would cause a sensation.”
“The last thing I want is to cause a sensation.”
“What? It’s not a ratings period?”
She shot him a dirty look. The snide remark had been as low as her sarcastic mention of a razor last night. But it got them safely off the subject of her shapely bare legs.
They rode in silence for another mile or so. When he finally looked over at her again, he saw that she’d laid her head back. Her eyes were closed. She was still except for her breathing. For a few seconds he watched the steady rise and fall of his old chambray shirt. It had never looked so good.
He cleared his throat. “There will be police officers staked out at your house. What are you going to tell them?”
“That I promise to go peacefully if they’ll let me change clothes.”
“I mean about why you weren’t at home when they came to arrest you.”
“I’m wondering that myself. Do I tell them I was kidnapped? Would they believe me?”
“Doubtful. Especially not after the date-rape-drug, memory-loss account of your night with Jay.”
