Legwork (11 page)

I sounded sure because I was sure—and Bill finally got the message.

“What are you on to?” he asked, his tone changing from anger to curiosity.
We were getting somewhere at last.
“Come on,” he asked as nicely as he could.
“Give.”

“I gave it all to you already,” I said with a shrug.
“And you can either work with me or work against me.
But if you don’t want to end up looking like a fool with those SBI guys, I’d stick with me, kid.
I’m going to find out who did this.”

We ended the lunch crabbier than the cakes, leaving my hopes for romance in ruins and me even more determined to embarrass the whole lot of those overtestosteroned jerks.
I was the most intrigued by Bill’s comment that he knew where Stoney had been the night Thornton Mitchell was killed.
Why wouldn’t he tell me?
Identifying the cave girl to Stoney’s Rockman was going to be a wee bit difficult on my own, but I felt up to the challenge.

I returned to the office in mid-afternoon to check Stoney’s schedule for the week.
The N&O printed a weekly political calendar each day and I had been following it carefully. Wednesday nights seemed to be strategy nights.
Traditionally, all the candidates returned to their headquarters to recoup in midweek and plan out the next week’s events.
This week had been no different, putting both Mary Lee and Stoney in Raleigh when Thornton Mitchell was killed.
But the days still ahead showed them scattered throughout the state.
My best shot for catching Stoney in action was that night, before he left for an appearance in Asheville.
He was scheduled to speak at a fundraising dance sponsored by the political clubs of several local colleges.
Maybe I could spot his lady love lurking nearby in the crowd.

There was a photo of Stoney on page one that showed him issuing his statement in defense of Mary Lee.
I studied it carefully.
No wonder his eavesdropping neighbor Elaine was voting for him.
He was one of those lucky guys who get better looking as they age.
Who was the woman he met on Wednesday nights, I wondered.
And what was the big secret?
Was she a campaign aide? Someone’s wife?
Who knew.
Maybe I could find out tonight.
Maybe I never would.
In the meantime, I had work to do.

“Bobby!” I shouted, kicking my door open so he could hear me over his own gastronomic ruminations.

He replied with a rumbling belch.
If I’d had a herring, I would have tossed it to him.

“Sorry, babe,” he explained.
“There’s a new Mexican restaurant opened down the block.
They deliver.”

They’d prosper, too, with him as a client. The most amazing thing about Bobby was that he had a love life. Yes, there were women in Raleigh, North Carolina willing to date a 360-pound man who dressed in polyester clothing, wore heavy gold chains, sported a bad toupee, and groped them with fingers that resembled greasy sausage links.

“Know anyone down at the county registry of deeds?” I asked.

“Sure,” he rasped.
“Girl named Nancy. Long-legged blonde with a nice pair of credentials and great legs. Bad marriage.”

“Tell her I’m on the way, okay?
Ask her to pull the file on the plot of land along the Neuse belonging to Ramsey Lee.
Pull the deed for the plot directly across the river from it, too.
I don’t know who owns it or any of the plot numbers. Can she find them for me anyway?”

“Sure, babe.
Nancy could find anything. Especially in the dark.”

I didn’t want to know.
I grabbed my pocketbook and made a beeline for the door.
Someone had suggested that Thornton Mitchell meet him in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.
I wanted to find out who.
The owner of the land was a logical start.
Not that I necessarily believed in logic.

The nice “girl” named Nancy was no spring chicken.
Fried was more like it.
She had bleached blonde hair— but who was I to throw stones?—a dubiously perky bustline, and the kind of leathery face you seldom find north of Boca Raton in these skin-cancer-enlightened times.
But she did have great legs, I’d give Bobby that.
They scissored toward me, expertly balanced on four-inch heels.
“You Casey?” she asked, snapping her gum as if the pop were a question mark at the end of her sentence.

“That’s me.”

“How’s Big Daddy doing?” she asked, sliding two folders my way.

Big Daddy?
Please.
Not even Tennessee Williams would have found Bobby D.
captivating.

“He’s fine,” I admitted.
“Large and in charge, as they say.”

“I’ll say.” She leaned over the counter, giving me a good look at the tops of her breasts.
They were the color of coconuts and looked just as hard.
They were not, I am grateful to say, as hairy.
“That man can make my motor run, know what I mean?” As if to prove it, her nasal voice softened to a purr.
I did not ask for details.
“I need this back in twenty minutes,” she said, raising an eyebrow at the two folders.
“My boss is mad at me on account of I told him he was sexually harassing me. So he’s not taking kindly to any personal favors I may hand out these days, know what I mean?” The gum cracked again, on cue.

I nodded wisely, woman-to-woman, as if Bobby spent his afternoons chasing me around the desk and I could really relate.
In truth, the last guy to sexually harass me— without permission, of course—wound up with hot coffee in the crotch.

I stuffed the folders in my bag and went outside to read them, choosing a nice spot on a brick wall nearby. There was the usual new construction project clogging traffic on the outskirts of the Fayetteville Street Mall.
Probably another hopeful office building going up in this no-man’s land of urban dreams.

Nancy knew her stuff.
She’d pulled the deeds and deed histories on both Ramsey Lee’s land and the plot across the river.
Ramsey had been left the property by a grandfather fifteen years ago and had held on to every inch of it since.
The other deed was even more interesting.
The land across the river had belonged to a former councilwoman for the city of Raleigh.
She’d donated it to the city about a year and half before for future use as a public park.
Apparently there had been some sort of holdup, because there sure as hell was no park on the plot.
The file’s checkout history on the outside of the folder showed that it had been a hot item over the past six months.
Everyone from a city planning committee representative to a parks and recreation commissioner to several lawyers whose names I recognized had been taking a peek.
Plus, guess who?
Yep—Thornton Mitchell.
Something was going on with the land all right.
If Nancy didn’t know, I’d search NandoNet for news on it.

“Yeah, a lot of action on that folder,” Nancy admitted when I returned it.
“Don’t follow that stuff myself.” I had slipped her a twenty and it disappeared faster than you could ask for change.
“Why, thanks.
That’s right nice of you. Can I get you some photostats?” I nodded and handed her the other file.

She took the folders without comment and disappeared into a back room.
She was back in less than two minutes with full copies neatly stapled in one corner.
She handed them to me with a sunny smile and I realized that Bobby D.
was right: she did have a lot of girl in her.
“Here ya go, honey,” she said with a wink.
The crack of her gum had grown merrier with her twenty-dollar windfall and she sounded like microwave popcorn heating.

“Thank you,” I said.
“Clairol Ash Blonde?”

“L’Oreal,” she replied.
“Because I’m worth it.”

I made it back to the office in time to do a little cyber surfing and put Bobby on the case of the park that was not yet a park.
He was still in the same position, what a surprise, and eager to do what he could to earn that triple fee.

“There’s something going on with the piece of land where Mitchell was killed,” I explained.
“The file on it’s been checked out a lot over the past few months.
I’m going to comb the press clippings.
What can you do?”

“Leave it to me, doll face,” he promised, reaching for the phone.

I logged on to NandoNet and launched a search using the name of the property’s former owner.
I got several hits right away.
The land had been in her family for generations, but she had deeded it to the city on the stipulation that it be used as a public park for the education of local school children on the importance of natural resource management.
After flexing her liberal muscles, she had packed her bags and left with her husband for new digs in Colorado, leaving the land behind for local politicians and developers to squabble over like coyotes fighting over a dead sheep.

Over the last four months, several related proposals concerning the land had been introduced and then tabled during city council meetings, all outlining what construction should take place in order to bring the dream of a Neuse River Park to life.
The version I suspected Thornton Mitchell was connected to called for the development of a wide recreational beach along that strip of the Neuse, complete with an artificial pool for swimming alongside its banks, water slides, a huge snack hut, and an intricate network of roads that led north and south into the woods. I had no idea what purpose these roads served, but thought I could guess: he was hoping to use the park as the centerpiece for a new residential subdivision.
A surrounding park was a great magnet for home buyers.
It guaranteed that, while you might be spoiling the land and view for others, no one could return the favor.

I peered at the color photograph of an elaborate architect’s model that accompanied the article.
It was complete with miniature trees, Lilliputian gravel walkways, a shining strip of pseudo-Neuse, and a scaled-down eating complex. There was even a tiny Ferris wheel near the beach.
It was painted bright red and yellow.
Hordes of miniature people streamed toward the Ferris wheel, as if the entire city of Raleigh had been waiting for generations just to get the chance to eat cotton candy along the banks of the Neuse.
No wonder the proposal had been shelved.
In Raleigh’s current climate—which was moving toward development backlash—a project like this was a guaranteed political disaster.
I wondered how much Mitchell had had to do with it.

I’d have to wonder a little bit longer.
It was time to face the hordes at Stoney Maloney’s fundraiser and see if I could track down Madam X.
I printed out a copy of the article and left it with Bobby as I dashed out the door.
“I need to know who the potential investors in that piece of nonsense were,” I told him over my shoulder.
“That architectural model must have cost them plenty.
Who paid?”

He held the copy of the photo up to the light and squinted.
“Man, I love cotton candy,” he said.

My wardrobe for the evening was hopeless. Everything was either too low cut, too tight, too short, or too transparent for a conservative college boy shindig.
I’d be fighting off drunken frat boys like a dog in heat intent on preserving her honor horn the neighborhood studs.
I finally settled on a sleeveless white dress with a low scoop neckline that almost, but not quite, hit my belly button.
It was a little tight on top and I made a mental note that I needed to cut down on the upper body weight machines because I was starting to look like a fire hydrant. But I thought I might be able to salvage the look if I used my ingenuity.

I had a remnant of red satin I’d been considering for curtains and wound it around each breast and over my shoulders like Miss Liberty.
It concealed my cleavage and lent a patriotic air to the ensemble.
I then tracked down a bright blue negligee that some misguided soul had given me.
I wound it into a belt, tying it off with a perky bow that perched on top of my butt as if my rear end was a gift for the entire party.
All I had to do was unearth my red pumps, wear pink lipstick, and slap one of those goofy straw campaign hats on my head to hide my roots in order to blend in.
Of course, I looked like a float in an election day parade, but we must all suffer for our art.

It cost me twenty bucks to get in at the door and, to cover the cost of what I intended to spend on cocktails, I reminded myself to tell Mary Lee it had been fifty. The fundraiser was being held in the smaller of two basketball gyms at North Carolina State University.
The cramped coliseum was not exactly the swankiest of milieus.
I’d seen the women’s team play there a couple of times, but tonight they’d shoved the bleachers back to one side in order to make room for a raised platform at each end of the court.
Long tables lined the remaining side of a large dance floor and served as a cash bar.
In a burst of originality, the ceiling and walls had been decorated with red, white, and blue bunting as well as matching balloons.
All I had to do was grab onto a rope and hoist myself up into the air if I needed to blend into the crowd.

One of the platforms held a podium and a row of empty chairs.
The other held an aging beach music band that was cranking out ancient dance tunes.
The crowd was 100 percent white. The band was 100 percent black, a veritable six-pack of Shaft lookalikes left over from the seventies, decked out in knit suits and iridescent open-necked flowered shirts.
They were long and lanky, and looked monumentally bored as they moved in time to the familiar sounds of a North Carolina college crowd.
It was a time warp.
The dance floor was filled with young men and women dressed in madras shorts and light blue or pink work shirts—sleeves rolled up—all wearing sandals or worn topsiders on their sockless feet. They looked exactly like their parents had, as had their parents before them.
It was a strange and rigid species.
Gold add-a-bead necklaces winked at the throats of the girls, while the boys were distinguished by their common glassy-eyed concentration.
The kegs of beer lining the walls behind the makeshift bars explained the stares.
These folks were about as politically aware as slugs.
They just wanted to get drunk and dance.
And what the hell, they were young—and half right.