Legwork (22 page)

“Did you hear or see anything unusual?” I asked.
“Do you know what happened further up the banks?”

He shook his head and shrugged.
“I mind my own business.
I expect others to do the same.”

“Do you have a television?” I asked.
Was it possible he didn’t even know about the murder?

“Wouldn’t do me no good,” he confided.
“I don’t have electricity.
Don’t want it, neither.
Those power folks can just go and charge somewhere else for their electricity.
I can do without it.”

One of the bamboo poles bent slowly toward the river, its arc bowing until the tip nearly touched the water. The old man ambled up and pulled it from the sand, tugging toward the sky with a sharp motion to set the hook.
Catfish don’t fight like other fish.
They just sort of lay there on your hook, letting their weight pull the line toward the bottom.

The old man ignored me while he went about his business.
He pulled the line in and examined a dangling gray catfish that gleamed wetly in the campfire light, checking it for size.
Satisfied, he grabbed it carefully around the middle with a work-worn hand, taking care to avoid the spiny horn at the top of its head.
He laid it against a plank by the fire and bopped it smartly on the head with a thick branch.
The fish lay still, its pewter body reflecting gold firelight.
The old man pulled a long nail from his overall pocket and placed it just above one of the flat fish eyes, driving the nail through the head and into the board with his branch club.
Once the fish was secured, he pulled a knife from a pocket and made several long incisions down the leathery skin.
His seemingly bottomless pockets yielded a pair of pliers, which he used to strip the skin from the body, revealing a fat carcass of milky catfish meat.
He quickly filleted it, then placed the strips of flesh tenderly on the top of some ice he had packed into a medium-size cooler.
Grunting, he wiped his hands on his overalls and threw the catfish skin and guts deep into the woods for the raccoons.
He then unscrewed a small jar and scooped out a dab of foul- smelling goo which he made into a small plug to wrap around the empty hook.
He cast the line back into the water, jamming the pole deep into the sand to secure it.
The whole operation took no more than three minutes.
The man was old, but he was still mighty limber.

“Now what was you asking me?” he said when he rejoined me at the fire.
The air had grown cold, reminding me that it was October.
I huddled close to the flames, grateful for the warmth.

“I asked you if you had been fishing here three nights ago.”

“Yep,” he said.
“I’m here every night.
I got a lot of mouths to feed.
My daughter ran away to Atlanta.
Left us with three grandkids.”

Personal details?
Hey, he was warming up. Maybe as a reward for my not retching at the catfish display.

“Did you see anything unusual that night?” I asked.
“Further upstream, maybe?
Beyond those campfires there?” I nodded toward the trio of fires and saw that the fishermen had returned.
They were being cautious and stood quietly by the bank, poles in hand.
Every now and then, they would turn my way for a quick look.

“I didn’t notice nothing along the banks,” the old man said, punctuating this statement with a quick spit of tobacco and a juicy cough.
“Just a pair of fools up on the road who got stuck.
I had to help push one of them out.”

“A pair of fools?” I asked, feeling a prickle of adrenaline.

“Yep.
Some tall fellow who talked funny was driving a white car and some woman was trying to drive a big black car.
She wasn’t hardly big enough to see over the steering wheel. She was the one who was stuck.
I had to push the car with the help of the young fellow until she could get it straightened out and down the road.
It was pretty muddy.
Darn stupid of her to be driving there in the middle of the night in the first place.
I usually avoid that road.
I walk in the other way.”

“What did the man and woman look like?” I asked, wondering how any person could be so devoid of curiosity.
He didn’t care why they had been there or where they had gone.

“They were white,” he answered, as if that said everything.
And for him, it probably did.
“White and she was real snippy about it.
Didn’t bother with the pleases or thank yous, oh no, not that one.
I walked me a ways to help them out.
I had just gotten here and hardly got my fire set up when I heard the engine spinning and I was afraid they’d start scaring off the fish if they got any louder.
When I got to the road, the tall fellow was pushing at the rear of the car and the lady was behind the wheel.
I didn’t say nothing, just started pushing alongside of the boy.
The car was too heavy for that road.
I had to use all of my strength to get it out of the mud.
When the lady driving got a ways down the road, she stopped and came back to talk to the young fellow.
Didn’t say thank you, even.
Just stood at the front of the car where I could hardly see her and looked at the boy and said ‘Let’s go’ or something like that.
The fellow thanked me, though.
He shook my hand and got in the black car with the lady and I saw the two of them arguing, at least that’s what it looked like to me.
Then the fellow got out and went to his own car and the two of them drove away, one after the other, the lady leading the way.
I was surprised the boy could drive, he was jerking around so much.”

“You mean the car was jerking back and forth?” I asked.

The old man shook his head.
“No, the fellow was.
He was one of those nervous types, you know.
He talked funny, like through his nose, and his hands were shaking like this.” The old man held up a dark, gnarled hand and it trembled in the firelight.
“City boy, probably scared of the dark.
But not that lady.
Oh, no.” He shook his head.
“She was cool as ice.
Queen of the night.
And I was her slave.
Got no truck with people like that.” He stared into the fire, remembering.
“Not even a simple thank you.”

“But what did they look like?” I asked again.

The old man shrugged.
“The fellow was tall. Younger than me.
Kind of skinny.
He wasn’t much help with the car. The lady was short.
Didn’t get a good look at her.

She stayed in the shadows.
I just felt her, you know, and could hear her voice.
She was used to ordering folks like me around, I could tell that, and I was sorry I had bothered to help her.
A man deserves a thank you, at least.
I was not put on this Earth to serve her, but I guess God forgot to tell her that.”

“What color was her hair?” I asked, frustrated.
“Or his?”

He shrugged.
“Couldn’t tell you.
The boy had on one of those baseball hats.
It was white, I think, with black stripes on it.
Not the Braves.
Some other team.
I don’t know about the lady’s hair.
It was dark under the trees.
I wasn’t looking.
I just wanted them out of there.”

I sighed.

“Sorry,” he apologized.
“I mind my own business.
You the police?”

“No.” I threw a few sticks into the fire and watched them blaze.

“What did those folks do?”

“Never mind,” I told him.
“Just keep on fishing.” Thornton Mitchell’s death had screwed up enough lives. And this old man had been through enough changes in his lifetime as it was.

“I plan to,” he said, spitting a wad of juice into the fire.
It sizzled and disappeared.
“I plan to keep fishing here until the day I die.”

“Thanks for your help,” I told him.
“Thanks very much.” I offered my hand.
He took it gently, cradling it in a creased paw.
“Good luck fishing.”

He nodded silently and turned his gaze back to his bamboo poles.

As I made my way down the banks, I heard the sound of leaves rustling.
I passed by the other campsite and found nothing but three small fires burning brightly.
The clearing was deserted and silent in the stillness of the Carolina night.

A tall man who talked funny?
Who would the old man think talked funny?
It could be Stoney, with his well- trained public speaking voice.
Or Bradley Masters, for that matter, with his phony Boston boarding school accent.
Maybe even Frank Waters with his asthma-laced television voice.
I pondered the possibilities as I lay in bed that night.
But not for long.
I fell asleep for a well- deserved rest and didn’t surface until Bobby D. woke me up with a phone call the next morning.

“Rise and shine, doll face!” His voice boomed through the answering machine, interrupting my dream of coonhounds chasing Mexican bandits along the banks of the Neuse. “We got a couple more days to solve this thing for that triple dinero bonus.”

Only extra money could get Bobby so excited this early.
I fumbled for the phone.
“What’s this ‘we’ crap?” I asked.
“How are you helping any?”

“Hey,” he protested in an injured tone of voice.
“I’m calling with the goods.
I’ve done my thing.
It’s time for you to do yours.”

“What thing?” I asked sleepily.
I found the clock wedged beneath the bed.
It was nearly nine o’clock.

“Two shell companies invested in that failed Neuse Park project with Thornton Mitchell,” he told me.
“One traces back to another company called Acorn Enterprises and that’s owned by a local construction company.
Probably hoping to build the houses along its edge.”

“Legit?” I asked.

“Sure, babe.
The owner is married to the mayor’s sister.
Can’t get more legit than that.
But the other company is giving me trouble.
It traces back to yet another company and the trail ends there.
I can’t get any information beyond that. Either the files are lost or they never filed incorporation papers and it hasn’t caught up with them yet.”

“Lost?” I asked incredulously.

“Lost as in ‘get lost,’” Bobby conceded. “What can I say?
Maybe someone got there first with a bribe.
I tried my best.
The last company listed was called Sand Dollar Limited.
I figure there must be some tie-in to beach properties.”

“Sand Dollar?” I repeated.
“How much were they on the hook for?”

“Fifty grand,” Bobby said.
“A fourth of the development partnership.
I’ve checked out the other partners. They’ve all invested with Mitchell before.
This one’s the only one that ain’t adding up.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” I said before I could stop myself.
Thank him too much and he gets intolerable.

“Like I said, babe,” he bragged.
“Follow the money.”

I hung up and lay in bed wondering if thirty minutes was too long a drive to take for fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
I needed a sugar infusion to jumpstart my brain. Instead, I dragged my sorry ass out of bed and rummaged through the kitchen in search of coffee.
I finally found the can of Chock Full O’ Nuts in the vegetable crisper—next to my missing pink bunny slipper.
I didn’t even want to know how it had gotten there.
I made a pot of coffee, showered, and retrieved the morning paper from the stoop.
For once, the paperboy had hit his mark.
I pulled my sole chair up to the back window of my apartment and propped my feet up on the sill, jumbo mug of coffee in hand and the N&O at my feet.
It was time for some serious thinking.
Besides, Jack wouldn’t be up for at least another two hours and there was no way he could come up with the medical records before mid-afternoon.

I tried to put it all together.
What tall guy would hang out with what short woman?
Stoney and his secret lady love?
Thornton Mitchell’s ex-wife or Stoney Maloney’s mother and some young stud lover?
None were likely scenarios.
Shorty Shrimpboat from the SBI dressed in drag?
An appealing but even more unlikely thought.
Frank Waters and a contact from the Maloney campaign?
I concentrated on what the old fisherman had said.
The guy was tall.
The guy talked funny.
Stoney’s father and his Eastern shore accent?
Naw, he was old.
But just about anyone could qualify as a young fellow to that old fisherman.
Who knew?

I tried the other description.
The woman was short.
But how short?
Maybe the old man had exaggerated.
It was the middle of the night.
Hard to see, but not hard to hear.
And he had said that the woman talked nasty.
That was Mary Lee Masters all right.
Or Stoney’s secret girlfriend.
A campaign worker?
I even tried casting Bradley Masters and a coed girlfriend in the starring roles, but failed when it came to a motive.
I also wondered about the possible connection to Thornton Mitchell’s Neuse River Park investor, Sand Dollar Limited.
What did the name mean?
Who had ties to the beach?
I considered whether anyone of the gang was particularly suntanned and when I reached that point, I realized it was time to get a grip, preferably on something more concrete.
I called Bobby back at the office.

“Can you get copies of the filing papers for Sand Dollar?” I asked.

“Sure.
But I had my contact read them over the phone to me already.
They aren’t much help.
The shareholders are two more companies: Sandman Properties and Dollar Inc.
I hit a dead end on both of those.”

“Get the filing anyway,” I said.
“Maybe there’s a phone number or something.
Have them fax copies over. I’ll be in this afternoon.”

“Have it your way,” he said, hanging up to finish swallowing whatever it was he was chewing this time.

Maybe a run would help.
I hated running.
It was stupid.
It was pointless.
And a lot less fun than sex.
But I had to kill some time and clear my head.
Reluctantly, I pulled out my running shoes for a trip to the Duke campus where I could sneak onto their athletic track and at least be distracted by sweaty young bodies while I jogged.
The run proved so invigorating that I was forced to stop and eat a huge late breakfast afterward.
A pound of grits and butter later—never mind the fried eggs, sausage, and biscuits—I returned home and showered again, killing time until it was safe to call Jack.

At noon, I broke down and phoned him.
He was groggy but at least he was home.
Jack’s sleeping habits— and habitats—tended toward the erratic.

“Don’t tell me you stumbled home alone last night?” I asked.
“Will wonders never cease?”

“A man’s got to save his strength when he hangs out with you,” he replied.

I wanted to drive over and test his theory, but duty called.
“Did you get the stuff?” I asked, feeling like I was back in the land of drug deals.

“She went for it,” he said.
“I thought I’d have to do her to seal the deal, but some drunken schmuck snaked me, thank god, and she wanted to make me jealous so she
took him home instead.
He probably offered her more in the way of incentive, if you know what I mean.
I never touch the stuff.”

“I hope to god she made it to work today,” I said, alarmed.
“I need those records this afternoon.”

“She’s there,” Jack promised.
“She’s the type who thinks that if she can drag her ass into work, it proves she doesn’t have a problem.
She said she’d have the files sometime after lunch.”

“Great.
I’m picking you up in thirty minutes.” I hung up before he could protest.

Jack hunched miserably in my front seat to let me know the sacrifice he was making to be up and conscious so close to noon.
He pouted until I stopped at a Wendy’s and refueled him with two double cheeseburgers, fries, and a large Coke.
It never took him long to recover from a bad mood, especially when you bribed him with food.

Jack’s best trait is his good nature—which is one of the biggest reasons why we remain friends.
He is like a perpetual four-year-old, hiding his true intelligence, running around a giant playpen pulling all the pigtails he can grab and charming his way into being totally spoiled.
But he is quick to repent when he crosses a boundary he should never have approached, and he is careful about his real friends’ feelings.
In the five years I have known him, Jack has never let me down.
Which isn’t to say he is perfect.
I caught him sneaking looks at his hair in the side view mirror and was once again reminded of his carefully concealed vanity.

“Looking good,” I told him as we arrived at Memorial Hospital.
I licked the mustard off one corner of his mouth and fixed his hair with my fingers.
“Just use your charm.
And cold hard cash.”

“Got it,” he said, patting a pocket.

He was back within half an hour, holding a manila envelope.
“Bingo,” he announced.
“But that bitch held me up for an extra hundred.
Said one of the files was hard to locate.”

“Should have gone home with her last night,” I suggested.
I reimbursed him three hundred dollars and he handed over the envelope.
We like to keep our business relationship formal.

The package was fat and felt promising.
I held it in my hands, reluctant to open it and burst the bubble of optimism rising within me.

“Who are these people anyway?” Jack asked, popping the last of his French fries into his mouth.
“Their names sound familiar.”

“No one important,” I assured him.
Hey, if Jack didn’t think that the names of his current senator and one of the top candidates to replace him were important enough to remember, who was I to set him straight?
I dropped Jack off at his apartment then drove to Duke Gardens to review the material.
I was getting more than a little paranoid and wanted to be sure I was alone.
It was too late in the year for the roses to be in bloom and the walkways were deserted.
I found a bench in the middle of a cluster of silver oaks where I felt safe from prying eyes.
Slowly, I unclasped the fastener and slid a stack of Xeroxed papers onto my lap.
A hastily scrawled note on the top of the pile read: “You don’t know what you’re missing.
Call me sometime.
Love, Sylvia.” She dotted her
I
‘s
with little hearts.
Barf.
I spared Jack the trouble of replying by tossing the note into a nearby trash can.

The first few pages were short and to the point: the patient had been admitted briefly in 1974 while a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
When you cut through the medical jargon, the reason why was pretty clear: Mary Lee Masters had suffered complications following a routine first-trimester abortion, legally performed by doctors at a Memorial Hospital outpatient clinic.
She had been referred by a resident physician affiliated with Student Health Services.
The complications had not been severe.
Basically she had been scraped, stabilized, and released.

Yuk.
And no wonder she had freaked out at the thought of my snooping through medical files.
If she had only kept her mouth shut and showed some restraint, I would never have asked Jack’s contact to search for a file under her name as well. But now I understood Mary Lee’s panic and her sudden interest in my progress.
An abortion was not an extraordinary event in the 1970’s for a college girl.
But in the political climate of the 1990’s, it was a most definite liability.
She could hardly claim not to have inhaled.
The voters would not be forgiving.
Especially since she had failed to redeem herself by offloading a few kids as penance. So this was what she had been hiding.
And this was why she stayed married to Bradley Masters.
He was probably the father and knew her secret.
If she cut him off or complained about his spending or his affairs, he could leak the news to the public.
It was just what the Maloney campaign needed to seal their victory.

Aren’t people grand?
A man responsible for half a deed turns around and blackmails his partner for that same deed, knowing the public will condemn her while never thinking to look twice at him.

I couldn’t decide whether to tell Mary Lee that I knew or not.
Or that I might have a way out of the dilemma for her, thanks to Bill Butler and his investigative buddies.
For now, I kept it to myself and began to thumb through the rest of the copied files.
I was in for an even bigger surprise.