Legwork (26 page)

God almighty if that woman hardly blinked. “You aren’t going to get your money that way,” she hissed.
“And I’m not scared of the likes of you.”

“Drop the shotgun,” I told her, squeezing her wrist even tighter until I could tell the nerves had deadened.

I released her hand and the shotgun fell to the carpet.
I motioned for her to step away from it and to sit on the couch beside Adam.
She sat there sullenly, glaring at her companion.
“I told you to search her,” she spat at him.
“You can’t do a goddamn thing right, can you?” She stared at me, her face ugly with fury.
“You won’t get your precious money that way.”

“I don’t care about your money,” I started to say but the change in her expression stopped me cold.
Her eyes had slid beyond me.
She was staring toward the kitchen, her face transformed by a grotesque smile.

“Stonewall!” she cried.
“Just look at this. This woman has burst into my home with all sorts of accusations. She’s working for that awful woman, Mary Lee Masters.
She’s trying to ruin the campaign.”

Stoney Maloney stepped out of the kitchen doorway, his car keys in hand.
He looked at his mother’s weird smile and then at the gun in my hand.
“What’s going on?” he said warily.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him, eyeing the distance between the shotgun and the kitchen door.
What if he tried to go for it?

“I think you know why I’m here,” he said. His voice was calm.
“I’m surprised you’d be a part of this, Casey. My mother deserves representation.”

“Who told you we were here?” I asked.
Was he in on it, too?
Had his mother told him everything?
Did Adam know Stoney was involved and had he been trying to save his candidacy by saying nothing?
I felt outnumbered and out of control.

“I have friends in the department,” he said, shrugging as if it were no big deal.
“One of them called me and said the police were planning to question my mother tonight.
What are you doing here?
Where are the cops?
Why didn’t you let her know she could have a lawyer present?”

Maybe he didn’t know, I thought.
Oh, please god, don’t let him be a part of it.
I glanced at his face for a clue and that was my mistake.

As soon as I took my eyes off her, she went for the gun.
That old biddy flew off the couch and snatched the shotgun off the floor faster than I have ever seen a human being move in my life.
She had it pointed at my head before I could swallow.

“Throw the gun over there by the fireplace!” she screeched.
“Or I’ll blow your head into pumpkin pulp.”

I believed her.
I tossed my pistol across the carpet and prayed it wouldn’t go off.
Or that it would shoot anyone but me if it did.
It fell harmlessly into the thick nap of the carpet.

“What are you doing?” Stoney asked, appalled.
He stared at the shotgun, then turned his eyes to his mother.
His voice quavered but he did not flinch.
“What are you doing, Momma?
Put the gun down.”

“I’m not putting it down!” his mother screamed.
“This cheap little bitch is a liar.
She’s trying to make it seem like I’m the one who shot Thornton.
They’re trying to make me take the blame.
She works for that Masters woman.
She did it. They probably both did it together.”

“Mary Lee did not kill Thornton Mitchell,” Stoney said.
He moved closer, hand outstretched.
His voice softened.
“Put the gun down, Momma.”

“She did it,” his mother insisted.
“I’m telling you she did.
She’s the type.
They just want to make me look bad.
They want to make you look bad.
They’re trying to take us down.
I’m not going to let them.”

Stoney stepped between me and his mother. “Give me the shotgun,” he repeated slowly, a hand outstretched. “This woman did not kill Thornton Mitchell,” he told her.
“And Mary Lee could not have killed him, either.
She’s not that type of person, Momma.
She couldn’t take another life.
Think of what you’re saying.
She’s not the kind of person to take another life.”

“Not take another life?” the old woman shouted.
“She’s trying to take yours.
Can’t you see that?
She’d do anything to win.
She’d kill and cheat and steal and she’d use this cheap tramp here to help her.
Why can’t you see what kind of person you’re up against?
We could lose this election, Stonewall.
We could lose it all.
She’ll stop at nothing to defeat you.”

“Momma!” Stoney’s voice grew louder until it filled the room.
“Give me the gun.
They had nothing to do with Mr. Mitchell’s murder.
Let the police find out who did.”

“I won’t,” she shouted back.
“Why won’t you ever listen to me!
I’ve tried to tell you from the start what that Masters woman was like, but you won’t listen to me.”

Stoney pushed the barrel to one side and grabbed his mother’s arm, forcing the shotgun toward the roof. “Mother,” he said evenly—and every word that followed was slowly and clearly pronounced, as if it pained him to say them out loud: “Stop saying such things right this minute.
Mary Lee Masters could not have shot Thornton Mitchell.
She was with me when he was killed.”

I almost felt sorry for the old bird after that.
She melted to the floor with a god awful sobbing and curled up on the carpet like a baby, gulping for air and moaning nonsense. For sixty-five years she had maintained that steely southern woman control and now that she was losing her shit, she was losing it big time.

I don’t even think she noticed when the backup unit finally arrived, bursting through the front door about ten minutes too late to do anyone any good.
They’d been too busy standing around outside arguing about what to do ever since Stoney had driven up and gone inside the house.
What if he was in on it? They didn’t want to blow their chance to get him on tape.
No one had been too worried about blowing my chances, it seemed.

Stoney didn’t have a clue as to what was going on.
I was the lucky one who got to break it to him.
“She killed him,” I said when he tried to interfere with the female officer who was snapping handcuffs on his mother.

He stared at me blankly.

“Your mother shot Thornton Mitchell,” I explained.
“Ask him.”

I nodded toward the sofa. Adam Stoltz was leaning over the arm of the couch, throwing up on the white carpet.
He nodded miserably and wiped his mouth with
his sleeve.
“Something’s the matter with that woman,” he said.

Stoney stared after his mother.
She looked shrunken and frail, hunched up between two officers as they practically carried her outside.
He didn’t say a word to me.
He just turned around and went after her.

Frank Waters and his cameraman were waiting at the edge of the lawn.
They were up and shooting before Bill Butler or anyone else could stop them, at least not without being captured on film attempting to squelch Frank’s First Amendment rights.

The story led all the morning news shows, including the national ones.
Footage showed Stoney Maloney comforting his mother as she was led to a waiting police car while arresting officer Bill Butler held court on the front steps, explaining how he had tracked down the killer of Thornton Mitchell. Frank Waters did an admirable job of filling in available background information and viewers could detect nary a wheeze as he rumbled on about Mitchell’s connection to Senator Boyd Jackson who, by the way, he told an astonished nation, was dying from lung cancer.

His follow-up story aired a week later and it ended up saving the district attorney about $20,000 in investigative fees.
Frank had done all the legwork for him. Thornton Mitchell, he reported, had long been contributing cash to Boyd Jackson’s campaigns and, though it had been hidden from Stoney Maloney’s knowledge by his own family, Thornton had also secretly bankrolled Stoney’s tuition and expenses through his undergraduate and law school years at Duke as a way to compensate the Senator for favors rendered—without the public knowing.
When Mitchell’s business went sour once Boyd Jackson was too ill to protect him, he had approached Sandy Jackson for help.
It was time to repay past favors and to help an old friend.
She had responded by investing in his new project: the failed Neuse River Park.
In typically efficient fashion, she had killed two birds with one stone, paying back her old family medical advisor, Dr.
Robert Dahler, for his silence on Boyd Jackson’s true medical condition by making him a partner in the venture.

When the proposal failed, it left her angry, Dahler without payment, and Thornton Mitchell still in the hole. Worse, Mitchell discovered that a local reporter was planning a story on his dealings.
Frustrated, he had called the reporter numerous times, as Frank could personally attest, perhaps to trade information on Boyd Jackson in return for Frank’s silence.
But he had hung up without speaking and continued running scared.

Desperate, Mitchell had returned to Sandy Jackson with another ace card up his sleeve: he knew that Boyd Jackson was dying from lung cancer.
He had spotted the senator at Memorial Hospital while attending a heart clinic there and uncovered the information he needed once he realized the family was trying to keep their visits quiet.
He had agreed to meet Sandy Jackson in the most secluded spot they knew: the banks of the failed Neuse River Park plot.
Both felt betrayed.
One had a shotgun.
The murder had been a surprise.
Thornton had been killed in front of a terrified Adam Stoltz and dumped in Mary Lee’s driveway in an attempt to discredit her campaign.
Mitchell’s car had been dumped on Ramsey Lee’s land because of his past record and in hopes of promoting a conspiracy theory between the two cousins. Sandy Jackson herself had called the police, posing as a teenage girl who’d been out parking with her boyfriend.

It was, I thought, pure Sandra Douglas Jackson.
That woman always tried to do a little too much at once.

By the time the show was over, Frank Waters had left the local stations of North Carolina far behind.
He has his own national news show now.
It airs right after “Firing Line.” The fame didn’t stop him from losing his hair.

Stoney Maloney came through the ordeal looking like an Eagle scout.
He had never known of Thornton Mitchell’s involvement in his life and his statements were convincing.
So was the volunteer lie detector test he took to prove his innocence.
He released the tape of the proceedings in their entirety and clips were played on the evening news.
I recognized Stoney’s father by his side.
Without Sandy Jackson blocking the way, Albert Maloney had turned into a father at last.
He looked like he was there to stay.
Stoney had lost a mother, but gained a father.
It could have been a far worse deal.
Most of all, Stoney’s unwavering support of his mother and his behavior following her indictment showed him to be a man who believed in doing the right thing, no matter how difficult or personally embarrassing.
He was even discovered by the press visiting the daughter of Thornton Mitchell to offer his condolences on her loss and his apologies for the role his family had played in it.

This grace in the face of constant press coverage won him the election four weeks later—and I was one of the people who voted for him.
I stood before the ballot machine finding myself the first family member in history to ever cast a vote in favor of a Republican.
But I think my grandpa would have approved. He hated fat cats, but he hated phonies even more.
Stoney Maloney was no phony.
I think I finally knew who he really was.

Mary Lee remained a mystery.
She never did get back into politics after she lost the race to Stoney.
At least, not as a candidate.

I met with her the day after the arrest of Sandra Douglas Jackson.
It was the only honest conversation I believe we ever had.

“So,” I said to her.
“You’re Stoney Maloney’s mystery woman.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Casey,” she said.
“I really love him.
If this gets out, he’ll be ruined.”

“I don’t plan to talk about it,” I told her, marveling that she was actually thinking about someone else for a change.
“I wish you both the best of luck.
You’ll need it.”

“Here.” She slid a blank check across the desk toward me.
“Fill in whatever you want.
You’ve earned it.
I know you don’t like me, but you did a good job for me anyway.
I’m willing to pay the price.”

“All right,” I agreed, filling out the check so she could see the amount.
I billed her exactly what we had agreed on: triple my usual rate plus expenses.
And I threw in another thousand for a new Anne Klein pantsuit as I was unlikely to discover another thrift shop bargain in this century.

Then I saved her about ten thousand dollars in divorce costs.

“I have a present for you,” I told her. “It’s on the house.”

Her eyes narrowed.
She was one of the few people in the world even more suspicious than me.
“What kind of present?” she asked.

“You know those obscene phone calls you’ve been getting?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.
“Is there a connection?”

“In a way.” I smiled.
“Bradley’s been making them.
And I have the phone records to prove it.”

“Bradley?” she said, astonished.
“Who makes obscene phone calls to their own wife?”

“Bradley.
I guess he really does feel threatened by your success.” I shrugged.
“You started moving up in the polls, his business started going south. He cracked.
That’s why the caller knew so much about you.
But I think he was really getting off on it, Mary Lee.
He even called you all the way from Nassau just to scare the shit out of you.
That’s how I caught him.
And that was after he knew Mitchell’s body had been found in your car.
It
turns out that Channel Five is the CBS affiliate down in the Bahamas.
He saw the report on it and didn’t even bother to come home.
He stayed there boffing his coed and dialing your private number so he could talk to you about tying you up in your panties during your darkest hour. He’s a true prince among men.”

“What a creep.” She stared out the office door, her mind calculating when he had called and just what he had said.
And how she could get rid of him.
And that was where I could help her out.

“Bradley’s not embarrassed by his screwing around, is he?” I asked.

She shook her head.
“I suspect he thinks it makes him look better.”

“But he would be embarrassed if the whole world knew he was a weaselly pervert who got off whispering into the phone about high heels and lingerie?”

“Oh, yeah.” Mary Lee nodded emphatically. “Bradley likes his country clubs and well-connected friends.
He’d die if anyone knew.
And his father would kill him.
Bradley’s already run through his share of his grandmother’s money.
His only hope is to inherit more when his father kicks off.”

“Well, then, Mary Lee,” I explained slowly. “Let’s just say, for argument’s sakes, that you and Bradley shared a past secret and that you were staying married to him because of that secret.”

She stared at me but did not open her mouth. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“Only now that you have something on him,” I explained, “you can dump the bastard without fear, if you want.”

She wanted.
Within a year, she had gotten her divorce and moved to Washington, D.C.
She arrived in the capitol the very same week that the former Senator Boyd
Jackson died of lung cancer, his devoted nephew by his side.
Mary Lee married Stoney Maloney the following autumn and every political reporter from here to California cracked the same dumb joke about politics making for strange bedfellows.
I wondered if Mary Lee accompanied Stoney on his monthly visits to see Momma at the Women’s Correctional Center in Raleigh.
Somehow I doubted it.

Yes, Sandra Douglas Jackson was convicted. She was found perfectly sane, perfectly crafty, and perfectly guilty of first-degree murder.
Mostly because Adam Stoltz crowed like a rooster on Easter Sunday once he took that witness stand. What a performance.
But in a way, Sandy Jackson escaped punishment. They didn’t give her the death penalty.
They only gave her life. And that had already been taken from her.

Adam Stoltz survived with a better deal than anyone of us could ever have imagined.
He wrote a best-selling book while in jail serving his time.
It was supposed to be about politics.
That way, Thornton Mitchell’s family couldn’t claim the profits.
But it sold like hotcakes because everyone knew that the author had been there that cool October night when a genteel southern woman of the highest social order had pumped a round of shells into the chest of her oldest and most secret friend.

Thornton Mitchell had bought a lifetime of secret favors from Boyd Jackson, exchanging badly needed cash for forty years of closed-door deals.
It had been an arrangement made as both men were just starting out, with Sandy Jackson serving as broker.
But Mitchell had ultimately paid for the association with his life.
Four decades of mutual corruption had ended with the jerk of a trigger finger and a pool of blood in the sand.
Being a witness to this conclusion made Adam Stoltz a very rich convict.

The rest of us didn’t do too bad, either. Ramsey Lee could have sued for false arrest but the SBI had been embarrassed enough, and he had better things to do with his money. He’s still blocking development along the Neuse today.