by Justin Scott
“No! His father was there. No, I dropped him at the gate.” She hesitated.
I asked, “Did he go to bed?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did he go in the house?”
“No, his father was always ragging him about drinking. Dicky said he was going to sleep in the woods. It was a beautiful day. Remember?”
“Glorious.”
“There was a spot down the stream where he liked to hang out. We’d go down there sometimes if his dad was out in the fields. It was beautiful—all cool and shady.”
“Sounds buggy,” I said, considering the garment doffing required to compare safe sex manuals.
“Not really. There were dragonflies. Dicky said they ate the bugs.”
“Did his dad know he was seeing you?”
“Sort of. We never came right out and said it, but he’d see my mom’s truck and must have known something.”
“So you think Dicky slept it off in the woods.”
“The last I saw, that’s where he was heading.”
“But, Josie…What did he do when he woke up?”
“He was staggering. He could hardly walk down the hill. There wasn’t time to get sober enough to do what the cops say he did.”
When I drink way too much, I usually pop wide awake about two hours after I hit the hay, up and roaring to go. Several hours later, of course, I’m begging for death. But immediately upon awakening I’m fairly sharp. Sharp enough to sneak an armload of Dad’s dynamite down to the neighbor’s dam? Possibly, provided I had such a dad and such a neighbor. It might even seem like a good idea at the time.
“What are you thinking?” Josie asked.
Maybe the threat of death had mellowed Dicky. Maybe all those regrets he had spouted about his father had presaged major changes. Maybe. “Did you tell this to Trooper Moody?”
“Are you kidding? He hated Dicky’s guts.”
“How about the state police detectives?”
Josie stared hard. “Told her to take a hike. Leaning on me about U.S. Army responsibility.”
“I thought no one knew about you.”
“Bitch pulled me over the night at the funeral home.”
Busy, busy Marian. “What did she ask you?”
“When did I see Dicky last? Did he say he was going to do it? All that stuff.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing.” High school diploma and corporal’s stripes aside, she was still a Jervis. “What do you think?” she asked again.
“I’m sorry. I think it’s very hard to believe that he didn’t accidentally kill himself while blowing up the dam.”
“You don’t get it,” she said. “I thought you’d understand, being his friend.”
“Understand what?”
“That it wasn’t him.”
All I understood was that it certainly looked like it was him. And it was a Dicky thing to do. Or was it?
Maybe my mouth dropped a little. She demanded, “What? What are you thinking?”
His girlfriend didn’t think he did it.
His father didn’t think he did it.
And actually, in one way it wasn’t at all a Dicky thing to do. He wasn’t a sneak attack guy. He would punch you in the face, not in the back.
“If he didn’t do it, how did he end up under it?”
“Maybe he was sleeping there instead of the woods.”
“On King’s property?”
“He was drunk.”
“That’s a bit of a walk for a drunk.”
“Maybe he took a swim in the lake. Then climbed out and fell asleep and it blew up on him.”
But he had been wearing boots, I remembered. And gloves. “Assuming it did. Who blew it up?”
“His father.”
“His father?” My client, whose innocence I was supposed to prove. “Why do you say that?”
“Who else? He’s in jail, right?”
“The difference between jail and prison is the people in jail haven’t been convicted yet.” A fine distinction, but one a Jervis child should appreciate. “And he’s charged with helping Dicky. Conspiracy for helping him, and accessory to murder for accidentally killing him.”
“He didn’t help Dicky. He did it himself. Who else would have done it? He hated Mr. King.”
“Mr. Butler says he didn’t do it.” Of course, he also said he knew for a fact that Dicky didn’t do it.
Someone fired up the jukebox. Josie got teary again. “Dicky’s favorite song.” She sang with it in the strong contralto she had inherited from her mother, “‘…Now I am guilty of something I hope you never do. ’Cause there’s nothing any sadder than losing yourself in love.’”
When it was over, and Megadeth started blasting a White Birch standard, I asked “Did Dicky tell you anything that would implicate his father?”
“Not exactly,” she answered carefully. “But he did say how much his dad hated King.”
“What do you do with all this?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“It was an accident. His father didn’t mean to kill him. And if he did, knowing he did will be a horrible punishment.”
“Do you really believe this, Josie? Or do you just want to?”
“Hey, I don’t care if Dicky blew up some rich bastard’s dam. And I sure can’t blame his poor father for an accident. He’s dead either way.”
Chubby cheeks, eyeglasses and pressed Army fatigues notwithstanding, Josie was Gwen Jervis’ daughter. Simultaneously cold and passionate. A great friend. Or a terrible enemy.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I didn’t come looking for you. You asked. You were his friend. Who else would I tell?”
“You could tell your mother.”
“What for?”
“Comfort. Don’t underestimate her. She’s one of the smarter people I know.”
“She’s really hot for you.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I said my mom is really hot for you.”
I thought she’d said that. “Your mother and I go back a long way,” I answered, firmly. “And there’s been times we were special friends. Times we stood up for each other.”
“Because you’re screwing her?”
“What?”
Josie gave me a neutral smile. “You heard me.”
Unexpectedly intimate with the young soldier, thanks to Dicky Butler, it still felt strange to say, “I haven’t slept with your Mom since I was fourteen years old.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I said, rocketed in memory to a hot summer night; an icy six-pack Pink had thrust grinning into my hands; a wild and worldly grown-up older girl leading me into the dark, twining a long red braid around my neck, laughing at my excitement and mocking my fear. For which I would be forever grateful.
“I was sure you were.”
“What in hell gave you that idea?”
“Right after I went into the Service she got all silly. Started wearing makeup again and growing her hair like a teenager. I thought she was sleeping with you.”
“No such luck,” I said, making sure I smiled.
“Are you telling me the truth? Because I told you the truth. I told you stuff I never told anybody but Dicky.”
“I know that. And I’m flattered. I am telling you the truth. I don’t lie. And if you think about it, I have no reason to lie.”
“Well, she was sleeping with somebody and it wasn’t my dad because he was out in the Gulf.”
Buddy Jervis—he and Gwen were not-so-distant cousins—was apt to forget his mailing address while working oil rigs in distant fields. Particularly when it came to sending checks. My sympathies and loyalties lay with Gwen. Nonetheless, it seemed a moment to be avuncular.
“Your parents have been together a long time.”
That was a big help. Josie started crying, again. “I thought
it would be like that with Dicky.”
Around my second boot in mouth I mumbled something brilliant like, “I’ll bet.”
“Some people are HIV a long time.”
More than are immune to dynamite.
Gwen came back to the table with a dangerous glint in her eye. I defused it with a private glance that things were better with Josie.
I went home and combed a salad out of the garden, which July’s rains had choked with weeds.
DaNang didn’t want any. I tipped several pounds of dry food in the washtub we were using for a bowl and freshened his water. He watched me with a baleful eye and made an angry sound.
“What the hell are you growling about?”
He stared. I stared. Suddenly his tail thumped for Alison in the doorway.
“That’s his whine, not his growl.”
“Sounded like a growl to me. Why’s he whining?”
“He likes a can of liverwurst on his dry food.”
“Since when?”
“Couple of days ago. I tried it. He liked it.”
“Liverwurst doesn’t come in cans.”
She climbed onto a counter and opened a high cupboard door. “Here.”
“That is not liverwurst.That is pâté de fois gras.”
“Well, you’re almost out. You’re going to have to get some more.”
The phone rang before I fed her to him.
“Yes!”
“Ben, this is Julia Devlin.” Wielding her used-to-being-obeyed voice.
“Hey. How are you?”
“Henry heard you called at the gate.” She made it sound like I’d been lurking there with a grenade launcher.
“I was in the neighborhood. Had something I wanted to talk to him about.”
“Come up. We’re having a little cookout.”
Orders roared by naval commanders dodging torpedoes cut more slack than that supper invitation.
“I’ll bring the salad.”
Chapter 15
I assumed that “a little cookout” at the King manse meant barbecue for thirty. But little it was. Family night: just Henry King and Mrs. King; Josh Wiggens, half in the bag; Bertram Wills, holding his side and chuckling, “Very funny, Henry,” at diplomatic intervals; and Julia. And me. And the reinstated butler, of course, Jenkins, dressed down in blazer and white flannels to shuttle ingredients to the aproned and chef-toqued master of the house who was presiding over an elaborate gas-fired brick grill.
Bob Dylan notwithstanding, Fox Trot’s architect should have had a weatherman tell him which way the wind blew. Or maybe he didn’t listen. Most architects don’t. Which is why savvy homebuilders keep them under house arrest and engage landscape designers to do the outside. King hadn’t, and was paying the price.
Smoke billowed across his hungry audience into the house, instead of away from it. Flames leaped at his face. He had to retreat off the patio and, standing on the grass, lean over the backside of the grill to grope for the food somewhere in the conflagration. Oddly, it didn’t seem to diminish his pleasure.
No clue, so far, about my presence. But while I waited, what a treat! A perfect summer evening. Two lovely women: blonde Mrs. King camera-ready, every bit the trophy wife, and Julia, the great man’s loyal retainer, demurely sexy in black cotton.
Ex-spy Wiggens sober enough to be wittily acerbic; former-secretary Wills a storehouse of insider stories, which he directed at Mrs. King under the guise of entertaining the group. Excellent Pinot Noir, Calera, lightly chilled in deference to the temperature. Glimpses of a sunset to die for. And ample cold hors d’oeuvres, while things went to hell at the grill.
I leaned close to Mrs. King and inquired, discreetly, whether her husband might want some help. Some guys do, some definitely don’t.
“He would like to bond,” she whispered back, apparently in all seriousness. It’s one of the ways women account for why men cook outdoors. So I let the butler refill my glass—asked quietly for a spray bottle of the sort used to mist houseplants—and dutifully rose to bond with my host. He greeted me with a game grin.
“The wind’s in the wrong direction.”
“Usually is.”
“If it came from there”—he pointed east—“it would be perfect.”
It would also be raining. Information I kept to myself.
King sacrificed the hair on his arm to paint a massive veal chop with an orange-colored sauce. I knew damned well he didn’t want to hear that it was time to turn it.
He turned to me, instead. “What did you want to see me about?”
Talking to him was like facing a split-screen ThinkPad. Document One was a jolly gent enjoying late middle age as only the wealthy can, taking for granted that come evening’s end he would wash the barbecue smoke out of his hair in a marble shower while his luscious wife scrubbed his back and bankers compounded his interest. Document Two, the shrewd operator who could gobble rewards all night and still wake up hungry.
I pressed “1” for the jolly-gent option. “Mr. Butler’s in the Plainfield jail.”
“I know that. Conspiracy to dynamite my dam and accessory to murder.”
“I was wondering if you’d help spring him.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“There’s no conspiracy. Dicky did it himself. And killed himself by accident.”
He didn’t argue that. He only said, “How would I ‘spring’ him, even if I wanted to, which I don’t?”
“Offer to pay for his defense.”
“Pay for his defense? Me? What good would that do?”
“It would certainly catch the court’s attention. At least the judge would reconsider bail.”
“Isn’t the community safer with him under lock and key?”
“He’s a farmer, sitting in jail, worrying about his stock.”
“His neighbor’s taking care of the cows.”
“And I’ve got his dog. And the neighbor’s got his own farm to run. But that’s not the point. The poor man just shouldn’t be locked up. I saw him today. He’s deteriorating badly.”
“Perhaps he should be transferred to a prison hospital.”
“The shrink feels he’s better off in a local jail where he can have visitors. There’s a couple of Vietnam vets have been stopping by. But she also feels he’ll crack up in a week if we can’t get him out.”
“Do you see down there, what they did to my lake?”
I saw a gathering of large yellow machines that rented for ten dollars a minute, each. “‘They’ didn’t do that. Dicky did that. And died doing it. The poor guy’s lost his only child. He’s suffered plenty. Help me get him out.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I know it sounds crazy. But look at it this way. You’ll look like a hero. Rich man on the hill cares about the common man.”
King looked at me. The jolly gent of late middle age drifted off on the smoke. “I’m not running for public office, Mr. Abbott. I don’t give a flying fuck what the common man thinks of me.”
“Do you want to testify at a public trial?” I asked the hungry diplomat.
“I’m not looking forward to it, but I’ll do my duty as a citizen.”
“Do you really want to sit in a witness stand while Ira Roth picks through the details of your land feud?”
“Are you threatening me?” He got an angry, ugly look on his face.
I was angry, too. What was going on just wasn’t right. “I don’t have to threaten you. I’m telling you what’s going to happen.”
“And what’s going to happen?” he demanded.
Julia Devlin stirred in the corner of my eye, watching intently, while pretending to listen to whatever Mrs. King was saying to her and Bert Wills. Josh Wiggens noticed her interest, lowered his glass, and tracked her gaze toward me, his face hardening.
“Abbott, I asked are you threatening me?”
A newspaper reporter once told me he’d been taught to ask the hardest que
stion first. I asked King, “Do the people you report to want your business scrutinized in a public trial?”
Henry King did a beautiful job of covering his surprise. He’d have been hell across a poker table. And, in fact, I did not know for sure whether my spy barb had gone home. Until he started fencing.
“My clients are even less impressed by the common man than I am.”
“All of them?”
“Don’t act naive. You played this game before you ran home with your tail between your legs. Did you notice the man in the street for even one second when you plundered the financial markets?”
“His representatives noticed me,” I replied. “It took them awhile, but they caught on. And when they did, they didn’t display much of a sense of humor about it. Or much tolerance. Something you might keep in mind.”
“Ah, but you committed the cardinal sin,” King smiled.
“You mean I got caught.”
“Much worse. You lost faith in yourself.”
He was an excellent fencer. He had struck home with that one and I was astonished how thoroughly he had had me investigated. You couldn’t get what he knew by reading my trial transcript. Much less the newspapers.
“When you’re caught I doubt that your ‘clients’ will grant you a trial. They’ll destroy you behind your back. They’ll expose your…Gee, I’m a little speechless. The only word that comes to mind is ‘treachery’ and it sounds so melodramatic.”
For a moment he looked like he’d run me through with his barbecue fork. Instead, he probed my guard. “I’m told you refused to turn state’s evidence. You could have saved yourself. Why didn’t you testify?”
“I was taught not to rat.”
“In prison?”
“Prep school.”
“The word on the Street is you were too dumb to turn in the woman who set you up.”
“Always been a sucker for a pretty face.”
“She’s running one of the hottest shops on the Street and you’re stuck in Newbury.”
“And you have ordered Julia to go dredging up my past, again, to find something to use against me so I’d stop helping Mr. Butler.”
King ignored that. “I’m also told that the insider case sucked and you didn’t really break the law.”
“I violated the spirit of the law. I got what I deserved.”