by Brad Smith
‘No. I didn’t know if I should or not. Nothing’s been made public. He’s a pretty sharp old bird. And there’s some influence there too.’
‘What kind of influence? I thought he was a farmer.’
‘His brother’s a senator. The family’s old-time Liberals.’
‘For Chrissakes,’ Bud said.
‘Yeah. You keep telling me we might have to go through an environmental assessment. I been hearing all it takes to shit-can an assessment is for somebody in the capitol to whisper in somebody else’s ear.’
‘Well, that can’t happen,’ Bud said. ‘I’ve already leaked the Michigan pull-out to my guy at the Times. This has to be a slam dunk. It goes like this – one day the city admits that there’s no place that’ll take our garbage, and the next day Bud Stephens delivers the Talbotville plan. Game, set and match.’
‘I’m just saying there might be a problem,’ Hofferman said.
Bud sipped the hot tea while he thought about it. ‘You say you talked to him on the phone? Not in person?’
‘Yeah, on the phone,’ Hofferman said. ‘I figured maybe you should talk to him.’
Bud nodded and drank his tea. ‘All right, then.’
Not that Bud had any appreciation for such things, but the McIntosh farm on the Irish Line was immaculate. A wide curved lane shaded by ancient white oaks led to a fieldstone house, behind which stood a number of barns and outbuildings painted green with white trim. The front yard was enormous and there was a pond along one side, the grass around the edges meticulously trimmed. The level of water in the pond was low due to the heatwave and the drought, and as Bud drove his Escalade into the driveway an old man in overalls was standing by the water’s edge cutting lily pads with a scythe-like blade on the end of a long pole. The old man wore a cap with a Massey Ferguson logo on the front. Bud was pretty sure that his name was John McIntosh.
They sat on the porch and talked. The old man lived alone, he said, having lost his wife two years earlier. He was eighty-one years old. They discussed the weather for a bit. Bud knew that people who lived in the country were obsessed with the subject, probably because they had nothing else to talk about. He kept expecting the old man to ask him why he was there, but he never did. He was a sly old bastard; he was going to make Bud come out with it.
‘What’s in the pond?’ Bud asked.
‘Nothing. Oh, some frogs and maybe some little catfish.’
‘What’s it good for?’
‘I don’t know that it’s good for anything,’ John McIntosh said. ‘I had it dug when my kids were little. I built a raft for them. And they used to sail their toy boats in it too. Nowadays I just try to keep the cattails and lily pads from taking over.’
‘Why don’t you just fill it in?’ Bud asked.
‘I don’t think I will.’
Bud told him then that he was a councilor from Rose City, and after a moment he added that he was a lifelong Liberal, which wasn’t even remotely true. The old man nodded upon hearing the information, although he seemed to be little impressed with either claim. When Bud told him that the city was possibly thinking of putting in a landfill on the concession across the road, the old man nearly spit up a lung.
‘That’s preposterous,’ he sputtered. ‘That’s good farmland. What kind of idiot would do a thing like that?’
‘The surveyors have done their work,’ Bud said. ‘They tell us it’s a good spot for a landfill.’
‘That land drains into the river,’ the old man said. ‘How are you going to contain the run-off? Who will guarantee that?’
‘Well, now, the engineers have assured me that would not be a problem,’ Bud lied. ‘With modern methods, we can pretty much assure, um … what they call safe containment.’
The old man sat silently for a time, but his eyes were narrow and his mouth was working, even though no sound came out. After a long while he nodded his head. ‘I guess we’re going to have to see about this,’ he said.
Bud glanced at his Escalade, parked in the drive. ‘It’s progress, Mr McIntosh,’ he tried then. ‘We’re a disposable society, that’s the sad truth. We can turn a blind eye to it, or we can meet the problem head on. It’s up to leaders like me to see that our trash is disposed of properly.’
‘You figure you’re a leader?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘I’d say you’re a nincompoop, running with a bunch of other nincompoops.’
Bud blinked a couple times. The comment actually hurt. He’d been called any number of names since entering public life but never a nincompoop. ‘You can think what you want,’ he replied after a moment.
‘We’ll have to see about this,’ the old man said again. ‘I was born in this house. I don’t figure on getting up every morning and looking at a goddamn dump across the road.’
Bud thought about that line as he drove back to the city. The fucking arrogance of it. How one man decided he would stand in the path of progress. It infuriated Bud.
Like most selfish people, Bud had little time for other selfish people.
Bud and Deanna Stephens were invited to Saturday dinner at the Sandersons’. Louise and The Mayor had people over almost every Saturday, although Bud and Deanna were rarely included. This night there were just the four of them. The Mayor cooked a prime rib roast on a spit in the stainless steel gas barbeque he’d bought that afternoon at Hackett’s Hardware. The unit was five-feet long and, along with the rotisserie, it had six burners, a warmer and a steamer for vegetables or seafood.
‘What did that set you back?’ Bud asked.
‘More than my first car,’ The Mayor replied.
‘It probably has more options than your first car.’ They were drinking manhattans on the patio, with The Mayor raising the stainless-steel lid from time to time to make sure the beef was still turning.
‘I’m glad Aunt Louise called,’ Bud said. ‘I need to talk to you but I wasn’t sure about the timing. I assume you’ve had a rough week.’
‘Don’t call her Aunt Louise.’
‘I’ve been calling her that since I started to talk.’
‘It’s time to stop.’
Bud shook his head in apology.
‘I’ve had a good week,’ The Mayor said. His tone was clipped. He had another look at the roast before continuing. ‘I’m seven days closer to exoneration.’
Bud, still back on his heels, took a drink. ‘I intended to make it down to the courthouse one day but I’ve been tied up. The landfill. And Hofferman.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘First of all, Michigan is officially out of it,’ Bud said. ‘It hasn’t been announced yet but as of the end of next year, they won’t be taking any more of our trash.’
‘And you thought I didn’t know that?’ The Mayor asked. ‘What’s with Hofferman?’
Bud told him about the old farmer John McIntosh with the brother in the senate and the vow to throw a monkey wrench into the works. The Mayor waved the old farmer away like he was swatting a fly.
‘Influence,’ he snorted. ‘Politics doesn’t drive this. Money does. Our current and temporary mayor is going to suggest we send our trash north. We want to send it out to Talbotville, an hour away. Anybody with enough brains to check out the price of fuel will know which is the better plan. Does this Hofferman have the land sewed up?’
‘Says he does,’ Bud replied. ‘He’d better have.’
‘You don’t believe him?’
‘This guy is as dumb as dirt,’ Bud said. ‘I don’t know how he manages, but he does. That land still needs to be re-zoned. You don’t think people aren’t going to be screaming for an environmental assessment?’
‘Let them scream. There’s not going to be an assessment.’
‘Why not?’
The Mayor gave Bud a look that suggested that he was asking stupid questions. Bud fell silent under the stare. The Mayor ignored the pout, emptied his glass and then poured another drink from a pitcher. He added ice cubes before offering the pitcher
to Bud, who had a refill and changed the subject.
‘So how was Miles Browning in action? The Times referenced Clarence Darrow. The Gazette compared him to Johnny Cochran.’
The Mayor smiled. ‘So who does that make me … John Scopes or O.J. Simpson?’
‘They both got off,’ Bud reminded him.
The Mayor had a drink. ‘Watching Browning at work is like watching a Cy Young winner on the mound. He never rattles, never throws the wrong pitch. I’ll tell you something about him. When I hired him, he asked me if I might consider making a deal with the Crown, some sort of plea bargain to avoid the publicity of a trial. I told him absolutely not. And then he told me that if I had said yes, he would not have represented me. That’s a winner.’
The sky was threatening rain so they ate inside. Louise had prepared roasted potatoes and asparagus. Deanna brought her Waldorf salad, known for being almost inedible. Louise opened two bottles of Chilean red. The meat turned out well.
‘What did you expect?’ The Mayor asked. ‘A forty-dollar roast cooked on a five-thousand-dollar barbecue.’
The conversation rested for an inordinate amount of time on the Stephenses’ upcoming trip to Portugal, with Deanna describing sights they had yet to see, meals they had yet to ingest, wines not tasted.
‘Are you two getting away this summer?’ Bud asked during a lull in the blathering.
The Mayor nodded. ‘We’re going to Patagonia next month. Trout fishing. I’ve hired the guide that Tom Brokaw uses.’
‘I thought, with the trial and all …’ Bud said.
‘This trial will be over very quickly,’ The Mayor assured him.
‘We don’t have to discuss it tonight,’ Deanna said.
‘We can discuss it,’ The Mayor said. ‘It’s not some secret. In a few days, it will be over. And then we’ll have no need to discuss it again.’
‘But that’s not true,’ Louise said.
‘What’s not true?’
‘After the acquittal, we will definitely be talking about it,’ she said. ‘In earnest. These women didn’t just decide to start telling lies on a whim. Somebody has an agenda here, and we’re going to find out who.’
‘You don’t think McBride was involved?’ Bud asked.
‘Maybe not him,’ Louise said. ‘Maybe one of his guys, without his knowledge even. A Karl Rove. Face it – McBride would never have been elected without this.’
The Mayor smiled, said nothing as he poured more wine for himself.
‘This has been a terrible thing,’ Deanna said.
‘OK, let’s leave it for now,’ Louise said, watching The Mayor’s expression. ‘Deanna, where do you fly into? Lisbon?’
‘No, we actually—’
‘Enough about Portugal,’ Bud said. ‘Louise is right about this. Somebody has to be held accountable. And you know who can tell us? These four women.’
‘No,’ The Mayor said sharply. ‘I will not pursue this. I will clear my name and that will be the end of it. I’m seventy-two years old. I have no desire to run these women to ground. They have all suffered circumstances which we can only imagine. Broken families, drugs, you name it. I have nothing but sympathy for them.’
And that was the end of it.
NINE
Amanda Long was slated to testify on Monday morning. That changed abruptly when she showed up at the courtroom an hour late, and drunk. She denied being intoxicated at first but finally broke down and admitted to Grant that she’d gone off the wagon over the weekend. She hadn’t fallen off; the prospect of testifying had pushed her. Grant sensed that wasn’t quite the case. It was the notion of facing Browning that had done it. She’d been sober for three years and now she wasn’t and if he felt bad for her, he felt worse for himself.
Kate was standing in the hallway outside Grant’s office when he came out and told her.
‘So she’s not going to testify today,’ Kate said.
‘She’s not going to testify at all,’ Grant said.
A half-hour later Kate was on the stand. Grant, rattled by the abdication of Amanda Long, was off his game. He made a couple of false starts and as he stumbled through the standard background questions, Kate glanced over at the defense table. The Mayor was sticking with his Sunday-in-the-park pose, continuing for the most part to watch a spot on the wall above the jury. Browning, as well, appeared profoundly disinterested in the proceedings, at one point even turning in his chair to look over the spectators behind him.
Following his eyes, Kate saw that Carl was in the gallery, sitting beside Frances. David was at work. He wouldn’t have known that Kate would be testifying today. None of them did.
Kate had to wonder if Carl had shown up and sat alongside Frances uninvited. She and Frances had rarely talked about him, but she’d always sensed that Frances had little use for her father. Maybe that wasn’t true. It didn’t matter much to Kate, one way or the other.
He had surprised her though, showing up at the bar on Saturday when he did. Not only that, but he’d handled himself that day a lot better than she had. She could say that being surprised was the reason for her behavior but she knew that wasn’t true. She had wanted to dismiss him. And maybe even to hurt him. She had gotten used to not thinking about him. There was no up side to thinking about him. There was particularly no up side to that on a day like this, when she was supposed to be listening to Grant.
‘Where did you grow up?’ he was asking now.
‘I lived in Talbotville. A couple different places.’
‘With your parents?’ Grant, working the broken home angle again.
‘With my mother mostly,’ she said. ‘My parents split up when I was three years old.’ She pressed on, helping things along. ‘My mother died when I was eight and I went to live with my grandparents.’
‘In the town of Talbotville?’
‘No. They had a farm a few miles outside of town.’
Grant was still struggling to find his rhythm. He stood at the table for a time, going over his notes. Kate wished he would get out of the way, let her tell it. ‘How did you first meet Joseph Sanderson the third?’ he asked finally.
‘We did a field trip to city hall in Rose City. Grade ten English. The teacher picked three of us to interview him in the mayor’s office. It was short, five minutes or something like that.’ Kate rattled the information off as if by rote.
‘Tell the court what happened after that day.’
‘He phoned the school a week or two later and asked my teacher if he could see the pieces we’d written. She sent them to him and then he called me a couple days later. At my grandparents’.’
‘How did he get the number?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Did he call the other two students?’
‘No.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because I asked them.’
‘All right,’ Grant said. ‘He called you at home. What did he say?’
‘He complimented me on my writing. He said he’d been editor of his school paper in university. He said he wanted to be a writer but he wasn’t good enough. He told me I was a better writer than he was.’
‘And what did you think about this?’
‘I was flattered.’
‘When did you actually see him again?’
‘He called me a couple times, to talk about writing. He had suggestions, what I should write about. He told me about a story he’d written about this old trapper’s cabin near his property on Lake Sontag. He said the cabin had all this history, something about a murder in the nineteenth century, a murder that was never solved. He said he would give me the story if I wanted it. Maybe I could investigate it. Write about it myself.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I’d like to see it. He told me it was with all his university papers at his lake house there. One day he called and said he had to run up there for something, and he asked if I wanted to come along to get the story and have a look at the cabin. I was … I gu
ess I was pretty excited. I wanted to tell my English teacher about it, but he told me not to. He said it would look like he was giving me preferential treatment over the other kids that had interviewed him. So I didn’t.’
‘Go on.’
‘He picked me up after school. He said it was sort of on the way to the lake. It was snowing, I remember. I was thinking we might not go, because of the snow.’
‘And when was this?’
‘February twenty-fourth, 1998. The lake was frozen, and the road that he said went to this old cabin was snowed in. He said it was too far to walk, so we would just get the papers from the house. I was disappointed. I wanted to see the cabin.’
‘Go on.’
‘We went to the lake house.’ Kate stopped. Browning was watching her now. The Mayor was once again cleaning his glasses. ‘We went inside. He said his papers were in a cabinet in the living room.’ She looked at The Mayor, vigorously rubbing the lenses with a tissue. ‘He raped me there on the living-room floor, on a rough carpet. He didn’t even take his coat off. I remember it stank of tobacco. His coat, I mean. I was crying and begging him to stop. He said he was teaching me. I was his student. He said I would learn to love it. When it was over he told me to get dressed and he drove me back to town. Before I got out of the car, he told me not to tell anybody because no one would ever believe me.’
Grant went back to his notes, picking up the papers and moving toward the jury as he studied them. The courtroom was quiet. He kept his eyes on the jury as he spoke.
‘Were you a virgin at the time of the attack?’
‘Yes.’
Grant regarded the jury a moment longer, then turned to walk briskly back to Kate.
‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I believed him.’
‘What about the papers he promised you? Did he give them to you?’
‘No. I don’t think there were any.’
‘Did he ever call you again?’
‘No.’
‘Did you ever see him again?’
‘Not in person.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was always on the news, or in the papers. I saw him there.’