The Hanging

by Wendy Hornsby

  When we came abreast of the administration building he quickly averted his eyes as if he could not look at the place where his father died. Instead, he kept his focus on the sidewalk ahead of us.

  “After work on Monday I went by the house to check on Harlan,” he said. “My mom was crying. I thought it was because my brother was having a snit about taking his meds, but that wasn’t it. She told me that she was furious with herself for not telling you the truth, that she was still protecting my father, reading from the old script.”

  “In what way?”

  “For one thing,” he said, “Mom told you the old lie about the reason she brought my brother and me back to Gilstrap when my father was in Congress.”

  “She told me that Gilstrap was a better place to raise kids than Washington.”

  “No offense to Gilstrap, but she loved D.C. One of the reasons she married Dad in the first place was because she knew he would get her out of Gilstrap.”

  “Why did you leave, then?”

  “Dad sent us away. Buried us to save his public façade.”

  “Would you explain that?”

  “My little brother was always a handful, just a really hyper kind of kid. Not a bad kid, but not the sort of boy Dad thought his son should be. Harlan won’t mind me telling you this: he got kicked out of middle school for smoking dope—kid stuff. From there, his drug use escalated. When he was fourteen he was picked up in a narco raid.

  “Dad had political ambitions beyond Congress and having a kid with a drug problem would get in his way. He kept saying that Jeb Bush would have been a presidential contender if he been able to manage his kids better, if that gives you an idea where Dad thought he was headed.

  “There’s too much press in D.C. so it’s impossible to cover up the messes congressional kids get into. Dad knew that the people of Gilstrap would protect their own. So we got sent down from the majors.”

  “And your mother assumed responsibility for that decision.”

  “Dad gave her a script and she stuck to it,” he said with a grim smile. “Dad’s constituents don’t think much of Washington, so when Mom said she preferred to raise her boys in the bosom of the community she grew up in, people ate it up; my brother and I were already teenagers, nearly grown already. Dad talked about the hardship of being separated from his family, but that was pure Park Holloway bullshit.”

  “You don’t think he missed you?”

  “I know he didn’t. And to tell you the truth, though I loved him because he was my father, we were better off without him around. Less stress.”

  “Then he suddenly dropped out of politics altogether,” I said. “Do you have any idea why?”

  Trey thought about the question for a moment.

  “I don’t know exactly,” he said. “But something happened. That year that he resigned, he had come home from Washington in the spring to gear up for fall elections. He’d always loved campaigning, but it was like something or someone had popped his balloon, you know. All the joy was gone. He could hardly get himself out of bed in the morning. Walked out on a big town hall meeting once, said he didn’t feel well, but he wasn’t sick.”

  “Any idea what was on his mind?”

  “I know he’d had a falling out with his old friend Hiram Chin. Dr. Chin always came and helped Dad with campaign strategy and fund-raising in California, but that year he didn’t.”

  “What was the issue?”

  “I was certainly not included in that information loop. But whatever it was, it knocked the foundations out from under my father.”

  “Your father and Hiram Chin did become friends again.”

  “After the accident,” he said. He needed no prompting to explain about the accident.

  “That spring we’re talking about, Dad and my brother took a drive up toward Yosemite,” he said. “Harlan was just a couple of weeks out of rehab but he had already relapsed. He should have gone right back in, but the insurance only covered him for twenty-eight days in any two-month period, so he had to wait for his eligibility to kick back in. I’m sure Dad thought that some fresh air and a good talking-to would set Harlan straight. Mom was just happy to see Dad taking the initiative about something—anything—again, and getting out of the house.”

  His hands balled into fists. “The car went off a mountain road and down a ravine.”

  “Were they injured?”

  “Dad had a seat belt on and came away with a broken collarbone and cuts and bruises. But Harlan, who never buckled up, was thrown clear. He broke both legs and had some head trauma. He doesn’t remember any of it. He was in a coma for a while, and when he woke up, he didn’t even know his name.”

  “Why did the car leave the road?”

  “Dad told the Highway Patrol that Harlan was driving and he probably fell asleep; he tested positive for pot. It’s a miracle that they survived. If a Forestry Service rescue crew hadn’t noticed the broken safety rail on the road right after they went over and gone looking, they might not have been found in that ravine until the next brush fire. You couldn’t see the car from the road.”

  “Could Harlan have driven off the road intentionally?”

  My question took him aback for a moment.

  “I told you we always covered for Dad,” he said. “The truth is, Dad was driving that day, not Harlan. Mom knew right away that he had lied to the rescue team and the Highway Patrol; he would never let Harlan drive him anywhere, much less a mountain road. Yes, it was intentional, but Dad did it. When Mom confronted him, he said he wanted to take both of them out of the picture, release her and me from our burden.”

  “But he wore his seat belt....”

  “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

  Hiram Chin’s question at the Malibu reception had new meaning for me. He wondered if his old friend had tried—a second time—to take his life.

  “In typical Dad fashion, it was his fault but he came out pretty much unscathed; Harlan was in the hospital for a month. He still walks with a limp and has seizures, and of course, he came out of the hospital addicted to painkillers. He’s now legally disabled, a dependent.”

  “Caring for him must be difficult for you and your mother.”

  He smiled gently as he shook his head. “Every now and then the old Harlan manages to show through. He was always a funny kid, a great jokester. In some ways, he was the uninhibited kid I wished I could be. No, we’re okay. Except...”

  I waited for him to decide whether he wanted to finish the statement. After a moment he looked up with a sad smile on his face.

  “Except for health insurance. As soon as Harlan exceeded his lifetime limit on the policy my parents took out for him when he aged off Dad’s congressional coverage, he was shown the door by the insurance company, and no other insurer would touch him. Dad has been covering my brother’s medical costs since then. Now I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”

  I let the last echo of those words fade before I asked, “Hiram Chin and your father reconciled after the accident?”

  “Yeah.” He seemed to shake himself. “Dad got some consulting work through Dr. Chin. Traveled quite a bit, spent some time in Asia advising on someone’s art collection, a passion of his.”

  “How did he come to work at Anacapa College?”

  “Dr. Chin again. He recommended Dad to someone he knew on the executive search committee here.”

  “With your father’s experience and credentials, I would expect him to aim at a major university.”

  “Maybe this place suited him. I don’t think he wanted to work all that hard.” He held up his hands. “I doubt he’d work anywhere, frankly, except that, as my dad’s legally disabled dependant, Harlan was covered by the college’s group health plan. Until Dad died.”

  I asked him if he knew Francis Weidermeyer, and he said he did, an acquaintance of his father. The two families had taken a trip together to China, Japan, and other parts of Asia when he was a teenager.

  “So you know his son.”

>   “Son? As far as I know, he only has daughters. Three of them.”

  Chapter 21

  It had stopped raining by the time I left campus. If it would hold off for a while, I would be able to get in a good run before I dressed for dinner with Jean-Paul. As I drove Mike’s big pickup truck away from campus there were so many things on my mind, bits and pieces of information and raw speculation, schedules to devise and juggle, that I was in that state Mike would have called HUA—head up ass—not paying a lot of attention to my surroundings, sort of flying on autopilot.

  At the four-way stop at the corner of Village Road and Main Street I paused long enough to see that I was the only car at the intersection, and made a right. Halfway through the turn I heard a single blast from a police siren, looked into my rearview mirror and saw a flashing red light atop a Crown Victoria close on my tail, a vehicle that was so obviously an unmarked police car it might as well have been painted black-and-white.

  Thinking, Oh damn, caught this time, I finished the turn and pulled to the curb in front of Skip’s Diner, grabbed my purse and was fishing out my license when I heard knuckles rapping on my window. I rolled down the window and held up my license while I continued to rifle through the accumulated junk in the glove box, looking for the newest registration card.

  I heard a chuckle, turned and saw the face of Detective Thornbury, lit by a wiseass grin, filling the driver’s side window.

  “Appears you’re awfully damn familiar with this drill, lady.”

  “Jesus, Detective,” I said, reaching for my wallet to put the license away again. “You startled me.”

  “Didn’t that poh-leeceman husband of yours give you a get-out-of-jail-free card to show when you get pulled over?”

  “I didn’t think I needed it this time,” I said. “If I got a ticket I was going to ask my old roommate’s husband to fix it. He’s very influential around here, you know.”

  “So I hear.” Thornbury leaned his forearms on the frame of the open window. “Saw you go by, Maggie, wanted to talk to you.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to pick up the phone and call me?”

  “Hell no,” he said, feigning disapproval. “Not when you’re driving. That’s a ticket even Tejeda wouldn’t fix.”

  He smiled. “Just a couple of words.”

  “Another time I’d invite you into Skip’s Diner for a cup of coffee,” I said. “But I really want to get home.”

  “Big date?”

  “Later,” I said. “But right now it isn’t raining and I want to go for a run before it starts again. So, was it something pressing you wanted to talk about?”

  “You didn’t say it was you who got shot yesterday,” he said, sounding like a scolding parent.

  “I’m sure that was in the chief’s report,” I said. “The one he left on your desk.”

  He let out a big puff of air. “Have we messed up so badly here?”

  “You’d get a better answer to that question from Chief Tejeda.”

  He looked up toward the sky, held out a palm; raindrops began to dot the windshield.

  “Sorry about the run. I’ll let you buy me that cup of coffee now.”

  As I got out of the truck, he said, with full male appreciation for the big, fully equipped vehicle, “Nice ride.”

  “It was my husband’s.”

  That seemed to make perfect sense to him.

  Lightning flashed across the sky in front of me. I started to count but only got to two before thunder rattled the air and shook the pavement under my feet. I am pathetically afraid of thunder and lightning. I don’t know what he saw in my reaction—I was having trouble breathing, my ears felt full of wool—but Thornbury grabbed me around the middle and hustled me inside the diner, sat me at the first booth and ordered two coffees.

  “You all right?” he asked, solicitous, hovering above me.

  “Sorry.” I wrapped my hands around the warm mug as soon as it was set in front of me. “Thanks. I’m okay.”

  “I used to hide under my bed,” he said, smiling, as he slid into the bench seat opposite mine.

  “But how old were you?” I asked, eyes downcast. Those bouts of panic embarrass me.

  There was another flash and another clap of thunder and I gripped the mug harder. When I managed to get a couple of breaths, I looked over at Thornbury, and saw that he had his phone in his hand.

  “I’d rather be shot at,” I said, putting my hand over his, “than go through a thunderstorm. But, really, I’m okay. The first thunderclap is the worst; no need to call for help.”

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out, saw Kate’s number.

  “If I don’t answer this call the chief’s wife will send out Search and Rescue to look for me.” I told Kate that I was fine, thanked her for her concern, and promised to call her later.

  “Poor Kate,” I said to Thornbury, “she put up with me for about six years. Fortunately, it doesn’t thunder very often in California.”

  We drank coffee in silence for a moment. Thunder and lightning continued, but its force diminished, moved away. I regained control, tried to regain some dignity.

  The food smells in the diner reminded me I hadn’t eaten since a cup of yogurt early that morning. I was suddenly very hungry. It was too late for lunch and I was having dinner with Jean-Paul in a few hours. But when the waitress, a student from the college, came by and asked if we wanted something more than coffee, we both ordered chicken noodle soup—it just sounded good.

  “I made some calls,” Thornbury said. “You were right about Chief Tejeda. He’s thought very highly of. Had a good career before he came here. I was wrong to dismiss him, as you said.”

  He wiped a noodle off his chin and looked up at me.

  “But, you know, I’ve been at this job for a quite a while now, picking up murder cases in one little Podunk incorporated-municipality after another. It has been my experience that the chiefs in these little burgs are either political appointees with little to no experience or guys who got washed out by bigger departments. And generally their patrol officers are a bunch of law-enforcement wannabes who absolutely do not have the right stuff to make the cut anywhere else. Too often we have to work around their ineptitude. So, yeah, we started off on the wrong foot with Tejeda.”

  “The thing is,” I said, “Roger’s been around for a long time, too. Before you rode into town he assumed you would be an arrogant bastard, so he stonewalled you from the beginning.”

  “Can we fix it?”

  “I’ll call his wife,” I said, “see if she’ll invite you and your partner for a barbecue at their house.”

  He frowned.

  “Trust me,” I said. “But if she declines, then you’re doomed.”

  For the next few minutes, until the soup was gone and the rain abated and the thunder was a faint and distant roll, we talked about the dangers of coming into a case or a film with preconceived notions.

  I told him about a film I had made several years ago about the unsolved murder of a Los Angeles policeman, a very brutal murder. It was a controversial murder when it happened over thirty years ago, and it remained controversial. Every detective I interviewed for the documentary had a different idea about what had happened. Because the victim had been one of their own, they wanted the murder to be part of something large: a conspiracy, a vendetta against all cops, urban terrorists or gangbangers taking revenge on a cop who had worked gang detail. But in the end, I told Thornbury, it was more likely that the young officer had been caught in bed with someone else’s wife, and an angry husband had done what angry husbands sometimes do.

  “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” I said. “I think that case has never been solved because the investigators couldn’t get past their need for it to be something it wasn’t.”

  “You saying we should be looking for a cuckolded husband?” Thornbury asked.

  “I just do not know,” I said. “But it was someone who is far enough inside the college to know about the electronic app
aratus Holloway was hanged from.”

  “I keep coming back to that,” he said. “Wish I knew when the door to the control panel was broken.”

  I took my electronic notebook out of my bag and opened the file with the footage I shot before we went into the meeting with Holloway Friday, the same file from which I isolated the shot that Marsh Bensen ran that morning on the front page of the Gilstrap Gazetteer.

  “I shot this at about twelve-thirty Friday afternoon,” I told him, turning the screen so that both of us could see it.

  “Goes by fast,” he said, so I reran the few seconds of footage in slo-mo and stopped it on a frame early in the sequence, scanned down to show the lower portion of the wall where the panel door was, and zoomed in to enlarge the edge of the door.

  He pointed to a spot and asked, “Can you get in any closer right there?”

  I enlarged it as much as the program loaded into the notebook would allow.

  “I don’t see any marks on the wall,” he said.

  “I don’t either. But I’ll send this to you and you can ask your people what magic they can do.”

  “I’d really appreciate it.”

  The file was backed up at an external site, a so-called cloud. I wrote down the information he and the department technical experts needed to access that piece of footage.

  “Thanks.” He actually winked at me. “You know what? You’re about as handy as a shirt pocket. When you want to be.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” I said. “Did you talk with Joan Givens?”

  “She hasn’t returned our calls yet.”

  “I certainly am not telling you how to do your job, but as a favor I would appreciate it if you sent someone to her house.”

  He said he would.

  Thornbury picked up the check as I suspected he would. While we waited at the counter for change, Max’s law clerk sent me a text with a file attached: the inventory from the deposed dictator’s bogus collection that was awarded to Francis Weidermeyer and fellow creditors. I forwarded the file to Roger and Fergie. I was eager to open it, but it would have to wait until I was at a computer.