by JoAnna Carl
“Hell’s bells!” I yelped it out. “Mike, if somebody actually sabotaged your dad’s car—caused his car wreck—and made Bo help cover it up—it would almost have to be somebody in the Grantham Police Department!”
Mike didn’t react to my words, and I realized that he’d been way ahead of me. He continued to lean on our flimsy mantelpiece, looking down, staring at something several miles beyond the fake logs. His mind was obviously working overtime.
If I felt shocked by my new understanding of Bo’s words, how must Mike feel? Bo had been talking about his father. A person he must have loved and probably missed every day, just as I missed my grandmother. It must be awful for him.
I got to my feet and moved toward him. “Mike—”
Before I could formulate a sentence, Rocky’s sunny voice called from the kitchen. “Supper’s ready! Bring your wineglasses, please!”
Mike didn’t seem to hear him. Whatever he was thinking, he didn’t seem to be ready to talk about it.
I took his hand. “Come on. If I’ve thrown your appetite into neutral, Rocky will be crushed.”
Mike refocused his eyes, moving them from some hidden place to my face. “What did you say?”
“Dinner,” I said. “Eat now. Talk later.”
A strange expression played over Mike’s face. I couldn’t read it, but it made me feel as if he liked me.
He squeezed the hand I had thrust into his. “Don’t you ever fuss?” he asked. “Don’t you ever dither around?”
“I’m too heartless and calculating. Dithering doesn’t get information. And that’s my goal.” I tugged. “Come on and eat.”
Rocky’s a real romantic at heart. With one candle and a colorful kitchen towel, he’d turned the round table in our old-fashioned breakfast nook into an intimate setting for dinner tête-à-tête. And dinner, since Rocky had prepared it, was superb. Smooth and tangy Spaghetti à la carbonara, which Rocky makes with skinny fideo pasta tossed with eggs, bacon, onions, parsley, white wine, and Parmesan cheese. He gave me the recipe, and I can make it—if I have an hour for chopping up the ingredients. It takes a pro with a kitchenful of appliances to make it in twenty minutes, the way Rocky had. And he had mixed a salad and grabbed some hard rolls from the freezer in the same time frame. No wonder the microwave and food processor had been going like mad.
Rocky watched nervously while Mike tried the spaghetti. Now and then you still run into these meat-and-potatoes guys. One of that type might balk at eating raw eggs scrambled up and semi-cooked by tossing them with hot pasta.
“Delicious!” Mike said. “Rocky, you’re wasted behind the bar. You should be serving this up to the paying public.”
Rocky beamed. “I’m glad it’s okay. I didn’t take time to grate the Parmesan fresh,” he said. “Nell, I’m heading for my own TV set. You’re stuck with the dishes.”
He left, and I heard the door to his rooms close. Mike and I concentrated on food. Mike ate two helpings of carbonara, two rolls, and a big helping of salad before he began to speak intelligibly again.
As I was splitting the last of the wine between our glasses, he laid his fork down. “I just realized that I never stopped for lunch,” he said.
“I was afraid you hadn’t eaten.” I picked my wineglass up.
Mike touched his glass to mine. “Here’s to Rocky!”
“I’ll drink to that.” Somehow this exchange caused us to lean toward each other and exchange a kiss. It was a companionable kiss, rather than the ultra-sexy variety. Flavored with Parmesan and onion, but pleasurable.
We sat with our noses a few inches apart for several seconds after. “You handle your lips differently when Mickey O’Sullivan’s not around,” I said. “Are you ready to use them to talk?”
Mike laughed. “I think I feel an interview coming on.”
“We can keep it off the record.”
“I’ve been told you never accept information that way.”
“I try not to, but I also don’t print everything I know.”
“I’d sure hate to see you print what Bo said.”
I sat back in my chair and repeated Bo’s words. ““They killed Eric. They made me cover it up.’ Mike, I feel sure Bo was just blowing smoke. Did you have any suspicion that there was anything wrong with your dad’s accident?”
“No!”
Was his voice a little too vehement? I wondered. “In a mystery novel, you would have come back from Chicago to avenge his death.”
“My life seems to be a soap opera rather than a mystery novel, and I had no idea anyone could have harmed my dad. I still don’t. What motive could anyone have had?”
“Search me. I didn’t know your dad, of course—he died three months before I moved to Grantham. But in two years of gossip around the PD, I’ve never heard anybody say anything bad about him—except that he was tough. Which is not a criticism when you’re talking about a chief of police.”
Mike stared at his wineglass. “My dad wasn’t perfect,” he said.
“A human being, huh? I’m glad to hear it. But he certainly had the respect of both the community and the police.”
“That was his character flaw. His reputation.”
“That’s a flaw?”
“Not the reputation itself, but the pride he took in it. He earned the reputation of being an honest cop very early in his career. You’ve heard the story about his picking up the state legislator for DUI?”
I nodded, and Mike went on. “My dad was twenty-three when that happened, and it set the pattern for the rest of his career. He always had that reputation for absolute honesty. He was jealous of that reputation. Maybe too concerned with what people thought of him.”
“I see.” Yes, I could see the problem. Irish Svenson’s high principles could have made him a bit holier than thou. I did know they had led him to make some hard choices, and he had stepped on a lot of toes. He had battled with the police union over salary hikes he didn’t feel were justified. He’d probably fired cops who felt he’d acted unjustly, and faced down city councilmen he felt were trying to influence the way he ran the department. From what I’d heard about him, he had been willing to be thought tough, blunt, and maybe even mean—as long as he was given credit for honesty.
Mike had drained his wineglass and was speaking again. “Besides, there’s the practicality of it.”
“Practicality?”
“The practicality of killing someone by rigging a car wreck. Dad’s accident was thoroughly investigated by professionals who had a personal interest in the matter. Guys who knew him. A complete forensic report was made, and I got Jameson to give me a copy. And that report was from the state crime lab. Bo Jenkins had nothing to do with it. There was no mechanical failure to my dad’s car. It was dark, it was raining, and he simply missed a curve.”
“I suppose he could have been drugged. But I don’t see how that could have involved a mechanic.”
Mike shook his head. “Mom and I asked for a complete autopsy, too. There were no signs of drugs in his body, and he hadn’t had anything to drink.”
“Exactly when and where did the accident happen?”
Mike held his wineglass by the stem and swiveled it back and forth. “It happened at ten P.M. November first—in two weeks it will have been two years. He missed the hairpin curve coming out of the main parking lot at the Hotel Panorama.”
“The Hotel Panorama? At Davisville?”
Mike nodded, and I took a minute to assimilate that information. It was surprising.
Our part of the Great Plains is remarkably flat, but a miniature range of mountains rises out of the prairie about twenty miles south of Grantham, just inside the county line. Seventy-five or eighty years earlier, some entrepreneur—that may have been a Prohibition Era word for bootlegger—had damned a creek running through the little town of Davisville, built a big swimming pool and
declared the town a resort. He built a winding road up the tallest hill and topped it with a stone hotel and a fancy ballroom. The hotel did have a wide and spectacular view of the plains, so he dubbed it “Hotel Panorama.” Over the years, the Panorama had been open, then shut, in fashion, out of fashion, respectable and disreputable. Currently, it was what my grandmother would have called a tourist trap.
The current owner made intermittent efforts to get the building on the National Register of Historic Sites, so the Gazette had run some articles about it, and Professor Tenure and I had driven out there one Saturday afternoon to take a look. We hadn’t bothered to go back.
The Panorama didn’t have a lot of ambiance, after you’d looked at the view. The few food items served in the restaurant were not worth the drive. It was heavily advertised along the interstate with gaudy billboards, although to get there you had to travel five miles off the main highway, passing three hamburger chain outlets and a Quick Chick on the way. The goods for sale included authentic Indian artifacts made in Hong Kong and plaster replicas of Panorama Peak, complete with a little plastic hotel on top. It was Junk City.
It was an odd place for an important city official to make a casual stop. It was an even odder place for one to go to deliberately.
“What was your dad doing at the Panorama?” I asked.
“That’s the only funny thing about the accident,” Mike said. “Nobody ever figured out why he was there. None of the employees could even remember seeing him in the restaurant, so he apparently didn’t stop to eat.”
I mulled it over. “I suppose he could have been meeting someone. An informant?”
Mike dismissed that with a gesture. “Chiefs of police don’t go around meeting informants. That’s what they hire detectives for. My dad had been an administrator—chief of detectives and then police chief—for more than fifteen years. He wouldn’t have known an informant if he fell over one in the parking lot. Besides, he seems to have been out of town all that day.”
“How did you know that?”
“His secretary, Shelly Marcum. He’d called in that morning, told her to cancel his appointments. Didn’t say where he was going, just that he’d be out of touch.”
“Isn’t that sort of unusual?”
“Yes. He’d never done it before. He always carried a pager.”
“So there were two odd things.”
Mike nodded and stared at his empty wineglass.
I was more confused than ever. Mike had said there was nothing suspicious about his father’s death. Then he’d immediately named two peculiar circumstances.
“What’s going on here?” I asked. “You’ve named two rather odd things about your father’s death—where it happened, and his prior movements. Yet you don’t want me to tell Hammond what Bo said. I don’t get it.”
Mike took a deep breath. “I don’t want you to tell Hammond because if—and that’s ‘if’ with a capital I—there was anything funny about my dad’s death, it pretty obviously involves somebody in the department. I doubt it’s Hammond. But the word might get back to the very person we wouldn’t want to know about it.
“But I was wrong when I said you shouldn’t tell anybody. I wasn’t thinking straight. You’ve got to get what Bo said on record. Though I don’t think you’re in any danger.”
“Danger?”
“No. Even though somebody killed Bo Jenkins.”
“Excuse me? Why should Bo’s death put me in danger?”
“Maybe I’m leaping too far, but this is how it seems to me. First, we’ll assume Bo really did help somebody cover up what happened to my dad. I’m not sure I accept that, but for the sake of argument. Okay?”
“Okay. But how would that affect me?”
“I’ll get to that. Second, Bo goes along a year or so after Dad’s death, and then everything falls apart for him.”
“Right. That’s actually what happened. And nobody knew why.”
“Say it was because his conscience got the best of him. He began to feel guilty. Or worry about getting caught. He begins to drink, loses his job, leaves town, wife divorces him, and so forth.”
“That’s what happened.”
“Then, Bo’s faced with the final blow. His wife intends to get custody of the kid and tells him he’s in such bad shape she won’t let him see the little boy again.”
“Right. That’s what pushed Bo over the edge.”
Mike nodded. “So, Bo decides to take drastic action. He’s going to prove that he can get his life back on track. He’ll reveal what he’s been hiding all this time.”
“But he doesn’t dare tell the Grantham police!” I was getting into the swing of the story.
“Correct. Bo knows for a fact that someone in the department is involved. So instead of going to the police, he decides to go to the press. To the reporter who seems to have the best handle on the Grantham PD. Nell Matthews.”
“Heck! He didn’t have to barricade himself in the Grantham PD. All he had to do was call me up.”
“We’re not talking about a person who was thinking normally, Nell. He could have felt that he’d have to make a dramatic gesture to get your attention.”
I drew a design in the remains of my spaghetti a la carbonara. “Mike, wouldn’t it be awful if he tried to call, and I brushed him off?”
“Do you remember any such call?”
“No. Of course, I get messages. Sometimes they’re incomprehensible. I get nut calls—we all get those. But I don’t remember anything along this line. I know nobody left a name like ‘Bo.’ I’d remember that.”
“If Bo tried to tell you, he obviously didn’t get through. And that may be the reason you’re alive.”
I stared at Mike. “You lost me.”
“Let’s not forget that Bo was murdered—or that’s how it looks. And he was murdered while he was in a high-security facility. It was not a simple matter to kill Bo. You would have been a lot easier to kill. The reason you’re still alive at this moment—if our killer really exists—is probably because the killer didn’t see any need to bump you off.”
I took that in, then chuckled. “Gee, that makes me feel important.”
“You are important—to me, to the Gazette’s readers, to the world in general. That’s why you’ve got to keep this killer in the dark about what Bo said to you.”
“So you don’t think I should tell Hammond, even though it may be vital evidence?”
“Not until I can give it some thought.” He leaned back, giving me ‘a level look. “I realize that I’m asking you to trust me, trust my judgment. You don’t have any particular assurance that I’m right. I could be putting you in danger.”
“You mean I might be safer if I publish what Bo said?”
Mike nodded. “It would probably be a good idea to write it out and put it in your safety deposit box.”
I took that in. Then I laughed. “Do I mark it, ‘To be opened only in the event of my death by violent means’?”
Mike scowled. I giggled. He glared.
“Mike, a reporter is a bystander! We stand on the sidelines and watch other people, then blab about it. I’m not involved in all this.”
“Yes, you are! And I can’t tell you the safest thing to do. If you tell Hammond, it could keep us from finding out more. If you don’t tell Hammond, it might be worse, but like I say, I don’t think so. But, at least you should get on record what Bo said.”
“Oh, okay! It makes me feel as if I’m over-dramatizing the situation, but what do you want me to do?”
“Write out a statement about what Bo said to you. Put it in your safety deposit box.”
“I don’t have a safety deposit box.”
“Then I’ll put it in mine.”
“I could give a copy to the managing editor.”
“That’s a good idea. If he won’t read it.”
“He’s pretty trustworthy.”
“Do you have a pencil and paper?”
“Better than that. I have a computer.” I wriggled my eyebrows suggestively. “Upstairs. Wanna help me write it out?”
“I thought I wasn’t allowed upstairs.”
“Upstairs is allowed, if discretion is included. Just don’t move in without paying rent.”
Mike cleared the table, and I stuck the dishes in the dishwasher according to Rocky’s method. Then we went up to my room, unmade bed and all. After all, I hadn’t been in that room more than five minutes since I had left it at seven a.m. a day earlier. My room never looks like much anyway. It’s lined with assemble-them-yourself bookshelves, except for the wall with the double bed and a cubbyhole by the window for the one comfortable chair. The TV set sits on top of one of the bookshelves, and the computer table does duty as a nightstand.
Mike looked over a couple of bookshelves while I opened up the computer and composed a succinct version of what Bo had said. Mike did not look over my shoulder or suggest improvements in my wording. I like that in a man.
I gave the statement Monday’s date, turned on the printer and ordered up four copies. I ripped the first hard copy off the printer and handed it to Mike.
“Better get it notarized,” he said. “They’ve got a notary at your office, don’t they?”
“The publisher’s secretary. Shall I get your copy notarized, too?”
“Why don’t you get it notarized and mail it to me. And give a copy to your editor.”
I turned sideways in the director’s chair I use at the computer and rested my chin on one of the knobs on the back. “You’re really serious about this.”
“I just don’t know what to make of it. Yet.” Mike sat on the edge of my bed and read the statement. He continued to stare at the page long after he’d had time to commit it to memory.
I almost wished that I hadn’t told him what Bo said, that I hadn’t remembered it. Bo’s wild-eyed and probably baseless statement had turned Mike’s mood upside down. He’d had two years to deal with his father’s death, and I’d seen no sign that he hadn’t coped with his grief in a healthy manner. But now his emotions seemed to have been kicked in a heap.