House Standoff

by Mike Lawson

  “I don’t understand,” Candy said.

  Maintaining a stern expression, DeMarco said, “Can we go someplace where we can talk privately? It’s important.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Candy said, a frown line now wrinkling her forehead. She led him into a bar that was empty of customers and over to a corner table. “So, what’s this all about?” she asked.

  “The reason I’m here is I need to know if you’ve done something inappropriate.”

  “Inappropriate?” Candy said. “Like what?”

  “Candy, a week ago you were on Mr. Morton’s yacht and you served drinks to Mr. Morton, Mr. Hamilton, and—”

  Hamilton was the other CEO at the meeting.

  “—and Congressman John Mahoney, the Speaker of the House.”

  “What’s your name again?” Candy asked.

  “DeMarco.”

  “Well, I’m confused, Mr. DeMarco. How could me serving drinks to three people be the subject of a congressional investigation?”

  “Candy, CNN recently broke a story about the meeting held that day on Mr. Morton’s yacht. Did you see it?”

  “Nope. I’m too busy to spend my time watching CNN.”

  “According to CNN, Mr. Morton and Mr. Hamilton discussed plans for merging their companies during the meeting, something that’s a very big deal, something that requires approval by the FCC, and which many members of congress and the public object to for a variety of reasons. The problem is that someone who had knowledge of that meeting told CNN that John Mahoney had agreed to support the merger, which Congressman Mahoney strongly denies. Congressman Mahoney wants the person who leaked the story to CNN to step forward and admit that he—or she—lied.”

  “Aw, now I get it. You think I’m the one who leaked the story.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Did you?”

  “What if I did? Did I commit a crime?”

  “You may have. You might be prosecuted for libel or slander. And if you benefitted in any way from the lie, for example if CNN paid you, that could be considered fraud. Case law when it comes to making false statements versus protections provided by the First Amendment is complicated, but there’s a possibility you could be prosecuted.”

  What DeMarco knew about case law when it came to the First Amendment would fit into a vessel smaller than a thimble—and Candy was apparently bright enough to know this.

  “Oh, bullshit,” she said. “I’m not a lawyer, but I know there’s not a chance in hell I could be prosecuted.”

  “Or Mahoney might sue you,” DeMarco added. “Can you afford a lawsuit? Look, if you’ll just admit that you were the source and say you made a mistake, you can avoid a whole lot of potentially expensive and unpleasant problems.”

  Candy cocked her pretty head to the side and said, “You know, I’m not sure a lawsuit would be a bad thing. The publicity might be good for me. Plus, I’d win the lawsuit.”

  “So you are saying that you leaked the story to CNN.”

  “No, I’m not saying that. I was just curious about what could happen to me if I did. The truth is, I didn’t pay any attention to what those guys were talking about that day. I just brought them drinks, and when I wasn’t doing that, I was reading a book for a class I’m taking and texting my sister. About the only thing I remember about that meeting was that Mahoney drank like half a bottle of Maker’s Mark. He drinks like a fish. Now if I was to say that to CNN, would that be slander? Or is it libel?”

  Before DeMarco could respond, Candy stood up and said, “I need to get back to work. This place is a madhouse at lunchtime.”

  DeMarco sat in the bar for a moment after she departed. He’d completely misjudged Candy, and most likely because of her name. He’d thought she’d be an empty-headed blonde bimbo—which Candy clearly wasn’t—and he’d figured that if she had leaked the story, he’d be able to get her to admit it. That obviously hadn’t worked. Furthermore, he couldn’t tell if she’d told him the truth or not. His gut told him that she was being honest, that she hadn’t leaked anything, but now, goddamnit, he was going to have to call Neil and see if he could get her cell phone records to see if she’d talked to anyone at CNN.

  Candy smiled slyly and waggled her fingers at him as he left the restaurant.

  As he was driving back to D.C., he spent a few minutes thinking about other sources of the leak. It could be a person who worked for one of the CEOs and had prepped him for the meeting, but that didn’t make a whole lot of sense either.

  He phoned Neil.

  Neil called himself an information broker, which sounded better than saying he was a guy who hacked into databases. He had an office in D.C., on the banks of the Potomac, within sight of the Pentagon—which the Department of Defense should have found alarming. Neil owned the building where his office was located because he made a very good living by obtaining privileged information and providing it to people willing to pay.

  Corporations found him useful in getting a leg up on the competition. Rich people getting a divorce hired him when they wanted to find out how much the person they were divorcing was really worth. Politicians used his services to help win elections. (In spite of recent history showing how inappropriate emails could end careers, politicians couldn’t seem to stop themselves from sending them.) And DeMarco had used Neil’s services several times while carrying out his duties for John Mahoney.

  For something as simple as getting Candy’s cell phone records, DeMarco suspected that Neil wouldn’t have to touch a computer keyboard or slither through a corporate firewall. All he’d do was make a couple of phone calls. Neil had been in business long enough that he had contacts in organizations that stored data, such as Google, Facebook, telephone companies, and the IRS. He paid people in these organizations to give him what he wanted then passed on the cost to his customers.

  DeMarco told Neil that what he needed was proof that Candy had called anyone associated with CNN. “Yeah, okay,” Neil said. “But I’m in the middle of something big right now. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “All right,” DeMarco said. “And thanks.”

  “You can thank me by paying me promptly, unlike the last time. I thought I was going to have to send a guy named Guido over to break your legs.”

  The truth was that DeMarco didn’t really care if Candy was the source of the CNN story. And whether she was the source or not, he suspected that Mahoney had indeed plotted with the CEOs on the merger—and who knows what Mahoney might have done if the story hadn’t leaked. But DeMarco didn’t care.

  The only thing he cared about was learning what had happened to Shannon.

  5

  DeMarco just couldn’t believe that Shannon had been the unlucky victim of a random killer passing through a small town in Wyoming. He could understand her being mugged if she’d been walking around a big city late at night and the mugger losing control and killing her, but some guy at a truck stop just happening to see her entering her motel room, then knocking on the door and shooting her when she opens it—No, that sounded wrong. Shannon wouldn’t have opened the door to a stranger after midnight, or at least he didn’t think so.

  As he’d never heard of Waverly, Wyoming, DeMarco googled the place on his phone. He learned that Waverly was on Interstate 80 in south central Wyoming about halfway between Salt Lake City, Utah and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Based on the 2010 census, 410 souls dwelled there. Why would Shannon be doing research in such a place? What was there to research?

  DeMarco knew that Shannon had a younger sister named Leah and that Shannon had been close to her. He decided to call Leah and express his condolences, but mostly he wanted to know what Shannon had been doing in Wyoming. He knew Leah’s married name was Donovan, that she had a couple of kids, and lived in Newport, Rhode Island—but as he didn’t have her phone number he had to go online and pay one of those people-search companies to get a num
ber.

  He called Leah, but his call was sent to her voicemail. Not recognizing his number, Leah might have thought it was a robocall or maybe, and more likely, she was too grief stricken to feel like talking to anyone. He left a message saying, “Leah, you don’t know me but my name is Joe DeMarco. I was a friend of Shannon’s. I called to tell you how sorry I am for what happened to her and I also wanted to ask you a question. Would you mind calling me back when you can? Thanks.”

  Less than five minutes later, Leah called back. She said, “I’m glad you called, Joe. Shannon really liked you and she told me all about you and how you flew to Montenegro to get the woman who tried to kill that girl in Boston.”

  “You know,” DeMarco said, “Shannon was the one who gave me the idea to go to Montenegro.”

  “Yeah, she told me. She said—” Leah’s voice broke. “Oh, God I’m going to miss her. She was so funny and so smart.”

  “I’m going to miss her too,” DeMarco said.

  “Shannon said that the one big regret she had when she moved to California was that she most likely wouldn’t be seeing you anymore. It sounded as if you were the one who got away.”

  DeMarco could see no point in telling Leah that he wasn’t the one who got away; he was the one left behind.

  “Leah, do you have any idea what she was doing in Wyoming?”

  “Not really. I know she was doing research on her next book. She did the same thing when she wrote Lighthouse. She spent three months in Nova Scotia, in the winter, freezing her ass off, so she could experience firsthand what it was like living there. But she never told me what the new book was about. Something to do with wild horses or grazing rights or something like that.”

  “Wild horses?” DeMarco said.

  “That’s what she said. But when Shannon would call, we’d talk mostly about my kids. About the only thing she said about Wyoming was that she’d encountered some real characters out there and she told me a couple of stories about people she’d met that made me laugh. Shannon could always make me laugh.” Leah started crying again and DeMarco was starting to feel bad for having called her.

  Leah said, “Joe, Shannon’s memorial is being held this Saturday here in Rhode Island. I’ll text you the invitation. Her agent will be there and he might know what she was doing out West. I’d like to know myself. I’m just having a hard time believing that someone killed her to steal her purse.”

  Shannon had been raised in Newport, Rhode Island. Her parents and her sister still lived there. Her memorial was held at St. Mary’s Church, a Gothic structure built in the 1800s. It was filled with Shannon’s childhood friends, women she played with on the Boston College hockey team, and famous writers who’d mostly come from New York and Boston. DeMarco was surprised to see Stephen King there; King had been one of the many renowned authors who had endorsed Shannon’s book. The biggest shock was that the keynote speaker was the actress Reese Witherspoon, who had bought the film rights to Shannon’s book and would play the lead character in the movie that was being made. Shannon had spent a lot of time with Witherspoon as she’d adapted her book for the screenplay, and they’d apparently become close. DeMarco didn’t know if Witherspoon had written Shannon’s eulogy herself or if it had been written by a Hollywood screenwriter, but it was moving and eloquent and completely captured Shannon’s personality, the impact she’d had on others, and how the world had lost one of its greatest writers. Like every other person present, DeMarco had tears in his eyes by the time Witherspoon finished.

  After the service, the mourners moved to a nearby hall for wine and hors d’oeuvres. DeMarco gawked at Witherspoon and the other big-name celebrities; Witherspoon struck him as being down to earth. He eventually walked up to Leah and introduced himself. She had Shannon’s dark hair and gray eyes but was shorter than Shannon and heavier. Two kids, a boy and girl, who were probably five and six years old respectively, were clinging to her.

  She said, “You look just the way I imagined you would from what Shannon told me about you.” When she smiled, he saw she also had Shannon’s smile; the same dimple appeared in her right cheek.

  DeMarco wondered what that meant about the way he looked: Like a hood? Like a slick political operator? He had no idea, but the way Leah said it, her comment had sounded like a compliment.

  DeMarco again expressed his sorrow for her loss, commented on how wonderful the memorial had been, then asked, “Can you point out Shannon’s agent? I want to ask him what she was doing in Wyoming.”

  Leah’s head swiveled as she searched the crowd, then pointed. “There he is. The guy with the goatee in the blue suit near the bar.”

  “What’s his name?” DeMarco asked.

  “David, uh, David something. I don’t remember his last name.”

  DeMarco went over to the bar, ordered another glass of wine, and stood near David. He was a tall man with thinning dark hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. He was talking to a heavyset woman wearing enormous earrings and based on the bits of conversation that DeMarco overheard, they were complaining about something that Amazon had just done. Finally, the woman turned to the bar to get another glass of wine for herself and DeMarco stepped up to David.

  “Hi, my name’s Joe DeMarco. I was—”

  “Oh, so you’re the famous DeMarco,” David said. “Shannon told me about you and that thing you did in Montenegro when the two of you were dating. She said it would make for a good book but it wasn’t the sort of thing she was interested in writing. I was thinking about having another writer I represent contact you to get some of the details.”

  No way in hell was DeMarco going to talk to a writer about what had happened in Montenegro.

  “The reason I wanted to talk to you,” DeMarco said, “is that I’m curious about what Shannon was doing in Wyoming. I’m having a hard time accepting what the newspapers have said about her being killed by some guy who wanted to steal her laptop and her purse.”

  “Are you thinking about investigating what happened?” David asked.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’ve been wondering if her death could have been connected to whatever she was doing there.”

  David said, “If you don’t mind, let’s step outside. I want a cigarette. I don’t usually smoke but today, well—”

  “Sure,” DeMarco said.

  Outside the reception hall, DeMarco was struck by what a lovely day it was. It shouldn’t have been. The skies should have been gray and the rain should have been drizzling down to match the sadness of the occasion.

  David lit a cigarette and said, “I’m not exactly sure what she was doing in Wyoming. Shannon was one of those writers who felt the need to completely immerse herself in the setting of the book she was working on, the way she did when she wrote Lighthouse. She spent three months in Nova Scotia to absorb the setting, the people, the atmosphere, whatever. I guess she just couldn’t google things like other writers do.”

  “Yeah, I know, her sister told me that too. But what was the new book she was writing about?”

  “All I really know is that Shannon was fascinated by a standoff between some guy in Wyoming and the federal government. This guy apparently faced down a bunch of FBI agents armed with assault rifles and refused to let them come on his property.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea. Something to do with wild horses.”

  “Who was the guy?”

  “That I remember. His name was Hiram Bunt. I mean, isn’t that a great name for a fucking nut who’d take on the federal government?”

  DeMarco shrugged. “And this standoff, it was the focus of her book?”

  “I don’t think so. She told me she was writing a love story and that the standoff was peripheral to the whole thing.”

  “A love story?”

  Now David shrugged.

  “Did she submit anything to you?” DeMarco asked. “A
synopsis, an outline, a couple of chapters, anything like that?”

  “No. Shannon refused to write a synopsis or an outline for her books. She said she wanted people to read the book not a summary of the book.”

  David dropped his cigarette on the ground and crushed it with his shoe. Then, apparently feeling guilty for littering, picked up the butt and put it in a pocket.

  He said, “You know, there is a person who might be able to tell you more about what she was doing in Wyoming. I represent a writer named Gloria Brunson. She writes a series about this female sheriff in Wyoming. She’s a good writer but she’s never hit it big the way Shannon did. Anyway, I introduced Shannon to Gloria over the phone one day because Gloria lives in Rock Springs, Wyoming, which is close to the place where the standoff occurred and I know Shannon had been planning to see her when she arrived in Wyoming. I’ll give you Gloria’s number.”

  The memorial was held on a Saturday and DeMarco drove back to D.C. that same day. The following morning he went to Clyde’s, where he’d have brunch accompanied by a mimosa or two. Clyde’s is a popular bar and restaurant on M Street in Georgetown—and a great place to go for Sunday brunch, when it would be filled with young men and women who worked on the Hill or in the White House or for lobbying firms on K Street. Most of them appeared to be extremely pleased with themselves, and based on the snippets of conversations DeMarco would overhear, they seemed to think they were running not just the United States but the entire world. The scary part was that maybe they actually were. Today, however, he ignored the crowd around him, and while waiting for his omelet, he pulled out his phone and googled “Hiram Bunt, Wyoming.”

  After reading half a dozen articles, he concluded Hiram Bunt was a dangerous megalomaniac who belonged behind bars. The gist of the story was that Bunt had been engaged in a decades-long battle with the federal government over the use of public land in Wyoming. DeMarco learned that almost half the land in Wyoming, about thirty million acres, is public land, and about eighteen million acres were managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Ranchers were allowed to graze their livestock on some of this public land, but they were required to pay a fee for doing so. The grazing fee was currently about $1.50 per head of cattle per month, which to DeMarco didn’t seem excessive.