“You’re sure his name was ‘Guidry?’”
“They’re all named ‘Guidry.’”
“Ok, so you…”
“I got a cab to take me back to her place. She wandered in about two in the morning, I guess. I’m not sure, because I was asleep when I hit the bed. I woke up at first light. We had breakfast together. Croissants and beignets. Then later in the morning we walked together to campus. We went into the geology building, found Das—found somethehellbody in a big lecture hall with a computer all set up to show the images on the screen behind the podium.”
“And this man told you he was Daruka Narang?”
“Of course he did. You think he said ‘Frank Smith,’ and I just dreamed Daruka Narang?”
“I’m not sure what to think at this point.”
“Me neither, Jackson. I just…”
At that moment, the phone on the desk rang.
It was a real phone, black and solid and recognizable as a phone and not a camera or a blender—and it rang and did not buzz, and Nina loved Jackson for holding on to it, as one might carry the faded black and white picture of a frowning, bearded, long-dead great grandfather from somewhere on the plains of Kansas.
“Bennett here.”
And for a minute or so he rumbled, growled, scowled, muttered, and nodded.
Finally he put the phone down.
“Better and better,” he said, quietly.
“What?” she asked, wondering why she had let out of her head the word ‘what’ instead of the much more appropriate phrase, ‘I want to go home now.’
But ‘what’ she had said, and ‘what’ she would have to answer to.
“More information is coming in from the people over at LP. Specifically from Narang.”
“What?”
Damn it, Nina; stop that!
“‘I want to go home!’ is the phrase you want to hear!”
‘“What!’ indeed!”
“Ok, then, see what it’s going to get you!”
“The house you described? The one with the peeling gray paint?”
“Yes?”
“It exists all right.”
“Of course it exists! Do you all think I’ve been cracking cocaine?”
Jackson could not help smiling.
“Anyone who uses the phrase ‘cracking cocaine,’ Nina, has not been doing very much with either substance.”
“What? Now I’m not even doing drug talk right?”
“Well, you have a few things to learn before you’ll be comfortable on the street. Anyway, the house does exist. Narang knows it well. It’s always been lived in by some graduate student in geological sciences. Somebody will live there for a semester or so, graduate, and kind of unofficially bequeath it to another. It’s cheap and close, so somebody always wants it.”
“Like Annette.”
He shook his head.
“There’s no Annette. The person living in that house now is named Nancy Broussard.”
“Who?”
“A young woman named Nancy Broussard. She’s in her final year.”
“But…”
She finished her spring course work two weeks ago, according to Narang, then went home for a while. She’s scheduled to be back on campus at the start of the first summer semester, June 15.”
“So the house was….”
“Empty.”
As was the air space following.
For some seconds or so.
Then Nina filled it with the word:
“Shit.”
And then it was empty again.
She sat down after a time.
Neither she nor Jackson spoke.
The muffled sounds of Bay St. Lucy seeped into the office.
“I don’t know where to begin,” she found herself saying, softly.
He shook his head:
“Me neither. But…”
“Yes?”
A shake of the head:
“Every direction I go in, something hauls me back and tells me I need to go somewhere else.”
She smiled.
“Yes. Me too.”
“I’m asking myself,” he said, “what would Frank have done?”
“Divorce me.”
“You think so?”
“No. No, Frank would have found something funny in all this. He would have shaken his head and said something like, ‘Nina, Nina…’ and then it would have been ok. And we would have gone out crabbing.”
“Yeah.”
More silence for a time.
Then Jackson:
“All right. Here’s where we are, as best as I can put it together. You met some people in Lafayette who claimed to be Daruka Narang and Annette Richoux. They weren’t. Whoever they were, they knew the layout of the place. They knew about this graduate student house, and they knew it would be empty. They knew the geology building would also be virtually empty—at least the classrooms, the lecture halls—because of semester break.”
“But why? Who would set up this masquerade and for what reason?”
“I don’t know.”
“And, worse…I found Edgar’s cell phone in the drainage canal. It had a number on it, probably the last number he had called before he was killed.”
“I know. You’ve told us that.”
“I called that number and Narang answered.”
“Well, somebody answered.”
“But Jackson—surely Edgar must have known his professor’s real number.”
“One would think.”
“But the real Narang is sitting over there in city hall right now!”
“Yes. He is that.”
“And he was never called!”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“So somehow the call must have gone through to this—this imposter. But that doesn’t make sense!”
Jackson shrugged:
“Show me something about this whole mess that does make sense.”
“And the article! Writing a bogus article—which this imposter must have done—and sending it The New York Times—that doesn’t make sense either! Let’s say the fake Narang is an opponent of Big Oil. Okay, he sends this piece in, uses my name as a source, and gets The Times to print it. Fine. But he must have known that the data would be almost immediately recognized as false. That a thousand technicians would almost immediately vouch for Aquatica, which apparently is the safest offshore rig in the world. Wouldn’t he have expected that?”
“Yes. It seems like he would have.”
“What has he accomplished?”
“Well, he’s put you in a helluva position.”
She was silent for a time, and then said:
“Yes, he’s done that.”
Jackson breathed deeply and went on:
“He’s also embarrassed The New York Times. They’re coming out with a retraction in their afternoon edition.”
“They’ll survive.”
“They will, but…”
“What?”
“I guess I have to tell you. I found it out in the last call.”
“Go ahead; hit me with it.”
“Apparently Elizabeth Cohen just got fired.”
“Damn.”
“I know.”
He rose, turned, and faced the wall behind his desk. It was to this wall that he said:
“I liked that woman. I liked the way she flew all the way down here to meet you. Went out to the cabin like that. She must have known she was taking a chance going with that story.”
Nina paused for a time and then said:
“All right, she did know it, Jackson. But she did it anyway. Her job was on the line and she convinced her bosses to believe me. And some fraud. But why did she do it?”
“She wanted a Pulitzer.”
“I don’t think so, Jackson.”
“Then why?”
“She did it, Jackson, because she honestly felt there was a chance that damned thing might blow up, and that all the academics in the world, and all the politicians, and all
the do gooders—would have just been setting up their committee meetings while the gas was seeping out of the ocean floor and up onto the deck of Aquatica. She did it because she thought it damned well had to be done. And immediately.”
He turned and looked down at her.
“Which is why you did it.”
She scrunched into herself a bit, sighed and said quietly:
“Yes. Since you put it like that.”
Then they sat for a time, searching for something to say.
Jackson found it.
“All right, Nina. So none of this stuff makes sense. Someday we may be able to figure it out, but not now. Now the important thing is to deal with LP.”
“Are they suing me?”
“No. There would be no point in that.”
“Am I going to be put in jail for stealing the disk?”
A shake of the head:
“I think they realize that I could make a good case for you. You honestly thought it was Edgar’s property. Also, their security people are embarrassed that they ever let you out of Aquatica with the disk.”
“Dale. The Faulkner scholar.”
Jackson smiled.
“Yes. He’s quite a character. Maybe he knows more about William Faulkner than he knows about security. Anyway, they’re not so interested in bringing their billion dollar public relations machine to bear against one retired school teacher.”
“So what do they want?”
“A press conference. They want you to hold a press conference, Nina.”
“How? Where?”
“I don’t know. We may be able to control it somehow. Postpone it. Limit the number of reporters present. But somehow, some way, you’ve got to go on national tv and tell people you were wrong.”
She thought for a while, then shook her head and said:
“No Willie Nelson?”
“Probably not. After The Times retraction—and your news conference—your picture’s coming off the granola bars.”
“Damn.”
“And Furl may hate Big Url, but he’ll probably have to do it in private.”
“Well. He’ll get over it.”
“So. The other problem is, we’ve got to come up with a long term place for you to stay. There’s still a crowd around your shack. Moon Rivard’s people have tried to chase them off, but they seem to keep coming back.”
“Wow.”
“So think about it a while. We can wait a few days for the conference, put them off, say ‘no comment.’ A lot. Then…”
She thought for a time, then said:
“Okay. I’ve thought it out. I know when I want the conference. And where.”
“All right. Just say.”
“How many reporters are in town now?”
“A million.”
“Then let’s have the conference at one o’clock today.”
“But, Nina...”
“In the gymnasium.”
“The gymnasium? But Nina there’s room for two thousand people in there!”
“I know. And as far as where I’m going to stay…I’m going home. I miss Furl. I miss my place.”
“But all those people..”
“I know a way to get rid of them.
And she did.
Jackson found Nina’s plan insane and told her so.
The press conference should not be held before Thursday (this was Tuesday).
They would need two full eight hour days, during which he could prepare questions, pepper her with them, and evaluate her answers.
Also during these days, he would have time to learn the names, and reputations of the various journalists: who from NBC might ask the most difficult questions, who from CBS might be depended on to lob softballs which she might knock out of the gym, stressing all the while her patriotism and love of the land.
There might even be a way to limit the number of journalists present.
And the place…
…the place should of course be small, confined. She was small and confined.
Clothing. Her normal attire as principal? Or was that too formal?
Would not the jeans and sweater of a beach dweller be more appropriate?
Nina Bannister, woman of the earth?
Any lawyer worth his salt would have taken a month to prepare a client for the grilling she was certain to get.
And the length of the press conference?
The time that she would be allotted to give her opening speech?
The number of questions permitted?
And yet.
..and yet.
Nina wanted to do it in two hours. At the gymnasium.
Insane.
“All right, then, Nina. If you insist on doing this. The town is full of reporters who are hungry as rabid dogs. Two phone calls and the place is full.”
“Good. Make the calls.”
“That gives us two hours to eat a little lunch and let me brief you as best I may. I’ll call out for some sandwiches. Then we can go into the back room and…”
“I want to eat lunch at Sergio’s.”
Stunned moment of shock and disbelief.
“What?”
“I want to eat lunch at Sergio’s. I like their leek and potato soup. Maybe a little salad, too.”
“Nina, what are you thinking about? You can’t go to Sergio’s!”
“Why not? I like Sergio’s.”
“You’ll be mobbed!” There’ll be a hundred people around you!”
“They can get their own leek and potato soup. I’m not sharing.”
“How will you get there? People are watching for my car!”
“Call me a cab.”
So Jackson did so.
And so she ate lunch at Sergio’s by the Sea.”
Where she sat in a back booth, ate leek and potato soup, and was not noticed by anyone, even her waiter, who required several admonitions to bring the soup.
She called another cab at 12:30 and took it to the gymnasium.
It was clearly packed.
She could hardly make her way through the door.
Once she did so, she walked onto the court.
Lights were everywhere.
So were people, most of whom she had never seen.
There was a large platform that had been built in the center of the court.
Without talking to anyone or asking anyone’s permission, she walked up to it and bounded the two steps that led up to the microphone.
She flipped the ‘on’ switch, just as she had done a hundred times as principal.
And, almost magically, she became principal Nina Bannister again.
The hundreds of people in the audience were her students; fifty or so hands had sprung into the air, as people recognized who she was and that she was, without introduction, about to address them.
Which she did, saying:
“I’m not going to start this until all of you quieten down. I’ll say it again: we will not dismiss for lunch until you TONE IT DOWN!”
All of them did.
And she said:
“My name is Nina Bannister. I live in Bay St. Lucy. I’m sorry for what I did, and I apologize.”
So saying, she walked out of a side entrance to the gym.
The cab was there, exactly where she had left it.
“The docks,” she told the driver.
He took her there.
Penelope Royale was stocking The Sea Urchin with supplies for the next day’s fishing run.
“Hey,” she said, from the open door of the cab.
“------!” answered Penelope.
“I need a little help up at my shack. Can you come with me for a few minutes?”
“------! I can------if-------!”
Penelope got into the cab.
Within two minutes they were at Nina’s place.
Perhaps a hundred people were milling around, kept away from the stairs by one of Moon Rivard’s patrolmen, but still waving the anti-oil signs and the pictures of Furl.
; Some of them had built tents.
Nina and Penelope got out of the cab and approached the patrolman, who was standing beside his car.
“We need,” said Nina, “to borrow your bullhorn.”
“Here.”
“Give it to Penelope. Turn it on first.”
“All right.”
Scrrreech of the bullhorn.
Into which Penelope brayed:
“All right you--------! You-----! You------d-----f----. I want your fat -------s--out of here right-!!!! And if you don’t ------I’ll ----- and ---- and-----!!! You---understand?”
A shock spread over the crowd.
The patrolman himself was white faced.
Penelope continued:
“And take those---------tents with you!”
Within two minutes, Nina’s driveway was clear.
The patrolman stood like a statue by his car, unable to move.
Nina said to the cab driver:
“Could you take this lady back to her boat?”
He nodded, mechanically and said:
“Yyyess, ma’am.”
“What’s the fare”
Then he looked at Penelope who was getting into the cab.
Then he said:
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Then he drove away.
CHAPTER TWELVE: CINDERELLA LEARNS OF THE BALL
Harper Lee wrote one great novel, which is, of course, To Kill a Mockingbird. After that––after telling the bittersweet tale of Atticus and Scout and Jem and Boo Radly and all the others—after that, she settled back to the life of a southern lady, living in the small southern town of Monroeville, Alabama.
Because of the enormous fame of To Kill a Mockingbird (especially following the success of the film starring Gregory Peck) hordes of people wanted to meet the great Harper Lee and talk with her. They wanted to know how she got her ideas, and who the real life inspiration for Atticus was and many other questions of such nature.
But Monroeville protected her.
It closed its walls to the outside world.
Gawkers and would-be parasites, reporters and critics and journalists and outright crooks were allowed into the city limits, of course, but they were given no help in locating Lee herself, who was allowed to melt back into the quiet and humble citizenry from which she had, albeit briefly, emerged.
Oil Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 4) Page 17