Two days after the big story came out, Marilyn and Bill decided it was a perfect opportunity to satisfy Chester’s edict that the Monitor be, quote, “a moral leader.” So they assigned me to do one of those tortured debate pieces, the subject of which was the future of Melting Rock. Considering all that had happened over the past few weeks—the boys’ deaths, the lawsuits over bad debts, and now the revelations about lax drug enforcement—I was supposed to go out and take the people’s pulse about whether the festival ought to be scrapped for good.
It may sound straightforward, but my interview list was a couple of dozen names long. I needed to talk to musicians, fans, average J-burg residents, antidrug folks, festival organizers, vendors, town officials, et cetera, et cetera. When Marshall suggested at an edit meeting that it might be nice to add a sidebar on whether Melting Rock was financially feasible in the first place, I could’ve strangled him.
Naturally, Bill thought it was a smashing idea. So there I was, twenty minutes later, stuck in the basement of city hall going over the festival’s stupid budget numbers. They were on file down there because Melting Rock had gotten some kind of city arts grant that required financial disclosure. And although maybe a mathematically gifted human being—or an investigative pit bull like Gordon—might’ve been able to make some sense of it all, to me it was just a mess.
Periodically sneezing from the gobs of dust and mold lurking in the corners, I tried to force myself to look at it piece by piece. According to the papers, the festival made a little over $100,000 on admission fees, which seemed right. About twelve thousand people showed up, and a four-day pass cost $100; a single day was $30. Then there was income from campsite rentals, revenue from T-shirt sales and the like, and a whopping $65,000 in vendor fees; thus explaineth the $4 hot dogs.
It all sounded like Melting rock ought to be in the gravy—if only its expenses weren’t equally titanic. There were the costs of insurance, garbage hauling, program printing, sound-system installation; the list went on and on. The festival had broken even the previous year, but just barely.
I took some notes and fled the basement while I still had working sinuses. Then I went back to the paper, where I pulled out my folder on the vendor lawsuit story and tried to figure out which one I should call for comment. But when I got to the ticket printer, I noticed that something didn’t jibe.
A & S Printing was complaining that Melting Rock had stiffed it for printing seventeen thousand tickets—two thousand day tickets and fifteen thousand all-fest passes. I called the guy, and he confirmed it; they’d filled the same order as in the past two years, only this time they didn’t get paid.
Now, I may not be anyone’s idea of a C.P.A., but this sounded funky to me. Melting Rock consistently paid to have seventeen thousand tickets printed, but whenever it announced its attendance figures, they always hovered around twelve thousand. Overprinting one year could be chalked up to optimism, but three? And by an organization that had always operated just barely in the black?
No, it seemed to me that there was a far more likely explanation, which was that Melting Rock was selling a lot more tickets than it was copping to. And if that was true, it meant that it was pulling in—what?—as much as fifty thousand dollars more than what was reflected on its financial statements. And that was assuming that it wasn’t also cooking the books in other places.
So where was all the money going?
It was a good question. And within a couple of hours, I had a pretty good answer.
NOW, I’m sure this isn’t what Mrs. Hamill wanted to accomplish when she called Marilyn that afternoon, her tactics having changed from stonewalling to spin control. Since we’d been irresponsible enough to run the story, she said, she positively demanded that she be allowed to give her side of things.
So I drove out to Mrs. Hamill’s house, which turned out to be one of those “painted lady” Victorians. The place had been restored to within an inch of its life, with so many contrasting colors and painstaking architectural details it looked like some architecture magazine’s version of a centerfold; call it preservationist porn. Sitting on the front porch waiting to be installed was a hand-painted sign that said CUPID’S CUPOLA BED & BREAKFAST.
I rang the antique bell, and Mrs. Hamill answered—wearing a typically hideous flowered skirt-and-sweater combination and an utterly wrathful expression. She showed me inside, and the interior turned out to be equally overdone, with doilies on every available surface. There were also little angels and cupids everywhere, so many that if they ever decided to rise up in a winged army, Mrs. Hamill wouldn’t have a chance.
She put me on a couch that looked like it belonged in a French Quarter bordello; it had an intricately carved wooden frame and hot-pink velvet cushions. She sat in a doily-laden armchair opposite me, and though there was a glass plate of lacy chocolate cookies on the table, she didn’t offer me one. She just looked me up and down, pursed her lips, and said, “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
Her lips puckered even more, like she was sucking on an invisible lemon. “Why are you trying to destroy Melting Rock?”
“Er…I’m not.”
“Of course you are.”
“Really, Mrs. Hamill, all I’m doing is covering a story. I went to interview Chief Stilwell about drugs at Melting Rock, and he told me he’d been instructed to look the other way.”
“Instructed by whom?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
If she was relieved, she didn’t show it. “In any event,” she said, “the man is mistaken.”
“Are you telling me that the Jaspersburg chief of police somehow misunderstood the fact that he was supposed to ignore drugs at the festival?”
“That’s precisely what I’m saying.”
“No offense, but that doesn’t sound very plausible.”
“Of course it does,” she said. “Some…well-intentioned person could have mentioned to the chief how arrests might tend to make people uncomfortable, and he simply took it the wrong way.”
“Are you serious?”
“It certainly could happen,” she said, cracking something resembling a smile. “Who’s to say it didn’t?”
I’m not going to bore you with the rest of the conversation, which consisted entirely of the same crap being shoveled for another forty-five minutes. Suffice it to say that by the time I left, I felt like I needed to take a shower to get the slime off. But, instead, I went back to the paper and dutifully added a couple of Mrs. Hamill’s lame quotes to the story. I also spent a fair amount of time bellyaching to anybody who’d listen about what an insufferable battle-ax she was.
“What’s this chick’s story, anyway?” Mad said. “Sounds to me like the lady needs to get laid.”
“You say that about everybody.”
“And it’s usually true.”
“Well, I have no idea about the state of the woman’s sex life, and I’d just as soon not find out.”
“Is old Mr. Hamill still in the picture?”
“I don’t know. Her house sure as hell didn’t look like someplace any self-respecting man would want to live.”
“Maybe she killed’m and ate’m.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” I said, and went back to the story.
But as I was typing in Mrs. Hamill’s quotes, it occurred to me that I really didn’t know a damn thing about her—beyond a generalized desire to smother her with a pillow every time she opened her mouth. Partly out of curiosity and partly out of old-fashioned procrastination, I went back to the newspaper’s library to see if there was a file on her. There was, though all it contained was a four-year-old profile from when she became the first woman to head Jaspersburg’s town government.
The story had been written by a former towns reporter, a position now filled by the ever-annoying Brad. Much as I hate to say it, though, Brad would probably have done a better job of it. The clip I was holding had a lame lead—“On the Jaspersburg town council, the right man f
or the job is now a woman”—that, come to think of it, made its subject sound like she’d undergone gender reassignment surgery. The quotes were mediocre, and the reporter apparently hadn’t bothered to ask Mrs. Hamill anything about actual issues facing the town government. It was, in short, a puff piece.
The story did tell me a few things, though. Mrs. Hamill was way older than I’d thought; she was fifty-one when the story was published, making her fifty-five now. She was a widow living on what she called her husband’s “modest life insurance.” And although she lived in the same house as she did now, back then it was a dilapidated mess.
I photocopied the story, put the clip back in the folder, and slammed the file drawer shut with something akin to satisfaction.
I’d been wondering where all that Melting Rock money had gone. What, I thought, were the odds that a fair amount of it had gone into bankrolling—the name alone made me want to hurl—Cupid’s Cupola?
• • •
“YOU KNOW,” Cody was saying from the other side of the pillow, “that’s a pretty serious accusation.”
“Well, her house is pretty seriously ugly.”
“I’m not sure that’s a crime in this county.”
“Honestly, Cody, the woman’s gotta be on the take. Where else could she have gotten all the money to restore her place? I’ve done stories on people who’ve done stuff like that in Gabriel. It can cost, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And her house is huge. Plus, I’d bet dollars to doughnuts the woman’s had a face-lift.”
“Maybe she inherited the money or something.”
“Jesus, do you always have to think the best of people?”
“It’s a weird habit for a cop, I know. Now, tell me again about what you found in the Melting Rock financials.”
“Hey, weren’t you even listening before?”
“I was busy trying to get your jeans off you.”
“The button fly is something of an impediment to romance.”
“And about Melting Rock…?”
“Like I said, I really think they’re making more money in ticket sales than they’re copping to. And if they’re doing it with the tickets, who’s to say they’re not also doing it with everything else—vendor fees and camping passes and merchandising and all that?”
“How much money do you think we’re talking about?”
“I guess it depends on how long it’s been going on. Potentially… Jesus, I don’t know. If they’re skimming a hundred K or so a year, it could definitely add up.”
“And you think all the money’s going to Mrs. Hamill?”
“Not necessarily all of it. I mean, I’ve gotta think that the people who run the festival have to have their hands in the till too. Like, apparently the band that one of the heads of it is in just put out a double CD. Time in a recording studio isn’t cheap, and from what I hear, none of them have day jobs that pay anything.”
“So you think this guy …What’s his name?”
“Trike Ford. He’s the drummer for Stumpy the Salamander.”
“You think he’s embezzling Melting Rock money to fund the band?”
“It occurred to me.”
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“Tried. Apparently, he’s on the road.”
“Oh.”
“Are you about to tell me I should stay away from him in case he’s a big meanie?”
“I was thinking about it.”
“Come on, we’ve been through this a—”
“Baby, if there’s really that much money at stake, I doubt the guy’s gonna be too pleased about you nosing around.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Nobody’s saying you can’t.”
“Fine. Then presumably you won’t mind me doing my job.”
“I didn’t—”
“Because this could be a pretty big scoop, you know. If Melting Rock is really cooking the books and paying off the town council to get them to keep the police from busting drug dealers, I’m damn well going to be the one to break the story.”
“And nobody’s saying you aren’t.”
“Fine.”
“But, Alex…I really have to look into this.”
I pushed myself off his chest and sat up. “Hold on. We have a deal, remember? Anything you tell me doesn’t go to the paper, and anything I tell you doesn’t go to the cops.” He didn’t say anything. “Remember?”
“Baby, I know. But I think maybe this is going to have to be an exception.”
“Why?”
“Because three boys are dead.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
“What are you—”
“All I’m saying is, anything connected to Melting Rock—particularly to drugs at Melting Rock—is potentially connected to the murders. Now that I know about this, I can’t just ignore it. You’ve got to understand that.”
“But once you start nosing around about it, goddamn Gordon’ll find out and that’ll be the end of my scoop.”
“I’ll keep things low-key.”
“The man is a bloodsucking creature of the night.”
“I thought he was a friend of yours.”
“The two things,” I said, “are not mutually exclusive.”
CHAPTER20
As it turned out, I ran into the aforementioned vampire the very next evening. After a long day of trying to chase down more information on the Melting Rock embezzlement story, I decided a girl was entitled to skip her workout and go straight to the Citizen Kane. With Mad off pumping iron, I was thoroughly prepared to drink alone, but when I went to the bar to pick up my bourbon and ginger ale, I noticed a familiar pair of squinty eyes peering through a just-as-familiar set of wire-rimmed glasses. I carried my drink to the rear-most booth and sat down.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“You know,” Gordon replied, “you say that every damn time you see me.”
“Maybe that’s because you always look like a fish out of water up here.”
“And the day I fit in is the day I pour gasoline over my head and light a match.”
“Just make sure you send us a press release first so we can assign a photographer.”
“Har-har.”
“Seriously, what are you doing here?”
“I like sitting in the back. Less chance somebody’ll come over and bother me.”
“I meant, what are you doing in Gabriel?”
“None of your damn business.”
“Jesus, do we have to go down that road again?”
“Apparently.”
“Come on, Gordon, don’t be such a prick. It’s just a friendly question.”
“In our business there’s no such thing.”
“Yikes. I guess you can take the boy out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the boy, huh?”
“I hope the hell not.”
“Come on, be a pal.”
“I have never been a pal in my whole miserable—”
“Given.”
He let out his signature strangled groan. “Can’t a guy just have a drink in peace?”
“You know, I’d assume that if a guy really wanted to drink alone, he wouldn’t go to the bar that all his friends go to.”
“Friends? What friends?”
“You are so infuriating sometimes.”
He smiled like it was the first thing that had made him happy all day. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll be a nice guy for five minutes. To answer your question, I’m here because a certain drug suspect has jumped bail. Or don’t you read the papers?”
“I thought you were going to be nice.”
“Right. Forgot.”
“So you’re doing something on Sturdivant. What’s the angle?”
“Who he is, what kind of case the cops’ve got on him. You know—the usual.”
“And?”
“And the rest is well and truly none of your beeswax.”
>
“Lovely.”
“You got anything juicy on him?”
“Let me get this straight. You’re going to tell me practically nothing about the story you’re covering, but you want me to open my mouth and give you whatever I know.”
“Works for me.”
“Well, unfortunately for you, I don’t know anything.”
“Aw, come on. You hung out at that freak fest for three days—”
“Practically four.”
“Practically four. Didn’t you even meet the guy?”
“Yeah, I met him.”
“And?”
“And nothing. He was pretty unremarkable.”
“A pretty unremarkable guy who helped kill four people.”
“Four? Do you mean that girl in—”
“Nah, not yet. But ten bucks says she croaks within the week.”
“You sentimental fool you.”
“So fine, three people. He’s clearly still a scumbag.”
“Assuming he knew.”
“You don’t think he did?” Gordon’s eyes narrowed. “What, did your buddy Cody tell you something?”
“Jesus Christ, would you stop pumping me like I’m some damn source? No, Cody did not tell me anything. And as you’re fond of saying, if he did, I damn well wouldn’t tell you.”
“Okay, fine. I’m sorry.”
I glared at him. “You are not.”
“Okay, you’re right, I’m not. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. Satisfied?”
“Slightly.”
“Good. Now, what do you say we have a little fun for old time’s sake?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning this story’s driving me crazy.”
“You mean Sturdivant?”
“I mean the whole thing—him and the three deaths and that girl in Baltimore. It all just seems so…”
“Random?”
“Yeah,” he said. “How did you know?”
“It’s kind of been on my mind lately.”
“I mean, I can understand wanting to kill somebody you know. Like, if I thought I could get away with—”
“Yeah, yeah. You’d as soon off your editor as look at him. I’m fully aware.”
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