by Jan Burke
“Or purposely exclude elements the Coastal Commission would want. And he probably oversees the cost projections on fighting the Coastal Commission’s decision as well.”
Murray nodded. “Determining that it would be better to move the project away from the shore.”
“But Hill and his friends couldn’t have planned this from the late 1970s, could they?”
Murray shook his head. “While it’s not impossible — there has been talk of a convention center for many years — my guess would be that they steered toward opportunities wherever they saw them. They got out of the Angelus area when it didn’t look like it would go anywhere, put their capital to better uses. They got back in when new opportunities were on the horizon.”
“Or they decided to head back to these properties when inside information was given to them.”
“Yes, well, that is always a possibility,” he said, then smiled and added, “Not that I would ever imagine such a thing happening in our fair city.”
“Not in a billion nanoseconds. Thanks for the information, Murray. Now, I believe I owe you a favor.”
He didn’t deny it, and his look of anticipation caused me to laugh. “Yes, Jack Fremont will talk to you. Want me to have him call you?”
“You need to ask?”
I WENT BACK TO the newsroom and pulled out the Riverside phone book again. Stuart Angert was openly curious about my meeting with John; I told him that he’d have the whole story by that afternoon and repressed the urge to tell him to page me if he had any questions after the staff meeting.
At my desk, I covertly copied my pager number down, a series of digits that seemed to defy mnemonics. I opened the phone book to the M’s, looked up June Monroe’s number again, wrote it down, and put the phone book back, still refusing to give in to Stuart’s pestering.
I called the Riverside number, knowing she would not be back home yet. When her answering machine picked up the call, I said, “June, I need to ask you a couple of questions,” and left my pager number.
I leaned back in my chair for a moment, thinking about the list of things I wanted to follow up on. I hoped the records office at the college came through. If I could talk to Nadine Preston, I might get closer to understanding what had gone on with Lucas Monroe’s thesis.
I called Claire.
“I’ve got a lot to talk to you about,” I said.
“Are you free for lunch?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Would you mind coming out to the house? I know it’s a long way from work for you, but it’s so hard for me to be out in public right now…”
“I understand. It won’t be a problem for me to be away from the office,” I said, wondering if maybe I could get used to the pager idea.
Naw. I knew I couldn’t. Especially not after I met Wrigley on my way out of the building.
“Irene!” he called out, with more bonhomie than Santa. He was acting like we were old pals. I knew what had inspired this. I once quit the paper, and every time Wrigley worries that he’s insulted me enough to get me to jump ship again, he gets avuncular at best and downright kissy at worst.
He crossed the building lobby to come closer, but kept a respectful distance. He’s an ass-pincher, but he’s never tried that with me. Maybe it’s because I once circulated a tall tale around the building about breaking someone’s nose for doing that. By the time Wrigley heard the story, I think I had supposedly put someone in the hospital.
“I hope you aren’t too upset about the pager,” he said. “It’s really the mark of a professional journalist these days.”
“Really? I thought I had to make that mark in ink.”
“You know what I mean! Look, I carry one of them myself.” He pulled back his suit coat to reveal the pager on his belt. “See?”
“I’m thrilled for you,” I said, but already, evil thoughts were forming.
“Where are you going?”’ he asked.
“That’s the neato-fab thing about these gadgets, isn’t it? You don’t need to know where I am, because you can always page me!”
“Well, I don’t know about that…”
I almost left without telling him, but realized he would be jealous, so I said, “I’m having lunch with Claire Watterson.”
“The widow?”
“We probably have more than one in town.”
“I’d love to meet her.”
I’ll just bet you would, you slimeball, I thought. “I’ll tell her,” I said, and pushed the door open, but then paused on the threshold. “No, wait. Maybe she’d be willing to have you join us a little later. Shall I have her page you?”
“Oh, sure.” He fumbled in his coat pocket and pulled out a business card and a six-hundred-dollar fountain pen. He flipped the card over and jotted his pager number on it.
I even kept a straight face when he handed the card to me.
AUNT EMELINE OPENED the front door when I arrived at the Watterson house. I was glad to see her; it seemed to me that she was one of those sturdy people who would be good to have at your side in a crisis, and I was relieved to know Claire wasn’t staying in this big house alone. Finn came from the back of the house to remind me that Claire still had his company as well, dancing around me in great circles and barking. Aunt Emeline said, “Hush now, Finn,” and he obeyed immediately.
It was then that I heard a rumbling noise that seemed to be coming from the back of the house. “Construction workers,” Emeline said. “Claire is out there with them. She must have left the back door open for it to be so loud.”
I followed Emeline to the back of the house. Claire was standing outside, watching something going on in the backyard. When I reached her, I was puzzled to see a bulldozer at work behind the house — until I realized that it was leveling the ground where the cabana had stood.
Claire saw me, came back inside with me, and closed the door before attempting conversation. She was wearing a navy blue silk dress that seemed a little big on her — then I realized that she looked thinner to me. There were dark circles under her eyes. But her voice was firm when she said, “I didn’t want to look out there and see that building every day.”
“Of course not,” I said, doubting it would be so easy to level the memories of what had happened there. I thought again of Ivy, still uneasy over Jeff’s death a decade or more ago.
We sat down to lunch together — Aunt Emeline’s chicken salad. “It’s the best in the world,” Claire had said, and as far as I’m concerned, that was the truth. Claire didn’t seem to have much of an appetite, but no one fussed at her over it. Aunt Emeline led the conversation, which meant that it was centered on recipes, books we had recently read, people she had known back home, and gardening. I didn’t doubt that this woman could have held a conversation on almost any subject. I suspect she chose her topics with more care than was apparent in her easy manner. We didn’t talk about Ben or Lucas during lunch, which is probably why Claire managed to eat at all.
At the end of lunch, Claire asked Aunt Emeline to excuse us, but before we left she said, “We’re going to talk in the library, but don’t you do those dishes, now. It’s my turn.”
“What happened to your help?” I asked when we were alone.
Her mouth drew into a tight line. “Gossip became a problem. When certain people wanted to buy information, my housekeeper and cook each invented something to sell. None of it true in the least, mind you.”
“Did they live in?”
“No. That’s why they weren’t here when… they weren’t here that night, although the police questioned them anyway. And what they told the police was quite different from what they told the media. What they told the police was just what everyone else said. Ben talked of retiring. Never mentioned illness or suicide.”
She sighed. “I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. I never mistreated anyone who worked here, never even spoke sharply to them. But they actually hinted that I… that I could have…” She drew a shaky breath. “I’m so glad the pol
ice put an end to that, anyway. I know there will still be gossip. But I don’t have to have people like that in this house.” She looked up at me. “To be honest, I’d just as soon do the work myself. Aunt Emeline and I take turns fussing over each other. She’s been wonderful. She likes you.”
“Probably because she doesn’t really know me.”
“Nonsense. You said you had something to tell me?”
I brought her up to date on what I had learned from Lucas’s mother about the photographs, and what I had learned of Nadine from my conversation with Ivy. I didn’t mention Jeff, but Claire must have known the story.
“How could I have forgotten about Ivy? Her friend — what was his name?”
“Jeff.”
“Jeff,” she repeated absently, gazing out a window. “That’s right, Jeff.”
“I just learned the story today. I wasn’t living here when he died.”
“All these years. My God, how has she managed?”
“Maybe you should ask her someday. When you’re ready,” I added quickly. I was going to say more, but it was obvious that Claire didn’t want to dwell on it.
“I have something for you,” she said, going over to the desk.
24
“THESE ARE BEN’S desk calendars,” she said, lifting a set of three leather binders, each binder in its own slipcase. “Every night, he would come home, talk to me for a while, and then spend a little time in here, making notes about the day.”
She carried them over to me. The spines were labeled 1975, 1976, 1977. “They weren’t as difficult to find as I thought they might be.” She drew in a deep breath. “Ben apparently became nostalgic during those last few weeks. He must have gone through some of these. He was tying up loose ends, I suppose — he gave some historical photos of the bank to one of the men who worked there, did things like that.” She paused. “I guess I’m feeling nostalgic, too. Forgive me for keeping the one for 1974 aside. It’s the year we were married. If you need it, let me know.”
“Don’t worry about it for now,” I said, feeling the weight of the three I held.
“He was fairly religious about making entries,” she said. “When he was ill, or a little down, he might miss a day or two.”
“A little down?”
“He’d get depressed now and then. Not often,” she added quickly. “Not severely. I had no reason to believe…”
“Of course not,” I said, tracing my fingers along the spine of 1975.
“Before you open them, I have another request.”
I looked up at her.
“Promise me that you’ll just use these to help me find out why Lucas Monroe was contacting Ben. If you want to write a story about that, I won’t object. But there’s a lot of confidential information about customers of the bank in these calendars and some personal information as well. Can I trust you — as my friend — not to report on any of the rest of it?”
Her trust was all that had brought me this far, and she clearly wasn’t going to part with the calendars without my promise. I gave it to her.
“I think the 1977 calendar will be the most helpful,” I said.
“The one for the year Ben sold the boat?”
“Yes.”
“That reminds me,” she said, and went back to the desk. She opened the top drawer, searched through a thin sheaf of papers, and took an unsealed envelope from them. As she handed it to me, I saw that she had written my name on it. “This is the information on the boat.”
I removed the handwritten note from the envelope as Claire sat on the couch next to me. It read:
52’ Bertram sold to Andre Selman for $1000.00 on 8/15/77
“A thousand dollars! For a fifty-two-foot Bertram? Hell, was the bottom missing out of it?”
She didn’t answer.
“When Andre took me fishing,” I said, “it was on a little Boston Whaler. A fine craft for its purpose, but I don’t think it was fifteen feet long. A Bertram — what was the thousand for? Refueling it after a test ride?”
“It’s bad enough without your exaggeration, Irene.”
“I was wondering how someone making an assistant professor’s pay could afford a boat that size. It would strain his budget just to afford maintenance and taxes and slip fees. But the boat — Andre got himself a helluva deal, wouldn’t you say?”
“Andre got himself a helluva gift,” she muttered.
I watched her. Her eyes were lowered, her hands folded carefully in her lap.
“Why do you think Ben gave Andre such a bargain?”
She bit her lower lip, shrugged. “As I told you, the last time he went out on the boat, Ben got a bad case of seasickness. Came back late one day from a fishing trip with Andre looking awful. Ben said he didn’t want to set foot on it again, that he was going to sell the boat to Andre. I remember that much.”
“Come on, Claire. A man who is nobody’s financial sucker practically donates an expensive item to a college professor? Over a bout of seasickness? I know people who’d make themselves throw up for the kind of money he lost on this deal. There’s more to this.” I watched her carefully. “No guesses?”
“I didn’t know he had sold it for so little! I know it looks bad,” she said, then added, “Maybe that’s why Lucas Monroe sent those photos — maybe he knew why Ben sold the boat for next to nothing! He worked for Andre, right?”
“Not by then. A lot of things had happened by August of 1977, Claire. I’ll tell you what I know so far. Around 1975, Roland Hill and a few of his friends had acquired some real estate in a seedy part of town. I haven’t checked into it yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bank of Las Piernas financed some of the purchases. Andre Selman was hired to do a study for the city, probably at Allan Moffett’s urging. The study was supposed to help the city target areas for redevelopment money, and to help the city plan for the future. Lucas Monroe was one of Andre’s assistants.”
“So he worked on this study?”
“Yes. He was going to include some of the work he did on the study in his master’s thesis. He had some disagreements with Andre about the way the study was being done, but they weren’t severe enough to damage his standing with Andre — or so he thought. Then Lucas turned the thesis in, and it was rejected.”
“Why?”
I told her the story Lucas’s mother had told me, and what I had learned from Murray of the new plans for the area.
“You’re saying Ben was dishonest.”
“If Ben knowingly went along with what I suspect happened, yes, I suppose that makes him dishonest. It’s also possible that he unwittingly dealt with some people who were bribing the city manager.”
She gazed out the window again. “If he was involved at all, he would have known. He wouldn’t have been ‘unwitting,’” she said. “Ben wasn’t stupid.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“That’s what that photograph — the second one — is supposed to prove, isn’t it? That Ben was meeting with these people before the redevelopment study was in, right?”
“That photo shows some people on a fishing trip. It doesn’t prove anything, really. The people in the photo are allowed to be friends, to go fishing together. But maybe it represents something else, or was just supposed to hint to Ben and the others that Lucas knew more.”
“You talk as if all Mr. Monroe would be after is a master’s degree. But Ben wouldn’t be the person to approach in that case, would he? If Lucas Monroe had some proof of this collusion, don’t you think it’s more likely that he saw a perfect opportunity to blackmail my husband?”
“Maybe. And if he was blackmailing other people as well, maybe he died because someone didn’t want to pay up. From your point of view, I suppose, it would be comforting to think of Lucas as a villain who got what he deserved. If you just want to accept that as an explanation, with no proof one way or another, then go ahead and take these calendars back.”
She hesitated just long enough for me to begin to regret making rash offers. “No, I wan
t to know the truth,” she said, then added, “I don’t know that you’ll find it in there.”
I let my breath out again and asked, “Did you read them?”
She shook her head. “Not recently.”
“You read them when he wrote them?”
“No, not really. He didn’t hide them from me. Sometimes I would be in here with him as he wrote in them; once in a while he would call from the office, ask me to look something up for him. But they were his notes, and I didn’t feel a need to study them. I preferred to have him talk to me about his day.”
“So they’re business notes?”
“Yes, but not just business notes. Not quite a diary, either. Part business, part diary. I’ll want them back, but take them home with you for now.”
I figured that was a dismissal. I knew I had upset her, and felt bad about that. She had been through enough. I picked up the heavy binders and started to stand up.
“Wait,” she said softly. She wasn’t looking at me, but I could see tears welling up in her eyes. Her hand came up to her lips again, pressing hard, in what I was learning was her gesture of distress.
I sat down, feeling like something that would be happier sunning itself on a rock. “Claire, I’m sorry—”
She waved me to silence. I waited, setting the binders down again.
“Ben would have wanted what was best for the city,” she said slowly, then drew a shaky breath. “He loved Las Piernas. He just wanted it to be a good place to live. Whatever choices he made, he wouldn’t have done anything that would harm Las Piernas.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“Are you asking me if I believe that Ben loved Las Piernas? Or are you asking me if I believe he was a saint?”
“I know he wasn’t a saint,” she said. “He was a complex man. I’m not certain of much about Ben anymore, but I’m certain of that.”
“You’re right about how he felt about Las Piernas.”
She lifted a shoulder, as if suddenly she wasn’t so sure.