by Sam Reaves
Abby had no answer for that. She said, “You’re going to find a way. You’re going to do what you have to do to have the life you want to have. You’re not responsible for your father. You’re just responsible for you.”
It wasn’t much of a lifeline, but Natalia seemed to grab it; she stared out the window a while longer and then heaved a sigh and bent toward the desk again. “I don’t get this,” she said.
“Forget it, then,” said Abby, flipping the notebook shut. “It’s not going anywhere. We’ll tackle it again tomorrow. Maybe today you start paying me for the lessons. Let’s go buy some groceries and you can teach me how to make pambazos.”
“This is as close to an elegant cocktail lounge as it gets in Lewisburg,” said Lisa Beth, sliding onto a barstool. “Sad to say, we have no Musso and Frank or Toots Shor’s.”
What they had was the bar at the Holiday Inn, which was full of flat-screen TVs and middle-aged men in polo shirts. Lisa Beth had waved or nodded at some of them as she and Abby proceeded to an uninhabited stretch at the end of the bar and installed themselves where they could survey the room. “They have a house specialty cocktail, but I don’t recommend it,” said Lisa Beth. “Stick to the classics that only the clumsiest bartender can screw up, and you’ll be OK.”
“Um, you’re going to have to help me out,” said Abby. “I’m not much of a drinker, really.”
“And I am.” Lisa Beth smiled at the slightly pudgy young man who was ambling down the bar toward them. “Hello, Ricky. My usual, please. My friend here will try a Manhattan, in honor of her hometown.”
Abby had had a Manhattan once, and she didn’t recall especially liking it, but she was in a mood to be led. She nodded at Ricky and he went away to make the drinks.
Lisa Beth said, “I am an alcoholic, as I’m sure you have noted. All I have to say in my defense is that I’m a very high-functioning one. I managed to quit smoking five years ago, so I figure I’m entitled to this vice. At this point in my life, I don’t have anything to prove, it doesn’t impair me notably, and it gives me something to look forward to every afternoon. If my liver gives out one of these days, that’s better than wasting away with dementia, in my book. There. That’s my apologia, in case you felt one was needed.”
Abby managed to say, “Not really. I did notice, but it’s none of my business.”
“If you prefer to have a soft drink, it’s probably not too late to cancel the Manhattan,” said Lisa Beth with a look that might have been slightly abashed. “We drunks just enjoy the company, that’s all.”
“No, the Manhattan will be fine. But I’ll probably just have one. What’s Jerry up to this evening?”
“Cooking, I hope. I’ll be hungry when we’re done here.” Lisa Beth smiled. “Yes, we have in many ways completely reversed the traditional gender roles in our marriage. Jerry is the domestic one. He likes to cook, and he’s pretty good at it. He keeps the house tidy, balances the bank statement every month and loves those tony British dramas on TV. Me, I’m the one who likes hanging out in bars and talking to dubious people. Present company excluded of course. It’s kind of a strange formula for a marriage, but it’s worked for almost forty years. No kids, and you’d think that would have been it for the marriage, but it wasn’t. I guess we’re just too lazy to get a divorce. Ah, here we go.”
They took delivery of the drinks; Lisa Beth’s usual appeared to be a martini with three olives on a tiny plastic sword. They clinked glasses and Lisa Beth said, “Cheers. Now, what’s on your mind?”
Abby was a little startled; she had not mentioned anything beyond a desire to get out of the house on a Saturday night when she had called Lisa Beth, but in fact she did have an agenda. She frowned and said, “I was wondering what you’d heard about Miguel Menéndez and his legal case. His daughter’s worried sick. She says his lawyer’s trying to cut a deal, but it will involve their losing the store. And she says he’s getting angry phone calls. I’m wondering if he’s in danger.”
Lisa Beth raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know who from. Unless it would be the Hoosier taxpayers. There’s been some muttering about Mexican criminals, from the usual hotheads. You heard about the bust?”
“No. What bust?”
Lisa Beth swallowed and set down her glass. “The state police and the local flatfeet raided the trailer park on the east side of town today. They arrested three Mexican nationals and found weapons and drugs. They didn’t find any missing heads, but I don’t think they expected to.”
“Oh, my God. Do they think they got this killer?”
“I don’t know what they think, because they’re still not saying much. But I can tell you what I think. I think this Mexican angle is a load of hooey.”
Abby waited while Lisa Beth drank deep. “OK, why?”
“Precisely because Miguel Menéndez is still alive.”
Abby worked on it for a second or two and said, “I’m not following you.”
Lisa Beth leaned closer. “Listen. How do criminal gangs operate? What’s the modus operandi? If the Zetas really are active in this part of the world, do you think there would be any independent Mexican criminals?”
Abby frowned. “I give up.”
“The answer is no. When a big-time gang like the Zetas moves in some place, they get control of everything. They identify the rackets, the ones they think they’re entitled to, and they take them over. Anything significant, anyway. And Menéndez was making big money. I guarantee you, if the Zetas were concerned with what goes on around here, they would be taking a big cut of what Menéndez made from his scam in exchange for protection, and the second there was a hint he was trying to cut a deal with the feds, he would be the one going up like a Roman candle in his car. I’m sorry, that was callous. But last I heard, Menéndez was still peddling peppers there on the corner near you. He’s not scared enough. So I don’t believe the big bad Zeta bogeyman theory. I just don’t. If there’s any serious organized crime around here, it’s much more likely to be run by biker gangs. The Outlaws, for example, have been into drugs and extortion and loan sharking for years. As for these characters they scooped up today, I think they’re just garden-variety punks. Probably with ties to some minor-league street gang in Naptown. But I don’t believe they’re the ones who killed Lyman and Frederick. I just don’t see it.” She leaned back and reached for her glass.
Abby sat and watched Lisa Beth drink. “So who did kill them?” she said finally.
Lisa Beth fished an olive off the tiny plastic sword with her teeth, consumed it and said, “I don’t know. Not yet. But I’m going to find out. I’ve been thinking I need a new hobby, and this could be it.”
As Abby pulled into Ned McLaren’s driveway, her headlights washed over the covered porch, illuminating three men sitting there. Coming up the steps, she identified Ned, Everett Elford and Ron Ingstrom. They were dimly lit by the glow coming through the open door to the house. Inside, men were laughing. The three men on the porch had drinks in their hands; from the looks on their faces she had the impression she had interrupted something more than casual chat. Elford said, “Do you know what time it is, young lady?”
“It’s not quite nine,” said Abby. “Ned lets me stay out till ten on weekends.”
They all grinned, and Ned said, “You’re just in time to get into the poker game. Twenty-dollar buy-in.”
“Not my game,” said Abby. “The mathematics are only moderately interesting and I’m too honest to bluff.”
“Pull up a chair. Everett’s just been telling us about the big bust.”
“I heard.” Abby took a chair from its place against the wall and unfolded it. “Lisa Beth Quinton was telling me about it.”
“You’re as thick as thieves with Lisa Beth these days,” said Ned.
Abby shrugged. “She’s been very helpful to me.”
“She’s a good one to know if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of the community,” said Elford. “She’s been minding other people’s business for a long time ar
ound here.”
Ned laughed. “Touched a nerve, has she?”
Elford smiled. “She’s a good reporter. Let’s just say her approach is a little adversarial sometimes. She’s got a bit of an attitude about wealth.”
“And privilege,” said Ned. “Don’t forget the privilege.”
“Oh, yes. The feudal sway I supposedly hold over this county.”
“Well, these guys they just arrested work for you, don’t they?”
Elford shot him a sour look. “Two of them do. The other one is unemployed, I believe. And let me be the first to say, they used to work for me.” He turned to Abby and said, “These guys they arrested are small-time dope dealers. Apparently they have some links to one of the Indianapolis street gangs. Whether they’re the ones who did these murders, I have no idea. The police are looking hard at the forensics, and we’ll see what turns up.”
Abby said, “Lisa Beth has a theory. She says that if there really was a Mexican organized-crime presence here, Miguel Menéndez would not still be alive. She thinks he would be dead already, because he’s talking to the government. So she doesn’t buy the Mexican crime theory.”
The men digested this. Elford said, “Lisa Beth’s always got a theory. Who knows? But it’s also possible that Menéndez is still alive because he is the big enchilada. Maybe he’s the boss. Maybe he’s the guy who had Lyman and Frederick whacked, because they had snitched on him.”
They fell silent for a while. “Deep waters,” said Ned. “If it was Menéndez, then it’s over, right? Is there anybody else around who pissed him off?”
Nobody said anything to that, though Abby sat thinking about how she had pissed off his son. After a moment Ingstrom spoke for the first time. “You’ll want to make a statement,” he said to Elford. “Condemning these guys. Illegal behavior won’t be tolerated at Elford Enterprises, et cetera. It wouldn’t hurt to fire a few illegals if you can spare them. You can’t afford to have people identifying you with Mexican criminals.”
Elford nodded and gave Abby a rueful look. “Ron’s trying to get me elected to Congress.”
“Keep it under your hat if you don’t mind,” Ingstrom said. “The official announcement isn’t until next week.”
“I won’t tell a soul,” said Abby. “But I think the rumor’s already out there. Lisa Beth Quinton guessed when she saw you two at the LUCES benefit.”
“It’s not really a secret,” said Ingstrom. “But we like to try to maximize the surprise.”
Elford said, “Right now we’re going over all the skeletons in my closet, trying to assess whether any of them will shoot down my candidacy. I think we’ve decided that the drunk and disorderly arrest when I was at IU might just pass unnoticed.”
“It won’t,” said Ingstrom. “But you should survive. Youthful indiscretion.”
Elford shook his head, trading a look with Ned. “Everyone’s got a skeleton or two in the closet, right?”
“I have an entire ossuary,” said Ned.
“A what?” Elford laughed, his ample belly shaking. “Isn’t that a kind of bird?”
“Bones,” said Ned. “A whole lot of bones. That’s what I’ve got.”
Elford casually tapped Ingstrom’s knee with the back of his hand. “This guy’s got more than both of us put together, between being a crack defense attorney and a top political operator. Right, Ron?”
Ingstrom smiled. “That’s why you’re running instead of me,” he said. His eyes met Abby’s and she did not see a lot of humor there.
The Herald Gazette website was not exactly a go-to source for world news. The top story this morning, judging from its placement just beneath the ads for car dealers and furniture stores that dominated the home page, was an antique car rally in the mall parking lot south of town. Abby had to scroll down to News to find Lisa Beth’s report on the trailer park arrests, nestled between Meteor Steel seeks land to expand and Garage damaged.
Lisa Beth had gotten somebody at the police station to talk to her, it appeared; her account contained the names of the arrestees and a list of the weapons confiscated: two handguns and a semiautomatic assault rifle. That was in addition to approximately twenty-five grams of heroin, with an estimated street value of $5,000. Two of the arrestees were employees of Tippecanoe Agricultural Enterprises. Their immigration status was under investigation.
To Abby that didn’t sound like a drug operation on a scale that would rate imported hit men and envoys from Mexico putting the arm on local rackets, but it was hardly her area of expertise. Abby spent a little time on the site, looking for other articles by Lisa Beth. Only the features bore a byline, and most of those were Lisa Beth’s. Most of the items were short, uncredited and, as far as Abby was concerned, utterly inconsequential. There was no mention of Miguel Menéndez and his troubles except in a pair of archived articles several weeks old. The few items on world or national news were from the AP.
Abby left the site and mused for a moment, trying to picture a young Lisa Beth Quinton. She would have gotten her journalism degree more or less in the Watergate era and been fired up to take on the world, speak truth to power, and bring down the high and mighty. A job in Cincinnati might have given her a start, but she had chosen to come here, yoked in a marriage that she herself didn’t seem to value much.
You are not going to wind up like that, Abby told herself. You will do what you have to do to get to a place where you really want to be. This is an exile; at the end of it you will go out and take on the world.
At least, Abby thought, you will not be yoked in a marriage. There is nothing left of that but a chair toppled on its side.
Abby pulled into a parking spot in the faculty lot behind the library and shut off the ignition. The drive from home had taken her all of three minutes. The fear that came with darkness had receded in the light of day, and she had stood under the tree on Ned McLaren’s lawn, debating with herself, preferring to walk to campus on a fine late-summer morning but finally opting for the greater security of her car.
She grabbed her bag off the seat and got out. She stepped onto the sidewalk and was startled to see Ben Larch sitting on the steps to the library entrance. He looked up from his phone and seemed equally startled; Abby halted and they stared at one another for a couple of seconds.
You are the boss, Abby thought. Act like it. She took a couple of slow steps toward him. “Hello, Ben. Are you coming back to class?”
Ben Larch just stared at her, his look hardening. “I thought you wanted me out of there.”
Abby knew she had made a tactical mistake by asking the question. “What I want is for you to get from the class what you need to get. And that means observing certain conventions of behavior. If you can do that, I’m happy to have you in the class.”
“So why did you set the dogs on me?” Now he was giving her the remote, affectless gaze he had given her when he had stormed out of her office.
Walk, Abby thought. Walk away from this. Instead she said, “I informed the dean what was going on. That was the proper procedure. I’m not going to debate it.”
“No, you’re always right, aren’t you?”
Abby stiffened. “OK. Don’t come back. Not if you’re not prepared to be cooperative and compliant.” Abby walked on past him.
She had almost rounded the corner of the library when Ben called after her, “I’ll be back, don’t worry.”
Ben was not in class, much to Abby’s relief. Even so, it was not her best performance. She was distracted and unfocused, and a couple of times caught students looking at her with expressions of mild puzzlement and concern. She rallied and managed to wrap up the session with a reasonable summation and a pep talk for the next quiz. But she fled down the hall to her office without lingering for her usual relaxed wind-down after class.
There was an e-mail waiting for her on her laptop from Richard Spassky.
I spoke with Ben Larch this morning about your concerns. He was somewhat uncommunicative but he seemed to understand what was at is
sue and he agreed that there would be no further untoward advances. If there are, please don’t hesitate to notify me and we will begin formal proceedings. But I think it’s always better if these things can be dealt with informally without setting the machinery in motion. Sometimes students just need to be made aware.
And sometimes, thought Abby, they need to be slapped down. She replied, noting that she had spoken with Ben but he had not been in class, and turned to the pile of homework she had to grade, grateful that she had work to distract her from the minefield that her life seemed to be turning into.
She had barely begun when she looked up at a knock on the door frame to see Graham standing there. “Got a second?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
Graham came in and sat down across from her, a slight frown settling in. “I got a heads-up from Spassky about one of my advisees. Ben Larch?”
Abby sat back, sighing. “Ah. He’s one of yours, is he?”
“Well, I am his academic advisor, yes. What’s the story?”
Abby leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “The story is, he has no idea of boundaries. Or the proper relationship between student and teacher. He tried to give me a present, he makes remarks about my appearance, he got a little surly when I told him we weren’t friends. He’s creepy and he’s over the line.”
Graham nodded, frowning. “He’s a little problematic, yeah.”
“You’ve had problems with him before?”
“Not me personally. He had a nervous breakdown his sophomore year, I think. Year before last. If I recall correctly, there was a suicide attempt, kind of halfhearted, with pills. He had to drop out for a semester. But he got help, apparently, and he was readmitted. He’s one of these high-strung kids. I think there’s medication involved. But he seemed to be back on an even keel, in my dealings with him, anyway. I’m sorry he’s made trouble for you.”
Abby slumped on her chair, exhaling. “The last thing in the world I want to be is a coldhearted bitch, believe me. I’m sorry if he’s got problems, I really am. People very dear to me have had problems.” She had to catch her breath for a moment before raising her eyes to Graham again. “But I’m not responsible for whatever’s bothering him. I’m responsible for seeing that the people in my classes learn something. So I feel like I have to be a bit of a hard-ass about this.”