The Legal Limit

by Martin Clark

  “Really? Huh. Excellent,” Mason said, his tone suddenly positive, accommodating. “I think charity’s critical. I’m pleased to hear you feel it’s important to lend a hand.”

  “We do everything from Little League to fire departments.”

  “Our fire departments and rescue squads are all volunteer, so any contribution means a lot. They work hard for free and squeak by on fundraisers and donations. A real shoestring budget.”

  “A crying shame,” Hudgens remarked.

  “Recognizing their dedication carries quite a bit of weight with me,” Mason added.

  “I’m sure we will be eager to make a generous commitment if we set up shop in Patrick. I’m delighted we have this as a common denominator. Whether we’re awarded our grant or not, I would certainly be honored to cut a check immediately as a token of our goodwill. As an employer, we also value fire and rescue personnel—they are vital to what we do. How does two thousand dollars sound?”

  “Great. But five sounds better.”

  “Five it is,” Hudgens agreed.

  “Thanks. Make it payable to the Patrick Springs Volunteer Fire Department. They cover the district where I live, and they can use the cash.”

  “Consider it done. I’ll have it forwarded to your office.”

  “So I take it you’re the man to contact about any changes in the terms of your deal?” Mason’s voice remained upbeat.

  “Changes?”

  “Yes. I’m happy to have established this channel,” Mason said, smiling to himself, “so we can streamline our negotiations.”

  “Uh, yes, I’m always available to discuss any issues,” Hudgens answered after a moment’s hesitation, caught off guard because he hadn’t sweet-talked Mason into submission and bribed him with shiny beads and a pittance for the natives.

  “Excellent. We can start by adding some assurances in your contract with the county, guaranteed by Mr. Dylan personally or a corporate surety, that you will remain here for a minimum of ten years and provide seventy jobs with a pay scale forty percent above minimum wage. If you fail to do so, depending on when you breach, you refund a pro-rata share of the local tax forgiveness and the tobacco grant. Gives us security, gives you your free money, and we both have every incentive to make your stay in Patrick profitable and lengthy.” By the end of his proposal, it was evident the earlier aw-shucks acquiescence in Mason’s voice had been feint and flypaper, a snare.

  “I see. Of course, we believe the document as written is extremely fair. We find it difficult to be economically bound to situations we have little or no control over. Speaking for Mr. Dylan, I can honestly say we’d thought our reputation, integrity and global success would be sufficient to warrant your county’s acceptance of our terms without change.” Hudgens sharpened his words: “While it is theoretically possible we could encounter events which require your facility to become superfluous, it is equally possible we could expand threefold wherein you receive more than you bargained for. As we see it, this is classic risk allocation.”

  “So’s a dice game in an alley,” Mason said. “Doesn’t mean I want to play.”

  “I mention this as background and for no other reason: as you might guess, there’s quite a queue for this plant. While Patrick County is near the top of our wish list, we have other attractive alternatives.”

  “So you won’t give us any guarantees or structure a repayment if you fold your tents?”

  “I will bring it to Mr. Dylan’s attention, but I’m not optimistic. I doubt he’ll want to purchase a sea of monetary uncertainty, and any underwriting via insurance would not be cost-effective for us. There may be a degree of tweaking or a very limited guarantee we can provide, but, much as I despair in saying it, your demands could be a barrier to consummating the deal.”

  “Hmmm,” Mason grunted. “Consummating and getting screwed are close kin in this part of the world.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The commission is meeting soon. I’ll let you know what I decide.”

  “Thank you,” Hudgens said. “I appreciate the consideration. I truly believe if you reflect on the offer, you’ll conclude it’s beneficial to you, your county and Caldwell-Dylan. As best I can discern, you are the only fence-sitter, the only obstacle holding up this transaction. Your various boards and any number of prominent citizens have embraced us and are eager to make this happen. As is. Without change. Perhaps I might send them in your direction?”

  “Jeez, no. Thanks. I’ve already had an earful.” Mason chuckled to let Hudgens know there were no hard feelings. “Believe it or not, I have an open mind. See what Mr. Dylan will do. Please at least ask him about my suggestion. I want this to come together, too.”

  “I will. I look forward to wrapping this up to everyone’s satisfaction.”

  The following afternoon the fire department check arrived, FedExed overnight, and included in the envelope were four third-row-center seats to see The Lion King and a number to call for “courtesy round-trip air to New York, plus hotel and transportation.” Mason had Sheila return the tickets the very same day, but when he foolishly mentioned the lost opportunity to Grace, she pitched a hissy fit and howled and pouted because she wouldn’t get to go and had to live her life in the sticks, set on a dead-end trek to the white-trash backwoods. “Don’t blame me,” she griped, “if I wind up stuck in Branscomb’s Trailer Court with tube tops and purple Maybelline eye shadow.”

  Mason allowed a parent’s amused, wiser-than-thou expression to form, drawing and rolling his mouth, pretending he was trying to derail a smile but—this was the infuriating part—letting on he really wasn’t taking her seriously, and she became madder and madder and madder, to the point of tears. Twenty minutes later he knocked on her bedroom door and conveyed through the wood he’d called his cousin Sean in New York, and they now had two Lion King tickets for July, as well as a fancy hotel room to boot, a suite at the Waldorf. Within seconds she was in the hall, bouncing, excited, squealing and proclaiming him the best dad in the world. “I’m sorry I was such a baby. Wait till I tell Evette and Monica—they’ll die,” she said, and off she went to call her girlfriends, her door once again closed to him.

  On the anniversary of Allison’s death, her daughter and husband rode together to the Stuart Cemetery in the late afternoon and visited her gravesite. Mason knelt and plucked away a few grass sprigs that had trespassed over the boundary of her foot-marker, and he stared down at the dates cut in granite, but, for Grace’s sake, he strangled his emotions, refusing to tear up or cry. When she wasn’t watching, he shut his eyes and recalled the blind, splendid times before he’d been force-fed forbidden fruit and schooled in what could indeed happen, the dandy years before he feared that every tractor-trailer might veer across the center line and worried that every muscle cramp was multiple sclerosis, every belch a stomach cancer’s calling card. There’d been a day when he and Allison set their clocks by cocktail parties and the future was simply the next weekend, the next thirty ticks of a second hand, the lazy minutes it took him, sprawled naked on a sagging couch, to recover and have another go at sex. Now, like it or not, his horizon line had evaporated and there was a long view, and it was full of chicanes, perils, hazards and pit traps, enough inevitable bad news to make anyone jittery. He opened his eyes. He caught sight of a man unloading a push mower from a pickup bed, a red and yellow gas can already on the ground beside him.

  After they’d been there a while, silent and keeping to themselves, Grace asked Mason if he was planning to stay forever.

  “Huh?” he mumbled, distracted. “Stay, uh, where?”

  “Here,” she answered, childishly put out with him. “Looming. Invading my privacy.”

  “Oh. Okay. I see. Yeah. Sorry.” He was standing by then, and he pawed at the ground with the toe of his black dress shoe. He jingled the coins in his pocket. He blew a kiss toward the dirt and said “Bye, Love,” to his wife, said it aloud. Finally, he bent over and moved the flowers he’d brought—red roses, a frivolous gi
ft that would soon wilt in the sun—to a spot a few inches away from where they already were and rotated the vase half a turn, leaving everything just so for Allison, doing all he could for her, even if it was only bustle and fuss and not a soul would notice the difference in the big graveyard, monotonous with its headstones and chiseled names. “No hurry,” he told Grace. “I’ll be in the car.”

  She stayed for fifteen minutes more, and checking on her in the mirror, Mason could see she was speaking occasionally, and as she was leaving she removed a rose from his arrangement and dropped it onto the grass. Her cheeks were damp and her breathing knotty when she returned to the car. Mason met her, and she allowed him to drape her shoulder and walk her to the passenger side, help her with the door. He cooked them a better meal than normal, and after supper they unboxed snapshots and photo albums, but neither of them mourned or strayed into sadness, and Grace smiled at one picture of her mother, beheld it as if she were viewing a movie-poster stranger, and she remarked on how gorgeous Allison was, how perfectly she wore her dress.

  On a stale, humdrum morning in the middle of June, Mason was crossing the town’s public parking lot, returning to his office after a short docket in general district court, and he thought he heard someone say his name. He checked behind him but didn’t break stride until he heard the voice again. He followed it to his left where he spotted a man rising out of a green Honda. It was Ed Hoffman, and seeing him startled Mason so much he quit walking and, like a dope, allowed one of his files to get loose and fall to the ground. Papers went everywhere, but thank God there was no wind.

  “Sorry,” Hoffman said, approaching Mason. He gestured at the spilled file. “Need me to help you?”

  “Hey, Ed.” Mason was gathering his papers, trying not to rush or appear discombobulated. “Well, I suppose if you’re here to arrest me, you can hold off on the cuffs long enough for me to pick up everything. I need both hands free.”

  “Nah. Personal visit.”

  Mason finished collecting the file’s contents. Page corners were sticking from the top, bottom and side, slapdash. “Personal in what sense?” he asked.

  “Buy you coffee or a cold drink?”

  “Do I need my lawyer?” Mason wanted to know.

  “Personal, Mason. Off the record.” As usual, Hoffman spoke in abbreviated bursts, stinting with his words.

  “There’s a new coffee shop on Main Street—Stuart’s climbing the ladder. You willing to spring for a two-buck cup of decaf?”

  “Good coffee’s worth two dollars. My opinion it is. I drink it by the bucket.” He was gripping a rolled-up magazine, popping it against his palm.

  “I’m surprised, tight as you are,” Mason needled him.

  “I also spend extra for sheets. Third of your life, you’re in bed. No place to skimp. Me, I’m a thread-count man. I’ll pay top dollar for quality linens.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” He continued a beat with the magazine that had no relation to their conversation.

  “Any other extravagances?” Mason asked.

  “Nope. Not on what the state pays me.”

  At Firebaugh’s Coffee they took a corner table away from the counter and its traffic. Mason asked for lemonade, fresh-made by the owner, and Hoffman ordered a specialty blend that had to be started from scratch, the beans scooped from a canister and ground.

  “So what’s the ‘personal’ concern that brings you to my neck of the woods?” Mason asked soon after they’d been served.

  “We’re friends, Mason. I hate where we’re at right now. With your brother. Me and you know you didn’t shoot nobody. Least I don’t think you did.” He stopped stirring his coffee and peered up at Mason, then returned to his spoon and sugar packets. “But it’s hinky. Gates is too close to the bull’s-eye. Me, I got my idea of what happened. You already know that.” He bounced another glance off Mason, who remained impassive.

  “I’m listening, Ed.”

  “Gates Hunt is a dung beetle. Truth be told, I’d bet he done it. Hell, the dead boy wasn’t screwing your gal, now was he?”

  Mason hadn’t touched his drink. Water beads were forming on the plastic glass, on the cusp of trickling. “I’m happy to hear whatever you have to say, Ed, but, uh, help me here, this hardly seems like a personal visit. Sounds to me like this is part two of my interrogation.”

  “I ain’t on duty. I promised you we’re off the record. Gave you my word.”

  “No notes, no wires? You’re not recording me?”

  “No,” Hoffman snarled. “Hell no. We know each other better than that. You want, we’ll step in the toilet and you can shine a light up my ass. I’m not in Stuart, never was.”

  “I didn’t know cops were ever off duty. Exactly how does that operate? I suppose if I were to confess right now, you’d act like it never happened, huh?” Mason took a swallow of lemonade. He kept the glass in the air so it came between him and Hoffman. “So, anyhow, you were saying?” He lowered the drink.

  “If I’m readin’ this right, you’re between a rock and a hard place. For another man’s crime. Brass tacks, my friend, I’m assuming you covered for him. Not legal by the book, but understandable between brothers. Don’t have to be a genius to solve the puzzle. Unless you’re Minter. Minter’s fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes. He’s after you, believes what he wants to believe. You’re in Minter’s sights.”

  “I’m still listening, Ed. Let me just say again, I had no involvement in Wayne’s death, before, during or after, but I’m happy to listen.”

  “Gotcha. I understand. My proposal: a polygraph. I’ll bind the commonwealth, put it in writing. You pass, you walk. You fail, we throw it away. Can’t use it at trial.”

  “Can’t use it anyway, Ed. We’ve already traveled this road. I’m not about to take a polygraph.” Mason put his elbows on the table and laced his fingers.

  “Difference being, you pass it and everything ends. That’s new. It’s a bonus not many receive. Satisfy the examiner, you’re done. You fail, we can’t hurt you with it. Stallings’ll never catch wind of it. He’ll never know if you bomb. Also, I’ll see to it you only have to answer two questions. One: Did you shoot Wayne Thompson? Two—”

  “I didn’t,” Mason interjected.

  “Two: Do you know who did?”

  “Lee Harvey Oswald, maybe? Woody Harrelson’s dad? Raoul, this international guy with sunglasses I met in a bar?” Mason unlocked his hands. “I don’t have any idea who shot Wayne Thompson, and as much as I trust you, I don’t trust the lie-box, and more important, I have to question whether you can legally bind our pal Mr. Stallings, even if you wanted to.”

  “Already thought of that. I’ll sign off on it, and Mike Madison in the attorney general’s office will, too. We’ll write it down. I’ll play dumb. Pretend I didn’t know we were operating through Stallings. Mike has high regard for you. You were in law school together?”

  “Yeah. We were friends in school, then we kept in touch while Allison and I were living in Richmond.”

  “You can’t lose. I’m offering a free spin at the big wheel.”

  Mason jabbed at the ice in his glass with the wrong end of a butter knife. He spoke while he was stabbing the ice, his head down, Hoffman completely missing from his vision. “I appreciate it, Ed. I realize you don’t have too many days off, and it’s kind of you to burn your gas and waste one on me. I understand you’re trying to help me and respect your job at the same time.” He adjusted his gaze to take in the detective. “Sitting here, right this moment, the answer is maybe. I’ll give it some more thought, and if I decide to do it, I’ll contact you. If I decline, it doesn’t mean I’m not grateful. Why don’t you see if you and Madison can have something typed up and finalized for me to review?”

  “Already done.” Hoffman opened the magazine and withdrew two sheets of paper held together with a single corner staple. “Mr. Madison signed. I signed. Place for you to sign.”

  “Huh.” Mason could see the he
ading of the document: FULL IMMUNITY AGREEMENT. “You’re way ahead of me.” He laid the knife on a paper napkin, and the lemonade began to spread and dissolve the area around the handle. “Of course, a court might rule the AG’s office has no standing and I receive zilch. I’d wind up screwed, jumping through hoops for nothing. Let me sleep on it. I’ll probably discuss it with Custis, too.” The papers were bowed from their stay in the rolled-up magazine, didn’t rest flat on the table. Mason took them and turned them facedown. He pressed them with both hands, trying to mash away the hump. “If I don’t accept your offer, Ed, it has nothing to do with my guilt or innocence,” Mason dissembled, already building an excuse for his friend. “From here to trial, it’s just about strategy, whatever works best.”

  “No problem. Unless it’s cheatin’ or illegal, I’ll do everything I can for you.”

  They spent a few more minutes talking about Grace and the professional baseball standings, and as they were heading for the door, Mason noticed Hoffman had left his magazine on the table. Mason reminded him he’d forgotten it, and Hoffman immediately said, “Yeah. Meant to leave it. It’s not an accident.”

  “Oh.”

  “Good merchandise in there,” Hoffman said with odd vigor and enthusiasm.

  “Okay,” Mason replied uncertainly.

  “I’m done with it. Don’t need it.”

  “Maybe I should go retrieve it,” Mason said.

  “Free country, Mason. You’re welcome to. Might learn a lot.” Hoffman extended his hand. “I’m goin’ home. Treatin’ my granddaughter to the zoo. She loves the tigers. Enjoyed the coffee with you. It was worth the price.”

  Mason accepted his hand. “Take care,” he said, and he watched Hoffman leave and never turn around to see what was happening behind him. He had a quick, upright walk, almost ceremonial, like a palace guard or a drum major.

  The magazine, Mason discovered, was actually a trade catalog for a company called Tactical Technologies, and one color page was conspicuously dog-eared. It displayed an “audio listening device,” model CST 702V, and described its transmitting distance, power requirements, number of channels, size, cost and warranty period. It was endorsed by a police chief from Delaware. The remainder of the catalog was more of the same.