Lou Mason Mystery 03-Cold Truth

by Joel Goldman

  Jordan tapped into a wellspring of venom Mason thought had run dry. "I said it's nothing! Give it back to the fucking pig and tell him I'll rip his fucking heart out if he comes near me!"

  Mason thought about the lies he'd told and heard that day, adding Jordan's outburst to the list. The ledger was something—maybe gold, maybe poison, maybe both— but it was the opposite of nothing. That was Jordan's lie. That she would rip out Centurion's heart if she had the chance was nothing but the truth.

  Mason left Jordan in the bedroom. He used the all-in-one fax, copier, printer, and scanner in Daphne's study to make a copy of the pages in the book. Then he called Centurion, arranging to meet him in another very public place. Mason thought his choice was perfect for returning a book. Besides, he doubted whether Centurion had ever been in the public library.

  Chapter 19

  Mickey was in the study, seated at Daphne's computer, scrolling through a web site and muttering under his breath, as Mason confirmed his meeting with Centurion Johnson. Maroon velvet wallpaper shrank the study, already cramped by a rolltop desk, its cubbyholes stuffed with incoming and outgoing mail.

  "Is that a good idea, Boss?" Mickey asked.

  "Is what a good idea?"

  "You going out in the rain to meet Centurion?"

  "I'm meeting him at the public library. That's the safest place I know unless you take a sex education book back into the stacks."

  "Bad idea to go alone."

  "Who said anything about going alone. I'll call Blues."

  "He's tending bar tonight since the regular bartender called in sick. Normally, I'd fill in, but I'm babysitting Jordan."

  "That's why he calls the place Blues on Broadway. The customers expect to see him. I'll call Harry."

  "Not home. Claire picked him up a few minutes ago. They're flying to Chicago for dinner."

  "Get real, Mickey. Nobody flies to Chicago for dinner, especially Harry and Claire."

  "She said it's for Harry's birthday, the celebration that never ends. She's acting like he won't see another one. Their flight is at six and their reservations are at nine. They're coming back in the morning."

  Mason knew his aunt better than he knew anyone alive. She had raised him on a regimen of duty disciplined by frugality. She was a serious woman with serious values moderated by a serious humor that rarely indulged in flights of fancy, let alone flights to Chicago for dinner. Mason gave Mickey credit for his unintentional insight. Claire wasn't worried that Harry wouldn't live to see his next birthday. She was worried that he wouldn't see by his next birthday, and she was determined that he would see as much as he could for as long as he could. He envied her devotion to Harry as he rubbed the ache left by Abby's last angry words.

  Mason agreed with Mickey that it was a bad idea to meet Centurion alone, even at the public library, but he was out of backups and it was a worse idea to back out now. Centurion would assume that Mason was setting him up, and that was the worst idea Centurion could get.

  "We'll use our cell phones again. I'll call you when I get to the library and you listen in. If Centurion doesn't use his library card to check out this book," Mason said, palming the ledger, "call the cops."

  "Swell, but still stupid," Mickey said, studying the computer screen. "Check this out. I found a web site that has all the Form 990s for private foundations. Here's the one for Sanctuary."

  Mason pulled up a chair next to Mickey, crowding him for a view of the screen. The form looked like every other tax return Mason had ever seen, an indecipherable grid of add, subtract, multiply, and divide adopted by Congress as the Accountant's Full Employment Act.

  "David Evans told me that this form lists all the donations and expenses for the foundation. Find that part."

  Mickey scrolled through the pages, stopping at the list of donors. "It lists the names of donors making contributions in excess of five thousand dollars. Let's take a spin," Mickey said as he rolled the cursor down the list, stopping at Emily's Fund.

  "One hundred thousand dollars," Mason said. "That's a lot of cheddar for Dr. Gina to give to a place that didn't stop her daughter from committing suicide. See if there's anything interesting on the expense side."

  "It lists compensation for the highest-salaried people," Mickey said, clicking the mouse to find those entries. "Nice work if you can get it," he added. "Centurion is knocking down three hundred and fifty K, and Brother Terry Nix is alive and well at one hundred and seventy-five."

  "Don't forget the free room and board," Mason added with a sour laugh. "Who sits on the board of directors?"

  Mickey pulled that page up on the screen. "It's a Who's Who of the big-bucks crowd," he said. "Plus a few more familiar names, Gina Davenport, David Evans, and Arthur Hackett. Hackett chairs the investment committee. Evans got nice fees as the outside investment advisor and lawyer for Sanctuary. Guess how much?"

  "One hundred thousand dollars," Mason said.

  "You got it, Boss. Dr. Gina brought the money in the front door and David Evans took it out the back door."

  "The world is round," Mason said, looking at his watch. "I've got to get going." He handed Mickey the copy he'd made of Centurion's ledger book. "See if you can figure this out. It may be a list of contributors. Compare the initials to the names on the donor list."

  Mickey asked, "If it's a list of donors, why would Centurion make such a big deal out of it? Those people are already on the Form 990."

  "I don't know," Mason said. "Maybe they were contributing to a different cause."

  "Centurion is going to ask you if you made a copy of his ledger. What are you going to tell him?"

  "A lie."

  Mason wished he was back at his office, diagramming the day's developments on his dry-erase board instead of trying to connect the dots as he drove to the library. The storm front that had parked over Kansas City all day had dropped more coins in the meter and settled in for the night, painting the town with a heavy black brush. The rain was steady now, in no hurry to move on.

  The main branch of the public library was downtown, a block from the triangle formed by City Hall, the County Courthouse, and Police Headquarters. Though open until nine o'clock, it couldn't compete with the bars nearby or the multiplexes in the suburbs, and was empty except for a skeletal staff manning the checkout and information desks.

  Mason chose a round table in the center of the first floor near the information desk. A circle of other tables ringed the one he had chosen. Study cubicles equipped with computer terminals abutted these tables. Beyond them, more tables and chairs were arrayed for newspaper and periodical fans. The walls rose twenty feet, giving the room a cavernous feel. More than the size of the space, Mason liked that there was no place for anyone to hide.

  The woman working at the information desk looked like she hadn't left her post in years, her hair and skin the same color as the binding of the book she was reading. Mason had called Mickey from the parking lot. Settling in at his table with a polite nod to the librarian, he checked the cell phone clipped to his belt, reassured by its flashing green light that his phone-a-friend lifeline was hanging on. The cell phone, he wagered, had a stronger signal than did the librarian.

  At eight forty-five, Terry Nix walked into the library wearing a rain poncho and a wide-brimmed canvas jungle hat cinched under his chin. Nix spotted Mason and joined him at his table, smiling the wide, crooked smile of the overly laid-back.

  "Mason," he said with practiced surprise. "I didn't think I'd run into you here."

  "You mean you left Paradise on a rainy Saturday night to come to the library to check out Chicken Soup for the Social Worker and just happened to catch me on my night out alone?"

  "Life is full of the unexpected, Lou. It's a mysterious tapestry of interwoven threads—"

  "Dipped in bullshit, Terry," Mason interrupted. "Are you naked under that poncho, or just using it to cover the tape recorder Centurion stapled to your testicles to record our innocent conversation?" Mason said loudly enough to rouse th
e librarian at the information desk.

  She dropped her book, knocking over a bottle of water perched in her lap. Sporting a watermark that spread across the front of her faded jeans, she hustled from her chair to the bathroom, glaring at Mason as she passed. "We close in ten minutes," she said.

  "You have a gift for chasing people away, Lou," Nix said. "I'll keep you guessing about what's under my poncho. I'm looking for a special book to pick up. Have you seen it?"

  Mason reached inside his windbreaker, removing the ledger from the inside pocket. "This one is pretty boring," he said, waving the small book at Nix, "but you're welcome to give it a try. I couldn't get into it."

  Nix shoved his hat off the back of his head, wiping his lips with his tongue and extending his hand to Mason palm-up to receive the ledger. Mason tapped the ledger against the edge of the table and wrapped his fingers around it, bending the spine. Nix winced, his tongue poking from the corner of his mouth, as if Mason was squeezing his throat.

  "It's not for everyone," Nix managed. "That's why I need to know if you made any copies."

  "Of this?" Mason asked, opening the ledger and spreading the covers to expose two pages of entries. "Why would I want copies of this? I don't even know what the hell it is."

  Mason didn't expect an answer. He just wanted Nix to tell Centurion that he was an idiot who didn't understand the significance of what he had.

  "It's a list of donors," Nix volunteered. "We need it for tax purposes so we can send everyone a tax deduction form."

  Mason studied the pages, his lips pursed in mock concentration. "Makes sense. I'll buy it," he said, dropping the ledger on the table.

  Terry Nix shot his hand across the table, coming down on Mason's hand that beat him to the ledger. "You have some issues you should deal with, Lou," Nix said. "Taunting and teasing are power games symptomatic of sexual dysfunction, you know that. I can recommend someone very good for you to see."

  "What's it mean when a man wearing a poncho in the library tries to hold hands with another man?"

  "Take it easy, Lou," Nix said, withdrawing his hand and easing back in his chair. "It means I was impatient, and I'm sorry. I can see you have something on your mind. Let's talk about it."

  "For starters, why did you tell Jordan to confess to a crime she didn't commit?"

  "I don't expect you to understand the intricacies of psychotherapy, Mason. Jordan was in a lot of pain. She needed to know if her parents would validate her existence by coming to her defense."

  "You mean by pinning Gina's murder on Trent, making the parents choose one child over the other?"

  "It's the oldest story in the Bible, beginning with Jacob and Esau," Nix said.

  "You forgot that Jacob framed Esau, though he didn't try to get away with murder. If you used the same kind of therapy with Emily Davenport, I'm not surprised she killed herself."

  Nix loosened the knot on his chin strap and pulled his hat off, setting it on the table. "Actually, I do take responsibility for Emily's death, though it's stretching the facts to call it suicide. She was pregnant, like a lot of girls we see. She wanted an abortion. I talked her out of it."

  "You've got the sixties, touchy-feely, left-wing schtick down pat, Terry. I didn't figure you as pro-life."

  "It's not about politics for me. It's about the person. Some girls can handle an abortion. Some can't. I didn't think Emily could. I thought she'd be better off having the baby and giving it up."

  "She killed herself rather than have the baby?"

  Nix shook his head. "She was doing crack. I told her the baby would be born an addict. I don't know what she was thinking. I walked in on her and Jordan."

  "Jordan says she tried to save her but you accused her of shoving Emily out the window."

  "I know what I saw. Centurion and I talked it over. Under the circumstances, we decided to let it go because of Jordan's condition at the time."

  "What was her condition?" Mason asked.

  "Don't you talk to your clients, Lou? She was pregnant too. Telling the police that Jordan killed Emily wouldn't have helped anyone, especially Jordan's baby."

  Mason's hand covering the ledger went slack as he absorbed what Nix had said. Children having babies was no longer news. Those babies growing up to be children having babies made for too circular a world. From Abby to Jordan to Jordan's baby, he thought, at last willing to acknowledge the possibility that Abby was both mother and grandmother. He didn't resist when Terry Nix picked up the ledger and walked away.

  Chapter 20

  Mason sat for another moment after Nix left, ignoring the librarian's officious paper shuffling as she counted down the final minutes of the library's day. He wasn't surprised that Centurion sent Nix to retrieve the ledger, rather than put himself at risk. It didn't matter to Mason whether Nix recorded their meeting from the cover of his poncho since Mickey had been listening. Mason snapped the cell phone out of the cradle on his belt.

  "Could you hear all that?" he asked.

  "It was pin-drop quality," Mickey said. "Daphne had a tape recorder. I put the mike next to the phone. The recording has a hiss soundtrack, but it can probably be enhanced."

  "Good job. Where's Jordan?"

  "Upstairs. Daphne checks on her every fifteen minutes. She's driving Jordan crazy. You think Nix was bullshitting you about Emily and Jordan?" Mickey asked.

  "Centurion, Nix, and Jordan tell pretty much the same story about Emily Davenport, except for the small detail about whether Emily jumped or Jordan pushed her. The part about Jordan having a baby should be easy enough to verify. On Monday, check the city's birth certificate records."

  "Why not ask Jordan? Don't you think she'd remember?"

  "I think she would have told me when I asked her about Emily, but she didn't. She's got a reason for not telling me, so I'd rather find out on my own until she's ready to talk about it. I'm beat. I'm going to get some dinner and go home. See you tomorrow."

  The rain had stopped and the clouds had parted for the debut of a new moon when Mason walked out of the library, proving his aunt's adage that if you didn't like the weather in Kansas City, wait fifteen minutes and it would change. A warm breeze dried the air, carrying the smell of a barbecue joint a couple of blocks away that was renowned for its burnt ends, and answering Mason's question of what he would have for dinner.

  Mason had parked his car on 12th Street in front of the library. He put the top down and circled back west to the barbecue restaurant on the corner of 13th and Grand, picked up an order of burnt ends, and headed south on Grand, already tasting the beer waiting in his refrigerator that would chase the barbecue. He popped a Coltrane CD into the player he'd had installed in the dash, letting the mellow sound take him home.

  Traffic was light, in keeping with downtown's dead-on-Saturday-night reputation. Mason stopped for a red light at 17th Street, wishing he'd left the top up when a two-tone Chevy Caprice, one dent shy of the demolition derby hall of fame, stopped alongside him in the outside lane, bleeding bone-jarring rap from its open windows, overpowering Coltrane.

  The driver looked to Mason to be no more than twenty, in spite of a patchy beard that failed to cover his patchy skin. His left arm hung over the open window, a tattoo of a snake wrapped around a naked woman writhing with the car's vibrations against his pale skin. The driver's passenger, a black man wearing a do-rag and a cold stare, drew hard on a joint, its sweet, pungent odor leaking out of the car. He burned the joint down to his knuckle and passed the butt to the driver.

  The light changed, Mason popping the clutch, jumping out to put distance between him and the Caprice. The Caprice kept pace, escorting Mason to the next light at 18th Street, then roaring ahead, cutting in front of Mason just before they reached the intersection.

  Mason slammed on his brakes, leaning on his horn, not stopping before the front bumper of the TR-6 kissed the rear of the Caprice. The passenger jumped out, sprinting to Mason's car. He leapt into the seat next to Mason, pointing a gun at Mason's belly.
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  It was a smoothly executed car-jacking, over in seconds and witnessed by no one. Mason was smart enough not to resist. "You want the car?" Mason asked, keeping his hands on the wheel. "You can have the car. Just leave me the burnt ends."

  "Don't want this pussy piece of shit," the gunman said. "Want your sorry ass." He jabbed Mason in the ribs with the barrel of his gun. "Now shut the fuck up and follow my man."

  The light turned green and the Caprice pulled away, its music suddenly muted, drawing no attention as they turned east on 18th. The gunman rode with his back against the passenger door, both hands gripping his pistol, staying out of Mason's reach. Mason doubted that he was the victim of a random street crime, certain now that Centurion Johnson had played him like a chump from the beginning.

  Centurion had worked Mason with a velvet glove, stroking him and threatening him until Mason brought him the ledger, using Terry Nix as a cover. Mason imagined Centurion watching from a safe distance, laughing as Mason put his ragtop—and his guard—down. Mason would have to wait for a rematch with Centurion. In the meantime, he tried the gunman.

  "You meet a lot of nice people in your line of work?" Mason asked.

  The gunman motioned with his pistol to the road ahead, silently telling Mason to watch where he was going. Mason knew where they were going—into the East Side where Centurion and his Ebony and Ivory carjacking team would have the home-court advantage. Mason swerved to avoid a pothole that the Caprice rode over without fanfare. The gunman rolled with the car's pitch, casting an anxious look at the street, then pressing the barrel of his gun under Mason's armpit.

  "Easy, slick," Mason said. "The car has a low ground clearance. I hit a pothole like that one and we'll have to tow the car out of it. I'm not going to turn stupid and give you an excuse to use that thing, so relax and tell me where we're meeting Centurion."

  "I tole you before," the gunman said. "Shut the fuck up and drive. That's all you gotta do. You do that, and I won't shoot your ass."