Don Hoesel

by Hunter's Moon (v5. 0)

  “Is your husband here?” he asked, trying to keep his voice low, even though seeing Abby rekindled the anger that had ebbed during the drive over.

  “I’m here,” he heard Richard say. “Don’t just stand there, Abby. Let my cousin in.”

  CJ nodded his thanks as she opened the door and stepped aside. He found Richard in the living room, holding down a recliner that was parked dead center in front of the television. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the sight of his gut, and the fact that there was a single cheese curl perched near his navel, made CJ grimace.

  “I suppose you’re here about your Indian friend,” Richard said. He gestured to a sofa that was half-covered in newspapers. “Take a load off.”

  “I want you to drop the charges,” CJ said, ignoring the offer.

  Richard had gone back to watching TV—a Western—and didn’t respond right away. When he did, his eyes never left the set. “And why would I do that? He coldcocked me and then gave me a few more when I was down. I never even had a chance to defend myself.”

  “So now you know what it’s like,” CJ said, parroting what he’d said to Julie earlier, and it was the sort of comment that could pull someone’s attention away from a good movie.

  “What did you say?” Richard asked, more than a hint of menace in the words.

  “I said you deserved everything you got. Actually, I think Dennis let you off easy.”

  CJ wasn’t a large man, certainly not as big as Dennis, but he was bigger than Richard. Too, he was standing up, and not under the influence. He had no doubt he could put his cousin on the ground if it came to it, and he wasn’t sure yet which way he wanted things to go.

  Richard knew all of these particulars; a lifetime of picking fights with the weakest prey had honed that skill for him. He would not be baited.

  “Get out of my house,” was all he said, and there didn’t even seem to be much anger in the statement.

  CJ ignored the directive, taking the seat he’d been offered on the sofa just a minute ago.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” CJ said. “You’re going to go down to the police station first thing tomorrow morning and you’re going to tell them that it was all a misunderstanding—a little roughhousing that got out of hand.”

  Before he answered, Richard lifted the cheese puff off of his stomach and ate it, and it took a fair amount of effort for CJ not to allow his disgust to reach his face.

  “I don’t see that happening, hoss,” Richard finally said. “What are you going to do—beat me up too? You’ll just wind up in the same cell as your friend.”

  “No, I’m not going to beat you up, Richard,” CJ said. He leaned forward, making sure he had his cousin’s full attention, which was difficult because Richard’s eyes were drifting back to the TV. “I’m going to threaten your livelihood.”

  The effect on Richard was instantaneous, but CJ pressed on before his cousin could do more than snap upright in his chair.

  “I’m sure you’re aware that my brother is starting the last leg of his campaign,” he said. “And he really wants my help. Until now, I didn’t think I was going to be able to.” He paused then, making sure that Richard was tracking with him. “But what if I suggest to him that I’d find it a whole lot easier to show up in Albany if a certain prison guard no longer had a job?”

  “You can’t do that,” Richard said, yet his voice lacked conviction.

  “I can. And he can. He’s a state senator, after all. How hard do you think it would be for him to put a bug in the right person’s ear?”

  He could see Richard processing the possibility that things might play out just like that. CJ turned his attention to the movie, letting his cousin know the ball was in his court.

  “It’s not right to choose against family,” Richard tried.

  It was a pathetic thing to say, and for some reason, hearing it made CJ’s anger build.

  “You’re not family, no matter your bloodline,” CJ said, his voice hard. “You’re a bully who likes to hit women. And I’d like to see you get stuck in a jail cell without your club or Taser and let some of the people you so ably serve get a crack at you.”

  When all that followed was silence, CJ added, “Without that job, you’re nothing. So if I were you, I wouldn’t take a chance.”

  He didn’t wait for Richard’s answer but rose from the couch and saw himself out. As he reached the front door he saw Abby sitting in the dining room, and it seemed she was staring blankly at the wall. She didn’t move as CJ opened the door and walked out.

  On the way back to his apartment he thought about her, but by the time he parked the car he’d let it go.

  Chapter 13

  Daniel was seldom surprised by anything, especially when it came to politics. He’d worked more than one campaign in which the candidate had a skeleton or two in the closet, and it was not his job to pass judgment. It was, rather, his job to either see that the skeletons remained hidden, or to mitigate the risks they posed. It was something he was good at.

  What made Graham’s skeleton so unforeseen was that he was a friend. One expected to uncover secrets when delving into the pasts of strangers, not when investigating the childhood of a college roommate. And to make matters worse, the skeleton wasn’t the only thing they had to deal with; there was also CJ.

  Daniel found Graham in the study, where he was going over his speech for the hundredth time.

  “If you don’t have it down by now, you never will,” Daniel said.

  “I’m voting for never,” Graham Jr. said.

  Daniel hadn’t seen the boy in the comfortable corner chair— the reading chair, Graham called it—where the ten-year-old was playing a video game.

  “Hey, sport,” Daniel said.

  “He hasn’t done anything all day but read that dumb speech,” Graham Jr. complained. “He promised he’d play with me.”

  “Is that true?” Daniel asked, giving the boy a conspiratorial wink and then frowning at his friend. “Did you promise to play with your son?”

  Graham looked suitably chagrined. “You’re right,” he said, addressing Graham Jr. “I’m sorry. But this speech is very important.”

  “And if you stress over it too much, you’ll screw it up,” Daniel admonished. “Relaxing a little will probably be more helpful than obsessing over something you’re going to nail anyway.”

  Graham looked from Daniel to his son and back, an amused smile on his face.

  “I guess I can’t win when I’m being ganged up on,” he said.

  “Teamwork,” Daniel said, giving Graham Jr. a thumbs-up. “Why don’t you step out for a few minutes, sport. I want to talk about a few things with your dad and then he’s all yours, okay?”

  “Okay,” Graham Jr. said. The men watched him go, and Daniel closed the door after him.

  Graham set the loose pages of his speech down on the desk and stretched. “Is everything set for tomorrow?”

  “Everything should run like clockwork. We’ll have the speech on the steps of the capitol followed by a Q and A. I’ve got reporters from the Times, the Buffalo News, and the Post-Standard in front to give you a few local softballs right out of the gate, so make sure you hit them first.”

  Graham nodded as he leaned back in the chair. “It’s all coming together, isn’t it? Did I tell you that CJ’s agreed to be there?”

  “No, you didn’t mention that,” Daniel said.

  Graham looked quite pleased with himself. Daniel almost hated to burst his bubble, but he’d been hired to assure Graham’s election, and he couldn’t let certain things remain unaddressed.

  “Why would your brother be asking questions about the prisons?”

  The question came close to lowering the temperature in the room. Daniel watched Graham’s face make the transition from ease to confusion and finally to an uncertain frown that told the lawyer his friend was tracking with him.

  “You know how this works,” Daniel continued. “If so much as a hint of this gets out before the el
ection, the money vanishes.”

  Though Graham’s good humor had evaporated, he hadn’t moved and so it was with his hands clasped behind his head, a slight lean to the chair, that he offered a reminder to his friend.

  “Not to mention I would lose the vote of just about everyone in the county.”

  Daniel made a small huffing sound and waved Graham off. “You can win the election without those votes. But you can’t win it without the money.”

  Smiling, Graham said, “You’re acting as if we’re paupers. If we lose Weidman’s support, we’ll manage.”

  Daniel knew that Graham didn’t mean that. The future senator had as much to gain—and to lose—as did Daniel. The difference between the money in question and the rest of the support they’d received since the start of the campaign was extreme enough to justify the alarm bells.

  “We might manage,” Daniel said. “But you’ll never make a second term.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be the positive one?”

  “For the cameras and for the staffers, yes. With you, I’m just an old college friend who doesn’t want to lose out on a payday that will set me up for life because you can’t keep your family from lifting rocks they shouldn’t even know about.”

  Graham didn’t seem to have an answer for that. He let the chair legs retouch the floor and placed his elbows on the desk. Seconds ticked by while he pondered Daniel’s words. Then he said, “I don’t know what CJ was looking for. And I don’t know how he would have heard anything.”

  Daniel knew that Graham was telling the truth, and that little could be gained by continuing that line of conversation— the one that had the details of the bill already mapped out, to be introduced well into Graham’s term. Instead he chose to confront the skeleton he’d walked into the room with.

  “Tell me about Eddie Montgomery,” he said.

  If there was nothing else that was nice about this business, it was at least gratifying to see that his tutelage had paid off. Graham’s face barely moved a muscle, which meant there was likely not a reporter out there who could faze him, no matter how difficult the question.

  “That was a long time ago,” Graham said after a time.

  “It doesn’t matter how long it’s been if a reporter digs it up tomorrow.”

  Daniel sank into the chair that Graham’s son had just vacated, regarding his friend from across the room.

  “This is the kind of stuff you’re supposed to tell me on the front end,” he said. “Not have me find out by spending time with the locals.”

  Graham remained silent for a while. His eyes were on his speech. Daniel could almost see him reciting bits of it in his mind.

  “It was a hunting accident,” Graham said, his eyes still on the scattered papers. “There was a thorough investigation. The whole thing is a non-issue.”

  “Um-hmm, um-hmm,” Daniel said, nodding. “Then why do two out of three people I’ve talked to think you popped that boy?”

  Graham held up his hands. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  After a long pause, Daniel leaned forward in his chair and looked his friend and associate in the eyes.

  “Who knows about it?” he asked.

  “Thanks,” Dennis said for maybe the twentieth time—enough so that CJ felt no need to respond.

  And, in truth, CJ didn’t have much to say. As he’d suspected, Richard had gone to the police this morning and dropped the charges, but neither he nor CJ had said anything to the suddenly liberated pugilist. Dennis had just assumed that CJ was responsible for his freedom—which CJ had neither confirmed nor denied.

  Ronny’s was seeing a fair amount of traffic tonight, and CJ had fielded a few requests for autographs, although those were coming with less frequency now that he’d spent more time here, and because most of Ronny’s clients were at least semi-regulars. There was a point at which a celebrity guest became just another guest, and CJ was happy to see that happening.

  His mood was more sullen than normal. He’d committed to making the long drive to Albany tomorrow in order to stand on a podium with his family in support of a brother he didn’t much care for.

  Artie had been fine with granting CJ the day off. He’d told CJ that he’d operated Kaddy’s with sporadic help for the better part of three decades, and so he could manage a Friday by himself. He’d also agreed to take care of Thor while CJ was in Albany, and as the dog had shown considerable affection toward CJ’s boss in the short time he’d been in town, CJ thought that would work out just fine.

  The jukebox moved from a Grateful Dead tune to something by the Tragically Hip, which was a band CJ had grown up on but that he’d lost when he moved to the South. It was something he could really get into, and he found himself getting lost in it. And that was fine with him, because it kept him from thinking about the things he shouldn’t be thinking about—or maybe the things he should be thinking about; it depended on your point of view. And that was Julie, who happened to be another man’s wife.

  He wasn’t sure what was going on in his head. He didn’t know if his feelings for Julie were a result of the dissolution of his own marriage, or if they spoke to something he’d left undone when they were both much younger, but he couldn’t deny that the feelings were there. And he’d learned enough at his church— even considering his sporadic attendance—to know that coveting another man’s wife was not something to be taken lightly. It was all very confusing, and he was the first to admit that he was in no position to sort things out. So he settled in and let the music wash over him, knowing that the proper time for moral introspection would show itself in its own time.

  Julie pulled the chicken from the microwave, testing it with a finger to make sure that it was—as the microwave avowed— defrosted. Satisfied, she dropped the boneless breasts into the pan holding the melted butter, garlic, and onion, then set about pulling the other ingredients from their various spots. Ben had called to say that he would be late, but with Jack coming home later and later from football practice it didn’t make much difference in her dinner preparation. The only wild card was Sophie, and she was good with whatever snack Julie gave her to bridge the gap between school lunch and dinner. She flipped the chicken and then started the rice.

  While the chicken browned on the other side she picked her copy of The Buffalo Hunter off of the counter, flipping through until she found the spot at which she’d left off, deliberately avoiding looking at his picture on the back cover. She liked this book—a lot more than any of his others. She wasn’t a literary critic, but she couldn’t see any validity in the criticisms people were levying against it. In her opinion, it was vintage CJ Baxter, with a tighter story and homage to theme.

  The chapter she was reading had the main character—a man who had lost his daughter early on in the novel—coming face-to-face with the person responsible for her death. It was an energetic scene, and Julie had been forced to stop reading earlier in the day as the narrative had pulled tears from her eyes.

  She’d read all of CJ’s books and, like everyone else in Adelia, she’d looked for those things which were principally Adelia. And, if truth were served, she’d been looking for anything that might have been her. She’d found hints, maybe—but those could have been her wishing something that just wasn’t there. The women in his stories could have been anyone, really.

  It wasn’t until CJ had come back to town that she’d allowed those thoughts to do anything but simmer below the surface. It was the height of arrogance to think that she would find a place in his books. Even so, she liked to think that she was there during the formative years, during the time when he would have been shaped as a writer, and his childhood experiences ingrained on him in a way that would need to be spilled upon the page.

  She knew it was silly. It had been seventeen years, and he’d moved on. And so had she. Ben was a good man—everything she could have hoped for. She couldn’t have asked for anything more. Too, she was surprised at how quickly she’d fallen into whatever it was she’d fallen
into. How, after attending church faithfully, after working through the tricky dynamics between obedience and grace, could she give herself over to whatever it was that had come into her house with CJ’s return?

  “Mom, the chicken’s burning,” Sophie said.

  Julie snapped to the present, rushing to the stove and removing the skillet from the burner.

  Chapter 14

  The curious thing to CJ was that he and Graham had roughly the same experience with this sort of thing—Graham through virtue of being a politician, and CJ through the countless readings and press appearances through which he’d suffered. In this case, at least, he wasn’t the guest of honor, which meant that he didn’t have to be as uptight as normal, nor did he have to worry about being put into a position where he might be tempted to toss a book at someone.

  It was far too sunny for his liking. The steps of the capitol building took the full brunt of the noonday sun, so he had to squint to see past the podium and the people who gathered to hear his brother speak. He’d heard there was a hall inside, where his bother could have given his speech and delivered his impassioned plea for support, but he’d heard Daniel Wolfowitz say that natural light would do his brother good. It was symbolic of a new day in New York politics.

  There were a lot of people present, although CJ had no idea how many were here for their own reasons, and how many had been encouraged to attend through Daniel’s influence.

  CJ sat next to his father, who was dressed in a new suit, courtesy of Daniel. CJ had been offered one as well, but had opted for khakis and a buttoned-down shirt because, while he was willing to support Graham as a price for securing Dennis’s freedom, he refused to be uncomfortable in the process.

  The remainder of the group onstage consisted of a few other members of the immediate family: Ben, because he was a successful businessman, along with Julie; Edward, who represented veterans; Maryann, who was expected solely because she was the candidate’s sister; and a gathering of political insiders, all of whom added capital to Graham’s candidacy.