by Judy Clemens
“But it might be why he didn’t want to meet with you. Did you tell him who your dad is?”
“I didn’t talk to him.”
“Well, whoever you talked to, did you tell them about your dad?”
She thought. “Not at first. I didn’t think they’d let me talk to Farley if they knew. I, uh, might’ve sort of mentioned it when they told me I wouldn’t be able to see the senator.”
“So they were aware of your connections with tattoo artists.”
“Yeah.” Her eyes widened. “You don’t think it’s because of me that Dad’s gone?”
Oh lord. “No. I don’t think that at all.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “What if it’s because I called?”
“It’s not.” I laid my hand on her arm, which was shaking so hard it threatened to spill her soda. “You didn’t do anything wrong, and this—” I gestured toward the living room “—is not your fault.” God, I hoped I was right.
The cop who had opened the front door peeked into the kitchen. “Everything okay in here?”
I looked at Dreama. Thought about why the cop was there. No. Everything was definitely not okay.
“I want Mom,” Dreama said softly.
I took my hand off her arm and stood. “Sure.”
I walked with her to the living room, where Becky sat with a man in plainclothes and a female uniformed officer. Rose was curled on Becky’s lap, and when Dreama went to her, she huddled under Becky’s arm, looking like she wanted to join Rose against her mother’s bosom.
When Becky saw me, her face lit for a moment, then darkened again when she realized I had no news. The cops looked up at me, glancing immediately at my cow skull.
“Stella Crown,” I said. “Friend of Rusty’s.”
“He did that, I’m betting,” the detective said, pointing at my neck. He stood. “Detective Folsom. Just trying to get the details straight from Mrs. Oldham. She said you were the first person she called this morning. I also got a call from Detective Shisler in Lansdale, who put me in the picture. Okay if I ask you a few questions?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s go in the other room, give Mrs. Oldham and her girls some space.” We walked together back into the kitchen, where Folsom perched on a stool and took a Pocket PC from his suit coat. The uniform stayed in the living room, so I stood on the other side of the counter, across from the detective.
“Shisler told me what’s going on in Lansdale. Usually we wouldn’t jump on a missing adult like this, but it sounds like it could be connected to your homicide. Would you mind walking me through the past week?”
I sighed. “I take it Shisler hasn’t had any luck yet, at the places they’re visiting?”
He shook his head. “You gotta remember she’s got no warrants to go inside any of these places.”
“So he could be in any one of them.”
He shrugged. “Could be. Now, your story?”
So I told it. Again. From that first horrible day when I left Mandy to die up until that morning, when I’d gotten Becky’s phone call.
“And since then?” Folsom asked.
I leaned my elbows on the counter and looked at my hands.
“Called some friends of Rusty’s—the Spurgeons—who immediately freaked out. I’m surprised they’re not here. Tried Giovanni’s Deli and Tank’s house. I didn’t talk with Tank, but at least figured out he was home and told Detective Shisler.”
“Nothing since?”
I shrugged. “Nothing to do. I don’t know where he is, and nobody’s answering their phones.” I looked up. “Speaking of phones, have they found out yet who Rusty called last night?”
“No. The process may be sped up in this situation, but it still won’t be fast. I believe they do have the necessary paperwork to show the phone company.”
I banged the counter with my clasped hands.
“I know,” Folsom said. “It’s a bitch. And now, what’s your plan?”
“My plan?” I figured he wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to go shooting off, messing up their work. “I have a meeting that was scheduled last night, that could shed some light on things.”
“With?”
“Dennis Bergman.” I explained who he was and why I was meeting him.
“Maybe I should come along,” Folsom said.
I shook my head. “Not if you want to hear anything. Besides being a tattoo artist, he’s also a lawyer.”
Folsom made a face. “Not about to talk in front of me.”
“I’ll call Shisler with any news I get.”
He sighed. “All right. I guess that’s it for now. When are you meeting Bergman?”
“In an hour and a half. I’ll head out soon.” I spread my fingers on the counter and studied them. “Find Rusty.”
Folsom stood, pushing some buttons on his PC. “I’ll do my best. I promise you that.”
I stayed for another fifteen minutes, trying to comfort the family, but was just in the way of the cops. I finally said my good-byes, realizing that the best way I could help was to keep finding out what I could. The next thing on the schedule was the meeting with Dennis Bergman. Dreama was convinced he was on our side. I’d find out soon enough.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I guess the day was clear, with the sun glaring off the snow, but I remember it that way because I know I needed my sunglasses. My mind was so full of information and anxiety I couldn’t take in any unnecessary detail. I was lucky I made it to Morgantown in one piece.
A family place, highlighted by its namesake turning slowly above it, the Windmill Family Restaurant smelled like sausage and home fries. When I stepped in the door my stomach rumbled, despite the fact I wasn’t hungry. I stood inside for a moment, eyes adjusting from the outside light, and looked around the room.
At the far end, his back to the wall, sat Dennis Bergman, looking just like his photos on the web. I started toward him, then stopped. There was someone sitting with him. A man. The man turned to look at me.
It wasn’t Wolf.
It wasn’t Rusty.
It was Trevor Farley.
I stood in place so long a waitress nudged my arm. “Sorry, hon,” she said. “But I need to get through.”
I stepped to the side and she eased around me, laden with a heavy tray of eggs, scrapple, and baked oatmeal. Bergman and Farley watched as I slowly came to my senses and moved toward them. I stood beside their table.
“Have a seat,” Bergman said.
I stayed standing. “What the hell is this?”
“Please,” Bergman said. “Sit.” He leaned over and pushed out a chair.
I sat. A waitress came over immediately, holding a pitcher.
“Coffee?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Glass of milk would be nice.”
“Sure.” She warmed up the cups of the two men. “Ready to order?”
Bergman looked at me.
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Stack of blueberry pancakes, side of sausage,” Bergman said. “And a slice of shoo-fly pie.”
Farley declined to order, as did I. The waitress picked up the menus and left.
“I gather you recognize him,” Bergman said, his eyes flicking toward Farley.
I looked at the senator. It was obviously Farley, but not quite the man I was used to seeing on TV and in the papers. This man lacked the sheen, the self-confidence, and the energy. Even his salt-and-pepper hair looked dull.
“Sure,” I said. “I know him. What I don’t understand is what he’s doing here, with you. Aren’t you guys sworn enemies?”
Bergman smiled slightly.
Farley looked down at his coffee.
“You study the news articles enough,” Bergman said, “as well as my arguments, you’ll see I never attack the senator. Just the tattoo bill.”
I thought back to my research. He was right. I couldn’t remember one instance of Bergman running down the sena
tor himself.
“And you’ll notice,” the senator said quietly, “the same on my end. I’ve never once said anything negative about Mr. Bergman.”
I sat back and closed my eyes briefly. “Okay. But I don’t get it.”
Bergman’s mouth twitched. “Most people don’t. Why do you think we’re meeting here, and not closer to the capitol?”
I glanced around the restaurant, where no one paid us any mind. They didn’t have a clue who was sitting there. Together. As far as the other diners knew, Bergman and Farley were just a couple of guys, having breakfast.
“So what’s going on?” I asked. “Do you know where Wolf is? Or Rusty?”
“Rusty?” Bergman asked. “Rusty Oldham?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s missing.”
Bergman’s mouth formed an O, and he breathed in deeply.
“Who’s Rusty Oldham?” Farley asked.
I tapped the cow skull on my neck. “Tattoo artist. He’s been working with me, trying to find Wolf Moore.”
Farley’s face paled even further, until I was afraid he was going to keel over into my lap. I know politicians are actors, but from these guys’ reactions, I realized they had no idea about Rusty’s disappearance. My heart dropped.
“When?” Farley croaked.
“Last night. He made a phone call, then took off, telling his wife he’d be late. He never came home.”
Farley ran his hand over his face and focused on something outside the window. Bergman lifted his coffee cup as if to take a sip, but set it down before drinking anything.
“Here you are.” The waitress cheerfully plunked Bergman’s plate in front of him. “Anything else I can get anybody?” When we offered no response, she drifted away. Bergman looked at his plate. From the expression on his face, he was no longer hungry.
“You think it’s to do with Mandy and Wolf?” Farley asked.
I looked at him. “You tell me. Two tattoo artists disappear and a body piercer is murdered, all within a week. Seems to me they have to be related.”
Farley’s shoulders sagged and he looked up, meeting Bergman’s eyes. “Is it because of us?”
Bergman jerked his head no. “How could it be?”
Farley’s eyes sparked, if only for a moment. “It’s a definite possibility, and you know it.” His eyes darted toward me. “She knows it. It’s why she wrote to my office. And why she contacted you.”
Bergman shifted in his seat. “But I still don’t see—”
“Mandy had something on you,” I said to Farley. “She was going to tell Artists for Freedom the night she died.”
The men shared another look.
“Did she know you tried to back out of the bill?” I asked Farley.
His head snapped back. After a moment he said, “How do you know that?”
I stared at him. “Was it? Did she die because you changed your allegiance?”
He rested his face in his hands, silent.
“Okay,” I said. “If you won’t tell me that, at least tell me why you started the bill to begin with.”
He remained quiet.
I glanced at Bergman, who watched Farley. I tried another tactic. “I know about your daughter’s tattoo.” If the Enquirer article was true. “She got a crummy tattoo from a hack and ended up in the hospital. Is that what sparked your anti-tattoo agenda?”
Farley sighed deeply, his eyes closed, then lifted his face toward the ceiling. When he brought it back down, he focused on the table’s sugar container. “It was the final straw. I’d considered it for years, but it wasn’t until Diana ended up in the hospital that I put it into action. And for a while it was good.” He stopped.
“But then?” I said.
“But then other people cut in. I wanted the bill to be about safety. About regulating health standards. I never meant it to become a way for the government to censor body art.”
Bergman leaned toward me. “We all know there are folks claiming to be tattoo artists who have no business marking up people’s skin.”
I nodded. “Sure.”
“But after I drafted the bill,” Farley said, “people kept tacking on more and more regulations—room specifications, FDA-approved ink, the notarized doctor’s statement… I couldn’t get them to understand that the legitimate tattoo artists, the professionals, want the scratchers out as much as everybody else. It became a full-out war on alternative art. I couldn’t stop the ball from rolling. I’d begun it, but it was clearly, and quickly, out of my hands.”
“So you tried to step back.”
He nodded. “Told my campaign manager I couldn’t support a platform I didn’t believe in.”
“Gloria Frizzoni.”
He glanced at me. “You talked to her?”
“She’s how I knew you wavered.”
He made a face, unsurprised. “Horrible woman. Don’t know why I ever hired her.”
“Because she’s good at what she does,” Bergman said. “You couldn’t help it she was a freaking nutcase.”
“Yeah, sure.” Farley’s voice was thin with weariness.
“But you came back on board,” I said.
“I did.”
I waited.
Farley continued. “I thought I had enough other good things to do in office. An education reform bill, some work on drug rehabilitation. Healthcare issues. I decided the tattoo bill might just have to go on, no matter how I felt.”
“And sacrifice the livelihoods of artists all over the state.”
He flinched. “It’s awful, I know.”
I looked from him to Bergman. Bergman met my gaze steadily.
“And your part in all of this?” I asked.
He nodded toward Farley. “The senator and I got talking early on, at an informal debate. We continued our conversation long after the crowds had gone home. We found our ideas to be much alike.”
“And joined forces?”
“In a sense. We couldn’t declare it, but we’ve shared information.”
I stared at him. “So you’re the spy in Artists for Freedom?”
He smiled twistedly. “Kind of strange to put it that way, seeing how I’m in charge of it all.”
“You betrayed your people. Your colleagues.”
His face darkened. “I was after what was best for us all. I never compromised our anti-bill campaign.”
I wasn’t so sure. I sat quietly for a moment, trying to digest everything I’d heard.
“So if Mandy had confronted you about this?” I finally asked Farley. “If she had gotten to the meeting and Bergman let her go with it, telling the group about your waffling?”
He smiled, but without humor. “In a way I would’ve welcomed it. Maybe Artists for Freedom could’ve exposed the bill for what it was. Exposed me for what I am.”
I studied Farley. “And just what are you? Why write the bill in the first place? You said your daughter’s tattoo was the final straw. What came before?”
He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. Then he reached up to loosen his tie.
“Senator…” I said.
He shook his head.
Once the tie was undone, he undid the top few buttons of his shirt and reached up to pull back the shoulder, along with the white T-shirt underneath. He turned his back toward me, and I looked at his exposed shoulder blade. An ugly tattoo of a devil, about the size of my fist, defaced his skin. It was a crude design, the colors faded and non-distinct. The lines were rough, the details, what there were, ill-defined.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s one ugly tattoo. I can see why you want to put non-pros out of business.”
“I was in college,” Farley said, turning back around. He buttoned his shirt, but let his tie hang loose. “My buddies and I went to Atlantic City, back in, oh lord, the seventies. Found a guy on the boardwalk who agreed to do us all cheap.”
I winced.
“Yeah,” he said. “It was a bad decision. I fo
und out way too late that not only am I stuck with this hideously ugly tattoo, I’m also stuck with something worse.”
I looked at him.
“Because of this ugly tattoo,” Farley said, “I now have hepatitis C.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bergman let me use his cell phone to call home before I left. There were no messages. Rusty was still missing.
Outside the diner I watched as Bergman and Farley, undeclared partners, got into Bergman’s car. Bergman held up a hand as they pulled away, but Farley’s eyes were focused somewhere else. To think that up until an hour ago I’d been thinking of him as the bad guy. Now I saw that in a lot of ways he was yet another victim in an often unjust system.
I got in my truck and drove home, not much more aware of my surroundings than on the way to the restaurant. Lucy and Tess were gone when I arrived at the farm, with a note tacked to the fridge saying they’d gone to lunch with Lenny but they’d be back soon. Ignoring the small pang of feeling left out, I picked up the phone and dialed Detective Shisler’s number. It took her a few rings to answer this time.
“Anything going on?” I asked.
“Lots, but nothing productive.”
“So no Rusty?”
“I’m sorry.”
“And no luck with any of the guys you checked out? Gentleman John? Tank?”
“Nothing. But then, we didn’t get a look in their houses. Both were pretty annoyed to be wakened, although you’d already done that with Mr. Snyder, and neither were conducive to letting us search their premises. Couldn’t blame them, really.”
“You can’t just go in? You do have reason to believe one of them might have him.”
“Unless we have good reason to go busting in, hard evidence, we can’t. It’s all about rights, Stella.”
“What about Rusty’s right to live? And Wolf’s?”
“I know, I know. We’re doing our best. You have to believe that.”
I did. But I also believed it wasn’t good enough.
“What about the phone call? Have you found out yet who Rusty called?”
“Oh, yes. He actually made two interesting calls. The last call was to John Greene. But before that he talked to Lance Thunderbolt.”
“Lance Thunderbolt?” The wussy tattoo artist who’d taken Wolf to court. “But he was out of town when Mandy was killed.”