For whatever reason, he seemed uncomfortable. Maybe it was because his normally pale skin was badly sunburned from the previous morning’s work on Brush Creek.
“I’m the one who asks the questions in this office, Mr. Winter. If you prefer, we can go down to the interrogation room, turn on the tape recorder, and Sergeant Reeder will assist me in questioning your client for ten billable hours. I don’t give a rat’s ass if he pleads the Fifth to every question.”
“Certainly, Detective,” Tim said, calming down. “My client will be happy to cooperate. But it would help if you explained why we are here.”
After a moment’s silence, Higgins leaned forward, spreading his hands on the desk. A manila file disappeared under them.
“All right,” he said slowly to me, studiously ignoring my advocate. “You probably know this much since you came upon us pulling the body from the creek. Hughes was unconscious when he went into the water. He drowned as a result, but not before someone took his wallet and keys. We have plenty of folks who witnessed your altercation with him in Fitzpatrick’s. A lot of bad words were exchanged, he tried to belt you, you smacked him, and the two of you were thrown out. As far as we know, you were the last person to be seen with him.”
“Lots of people stroll between the Plaza and Brush Creek,” Tim said. “Without corroborating evidence to place Mike near the water Saturday night you don’t have enough to book him.”
Higgins rubbed his hog jaw of a chin. He scratched his ear, investigated a hangnail, and adjusted his necktie, a flowery thing four inches wide clamped to his shirt by a gold-plated tie clasp in the form of an M14 rifle. Then he reached down and, from under the desk, brought up the hurling stick. It was wrapped in plastic with a yellow exhibit tag stapled to it.
His gunmetal eyes studied me as he put the thing on top of his desk so that the etched words Cross Keys GAC stared up at me.
“Why don’t you ask your lawyer friend how we spell ‘corroboration,’ Bevan? I believe it’s s-i-g-n-a-t-u-r-e c-a-r-d. And don’t bother denying it belongs to you. One of my investigating officers was on the same rugby tour when the boys on the Dublin team gave it to you.”
“Murphy?” I asked.
“Naw, it was Quinn. But Murphy remembered, too.”
I studied the photograph of Charlton Heston while Tim muttered something about posting bail.
Higgins quickly interrupted him.
“Don’t worry, counselor. I’m not booking your boy today.”
Winter and I exchanged looks.
“To be honest, Bevan,” Higgins continued, “I don’t think you did this. You’d had a few drinks but the witnesses in the bar said you weren’t drunk. Nobody sober and with half a brain kills another after that kind of scene, then tosses the body where it’s sure to be found the next day.”
The detective got up to stretch his legs behind the desk, slowly swinging the hurley back and forth. “No, it doesn’t make sense. A lot of people had access to that stick while it was in your shop. We’ve already talked to your staff and regular customers. I’m not going to take you in. Not yet, anyway. I suggest you not leave town for a while.”
I thanked him for the entertainment and got up to leave.
Higgins let me get my hand on the doorknob before firing another question.
“What happened after you left Hughes outside Fitzpatrick’s?”
“I drove home.”
“Straight home?”
“Yeah, my cat was hungry. Feel free to subpoena him.”
Higgins failed to see the humor.
“My boys will be talking to your employees some more. Do you know anyone who’s taken a sudden dislike to you? Customers, old clients, girlfriends?”
“No, Lieutenant.” I was getting tired of holding the doorknob.
“Anything else I should know about? You look like you know something I should know.”
“If I seem a little nervous, it’s because I’m not used to being a suspect in a murder case.”
“We call them ‘a person of interest’ now,” Higgins said helpfully. Then he walked over to me and tapped my chest lightly with the hurley. “If somebody is trying to place the rap on you, I’m one of the few people in a position to save your ass—Mr. Winter notwithstanding. But, brother, you gotta be square with me.”
“If I think of anything else, you’ll be the first to know.”
It wasn’t a total lie. I was, however, withholding information about the auction and the books Hughes stole, the only motive I could think of for someone to kill him. I planned to tell Higgins soon enough about that and my suspicions regarding Quist, but there were a few questions that needed answering first. Foremost among them was why anyone would want to set me up for murder.
I knew something else, too, and that was to trust very few people serving the public in Denton Crowell’s district, even if they had been friends of Charlton Heston.
“You do that, Bevan. I didn’t like you much when you were lawyering, but that’s only because you were good at keeping your scumbag clients out of prison. You always played an honest hand. District Attorney Crowell doesn’t have the same high regard for you, however. Understand?”
I understood all right. In the elevator I asked Tim if he was supporting Crowell’s campaign.
He smiled at me calmly. “You and I have always disagreed politically, Mike. I don’t personally care for the man, but he’s my party’s choice.”
After leaving the police station, we walked in silence to the parking lot. Tim lit a cigar while I opened the door of the jeep.
“Crowell’s going to be our next senator,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt to be on his good side.”
“There’s no good side to that guy,” I said, climbing behind the wheel.
Winter shrugged, took a long drag on his cigar, and said, “So why didn’t you mention Quist and the auction?”
“I’m going to poke around a bit more, then I’ll get back to you and we can both try to figure out what else to tell the police.”
“I hope,” he said, blinking through the cigar smoke, “that you don’t intend to solve this yourself.”
“What do you think of Higgins, Tim? I always considered him an honest cop, but things can change.”
“Buford’s the same as he ever was, but Crowell is putting the squeeze on the department these days. Voters in St. Louis, Springfield, and the sticks don’t know much about him and he’s been looking for a big trial to raise his appeal statewide for the Senate race. He may have that case in you—no unseemly gang war stuff, no corporate bigwigs to piss off, just a nice juicy murder suspect who used to be a prominent criminal lawyer.”
“I’ll try not to oblige him,” I said, putting the car in reverse.
* * *
By the time I returned to my house all thoughts were again of my daughter. I had to tell her what was going on, not because I expected any sympathy from her, but because I didn’t want her to hear it first on the news.
More important, I wanted to warn her about Martin Quist.
I called Laura Dowell, the production assistant whose number Anne had given me, wondering whether many other fathers had to call an intermediary to speak to their children.
A young woman’s voice answered. It sounded as if she had half a pack of gum in her mouth.
“I’m Anne Bevan’s father. Please have her call me as soon as possible.”
“Sorry, she’s not available. They’re shooting scenes in Porton this week.”
“Right, thanks.”
“I wouldn’t go up there if I were you,” she said. It sounded like the girl was losing the battle with the chewing gum.
“Why not?”
“They’ve started filming and she’s under a lot of pressure. Besides, she doesn’t want to see you.”
“What reason is she using now?”
“It’s difficult for her, sir.” Smack.
“Look, Laura, I must talk to her about something very important. It has nothing to do with Bob Langston.
”
“Be careful,” the girl said. “You could lose her.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, she really does not like you. After all …”—smack—“you killed her mother.” Smack, smack. “Didn’t you?” Smack. Smack. Smack.
Chapter Sixteen
Porton, Missouri, population twelve hundred, lies on the eastern side of the Missouri River at a bend twenty-five miles north of Kansas City. Hardwood forests and tobacco fields cover the surrounding hills. Since 1841 the McCormick Distillery has employed a third of Porton’s populace. The people are civil, prosperous, and happy in their semiisolation. The downtown buildings were built prior to the Civil War from native limestone and one can still find an old-fashioned pharmacy, hardware store, and fine arts theater nestled among its quaint houses.
The best places to eat and drink, however, are a block east of Main Street on a rise overlooking a vineyard. The Derby Restaurant is a lovely antebellum place specializing in fried chicken, hominy, and grits.
Next to it is O’Malley’s, a classic Irish pub, most of which lies thirty feet below ground in a stone-arched cavern. It was originally built in 1846 to store local wines, tobacco leaves, and spirits that would be loaded onto steamboats bound for ports downstream.
At midweek O’Malley’s packs in bluegrass fans to hear local and regional talent perform, but most Fridays and Saturdays the Irish bands come to play and the seats are filled with officers and wives from the nearby Army war college at Fort Leavenworth.
The Jesse James movie crew was shooting a scene in the subterranean tavern. I knew that the set would be closed to the public, but I had called ahead to Tony Collins, the owner of the bar, and he walked me past the security guard without a problem.
At the end of a winding stone stairway, I entered another world.
Generators buzzed, carpenters hammered, and the growl of power saws ricocheted off the stone walls. Production assistants glided through the sets, carrying papers, dodging carpenters, costume people, and makeup artists, speaking softly into wires, listening intently to instructions through the headsets, their bright young eyes blinking furiously, their lips alternately pursing and smiling wistfully with confusion and consternation and wonderment at the whole crazy, manic, creative process of making a movie.
Bearded actors in floppy cowboy hats and bandoleers played cards in clusters of two and four, while those with speaking parts reviewed scripts in the shadows of cameras and sound booms. I was leaning against a klieg light, pretending to be interested in a wrangler’s poker hand, when Anne entered from an adjoining room.
A young man with the winsome features and long blond locks that teenage girls and aging actresses love followed close behind her, mouthing words from a script that sagged between his fingers.
My daughter wore a pair of faded blue denim overalls and a soft pink T-shirt. Earphones hung around her neck like a Celtic torque. She looked so full of enthusiasm and purpose that I suddenly regretted my visit and might have backed out of the bustling room if the set had not closed behind me.
“Listen up,” Bob Langston said from a dark corner where he had been sitting unnoticed by me. “We’ll start shooting in a few minutes and I want no repeat of yesterday; understand? No dropped notebooks, no rustling of skirts; absolute quiet or you’re outta here. Not just off the set. Out of work. Got it?”
While he scanned the room, I snuck quietly toward Anne and the actor who had found refuge behind a stone column in order to rehearse his lines.
“ ‘Yew ben gon’ a mightee lon’ time, Jesse,’ ” the actor recited in a whisper.
“ ‘Not long enough,’ ” Anne read from the script in response.
Frowning, she lowered the paper.
“Mark, don’t overdo the hillbilly accent.”
“Okay. How’s this? ‘You’ve been gon’ …’ ”
I recognized the actor then. He was Mark Arondale, former Billabong surfing champion and current soap opera hunk. In the daytime drama he played a Navy Seal named Chad Herring.
“Excuse me,” I said, stepping out into the dim light.
“Oh, my God,” Anne uttered. “What are you doing here?”
“Sorry. It’s important or I wouldn’t have come.”
Mark Arondale looked annoyed. “Anne, I’m on in two minutes.”
“Practice by yourself,” she told him. “Don’t forget to enunciate.”
“What’s ‘enunerate’ mean?”
“Oh, Mark,” she said, letting her British accent slip, “just bloody well do it.”
She turned to me, her face flushed with consternation.
“He surfs sixty-foot monsters off the Maui coast, but ask him to memorize a script and he turns to jelly. How did you get in?”
“I know the bartender.”
“It figures.”
“Anne, I’m in some trouble. I wanted to tell you before you see it on the news.”
“What sort of trouble? Money?”
“If only.”
Suddenly a command from a bullhorn silenced me and everyone else in the subterranean chamber.
“QUIET, EVERYONE. QUIET ON THE SET.”
Mark Arondale moved to his mark next to Everett Turner, the actor playing Jesse James, while Bob Langston left his chair to study the angles a final time.
“Looks good,” he decided after several adjustments. “Let’s try to do it in one take. Ready, Mark? Everett?”
Both nodded.
Langston moved to a position behind the main camera.
“Roll it.”
“You have been gone an awfully long time, Jesse. Perhaps if you—”
“HOLD IT! HOLD IT! CUT!! For chrissakes, Arondale, what the fuck are you doing? You sound like a Sausalito hairdresser.”
“Just trying to sound authentic, Bob.”
“Well, you’re doing a shit-poor job of being a Missouri bushwhacker. Try it again, lad.”
It wasn’t warm in that cellar, but the sweat was rolling down surfer boy’s neck when he uttered his lines again.
“Ewe shore hav’ been gon’ a long time …”
“CUT,” Langston snarled, glaring at the Apollo of the Beach.
“A ‘ewe,’ Mr. Arondale, is a female sheep. How did a female sheep get in my movie?”
“Sorry, Bob. I’m still trying to get my character down. I thought I had it, but Anne, uh, Miss Bevan, thought I should try it differently and then she got called away so I couldn’t prepare properly.”
“What the hell are you talking about? ‘She got called away’? I don’t pay you to blow lines when the rest of us are ready to roll.”
“But she and I were interrupted when we were practicing,” Arondale whined. “I only needed a few more minutes.”
“A few more minutes?” Langston exploded. “You’ve had that script two weeks. Why don’t you take off a fucking day? A week? No, on second thought, take a year. You’re off the movie.”
He turned to his assistant director.
“Burt, get that stand-in to play this role. It’s only a few lines and he’s got the accent.”
“Boss,” the very practical-looking assistant director said, “we’re talking about ten million housewives and another twenty million teenyboppers who don’t care whether Mr. Arondale sounds like Liberace or a caveman.”
“You can’t do this,” Mark Arondale proclaimed. “I got a contract. It’ll cost you plenty.”
Then he pointed at me. “There’s the dude who caused this problem, Bob. He’s the one who stopped my rehearsing.”
I began my retreat when the eyes of that small universe turned upon me, but, before I reached the stairs, Langston did something that forced me to stay.
Turning to my daughter, he said, “If I was going to fire anybody’s ass today it should be yours.”
He hesitated just long enough for the actors and crew to watch Anne squirm. Then, allowing a broad smile to grace his crooked, charismatic face, he went on: “But I won’t. You’re too damn gorgeous. Now, le
t’s get back to work. That means you, too, Arondale.”
There were scatterings of nervous laughter. A muscle-bound set wrangler with the face of a Kaw River catfish grabbed my elbow and suggested it was time for me to leave. I had cooled off just enough to consider doing it when Langston looked at me with a smirk that said, “I’ll do with her as I please.”
Still staring at me, Langston mouthed a cigar grotesquely, then pulled it out and yelled “Roll.” That’s when I jerked my arm from the grasp of my escort and ran to within spitting distance of the comeback kid.
“Don’t you ever talk to her like that again, you son of a bitch.”
“She deserved it,” Langston growled. “Now, get off my set.”
I lunged for him but two security guards and Jesse James held me back.
“Stop it, Father!” I heard Anne cry just as somebody rabbit-punched me in the kidney.
“I’m so sorry, Bob,” my daughter added, watching one of the grips do a nice job of stretching my arms behind my back.
Long Bob allowed himself another smile, this time one of magnanimity. Then, in a way that recalled his stirring portrayal of General Butler in Apache Midnight when he allowed the Chiricahua women and children to depart camp before slaughtering their warriors, he said, “Of course, I understand, Anne. But next time let’s keep personal matters off the set.”
He turned to me. “If you’ll excuse us, Bevan, we have a motion picture to film.”
I agreed to leave peacefully only because Anne whispered that I could call her later, but that didn’t stop the security boys from hauling me up the stairs and tossing me out of O’Malley’s saloon. I careened into a post and fell into a horse trough that had been placed there as a prop. I pulled myself out, shook the water off, and limped to my jeep harboring dark thoughts.
Damn, if it wasn’t just like in the movies.
Chapter Seventeen
I left a message for Anne early that evening. She returned the call two hours later. There were no apologies, no thank-yous for coming to her aid.
The Dirty Book Murder Page 11