by Blair Howard
It was obvious she didn’t know anything, and that she loved her sister. She was grieving, so I thanked her, said goodbye, and left her to it.
Chapter 5
I hadn’t been home more than thirty minutes when my cell phone rang. It was Kate.
“Hey, it’s me. I need to see you.”
I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven o’clock. “What? Right now. I just got in. I need to take a shower.”
“It’s important.”
“What’s so important it can’t wait until morning?”
“I can’t say, at least not over the phone.”
“Cut it out, Kate. I’m tired and in no mood for riddles. What do you want?”
“I’ll tell you when get here. Get your ass over here, now.”
“Kate, it’s almost midnight... where’s here?”
“My place, dummy. Where do you think?”
I heaved a sigh. “Well, I thought you might be at work. Okay, gimme a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes. Make some coffee.”
“You got it.”
I didn’t bother to shower. I splashed cold water on my face, ran my fingers through the stubble on top of my head, brushed my teeth, and headed out the door. What the hell can be so important?
Kate has an apartment at Forest Cove in East Brainerd, ten miles away from where I live. I was there in twenty minutes.
The imposing hump of Lookout Mountain was a black silhouette studded with diamonds against the night sky, the lights of the homes of the rich and... well, you get the idea. The sky itself was a vast star field with Orion and the Seven Sisters high overhead. Beautiful. I thumbed the bell push. The door opened almost immediately.
She was wearing a man’s T-shirt, one of mine, that covered her all the way down to her knees. Her hair was down. She wore no makeup. This was the real Kate Gazzara.
“Come in, Harry.” She stepped aside to let me pass, and then closed the door behind me, flipped the two locks, and followed me into her kitchen.
“I thought you had a hot date.”
“No date, Harry. I was just kidding. Briefing. Which is why I need to see you. Sit down.”
I sat down at the small breakfast table and watched as she poured two cups of coffee, both black, handed one to me, and set the other one down on the table opposite. I said nothing. Waited. She looked worried. Obviously, she had something on her mind. I sipped my coffee; let her think about it.
She went to the window, stood with her back to me, staring out. She turned, walked to the table, sat down, and picked up her cup.
“Harry, what I’m about to tell you must not leave this room. If it gets out, I’ll lose my job. You promise?”
I nodded. “You know me better than that, Kate.”
“Yeah, I know you all right, better than I probably should.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to take that.
“We’re opposites, Kate, you and me, and that’s a good thing. We work well together. What I don’t see, you usually do, and vice versa. I trust you. I think you trust me. You can do things, go places, and talk to people that I can’t. You’re a cop; I used to be. I don’t have to answer or report to anyone. That’s why we make a good team.”
I stared at her across the table. She had her head down, looking at her cup, which she was holding in both hands. Her face was pale.
“Kate. How long has it been? Sixteen years? You know you can trust me with your life. I sure as hell trust you with mine. So tell me.”
“What do you know about Gordon Harper?”
I thought for a moment. The name was familiar, but....
Then the light went on. “You mean Little Billy Harper? Congressman Gordon Harper?”
“Yes. He hates that name. Apparently, it was something his grandfather laid on him when he was a baby. ‘Little Billy,’ after himself. The old man, Granddad Billy, was Representative William George Harper, one-time Speaker of the Tennessee House. He was... well... shall we say less than honest? No, he was a bad one, the old man. Greasy as they come, but nothing ever stuck to him. Some people think Little Billy is a chip off the old block. The old man retired back in ‘90 and died a year later.”
I nodded. I’d heard of the late Billy Harper, but what Kate was saying was new to me. But then, he’d been dead twenty-five years. I was still in high school when Big Billy was playing his games.
“So what’s with the congressman then?”
“He announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate a couple of days ago. Hell, Harry, don’t you ever watch the news?”
I grinned. “Not if I can help it. So what if he’s running for the senate? He’ll never unseat old man Jennings.”
“There’s the rub, Harry. He has more than enough money to buy the seat, and no one can figure out where it’s coming from. He’s dirty. He’ll do what it takes. He has a lot of important people in his pocket.”
“Kate... you say he’s dirty. How do you know? He’s sure as hell popular. Wasn’t he responsible for pushing the Senior Aid Bill through Congress, after the Republicans deflated Medicaid?”
“I don’t know for sure that he is dirty. It’s more a gut feeling than anything else, and yes, the Senior Aid Bill was a good move. It brought him a lot of good will and some hefty donations, but apparently it wasn’t enough. Now he’s pushing an Immigration/Homeland Security agenda, also very popular. And he’s raising and spending a lot of money, most of it under the table, maybe even laundering it through the Harper Foundation, so they think.”
“They? Who’s they?”
“You figure it out, Harry.”
“Why are the Feds looking at Harper all of a sudden?
“Not all of a sudden. They always have been. Started with the old man, but they couldn’t make anything stick. They took an interest in Gordon the minute he got himself elected to Congress. They still have nothing on him, but they want to, and they think he’s up to something, but they don’t know what.
“I’m thinking the money, at least some of it, is coming from the Billy Harper Foundation. That’s a huge pot of gold, almost a half-billion dollars, so I’m told. It would be hard to believe that Little Billy could keep his sticky fingers out of it.”
“But that’s strictly regulated, surely.”
“So it might be, but where there’s a will there’s a way, and I know damn well that Harper has the will, and he’s done it before. At least we think he has.”
“Okay, I get it, but what does all this have to do with Tabitha Willard? And why are you telling me about it?”
“It probably has nothing to do with her, but maybe.... Harry, I’ve been asking around. There’s word on the street that Lester Tree is in Harper’s pocket. Exactly how, we don’t know. That’s where you come in.”
“That’s where I come in? How do you figure?”
“I can’t go after Harper, or Tree, or the Harper Foundation, not with the Feds being involved, but you can.”
“You think? Okay, I could, but why would I?”
“Tabitha Willard, for one reason. Our two heroes, James and Gold, work for Tree, who works for Harper, maybe. It makes sense, right?”
I nodded. It did make sense, and I owed Tree one, too. “I’ll think about it.”
“The girl. Why’d she jump, Harry?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I talked to her father earlier today. Nothing. She was frightened, Kate, really scared, but that was no reason to do what she did. She wasn’t being chased. Maybe she thought she was. Maybe she knew or saw something she shouldn’t. But I was there, and I know she wasn’t being chased. So, that only leaves me, right?”
I paused for a moment, looked her in the eye. “Kate. I think she jumped because of me. I think she thought I was one of them, waiting for her. Maybe if I hadn’t been there, she would still be alive. I feel really bad about it, and that is reason enough for me to get involved.”
“You can’t think like that, Harry. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe not, but I can’t get her face o
ut of my mind. You should have seen the look, Kate. She was petrified. I’ll get to the bottom of it, though. And when I do....”
“Harry.” She looked hard at me. “You’ll be discreet, right? Harper has some very powerful friends.”
“So do I, Kate. So do I.”
“What about Doctor Willard? How did that go?”
“Well, he hired me. Now I have a legitimate reason to look into her death. The interview... it went okay, about what you’d expect. I need some time to sift through it, but nothing obvious jumped out at me. She was married once, for a short time, way back when, and she had a sister, some friends. One in particular that you met already, Charlotte Maxwell. She was her best friend. I’ll need to talk to her. There was a boyfriend, although Willard seemed to think that ended several weeks ago. Michael something. He didn’t know the last name. I need to find out what it is. Talk to him.”
“So, there you are then. She gets dumped, she’s depressed, gets drunk, and decides to end it all.”
“Nope! I don’t think so, for several reasons, the most important being that if I hadn’t been on that bridge, I don’t think she would have jumped. Hell, Kate, the girl had everything to live for. She was beautiful... damn.”
She nodded, looked up at the kitchen clock. “It’s late, Harry. Time for you to go.”
I looked at her, eyebrows raised.
She smiled, shook her head. “No, Harry. Not tonight. I have to go in early tomorrow.”
I smiled at her, got up from the table, and walked to the door. She followed me. I opened the door, turned to say goodnight. She was close. She leaned in, grasped both of my arms at the elbows, and kissed me gently on the lips. “Goodnight, Harry. Call me tomorrow, ‘kay?”
She closed the door softly behind me.
Chapter 6
I slept like the dead that night. I didn’t wake until almost seven-thirty, which was late for me. I’m normally in the office by then. I stuck my Yeti under the Keurig and hit the button, took a quick shower. I threw on my usual black slacks, white tee and leather jacket, slipped into my loafers, grabbed the coffee, and ran down the stairs and out into the garage. I was in the office by eight-twenty. Jacque was waiting for me — wasn’t she always?
Now Jacque Hale, my personal assistant, is a very special kid. I say kid, but she’s twenty-seven years old, has a master’s degree in business administration and a bachelor’s in criminology: quite a combination, which is one of the reasons I hired her, even before she got out of college. I liked the kid. She’s attractive; when she smiles, she lights up the room. She’s a little on the skinny side, tall, with long black hair. She has a great sense of humor and a wonderful personality, but she can be serious when she needs to be, especially when she’s around me and the office. Her parents are Jamaican. I love them both dearly.
I walked into the outer office through the side door. She looked at me, the accusation unspoken.
“I’m late,” I said. “So what?”
“I’ve been waiting for you. There are messages. There are papers for you to look over and sign, and I know you: a quick cup of coffee and you’ll be out of here.”
“Let’s go.” I grinned at her back as she pushed open the door to my office and marched inside. She was right. There were a half-dozen messages and a sheaf of papers a half-inch thick. Fortunately, it was not quite as bad as it looked. Many of the papers had been sorted into groups and stapled.
“Judge Sharpe called,” she said. “Can you call him back this afternoon, after five? He’s in court all day.”
“I can do that.”
I’ll call and remind you.”
I grinned at her. She did not smile back.
“Also, Larry Soames called. He didn’t say what he wanted, and I did ask him. He said he would tell you himself.” I could tell she wasn’t too pleased about that.
“Soames?”
She nodded. “He probably wants to hire you.”
“Hah. Well, we’ll see. I’ll call him later.”
“I’ll remind you of that, too.”
There were a couple more messages, but nothing important. I told her I’d make the calls before I left, and I waited. She just looked at me, her eyebrows raised in question.
“Nothing from Kate?”
“No!”
I’ve always had the impression that Jacque does not altogether approve of my relationship with Kate. Something about conflict of interest. I heard her murmur it one day as she walked out of my office.
“So,” she said, “what are your plans for today?”
“How’s my schedule look? I have a couple of things I need to do, and they’re kind of urgent.”
“Well, after you make your calls, you have a couple of client appointments this afternoon, nothing I can’t reschedule, but I can only do it once. When would you like to see them?”
Now when Jacque makes a promise on my behalf, I know I have to keep it. If not, she gets really pissed, takes it personally, so I knew I needed to be careful. I thought for a moment, and then said, “How about Friday morning?”
She flipped the pages on my desk calendar. “Eight-fifteen, and nine-thirty. Good?”
I nodded. I hate making appointments for Fridays. Oh well. I looked at my watch. It was nine o’clock. I got up from my desk, grabbed a cup of coffee from the outer office, and then sat down again to think. Shady Tree. Hmmm. Why were your boys arguing with Tabitha? Time to find out, I think.
I swallowed the rest of my coffee and then breezed out through the office.
“Later, Jacque, later,” I said as she started to rise from her seat. “Call if you need me, okay?”
Chapter 7
I knew where to find Shady Tree. At least I thought I did. At almost ten o’clock, I pulled up outside the rundown, two-story tenement building just off Bailey — four one-time town homes that had seen their best days more than fifty years ago. Each home, a term that stretched the bounds of reality, had a flight of six steps from the sidewalk to the front door. On either side of the steps, each unit had a low wall with concrete toppers. Back in the last century when they were built, there might have been ornamental iron railings set atop them, but not now. Seated on the walls were five men, rough-looking toughs of varying ages from maybe seventeen to thirty.
I got out of the car, made a point of locking the door, and walked toward them. They were typical of the brand. As a group, they were probably killers. One on one, they were nothing.
As I approached, they straightened themselves, showed attitude, tried to look fierce. I picked out the one I assumed to be the leader, a heavy set, scruffy dude with a beard, dreads and one of those big, wooly multi-colored tams on his head.
“Hey, you,” I said to him.
He stared sullenly back at me, but said nothing.
“Go tell Mr. Tree that Harry Starke’s here to see him.”
He stood up. He was at least six feet tall. The other four also stood; they had his back, I presumed.
“Wha’ foh you wan’ ‘im?”
“None of your goddamn business. Now go tell him.”
He put his right hand behind his back and took a step forward. I brought my right hand up inside my open jacket and let him see the MP9, my hand resting on the grip. He stopped, nodded, took a step back.
“He ain’ here.”
“Okay. So where is he?”
“He wanna see you?”
“He does. He will.”
He nodded, sat down again. The other four followed suit.
“He over on McCallie. Strip mall near duh ol’ church. He own it. Cain’ miss it.”
I knew where he was talking about, but I didn’t recall a strip mall.
I pushed the button on the keyless fob, unlocked the car door, and stepped backward, my hand still resting on the nine. I reached sideways, opened the door, and got inside, never once taking my eyes off the big guy. I could see them all in the rearview mirror, watching as I drove away.
No wonder I didn’t know the strip mall. It
was brand new, an upscale, two-story strip with six nice-looking ground floor stores, including one at the north end that had tinted windows. Someone had covered the inside of the glass with some sort of dark, opaque film, probably the same stuff they use to tint car windows. I grinned. This, I was sure, was where I would find Shady.
I parked the Maxima out front and walked the few yards to the front door. Locked. In fact, there wasn’t even a handle, just a bell push. I pushed. I waited. I pushed again. An eye appeared at a small round hole in the film. I signaled with a finger for the eye to open the door, and it did, just a crack.
“We don’ wan’ none.”
I rammed my shoulder against the stainless steel door frame and took the eye by surprise. The door flew open. He staggered a couple of steps backward, tripped and landed on his ass, a big red welt across his forehead. He was short, maybe five feet nine, and way overweight. A small-caliber semi-automatic stuck out of his waistband.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said, showing him my own.
“Wha’ fo’ you do dat? Wadda hell you wan’?” he yelled, as he struggled to his feet.
“I want to see Shady, and I want to see him now!”
He jumped at the shout. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell him. Who you is?”
“Tell him Harry Starke is here to see him.”
He backed up a half-dozen steps along the short passageway, keeping his eye on me, and his hand on the gun. Without looking away, he put out his left hand and pushed open a door.
“They’s a Harry Starke here, Mr. Tree. Says he wanna see you.”
“Harry Starke? You gotta be kiddin’ me. You got balls, I’ll say that for you.” The shout was followed out into the passage by the man himself. He was grinning broadly, but I wasn’t fooled, not even for a second.
“Come on in.” He waved me through into his office. And there they were, Duvon James and Henry Gold. Why do guys like Duvon have to wear shades indoors?
The big guy, Duvan, was dressed in jeans, a black tee, and the same quilted jacket he’d had on at the Sorbonne. Gold, however, had stepped up a notch. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a 1940s’ movie: a double-breasted pin-striped suit, white shirt, black slim-Jim tie, and a do rag, for God’s sake. I couldn’t help myself. I looked at him and shook my head. I could see by the look on his face that he didn’t like it, not one bit.