Nothing but Gossip

by Marne Davis Kellogg

  “You stupid jerk,” she said, and kicked Wade in the ankle with the rounded tip of her no-nonsense, stacked-leather-heel Amalfi pump, left over from sorority rush when she attended Wyoming State in the sixties.

  “Some people never learn.” I untied Wade’s two-hundred-dollar gag and tossed it on a chair, then grabbed the padlock keys from Linda’s desk and freed his hands. “Now, let’s start over. Why don’t you come into my office and have a seat. Would you like another cup of coffee?”

  It was hard to tell if Wade was blushing, but he shook himself out like a furious little leprechaun and had the grace to offer an embarrassed apology to Linda before picking up a silver-handled cane off the floor and following me slowly through the door into my sun-drenched office, where the wind sometimes blows straight through the glass.

  “Please have a seat,” I told him. “I’ll be right with you.” I closed the office door and turned to Linda, aghast. “I cannot believe you chained an invalid, who is half your size, to the stove. Are you insane? He could sue us into oblivion.”

  This was the first time I’d ever criticized Linda for anything, but I was really shocked.

  “His legs may be gimped up, but there’s nothing wrong with his hands, believe me,” she said defensively. “It was like having eggbeaters come at me.”

  “I don’t care. Next time, outrun him. Frontier justice is not a go around here, Linda. We do not chain up outlaws in the barn until the sheriff comes. You have a real problem, call Dwight.”

  “You’re right,” she admitted. “I got a little carried away.”

  “Don’t do it again. He could cream us for harassment.”

  “I’m sorry. It never occurred to me.”

  I stared at my closed office door for a moment, pulling myself together, then went to join Wade, who had taken a seat and was twirling the cane like a baton, a placid, sunny look on his face.

  “I’m a little surprised you aren’t at the hospital with Alma,” I said, sitting down behind my flat-topped oak desk. About a dozen pink message slips lay stacked next to the phone. “You could at least pretend you care a little, make a show of it. She did, after all, make you a rich man.”

  “I’ve been at the hospital all night.” Wade crossed his legs. He had on a good-looking camel sport coat, a navy polo shirt, gabardine trousers, and soft Italian leather loafers. Now that he’d calmed down, although he looked pale and exhausted, with dark circles spreading beneath his eyes—I recalled Alma saying he’d had the flu for a month—he was extremely attractive. Freckles dotted his face, and bushy, sandy-red eyebrows topped his light-blue eyes. His nose looked like a boxer’s, as though it had been broken a couple of times. Sexy. From what I’d learned about him, it sounded like he was both a lover and a fighter. His hands were clean and nails well manicured. Wade was, in fact, handsome, elegant, and comfortably prosperous. What looked like an old burn scar rose jaggedly on his neck above his collar, and beneath the dark circles, the yellowing remains of a black eye smudged his cheekbone.

  “Let me get one thing straight.” His color rose again like a crimson tide. “I’m sick of people saying I did this on Alma’s back. She didn’t make me rich. Her father provided the seed money. I made me rich. Gilhooly GMC Truck and Chevrolet is the largest dealer in the Rocky Mountain States, and Alma’s never even been through the door. And I paid her father back every penny. With interest.”

  Linda brought in coffee, and Wade apologized to her again.

  “I think I might have learned a lesson,” he said sheepishly.

  “I think we both did. I’m sorry I chained you to the stove.” She smiled at him before closing the door, and I could tell he was thinking of grabbing her all over again. And I knew she was thinking if he did, she’d throw him on the floor, hog-tie him, and beat him to death with his cane.

  “What can I do for you?” I said. The top message on the stack was from a major client in Italy. The marchese was missing some more paintings, a Tiepolo this time. From his Venetian palazzo. I loved it when that happened.

  “I know Alma isn’t expected to make it.” He blew on his coffee before taking a sip, and I noticed his hand shook slightly as he raised the cup to his lips. I wondered if he were suffering from more than flu. “And the fact is, she and I had one hell of a marriage and I’m going to be the number-one suspect and I want you on my team.”

  “But I thought you were in Billings last night.”

  “I was. But I want to be careful, so I’m hiring you, just so there’re no screw-ups.”

  Wade leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk. His deep-set eyes stared out at me with an almost lupine ferocity, and I felt a gauntlet in there somewhere, but I couldn’t tell if it was a challenge or an invitation. It only felt dangerously dark and sensuous. “Alma and I went our separate ways years ago, and I won’t even begin to pretend I’m surprised this happened. She was a major pain in the butt, excuse my French, and there’re going to be a lot of people who say I was involved. But I wasn’t. And I figure with you working for me, you can keep me posted about what’s going on. Keep me out of it. Help find out who really did it.”

  Short of having Jack Lewis call and beg me to head his investigative team, this was the sort of invitation and case I lived for. It had all the elements of homicide that interest me: people with more money than they could possibly need so they were killing for power. For control. And when you get right down to it, murder is the ultimate exercise of power. I also knew it had been someone in Alma’s immediate circle, because in 95 percent of murders—that don’t involve armed robbery—the killer and victim know each other. Well.

  Unfortunately, though, no matter how much I wanted to accept his offer, I knew it would be unprofessional. There was no way I could give this case the attention it deserved. I’d waited my whole life to think about my wedding gown and all the beautiful new things I was going to wear on my Burgundian honeymoon, and the fact that I was finally choosing, and being chosen, for life. I didn’t want to shortchange myself—personally or professionally—in the stretch.

  I swallowed. Hard. “I’m really sorry. I wish I could help, but I can’t accept any new clients right now. There are a couple of people I can recommend for you, though.” I scribbled the names of two other investigators on a slip of notepaper and slid it across the desk to him like a doctor dispensing a prescription.

  “Whatever your standard fee is, I’ll double it. You’re the best in the field, and you know Alma and all the people involved. If you don’t want to do it for me, do it for Alma.”

  Alma? I thought. From what I’d seen of Alma the night before, I wouldn’t help her any more than I’d help Adolf Hitler or Idi Amin or Saddam Hussein or any other genocidal maniac, but I did like the sound of a double fee.

  Here’s how I feel about money: A lot of people think that if you’re born with a lot of money, you shouldn’t work. That you should just play golf or bridge or go deep-sea fishing or skiing or yachting or shopping all day. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who skis or yachts or plays golf or shops all day every day? They have nothing to say that is of any interest to me. I’m interested in people who do things that make a difference, and they’re interested in me only if I do something that makes a difference, too. Also, I’ve always made certain that I could pay my own way no matter what my family bank account might say, because you just never know. Lots of people with much more money than the Bennett family have lost everything and had virtually no fall-back position. We Bennetts are workers. We take nothing for granted.

  So, when Wade Gilhooly offered a double fee, it got my attention.

  “Let me ask you a couple of questions,” I said, pushing the start button on the tape recorder on my desk. “And for the record, this is all going on tape.”

  “Sort of like the Richard Nixon of investigators,” Wade joked.

  “Nothing like that,” I said.

  “Shoot.” Wade spread his palms, indicating he’d answer anything I could throw his way.

/>   “Who do you think did it?”

  “I have a few ideas. I tossed their names back and forth all night, and all of them make some sense. By that I mean, there could be plenty of motives, but I can’t see any of these people actually shooting her, trying to murder her. They aren’t that kind of people. Besides, deep down, she could be a nice gal.”

  A nice gal who liked big-game hunting for trophies? I don’t think so.

  “To me, Mr. Gilhooly,” I said, “someone who can look any animal, wild or tame, human or four-legged, in the eyes and then kill it, unless it’s in self-defense, is a cold-blooded killer. I know too many of those types, and none of them can even remotely be described as nice gals. Let’s start at the top. Who’s your first possibility?”

  “Johnny Bourbon,” Wade answered quickly. “I’d hate to think he’d do it—we’ve all been friends for so long—but I must admit that his was one of the first names that occurred to me last night. I think he and Alma had some big blow-up, but …” He stopped to look for the right words.

  “But you think Alma should have been the one to do the shooting?”

  “That’s what it sounded like to me. Sounded like he unloaded her, and that’s not the way it usually works with Alma.”

  I nodded. I wrote Johnny Bourbon’s name at the top of a blank yellow legal pad. “And, how does it usually work?”

  “Oh, you know. She’s usually the one who gets bored first, or they do something that makes her mad and she walks.” His voice was flat and expository, betraying virtually no emotion.

  “Who else?” I asked, thinking I’d hate to have a marriage like the Gilhoolys’. They treated it as though it were nothing but a game.

  “Did you meet Kennedy McGee at the party?”

  “Kennedy McGee? No. But there were a number of guests I didn’t meet. Things fell apart pretty quickly after we got there.”

  “I don’t know if he was there or not, but he’s the Great White Hunter who led our safaris for years and he usually attends the Rutherford Oil annual meeting. He’s not a major stockholder, but it’s a congenial group and he makes it a business stop. Alma broke his heart a few years back when she pulled her money out of a big resort he’d been trying to finance, and she felt he’d been stalking her ever since.”

  “From Africa?”

  “Well, the bottom’s pretty much fallen out of the big-game-hunting business, so he was over here a lot trying to put together groups of rich Americans for the resort. I hear it’s one of those places that’s so expensive and exclusive they practically bring the animals to your room. But do I think he was actually stalking Alma? No. Kennedy’s an okay guy, but Alma liked to live in her own world of intrigue. Most of it was made up.”

  “Who else?”

  “Ever heard of Duke Fletcher?”

  “You mean the senator from Montana?”

  Wade nodded. “Former senator. They were our next-door neighbors in Billings, when they were in town anyhow. His wife died last year. Alma promised to help get him reelected, but then he did something to piss her off, some kind of environmental deal—Alma was opposed to all environmental legislation—and she yanked her pledge.”

  “I saw him and Alma talking at the party. She seemed friendly enough.”

  “Alma never closed the door. She always kept hope alive. Kept her money out there like a carrot.”

  “And a stick, sounds like to me,” I said, recalling her saying she’d told Johnny Bourbon she would withdraw her support from his ministry if he didn’t leave his wife. I also noticed that Wade kept referring to her in the past tense, as though her imminent death were a foregone conclusion.

  “That’s about as good a description as you could get,” Wade agreed. “And then, of course, you have to keep in mind that Duke’s a politician and he’s running for President and money’s always welcome. And then there’s the proxy fight with her sister. This thing’s really getting ugly.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Mercedes is chairman and CEO of the company, and Alma is chairman of the Executive Committee of the board. Alma and the COO, some hotshot geologist, want to develop a field in Siberia, and Mercedes is opposed. The board’s split right down the middle, and some people say it won’t be decided until the votes are counted at the annual shareholders’ meeting. The venture would require an initial investment of about six billion—about seventy-five percent of which they’d have to borrow—and that’s just to get some of the groundwork done, just to get to preliminary exploration, doesn’t include up and running, with no guarantees from the Russian government. To borrow that much money could be a make-or-break deal for Rutherford Oil. I personally think it’s too big a crap shoot for a company that size.”

  “Where are the lines drawn?”

  Wade drummed his fingers on the desktop and squinted out the window. “I’m not really sure. Alma and Mercedes each own thirty-five percent of the company, and they’ve each been courting the other major stockholders so actively I don’t think anyone knows what’ll happen until the actual vote on Wednesday.”

  “This Wednesday?”

  “That’s when the annual meeting is. Day after tomorrow.”

  “Who inherits the bulk of her estate?”

  “Well,” Wade sputtered after a moment. His face splotched up again. “I do.”

  I wrote his name on my list after Mercedes.

  “But, I mean …” He became as flustered as a teenager caught in the bathroom with a dirty magazine, and I imagine Wade Gilhooly has had that experience more times than most. “I don’t even need it. I’ve made myself a millionaire ten times over. She had her money and I had mine.”

  “I understand,” I said. “But I need to ask you where you were when she was shot?”

  “Flying back from Billings.” His mouth had gone suddenly dry and cottony. “I was on Frontier Flight Eight-Six-Six. You can check it. I didn’t get in until nine-fifteen. We were late. I was in seat Eight-C.” Wade verged on panic and was leaning so far forward in his chair I thought he would slide off onto the floor. Beads of sweat circled his receding hairline.

  “Calm down, Wade,” I said, laughing. “I believe you.”

  “Then you’ll help?”

  “I’ll help.”

  EIGHT

  Get Frontier Airlines on the phone,” I said to Linda as soon as the sound of Wade’s slow footsteps had disappeared down the rickety wooden staircase that clung to the back of the building like a wet cat hanging from a broken branch. Buck said it wasn’t authentic if it didn’t sag and sway and not to worry because he had plenty of insurance. Of course it wouldn’t be him doing the falling fifteen feet.

  “Yes, Marshal Bennett,” the reservations supervisor told me moments later, “Mr. Gilhooly was on Flight Eight-Six-Six last night. He commutes with us regularly.”

  “Was the flight delayed?” I was standing at Linda’s desk using her phone, and out the back window I watched Wade pull out of the parking lot in a white Cadillac Eldorado convertible—top down—with red-leather seats and a pair of longhorns on the hood. A blonde in dark glasses sat right next to him, her hand in his pants.

  “Let me see.” The agent punched in a few numbers. “Yes, it was delayed by twenty minutes. There were cattle on the runway in Billings.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said.

  “Thank you for calling Frontier Airlines.”

  The girl’s head disappeared into Wade’s lap as they turned the corner.

  I turned to Linda and started laughing. “Good God. Can you believe this bunch?” Wade’s car was swerving carelessly down the hardtop at a high rate of speed. “This guy’s wife is lying in intensive care with half her head missing and he’s getting a blow job on his way to the hospital.”

  “Are you going to take the case?”

  “Double fee,” I said, and Linda grinned. “Get a retainer agreement and invoice over to him today. Make it clear his deposit has to be in my account this afternoon or the deal’s off.”

  “You got
it, chief.” Linda turned to her computer and had the invoice printed before I was even back through the door into my office. She followed right on my heels. “Mrs. Van Buren is expecting you at ten-thirty. And your mother called and said please not to forget the Kellys’ party tonight. It’s at six-thirty. The rest of this,” she said, fanning a handful of correspondence like play money, “can wait.”

  Mother seemed much calmer about this wedding than she had about my goddaughter Lulu’s in June. She had immersed herself so deeply in the planning and execution of Lulu’s marriage to the Baron, and dedicated herself so totally to the torture of everyone around her, that she never took the time to enjoy herself. I guess she felt she’d planned my nuptials for so many years, she could carry them off in her sleep. Unfortunately, deep down, of course, we all knew that this sanguine attitude masked a sleeping volcano, that the clock was ticking, and that, like a letter bomb, she was scheduled to go off any second. What she was doing was vamping for time, building up back-pressure.

  I took the triple-magnification mirror out of my desk drawer, checked my makeup, and was just spinning the dial on the big, antique black-lacquered safe I’d claimed from one of my father’s banks when Elias arrived with coffee and doughnut holes for Linda.

  “Don’t forget,” he said. The tumblers fell into place and I slammed the handle down with the sound and authority of a good old-fashioned lockup, then removed a small black-velvet bag, its braided satin drawstring pulled tight. “The Kellys’ party is at six-thirty.”

  “I know, Mother already called.” I spilled Mrs. Van Buren’s twelve, perfectly matched, quarter-sized, Ceylon sapphires onto my desk and counted to make sure they were all there.

  “She says starting today I have to go everywhere you go. Sort of an official escort. How are you this morning, my darling?” He gave Linda a hug and a kiss that was actually more like a little peck from a shy bear.