Nothing but Gossip

by Marne Davis Kellogg

“What do you take me for? Some bloody homosexual? Of course I wasn’t in the bathroom with her and that slippery quack. Jesus, Lord, makes my skin crawl just to imagine such a thing.” Kennedy walked around the small room hugging himself. “Lord. You’re a terrible woman.”

  It had been a shot in the dark, but not an unreasonable one, in my opinion. “Tell me about your relationship with Alma.”

  “Not much to tell, not much relationship left after she screwed me. Financially.” He grabbed the chair back with both hands and leaned over it toward me. “Let me tell you, Miss Bennett, Alma is a completely psychotic bitch. Totally mad. Everything’s dandy as long as you play by her rules, but she is always moving the goal line and not letting anyone know. I’m not at all surprised someone gunned her down—could even have been the Russians. Maybe she ended up screwing them, too. But it sure as hell wasn’t me. I wouldn’t miss with the first shot. Whoever shot her didn’t know what he was doing.”

  “What about her relationship with Wade?”

  Kennedy shrugged and sat back down. “Not much there as far as I could tell. Whenever they came to Africa, he always found an excuse to leave after the first couple of days—always some business emergency. Never even came out into the bush. He’d just leave her there with me and take off. She’d complete the safari, usually three or four weeks. I’ve always found him to be a little soft.”

  I flipped back and forth through my notes. “What do you know about her and Johnny Bourbon?”

  “Nothing, except he was her next big project after she left me holding the bag.”

  “Senator Fletcher?”

  “Seems a nice-enough chap.”

  “Do you own stock in Rutherford Oil?”

  “A little.” He looked at me and knew that wasn’t enough of an answer. “Alma gave me some shares a few years ago. I don’t enjoy a major position, if that’s what you mean.”

  I turned to Paul. “Don’t let your client leave town, Mr. Decker.”

  FOURTEEN

  You just missed him,” Linda said when I got back to the office.

  “Who?”

  “Robert Redford. He came up here to apologize for his security guard.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  She shook her head. Her face was so rosy with excitement it matched her fingernails. “I can’t believe you missed him. God. He is so handsome. And so nice. God.”

  “Well, where’d he go?”

  Linda shrugged. “Just down the stairs. Maybe he’s still out there. In the parking lot or something.”

  Well, shoot.

  “Track down Elias and tell him to meet me at the hospital,” I said over my shoulder as I thudded down the stairs as coolly as I could. I know Robert Redford is a bleeding-heart, left-wing-liberal do-gooder and needs to lighten up a little, but, jeez, he’d just been in my office looking for me, wanting to apologize. I had some great ideas for him about what to do with his Sundance Institute. He was gone, of course. So was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s security guard cousin.

  The drive into town was easy, so pleasant now that Labor Day was behind us and every ham-and-egger with a mother-in-law and minivan had gone back home to Nebraska or wherever it is those people come from. The sky was so high, it was almost navy blue at the top.

  I pulled into one of the “Authorized Parking Only” spaces by the emergency entrance at Christ & St. Luke’s Hospital and noticed I’d parked next to Jack Lewis’s white Crown Victoria. I found him standing outside Alma’s cubicle in intensive care, leaning against the counter that surrounded the personnel station in the center of the unit, holding a cup of cold coffee and staring into space. A uniformed officer stood by smartly, extra smartly now that his big boss was here. Through the half-open glass door, I could see Wade’s hands clinging to the bed rail as though he were strangling a golf club. His eyes were scooped-out holes, nothing but divots.

  “Hey, Jack,” I said. “Been here long? You look a little sleep-deprived.”

  He grinned. “Just got here. And I am sleep-deprived because I’ve got a bunch of interdepartmental warfare going on. Driving me nuts. It takes all my energy and has nothing to do with catching criminals.”

  “Life’s tough at the top.”

  “You look a little hung over.”

  I groaned. “Don’t tell me. I need to look good today. I’m meeting my in-laws at noon. I need to look fabulous.”

  “Getting married’s tough duty. Especially with all the upper-class bullshit you’re trotting out. I can’t pick up the paper without reading about some hinky-dinky little tea party or other for you and Prince Charming.”

  “He is my Prince Charming, too.”

  “Poor bastard,” Jack said. He turned his red-rimmed eyes on me. “He have any idea how tough it is being married to a cop? Even a fancy private dick like you?”

  “I’m thinking he thinks it’s going to be nice to be married to me.” A tiny gurgle of fear stirred in my stomach like the first bubble in a pot that has just begun to simmer and, unattended, will soon reach a full boil. An old familiar feeling that I might not make the cut, that Richard would jettison me like an empty McDonald’s bag on a country highway because I got too involved with my work and didn’t save enough for him. I was terrified that I hadn’t really found the balance I thought I’d found. Maybe this was all fake. “I’m not exactly down in the trenches anymore, like you.”

  “Doesn’t make any difference, Lilly. You’re as addicted to the dangerous chase as I am. As you ever were. Oh, well.” He shrugged and dropped the empty cup into a wastebasket. “It’s none of my goddamn business. You got anything on this case?”

  I looked through the glass at Alma. She lay completely flat on the stretcher-like bed under icy fluorescent lights. Tubes, cables, cords, and monitors everywhere, her head bandaged like a golf ball, face swollen beyond recognition. Only a sheet covered her torso from her chest to her knees. She looked cold and bloated and her skin was gray. How could she possibly be holding on?

  I shook my head. It was the truth. I didn’t have anything. I had a lot of stuff that could turn into something, but at the moment it was all conjecture. “Nothing but lots of ideas,” I answered. “But I think in the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours, the small stuff will start to rattle through the funnel.”

  “That guy.” Jack indicated Wade with his eyes. “Your client.”

  “Yeah? What about him?”

  “Guilty as hell.”

  I couldn’t disagree, but I didn’t say anything. He was, after all, my client. He said he’d been in Montana and the airline confirmed it, and he said he’d hired me to find the truth, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that all roads would lead to him. But why?

  “I just can’t figure out how he did it, is all,” Jack admitted.

  Me, either. I looked at my watch and wondered where Elias was; maybe he’d have some news.

  Jack glanced in at Wade, who had moved to the sink and was holding a cold washcloth over his face, struggling to stay awake. “You checked out his alibi, right?”

  “Yes. He was on a plane. Commercial. They know him and they saw him.”

  We both stood there and watched him, full of our own private theories and thoughts.

  Down at the far end of the hall, a bell dinged, the elevator door rolled open, and Elias strolled off, hands deep in his pockets. He stopped and stared and smiled compassionately into each cubicle, and I’m sure the family members who stared back with their tired, frightened eyes thought he was a doctor, just bringing them a whisper of understanding as he went on his rounds.

  “Jeez,” he said under his breath when he reached us. “What’s wrong with that guy?” He indicated over his shoulder with his thumb. “Have you seen all that equipment? I was watching his monitor, and his heart’s hardly going at all. I think they ought to pull the curtains and give them all a little privacy.”

  “Most people don’t stand and stare at them the way you do,” I said.

  “Heart-lung transplant,” Jack told us with
an authoritative weariness that sounded as if he came across heart-lung transplants every day and found them tiresome. “Just did it yesterday. Took ’em fourteen hours. It’ll be touch and go like this for two weeks. Guy looks to me like he’s going to crater any second.”

  “Man,” Elias said. “Rough.” He let the moment pass and said to me, “You should have waited. You know I’m supposed to stay b-y … y-o-u-r … s-i-d-e until the wedding,” he sang and then turned to Jack. “Family’s afraid she’ll miss a few events.”

  “Good idea to keep an eye on her, she could bolt. I know the type. I’d better get back to work.” Jack fitted the gray Stetson firmly on his head. “I just came up to the hospital to interview a prisoner and thought I’d stop and see if there was any change in Mrs. Gilhooly. Oh, Lilly, you were right about the boot prints, nothing special to help narrow anything down. So far this is a go-nowhere case. Let me know if there’s anything you need.” He shook hands with Elias. “Glad I ran into you.”

  We watched him step into the elevator and give the man who was already on board his tough-guy look. His macho shoulder-shake that said, You wanna fight? You wanna fight? Go ahead. I dare you. Typical Small Man Complex.

  “What did you find out about Jim Dixon?” I asked Elias once the doors had closed.

  “Nothing. Wild-goose chase. It was booze. His blood alcohol was point-four-oh. That’s why he didn’t get killed—too relaxed.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think it matters. I think the accident was a coincidence and got us rabbited off in the wrong direction. I think the shooting was directly related to the Rutherford Oil proxy fight. The politics surrounding this Russian deal are unbelievable, definitely the kind of stakes people kill over.” I looked at my watch. “Let’s go see Mercedes.”

  Elias looked at his watch. “Listen to me,” he said. “It’s almost ten. I swore on my life that I’d have you at Richard’s office at eleven forty-five, and by God I will even if I have to smack you on the head and drag you in by the heels of your little Italian pumps.”

  “Fair enough. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  FIFTEEN

  The Rutherford Oil Building was one of the few sky-scrapers in downtown Roundup that I liked. Although it was nothing more than a big glass-and-steel box, it had been designed by a local guy no one had heard of before or since, and, to me, it had always represented the Westerner’s nature: clean, upright, no hidden surfaces, tricks, or agendas. It was what you saw, pure and simple. Unlike most of the other florid piles that dipped and looped and shot off in all different directions like a bunch of architecturally defective sparklers built by Easterners on holiday.

  The building sat back from the street, fronted by a beautiful, parklike plaza where the wind blew around the corner at about a hundred miles an hour all the time and sent the water from a series of high-flying fountains into a permanent state of fine spray. In an urban tribute to Old Faithful and our Western heritage—or some other sort of high-minded explanation cooked up by our local arts council—the fountains were timed to go off every quarter hour for ten minutes. And they did. The water misted our faces as we crossed toward the entrance. The air smelled like the stockyards on the edge of town.

  “I’ve always been in love with Mercedes,” Elias confided in me as we rode the executive express elevator to the top floor. “I think she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I used to watch her sunbathing in their backyard when I was little. Her body was absolutely perfect.”

  “Why don’t you ask her out?” I suggested. “She’s never gotten married.”

  All the color drained from Elias’s bearded face. “Are you crazy? She’d never go out with me. No. Forget it. I’m sticking with Linda.” I could tell that just the idea of being in the same room with Mercedes scared Elias as much as if he were alone with, say, Madonna. He’d just stare and sweat.

  I wasn’t in love with Mercedes Rutherford, but I have always thought she was extra-cool, and this visit to her office just reconfirmed that opinion. She was definitely way-cool. And maybe even heartless. Detached enough, certainly, to have shot her half-sister and not chipped a nail. Her figure was boyish, completely straight up and down, and she had on a chocolate Armani suit. I could easily picture her slipping a small handgun like my little Glock in and out of the jacket pocket. But not the actual murder weapon, a Colt .45. Too crude.

  Her airy, penthouse office overflowed with tall, orderly stacks of bound reports.

  “Sorry for the mess,” she greeted us, not really sorry but needing to offer something by way of a welcome before she got down to business. “Need to keep these confidential till the annual meeting tomorrow. No easy way.”

  Mercedes was friendly without being effusive, clipped without being rushed, professional without being frigid, and precise without being precious. Power suited her. She never looked at her watch, but I knew she’d allotted a specific amount of time to this meeting and would move us all along until she got where she needed to be, and then the meeting would be over.

  After taking her seat at the end of the conference table, Mercedes indicated we should sit wherever we wanted. A white-noise machine, a necessity in today’s world where privacy is nothing more than an arcane concept, was built flush into the center of the table and whirred soothingly.

  “I appreciate your dropping by.” She slid an envelope across to me. “This arrived this morning.”

  I removed my glasses, a pair of tight latex gloves, and a magnifying glass from my purse and examined the envelope carefully. It was plain white, the sort available in boxes of ten at the 7-Eleven, and addressed on what looked to me to be a standard laser printer:

  Mercedes Rutherford, Chairman and CEO

  Rutherford Oil Company

  Rutherford Oil Plaza

  Roundup, Wyoming 87023

  The postmark was Roundup, the time and date the afternoon before. The stamp was a self-adhesive American flag. I got out my long-nosed tweezers, slid the sheet free, and spread it on the table. Plain white paper. Nothing immediately identifiable about its weight or texture. I examined the message, which was handwritten in Cyrillic letters and meant absolutely nothing to me.

  I slid the paper across to Elias, who put on his glasses and studied it, then laughed and shook his head.

  “What does it say?” I asked.

  “It says …” The oddly guttural words flowed from Elias’s lips like a ballad from Mars. Then he grinned.

  “That’s very nice Elias. But what does it mean?”

  “It means, ‘Vote yes or you’ll diet.’ ”

  “Excuse me?” Mercedes said.

  “Yeah.” Elias shook his head. “Obviously this was written by someone who was in a hurry and copied down the wrong word in the dictionary.”

  We all laughed, even though it wasn’t especially funny.

  “Did this come through your regular company mail delivery?” I asked.

  “Yes. My secretary said it was delivered with everything else.”

  “Who do you think sent it?”

  “I haven’t got the slightest idea.” She seemed bewildered by the message. “I suppose it could be just about anyone, even some of our Russian colleagues who are desperate for this investment. They’ll have a large, vocal contingent at the meeting. It’s a wild group, but they aren’t fumbling idiots who would send a note like this.” She leaned her forehead into her fingers and closed her eyes. “This person is a complete dolt.”

  “Mercedes, where were you when Alma was shot?” My question was purposely from left field, and I asked it slightly aggressively, not belligerently, but certainly straight out—a quick snap of the buggy whip.

  The change in direction did not catch her off guard or force her to hesitate while she sought a suitable answer. “I was in the powder room with Johnny Bourbon trying to get his proxy.” She met my look dead on and started laughing. “This struggle has become shameless. You wouldn’t believe how high the stakes are.”

  Elias blushed.


  “How high?” I asked.

  “The company’s survival is at stake. My grandfather started Rutherford Oil in the twenties.” As she spoke, Mercedes rolled a gold Cross pen in her fingers. They were long and slender, and her small oval nails were enameled in pale salmon. “He was a roughneck on Blackmer’s crew when the Teapot Dome was developed, and then when Blackmer took off for France rather than go to jail, Grandfather hammered together whatever leases he could from the government and ranchers, and started Rutherford Oil. We have crews and fields all over the world now. Our annual production is almost seventy million barrels. And that’s just oil. We’re diversified into all fields of energy.”

  “Jeez,” Elias said. “That’s up from fifty-five million when you took over just two years ago.” Then he got a little flustered. “At least, that’s what I recall.”

  Mercedes smiled at him affectionately. “You could turn your operation into something if you’d leave home now and then, Elias. You’ll never find a billion barrels under the Circle B.”

  “Nah. I know. But we’ve got enough for now.”

  Here’s the deal with Elias: He holds a B.A. in Russian Studies from Harvard and a degree in English Literature— Shakespeare—from Oxford, and when he got home from Vietnam and Cambodia, China and Laos, and a few other places the CIA never was, he took over running the ranch and has not ventured far since. “I’ve seen more of the world than I ever needed to. More than enough to last my lifetime,” he says by way of explanation.

  “I understand you and Alma each hold thirty-five percent of the stock?” I said.

  Mercedes nodded.

  “Help me out with the math.”

  “The company has two million shares of common stock, fully issued,” Mercedes explained. “Alma and I each own seven hundred thousand. The company pays an annual dividend of five dollars per share.”

  “So for each of you, that’s only three and a half million a year in dividends,” I said. Then I clamped my mouth shut and waited for her to tell me the rest. Saying nothing is the hardest thing in the world, which is why it is also so effective, which was not news to Mercedes Rutherford. She and I stared at each other. Who would blink first? She thought I didn’t know what the next question should be, and she wasn’t going to help me. “What about the preferred stock?” I finally asked.