Lucas shook his head, found a chair, sat down. Sherrill was wearing a leather jacket, and she pulled it off to reveal a very large cherry-stocked .357 Magnum in a black leather shoulder rig. She looked like an S-and-M magazine’s cover girl. ‘‘Not the Seed,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I talked to their head guy, and we’ve had feelers out everywhere. It’s not the Seed.’’
‘‘A crazy man?’’
‘‘That’s the consensus right now.’’
‘‘Unless you’ve got something going on that we don’t know about,’’ Sherrill interjected. ‘‘Have you had any serious problems with unhappy patients, or relatives of unhappy patients, or maybe state cases from the psycho hospitals . . . like that?’’
Weather frowned, thought for a moment, then shook her head: ‘‘Not that I know of.’’
Sherrill leaned forward a bit: ‘‘I only know you a little bit, and I don’t want to step on either your feet or Lucas’s feet. But how about new relationships? Or men who think you might be interested, who you blew off? There’s usually some kind of emotional basis for a nut attack.’’
Weather was shaking her head: ‘‘Nothing like that.’’
‘‘Any kids?’’ Lucas asked. ‘‘Any teenage boys trying to cut your grass for you, water your lawn? Just hanging around?’’
‘‘No . . . Lucas, I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of anybody who might do this. Any hint. People from back home, people from the hospital, from the university, cops, but . . . there’s nobody. Not to just come walking up some evening and throw a bomb through the window.’’
‘‘Goddamnit,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘My best idea was that somebody was trying to get at you through me,’’ Weather said. ‘‘Remember that newspaper article after the thing with Andi and John Mail? ‘The Pals of Lucas Davenport’? Maybe somebody who goes way back read that article—maybe somebody in prison at the time—and decided to come after me. There’d be no way for an outsider to know that we’d broken off the relationship. So . . . I think you might look at your past, more than mine. That is, if it’s not just some random crazy man.’’
‘‘How about the landlords? Would they—’’
‘‘Oh God, Lucas, no. They’re the nicest people in the world. I called to tell them about the house, and they were worried about me . No. Not them.’’
‘‘All right.’’ Lucas looked at Sherrill: ‘‘Anything else?’’
‘‘Not if she’s sure she’s not the target. But Weather, if you think of anything . . .’’
‘‘I’ll call Lucas the next minute,’’ she said.
‘‘So is that it?’’ Andi Manette asked.
Lucas looked at Weather for a long five seconds, then to Manette: ‘‘Yeah, that’s it.’’
Outside on the sidewalk, with the door closing behind them, Sherrill pulled on her jacket and said, ‘‘Whew.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘She said that thing about breaking off the relationship, and you never even flinched. And she just said it like . . .’’
‘‘It was done.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘I flinched,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘God,’’ Sherrill said. Then, after a while, ‘‘Bad day.’’
REAL BAD DAY.
That night, a little after ten-thirty, Wilson McDonald was shaking his hand in James T. Bone’s face, sputtering, ‘‘Vice chairman. That’s nothing! Nothing! You’re treating me like a piece of shit.’’
Bone said, ‘‘Look, Wilson—you’re not gonna get the top spot. You’re just not. I can commit to leaving you as top guy in the mortgage company. I can get you the vice chairman’s job with the merged bank. But I can’t say what’ll happen after the merger.’’
‘‘Not gonna be any fuckin’ merger,’’ McDonald said. He’d never taken off his coat. He headed for the door, turned when he got there, and said, ‘‘And you’re never gonna run the goddamned bank. Maybe I can’t get it myself, but I can fuck you up.’’
And he was gone.
Kerin Baki said, ‘‘If they go to O’Dell, we may have a problem.’’
Bone shook his head. ‘‘Not necessarily. O’Dell needs ten. I can’t see more than seven or eight. And frankly, I don’t think McDonald can swing votes. Why should people swing on his say-so? He’s gone.’’
‘‘It’s not all power and money equations,’’ Baki said. ‘‘Some of it’s family and friendship. And all he has to do is swing maybe two votes . . .’’
‘‘I don’t think he can do it,’’ Bone said.
‘‘You’re underestimating O’Dell,’’ Baki said.
‘‘No. I just know what I’m willing to do, and what I’m not. If she gets it—so be it. But I don’t think she will.’’
REAL BAD DAY.
Susan O’Dell took a small red diabetic candy from a bowl on her coffee table, unrolled the cellophane with her fingertips, popped the candy in her mouth, and said, ‘‘I’m sure about Anderson, Bunde, Sanderson, Eirich, Sojen, and Goff. If you can give me Spartz, Rondeau, Young, and Brandt, then we’ve got it: we’ve got ten.’’
‘‘We can. Wilson talked to his father today, and he’s got Rondeau’s commitment. Spartz, Young, and Brandt have already committed to whatever Wilson wants to do,’’ Audrey McDonald said. Audrey was sitting on a love seat, her feet squarely on the floor, her purse squarely on her lap. Her whole body hurt, but nothing had been broken. When Wilson beat you, he did it carefully. Thoroughly, but carefully.
‘‘We’ve got to be sure,’’ O’Dell said.
‘‘I’ll get written commitments if you wish,’’ Audrey said stiffly. She hated O’Dell, but this was necessary.
‘‘That’s absurd,’’ O’Dell said. ‘‘Nobody would do that. And it’s not necessary. No—I want to talk to them. It’ll all be very pleasant, but we have to talk.’’
‘‘I’ll arrange it,’’ Audrey said. ‘‘But we do want your commitment in writing. We won’t be able to show it to anyone, of course, if you go through with your end . . . but if you don’t do what you say, we’ll . . . hurt you with it.’’
O’Dell shook her head. ‘‘Can’t do it.’’
‘‘You can if you want the job,’’ Audrey said. She twisted slightly, trying to ease a cramp in her back. He really had hurt her.
O’Dell sat silently for a moment. Then: ‘‘Can I call you tomorrow? First thing?’’
‘‘First thing,’’ Audrey said. ‘‘There’s not a lot of time left.’’
Audrey looked old, O’Dell thought, looking after her as she scuttled away toward the elevator. They were of an age, but already Audrey was bent over, stiff.
O’Dell worked out, both for strength and flexibility. She was a long-range planner, and had every intention of living to a nice ripe ninety.
AFTER LETTING AUDREY OUT, O DELL WENT TO THE REFRIGERATOR, got a bottle of Dos Equis, popped the top, and sat down on the couch to think about it. Five minutes later the telephone burped from the end table, a single half-ring. She waited, but whoever it was had rung off. She took a couple of sips of the beer, leaned sideways and picked up the phone, punched in Louise Compton’s number.
Compton picked it up on the third ring, and O’Dell said, ‘‘Audrey McDonald was just here. She said she can deliver Spartz, Rondeau, Young, and Brandt. But there are some conditions.’’
‘‘Like what?’’
‘‘Like they want a written statement: I’m president and CEO, but Wilson gets the chairman’s job. He’d just be a figurehead, but the salaries would be the same.’’
‘‘That sounds . . .’’
‘‘Illegal. It might be.’’
‘‘Why don’t you see if you could commit yourself with a couple of witnesses—maybe a couple of the board members—rather than putting it in writing. Then in a couple of years, when we’ve got the place under control . . .’’
‘‘We bump him off.’’
‘‘Exactly.’’
‘‘I like your thinking,�
�’ O’Dell said. The doorbell rang, and she turned, frowned. ‘‘Somebody at the door. Hang on.’’
O’Dell hopped off the couch and hurried across the living room, looked through the peephole into the hallway, frowned, and opened the door.
‘‘I . . .’’ Then she saw the muzzle of the gun. ‘‘No,’’ she said.
In the narrow space of the reception hall, the shot sounded like the end of the world, and for O’Dell, it was. The slug hit her in the eye, and knocked out the back of her skull.
She went down on her back, and a second later another shot hit her in the forehead: but she was already dead.
The telephone lay on the couch, and a tiny, tinny voice screamed ‘‘Susan? Susan, what was that? Susan?’’
A real bad day for Susan O’Dell.
THIRTEEN
LUCAS STEPPED OUT OF THE ELEVATOR, BRUSHED PAST a couple of uniformed cops in the hallway, stopped in O’Dell’s door and looked down at the body. She was lying flat on her back, her feet toed in, her nose pointed straight up. Her face had been ruined by the two gunshots; a small bloodstain was visible in the carpet below her skull. He could smell the blood.
‘‘What the fuck is this?’’ Lucas asked in anger and utter disgust. ‘‘What the fuck is it?’’
An older plainclothes cop named Swanson was sitting in a ladder-back chair, flipping through an appointment book. ‘‘Same old shit,’’ he said. Swanson had seen maybe six hundred murders in his career. ‘‘Watch your feet, nothing’s been processed.’’
His partner, who was named Riley, said, ‘‘We got that McDonald woman coming over. She was here just before the shooting.’’
‘‘Audrey McDonald? How do we know that?’’ Lucas asked. He was walking around O’Dell, peering down at the body as though a clue might be written on it.
‘‘O’Dell was on the phone with a friend from the bank when she was killed. The friend—uh, let me see, Louise Compton—called us, called 911. But anyway, just before
O’Dell was killed, she told this Compton that Audrey McDonald had just left. We understand you’ve been talking to her. Audrey McDonald.’’
‘‘Never laid eyes on her,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Talked to her husband.’’ He squatted next to O’Dell, picked out the powder burns on her face. Small- to medium-caliber pistol, fired from a few inches away, he thought. ‘‘Got a slug?’’
Swanson pointed a pistol at an entryway wall. ‘‘Right there . . . we’ll get it. And it looks like maybe the second shot was fired when she was already down, so it might be right under her head. Wooden floors.’’
‘‘What about this friend? Compton?’’
‘‘She’s on her way—ought to be here any minute, actually.’’
‘‘Let’s get something over her then,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Cover her up.’’
‘‘I’ll get it,’’ Riley said.
‘‘What time we got?’’ Lucas asked.
‘‘Compton called 911 at eleven-oh-four,’’ Swanson said. ‘‘She say she was on the phone, heard the shots, and when O’Dell didn’t come to the phone after she screamed for a few seconds, she called. So we figure it was a minute or two after eleven o’clock.’’
‘‘You know, Sloan and Sherrill have already interviewed everybody involved,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Maybe you ought to get them up here.’’
‘‘All right I’ll give ’em a ring.’’
‘‘Christ, what a mess,’’ Lucas said, turning away from the body. ‘‘She opens the door and bang. That’s all.’’
‘‘That’s about the way we see it . . . We called you because you’re up-to-date on this bank thing—we figured if it’s a goofball knocking off the top guys . . .’’
‘‘Doesn’t make sense,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘She’s the wrong one to get shot.’’
‘‘Huh?’’
‘‘We thought Kresge was shot because he was pushing a merge with a bigger bank. But O’Dell was going after his job on the basis of stopping the merger.’’
Swanson said, ‘‘Maybe the merger doesn’t have anything to do with it. Maybe they were killed for some bank reason, but nothing to do with the merger.’’
Lucas said, ‘‘I don’t know.’’
‘‘Whatever happened with the firebomb business?’’ Swanson asked.
‘‘Nothing. Just fuckin’ nothin’,’’ Lucas said. His mind switched tracks to the firebomb. And Knox, the Caterpillar man, was probably right, he thought. A kid in the neighborhood who liked to watch fires. But not a street action.
RILEY PULLED A RUBBER SHEET OVER O’DELL’S BODY and stood up and turned. People in the hall. Then Wilson McDonald stepped through the door, jerked to a halt when he saw the figure on the floor, and said, ‘‘My God, is that her?’’ Audrey McDonald followed reluctantly, a foot or two behind, and peeked around her husband at the covered body. She reminded Lucas of a small, brown hen.
Swanson was just punching off his cell phone: Sloan was on the way. ‘‘Who’re you?’’ Swanson asked.
‘‘Wilson and Audrey McDonald . . .’’ McDonald spotted Lucas emerging from the kitchen hallway. Lucas had taken a quick tour of the apartment after talking to Swanson, but had found nothing that meant anything to him. ‘‘Officer Davenport . . . what happened?’’
‘‘Somebody shot O’Dell,’’ Lucas said flatly. He examined McDonald, then his wife, then said, ‘‘Where were you tonight at eleven o’clock?’’
McDonald flushed: ‘‘Are you questioning me ?’’
‘‘Do you have an answer to the question?’’
McDonald looked at his wife, then said, ‘‘I was driving home. I’d just left Jim Bone’s place.’’
‘‘Your wife was here, and you were at Jim Bone’s?’’
‘‘Yes. We were trying to put together a deal on the succession to Dan Kresge. We needed to talk to the two of them simultaneously.’’
Lucas shifted his gaze to Audrey: ‘‘And you were driving home as well.’’
‘‘Yes.’’ She touched her throat. ‘‘I was.’’
Her voice touched a memory cell: ‘‘How long were you here?’’ Lucas asked. ‘‘And what did you decide?’’
‘‘We were arranging—’’ Wilson McDonald started, but Lucas waved him down.
‘‘Please let your wife answer,’’ Lucas said.
McDonald looked down at Audrey, who said, falteringly, ‘‘Well, we were arranging . . . talking about . . . votes on the board of directors. The board appeared to be split three ways, and if we could arrange an alliance with one or the other of them . . .’’ She shrugged.
And Lucas recognized the voice as the woman on the telephone earlier that day. He wasn’t absolutely positive, but he would have bet on it. The timbre of her voice and the pacing of the words were very close.
‘‘Did you see anyone in the hall when you left? Or downstairs?’’ Swanson asked, swerving off the topic.
‘‘There were some people downstairs, but nobody I recognized,’’ Audrey said. ‘‘There wasn’t anybody up here. The hallway is short . . .’’ She pointed back to the hall through the open apartment door. ‘‘There’re only two apartments.’’
Lucas pulled them back to the meeting: ‘‘What did you decide? Did you get your alliance?’’
‘‘Well . . .’’ Audrey looked at her husband, whose lips were pressed tight in anger.
‘‘This has nothing to do with who killed Susan O’Dell, does it?’’ he asked. ‘‘You’re trying to screw me so your pal Bone gets the CEO’s job.’’
‘‘He’s not my pal,’’ Lucas snapped back.
‘‘No? Who handled the money for your IPO and the management buyout? And you were in his office last week talking about me. I haven’t done anything and you’ve been spreading rumors that are killing me.’’
Lucas shook his head: ‘‘Routine . . .’’
‘‘Bullshit. My lawyer used to be a cop, and he says it’s nothing like routine.’’
‘‘So get your lawyer down here if you want,
’’ Lucas said. ‘‘But I want an answer: Did you strike a deal with Susan O’Dell?’’
Wilson McDonald looked down at his wife, who stared back, then nodded almost imperceptibly. Wilson turned back to Lucas: ‘‘Yes, we did. Between the two of us, we had the votes. She becomes president, I become chairman. I work on strategic issues, she works on day-to-day matters.’’
‘‘How about Bone?’’
He shook his head: ‘‘Bone is committed to the merger. We couldn’t talk.’’
‘‘So, if O’Dell hadn’t been shot, you’d have had the job.’’
‘‘And Bone would have been out,’’ McDonald said. ‘‘Why don’t you go ask your pal about that one?’’
Swanson stepped in: ‘‘Mr. McDonald, we’re gonna ask you to step out into the hallway while we talk to your wife. No big problem, you can take a chair if you wish, but we need a statement from her, a sort of blow-by-blow account of everything that happened.’’
‘‘I thought she had a right to an attorney,’’ McDonald blustered.
‘‘She does,’’ Swanson said, ‘‘And if she wants one, we can wait until you get somebody here. But we’re not accusing her of anything at all. We just want to hear what happened.’’
‘‘Then why can’t I stay?’’
‘‘Because you have a way of answering her questions for her. We’ve been through this before, and we’ve just gotten to the point where we ask the spouse to step outside. An attorney’s fine, if she wants one now, or she can ask for one at any time.’’
McDonald looked at his wife for a moment, as if weighing the possibility that she would say something strange under questioning, then looked back at Swanson and nodded. ‘‘I’ll take a chair.’’ And to Audrey: ‘‘The minute they push the wrong button, you come get me, and we’ll have Harrison get up here.’’
‘‘Okay,’’ she said, swallowing nervously. ‘‘Don’t go far away.’’
WHEN WILSON MCDONALD HAD GONE, LUCAS SAID, ‘‘Detective Swanson is going to talk to you for a few minutes, then Detective Sloan will want to ask a few questions—Detective Sloan has already spoken to your husband . . .’’
Lucas Davenport Novels 6-10 Page 115