by Jay Hopler
“Thanks,” said Padgett. “Too many things at once.”
“Are your friends having a nice time out west?”
“Much better than I am,” he said. “We’ve got to get a few investigators out there today before anything has a chance to happen, and I don’t know where we’re going to get them.”
“You mean it might be something?”
“Probably not,” he said, “but you never know. You can’t take a chance of missing another Appalachin just because somebody’s got the damned flu and somebody else is at an airport that’s fogged in.”
“How about holding the fort with technicians until the cavalry arrives? Locals even? Wiretaps and so on.”
“You know what that mess is these days,” said Padgett. “And we don’t even have probable cause. Just four men we can’t even prove know one another taking winter vacations within a couple hundred miles of one another. Want to go in front of a judge with that one? I don’t, and I’ve been there.”
“Well, good luck with it,” said Elizabeth, not knowing what else to say. The telephone on her desk rang, and she answered it with relief. “Justice, Elizabeth Waring.”
“Hart here,” came the voice.
“Good,” said Elizabeth. “What can you tell me?”
“It’s pretty much what I figured,” he said. “It’s the fertilizer all right.”
“You mean manure blows up?” she asked, a little louder than she had intended. She looked up and noticed that Richardson was watching her with a smirk on his face.
“No,” Hart said. “Fertilizer. The kind they make in factories and sell in stores. A couple of the nitrate fertilizers are chemically similar to dynamite. If you know how to detonate them you can use them the same way. They’re cheaper and you don’t have to have a license to use them. If you run out you can go down to the store and buy all you want.”
“That’s incredible,” said Elizabeth. “Do people know about this?”
“Sure,” said Hart. “A lot of construction companies use fertilizer all the time. Been doing it for years.”
“Then my case is closed, I guess,” said Elizabeth. “The poor man probably just blew himself up by accident. But somebody ought to sue whoever makes that fertilizer. It could happen to anybody.”
“No it couldn’t,” said Hart. “It doesn’t blow up by accident. You have to use blasting caps and an electric charge. Theoretically the gasoline in Veasy’s pickup truck is more dangerous than the fertilizer. More explosive power and easier to set off.”
“So you think it was murder?”
“Or suicide. I haven’t seen enough to tell, really, but I don’t think it’s likely he bought a bag of fertilizer for his garden and it just went off. I suppose if he was carrying blasting caps or shotgun shells or something, and the conditions were right, maybe. But the report says he was just sitting in a parking lot, not jolting along a country road, and something would have to set off whatever served as the detonator.”
“So it is murder.”
“I don’t know. But if this is a case you’re interested in I wouldn’t write it off yet. I’d at least find out what he was carrying around in the bed of his pickup, and whether he even bought any fertilizer.”
“Are you on this case, too? What I mean is, is the FBI interested?”
“No. At least I don’t think so. If the explosive had turned out to be dynamite we would have been. There you have a federal statute having to do with a traceable substance. But as it is, unless it somehow ties in with another case, I doubt there’ll be anyone on it. Local jurisdiction, no reason for the FBI to take an interest.”
4
“Gentlemen, we’re running this country like a goddamned poker game. The average man sees that he has nothing and somebody else has everything. He doesn’t make trouble because he’s optimistic enough to think that after the next hand he’ll have everything. Watch out for the day when he figures out that the chips aren’t changing hands the way they used to. And when he finds out that it’s because the fellow with the chips is playing by different rules, we’d better be ready with our bags packed. You talk about a tax revolt, hell, there’ll be a real revolt. See you next session, if there is one.”
“It’s the only game in town, Senator,” said the senator from Illinois, putting his arm on the old man’s shoulder and walking with him out of the committee hearing room. “Don’t worry. We’ll get a new tax bill passed next session. You put the fear of God into them.”
They were walking down the quiet private hallway that led back under the street to the Senate office building. No one was now within earshot. The old man continued, “Hell, Billy. You’re young yet. Boy senator from Illinois. But I may not even be alive next session. I’m seventy years old, you know. Six terms in the Senate. I’m not going to have a seventh, one way or the other, and when I go the chairmanship goes to—”
“I know, to Fairleigh. You watch seniority pretty closely if you don’t have any yourself. But don’t worry, Senator. Your tax bill is in the bag. Our esteemed colleagues aren’t even dragging their feet anymore. Too much mail from home.”
“I hope you’re right, Billy,” said the old man. “But I’d have felt a lot better about it if we could have gotten it all out on the floor this session. You know, I got a letter today from a woman who makes fifteen thousand dollars a year after twenty years working as a secretary. Her husband makes twenty-five thousand, so the first dollar she makes is taxed at forty-three percent. No tax shelters for them. By the time you figure state taxes, social security, and sales taxes that woman is losing over half her income. Maybe eight thousand dollars. Of the fifty richest people in my state, not one of them pays eight thousand a year in taxes. A lot of them don’t pay anything and never have. And the recent tax bills gave the rich the biggest subsidy yet. We’ve got to make some changes.”
“I know, Senator,” said the younger man, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ve been with you on this since I got here. It’s what got me elected. I said I’d try to work with you on income tax reforms that would help the average citizen, do whatever you wanted. They didn’t vote for me, they voted for you.”
“That’s bullshit. You got here because you were the best governor they’d had in twenty-five years. And you’ll get re-elected because you’re the best senator for the last thirty. If something happens to me before we get this bill passed I’m counting on you to ramrod it. Remind a few people of what they promised us. You know who I mean.”
“Well, here’s my office,” said the senator from Illinois. “Don’t worry. We’ll both be here to remind them, and we probably won’t have to. Most of them will get an earful while they’re home for the break. I leave myself in two hours. First speaking date is tonight.”
“Oh, to be young again,” said the old man. “See you in a few weeks, Billy.” The younger man watched the older senator walk down the hallway toward his office. The familiar blue suit was hanging from the old man’s stooped shoulders, but the white head was still held erect. The Honorable McKinley R. Claremont, senior senator from the great state of Colorado. He wasn’t fooling anybody with that frail elder-statesman routine. Anybody who was interested could check his schedule and see he had a press conference set for eight fifteen tonight in the Denver airport.
“You’re sure about all this?” asked Brayer.
“Of course I’m sure,” said Elizabeth. “I’m sure of the facts, that is. I’m not sure about what interpretation to hang on them, because there aren’t enough of them. Veasy was carrying two hundred-pound sacks of nitrate fertilizer in his pickup truck. He must have bought them that day according to the Ventura police, because nobody saw them before that. Somebody apparently came along while he was in a union meeting and did something to the fertilizer so it would explode. And the FBI agent said that was perfectly possible for somebody who knew how.”
Brayer leaned back in his chair and tapped his pencil absently on the glass desktop. He stared off into space. Finally he turned to her and said,
“I’m afraid I don’t know what to make of it either, but it’s sure not ordinary. Whoever did it was fast on his feet. He’d have to ad lib, if the fertilizer was only bought that day.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Elizabeth. “Does it warrant an investigation or not?”
“I’m not sure I know what warrants an investigation these days. We’re supposed to be keeping an eye on organized crime, not giving an Academy Award for the most imaginative performance by a murderer. Do you have any reason to believe this fellow Veasy might have had anything to do with the Mafia?”
“He didn’t have a record, if that’s what you mean, and his name didn’t come up when I had Padgett run the Who’s Who program on the computer. But who knows? Maybe he borrowed money, maybe he smuggled something for them—Ventura’s got a harbor. Maybe anything. It could even have had something to do with the union. We just don’t have anything to go on.”
“Except the fact that whoever snuffed him was clever about it.”
“Right,” said Elizabeth. “Clever enough to be a professional?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a world-class amateur, maybe a lunatic with beginner’s luck. But there’s always the chance it’s the real thing. Lunatics and beginners usually spend some time planning. They’re not up to working with what they find.”
“So you’re going to dispatch an investigator?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’m not even sure if I have anybody I can send right now. What was that FBI agent’s name, again?”
“Hart. Robert E. Hart. Extension 3023. Why?”
“I’ll see if I can con his boss into sending him. If he’s as good as the Treasury man said and I haven’t heard of him, he’s young enough and new enough to be eligible for legwork.” He picked up the phone, then looked at her expectantly.
“You mean I have to leave?” she asked.
“ ‘Fraid so. It’s hard to lie, cheat, and steal in front of an audience. Close the door on your way out.”
5
Just one more before payday, and then a little vacation. Sometimes he wondered how long he would keep it up. At the beginning he’d thought five years was a long time, but now it had been six—no, almost seven, and still going strong. Living in motels and rent-by-the-week cottages could get to be pretty old after a month. It would be nice to be back in Tucson, where he could relax a little and get the old edge back. Eating in fast-food places and spending half your time traveling wasn’t so good for your body. It had to catch up with you sooner or later.
Denver wasn’t bad this time of year, though. Cold and clear. Later he’d take a walk down Colfax Avenue and see a movie. The plane wouldn’t arrive until tonight, and the press conference would make the eleven o’clock news. For the first day or two the old guy’d be surrounded by reporters and hometown minor-league political hacks anyway. After that, when the rosy glow faded, there’d be time to work something out. Just a matter of seeing your best shot and taking it, like pool.
He turned off the television and walked to the dresser. He leaned over his suitcase and peered at the face in the mirror. A little tired from the plane ride is all. No lines, nothing, he thought. It would be ten years yet before it was the kind of face people remembered.
Brayer opened the door of his office and beckoned to Elizabeth, who was sitting at her desk glancing at a newspaper. She brought it with her into Brayer’s office.
“Get down to Disbursement and pick up your travel vouchers,” Brayer said. “There’s a plane at eight that’ll get you to L.A. International by ten o’clock Pacific time, and a hop to Ventura that’ll get you in by eleven.”
“Me?”
“Do you see anybody else?”
“But I’m an analyst, remember? Good old Elizabeth? I’m no investigator. I haven’t been out of this office since—”
“You’re going, Elizabeth,” he said. “You’ve got the rating and the qualifications. Just because you haven’t done it before doesn’t mean you can’t do it, or if it comes to that, that I can’t order you to. I checked it with Martin Connors. So you’re going.”
“So the FBI wouldn’t do it?” she smiled slyly.
“Yes, they will. But they’ll only guarantee to let us use Hart for two days. They can pull him back any time after five o’clock Wednesday afternoon. And they’ll only send him if he’s there to investigate explosions, not handle the whole case by himself. Now get down there to your friendly local travel agent in Disbursement so they have some chance of getting you both on that eight-o’clock plane.”
“I’m on my way,” she said, heading for the door. “I hate snow anyway.”
“If you come back with a tan anywhere but on your face I’ll skin it off you and nail it to the wall,” said Brayer. “You’re not on a vacation, Waring.”
She stopped in the doorway and said, “I thought the usual thing was the Death of a Thousand Cuts?”
“Get going,” he said. To himself he thought, Damn. The best I’ve got. Maybe the best data analyst outside the National Security Agency, off on a wild-goose chase. The worst part was that he had needed to convince Connors to arrange it. He tried to remind himself there was no need to worry. The case and the timing could hardly be better for starting her in the field. It was the longest kind of long shot, complete with a trail that was already cold. She’d have little chance to put herself in harm’s way before she was ready, getting in on armed surveillance or arrests. With four of the capos suddenly showing up in the West on the same day, it hadn’t been hard to convince Connors that it was time to try Elizabeth in the field. The department really did need seasoned field investigators, and if she worked out, who could tell? A female with her brains out in the field—hell, it might make a difference some time. But, he thought, if Connors ever got around to reading the preliminary reports and saw the kind of case he’d sent two people out to investigate, Brayer would have some explaining to do. He consoled himself by planning what he’d say to Grosvenor, when and if he finally bothered to report in from Tulsa.
As Elizabeth stood in the elevator she was glad Brayer had said that about the suntan. California would be warm. It wouldn’t do to show up wearing a heavy overcoat and wool skirts. It wasn’t a vacation, as he’d said, but there was nothing in the rules that said you had to humiliate yourself in front of strangers, looking as though you’d arrived in California by walking over the North Pole. Besides, the bathing suit she had in mind didn’t take up much room.
At the United Airlines desk there were two men. One sat drinking coffee, looking impatient, while the other did all the work. When Elizabeth reached the head of the line and handed the man her travel voucher, he nodded to the other and said, “Miss Waring, Mr. Hart is here waiting for you.”
Hart dropped his cup in a basket and stepped around the desk to help her with the suitcase. “Good to meet you,” he said, looking at the suitcase instead of at her.
“Same to you,” she said. For once she meant it. He was tall and thin with a kind of delicacy about his hands and a rather unruly shock of light brown hair that probably made him look younger than he was. He guided her away from the desk to a line of seats facing the loading gate like a man conducting a lady off a dance floor. This wasn’t going to be so terrible after all.
When they were seated she noticed that he had somehow managed to pick a spot that looked as though it was in the middle of things, but wasn’t close enough to anyone so they couldn’t talk.
He said, “Before I forget, are you carrying a weapon?”
“Yes,” she said. “They admitted there wasn’t any reason, but regulations say field investigators have to. Are you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Same regulation. We’ll have to board early so we don’t attract too much attention when they wave us through the metal detectors.”
“I’m glad you came,” said Elizabeth, venturing onto the most dangerous ground first so she wouldn’t have it in front of her later. “What made the FBI decide to get involved?”
“Your Mr. Brayer. H
e asked for cooperation and the Bureau is being very cooperative these days. Ten years of bad press, all the political stuff, massive housecleaning after Hoover died—you can imagine. Brayer offered a fairly straightforward murder case with a chance of something bigger, and all he needed was two days of legwork.”
“So the Bureau jumped at it? I hope it’s not a waste of your time,” said Elizabeth.
“No,” said Hart. “The Bureau is reestablishing its usefulness, doing favors. So either way it’s no loss to the organization. As for me,” he said, and Elizabeth could see he was going to step out on the tightrope, “I’ve been on assignments that didn’t pan out before, and none of them involved flying to Southern California with a pretty lady.”
Nicely managed, she thought, if a little clumsy. So he, too, liked to cover the hard part first. She rewarded him with the best smile she could risk. No sense in setting him up for some kind of embarrassment, but at least let him know we’re friends.
The voice in the air said, “United Flight 452 arriving at Gate 23,” and Hart looked at his ticket. “That’s us,” he said.
They sat in silence and watched the rest of the passengers filing in and getting settled. Then the door slammed with a pneumatic thump and the engines wound themselves up to a high whine and the plane began to taxi out away from the buildings into the night. At the end of the apron it spun around and faced into the wind, the engines screamed, and they shot down the runway into the sky.
Elizabeth said, “You had your job long?”
“Four years, about,” said Hart. “You?”
“Only a little over a year. It’s interesting, though. What made you decide to work over there?”
“Came back from the service, went to an undistinguished law school where I earned an undistinguished record,” he smiled. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Either that or spend the next twenty years researching precedents and hoping to become a junior partner somewhere. This sounded like more fun.”