Hornet's Nest

by Patricia Cornwell

  At four she left her police department and walked through downtown on a lovely afternoon that, before this moment, she had not noticed. She followed Trade to Tryon to the corporate center, with its eternal torch and sculptures. Inside a huge lobby of polished stone, she walked briskly, her heels clicking over marble as she passed rich wood paneling and famous fresco paintings depicting the Shingon philosophy of chaos, creativity, making, and building. She nodded at one of the guards, who nodded back and tipped his cap. He liked that lady chief, and had always thought she walked like she knew how, and she was nice and didn't disrespect anyone, whether they were a real cop or not.

  Hammer boarded a crowded elevator and was the last to get off at the top of the crown, which at this dizzying level, really was aluminum pipes. Hammer had visited Cahoon before. Rarely a month went by that he didn't summon her to his suite of mahogany and glass overlooking his city. As was true of Hampton Court Palace, visitors were required to pass through many outer layers and courts to get to the king.

  Should a crazed gunman decide to carry out his mission, by the time he reached the throne, many secretaries and assistants might be dead, but Cahoon, quite likely, would not have heard the noise.

  Several outer offices later, Hammer entered the-one occupied by the executive secretary, Mrs. MullisMundi, also known as M&M by those who did not like her, which was virtually all. She was candy-coated, but with nuts. She would melt in the mouth and break teeth. Hammer, frankly, had no use for this perky young thing who had gotten married and kept her name while appropriating that of her husband, Joe Mundi.

  Mrs. Mullis-Mundi was bulimic, and had breast implants and long dyed blond hair. She wore size four Anne Klein. Her cologne was Escada. She worked out daily in Gold's Gym. She did not wear slacks, and was simply biding time before she sued for sexual harassment.

  "Judy, great to see you." The executive secretary stood and offered her hand with the same lilting style that Hammer had observed in devout bowlers.

  "Let me see how he's doing."

  A half hour later. Hammer remained seated on a buttery-soft ivory leather couch. She was reviewing statistics memos, and attending to the armies marching restlessly inside her briefcase. Mrs. Mullis-Mundi never got off the phone or grew tired of it. She took one earring off, then the other, then rotated the phone again to a hand less tired, as if to emphasize the painful demands of her career. Often she looked at her large scratch-proof Rado watch, and sighed, flipping her hair. She was about to die to smoke one of her skinny menthol cigarettes that had flowers around the filter.

  Cahoon was able, at last, to fit the chief in at precisely thirteen minutes past the hour. As usual, his day had been long, with far too much in it, and all insisting that they could speak to no one but him.

  In truth, he had never been in a hurry to let Hammer into his office, regardless of the minor fact that it was he, versus her, who had demanded a meeting. She was ornery and opinionated, and had treated him like a bad dog the first time they'd met. As a result, he was one without fail and consistently, when dealing with her. One of these days, he would send her down the road and bring in a progressive man, the sort who snapped open a briefcase with the Wall Street Journal and a Browning Hi-Power inside. Now, that was Gaboon's idea of a chief, someone who knew the market, would shoot to kill, and showed a little respect to leaders of the community.

  Hammer's first thought whenever she was face to face with the ruler of the city was that he had made his fortune on a chicken farm and had attributed his history to someone else by another name. Frank Purdue, she almost believed, was an alias. Holly Farms was a front. Solomon Cahoon had made his millions off plump breasts and thighs. He had gotten rich off fryers and fat roasters and their little thermometers that popped up at precisely the right time when things were heating up. Clearly, Cahoon had dovetailed these experiences and resources into banking. He had been wise enough to realize that his past might pose a credibility problem for one securing a mortgage through US Bank if this person happened to see the CEO smiling on chicken parts at Harris-Teeter.

  Hammer couldn't blame him for coming up with an alias or two, if this was what he had in fact done.

  His desk was hurled maple, not old but magnificent, and much more expansive than the ninety-six inches of wood veneer, including a return, that the city furnished her. Cahoon was creaking in an apple green English leather chair with brass studs and the same hurled armrests, talking on the phone, looking out spotless glass, and beyond aluminum pipes. She sat across from him, and was on hold again. It really didn't bother her all that much anymore, for Hammer could transport herself just about anywhere. She could solve problems, make decisions, come up with lists of matters to be investigated, and deliberate what would be good for dinner and who should cook it.

  To her, Cahoon always looked naked from the neck up. His hair was a bristly silver fringe he wore like a crown. Cropped short, it stood up straight in different lengths, and was shaped like a crescent moon in back. He was perpetually tan and wrinkled from his passion for sailboats, and he was vital and distinguished in a black suit, crisp white shirt, and Fendi silk tie filled with gold and deep red clocks.

  "Sol," she politely greeted him, when he eventually hung up the phone.

  "Judy, thanks so much for fitting me in," he said in his soft southern voice.

  "So what are we going to do about these gay bashings, these queer kinin's? These fag-fisher-queens trolling in our city? You understand the false impression all of it is giving to other corporations and companies thinking of relocating here? Not to mention what it does to business in town as usual."

  "Fag-fisher-queens," Hammer slowly, thoughtfully repeated

  "Trolling."

  "Yes, ma'am." He nodded.

  "You want some Perrier or something?"

  She shook her head, and measured her words.

  "Gay bashings. Queer killings. This came from where?" She was not on his same planet, and that was her choice.

  "Oh come on." He leaned forward, propping elbows on his rich desk.

  "We all know what this is about. Men come to our city. They cut loose, give in to their perversion, think no one will be the wiser. Well, the angel of death for these sickos is swooping in." He nodded deeply.

  "Truth, justice, and the American way. God putting his foot down."

  "Synonymous," she said.

  "Huh?" He frowned in confusion.

  "All are synonymous?" she said.

  "Truth. Justice. American way. God putting his foot down."

  "You bet, honey." He smiled.

  "Sol, don't call me that." She jabbed her finger the same way she did when making points while West was driving her around the city.

  "Don't.

  Not ever. "

  He settled back in his leather chair and laughed, entertained by this lady. What a trip. Thank God she had a husband to set her straight and put her where she belonged. Cahoon was willing to bet that Hammer's man called her honey and she waited for it, apron tied in back, like Heidi, Gaboon's first and only wife. Saturday mornings, Heidi served him breakfast in bed, providing he was in town. She continued this even now, after so many faithful years, although the effect wasn't quite the same. What happened to the female body after it turned thirty? Men were ready and willing until death. They sat tall in the saddle, and were unaffected by gravity, and this was why it wasn't out of the question for the male to seek out younger females, eventually.

  "You understand the definition of honey?" Hammer started in on this again.

  "A food for larvae. To be flattering or obsequious. Cajolery.

  What you say to get your socks darned and buttons sewn on. Christ, why did I come to this city? " She shook her head, not kidding.

  "Atlanta wasn't much better," he reminded her.

  "Certainly not Chicago, or it wouldn't have been for long."

  "True, true."

  "What about your press conference?" He moved on to more important matters.

  "I pass
ed along a very appropriate suggestion. And what?" He shrugged thin shoulders.

  "Where's my press conference? Was it so much for me to ask? This building is a beacon bringing business to Charlotte-Mecklenburg. We need to disseminate positive information, such as our hundred and five percent clearance rate for all violent crimes last year ..."

  She interrupted him, because she couldn't let this pass.

  "Sol, this is not financial smoke and mirrors. You cannot manipulate the bottom line on paper and in computers and get everyone to accept it. We're talking tangibles. Rapes, robberies, BEs, homicides, with real flesh and blood victims. You're asking me to convince citizens that we cleared more cases than we had last year?"

  "Old cases were solved, that's why the numbers ..." he started to repeat what he had been told.

  Hammer was shaking her head, and Gaboon's infamous impatience was heating up. This lady was the only one who dared talk to him in this fashion, if he didn't include his wife and children.

  "What old cases?" Hammer said.

  "And going back how far? You know what this is like? It's like some one asking me how much I make as chief of police and I say a million dollars because I'm going back ten years."

  "Apples and oranges."

  "No, no, Sol." She was shaking her head more vigorously.

  "No apples and oranges here. Oh no. This is fertilizer."

  "Judy." He pointed a bent finger at her.

  "What about the conventions that decide not to come here because of this ... ?"

  "Oh for God's sake." She waved him off and stood.

  "Conventions don't decide anything, people do, and I can't hear anymore of this. Just let me handle things, you mind? That's what I'm paid to do. And I'm not going to spread a lot of crap. You'll have to get someone else to do it." She started walking out of his office with its view.

  "A hundred and five percent." She raised her hands in exasperation.

  "And I'd watch out for your secretary, by the way."

  "What does she have to do with this?" Cahoon was most confused, which was fairly normal after a visit with Hammer.

  "I know the type," Hammer warned.

  "How much does she want?"

  "For what?" He was baffled.

  "Trust me. She'll let you know," said Hammer, shaking her head.

  "I wouldn't be alone with her or trust her. I'd get rid of her."

  Mrs. Mullis-Mundi knew the meeting could not have gone well. Cahoon had not sent for water, coffee, tea, or cocktails. He had not summoned her on the intercom and asked her to show the chief out. Mrs. MullisMundi was conjuring up herself in her Chanel compact, checking her smile in the mirror, when Hammer suddenly was there. This was not a woman who bleached her teeth or waxed her legs. The chief tossed some sort of report in a file folder on the executive secretary's enameled Chinese desk.

  "These are my stats, the real ones," Hammer said as she left.

  "See to it he gets them when he's feeling open-minded."

  School kids were getting the grand tour through the marble lobby when the chief's rapidly clicking heels carried her out. She glanced at her Breitling watch without really noting the time. Tonight was her twenty- sixth anniversary of being married to Seth. They were supposed to have a quiet evening at the Beef & Bottle, the rare steak, male hang-out that he loved and she tolerated. It was on South Boulevard, and it had been her experience whenever she had dined there that she generally represented her gender alone as she picked at her meat.

  She began, as always, with baby frog legs sauteed in wine and garlic, and a Caesar salad. The din grew louder around them in this darkly paneled room, where city fathers and planners had met for decades, on their way to heart attacks. Seth, her husband, loved food better than life, and was fully engaged with shrimp cocktail, hearts of lettuce with famous blue cheese dressing, bread, butter, and a porterhouse for two that he typically did not share. Once upon a time Seth had been an enlightened and handsome assistant to the Little Rock city manager, and he had run into Sergeant Judy Hammer, on the capitol grounds.

  There had never been any question about who was the engine driving the train in this relationship, and this was part of the attraction. Seth liked her power. She liked his liking it. They were married and began a family that quickly became his responsibility as the wife soared and was called out at night, and they moved. That Hammer was her name and not his made sense for those who knew them and gave the matter a thought. He was soft, with a weak chin that called to mind the watery-eyed knights and bishops of Washington portrait galleries.

  "We should pick up some of this cheese spread for the house," Seth said, laying it on thick in candlelight.

  "Seth, I worry about what you're doing to yourself," Hammer said, reaching for her pi not noir.

  "I guess it's port wine, but it doesn't look like it," he went on.

  "It might have horseradish in it. Maybe cayenne pepper."

  His hobby was studying law and the stock market. His most significant setback in life was that he had inherited money from his family, and was not obligated to work, was gentle, and tended to be mild, nonviolent, and tired much of the time. At this stage in life, he was so much like a spineless, spiteful woman that his wife wondered how it was possible she should have ended up in a lesbian relationship with a man. Lord, when Seth slipped into one of his snits, as he was in this very minute, she understood domestic violence and felt there were cases when it was justified.

  "Seth, it's our anniversary," she reminded him in a low voice.

  "You haven't talked to me all evening. You've eaten everything in this goddamn restaurant, and won't look at me. You want to give me a clue as to what's wrong, for once? So I don't have to guess or read your mind or go to a psychic?"

  Her stomach was balled up like a threatened opossum. Seth was the best diet she'd ever been on, and could throw her into anorexia quicker than anything. In rare, quiet moments, when Hammer walked alone on a beach or in the mountains, she knew she had not been in love with Seth for most of their marriage. But he was her weight-bearing wall. Were he knocked out, half her world would crash. That was his power over her, and he knew it like any good wife. The children, for example, might take his side. This was not possible, but Judy Hammer feared it.

  "I'm not talking because I have nothing to say," Seth reasonably replied.

  "Fine." She folded her cloth napkin, and dropped it on the table as she began searching for the waitress.

  Wft Miles away, on Wilkinson Boulevard, past Bob's Pawn Shop, trailer parks, Coyote Joe's and the topless Paper Doll Lounge, The Firing Line was conducting a war of its own. Brazil was slaughtering silhouettes screeching down the lane at him. Ejected cartridge cases sailed through the air, clinking to the floor. West's pupil was improving like nothing she'd ever seen. She was proud.

  "Tap-tap, you're out!" she rudely yelled, as if he were the village idiot.

  "Safety on. Dump the magazine, reload, rack it! Ready position, safety off! Tap-tap! Stop!"

  This had been going on for more than an hour, and good ole boys were peering out from their booths, wondering what the hell was going on down there.

  Who was that babe shouting like a drill sergeant at that faggy-looking guy? Bubba, who was begot by a Bubba and probably related to a long line of them, was leaning against a cinder-block wall, an Exxon cap low over his eyes. He was big and bad in fatigues and a camouflage vest, as he watched the target screeching closer and closer to the blond guy.

  Bubba was aware of the dense, tight spread, recognizing this guy's skill at head shots. Bubba drooled snuff in a bottle, and glanced back at his own lane to make certain no one thought about touching his Glock 20 ten-millimeter combat-type handgun or his Remington XP-100 with Leupold scope and standard load of 50-grain Sierra PSP bullets and 17 grains of IMR 4198 powder. This was a handgun that rested very nicely over sandbags. His Calico model' ll0 auto pistol, with its 100-shot magazine and flash suppressor, wasn't half bad, either, nor was the Browning Hi-Power HP-Practic
al pistol, complete with Pachmayr rubber grips, round-style serrated hammer, and removable front sight.

  There was little Bubba liked better than to machine-gun a couple of targets, brass flying like shrapnel, as drug dealers walked behind him, not the least bit interested in messing with the man. Bubba watched the bitch down range unfasten a target from its metal frame.

  She held it up and looked at her dead-eye, sweet boyfriend.

  "Who pissed you off?" she asked him.

  Bubba's manly stride carried him their way as more rounds exploded like strings of firecrackers.

  "What is this? Some kind of school going on here?" Bubba asked, as if he owned the place.