A Different Light (46 page)

“Is arson a possibility?” Jennifer stepped closer to Athen as the camera zoomed in.

Of course it’s arson, you nitwit,
Athen had wanted to scream. Cautioned, however, about what she said publicly, she appeared to pause thoughtfully before responding. “I think it’s a bit premature to speculate. We’ll have to wait to see what the fire marshal finds.”

“Do you have any plans now for the use of that
area?” Jennifer asked.

“The ashes are still smoldering, Ms. Gables.” Athen shrugged wearily. “No one’s had time to consider where to go from here. We will, over time, look at several options.”

“Good job, Thena.” Meg leaned over and patted her on the back.

“You have no idea how hard it was for me not to have grabbed that microphone and spoken my mind,” Athen said.

“Well, just keep biting your tongue,” Brenda pointed out. “And, Meg, I’d suggest that you continue to have Jennifer cover this from here on out. I understand that you were on the scene, and I admire how well you handled things under the circumstances. But it should not happen again. We must avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest through this. And I’m thinking you might want to keep someone else on the paper’s City Hall beat, Dad.”

“I see the news hasn’t caught up with you yet,” Quentin told her. “I’ve already passed that torch. Which is just as well, since I’ll be leaving for St. Louis tomorrow.”

“What for, dear?” Lydia asked, noting Rose Ellen’s signal that dinner was ready to be served.

“I thought I’d pay a visit to the Bradford home office and see what was going on out there.”

“Well, the board meeting isn’t until the end of January, dear.” Lydia motioned everyone toward the dining room.

“I know, Mom.” Quentin took her arm. “But I thought I’d check on a few things before the meeting, so I could be better prepared this year.”

“Really, Quentin?” Lydia beamed as he first seated her, then took his place next to Athen at the table. “You’ve no idea how pleased I am that you’re finally taking an interest.”

“Oh, I’m certainly interested.”

“Well, dear, you know that this being the holiday season, there won’t be a full staff in the office next week. I understand that a lot of the employees save some of their vacation days to take off this time of the year.”

“That’s all right.” He smiled. “I think I’d just as soon poke around a little on my own.”

“Well, then, I’ll call Stafford’s office in the morning and make sure that he and his staff give you full access to everything.” Looking very pleased, Lydia took a sip of wine.

“Don’t bother, Mom. I don’t want anyone to make a fuss. I’ll just pop in when I get there and see what I can find. …”

“JEFF SAID THAT YOU SHOULD
form an agency within the city to deal with HUD,” Meg told Athen on Tuesday evening as she reheated the dinner she had missed earlier. “He spoke to a friend of his who told him that if you had some sort of redevelopment authority, things would move more quickly.”

“Hmmmm.” Athen thought it over. “I’ll talk to Riley and George about it in the morning and I’ll ask one of them to propose it to Council. Jim and Harlan will vote against it, so I’ll have to be the deciding vote, but we can get that through.” She rubbed the space between her eyes. “We’ll need someone really strong to head this up. I’ll see if Ms. Evelyn would be interested. If not she, then perhaps the Reverend Davison.”

“She’d be perfect, but he’s a great backup if you need one,” Meg agreed. “Jeff said you could expect a call from someone at HUD this week.”

The timer on the microwave alerted Meg that her leftovers were ready. She opened the door and removed her dinner. “Isn’t Jeff an ace?”

“An ace,” Athen agreed.

“Speaking of aces, what’s up with Quentin?”

“He called from St. Louis right before you came in.” Athen plunked down in a chair and fiddled with the small centerpiece Callie had made for the kitchen table. Dried holly berries fell and ran the length of the table, small red balls that bounced onto the floor. Had she read somewhere that holly berries were poisonous? She bent to retrieve them before Hannah did.

“So what did he say?” Meg sat opposite her.

“Stafford Banks, who heads Bradford International, is in London with his family until the second week of January. As Lydia suspected, there’s only a skeleton crew in St. Louis this week, which is certainly to Quentin’s advantage. He can pull any records he wants without anyone asking too many questions.”

“How lucky can you get? But just think, if you’d cleaned off the refrigerator door, as I’d been harping at you to do, we’d never have a lead on this.”

“We don’t know that we have a lead on anything,” Athen reminded her. “But Quentin seems to think that somehow this Paul Schraeder may be a player in whatever it is that Rossi planned to do on Fourth Street.”

“What do you think?” Meg twirled strands of spaghetti around her fork.

“I think it’s terribly curious that someone in Schraeder’s position would show up at a fund-raiser for a politician in a small New Jersey city. If that is the photograph my father was looking at that morning, Dad must have known or suspected who Schraeder was and why he was there. And
whatever it was, it sent his blood pressure into overdrive.”

“So it must have been something really serious.” Meg put down her fork. “Considering that your father suffered a catastrophic stroke.”

Athen nodded. “Serious? I’m thinking illegal, and I’m willing to bet that my father knew exactly what Dan was up to …”

 28 

I guess you’re wondering what, if anything, I learned while I was in St. Louis.” Quentin tucked his cell under his chin as he made his way to the baggage carousel.

“You’re back!” Athen smiled. She’d missed Quentin while he was away, and now that he was back, she was dying to hear what he’d found out.

“I’m just leaving the airport,” he told her. “How about I meet you at your house in about an hour? I don’t want to have this discussion while you’re on a City Hall line. You just never know if someone else might be listening.”

“Good point. I’ll be home by four.”

“I’ll see you then.” He paused. “I missed you.”

“What a coincidence,” she replied. “I missed you, too.”

Athen tucked the day’s mail into her briefcase and swung her bag over her shoulder. She stepped out of her office and stopped at Veronica’s desk.

“I’m leaving a little early today,” Athen told her.

“Sure, Mrs. M.” Veronica nodded, her up-do bobbing
in time with the music from her iPod. “Anything you need me to do while you’re gone?”

“Just the usual. Call my cell if anything happens that you think I need to know about, or if anyone calls that you think I need to speak with.”

“Will do.” Veronica held up the memo Athen had given her earlier. “I meant to ask you if you wanted me to include this part that you have scribbled in the margin, about Ms. Evelyn?”

Athen looked over Veronica’s shoulder to the notes she’d made about the proposed redevelopment authority. “Let’s hold up on that part right now.”

“You got it.” Veronica returned to typing.

“I’M GLAD YOU’RE BACK,” ATHEN
opened the door to let Quentin in.

“I’m glad to be back.” He closed the front door with his foot, and put his arms around her. “First things first.”

He drew her to him and kissed her, his arms encircling her and holding her close. “Mmmm,” he murmured. “You feel good.”

“So do you.” She leaned back to look into his eyes. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“So am I.” He kissed her again, then with an arm over her shoulder led her into the living room. “But I know you have questions.”

“Do you have answers?” She sat on the sofa and pulled him down with her.

“I believe I do.” He took off his jacket and placed it on the back of the sofa. “Let’s start with the fact that Paul Schraeder is now the CEO of Clover Inns.”

“The motel chain?”

Quentin nodded. “Rumor has it that he’s set his sights
on downtown Woodside Heights for a convention center and luxury hotel.”

“A luxury hotel?” She almost choked on her words. “In downtown Woodside Heights? Who would want to stay in a hotel in the midst of all that urban blight?”

“Apparently, the plan is to dispose of the blight and start with a blank slate. Once the hotel chain has a foothold in Woodside Heights, Schraeder would offer to purchase the other homes in the immediate area.”

“But those homes aren’t worth very much, so I doubt the neighbors would sell,” she told him. “They wouldn’t get enough for their houses to be able to afford to go anywhere else.”

“Ah, but that’s where having a friend in local government comes in handy. Someone who could put pressure on the residents to move. There are all sorts of methods.”

“What methods?” Athen frowned. “Either you can afford to move or you can’t.”

“Well, for instance, two years ago in Georgia, Clover Inns was building a hotel and wanted to buy up a block on the opposite side of the street for a park. The residents didn’t want to sell. So Clover Inns got the local pols to pass an ordinance that extended the construction hours in the evening and permitted the work to begin earlier in the morning. After months of listening to the racket well into the night and again at the break of dawn the next day, one by one, the residents gave up their property to Clover Inns.”

“How could they get the city to do that?”

“Crossing the appropriate palms with the appropriate amount of silver usually works.”

“How did you find out about all this?”

“I called Pat Conte, Schraeder’s successor at Rest
America,” he explained, “and asked him what was new, what was on the drawing board, that sort of thing. He said we’re getting some stiff competition from Clover Inns now that Schraeder is there. Word has it that Schraeder has plans to get a strong foothold in the East, to try to establish his chain beyond their traditional Southern holdings, and that he has some very promising sites outside of New York City, in northern New Jersey and Connecticut.”

“Do tell.”

“The location outside Greenwich is in the bag, but apparently there’s a bit of a snafu in the New Jersey site. However, Schraeder apparently is confident that issue will be resolved before the middle of next year.”

“Assuming that the parcel of land he wants is on Fourth Street. …”

“There’s no question in my mind on that point.”

“Why would he want to build such a complex in Woodside Heights?”

“It’s actually a good location. It’s close enough to get in and out of New York City in a short amount of time, and land is comparatively inexpensive. It’s not a bad idea, from a strictly business standpoint.”

“So what’s the deal with Rossi?”

“I’m thinking that Schraeder offered Rossi cash to secure the properties for him. Probably paid him off, so much cash when he agreed to help Schraeder, with a bigger bundle when Clover Inns took title. It’s not the first time Paul has engaged in underhanded deals. Conte tells me the reason Schraeder and Rest America parted company was over some scheme he’d cooked up that was borderline illegal. Conte found out about it by accident, but when he confronted Schraeder, Paul told him that’s the way business was done these days. Conte
threatened to go to the board with it, and Schraeder walked out.”

“So Schraeder could have paid Dan to obtain the properties for the city so that he could in turn sell them to Clover Inns and pocket a kickback.” Athen nodded.

“I’m sure Dan is thinking of it as a ‘finder’s fee,’” Quentin said dryly.

“This all makes sense. While Dan was mayor, the city confiscated those properties for nonpayment of taxes. Two elderly brothers owned them, as I recall.”

“Two elderly brothers who are in an assisted-living facility in Arizona. They are elderly, but they are not senile.”

“How do you know that?”

“I checked the tax records, then had Brenda follow up with Social Security to track them down. I flew out to Arizona on Thursday to meet with them. Neither of them had any recollection of having received any notice of sale. They’re under the impression that they still own those houses.”

“Well, if Dan had the city confiscate those properties three years ago, why didn’t he sell them to Schraeder back then?”