If Winter Comes (15 page)

She felt herself
shrinking inside as she remembered whose byline the story carried. “How much
trouble am I in?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know,” he
replied, glancing at her sympathetically. “I wish I could tell you your job’s
secure, regardless. But I can’t. That’s the first thing Moreland’s going to
want by way of recompense if the evidence against him is false.”

“Which I think it is,”
she murmured weakly. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her coat as they
walked outside in the chill air. “It’s going to be winter soon,” she remarked,
shivering.

He drew in a breath of
cold air, unaware of the pollution judging by his expression. “What’s that poem,
‘keep spring within your heart, if winter comes, to warm the cold of
disillusion…’”

“I didn’t know you like
poetry,” she said, feeling the words with a sense of aching grief.

“An occasional line,”
he chuckled. “Even though it goes against the grain. Come on, we’ll catch a bus
downtown.”

“Lead on.”

Carla, who was used to
a two-man police department, couldn’t help but be awed by the mammoth precinct
with crowds of lawbreakers and blue uniforms and plainclothes detectives. She
felt uncomfortable among all the unfamiliar faces.

“Don’t worry,” Peck
assured her, “none of them bite.”

“Care to lay odds?” she
whispered.

“Shhh!” he said
sharply. “Not here!”

She flushed at his
teasing tone. “I wasn’t trying to gamble with you,” she protested.

“Discussing a capital
crime, right in front of the city’s finest!” he clucked. “Shame, shame.”

“Will you stop,” she
muttered. “I’m a good girl, I am.”

“So was Ma Barker.”

“Why did we come here?”

“To see Leroy.”

Her eyebrows went up,
but he moved forward to haul a patrolman off to one side. There was a lot of
whispering, and gesturing, and the tall, dark-haired, middle-aged policeman was
giving Carla a look that made her feel vaguely undressed.

They joined her at the
door, and Peck took her arm, propelling her out onto the street with Leroy
right behind.

“We’ll grab a cup of
coffee and talk,” Peck said, leading them toward a nearby cafe. “Carla Maxwell,
Leroy Sample.”

They exchanged mumbled
pleasantries and walked along in a companionable silence. Once inside the old
cafe, which featured worn, bare wood floors and vinyl-covered booths repaired
with black electrical tape, they talked over strong coffee.

“What do you want to
know about Daniel?” Leroy asked with a grin. “I don’t know much, but I’ll do my
best.”

“Is he local?” Peck
asked, all reporter now, not the jovial companion of minutes ago.

“No,” Leroy replied.
“He came here fromFlorida about six months ago, and was he a ball of fire! He
was going to clean up all the corruption in the city and close down drugs and
gambling for good.”

“And then…” Peck
prodded.

“You want the truth?”
Leroy asked, lowering his voice. “He was offered a little temptation to turn
his head, and he turned it. Some of the rest of us have been made the same
offer, but we nixed it. He liked the dough.”

“You think somebody’s
paying him still, even though he’s been fired?” Peck asked.

“We all know he was
feeding you that bull on Moreland,” the patrolman said angrily. “With all due
respect, I hope he sues the hell out of you. If Moreland took money, he had a
legitimate reason. He’s not on the take. I’d know.”

Carla felt her heart
lift, and she prayed silently that this fierce policeman was right. “Who’s
paying Brown?” Peck asked point blank.

Leroy looked
uncomfortable. “I do my job the best way I can, and I try hard not to stick my
nose out too far. Those guys play rough, Peck. I’ve got a little girl three
months old.”

The reporter sighed.
“You make me feel like a heel for asking. I know how dangerous it is. I’ve had
my share of threats, too. Okay, if you can’t tell me, send me to somebody who
can.”

Leroy sipped his
coffee. “Now you make
me
feel like a heel.”

“It isn’t deliberate,”
Peck said with a smile.

The policeman took a
deep breath and looked around at the sparsely peopled cafe. His eyes came back
to Peck. “I’ll deny it if you finger me as your informant.”

Peck looked vaguely
insulted. “Have you forgotten that I stood a thirty-day jail term two years ago
when Judge Carter tried to get me to tell who gave me information in the Jones
murder?” he asked.

Leroy laughed. “Yeah, I
had. Sorry.” He leaned forward on his forearms. “You go ask James White who
helped him ramrod that land deal through the city council, and you’ll get your
man.”

Eight

C arla and Bill Peck
wore ruts in the city park as they walked. A rally protesting the low wages
paid garbage collectors was going on around them, part of the sanitation strike
plaguing the city, but they ignored the peaceful marchers.

“He’s right,” Peck said
finally, turning to Carla under a leafless oak amid the crunch of dead leaves
underfoot. “The best defense in the world is a good offense. We may still be
able to pull our acorns out of the fire.”

She blinked at him. “I
don’t understand.”

“We’ll go to see James
White. We’ll carry along a file folder of documents incriminating him. We’ll
allow him to give his side of the story before we print the whole disgusting
mess.”

“But we don’t have any
incriminating documents!” she burst out.

“We will have,” he
grinned. “Come on. Time’s a-wasting. We may save your job yet, and Eddy’s,
too.”

“Let’s go to it, then,”
she agreed, smiling as she hadn’t felt like smiling for days. Maybe she could
clear Moreland’s name. That would make up for so much, even if he never forgave
her for what she’d already done. If only she’d listened to her heart. If only
she’d been suspicious of Daniel Brown’s eager help. If only she hadn’t been so
determined to get a scoop, to make Bill Peck proud of her. She sighed as they
walked briskly back toward the newspaper office. Oh, if only…

The paper had already
gone to bed for the day when she and Peck left again, armed with an impressive
folder of information. They still had not mentioned a word to Edwards whose
face was almost as long as his legs.

Carla had already called
to make an appointment with James White on the pretext of purchasing some land.
She knew the foxy little man wouldn’t be eager to meet with the press,
especially after his honorable mention in the story on Moreland.

They were ushered into
his private office by a young, buxom blond secretary whose smile was as empty
as her pale eyes.

White rose, gray haired
and thin, with astonishment plain in his pale face when he suddenly recognized
Bill Peck.

“Reporters!” he burst
out. He glared at them. “Don’t sit down,” he warned, reaching for the
telephone. “You won’t be here long enough!”

Carla felt suddenly
nervous and unsure of herself, but Bill Peck was not taken aback at all.

“Dial,” he warned the
older man, “and you’ll be on the front page tomorrow afternoon.”

White gazed at him
warily, but he hesitated, his finger still on the dial.

“We came armed this
time,” Peck added, holding up the file folder. He smiled confidently. “I think
you’re going to want to cooperate, Mr. White. That way, you just may escape a
long jail term.”

White put down the
receiver and laughed self-consciously. He whipped out a spotless handkerchief
and wiped his perspiring brow. “Jail?” he said. “Surely you’re joking, Mr.
Peck. I’ve done nothing illegal. In fact, the only crime I’m guilty of is
getting my client better than fair market value for a piece of land.”

“And crucifying a
blameless public official in the process,” Carla broke in, feeling her
advantage. She moved forward, and Bill Peck sat down, letting her carry the
ball. She took the file from Peck and lifted it in front of James White’s
nervous face. “It’s all here, Mr. White. Everything. How you arranged a
five-hundred percent profit out of that worthless land. How you set up Bryan
Moreland, you and your co-conspirator, to take the blame for it by sending him
a check for his revitalization project just in time to make it look like a
kickback from the land deal. We know all about it. We even know,” she added
narrowly, “about Daniel Brown’s role.”

White sat down,
suddenly looking his age. He leaned back in his chair and wiped his mouth with
the handkerchief. His spare frame seemed to slump wearily.

“I engineered it,” he
admitted quietly. “There’s no sense in denying it any further.”

Peck pulled out a
pocket tape recorder and turned it on. “I’m recording, Mr. White,” he advised
the man, “and I think it would be in your best interests to give the truth.”

“Why not?” White
sighed. “I’m ruined now, anyway, you’ll see to that. Yes, I engineered the
airport land deal. I got Ed King to present it to the City Council and convince
his friend Moreland that it was the best site available.” He nodded at Carla’s
shocked face. “Moreland had so much on his mind with the sanitation strike and
that downtown redevelopment scheme that he wasn’t able to check into the site
too closely, so he left it all up to Ed, whom he trusted.” He laughed shortly.
“Bryan and I have been friends for a long time, he had no reason to distrust me
or Ed. We had it made. We sold the land to the city for five times its true
value. Then I had Daniel Brown start making noises about Moreland accepting a
kickback, right after I sent my good friend a donation for his downtown
redevelopment. It was flawless. Absolutely flawless. Until you people came
along and started poking around,” he added bitterly.

“Who actually owned the
land, Mr. White?” Carla asked.

“The deed says, Will
Jackson,” he replied.

“But isn’t it actually
owned by Daniel Brown?” she persisted, smiling at White’s shocked expression.
“Yes, I made some phone calls toFlorida . Brown used Will Jackson as an alias
when he purchased that land, at your instructions.”

“At Ed King’s,” White
corrected gruffly. “Why the hell did I ever get mixed up with that little snip?
If I’d handled it by myself…”

“If,” Carla sighed,
closing her eyes momentarily as a wave of unbearable grief and tiredness washed
over her. She turned away as Bill Peck moved to call the police. It was too
much, too soon. All her suspicions, all her digging, and it hadn’t been enough
to save Bryan Moreland from a public crucifixion. She’d finally gotten at the
truth, and all it had cost her was the one man she could ever truly love. A
single tear rolled down her cold cheek, trickling salty and warm into the
corner of her mouth.

“It’s great,” Edwards laughed
as Carla and Bill Peck played the tape for him and summarized White’s arrest.
“Just great! We’ll scoop every paper in town with this, even the broadcast
boys! We’ll save face!”