Lou Mason Mystery - 02 - The Last Witness (34 page)

“Do you know what she did with the file?”

Trimble shook his head. “I didn’t talk to her about it again until today.”

“What did you mean that Amy had a hard road?”

Trimble looked up at Mason, uncomfortable with answering but more uncomfortable with being pushed.

“Amy’s father died when she was fifteen. A tough time for a girl to lose her father even if he wasn’t much of a father. That’s when I took over this job. That was eighteen years ago.”

“How did he die?”

Trimble sighed again. Mason thought Trimble would hyperventilate and pass out if he did it one more time.

“Amy’s sister, Cheryl, shot him to death.”

Mason had been trying to keep his interrogation casual. Blues was roaming around Trimble’s small office, reading the diplomas and certificates that traced Trimble’s career. Both of them came to attention at Trimble’s explanation.

“What happened?” Mason asked.

“Cheryl was three years younger than Amy. Their father was arrested for abusing Cheryl. His lawyer got the charges dismissed and hushed the whole thing up so Donald could keep his job as director of this department.”

Trimble tilted his head back as if trying to expel his memory of Donald Ray White. He continued the story, biting off each word.

“When Donald Ray was released from jail, he beat Cheryl so severely that she was permanently brain-damaged. Somehow, Cheryl managed to get ahold of Donald Ray’s pistol and killed her father. Amy’s mother hired the same lawyer who got her husband off to get her daughter off. Cheryl wasn’t prosecuted because she was a brain-damaged child. Their mother drank herself to death a few years later, and Amy has taken care of Cheryl ever since.”

“Who was the lawyer?”

“Jack Cullan,” Trimble answered, aiming his words at a blank spot on the wall.

Mason put his hand on Trimble’s shoulder. He wanted to thank Trimble for telling him the truth, but from the broken expression on Trimble’s face, Mason knew that he didn’t want any thanks.

Mason pushed the button for an elevator going up as Blues pushed another button for one going down.

“I’m going to see Amy White,” Mason said. “Don’t you want to come along?”

“My guess is that she bolted right after Trimble called her. I’ll wait in the lobby just in case she decided to clean her desk out first. I’ll follow her if I get the chance. You can call Mickey for a ride back to the bar.”

Mason stepped off the elevator on the twenty-ninth floor and into the mayor’s suite of offices. Though the city was officially open, many people had taken another day off, leaving the office with a skeleton staff.

The one secretary who had come to work confirmed Blues’s guess. Amy White had left without saying when or if she would be back. Mason was composing a lie he hoped would convince the secretary to give him Amy’s home address when the mayor opened the door to his office.

“Your car is ready, Mr. Mayor,” the secretary told him.

“Thank you,” he said.

Though the mayor was known for his unflappable good humor and insistence on shaking every hand, he walked past Mason, his face cold, his smile buried in a snowdrift, his hands jammed in his coat pockets.

“I don’t have time today, Mr. Mason,” he said over his shoulder.

Mason caught up with him at the elevator. “Thanks all the same, Mr. Mayor. Actually, I was looking for Amy White, not you.”

A panel on the wall with columns for each elevator and numbers for each floor kept track of the vertical routes of the four elevators that serviced city hall. As each elevator passed a floor, the number for that floor was illuminated so that anyone waiting for an elevator could watch with growing frustration the tortoise-paced progress of the cars. The mayor gave his full attention to the flashing lights, shutting Mason out.

“Amy asked me to find the file Jack Cullan kept on you,” Mason said as if he and the mayor hung out together all the time. “Ah, but she probably didn’t bother you with stuff like that.”

The mayor chose not to hear Mason until he cleared his throat as if he were about to cough up a lung.

“Sorry about that. It’s this damn weather. Makes me drain like a leaky faucet,” Mason explained. “Anyway. I came by to tell her that I did find your file, but the FBI snagged it before I did. Man, you should have been at the lagoon when that cluster fuck broke out. I’ll bet the chief of police, the prosecuting attorney, and Amy tripped all over each other to deliver that piece of good news to you. Luckily, I did get a chance to read your file. So tell Amy to give me a call and I’ll tell her what’s in it.”

The mayor turned to Mason, his mouth and eyes fighting over which could open wider. “You read my file?”

“Cover to cover, Mayor Sunshine. Though I have to tell you, it was a disappointment. I mean, I was expecting more than some lousy ledger sheets that a pencil-necked bean counter will probably weave into a money-laundering and bribery indictment. Still, it was almost like someone had taken the good stuff out of the file and left just enough behind to chap your ass.”

The mayor glared at Mason. “What do you want?”

“Not much. At this point, I’d settle for Amy’s home address.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Is that an apartment or a house?”

An elevator arrived. Mason stepped in, turned around, and waved good-bye to the mayor as the doors closed. Blues wasn’t in the lobby, and Mason assumed that he was following Amy White. He tried Blues’s cell but didn’t get an answer, then called Harry with the same result. His next call was to Claire, and she answered.

“How’s Harry doing?”

“Everybody takes their turn in the barrel. This is his turn,” she said. “He went to see Carl Zimmerman’s wife. She wouldn’t let him in. He’s out roaming and he doesn’t want company.”

“Have him call me on my cell as soon as he surfaces. It’s important.”

“It always is,” Claire said.

City hall had an ancient boiler that generated too much heat and an unbalanced ventilation system that created a worldwide array of climates throughout the building. The lobby felt like the tropics cooled with bursts of cold air drawn inside each time the revolving doors spun around.

Mason called Mickey, promising him lunch in return for a ride, lingering next to a cool marble column near the entrance. His cell phone rang, rupturing his fantasy of lying on a beach next to a suddenly heterosexual Rachel Firestone.

“You looking for me?” Harry asked.

“Yeah. Do you have any friends left in the department who would do you a favor?”

Harry snorted. “Like what? Box up the stuff in my desk and mail it to me, postage due?”

“That’s an option. Would they do you a favor that might make them unpack your box?”

“Talk to me.”

Mason explained to Harry what he wanted. “Is that doable?”

“It’s a long shot on a good day, and this ain’t a good day. I’ll see what I can do, but don’t be in a hurry. This may take a while.”

Mason and Mickey stopped at Winsteads, home of the steakburger, and fortified themselves against the cold with double cheeseburgers with everything and grilled onions, crispy French fries, and chocolate shakes. They dipped their last fry into a pool of ketchup before navigating back to the office.

Mason tried returning some of the calls from lawyers on other cases he was handling but gave up when he realized they were using those cases as an excuse to talk about the shoot-out at the lagoon. Instead, he called Rachel and asked her to check the
Star
‘s clipping file for stories about the death of Donald Ray White.

“Who was Donald Ray White and why are you interested in that story?”

“Because.”

“Because it has something to do with the mayhem epidemic you started, or just because?”

“Donald Ray White was the director of liquor control until he was killed eighteen years ago.”

“If I ask you who killed him, will you tell me?”

“According to Howard Trimble, who inherited Donald Ray’s job, he was killed by his brain-damaged daughter, Cheryl White.”

“Why aren’t you convinced? Do you have another suspect in mind?”

“Yeah. Amy White.”

“Mayor Billy Sunshine’s Amy White? Get out of town! Give it to me!”

“Do your homework first. I’m at the office.”

Mason sorted through his mail, the volume of which had doubled. Much of it was from cranks and kooks who wanted to hire him. One writer even asked Mason to sue the planet Zircon for bombarding him with radiation.

His phone rang so often, he let his answering machine screen calls. When Beth Harrell called, he nearly succumbed to the sound of her voice and picked up the phone. She sounded distant, almost as if she were adrift.

“Lou,” she said, “it’s Beth. I know things are crazy for you right now. They sure are crazy for me. Call me when you can. There’s something I have to tell you.”

Mason ran down a mental list of what that could possibly be and didn’t come up with anything he was anxious to find out. The sun was making its late afternoon exit, carpeting Broadway with shadows, when Mason’s cell phone rang.

“Do you make house calls?” Blues asked.

“Depends on the patient’s condition. Is it critical?”

“Could be. I followed Amy from city hall. She stopped at the Goodwill Industries sheltered workshop and picked up a woman who must be her sister. They went out to lunch, did some shopping, and came home.”

“Sounds very suspicious.”

“Wait till you hear about the snowman. The two of them came back outside and built a snowman and had a snowball fight. Then they got back in the car and went sledding on Suicide Hill on Brookside Boulevard, which isn’t far from her house. Amy acted like she didn’t have a care in the world. Her sister was a little slow. Amy had to help her with her mittens and show her how to steer the sled, things like that. They just got home.”

“Give me the address,” Mason said, jotting it down. “Keep an eye on them. I’m waiting to hear from Harry on something. As soon as he calls, I’ll be there.”

Mason stacked and unstacked the papers on his desk, rearranged the pencils in his drawer, and shot baskets with Mickey using wadded-up crank letters as basketballs and his trash can as a hoop. Mickey let him win the first two games before suggesting they play for money. Mason knew he was being set up but didn’t mind. Mickey ran his scams with good humor, even making Mason feel charitable as the money changed hands.

Rachel rocketed into Mason’s office at four o’clock with a set of clippings under her arm and high color in her cheeks. Mickey was bent over backward, making the winning basket in a game of H-O-R-S-E.

“Who’s the contortionist?” Rachel asked.

Mickey looked up, sprang forward on one hand, and extended the other. “Mickey Shanahan.”

“Beat it, Mickey,” Rachel told him in a sharp tone that left no room for argument. “And close the door behind you.”

Mickey looked at Mason, who nodded and pointed at the door. “She’s usually a lot meaner. She’s having a good day.”

After Mickey closed the door, Rachel and Mason had a staring contest. Mason caught a merry glint in her eye and a fragment of a smile that turned the corner of her mouth slightly upward.

“First one to smile is a weenie,” Mason said.

“Stand up and get over here.”

Mason did as he was told, stopping well inside her territorial imperative while he tried to decipher the mixed message that was scrambling his hormonal network. Before he was able to crack Rachel’s code, she grasped the back of his neck with both of her hands, pulled his mouth to hers, and crushed him with a kiss that nearly sucked the life out of him. Mason couldn’t decide whether to hold on or beg for mercy. He settled for the Issac Newton kissing principle of equal and opposite reaction.

“Damn it!” she said when she released him and came up for air. “Nothing!”

“What’s the matter?” he gasped.

“It’s not your fault,” she said. “You’re just not a woman. What a waste!”

“Could I have a translation here or at least a reverse-angle replay?”

Rachel stroked the side of his face with excruciating tenderness. “I’m sorry, Lou. I told you not to get a crush on me because I’d break your heart. I should have listened to my own advice. You’re cute, funny, and you give great tips. Today’s was a megatip. I guess it all overwhelmed me, and I had to find out if it was you or the tips that were making me wet.”

“Shouldn’t we at least have sex just to be certain?”

“Further proof that you’ll never be a woman. You’ll have to settle for the clippings on Donald Ray White. Why didn’t you tell me that Jack Cullan was the family’s lawyer?”

Rachel handed Mason the clippings and sat down on his couch as he leafed through them. “And take all the fun out of your job?”

She joined him on the couch. “Okay, give me the rest of it.” Mason started to protest, and Rachel interrupted him. “I know. It’s all off the record until you tell me otherwise.”

“Jack Cullan and Blues had an argument in the bar the Friday night that Cullan was killed.”

“I know. That was the key to the prosecutor’s case,” Rachel said.

“Cullan threatened to shut Blues down. Later than night, he called Amy White and demanded that she bring him Blues’s liquor control file.”

“That night?”

“Cullan lived for immediate gratification. Amy told me about the call from Cullan but said that she told him that he’d have to wait until Monday morning, but Howard Trimble told me that Amy called him that night and he met her at his office and gave her Blues’s file.”

Rachel whistled. “So you think Amy took the file to Cullan and killed him for making her come out late at night?”

Mason shook his head. “Not exactly. According to Howard Trimble, Donald Ray was a child abuser. He’d been arrested for abusing Amy’s sister, Cheryl. Amy was fifteen and Cheryl was twelve. Cullan got him off and kept it quiet and, in the process, added Donald Ray to his stable of indebted city officials. After Donald Ray got out of jail, he took his frustrations out on Cheryl, leaving her brain damaged. Then Cheryl shot her father with his own gun. Cullan made that case go away too.”