Summer People (7 page)

“I don’t quite follow you.” Ray was surprised at the direction the conversation was going.

“Arthur always had a need to show his money, if you know what I mean. His family always gave the appearance that they were well to do, but it was only after we were married that I found out how close to the edge they were. He made his fortune with my family’s money. And I have to admit we did well by him.”

“What type of business was Mr. Bussey in?”

“Investments, all types. We were married when we were seniors at Northwestern, and then he got his M.B.A. at Chicago while I taught elementary school in Winnetka. After he got out of school my father lent him enough money to get started. He was a real promoter and had the knack of buying up vacant land a year or two before the urban sprawl moved in that direction. Then he moved into developing malls. I knew he was leveraged to the hilt, and that a lot of his business was little better than gambling, but he always seemed to pull it off. I was always amazed that he could get banks to lend him money. I remember asking him if he ever thought about the people who sometimes lost their life savings when some of these schemes collapsed. He said there was no problem, the government would take care of them—and I guess we’re all paying now.”

“You said you were divorced three years ago.”

“Three years last May. He wasn’t as difficult as I thought he would be. But then, I had the best law firm in Chicago, old family friends. The only thing he wanted to haggle over was the Bears’ tickets.”

“Bears’ tickets?” repeated Ray with a restrained, quizzical smile.

“Bears, Chicago Bears, four season tickets on the fifty-yard line thirty rows up. They had been in my family since the thirties. I made damn sure he wasn’t going to get to sit there, sit there with his bimbo, where my grandfather and father once sat. I told my lawyer to tell him to go to hell.”

“I know this has to be unpleasant, but might I call on you again if I need further help?” Ray asked.

“Yes, certainly. I’ll be here until October.”

“Thank you for your assistance and the coffee.” Ray rose and shook her hand. “I can find my way out.” He paused at the door, looked out at the lake. He could make out the silhouette of a distant ore carrier steaming north to the Straits. From that height he could see the earth’s curve across the horizon and the long lines of waves moving toward shore—there was a sense of rhythm and harmony in the scene.

Lisa and Marc waited for Ray outside the hall until an usher insisted that the concert was about to begin. Lisa saw Ray slide into a chair near the back between the third and fourth movements of the Schubert. He joined them at intermission.

After the concert they walked across the road to a coffee shop.

“I hated to be late, but I had something to take care of. I really liked the Schubert. Kubric used it as the theme music in Barry Lyndon.”

“I remember that,” said Marc.

Lisa nodded her head, “Must have been before my time.”

“Kids,” said Marc, “high culture is lost on them.”

“But we do understand the use of media. Do you want a critique of your interview on the six o’clock news?” she asked Ray.

“Yes, I’d like that.”

“Well, I don’t know about the hat,” she said with a broad smile letting him know that what was to follow wasn’t a serious observation. “It makes you look a bit like Smokey the Bear. Initially, I thought I was watching a report on the dangers of forest fires. It was only when I saw the marina in the background that I realized that you were talking about last night’s fire.” Then, modulating her voice to suggest the serious nature of her comments, she continued, “Actually, you projected a convincing image of intelligence and competence….”

“Come on, Lisa,” interrupted Marc, “it was more than image. Perhaps it wasn’t image at all. You’ve got the real person, intelligent and competent, explaining what happened in a clear and thorough fashion—thorough given that we only had a sound bite.”

“You’re really bothered by the idea of packaging, aren’t you?” Lisa asked. “You mentioned it at dinner last night.”

“I really am. I’m bothered by the fact that the packaging is more important than the content. It’s like the label on the side of a potato chips bag that says the product is sold by weight, not by volume. Translation, ‘Don’t be surprised if the bag is half-empty.’ I am tired of elected officials who are half-empty—the top half.”

“Now, Marc,” launched Lisa, “just because I am in the business doesn’t mean I like or approve of the way media is used to package politicians. But take Ray as an example,” she paused and put an arm on Ray’s shoulder, “his media image is important. It’s important that people know that he is bright and competent. If he weren’t projecting those qualities, it would be important for us to help him make those qualities apparent to the viewers. Fortunately, he does all the right things quite naturally.”

Lisa turned to Ray. “Can you tell us about the victim? You were careful to say as little as possible on air ‘pending notification of next to kin.’”

“As I said in the interview, the divers found the body. It was caught in some weeds at the mouth of the channel. Wasn’t a very pretty picture. The body was badly burned, with some deep lacerations from boat props. And his right hand was severed at the wrist. We didn’t recover the hand.”

“Could you identify the body?” asked Marc.

“We had a pretty good idea right from the start. The guy who manages the marina, Jack Harris, told us who owned the boat, and Jack thought the victim had been around most of the day. And the people whose boats were moored near his said they had seen him on the boat in the evening. Once we got the body out of the water, Jack and a couple of other people identified him.”

“So you’re having a problem finding family members to notify?” asked Lisa.

“Earlier we were, but I finally got hold of his brother in Chicago before I came over here. Wasn’t able to reach him until this evening—hate to give bad news by phone, but what can you do?”

“So the victim had no one in this area?” asked Lisa.

“Well, he did, and didn’t. His ex-wife lives in this gorgeous summer home on the top of Peach Bluff. I went up to see her first, and she gave me the victim’s brother’s name.”

Lisa asked, “Did you have to break the news to her?”

“No, I think she knew whenI called to ask if I could come up and see her. Most of the people around the marina knew. He was the only one not accounted for. Anyway, there’s a bitter woman. There was no sadness over his death, just hate and anger—not so much in what she said, you could just feel it. She told me the divorce took place three years ago, but given the anger, you’d a thought it took place yesterday. She indicated that ‘another woman’ was involved. She referred to this other woman as the ‘little airhead,’ the ‘little bitch,’ and the ‘bimbo.’ At the time the terms seemed out of context because the rest of Mrs. Bussey’s speech was very formal, very correct.”

“Now that we have the marital history,” said Lisa, “who was the victim?”

“Man’s name is Arthur Bussey, lived in Lake Forest, Illinois. He was about our age.” Ray made a gesture indicating he was talking about Marc and himself. “His wife said he’s been summering here since he was a kid. Strange that I’m asking the same question in two days. Did you know him?”

“Arthur Bussey,” thought Marc, “Arthur Bussey, doesn’t ring a bell. Did he have blonde hair?”

“Didn’t you all?” asked Ray rhetorically, lifting his eyebrows and showing teeth with a sarcastic grin. “But certainly not the last time I saw him.”

“Oh, Ray,” exclaimed Lisa.

“Arthur Bussey,” continued Marc, letting the last exchange pass, “No, the name is not familiar, and I’m reasonably good at names. If you had a picture—any old picture from when I might have known him—perhaps I would remember the face. Do you remember him?”

“No, but all you city boys looked alike, dressed alike….”

“Well, we’re back to the ‘townies vs. the fudgies.’ What’s happening with the murder case? This fire has really pushed it to page two,” said Marc.

“So much the better, I wish it would push it off the back page. Other than the slug, which we’ve sent to Lansing, we have no physical evidence. Have you met Sue, my evidence person?” Marc and Lisa shook their heads. “She’s real bright and very thorough. She’s gone over the area with a fine tooth comb and hasn’t found anything.”

“Has his wife been able to provide any help?” asked Lisa.

“I just had one conversation with her, but I don’t think she knows anything—you can usually tell right away. I don’t think she has a clue. They’ve been married a few months. Seems to know little about his business and hardly knows his family or friends.”

“How about the other people there that night?” Marc questioned.

“I think they were there by chance. One of the men was an old fraternity brother, the other someone Randy knew at Cranbrook. They usually get together once or twice a summer to play golf. Both told me they had given up trying to pin him down on exactly what business he was in. They said he seemed to enjoy making it sort of mysterious—like it wasn’t quite legal. This doesn’t leave us with much.”

“So what do you do now?” asked Marc.

“I’ll talk to the wife again, and probably to the other two couples who witnessed the shooting. And I’ve requested data on the victim from the state and national information networks we use. I hope we get some useful information from these sources. But I’ve worked on cases where you don’t have much, and you don’t ever get much.”

“What do you do then?” asked Lisa.

“You try not to lose track of the case, but that sometimes happens when there are no further developments. About all we can do locally is to make sure that we have done as thorough a job as possible, investigated every lead, and collected and preserved any physical evidence. But if this turns out to be the work of a hired killer, the case may never be solved.”

“Never solved?” Lisa looked incredulous.

“Never. I don’t know what the exact figures are on contract killings, but it’s fewer than ten percent. You can’t connect the killer through any motive, and, if he’s a competent professional, when the job is done he’s gone without leaving any evidence to tie him to the crime. In the cities you never notice this because these murders make the news and then are crowded out by the next day’s gruesome happenings. Arrests for this type of crime are few and far between. Non-arrests don’t make the news.”

“How do you go about arranging—contracting—for a murder?” asked Lisa.

“I think it’s quite informal, but people with the right connections know how to get all sorts of things done. From what I’ve been told, the arrangements for a job like this are usually done at a great distance so the source of the contract can’t be traced. And the successful hit men are known for being dependable. In this case the killer most likely drove into the area and checked into the Hilton. The guy probably looks like a middle-aged businessman, not the kind of hoods you see in the movies. He plays eighteen holes at the Bear everyday, talks and dresses like everyone else at the Hilton. He would take time to study his victim and develop a plan to do the job and get away. One shot—the victim’s spine was blown away—the right professional, the right tools, the right outcome.”

“The right outcome for whom?” asked Lisa.

The remains of the large sailboat lay on the concrete parking lot in the marina. Mike Ogden, the arson investigator, was waiting for Ray by the side of the boat. The keel and bottom of the boat were a soft blue. A ribbon of white, smeared with oil and blackened in places, marked where the water line had once been. The deck area was a mass of charred and melted fiberglass.

“Unusual,” said Mike, a stocky redhead in his early thirties, with gray-green eyes and a freckle covered face.

“For us, the whole damn thing is unusual. We spend most of our time investigating businesses that have been torched, usually by their owners. Occasionally we get something a bit more interesting like an arson-murder. I can only remember doing a couple of powerboats, but never a sailboat. This is terrific.”

“So what did you find?”

“Well, as you can see, the top of the boat is pretty well destroyed. Let me show you the mast first.” Mike led him over to the mast that lay in another part of the parking lot.

“The bottom’s pretty well charred up, but from the top you can see it’s been melted by the lightning, must a been one hell of a charge. Looks like someone used a gigantic arc welder on parts of it. Now look at this,” he said pointing to a stainless steel collar that had cables attached to it. “I don’t know anything about sailboats, suspect these parts all have names. Look how the cables are welded to these rings. Some of the charge must have followed these cables to ground. There are other interesting things. Look at this.” He pointed to a small engine near the rear of the boat.

“That must be the auxiliary engine,” said Ray. “What’s so interesting about that?”

“Look closely. It’s a diesel. Cute little thing, isn’t it?”

“So what’s your point?”

“No point,” said Mike. “Not yet, anyway. I’m just trying to figure out what happened, the order of events. The other boat fires I’ve worked on were caused by a buildup of gasoline fumes in the bilge. They’re usually ignited by an electrical spark, like from a faulty plug wire, when the engine is started. So my original theory was that the mast took the hit. In the process of the charge going to ground, the fumes in the bilge exploded and gas from the boat’s tank fueled the fire. But diesel fuel isn’t very volatile, so you’re not going to have an explosion of diesel fumes. And there’s something else that’s interesting.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know if you want to crawl in and get all messed up. You can see part of it from here.” He pointed into the cabin; most of its roof had been burned away. “You can see a burn pattern.”

“What does that mean?” asked Ray.

“You can see where a burning liquid flowed into the cabin. Looks like the stuff came through the door and ran to the lowest areas of the interior. You can tell from the size of the burn pattern that there was a substantial quantity of fuel.”