Very Bad Men (16 page)

“Did it work? Are you going to stop?”

She folded her arms and said nothing.

“Of course not,” said Rhiner. “It's a gimmick out of a bad movie. No one would expect a threat like that to work, not if they had any common sense.”

“They might if they were drunk,” Shan suggested.

“I haven't been that drunk.”

Rhiner kept his eyes focused on Elizabeth. She thought he was telling the truth.

“What were you doing at the clinic, Paul?” she asked.

“You must have found the answer to that too. It was underneath the gun.”

She dug into her bag again, pulling out several folded pages. A copy of the manuscript written by the man in plaid. She tossed it onto the table.

“I faxed this to Walter Delacorte two days ago,” she said. “Did he give you a copy?”

Rhiner looked as if the idea amused him. He shook his head.

“Where'd you get it, then?” she asked him.

“I may be suspended, but I still have friends in the sheriff's department.”

The deputy's eyes shifted to the coffee mug in front of him. He picked it up with two hands, put it down again.

“Is he for real, this kook who says he beat Charlie Dawtrey to death?” Rhiner asked.

“He's real,” said Shan.

“And he came to the funeral to kill Terry Dawtrey? He was on the hill with a rifle?”

“He fired a shot,” Elizabeth said. “Did you hear it?”

Rhiner stared into the coffee. When he spoke, his voice was subdued.

“That's one of the things I've been trying to figure out. I had my own shot ringing in my ears. The bullet I put into Terry Dawtrey—that was the first time I ever had to shoot anybody.”

“So you came down here to find the rifleman from the funeral?”

The barest of nods. “I thought he might come after Bell at the clinic. I guess you had the same idea.”

“What would you have done if he had shown up there?” Elizabeth asked. “Would you have shot him?”

“No.”

She glanced at the pistol on the table. “You see how it looks, don't you? You're suspended. You shouldn't even be carrying a gun.”

“It's not my service weapon—they took that after I shot Dawtrey. But it's legal.”

“I don't care if it's legal,” she said. “I want to know why you had it with you outside the clinic.”

Rhiner used the back of his hand to slide the coffee mug away from him.

“I could use a drink,” he said.

“That's the only drink you're going to get.”

A long breath escaped from Rhiner's lips. The break room lights left his face in shadows. He spread his fingers, bone thin, over the scarred surface of the table.

He said, “I never wanted to kill him. Terry Dawtrey. I meant to hit him in the leg. Lousy shot.” His voice hollow, as if he were speaking from a long way off. “He was alive when I got to him. I turned him over in the grass and put my hand on his heart. Felt it beating. My shot went through his neck. His eyes were open wide and he made a clicking sound in his throat. I realized he couldn't breathe.”

Rhiner's fingers bore down on the table. He seemed to be trying to keep them from trembling. “I did what you're supposed to do,” he said. “I tipped his head back a little, pinched his nostrils shut, and breathed into his mouth. But the bullet had passed through his windpipe. The air I sent into him whistled right back out. I covered the wound with my hand and kept trying until the paramedics came, but it didn't do him any good.”

He ran a palm over the thinning hair of his scalp. “I've dropped ten pounds since then,” he said. “I haven't slept more than three hours a night. I keep seeing his face. His eyes were open the whole time.”

Rhiner looked at Elizabeth and Shan. Jabbed a thin finger at the man in plaid's manuscript.

“Walt Delacorte told me this is all made up,” he said. “But you believe it's true, don't you?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said.

“The man who wrote this, he's real. I need to find him.”

“You're not going to gain anything by killing him.”

Rhiner swallowed. Closed his eyes. “I don't want to kill him. I never want to kill anyone again. I don't think I could stand it. I need to talk to him. The gun was just supposed to be a threat to make him talk. He's the one who made this happen. He had to have a reason. I need to know.” A tremor at his temple, a vein pulsing beneath the skin. “Nothing's going to be right until I know.”

 

 

CHIEF OWEN MCCALEB'S office was one floor above the break room. McCaleb sat on a corner of his desk, a wiry man of fifty-five wearing a gray jogging suit. The heels of his running shoes drummed against the front of the desk as Elizabeth and Shan filled him in about Paul Rhiner.

“Do we have grounds to hold him?” he asked when they finished.

“There's the obvious,” Shan offered. “He was outside Bell's clinic with a loaded pistol.”

McCaleb turned to Elizabeth. “Do we think he represents a threat to Bell?”

She stood by the window with her arms crossed. “I think he's telling the truth. Shooting Dawtrey got to him. He thinks finding the man in plaid will help him make sense of it. He doesn't care about Bell.”

“What about the bullet outside your hotel room in Sault Sainte Marie?” McCaleb asked. “You think Rhiner had anything to do with that?”

She shook her head. “I don't see it.”

“All right. Let him sleep it off tonight, and send him home in the morning. I'll call Sheriff Delacorte and ask him to keep an eye on him.”

Shan pointed to Rhiner's gun, which was lying on the desktop.

“What about that?” he said.

“Does he have a permit for it?” asked McCaleb.

“He does,” said Elizabeth. “I checked.”

McCaleb went behind the desk, unlocked the center drawer, and laid the gun inside.

“Tell him we misplaced it. If we find it, we'll send it to him.”

“That's not the only gun registered in his name,” Elizabeth said. “He could be back in a couple days with a fresh one.”

“Make sure he realizes we're giving him a break this time, and we don't want to see him here again.” McCaleb shut the drawer and locked it. “We've got other things to worry about,” he said. “I just heard from the chief of police in Ypsilanti. It looks like your man in plaid has been on the move. A little while ago someone matching his description held up a pharmacy. With a hunting rifle.”

H
arlan Spencer's studio had too many windows for my taste.

The room spanned the width of the house, and the western wall was mostly glass: six tall windows in a row, with curtains of deep red linen thrown back to let in the twilight. The eastern wall held another six, of a more modest size.

It was Sunday evening. I had on my best gray suit over a white dress shirt and no tie—a concession to the warm weather. On my lapel I wore a campaign button that read CALLIE SPENCER, A NEW BEGINNING.

I'd heard from Elizabeth about her visit with Harlan Spencer the day before. The portrait of Callie Spencer that she'd told me about remained on the north end of the room, and on the east were other paintings, propped against the wall below the windows. Spencer's easel had been removed, along with the table that held his paints and brushes, and chairs had been brought in and arranged in groups of three and four. A bar had been set up along the south wall.

Around thirty people occupied the room—the high end of an Ann Arbor cocktail crowd. The mayor was there, with his wife, and I could pick out at least three professors from the law school. The owner of a seafood restaurant on Main was trying to make conversation with a woman who ran an art gallery on Liberty, but she was ignoring him; she had her eyes on Spencer's canvases.

Harlan Spencer himself sat in his motorized chair in the center of the room, with his wife in a leather club chair on his left. On his right sat a silverhaired man with a long nose and deep-set eyes—Senator John Casterbridge.

The senator was well into his seventies. He came from a wealthy family: Casterbridge Realty owned rental properties all over the state. But as a young man he had enlisted in the army and served two tours of duty in Vietnam, flying medevac helicopters for the First Cavalry Division.

He had spent forty years of his life in government, most of them in the Senate, where he was known as an advocate for veterans. He sat on the Intelligence and Armed Services committees and had been a confidant of presidents. People said he was privy to most of Washington's secrets, but he wasn't telling. He had never written a memoir and rarely gave interviews.

I'd never met him before, but I thought he looked worn out. His face seemed drawn and his suit fitted him loosely. I could see veins standing out on the backs of his hands where they lay folded over his stomach. His legs stretched out in front of him, one thin ankle crossed over the other.

A younger version of the senator hovered near the bar, holding a tumbler of Scotch. Jay Casterbridge had inherited some of his father's looks. He had the Casterbridge nose, and a thick head of dark hair that would turn silver when the time came. His face was fuller, and he carried more weight than his father did, though no one would have called him heavy.

I watched him working on the Scotch and talking with a woman in a red dress who was the dean of something or other at the university. I thought he looked a little wistful, as if he might have preferred to take his drink off someplace where they could be alone.

I'd read a profile of Jay Casterbridge in a magazine, and I knew that at one time he'd been expected to follow his father into politics. Every few years there'd be a rumor that he intended to run for Congress, but it never went beyond a rumor. He was a partner in a law firm in Lansing, but his primary occupation was running Casterbridge Realty. The closest he'd come to exhibiting any political ambition was when he married Callie Spencer.

Callie Spencer was the cause of my concern about the windows. She was standing in front of one of the tall ones now. With the lights on inside and darkness falling outside, I could see her silhouette reflected in the checkerboard panes of glass. Someone looking up from the street would be able to see her clearly. The man in plaid could be down there with his rifle. He could fire a shot and the only warning would be the tinkling of shattered glass.

Part of me wanted to go over there and drag Callie Spencer to the floor before it happened.

I stayed where I was, watching her. She wore a white dress belted in black at the waist; it left her arms bare, and quite a lot of her legs. I'd seen her making the rounds, chatting with her guests. She tended to draw people in close, and at some point she would reach out and rest her hand on a shoulder, a small gesture of familiarity.

Now she was talking to Amelia Copeland, a gray-haired woman who had a foundation that gave money to community theaters and public radio stations. The two of them stood apart from the other guests.

The woman took Callie by the elbow. I moved closer to hear what she was saying.

“My dear, it's quite hopeless. You ought to give it up.”

“I think I'll hang on a little longer, Amelia. At least until the fall.”

“But it's impossible. You're far too young.”

Callie smiled politely. Her left hand held a neglected glass of red wine.

“We'll have to let the voters decide about that,” she said.

“But don't you see, it's not up to them,” said Amelia Copeland. “It's a matter of law. I'm surprised no one's told you. I can only assume they want to spare your feelings.”

“Well, that's nice of them.”

“But it's in the Constitution. You're not old enough to be a senator. You have to be thirty-five.”

Callie's smile grew a little broader. “Are you sure about that?”

“Quite sure, my dear.”

“Because if that were true, someone should have said something before now.”

Amelia Copeland nodded once. “My point exactly. Look into it. You'll see I'm right.”

Callie made her move then, hand on shoulder. She dialed the smile up to full strength.

“I don't doubt you for a moment, Amelia,” she said.

The older woman basked in the light of the smile before drifting off in the direction of the bar. Callie Spencer, alone for a moment, raised her wineglass to her lips.

I let her drink and then stepped closer and asked, “Are you always so politic?”

She turned to face me. “It seems that way.”

“If I remember, it's the president who has to be thirty-five. A senator can get away with being thirty.”

“If I remember, I'm thirty-nine. But I didn't have the heart to tell her. Amelia gets melancholy when she's had too much wine.”

I offered her a hand. “I'm David Loogan.”

She clasped it briefly. “Of course you are.”

“I wonder if you could do me a favor.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “What would that be?”

“Step away from this window. You're too exposed. It's making me nervous.”

Something in her posture changed. She seemed to relax, as if a puzzle that had been troubling her had been explained.

“I wondered what you were doing,” she said. “You've been watching over me.” She turned to look out the window. “Did you see someone down there?”

“If he's down there, you won't see him,” I said. “He could be across the street, hidden beneath the canopy of one of those trees.”