Blindside

THIRTEEN

I bought a grilled cheese sandwich and a Caesar salad and a beer in the hotel cafe and took them up to my room. I worked while I ate. In addition to interviews the DVD held names of people and places. I needed to verify that these actually existed. In the age of photoshopping you had to check and recheck everything.

The first two names checked out. I found them in the white pages online.

I finished my food. I still had half my beer. I worked on the bottle as I punched in phone numbers. Three rings, four rings.

‘Hello.’ Female. Wary.

‘Mrs Hayes?’

Silence.

‘Mrs Hayes?’

‘Who is this?’

‘My name is Dev Conrad. You don’t know me, but I’d like to set up an appointment to see you.’

Long pause. ‘Those days are behind me. Now leave me alone.’

She slammed the phone with a fury that told me how much she wanted to forget her past and resented — despised — anybody who’d bring it up.

The second number I dialed yielded only an automatic message voice, one of those robots who will someday be our masters. The robot wouldn’t even part with the name of who owned this particular phone number. I left no message.

I called Ward headquarters and asked for Lucy.

‘I was getting worried about you. We hadn’t heard anything from you. Jimmy’s murder has really freaked me out. And I haven’t said “freaked me out” since college.’ I could feel her smile over the phone, a fresh, appealing young woman who just happened to be smart as hell.

‘I’m fine. Just busy. I wanted to ask you about your newspaper contacts. Do you know anybody friendly on the Winthrop Times?’

‘I do, as a matter of fact. Why?’

‘I’m doing a background check on something. I just need to talk to somebody from the area who won’t mind answering some questions.’

‘This sounds mysterious.’

‘Not really. I’m trying to check on some brochures that are circulating down there claiming that Jeff’s family managed to get two DUI charges expunged from police records in Winthrop.’

‘Wow. When did this come up?’

It came up as I spoke the words. Sometimes my facility with lies amused me; other times it depressed me. After a few too many drinks I liked to think of myself as a noble knight fighting an honorable war. After a certain amount of liquor you can rationalize any number of sins.

‘Somebody in my home office picked it up from one of our ops and then they phoned me with it. But please don’t share this with anybody on the staff, all right? No need to worry about it until I can verify it. So far nobody’s actually seen one of these brochures.’

Urban legends prosper in campaigns on both sides. Did somebody accuse my opponent of being a horse-fucking, grave-robbing child murderer? Gosh, I just can’t imagine how a story like that got started (after your minions had been whispering it for weeks).

‘That’s so ridiculous. If that was true we would have heard about it a long time ago.’

‘We’re in a tight race and running out of time. Anything goes now.’

‘Oh, I met that Detective Fogarty. She was just here. She’s pretty cool. She said she talked to you.’

I had to give Fogarty her relentlessness. This was the sort of case that would get a detective noticed in the press.

‘Well, I’ll be there in a while, Lucy. Now how about the name of that reporter in Winthrop?’

‘Oh, sure.’

She told me. I entered name and phone and e-mail into my Mac laptop. ‘I appreciate it, Lucy.’

Nan Talbot was in a meeting but was expected back in fifteen minutes or so. Would I like to call back then?

In twenty minutes I called again. I used Lucy’s name more often than I probably needed to, but given the kind of questions I was about to ask she needed to trust me. And every time I used it, Nan Talbot said something flattering. ‘She’s one of the few political press people I like. Very straightforward. A lot of them are just flacks. They don’t do anything but brag about their candidate and if you ask them anything serious about an issue they can’t give you a coherent answer. Lucy can do it all — and talk and write and really walk you through any issue you have questions about.’

‘Well, she said you might be able to help me.’

‘I’ll sure try but I have to warn you that I need to leave on a story in about fifteen minutes.’

‘I keep thinking of the right way to bring this up-’

‘Boy, this should be good-’

‘I need to know about a house of ill repute you had in Winthrop about five years ago.’

She laughed. ‘A popular subject. I’m from Des Moines. I’ve only been here for two years or so, but last winter a private investigator asked me pretty much the same thing and I had to go ask the people who’d been here a long time.’

‘A private investigator?’

‘Yes. He wanted the background on the house and where he might find Vanessa La Rouche. The first thing I told him was that was her — I don’t know what you’d call it — stage name, I guess. Her real name was Sandy Bowers. She was the madam of the place. Then I had to tell him that I had no idea where she went after the state shut her down. She operated for four years here, two terms of the same mayor. He protected her. Some said she had something on him and some said it was a straight payoff. Whatever, when the mayor got voted out she didn’t last long.’

‘Has anybody ever heard from her?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘How about that private investigator? Would you happen to remember his name?’

‘No. But it’s somewhere on my computer. I’ll look it up when I get a chance. You have an e-mail address?’

I gave it to her.

‘What happened to the girls?’

‘That’s what made her place so special. That’s why she got so many important people going there. Winthrop’s economy went down the tube in 2005. Three big manufacturing plants went under and so did a bank. The feds closed it. Sandy or Vanessa was smart. She used only housewives. You know what MILFs means?’

‘Mothers I’d Like to Fuck?’

‘Exactly. Really attractive, clean, bright women whose husbands were suddenly on unemployment insurance. Very discreet. Appointments only, because not all of them could work every night. Juggling the hours was the most difficult part, I assume. They had families. Hard to know if the husbands really knew or not. But she raked it in and the people here said that the housewives made good money, too.’

‘Any scandals?’

‘None that left that house. Of course, there were always rumors.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, seems a certain well-known lawyer from Galesburg liked to argue about the kind of money he had to pay Vanessa, so he threatened to go to the local news media. I don’t know who Vanessa called but she had an angel somewhere. Everybody figures it was the mob. They kneecapped the lawyer and then started sending him photographs of his kids just to remind him how vulnerable he was.’

‘Doesn’t sound like the kind of lawyer I’d hire. If he dumped on the house he’d be admitting he was not only a client but that the reason he was doing it was because he was too cheap to pay the going rate. He’d look pretty bad.’

‘Well, if you knew the guy you’d understand. He’s all bluster, very pompous and very loud. Really obnoxious.’

‘But even that isn’t much of a scandal. He didn’t go to the press after all.’

‘Vanessa or somebody knew what they were doing. As I said, everything stayed in the house. Hey — I need to go.’

‘Thanks. And I appreciate you sending me that investigator’s name.’

‘It’ll be a little later today. Say hello to Lucy for me. Tell her my boyfriend’s got a guy she should meet. He thinks they’ll really hit it off.’

‘Will do.’

At least I was beginning to see the schematic. Somebody hires a private investigator. Private investigator gets video. Video becomes blackmail source.

But who hired the investigator? And where did Mrs Burkhart fit in?