Strachey's folly

Chapter 25

I’m heading back to Washington as soon as I can get out of here," I told Timmy,

"and then probably back to the Yucatan. Jim Suter's story about drug smuggling into Central Pennsylvania might be true or might not be true, I just don't know.

But if it is true-or something like it, maybe even worse is true-then somehow the Mexican gang found out that Suter blabbed to me about it maybe Jorge's house is wired-and now they are killing all the witnesses."

Timmy said, "Oh. Oh, no. Oh."

I described to him the mysterious hit-and-run incident that ended the life of the Log Heaven GM dealer that morning and the explosion that killed Nelson Krumfutz and Tammy Pam Jameson a few hours later. "I hate to say it," I added, "but now Jim Suter is probably dead, too, or soon will be."

This was followed by a tense silence at the other end of the line. While Mrs.

Krumfutz was off changing her clothes, I had reached Timmy in Maynard's room at GW. I could hear May-nard's voice in the background as he talked about a problematical IV with, I guessed, a nurse. Finally, Timmy said, "If some Mexican drug cartel is eliminating all the people who know about its Pennsylvania operations, where does that leave you? And, for that matter, me?"

"We know Suter's story, but we can't prove anything. If the story is true, the gang might think it has to remove anybody who might be in a position to describe the operation to us or to any authority we reported it to. But I doubt if they'd see any reason to actually eliminate us."

"You doubt it? Oh, good. Then, tell me this, Don. Why did the cartel try to kill Maynard? And why did they wreck his house searching for something? Maynard certainly knew a lot less about all this… this whatever it is than we do."

"What you say is true."

"Anyway, Maynard doesn't think it's drugs. He wants to talk to you as soon as you get back here-which, by the way, the sooner the better. I clued Maynard in on Carmen LoBello's story on some would-be-cataclysmic scandal Suter talked to LoBello about when they were high, and Maynard thinks he knows what it has to do with."

"He does? What? He can tell me now."

"Hang on."

Timmy put Maynard on the line. "It's the date." Maynard's voice was weak, but steady and clear. "When Timmy told me that this conversation took place in January of this year, I tried to think of what was going on then that might have involved scandalous secret machinations. I couldn't think of anything that was happening at the White House-a potential Jim Sutergate- or on the Hill that month that might have a potential Mexico connection. Which was a connection I assumed, based on subsequent, especially recent, developments. So I phoned Dana Mosel at the Post, and she called up a ll the paper's front pages and told me what made headlines last January that was Mexico-related. What Dana told me this morning sure was interesting. It had nothing to do with drugs though."

"What was it?"

"Bryant Ulmer's murder."

"Congressman Olds's chief of staff?"

"Yeah."

"What did Ulmer have to do with Mexico?"

"Olds was the nominal head of the GOP pro-NAFTA vote-gathering operation in the House, but it was Ulmer who actually ran it. Working directly with Clinton's people, he and Alan Mc-Chesney, who was then Betty Krumfutz's chief of staff, pretty much put together the bipartisan pro-NAFTA coalition in the House. Aid a nice job they did, too, for the free-trade-at-any-cost crowd. NAFTA passed the House 234 to 200. I agree with labor that it was a bad treaty. It cost jobs on this side of the border and is at this very moment no doubt poisoning thousands of underpaid workers on the Mexican side. But Clinton was a slick salesman, and NAFTA's most vocal enemies were an off-putting bunch, from Perot to Pat Buchanan. So Ulmer and McChesney were able to pull it off. The whole thing really made Bryant Ulmer's reputation on the Hill, and from that time on he was known as Mr. NAFTA. It's also the reason why his murder made the front page of the papers, not just the metro section."

"Maynard," I said, "are you suggesting there's a connection between the approval of NAFTA and Ulmer's murder more than two years later? Ulmer died in a street robbery-officially, at any rate. What could the connection be?"

"Timmy says your cop friend Chondelle Dolan told you there's always been doubt about Ulmer's homicide having been a simple mugging, on account of the type of weapon used."

"Timmy is right about that."

"But what the connection to NAFTA might be, I don't know. I was just thinking of Carmen LoBello's story about a scandal that would have rocked the country and maybe reversed the Republican congressional landslide in '94 if it had come out.

Suter got high and mentioned this awful thing that had been preying on his mind last January. That's when Ulmer was murdered. Then Suter dumped LoBello a few weeks later. Jim always dumped everybody a few weeks later. But still, the timing of all that struck me as interesting."

"It is."

"It's too bad you couldn't have asked Jim about it when you were down there."

"I may be heading back to the Yucatan. So I can still ask him. First, Maynard, I may phone Jim, if I can track down his number, which he wouldn't give me. He said if I ever called, Jorge might answer. But now I'm wondering if Jim might not be in immediate danger." I described to Maynard the violent deaths earlier in the day of Hugh Myers, the Log Heaven GM dealer, and Nelson Krumfutz and Tammy Pam Jameson.

"But," Maynard said, "those incidents would seem to buttress Jim's story of a drug-smuggling operation, not a NAFTA connection. Unless, of course, the NAFTA campaign and the drug cartel are somehow interrelated."

"Yeah. Unless that."

I told Maynard I guessed I'd have to speak again with Red Heckinger and Malcolm Sweet, who seemed to be Suter's eyes and ears in Washington, and his main local contacts. "Who are those two goons anyway? I had half a lunch with them the other day, and they're about as subtle as Willard Scott. They seemed to want me to think they were mob-connected, but it was all the worst sort of amateur theater and not convincing."

"They're lobbyists for the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters. One of them is originally from Log Heaven- Heckinger, I think. Jim has done some lobbying and PR work for the PAB over the years. In fact, that's how I think he made his first connection with Betty Krumfutz, who always looked out for the PAB's interests. They're a couple, and they've been known to give dinner parties at their place in Georgetown, where, following coffee and after-dinner drinks, the guests have been asked to move into the den and spank each other."

"Somehow I'm not surprised to hear this."

"In fact, Bryant Ulmer was part of that circle, and Alan McChesney, too, and McChesney's boyfriend, Ian Williamson."

"I met McChesney in Burton Olds's office on Tuesday," I said, "and Williamson was there, too. McChesney spoke poorly of Suter-as so many men do-and told the usual story of ecstasy with Jim and then a sudden nothingness.

McChesney also said he wouldn't be surprised if Jim was mixed up in a drug operation with Jorge-yet another vote for that scenario."

"I wonder what made Alan think that. Jim was never involved with out-and-out crooks before, that I ever heard. Did Alan mention that he saw me on Saturday, not long before I got shot?"

"No, your name never came up in our conversation. Following Suter's instructions, I was still being cagey on Tuesday as to what I was investigating and for whom."

"That's funny. I saw Alan at the quilt display near Jim's panel, and he might reasonably have connected any investigation of Jim with me, since Alan knew we were friends, and he would surely have read or heard about my getting shot down on E Street later on Saturday. McChesney must have seen you and Timmy at the quilt, too. I was going to say hi and introduce you, in fact, but Alan was talking to some other people, and then we came to the quilt panel with Jim's name on it, and soon after that he was gone."

At that moment, an idea that had been vague in the back of my mind moved forward and began to take on an actual shape. But I did not yet recognize the exact shape of the idea, and I said only to Maynard, "It is odd that McChesney didn't make the likely connection and maybe even ask me if you were my client.

But he didn't."

"McChesney is not famous for being dense."

"What's he famous for? Besides after-dinner spankings?"

"For thoroughness and decisiveness. And, I guess I should add, ruthlessness."

"Oh, ruthlessness, too."

Mrs. Krumfutz had not yet emerged from her bedroom, where she had gone to change clothes, but a knock came at the front door now, probably, I figured, Mrs. Krumfutz's good friend Marion Smith. Before answering the door, I spoke briefly with Timmy again, assuring him that I would soon head back toward Washington. I advised him to remain in Maynard's room with its police guard outside, and without hesitation he said he would.

A small female face was now peering in through the bottom stepped window in the Krumfutz front door. As I moved to open the door for Mrs. Smith, I decided that when I found a pay phone on my way out of Log Heaven, I would not call Heckinger or Sweet or Alan McChesney or even Jim Suter. I would phone the airline and make some necessarily convoluted arrangements for a fast trip back to the Yucatan.