The Hanging

Chapter 13

On Mondays, I didn’t have classes. Jean-Paul left early to drive to his office and I pulled out right behind him. I caught the first commuter flight out of Burbank Airport headed for Sacramento. As soon as the plane crossed the coastal mountain range, we left the clouds behind. I landed in bright spring sunshine, rented a car, and drove east through lush San Joaquin Valley farmland to Gilstrap, Park Holloway’s home town. It was time to get a closer look at the man.

Gilstrap was a typical little farm town, not unlike Anacapa had been before its gentrification. A few shops, a city hall, and a library, all built around a small, leafy town square with a bandstand in the middle. The town was surrounded by dairies, raisin grape vineyards, and almond and peach orchards, some of them in full spring bloom. I looked for a diner, information central in any small town, and found one next to City Hall.

It was late for breakfast so the place was nearly empty when I went in. I took a seat at the counter, ordered coffee and eggs, and struck up a conversation with the waitress, a motherly woman named Viv.

“Awful about Park Holloway,” I said, folding my copy of the local newspaper on the counter beside me as she filled a thick ceramic mug for me from her pot. “Did you know him at all?”

“Oh sure, everyone around here knows the Holloways,” Viv said. “My brother Bob was in the same graduating class at Central High as Park. His wife and me were in Sunday School together over at the Lutheran church.”

She leaned in closer to share a confidence, something that needed to be whispered. “The Holloways are Methodist.”

“I knew Park,” I said, keeping the perhaps unsavory fact that I grew up Catholic to myself. “But I never met her.”

She studied me for a moment before she asked, “You from D.C., then?”

“Los Angeles,” I said. “I understand his wife moved back here after the divorce.”

“Karen? Pretty much, she never left. She didn’t like living in Washington. She was okay with Boston when Park was in school over there, and she really liked when they lived in China for a while, but Washington didn’t agree with her. She didn’t want to raise her boys there.”

“Where are the boys now?”

“Trey, that’s Parker Holloway the Third, he’s coaching the baseball team at Central and teaching social studies or something like that.”

Viv leaned close again to say, “But Harlan, well, he’s out of rehab again. I saw him over at his mother’s place when I took a casserole by after church yesterday. Either he’s real broke up over his dad, or he needs a drink real bad.”

“Or both?” I ventured.

“Or that.” She winked at me and took her coffeepot down the counter to refill the cups of the two men sitting together at the far end.

“You talking about Park, Viv?” A well-weathered older man, wearing a billed cap and starched and ironed Carhartt overalls, held out his cup for her.

“Is there anything else this town is talking about, Chet?” she asked, topping off his mug as she scooped up his companion’s empty plate. “Dutch, you need anything else there, hon? Cookie made a nice-looking pie out of the early berries. Might be a bit on the tart side.”

“No, thanks, Viv.” Dutch patted his plaid-covered belly. “I’ve had a sufficiency.”

Chet picked up the conversational thread. “The paper didn’t say, but I heard he was shot in the back of the head.”

“I never heard that,” Dutch countered. “Tom at the mill said he heard he was choked.”

That thread was interrupted when my eggs appeared in the service window. Viv set them in front of me; a farmhand-size portion.

“Do you think Mrs. Holloway is at home this morning?” I asked her. “I would like to pay my respects.”

“Oh no, honey,” Dutch volunteered. “She opened up the library as usual. It’s Monday morning, you know, story time for the kids from the elementary school. She’ll be over there by now.”

I thanked him, did my best by Cookie’s eggs, paid my check and left.

Dutch was correct, it was story hour at the town’s library. A couple dozen little kids sat on a rug in a semi-circle around the feet of a woman seated on a low chair reading with great expressiveness from a picture book. She was attractive, blond, maybe sixty-Karen? I decided to wait outside until the kids came out.

The day was already warm, temperature moving into the eighties. I found a bench in the shade near the bandstand and used the time to catch up on messages.

Max hadn’t called. He had gone into his meeting with Lana and the network goons at eight and now it was after ten. Contract negotiations can drag on for months, but Max and Lana already had a template to work from, the contract that the network had not signed in December, and there was a certain immediacy to the project’s topic. I was hoping for a quick resolution.

Fergie had sent a lengthy file titled “Holloway’s Naughty List.” I opened it to see what she had found; not much. Several bread-and-butter campaign violation charges were filed against Holloway when he was in Congress, generally for using campaign funds for personal expenses. There were also some ethics charges that had to do with voting on bills that favored his campaign donors, but none of those charges got all the way to the hearing stage, and there were no formal reprimands, ever.

I closed the file, thinking that some people always seem to float to the top of trouble, like cream, and called Fergie.

“Nothing more substantial about Holloway?” I asked her.

“Not really. I went through the archives of all the newspapers I could find from Holloway’s congressional district and searched for any scandal, skulduggery, innuendo, or rumor that might attach to him.

“There were complaints about his votes on federal water distribution, but water allocation in California is always a hot political topic, especially in farm regions like his district, and there is no way to make everyone happy. And some garlic growers in Gilroy were upset that he sponsored a bill that made it easier for China to export garlic. Except for that, the guy squeaks,” she said, clearly disappointed she hadn’t unearthed some real dirt.

Apologetically, she said, “He’s either a saint or he has good people shielding him.”

“Someone was angry enough to kill him, so let’s assume the latter,” I said. “Did you put together a bio for me?”

“Yeah, but it’s still pretty sketchy.”

Fergie had found obituaries for his parents, Lettie and Parker Efrem Holloway, Sr., raisin grape farmers, the salt of the earth. He had two sons, as Viv told me. One had been a stand-out baseball player in high school-Trey, I guessed-but there was no mention of the other one, Harlan, except in captions under a series of official family portraits. The only potential wrinkle was suggested by the disappearance of the wife from the family portraits. They divorced, so what?

Fergie told me she was currently working her way through the Congressional Record, searching for any mention of Holloway. I asked her to leave that for later and to focus on any footprints Holloway made after he left Congress, focusing on his connection to the art market, if any. Buoyed by the prospect of a regular income stream, she was only too happy to get at it.

I also asked her to add Hiram Chin, Clarice Snow, her gallery, and her son Frank Weidermeyer, AKA Franz von Wilde, to the investigation list.

“With luck you’ll find some cross-pollination,” I told her.

I asked if she had spoken with Jack Flaherty, a good friend who worked in the research department at the network.

“I talked with Jack briefly after I talked to you on Friday,” Fergie said. “We discussed strategy, but he said he would be gone over the weekend so he wouldn’t be able to get into the network archives until today. He should be in by now; I’ll call him.”

“Wait until we hear that the contracts have been signed,” I told her. “If something goes wrong, his involvement at this point could lead to something messy and expensive.”

There were two messages from Kate, so I called her next.

She told me that Hiram Chin was still insisting that a campus memorial service for Holloway be held on Wednesday, day after tomorrow. The coroner had started the autopsy first thing this morning, should be finished by early afternoon, and would release the body to Holloway’s family-those two sons-as soon as they made delivery arrangements with a mortuary. The sons were apparently eager to hold the memorial sooner rather than later because there would be services over the weekend in Gilstrap. Because she was chair of the Academic Senate, Hiram expected Kate to work with him on the arrangements. None of this had anything to do with me; Kate was just venting.

I asked her, “Any idea when we can schedule Sly’s event?”

“A week from Friday,” she said. “That would be a postponement of only one week.”

Jean-Paul had called just to say hello, so I called him back. We talked about nothing and everything for about ten minutes. He asked about my weekend plans. He had some official functions to attend and wanted to know if I would accompany him. I turned down an invitation to the Philharmonic on Thursday night because I taught an early film workshop Friday morning. He suggested offering his tickets to Mom and an escort. I thought of Max right away, and told him I would ask them.

An untidy queue of youngsters, each carrying a muslin bag imprinted READ WITH ME! that was heavy with books, emerged from the library with several adults to herd them along. From the gaps in their front teeth I guessed their ages to be seven or eight, second graders, maybe. I waited for the last of them to file out the big doors before I rose to go inside.

The woman I had seen reading was behind the circulation desk checking in a tottering stack of children’s books, probably the books they had checked out on their last visit. She looked up and smiled at me.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” I said. “Is Karen Holloway in?”

She studied me hard, brows furrowed, before she said, “I am Karen Holloway.”

I reached a hand toward her. “I’m-”

“Maggie MacGowen,” she said. “Good heavens. You are Maggie MacGowen, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Your program was the only reason I ever watched TV on Monday nights. We’ve shown several of your old PBS films on community nights and had good discussions about the issues. Whatever brings you…” She set aside the book in her hands as her face fell. “Oh. Park.”

“Park,” I said.

“Dear God.”

I told her we were still negotiating with the network, but that even without their backing I wanted to make a film about her former husband.

“It’s still in the development stage,” I said. “I don’t know the direction it will go, except that it will not be a crime report.”’

“But you will talk about his death.”

“Yes. Before he died I was thinking about making the film as an independent. But the manner of his death brought the network aboard.”

“I saw in the paper that you found him. Do you know, was he shot?”

The image of his bashed-in skull flashed behind my eyes: gunshot? I didn’t think so, but I’m no expert. I said, “The coroner hasn’t announced an official cause of death yet.”

“I don’t mean to be morbid, but would you tell me about what you saw?”

Briefly, I did, with no embellishments.

She nodded, gazing off into the ether somewhere. After a moment, she said, “Thank you.”

“Mrs. Holloway, I would like to talk to you on the record.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, gaze drifting back to me.

“On camera.”

“Oh.” Her hand automatically went to the feature she was most worried about having filmed, in her case the looseness below her chin. “When?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

While she thought that over, I waited. After glancing at the wall clock, she said, “The Senior Center shows a movie before lunch on Monday, so after the schoolkids leave, it’s usually pretty quiet here until the seniors come in for their computer class at one. After that, of course, the older schoolkids are in for Homework Camp. So, if you’ll give me a minute to floof up a bit, now is a good time.”

When she saw my surprise-I had intended to come back later with a film crew-she said, “If we don’t do it now, I’ll get cold feet and say no. And I think I really want to talk about Park.”

“Take all the time you need.”

I had a good camcorder in my bag, as always, and an extra battery pack. I had planned to use it only to shoot footage of Holloway’s home town and his family’s farm, but a conversation with his ex-wife was a bonus.

While Karen Holloway “floofed” I walked around the library testing light levels in various locations, looking for a good place to set up. I found a green overstuffed club chair in the community room and wrestled it into position facing the front windows, with shelves of books as the background and a large whiteboard positioned to bounce reflected light from the windows onto her face. A stool with a stack of books on top served in lieu of a tripod to steady the camera. It was a jury-rigged setup, but I had filmed under worse conditions.

When Karen came back, hair brushed, new powder on her nose and fresh blush on her cheeks-she was very pretty in an English-country-garden sort of way-I positioned her in the chair, took some test footage, ran it back, adjusted the light bounce from the whiteboard, added a desk lamp as a key light behind her head, took another look, and smiled. The slant of the light picked up the blue in her eyes and created a shadow below her chin, the key light set her apart from the background. Because the camcorder had less than great sound pickup, I clipped a mic that fed into a thumb-size digital recorder to the placket of her cardigan, slipped the recorder itself into her pocket, and taped a separate sound recording that my partner, Guido, might need to do some magic with to sync with the film.

When we were settled in, with the camera set so that she had to turn her head just slightly to the right, toward the mic, to look at me, I asked her to tell me about Park Holloway.

After a few nervous minutes, she seemed to forget about the camera and spoke with an easy confidence, grateful, I thought, to have the opportunity to tell her part of Park Holloway’s story.

“Park and I started dating in high school. I was the head cheerleader and he was the absolute class nerd: valedictorian, president of the chess and debate clubs, our delegate to the Future Farmers of America convention in Sacramento, or as he referred to the capital, ‘Sack a’ tomatoes.’ I was crazy about him. God, what a sense of humor.

“Somewhere, he got the idea he needed to go to Harvard. Around here, the really bright kids go to Stanford or Cal. But Park knew he was going to Harvard; he had to show me on a map where it was. He got the FFA scholarship and a National Merit scholarship, and by God, he went to Harvard.”

With an abashed lift of her shoulder, she said, “I got a B.A. in Elementary Education from Sac State. Happy with a B-average. Park graduated summa cum laude.”

She told me they got married the summer after they graduated. They made a bargain: she would go with him back to Massachusetts and get a teaching job to support them while he finished graduate school. When he finished, he would find a job and she would get a master’s in school administration or library science, and they would start a family.

“But the best-laid plans, huh?” she said with a soft smile. “When Park was working on his dissertation about Chinese trade, we went to live in China. It was wonderful. China was just emerging into western commerce, and it was so exciting to be there at the beginning. The Chinese people are so enterprising-if you ever want to write a treatise on adaptation for survival, talk to the people of China-I still marvel.”

She paused, seemed to think something over before she spoke. “Now, this just may not sound politically correct, and I know there are two sides to the issue, but I’ll say it anyway.”

Looking directly at the camera, she said, “Park and I were in Murano, the glassmakers’ island near Venice, Italy. The staff of the glassware shops would not let Chinese people with cameras enter their shops. I was outraged, and said so to Park. But he said it was just smart business to bar them. He said the Chinese would take pictures of the beautiful handmade glassware-a single wineglass will cost hundreds of dollars-go home and find a way to produce it for under twenty bucks, then flood the market. And I’ll be darned if on my last visit to Chinatown in San Francisco there weren’t shops full of ‘Murano’ glass, but at prices too cheap to be the real thing.”

After Holloway completed his dissertation, he received a fellowship from the London School of Economics to continue his research, and they went back to China, she told me.

Some of the businesses that Holloway had worked with during his research formed an agricultural trade consortium. They hired him to represent their interests in Washington, so the young Holloways set up housekeeping near the Capitol.

“I enjoyed Washington at first; there were so many young couples like us. But I rarely saw Park-back and forth to China, meetings all over the world; I was at home with two babies.

“So when the congressman from our home district died suddenly and Park was asked to fill the position until the next election, I encouraged him to accept. I thought we’d see more of him. But I was wrong; we saw him less.”

She said that something happened to Park when he entered politics. His drive and intellectual curiosity morphed into raw ambition.

“The egos in Washington,” Karen said with disdain. “I found them all unbearable. I didn’t want to raise my children in that environment, so I brought them home.”

I asked her, “When does Hiram Chin enter the picture?”

“Hiram?” The question seemed to surprise her. “The two of them worked on a Smithsonian committee together and just hit it off right away. Hiram had that cosmopolitan polish that Park, raised on a farm, wished would rub off on him. It’s interesting; Hiram was as fascinated by European culture as Park was with Chinese culture. Intellectually, they were about evenly matched. They became great friends, got involved in all sorts of interesting projects together.”

“Both of them left substantial positions,” I said, “Park in Congress and Hiram in academia. They both disappeared quietly into a two-year college in the outer suburbs of Los Angeles. What happened?”

Karen shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t know. Park and I were already divorced when that happened, and I hadn’t seen Hiram for years. But of course I’ve thought about it, and I can’t come up with an answer that makes sense. Maybe they just got tired.”

“While your husband was in office, he was charged with misuse of campaign funds more than once.”

“We aren’t rich people,” she said, shrugging off the issue as inconsequential. “We don’t have rich parents. A congressman’s salary is pretty modest when you consider all that’s required of them. We were keeping residences on two coasts and travelling back and forth and entertaining, keeping up appearances. Sometimes that was just financially impossible, especially during campaigns. From time to time, Park let his better-heeled constituents cover some costs.”

I asked her if she knew Clarice Snow or someone named Weidermeyer.

After a pause, she began to nod. “Clarice Snow, no, but Weidermeyer-I met him and his wife a couple of times. Big formal events. Businessman of some kind, probably involved in Asian trade. Why?”

“Is Mrs. Weidermeyer Asian?”

The question made her smile. “Definitely not. Very Main Line Pennsylvania. Bryn Mawr girl. Her lower jaw never seemed to move when she spoke.”

Not Clarice Snow, then, I thought. An interesting puzzle: who was young Frankie Weidermeyer’s father? Not my puzzle to solve, but an interesting one just the same.

Karen declined to speak on camera about her children. She had worked very hard to keep them out of the public eye when their father was in Congress, and intended to continue doing so. Instead, she talked about growing up in a close-knit farm community.

“Of course, everyone knows your business,” she said with a laugh. “But your business usually doesn’t get spread beyond the town limits. The people of Gilstrap protected my children’s privacy.”

After about an hour, she glanced at her watch and said she really needed to get back to work. The books on the circulation desk weren’t going to reshelve themselves and she needed to clear the desk before her seniors came in. They always checked out several books each and she would need the counter space.

I thanked her, and together we put the chair and the whiteboard and the components of my ad hoc camera stand back where they belonged. I gave her my card and asked her to call me if she thought of anything more she wanted to say.

“Before you go,” she said, taking her mobile phone out of her pocket. “May I get you on camera? No one will believe me when I tell them you were here if I don’t.”

I put my head close to hers and smiled as she held the phone at arm’s length and snapped a picture of the two of us. With colored lights from the flash still dancing in my eyes, I walked back out into the spring sunshine.

It was nearly noon when I left the library and I wanted to be on the 3:00 flight out of Sacramento. That would get me back to Burbank by 4:00 and home an hour after that, depending on traffic. For the film, we would need background footage of Central High School and Holloway’s late parents’ farmhouse and other local landmarks, but Guido and a crew would take care of that later. When we had a production schedule, I would set up interviews with people who had grown up with Holloway, and fly back up with a crew.

The local weekly newspaper, the Gilstrap Gazetteer, was just down the street and across the town square. Their archives could be helpful. So, I decided that the best use of the time I had left would be to see what they had to offer.

A man standing inside the newspaper office watched me through the glass front door as I approached across the town square. When I reached the office, he held the door open for me.

“I wondered if you were going to stop by,” he said, offering his hand as he studied me. He was in his early thirties I guessed, slender, blond, rumpled.

“Marshall Bensen here, editor, owner, sole reporter and photog of the Gazetteer. What can I do for you, Ms MacGowen?”

I was a bit taken aback when he knew my name. Without TV makeup and away from the flat frame of a television set, I don’t get recognized all that often. Twice in an hour was unusual. Bensen must have seen my surprise. He chuckled as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, flipped through its screens and held it up to show me the photo Karen Holloway had snapped of the two of us not five minutes earlier. The caption at the bottom was, “OMG, just me hanging with filmmaker Maggie MacGowen.”

I said, “Word gets out fast around here.”

“You can count on it. Dutch Holmborg was here when Karen sent that out-you just missed him. He told me you were in the diner a while ago asking about Park. He said you headed over to the library to talk to Karen. So, word’s out; no wonder newspapers are dying.”

“Did he tell you what she and I talked about?”

He chuckled. “Not yet. But if you want a full report, call back after dinner. Around here, Ms MacGowen, that would be noontime; at five we sit down to supper.”

“Good to know.” I massaged my knuckles, still feeling the pressure of his dairyman’s grip. “And please, it’s Maggie.”

His office was cluttered with back editions of the paper and stacks of clippings and who-knows-what-all. There were piles atop a row of old oak filing cabinets, on every shelf, and covering his ancient, scarred, wooden teacher’s desk.

“Do you mind?” I asked, holding up my camera and gesturing toward the room.

“Shoot away. I have an old green plastic visor somewhere, you want me to put it on?”

I laughed. “Maybe later.”

I snapped some stills, got a nice shot of Bensen leaning on his desk, precarious piles of paper on either side of him, and dropped the camera back into my bag.

“What sort of archives do you have?” I asked.

“Let’s see.” He looked around. “That back corner is roughly 1970 to 1985. Had an earthquake in ’eighty-five and there was a sort of avalanche back there, so there’s no particular order to it. If you’re looking for something in particular between 1985 and 2002, you just figure that every pile is about three years high and work your way around the office going clockwise, and you may find what you’re looking for.”

“Interesting system,” I said, eyeing the clutter with dismay. I didn’t have time, Fergie didn’t have time, to hunt through the mess for possible nuggets from Holloway’s early life and political campaigns.

“I inherited it as-is from the previous owner,” he said. “Everything before 1980 when he bought the paper is in the filing cabinets, and everything after 2002, when I came aboard, is available online.”

Because of his grin I knew there was a punch line coming. I waited for it: “’Course, you can just go over to the library and find the old issues on microfilm.”

“That’s a big help.”

“Karen’s had the Historical Society working on an index for about ten years now. I think they’re up to the ’nineties.”

He took another look around. “Every time I say I’m going to haul all the papers over to the recycling plant, the Historical Society promises they’ll come and get them. They just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

He turned to me. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“Not yet. Just background information on Park Holloway.”

“We’ve been expecting some reporters to show up-Park Holloway’s passing is the biggest story around here since the heavy rains last winter-but you’re the first. And you’re not exactly a news reporter, are you?”

“Not anymore, no. I’m working on a film about Holloway, not about his murder.” I set my bag on his desk chair, the only clear space I could see, and leaned my backside against the edge of the desk beside him.

“Did you grow up in Gilstrap?”

“Sure. Graduated from Central High in the class between his sons, Trey and Harlan. My family goes to the same Lutheran church as Karen and the boys, so I’ve known them all my life.”

“How well did you know their father?”

“He wasn’t around all that much. I saw him at the Republican picnics every summer, and walked his precinct one year-it was a school assignment-but usually when he was in town he was giving speeches to the Lions or the Kiwanis or the various farm co-ops or some other big group. It’s not like he showed up at Little League practice, though he did go to some of the high school games when Trey was drawing a big crowd.”

“Did anyone around here ever explain why he left Congress?”

“Not really. There was plenty of gossip but no substantial information. I was a senior at UC Davis then, journalism major, of course. I tried to get an interview with him for the college paper, but his office sent a form letter. You know, the usual thanks-for-your-support-and-good-luck-to-you B.S.”

He found a notebook and a pen amid the rubble on the desk; I was wondering when he, the local reporter, was going to get around to asking questions of his own.

“You found Holloway, right?”

When I nodded, he asked for details and I gave him the usual demurrer: I saw him, I called 911, the end. He took notes as I spoke, and when I finished, kept his pen poised.

“You have a film to make,” he said. “And I have a paper to get out. But I’m getting precious little information from anyone. As soon as I heard something happened to Holloway, I called the LA County Sheriff’s press office for information, but got nothing from them except confirmation it was Holloway and time and place of death. ‘Ongoing investigation,’ they said. ‘Coroner hasn’t released cause of death,’ they said. Took me half of Saturday to find out who the investigating detectives are, but they basically told me to piss off.”

“They’re a charming pair,” I added. “You can quote me.”

He made a note as he continued with his tale of woe.

“The college public relations office referred me to the Sheriff’s press office. You’ll find a message from me on your campus phone. I was kinda hoping when I saw you coming in that you got the message and you were coming to tell me what you know.

“So far I have the official press release and local reaction for the story. I think Holloway’s community deserves more, Maggie, if only to put a stop to some of the more lurid gossip out there.”

“When does your paper run?”

“Wednesday. You going to help me?”

“That’s only fair,” I said, and did. I asked him to call me a reliable source and to leave my name out of the article, though everyone in town would know I was the source by the time the paper came out. Leaving out gory details, I told him why I went to the administration building and what I saw: Park Holloway had a head injury, and was hanged. The coroner was working on the autopsy as we spoke, and might have a preliminary cause of death to announce by late afternoon.

Just to be nice, I pulled out my electronic notebook and showed him the footage I had shot of the empty stairwell, the footage that was too dark for my film and that had sent me back later on Friday to try again. Bensen was excited to see the scene of the crime. I isolated a frame and sent it to the email address he recited for me as he walked over to his computer and opened his mailbox.

“Hah!” he exulted as the image came up. “That’s my front page. You give this to anyone else?”

“It’s your exclusive.”

He was writing that down when the front door was suddenly and forcefully yanked open, creating a sudden air gust that sent random bits of paper fluttering around the room. The young man who strode in was red in the face and shook with rage.

“You shut up, Marsh,” he ordered, jabbing a finger toward Bensen. “This busybody is poking around into stuff that is none of her damn business, understand? I don’t want you talking to her.”

“Hi, Harlan,” Bensen said, outwardly ignoring the man’s wrath, speaking calmly, staying exactly where he was when the door opened. “How’s it hanging?”

“I’m warning you.”

“Message received. Harlan, I want you to meet Maggie MacGowen.”

“Hello, Harlan.” I offered my hand, which he only glared at, and tried to sound as composed as Bensen had, even though I felt anything but. Harlan looked strung out, thin, unwell, not amenable to reason. I said, “I knew your father. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“And you stay away from my mother.” His finger veered from Bensen to jab at the air in front of me.

The door opened a second time, more gently this time. The young man who entered was a tan, fit version of Harlan. He looked as if he had been running.

“What are you doing here, Trey?” Harlan demanded, jaw clenched, seething with anger.

“Mom called, said she saw you drive by.” Trey Holloway held out his open palm. “You want to give me the truck keys?”

“Go to hell.”

“You get picked up one more time on that suspended license and you’re going straight to jail. Don’t expect me and Mom to bail you out this time. Hand me the keys and I’ll drive you home. Now.”

“I said-”

“I heard what you said, Harlan. Now give me the keys. Jackie can only cover my class for the rest of this period, so I don’t have time to screw around with you.”

Harlan glared at each of us in turn, let out a long hot huff, and then gave his brother the keys.

“Let’s go,” Trey said, moving toward the door.

“I’ll walk home,” Harlan said, defiantly.

“You’ll get in the truck and I’ll drive you. The frame of mind you’re in, I don’t want you getting into mischief. Let’s go.”

Trey opened the door and gestured for his brother to go through. Harlan hesitated just to make a point, but he went. Before he followed his brother out, Trey gave us each a nod.

“Ma’am, Marsh. I apologize for the intrusion.” And he was gone.

We waited in the sudden quiet, heard truck doors close, the engine start, and the truck drive away.

As the air settled after them, Bensen sighed and turned to me.

“There’s a story I would like to write some day,” he said. “The brothers Holloway.”

“Yes?”

“Everyone says that Congressman Holloway was the smartest kid ever to graduate from Central High. Until Trey came along.”

“He’s really intelligent?” I said, hoping he would continue.

“Yes. And he’s about the nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Gets that from Karen. He could have been anything he wanted, but here he is, teaching at his old high school. His mother keeps telling him he doesn’t have to stay in Gilstrap, but as long as she’s alive and Harlan needs managing, he won’t go anywhere.”

“Why does Harlan need managing?”

“Something’s wrong with the way he’s wired.”

I checked my watch. “I have a plane to catch,” I said.

He asked a few more questions, we exchanged cards, and said good-bye.

I drove out of town, headed for the airport. As soon as I reached the Interstate, a silver Ram pickup appeared in my rearview mirror and stayed there until I entered the rental car lot at the Sacramento airport. Before I got out of the car, I texted the truck’s license plate to Roger and told him I had been followed. He would know what to do with the information.

I was in the boarding lounge waiting for my flight to be announced when Max finally called.

“Lana is a cold, hard bitch,” was his greeting.

“Not going well, then?”

“We’re finished. I knew when I walked in this morning what we would end up with. I just had to go through the dance with her and the network bun boys.”

He ran through the terms: budget, deadline, network support, ownership rights, and many pages of the usual boilerplate.

“Did they actually sign?”

“They did,” he said. “And I initialed on your behalf as your agent. Meet me at the Pacific Dining Car on Wilshire and Twenty-seventh in Santa Monica for dinner and we’ll get this puppy signed and couriered back to Lana tonight.”

I told him where I was and we figured that I could meet him by six.

“What about Guido and Fergie?” I asked. “Don’t they need to sign contracts as well?”

“We had to make some concessions, kiddo,” he said. “So here’s the deal: you are not a network employee on this one, you’re an independent contractor, a production company leasing network facilities. You can hire whoever you want, and using your old independent production company banner, you will pay them. The network takes no responsibility for them, and you even get to negotiate with their unions all by yourself.”

“That stinks,” I said.

“Welcome to the new economy, honey. The good news for you is that they asked for first rights of refusal on your next project. If they pick it up, the numbers go up exponentially. And we both know they won’t be able to refuse the next project because the topic is too compelling.”

“We know what the next project will be?”

“We do,” he said. “It’s Isabelle.”

He was right, but I didn’t feel ready to work on a film about my biological mother, a murder victim. When he told me how much we would be paid I felt a little better. Business concluded, I offered him Jean-Paul’s Philharmonic tickets. He was delighted. He said he would call Mom right away and work out details; Thursday was Mahler night.

The phone was still in my hand when it rang again. Caller ID said it was a private caller, but I answered instead of letting it go to message, something I rarely do.

I waited for the caller to speak first.

“Is this Maggie MacGowen?” A female voice, nothing distinctive about it.

“Who is calling, please?”

Without saying another word, she hung up.