Fatal Voyage (31 page)
I looked up at her.
“That’s it?”
“What day did Jeremiah Mitchell disappear?”
Crowe dropped the pen, opened a drawer, and withdrew a file.
“February fifteenth.”
“Martin Patrick Veckhoff died in Charlotte on February twelfth.”
“Lots of people die in February. It’s a lousy month.”
“The name ”Veckhoff is on the list of H&F officers.“
“The investment group that owns that weird property near Running Goat
Branch?”
I nodded.
“So is ”Birkby.“”
She leaned back and rubbed the corner of one eye. I pulled out Laslo’s
find and set it in front of her.
“Laslo Sparkes found this in the dirt we collected near the wall at the
Running Goat house.”
She studied but did not reach for the vial.
“It’s a tooth fragment. I’m taking it to Charlotte for DNA testing to
establish whether it goes with the foot.”
Her phone rang. She ignored it.
“You need to get a reference sample for Mitchell.”
She hesitated a moment. Then, “I can look into it.”
“Sheriff.”
The kiwi eyes met mine.
“This may be bigger than Jeremiah Mitchell.”
Three hours later Boyd and I were crossing Little Rock Road, heading
north on 1-85. The Charlotte skyline rose in the distance, like a stand of saguaro in the Sonoran
Desert.
I pointed the highlights out to Boyd. The giant phallus of the Bank of
America Corporate Center. The syringe like office building on The Square housing the Charlotte
City Club, with its circular green cap of a roof and antenna sticking straight up from the
center. The jukebox contour of One First Union Center.
“Look at that, boy. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.”
Boyd raised his ears but said nothing.
While Charlotte’s neighborhoods may be small-town cozy, its downtown is
a city of polished stone and tinted glass, and its attitude toward crime is all courant. The
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is housed in the Law Enforcement Center, an enormous
concrete structure at Fourth and Mcdowell. The CMPD employs approximately 1,900 officers and 400
un sworn support personnel, and maintains its own crime laboratory, second only to that of the
SBI. Not bad for a populace of less than 600,000.
Exiting the expressway, I cut across downtown and pulled into the
visitors’ lot at the LEG.
Officers entered and left the building, each uniformed in deep
blue.
Boyd growled softly as one crossed close to the car.
“See the emblem on the shoulder patch? It’s a hornet’s nest.”
Boyd made a yodel-like noise but kept his nose at the window.
“During the Revolutionary War, General Cornwallis encountered such
pockets of intense resistance in Charlotte that he branded the area a hornet’s nest.”
No comment.
“I have to go inside, Boyd. You can’t.”
Disagreeing, Boyd stood.
I promised to be gone less than an hour, gave him my last emergency
granola bar, cracked the windows, and left him.
I found Ron Gillman in his corner office on the fourth floor.
Ron was a tall, silver-haired man with a body that suggested basketball
or tennis. The only blemish was a Lauren Hutton gap in his upper dentition.
He listened without interrupting as I told him my theory about Mitchell
and the foot. When I’d finished, he held out a hand.
“Let’s see it.”
He slipped on horn-rimmed glasses and studied the fragment, rolling the
vial from side to side. Then he picked up the phone and spoke to someone in the DNA section.
“Things move faster if the request comes from here,” he said, replacing
the receiver.
“Fast would be good,” I said.
“I’ve already checked on your bone sample. That’s done, and the
profile’s gone into the database we set up for the crash victims. If we get results on this” he
indicated the vial “we’ll feed them in and search for a hit.”
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
He leaned back and placed his hands behind his head.
“You really put your finger in someone’s eye, Dr. Brennan.”
“Guess I did.”
“Any thoughts as to whose?”
“Parker Davenport.”
“The lieutenant governor?”
“That’s the one.”
“How did you rile Davenport?”
I turned palms up and shrugged.
“It’s hard to help if you’re not forthcoming.”
I stared at him, torn. I’d shared my theory with Lucy Crowe. But that
was Swain County. This was home. Ron Gillman directed the second largest crime lab in the state.
While the force was funded locally, money came to it via federal grants administered in
Raleigh.
Like the ME. Like the university.
What the hell.
I gave him a condensed version of what I’d told Lucy Crowe.
“So you think the M. P Veckhoff on your list is state senator Pat
Veckhoff from Charlotte?”
I nodded.
“And that Pat Veckhoff and Parker Davenport are tied together in
someway?”
Another nod.
“Davenport and Veckhoff. The lieutenant governor and a state
senator.
That’s heavy.“
“Henry Preston was a judge.”
“What’s the link?”
Before I could answer, a man appeared in the doorway, the name
“Krueger”
embroidered above the pocket of his lab coat. Gillman introduced
Krueger as the technical leader of the DNA section. He, along with another analyst, examined all
DNA evidence at the lab. I rose and we shook hands.
Gillman handed Krueger the vial and explained what I wanted.
“If there’s something there, we’ll get it,” he said, giving a thumbs-up
gesture.
“How long?”
“We’ll have to purify, amplify, document all along the way. I might be
able to give you a verbal in four or five days.”
“That would be great.” Forty-eight hours would be great, I thought.
Krueger and I signed evidence transfer forms, and he disappeared with
the specimen. I waited as Gillman took a call. When he hung up, I asked a question.
“Did you know Pat Veckhoff?”
“No.”
“Parker Davenport?”
“I’ve met him.”
“And?”
“He’s popular. People vote for him.”
“And?”
“He’s a royal pain in the ass.”
I produced the Tramper funeral photo.
“That’s him. But it was a long time ago.”
“Yes.”
He handed back the picture.
“So what’s your explanation for all this?”
“I don’t have one.”
“But you will.”
“But I will.”
“Can I help?”
“There is something you can do for me.”
I found Boyd curled in granola crumbs, sound asleep. At the sound of
the key, he shot to his feet and barked. Realizing this was not a sneak attack, he placed one
forepaw on each front seat and wagged his hips. I slid behind the wheel, and he began removing
makeup from the side of my face.
Forty minutes later I pulled up at the address Gillman had found for
me.
Though the residence was only ten minutes from downtown, and five
minutes from my condo at Sharon Hall, it had taken that long to work through my usual Queens Road
confusion.
Charlotte’s street names reflect its schizo id personality. On the one
hand the street-naming approach was simple: They found a winner and stuck with it. The city has
Queens Road, Queens Road West, and Queens Road East. Sharon Road, Sharon Lane, Sharon Amity,
Sharon View, and Sharon Avenue. I’ve sat at the intersection of Rca Road and Rca Road, Park Road
and Park Road. There was also a biblical influence: Providence Road, Carmel Road, Sardis
Road.
On the other hand, no appellation seemed adequate for more than a few
miles. Streets change names with whimsy. Tyvola becomes Fairview, then Sardis. At one point
Providence Road reaches an intersection at which a hard right keeps one on Providence; going
straight places one on Queens Road, which immediately becomes Morehead; and going left puts one
on Queens Road, which immediately becomes Selwyn. The Billy Graham Parkway begets Wood-lawn, then
Runnymede. Wendover gives rise to Eastway.
The Queens sisters are the most evil by far. I give visitors and
newcomers one driving rule of thumb: If you get onto anything named Queens, get off. The policy
has always worked for me.
Marion Veckhoff lived in a large stone Tudor on Queens Road East. The
stucco was cream, the woodwork dark, and each downstairs window was a latticework of lead and
glass. A neatly trimmed hedge bordered the property, and brightly colored flowers crowded beds
along the front and sides of the house. A pair of enormous magnolias all but filled the front
yard.
A lady in pearls, pumps, and a turquoise pantsuit was watering pansies
along a walk bisecting the front lawn. Her skin was pale, her hair the color of ginger ale.
With a warning to Boyd, I got out and locked the door. I shouted, but
the woman seemed oblivious to my presence.
“Mrs. Veckhoff?” I repeated as I drew close.
She spun, spraying my feet with her hose. Her hand jerked, and the
water was redirected onto the grass.
“Oh, dear. Oh, my. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s no problem at all.” I stepped back from the water puddling the
flagstone. “Are you Mrs. Veckhoff?”
“Yes, dear. You’re Carla’s niece?”
“No, ma’am. I’m Dr. Brennan.”
Her eyes went slightly out of focus, as if consulting a calendar
somewhere over my shoulder.
“Did I forget an appointment?”
“No, Mrs. Veckhoff. I wondered if I might ask you a few questions about
your husband.”
She recentered on me.
“Pat was a state senator for sixteen years. Are you a reporter?”
“No, I’m not. Four terms is quite an achievement.”
“Being in public office took him away from home too much, but he loved
it.”
“Where did he travel?”
“Raleigh, mostly.”
“Did he ever visit Bryson City?”
“Where’s that, dear?”
“It’s in the mountains.”
“Oh, Pat loved the mountains, went there whenever he could.”
“Did you travel with your husband?”
“Oh no, no. I have the arthritis, and… ” Her voice trailed off, as
though uncertain where to go with the thought.
“Arthritis can be very painful.”
“Yes, it surely is. And those trips were really Pat’s time with the
boys. Do you mind if I finish my watering?”
“Please.”
I walked beside her as she moved along the pansy beds.
“Mr. Veckhoff went to the mountains with your sons?”
“Oh, no. Pat and I have a daughter. She’s married now. He went with his
chums.” She laughed, a sound halfway between a choke and a hiccup.
“He said it was to get away from his women, to put the fire back into
his belly.”
“He went to the mountains with other men?”
“Those boys were very close, been friends since their school days. They
miss Pat terribly. Kendall, too. Yes, we’re getting old… ” Again her voice tapered into
silence.
“Kendall?”
“Kendall Rollins. He was the first to go. Kendall was a poet. Do you
know his work?”
I shook my head, outwardly calm. Inside my heart was thumping. The name
“Rollins” was on the H&F list.
“Kendall died of leukemia when he was fifty-five.”
“That’s very young. When was that, ma’am?”
“Nineteen eighty-six.”
“Where did your husband and his friends stay in the mountains?”
Her face tensed, and the comma of skin under her left eye jumped.
“They had some kind of lodge. Why are you asking about all this?”
“A plane crashed recently near Bryson City, and I’m trying to learn
what I can about a nearby property. Your husband might have been one of the owners.”
“That terrible affair with all those students?”
“Yes.”
“Why do young people have to die? A young man was killed flying to my
husband’s funeral. Forty-three years old.” Her head wagged.
“Who was that, ma’am?”
She looked away.
“He was the son of one of Pat’s friends, lived in Alabama, so I’d never
met him. Still, it broke my heart.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No.”
Her eyes would not meet mine.
“Do you know the names of the others who went to the lodge?”
She began fidgeting with the nozzle.
“Mrs..Veckhoff?”
“Pat never talked about those trips. I left it to him. He needed
privacy, being in the public eye so much.”
“Have you ever heard of the H&F Investment Group?”
“No.” She remained focused on the hose, her back to me, but I could see
tension in her shoulders.
“Mrs. Veck ”
“It’s late. I have to go inside now.”
“I’d like to find out if your husband had an interest in that
property.”
Twisting off the spray, she dropped the hose and hurried up the
walk.
“Thanks for your time, ma’am. I’m sorry to have kept you so long.”
She turned with the door half open, one veiny hand on the knob. From
inside the house came the soft bong of Westminster chimes.
“Pat always said I talk too much. I denied it, told him I was just the
friendly type. Now I think he was probably right. But it gets lonely being by yourself.”
The door closed, and I heard a bolt slide into place.
It’s O. K.“ Mrs. Veckhoff. Your answers were bullshit, but they were
charming bullshit. And very informative.
I dug a card from my purse, wrote my home address and number on it, and
stuck it into the doorjamb.
IT WAS PAST EIGHT WHEN MY FIRST VISITOR ARRIVED.
After leaving Mrs. Veckhoff, I’d bought a rotisserie chicken at the
Roasting Company, then collected Birdie from my neighbor. The three of us had shared the fowl,
Bird’s tail fluffing like a feather duster each time Boyd moved in his direction. I was scraping
plates at the sink when I heard the knock.
