FrostLine (11 page)

“He is pissing you off.”

“Yes sir.”

“You've probably threatened to take him outside.”

“It's heading that way, sir. Yes.”

“I asked him to have a word with you.”

I was surprised. It put Bud Smyth in a much better light than I'd seen him so far.

“This thing is local, sir.”

“I'm glad to hear it. Explain the details to the fellow who's annoying you and send him back.”

“Yes, sir.”

The phone died in my hand. I hung it up, contemplating that someone very, very highly placed was worried about Henry King.

“The Captain has vouched for you,” I said to Smyth.

“Admiral. He's been promoted. Tell me about Butler, Senior.”

“I met Mr. Butler a couple of times when I was a kid. We had our longest conversation last March when Mr. King asked me to speak to him on his behalf, which I assume you already know.”

“Go on.”

“We had another conversation half an hour after the dam blew. I told him Dicky was dead.”

“Do you think he put Dicky up to it?”

“In my opinion, if Mr. Butler wanted that dam blown he'd have blown it himself. He was Special Forces in Vietnam.”

Smyth nodded impatiently. He knew that, of course.

“And he's a licensed pyrotechnician. He could have done it on his own, if he wanted to.”

“Therefore?”

“Therefore he didn't put Dicky up to it. Conversely, if Dicky wanted to blow the dam, he would have done it without any encouragement from his dad.”

“So you think Dicky did it.”

I started to agree that it certainly looked that way. But I wanted to learn something, so I said, instead, “I was talking to an ATF agent earlier.”

Smyth made a face.

“He said that the explosion looked like a really professional job.”

“I was talking to one who said it was a simple fuse a farmer could have lit.”

“The agent I talked to said it's more than how you light it, it's where you put it. Apparently it was well-placed. So if it wasn't simple, where the hell did Dicky Butler learn that?”

“That's what I'm wondering.”

“What's your guess?”

“I'm not paid to guess, Mr. Abbott,” said the pompous ass. “Henry King is an American asset overseas. Makes his safety at home a matter of national security. Which is why I'm curious how Dicky Butler learned to blow dams.”

“The guy's life is an open book. Spent most of it in state prisons. Shouldn't be hard to trace his movements, such as they were. And his contacts. You'd be better talking to his wardens than a real estate agent.”

“The Admiral said I could trust your take.”

“I already told him my take. This is local. A traditional Yankee land feud that got out of hand. Tell him I'll do anything I can to help, but unless the various investigations turn up something not obvious—like it was detonated by satellite—Henry King and national security have nothing more to fear in Newbury…”

“Except what?”

A miserable thought had occurred to me.

“…Except if Dicky's father takes it into his head to blame King for his son's death.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“On the other hand,” I said, “King's got good security.”

“Sure did wonders for his lake.”

“Maybe the Secret Service should leave a couple of agents around a while 'til things calm down.”

Smyth gave me a funny look and for a second I thought he was going to tell me something important. But all he did was shrug. “Let me leave a telephone number, Ben, case anything comes up you want to talk.”

He offered his hand and headed for the door. “Nice little town you got here.”

“How you happen to know the Admiral?”

“I was one of his boys. After your time.”

“How did you end up in the spooks?”

“Knew somebody.”

Sounded to me like the Admiral had infiltrated the CIA.

***

Late that afternoon, despite all my visitors, I actually sold a house. It was a sweet little cape in the borough, a starter home for a couple of young teachers at Newbury Prep. They were happy; they could walk to work. The seller was happy; she could move into a retirement condo at Heritage Village. I was happy, too, gratified that I could negotiate a deal that didn't end in people lobbing dynamite.

I did my paperwork and walked it over to Tim Hall's mail slot and Newbury Saving's night box. Walking home, with Alison Mealy bike-riding circles around me, it occurred to me that she was about the age Dicky Butler had been when he got himself committed to Manson.

I noticed there were still government cars in the Yankee Drover parking lot. The joint was jumpin' with a summer Sunday night crowd clumped around pitchers of beer. The juke box played Faith Hill, at a volume that encouraged conversation. A wide-screen TV with the sound off showed the Red Sox clinching the second loss of their doubleheader.

The Feds looked too busy trying to get lucky with maidens of the town to welcome being pumped for information that might discourage Sergeants Marian and Arnie from persecuting Mr. Butler. I looked for Vicky, thinking she could smile us both into their midst. Friends said they hadn't seen her. I flashed on her and Tim at a candlelit dinner in her cottage behind the Congregational Church.

I took the last empty barstool. The guy to my left was nose to nose with his girlfriend. To my right sat Julia Devlin, sleek as a cat in moonlight.

Chapter 10

Her hair was swept back, gleaming like onyx, highlighting a profile that could have revived the American shipbuilding industry. She was wearing black leggings and a black sleeveless top. Muscle rippled under her smooth skin. She had hooked the heels of her laced half-boots over the rung of the barstool and she was drinking Rolling Rock from the bottle.

“Hello, Mr. Abbott. I'm sorry about your friend.”

I didn't want to talk about Dicky Butler. So I said, “Thanks. He wasn't exactly a friend. Sorry about your lake.”

“It wasn't my lake.”

“I'll bet it hasn't made your boss any easier to live with.”

She shrugged.

“Can I buy you a cold one? I'm sort of celebrating. I just sold a house.”

“Congratulations. Sure, I'd have one more. Thanks.”

She had a faint accent. It sounded a little Brooklyn, but not quite. It had another softer sounding layer that I couldn't place.

“I'm going to have a burger, are you hungry?”

“I've eaten, thanks.”

I ordered a Rolling Rock for her, and a Red Stripe and a medium hamburger for me. We clinked bottles when the beers came and then I asked, “How's the boss taking it?”

“He's sad.”

“Yeah, I gathered he really loves that place.”

“I feel so bad for him. I'd rather he was angry. He's easier to deal with angry.”

I asked how long she had worked for him. Six years.

“I guess you take a lot of flak.”

She bristled. “He doesn't mean anything when he yells. He's under tremendous pressure. He works so hard. Most of his contemporaries are golfing around the lecture circuit, but Henry just won't stop. He's really easygoing, once you get to know him.”

I make it a policy not to argue with beautiful women I'm trying to get to know better. But there are limits. “Nothing in that dumb land feud led me to think of Henry King as easygoing. If he were, he'd have made peace with old man Butler.”

“No,” she said, fiercely. “You don't understand him. That house is like his
child.
He's never had children. To violate Fox Trot was to attack him deep in, in, in his soul. I'm sorry, I don't think you read him right, Ben. Not at all. He is a good and gentle man.”

She took a slug of her beer and stared moodily at the bottle.

I decided to get off the subject of her good and gentle boss. “Did the explosion get in the way of his ceramic engine deal?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Party talk. I gathered he's brokering something big.”

She gave me a smile. “Do I hear an old Wall Street warhorse neighing?”

“No way. But it did sound big.”

“It could be.”

“Lousy timing.”

“He's had better weekends,” she agreed. “But if you want to understand him, Ben, you have to know that seeing his beautiful lake destroyed really broke his heart.”

“It's fixable. Mr. Butler can't get his son back.”

“I'm not saying it's comparable. Neither would Henry. But it's not like Henry did it to him.”

“Is that proven?”

“Is what proven?”

“That Dicky blew the dam.”

“Of course he blew the dam.”

“I mean, have the Federal investigators worked out the details?”

“Unofficially—between you, me and the lamppost—this afternoon the ATF traced the dynamite to a batch bought from the Pendleton Powder Company down in Brookfield.”

“That was fast.”

“Priority Red, or whatever they call it.”

“Did Mr. Butler buy the dynamite?”

“I hear he signed for it.”

It was my turn to stare moodily into a beer bottle. Sergeants Marian and Arnie would jump on that bill of sale like wolves on sirloin. “And Dicky stole it?” I asked, hoping Mr. Butler hadn't been stupid enough to blow King's dam with dynamite traceable to him.

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“Maybe we change the subject?”

“I'm just wondering is the assumption that Dicky stole it from his father?”

“I don't know and I don't care.” She reached for her bag.

I said, “Sorry. I'll bet you've had enough of this.”

“Enough to want a quiet beer a long ways from Fox Trot.”

“Understood. Stay. We'll drop it.”

Her hand wavered. Finally, she picked up her bottle. “…So what's your story?”

“Me?”

“Who's Ben Abbott?”

“Pretty much who you heard when you asked around for Mr. King.”

“Excuse me?”

“Last March. King told me he'd heard that I was, quote, a pisser. It was probably your job to get that quote.”

Julia Devlin returned a teasing grin. “Oh, right. Let me see….Small town first selectman's son, Annapolis, ONI, Wall Street, Leavenworth Penitentiary, small town real estate, first selectman's occasional lover….Any blanks?”

“Yes. Why'd you pretend you didn't recognize me at the gate yesterday?”

“I thought you were coming on to me.”

“You should see me when I'm not subtle.”

“Oh, you were subtle. At least you had me guessing.”

“Suppose I was?”

“I didn't want to encourage you.”

“Is your heart spoken for?”

She smiled again. “That's a nice way of saying it.”

“Is it?”

“Let's just say I didn't need guys coming on to me.”

No surprise she was sleeping with the boss. Her eyes sparkled every time she said his name.

My hamburger came. Julia accepted my offer of a French fry and dipped several in ketchup. She ordered us a round of beers, surveyed the room in the bar mirror, and asked, “Is this your local?”

“Two doors from my house. A very convenient crawl home.”

“That's great. The thing I hate about the country, you can't drink and drive.”

“Consider my guest room yours anytime.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Where you from? Grow up in the city?”

“New York? No. My parents were divorced. I moved back and forth between New Orleans and Honduras.”

New Orleans. That explained her accent and bolstered a theory I've always liked that the famous Brooklyn accent was brought there by refugees from a New Orleans yellow fever epidemic.

“My Momma's from New Orleans. Daddy's Honduran.”

“Devlin?”

“Granddaddy was Irish.”

“That's some mix. Who do you take after?”

“Momma, mostly. I guess. She's French. Daddy's kind of fair. I got his eyes.”

I was working hard at subtle. Otherwise I'd have observed aloud that she had inherited the best features of both sides. Daddy's blue eyes. Momma's raven hair and olive skin. Granddaddy's stunning body? “I'll bet they're proud you're working for Henry King.”

“Daddy's proud. Momma wants me to get married. It's incredible. Like she's spent her life waiting on Daddy's support checks and she still thinks I should get married. I tell her, no way, Momma, I'm ever going to depend on a man.”

“And that sends her up the wall.”

“Like, she thinks I'm
criticizing
her.”

Talk of home made Julia look and sound younger than what I had assumed were her late-middle thirties, and I realized that her manner and bearing were seasoned beyond her years by serving a powerhouse like King.

“I go, ‘Momma, I'm gonna pay my own way.' She goes, ‘There's more to life than paying bills.' I
love
paying my bills.”

“You do?”

“Yes! Twice a month I set aside special time to clear my desk and open all the envelopes and throw out the junk mail and put them in categories? You should try it. It's like a ritual. I close my door and turn off the phone. And no on-line banking for me, thank you very much. I write the checks myself with my favorite fountain pen.”

“Your Mont Blanc Meisterstuck?”

“How'd you know what kind of pen?”

“It was on the video.”

“What?”

“The A&E bio.”

“Oh, right. The bio. The director loved that. Anyway, Henry gave it to me—well, actually, he gave one to everybody.”

“Does he do that a lot?”

“Usually I buy staff gifts, but he bought the pens himself. That's why I say he gave it to me, because he surprised me.”

“You really like him, don't you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“You get all excited when you talk about him.”

“He's a very exciting man to work for. You wouldn't believe how we're at the center of
every
thing. And the people who trust him for the most important things.”

She gazed into the back bar mirror, contemplating the miracle. I said, “There's something I've never understood about Henry King. He's the world's greatest diplomat, the superstatesman. But he's not very diplomatic.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I think of ‘diplomat,' I think of someone like Bertram Wills.”

“Bertram Wills?” Julia snorted, exposing the Fox Trot pecking order. “He's a joke.”

“Well, King keeps him around for something, doesn't he?”

Julia backpedaled from her undisguised contempt. “Bert's a good front man. He fills in when Henry can't appear personally.”

For the B clients, one would imagine. “Well that's what I meant. Bertram Wills looks and acts like a diplomat. Smooth and charming and diffident. He doesn't offend. He's ‘diplomatic.' Whereas Henry—”

“Henry King was not a ‘diplomat.' He held the scepter.”

“Beg pardon?”

“He was a warrior.”

I looked at her. She looked back and repeated, “A warrior. He understood that he wielded the might of the American empire….He was a ‘superstatesman' because he knew that when Henry King stepped off Air Force One, he spoke for a nation that could deliver nuclear rockets in half an hour….I think I'm talking too much.”

Sounded like Henry King pillow talk. “You're safe,” I assured her. “I hold barroom confidences sacred. Tell me, if Bertram Wills serves as a good front man, what does Josh Wiggens do?”

“Josh consults on security,” she replied, with a distinct iciness that hinted at something personal.

“I kind of liked
Mrs.
King.”

“Don't get me started.”

“Oh, come on. Private gossip is one of the great pleasures.”

“Private gossip?”

“Barroom confidences?”

“Excuse me, a minute.”

She strode purposefully to the jukebox and spent some time there. Boy, could she play a jukebox. Mostly old stuff I hadn't heard in years. We listened quietly for awhile, speaking only to order new beers.

Melissa's moody “Shriner's Park” was among the more light-hearted she chose. Shawn Colvin cheered things up with “Killing the Blues,” and “One Cool Remove.” And just in case Petrie and Callahan's “The Dimming of the Day” hadn't put a stake in the heart of the evening, Whitney Houston's kiss-off song to Kevin Costner had taciturn ironmen pouring their hearts out to women who'd been about to tell the bozos to start sleeping in their trucks.

“Do you really want to know about Mrs. King Incorporated?” said Julia.

“I liked her.”

“Let me put it this way: if you owned a television station and Henry King told you his wife gave great interview you just might find a slot for her.”

“Is there a thing between her and Bertram Wills?”

Julia looked at me sharply. “You've got a good eye.”

“I thought I caught an adoring look.”

“Bert's or hers?”

“Bert's. She was very careful. Except once, when King yelled at her.”

“Yes, I noticed that too.”

“Does King know?”

Julia's shrug couldn't begin to conceal her delight that Bert Wills had shanghaied her lover's wife.

Henry King and Julia Devlin.

Bertram Wills and Mrs. King.

Josh Wiggens and God-knew-what.

I can't say I was surprised by Fox Trot's hot sheet permutations. King, the only
arriviste
in the multi-menage, seemed to have embraced—as enthusiastically as polo and buying land to the horizon—a grand old uppercrust WASP love-affairs tradition of the sort revealed in biographies a generation after the celebrants have gone to their reward. The logistics, daunting to the middle class, were made manageable by constant travel, multiple homes, and the privacy of mansions. All it took was money and enthusiasm.

Julia eased me back to the earlier subject. “Actually, her television show is an asset. We can get people on that help us. No one dares say no.”

“Is King really still that powerful? I mean he doesn't hold that scepter anymore. He's just another well-connected business consultant.”

“Henry's more powerful than ever. I don't know of anyone on the planet who won't take his calls.”

“Except in Newbury.”

“That's the insanity of this whole mess. Here he's at the mercy of a struggling dairy farmer who happens to be his neighbor.”

“Beef,” I said. “Mostly beef. He's getting out of dairy. Too much work, lousy return. Damned hard to make milk alone.”

Julia peered dubiously down the neck of her bottle.

“If you want another, the guest room offer is legit. In fact, you can wander in anytime you want. The house is never locked.”

“You're trusting.”

“What are you going to steal from me? You already got a great pen.”

“You know what I mean. Do you have a burglar alarm?”

“That's all I need. Trooper Moody barging in with a shotgun for a false alarm.”

“Guns?”

“Locked up in the cellar. I've got little kids in and out.”

“You have children?”

“No, no, no. A little girl lives in the stablehand's apartment in the barn with her mother.”