Madeline Mann (12 page)

“Great. I have to run to the office after I gather some information here, but I'll meet you two at about noon, okay?” I asked. My mother nodded curtly; Pamela gave me a thumbs-up and glided into the accounts payable department with a pile of papers I assumed were invoices. The heels of her plum-colored shoes were at least two inches high.

I shook my head and turned back to my mother. “Mom, how do I find out who signed out the company cars this weekend?”

She pointed at a book on a side table. “Look in there. The date is on the right, then the name and nature of the trip. What is it that you're looking for?” she asked, her curiosity overriding her huff.

“Oh, just in general,” I murmured, letting my voice taper off as I walked across the floor. The book looked like a guest book at a wedding. Its cover was white satin, and the pages were heavy card stock. I wondered if Pamela had picked this up at some sort of bridal outlet store.

I flipped it open and noted some of the entries. Most of the trips seemed to have been made by Lyle, but occasionally I saw my mother's, Blanche's, and Pamela's names for various short trips around town. I saw the names, too, of some other employees who I didn't know. The nature of business varied from “Shopping for party favors” to “Business lunch.” The last page bore only two entries; neither was from the previous weekend.

Although I was disappointed, I wasn't surprised. A murderer wasn't likely to write his name in the ledger with the addendum “To kill Logan Lanford.”

On a whim, I flipped back to August and saw that Logan's name was listed several times as a driver. So Logan would obviously have recognized the car if he saw it in the parking lot at White Hen.

I turned back to the room in time to see Mayor Paul, who until now had been speaking with Lyle Sylvane in a corner of the loft, entering his office. “Mayor Paul,” I called. “I'd like to get that comment from you now.”

“We'll be more than glad to help you with anything you wish, Madeline,” said Mayor Paul with a toothy grin. “In fact, I'll just refer you to Lyle here, and he can give you a comment on behalf of city hall and answer any questions you might have.” I narrowed my eyes, and he added, “I'd love to help you myself, hon, but I have a telephone conference at eight o'clock.” He looked importantly at his watch and shrugged at me with apologetic helplessness, whereupon he disappeared into his plush oasis of an office.

It was the word “hon” that put the final nail in Mayor Paul's coffin. I hated condescension from anyone, especially a man. Most especially a man who was Mayor Don Paul.

Lyle was watching me expectantly, smug as a spider with prey in its web. I forced a smile and strolled toward him. “Well, that's great that you have time for me, Lyle. I just remembered, though, that I need to make a phone call.”

Lyle made an expansive gesture toward his desk. He wore three rings on his right hand. Again, yuck. “Use my phone, Maddy.”

“I prefer Madeline,” I said coldly. I stole a look at my mother and was surprised to find a rare look of approval on her face. I turned back to Lyle. “And it's a long-distance call. To Saugatuck, Michigan. Ever been there, Lyle?” I asked.

Lyle looked a bit nervous, but that in itself wasn't evidence, since what my mother referred to as the “healthy sheen” of Lyle always looked—to me—like the slightly sweaty appearance of a guilty person. His hands fell back to his sides. “I probably been there a coupla times,” he said. His language seemed to be deteriorating. I pictured Don Paul as a Webley version of Henry Higgins, who had pulled Lyle out of a slum and polished him into a suit-wearing, ring-flashing PR man. “Not lately, though,” added Lyle. “I guess the mayor probably doesn't want you using this phone for that, although…” His eyes darted nervously to the mayor's door.

I could have asked for someone's cell phone, but I wanted to talk to Wick in the privacy of my office back at the
Wire
. “That's okay. I'll go make my call, do a little work, and I'll be back with a fresh batch of questions for you, Lyle.” I gave him a steely glance with my professional smile and tried to look hard. It was difficult to try to intimidate Lyle while he was most likely assuming that I was flattered by his heavy-handed flirting; then again, if he was a murderer, he might feel extremely fidgety as the recipient of my “knowledgeable reporter” act. Time would tell for Lyle.

I waved to my mom, telling her I'd see her around noon, and trotted back toward the stairs. Blanche stared at me with open curiosity, still clutching the same closed file folder that she'd been holding when I arrived. The smell of smoke hung around her like an aura. I began to wonder if Pamela had to work so efficiently just in order to make up for Blanche's devotion to gossip and cigarette breaks. “See ya, Blanche,” I said as I passed her.

I began to hum “The Rain in Spain.” By the time I reached my car, I had moved on to “Just you wait, ’Enry ’Iggins, just you wait!”

eleven

The
Webley
Wire
’s
office used to be the private residence of a family called Peterson; at some point, an ambitious newspaperman named Angus Stepp bought it and started a one-man operation there, and it was eventually expanded to house the entire newspaper staff we had today: a whopping thirteen people.

The
Wire
is a weekly. It came out, at the time, on Wednesdays, which meant we had approximately one full day left to file our story on Logan Lanford. A girl named Vicki Jenkins was working on Logan's obituary. I had persuaded Bill Thorpe, our editor-in-chief, to let me pursue an investigative angle, and I'd given him enough information about the Webley link to arouse his curiosity. He had agreed to let me look into it, as long as I finished my other stories as well.

I navigated through the cramped headquarters that I called my place of employment. The first floor was made up of a lobby, which had once been a front hall; a series of offices, which had once been a living room, dining room, and rec room; and an employee lounge, which had once been the kitchen of the Peterson family.

Upstairs were a few more offices and our morgue, as well as a little tiny room from which Adelaide, our high school senior, did telephone solicitations. The
Wire
office, in Mayor Paul's cheery town literature, was referred to as “a charming example of what sets Webley apart.”

I did like the uniqueness of the place, although like everyone else who worked there, I enjoyed complaining about the drafty nature of the house and the thinness of the walls. My office was nothing to complain about. It was a large, sunny room filled with shelves of books and computer paraphernalia. It housed two desks: my own and Sally Watson's.

Sally covered the school beat and wrote the horoscopes and whatever else needed to be written on a weekly basis. She was fortyish, with dyed brown hair and an attractively plump body. She favored sequined sweaters and tight black pants, and they looked nice on her. Sally had a strong handshake and a no-nonsense manner. She and I had loved one another from the start.

The start, as I put it, was a quite accidental meeting with Bill Thorpe at a party. I'd entered college with the vague idea of being a writer and had majored in English at St. Fred's, along with about a hundred other aspiring writers. When I graduated, I was faced with the great humbler: I had to start paying my own bills, not to mention a hefty student loan. I hadn't been interested in teaching, fearing that I'd get a roomful of students like Fritz. I began reading books with titles like
Jobs for English Majors
and
Even English Majors Can Earn Big Bucks
, but the employment outlook seemed bleak. One night my friend Kathy Prescott took me to a party of a friend of hers I “had to meet,” hoping that she'd inspire a romance. The party-giver had bored me unutterably, but I'd met Bill and his wife, Rose, and Bill had been looking for a few good reporters.

Thanks to Bill's tutelage over the last five years, I felt I'd become a good newspaperwoman. I'd made friends too, in Bill, Rose, Sally, and several other coworkers.

Now Sally contemplated me from behind an oak desk that had belonged to Mr. Peterson himself, and noted, “Ya look like a cat who smells a mouse, babe. A blonde cat, at that. See what I miss when I take Friday off?”

“I dyed it Friday night, and it's more like I smell a rat.” I sat down at my own modest desk, not oak but metal (Sally had been with the paper longer), and reached for the phone. My hand hesitated as I noticed the amount of assignments I had spiked for the day. “I guess I better do the mundane stuff first,” I said aloud, reaching not for the phone but for my keyboard.

“On to somethin’ good, are ya?” Sally's lazy speech fooled no one in our office; we knew she was the sharpest knife in the drawer.

“I think so. I'll be needing your expertise before long, but first I need a little more information.”

“You had a message, by the way,” she said. “Someone named Kubik at the police department. Wants you to call back.”

I digested this for a moment. The name Kubik didn't ring a bell. I wondered if he wanted to make a statement for the paper, or if this was somehow related to my presence in Saugatuck when Logan was discovered. Not being a girl who can endure suspense, I looked up the number and dialed the Webley PD. A nasal woman answered and assured me that I would never get through to Detective Kubik. In reference to what was I calling?

“I'm returning his call,” I answered impatiently. “He left a message for me at my place of employment.”

“And you are?” she queried stiffly.

“Madeline Mann.”

“Oh—hang on.” She inexpertly muffled the phone and had a brief conversation with someone nearby. Soon she was back.

“Detective Kubik would like to see you at three o'clock today, if that's convenient,” she purred.

“In reference to what does he want to see me?” I asked, mimicking her poor grammar.

“I'm afraid I couldn't tell you that, ma'am,” she said.

Liar
, I thought moodily. I tapped my finger on the desk, going through my mental calendar. I needed to work here for about two hours, then return to city hall for lunch and more digging; I supposed I could go grocery shopping while I was downtown, so that I wouldn't have to drive back out for my unexpected police interview.

“I'll try,” I said, annoyed by the last-minute request. “If I can't do it, I'll call you back. Oh, hey, I have to take this call,” I lied, and broke the connection.

I summed it up for Sally, who raised her eyebrows. “That could be anything. But I think I've talked to that Kubik before. I won't comment until after you meet him. You can tell me what your impression was. Your reporter's instincts, or those vibes you're so proud of.”

I agreed, and we spent the next two hours working in a companionable silence, broken occasionally for a comment on the respective articles we were writing or a request about grammar or style.

Finally Sally left on an errand and I could resist the phone no longer. I pulled Wick's business card out of my wallet. The numbers of both inns were listed, as was the number for Wick's cellular phone, which Jamie had been reluctant to dial when Logan disappeared. I thought for a moment. I couldn't believe he'd be working today, so there seemed no point in dialing the inns. I dialed the cell phone, making a note of the number on a Rolodex card while I listened to the phone ring.

“This is Wick Lanford.”

He sounded brusque and businesslike, as if all the charm Jack and I had experienced had been dried up by grief. “Wick, this is Madeline Mann. How are you holding up today?”

Wick sighed. “I'm taking it a step at a time, Madeline, a step at a time. I'm afraid I can't tell you funeral arrangements yet. I'm still in, uh—negotiations, I guess you'd call them—with my ex, Maggie, and with Jamie. We all want basically the same things, but we need to get our acts together.” He sounded tired, as though these plans might have kept him up much of the night. Of course, there were other things that might have made him sleepless.

“That's not actually why I called,” I told him.

“Oh?” He sounded weary.

“Wick, when I saw you in the restaurant, you asked me if my mother had sent me. At the time, I didn't know why, and I was speechless. Now I'm wondering—did you ask me that because my mother works in the mayor's office?”

Silence. I waited for half a minute and began to think that Wick had fallen asleep.

“Wick?”

“Why do you ask that, Madeline?” he said in a strained voice.

“Because I think that someone in Webley killed Logan. I think they followed him out there and killed him, and my hunch is that it's related to his firing from city hall. I'll tell you right now I have very little evidence to back up this assumption,” I said frankly.

“But you have something,” Wick said. Some animation had returned to his voice.

“I don't know. But I think you might have information for me, or for the police. Was Logan running from someone in Don Paul's employ? From Don Paul, even?”

“Logan came out here because he figured he'd take a little vacation. He said he was pursuing his ‘treasure chest,’” said Wick bitterly.

“So there's nothing—”

“But he did mention to me that he was glad to be out of town, because things were getting sort of hot for him regarding something, uh…” He paused, apparently uncertain how much he wanted to share. “I don't know if I want this to go any further, Madeline. As of yet I have not told the police.”

“I'm planning to look into it one way or another. Maybe you'd like to share your information with me, and I can ask some questions for you.” I tried to sound noncommittal, implying that whatever he decided was okay by me. What I really wanted was to scream in his ear.

“Logan told me he had something on the mayor,” Wick said, with part reluctance and part relief. “That he was fired because of it. And lately I guess they'd been kind of…hounding him, sort of warning him off.”

“What is it that he ‘had on the mayor’?” I asked.

“He didn't say, and I didn't ask. I'm not exactly proud of everything that Logan has done. I sensed that he might have come on somethin’ by dishonest means, and I wasn't sure I wanted that information. What he told me was that he wasn't too worried, because he was covered, whatever that meant.”