Authors: Jeff Abbott
State Senator Lucinda Hubble kept a collection of heads on the top shelf in her study. Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush,
and Clinton represented the presidents; for the governors of Texas she had George W. Bush, Ann Richards, Mark White, Bill
Clements, and Dolph Briscoe. All grinned like decapitated clowns, rubbery skin sagging without bones. Their false-lipped mouths
gaped, caught between mirthful smile and slackened grimace. Lucinda also had one of herself, complete with trademark puffy
red hair and big azure-framed eyeglasses.
Whit had arrived ten minutes ago, a little past four. The housekeeper, a dour Vietnamese sparrow of a woman, told him Faith
was out, Lucinda was on the phone, and would he mind waiting in the senator’s study? Anything to eat or drink? she offered.
The kitchen and dining room tables creaked under the weight of the collected casseroles and salads and pies brought by neighbors
and churchwomen and by the Democratic power elite. But only a few mourners stood gathered, nodding with awkward sympathy.
He wondered if the truth about Pete was leaking, like a slow hiss from a balloon. Faith had stood him up, perhaps off conducting
damage control. What would people say to Lucinda? Sorry your son’s dead or sorry he turned out so badly? The Democrats in
the living room looked fretful. He followed the housekeeper and sat, studying the study.
Underneath the political gallery of plastic masks stood an old pinball machine themed
BIG SPENDER
, with a fat cat tossing bills to an admiring crowd of 1920s zoot
suiters and flappers. Prominently behind her desk were her framed nursing certificates, yellowing with age. On the wall hung
an array of photos: Lucinda Hubble with President Bush, with President Clinton, with Willie Nelson and Ann Richards, with
a steady parade of Texas celebrities. In each picture Lucinda gave a thumbs-up, as though marking another successful conquest.
Lucinda’s office was almost too relaxed for a politician.
Warm, friendly. Where the senator could meet with the common folk, show she was just a good old gal.
There were no pictures of her sons. A couple of Faith and Sam, both formal portraits, the kind given as Christmas gifts in
gold frames. Faith smiled, but only like she’d just passed a CPA exam. Sam looked like he’d wandered out of a National Honor
Society meeting, serious and bespectacled and boring. The perfect political grandson. Certainly the two sons had been failures
in that regard.
A small stereo sat in the corner, playing soft solo piano music. Whit wandered over to the stereo, picked up the CD’s jewel
box. Bach’s
Goldberg Variations,
played by Glenn Gould.
‘I find Bach a great comfort,’ Lucinda Hubble said from the doorway. She looked sunken and diminished. She wore a faded olive-green
cardigan and a pair of old khakis, as though she might be loafing in a library or tending winter pansies in her flowerbeds.
‘Hello, Senator,’ Whit said. ‘I’m so very sorry about Pete.’
‘Thank you, honey.’ She cleared her throat and dabbed her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief. ‘These wells have just about
run dry. I’m sorry to keep you waiting, but that was the governor and his wife on the phone.’ She said this with only the
slightest hint of superiority.
She came and stood by Whit, her fingers playing air
piano. ‘Do you hear Gould? He hums and breathes along as he plays. All that careful structure Gould builds, note by note,
each one a key brick in a musical house, each note, each rest, played to his own exactitude, but still he can’t contain the
passion he feels for the music.’ She switched the music off.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Whit said.
‘Pete hated classical music,’ she said. ‘He hated anything touched by beauty.’
Lucinda Hubble gestured at the chair on the other side of the desk, and he sat. She eased herself down into a heavy leather
armchair.
‘Your daddy’s already called, and he and Irina have brought us a lovely casserole. It’s something Russian and quite unpronounceable,
but I’m sure it’s delicious. So thoughtful. You thank them again for me, honey.’
‘Yes, ma’am, I will. And I won’t keep you long now. I just need to ask you some questions so I can make a determination on
cause of death.’
‘Of course.’ She placed her hands, palm down, on the expansive smooth teak of the desk.
He wondered if she knew about him and Faith. She had given no sign – no sly smile, no slight frown of disapproval.
He led with a suggestion for suicide. ‘How would you describe Pete’s state of mind in the past few weeks?’
‘Depressed,’ Lucinda said. ‘He felt he had wasted his life because of the … particular career he had chosen.’
‘You knew about the porn?’
Lucinda flinched at the word but nodded. ‘I found out a couple of years ago. I called Pete at his home. He was apparently
in the middle of shooting a film.’ She crumpled the handkerchief. ‘I could hear the women in the background. Laughing at me.
Hollering about which one would get to appear in a scene with my son first.’ She
touched at her blue eyeglasses. ‘Not what a mother ever wants to hear. I hung up. I told Faith. She already knew, she’d been
shielding my so-delicate feelings. I was devastated, of course. I didn’t speak to him again until he came back to town.’
‘I think the press will find out,’ Whit said quietly.
‘Not from me, they won’t. And if they find out from you or from Detective Salazar, or any member of either of your offices,
I will hath more fury than hell,’ Lucinda flared. ‘I can’t have Sam knowing about this. I just can’t.’
Not to mention the voters.
‘Do you think Velvet is going to stay quiet?’
‘I can’t control her.’
‘Did Pete say why he was coming home?’ Whit asked.
‘He said he no longer wished to pursue his acting career.’ Whit believed the words
adult films
or
dirty movies
or
skin flicks
were never going to pass her lips.
‘How did he plan on supporting himself?’
‘He didn’t say. I assumed he had savings, or could find legitimate work. He does know – knew – film production. Perhaps at
a television studio in Corpus Christi or with Jabez Jones’s outfit.’
‘How much contact did you have with Pete after he returned to Port Leo?’
‘An hour, here and there,’ Lucinda said. ‘The chill had gone deep for years.’ She sank slightly into the bulk of the cardigan.
‘And selfishly, I did not want to be disappointed by him again. Pete thrives on disappointing others. I was happy to see him,
but I wanted him to rehaul his life. I wasn’t willing to get too close until I thought he was sincere.’ Lucinda perceived
the reaction in Whit’s face. ‘Perhaps I sound harsh, but mothers are mortal, too.’
‘No, I know it must have been tough for you. He told you nothing of this Corey film he planned?’
‘I didn’t know one word until Faith told me this
morning. But I doubt Pete would have completed any real film. Bless his heart, he didn’t have the talent. The drive.’
‘I’m wondering why Pete chose Corey as a subject, after all these years.’
‘Penance, I suppose. He blamed himself for what happened to Corey.’
‘Why?’
‘Aren’t you the youngest of a whole passel of boys? Didn’t your brothers take care of you?’ She offered a wan smile.
‘Yeah, when they weren’t bossing me around or beating me up.’
Her smile faded. ‘Corey disappeared on a weekend when I was out of town on business. He vanished while he was on Pete’s watch,
so to speak. Pete never forgave himself.’ She shrugged. ‘I think he’s been killing himself, slowly, for a long time. When
certain people do wrong, they turn away from the world. Isolate themselves, slip on the hair shirt and self-destruct. It’s
why he went into porn, and I think it eroded every bit of self-respect he had.’ She looked at Whit hard. ‘I’ve always believed
you have to put your troubles behind you and soldier on.’
‘Maybe he came across new information about Corey’s disappearance. Like that Corey was still alive.’ It was a balloon to float.
The silence hung for nearly ten seconds. ‘I am certain Corey is dead.’
‘Why?’ Whit asked.
‘Because Corey would have contacted us if he was alive. He wouldn’t have let me suffer for all these years.’
‘Why did Corey run away from home?’
‘Don’t resurrect the other worst day of my life.’ For the first time she showed raw emotion, anger flaring her nostrils, her
cheeks reddening.
Whit waited. Lucinda dragged her fingernails through her mop of red hair and gave a pained sigh.
‘I will never be able to author a book on good mothering, Judge. Taxpayers are easier to corral than willful children. Corey
got involved with drinkers. Dopeheads. All to punish me for the time I was spending in Austin and the higher standards of
behavior I expected from my boys. After their daddy died I let them run wild, do what they wanted, but once I was elected,
they had to toe the line. It was not too much to ask of them. Pete tried, at least, but Corey slipped the leash like a wild
dog.’
‘I know. I remember him, you know.’
‘Yes. He would have been about your age, now, wouldn’t he?’ She pondered Whit’s face wistfully.
‘You don’t think he’s living happily on a commune in Montana or a farm in Virginia?’
‘Does that really happen with most missing teenagers, Judge?’ Lucinda asked with a touch of frost. ‘I’d be overwhelmed to
know Corey was in some idyllic retreat. Let me assure you the uncertainty of not knowing what happened to Corey is an ongoing
thorn in my heart.’
‘When was the last time you spoke to Pete, Senator?’ Whit asked.
‘A couple of days ago. I wanted him to come to dinner alone, but he wouldn’t come without Velvet. He declined the invitation,
told me he’d talk to me soon.’
‘I’m curious. How had you and Faith explained Pete’s absence to Sam?’
Lucinda smiled thinly. ‘We told him Pete worked in industrial films – you know, training tapes, corporate tapes for business
conventions. Sam accepted it. Pete never told him any different – it was part of the agreement for him to see Sam.’
‘Did Pete ever talk about a change in the custodial arrangement?’ Whit watched Lucinda’s face turn pale.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Pete was contemplating suing for custody of Sam.’
The silence filled the study until Lucinda leaned forward and her chair squeaked. ‘Judge, have you lost your mind? Be realistic.
How on earth would Pete stand a chance in a custody hearing?’
‘I don’t know,’ Whit said. ‘You tell me.’
‘He couldn’t have been serious. No family court would give Sam to Pete.’
‘Did he ever ask about joint custody, now that he was back?’
‘That would be an issue between him and Faith,’ she said sternly, and Whit thought,
Yeah, right, like you wouldn’t be all in the middle of that.
‘Last point,’ Whit said. ‘The boat Pete was staying on, it’s owned by a family suspected of being involved in a drug ring.
Y’all know anything about them?’
He could almost hear a political future boiling away in the room.
‘Most certainly not,’ Lucinda managed to say. ‘Pete’s friends were his friends, and his associates have nothing to do with
us. I would expect you would not leak that news to the press as well.’ A vein throbbed in the hollow of her throat.
‘So you didn’t try to find out who was giving him room and board when he came back?’
‘I don’t like what you’re implying, Judge.’ For the first time he saw anger storm in her eyes, her jaw set, her mouth narrow.
‘Sorry, but I find it hard to believe you just let him waltz back in the middle of an election and didn’t research his friends,
his benefactors, his purpose in being here.’
‘I can’t control what you believe. But I would be very careful as to what you imply to the world.’ He saw her
scrutinize him with new eyes. He was not being, he supposed, the easygoing Whit Mosley who liked to wander the beach and
never put two shakes into a job.
‘I’d like to speak to Sam.’
Her shoulders stiffened. ‘Of course. Assuming that his mother or I am present. He is a minor, after all.’
‘Of course. Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.’
‘But’ – she raised a finger – ‘I ask that you not discuss this custody idiocy with Sam.’
‘I can’t promise that. I’m sorry. I need to talk to him about any subject relevant to his father’s death.’
‘I won’t have you subjecting him to Velvet’s foolish notions. I’m assuming she’s the one claiming Pete wanted custody?’
‘Yes.’
‘A pathetic attempt to hurt us and I won’t permit it.’
Whit kept his voice mild, out of respect for her loss. ‘This is how it works. I interview him, and you or Faith can be there,
and if there’s nothing he can add, fine. Or I can call him as a witness at the inquest. Put him on the stand.’
Her fingertips worked along her palms, awkwardly kneading the flesh. ‘Why don’t you let me discuss it with his mother?’
‘That would be fine.’ Whit stood and offered his hand. She shook it, but the cozy neighborliness had evaporated.
He saw himself to the door, but before he left the Bach CD suddenly roared in the study, the icy cleanness of the notes as
loud as hammers.
In the late afternoon the teenagers – aimless, tans not faded from summer gold – were out in meager force. Two girls sat cross-legged
on an arc of crushed shells at one end of the beach. A boy waded in the gentle surf, black jeans neatly rolled up past thick
calves, dragging a
bamboo stick in the water, watching it cut a wake through the waves.
Claudia parked in the small, sand-smeared asphalt lot that fed off the old Bay Highway. From the lot she could see the whole,
nearly straight line of the beach that terminated on the south with several acres of wind-bent oaks, and the private fishing
pier on the north for Port Leo’s nursing home. The pier, she remembered, didn’t get much use, but two healthy-looking old
ladies, their faces shadowed by big, neon-colored sun hats (one magenta, one turquoise), stood on the pier, trolling simple
rigs with slack lines.