In This Rain (48 page)

“She was seeing someone new. And to prove she wasn’t mad, that she really wanted to stay friends, she told me who. So we’d share a secret. Like friends do.”

“But

” the mayor breathed. “But Walter

we all thought it was Walter.”

“It wasn’t Walter,” Don said. “You bastard, Westermann. It was you.”

Another frozen moment.

“Don?” Charlie said. “You knew this? Why didn’t you— ”

“What? Tell the police? Think how that would’ve looked! Think what we were in the middle of!”

“How it would have looked? What the hell difference does that make? The girl was dead!”

“It would have sunk you! Us going after Westermann at that point!”

“You got this long before any ‘point.’ ”

“But it didn’t matter until she was dead. By then your connection with Glybenhall was sucking you under. It would’ve looked like us creating a diversion, playing the race card, deflecting attention to a controversial black leader— Jesus, Charlie, you’d have been history before the eleven o’clock news!”

Charlie stared at his deputy mayor. “You kept quiet to protect my career?”

Don jacked a cigarette. “When Cole came to me with the chain setup, I steered him to Edgar. I hoped that would get Edgar caught without you being involved. When that didn’t work out

” He shrugged, didn’t meet Charlie’s eye.

“Oh, my God. You bought it, too,” Charlie said. “The horseshit I was selling. All the good I could do. You bought it.” He shook his head, told Don, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? Don’t you get it?”

“Get what?”

“If I’d dropped the dime, Montgomery wouldn’t have focused on Glybenhall for Jen’s murder. This bullshit with the chain in Corrington’s garden wouldn’t have happened. Corrington would be alive, probably Glybenhall and Lowry, too. Louise wouldn’t

This all would have been over weeks ago when it looked like it was over.”

“And Walter and Lowry would have gotten away with their whole goddamn scheme!”

“And you’d be on your way to Albany! You’d have stayed on top!”

On top, Charlie thought. His whole political life, he’d been on top. You’d think from on top you’d have the broadest view, but it didn’t turn out like that.

“I’m sorry,” Don said.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It— ”

“No. It really doesn’t.”

Westermann shifted his bulk like an earthquake, and stood. “Well, this here’s a touching scene, y’all apologizing to each other and talking about me like I wasn’t here, but I got to be running along. That thing”— he pointed to the paper in Charlie’s hand— “ain’t but the purest bull. I got no idea why this girl wanted to scandalize my name like that, but I never even met her. I do feel sorry for her, though. Sounds like she was a disturbed little thing. Don, I know you got no intention of making more trouble for Charlie, or yourself, by spreading groundless gossip. I know you’re planning on feeding that into the shredder directly.”

“I just want to know why you killed her,” Don said.

“I did not even know her.”

“Well, good,” Don said. “Then you have nothing to worry about. No forensic evidence in your house, your car. No credit card bills for romantic hideaways where someone will remember you and your little blonde girlfriend. No jewelry, no perfume. Shalimar, that’s what she wore. No calls to you in her phone records. What a relief.”

“Ridiculous,” Westermann sputtered. “And insulting as all get-out. You’re— ”

“That’s why you had the chain. That was the one thing Glybenhall said that was true: he had nothing to do with Jen’s death.”

Westermann’s eyes flicked from Charlie to Don. “Okay. Maybe I knew her. Maybe I even had a fling with her. Hard for any red-blooded man to resist a cute piece like that throwing herself at him. Surprised you was able to turn her down, Don. But it didn’t last long, me and her. And that chain, she gave it to me. As a going-away present, when she quit me.”

“Bullshit! She got that from her college sweetheart and never took it off for any man since. There’s— ”

“They were friends.” Charlie was shocked to hear his own voice, but it seemed to have something to say. “Ann Montgomery and Jen Eliot. Jen must have figured out Walter’s scheme to set Montgomery up. So Walter and Lowry needed her dead. Walter did have something to do with her death, Don. He told Edgar to kill her.”

“You think?” Don said. He turned back to Westermann. “Makes sense. And after that, Glybenhall blackmailed you into being part of his scheme.”

“I’m telling you, I didn’t— ”

“Oh, screw it. Let the cops and the DA figure it out.” Don ground out his cigarette. He headed for the phone on the sideboard, but Westermann stepped into his way. Charlie felt a sudden pressure drop like the one that stills birds and grasses before a storm.

“Don.” Westermann finally spoke, quietly, shaking his head. “Don, Don. And Charlie. I had no idea you were both so dumb.” Rocking on his heels, slipping his hands into his pockets, he looked for all the world like he was about to offer them some gem of down-home country wisdom. “Walter Glybenhall, criminal mastermind, forcing that buffoon Edgar Westermann into doing his dirty. That’s how you got this figured, right? You’re as big a pair of fools as they were. Glybenhall and Lowry? They didn’t dream that scheme up. They didn’t neither of ’em have the brains. I did.”

Charlie stared at the Borough President and marveled: Nothing sane ever happens in this room anymore.

“Yeah, me. Sorry-ass ol’ Edgar Westermann. See, Charlie, there you was, fixing to run for governor. Now, long as you was in the picture in the state of New York, doin’ the nasty with Walter Glybenhall and his high-rolling homeboys, Borough President was as far as Edgar Westermann was about to get. After all, last and only black mayor New York had was all Brooks Brothers and tennis racket. To lots of folks up in Harlem, he was a white man passing.

“So I said to myself, so what? Maybe politics ain’t all that. Maybe it’s time to retire. But how I’m gonna do that, on what I been paid, all my years as a dedicated public servant?”

Westermann, Charlie noted, had the street-talk valves wide open.

“Well, I ain’t got your connections, Charlie, but I got some eyes and ears. It came to my attention Walter Glybenhall was spending time in Harlem, staring through a ripped-up fence. Why? I wondered. So I did some snooping. Who owned that site, what they had in mind. Turned out the city owned it! Well, I thought, ain’t that the damndest thing?

“Whole thing you and Glybenhall was scheming wasn’t hard to figure out, Charlie. Him building up in the Bronx and all. Big question was, how was I gonna turn what you got goin’ to Edgar Westermann’s advantage?

“As I’m studying on this, damned if Ford Corrington don’t come to me with his plan for the site, see if he could drum up support. Now there was a boy who really did want to bury the hatchet, so we could show the world Harlem united.” He smiled and shook his head. “Well, I thought, this is tasty. Next step, a couple of glasses of gin with Glybenhall, and I got him believing Corrington’s in bed with you, Charlie. Good work, Westermann, I thought, and now what?

“And then one evening I’m drinking champagne with Glybenhall at some fundraiser, and he points out a tall blonde. ‘Drop-dead gorgeous,’ I say, and Glybenhall says he’s the one she wants to drop dead. Tells me a little about her, how they go way back, and I get a vision. An inspiration, Charlie. By God, it’s genius.

“Next morning I put in a call to Greg Lowry. I knew how pissed he was when you gave Shapiro his job— oh, come on, Charlie, you know it should’ve been his. All I did, I helped that seed grow. Fertilized it with some prime manure, if I do say so myself. But see how beautiful it was? I hit my ceiling because of blackness. Lowry hit his because of whiteness.

“I worked the whole thing out and explained it to them, because they wasn’t either of ’em too swift. How we was all gonna get rich in spite of the double-cross you was pulling on Glybenhall. As a matter of fact, because of it. Say what? You wasn’t? That made it even sweeter, Charlie, take my word.”

Westermann had been resting a cordial, professorial gaze on the mayor. Now he turned to Don Zalensky and sighed. “But it’s always a woman gets you in the end, ain’t it? We didn’t plan on no one getting killed, just enough accidents up in the Bronx that DOI would have to look into it. Hired Sonny O’Doul because we knew that would get Montgomery’s goat. All we wanted was for Montgomery to smear Glybenhall bad enough so he could turn around and sue. But when them bricks bashed poor Harriet Winston’s head in, Lowry panicked. Stupid s.o.b. called me at home, middle of the night. I told him to calm his ass down, move the schedule, bring Montgomery in right away.

“And damn if Jen didn’t hear me.”

He shook his head sadly.

“I did everything else right. Every screwup, everything we didn’t foresee, I came up with something, make the plan work even better. That shit with Glybenhall’s gun, after it got to be obvious we had to get rid of Kong

That was Lowry who did him, by the way. Lowry was our hands-on guy. Glybenhall, he used some of them germ-killing wipes every time he went to Harlem, even if he never got out of the car. I can’t truly say, Charlie, that it grieves me to see him dead.” Westermann sighed again. “No, I was damn good. Just that one mistake.”

“Killing Jen,” Don whispered.

Charlie was impressed that Don could talk at all; he felt completely paralyzed, himself.

Westermann’s eyebrows rose. “What? No, definitely not. That, I was just doing what I had to do. No, my only bad was, I kept the chain. But damn! She was so beautiful.”

A tree branch outside the window bounced as a bird landed on it. So apparently some things could move. It seemed Don could, too: after a long stare at Westermann, he headed once again for the phone. Once again, Westermann stepped in front of him, and from his pocket he pulled a small silver pistol.

Suddenly, Charlie was loose, free. “How the hell did you get that up here? The metal detector— my policy— ”

“Oh, Charlie! Of course I went through the damn thing, offensive as it is. The guards know I carry this. I’m President of the Borough of Manhattan, Charlie. It’s a dangerous job.”

Westermann didn’t move, Don didn’t move. Westermann’s pistol, pointed midway between Charlie and Don as though ready for either one, didn’t move.

Charlie did. He pushed back his chair and stood, starting toward Westermann. “Edgar, you can’t be planning to use that. Shooting the mayor and the deputy mayor in City Hall? You’d never make it to the door.”

“Wish I’d known how slow on the uptake you was all along, Charlie,” Westermann said. “Would’ve made my life a lot easier. Damn right I’m planning to use it.” He lifted the gun. Charlie was never sure he actually heard the shot. But for the rest of his life he remembered Westermann’s blood splashing crimson on the window, blocking out the green leaves beyond.

Heart’s Content

Joe walked onto the porch, watched the late-day breeze play with Ann’s golden hair. Watched her permit this, make no effort to smooth and order.

“You’re looking better,” he said as he sat.

“Than this morning?”

“Than ever.” When he kissed her, she tasted of spice, a promise of sweetness.

As they settled back in their chairs she scowled. “You brought the New York papers.”

“I’m afraid you need to see this.”

“No, I don’t.”

Amazing, what had happened. In the weeks since Corrington, Lowry, and Glybenhall died (upstate cops crushing his lilies as ruthlessly as the NYPD trampled Corrington’s tomato patch), Ann had not left his cabin and yard, except one early morning when, alone, she’d driven to Skidmore to see the pear trees and the theater. She woke with him as the sun rose, sat on the porch with him drinking coffee; after he left she read, sat by the stream, listened to the radio but always turned it off when Joe came home because she understood about the silence. Her black eye, the gash on her arm, all her scrapes and bruises were fading. She’d made herself available to any cop who wanted to question her— local cops, and cops who came up from New York: her friend Perez, who called her “Princess”; Dennis Graham, the DOI wunderkind; Tom Underhill; three or four or a dozen others. She’d also made it clear she would not be going back to New York for some time.

“You’re a material witness,” one of the cops, not a friend, had started. “If we need you to testify— ”

She’d cut him off: “At what trial? Everyone’s dead.”

So while Joe went out and spread gravel and asphalt, Ann sat at anchor on his porch.

She had not wanted the news from New York. He, though, found he couldn’t get enough of it.

He was fascinated every time a pebble from this case rippled the water. A fiery first-term Councilmember, strikingly reminiscent of the young Charlie Barr, was demanding an overhaul of the city’s real estate procedures. Calls had gone out for more stringent security rules for building sites. A museum in St. Louis had fired its architect, Henry M. Martin, with a terse statement citing “philosophical disagreements.” To make sure he missed nothing, Joe had taken to buying the New York dailies. And to his own surprise he’d found this wasn’t the only story that interested him. He’d page through the papers, following threads, having opinions, formulating arguments pro and con. None of which he shared with Ann; what he shared was his surprise to find it happening at all. And he always tossed the papers away before he went home because he, too, understood about the silence.

But what had happened today, she needed to see.

Sutton Place

“Oh, my God.” Ann felt her blood freeze as she read the paper Joe had handed her. “Oh, God, Joe. Westermann?”

“Seems that way.”

“But Walter

”

She felt Joe’s eyes on her but couldn’t meet them. She ran through the article again, as though it might change.

“I could have— ”

“Nothing. You couldn’t have done anything.”

“If I hadn’t been so idiotically fixated on Walter— ”

“Jen’s murder wasn’t your job. Everything else you thought about Glybenhall was true.”