I suggested, “Let’s talk it through. First, we now know that Cantrell had a track record of helping to defeat porn trials, which was his true purpose in coming to Dumont, where our DA is preparing a must-win obscenity case. Cantrell had a handy pretext for being here—judging a miniatures show—allowing him to get the lay of the land and absorb the local culture, which could have a bearing on his courtroom strategy. This makes sense. But it all hinges on the coincidental timing of the porn trial and the miniatures show. Did the porn defenders just happen to get lucky, asking Cantrell to come here at a time when the trip would have a dual purpose? That doesn’t seem likely, does it?” I ate a few of the stray Corn Curleez that now littered my desk.
Lucy answered, “No, Mark, that wouldn’t be likely, but you’ve got it backwards.”
“What?” asked Pierce and I, both of us chewing.
“The defense lawyers didn’t ask Cantrell to come here. I learned on the phone that Cantrell had proposed it to
them.
He was coming here to judge the miniatures show, and somehow he knew about the trial—he wanted to help.”
Mulling this, I wondered, “How would he know about the trial, out there in California? I can’t imagine that he—”
“Oh, wow,” Pierce interrupted, swallowing a mouthful, clapping the sticky cheese dust from his hands. “It all fits.” He unzipped the portfolio of papers he’d brought with him, riffling through it in search of something. “Among the inventory of Carrol’s things from the coach house, we found a letter to him from Grace Lord—her initial correspondence inviting him to the convention to judge the show. Ah! Here’s the copy.”
He positioned it on the desk so that both Lucy and I could read it—the document now bore a big orange thumbprint. Pierce pointed out a particular paragraph, which read:
While I am certain, my dear Mr. Cantrell, that Dumont would strike you as something of a quiet little place (perhaps too quiet, at least by Los Angeles standards!), our town is not altogether the backwater that you might presume. We have an active cultural life promoted by our schools and by community orchestra and theater groups. We have an important architectural legacy here as well as a thriving business climate. We even have our share of big city controversy; a pornography trial, for example, is scheduled to begin soon, attempting to shut down some “adult bookstores” out in Dumont County. My point, Mr. Cantrell, is that Dumont is an energetic, red-blooded Midwestern town with an active, involved citizenry. We’re a friendly, outgoing people. Should you decide to honor our community by accepting my invitation, we shall spare no effort in extending to you a royal welcome.
Pierce told us, “The first time I skimmed through Grace’s letter, it struck me as peculiar that she would mention the obscenity trial.”
“Yeah,” agreed Lucy, “what interest would kindly old Grace Lord have in smut?” She laughed.
I answered, “None, surely. She must have felt that the controversy would impress the jaded, metropolitan King Carrol. It’s entirely possible that he accepted Grace’s invitation to judge the mini show as an
excuse
to come here.” Again distracted by the lure of the snack bag, I succumbed to several of those
dreadful
Curleez.
Pierce returned the letter to his portfolio and zipped it shut. “When Harley and Miriam visited the coach house, do you suppose that Carrol understood their background with the obscenity trial?”
Lucy leaned close to him. “I hate to bring up a delicate issue, Doug, but of the three of us in this room, you knew him best. Did he ever mention the trial?”
Pierce blushed. “To be perfectly honest, we weren’t talking shop.” He covered his embarrassment by munching a few more snacks, which were disappearing. Then he added, “I will say this: Carrol had an awful lot of porn magazines lying around, gay porn. I mean, it wouldn’t shock me if he traveled with a dirty magazine or two—hell, they can come in handy, especially on the road. But he brought
piles
of the stuff, way more than any one man needs for…self-gratification.” Again he seemed chagrined by his own words. Again he ate.
Diplomatically, Lucy glided past this, saying, “Videos or magazines—porn is porn. It’s all the same business, and Cantrell was
in
the business. His piles of smutty magazines may simply have been ‘research.’ Maybe he was scouting for video talent—who knows?”
“I’ll bet you’re right,” I told her. With my elbows planted on the desk, I leaned over the Chee-Zees toward both her and Pierce, recounting, “I saw those batches of magazines myself, the morning of the visit with Kaiser and Miriam. I was struck not only by the fact that there were so
many
magazines, but also by Carrol’s
indifference
to them—he made no effort to conceal them when we arrived.”
Pierce took the last of the whole Curleez from the bag—only broken pieces remained. He asked, “How did they all interact?”
“Cat and mouse, start to finish. I got the impression that they already knew each other—not that they’d actually met, but that they were all
aware
of each other—which makes sense now, even though it then had me confused. It seemed that Cantrell almost
enjoyed
being caught with his porn out. Clearly, he was flaunting it to Kaiser and Miriam, aware of their crusade, daring them to confront him.”
Lucy opened her folder and checked her notes. “But we don’t really know what Kaiser knew and when he knew it. He told you that the idea for the visit was Miriam’s, that she’d essentially dragged him along, unknowing and unwitting.”
“And that may be true,” I conceded, “but it leaves a big question unanswered: How did addle-headed Miriam figure out Cantrell’s background? Doesn’t it strike you as far more likely that it was Kaiser himself who somehow found out about Cantrell’s plans to testify? I think we should proceed on the assumption that Kaiser instigated the visit.”
Pierce was listening with his arms crossed, head bowed in thought, finished eating. He looked up to ask us, “You know what this means, don’t you?”
Lucy answered, “We have a new suspect in the murder case.”
There was a brief, breathless pause, as no one felt ready to voice the name.
The task fell to me. “Harley Kaiser. The future of his political career as district attorney depends on the outcome of the obscenity case he’s preparing for trial. He may have known that Carrol Cantrell had come to Dumont to assure a verdict for civil liberties. There’s a motive.”
“Did Harley have the means?” asked Pierce rhetorically. “He isn’t exactly a hulk of a guy, but he’s no weakling either, and I think he could easily have summoned the strength to subdue Carrol and strangle him. As for opportunity—well,
anyone
could have slipped up the coach-house stairs unseen on Sunday morning. I hardly need to add that the attempt to frame me, by planting an extortion note on Carrol’s laptop, fits neatly into Harley’s agenda—he’d find political life much easier with Dan Kerr as sheriff.”
Lucy nodded. “Makes sense. How do we investigate the guy?”
“Good question,” I said, picking at the scraps from the snack bag, licking my fingertips. “We’re working behind the scenes, remember. We can’t very well haul the guy in and question him.”
“That reminds me,” said Lucy, “I’ve put a call in to Deputy Dan, asking him to come see us tomorrow morning for that new ‘endorsement interview.’”
“Perfect,” I told her. “But in the case of Harley Kaiser, I’m afraid we’ll need to find a more…indirect approach.”
We thought for a moment, then Pierce suggested, “Ben Tenelli.”
Lucy asked, “The retired doctor who chairs the County Plan Commission?”
“Sure. He knows every politician in town, but he’s ‘neutral territory,’ everyone’s best friend.”
I quipped, “Like Switzerland?”
Pierce laughed. “Sort of—he’s a great old guy. But more to the point, he also authored last week’s committee report, calling the adult bookstores an impediment to commercial development. He’s in the thick of this issue, and he may have some insights regarding what Harley did or didn’t know about Carrol’s background. It’s worth a shot.”
To my mind, the Tenelli angle seemed a long shot at best, but I could offer no better suggestion. What’s more, I’d been hearing about the revered old doctor for nearly a week, and we’d never met. Naturally, I was curious about him.
“You offered to introduce us,” I reminded Pierce.
He rose, crumpling the cellophane bag. “Busy?”
I rose. “Let’s go.”
“Gentlemen”—Lucy stopped us as we stepped to the door. She tapped her front teeth with a fingernail. “You’d better brush first.”
Pierce directed me as I drove through town to Dr. Benjamin Tenelli’s house. As it turned out, he lived in the nicer, older area near the park, in the neighborhood where both Grace Lord and I lived, midway between us, on La Salle Avenue. As I turned off Park Street, Pierce told me, “It’s the big house on the next corner.”
Driving along the quiet residential street, a street I had not yet explored since my arrival in Dumont, I realized that we were only a block away from Grace Lord’s property, but behind it. I could glimpse the roof of the coach house and the treetops that delineated the sprawling backyard—the same backyard where Grace’s nephew had once frolicked with his dog.
Ward Lord had been on my mind, off and on, since the previous week when I first saw his picture. I still wondered about him. Where was he? Did he marry and have a family—or not? Would he perhaps return to Dumont from time to time? I wanted information about him, anything at all, but I was reluctant to broach the subject because my motive in asking seemed so transparent—the kid had become the subject of some lustful fantasies. The previous morning, when Doug and I had driven outside of town and found Rambo in the ditch, I had conjectured that Doug and Ward may have grown up together, played with their dogs together. Though tempted to ask about this, I had shied away from the opportunity. Now, since Doug had come out to me, the topic did not seem nearly so troublesome.
So I pulled up to the curb in front of Dr. Tenelli’s house and cut my engine. “Hold on a minute, Doug,” I told him as he reached to open the car door. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Yes, Mark?” He smiled.
I paused. “Did you happen to grow up with Ward Lord, Grace’s nephew?”
He blinked. “Gee,” he said quietly, “talk about a name from the past. He was a few years younger than me, so we never moved in the same circle of friends, but sure, I sort of knew him. Why do you ask?”
I knew
that
was coming. So I explained how I happened to see the photo. “I have to level with you, Doug. I can’t get the kid out of my thoughts. And I confess that these thoughts have been disarmingly…lecherous.”
Pierce laughed. “God, he
was
a looker, wasn’t he?”
I shared the laugh. “
That’s
an understatement.” Then, seriously: “But what happened to him?”
Pierce thought for a moment, shrugged. “Left town. Sorry, I don’t know the details. I went away for college, then
he
went away for college, and I guess he never came back.”
“You never heard any follow-up—where he went, what he’s doing?”
Mulling these queries, he shook his head gently. “No, sorry. I think the family moved West—Grace’s brother’s family—and Ward must have gone to school out there. We just…lost touch. Good question, though. I wonder what Ward
is
up to these days.” After a pause, Pierce added, “I wouldn’t mind getting another look at him myself.”
Though Pierce’s recollections were less than illuminating (a phone number would have been illuminating), I had the scant satisfaction of knowing there was simply nothing to be known. Life would go on, and I could nurture scenarios about Ward at will, unfettered by facts.
As there was nothing left to discuss, I told Pierce, “Let’s meet the good doctor,” and we got out of the car.
I saw that the Tenelli residence was easily the most lavish on La Salle Avenue, which came as no surprise—he was a doctor, after all, whose career had prospered for decades in Dumont. The two-story house was built of red brick with a high-pitched roof. In size and stature, it was not unlike my own home, only a couple of blocks away on Prairie Street, but the styles of the two bore no resemblance. The graceful Taliesin design of my house made it unique in Dumont, while Tenelli’s house was of the Germanic “burgher” style that was so popular among old money in Wisconsin. Though this heavy aesthetic had little appeal for me, the house was beautifully landscaped and immaculately maintained. Glancing back at my car, I noted that the Bavarian V-8 looked especially stately in front of Tenelli’s mini-mansion.
Late-afternoon sun angled through the old elms that arched the street, painting the front of the house with a random, shifting pattern of yellow light. Windows were flung open; curtains wagged in the breeze. Next to the house, set a few yards away from it, the matching red-brick garage sat with its door gaping open to a dark void within. I said to Pierce, “Maybe no one’s home.”
“One way to find out,” he told me. As we climbed the stairs of the front porch together, approached the door, and rang the bell, it became apparent that someone was indeed home. The inner door was open and the dissonant strains of an opera recording (something modern) could be heard playing within.
“Coming,” called a man’s voice. Then his figure appeared in the shadows behind the screen. Recognizing Pierce, he swung the screen door open, bellowing above the music, “What a pleasant surprise, Sheriff! Do come in.” He wiped his hands on a dish towel that was tucked through his belt.
Pierce and I entered, and while my eyes adjusted to the dimmer light of the interior, the doctor excused himself momentarily to turn down the music. We stood in a center hall between the parlor and the library—tasteful old rooms trimmed with dark, varnished hardwood, nicely furnished with plump chairs, tasseled curtains, and huge Oriental rugs. A hall clock ticked loudly enough to be heard above the music, then chimed four.
The music plunged to background level, and the doctor reappeared, apologizing, “Opera’s no good unless it’s loud, and I have a particular affection for Benjamin Britten.”