I took a moment to set my glass aside, a deliberate movement that allowed me to lean within inches of Kaiser over the table. “Harley, I’m equally appalled that
you
would stoop to use him.”
“I
beg
your pardon?”
“Do you actually think that I’m willing to assume sheer coincidence in the timing of the County Plan Commission’s call for a crackdown on porn? Doesn’t it strike you as a tad suspicious that the revered doctor’s report, which stops just short of demanding the forced closure of Dumont’s porn shops, was issued virtually on the eve of an obscenity trial that, politically, you
must
win? Harley, face it: it looks for all the world as if you exerted some behind-the-scenes influence on Tenelli and his committee.”
As I spoke, Kaiser’s expression of dismay transformed itself to a look of confusion, then amusement. He now broke into laughter—loud, gut-forced laughter that quelled conversation throughout the dining room and fetched an audience of quizzical stares. As his laughter waned, he made a show of dabbing tears from his eyes with his napkin as he turned to apologize to nearby tables for the outburst.
When the others had returned their attention to their lunch, when the noise of the room swelled to its previous level, Kaiser’s expression turned dead serious. He fixed me in his stare and told me, “You’ve got it backwards. If there’s been any pressure exerted between Tenelli and me, it hasn’t been from me—but from
him.
”
Thinking this through, I couldn’t imagine what Kaiser meant.
Reading the confusion in my face, he explained, “Ben Tenelli has spent a lot of time on the phone with me in recent months, and he’s shown a lot of interest in the impending trial. He’s expressed concern about the timing of the case, and at times I’ve felt that he was rushing me. He called it ‘good strategy’ for the trial to open in conjunction with his committee’s report.”
“‘Strategy’? Why the plan? What’s the goal?”
“The good of the community, I’m sure. Ben feels strongly that the porn shops have a negative impact on Dumont’s economic development.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“The man’s above reproach, Mark. He’s as good as they get, a model of altruism.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Returning to the office after lunch, I was pondering the several new angles I’d gleaned from Kaiser, when Connie called to me from her lobby window, “Mr. Manning—the sheriff’s upstairs with Miss Haring. They both need to see you.”
Waving my thanks for the message, I climbed the flight of stairs to the newsroom, looked about for Doug Pierce and Lucille Haring, then noticed that they were huddled at the table in my outer office. Crossing through the maze of news desks, I could see through the glass wall of my office that the table was spread with a mess of paperwork. As I entered the room, I closed the door behind me, asking, “What’s up?”
They both stood. Lucy pointed to the pile of papers on the table. “Today’s mail brought an inordinate number of letters to the editor, and—guess what—they’re all on the same topic.”
Doug explained, “They all demand my resignation.”
With a wry laugh, I conjectured, “And their wording is uncannily similar.”
“‘Uncanny’ hardly describes it,” said Lucy, sitting, picking a handful of the letters at random. “Listen: ‘Dumont County’s chief law-enforcement officer has committed an abomination against Mother Nature.’ And another: ‘Sheriff Pierce has used his penis as a weapon to intimidate Dumont’s citizens and to disgust Mother Nature.’ And still another: ‘Mother Nature herself has decreed this flagrant penis cultist unfit for public office.’”
“I’ve got the idea,” I told Lucy before she could read more. Sitting at the table, I sifted through a stack of the letters, confirming that they were all alike. Not only was their wording similar, but they were all handwritten, all lacking return addresses, all signed with jerky pseudonyms like
Watching and Waiting, A Friend of the Family,
and the highly original
A Concerned Citizen.
One was even signed by
Mother Nature
herself. Turning to Pierce, I said, “Considering the source, I wouldn’t let these bother you. Rest assured—they’ll never see print.”
He sat next to me. “Thanks, Mark. Things are starting to move pretty fast now. Frankly, my future
is
feeling uncertain. The last thing I need is a hostile letter-writing campaign from a bunch of crazed feminists.” Turning to Lucy, he added, “No offense, Miss Haring.”
“None taken,” she assured him, sitting with us at the table. “I’ve always supported equality of the sexes in the workplace and in society at large, but Miriam Westerman and her group take the notion to another plane entirely.”
“The cosmological plane,” I suggested with a derisive laugh. “What’s the group’s full name? I always have trouble with it.”
Lucy scratched her scalp. “Beats me. I’ll look it up.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Pierce, whose history with Westerman traced back to their high-school days. “FSNACH, or Fem-Snach, stands for the Feminist Society for the New Age of Cosmological Holism. Catchy, huh?”
Lucy shook her head in dismay. “And to think: Miriam Westerman is now headmistress of a school that indoctrinates
kids
with such crap.”
“She belongs in a loony bin,” I told them, never passing up a chance to defame the woman. Tossing my handful of letters back onto the pile like so much garbage, I reminded them, “When I first moved to Dumont last December, Miriam and her coven of crones used the same tactic on
me,
hoping to drive me out of town with their hate mail. I had no idea who was behind it, of course, so it made for a rather frightening welcome. I called the cops.”
“If I’m not mistaken,” said Pierce, “that was when you and I first met—Christmas morning, as I recall.”
“Exactly. It was good of you to come to the house on such short notice, on a holiday, no less. You calmed me down, Doug, and gave me the lowdown on Miriam.” I leaned toward him. “I’ve thought of you as a friend since that first meeting, and I’m happy to return the favor now by assuring you that Miriam’s hateful antics, while annoying, don’t mean squat.”
As I said this, I extended a comforting hand and patted his knee, letting my fingers rest there. Though I’d felt fondness for the man since the day we’d met, though I’d had vibes from the beginning that he might be gay, I’d always felt uneasy about showing any physical signs of my affection. For some nine months, he’d allowed me his friendship but had deprived me of the very nuggets of knowledge upon which true friendship is built—he hadn’t “let me in.” Now, only three days ago, he’d finally come out to me, and though the circumstances were not of his choosing, the effect of his disclosure was nonetheless liberating. I now felt no qualms whatever about touching the man, and I didn’t have to disguise such a gesture as a ritualized handshake or an “accidental” brushing of shoulders. I simply put my hand on his leg, and I left it there.
To my utter amazement, he placed his hand over mine, telling me, “Thanks, Mark. I was just doing my job last Christmas. Now, you’ve really gone out on a limb for me.”
I laughed. “This is one hell of a story. When this is all over, I plan to sell a few papers.”
Lucy cleared her throat. “I hate to interrupt the schmaltz, gentlemen, but if we’re going to sell papers, we need to meet deadlines.” Her admonishment, though mild and good-natured, was pointed—we had work to do. Focusing our discussion, she cleared a space on the table for her folder of notes, asking, “Where are we?”
Sitting back in my chair, I told them, “I just had lunch with the DA. He told me flatly that he had no knowledge of Cantrell’s porn-related background when he met him at the coach house on Saturday. He insists that the visit was Miriam’s idea—and if it was, we’re faced with some intriguing new questions. Meanwhile, though, Kaiser is up to something, I’m sure. I don’t trust him.”
Pierce looked at me skeptically. “I don’t much
like
him either, Mark, but I can’t believe Harley Kaiser is covering up any actual involvement with this case.”
I raised a hand, a note of caution, repeating, “He’s
up
to something. I don’t know if Kaiser actually strangled Carrol Cantrell. I don’t know if he actually planted the fake blackmail note on the victim’s computer. But I do know this: he’s been heavily involved with the sainted Dr. Tenelli in planning a ‘strategy’ to shut down the porn shops on the edge of town. Some might call that ‘politics as usual,’ but I call it ‘conspiracy.’ The true purpose of their plotting? I don’t know yet. But I cannot dismiss as coincidence the fact that their unknown purpose has been served by Cantrell’s death.”
Pierce listened, slowly shaking his head while considering my words. He was clearly uncomfortable hearing that my suspicions ran in this direction.
Lucy scratched at her notes, looking up at me. “You say that Kaiser and Tenelli have been ‘involved.’ What do you mean?”
“They’ve been spending a lot of time on the phone together. Deputy Dan noted this during our meeting yesterday, then Kaiser himself confirmed it at lunch. And
here’s
an interesting twist: I don’t know whether to believe Kaiser, but he claims Tenelli has been pressuring
him,
not vice versa.”
“Huh?” asked Pierce. “That makes no sense. I might be willing to believe that Harley pressured the doctor regarding the report of the County Plan Commission—its findings and its timing could help assure Harley a victory in the obscenity trial. But what conceivable purpose could Tenelli have in pressuring the DA?”
“Good question. And here’s another: What conceivable purpose could Tenelli have had out at Star-Spangled Video on Monday morning, when we spotted his new car?” Turning to Lucy, I asked, “Any luck with that little research project?”
“Not yet,” she told me dryly, flipping a page of her notebook. “Tenelli’s tax records pointed to nothing suspicious. Now, I presume, you want a complete background check, right?”
“Right—association memberships, financial interests, that sort of thing. When Doug and I talked to him on Tuesday, he mentioned malpractice suits. Maybe that’s worth exploring.”
Lucy nodded, checking over her notes. “It’ll take me a day or so to get to this. The digging is slow when you don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“Whenever you can get to it—just let me know if you find anything.”
Pierce said, “I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Ben Tenelli already explained to us his position on the porn shops—it was a carefully weighed decision in which he allowed the pragmatic concerns of commercial development to overrule his own philosophical objections. You may not agree with his conclusion, Mark, but I think you’ll have to admit that he was honest in arriving at it. Ben has no ‘agenda’—all he wants is what’s best for the town.”
I stood, needing to pace. “Doug, you keep telling me that.
Everyone
keeps telling me that. Maybe I should just take your word and lay off the guy. But I’m new here, and I don’t share the town’s emotional history with him. As far as I’m concerned, he’s clearly a piece of this puzzle. Maybe he’s done nothing wrong—maybe his motives are indeed altruistic—but he
is
part of the porn issue, and everything tells me that the porn issue killed Cantrell.”
Pierce stood, facing me. “That’s a reasonable theory,” he conceded, “the best one we’ve got. But Ben Tenelli just
couldn’t
have strangled Carrol.”
“Why not? He’s a big guy, plenty vigorous for his age.”
Pierce shook his head. “Ben might be physically capable of the murder, but not emotionally, not philosophically. He’s a good, decent man. He’s a doctor.”
“Fine. Let’s say Tenelli didn’t do it. Let’s say he had no motive whatever to want Cantrell dead. Let’s even say he has no ulterior interest in the obscenity issue. If all those assumptions are true, though, what sense can we make of Harley Kaiser’s assertion that Tenelli has been a driving force behind the obscenity trial?”
“None,” Pierce answered with a shake of his head. “It makes no sense.”
“Exactly. It suggests that Kaiser was lying about his relationship with Tenelli—which drives
my
suspicions right back to Kaiser himself.”
Pierce sat down again and gestured that I should do likewise. With a tone of forced patience, he explained, “Mark, Harley Kaiser is simply not capable of murder, for political gain or otherwise. Period.”
“Then who did it, Doug? You’ll have a tough time proving it was Bruno—his alibi appears to be tight. Who else had a motive? Deputy Dan Kerr, DA Harley Kaiser, and possibly Dr. Benjamin Tenelli. I hardly need to add that some of those suspects would be delighted to move
your
name to the top of the list. What’s more, any one of you would have sufficient physical stature to subdue Carrol Cantrell and strangle him. Don’t you see that—”
Lucy interrupted, “
Was
he strangled? Has that been shown conclusively?”
“Kaiser told me at lunch that the coroner issued his preliminary findings late this morning—it should be on the city newswire by now. The upshot is this: Vernon Formhals found that (a) the victim died very near nine o’clock on Sunday morning and (b) he was indeed strangled. The findings, as I said, are preliminary. The final report is contingent on the results of toxicology tests.”
“Toxicology?” asked Lucy. “Why bother if it’s obvious Cantrell was strangled?”
Pierce explained, “A complete forensic autopsy, including toxicology, is routine procedure in the case of homicides or any suspicious deaths.”
I told him, “Test results could take weeks though, right?”
“Two weeks is fairly standard, although sometimes they can speed it up if the investigation warrants it. I wonder if Formhals has requested a rush from the lab. Mind if I use your phone, Mark?” Pierce was already on his feet.
“Be my guest,” I told him, gesturing toward the desk in my inner office. “Punch any line that’s not lit; dial nine first.”
He nodded, stepped to my desk, lifted the receiver, and dialed. When his call was answered by a switchboard, he identified himself and asked to speak to Formhals. After a brief wait, he said into the phone, “Good afternoon, Vernon. Doug Pierce. I was wondering, Vernon, if—”