Reach the Shining River (9 page)

16.

Laura Hudson had a way of looking through anyone who was not on her A list. Emmett clearly didn’t make the cut.

“It’s been
ages
,” Laura said, ignoring him and embracing Fay carefully. “Where have you been
hiding
?”

They were standing at the entrance to the country club. Ground staff were lighting Japanese lanterns and carrying fan-back chairs onto the lawn. As if in a movie, Laura had floated towards them in a floral-patterned silk gown, her hands and neck dense with jewelry, her hair cut like Claudette Colbert’s.

“At the Plaza, of course,” Fay said. “Where else?”

“Don’t torture me. In Jefferson City the shopping is squalid.”

“Poor dear.”

“Roddy has to bring me to Chicago once a month. How else would I survive?”

“I
know
.”

Fay acknowledged Emmett with the slightest tilt of her head. “You know Emmett. My husband.”

“Haven’t had the pleasure.”

Laura extended a limp hand and gave him the benefit of her full disregard. He could have reminded her that her father had started professional life as a cattle rustler, but why bother? On the south side of Kansas City, money was money.

“I’ve heard much about you,” he said.

“I’m sure,” she said, looking away. “Fay, darling, where did you get those
adorable
pumps?”

Laura was a thoroughbred rich bitch, but Fay was in the running. On the ride over, she had refused to speak. More than ever, Emmett was being punished for who he was. The rules had been refined. It wasn’t enough that he pursue her father’s version of success – he must disown his past as well. Visiting his mother was all right as long as it stayed unmentioned. He had to pretend his family didn’t exist.

Roddy strode in from the lounge, his face as red as his cummerbund. He wore a matching bow tie, an unbuttoned white dinner jacket, and black trousers. With a twinge of embarrassment, Emmett remembered that the party was formal. And Fay had said nothing when he came downstairs in his light wool suit.

But Roddy was not looking at him. “Fay, you look splendid. Doesn’t she look wonderful, honey?”

Roddy was smooth. He spoke to Fay as if he’d known her for years.

“Ravishing,” Laura said.

“You always make an effort for a Hudson,” Fay said. After a beat she added, “For a Hudson event.”

Laura hooked her arm through Fay’s and led her into the English lounge, talking at full throttle.

“Listen to them,” Roddy said, frowning. “Couple of yardbirds.”

“Roddy, I’m sorry. I forgot it was black tie.”

He didn’t answer. He moved to the entrance, stuck his head out, and examined the sky with a flare of his nostrils. The front staff watched him attentively. He inspected an ornate barometer hanging in the hallway. “Twenty-nine and falling,” he said. “I think this dry spell’s finally going to break. And soon.”

“Suits me.”

Roddy opened his silver case and took out a cigarette. For a moment he looked in the direction the women had gone. “They’re saying there’s a big one coming in for Labor Day. Down South. Hurricane out at sea, going to hit Florida on Monday.”

“Long way from Kansas City.”

“Weather systems are all connected. We’ll get a change up here as well.”

He smoked, hand on his hip. Something was on his mind, and it wasn’t the weather.

He snapped his fingers at the doorman, who glided over. “Tell Horace to move the lawn furniture to the verandah. And bring in those paper lanterns. It will be raining within the hour.”

“Yes, Mr. Hudson.”

He watched the man head off. Without looking at Emmett, he said, “You had a good week?”

“Not bad.”

“You can tell me later. Lloyd will want to know.” He straightened his tie. “Let’s join the fray.”

*

The cream of Kansas City society had assembled beneath the cut-glass chandeliers of the English lounge, chatting, drinking, sizing each other up. All the right families were there: the Perkins, Chathams, and Bridges; the Altmans, Lawsons, and Treadways. Dickie Brewster and his father stood beside the bar, smoking cigars. Henrietta Kincaid fluttered from clique to clique in a pill-box hat, photographer in tow, gathering copy for the
Tattler
.

The men talked business and politics, their faces red from cocktails and the heat. The young women clustered around Laura Hudson, admiring each other’s clothes and inspecting the flow of arrivals. These were women of Fay’s age. They had all come out together, all married in recent years, and all except Fay and Isabel delivered their first babies. The sole male in the group, Peter Lawson, hovered at the edges, handsome, unmarried, fashionably disheveled. He was laughing at something Laura had said, something wicked and close to home, judging by his tone. Fay glanced Emmett’s way and blushed.
That
awful
bore
Peter
Lawson
. If she really thought that, would she enjoy his company so much?

“Stands out, doesn’t she?”

Lloyd was beside him, ramrod straight, white eyebrows flared like the wings of a gull. Emmett grew flustered at this sudden appearance. He put his soda on the table and offered his hand. Lloyd’s wiry body was as still as a cigar-store Indian, but his creased eyes moved from Emmett to Fay and back.

“It’s good for her to get out,” Emmett said. “All day on her own, and so forth.”

“It seems to me,” Lloyd said after a few moments, “that she has no problem getting out, as you put it.”

The curtains on the room’s upper windows stirred. Emmett smelled ozone. Roddy’s storm was on the way.

“You know your daughter better than I do, Lloyd.”

“Do I?”

Lloyd had a habit of pausing before each remark, a pause that left Emmett feeling judged.

“Roddy said you’re looking for an update.”

Lloyd fluttered his fingers to mean
not
here
. Across the room the laughter grew; Peter Lawson was pretending to chastise the women, and phrases from his banter reached the men like scraps of newspaper in the wind:
not
a
thing
about
business
…
beauty
parlors
and
Bancroft’s
…
all
day
doing
your
nails
…

“That man is a fool,” Lloyd said under his breath.

The wild eyebrows hiked a notch and his tapered face contracted. He looked like he was about to lead his platoon up San Juan Hill. All he needed was a saber in his hand.

And through Lloyd’s eyes Emmett saw that Lawson was flirting with Fay, and that she was flirting back.

“Gentlemen.”

It was Roddy, jacket off, bow tie askew.

“I have a room.”

As Emmett followed the men out of the lounge, he heard Fay laughing like a schoolgirl.

Roddy led them to a private office behind the reception desk. He cleared a small conference table of papers and set out coasters for their drinks. The room was designed for seclusion: a double-locking door, dark oak-paneled walls, windows high and narrow. From outside came a distant roll of thunder.

Lloyd said, “Fine party, Roddy.”

“Hasn’t started yet, Mr. Perkins. There’s a dance band lined up. And we’ve got filet mignon and Atlantic salmon coming, with enough champagne to float a cruise ship.”

Unimpressed, Lloyd gave Roddy a tight, almost oriental smile. His dress suit was well tailored but cut like a military uniform. Roddy’s unjacketed torso was a maroon slash in the subdued room, and his eyes had the glow and blur of a man on his third strong drink. The sparkle of Fay’s face as she spoke to Peter Lawson crowded Emmett’s mind, but feeling the heat of Lloyd’s bearing, he focused his thoughts on the Sloan case.

Though Roddy seemed to have forgotten why they had gathered. “Ordered the bubbly in Chicago.”

“Chicago,” Lloyd said.

“Importer I know up there, gets it straight from Paris. Passes on the savings to me.”

“You traveled to Chicago to buy champagne.”

Roddy blinked, picked up his drink, replaced it carefully on the coaster. The room was very warm. “I was in Chicago on business, Lloyd. Criminology convention.”

Lloyd nodded. “Learn anything?”

“The FBI demonstrated the Keeler polygraph for us.”

“Is this the same machine Lindbergh won’t allow used on his staff?”

“Keeler’s refined it.” Roddy turned to Emmett. “It charts blood pressure, pulse rate, and breathing. And now Keeler’s added a galvanograph.” He struggled a little with the word but kept going. “It measures sweat gland activity. If someone’s lying, they start to sweat.”

Roddy was sweating himself in the small, humid room, which had darkened quickly as storm clouds continued to mass. Lloyd got up and turned on the overhead light. Almost immediately it flickered, and a split second later thunder crashed overhead.

Lloyd glanced at the small windows, which were rattling in the growing wind. Roddy sniffed loudly and cleared his throat. “So Emmett,” he said, “are we going to need a polygraph?”

“Why would we?”

“For Richie Timmons.”

Lloyd looked up sharply. “Who?”

Emmett said, “We have some work to do before we start thinking about polygraphs.”

Lloyd shifted in his chair. “Slow down here. What’s this about Timmons?”

Emmett expected Lloyd would have been brought up to speed. But Roddy’s face was a blank. Something was up. He was not on the ball. As if he were still thinking about the great deal he’d gotten on the champagne.

Emmett summarized the morgue mix-up, the vague reports, the scenario he had built around Eddie’s death, and his suspicions about Timmons. Lloyd listened intently. The rain was now whipping the windows in waves, and the wind was hooting.

A knock on the door interrupted. The chief steward told them that a tornado warning had been announced on the radio and that all guests were being advised to shelter in the basement.

“What about dinner?” Roddy asked him.

“Being kept warm, sir. We expect the storm to pass directly and the party to continue on schedule.”

The steward closed the door. Roddy pushed his chair back, but Lloyd didn’t budge. His forehead was crinkled. “Let me get this straight: this guy Timmons – who we all know is a crook of the first order – is the investigating detective. And you can tell from his reports that he is covering something up?”

“That’s my belief, sir.”

“So where’s your evidence?”

“Well, the reports – ”

“Forget the reports. I said
evidence
. You’re a prosecutor, presumably you know how to build a goddamn case.”

There was a gust of power in the room; like the wind, Lloyd could summon forces that smashed all resistance.

“I’m working on it,” Emmett said.

“You’re
working
on it? Where did the murder happen? Who found the body? How can you possibly build a case when you haven’t been to the scene of the crime?”

At a loss, Emmett stared at the shimmying windows.

“With respect, Emmett,” Roddy said, eager to jump on Lloyd’s bandwagon, “everything you’ve told us is old news. What about this week?”

“Well, as you can imagine, there’s a lot of tension in the Negro community.”

Lloyd raised his eyes to the shadowed ceiling.

“People are wondering why nothing is being done,” Emmett said. “If there was some public reassurance, it would go a long way towards calming matters.”

“What are you suggesting?” Roddy said.

“You told me the Feds will get involved at the appropriate time. Now you’re telling me you met them in Chicago. Why can’t we get them in now and get some teeth into this investigation? I feel tied down.”

Without rising from his chair, Lloyd was a storm of commotion. His tux front was fit to burst. “No, no, no. Goddamn it, Emmett, out in Oakwood less than two years and already you’ve lost touch with reality. This is Pendergast’s turf. If he gets a whiff of what we’re doing, the whole town will shut down on us.”

“Any sign of Virgil Barnes?” Roddy asked.

“No. Could be he was killed too, body just hasn’t surfaced.”

“Who is Virgil Barnes?” Lloyd asked.

“A friend of Sloan’s. The two of them, it turns out, were living in the same hotel. He went missing same time Sloan turned up dead.”

But Lloyd wasn’t listening. “Les Newton tells me someone’s been snooping around.”

“Well, I have.”

“No. Someone else.”

After a considered pause, Emmett said, “I hired a PI.”

“A
what
?” Roddy said.