Рита Браун - The Tail Of The Tip-Off

"I heard that." Mrs. Murphy peered over the edge of the bed down at the corgi.

"So?"

"Death to dogs." Mrs. Murphy dropped down onto her canine pal, pretending to shred her. Then she shot back up on the bed, ran a few circles on it, flew off at the mirror and for good measure smacked her image one more time.

Pewter now entered the room. "What a mighty puss."

"Smoke and mirrors." Mrs. Murphy swept her whiskers forward, puffing out her chest.

Tucker lifted her head. "What did you just say, Murphy?"

"Smoke and mirrors."

"I think that's what's going on. Smoke and mirrors." Tucker sat up as the two cats stared at her, then looked at one another. Tucker had hit the nail on the head.

30

Where is he?" Matthew Crickenberger stormed into Fred Forrest's office in the county building.

Sugar McCarry, a twenty-one-year-old feisty secretary whose fingernails had half-moons painted on them, simply said, "I don't know."

"You're lying to me, Sugar. I know you're covering up for that sorry son of a bitch!"

"Mr. Crickenberger, I don't know where he is." She stood up, putting her hands on her hips. "And I don't much like your attitude."

"I don't give a good goddamn what you don't like." He strode over to Fred's desk and with one arm swept everything off it. "You tell him to keep his goddamned big mouth shut. You tell him he is a lying sack of shit. You tell him if I see him I will create a whole new face for him, one without teeth. You hear me?"

"I hear you. Now if you don't get out of here right this minute, I'll call security."

"Go ahead. I know what's going on in this office. Gambling, and, Sugar, you're playing with fire." He walked out, not bothering to close the door behind him.

Sugar heard his footsteps retreat down the hall, the green, black, and white squares of the linoleum floors so highly polished they appeared wet.

Breathing shallowly, she put her finger on the pushbutton phone. She was going to dial security but thought perhaps this was too big for the security in the county office buildings, housed in old Lane High School. Instead she called the Sheriff's Department.

Deputy Cooper, just finishing writing up a fender bender at the main library only a few blocks away, arrived within fifteen minutes. Sugar told her everything as accurately as she could. She injected no personal feeling into her report.

"Did you know that Fred called a press conference to question the plans for the sports complex?"

The surprise on Sugar's face proved she didn't know. "What?"

"Look, I don't know whether Tazio's plans are good or not. They're beautiful, that's what I know, and I know that Matthew Crickenberger has built large structures and done a good job. So he won the bid. Up to this point I don't recall there being a public denouncement of anything Crickenberger has done-not from your department. From the public, yes. Any kind of development is seen as bad by some people, but, Sugar, do you have any idea, any idea at all, what is going on?"

"No."

"Did Fred come down especially hard on H.H.?"

"No." Her eyebrows shot upward. "Why do you ask that?"

"H.H. was in the running to build the complex and now he's dead and so is Mychelle."

"They had the funeral over in Louisa County. Her people are from Louisa."

"I know," Cooper said.

"I went. Fred went. Maybe he's stirred up. You know how some people get. They have to take out their emotions on someone."

"Yes. You don't appear too upset over Mychelle's death." Cooper hit her with a zinger.

Sugar's nostrils flared, a blush of color rose to her already rouged cheeks. "I didn't like her, Deputy. No point in pretending, I really couldn't stand her. She thought she was better than me. Thought she could give orders. I think she just loved giving orders to a white girl but that doesn't mean I wished her dead. I just wished she'd get another job or that I would."

Cooper folded her arms across her chest. "I believe you."

"I don't care whether you believe me or not," Sugar sassed. "I am sick of all this. Fred's been a real shit. He's never been Mr. Wonderful to begin with but lately he's been-nothing's right. I don't take his phone messages right. I don't reach him on the road fast enough. I don't-well, you get the idea. And then Mychelle. I tell you what, she played him like a harp. Oh, out in public, on the site, she deferred to him. Mr. Forrest this and Mr. Forrest that and he ate it up, ate it up. She could get anything out of him she wanted. This place has been no fun. Not Fun Central. I'm looking for another job. Not in government. No pay anyway. I can do better."

Cooper chose not to be offended by her tone. "I hear you."

Sugar, realizing that Cooper was also paid by the county, softened. "I'm sorry, Coop. I didn't mean to, well, you know. I'm sick and tired of it and it's just like Fred to do something like this and not warn me. He's not sitting here when Crickenberger comes on in here, his face as red as a turkey wattle. I read in the paper about people losing it and just blowing people away. At the post office and stuff, going postal."

"Fred should have told you."

"Creep." Sugar lowered her voice although no one was with them.

"You can go to court and ask for a restraining order against Matthew if you're afraid he'll come back."

"Hey, I'm out of here. Anyway, he wants Fred not me. I'm not going to court. I've seen enough around here to know I'm never going to court if I can help it."

"Amen."

"And you know what really fried me? He's standing there right in front of my desk screaming at me. Screaming that I know what's going on, that I'm gambling, that I'm playing with fire. I don't know what the hell he's talking about. I play bingo. I go with Mom Friday nights to the firehouse and play bingo. He's crazy."

What Cooper knew and no one else did except for Rick Shaw was that Mychelle Burns had withdrawn most of her savings account, $5,000. For someone in Mychelle's position, that was a lot of money. For Cooper that was a lot of money.

"Did he accuse you of gambling?"

"Sort of." She glanced at her computer then back at Coop.

"M-m-m, office pools?"

"Oh yeah, but I don't play. I don't care about football and basketball. Bores me to tears. I don't know what's going on and I don't understand how they do it."

"What do you mean?"

"If you just pick a winner, I understand that, but for the office pool you have to pick the scores. For the World Series you have to select the winning game, you know, like the sixth game. I'm not doing that. It's too complicated."

"Is there ever an office pool for UVA sports?"

She thought about this. "Five bucks a head."

"Point spread?"

"I don't understand point spreads."

Cooper smiled. "Doesn't matter." She sat on the edge of Sugar's desk as her feet hurt. "What about basketball?"

She shook her head. "Fred would kill anyone who bet against the girls' basketball team. He loves those girls. No bets against UVA girls."

"Did he and Mychelle ever talk about the games?"

"Yeah, sometimes. I tuned them out. I don't like basketball."

"Well, do you ever remember them talking about point spread?"

"No. Neither one talked much, really. They usually stuck to business, but if they didn't it was basketball."

"Did you ever hear them make a bet with each other, you know, something like, oh, Jenny Ingersoll will make fourteen points tonight?"

Sugar's brow wrinkled. "Oh, I don't know. It would have gone in one ear and out the other."

"Ever see or hear either of them pick up the phone and place a bet?"

"No." She waited a beat, though. "Could have done it on their cell phones."

"We've investigated the calls from all their phones. Nothing out of line. Fred doesn't even call home."