John Grisham - The Whistler

“Sure. I’m not leaving you, Sis. How about this weather? And we’re only at two thousand feet.”

Rusty was a bear, with a thick beard and chest and a big smile that seemed to leer a bit at the two attractive ladies. He drove a Ford Explorer that gave every appearance of having spent its entire life on mountain trails. As they left the airport, he asked, “Are we stopping in town?”

Lacy said, “A toothbrush would be nice.”

He pulled into the parking lot of a small grocery store. “Is the cabin stocked?” Gunther asked.

“Whiskey, beer, popcorn. You want anything else you’d better buy it.”

“How long might we be staying?” JoHelen asked. She had said little, as if in shock at the change of scenery.

“Couple of days,” Lacy said. “Who knows?”

They bought toiletries, eggs, bread, and packaged deli meats and cheese. At the edge of town, Rusty turned onto a gravel road, leaving the asphalt far behind. He climbed a hill, the first of many, and Lacy realized her ears were popping. He talked nonstop and far too casually as he sped along the edges of cliffs and across wooden bridges with rushing creeks beneath them. As it turned out, Gunther had been there only a month earlier, with his wife, for a week of cool temperatures and early foliage. The men talked; the women in the rear seat just listened. The gravel road yielded to a narrow one of dirt. The final charge uphill was straight and terrifying, and when they topped a ridge a beautiful lake was before them. The cabin sat snug to its shoreline.

Rusty helped them unload their supplies and showed them around the cabin. By the time they arrived, Lacy was expecting some rustic lean-to with outdoor plumbing, but she was very wrong. The cabin was spectacular, an A-frame with three levels, decks and porches, a dock over the water with a boat moored at its end, and more modern conveniences than her apartment in Tallahassee. A shiny Jeep Wrangler was parked in a small carport. Gunther said its owner, a friend, had made a mint in hotels and built the place to escape Atlanta’s muggy summers.

Rusty said good-bye and told them to call if they needed anything. Cell phone service was good, and all three had calls to make. Lacy called her apartment manager and asked him to ask her neighbor Simon to take care of Frankie. She called Pacheco and explained that they were hiding in the mountains and were as safe as they could possibly be. JoHelen called Mr. Armstrong and asked him to watch her house, something he and Gloria did at least fifteen hours a day anyway. Gunther, of course, had some deals pending and was frantic on the phone.

Slowly, they relaxed. Fresh from the Florida heat, they marveled at the clear, light air. According to an old thermometer on the porch, it was sixty-four degrees. The cabin, at an altitude of forty-one hundred feet, had everything but air-conditioning.

–

Late in the afternoon, with the sun setting behind the mountains, and with Gunther on the phone and pacing along a porch far away, Lacy and JoHelen sat at the end of the dock, near the small fishing boat, and sipped cold beer from cans. Lacy said, “Tell me about Claudia McDover.”

“Wow. Where to start?”

“Day one. Why did she hire you and keep you for eight years?”

“Well, let’s say I’m very good at what I do. After my first divorce, I decided to become a court reporter, and I worked hard at it. I trained with the best, worked with the best, and kept up with the evolving technology. When Cooley found out that Claudia needed a new girl, he pushed me to apply for the job. When I got it, his master scheme fell into place because he suddenly had someone on the inside. Court reporters know everything, Lacy, and when I took the job I was already suspicious of Claudia. She had no idea and that made it easier. I noticed some things. Her wardrobe was expensive but she tried to conceal it. If she had a big day in court with a lot of people around, she would dress down. But, a slow day around the office and she would put on the fine things. She couldn’t help it; she loved designer stuff. Her jewelry was always changing, lots of diamonds and rubies, but I’m not sure anyone else noticed, especially in a place like Sterling, Florida. She spent a fortune on clothes and jewelry, more than you would expect from a person with her salary. She got a new secretary every other year because she didn’t want anyone to get too close. She was aloof, distant, always tough, but she never suspected me because I kept my distance. Or so she thought. One day we were in the middle of a trial and I snatched her key ring. Cooley ran by the courthouse and I gave it to him. He had a full replica made. After a frenzied search, she found the keys near a wastebasket and had no clue they’d been copied. Once Cooley had access to her office, he had a field day. He tapped her phones and paid a hacker to get into her computer. That’s how we got so much information. She was careful, especially when she dealt with Phyllis Turban. She used her desktop for official business and one laptop for personal. Then she had another laptop she used for a lot of the secret stuff. He didn’t tell Myers all of this, because, again, he was afraid that if something happened to Myers, then the entire operation would be compromised. He fed Myers just enough to convince him to convince you to start snooping around.” She took a long sip. They watched the water ripple where the fish were feeding.

“The clothing and jewelry caught my attention, but when we realized she and Phyllis were jetting here and there-New York, New Orleans, the Caribbean-we knew there was a lot of money coming from somewhere. And all the jets were booked by Phyllis, nothing in Claudia’s name. Then we discovered an apartment in New Jersey, a home in Singapore, a villa in Barbados, I can’t remember everything. And it was all well hidden, or so they thought. But Cooley was watching.”

“Why didn’t he go to the FBI and leave us out of it?”

“They talked about it, but neither really trusted the Feds, especially Myers. In fact, he said he would not be involved if the FBI was involved. I think they screwed him when he got busted and he was afraid of them. Since the state police have no jurisdiction over the Indians, they finally settled on the plan to involve BJC. They knew you had limited powers, but the investigation had to start somewhere. There was no way to predict how it would unfold, but no one expected dead bodies.”

Lacy’s phone vibrated beside her. Pacheco. She said, “I need to take this.”

“Sure.”

She walked back toward the cabin and softly said, “Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere deep in the mountains of North Carolina. Gunther flew us up here and he’s standing guard, sort of.”

“So he’s still involved?”

“Oh yes. He’s been great.”

“Look, the grand jury adjourned for the day. It will reconvene tomorrow. We have arrest warrants.”

“When?”

“We’re meeting now to decide. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Be careful.”

“Careful? This is the fun part. I think we’ll be up all night.”

–

At dusk, they built a fire in a stone pit by the lake and huddled under blankets in old wicker chairs. Gunther found a jug of red wine that Lacy deemed suitable for drinking. She drank a little, JoHelen even less. Gunther the teetotaler sipped decaf coffee and tended the fire.

JoHelen wanted to hear the story of the awful crash and Hugo’s death, so Lacy gave her best version. Gunther wanted to know all about Cooley and his astonishing efforts at stalking McDover. JoHelen talked for an hour. Lacy wanted to know how her brother had survived three bankruptcies and was still in business, and Gunther’s war stories carried the evening. They dined on ham and cheese sandwiches, white bread of course, by the fire, and talked and laughed until late in the night.