Wendy Hornsby - The Hanging

“Damn, Maggie,” Guido said as he walked in and caught a glimpse of the scene. “Can’t let you out of my sight, can I?”

“Not for a minute.” I patted his cheek. “The police want all of the original footage, but we need to keep a copy.”

“Everybody will have to settle for a copy,” he said. “It’s digital. There is no ‘original’ footage unless they want the computer’s motherboard, and that won’t do them much good. All of the cameras fed live images into a system I set up in the garage that recorded and sent a simultaneous backup to a cloud file. I can go out to the garage now and make a copy, but the original file exists.”

“Would you please make the detectives a copy to take with them?”

We made plans to meet at the studio later, and excused by Thornbury, Jean-Paul and I left.

In the car, Jean-Paul put a hand on my knee.

“Why did you react so strongly when the detective told you where Weidermeyer works?”

“Until I heard that, I could not understand what two big-time operators like Chin and Holloway were doing at Anacapa College. Chin especially. The man lives large, right?”

“If he owns a house in this neighborhood, I have to say yes.”

“The college system is flat broke,” I said. “Except for one pocket.”

He stole a glance at me. “Yes?”

“Think Taj Ma’Holloway.”

“So, you’re the woman who is trying to ruin my life.”

Francis Weidermeyer, a big, florid man with a giant’s chest and no discernible ass, walked around the massive desk in the construction trailer I had been directed to and offered his hand. He had to talk over the rumbling of heavy equipment outside; from international arms dealer to construction boss-quite a comedown.

“I’m only trying to earn a buck,” I said.

He threw his head back and laughed.

Late afternoon, it was hot in Las Vegas, humid for the desert. The sweater I put on at Mme Olivier’s that morning was uncomfortably warm; I was grateful for the arctic chill of the air-conditioned trailer.

I’d had too much day already. If Lana Howard, my executive producer, hadn’t arranged for the network’s jet to fly me to Las Vegas, I would not have gone. But Chin’s suicide had elevated the project, and me, in the network’s estimation. A news crew was sent to film me-with a security detail en train -boarding the sleek plane at Burbank Airport’s Executive Air Terminal. All of the fuss was window dressing that would be used to promote the film. As uncomfortable as that made me-was I the story, or was I the reporter?-I was happy for the ride.

“Will you give me a few minutes of your time?” I asked Weidermeyer.

“Hell, I’d like to take you home and play with you for a few days, but, yeah, I’ll give you a few minutes. What do you want to talk about?”

“Park Holloway, Hiram Chin, Clarice Snow, a boy named Frankie, you.”

“Junior. God, haven’t seen the boy since he was what? Twelve? And how is Junior?”

“He’s in jail, waiting arraignment on an attempted murder charge.”

“Attempted? The dumb fuck, never thought he’d amount to much. Who’d he try to take out?”

“Me.”

He dropped his head, smiling at some private joke.

“I hoped to run into you at Park Holloway’s memorial service,” I said.

“Yeah, well.” He looked up, seemed to focus on a point somewhere over my right shoulder before he looked directly at me. “I thought about it, but I didn’t want to run into the widow.”

“Karen wasn’t there,” I said. “There will be a second service in Gilstrap this weekend. She’ll be there.”

“Not much chance of me showing up in Gilstrap. I’m not exactly a favorite of the former wife.”

“Why is that?”

“Could be because I paid the rent on her husband’s Georgetown love nest for about a dozen years, took credit for his love child. Boy, when Karen found out about that…” He puffed his lips, let out a long breath. Then he gave me an abashed smile. “When she found that out, it was D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”

“When was that?”

“As soon as Park left Congress. Not much point in me carrying Clarice for him anymore, was there?”

“I thought it might have something to do with an arms deal that went sour,” I said, taking the seat he offered.

“It all went down at about the same time.” Facing me, he rested one haunch on the near edge of the desk, folded his arms across his chest. “You think you know something about that, do you?”

“Only in broad strokes. You want to tell me what happened?”

“Not really, no. That deal is how I ended up in this shithole, managing an army of guys who are working with fake green cards and borrowed Social Security numbers. They’re good workers, but every time the Immigration inspector shows up they all scatter and I lose a day’s labor.”

“How did Clarice end up with the collection of fakes the court awarded you?” I asked.

He grinned at me. “Honey, I just did my best to change the subject.”

“It was a pretty good effort. But I don’t have a lot of time, and I have a whole lot of questions.”

“How do you know Clarice has the fakes?”

“I figured it out for myself.”

He thought about that for a moment.

“I always liked Clarice,” he said. “The girl has a lot of spunk, you know? When she lost the Georgetown place, she moved out to the west coast with the boy.”

“To Santa Barbara,” I said.

“Yeah. Years ago, Park bought her a little summer cottage near the ocean-no one stays in D.C. during the summer-so he could see her during congressional recesses. Guess you could call it Love Nest West.”

He checked for my reaction to that. I gave him a little smile. He was one of those blowhards who loved to talk once he got started. All I had to do was let him run.

“Old Park really left the girl hanging in the wind when he bailed out of Congress,” he said. “To make ends meet, Clarice started selling off her own collection of Chinese antiques-good stuff, she knew what she was doing when she bought it. She did well enough to set up a gallery. When she heard the courts awarded me that pile of fake shit, she offered to try to sell it on consignment.”

“Did she know it was all fake?”

“Know?” He threw back his head and laughed. Hooted, actually. “She owned the workshop where it was all made.”

“When did you know that the dictator put up fakes as collateral for your arms deal?”

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might…”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“The thing I want you to know,” he said, “is that Park didn’t know until later, not until after the Honorable President for Life of the Noble Republic of yada, yada got the heave-ho and the shit hit the fan. Park was thrown for a loop, said we all used him, betrayed him; and we did. He bailed out of Congress when he found out, dumped Clarice, tried to off himself. He couldn’t live with the thought of scandal, though in the end it was kept pretty quiet. Scandal like that isn’t good for anybody’s business.”

“What happened to you?”

“My suppliers threatened to bring me up on charges, but they gave it up because I had a detailed map of the weapons industry’s graveyard, if you know what I mean. Still, I got blackballed, lost everything.”

A wry smile emerged from his air of gloom.

“Worst luck, I lost everything except my wife, Phillida,” he said. “Phillida. What kind of name is that for a woman? I called her Phil once when we were dating and a new Ice Age descended; you might remember the chill.”

“How did you end up in construction?”

“Hiram,” he said. “I don’t have a criminal record, but I don’t exactly have star quality references, either. When contracts of this size go out, everyone in the company gets a thorough looking-at. Hiram said to wait until the project got underway and he’d put in the word for me, because after the work starts, no one looks at new hires. Hiram always knows the back door to walk through.”