Эд Горман - Stranglehold

“Fun’s over,” Ben said. His voice was thin, as if he had trouble speaking.

Kristin glanced at me, shook her head. A camera caught her troubled expression and immortalized it. A telling image on the six o’clock news — Congresswoman Cooper staffer shocked at the breaking news about Bobby Flaherty.

“C’mon now,” Ben said to the remaining reporters. We started herding them over to the door.

“You’re Dev Conrad, right?”

“Yep.”

The man asking the question aimed his microphone at me. “Did you get any warning about this?”

“We’ll be issuing a statement very soon.”

“Maybe the congresswoman doesn’t know as much about her son as she thinks.”

“We’ll be issuing a statement very soon.”

“Any chance she might withdraw?”

“Any chance I could get you to leave?”

“You getting tough?”

“No. You asked me a question. Then I asked you one.”

“So you won’t say anything on the record.”

But we were at the door now. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go have a very strong cup of coffee. I wish we had enough to go around, but I guess we’re all out.” Behind me I heard Ben laugh.

The reporter and his microphone finally left.

The volunteers had collected in a far corner. They resembled the stunned people you see immediately after tornados, intense distress that as yet they couldn’t put into words. Hopes and dreams were collapsing, and they knew they were helpless to do anything about it.

Ben and I went back to the staff office. Kristin was alone there. She sat at her desk punching numbers into the phone with violent authority.

Ben and I listened.

Kristin spoke into the receiver: “Nick Rainey, please. This is Kristin Daly. Thank you.” She cupped the phone and said to me: “The news director at Channel 4. He has a son-in-law who’s a detective. His daughter is a big supporter of Susan’s.” Then: “Hi, Nick. I don’t have to tell you why I’m calling. We just heard. I wondered if you could give me some background. All we got is that the police are looking for Bobby Flaherty to question him.”

He spoke for a couple of minutes. All we heard was Kristin saying, “Yes” and “I see” and “Oh.” Finally she said, “Thanks, Nick. I really appreciate this.”

She turned her chair to face us. “Seems this Craig Donovan was sleeping with this local woman. She found him dead in his room. He’d been shot twice. The police think he was killed sometime last night.”

“What the hell is going on?” Ben said. “This is crazy.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “Just stay focused on the money. Monica and Donovan were partners in blackmailing Susan. Wyatt delivers the money to Monica. Donovan wants it all for himself. He kills Monica.”

“Then who killed Donovan?”

“Somebody who knew about the money and figured out that Donovan must have it. This person waits until Donovan is alone and then goes in, kills him, and takes the money.”

“A quarter of a million dollars,” Kristin said.

“Tax-free,” Ben said.

“The stranglehold.”

“What stranglehold, Dev?”

“Natalie’s money. That’s why Wyatt and Manning, and even Susan to a degree, stay with her. They need her money. And she extracts her fee by humiliating and degrading them. But this time it was Donovan who had Natalie in the stranglehold. This time she got to know what it feels like.”

“Don’t try and make me feel sorry for Natalie,” Kristin said. “I don’t have that much empathy in me.”

“I want to talk to Donovan’s girlfriend,” I said as I walked over and took my coat from the coat tree. “I’ll stay in touch, but I probably won’t be back for a while.”

“I’ll get a statement ready, and I’ll read it to you over the phone for your changes.”

“Thanks, Ben.”

“I’m still thinking about Natalie being at somebody else’s mercy. I’m a terrible person, I know, Dev. But I enjoy imagining how miserable she must be.”

“I’m just as bad as you are, Kristin,” I said, pulling on my coat. “The only good thing in all this is that maybe it’ll teach Natalie a little humility.”

When I got to the door, Kristin laughed and said, “Yeah, right.”

The Stay-Rite hadn’t changed, still the stucco-cracked, window-cracked hellhole it would always be. I wondered if Heather’s black eye had faded any.

I parked my rental in the nearest slot I could find. There were still several official vehicles taking up the other spaces and uniforms and forensic people combing the littered parking lot.

A battered SUV pulled in next to me, one of those despondent metal animals that would soon be laid to rest in a scrap yard. It had been red once, but now it was a pinkish color. And when the side door opened the hinges made a noise not unlike a scream.

Out stepped one of those ragged little women you always see in church basements where free food is given to the indigent. She wore a rumpled white Western hat, a Toby Keith T-shirt, and a pair of jeans that were ripped from age, not fashion. The sallow unhealthy skin and the desperate brown gaze made guessing her age impossible. She was likely a skinny, beaten forty going on seventy.

She had been facing me without looking at me. She went back to the SUV and reached in and withdrew a child of maybe three or four, a chubby but pretty kid. She took the little girl’s hand, and they moved to the walk running in front of the motel.

The husband appeared then and he was a perfect match for his wife. The same unhealthy grayness of skin, the same forlorn look in the eyes. His T-shirt was from NASCAR. His Western hat was flat and black. And when he started to walk it was shocking and grotesque to see. He limped with such violence that most of his body was jerked about when he moved. The woman, still holding the little girl’s hand, went over and slid her arm through her husband’s. And it was the sort of thing that could break your goddamned heart because it was so simple and loving and said so much about their years together. They were playing a shitty hand, one the dark Lovecraftian gods were probably still laughing about, but they were bound up and redeemed by their loyalty.

The little girl smiled at me as they crossed in front of my windshield. I waved back. Then her mother saw me and smiled, too.

I didn’t have any problem finding Detective Kapoor. She appeared to be the only Indian woman in sight. She stood just inside the yellow crime-scene tape talking to a uniform. When she saw me she nodded in my direction. I doubted that she’d tell me much, but I waited her out.

The crowd was sparse. From what I’d been able to gather on the radio reports coming over here, the body had been discovered three hours ago. People had most likely drifted back to work. The crowd seemed to be residents here. A number of them stood in front of open motel doors. A baby bawled. A wind carried the scent of forensic chemicals from inside the murder room.

When Kapoor walked to the edge of the tape, she had her sleek head attached to a cell phone. She was laughing, but as soon as she clicked off the laugh died and she frowned at me.

I stood on my side of the tape.

“Unless you’ve come to answer my questions, I don’t know why you’re here, Mr. Conrad. You’ve been no help in the death of Monica Davies, and I’m sure you’ll be no help with this one.”

“You’ve already decided that Bobby Flaherty is guilty of this one, too.”

She wore a dusky gray silk jacket and black skirt. The white blouse revealed small upscale breasts. “There is a connection between these two. As a citizen, I’d think you’d want to help us find out what that connection is.”

“As I said, you’ve convicted him already.”