John Sandford - Secret Prey

"Nobody called the police?" Lucas asked.

"No."

"I thought that was the correct thing to do," Lucas said. "I mean with the lawer-doctor-advertising set. No violence."

She nodded. "I’ll tell you what, buster. If any guy ever hit me like that, his ass would be in jail ten minutes later. But… sometimes things are more complicated. Audrey didn’t want it. She said he was drunk and didn’t mean anything."

"So that was the end of it."

"Yes. Then, anyway. I was talking to Louise afterwards, and she said that he’d beaten her up before. A couple of times a year."

"And she’d know?"

"Yes… She’s a little younger. Louise is. She’s Rush’s second wife, used to be his secretary. She knows Audrey’s younger sister pretty well, I don’t know how. The sister told Louise that Wilson beats up Audrey a couple of times a year. Sometimes pretty badly."

"Do you think Wilson McDonald could have killed Kresge?"

"Yes," she said. "Not just because I saw him hit Audrey. I was always a little afraid of him. I knew him when I was little-he was five or six years ahead of me at Cresthaven, and my brother knew him. He’s big and fat and mean; he’s got those little mean eyes. He’s a goddamned animal."

Lucas nodded: "Okay."

"Even if he did it, you won’t get him. He’s pretty smart, but most of all, he’s a McDonald," she said. "The Mc-Donalds… they’ve got this family thing. They don’t care what a family member does, as long as he doesn’t get caught at it." She stopped: "No, that’s not quite right: they don’t care what he does, as long as he’s not convicted of it. In their eyes, not being convicted is the same as not doing it. That comes from way back. The first McDonalds were crooks, they stole from the farmers with their mill. The second or third generation were still crooks, and they made millions during the Depression with real estate scams that they ran through Polaris. And they’re still crooks. And they’ve got very good legal advice."

"But don’t quote you."

"Subpoena me first," she said. "Then you can quote me."

"Do you think Louise Freeman would talk to me?"

"Probably. She’s the kind who’d have all the dirt, if I do say so myself."

A grim-faced Helen Bell steered her Toyota Camry into the driveway at her sister’s house and said, "Audrey, you’re crazy."

"It’s all right," Audrey McDonald said sharply. She had a small black circle under her left eye, now covered heavily with makeup, where one of Wilson McDonald’s blows had landed. "He must be sober by now. He had to work today."

"He could have gone to work this morning and be drunk all over again," Bell said. She was four years younger than her sister, but in some ways had always been the protective one. "That’s happened."

"I’ll be okay," Audrey said.

"You’ll never be okay until you leave him," Helen said. "The man is an animal and doesn’t deserve you. Even the police know it, now-you said so yourself."

"But I love him," Audrey said. On the drive over, Helen had gotten angrier and angrier with her sister, but now her face softened and she patted Audrey on the thigh.

"Then you’re going to have to see a doctor, together," she said. "There’s a name for this-codependency. You can’t keep going like this, because sooner or later, it won’t just be a slap, or a beating. He’s going to kill you."

"You know what he’s said about that, about a doctor," Audrey said. "They don’t go to psychiatrists in the Mc-Donald family."

"But it’d all be confidential," Helen protested. "Times have changed…"

"After this bank thing is done with," Audrey said, as she pushed open the car door. "Maybe then."

Bell watched her go. She hated McDonald. She’d never liked him, but over the years distaste had grown into this curdling, bitter-tasting hatred. Audrey would never remove herself from McDonald. Somebody else would have to do it for her, like a surgeon removing a cancer.

She liked the metaphor: Dan Kresge had been a cancer on the bank, and he’d been removed. Good for the bank and everybody employed there. McDonald was a cancer on her sister: the sooner he was cut out, the better.

Audrey eased into the house, moving quietly, wary of an ambush. Was he in the tub again? In the study? She stepped into the kitchen, and the board that always squeaked, the one she’d sworn two hundred times to fix, squeaked.

"Audrey? Is that you?" He was in the study; he sounded sober.

"It’s me," she said tentatively.

"Jesus Christ, where have you been? I’ve been calling Helen, but nobody ever answers." He’d been lurching down the hall as he spoke, a yellow legal pad in his hand, and when he turned into the kitchen, he spotted the black eye and pulled up. "Holy cow. Did I do that?"

She recognized the mood and moved to take advantage of it: "No, of course not," she said sarcastically. "I’ve been hitting myself in the face with a broomstick."

"Aw, Jesus…" That was all she’d get. He went on, "But Jesus, we gotta talk. I got a cop following me around. And the board’s gonna meet on Wednesday, but probably won’t make a decision. They’re talking about a search, for Christ’s sake."

"A search? That’s just a way of slowing everything down."

"I know that. It’s me or O’Dell or Bone."

"Have you talked to your father?"

"Just for a minute, to ask him to stay out of it for the time being. I thought it might be a little too obvious if he got out there. At this point."

"Good thought… What about the cop?"

"It’s this fuckin’ Davenport," McDonald said impatiently. "He was talking to Bone today, and the word is, he’s asking about me."

"What’s he asking?" Audrey asked. "He doesn’t think you…"

"I don’t know; I’m finding out. He could be a problem."

"How can he be a problem? You didn’t shoot anybody." His eyes slid away from hers: "I know… but he could be a problem." He looked back: "I mean, Jesus, if there’s a search, you think they’re gonna pick a guy who the cops are investigating?"

"Okay."

"And the thing is, the sheriff up there, Krause, he’s just about signed off on the thing, from what I hear. He’s dead in the water. If it wasn’t for Davenport, it’d be pretty much over with."

"Maybe that’s something your father could help with right now."

"Come on in here," Wilson said, and turned back toward the study. The study was a large room with a window looking out on the front lawn, and two walls of shelves loaded with knickknacks, travel souvenirs, and small golf and tennis trophies going back to Wilson’s days in prep school and college. Framed photos of Wilson and Audrey with George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and in much younger days a tired-looking Richard Nixon, looked down from the third wall. Wilson dropped into the brown-leather executive’s chair behind the cherry desk, while Audrey perched on a love seat below Nixon’s worn face.

"So call your father on Davenport. On the board, we can call Jimmy and Elaine," Audrey said. "Elaine is very close to Dafne Bose, and Jimmy’s been trying to get into the trust department’s legal work forever …" Dafne Bose was on the board. "If we can get to Dafne, we’re halfway there."

"You know who else?" He looked down at the legal pad. "We’re carrying two million bucks in land-and attachments paper on Shankland Chev, which they couldn’t get a half-million anywhere else. And Dave Shankland…"

"… is married to Peg Bose." Peg Bose was Dafne’s daughter. "We couldn’t use that right away, it’d look too much like blackmail. But if we got in a squeak…"

"Here’s the list I’ve got so far," Wilson said. He passed the legal pad to Audrey. "Seventeen board members, so we need nine. Four I can count on-Eirich, Goff, Brandt, and Sanderson. If we can get Dafne, we can probably get Rondeau and Bunde, ’cause they pretty much do what she suggests. Then we’d need two…"