Bryan Gruley - The Hanging Tree

“Really?” It immediately made me think that Vend might like to get his hands on that too. Which may have been why he seemed so interested in the town council meeting.

“Yes. Much of it is owned by a company called-”

“Felicitous Holdings,” I said.

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess. Does it say what they plan to use the land for?”

“No, just ‘future development.’ But you can imagine, if the rink is a success, that land could become valuable.”

“Big if, but yes.”

“If it doesn’t, they have problems.”

He had no idea. “Correct,” I said.

“What most interested me, though, was this.” He turned the first few pages back to one listing the company’s board of directors. There were nine directors, including Haskell and his wife; Haskell’s local attorney, Parmelee Gilbert; and other names I didn’t recognize. Philo placed a forefinger on one.

“Here,” he said.

The name he pointed to was Linda Biegeleisen. Her address was given as Suttons Bay, Michigan, a village on the Leelanau Peninsula jutting north from Traverse City. Jim Kerasopoulos, I knew, lived in Suttons Bay.

“Who’s she?” I said.

“She’s listed by her maiden name. I suppose that’s legal, if that’s the name you have on your driver’s license.”

“So what?”

Philo took another breath. He seemed, to my surprise, angry. “A few years after my great-grandfather came to this country, his wife made him shorten the family name. Some of his nine children adopted the altered form. But some chose to revert to the old one, out of respect for their ancestors. My father did not. His sister did.”

“Get to the point, Philo.”

He tapped the name twice. “This is my aunt.”

“Your aunt as in-holy shit. No.”

“Yes.”

I almost jumped out of the booth. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Kerasopoulos has a piece of Haskell’s business?”

“His wife certainly does.”

“Same thing, man. Same thing. So your uncle has a direct interest in that rink. Direct. Man, I’m dumb. Here I thought he was just shilling for ads. Jesus. How the hell did he think he could get away with this?”

Philo took off his horn-rims and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He put his glasses back on and stared at the table. “Believe me,” he said. “My uncle thinks he’s smarter than everyone. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

He looked up at me. “For being a little bitch.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I thought of saying I always knew his uncle was a fat ass, but that wouldn’t have helped.

“Never mind,” I said. “Your uncle could be in a lot of trouble.” I was thinking now of Vend. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to cover the story.”

“Right. Kerasopoulos will want to banner that baby across the front: ‘Publisher of This Newspaper Linked to Slime-Ball’-oops.”

Belly showed up with our sandwiches in one hand and a wrinkled piece of newspaper in the other. “Two subs, one peppers, to go. That’ll be six dollars and thirty-five cents.”

“Thanks, Bell.” I set a five and three ones on the table, took the sandwiches, and stood up.

“Hey,” Belly said. “Remember that broad you were asking me about?”

“Who? When?”

“The broad was with your cousin in here.” I had totally forgotten about that. Belly shoved the piece of newspaper at me. “Didn’t know her name, but I never forget a face.”

The date at the top of the clipping was November 8, 1998. The headline on the story said, couple renews wedding vows. There was a black-and-white picture of the couple: Laird and Felicia Haskell.

“Her?” I said, pointing at Felicia. I didn’t remember the story; it was probably written by one of our blue-haired freelancers. Philo leaned in to see. “She was here with”-I hesitated-“with Gracie?”

“Yep. Didn’t look like she wanted to be here. No wonder because your cousin, she got pretty worked up there for a while.”

“About what?”

“Fuck do I know. Girl stuff. This broad”-he pointed at the paper again-“she wore sunglasses the whole time, like she’s a movie star or something.”

“You’re absolutely certain?”

Belly dropped his arms to his sides. “Are you deaf?”

Outside, Philo followed me to my truck.

“Aren’t you walking?” I said.

“Wait,” he said. “Kinky sex. That wasn’t a joke.”

“Not really.”

“Gus,” he said. “As I said, I’m sorry I wasn’t much help to you before. But frankly, I’m not in much better shape than you.”

“No.”

“And if I’m going to do what I have to do-what we have to do-I’m going to need to know what you know.”

I looked down Estelle Street. The blue Suburban sat on the opposite end of the Estelle Street Bridge, peering up the slope and across the Hungry River at Philo and me. I could feel the stare of that cratered face.

I turned to Philo. “So,” I said, “is now the time to stand on principle?”

Philo didn’t flinch. “I think so.”

I opened my truck door. “Hop in. We got a little time before the council meets. I think it’s going to be interesting.”

Town hall sat on Elm Street just up from Main, in sight of the preserved remains of the dam the Civil Conservation Corps built in the 1930s to create the lake they christened Starvation.

A fire in the 1970s destroyed the grand four-story edifice of brick and granite that had once towered over the spot. Before the fire, the council had been deadlocked over the budget, and Pilot headlines screamed of lawsuits and countersuits and citizens demanding recalls. Amid the uproar, the council neglected to appropriate enough money to pay the insurance premiums on the building. Today, town hall was a low-slung rectangle of beige brick that could have passed for a post office. Two willows flanking the walkway to the glass double-door entrance were all that remained from the old days.

Now a long line of locals, most of them retirees, waited beneath the willows for seats at this afternoon’s town council meeting. The snow had stopped but the wind had not and many of the women had wrapped their faces in scarves. I watched from the open window of my truck on the street, keeping an eye out for the blue Suburban. I had dropped Philo at the Pilot after telling him some but not all of what I knew about Gracie’s doings downstate. I was taking a chance that he wouldn’t squeal to Dingus or his uncle. I didn’t think he would. Betrayal can change a person.

I stood near the street watching the queue waiting to get into town hall. I’d been checking my voice mail all day for something from Darlene. Now I checked again, and again there was nothing. With so many people, I thought, maybe she’d be working the council meeting.

The milling crowd at the head of the line parted and I saw Gracie’s mother, Shirley McBride, with her back to the double doors, her blond head wrapped in a white wool headband, a cigarette in one hand and a sign in the other. She had duct-taped a poster board to a metal clothes hanger bent into a crude handle. On the poster she had written in black felt-tip pen, UNFORGIVEN: MY DAUGTER OR HASKEL’S HOCKEY? Sheriff’s Deputy Frank D’Alessio stood a few steps away, his eyes fixed on the ground, looking like he wanted to scream, or at least haul Shirley off to jail.

“We’ve got lots of police for a town hall meeting,” she was yelling. “But not enough to find out who killed my daughter.”

“Not enough to shut you up either, Shirley,” shouted someone from the waiting line. “Get her out of here, Frank.”

D’Alessio turned his head to Shirley and said something I couldn’t hear. She continued her yelling.