فصل 13 - بخش 04

13

Most of the folks in Flint City’s better class of citizenry thought Howard Gold had been born rich, or at least well-to-do. Although he wasn’t ashamed of his catch-as-catch-can upbringing, not a bit, he didn’t go out of his way to disabuse those folks. It so happened he was the son of an itinerant plowboy, sometime wrangler, and occasional rodeo rider who had traveled around the Southwest in an Airstream trailer with his wife and two sons, Howard and Edward. Howard had put himself through college, then helped to do the same for Eddie. He took care of his parents in their retirement (Andrew Gold had saved nary a nickel), and had plenty left over.

He was a member of Rotary and the Rolling Hills Country Club. He took important clients to dinner at Flint City’s best restaurants (there were two), and supported a dozen different charities, including the athletic fields at Estelle Barga Park. He could order fine wine with the best of them and sent his biggest clients elaborate Harry & David gift boxes each Christmas. Yet when he was in his office by himself, as he was this Friday noon, he preferred to eat as he had as a boy on the road between Hoot, Oklahoma, and Holler, Nevada, and then back again, listening to Clint Black on the radio and studying his lessons at his mother’s side when he wasn’t in school someplace. He supposed his gall bladder would put a stop to his solitary, grease-soaked meals eventually, but he had reached his early sixties without hearing a peep from it, so God bless heredity. When the phone rang, he was working his way through a fried egg sandwich, heavy on the mayo, and French fries done just the way he liked them, cooked to a blackened crisp and slathered with ketchup. Waiting at the edge of the desk was a slice of apple pie with ice cream melting on top.

‘Howard Gold speaking.’

‘It’s Marcy, Howie. Ralph Anderson was here this morning.’

Howie frowned. ‘He came to your house? He’s got no business doing that. He’s on administrative leave. Won’t be active police again for some time, assuming he decides to come back at all. Did you want me to call Chief Geller, and put a bug in his ear?’

‘No. I slammed the door in his face.’

‘Good for you!’

‘It doesn’t feel good. He said something I can’t get out of my mind. Howard, tell me the truth. Do you think Terry killed that boy?’

‘Jesus, no. I told you. There’s evidence for it, we both know that, but there’s too much against it. He would have walked. But never mind that, he just didn’t have such an act in him. Also, there was his dying declaration.’

‘People will say that was because he didn’t want to admit it in front of me. They’re probably already saying it.’

Honey, he thought, I’m not sure he even knew you were there.

‘I think he was telling the truth.’

‘So do I, and if he was, whoever did it is still free, and if he killed one child, sooner or later he’ll kill another one.’

‘So that’s what Anderson put in your mind,’ Howie said. He pushed away what remained of his sandwich. He no longer wanted it. ‘I’m not surprised, the guilt-trip is an old police trick, but he was wrong to try it on you. Ralph needs to take some heat for it. A strong reprimand that goes in his jacket, at the very least. You just buried your husband, for God’s sake.’

‘But what he said was true.’

Maybe it was, Howie thought, but that begs the question – why did he say it to you?

‘And there’s something else,’ she said. ‘If the real killer isn’t found, the girls and I will have to leave town. Maybe I could stand up to the whispers and the gossip if I was on my own, but it isn’t fair to ask the girls to do that. The only place I can think of to go is my sister’s in Michigan, and that wouldn’t be fair to Debra and Sam. They’ve got two kids of their own, and the house is small. It would mean starting all over again for me, and I feel too tired to do that. I feel … Howie, I feel broken.’

‘I understand that. What is it you want me to do?’

‘Call Anderson. Tell him I’ll meet with him here at the house tonight, and he can ask his questions. But I want you here, too. You and the investigator you use, if he’s free and willing to come. Will you do that?’

‘Of course, if it’s what you want. And I’m sure Alec would come. But I want to … not warn you, exactly, but put you on your guard. I’m sure Ralph feels terrible about what happened, and I’m guessing he apologized—’

‘He said he was begging me.’

That was sort of amazing, but maybe not entirely out of character.

‘He’s not a bad man,’ Howie said. ‘He’s a good man who made a bad mistake. But Marcy, he’s still got a vested interest in proving it was Terry who killed the Peterson boy. If he can do that, his career is back on track. If it’s never proved conclusively one way or the other, his career is still back on track. But if the real killer turns up, Ralph is finished as a member of the FC police. His next job will be working security in Cap City at half the salary. And that’s not even figuring in the suits he might be facing.’

‘I understand that, but—’

‘I’m not finished. Any questions he’s got for you have to be about Terry. Maybe he’s just flailing around, but it’s possible he thinks he’s got something that ties Terry to the murder in a different way. Now, do you still want me to set up a meeting?’

There was silence for a moment, and then Marcy said, ‘Jamie Mattingly is my best friend on Barnum Court. She took the girls in after Terry was arrested at the ballfield, but now she won’t answer her phone when I call, and she’s unfriended me on Facebook. My best friend has officially unfriended me.’

‘She’ll come around.’

‘She will if the real killer is caught. Then she’ll come to me on her hands and knees. Maybe I’ll forgive her for knuckling under to her husband – because that’s what happened, count on it – and maybe I won’t. But that’s a decision I can’t make until things change for the better. If they ever do. Which is my way of saying go ahead and set up the meeting. You’ll be there to protect me. Mr Pelley, too. I want to know why Anderson got up enough guts to show his face at my door.’