WHEN YURI AND I RETURNED to the pit, we ran into Gretchen and Norm on their way out. They were headed to a computer shop in the mall to purchase a new computer and phone for her and a tablet for Theo. It seemed more like a chummy shopping spree than a woman in danger being accompanied by a body guard. But then Norm always made people feel comfortable. Meanwhile, Theo was happily working away on his borrowed computer, occasionally glancing around at the occupants of the pit as if expecting them to suddenly don superhero costumes and do something outrageous. I was afraid he was destined to be terribly disappointed. Unless he considered Will’s trench coat a costume.
Adele took us aside to share what little she’d been able to obtain from her research on the two candidates and the victim. She started with Bobby. As we already knew, he was from a filthy rich east coast family. His grandparents had made a fortune by extracting, refining, and selling oil. His parents had carried on the tradition of making money from oil by expanding exploration and making a number of wise investments in start-up oil companies. As far as she could tell, they weren’t under investigation or hadn’t recently been accused of doing anything illegal, but they definitely threw a lot of money around to persuade state officials and the federal government to ease domestic regulations. Furthermore, it was rumored that they had investments in a number of oil rich countries and were behind some moves to loosen regulations on shipping and importation of foreign oil. According to scuttlebutt, Bobby didn’t have a head for business, but with his talent for schmoozing and networking, once he became a Representative, he would become the political arm of their business enterprises.
It looked as though Bobby had planned on entering politics for a while. After graduating from Yale Law School—in the bottom quarter of his class—he’d taken a job with the Public Defender’s office, perhaps as a way to soften his image as a member of the one percent as well as to beef up his resume. Probably not because he believed in their mission, but you wouldn’t know for sure unless you could get inside his head. And although the position may have convinced some members of the public that he valued justice over money, it hadn’t helped him win in his first run for Congress. Nor in his second. This time he was relying on money and marketing to increase his chances of winning.
He had used his marriage to a well-known and attractive former Seafair Princess, Ashley Price, to gain access to the local monied families and the influence they wielded in the area. It was a politically astute move. Their whirlwind courtship had been played up by the press, and their wedding included all of the affluent and powerful families in the state. Although it may have been love at first sight, it undoubtedly crossed the mind of the aspiring politician and his family that it was strategically advantageous for him, an outsider, to marry into a local family with deep roots in the community. Not that the marriage worked only in his favor. Ashley too benefited from the union. There was considerable talk that she had been eager to marry a wealthy and ambitious man.
His brother, Randy, was a more complex character. Given his demeanor and behavior, it surprised me to learn that he had gone to Harvard Law School and had graduated at the top of his class. A partner in a large, prestigious D.C. law firm, one of his major clients was the Mann family business. There were several lawsuits of public record where he’d been on their legal team, including one in which they had been sued for a massive oil spill. That one was still in the courts on appeal.
There was also a sister, Michelle. After graduation from Yale, Michelle had joined the family business and was rumored to be a shrewd and formidable leader. She was the one who brokered some of their more significant deals, although she wasn’t well known outside of business circles.
There was very little public information about his father, beyond his flair for business, but his mother was considered a strong party fund-raiser. As such she commanded a lot of power. All she was lacking was a son on the inside of the political establishment.
In contrast, Nathan Knight was from an entirely different background. A local boy who attended Stanford Law on scholarship, he was known for his political savvy as well as for his commitment to social and environmental causes. His parents were both engineers and environmentalists. His only sibling, a sister, worked for an environmental non-profit whose mission was to preserve and protect local waters. Nathan’s wife, Laney, a stay-at-home mother of three was actively involved with her children’s schools as well as being a strong supporter of quality education for all children.
The victim, Brian Norcross, was the first in his family to attend college. His mother clerked at a grocery store and his father was a mechanic. His older sister was married to a farmer and raised cattle in Colorado. He had been on his way to becoming a success story in the social media for his outspoken advocacy on climate change. He had leveraged his use of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and he’d made several YouTube videos at protests that had gone viral. It was somewhat surprising that no one on the Mann campaign seemed to have been aware of any of this. But then, if you weren’t engaged in protest activities, maybe you didn’t pay attention to those who were. Norcross had obviously been banking on that when he started volunteering for Mann.
“So, that’s what I know about all of the players in your on-going non-investigation,” Adele concluded as she closed the file folder.
“What a strange cross-section of society,” I said. “All converging on one local race.”
“Given all their advantages, it’s too bad the Mann campaign seems more interested in attacking their opponent than focusing on issues,” Yuri said. “I hate to see them put the Knight campaign on the defensive like they have.”
“Yes,” Adele agreed. “The negative ads they’re putting out are little more than smear jobs. The one about Knight wanting to crack down on gun ownership really irritates me. He does want to require background checks, even at gun shows. But the Mann ads make it look like he wants to do away with the 2nd amendment.”
“No one ad is going to make the difference, but they may start to have a cumulative impact on the Knight campaign, true or not,” Yuri added.
“I always thought reporters were supposed to seek the truth,” I said, feeling naïve even as I uttered the thought. “If the ads twist the facts, why aren’t reporters pointing that out?”
“The problem is that they report on what they see or hear, so even if they question the validity of the ads they end up reinforcing the message. And so what if they mention questionable facts one time, the ads just keep coming, playing over and over and over.” Yuri sounded angry. “I told you I don’t like our client. Neither his positions on issues nor his tactics. I just wish someone would expose him.” He blinked and looked at me, then back at Adele. “Make sure Gretchen gets anything she needs. Anything.”
“Isn’t that working against the interests of our client?” I asked.
“No, it’s being supportive of a friend of yours whose home was burgled.”
I didn’t entirely buy his logic, but I agreed with it in principle, so I let it ride.
“Okay,” Yuri said. “Let’s go poke the hornet’s nest. Maybe we can make a difference.”
“Low profile, remember?”
“I know, but a guy can dream.”
Yuri had made arrangements to meet with two of Brian’s friends after their 10:00 class. At 10:50 we found ourselves walking with throngs of students across campus. Jeans, baggy jackets in muted tones and tennis shoes, some in eye-catching colors, seemed to be the latest fashion. Even among the older students. Yuri in his disheveled outfit that he’d slept in on my couch the night before looked like he had just done an all-nighter for an exam. I suddenly felt overdressed and out-of-date.
We spotted the two young men waiting at the top of the steps to the student union at the same time they saw us. One of them waved, and we headed in their direction. “How did they know who we are?” I whispered, hoping Yuri would say something reassuring about my appearance.
“We obviously look like the professional investigators that we are,” Yuri said with a mischievous grin.
“Good to see you again,” one of the young men said to Yuri as we drew nearer.
Yuri turned to me: “Did I mention that I met Ken at the pub the other night? But we didn’t get a chance to talk much.” Two steps later he introduced me: “Ken, this is my partner, Cameron.”
Ken, in turn, introduced us to the other young man, Alan. Then we went inside. Yuri and Ken went to get us all something to drink while Alan and I searched for a table for four amidst the chaos of students crowded around well-used tables scattered haphazardly throughout the room. My guess was that the tables had started out neatly lined up, slowly giving way to the creativity of various sized groups wanting to sit together.
It hadn’t been that long ago that I’d been a student, but now it all felt so far away, another life. The institutional walls with posters everywhere. The noise. The smell of cafeteria food. The energy. The mix of nationalities. Good times and hard times. A rite of passage.
Once we were seated, I tried to make conversation by asking Alan what his major was and what he wanted to do after graduation. “Computer programming,” he said. “Or maybe try to get my pilot’s license.” Such disparate choices for his future made me smile. Not that I could talk. Getting a Ph.D. to become a college professor only to end up working for a discount detective agency. Not exactly a traditional career track.
Ken and Yuri came back with coffee for me, sodas for them, and a tray full of junk food. We spent a few minutes sorting out the food before getting around to the purpose of our conversation. The picture they painted of Brian was of a young man more interested in causes than in school. They told us about editorials he had written for the college newspaper, rallies he’d attended to protest big oil’s role in the destruction of the planet, and about how much time he had spent trying to come up with strategies to stop environmentally unfriendly practices.
“He wanted to become an environmental engineer,” Ken said. “He was hoping to develop solutions to environmental problems. But in the meantime, he was focused on hassling companies associated with big oil. He railed against pipelines, called out companies in the campus newspaper for spills, protested rail transport and shipping of tar sands crude through local waters, and generally raised hell about potential oil drilling off our coast.”
“Sounds like a committed activist,” Yuri commented.
“Some of us dabble in protests,” Ken admitted, “but Brian was seriously dedicated to trying to influence policy. And he believed that if he made it personal, we could leverage our local efforts.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Among other things, he was developing a list of names for protesters to target. Politicians, investors, management. Anyone either supporting or making money off the oil industry. It was basically an annotated list explaining each person’s connection and involvement with oil. It was going to include home and office addresses, phone numbers, email, even pictures. He was also hoping to find enough evidence of unscrupulous or potentially illegal dealings to use as leverage to force them to back off on some of their projects, or to at least show some restraint. Maybe even stir things up enough to get a few lawsuits under way. He planned to put everything he learned online, to engage as many protesters as possible.”
“Did he give you that list or share any of his research with you?”
“He would have eventually, but he wanted to get his ducks lined up first. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust us. But he wanted to do it all himself. It was a bit of an ego trip.” Ken paused “Not in a bad way, you know. It was just that it was his idea, his project. He wanted to be the one at the center of the storm when it all went live.”
“So, you don’t think anyone else had a copy of what he was working on?” Yuri asked
Ken and Alan exchanged looks, and both shook their heads. “I doubt it,” Ken said, speaking for both of them.
“I assume Bobby Mann would have figured prominently on the list,” I said.
Both young men nodded. “We knew Brian was volunteering on his campaign to see if he could uncover anything shady about Bobby Mann and his family business, but if he’d found anything damaging, he hadn’t mentioned it to us.”
“We kidded him about it,” Alan said. “Had bets on how long he’d get away with his undercover work.”
Ken said, “He did once say that he was looking into influence peddling. I think he believed that if he could prove the oil industry was buying off politicians that he could stop them, or at least curb their appetite for pipelines and offshore drilling. But that kind of thing is hard to prove.”
“And, sadly, now that his data has gone missing, we may never know what he found,” Alan said.
“So, he didn’t share his research, but did he tell people what he was working on? For instance, who else might have known he was trying to get dirt on the Mann campaign?”
“He wasn’t advertising what he was working on,” Alan said. “He wanted to make a splash when he decided to go public.”
We sipped our respective drinks for a minute in silence. Then Yuri asked, “Is there anyone else you think we should talk to? Anyone at all?”
“Well,” Alan said after a brief hesitation. “He was dating the daughter of a local politician suspected of being in the pocket of big oil. Maybe you should talk to her.”
“We thought that was strange,” Ken added.
“Not so strange,” Yuri said. “Go behind enemy lines and find out everything you can. Gather ammunition for the final assault. He was doing it by volunteering on the Mann campaign, why not date the enemy too?”
“She’s a hottie,” Alan said. “So maybe not so strange for that reason too.”
“Do you know her name?” I asked.
Ken leaned toward us across the table. “I can not only tell you her name, I can point her out. She’s the redhead two tables over. The one wearing a pink sweater.” He shook his head. “She shouldn’t wear pink with that coloring.”
I looked at the young woman he indicated and agreed with his assessment. Pink was not her color. But I was surprised Ken had commented on that given her appearance overall. She was definitely a hottie.
I kept my eye on her to make sure she didn’t leave while Yuri asked a few final questions. Then we thanked them for their time and made our way over to Lisa Brennan, daughter of Karl Brennan, the hottie in pink. She looked up when we stopped next to her. “Can I help you?” she asked, sounding puzzled. Up close the pink wasn’t any more flattering. But she was definitely attractive, her full figure accentuated by the soft clingy sweater.
“You might be able to,” Yuri said. “My name is Yuri Webster and this is my colleague, Cameron Chandler. Could we speak to you in private?”
“About what?” She reached for her purse as if preparing for a quick getaway, nodding briefly at the young man across the table from her. He looked uncertain as to what he should do. Defend his friend or make tracks.
“It’s about Brian Norcross.”
She looked at Yuri, then at me, a vertical frown creasing the middle of her forehead. “Who are you?”
“We’re private investigators…” Before Yuri could continue, she stood, pulled on her jacket, and grabbed her purse.
“See you later,” she said to her startled friend.
“We just need a few minutes of your time,” Yuri persisted.
“No, I have nothing to say.” She abruptly brushed past us and started walking away.
I waved Yuri back and quickly caught up with her. “We know you two were dating, so you must have cared for him.” She stopped suddenly and turned toward me. The look of hostility on her face made me involuntarily take a step back.
“My mother has instructed me not to talk to anyone about Brian. If you insist on pestering me, I’ll report you to the police.”
With that she turned on her heel and took off like a racehorse out of the gate.
Had Brian been using her and had she discovered his subterfuge? That could explain her reaction. Or maybe her mother just wanted to make sure neither she nor their prestigious local family became tainted by being associated, even distantly, with a murder investigation. For all we knew, it was possible her father had been one of Brian’s targets. I let myself follow that line of thought. Maybe Brian initially asked her out to find out more about her family, but had ended up falling for her. Feeling guilty, he may have given her a head’s up about what he was working on. That seemed unlikely. Still, anything was possible when youth and hormones were involved.
“Well,” Yuri said. “I think we know which hornet’s nest to poke.”
“Maybe we’ve already done it.”