Jimmy Dale woke at dawn every weekday. Only this wasn’t every weekday. It was Thanksgiving, which meant no mail to deliver. Beside him, his sweet Nell was a precious lump, her silvery curls gracing the pillow as they had for thirty years now. It was immensely reassuring to find her in these first seconds of dawn. Rising, he clutched his back. Age had crept into his joints and retirement was looking better every year. Just six more; he could make it until then.
Throwing on his robe, he crept down to the kitchen. By eight, Nell would shoo him out to begin her Thanksgivin’ cookin.’ By noon, it’d all be warming on the table when the tribe arrived: daughter Sally, her husband Jerry and their three young’uns; Jimmy, Jr., his pale wife Lucille, who ate like a sparrow, and their son, Trip, his favorite of the whole flock, with whom he shared a love of hunting, fishing and football - which they’d sure get a stomach-full of today.
Switching on the TV, he sat back with his coffee to watch the morning news. The manhunt remained the top story, authorities still convinced the pair was hiding out near Pine County. Yet why would a couple of New York lawyers be holed up around here? If the Feds knew they sure weren’t saying. Again the fugitives’ pictures flashed on the screen, with the 800 number to call with information. He sure could use that hunnerd grand to fix the place up like Nell wanted. Grabbing the notepad, he wrote the number down.
“This just in,” the Knoxville anchorman’s tone sharpened. Listening carefully, he nodded with a fresh understanding. If not knowing why the fugitives were here, at least he now knew why the Feds were. Murder was a local crime, but selling FBI records to the Mafia something else.
He thought again of the fugitives’ car - a Prelude. But it wasn’t the make that kept flashing before his eyes like a stuck slide projector. It was the color – metallic blue... He froze as another detail emerged: a metallic blue frame. Shrouded by a dense web of what... vines, branches? As the anchorman moved on to the next story, the light flashed again. Lou Adkins’ flapping tongue. Only it hadn’t been flapping yesterday. Her lips had been puckered as if she’d just gulped a bottle of Castor Oil. So how was she connected to the vine-webbed, metallic blue frame?
He looked up as Nell shuffled in, in her frizzball slippers and tattered, pink robe.
“Jimmy darlin’, take your coffee and run along. I have a mess of work ‘fore them young’uns arrive. Go figger out the games you and Trip’ll be watchin.’ I declare you love that boy more’n your own son.”
Escaping the Thanksgiving chaos, Harley Bogins ventured out to the lawn with his third Bloody Mary. Myrna had just scorched his ear with another fire and brimstone sermon about drinking too much again. That’s your third vodka and I ain’t even served dinner! Pastor Ford says drinkin liquor’s the same as invitin’ the devil into your soul. Is that what you want? She’d been screaming in one ear, the other withering against the noisy herd of young’uns that had taken over his house for the afternoon.
Breathing the crisp air, he gazed at the majestic green mountains. Iron Ridge’s gray rooftops were just below, a tiny cluster of civilization nestled in a mountainside rich in ore. A redneck town maybe, but one that had always belonged to his family. Boginsville, the jealous whispered. And wasn’t it the truth?
He’d built his stone mansion here for no other reason than its magnificent view. The steep mortgage was a challenge each month, causing him to drink more, only Myrna couldn’t understand that or anything else but those ridiculous “laws-a-livin’” the High and Mighty Neville Ford imposed on his flock. Only who was he to be giving advice? What did he know about running a car dealership and making fat mortgage payments? Now Ford had hooked up with that greedy egomaniac Harrington. It seemed all the country’s churches were joining his powerful CMA, adding bucks to the coffers and votes for that President he carried around in his hip pocket. It hardly seemed fair for Harrington to have all those millions, when he had to bust his ass just to make his mortgage. Gulping his drink, he reluctantly returned to the mansion.
He shut himself in the study, poured another drink and put the TV on. Flipping through the channels, he stopped finally on the fugitives’ pictures. Were they really hiding in this neck of the wood like the John Laws believed? If so, why? These tiresome news reports never... Goddarn, he snagged on the anchorman’s last words! No wonder the Feds were chasin’ ‘em so hard. Murder was one thing; selling FBI records to the Mafia was another - and making a goddarned bundle in the process.
He studied the pictures again as the 800 number appeared on the screen. Iron Ridge was buzzing over the hundred grand that had been staked on their capture. And damn if he couldn’t use a healthy chunk himself to get the bank off his ass. With her angel’s face and doe-like eyes, the girl was pretty enough to pass for that actress Myrna liked so much. Sophia Loren — or was it Audrey Hepburn? Waddill had a pretty face, too, with that chiseled jaw and tangled, gold hair. He looked more like a surfer than a killer, and... He studied Waddill more closely. Why did he look so familiar?
Unconsciously he etched a cap in Waddill’s wavy hair, then shades over his clear blue eyes. Lou Adkins’ nephew? The dumb bastard had given him a grand for that broken down Beetle, then left the lot grinning as if he’d struck the deal of the century. That moron couldn’t be... The door flew open suddenly and a furious Myrna gleamed at him in his recliner. “Number four,” he said as he raised his glass defiantly. “So sue me, all right?”
“Sue you!” she snapped. “Why, I’ll strip you clean down to them soiled shorts!”
“For drinkin’ four Bloody Marys?”
“No! For screwin’ Maggie Springer!”
The glass slipped from his hand, shattering on the floor. “Now Myrna...”
“Don’t Myrna me, you cheatin’ devil! All them Wednesday nights I thought you was at the Pine County car shows you weren’t no place but the Hillside Inn, rubbing hot bodies with Maggie Springer! Betty Sue says there’s a dozen witnesses!”
Vodka gurgled in his gut. If someone had to find out, why Betty Sue Kellers, the biggest snoop in Flavin County? “Now Myrna, you don’t know...”
“‘Course I know! And I’ll tell you what else! In ten minutes, your two-timin’ butt’ll be out of here for good!”
“Just a goddarned minute!” he growled. “This here’s my house!”
“Not anymore; it’s mine! Same as them bank accounts and car lot where you swindle people out of their hard-earned money. And if there’s any doubt, I’ll have Lawyer Murdock explain it, just as soon as I can get him on the phone. I hope Maggie’s worth it,” she snarled. “‘Cuz she done broke you good this time, Harley Bogins. Now start packin’ and get out of my house!”
Deputy Sheriff Darrell Pamplin finished his charitable service at the Iron Ridge Community Center and left for Valley Springs. Cheerfully he saluted his brethren in other units, their numbers growing as he approached the Pine County line. This was the largest force ever assembled in these parts. If those two were here, they’d be found soon.
Passing the final checkpoint, he turned at the Valley Spring Junction and climbed the ridge to Bobbi Jo’s folks’ place. The whole crew was waiting as he swung into the drive and climbed out. “How’d everything go at the Center?” Bobbi Jo asked as she pecked his cheek.
Nodding at his in-laws, he fluffed Timmy’s chestnut curls and Darlene’s honey waves. “We fed two hunnerd. And there was another hunnerd on the second shift.” He’d been servin’ Thanksgiving dinner to Flavin’s indigent for eight years now. As a deputy sheriff, protecting meant providing, at least in his book. The only thing was, after serving so much turkey it was hard to look at another with much appetite. As they entered the house, Bobbi Jo pointed at the festive table. “Didn’t Ma do a great job with the turkey?”
“Looks wonderful as always.” He managed a smile. Smiling, even when you didn’t feel like it, was something required of every Christian, according to Pastor Michaels and Chairman Harrington, who now controlled Lantern Forge Trinity. It seemed most churches were hooking up with Harrington these days. And it made good sense, he reckoned. If anyone could return Christian values to government, it was Harrington, who everyone said had the President in his pocket.
His appetite soon returned and he found himself nursing a full belly as they crowded around to watch football. A halftime report updated the fugitive operation. “Darrell, what’s all that mean?” Bobbi Jo frowned.
“That them kids did more’n murder that Jewish lawyer. They sold FBI documents to the Mafia.”
“But that ain’t as bad as murderin’ is it?” she asked.
As the family’s law enforcement expert, all eyes now turned on him. “Depends on how you look at it. The Mafia has folks kilt. And if you help a murderer, you’re just as guilty in the eyes of the law. And stealin’ from the FBI threatens national security. Ain’t no crime worse than that.” He studied Waddill’s picture again. Why did the man look so familiar?
“Darrell, you look like you seen a ghost,” Bobbi Jo said.
“I’ve seen Waddill. I just can’t remember where.”
“Well don’t fret,” she exhorted. “If you seen him afore, it’ll come to you. It always does.”
Leopold would always remember this miserable Thanksgiving, when in his dreary Pine County motel room, he’d slipped back into the clutches of a filthy habit. Dear Lord, forgive my weakness, he prayed, crushing one burning Marlboro and quickly lighting another. They’d been holed up at the Mountain Ambassador since Monday, braced for the fugitives’ arrival. Pine County and the adjacent counties — Flavin, Harrison and Boone — were sealed tight, every road and motel within the cordoned area under close surveillance. An intense news blitz also had the natives on full alert. Waiting was the hard part. He limped to the window. It drove him crazy. Damn kids! Where were they?
Seconds passed as he gazed at the TSU campus across the street, now a checkerboard of lights against the dark mountain wilderness. He’d spent the past three days limping across it. Administration, Records, the new library. He inventoried his stops again: the Sanford Arts Center, Student Union, Law School, and maintenance facilities. Diplomatic inquiries as the noted historian, Dr. William Cassevetes, researching his latest book, University Education in the Fifties, had gotten him a private research room in the Archives, where he’d spent the first day reviewing student records - applications, grade reports, club membership rolls, school papers, yearbooks, even the Pine County Gazette. In sum, every source that might hold a remnant of the three law students who’d quietly vanished before spring exams forty years ago. Bottom line? The records had been purged for the critical year. To the world, the Three Stooges had never been here, their rich families having gotten their money’s worth in stiff bribes.
Thanking Dr. Jenkins, the Dean of Records, he’d moved on to the Treasurer’s Office to examine the financial records. Dr. Cassevetes’s new book would include a chapter on the cost of university education in the fifties. Again the records had proven clean.
The TSU staff whose careers spanned the last forty years had presented the next challenge. Completing a list from the extensive employment records, he’d spent another day tracking down these dinosaurs. Fortunately there hadn’t been many, just a handful of administrative types and doddering professors, and one self-important maintenance man he’d finally caught up with in a smoky campus tavern Wednesday night. Feeding the desiccated little man his line about the richness of university life in the fifties, he’d then nudged him down Memory Lane.
“Guess you heard about the spring of ‘54,” Wally Vernon said as he sipped his beer.
“That girl’s murder, sure,” Leopold answered across the booth.
Vernon’s glassy eyes had hardened. “Edgar Norris didn’t do it. I know that for a fact.”
“How?” he asked.
“Cuz I worked with him. He was as good as any white feller I knew. Sure he liked the girl. Who didn’t? She was a sweet, pretty thing, not stuck-up like them others. She and Edgar became friends, a dangerous thing for them times - uneducated nigger and pretty white girl. Raised a lot of eyebrows and made it easier for that bastard, Crenshaw, to point the finger when she was raped and kilt. But their relationship was innocent. Don’t let nobody tell you differn’t. Edgar loved his wife and besides, he’d never hurt nobody. One of the gentlest men I ever knew.”
“Then who do you think killed the girl?”
Vernon studied him thoughtfully. “Them three law students, the ones who hung out right here.” His crooked finger stabbed the table. “Only it wasn’t called the Mountaineer in them days, just Luke’s Tavern - plain and simple. Luke Smallwood owned it. He’s dead now - has been for twenty years, I reckon.”
“Tell me about the law students.”
As Vernon gazed into his empty mug, Leopold snapped his fingers for fresh beers. Soon Vernon sipped again. “Them three weren’t no differn’t from the rest - rich and snotty, I mean. They’d come into Lukes wearin’ their navy blazers, acting like they owned the place. Two were tall, the other squatty. Don’t remember their names. Maybe never knew ‘em. But I do recall they didn’t return after that spring term of ‘54. Made me wonder if it weren’t for a reason, say to avoid being fingered for the girl’s murder.”
“What makes you think they did it?”
Vernon’s weary expression didn’t change as he sprinkled salt in his beer. “I seen ‘em leave with the girl that night - leave Luke’s, I mean. She worked as a waitress in the evenings to help pay for her schoolin,’ I reckon. And them three was drunker ‘n hell. Don’t know when they studied or if they did. They was in here practically every night, drinkin’ imported beer. One even smoked a fancy, imported cigarette with black and gold-ringed filters. Can’t recall the brand.
“Anyway, they gave the girl a ride that night back to campus, she musta’ thought. Only she never made it. No one seen her again ‘til three days later when Bones – that’s the old hound who hung around the maintenance shed — sniffed something back in the trees. Tom Berry, our foreman, finally got curious and went out there. Tom’s dead now, too, like so many of ‘em.” Draining his beer, he glanced at Leopold, who snapped his fingers again for another. “Mighty nice of you, Mr...”
“Cassevetes.”
He laughed. “I’d never remember that in a million years. You I-talian or somethin’?”
“The Cassevetes are Greeks now living in New York.”
“Big place, New York.” He sipped. “Where was I?”
“Your foreman found Bones digging in the woods.”
“Oh yeah,” he nodded. “Well, by then the damn hound had dug up the foulest stench you can imagine. Naturally, Tom was suspicious because of the missin’ girl. He had me and Ned Samples bring our shovels out to finish the job Bones had started. Likely Edgar would’ve been with us ‘cept he’d gotten sick the day before - some facial infection Doc Maxwell said was caused by the girl’s claws as she tried to fight him off.
“Anyway, we found her about four feet down, wearing the same dress she’d had on that night at Luke’s. Only it was torn and bloodied, her panties balled up in the dirt nearby. Her eyes was the worst thing - big, pretty blue ones, just like I remembered, still open after three days in the ground.” He sighed. “You could almost see them horrible last minutes right through ‘em. We didn’t move her and I’m glad, ‘cuz we learned later the side of her skull restin’ in the dirt had been shattered by a shovel. Edgar’s shovel.”
At least Crenshaw had been thorough. “What happened after you discovered the body?”
“Tom had me run inside and call Crenshaw. The pompous bastard was out there in minutes with his sidekick, Barney. Bernie Edwards was his real name, but Barney fit better. Dumb as dirt and the most fidgety person you ever seen... Anyway, the first thing Crenshaw does is order us the hell away. And ‘course we did what he said. Even if you hated his guts, you knew better than to give him any lip. We returned to the shed and watched out the window as Doc Maxwell arrived, then an ambulance and another patrol car. Pretty soon them woods was crawlin’ with County folk.”
“Maxwell was the County Coroner?” Leopold asked.
He nodded. “Crenshaw had him in his pocket, same as the others. Wasn’t more’n a week ‘fore Edgar was arrested.”
“Did you tell Crenshaw what you knew?”
“‘Course; same as George Elroy. He’s dead now, too. Forty years is a long time.”
But long enough? Leopold wondered as he offered a grateful prayer for Vernon’s difficulty with names, if not an otherwise astonishing memory for details. “Elroy knew as much as you?”
“More, since he lived on Gray’s Ridge. That’s where we figgered the murderin’ took place.”
“I don’t understand,” Leopold said.
“That’s ‘cuz you ain’t heard it told. But this here’s the gospel you won’t get nowhere else.” He stabbed the table emphatically. “George was with me that night the girl left with them boys. When we left later, he went one way, me another.”
“He went to Gray’s Ridge?”
“Exactly.” Vernon’s eyes twinkled. “Now every college has its own make-out spot and this ‘n here’s Gray’s Ridge. So it wasn’t unusual George spotted them on his way home that night, parked in that yellow Studebaker them three catted around in. He didn’t think no more about it ‘til later when the girl was missin.’ Still, he didn’t say nuthin’ until she’d been dug up and then only to Crenshaw - the same time I told the crooked bastard what I knew. After givin’ him our statements, we didn’t think no more about it, just figgerin’ that he’d soon get enough evidence to arrest them three.
“Only it didn’t happen that way,” he sighed. “Instead, it was Edgar who got arrested. Crenshaw never questioned us again - just pushed our story right out of his head, for a price, of course. He could always be bought for the right price. Say, you mind if I have another beer? All this talkin’ is makin’ my throat dry.”
Leopold called for another draft. “Did George think Crenshaw was being bribed, too?”
Vernon’s eyes gleamed with an old bitterness. “He confessed as much. Even said he was gonna confront the bastard. I reckon that’s exactly what he done. It sure ‘nuff explains a lot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why a few days later, George’s memory vanished. The next thing I know, he’s quit his job at the University cafeteria. Got a better one at the Pine County Lumber Mill. George didn’t know nuthin’ about lumberin’ but I reckon it hardly mattered. It’s what he knew but forgot that counted. I’m speakin’ about that night, of course.”
“Crenshaw owned the mill?”
“His brother, Dennis.” Vernon guzzled his fresh beer. “And you can figger it was a successful one, too. Most are when you ain’t got no competition. And Jasper made sure no other mill operators ever got a business license. He ran this County, Mister. Ain’t no two ways about it.”
“You think the boys’ families paid him off?” Leopold asked.
“Think, shit! I know it, even if I can’t prove it.”
“But no one saw the boys do anything to the girl,” Leopold pointed out. “It’s all circumstantial.”
“It is, huh?” Vernon scanned the smoky tavern. “Well I’ll tell you somethin’ I ain’t never told a soul, not that I didn’t want to. But I was scared - somethin’ I ain’t proud of, but it’s true nonetheless.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Cigarette butts. Maybe a half-dozen scattered in the dirt where we dug that afternoon. The fancy, imported kind the tallest feller smoked. Only they was gone when I returned the next morning. Crenshaw scooped ‘em up. He must’ve.”
Leopold had no difficulty envisioning Falkingham, the arrogant university student, stamping out his Dunhills as Lamp and Mann buried the girl, leaving behind critical evidence as they sweated to conceal the rest. “So what did they have on Norris, besides the shovel and interracial relationship?”
“I’ll tell you what they didn’t have,” Vernon grunted. “That fancy DNA testing. Otherwise Edgar’d still be alive today. When Doc Maxwell said it was his facial tissue under the girl’s fingernails, there weren’t no way for his lawyer to prove it wasn’t. And it didn’t help that Edgar had a facial infection at the time. That white jury wasn’t about to buy no coincidences for a nigger, even a good one.”
Leopold watched him guzzle his beer. Was the old drunk a threat or not? He didn’t remember their names and couldn’t connect their current national personas with the ancient murder case. But for the Dunhill cigarettes, they were simply vague shadows of the past.
“Say Mister,” Vernon said. “I have a question for you. If Crenshaw didn’t send Edgar to the chair for them boys’ crime, why’d he leave his estate to the Widow Norris’s school?”
The answer was painfully obvious yet also circumstantial, praise the Lord. What wasn’t circumstantial however, was themissing chest that contained hard evidence of both the crime and the identity of the three guilty parties. In the wrong hands, it could destroy the CMA, the Longbridge Administration and the greatest Christian Renaissance of all time.
“Can’t think of no reason, huh?” Vernon grinned. “Well there ain’t but one. Crenshaw left his fortune to the Widow Norris ‘cuz he was afraid of burnin’ in hell for what he done. He was hopin,’ I reckon, to set the record straight ‘fore reaching St. Peter and the Judgement Gate. I guess we’ll never know if the gesture done him any good.”
Rewarding Vernon with a final beer, Leopold left and called Harrington with his report: TSU was clean but for one harmless germ named Vernon, who for all the clutter in his beer-soddened brain, possessed no names, faces or anything else connecting their trio to the ancient murder.
“Praise the Lord,” Harrington had sighed. “Then he shall be spared.”
His reflections were broken by the ringing phone. It was Harrington again. “Good news, Arch. Our slippery Agent Harvey has been found.”
“Praise the Lord, sir! Where?”
“Mountain Creek, a small town in western Pennsylvania. When a bank account with the Social Security number of one of Harvey’s girlfriends didn’t match the owner’s name, sirens went off. The owner, one Myrtle Johnson, is an alias for his longtime acquaintance, Anne Foxworth. No one at the Mountain Creek bank, however, could identify her picture. Fortunately tonight, a local hairdresser could. Foxworth is a client, one Madelyn Stump, who rents a farmhouse outside Mountain Creek.”
“How did Harvey get the cover set up so quickly?” he asked.
Harrington replied, “A few years ago, Foxworth had trouble shaking a stubborn ex-husband. Harvey helped her disappear. That’s what made her a suspect. Anyway, we’ve confirmed the pair is occupying the farmhouse. Agents are on the scene.”
“Praise the Lord, sir! When will the Feds move in?”
“The moment you arrive.”
“What about the operation here?” Leopold asked.
“Once you’ve completed the disposition, you can return immediately. How soon can you leave?”
“Tonight, sir. And Miss Foxworth?”
“The situation’s far too critical to leave anything to chance, Arch. Having said that, I’ll leave the matter in your capable hands.”
When would the killings end, or would they? Crumpling the empty Marlboro pack, Leopold hurled it at the wall in frustration.
“Arch, did you catch this afternoon’s story?”
“Yes sir, although the fugitives’ involvement in that Mafia conspiracy was hardly surprising.”
“The news was certainly timely,” Harrington noted, “especially after Longbridge’s announcement yesterday. We’ll be meeting here in Georgetown shortly if you need to reach me.”
“I’m on my way to Pennsylvania, sir.”
Pulled from their Thanksgiving festivities, the men gathered in the Lakeland study and waited for Harrington to begin the meeting. This latest crisis had begun with Longbridge’s call the previous morning, summoning Streeter and Chapman to the Oval Office to discuss an urgent matter - one he hadn’t disclosed, but hadn’t needed to. Everyone was painfully aware of the criticism now being vented over the administration’s handling of the fugitive operation.
Why, the national media asked, had the FBI and Justice, both under the leadership of obscure Texas bureaucrats, committed such enormous resources to the capture of two baby-faced lawyers, whose crimes, as reprehensible as they might be, were the subject of local jurisdiction? Hadn’t it been the conservative Longbridge, who’d reminded the nation ad nauseum that the federal government far too often intervened in matters that didn’t concern it? Had chasing Mayson Corelli out of New York transformed a local homicide into a national security threat? And even more disturbing, why hadn’t the fugitives been caught? How much was this operation costing the taxpayers? Wasn’t it time the administration explained its puzzling stance in the Corelli-Waddill affair?
“You’re damn right!” Longbridge had growled at his Attorney General and FBI Director. “If the nation wants an explanation, it’ll get one!”
Harrington appreciated the challenge facing them now. “Thomas or Larry, why don’t we start with a report of your meeting yesterday with the President?”
“As you know,” Streeter replied, “the President decided rather precipitously yesterday to respond to the media’s attack on our handling of the operation. After briefing him on its status, Larry and I helped craft his response, which was delivered at the press conference yesterday afternoon. This response included revelation of the fugitives’ involvement in a conspiracy to sell confidential Bureau records to certain New York crime families - the same conspiracy which caused Agent Swanson to take his own life. The families and the conspiracy’s scope hadn’t been previously revealed because disclosure would hamper our efforts to obtain indictments against the key suspects.”
“What was the President’s reaction?” Lamp asked.
“He accepted our explanation, including the decision not to involve him until the operation became a political issue which, of course, it has now.”
“His comments yesterday reflected our recommendations verbatim,” Chapman added.
Harrington asked Streeter, “You were the last to speak with him. How is his mood this evening?”
“Good; public reaction has been favorable but we can expect a flurry of questions in the days ahead.”
Lamp, sitting between his friends, expressed their mutual sympathies. “I must say Thomas and Larry have handled this crisis brilliantly. They’ve not only justified the operation’s massive federal involvement, but at the same time kept Longbridge at bay.”
“That may be,” Harrington frowned, “but for how long? All we’ve done is explain the federal government’s interest in the fugitives. Now that the proverbial can of worms has been opened, we must address the questions it raises, which can only sink us deeper into the sludge of our prevarication. This isn’t country club gossip we’ve propagated. Yesterday we informed the President of the United States, and this morning, the nation he governs of an elaborate criminal conspiracy that doesn’t exist. But having been postulated, it must now be kept afloat. If it sinks we all go down.”
Lamp voiced another concern. “Lieutenant Duke has been trying to reach me since the conspiracy’s disclosure. I’m sure he wants to know why he wasn’t informed of it before.”
“Tell him you were apprised of it several months ago,” Chapman said. “That we requested your help in exposing the fugitives as the link between the Bureau and the New York families.”
“But he’ll obviously ask which families, and also how two young lawyers managed to position themselves between those families and the FBI.”
“Maybe Larry didn’t volunteer all this detailed information,” Mann said.
“You’re overlooking my extensive collaboration with Duke and his associate. We spent hours discussing the murder. Assuming I’ve known about the conspiracy yet remained silent, don’t I owe him more than, ‘Larry didn’t disclose all the details?’ “
“But Mendelsohn’s sexual harassment had been well developed by then,” Chapman reminded them. “It was perfectly reasonable for you to assume this was Corelli’s motive for the murder.”
“So where does this leave the murder case?” Mann asked.
“With the fugitives gone, there’ll be no one to prosecute,” Chapman explained, then turned back to Lamp. “Tell Duke that when informed of your associates’ suspected criminal activities, you agreed to cooperate, recruiting Mendelsohn, who as the partner for whom they worked, was in the best position to snoop without arousing suspicion. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. Upon discovering his snooping, they decided he must be eliminated, which Corelli took care of that Sunday night. When a warrant was later issued, Waddill rescued her and together they planned an escape.”
Streeter added, “Today’s disclosure, which we’ve blamed on the media’s interference, has sent the New York crime families running for cover, cutting off further avenues of investigation. Consequently, we have no alternative but to close our files and bring a swift end to this nightmare.”
“Hardly,” Harrington snorted. “It can never end until that chest is recovered. And public scrutiny won’t stop with the investigation. Suspicion will likely peak then, producing the toughest questions.”
“Which we’ll be prepared to answer,” Streeter replied. “And if necessary prove a criminal conspiracy consisting of Swanson and Harvey inside the Bureau, Corelli and Waddill as intermediaries, and Bertolucci family members with known connections to Corelli’s brother. The crime’s being manufactured now, complete with phony investigative records we’ll be able to prove flowed through this pipeline into the Bertoluccis’ hands. One can only guess how the family might retaliate. Perhaps a media war, even legal action, but I doubt they’d resort to violence. Why should they? There’ll be no threats of prosecution.”
“How can we be assured of your agents’ cooperation once the fugitives are captured?” Lamp asked.
“Because they’ve been thoroughly briefed and possess the competence needed to execute the plan.”
“Still, the fugitives’ handling is fraught with risk,” Lamp pointed out. “It’s easy to imagine the potential complications. Suppose they’re captured by the state authorities and carted off before our plan can be executed? Regaining the necessary access may be impossible. Or suppose they’re wounded in pursuit and hospitalized? Who knows how their capture will play out? We must address these contingencies.”
“This plan does,” Chapman confirmed.
Mann raised another concern. “What about Pennsylvania?”
“Leopold’s en route now. Our on-site team will take no action until he arrives.”
“How will Harvey be explained?” Mann asked.
“Any number of things could happen. The New York families implicated in the conspiracy could decide he’s enough of a liability to order a hit. I also understand burglaries are quite common in the Mountain Creek area.”
“So what’s left?” Lamp asked.
“The fugitives’ capture,” Harrington replied. “I’m certain none of us will sleep well until that occurs.” He turned now to the man who, uncharacteristically, hadn’t uttered a word the entire meeting. “So Chase, certainly you must have something to share.”
“If I did,” Falkingham puffed insolently, “you’d have heard it by now.”
“Perhaps there’s something we haven’t considered?”
“Not ‘considered,’ overlooked completely.”
“Oh,” he frowned, “and what’s that?”
“Travis Culpepper.”