FIGHTS WITH HOWARD WERE AWFUL. Some people righteously insist you have to “get it all out,” be good at battle, glory in topping your lover, stripping him bare of defenses. For them that must be like racing first across the finish line. For me, there aren’t winners, just losers walled in separately by animosity too volatile to touch.
Fights were bad, but the worst was having Howard stalk out. And being left here. I wanted to stalk out, to slam door, to burn rubber.…
But you feel like a jerk stalking alone. Instead I called Laura Goldman. It was eight o’clock. Eleven in Pittsburgh. I tried the station. She’d been gone for hours.
If she’d come up with something on Ott, she’d have notified me. All I would get for disturbing her at this hour was grief.
She might be in bed.
If so, she wouldn’t have far to reach. I dialed.
“You’ve reached eight-nine-two—”
“Goldman! Answer the phone!”
The recording ended.
“Goldman, Jill Smith here. It’s important. Look, if you’re just not answering…I’ll call back, even later. Or the fire department, I’ll ring them up and say I’m your neighbor and there’s smoke coming from your kitchen again and I know that you’re a rotten cook and maybe there’s nothing the matter but—”
“Okay, okay, Smith. God, why didn’t I ask for a single room at that convention? How could I know they would pair me with a nocturnal lunatic?”
“Sorry. But it really is important.”
“And nothing in my life is of consequence?”
“Goldman, I roomed with you. I know how much time you spend snoring away. I could keep you up for a month and you’d still be ahead of the game.”
“Ah, the authority on healthful living. Next thing you’ll be reorganizing my diet. ‘I know how many vegetables you eat, Goldman. You could eat just chocolate for days and still be ahead.’ Well, Smith, did it ever occur to you I might not be sleeping? I could be entertaining. The drought in my sex life that rivaled my grandmother’s buddy Sister Joseph Martha might have been coming to an end. And just at the moment fireworks were to explode and I was reminded I was the hottest stuff west of the Susquehanna, what do I hear? ‘Goldman! Answer the phone.’ ”
“If he loves you, he’ll get it up again.” “So crass, Smith. And may you have a romantic night too.”
“Small chance. Howard’s…out. So, Goldman—”
“Okay. I was going to call you in the morning.” She yawned theatrically. “Now I’m sitting up. So, you remember I told you there was a huge fight between Alexander—your Herman Ott—and his father that ended with Alexander stomping out—”
“To the Iberia Airlines gate at Kennedy Airport. Do you know what caused the crisis?”
“Hang on.” Goldman was never one to condense a good story. “You’ll recall your Ott came from the union of Herman Steel and Ott Mining. His father was Ott Mining. I checked the papers for mine disasters, but there was nothing about the Ott mines. So I went on to other things. Leads petered out like veins in a mine.”
“Goldman!”
“Here’s my mistake.” Goldman’s voice was tight, her tone suddenly somber. I realized she hadn’t been so much playing with me as stalling. “I’d forgotten that earlier Otts had bought up mines from outsiders. So they owned small mines as far away as Kentucky. Far enough away that cave-ins wouldn’t make the local papers. Mines small enough that disasters wouldn’t be reported beyond their local papers. The cave-in in question occurred outside Wheeling, West Virginia. The shaft that collapsed was reinforced with beams made of a steel alloy instead of wood. It was an experiment that could have revolutionized mining. Could have saved some of the steel mills that were going under, including Herman Steel. Instead it killed thirteen men.”
“Omigod! Why? Surely steel is stronger than wood.”
“Maybe. But when the ceiling in a mine begins to collapse, the wood beams give way slowly, and, Smith, you can hear them creaking. When steel goes, it’s silent—no warning. Those miners were crushed where they stood.”
“Oh, God!” No wonder Herman Ott couldn’t stay home, in the family mansion built on corpses.
“Smith, that’s not the whole thing. The reason behind the cave-in never came out in the papers.”
“You got it through the Sister Joseph Martha connection?”
“Right. Distantly. I’ll spare you the trail. But the story is that Alexander’s father was hot to use the steel. The plan was within governmental safety standards at the time. The Otts of course were more familiar with the properties of their steel and their alloys than the government was. Alexander’s father wasn’t sure this alloy was right. He was going to test the beams in a played-out mine. You know, simulate the type of stress you’d get in a working mine. He was working on the plans, but apparently he got sidetracked by a new business venture. Or by a new mistress. Whichever, the steel beams were sent to a working mine, and Ott senior was too distracted to notice. Until the men were dead.”
It was a moment before I said, “And ostensibly nothing changed for the Otts of Pittsburgh?”
“It was just another mine disaster. A risk of the business.”
“Thanks, Goldman.”
“Sure. If I come up with anything else, I’ll let you know. Don’t call me, Smith, I’ll call you.”
“Right,” I said, almost too subdued to answer. “Sorry about the hour. Just one more thing. Was that mine case considered by the local Historical Review Society?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Crack detective work. And because I found a printout of a newspaper article from the Internet on Ott’s floor the day of the murder.”
“And that means?”
“That you’re not the only one who discovered the mine tragedy. Someone brought it to Ott’s attention.”
“How?”
“That’s the jackpot question.” Slowly I put down the receiver. I was picturing the scene just as Inspector Doyle would. Bryant Hemming stalking into Ott’s office, newspaper in hand, threatening to expose Ott as the child of bloodsuckers. Ott would have remembered his father tossing aside the lives of his workers for the sake of his career or his loins. Ott, who had investigated some facet of ACC, who had been to the storage unit, would have looked at Bryant Hemming with disgust. He’d have seen a man who’d just tossed aside ACC, endangered the small savings people had invested there, and was on the road to undermining the mediation project because of his connection with the Kaldane. Ott would have looked at Bryant Hemming and seen his father.
In that state even I could picture Ott shooting Hemming.
But if he didn’t shoot Bryant Hemming? How did he react when he saw the article that pulled the rug out from under his life?
Anyone else would have kicked in the door, slammed the phone into the wall, screamed till his throat closed. Herman Ott walked out of his office and left the dead bolt off.
If Bryant Hemming didn’t bring the article, who did? Who set out to unhinge Ott, drove him off, and used his office to kill Bryant Hemming?
I raced out of the house, slammed my VW into reverse, squealed the wheels, drove to Ashby Avenue, and turned right. For the first time this evening I felt free. It wasn’t as if I’d keep on and make another right onto Route 80, but it was movement. The pain and fury were still back in the bedroom, and I was doing something.
Going to the last place I had a legitimate reason to be.