Another Man's Ground--A Mystery, page 3
“And her name is—?”
“Maggie McCleary. She’s head of the emergency department over at Branson Valley Hospital.”
Darcy’s brows furrowed. “McCleary? Do you mean she doesn’t use your last name?”
“Nope.”
Her eyebrows sank farther down behind her designer glasses. Hank was starting to enjoy himself.
“That’s … not ideal. Is there any way she would let us refer to her as ‘Mrs. Worth’ during the campaign?”
“Well, you’d have to ask her that. You might also want to ask her if she’d like to be addressed as ‘Dr. Worth,’ since that’s what she is.”
Maggie normally didn’t give a damn whether people outside the hospital addressed her as “doctor” or not. But pair taking away her name with taking away her hard-earned title, and she might have a problem. Hank decided Darcy could test that water by herself.
“A doctor? Oh, my. That’s impressive. Always good stature in the community. Does she do volunteer work—like with the homeless or anything?”
Hank could see her designing the photo op in her head right then. No point getting her hopes up.
“Ah … she works,” he said. “A lot. And we have two small kids. So her time is pretty much spoken for.”
The photo op dissolved, but this lady was nothing if not resilient. She brightened.
“The children. Let’s talk about them. Names and ages, please.” Her pen hovered.
“Whoa,” he said. “No way. They do not need to be involved in this.”
This time, there was no brightening.
“Oh, yes, they do. Family is of utmost importance in this area of the state. Showing that you are a caring father tells the electorate that you would make a good sheriff. Sheriff is a very paternal type of position—protecting and serving and all that—and having cute little kids will go a long way toward making it look like you are the right man for the job.”
Hank raked his hands through his hair as he tried to think of something to say that wasn’t rude.
“My children are very young and can’t in any way decide for themselves whether they’d like to be a part of my campaign or not. So I am going to decide for them. No.”
She pressed her lips together in a frown for a split second before the happy face came back. “Well, you just talk it over a little bit with your wife, and then we’ll all discuss it later. I’m sure it will all work out fine.”
This woman just glossed over everything that didn’t suit her. Hank didn’t know how much of her he could take. He ran his hand through his hair again.
“Oh, goodness, stop that. It makes your hair stick up. Ruins the whole image.”
He glared at her.
“No one is going to take you seriously if you look like a scarecrow,” she snapped. She sat back and gave him The Eye. It was the same look he got from Maggie whenever they were ready to go out and she didn’t like the shirt he was wearing. He braced himself.
“That’s it.” She snapped her fingers. “A cowboy hat. That’s exactly it. Law. Order. Manliness. Perfect.”
Hank burst out laughing. He couldn’t help himself. He would look like an idiot in a cowboy hat.
The Eye hardened into a full-on glare. Damn, maybe he’d really pissed her off. He calmed down and apologized.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t expect that. I thought we were going to talk about my campaign, not my wardrobe.”
She sniffed and carefully laid her pen on top of her notepad.
“Your campaign is your wardrobe. It is everything about you. It all comes back to you. What people think of you. And even more so, how people feel about you. Whether they feel that you are a good person, and a competent cop. Your appearance plays a large part in that. If a candidate went around in a dirty undershirt and ripped jeans, would you vote for him? Or if he walked around in a bow tie and a pocket protector, would you think he was well-qualified to be the top officer in the county? No, you wouldn’t. You would think he was a nerd who couldn’t defend himself, let alone defend all of his constituents. It doesn’t matter if that’s not true, because if you feel that it’s true, you’re not going to vote for him. Are you?”
He had to admit that she was right. So he did. Then he apologized again. Then they agreed that he would wear jeans and button-down shirts while campaigning at informal events, and a suit and tie if it was at an event with businessmen or the Rotary. And he would try on a cowboy hat in the presence of both her and his wife, and they would have the final say on whether it would be included in his “outfit.”
Darcy made several indecipherable notations on her pad and then started tapping on her phone. Hank took the opportunity to breathe deeply for a moment. How badly did he really want to be sheriff? Badly enough to subject himself to this? He stared out the restaurant window and thought about the alternatives.
The only other person running in the election was Gerald Tucker, a longtime deputy with the department. It was safe to say that he and that Good Ol’ Boy did not have a good working relationship. If Tucker became his boss, he would not hire Hank back on as a deputy. That was a definite. And there were no openings at any of the city police departments like Branson or Forsyth. He’d have to go out of the county to find a job. And that kind of defeated the purpose of moving to a small town in order to spend more time with his family.
Plus, that small town would become unbearable to live in. Hank was positive the GOB was in Henry Gallagher’s pocket, and giving that crook control of local law enforcement would be a disaster. Gallagher was Branson County’s most prominent businessman and, in Hank’s opinion, a man who endorsed arson, insurance fraud, and probably extortion. Naturally, Gallagher had endorsed Tucker as well. Hank firmly believed Tucker had set fire to Gallagher’s paddle-wheel showboat in February so that Gallagher could try to collect the insurance money, but so far he’d been unable to prove it. Hank did not want to think about what Tucker would be able to do for Gallagher if he ran the department.
“—you were younger?”
Hank refocused on Darcy, who had started talking again. She sighed and started over.
“Your past. Did you have any run-ins with the law when you were younger?”
“Uh, no.”
“Nothing that could come out and cause embarrassment? Or a scandal?”
He thought back to the St. Patrick’s Day incident in the dorms his sophomore year. They’d never been able to prove who’d done it.
“Nope.”
“Good. Now, you’re from Columbia, right?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I went to Columbia to go to Mizzou. I’m from California.”
She stared at him like he’d just grown a third eye. Horror, with a little bit of incredulity and a smattering of fascinated revulsion. “Oh, no,” she breathed. “Like, you were born and raised there?”
“Yep.”
She sputtered.
“The whole time … not just because your father got transferred out there from some nice Midwestern town?”
“Nope. No Midwestern ties at all.”
“Then why on earth did you pick the University of Missouri?”
He shrugged. “I was thinking about journalism, and it has the best school in the country. Then I got there, and figured out I didn’t want to do that. So I majored in psychology.”
“But why did you stay here? Why—” She cut herself off when she realized what she’d said.
He grinned at her.
“Why did I decide to stay in Missouri instead of going back to beautiful California?”
“That … that wasn’t what I meant.”
He waited a moment, feeling on slightly more even footing with her.
“Because Maggie was in medical school at Mizzou,” he finally said. And there had been no way in hell that she would have transferred med schools. And no way in hell he would have left her. So he’d found a job as close as he could. “So I got the job in Kansas City. That’s why.”
She nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay. We’re going to just try to gloss over all that. Maybe no one will ask where you’re from. An outsider is one thing, but California…” She shook her head. Hank was pretty sure she was regretting not asking for a bigger retainer.
“We’ll just let them assume you’re from Kansas City. Hopefully no one will dig into it.”
Hank couldn’t imagine who would care enough to dig into it. Then he thought about Tucker. And Gallagher. Maybe Darcy was right to be worried.
CHAPTER
4
Surveillance on Lloyd Taylor had not been fruitful. In a week and a half, the kid had done nothing. Hank was very disappointed. He had at least expected some stupid stunts like the one that left the ATV in the tree. Or maybe a DWI, or a bar fight. But Lloyd was keeping his nose clean. Which in itself was suspicious. No one in that family ever kept their noses, or anything else, clean.
He, however, would have to be spotless. His college roommate had called him that morning and said that someone from Tucker’s campaign had been poking around, asking questions about their days at Mizzou. Jerry had assured Hank that he hadn’t said anything, especially about the drunken hikes through Rock Bridge Park in the middle of the night. Or the time they’d accidentally set fire to that Dumpster, or the one St. Patrick’s—
“Okay, Jer. I get it. Just keep your mouth shut, all right?”
“Hey, I got your back, man,” Jerry said. “I told him you were just a regular student and that I couldn’t remember the names of anyone else that he should talk to about you.” He paused. “But this guy sounded like he knew what he was doing. He tracked down my cell, which isn’t listed anywhere. And he had more names—people from the dorms and from your psych classes. More than I would expect a normal campaign worker to have been able to find out. He could be a professional.”
Hank put down the surveillance reports on Lloyd Taylor and leaned back in his desk chair. He hated having his attention tugged in unrelated directions, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Jerry’s phone call. He raked his hand through his hair and looked down at his desk blotter, where he’d scrawled the name Jerry’d given him. Carl Kondakor. Mr. Kondakor was not registered in the Missouri Private Investigators license database. Nor was he in the phone book. Nor did he pop up on Google.
Hank stared at the ceiling for few minutes, then grabbed his cell. He quickly found a phone number online and dialed.
“Wikson and Clancy, attorneys-at-law,” said a smooth female voice.
“Mr. Kondakor, please,” said Hank.
“I’m afraid he is not in the office today. Would you like his voice mail?”
Hank declined and hung up the phone. It appeared that Henry Gallagher’s St. Louis law firm employed an off-the-books PI. He was nowhere on the firm’s Web site, but he was definitely on the job. Hank wondered who he’d track down next.
* * *
On the way down the station hallway, Hank caught a glimpse of his reflection in a window. He looked like he’d just flown a kite in a lightning storm. His hair stuck out in a dozen different directions. He thought about sending a selfie to Darcy. But no. He was the new, improved, electable Hank. So he took the less-fun route instead, and headed up Main Street toward Shadowrock Drive for a haircut.
Two blocks down was Stan’s Barber Shop. The bell over the door tinkled as Hank walked in and was immediately hit with the smell of Brylcreem and cigarette smoke. Stan hollered from the back that he’d be out in a second. Hank wandered around, looking at the posters of cars and sports stars that spanned several decades and papered every inch of wall space. Except for the top right corner of the shop, which held a thirty-two-inch flat-screen TV. It was a concession Stan said he’d made a few years ago. It was the only way to get the younger guys into the shop.
Hank folded himself into one of the chrome-and-vinyl waiting chairs and reached toward the little table in the center, only to come up empty.
“What, no magazines anymore?”
Stan bustled out from the back room and shook his head. “Eh. I finally said screw it. Nobody reads ’em. They all just watch the TV. Had to get satellite, too. People gotten all snobby about their sports. They expect every baseball game, not just the Cards anymore.” He shrugged. “Have to roll with the times, I guess.”
Hank moved to the barber chair and settled in as Stan slid his sleek, daggerlike scissors out of their leather sheath. “Lemme guess, you want it so it doesn’t stick up like that.”
Hank grinned at them both in the mirror. “Exactly. I’ve been told this isn’t acceptable for a man running for election.”
Stan chuckled. “Lots of things not acceptable for folks running for election, but they do ’em anyway.”
Hank didn’t nod in agreement—Stan was already at work on his hair. He studied the older man in the mirror as he worked. He must be more than seventy. Skin not too lined from a life indoors, but shoulders rounded forward from who knew how many decades of bending toward people’s hair. Stan’s own was his best advertisement. Blazing white and criminally full, it rose in a wave from his forehead and ended in an immaculate line at his collar. Hank knew he would not be as lucky, as Stan trimmed delicately around his own emerging bald spot.
“How long you lived here, Stan?”
“All my life. My daddy, too. Course the town isn’t where it used to be.”
Hank’s confused stare reflected back in the mirror. Stan chuckled.
“We moved it—you didn’t know that? I was ’bout four years old, but I remember it clear as day. The feds built the dam down at Bull Shoals and in 1950, we all had to up and move away from the river ’fore it became a lake. Daddy’d tell the story of everybody voting on it, and the verdict was to move up the bluff instead of just throwin’ in the towel and abandoning the town.” He grinned. “We’re a stubborn bunch out here.”
And now Bull Shoals Lake stretched from here all the way down into Arkansas. Hank tried to imagine the kind of determination it would take to move a whole town. And how that quality could often calcify into obstinacy.
“Were there families who … who held more sway than others?” he asked.“Who kind of ran things?”
“What, like the Wild West?” Stan laughed. “No, I’m kidding you. There sure were some families that folks listened to. Because they’d always been prominent.”
“Listened to out of respect, or out of fear?”
Stan’s scissors stilled. “Well, now. That’s an interesting question. I don’t know that, back in the day, you could distinguish between the two.” He stood for a moment and gazed at the ceiling. “Now, though, it’s not really an issue. There aren’t many such families anymore.”
He resumed his work, but more slowly this time, obviously pondering the topic.
“Ties have dissolved,” Stan said. “Old families move out or die off. And the pool’s diluted, too. Lots of new folks moving in. They’ve got no ties at all—they’re not beholden to anyone. The ones who had power and influence back when there were just a few hard-knock villages, they don’t anymore.”
“Nobody?” Hank asked. “Nobody has that kind of sway anymore?”
Stan gave him a sharp eye in the mirror.
“You getting at someone particular, Hank?”
“You tell me. Am I?”
Stan gave in to a full belly laugh this time.
“I’d hate to be ’cross the interrogation table from you,” he said. “Leading me right into a trap, you are.”
Hank just gave him a sheepish grin in the mirror. Stan sighed.
“Yes, there are the Kinneys. And to a lesser degree, the Miles clan. But the Kinneys are the ones. They’ve always been the ones in that part of the county. They own an awful lot of land. They always have an awful lot of sons. And they always been the ones in charge.”
“How? How are they in charge? Do they terrorize people? Come scare them in the middle of the night?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then how?” Hank said. “They don’t own the business district. Or the bank. Or anything like that.”
Stan bent down toward the back of Hank’s head and concentrated on his hairline for a good long while. Finally, he stood and looked Hank straight in the eye through the mirror.
“They own people’s minds. I guess you could say it that way. I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s better to just move around with caution and respect when it comes to them. Then nothing happens and everyone goes about their merry way.”
“What happens if you don’t—move with caution and respect?”
Stan shrugged and smiled. “I don’t have any idea. No one’s ever done it, in my lifetime. Wait—I take that back, sort of. My daddy would tell me stories about them and the Miles clan. They’ve bickered for years. Used to be more of a thing, but not so much now. Vernie went off to Springfield. The youngest kid—Charlie, I think—he died young. And the little girl married some out-of-towner. So their pull isn’t so strong anymore.”
He pulled the towel off with a flourish and smoothed Hank’s shoulders with a brush, just for good measure. Then he looked Hank in the eye again.
“But the Kinneys, their pull is still…” He trailed off. “I think you’re a good sheriff, Hank. I’d like to see you stay in the job.” He nodded at their reflections to emphasize his point.
Hank stood and pulled a twenty out of his wallet.
“I’ll get you change.”
“No,” Hank said. “Keep it. And Stan—thanks.”
* * *
“I thought we were headed out to the Taylor place.”
Sam sounded disappointed.
“Oh, we will be.” Hank smiled. But not right then. He still had a tail on Lloyd Taylor, so that kid wasn’t going anywhere he didn’t know about. Right now, he wanted to take another look at Vern’s stripped trees. And this time, he was prepared. They were heading down Deer Spring Road in Sam’s Bronco, which could manage the rutted track through the Mileses’ land. And Hank had a pair of high-powered binoculars in his lap. Those also were Sam’s, pulled out of his hunting gear in the back.
