Chapter Twelve
(Monday Evening—Owen)
“Owen,” Carl LaMott asked, staring as Gordon and Stanley entered the City Diner, “what the hell have you gotten me into now?”
Owen had caught Carl before he left the Caller-Times offices, and offered to take him to dinner. Carl had agreed, saying he’d done some research on the Bentleys and found something interesting.
At the table, Owen had just finished explaining that he was meeting a detective and wanted Carl handy in case he happened to find himself arrested. He ignored Carl’s question and raised an arm, waving to get Gordon’s attention. Carl subsided for the moment, the look in his eye promising a later discussion.
Gordon and Stanley arrived at the table, taking seats opposite Owen and Carl. Carl nodded at both, smiling sweetly at Stanley. Owen looked a question at him, but Carl returned a slight shrug. Owen was paying the price for dragooning him into this. Owen shrugged back apologetically. Carl didn’t appear to buy it.
Gordon introduced Stanley as another policeman who was working with him on the case. He looked at Carl briefly, then asked about the status of the fried mushrooms. A waitress appeared with them as if on cue, and they all pretended they were friends meeting after work as she took their orders.
Once she left, Gordon looked hard at Owen. “In spite of appearances, this is not a social occasion, Mr. Tremaine. We have some questions for you. But before we get into that, could you please explain what Mr. LaMott is doing here with us tonight?”
“Aha!” Carl cried. “I am recognized!” He turned to Owen. “I am, of course, a well-known columnist. This happens all the time.” He smiled happily and snagged one of Gordon’s mushrooms.
“Yeah,” Gordon said. He moved his plate closer to his body and picked up a fork, making it clear that Carl was welcome to try again, if he didn’t mind being punctured. “I read your stuff. Mostly I like it. Your article about the police department not being much use to the community irritated a lot of people. You were right about a lot of it,” he continued, obviously surprising Carl, “though maybe it’s more complicated than you made it look. Mostly the services we discontinued, like unlocking people’s car doors when they leave their keys inside, and even occasionally giving rides home to people who’ve had a little too much to drink, we hadda stop because of lawsuits from private-sector people who make their living from that stuff. It cost too many taxpayer dollars to keep fighting it, so we stopped.”
“Could be,” Carl said. “Maybe it isn’t your fault, or the department’s fault. But if you can’t provide actually useful services, maybe we should stop paying for them, and modify the CCPD budget to reflect that.”
Gordon nodded. “Figured you’d say that. But this isn’t what we’re here for. So, Mr. LaMott, why are you here?”
Carl grinned. “I was tricked into in by my friend Owen. He’s concerned that he might get arrested. But I’m not here as a journalist, unless I have to be. Everything said here is off the record unless Owen tells me otherwise, and so far he’s not showing any sign of respect for the people’s right to know.”
Owen spoke up. “I don’t want to hide behind a lawyer,” he said quietly, “but I’d like to be sure I don’t get railroaded either. So Carl’s here to bail me out as needed, and to be a witness if necessary.”
Gordon shrugged. “We’re not charging you with anything at this point. Before we get started, though,” he said, putting his recorder on the table, “let’s just make all this official.” He asked Owen and Carl to identify themselves on the tape, gave his own name and position, and said Stanley was present to assist if needed. Gordon got Carl to repeat that the conversation would be off the record until and unless Owen was arrested. He then read Owen and Carl the Miranda warning.
“Go ahead, Mr. Tremaine,” Gordon said finally. “Tell us what your information is, something about your Jeep.” He looked at Stanley and rolled his eyes.
“Okay,” Owen said. What had that been about? “It was stolen.”
“Really? Any idea by whom? And when did this happen?”
“I don’t know. Sometime during the weekend.”
“Uh huh. You know, Mr. Tremaine, that’s interesting to me. Do you find it interesting, Mr. Stanley?”
Owen thought Stanley looked ready to arrest him and lock him up for a life sentence. Or longer.
“Oh well,” Gordon continued. “I’m sure he does. Just when did you notice your Jeep had been ‘stolen,‘” he asked, making quoting motions in the air, “Mr. Tremaine?”
Carl was following the conversation intently. Owen decided to pretend Gordon wasn’t pissing him off. “I noticed it on Sunday, as soon as I got back to the boat. I thought at first that maybe Leon had borrowed it, but…anyway, later I completely forgot about it until I was ready to leave and go to the hotel.”
“Hell of a thing to forget,” Gordon said.
“I guess when I saw Leon I realized he didn’t have the Jeep, and somehow when we were talking about him I just didn’t think about it anymore. I had a lot on my mind.”
“Uh huh,” Gordon said. Stanley looked disgusted.
“So,” Owen continued, unable to fight a compulsion to confess, “I was going to tell you about it, but then I thought Shawna might have borrowed it. She’s had her own set of keys for quite a while.”
Gordon nodded. “You thought she was hiding from us, and you decided to help her.”
Denying it was pointless. Gordon could throw a fit if he wanted. “I didn’t know what was going on. So I decided to get more information before I did anything.”
Gordon leaned back in his chair. “Damn no-smoking rule,” he said. “You know, it takes something away from eating out when you can’t light a cigarette anymore.”
“Yeah,” Carl agreed. “It subtracts from the atmosphere.”
“Hey. My point here is that personally I like to smoke. This law they passed irritates me, and probably hurts tourism, which this city can’t afford. What I’m saying,” he said, making eye contact with Owen, “is this. I understand when somebody decides to think for himself. I even approve of it.” He waved a hand. “But let’s get back to the subject. Work with me here, Mr. Tremaine. Tell me what information you thought you needed before you could talk about the Jeep.”
“The keys,” Owen said. “Shawna had her own set.” He thought about the next part, phrasing it carefully. “It has recently come to my attention that the keys I left in my boat are not in their usual place.”
“Yeah?” Gordon asked. Owen glanced at Carl, who was staring at him in fascination. Stanley was thin-lipped, his face white with anger.
All Owen could do was finish. “Shawna wouldn’t need them. So the killer probably took the Jeep. Unless you guys took them as evidence?”
“Wasn’t us,” Gordon said. “So now you figure your girlfriend’s not using your Jeep to get away, so it’s okay we should know about it.”
Owen felt the abyss open beneath him again. Some part of him had clung to the idea that the police had the keys, and he’d been worried still that telling them about the Jeep might hurt Shawna, but now all vestiges of comfort and stability were dropping away. He remembered his dream of the night before, with Shawna pulling Leon’s dead body out to sea, and was unable to speak.
“Tremaine!” Gordon said sharply.
Owen looked at him.
“We already knew about the Jeep. It was abandoned, and somebody called a towing service. They noticed a bloody handprint and called us. There were two smears, actually. Junior Bentley’s blood type, Tremaine. And Leon Purvis’s too. With your girlfriend’s fingerprints in the blood, and on the steering wheel. We’ll get the DNA test results back later, but I think we all know what we’re going to find.”
Owen’s mind seemed to have shut down. He couldn’t make sense of any of this.
“That’s why we’re not arresting you right now, Mr. Tremaine. But it don’t look so good for her. So we would like very much for you to give us all the information you have, right now.
Do you have any idea where Shawna McPhee might be?”
Owen thought of Andrea, and her little speech about Shawna’s “resources,” and opened his mouth. “No,” he heard himself say. “I have no idea.” He closed his eyes and sank back, suddenly exhausted.
“Shit,” Gordon said, and clicked off the recorder. Owen heard him and Stanley sliding back in their chairs.
Carl spoke up, his voice sounding unnaturally cheerful. “Ah, one moment, gentlemen.”
Owen opened his eyes.
Carl was grinning. “I do have a question you might be able to help me with.”
“Not my job,” Gordon said.
“True. So, Agent Stanley, what interest does the FBI have in all this? Those pesky eco-terrorists, maybe?”
FBI? Gordon’s face was blank.
Stanley looked alert and resigned. “I thought you might have recognized me, Mr. LaMott.”
“Sure. That’s my job.” Carl turned to Owen. “This guy went to the public library a while back, wanting to get all their records of who was reading what. Identifying subversives, I guess.”
Stanley glared coldly. “The request was legal under the Patriot Act, Mr. LaMott. And we had a real need for that information.”
“I’m sure you did,” Carl said. “Just happened I was there when you guys met with the head librarian, and you backed off when I mentioned I might write a column.”
“It was illegal,” Stanley said evenly, “for the librarian to notify you. We could have put you both in a federal prison. Also part of the Patriot Act.”
“Notify me? I was there doing research, that’s all.”
Stanley shook his head slightly. “I’m not going to argue with you. You mentioned eco-terrorists. What’s your source?”
“Research,” Carl said promptly. “Like in the library. Except this time I did some reading in back issues of the Caller-Times. Turns out both Junior Bentley and his father have been threatened by environmental groups. Viktor’s a real-estate developer with a shady reputation, and both of them apparently used to go for big-game hunting and trophy-fishing expeditions. Viktor Senior also took people on well-publicized trips for business reasons, supposedly. Apparently he once got splashed with cow blood in New Orleans. Anyway, I thought that was sort of intriguing given what’s been happening.”
Carl nodded at Owen, who was staring at him. “And Leon? I remembered him a little better after I thought about it for a while. He was sometimes a fishing guide, wasn’t he? I don’t know how he’s connected otherwise, and I’d about decided this was all a false trail, but you know what? Suddenly I see the FBI involved. Isn’t that interesting, Mr. Stanley?”
Stanley stood up, nodded politely, and walked outside.
Gordon watched him go, then turned to Owen. “Mr. Tremaine, I don’t know about this stuff your friend is saying. But…stay in touch. Leave me a number if you can, or call me every day.” He noticed Carl was about to speak. “This is not a violation of anyone’s rights, Mr. LaMott. I’m asking Mr. Tremaine to do this voluntarily, for his own safety.” He looked at Owen. “Okay?”
“Sure,” Owen said, lost in thought. “Fine.”
Gordon looked at him for a few seconds, then snorted and stood up. “Thanks for the mushrooms.” He walked out, following Stanley.
The waitress arrived with food for all of them. “Damn,” Carl said. “I was hoping they’d tell us more.”
Owen shrugged. “Carl . . .”
“What?”
“We’re not looking for a story here.”
“What? Oh.” Carl thought about it. “Yeah. You’re right. Just a reflex, I guess. Anyway, it looks like you’re off the hook on the Jeep thing. I mean,” he continued when Owen glanced sharply at him, “it turned out not to matter that you didn’t mention it, that’s all.” He picked up his fork. “Are you still planning to look for Shawna yourself?”
Owen didn’t answer.
Carl nodded. “Shit. I thought so.” He made a face, but shrugged and pulled a plate over. “Come on, let’s eat, then you can take me home. I need my beauty sleep.”
Owen ate, but didn’t really taste the food. Based on her mail, he was pretty sure Andrea was involved in at least one environmental group.