Masquerade in Blue, page 1
Masquerade in Blue
Also by D. C. Brod
Murder in Store
Error in Judgment
Masquerade in Blue
D. C. Brod
a division of F+W Media, Inc.
For Bruce Cobban
Contents
Cover
Also by D. C. Brod
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Brothers in Blood
Also Available
Copyright
Chapter 1
THE RINGING BEGAN JUST as I pulled the door shut behind me, my key still in its lock. That’s how close I was to a clean getaway. A stronger-willed person might have prevailed. But, to me, the call of the telephone is like a blank crossword puzzle or a Jack Nicholson movie – time expands to accommodate it. I let myself back into my office and grabbed the phone just as the answering machine was poised to take over.
“Quint. God, am I glad you’re there.” It was Jeff Barlowe, Foxport’s answer to Woodward and Bernstein. “I need your help.”
Bad timing. I made a noncommittal noise and glanced at my watch. Maybe this wasn’t a lost cause yet. Airport traffic can be unpredictable, so I’d given myself plenty of time to get to O’Hare. But when Jeff said, “I’m in jail and you’re my phone call,” I had the feeling it wouldn’t be enough.
“Jail? What’d you do?”
“Do? What did I do? Nothing. Not a damned thing. That’s why I’m here. I didn’t do a damned thing.” There was a rise in Jeff’s tone that sounded like the early stages of panic.
I was on the wrong side of the desk to use the chair, so I pushed a couple files out of the way and sat on its surface. “Okay, okay. Take it easy. Just tell me what happened.”
“Nothing. That’s it.” He paused long enough to take a deep breath. “I got slapped with a contempt of court citation. That son of a bitch Kramer said I could sit here and rot until I tell him what he wants to hear.”
“What’s he want to hear?”
“I can’t say right now.”
“So, what do you want me to do?” I winced at the trace of impatience in my voice. There was one of those little cartoon characters on each of my shoulders. One had horns; the other wings. One chanted, “You should have let it ring.” The other said, “Don’t be a shit. The guy needs help.” I picked up a glass paperweight and felt its heft and the smoothness of its contours. Inside was a tiny adobe house with windows rimmed in turquoise. “You want me to come down there?”
“No. I want you to send me a cake with a file in it. What the fuck do you think I want?” That settled it. Jeff only employed the heavy-duty four-letter words when desperation demanded it.
I returned the paperweight to its place on the desk and stood. “Okay, I’ll be there. You need a lawyer or anything?”
I heard what sounded like a fist smashing into a wall. “I need a private detective, goddammit. If I’d needed a lawyer, I’d have called a lawyer. Okay?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Then, I added, “Just take it easy, okay? I’m on my way.”
There was a long pause and an intake of breath. “Thanks.”
Sighing, I replaced the phone in its cradle. This was a no-win situation. It was two o’clock. Elaine was probably above Missouri by now. Missouri or Illinois, it didn’t matter; there was no way I could contact her. My choice came down to leaving Elaine stranded at the airport or Jeff stranded in jail and, ultimately, there was no choice. I could call O’Hare after Elaine’s plane landed and hope that she would hear the page. Then I thought of the oblivious masses that streamed through those terminals. I’d probably have more success getting my message to her via carrier pigeon.
I looked at the phone. If I didn’t show up, she’d call. I rerecorded my answer message, telling Elaine I was sorry, I could explain, and I’d reimburse her for a cab to the Jaded Fox, where I’d meet her.
Elaine was resourceful. She could handle a predicament. And when I explained what had kept me from the airport, once I understood myself, she’d understand. What was I worried about?
As I drove to Abel County Jail, I tried to concentrate on Jeff’s situation, but my thoughts kept shifting to Elaine. It had been six months since she moved to Santa Fe to work for a friend who’d set up a small business out there. We’d kept in touch, and though she never said as much, I’d often wondered if there was someone taking up a lot of her free time. Why wouldn’t there be? But maybe that was history now, because all of a sudden she was coming home. No explanation, just coming home for a while. That’s what she said – “for a while.” Whether that meant a week, a month, or until there was a crosstown World Series in Chicago, I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure how long I wanted it to be either. We’d had a few really good months together. Hardly enough to establish a habit, but enough to wish we’d had more time. Now it looked like I might get my wish, and the prospect was making me a little bit uneasy.
Maybe I was better off not thinking about Elaine. I switched on WGN and listened to the top half of the second in a Cubs/Mets game. Sutcliffe was pitching with one out, Johnson on first, and McReynolds at the plate. Now there was something to concentrate on – a double-play ball.
Abel County Jail is set back off Danziger Parkway an eighth of a mile. From the road, looking down the long, slow curve of a drive, it didn’t look anywhere near imposing. With its lush, trimmed grass and marginal landscaping attempts, it might have been any number of government institutions. But as I inserted my car between the white lines in the visitors’ parking area, the signs were there – tall, chain link fences, barbed wire, and barred windows. This wasn’t the place you’d go to get Fido’s license renewed. Still, it was a far cry from Joliet State.
I waited for Jeff in a small room with a long, narrow table and three folding chairs. In the middle of the table was a chipped, brown plastic ashtray. That was it. As I waited, idly looking for concealed cameras, I wondered just what I could do to get Jeff out. Finding no camera and no insight as to my mission, my thoughts shifted gears to the plane that was carrying Elaine. It was surely in its descent over Chicago by now. I sighed and moved to one of the spindly chairs and waited some more. Almost twenty minutes later, a guard opened the door, stepped back and let Jeff into the room. As the guard closed the door behind him, Jeff flashed him a scowl. I noticed that being found in contempt hadn’t deprived him of his civvies.
“You get to keep your shoe laces too?”
He eyed me through the thick lenses of his wire rims and, in a voice taut and unnaturally even, said, “Let me get one thing straight here. Nothing about this is funny. Nothing.” I thought for a wild second he’d been drugged or something. Then he shook his head and brought himself back. “Shit. Listen to me. I drag you out here then start wailing on you.”
I studied him, a skinny kid with curly hair in need of a trim, a comb, or both. There was something about the way he carried himself, on the verge of exploding from repressed energy, that took at least ten years off his age. He still got carded occasionally, even though he’d never see his twenties again. Although he managed to harness his cynicism and energy for his job, he didn’t have much time for the pretensions and bureaucracy that went with it. Next to Jeff I felt older and more a part of the establishment than I cared to.
“That’s okay,” I said, and gestured toward a chair. “So, tell me, what’s this all about?”
Sitting with Jeff through the late innings of a tight game is like watching a lizard trying to keep its feet from scorching on a rock. He just can’t sit still. Now, he couldn’t even sit. With his head bowed and hands shoved deep into his pockets, he paced the length of the table. I waited and tried not to think about the DC-10s circling Chicago. Finally I said, “Jeff, talk to me.”
“It’s about keeping my mouth shut. That’s what it’s about.”
Then, as though he’d pondered that notion as long as possible, he jumped subjects. “You know, when I was a kid, the absolute worst punishment my parents could inflict on me wasn’t a spanking. It wasn’t pulling the plug on the TV. It was sending me to my room and forcing me to sit in there with the door shut.” He kicked at the table’s leg as he passed it. When he spoke there was that eerie, hypnotic quality to his tone again. “I can’t stand being closed in anywhere. Small rooms remind me of coffins.”
“We’ll get you out of here.” I leaned on the table and tried to make eye contact with him. “Just tell me what happened.”
He looked at me and said, “That’s one reason I became a reporter. You know, no cubicles, no office hours.” He turned away. “Shit. So what do I get locked up for? For being a goddamned reporter. That’s great. Just great. Fan-fucking-tastic.”
I wanted to throttle the story out of him. Instead, I swallowed and said, “Okay. You’re in here for contempt. Can they do that? Isn’t there something called reporters’ privilege?”
Abruptly he stopped and, hands gripping the table’s edge as though he were
I let Jeff figure out for himself that he was edging toward the line that separates a sympathetic pawn of an unjust system from an asshole.
After a minute, he smiled slightly, nodded, and finally sat in one of the chairs. But he kept his hands moving. “Okay, it works like this. If they can prove that they’ve exhausted all other sources, if they can prove that I’m the only one who can give them the answer, then, yeah, they can find me in contempt.”
“What was it? A grand jury hearing?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, isn’t there some limit? I mean they can’t keep you in here forever.”
He looked at me, his eyes narrowed, and I knew that was the wrong thing to say. “I know of one poor son of a bitch they locked up for forty-five days for not revealing a source.” He paused, shook his head, then added, “I’ll be a fucking lunatic way before then. I won’t make it.”
I jumped in before he could elaborate. “So, talk to me. What do you know that no one else knows?”
He took a deep breath and I tried not to appear too hopeful. “You’ve got to promise me something before I start. You have to keep this person’s identity to yourself. If you can’t swear to that no matter what, you might as well leave now.”
That was tempting. I pictured Elaine watching other passengers meeting family and friends as they disembarked. She was looking for me, stepping aside so others could connect with friends and relatives. But I said, “Okay. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
Eyeing me as though he might see the truth of my words written somewhere on my face, he said, “I mean it. No matter what you learn, you can’t reveal this person’s identity to anyone.”
It was my turn to scrutinize Jeff. “This guy eat babies for breakfast?”
“Dammit, Quint, don’t do this. I need a straight answer.”
“And I gave you one.” I leaned toward him. “As a professional, I’ll keep my mouth shut because it’s part of my job.” I slid back into my chair and added in a softer tone, “And as a friend, I’ll do it because you asked me to.”
Jeff relaxed slightly. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Who are we talking about?” I asked.
“You hear about Leonard Novotny, that land developer who was murdered a week ago last Saturday?”
“You mean the one they found in his office under a bunch of dead ducks?”
“Dead, blue ducks,” he corrected me.
“Ah, yes,” I said, as it all clicked together for me. For the past six or eight months, Jeff had been covering the exploits of a character known only as the Blue Fox who had become something of a local hero for his style and target selections. He first surfaced in the seventies, when people began to realize that the tumorous, mottled fish swimming and floating in the Fox River weren’t an aberration. Agencies started talking pollution control, and to speed things up, someone started pointing out the worst offenders by dumping dead fish or sewage on their steps or stopping up their drainage system – “monkeywrenching” was the term the reports used to define this method of protest. The guy spray-painted his insignia, a blue fox’s head, at every scene – hence the Blue Fox.
He’d been out of the news for almost ten years, then one day about a year ago he’d walked into the executive office of a major oil company we had to thank for a big oil slick off the coast of Alaska and dumped a bucket of sludge on their white, deep pile carpeting. No one got much of a look at him. Witnesses claimed they saw a guy dressed in a trench coat and wearing a blue ski mask pulled down over his face. After that he paid not infrequent visits to polluters, mostly in the communities surrounding the Fox River, and had lately begun to target developers who were turning the prairies and wooded areas into shopping malls and single family homes.
The Blue Fox’s identity was a closely guarded secret but, for the sake of press coverage, he’d recently made himself known to Jeff Barlowe. The liaison had garnered Jeff some harsh criticism along with some damned good stories. But nothing’s free, and he was paying for it now.
“This is the guy you’ve been reporting on?”
“Exclusively.”
“Okay, wait a minute. Novotny died – what, ten days ago – and they’ve already exhausted all other sources? They’re sure you’re the only person who can tell them what they want to hear?”
Jeff scowled. “They’ve been trying to get me to cough up the Fox’s name since I started doing these articles. The police and the mayor’s office are getting pressure from the industries the Fox is embarrassing. They jumped at the chance to wring it out of me.”
“Okay. So I’m here because you’re going to tell me who he is, so I can get him to turn himself in so you can get yourself out of here.”
Jeff’s momentum flagged. “Not exactly. You see, when I was ordered to appear before the grand jury, I knew what they wanted out of me. So I contacted the Fox.” He hesitated.
I was starting to catch on. “And he decided he’d rather let you rot in jail than turn himself in for murder?”
Jeff seemed almost embarrassed. “Yeah, something like that.” Then he waved his hand at me to keep me from starting in on anyone. “There’s more to it. The Blue Fox symbolizes a very powerful movement in this area. And it’s so obviously a frame that – “
“Hold it. I can’t believe this is Jeff Barlowe, whose middle name is ‘objective,’ talking here.”
“What do you mean?” He leaned across the table. “C’mon, Quint. This is such an obvious frame, they must’ve been embarrassed to subpoena me.”
“You’ve been in this guy’s confidence, what, six months?”
“More like seven.”
“Did you ferret him out or did he contact you?” He hesitated, then said, “The Fox contacted me.”
“So, we’re talking about a guy who has a pretty firm grasp of the basic principles of publicity.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think we’re talking a good-sized ego here.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. So?”
“It ever occur to you that maybe it’s just big enough so he might put a bullet into a man’s chest, then sign his work?”
Jeff scowled. “Listen to you. All this guy cares about is saving the environment.”
“Or maybe Novotny walked in on him while he was redecorating his office.”
“No.” He shook his head and turned away. “I don’t think so.”
“What’s this character’s connection to Novotny?”
“Novotny had filed for a permit to build a corporate park – read tax revenue – on seventy-five acres just north of town. Environmentalists are up in arms. A chunk of the area is wetland. They claim it needs to be protected.”
“Save the swamp?”
“Something like that.”
“Didn’t I read that Novotny was about to go ahead? He must have gotten his permit.”
“That’s the thing. He didn’t. Not yet. But he was going to start building on a part that wasn’t connected to one of these wetlands.”
“That’s legal?”
“Yeah, it’s legal. It’s just not too ethical. Lots of folks wanted him to wait. One group was trying to convince the Forest Preservation Commission to buy the land. But now,” he gave a halfhearted shrug, “they’re going to have to do some fancy persuading.”
“Why would he want to build if he wasn’t sure he could finish?”
“He figured he’d win and even if he didn’t he’d just have a smaller industrial park. Either way the land was worth more to him than if he left it undeveloped.”
I nodded, and then for my own clarification added, “So these wetlands are spread out through the seventy-five acres. You’re not talking about one big swamp.”
“That’s right. Anyway, Novotny was poised to send in his troops and start trashing nature.”
“Then someone trashed him.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“And I suppose this Blue Fox guy was leading the protest pack.”
“You got it.”
“What had he done? Before he supposedly killed the guy?”
“Well,” Jeff smiled, “Novotny had this brand-new high-priced touring car. He goes out to his garage one morning and finds it filled with water.”
