Empty Places, page 16
The entrance to the health spa was enclosed by glass, brightly lit and air conditioned. My clean shirt was already sticking to my skin, and the sudden cooling brought a chill to my spine. Two women on the far side of middle age occupied the check-in counter. I stood back with the undamaged side of my face toward them, while Matt gave them each a smile dripping with honey and addressed them with a voice to match. There was no hesitation. They eagerly pointed the way to the steam room and Assemblyman Manchester.
We walked into the steam room without changing. Manchester was alone, lying face up on the wooden bench, an arm slung over his head.
"Assemblyman?" I said.
"Yes, what is it?" His words came out as a moan. He didn't look up. "Please, no calls. Not now. Please."
"No calls, assemblyman," Matt said. "Just talk."
Manchester's arm rose like a crane, and his head turned toward us. Sick, blood swollen eyes stared blankly. "Wh–what?"
"Peter Brandt, assemblyman," I said. "We met last night at Carlos Tinnerman's party. I'm Robin Anderson's ex-husband."
Recognition clicked in his eyes. The assemblyman sat up too quickly and his head paid the price. I considered offering him one of my pills, then thought better of it.
Manchester looked at me, then Matt. Sweat and steam had thoroughly soaked my shirt. Matt's bald head looked like Mt. Rushmore in a rain shower. Manchester's eyes held bewilderment, as if he thought he might be dreaming about two fully dressed men confronting him in a steam room.
"I remember," Manchester said slowly. "We talked last night about—" the politician glanced sharply at Matt "—about your wife."
"That's right." Matt's voice boomed through the mist. "And we need to talk some more about her. Outside. Now."
"Who do you think you are talking to me like that?" Manchester's voice rose angrily. The look on his face showed the change in pitch hurt him. "Do you know who I am?"
Matt moved faster than you would think a man his size could move. He hoisted the politician to his feet and pushed him toward the door. Manchester's towel dropped to the floor. He yelped and reached for it, but Matt's bear paw hand closed tighter around the politician's thin arm. Manchester let the towel lay where it fell and said nothing more.
Matt half dragged Manchester out of the sauna and toward a row of metal lockers, stopping only to grab a white terry-cloth towel. The old bear let the politician's arm go, then ran the towel over his own sweaty head and face. Manchester backed up against the lockers, jumping at the first touch of the cool metal. His damp hair clung in clumps to his forehead and sweat ran in sheets down his face and body. He stood shivering, wet and naked, and not looking very presidential at all.
"Wha–what do you want?" Manchester's voice cracked. "Why are you here?"
"It's about our conversation last night," I said. "The one about Robin's files."
Manchester looked nervously at Matt, then back at me. "You–you have the files?"
"No, I told you that last night."
"Then what is this about?" The assemblyman's voice gained a little strength and he stood a little taller. Matt threw the towel over his shoulder and stepped toward Manchester, propping himself against the locker with a stiff arm. Manchester lost the little composure he had regained and shrank in front of Matt.
"It's about the men you sent after my friend last night," Matt said. "The ones who wanted the tape, then beat the crap out of Pete when they didn't find it."
"Wh-what tape? What m–men?" Manchester looked at me and noticed for the first time the bruises and cuts on my face. "My God, what happened to you?"
"I just told you what happened to him, assemblyman." Matt stopped leaning against the locker and grabbed Manchester's shoulder. The pink in his fingernails was replaced by white. Manchester's face reflected the strength of Matt's grip.
"I . . . don't . . . know what . . . you're talking about." The words barely squeezed through Manchester's clenched teeth.
"What is it in Robin's files you want, Manchester?" I demanded.
"I told you."
"Not enough, damn it. Just what could Robin have in her files that she wouldn't have already used if it was newsworthy?"
"I told you last night."
I nodded at Matt and he squeezed tighter.
"All right, damn it, all right," Manchester screamed. "Robin and I had an affair."
He watched me out of the corner of his eye, waiting of my reaction. I told him to go on.
"We met during the last election when she was doing a story on my campaign," the assemblyman continued. "It was just casual at first. We'd just get to together occasionally when I was in town. But she took it too seriously. I—I had to call it off and she took it hard."
"You used her then dumped her, right?" I shouted.
Manchester braced himself as if he expected me to lay him one across the jaw. The temptation was there.
"Look, I'm married," Manchester said. "Robin knew that. She knew it! Besides, it wasn't like she was in love with me, either. I think she was more interested in just having me take her out of this desert. She wanted me to take her up to Sacramento. She wanted to be my press secretary. I told her that was impossible."
"Then you dumped her?"
"I called it off, that's all."
"Then what?"
"Robin took it hard," Manchester said. "She made several angry phone calls to me, said she'd tell people about our affair. I told her it would just be her word against mine. Eventually the calls stopped."
"How long ago was that?" Matt made it a demand, not a question.
Manchester shrugged. "I don't know, for Christ's sake. A year ago. Maybe more, maybe less."
"Then what was all this song and dance about Robin's files last night?" I asked.
"Look," said Manchester, "I, my party and I, stand for family values. If it ever got out I was committing adultery . . . " He glanced as us and let the sentence dangle.
"We're not interested in blackmail, assemblyman." Matt said.
Manchester looked relieved.
"I just thought she might have something connecting us. A diary, letters, something. I just wanted to be sure if there was anything, it didn't get into the wrong hands."
"When was the last time you saw Robin?" Matt asked.
Manchester shrugged again. "Weeks ago. A month, two months."
"Hey, what the hell's going on here?"
The spa attendant approached us with his fists clenched and held wide at his side. He was dressed entirely in white—white shoes, white pants and a white T-shirt stretched over a bodybuilder's chest and shoulders. Manchester stood a little taller, expecting help had arrived. Matt held out his free arm, the index finger extended.
"Hold it right there, muscle man." The attendant froze. There was enough icy venom in Matt's voice to make a gym full of bodybuilders freeze.
I turned back to Manchester. "Did Robin say anything about a story she was working on?"
Manchester slunk against the locker again. "No."
"Nothing?"
The politician shook his head. Matt tightened his grip and Manchester's memory improved.
"All right, all right," he said. "Yes, she did mention something. She showed up at my office in Sacramento. Said she was on vacation and was in town to do some research, checking out some records or something."
"What kind of records?"
Manchester looked at me and shook his head. "Corporate records, PACs—"
"Political action committees?"
The assemblyman nodded. "She was asking about a number of companies with PACs which had contributed to my campaigns. She found out they were all owned by the same person, but because of the way the companies and their PACs were set up, this person could funnel large sums of money to my campaign."
"Larger sums than the state limits on contributions allow, right?" I said.
He glanced up at me. "And to others' campaigns, too. It's all perfectly legal."
"Yeah," I said. "But not ethical. It just means you were legally bought and paid for."
Manchester started to protest, but Matt's growl cut him short.
"Who owned the companies?"
"Tinnerman," the assemblyman said. "Carlos Tinnerman. She was tracing Tinnerman's campaign donations. I don't know why. It was no secret he was one of the biggest contributors to Republican campaigns in the state."
"Hey, I don't know what you guys are doing," said the muscle man in white, "but I don't think you should be doing it here."
"Shut up!"
Matt's voice boomed through the tiled rooms. The bodybuilder stayed quiet. Matt released his grip on Manchester's shoulder and took the towel from his shoulder.
"Here."
He threw the towel in the politician's face. Manchester caught it as it fell toward the floor and tried to cover himself.
"Keep your pants on from now on, Mr. Assemblyman," Matt told him. "It'll keep you out of trouble."
CHAPTER 19
WE WALKED TOWARD THE lobby in silence, looking back only once. Neither Manchester nor the muscle-bound attendant gave chase. There was a deep, unspoken anger hiding in our quiet.
"Casey said the same thing," I finally said. "That Robin was desperate to get out of this desert. She must have hated it here."
Something scratched at the back of my mind, trying to work its way out, but I couldn't quite grab on it. I thought of Laurie Hall and the screams I heard from her as I went down under the pounding from the Hispanic gunman. I shook the image from my head but it did no good. As we passed a bank of pay phones in the lobby, I reached into my pocket.
"Matt, got any change?"
Matt stuffed his hand into his pocket and came out with a small treasury of quarters, nickels and dimes. "Yeah," he grunted.
I took all the coins he held. "Thanks, I need to call Laurie," I said. "You said she went home with her parents?"
"Yeah."
I tried Laurie's apartment first and dialed the number I had written on a scrap of paper the day before. There was no answer. I had no idea what her parents' number was or what their given names were, so I turned to the best information resource a reporter has—the phone book. There were at least two dozen Halls listed in the green pages. I immediately rejected the ones with addresses outside of The Springs proper, and those who lived in the newer developments on the outskirts of town. That left about ten who lived in the older, more expensive neighborhoods, the kind where a family with a Court and Racket Club membership would live. I started dialing numbers. On the fourth try, I succeeded.
Laurie's mother was decidedly cool toward me, but she still called her daughter to the phone. Laurie's voice was dull and quiet. I couldn't see her face, but I knew there was no sparkle in her eyes and that her sensuous smile was gone from her lips.
"How are you doing?" I asked her.
"I'm all right," she said. I wasn't convinced. "The doctor gave me some pills to make me sleep, so I'm okay. Are you?"
"My face is a little rearranged," I told her, "but nothing I'm not getting used to."
"My poor baby," she purred. After a pause, she added: "I was so scared."
"Me, too."
"Pete, Luce called. He wanted me to write a story about it all. Not just the beating. About how you and Matt are investigating Robin's murder, too. He wanted me to say it was connected, last night and Robin."
"That ass."
"I told him I couldn't because the doctor told me to rest. Luce said he'd write it himself then."
"And get it all screwed up, too," I said.
The line went quiet for a few seconds, then Laurie asked in a voice that still held the fear from the night before: "Was it, Peter?"
"Was what?"
"Was last night connected to Robin's murder?"
"I don't know," I told her. "Maybe."
The line went quiet again. I heard Laurie sniff, and I imagined tears welling up in her gorgeous dark eyes. I wanted to comfort her, but I was too far away and I didn't know how anyway. More anger surged inside me, and a lot of it was directed at myself.
I cleared my throat a couple times. "Laurie, I need to know something about Robin. Did she ever mention anything about wanting to get out of the desert?"
Laurie laughed sadly. "All the time, Peter. All the time. She was always talking about getting a job in L.A. or New York—anyplace but here."
"Or Sacramento?"
"Yeah. Come to think of it, she did mention once she thought she'd be moving to Sacramento. She made it sound like she had a job lined up there. Then she never mentioned it again."
"Then she never mentioned anything about going up there a few weeks ago, on her vacation?"
Laurie sniffed. "No. Is this something to do with her death, Peter?"
"I don't know," I said. "Was there anyone else you know she might have confided in? Maybe someone at her station she worked with on a regular basis? A cameraman, a producer, another reporter? Someone she worked with like a team?"
There was another silence on the line, then Laurie's voice came through, cracking slightly at the start. "No, no one," she said. "Not really. Well—"
"Yes?"
"Well, Steve Casey, he's the station's news director."
"I know who he is."
"Well, he and Robin were . . . they were kind of close, I guess. Pete, what I'm saying is they had some kind of relationship. Steve used to help Robin a lot, kind of like a mentor. That's the only person I can think of. Why?"
That was the answer I expected.
"Pete, why do you ask?"
"I just need to find out what Robin was really working on." I looked at my watch, then scooped what was left of Matt's change into my hand. "Listen, Laurie. I've got to go now. You just rest and take it easy. And don't be scared anymore, okay?"
"Okay," she said. Then very quietly: "Peter, be careful, will you?"
"Sure."
I said goodbye and hung up. I found Matt sitting in the lobby reading the afternoon paper. He looked up as he heard me coming, shaking the change in my hand.
"We made the front page," he said, holding up the broadsheet.
The banner headline screamed: GUNMEN THREATEN REPORTERS, LOCAL MURDER TIE SUSPECTED. The subhead read: Staff Writer Hall Terrorized, Another Beaten. The story beneath the headlines was bylined Jack Luce.
"It's all screwed up," Matt said.
"That's the Jack Luce School of Journalism," I said, reading the lead paragraph. "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."
"Two reporters, including a staff writer for this newspaper, were savagely beaten and threatened at gun point last night in what may be an attack linked to the murder of a local television reporter.
Staff writer Laura Hall and Peter Brandt, a former reporter for this paper, were assaulted by two unknown gunmen as they drove along Ramon Road near the Palm Springs and Cathedral City border.
The two reporters were rescued by a former police officer who chased the gunmen off with a hail of bullets.
Brandt was the husband of slain TV reporter Robin Anderson . . . "
"Ex-husband," I muttered. "Ex-husband! Why can't anyone get that right, damn it?"
"Brandt was the husband of slain TV reporter Robin Anderson, who was found viciously murdered with two gun shots in the chest on a deserted desert road nearly two weeks ago.
Brandt was questioned by sheriff's investigators as a possible suspect in the slaying, but not held.
This newspaper has learned that Brandt and private investigator Matthew Banyan have been conducting their own investigation into the Anderson murder, possibly to clear Brandt's name as a suspect.
Banyan is also the former policeman who rescued Hall and Brandt from their attackers. It was not immediately known how Banyan happened to be in the same area at the time of the attack.
Hall and Brandt were returning from covering a political fund raiser held at the palatial mountainside estate of local entrepreneur Carlos Tinnerman when they were attacked.
Hall, a reporter for this paper for . . ."
"That God-damned Luce," I said. "He's made me a suspect in a murder that occurred when I was in another country more than 2,000 miles away. Idiot."
"At least he spelled your name right," Matt said.
I took a cursory look at the rest of the front page. There was a wire story in the left-hand column on the growing number of White House officials caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal, the plot to illegally sell weapons to the pro-terrorist Iranian government and use the proceeds to fund Reagan’s illegal proxy war in Nicaragua. A happy feature sat at the bottom of the page, and a police story stood on the right side blaming illegal immigrants for a rise in local prostitution. In the middle of the page above the fold was a three-column photo of Carlos Tinnerman shaking hands with Assemblyman Manchester, taken the night before.
Disgusted, I dropped the rag sheet in Matt's lap.
Matt carefully folded the paper, making certain each page was straight, then tossed it unceremoniously into a nearby waste can. "How's your little lady?"
"Shaken. Scared. Her mother hates me."
We left the lobby and walked to the car.
"She told me Luce was going to write that story," I said. "He wanted her to do it. She refused."
"Good for the lass."
We climbed into the sedan and Matt started the engine. I told Matt to swing by Robin's TV station so I could talk to Casey. "I think he knows more about what Robin was working on than he's told us," I said. "Somebody's got to."
Matt backed the car out of the parking slot, then stopped. He rested his hands on the wheel, lowered his head and slowly shook it. His cheeks puffed up and he exhaled softly through pursed lips.
"This hasn't started out a good day," he said.
I gave him a cigarette from my pack and lit it, then lit one for myself. "What do you mean by that, Matt?" I said. "Questioned by police, rousting a politician, getting our names in the paper. Sounds like a good morning's work to me."
✽ ✽ ✽
Our reception at the TV station wasn't as warm as our previous visit. Steve Casey refused to meet us; the receptionist said he wasn't in although we had seen him duck into an office as we entered the lobby. Instead, Charlie Davis greeted us, attired in his Palm Springs uniform of purple pants topping white loafers accompanied by a pink shirt and white tie. He looked like plump scoops of fruity ice cream stacked one atop the other, and his greeting was just as cold.
