these papers on my desk?
“Last night I talked to a guy who indicated he was having a problem with our office.”
The wheels on his chair made scuttling noises as the D.A. pushed himself back from
the edge of his desk. He used his hands to position himself at exactly arm’s-length
distance.
George from the basement is telling me this?
I nodded, confirming the question he had not actually vocalized. “He feels we’re not
paying attention to a very serious matter.”
Now I wasn’t just from the basement, I was George with friends in high places, conveying
a criticism of his operation. He gripped the edge of the desk until his fingers blanched.
“Who we talking about?”
“Bill Telford.”
“Anything new.” It was hard to tell if he was making a statement or asking a question,
but the color returned to his fingers. Anything New Telford wasn’t quite as much of
a threat as, perhaps, others were.
“He says he’s been handing in stuff on his daughter’s murder for some time and nobody
is following up on it.”
“There’s no case, George. No suspect, no file, nothing for this office to do except
pass along what we get to the police.” He lifted his hands about six inches, dropped
them quickly to the security afforded by the edge of the desk. Having done that, he
waited.
“If I read him correctly, he seems to be of the mind that we’re not doing anything
because the Gregorys might be involved.”
The name. The magic word. Mitch White’s muddy brown eyes popped from their sockets,
his pupils magnified by his ugly oxbow glasses. And then, within the space of a second,
his expression changed.
But wait
, it seemed to say,
the Gregorys are your ticket, too, George
. Now he saw me sitting before him not as a threat but as an ally. I had come not
to attack him but to warn him. And to work with him. We had done it before, right?
The time that young Kirby Gregory had gotten arrested for driving with a .20, we had
made it go away—he and I.
“That’s a lot of horse manure,” he said, raising one eyebrow tentatively, making sure
I agreed.
“I was wondering if I might take a look.”
Now both eyebrows went up, and then they softened. Of course. George Becket, friend
of the Gregorys, checking on the Gregorys, what better solution?
“This goes back,” he said, sitting up straight, pulling himself into the desk, “almost
ten years, you know. Bill and his wife, Edna, are fine people, and the murder has
devastated them. They still keep Heidi’s room just as it was, you know that? Kind
of creepy, I know, but that’s how much they were affected.”
He peered through his lenses. Did I see how difficult this was?
“Bill quit his job. I don’t know, he may have lost it, but this search for the killer
became an obsession with him. Always coming up with some theory or other.”
Mitch stopped talking for a moment. His fingers began to beat on the desk. A rhythmless
sound like typewriter keys clacking.
“After a while they all seemed to revolve around the Gregorys. There was a party that
didn’t really happen. A pickup at the general store that nobody is quite sure actually
took place. You know the kinds of things I’m saying. A horrible thing happens in the
Gregorys’ neighborhood and all of a sudden conspiracists are everywhere, feeding the
grieving parents information that doesn’t really have any factual basis. All that
does is make us have to be extra-careful on our end. Pressure like the kind Bill puts
on almost makes you push back harder than you otherwise would. You listen, sure, but
after a while you grow pretty skeptical and you just say, okay, show me what you’ve
got, but I’m not carrying the water for you just because some right-wing nut who has
it in for the Gregorys says one of them was seen talking to a pretty blonde girl on
the night Heidi died. Heck, that’s what the Gregorys do. Probably isn’t a pretty blonde
girl
“Last night I talked to a guy who indicated he was having a problem with our office.”
The wheels on his chair made scuttling noises as the D.A. pushed himself back from
the edge of his desk. He used his hands to position himself at exactly arm’s-length
distance.
George from the basement is telling me this?
I nodded, confirming the question he had not actually vocalized. “He feels we’re not
paying attention to a very serious matter.”
Now I wasn’t just from the basement, I was George with friends in high places, conveying
a criticism of his operation. He gripped the edge of the desk until his fingers blanched.
“Who we talking about?”
“Bill Telford.”
“Anything new.” It was hard to tell if he was making a statement or asking a question,
but the color returned to his fingers. Anything New Telford wasn’t quite as much of
a threat as, perhaps, others were.
“He says he’s been handing in stuff on his daughter’s murder for some time and nobody
is following up on it.”
“There’s no case, George. No suspect, no file, nothing for this office to do except
pass along what we get to the police.” He lifted his hands about six inches, dropped
them quickly to the security afforded by the edge of the desk. Having done that, he
waited.
“If I read him correctly, he seems to be of the mind that we’re not doing anything
because the Gregorys might be involved.”
The name. The magic word. Mitch White’s muddy brown eyes popped from their sockets,
his pupils magnified by his ugly oxbow glasses. And then, within the space of a second,
his expression changed.
But wait
, it seemed to say,
the Gregorys are your ticket, too, George
. Now he saw me sitting before him not as a threat but as an ally. I had come not
to attack him but to warn him. And to work with him. We had done it before, right?
The time that young Kirby Gregory had gotten arrested for driving with a .20, we had
made it go away—he and I.
“That’s a lot of horse manure,” he said, raising one eyebrow tentatively, making sure
I agreed.
“I was wondering if I might take a look.”
Now both eyebrows went up, and then they softened. Of course. George Becket, friend
of the Gregorys, checking on the Gregorys, what better solution?
“This goes back,” he said, sitting up straight, pulling himself into the desk, “almost
ten years, you know. Bill and his wife, Edna, are fine people, and the murder has
devastated them. They still keep Heidi’s room just as it was, you know that? Kind
of creepy, I know, but that’s how much they were affected.”
He peered through his lenses. Did I see how difficult this was?
“Bill quit his job. I don’t know, he may have lost it, but this search for the killer
became an obsession with him. Always coming up with some theory or other.”
Mitch stopped talking for a moment. His fingers began to beat on the desk. A rhythmless
sound like typewriter keys clacking.
“After a while they all seemed to revolve around the Gregorys. There was a party that
didn’t really happen. A pickup at the general store that nobody is quite sure actually
took place. You know the kinds of things I’m saying. A horrible thing happens in the
Gregorys’ neighborhood and all of a sudden conspiracists are everywhere, feeding the
grieving parents information that doesn’t really have any factual basis. All that
does is make us have to be extra-careful on our end. Pressure like the kind Bill puts
on almost makes you push back harder than you otherwise would. You listen, sure, but
after a while you grow pretty skeptical and you just say, okay, show me what you’ve
got, but I’m not carrying the water for you just because some right-wing nut who has
it in for the Gregorys says one of them was seen talking to a pretty blonde girl on
the night Heidi died. Heck, that’s what the Gregorys do. Probably isn’t a pretty blonde
girl
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