Red White and Black and Blue ds-12 Read online

  "Anyway, I'll tell Shy you're on top of this, or soon will be.

  Don, I've heard so much about you and I know we can count on you."

  I'd had enough of Dunphy for one day and rang off and called Timmy.

  "Are you at home?"

  "Yes. Where are you?"

  "In room 612 at the Crowne Plaza. Not to worry. Nobody knows I'm here, and I'm resting and popping Tylenol."

  "You can get room service and then a good night's sleep.

  Would you like me to come over?"

  "Thanks, but there's no need. I'll be going over the police report on the suicide, and later I'll be getting briefed on the insurance investigator's report on Stiver's death. And then I'm sure I'll lapse happily into unconsciousness."

  "The insurance company is letting you see their report?

  Those companies are so protective of that sort of thing. How did you manage to get hold of it?"

  "I don't have it yet. I found somebody who has access."

  "Wow, who?"

  "A guy I know."

  "What? Why are you being so cagey? Is this some guy you used to sleep with? Who is it?"

  "No, I barely know the guy. It's just somebody who does research for me once in a while."

  "Oh, a leg man."

  "Yeah, leg man. Not an ass man, ha ha."

  "Ha ha. Is it Bud Giannopolous?"

  "Yes. Yes, it is Bud Giannopolous."

  A silence. "Bud is eventually going to go to prison, you know. Do you want to go with him?"

  "I should never have told you about Bud. You take this kind of thing way too seriously. It's the world we live in, Timothy."

  "Yes, it's the world we live in. We being the Russian mafia, the Pakistani intelligence services, the North Korean Politburo, al Qaeda, and Dick Cheney. The rest of us we 's still respect the institutional and personal privacy that's one of the cornerstones of what's left of civilization. What Bud does is immoral, and it is illegal."

  "But not fattening?"

  "This is not funny. You are going to end up in the federal pen. And when it happens you'll-it hurts me to say this you'll deserve it." He muttered something else and hung up.

  God. al Qaeda? He'd never called me that one before.

  I phoned room service and ordered gazpacho, a Caesar salad, and a Sam Adams.

  The police report on Greg Stiver's death was a chore to wade through. How could anybody with a five-hundred word vocabulary be this verbose? The document basically repeated in its stiff, dense way what the SUNY cops had said: the body discovered at ten twenty in the morning; the apparent plunge from the Quad Four roof; death as a result of brain and other injuries. A Detective Ivor Nichols had interviewed Mrs.

  Pensivy, Stiver's landlady, along with Janie Insinger and Virgil Jackman, and the two "friends of the deceased" had spoken of his having been depressed over employment and other difficulties. They apparently had not mentioned Kenyon Louderbush and all that mishegoss. Why? Nor was there any reference to "call from Leg. Blessing responding," as in the handwritten note on the SUNY report on the incident. The presumed suicide note was quoted-"I hurt too much"-but there was no photo of the note itself and no mention of what had become of it.

  I read the report a second time, and then a third, and then the soup, salad, and beer arrived. With the safety lock on the door in place, I retrieved the Smith amp; Wesson from my shoulder bag and placed it next to my laptop. Why had I taken it out? Roaches? Bedbugs? I did believe I was safe in this room, whose number was known only to Timmy and to the hotel front desk.

  Down below on State Street the last office-worker stragglers were heading out of the neighborhood, which would soon be all but deserted. Albany nightlife, such as it was on a Thursday evening in June, would take place largely on the outskirts of the city. Only a few hardcore pols and the lobbyists that kept the officeholders' throats hydrated and their arteries clogged would be hanging around downtown at the few ancient joints like Jack's Oyster House that somehow had survived the long-ago retail and entertainment flight to the suburbs.

  While I ate, I did an Internet search for Hugh Stiver, Greg's brother, who, according to Jennifer, had lit out for parts unknown at the earliest opportunity. I found a total of nineteen Hugh Stivers, but none seemed to be the right age or race or-for those on Facebook-to bear any physical resemblance to either Greg or Jennifer. They were scattered all over the United States. One elderly Hugh Stiver resided in Uruguay.

  My Hugh was elusive or reclusive-or perhaps had changed his name? I searched for Hugh Cutler, Cutler being the Stiver siblings' surname prior to the arrival in the household of Anson Stiver. Seven of these turned up; one was the right age, thirty-two. This Hugh Cutler was a mechanic at a garage in Arlington, Massachusetts. He had no Facebook page, and I found him through court records; Cutler was on probation following his conviction a year earlier for assault.

  I phoned Jennifer Stiver. "Hey, thanks for your help today.

  I just have a quick question. Was your brother Hugh a mechanic?"

  "Yes, but I can't talk to you anymore. I'm just too…ambivalent about what you're doing. I'm hanging up. Sorry."

  And she was gone. So I couldn't ask her if she knew that Hugh apparently had a violent streak.

  I finished the soup and salad.

  I tried Virgil Jackman, reached his voice mail, and left no message.

  Janie Insinger did answer her phone. She said she and Kev were "like, going out," and she could speak to me briefly.

  "Just one question, Janie. When you were interviewed by the police after Greg's death, you told them he had been despondent. That was in the police report. Did you also mention his relationship with Kenyon Louderbush?"

  "You bet we did. Why not? I was so ripshit, I didn't give a crap if he was some senator or if he was just some pissant geek."

  "And the police noted this and asked you more about it?

  The physical abuse, for example…did that come up?"

  "Sure, but this old bald guy detective-I forget his name he just said that wasn't anything the cops could, like, get mixed up in. It was private. He said it used to be different, but nowadays the police didn't care about gay people and their private business. The new chief would just say it was none of the police's business."

  "Uh-huh. Was this a Detective Nichols, do you remember?"

  "Coulda been. He had hair coming out of his ears."

  This would make him easy to find. Bald and hairy. "What about Greg's brother, Hugh? Did Greg ever talk about him to you? Hugh was a couple of years older."

  "Greg had a brother? I didn't know that. Are you sure?"

  "Yes. I heard about him from Jennifer. Hugh left Schenectady when he was eighteen."

  "Greg never talked about him. They probably weren't close."

  "Is Anthony still with you, the security guy from the campaign?"

  "He's downstairs. Kev doesn't like him around, so we might give him the night off. Virgil probably would've tried to get him in the sack with us, but Kev is too straight for that, thank God."

  "Well, be careful."

  "You too."

  I reread the police report. Why wasn't Insinger's mention of Louderbush in there? The cop would have known that Louderbush was a big cheese in the Legislature, so apparently discretion had overridden conscientiousness.

  My Blackberry alerted me that something had come in from Bud Giannopolous, and I checked the laptop. This was timely. The sizeable file was the Shenango Life Insurance Company report on the death of its policyholder, Gregory Stiver. The nine-page report by investigator Lorraine Fallon included the SUNY security and Albany Police findings and the APD verdict of suicide. In a "note to the files," Fallon wrote that a handwritten "addendum" to the police report labeled CONFIDENTIAL mentioned "a physically abusive male/male relationship" and "the possibility of foul play," rather than suicide. Fallon noted additionally, "Conversation with Nichols/APD. Suggest destroy copy. Unsubstantiated.

  Libelous? Leg. kahuna."

  The
copy of this handwritten addendum was missing from the insurance company's copy of the police report, as it was from my copy. The SUNY security report did include the scribbled note, "Call from Leg. Blessing responding." In her report, Fallon made no mention of this cryptic notation.

  Fallon's "reluctant" recommendation to Shenango Life was to withhold paying the insurance policy's beneficiary, Jennifer Stiver, because the official verdict was suicide, and standard policy precluded a payout under such circumstances.

  I went over this material twice again, and each time my attention snagged on the disappearing confidential memo about an abusive "Leg. kahuna," and on the "call from Leg." to which "Blessing" was to have responded.

  I e-mailed Bud Giannopolous and asked him to please find out if SUNY had somebody on its staff named Blessing.

  Then I called my pal at APD.

  "I need to talk to a detective on the force named Ivor Nichols. Can you set something up?"

  "Can't. Sorry. Ivor retired a couple of years ago. Even worse, both for him and for you, he passed away just last week."

  "Crap."

  "What's this about? Maybe I can help."

  "What kind of cop was Nichols? Would he have altered a report to protect somebody important in the Legislature?"

  "I guess you could say that Ivor was traditional in the regard. Yeah, I'd have to say so."

  "What did he die of? Nothing violent, I hope."

  "Lung cancer. It's not violent, technically speaking, although I've heard it feels that way."

  Chapter Twelve

  I slept poorly. My back, legs and shoulders still ached, and the ear felt as if fire ants were gnawing at it. I had changed the bandage, per Albany Med's instructions, before I went to bed, and chowed down more Tylenol, all of this to not much effect.

  When my wake-up call went off next to my flaming ear at five thirty Friday morning, I was already half conscious, half thinking and half dreaming about kahunas and Blessing and go figure-an elegant blonde woman jumping into San Francisco bay. I showered without getting the bandage soaked, just splashed a little.

  After throwing on some jeans and a polo shirt, I made my way down to the hotel parking garage, bringing along only my Blackberry and the Smith amp; Wesson in the shoulder bag.

  While the rental car appeared untampered-with, I gave the engine and wheel wells a quick once over.

  Traffic was light at this early hour. I whizzed across the I-90 bridge and kept going east on the interstate, exiting briefly for a Dunkin' Donuts stop just past East Greenbush. I joined the orderly drive-thru queue-not wanting to go inside and frighten the bleary-eyed early morning customers with my repulsive hickey-and then got back on the highway and consumed the juice, coffee and bagel in the car. If anyone was tailing me, I was unaware of it, and I was staying watchful.

  I didn't have my GPS with me, which left me feeling naked and helpless on the one hand, but also gratifyingly self-sufficient. I would stalk my prey using mainly my nose and also my vague recollection that Arlington, Massachusetts was located just west of Boston. I confirmed this on a map I picked up at a Massachusetts Turnpike service area and arrived in Arlington just in time to get stuck in the morning commuter traffic inching its way into the city.

  As I crept along on state route 2, I found an NPR station on the radio and caught the tail end of a news report on upcoming primary elections across the US. The roundup mentioned in passing the New York State primary. The reporter said political handicappers were putting their money on the Tea Party-backed conservative Democrat Kenyon Louderbush. The Shy McCloskey campaign was described as

  "floundering." I said out loud, "You betcha."

  I pulled into an Arlington Mobil station to ask directions to J and J's Auto Service, where Hugh Cutler worked, and was told that the Shell station diagonally across the intersection was J amp;J's. I made my way over there and filled the tank on the Hyundai. The station had no convenience store attached to it, just a two-bay garage, both doors up. I pulled over, out of the way of the comings and goings, and parked.

  At the counter, a young guy with a rhinestone stud in his left ear and what looked like an incipient premature beer gut was giving an old lady the bad news about her alternator: kaput, big bucks to replace it. She looked downcast and said she would have to call "Mick." While she used the phone, I asked the counterman, whose name was Jim, according to 110

  Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson some stitching on his work shirt pocket, if Hugh Cutler was there.

  "Yeah. Why? Hugh's workin'."

  "Need to talk. Department of Probation. This won't take long."

  Jim took this in and didn't seem stunned. "What, like five minutes?"

  "Or ten. No more."

  He gave me a you-guys-drive-me-crazy-but-what-the-fuck-can-I-do look. "I'll get him."

  I walked outside and stood on the far side of the rental car. Jim soon reappeared, followed by a frowning blue-eyed man with sandy hair over his collar, an unruly beard, and Hugh on his greasy work shirt.

  "This won't take more than a few minutes," I said. "There's no problem. I just have a couple of questions."

  Cutler looked apprehensive. Was I some new asshole he was going to have to deal with? "Okay. What questions?"

  Jim turned and went back inside.

  "This is actually unofficial." I showed him my ID. "I work out of Albany, New York and I'm looking into the circumstances of your brother Greg Stiver's death. I'm working for people who are very sympathetic to Greg and to your whole family situation. I've heard from your sister, Jennifer, how bad it was for both of you. I don't know how much you know about Greg's suicide."

  He stared at me. "You're not from Probation?"

  "Sorry about that. I thought your boss might be more inclined to let me talk to you for ten minutes."

  "Yeah, and what if he didn't know about my status? Fuck."

  "Well, he would. Those are the rules, I do believe. Anyway, I'll be out of here in no time."

  "You sure as fuck will."

  "I just wanted to find out what you knew about the suicide, and if you had been in touch with Greg around that time, and what he might have told you about what was going on in his head. And why you think he killed himself."

  Hugh kept staring. "This is incredible. How did you even find me?"

  "Court records. The assault conviction. I guessed that you might have changed your name from Stiver. Anson Stiver was a piss-poor excuse of a stepfather, I've heard from several people."

  "I just can't believe this. I've had no contact with that family for fourteen years!"

  "How did you know about Greg's death?"

  "A buddy in Schenectady I stay in touch with e-mailed me.

  He saw it in the paper."

  "I'm surprised that after you left Schenectady you didn't keep up contact with Greg. You were both victims of your stepfather's abuse. Or did you two also have some kind of falling out?"

  His shoulders slumped a little. "Greg and I never talked to each other about anything. He went his way, and I went mine. He had school and all that stuff. I liked engines. There was nothing to fall out from. On my eighteenth birthday, I got out. And I never looked back."

  "Your sister Jennifer is a teacher. She seems okay in her life."

  "I know. My bud back home told me. Jenny never gave a fuck about me. She was like Mom. And I don't give a fuck about either one of them."

  "You knew Greg was gay?"

  "Yeah. He used to yell it around the house when he was in high school. It was a way to get back at Anson. But I couldn't care less whose pants he got into. That's the way Greg was, and so what?"

  "Were you surprised when you heard he killed himself?"

  Hugh leaned against the car and looked at the ground.

  "Yeah."

  "He'd never seemed suicidal to you?"

  "No. Greg was strong. I was really surprised when I heard that."

  "In what ways was he strong?"

  He thought about this. "I dunno.
Just…he had a lot of ideas about the way things worked. He was like that kid on Family Ties. He was conservative and had all these Republican opinions. I really got tired of hearing it. That didn't seem very gay, but what do I know? Greg wanted to change the world, and he thought he could do it. That somebody who knows all that boring crap would just go ahead and kill themselves just didn't make sense to me."

  "What were his gay relationships like? Were you aware of who he dated?"

  "Not really. In high school he hung out with some other nerdy gays. A kid named Bootsy was kind of girly. I think they fooled around with each other, but Greg didn't have any big crushes or great loves that I ever saw. The only crush Greg had that I knew about was Ronald Reagan. Greg had a picture of Reagan on the wall in his room."

  "What were your stepfather's politics? Or did he have any?"

  "Dipped if I know. Anson hated all politicians. And everybody else, too."

  "Was he violent with other people that you knew of? Or just you and Greg?"

  A bitter look. "Why would Anson pound anybody else besides me and Greg? If it was a kid, he'd go to jail. If it was a grown-up, the dude might smack him back. No, he had it made, Anson did. I don't know who he must be knocking around now. I hate to think."

  "Can I ask you about your assault conviction? What were the circumstances?"

  He almost laughed. "You could figure it out."

  "Maybe. What happened?"

  "An asshole in a bar in Somerville. I was drunk. So was he.

  Big sack of shit, he starts ragging this kid, some Harvard dweeb, and he grabs the kid's glasses off and smashes them with his foot. The stupid kid is drunk too, and he pushes this guy, and the asshole slams the kid in the face and breaks his nose. That's when I lost it. I jumped the guy and pounded his head on the bar, and he ends up with a concussion. The cops come in and charge both of us with assault, and then we both get probation. Now I'm a criminal. Unlike Anson Stiver. Not fair, my man, not fair."

  "Had you ever been violent before?"

  He looked at me stonily. "Not really. Unless you count the day I left Schenectady."

  "Anson?"