Till the Butchers Cut Him Down Page 19

  “Hope I didn’t bother you going back and forth to the phone last night,” I said.

  “Not at all. I sleep like a Murmeltier. Always have.” She leaned the rake against an elm tree and wiped her brow with the back of her hand.

  “Like a …?”

  “German for marmot. Schlafen wie ein Murmeltier. It’s an old saying I picked up from my mother. So where are you off to this morning?”

  “I have to see a man named Herb Pace. Do you know him?”

  “Only by sight, poor man. What do you want with Mr. Pace?”

  Up to now I’d been candid about my reasons for coming here with the Monorans I’d encountered, but Nancy Koll was the chief of police, and Amos Ritter something of an outsider. It wouldn’t do to let the town gossip know the purpose of my trip. “Oh,” I said, “I work for an insurance company; it’s one of those routine matters.”

  “I see.” Jeannie looked faintly disappointed.

  I sat down on a weathered wooden bench that wrapped around the trunk of a maple. “Why do you say ‘poor man’?”

  She began raking again, speaking above the whisk and rustle. “Well, he had such a big job with the mill, was really somebody. Then overnight they threw him out, and he was nobody at all. Now you see him around town, walking up from that dump of his by the river to the state liquor store and McGlennon’s, and he looks like any other pathetic soul with too much time on his hands. Just waiting it out till he dies—helping it out, too, with the liquor.” She paused, leaning on the rake. “Not that I’ve got any use for Keystone management. That mill ate people up for generations. Ruined a lot of lives.”

  “How so?”

  “Happens that way in company towns. Take my ex-husband, Al. When we were in school, he wanted more than anything to become an engineer. Had the talent, too. But Al’s dad was a steelworker, and the philosophy was that children of steelworkers should follow their parents into the mill. When Al wanted to apply to college, the teachers put him off, said he wasn’t smart enough. For a while he went to classes part-time down at California and worked night shift at Keystone, but that’s a hard life and eventually he gave up on it. Afterward he was a broken man.”

  “What happened to Al?”

  “When the mill closed, he turned down a chance to go to Alabama. Said maybe it was for the best, he’d go back to school. But it’s hard to start over at thirty-nine. Al just sat around the house drinking, and one day he left town.” She said it matter-of-factly, but her lips pulled tight with pain. “I like to think that wherever he is, he might be realizing his ambitions.”

  “You should hold on to that thought.” It was the only comfort she was ever likely to get. I’d seen hundreds of Als on the streets of San Francisco and other cities: sleeping on benches, huddled in doorways, lining up in front of the shelters.

  “Oh, I will. No matter what’s happened to him, he’s better off out of here. Should’ve gone years ago. That mill”—she looked to the south, where its smokestacks were visible above the treetops—“the ordinary people of this town were only fuel for it. As far as management was concerned, our lives weren’t worth more than a ton of coal. Were certainly worth less than a ton of ore.”

  * * *

  I left my rental car at the guest house and walked downhill to River Street. The air was crisp this morning; Anna’s cape, which had kept me overly warm in Nevada, afforded scant protection here. Leaves from the maples and elms fluttered down and crunched under my feet—flame, burgundy, and a gold that was the exact color of candlelight. Up on the hill by Jeannie’s, the houses were large, with wraparound and upstairs sleeping porches; although many had been broken up into apartments and were in need of paint, they were reasonably well maintained. But as I descended, they became smaller, poorer; all were in bad repair, and some had been abandoned and vandalized. It occurred to me that if you walked from Amos Ritter’s Gothic mansion to the river, you would have traversed the town’s entire socioeconomic spectrum.

  Herb Pace’s house was little more than a shack facing the railroad embankment. It was covered with ancient soot-stained aluminum siding; a faded striped awning shaded its front window; a tattered sofa sat on the porch. I went up there and rang the bell. It echoed inside, loud enough to wake a badly hungover man, but no one answered.

  After I rang a few more times, I decided to walk up to Main Street. Jeannie Schmidt had mentioned that Pace was a habitué of both the state liquor store and McGlennon’s Pub; perhaps he was starting his drinking day early.

  McGlennon’s didn’t open till eleven, but two blocks away the state liquor store was doing a brisk business. As I walked over there, five people came out with shopping bags; inside, six other customers browsed. I asked the grandmotherly woman at the cash register if Pace had been in that morning. She motioned at the door. “He just left.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Gray. Gray hair, gray face, gray overcoat. Glen plaid scarf. Fifth of Kessler’s in his canvas tote bag; it won’t last him the day.” She made the comment blandly, but there was malice in her eyes. The people of Monora might hate Suits for what he’d done to their town, but some at least understood Pace’s role in Keystone’s downfall.

  I thanked her and hurried out of the store. A man in a gray overcoat with a trailing plaid scarf was turning onto a side street leading downhill. I went after him, called his name.

  Pace didn’t hear me at first. When I called again, he looked around, annoyed. I asked him to wait, and he stopped, resting a hand against a utility pole. Under his too-loose overcoat, he looked frail; his hair was unkempt, his cheeks were stubbled, his eyes were reddened and vague. He frowned as if he knew me from somewhere and was trying to place me.

  I reached him and gave him my name, said I was writing a book about the Keystone Steel turnaround. Pace’s lips curled down, but before he could speak I added, “I’ve learned that many people, you included, were treated shabbily by T.J. Gordon. That’s to be my focus. Can we talk?”

  For a moment I was sure he would refuse me. Then he shrugged and resumed walking downhill. I fell in beside him.

  After half a block Pace said, “The word ‘shabbily’ is inadequate.” His voice rasped as if he had a bad cold; he began coughing spasmodically.

  I asked, “Are you okay?”

  Pace got his coughing under control. “Do I look okay, young lady? Does this town look okay?” He gestured extravagantly and staggered.

  Drinking already, I thought, and more than one. “No,” I replied, “the town’s in bad shape.”

  “And why? All because of T.J. Gordon and his executioners. From the turn of the century, Keystone Steel was both mother and father to the people of this area. Monora was their home, and a damned fine one, too. Keystone provided for their every need. Then Gordon came here and destroyed our mill. In effect, he orphaned every one of those workers. They can’t fend for themselves; they never had to. The mill took care of them, their parents, their grandparents, even their great-grandparents, from the cradle to the grave. The phrase ‘in bad shape’ is also inadequate.”

  If it hadn’t been for my earlier conversation with Jeannie Schmidt, I might have taken Pace’s words as indication of a limited sort of compassion for his former workers. As it was, I realized they were merely indicative of Keystone management’s paternalism and arrogance.

  “What about you, Mr. Pace?” I asked. “Do you feel as if you’ve been orphaned?”

  He stopped walking, pulling himself more erect. Glared down his nose at me. “No, young lady, I do not. In truth, I feel as if I’ve been destroyed. For forty-one years Keystone Steel was my life. I ran the mill; I guided the company. I made every major corporate decision. When they killed that mill, I lost my soul.”

  “But as CEO, you must also have made the decision to bring Gordon on board, give him a free hand.”

  Pace’s lips compressed; his glare faded, and he began walking again. After a moment he said, “I was wrongly overruled by my board of directors. I tried
to tell them that the corporation was not in that bad a condition, that we’d ridden out worse slumps before. They refused to listen.”

  I remembered Suits’s description of the situation he’d found upon his arrival here. A slump? No way. Amos Ritter was right about Pace: he still didn’t get it.

  We rounded the corner of River Street. Pace quickened his step—eager, no doubt, to get on with his drinking.

  I asked, “What about labor relations, Mr. Pace? I understand the USW local was talking strike before Ed Bodine was arrested.”

  “The local was always talking strike, even in the good years. Bodine was a professional agitator who never put in an honest day’s work in his life.”

  “And apparently he was also a drug dealer.”

  Pace snorted derisively. We’d reached his house. He negotiated the porch steps with difficulty, clutching at the railing and breathing hard. He dropped his keys while trying to fit them into the lock; I retrieved them and opened the door for him. He didn’t thank me, just shambled down the hallway. I shut the door and followed.

  The small kitchen where Pace led me horrified even an indifferent housekeeper like me. Its counters were littered with dirty plates and glasses, and most of the plates were covered with substances that I supposed once might have been food. The source of the overpowering odor that was trapped there was too awful to contemplate; sticky patches on the floor seemed to have designs on my shoes.

  Pace set his tote bag on the counter and pulled out the fifth of Kessler’s. He located a glass, then remembered his manners and looked questioningly at me; when I shook my head, he seemed relieved. Without rinsing the glass, he poured a good three fingers of liquor, drank it off, and refilled.

  I tried to keep my expression neutral, but Pace saw through me. “Yes, I am an alcoholic,” he said. “And, yes, I’ve quit trying to hide the fact. I simply don’t give a damn anymore. My kitchen offends you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No.” Abruptly he moved past me. “However, out of respect for your sensibilities, we’ll sit on the front porch.”

  When we were settled at opposite ends of the old sofa, Pace asked, “Now, what were we discussing?”

  “Ed Bodine. Specifically, his arrest for dealing cocaine. I understand it weakened the local considerably.”

  “Finished it, for all practical purposes. Meek as lambs they were, after Bodine went to prison.” Pace stared down into his glass, swirling the liquor. “Bodine had been a thorn in my side for over a decade. Months before his arrest—even weeks—I would have rejoiced to see him taken down. But by then I was gone from Keystone. Nothing mattered.”

  “Bodine’s defense was that the arrest was a setup?”

  “Of course.”

  “Was it?”

  “Yes. Know thine enemy—an important precept of business. I knew mine enemy, and Ed Bodine was no drug dealer.”

  “So who set him up?”

  “Who else but T. J. Gordon?”

  Once it would have been hard for me to believe, having known Suits in the old days, but as I’d observed last August, he’d changed. Besides, Suits was a former dealer himself; wouldn’t the plan of framing an adversary with drugs have come naturally to him?

  I remembered sitting in Miranda’s diner with him. Saying, “You’ve changed, Suits.” And he’d acknowledged it. “Haven’t we all, Sherry-O?” he’d said.

  But had Suits changed that much? By extension, had I?

  Suddenly Pace started laughing, and the laughter turned into another coughing fit. When he got control of it he drank off what was left in his glass and went into the house for a refill. He was gone a long time, probably having several extra snorts to tide him over. When he finally returned, he was still amused.

  “What were you thinking before?” I asked.

  “About Ed Bodine. He may not have dealt drugs before his arrest, but he certainly adapted well to life as a convict.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He learned to play the system like any good con. Ingratiated himself, acted the true repentant. Within a few years he was transferred from Western Pennsylvania to a minimum-security facility at Greensburg. And one day he simply walked away. Hot-wired one of the guards’ cars and disappeared. The car was abandoned in Ohio. And Ed Bodine has never been seen or heard of since.”

  “When was this?”

  “A year ago this past Fourth of July. I remember well, because I was sitting right here on this sofa watching the fireworks over the river when the news came on my transistor radio. Bodine took advantage of a heavy crowd of holiday visitors at Greensburg.”

  “A year ago this past Fourth of July. You’re sure of that?”

  Pace scowled and drained his glass. “Young lady, I may be a drunk, but I am not senile.”

  Last year, July Fourth. I stared at the humpbacked railroad embankment, trying to put together a logical progression.

  Ed Bodine, a man supposedly framed by Suits for a crime he didn’t commit, walks away from prison on Independence Day—a nice ironic touch. His stolen car is later abandoned in Ohio, to the west. A little over a month later, a van is stolen in Colorado, also to the west. The same van is abandoned outside the Aces and Eights Motel in Lost Hope weeks after that. And two days ago, the August man’s remains are exhumed by the Esmeralda County Sheriff’s Department.

  Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

  Either way, I knew how to find out.

  Sixteen

  After I explained my theory to her, Chief Koll sat me down at an empty desk in the squad room with the files on Ed Bodine’s arrest and went to her office, the former tavern’s poolroom, to call the state department of corrections. I tuned out the ringing phones and voices around me and began to wade through the thick stack of documents. By the time I’d read the last one, I was convinced that the Bodine bust had been a setup.

  The police had been alerted to the alleged cocaine deal late on a Friday night by an anonymous caller who said something interesting was going down in one of the empty open-hearth sheds at Keystone. There they found Bodine and Jim Spitz, a fellow union member and rival for its local leadership. Spitz readily admitted that they’d met so he could buy a quantity of coke from Bodine, and produced an envelope containing a large amount of cash. Bodine denied everything, claiming Spitz had requested the meeting to discuss confidential information he’d stumbled across concerning management plans that would seriously weaken the local, but when he submitted to a body search, packets of cocaine were found in the lining of his jacket. Bodine said he didn’t know how the packets got there and that any number of people could have gained access to the jacket in his locker at the mill. When the police searched his apartment, however, they turned up more coke.

  When the case came to trial neither the defense nor the prosecution had a preponderance of evidence. No one had been with Bodine when he received the alleged call from Spitz requesting the meeting, and he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. On the other hand, Spitz, who testified in exchange for immunity from prosecution, claimed he’d financed the drug buy on his own, even though he was known for being chronically short of funds. It seemed suspect that a shrewd man like Bodine would agree to meet a rival in the isolated open-hearth shed in the middle of the night, but he was also streetwise and capable of taking care of himself. The anonymous phone tip to the police department weakened Spitz’s contention that he’d acted alone, but he had a reputation for talking too much, so it was possible he might have bragged about the deal to the wrong person.

  In the end, it all came down to which man the jury believed. Spitz came across as attractive, articulate, and remorseful; Bodine came across as unattractive, poorly spoken, and defiant. The jury believed Spitz.

  I closed the file, pushed back from the desk, and went to the door of Koll’s office. The chief sat in her swivel chair contemplating a studio portrait of two little girls that hung on the wall. I knocked on the doorframe, and she started, then motioned me inside. “I’m waiting for the depar
tment of corrections to get back to me,” she said. “They’re checking to see if Bodine had any dental work done while he was in prison.”

  “Care to answer a few questions while you wait?”

  “Sure.” She waved at the chair across from her.

  I asked, “What happened to Jim Spitz?”

  “Left town right after the trial. Hastily, and driving a new Buick. I hear he’s living down at Charleroi now, has set himself up as a small-time dealer.” She laughed harshly. “They say he siphoned off some of the coke that was meant to be used to frame Bodine and used it as a stake for his business.”

  “So you knew all along that Bodine had been telling the truth?”

  “Of course,” she replied calmly. “I said as much to Bodine’s lawyer, but he never did anything with it. Guess they bought him, too.”

  “And you didn’t bother to investigate any further?”

  Annoyance flashed in her eyes. “Ms. McCone, this is a poor town. We don’t have the funds or the manpower to conduct that kind of investigation—particularly when a big-money fix is in.”

  “I see. Another question: if a person were to make a major drug buy here, who would he contact?”

  “Back then, you mean? Ray Wilmer.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “You can’t—he’s dead. Somebody blew him away. Most folks think it was a drug burn, but my opinion is that the KKK was responsible. Wilmer was black, came over from Wheeling. His gaudy lifestyle brought him a dangerous kind of attention.”

  “I didn’t realize the Klan was active in this area.”

  “God, yes. Has been for decades, but it’s even more open now, ever since whites started to lose ground economically. The race hatred goes all the way back to the thirties when blacks were brought in as strikebreakers. Now it’s part of the culture. Ironic thing is, most of the haters don’t even remember how it got started.” Her eyes moved back to the portrait on the wall.

  “Who’re the little girls?”