Favorite Sons (24 page)

“Justice? From whose perspective? I'm not sure that fifteen-year-old boy down in Portage County would see it that way.”

“Hutchinson, this is a no-brainer. Let him go. What are your options? If he takes this cock-and-bull story to the papers, we'll be swimming upstream for the next two months. That certainly doesn't serve the best interests of the people of the state of Ohio when you're not elected attorney general. Cut this guy loose. He'll leave town and be away from the kid.”

“He'll go somewhere else and molest some other kid.”

“Not your problem.” Shelly could only look at it from a political perspective. To her, fifteen-year-old Oscar Gentry was expendable, collateral damage in our march to Columbus. “Look, you're the victim. Protect yourself. Give him what he wants and make him go away. If this screwball goes public we could see our eighteen-point lead disappear overnight.”

I pondered countering her argument with one of my own about truth and justice, but then thought of the hypocrisy, given my three decades of silence in Petey's death, and the fact that I had just given Shelly a distorted version of history. I had been hoping for some calming, reassuring words from her. Instead, my guts were in more of an uproar, part from the stress, part from the booze.

She arose and walked over to where the overstuffed chair was consuming my tired and limp body. “Are you staying tonight?” I asked.

“No, not tonight.” She kissed me on the top of the forehead. “I've got an early day tomorrow.” She ran the back of a hand down the side of my face. “Don't let this upset you; it's going to be fine. Just
get the mess cleared up in Portage Township. If there's scant evidence against him, you have no reason to seek an indictment. Case closed.”

I nodded. “You're probably right.”

In the haze before sleep, I listened as she traversed the stairs and let herself out. Case closed. Forget about Oscar Gentry. Just go to sleep and it will all be better in the morning. Hutchinson Van Buren. Prosecutor. The future attorney general of the great state of Ohio. The Button Man. Lila Sanchez's last hope for justice. Keeper of a thirty-year secret.

I was such a fraud.

T
he sun was filling the third-floor room when I awoke the next morning at six fifteen, still slumped in the chair. My mouth was parched and my clothes were damp with sweat. My back and neck ached, but they were in the minor leagues of pain compared to my head, which throbbed so badly my right eye had a heartbeat. I covered my eyes with my right hand and used my left as a guide, feeling my way to the second-floor bathroom. Fighting off the urge to vomit, I turned the shower on as hot as I could stand it. Wedging my back into a corner of the tile shower, I slowly lowered myself to the floor and allowed the water to pound on my head. In my fist I clutched three aspirin that I washed down with a stream of hot shower water.

It was nearly seven when I made my way to the kitchen, wrapped in a red and yellow striped terrycloth bathrobe, my hair wet and uncombed, and began scavenging for something to eat. Most days I would have been at the office for an hour already. I called Margaret to check in. “I'm running a little late,” I said.

“I'd say. Are you okay? You don't sound so good.”

“I don't feel so good.”

“Maybe you shouldn't come in at all.”

“I'll take that under advisement.” I snapped closed my cell phone and dropped it into my robe pocket.

I made some coffee and found a half a cantaloupe in the refrigerator. The aspirin was beginning to work its magic. I took a few hard swigs of orange juice from the half-gallon jug before pouring
myself a glass and walking to the table on the patio, a semicircle of stamped concrete that was shielded from the neighbors by rows of emerald green arborvitaes that lined the border of my lot. I picked a few soggy leaves off the table and dug into the cantaloupe. There was a reason, I recalled at that moment, why I didn't normally drink hard liquor, and my quivering hands were a present reminder. My stomach emitted a cacophony of noises as it wrapped around the cantaloupe. The thumping in my eye had started to ebb, but not much. Somewhere on the front lawn was the
Beacon Journal,
which I enjoyed reading on the rare mornings that it arrived before I left for work, but I didn't have the energy to get up from the chair.

“Howdy-doo, Mr. Prosecutor,” came a voice from behind me. It startled me and I jumped, spilling coffee on the table. I turned to find a smiling Jack Vukovich standing at the wooden gate under a rose-filled trellis, the entry to my backyard. “Beautiful place you got here.”

“What are you doing here, Jack?”

He reached over the fence and flipped open the hook-and-eye latch, entering without invitation. “Oh, just socializing a bit.” He held up my
Beacon Journal.
“Brought you your paper.” “

This is my house, Jack, and it's off limits to you.”

“That's not very hospitable,” he said, dropping the paper on the table and sliding out a chair across from me. He sat down, not the least bit concerned about my admonition. His sunglasses were resting on the top of his head and, like I did back in junior high, I found it difficult not to stare at his sunken right eye. He grinned and said, “Besides, I thought since you were kind enough to pay me a visit last night, I ought to return the favor.” He scanned the yard as the morning sun grew stronger. Squinting, he pulled his shades back down on his nose, for which I was grateful. “Yes, this is a beautiful place you have here.” He put his fingertips on the table and leaned in toward me. “And speaking of beautiful, that blonde who was visiting you last night is certainly a looker, isn't she?”

Jack Vukovich continued to lean in, grinning, waiting for me to flinch. I stared at my reflection in his sunglasses and took a sip of my coffee, fighting the urge to rake the mug across his skull. “You're starting to concern me, Jack.”

He feigned shock. “Why is that? I'm just being neighborly is all, and you haven't even offered me a cup of coffee.”

“And I'm not going to. What do you want?” I pulled my cell phone out of my bathrobe pocket. “And make it fast, because I'm losing patience with you and I'm about two seconds away from calling the police.”

He shrugged. “Go ahead and call them. When they go to fill out the police report, I'll simply tell them that I wanted to discuss your role in the cover-up of the Petey Sanchez murder. We'll see what happens after we put that in a police report, which I'm sure I don't need to remind you, Mr. Prosecutor, is public record.” He crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair, looking down at the cell phone with that annoying smirk. “So, where are we on our present issue? Are things all cleared up?”

“You know I haven't had time to make that decision. We're waiting for some lab results to come back.” I tried to harness my angst with some false bravado of my own. “The preliminary results indicate you've been a bad boy, Jack.”

“I don't think you should be worrying about lab tests, or my behavior, Mr. Van Buren. I think you should be finding a way to make this all go away. You can sit there and pretend you're not concerned, but I know better. I was in prison for a long time. I know what fear looks like on a man, and I know what it smells like. And right now, it's all over you, son. You reek of fear.”

“Is that why you stopped by, Jack? Did you just want to jerk my chain?”

He stood and stretched. “Yes, yes, it's a beautiful place you have here,” he repeated, ignoring my question. “Since you're not in a hospitable mood, I guess I'll be tootlin' down the road. I've got a busy calendar today. You have a good day, Mr. Van Buren. I'll be in touch.”

I said nothing as he went through the gate, leaving it open behind him. I pushed myself out of my chair and walked to relatch the gate. From the shade of the trellis, I watched Vukovich cross the westbound lane in front of my neighbor's house, tromp through the marigolds that the Junior Women's Club had planted in the island dividing Middlesex Boulevard, and continue onto
the far sidewalk, turning east. I crept behind the holly bushes at the side of my neighbor's house, watching to see where he was heading. As he continued to walk, I slipped along the front of the neighbor's house, seeking the shrubberies as cover for my garish bathrobe. Middlesex Boulevard bends slightly to the north, which allowed me the cover of homes and trees as I tailed him for two blocks until he made a right on Algonquin Avenue. When he disappeared around the corner, I sprinted across westbound Middlesex, dodging a car, tiptoed through the marigolds, waited for a garbage truck to pass, avoiding eye contact with the driver, and crossed the eastbound lanes. My hair had fallen into my eyes; I was unshaven and looking positively ridiculous in my robe and slippers, which were soaked by the morning dew. From the backyards of the houses that faced Algonquin, I could stay hidden, dashing from yard to yard, watching between the houses as he strolled down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, seeming to be whistling. The Saab was parked in front of the sixth house from the corner. I could see the license plate number and tapped it into my cell phone for future reference.

After the car disappeared down Algonquin, I started back across the backyards, hoping that no one had called the police. “Where in the hell is he getting his money?” I said aloud. Jack Vukovich was living in an upscale neighborhood and driving an expensive car, all with no visible means of support.

I crossed back over Middlesex and headed back to my house, walking, head down. A car that pulled up behind me on Middlesex rolled along behind me for several moments. I actually hoped it was the cops, but my luck had not been running that way lately. It pulled up alongside me, and I heard the hum of the window motor as the passenger side glass dropped. He took off his sunglasses and stared, his one good eye boring into me. “You must think this is all some kind of game, Mr. Van Buren, or you wouldn't be following me around the neighborhood in your pajamas,” Vukovich said.

It was embarrassing on a number of levels, not the least of which was standing along Middlesex Boulevard in my robe being lectured by an ex-convict. To a lesser degree, I had been busted by Jack Vukovich, whom I didn't believe to be particularly intelligent.

“You better stick to prosecuting, because you're a piss-poor spy. I've caught you twice in two days.”

I walked over to the car and leaned down into the open window. There was a faint odor of bourbon in the air, which I hadn't noticed on the patio. “Nice wheels, Jack. Just out of curiosity, where'd you get the money for a car like this? You're not working, but you drive a nice car and live in a nice house. What's up with that?”

“Let's just say I have a benevolent benefactor, not that it's any of your concern. You better just concentrate on making sure no charges get filed.” He stomped on the gas, and I jerked my head out of the opening just ahead of the oncoming rear window.

*    *    *

It was just after ten o'clock when I arrived at the office. Margaret looked up for only a moment. “Couldn't stay away?” she asked.

“It's just a touch-and-go. I'll be out of here in ten minutes.”

She murmured in a tone of disbelief.

While my computer ramped up, I put two fresh batteries into my digital recorder. I signed on to my computer, logged into the Ohio Parole Authority website, and printed out Jack Vukovich's criminal and prison record, and a prison mug shot that came out a little grainy on my black-and-white printer, but was still recognizable. I tucked the recorder and my laptop into my briefcase and locked my office on the way out. “I'm going to be out for a few days,” I told Margaret.

“How many is a few?”

“I don't know—two, maybe three.”

She frowned. “You're going to take a vacation in the middle of the biggest campaign of your life?”

“I need to get out of here for a while. Just a couple of days.”

“I'm not sure I believe that, but good for you. You need it.”

“I sent Barry an e-mail telling him I was going to be gone for a couple of days. Anything short of a crisis, let him handle it.” Barry Lanihan was my chief assistant prosecutor and heir apparent, a former cop who had attended law school at night to earn his degree.

“Enjoy yourself.”

“I'm supposed to give a talk tomorrow night to the Youngstown Chamber of Commerce. Would you . . .”

“Cancel it for you?”

“Please.”

“I'd be delighted.”

“Tell them . . .”

“Something of an urgent nature has come up. You're terribly sorry but it's unavoidable. You hope to make it up to them in the near future.”

I grinned. “Perfect. Thanks.”

“It's my pleasure.”

I drove over to the Mercantile Building, ignoring Shelly's first call of the day on the way. I parked the Pacifica in a surface lot next to the building and took the elevator to the ninth floor and the offices of the Judith Norris Investigative Agency. I'd met Judy more than two decades earlier when she was an investigator with the Summit County Juvenile Court. In those days she was known as “the frenetic woman,” because she was always wired with caffeine— never without a Coca-Cola or a coffee—and multitasking—talking on the phone while typing on the computer while searching through the mountain of papers on her desk that seemed to defy physics by not collapsing. She was beautiful, wore her skirts short, and was perpetually brushing long brown hair out of her eyes. I teased her that she had an unfair advantage in the business world because the cover of her company brochure featured a full-length photo of her leaning against a desk, arms crossed, with a come-hither look, and there wasn't a male CEO alive who wouldn't invite her in after receiving it. Her response was to call me a pig, but she knew it was true.

Judy had an eighteen-month-old daughter and was four months pregnant when she quit her job as an investigator with the juvenile court and started her private investigative agency in a spare bedroom of the home she shared with her now-ex-husband. She hired a secretary who didn't mind changing diapers and began building her business by spying on errant spouses, conducting background checks for government agencies, and traveling the state for the bureau of worker's compensation, secretly videotaping men who
were supposedly disabled but miraculously able to hoist a V8 engine from a car. I frequently farmed out work to Judy, who interviewed witnesses for pending criminal cases.