Grass Roots (25 page)

“Do you have any idea why this didn’t turn up during the FBI investigation of his background for the clearance?”

“No, I don’t. As I say, it’s news to me, and I’m sure that neither Senator Cannor anyone else in the office knew about it.”

“Well, I guess the FBI is getting sloppy.”

“I still find this impossible to believe,” Will said.

“What was the disposition of the case? Did the story say?”

“He pleaded guilty, and as a first offender, he got off with a thirty-day sentence, suspended. He was lucky somebody didn’t spot him in the courtroom, I guess.”

“I still can’t believe it,” Will said.

“Mr. Lee, did you ever have any indication at all that Jack Buchanan might have been a homosexual?”

“None whatever. He was happily… he was married and had two children.”

“Do you think his homosexuality might have led to the domestic difficulties he told you about when he turned up at your house the night he died?”

“I have no idea about that,” Will said.

“He never told me the nature of his problems with his wife. Until that night, I thought they were very happily married. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was just on the way out of the house.”

He put the phone down, and it rang immediately.

“It’s Tom. I’ve got more bad news.”

“I’ve heard. The AP JUST called.”

“What did you tell them?”

Will related his conversation with the wire-service reporter.

“I hope you sounded flabbergasted.”

“I think I must have; I certainly was.”

“Kitty Conroy knew,” Tom said.

“What?”

“Now, don’t blame Kitty, Will. Jack told her about it when he was arrested but swore her to secrecy. She was only keeping her promise to him.”

“Christ, what a day!”

“Will?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s time to get uncivilized again. Why haven’t you been seen socially with a woman in years?”

Will nearly didn’t answer.

“Because I’ve been seeing only one woman during that time, and we don’t go out together in public.”

“Oh, shit,” Tom said, “a married woman.” He brightened.

“Still, that’s better than no woman at all. How big a flap will it cause if her name comes out?”

“Her name isn’t going to come out.”

“Now look, Will, you’re in serious trouble here.”

“And she’s not married. It’s just that… for reasons I can’t go into, we can’t… we couldn’t be identified with each other.”

“Why not?”

“I told you, I can’t go into that.”

Tom Black drew in a deep breath, obviously trying to keep his temper.

“All right, I think you’d better come to Atlanta today. We’ve got to agree on a way to deal with this.”

“All right. I’ll leave right after lunch. I want to have lunch with my folks.”

“I’ll see you later in the afternoon at headquarters then.” Tom hung up.

Will sat slumped for a moment, then he did what he knew he had to do sooner or later. He got his address book and looked up Jack Buchanan’s home number.

Millie Buchanan answered the phone.

“Millie, it’s Will. The AP just called me about the story.”

“You bastard,” she said.

“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve that,” Will said.

“I didn’t know about Jack’s arrest. I didn’t have the slightest idea that he… had some sort of problem.”

“Well, I knew about it, and I don’t see how you couldn’t have known it,” Millie said hotly.

“He never gave the slightest indication,” Will said.

“How do you think I could have known?”

“Look, Will, I know you want to get elected, but you don’t have to pull this with me. I know too much.”

“Millie, what on earth are you talking about? You can’t think that Jack and I were… involved, can you?”

“Can’t I?”

Will was speechless.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to say anything to the press,” she said.

“Say anything? What would you say? That’s complete nonsense, and you know it.”

“I don’t know it,” Millie said.

“All I know is that less than a year after we were married. Jack told me.”

“Told you what? There was nothing to tell!”

“That he was in love with you.” Millie hung up the phone.

“What?” he yelled at her, but she had already hung up. mickey Keane had been a burglar during his teens, in a small way. He had broken into a dozen houses neighbors, people in the surrounding homes. He had never stolen anything of real value, just some small souvenir of each place a Zippo lighter, a cheap manicure kit, a girl’s panties, once, to prove to him self that he’d been there, that he’d done it. It had always been a thrill, and he had never been caught.

The need to do it had passed.

Now, the need had come again. He crouched at the back door of the shop and worked quickly with the pick locks he always carried. A snitch of his, an old con, had taught him how. Only the fancy stuff could stump him. The lock, a cheap Yale, yielded after less than a minute. He opened the door gingerly, in case there was an alarm he hadn’t found.

There was no noise; he let himself in, left the door ajar.

His masked flashlight played over the small offset press, the copying machine, and the other paraphernalia. He knew what he wanted; he had seen it when they had pulled the raid. Thumbtacked to a small bulletin board was a typed list of the names of the box holders He took it to the copying machine and quickly made copies of all four pages, then tacked it to the bulletin board again, careful to use the same holes in the paper. He stuffed the copies into a pocket and walked into the small office off the printing room. He started with the desk drawers; only one was locked, and he picked that in no time.

The most interesting thing was a photograph of a girl in a bikini.

Short, plump, but fairly sexy, Mickey thought.

There was a picture on the desk of a woman and two small children. The guy had a girlfriend; that was why the drawer was locked. There was nothing else in it. He turned to the filing cabinets, which weren’t locked. Invoices, copies of dunning letters, nothing of interest. He tried another drawer. There must be applications for the boxes somewhere, at least a record of the box holders actual addresses.

But there wasn’t. He closed the filing cabinet and turned toward the door. He had just entered the printing room again when the flashlight hit him.

“Freeze! Police!”

Mickey shot his hands into the air.

“Okay, okay, it’s all right, I’m on the job!”

“Shut your mouth; up against the wall!” The voice was very young.

“Turn that light on. Bob.” The light went on, but by this time, Mickey was leaning on the wall, his legs spread; hands were patting him down.

“He’s carrying,” said another voice.

“We got a live one, Hal.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mickey said, still careful not to move.

“Just check the wallet, left-hand hip pocket.”

A hand removed the wallet.

“Jesus, he’s Atlanta PD,” the younger voice said.

“I’m going to turn around, real slow,” Mickey said.

“For Jesus’ sake, don’t shoot me, okay?” Without waiting for a reply, he pushed away from the wall, and, holding his hands protectively in front **skip**of him, he turned around to face his apprehenders.

“There was a silent alarm, right?”

“Right,” the younger of the two uniformed East Point policemen said.

The older one wasn’t older by much.

“You’re Hal, right? And you’re Bob?”

Bob, the older one, looked at him.

“So, what are you doing in here, Keane?” he asked, looking at Mickey’s ID.

“You remember the cop got killed a little while back?

Down in Meriwether County? Booby-trapped house?”

“Yeah, I heard about it.”

“Well, I’m his partner.”

“So?”

“So, there’s a connection with this place.”

“What kind of connection?”

“The guy who owned the house had a box here.”

The younger cop, Hal, interrupted.

“I don’t much care what it’s connected to. You’re breaking and entering, pal, and if you’re a cop, well, that makes it all the worse.

You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent—”

“Jesus Christ, man,” Mickey said.

“You’re not arresting another cop, are you? Don’t you know anything?

How long you been on the job?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Hal said, reddening.

Bob spoke up.

“Listen, Hal, let’s be sure we’re doing the right thing here. The guy’s a cop, after all.”

“Bullshit,” Hal said.

“I don’t buy that shit at all. He’s in here where he shouldn’t be, and that’s it as far as I’m concerned. We let him go, we’re accessories to a BE, right?”

Keane felt the situation slipping away from him. He turned to the older cop.

“Listen, Bob, you’ve been on the force awhile, right? You know that no cop would ever bust another cop. Now talk some sense to this kid.” As he said it, Keane knew, too late, that he should never have called the younger cop a kid.

Hal’s face was set hard now.

“That’s it, up against the wall,” he said, spinning Keane around and shoving him into the position. He snapped handcuffs onto Keane’s wrists.

“You have the right to remain silent; you have the right to—”

“Shove it up your ass, kid,” Keane said.

“I know the drill.”

keane stood uncomfortably before his captain’s desk.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get you out sooner,” the captain said.

“The cop was within his rights. Even his commander tried to get him to change his mind, but he stuck to his position.”

“Thanks, Captain,” Keane said, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

“I enjoy a night in the tank every now and then.”

The captain regarded him somberly.

“Your tit’s in the wringer, Keane, don’t you know that? What the hell do you mean going off on your own like that, breaking and entering?

We’ve got a homicide squad here that investigates murders; we’re investigating this one.”

“Well, you’re getting nowhere fast, aren’t you?” Keane snapped back.

“If you’d put me on it, where I belong, maybe I could come up with something.”

“You don’t get it, do you, Keane? I’m not putting you back on homicide, I’m not even transferring you to traffic.

You’re finished around here, don’t you understand?”

Keane jerked involuntarily.

“Finished? You mean you’re kicking me off?”

“Keane, you’ve never been anything around here but a pain in the ass.

First, there was the drinking—”

“Listen, Captain, I’ve got a better record of busts than ninety percent of the guys in the department—”

“You were doing okay with Chuck; he was keeping you straight, but now—you’re just hell-bent on flushing yourself down the toilet.”

“You’re recommending me for involuntary discharge, then? I thought this department took care of its own.”

“We do, Keane, we do. But when you go out into another jurisdiction and commit a felony, what the hell can we do? East Point won’t play ball, or at least this young cop won’t, so what the hell can I do?” He sat back in his chair.

“No, I won’t make that recommendation, but it doesn’t make any difference. In a few weeks, you’ll come to trial on this charge, and you’ll fall. You’ll get a suspended sentence, sure, but you’ll be a convicted felon, and that boots you right off the force automatically.

You won’t even get a hearing.”

Keane could not bring himself to speak, could not believe what was happening to him.

“Listen, Mickey, here’s the only way out for you. You retire from the force and go quietly. The kid’s commander tells me he won’t press it if you take out papers.”

“Papers, what papers? I’m two years and two months short of a pension.

I won’t have nothing, and I won’t be a cop anymore, either,” Keane said.

“You’ll be a retired cop instead of a fired one, and you won’t be in jail, either. Anyway, you stopped being a cop when you picked that lock,” the captain said. He reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a folder, placed it on his desk, opened it, and spun it around. He pulled a pen from his pocket and placed it on the stack of papers.

“There’s three places to sign,” he said.

“I marked them.”

Keane stared at the man. What were they doing to him?

He had seen commanders get cops out of worse scrapes than this. The captain wanted to be rid of him, that was it. He picked up the pen, signed the documents, then placed his gun and his badge on the captain’s desk.

“You need any money, Mickey?” the captain asked.

“Not from you, I don’t,” Keane spat. He turned on his heel and walked out of the captain’s office, out of the precinct.

You might have told me. Kitty,” Will said. He sat on the edge of his desk in the Atlanta campaign headquarters and dangled his feet.

Kitty looked miserable.

“I promised Jack I wouldn’t,” she said.

“It wouldn’t have changed anything, would it?” Tom Black asked.

“I mean, when Jack showed up at your house, you wouldn’t have kicked him out, would you?”

“No,” Will sighed, “I wouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. Kitty, this isn’t your fault in any way. I’m just feeling sorry for myself.” He turned to Tom.

“All right, what’s next? A statement to the press?”

“What sort of statement?” Tom asked.

“That I’m out of the race.”

Tom laughed aloud.

“You really are feeling sorry for yourself, aren’t you?”

“You mean you think I still have a chance?”

“I didn’t say that. But what’s the alternative? You drop out, and you’re queer, right? And what the hell are you going to do with yourself? Practice law in Delano?”

“I could get another Senate staff job,” Will said.

“Get serious,” Tom shot back. He tossed a copy of the Washington Times at Will.

“It says there that there are reports’ of a ring of homosexuals operating among Senate staffers. You drop out of the race, and you’re the chairman of their board. Who’d hire you? People on the Hill would fall all over themselves getting away from you.”

“I see your point,” Will said.

“Anyway, I like a challenge. It was too easy before;