The Boxer and the Spy
- Автор: Паркер Роберт Браун
- Год: 2008
- Язык: английский
- Год: Philomel Books
- ISBN: 978-0-399-24775-0
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Boxer and the Spy». Краткое содержание книги:
“We need you to help us,” Abby said.
Mrs. Trent was warm.
“I will if I can,” she said.
“We think something bad is going on in town, something to do with Jason Green and the construction near the Eel Pond Woods, and maybe something to do with steroids, and with Kip Carter, and Mr. Bullard.”
Mrs. Trent’s face began to stiffen.
“And,” Abby said, “we know you’re having an affair with Mr. Bullard.”
Mrs. Trent’s face went gray-white. She stared at them. The stiff and pointless smile began to fade away. Terry felt as if he might not be able to breathe. He looked at Abby. She seemed calm and friendly and perfectly able to breathe. Mrs. Trent’s face was now the color of sea ice, the way it got sometimes when it was really cold and the harbor froze along the edges. Her mouth was open as if she were going to speak. But she didn’t speak.
“Could you help us with this?” Abby said.
She stared at them some more, and as she stared, the color in her face began to reverse itself. The blood came slowly back until her face was actually flushed, and she looked almost like she might have a fever.
“How...” She stopped and took a breath. “How dare you come in here and say such a thing.”
“We need your help,” Terry said.
They had rehearsed this, too. The first time she responded to Abby, Terry would answer. After that they’d have to play it by ear.
Mrs. Trent was outraged.
“Everything you have said, everything, is a huge and disgusting lie. I cannot imagine how you think you can get away with taking my time to come in here and behave like this.”
“We saw you and Mr. Bullard making love,” Abby said.
Again the stare, the color shifting in her face. The sense that she might be fighting for oxygen.
“That’s not possible,” she said. “And the accusation is disgusting.”
“You have a small blue butterfly tattooed on your butt,” Terry said.
Again the long awful silence. Mrs. Trent looked at her office door. No help there. She looked at the campaign poster that said, LET’S RALLY BEHIND SALLY. Then she seemed to brace herself.
“Is this what you do?” she said finally. “You sneak around in the night like little rats and peek in windows?”
They waited.
“That kind of behavior is disgusting,” she said.
Neither of them said anything.
“It’s also illegal,” she said. “Do you realize there’s a police cruiser right outside? If I call them in, they’ll arrest you right here.”
They waited.
“Who would believe you?” she said.
Terry shrugged. Abby looked blank.
“It would simply be the word of two idiotic children against mine,” she said.
Abby took her cell phone from her school bag and held it up.
“Why are you showing me that?” Mrs. Trent said.
“Takes pictures,” Terry said.
Abby kept holding it up. Mrs. Trent kept looking at it.
After what seemed a long time, she said in a hushed voice, “You took pictures?”
“Why not,” Terry said.
Again she seemed silent forever.
Then she said, “What do you want?”
Chapter 38
She was so close to being governor.
She was ahead in every poll... Her opponent had been shooting himself in the foot since the campaign began... She was a lock... except for these stupid little kids... How could they spoil it for her... She was smarter than they were, older, wiser... Toughen up, Sally... Think !... Think!
“We need you to help us,” Abby said, with a nice smile. “We need you to help us figure out what happened to Jason, and what’s going on at the tech arts construction site, and what’s up with Mr. Bullard...”
“Besides you,” Terry said.
Abby smiled at his remark and kept talking.
“... and Kip Carter, and steroids, and, things like that.”
Go along with them... Pretend to be with them... Buy some time... These are kids... Don’t give it up... Don’t quit... Come on, Sally, handle it... Play hardball.
She smiled.
“That seems a pretty big order,” she said. “And I don’t see how I can be much help. But if I could help, and did, what happens?”
“All we know disappears forever,” Abby said.
Mrs. Trent nodded.
“And if I can’t help you?”
“We have a letter,” Terry said. “Telling everything we know and suspect. It goes to a whole bunch of newspapers and TV stations.”
Terry glanced at Abby. She looked at her notebook in her lap and read aloud from her list.
“The Globe,” she said. “The Herald. The New Bedford Standard Times, Salem News, Lynn Item, Lowell Sun, Lawrence Eagle- Tribune, Worcester Gazette, Springfield Republican, Channels 4, 5, 7. You get the idea.”
“And,” Mrs. Trent said kindly, “where are these letters now?”
“A bunch of our friends have them,” Abby said. “Sealed, stamped, and addressed.”
“Do they know the contents?” Mrs. Trent said, as if it didn’t really matter and she was just curious.
“No,” Terry said. “But they know to send the letters if anything happens to us.”
Mrs. Trent widened her eyes.
“Happens to you?” she said. “My dear boy, aren’t you getting a little overheated?”
She shifted in her chair.
“Something happened to Jason,” Abby said.
Nice legs, though, Terry thought, for her age.
“I understood that was suicide,” Mrs. Trent said.
Keep talking to them... Work them, Sally, work them... You’ve come too far, Sally, to let yourself be ruined by a couple of high school kids... You’ve got them talking to you... Pretty soon you can have them explaining... You know how to do this, Sally, play them.
Terry looked at his watch.
“We’re going to give this one more minute,” he said. “Then we will get up and go out and tell our friends to mail their letters.”
She stared contemptuously at Terry. Sally Trent, the most powerful woman in the state, being confronted by two stupid little kids. She wanted to spit on them.
After nearly a minute she said, “There are things I can give you.”
Chapter 39
The female assistant stuck her head in the office door.
“Everything going well?” she asked brightly.
Mrs. Trent waved her away. The door closed again.
“Yes,” Mrs. Trent said, “I have a relationship with Paxton Bullard.”
Terry and Abby looked at each other.
Paxton!
“How old are you,” Mrs. Trent asked, “seventeen or so?”
“We’re both fifteen,” Abby said.
“Well, you look older,” Mrs. Trent said. “But even more to the point, you are probably not able to understand this sort of thing. But...” She took a breath. “Paxton is a long-time friend of my husband’s. He and Gerry were friends in college. When Gerry was head of the planning board, here in Cabot, Paxton came to him with a scheme. The school had just instituted an ambitious technical arts program, one of the first of its kind in an, ah, affluent school like Dawes Regional. He had a plan to use the resources of the technical arts program to build houses for nothing, and sell them for a great deal, and keep the money. Obviously he needed the kind of help only town officials could provide.”
Abby was sitting straight in her chair, with her knees and ankles together, fully absorbed in what Mrs. Trent was saying. Terry looked at her profile. He didn’t know if she looked older than fifteen. But he knew she was beautiful.