Part 4 (1/2)
”The head of the Bureau's counterintelligence unit is a man by the name of Edward J. Hendricks, who could be described as an unreconstructed cold warrior. He could care less about what's happened in Russia and Eastern Europe because he's a man who desperately needs his old, familiar enemies to give his life meaning. He's a man with a visceral hatred of communists a” and of anybody he thinks sides with the communists. That covers a pretty broad spectrum of people.”
”I'm familiar with the type,” Mary said in the same wry tone.
”Oh, I'm sure you are. Hendricks fancies himself a super-patriot a” but super-patriots of his sort would also have been, and were, super-patriots in n.a.z.i Germany. He finds it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the country's critics and its enemies. Michael was probably pretty much like that in the early stages of his career; FBI recruits are chosen largely on the basis of ideology. As he told you, virtually all his a.s.signments in the early part of his career involved surveillance of dissident groups, and there was a lot of illegal wiretapping and mail covers. Anyway, Michael mellowed, or got tired of it, whatever. He started arguing that the Bureau should stop wasting its time and manpower on peace groups, and should go after real spies as well as people in the violent right, like neo-n.a.z.is and the Ku Klux Klan. This new att.i.tude of Michael's didn't sit well with Hendricks, and their relations.h.i.+p deteriorated further, to say the least, when Michael became a kind of ombudsman and whistle-blower inside the Bureau regarding matters of racial discrimination in the hiring and promotion of agents. Then Michael's surveillance team blew the CIA defector thing, and Hendricks got his first real shot at Michael. First, Michael was demoted, and then Hendricks ordered him out here to do a spy number on you people. Hendricks knew Michael would hate the a.s.signment; it was his way of getting revenge for all the grief Michael had been giving him.”
”You're saying this Hendricks doesn't really believe that the Community of Conciliation is a” oh, how I love this word a” 'subversive'?”
”Oh, he thinks you're subversive, all right, and he really does seem to believe that people like you pose a greater real danger to this country than the Klan or the neo-n.a.z.is. He'd like to see just about every peace and civil rights activist in this country thrown out, or placed in some kind of internment camp, until, as he puts it, 'this thing with Russia is really over, and they're buried.'”
”Is he serious?”
”I've never met the man. Michael described the conversation to me, and Michael swears he was dead serious. But the point is that Hendricks has plenty of zealots under him who would have whistled 'The Star-Spangled Banner' all the time they were spying on you. Hendricks sent Michael here to humiliate him.”
”Fools,” Mary said tersely. ”d.a.m.n fools.”
”Did Michael tell you he hated being near water?”
She thought about it as she reached out for another bran m.u.f.fin; she hesitated, then brought her hand back to her lap. ”Yes,” she said at last. ”But he didn't put it that strongly. He said he didn't much care for water. I told him it was no problem, that he didn't have to stay in Cairn. We have chapters, stations, all over the world. I told him that if he really wanted to work for our cause we could send him to live on the top of a mountain, in the middle of a jungle a” wherever he liked.”
”Didn't it strike you as odd that a man who didn't like water would go out canoeing on the Hudson River at one of its widest points?”
”Not at the time, no,” she replied distantly, her brows knitting into a frown. ”People have changes of mood, sometimes do things they wouldn't normally do. . . . Mongo, do you think somebody killed Michael?”
”I haven't said that. I'm just trying to get a picture of what happened. I talked to the chief of police, and now I'm talking to you. Did Michael tell anyone he was going canoeing?”
”No,” she answered in the same distant tone. ”Not that I'm aware of. He didn't tell me.”
”What about the man who owned the canoe? I think you said his name was Franz?”
”Franz Bauer.”
”Did he ask Bauer's permission to use his canoe?”
Mary Tree slowly shook her head. ”No.”
”Building a canoe by hand must take a long time and cost some money. Each of those canoes I see down by the river would mean a lot to the man who made them.”
”Yes. Franz made all of them.”
”Do the people here normally take out any of the boats whenever they feel like it?”
Again, she shook her head. ”The dinghies, yes, and the sailboat belongs to all of us. But not the canoes or the kayak; they're special.”
”Did anybody see Michael go out in the canoe?”
”No. It had to have been in the evening, after dark, because all of the canoes were there when I went in to supper.”
”Did Michael come to supper?”
”No.” Now her brows were knitted even tighter, and tight lines of tension had appeared around her mouth as she thought back and remembered. ”We all just a.s.sumed . . .”
”You a.s.sumed what, Mary?”
”There was a full moon Sunday night, and the river was very still. It can be very lovely and soothing out on the river at night when it's like that. Michael had seemed very distracted and tense after coming back from talking with Harry.”
”Harry?”
”Harry Peal.”
”Harry Peal lives around here?”
”About ten miles north of here. He has a house on a cliff overlooking the river.”
”Did Michael tell you what he and Harry Peal talked about, or why he went to see him in the first place?”
The corners of her mouth drew back in a thin smile. ”I know why Michael went up there. Harry was another of the FBI's 'old friends,' Mongo. Michael had spied on Harry, too.” She paused, and her smile, while still tinged with sadness, grew broader. ”At least, with Harry, Michael had himself a real, honest-to-goodness communist to deal with. Ex-communist, anyway. Michael said he wanted to pay his respects to the man who'd spent two terms in prison, first for refusing to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and then for telling Joseph McCarthy a” on live television a” to go f.u.c.k himself. Harry was leaving that evening for Hungary to accept some award as part of President Shannon's cultural exchange program with the Russians and the Eastern Bloc countries. But he agreed to see Michael in the afternoon; if you knew Harry, you'd know what a hoot it was for him to have an FBI agent coming to visit him by the front door, as it were. Michael thought it was a real hoot, too. He was really high when he left here a” but not so high when he got back. He was moody, distracted. He was in and out the rest of the day, and I know he went into town at least twice. I asked him if anything was wrong, and he said something . . .”
”What did he say, Mary?”
”Just one word: 'Unbelievable.' That's what he said. 'Unbelievable'; you know, like you say when you're just overwhelmed by something that's been said or done.”
”He went into town twice?”
”Yes. I know, because he asked permission each time to use the pickup truck. He said he was in a hurry and didn't have the time to walk.”
”He was in a hurry each time?”
”He said he was, yes.”
”Do you know what he did in town or who he talked to either of those times?”
”No. Anyway, after we found out that he'd drowned, everyone here just a.s.sumed that he'd gone out canoeing to try to get rid of some tension.”
”Uh-huh. Mary, is Harry Peal still out of the country?”
”As a matter of fact, I think he's scheduled to return sometime today.”
”Can you get me an appointment to talk with him?”
She shrugged. ”Sure. Harry's easy enough to see when he's around. I'll give him a chance to unpack and rest a little, and I'll call him later. I'm sure he'll be happy to talk with you.”
I took a business card out of my wallet, wrote my unlisted apartment phone number and the number of the RestEasy Motel on the back, handed it to her. ”After you speak to him, please give me a call. You should be able to reach me at one of these three numbers; if not, there's an answering service on the office phone.”
Mary Tree's hand trembled slightly as she reached out and took the card. She suddenly looked very pale. ”You do think somebody killed Michael, don't you?”
”Tell me about last night, Mary. What was that all about?”
Her knuckles were white where they were clasped around her right knee, and her jaw was clenched tightly. She seemed now to be looking past, or through, me, at some private haunt.
”Mary . . . ?”