Part 19 (1/2)

”This Telford thing isn't going away,” I told him. ”In case you don't know it, there's a movement afoot to get someone to run against you. And the main platform of your opponent is going to be that you've been covering up for the Gregorys.”

Mitch came even farther across the desk. His next move would have to involve putting his knees on it. Then he would crouch like a porcelain cat. ”Who?” he demanded. ”Who is it?”

I did not give him an answer. I had something I wanted from him and that was my only bargaining chip.

”You?” His voice soared to the point of cracking.

”Not me, Mitch. I'm the Gregorys' friend, remember?”

Mitch did not know what to say to that. Little gurgling noises came out of his mouth and spit rolled down his chin. After a while, he sat back. I have never felt so hated in my life. Not when Roland Andrews confronted me in my apartment in D.C. Not even when I was being shot at. I gestured to my own chin, pointing with my index finger. That made him even angrier, but at least he wiped the spit away. He did it with his bare forearm.

I told him that Bill Telford had raised enough questions about whether his daughter was at Senator Gregory's house that night that people were out there now, combing the country for information.

He gurgled again, but held his saliva.

”One of the questions being asked is why you and Cello DiMasi didn't follow up on the leads you had. I talked with Cello and he told me the police investigation was conducted by a certain Detective Landry, a guy who took early retirement and moved to Hawaii shortly after he didn't find any connection to the Gregorys. You see where this is leading, Mitch?”

He didn't tell me. He was too busy trying to reduce me to cinders with his eyes.

”We have no reason to want the Senator besmirched, do we, Mitch? He's had enough problems over the course of his life. And he's been good to us, to the people of this state, good to the entire nation. But you know as well as I do that there are folks out there who will seize any opportunity to tear him down. So I see us, you and me, as being in a position where we can do something about this whole mess. A unique position. Wouldn't you agree?”

Mitch was not agreeing to anything. It is possible that the movements I saw his head make were simply the result of his body shaking.

”So what I propose is that you send me to visit former Detective Landry and see if we can't come up with an explanation as to why certain things were or were not done. Why there are things that don't seem to be in the police investigation file. That way, if he's questioned by reporters or one of those pseudo-journalists on TV, or even, G.o.d forbid, the U.S. Justice Department, we can have a little more control over the situation.”

”You want me to send you to Hawaii.”

”I do.”

”So you can talk to Landry about the Heidi Telford investigation.”

”So I can straighten out the Heidi Telford investigation. Before the whole world gets the wrong impression.”

”Before some guy can use it against me in next year's campaign.”

”Yes.”

”And you still haven't told me who that guy is.”

I told him.

”You've got to be kidding,” said Mitch White. But he knew I wasn't, and he seemed to be just as worried as he had been before.

SEAN MURPHY.

I didn't know Sean all that well. He was younger than I was, had been in the office only two or three years, but he was already doing felonies. He had gone to law school at Northeastern and interned at the Suffolk County D.A.'s office in Boston. That was a big deal to our guys. Reid Cunningham, in particular, loved him. He called him Murph-Dog and treated him like a hound, to be loosed on the most deserving of criminals-the home invaders, child molesters, wife beaters.

”George, old buddy,” Sean said. He had something under his arm. A clipboard and some papers. He was smiling at me. He appeared to have been waiting for me to come out of Mitch's office.

”Sean,” I said. I was prepared to walk past him, but he put out a hand.

”You're the only one I haven't got yet,” he said.

”For what?”

He untucked the clipboard and held it in front of him as if it was self-explanatory. He had now smiled at me for longer than he had done so in all the time we had been in the office together. ”The Pan-Ma.s.s Challenge. It's a bike race across the state. Well, not a race, exactly. One hundred and ten miles one day, ninety the next. Sturbridge to P'town, and I'm doing the whole thing. Got to get four grand in sponsors. You in?”

”You want me to sponsor your bike ride?”

All I had to say was that I was doing the ride myself, but I didn't. I looked down the hallway instead, hoping someone else would come along and demand my attention.

”Well, not you by yourself. I've got every prosecutor in the office to put up a hundred bucks.”

”Everyone?”

”Everyone except Mitch. Got Cunningham and O'Connor, though. I just haven't seen you around for a few days. That's why I'm getting to you last.”

”You got Barbara Belbonnet?”

”Sure. It's for a good cause, George. Children's cancer fund.” He was beginning to falter in his bonhomie, as if he had known all along that I wasn't going to do what everyone else had done.

I signed the form he held out to me. Pledged $100. I was now into the ride for $2,600.

KAUAI, July 2008.

FLYING FROM BOSTON TO HAWAII CAN BE A VERY LONG JOURNEY if you don't like the person you are with. Especially if that person is you.

Things did not improve once I arrived. Perhaps I thought it would be like Bermuda: hop on a motor scooter and cruise the entire island in an hour.

The airport was small, one story, and there seemed to be a dearth of walls, but there were plenty of people, and while most were in tropical clothing, virtually everyone was too intent on finding someone or someplace to help out a stranger who apparently thought he had landed in some Polynesian Mayberry.

It took me more than an hour to rent a car because I had not thought to reserve one, being under the illusion that I was going to take a taxi into town. ”Which town?” the first cabdriver asked in response to my question, and I knew I was in trouble.

I told him I was staying in Princeville.

He shook his head as if there was something wrong with me. ”Long way, man. Cheaper to rent da car than take da cab.”

So I did.

At least the hotel was nice, and it had a concierge named Ki'anna, a dark-hued, zaftig young woman with waist-length black hair, who a.s.sured me she knew everything that was worth knowing about the island. One thing she didn't know was the whereabouts of a man named Howard Landry. She did the logical thing and looked him up in the phone book. No Howard Landry was listed. She went to her computer and found no reference to Howard Landry there. I would have despaired except I was beyond that point. I just stood in the open-air lobby and wondered what I was going to do next.