The drive here had taken fifteen minutes but it had been a long ride just the same: the guy with the short black hair and mustache and black-and-white striped tie did not introduce himself and did not speak for the ride’s duration; he did push a tape into the player in the dash of the company car: Willie Nelson. Crane had hoped people in the East didn’t listen to Willie Nelson; no such luck.
He felt a nervousness in his stomach, like opening-night butterflies. But he wasn’t scared. He knew that if Mary Beth had been murdered, Patrick Boone was very likely, in some way, shape or form, involved. But he didn’t fear for his life, not sitting in a Chrysler with a Willie Nelson fan in a tie; not pulling up in front of a chemical plant that in the daylight looked anything but ominous.
Anxious was what he felt. He wondered why Boone’s ex-husband had called him out here. Was the man really onto what he and Boone had been doing? Would he toss Boone’s empty Nikon in Crane’s lap? Or maybe one of the people he’d been asking questions of called up Patrick Boone and informed him somebody named Crane was nosing around; Mrs. Meyer, the Kemco loyalist, most likely.
The executive offices of the plant were in a sprawling one-story building just off the parking lot, near the ever-flapping American flag. The nameless junior exec led him through a surprisingly shabby, claustrophobic lobby where a pair of plaid-upholstered couches met at a corner of the room and shared an end table littered with chemical company trade magazines. Over one of the couches was a framed quote from the founder of Kemco (Willis P. Connor, 1880–1955): “Industry is people.” A receptionist was walled within at right and the nameless exec spoke to her through a window, checking them in. The receptionist asked if they would need hard hats and safety glasses; the exec said no. Crane was glad. He followed the exec through a turnstile into a hallway.
The building was nothing fancy: tiled floors, plaster walls, tiled ceilings, as impersonal as this exec he was trailing after. There was a studied informality about the place: the people they passed in the halls all spoke, on a first name basis (the nameless exec’s name was Chuck, it seemed) and wore white shirts and ties but with the coat invariably off, either over one arm or left behind. Doors on either side of the wide hall stood occasionally open, one of them revealing a laboratory wherein a dozen or so technicians worked. Another open door revealed several people attending computer terminals; another contained half a dozen desks with women of various ages typing — had one of these desks been Mary Beth’s? Then came closed doors, reading BOOKKEEPING DEPARTMENT, PRODUCTION SUPERINTENDENT, MAINTENANCE SUPERINTENDENT, PLANT MANAGER. They stopped at the door reading PERSONNEL MANAGER. Chuck opened the door for him, peeked in and said, “Mr. Crane to see Patrick, Sharen,” turned to Crane and said, “Nice meeting you,” and left. Crane stepped inside.
A pretty blonde secretary, in her own, small outer office, rose from her desk, smiled, and opened the door to the inner office for him, without announcing him. He went in.
Patrick Boone was already up and out from behind his desk with a hand extended for Crane to shake. He was a slender man, about Crane’s size, pale, handsome, vaguely preppie, despite his hippie roots, with dark curly hair and, with the exception of a wispy mustache and wire frame glasses, the spitting image of his son Billy.
“I’m glad you agreed to come, Crane,” Patrick Boone said as he shook Crane’s hand, a firm, friendly shake. He smiled as he spoke. It wasn’t a bad smile.
He got Crane a chair before getting behind the desk, where once seated, he said, “Can I order you up some coffee? Or something?”
Crane shrugged. “I could use a soft drink. Anything.”
Patrick Boone smiled again, and Crane admitted to himself that if he were meeting the man cold, he’d probably like him. “Sharen,” he was saying into his intercom, “a couple of Pepsies for us, if you would.”
While they waited for the Pepsies, the preppie smile disappeared and he leaned forward, both arms on his desk.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Mary Beth,” he said. “I only knew her slightly. She did a little work for me. But my impression was she was a fine person.”
“I didn’t catch you at the funeral.”
“I wasn’t there. I didn’t know her well enough to intrude on her family and friends. And, too, Annie would’ve been there.”
“Annie?”
“My ex-wife. Let’s not pretend you don’t know her. I’d like us to be more up front than that.”
The secretary, Sharen, brought the Pepsies in.
As she handed them around, she said, “I need to pick my son up after Scouts today. Do you mind if I leave a little early, Patrick?”
He glanced at his watch. “It’s four-fifteen now. Why don’t you just take off.”
She beamed at him. “Thanks.”
After she’d left, Patrick explained, “We don’t stand on ceremony around here. We like to keep it a bit, uh...”
“Informal?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Boone...”
“Patrick.”
“Patrick, then. I know your ex-wife. I won’t pretend I don’t. I just didn’t know anybody called her ‘Annie.’ ”
“Well, she’s taken to being called just ‘Boone,’ these days. Some kind of feminist stand, I suppose. But if that’s the case, why not revert to her maiden name?”
“Probably because she’s raising your son.”
“You’re probably right. Well. I suppose you know why I asked you to stop by.”
“Not really.”
“I know what Annie’s up to. Oh, maybe not exactly, I don’t. But I know it’s another one of her articles. Or maybe it’s a series of articles.”
He paused, perhaps hoping for Crane to enlighten him.
When Crane didn’t, Patrick went on: “She’s been asking questions around Greenwood for months. Researching Kemco. Trying to catch us doing something she doesn’t approve of. Which won’t be hard, considering anything any chemical company does would be something she wouldn’t approve of.”
“Maybe.”
“Then you won’t deny she’s rather narrow-minded on the subject?”
“Well...”
“Surely the basis of her hatred of Kemco is apparent to you.”
Crane said nothing.
“It’s me, Crane. It’s me she hates. Kemco’s a surrogate. Or scapegoat or whatever you want to call it. A perfect target for her outdated late ’60s/early ’70s radical liberalism.”
“Didn’t you used to lean that way yourself?”
“Of course. Didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Well, then, but you’re younger, aren’t you, so that explains it. Almost everybody on college campuses in those days felt that way. You would’ve had to live through the draft to understand. It was a valid enough point of view in its day, naive as it may have been. Some of us, like Annie, stay stuck in time. Some of us move on.”
“Move on and sell out?”
He grinned, swigged the can of Pepsi, pushed back in his swivel chair. “For somebody who sold out, I lead a pretty drab existence, wouldn’t you say?” he said, gesturing around an office that was four paneled walls and a couple of framed photos, one of the plant, the other of the home office in St. Louis. “All I make is a little over thirty grand a year, a goodly chunk of which goes to Ms. Woman’s Lib of 1969.”
“You’re young. You’re moving up in the company.”