“Oh hell, Laurel, who could possibly care?”
“Do you think Chief Dennison’s investigation has been fair and impartial?”
“Sorry, I’m not going to answer—”
Suddenly, Weir was aware of a figure cutting between him and the media people. It was a broad, tallish shape, with a white blouse buttoned to the neck and an improbable ruffle at the throat. The thick gray-brown hair was up this time in a bun of severest attitude. Marge Buzzard shoved away Laurel Kenney with a large knotted hand, then turned her fury upon the minicam operators, pursuing first one, then another until they had backed off to her liking. They kept shooting. She marched back on thick heels, and brought the full focus of her intensity upon Jim.
“Come with me,” she ordered. “You will tell no more lies about Cheverton Sewer and Septic.”
“God, you look good this morning,” said Weir, taking her by a trembling arm. “Right this way.”
Wielding her like a weapon, Jim guided Marge past the clicking shutters and whirring video cameras, up the sidewalk past Raymond’s place, past Ann’s Kids, around the corner of Poon’s Locker, and finally through the back door and into the coolness of the supply room.
Marge Buzzard wheeled and measured Weir with enraged eyes. “You have no idea what you’re doing,” she said.
“I was standing by the oleander.”
“Then that smart tart of a girlfriend you have — she doesn’t know what she’s doing.” Marge poked a stiff finger at Jim’s face.
He caught it in his hand, squeezed, and guided her backward into the empty café. “Don’t you poke me again, Marge. You want to do business, you learn some manners. Now sit down on your butt, shut up, and get yourself together. I’ll get some coffee.” He let go of her fingers and took a chair from one of the tables.
He watched her as the coffee brewed. She sat primly, back straight and off the chair, head erect, one hand in her lap and the other dabbing her eyes with a lacy white handkerchief. Weir concluded that Marge Buzzard was — as Poon was fond of saying — crazy as a shithouse rat. He liked her. He set the cup of hot coffee down in front of her, along with a creamer and sugar.
“I suspect you’ve got something to tell me,” he said. “I’m all ears.”
Marge’s eyes bore into Jim’s with a suspicion he could only characterize as boundless. She made Virginia look trusting. At the same time, she started sniffling again, a helpless, tiny sound like a five-year-old might make, accompanied by a dignified quivering of the chin. “I’ve had enough of you people,” she said finally.
“What people, Marge?”
“Disrespectful people — hustlers, gossips, liars, cheats, Migrates... just... just people in general.”
“You lost me. Start from the beginning.”
Marge clamped her purse into her lap. “Cheverton Sewer and Septic was founded in 1959 by Richard Cheverton. We called him Dickie. I was his first and only secretary. His wife... well, that’s another matter. He was the finest man I ever knew, and our business was honest. Honest, Mr. Weir, do you hear me?”
“I do,” he answered, noting her ringless left hand.
“In 1986, when our company was bought up by Cantrell Development as part of PacifiCo, we had annual revenues of five point eight million dollars against expenditures of two point six million. Our after-tax profit was two point one million. It was a happy little company of fifty-six employees.”
Marge dabbed her eyes again. Jim was beginning to see what it was about the bottom line of a sewer company that meant so much to Marge. “After 1986, we maintained a profitable status for another two years, but we were finally folded into Cantrell Development’s contracting division and all we were was a part of PacifiCo’s development wing. Our profitability suddenly became...” She sniffed again, then straightened her back and looked at Jim. “Nonpriority.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be supercilious with me. You think it sounds stupid, but to me, Cheverton Sewer and Septic was a way of life.”
Weir was silent.
“They gutted us. They folded our septic and cesspool operations, so our name wasn’t even correct. All we were used for was sewer construction on PacifiCo’s new tracts. Even at that, PacifiCo subcontracted out sewer installation if other bids came in lower than ours. The division we were part of made huge profits, and ours got upstreamed as part of them. But we weren’t allowed to do outside work, so if no new houses were going up, we stood still. I continued to keep a set of books as if we were a viable company, and I can tell you we would have continued to grow at an annualized rate of six percent if we’d been allowed to. Of course, those books didn’t mean anything.”
“No.”
“No.” Marge wadded the handkerchief into her big hand. “As soon as PacifiCo bought us up, Louis Braga — the corporate flunky they sent — started getting all this attention from corporate. Dickie, who was retained as manager, didn’t understand it, and when he questioned it, there were no answers forthcoming.”
“Attention?”
“Mr. Braga received sealed pouches from PacifiCo headquarters, up on the hill in Newport. Louis Braga got calls from them. Louis Braga got a corporate credit card under the Cheverton Sewer and Septic name — even though we were really just part of PacifiCo. Well, Mr. Weir, once a month when I organized the payables and billables, I’d go through our expenditures with a fine-tooth comb. Every other month, there’d be a nine-thousand-dollar cash withdrawal on our card, made by Dave Smith of Cheverton. Braga told me to pay it and account for it as a consulting fee. I demanded to know where nine thousand dollars of Dickie’s — Mr. Cheverton’s — money was going, with a man who didn’t work for us. Corporate called me up to Newport and told me not to ‘modify’ the way they were doing the books — Mr. Braga knew the new system, if I had any more questions. The next week, I got a raise. But I know for a fact they’d have fired me if it wasn’t for Mr. Cheverton. He defended me to them.”
“So Braga and Smith could use the card. Who at PacifiCo had access to the Cheverton number?”
“I have no idea. We’ve never been a part of PacifiCo, as far as I’m concerned. It’s what accounting calls an O and I card. That stands for Open and Incidental. Everything else is O accounts for Office charges or M for miscellany, or T for Travel expenses, like that. They’re all credit accounts with suppliers. But PacifiCo can call nine thousand dollars every other month on a credit card incidental because their sales ran over six hundred million last year.”
Jim waited while Marge unraveled a corner of her balled handkerchief and dabbed an eye. It was time to go fishing. “Did Mr. Smith ever get mail at Cheverton?”
“Yes. It was occasional and often marked ‘Personal and Confidential.’ I never opened an envelope addressed to Mr. Smith. I was under orders from PacifiCo not to. I gave it directly to Mr. Braga.”
Letters from Ann, he thought, to Cantrell. “There really never was a Dave Smith?”
Marge’s expression suddenly looked more hurt than hurtful. “I told you that when you first came out.”
“But you’ve been covering for him for five years.”
She nodded, a new storm of tears gathering in her eyes. “When Mr. Cheverton died in late ’eighty-six, I vowed to continue with the company, to do what I could to restore it to its former integrity. But it’s not the same. It’s shameful. The only thing the same is the picture of him I’ve got on my office wall. That’s why I won’t stand still for Dave Smith casting a shadow on the ghost of Mr. Cheverton. Mr. Cheverton hated what was happening to what was once his company, and I simply will not let his memory be further trampled. Not by you, not by that strumpet for mayor, not by the papers.”