record.”
“Who might that be?”
“Why, Allan’s ex-wife.”
“I don’t know-”
“Are you kidding? Double check with whoever gave you those names in the first place. Nancy went to half of those meetings. She was a looker, and Allan liked to show her off.”
I called Claire first.
“Irene! I just read about Roberta in this morning’s paper!”
I talked to her about the events of the prior evening, then said, “I talked to Becky this morning. She told me Roberta’s color is better today, but otherwise there’s no change.”
“I should call Becky. Maybe I can help her somehow, make it easier for her to spend time with Roberta when she’s off duty.”
“She’d probably appreciate that. I have a favor to ask, too. Do you know who ‘N.M.’ is in Ben’s calendars?”
“Sure. Nancy Moffett. Allan’s ex-wife. He used to bring her everywhere. Boy, was he ever nasty to her in the divorce. Nancy and I are friends. Do you need her number?”
I called Nancy Moffett, and got an earful.
When I called a few of the other attendees at these secret meetings, I was able to truthfully say, “I’ve verified this from three different sources…” and ask if they had anything to add, or say in their own defense.
People will talk, especially if they think others are talking about them. I had everything in place on one side of the story. Moffett’s turn.
He surprised me by answering his phone. Every other time I had called in the past week, I got a machine, and though I had left messages, my calls were not returned.
“Mr. Moffett, this is Irene Kelly. I’ve talked to several people today who will go on record as saying that while you were city manager, you asked them to attend meetings which-as you were fully aware-were in violation of the Brown Act. I wanted to give you an opportunity to respond to these allegations.”
He let me list a few of the meetings before he said, “Well, Ms. Kelly-off the record, which is the only way I’ll talk to you-if you know your Brown Act so goddamn well, you know that the worst you could do would be to demand the reversal of some of the decisions made in those meetings, which is not likely, since they almost all fall under protected categories. And you also know that I can’t be held personally responsible for those violations. You know that my position was not subject to the Brown Act, but that even if I had been a council member, you’d have to sue the city, not me. So screw you.”
“Now, Allan, that’s a little hostile. I don’t even know how I find it within me to do this, but I’ll ask again, and for your own sake, this should be
“No comment.”
“Okay, well, that takes care of that. I suppose I should mention that I completely understand that you probably can’t be jailed or sued for being underhanded, and no one I know wants to bother suing the city over the acts of a-well, over someone like you-and it is too late to undo most of the damage you’ve done. Still, the public will not be pleased to learn you spent the last twenty years sneaking around in clandestine meetings, privately deciding how to spend their tax dollars. They may have suspected something like this all along, but once it hits print, it’s sort of a declaration that you’ve made them out to be fools. It’s a mistake, Allan, to underestimate just how cranky the local citizenry may feel when that happens.”
“You miss the point, Kelly. I don’t plan to return to public life, and one of the best things about being a private citizen will be to tell you-you and your friends at the
Thank goodness he told me to fuck off. It conveyed more than how he wished to say good-bye. Hearing that phrase, I knew he was nervous, maybe even scared. Moffett never uses ye old f-word unless he’s afraid. He’s fairly foul-mouthed as public servants go, and he’ll say all kinds of other nasty things, but Allan never uses that one unless he’s feeling rabbity. Sort of a “best defense is offensiveness” philosophy.
Well, as far as I’m concerned, Allan can say “fuck” every fifteen seconds if he wants to. What mattered to me was knowing he doesn’t say it so often; he says it only when he’s close to freaking out. I make it my business to know things like this about Moffett and other officials. In his case, I learned these habits of speech because I’ve listened to him for a dozen years-in meetings and interviews-and during that time had so little cooperation from him, I had to learn to read whatever clues his habits gave me.
“So you have no plans to return?” I asked.
“None.”
“Then why insist on being off the record, Allan?”
No reply.
“I think you do plan to come back. Resignation is sort of like marriage-resign in haste, repent at leisure, right?”
Silence, but I could hear him breathing, and he was breathing almost as hard as Joshua Burrows.
“You probably had a moment of panic the other day,” I went on. “You resigned, lived to regret it, and now you figure once you’ve tied up some loose ends, you’ll be back. But you should get used to it, Allan. This time, the mess is too big. And someone’s screwing up the cleanup, don’t you think?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Lucas Monroe,” I replied.
“I don’t know any Lucas Monroe!”
“You used to go fishing with him.”
“I’ve been fishing with lots of people.”
“He even took your picture on a fishing boat.”
“Lots of people have taken my picture.”
“He was in your office last Wednesday-a week ago today. I’ll bet the cops have already talked to you about it.”
“A black guy insisted on seeing me on Wednesday. I didn’t know his fucking name. Wanted help with the homeless shelter. I explained to him that I was planning to retire and couldn’t help him.”
“Some nameless, homeless, African American man was the first person to get the announcement of your retirement?”
“Funny world, isn’t it?”
“No. I don’t think it’s so funny right now. He’s dead.”
“I don’t know a thing about that.”
“I suppose you don’t know anything about what happened to Roberta Benson?”
“Roberta Benson…the shelter lady?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Allan. It’s in today’s
“Never read the rag.”
“Even if you haven’t read it, you know exactly who she is. Someone attacked her in her office last night. She’s in a coma.”
“What in the fucking hell is going on?” he said vehemently, then catching himself, added lamely, “I mean, it’s sad, but what does it have to do with me?”
If I had been sitting across from him, I would have been able to pick up other cues from his posture, his eyes, what he did with his hands. As it was, I couldn’t be certain, but it seemed to me that Allan didn’t know who hurt Roberta, but was scared all the same. Why would he be? Because he was afraid it was someone who could be connected to him?
“No idea who might be taking care of your potential enemies, Allan?”
“What the fuck are you talking about? No fucking way is the fucking shelter director my fucking enemy! I’m not going to sit here and listen to this kind of fucking nonsense!”
He hung up. Didn’t matter. I’d hit the mother-effing lode.
I scrolled through the story on my screen, typed “Contacted by the
