arrayed against her.
Not only that, but she succeeded where Holland and the police had failed; she got the people to move off the land before the explosion. I certainly couldn’t have managed it, and neither could the local police.
With Holland moving on to a Senate bid, there was talk of drafting Alex for Mayor. Since there hadn’t been a contested mayoral election in Brayton in twenty years, it was hers for the taking. She had also been doing some interviews, but not as much as Holland.
So Alex was my first stop when I got to Brayton. She was at her normal spot behind the cash register at her diner, but that was the only thing that was the same as my last visit. It was so crowded that I had to park down the block, and there was a line stretching out the door of people waiting for a table. Even if Alex did not become the Mayor, she was already parlaying fame into financial success.
I worked my way through the line and went up to the register. She brightened when she saw me, and said, “What brings you back here?”
“My job,” I said. “Got a minute?”
She looked around at the madhouse that was the diner, and I thought she was going to ask me to wait. But she called over one of the waitresses and asked her to watch the register.
Alex smiled. “Our regular table seems to be taken. Want to take a walk?”
“Sure.”
We went out the back and walked towards a small park, with a children’s playground, a couple of tennis courts, and not much else. But it was a nice day, and I liked being around Alex. I figured things could work out between us, if she weren’t married, with two kids, and living in Brayton. Oh, well.
“You’re pretty famous,” I said.
“As are you.”
“So are you going to be Mayor, or continue fighting Hanson over the land, or both?”
She seemed surprised. “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“They’re saying that most of the explosives were planted underground, down some of the holes that had already been drilled. It caused like a small earthquake.”
“So?”
“So I’m not an expert, but it changed the whole picture. It might have made it too expensive to get to the natural gas in the shale. Either way, it will set them back at least a couple of years before they know for sure.”
I hadn’t heard that, and I said so. “So you’ve won, with some help.”
She nodded. “Not the way I wanted to win, but I’ll take it. That poor guy that was killed that night was right.”
She was talking about Chris Gallagher. “What do you mean?”
“He told me that nobody was going to drill on that land, and that we should leave when the police told us to. You think he could have planted the explosives?”
“No, Alex, I don’t. I knew him pretty well.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
We walked some more, and I said, “Alex, I want to ask you a question. But first let’s reduce it to simple terms. Your side wanted the drilling stopped, and the other side wanted to drill. OK?”
“OK.”
“So it would make sense that someone on your side would have planted the explosives, to stop the drilling.”
She shook her head. “Nobody on-”
I interrupted. “Don’t get defensive; I’m not making accusations, I’m just thinking logically. Your side benefited from the explosion; there’s really no doubt about that.”
“OK…,” she said, warily.
“So why would they have been set to go off when there were all those people on the land? It could have been a catastrophe for your side, and the other side certainly gained nothing from people dying.”
She thought about it for a while. “On the news they said it was set with timers. So maybe when it was set, they didn’t know the people would be there. Maybe they didn’t want the people there when it went off.”
I didn’t say anything, because she had just made me see something I hadn’t seen before.
“Does that make sense?” she asked.
“Probably more than you realize. One more question … why did you listen to me and ask the people to leave? The Mayor had just said the same thing, yet you didn’t listen to him.”
“I trust you.”
The next stop on my Brayton reunion tour was Edward Holland.
I called him in his office, but he had left early, having done a round of TV interviews that apparently left him too tired to do any Mayor stuff.
I said that I was there on important police business, and they contacted him and I was told I could come to his home.
He lived on a large estate on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t ostentatious, but was very comfortable, and certainly nicer than any other homes I had seen in the area.
He greeted me himself, and invited me into the den. If there were any feminine touches in the house, I hadn’t seen them, and I asked if he was married.
He shook his head. “Who has the time?” he asked, smiling. Then, “So what is this official police business you’re here about?”
“The Daniel Brennan murder.”
He smiled. “Haven’t we had this meeting already?”
I nodded. “Right. But that’s before I knew you were responsible for it.”
He almost did a double take. Here we were, talking like buddies, and all of a sudden I was accusing him of murder. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Here’s how I see it. You arranged the sale of town land to Carlton and Tarrant Industries, the secret foreign company that you set up and own, using the tricks you learned in your law practice. Then you paid off Michael Oliver to report that there was a fortune to be made from the shale under the ground, when in reality that wasn’t the case.”
Holland was smiling, not afraid at all, but nor was he showing any of the outrage an innocent man would be showing.
I continued. “You handled the legal case yourself, going to Federal Court, even though that wasn’t the smart way to do it. But you needed Carlton to win, so you paid Brennan off when it seemed he might be on the court. I don’t know how you got to him, but you did. And then he probably changed his mind, so you had him killed.
“Then you killed Oliver, and Carlton, and Rhodes, so that no one would be left who could implicate you. Actually, I should say that you had William kill Carlton and Rhodes. And all the time you were committing acts which would logically be blamed on the townspeople.”
Holland was not saying anything, just pretending to be amused by it all. He may have been worried that I was wearing a wire, and I wish I were. Because I was one hundred percent certain that I was right.
“Then you arranged for the massive explosion on the land, which would cover up for Oliver’s fake report. But you didn’t just want money out of this; you also wanted fame and power. So by acting to save the townspeople, you’d become a hero, and shoot up the political ladder. Which is exactly what happened.”
“This is all fascinating, but I’ve had a long day. Is there any chance you can prove any of this?
“Not yet. But I will. All I have to do is find William.”
“Let me tell you something, Lieutenant. This is a fantasy which you will never, ever come close to proving.” And then he smiled a cold, confident smile. “And you will never find William.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said, but it may have been the most empty words ever spoken. He had obviously disposed of William and he was right; I would never be able to pin any of this on him.
“Be careful, Lieutenant. You’ve got such a great career ahead of you.”
I left; I had no more empty threats to make. Holland was a multiple murderer, and I wasn’t even including Steven Gallagher. He was also now wealthy beyond belief, and was very likely to be elected United States
