So, his brain now on full alert, Thorne smiled again and leaned back in his chair, bringing his fingertips together over the tweedy vest that buttoned over his stomach. ‘How do you conclude that this Mr Valens is my guy, as you put it?’
‘I got a better one,’ Griffin replied. ‘How about if I ask the questions since that’s what I’m here for? In exchange I don’t bring you downtown.’
Thorne tried a little humor, to soften things here. ‘I’ve always considered that these offices were downtown.’
Griffin ‘s face was a slab of meat. ’What do you know about Valens’ relationship with Bree Beaumont?‘
There was nothing to do but stonewall until Thorne discovered a little more about what Griffin knew as well as the source of it. ‘I don’t know anything about his relationship with Bree Beaumont.’
‘But you admit that you do know him? Valens?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ He certainly wasn’t ready to admit it, and Griffin had just cued him that he was fishing. Thorne reminded himself – the flip side of first impressions – that sometimes people looked and acted stupid because they were. ‘But you’ve obviously heard that I do.’ He ventured an educated guess. ‘Jim Pierce?’
Pierce was an executive vice president of Caloco and, Thome had heard, ex-lover of Bree Beaumont. When she’d left the oil company to join Kerry, there’d been hard feelings all around. Pierce had the money and the motivation to discredit Kerry, and to make Bree see the error of her new ways and come back to him and Caloco.
Griffin looked at his notepad, and this verified Thorne’s suspicion. Poker wouldn’t be this inspectors game. ‘Because if it was Pierce, you’ve got to seriously consider the source.’ He held up a hand. ‘Now I’m not telling you what to think, but Jim Pierce? Jesus!’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s Big Oil, is what.’ Thorne sighed. ‘Look, sergeant, I’m a consultant in this business. I know the players. And Pierce is a very big player. So here’s what happens. If Kerry gets elected, which isn’t looking too bad right now, Pierce s people, the petroleum folks, they’re going to take the big hit on… you know about MTBE?’
Griffin nodded. ‘Lately, yeah, I’ve heard of it.’
‘Well, take my word on it, that’s what this is about. Three billion a year goes down the drain if Kerry wins, so Pierce is trying to disrupt the campaign!’
Griffin seemed to remember what his original position had been. ‘So you’re saying you’re not involved with Valens? That’s your story?’
Another avuncular shake of the head. ‘I don’t have a story, sergeant. All I know about Bree Beaumont’s death is what I’ve read in the paper. I’m especially saddened because, frankly, she was starting to make a real difference in the public’s perception of the dangers of MTBE, which are substantial. Also, quite honestly, several of my clients stood to benefit from her recent work. As did Kerry and probably Valens. Not only is there no motive there, there’s a positive disincentive!’
Thorne was fairly certain he’d deflected Griffin again from pursuing his own relationship with Valens. But he thought he could push things even further. ‘Look, sergeant, I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but let me guess what Mr Pierce told you – he said that Al Valens hated Bree, didn’t he? That Al was jealous of all the attention Kerry was giving to Bree. Something like that, am I right?’
An ambiguous shrug.
‘And who’s the guy who tells you all this? Only the guy whose business is in the crapper if Bree succeeds, who by the way just got dumped by her personally!’
Griffin finally showed a spark. ‘You know that?’
‘Word on the street!’ Thorne returned Griffin’s open look – he’d answered his questions, been straight with the police. If there was anything more, he’d continue to cooperate. But his message was clear – Griffin was barking up the wrong tree here.
Finally, the sergeant straightened his body and grunted his way up out of his chair. ‘I know where to find you,’ he said.
A last smile. ‘I’m not going anyplace! Thorne extended a hand and after a beat Griffin took it.
‘Listen to me, Al. The man was here. I don’t know for sure what Pierce told him, but it wasn’t news to him that you hated the woman!’
Al Valens swore. Then. ‘Did he mention the report? Did he know anything about that?’
‘No. I don’t think he’d know what it was if it bit him. But he’d obviously been to her place and gone through her papers, some with my letterhead!’
‘How’d she get those?’
Thorne’s voice took on a mild tone of reproach. ‘Well, Al, I was going to ask you the same thing.’
Valens took it in silence. ‘So where’d you leave it?’
‘I sent him back to Pierce.’
Valens was silent for a long moment. ‘How close was he to us?’
‘Way too. But now he’s looking at Pierce, who had every reason. More than every reason.’ Thorne smiled thinly. ‘I think Sergeant Griffin will come to the conclusion that Mr Pierce must have done it. And with no physical evidence, he’ll have to go to the strongest motive.’
But Valens didn’t sound convinced. ‘What if he comes back to us, though? After all we’ve-’
Thorne cut him off. ‘Al, he wants to catch a killer. Our arrangement is not his area of interest. He won’t be looking this way.’
Valens’ voice betrayed the panic Thorne knew he must be feeling. ‘But what if he does, Baxter? What if he does?’
Thorne spoke in his most soothing tones. ‘Then he’ll have to be managed, that’s all.’
The limousine bearing the Democratic candidate for governor pulled up to where a crowd of perhaps a hundred citizens waited in the chill by the Union Square entrance to the Saint Francis Hotel.
In the back seat, Damon Kerry nodded appreciatively at the man next to him. ‘Good job, Al. Nice turnout.’
Valens wore a distracted air. There was no doubt that the crowd here would be satisfactory. You tell semi-indigents that you’ll pay them twenty bucks to go someplace and stand around for fifteen minutes, and you can generally get some good percentage of them to show up and do it. And since both sides did it, neither could snitch off the other to the media.
Five months ago, Damon Kerry had unexpectedly taken the primary after the two other Democratic contenders had vilified each other to death in a series of TV debates. Since that time, Valens found himself more and more coming around to the opinion that the system could be improved by simply eliminating the middle men and paying people directly to vote.
In a cynical moment – and there had been hundreds lately – he’d amused himself doing the math. He’d concluded that for about the same amount of money they’d already blown through on this campaign, they could have paid every registered voter in the state twenty bucks to go into the booth and mark the ‘X’ next to Kerry.