The Whistler (The Whistler #1)(21)

“Gee, Greg, I don’t know. Maybe he or she is unsophisticated in the world of organized criminal violence. Maybe he or she is worried that divulging too much dirt on McDover might lead back to him or her.”

“Well, it’s too late now,” Greg said. “The complaint has been filed and the wheels are turning.”

“You gonna use this stuff anytime soon?” Cooley asked, waving some papers.

“I don’t know. I need some time to think. Let’s say they can prove the judge likes to travel on private jets with her partner. Big deal. McDover’s lawyers will just say there’s no foul as long as Phyllis is footing the bill, and since Phyllis has no cases pending in McDover’s court, where’s the damage?”

“Phyllis Turban runs a small shop in Mobile and her specialty is drawing up thick wills. I’ll bet she nets a hundred and fifty a year max. The jets they’re using cost $3,000 an hour and they’re averaging eighty hours a year. Do the math. That’s a quarter of a million bucks just in air charter fees, and that’s just what we know about. As a circuit court judge McDover’s salary this year is $146,000. Together they couldn’t afford the jet fuel.”

“Phyllis Turban is not under investigation. Maybe she should be, I really don’t care. If we’re going to make any money off this case we have to nail a sitting judge.”

“Got it.”

“How often do you meet with the mole?” Myers asked.

“Not very often. He or she is quite timid these days, and scared to death.”

“Then why is he or she doing this?”

“Hatred of McDover. And money. I convinced our mole that this could lead to riches. I just hope I don’t get anyone killed.”

—

Lacy lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a converted warehouse near the Florida State campus and a five-minute drive from her office. The architect who’d converted the building had done a fabulous job, and the twenty units had sold out quickly. Thanks to a loaded life insurance policy her father had maintained, and her mother’s generosity, Lacy had been able to make a sizable down payment on her place. She suspected it would be the only nice gift from her parents. Her father had been dead for five years, and her mother, Ann Stoltz, seemed to grow stingier as she grew older. She was pushing seventy and not aging as well as Lacy would have liked. Ann no longer drove more than five miles from her home, so their visits had become less frequent.

Lacy’s only companion was Frankie, her French bulldog. Since leaving for college at the age of eighteen, she had never lived with a man. Indeed, she had never been seriously tempted. A decade earlier, her one true love had begun hinting at cohabitation, but, as she soon learned, he was already plotting to run away with a married woman. Which he did, in scandalous fashion. The truth was that, at the age of thirty-six, Lacy was content to live alone, to sleep in the center of the bed, to clean up only after herself, to make and spend her own money, to come and go as she pleased, to pursue her career without worrying about his, to plan her evenings with input from no one else, to cook or not to cook, and to have sole possession of the remote control. About a third of her girlfriends were young divorcées, all scarred and wounded and wanting no part of another man, not for the moment anyway. Another third were stuck in bad marriages with little hope of getting out. And the rest of her girlfriends were content with their relationships and either pursuing careers or having children.

She didn’t like the math. Nor did she like society’s way of presuming she was unhappy because she had not found the right guy. Why should her life be determined by when and whom she married? She hated the assumption that she was lonely. If she’d never lived with a man, how could she miss one? And she was really tired of nosy inquiries from her family, especially her mother and her mother’s sister, Aunt Trudy, neither of whom was capable of getting through a long conversation without asking if she was seeing anyone “serious.”

“Who says I’m looking for anyone serious?” was her standard reply. She hated to admit it, but for the most part she preferred to avoid her mother and Trudy because of those conversations. Because she was happy and single and not prowling for Mr. Right, they viewed her as a misfit, someone to be pitied because she was drifting through life all alone. Her mother was a perpetually grieving widow and Trudy had a dreadful husband, yet they somehow considered their lives better.

Oh well. Part of being single was dealing with the misconceptions of others.

She fixed another cup of green tea, caffeine free, and thought about watching an old movie. But it was almost ten, and a weeknight, and she needed sleep. Sadelle had e-mailed two of her latest memos, and Lacy decided to glance at one before she changed into her pajamas. For many years now she had known that Sadelle’s memos were more effective than sleeping pills.

The thinner memo was titled “Tappacola: Facts, Figures, Gossip.” And it read,


Population: Not sure of the exact number of Tappacola Native Americans (by the way, the term “Native American” is a politically correct creation of clueless white people who feel better using it, when in reality the Native Americans refer to themselves as Indians and snicker at those of us who don’t, but I digress). According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the 2010 population was 441, up from 402 in 2000. But the bonanza reaped by the casino has put new pressure on the population because, for the first time in history, so many more people seem desperate to become Tappacola. This is because of a distribution of wealth scheme commonly called “dividends.” According to statements made by Junior Mace, every Tappacola eighteen or older gets a check for $5,000 a month. There is no way to verify this because, as in all matters, the tribe reports to no one. Once a woman marries, her monthly dividend is mysteriously cut in half.