Favorite Sons (35 page)

The waitress stopped by, pad in hand. Finally looking up from his paper, Botticelli pointed at me and said, “You should try some biscuits and gravy. They have delicious gravy and biscuits.”

“Just some coffee, please.” She spun on a heel and was gone. I hadn't eaten in nearly twenty-four hours and was starving, but decided to forgo breakfast until after the encounter.

He folded the newspaper back into its original form, running his finger across the middle to reset the crease “So, back to your old stomping grounds, huh, Mr. Van Buren? You enjoying your stay?”

“Enjoying my stay? Well, let's see. In the last day I've been bullied around by your son and his goon, was jumped and assaulted, had
twelve stitches put in my mouth, my room was ransacked, I watched the repository for all county records go up in a fire that was as mysterious as it was spectacular, your son showed up to offer a vague threat of accusing me of starting the fire, and now the chairman of the United States House of Representatives's Ways and Means Committee has invited me to have biscuits and gravy. To say the least, Congressman, it's been a very surreal twenty-four hours. I guess I forgot that you play hardball down here in the valley.”

“My son and his associates can be a little overly rambunctious at times.” He carved out a pie-shaped piece of biscuit with gravy that was beginning to congeal and shoved it in the corner of his mouth.

“Overly rambunctious? That's one way of putting it, I guess.” The waitress set my coffee on the table and dropped two plastic containers of cream beside it. “So, what can I do for you, Congressman?”

“I like a man who cuts to the chase,” he said, dabbing at his mouth with a paper napkin. “What's your game, Mr. Van Buren? Why are you hanging around Steubenville in the middle of campaign season, and, more importantly, why were you making copies of my old campaign contribution records?” I started to laugh; it hurt the swollen inside of my mouth. His demeanor turned stern. “Am I missing something funny, Mr. Van Buren? Because I'm failing to see any humor here.”

“Last night, I thought some thug from the Crazy Horse Bar had followed me into town and sucker punched me because he didn't like my good looks, because nothing was stolen out of my SUV.” I took an index finger and turned up my puffy lip, exposing my stitches. “Then, I got back to my hotel and found my room had been neatly ransacked, and it finally dawned on me that it wasn't the guy from the Crazy Horse, but most likely someone who wanted those contribution records. This was confirmed even more when the warehouse went up in flames. Of course, I thought it was your son behind it all. I didn't realize it was you.”

“Where are those copies you had made?”

“Congressman, of all people, you are a man who understands leverage. I'm not sure what the hell's going on here, but I'm certainly not willing to release what might be my only bargaining chip.” I gently set the coffee cup in the corner of my mouth that was still of
normal size and sipped at my coffee. Despite my best efforts, it still burned the stitched wound inside my mouth.

“What's your interest in the documents?”

“Your son made the connection. That's why he had that goon of a sheriff's deputy sucker punch me in the alley last night. When they couldn't find the documents in my car, they ransacked my hotel room. When they couldn't find the copies, they decided to destroy the originals to eliminate any collaborating evidence, which I assume came at your direction.”

He smiled and laughed, a deflective defense mechanism. “Is there more to this fairy tale, Mr. Van Buren? And what does all this have to do with the Vukovich file, which I understand you also were snooping into?”

“Are you familiar with the Main Street Task Force?” He shook his head. “It's a special law enforcement arm of the attorney general. Right now, the task force is investigating payoffs made to Jack Vukovich. I know this for a fact. What I don't know is why they started investigating him, or where the money is coming from. It's certainly hush money, and I suspect it's coming either from you, perhaps your son, or maybe Carson Nash.”

He smiled and sipped his coffee. “So, Mr. Van Buren, tell me this . . .” He set his coffee cup down, folded his hands on the table, and leaned in. “Why on earth would I do such a thing as pay off a low-life cretin like Jack Vukovich? Help me here. What would be my motivation?”

He had me. I had slipped and made a rookie mistake, losing my advantage. I couldn't tell him why I believed he would attempt to buy Jack Vukovich's silence without indicting myself. I hoped to skirt the real issue, but there was no reason to bluff or play coy. “Jack Vukovich was in my office the other day. He said you knew he wasn't the real killer of Petey Sanchez and you offered to drop the death penalty specs against him for taking the fall for the killing.”

His facial expression never changed. He said, “Of course, you know that is a totally ludicrous allegation from a man with absolutely no credibility. Why on earth would he have pleaded guilty to a crime he didn't commit?”

“Even tough guys don't want to die.”

“I have no recollection of the details of the plea agreement—it's been so long—and unfortunately the official records were tragically destroyed in last night's fire. However, if Mr. Vukovich now claims he wasn't the killer and that he was wrongly convicted, that would mean that someone else was up on the hill the day young Mr. Sanchez was killed, wouldn't it?” I didn't respond and he allowed the words to hang in the air. “Given that, perhaps I should ask my son to reopen the case to see who else may have been up on Chestnut Ridge that morning.”

“If you did, I wouldn't be the only politician with credibility problems.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“You're the one that sent an innocent man to prison.”

Botticelli slowly shook his head. “Mr. Van Buren, I did not get to the point where I am in life by being careless. Not one shred of evidence exists that shows I knew anyone other than the accused— Jack Vukovich—was up on the hill that day. If my son reopens the investigation and determines that someone else killed that young man, I will salute him and proclaim my sincere sorrow that Mr. Vukovich spent so many years in prison for a crime he did not commit. I will call it a tragedy and a terrible, terrible miscarriage of justice. I'll show the proper amount of contrition and the fact that I was the prosecutor will soon be forgotten. What they'll remember, however, is that four boys—a respected preacher, a successful businessman, a former football star, and a candidate for Ohio attorney general—conspired to hide this for all these years.” His death-like grin consumed his face. He was a feral cat toying with a field mouse. He leaned in and in a hushed tone said, “Publicly, that's what I'll say. Mr. Vukovich told me all the names of the boys who were up on the hill that morning, but sending a bunch of high school kids to juvenile hall gave me no political advantage. However . . .” He winked and clicked his tongue. “. . . send a pedophile to prison and you're talking about some serious political points, and that's what I did. I sent Vukovich to prison and old man Nash graciously agreed to an arrangement that would keep his kid clean. Funny how things work out, isn't it? The younger Nash brother becomes a successful businessman and I squeeze him like I squeeze his old man. The good reverend periodically supplies me with a pulpit from which I can
speak directly to the voters. And now, you're running for attorney general, and I'm sure there will be ample opportunity for you to help me out.”

Alfred Botticelli stood and dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “My advice to you, Mr. Van Buren, is to go back to your campaign and make sure the copies of those records never see the light of day, because if they do I will pull the package on you and you won't be able to get elected dogcatcher.” Across the room the aide stood and took a few steps toward our booth. Botticelli raised a finger and the man stopped. “Let me give you a little advice, Mr. Van Buren. The people who will be most valuable to you in your political career are those who are weak and those who have much to lose. Sometimes, you can take those who have the most to lose and make them weak, like Carson Nash. He was a strong man, but he was so concerned with protecting the reputation of his precious little boy that he left himself exposed. I simply took advantage of that vulnerability. Remember this—I'm not some penny-ante criminal from Akron. I am a United States congressman and I didn't get there by leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for second-rate investigators like you to follow. It's not the Jack Vukoviches of the world that are the problem. It's people like you. You want the power and prestige of being attorney general, but you allow pipsqueaks like Jack Vukovich to gum up the works. You don't have the stomach to simply take care of the problem. You remember this, son, if those contribution records surface, I'll make sure every voter in the state of Ohio knows you were up on that hill.” He picked up his paper off the table and motioned with his head to his aide. “Yes, we do play hardball down here in the valley, Mr. Van Buren, and you are completely out of your league.”

“I might just be a little smarter than you're giving me credit for, Congressman.”

“I doubt that. You have a good day.”

When Alfred Botticelli and his aide had disappeared from the restaurant, I reached into my jacket pocket and turned off my digital recorder.

I
walked out of the restaurant and took a deep breath, cleansing the aroma of bacon and coffee from my nostrils. As I headed toward the far end of the hotel and my room, a familiar black sedan was creeping along the curb toward me. The darkened passenger side window dropped as the car neared, revealing the smarmy face of Alfred Botticelli Junior, who stared up past his thick brows. I leaned down, looked past Botticelli, and said, “Well, well, well, if it isn't the arsonist and his trained chimp.”

“Consider yourself lucky that you didn't wake up in the hospital, asshole,” the deputy said.

Botticelli held up a hand for silence. “Do we have an understanding, Mr. Van Buren?”

“We?” I laughed out loud. “Let me ask you this: Do you always call Daddy to do your heavy lifting? He comes in to squeeze me, then you do the mop-up work? ‘Do we have an understanding?' Give me a break.”

He rolled his teeth over his lower lip. “I think it would behoove you to make sure those campaign contribution records get into my hands.”

“‘Behoove,' that's another good word.” I wanted to punch his face. “Go away, junior. If I'm going to be bullied and blackmailed it's going to be by a better man than you.” I looked over at the deputy and patted down my jacket. “Sorry, I'm all out of bananas. I'll catch you next time.”

Chills ran up my spine as I walked away from the car. I'm sure they were both watching in the rearview mirror until I disappeared around the corner of the building. Once out of sight, I sprinted to my room and locked myself in, quickly stuffing my few belongings into the suitcase. I wanted to get out of the hotel before the goon paid me another visit. I checked out and asked the elderly woman at the front desk to call me a taxi as my Pacifica was—I hoped—still parked in the alley behind Naples Restaurant. I would get the SUV and stop on my way out of town to get some breakfast. I stepped outside the hotel lobby and called Margaret while I waited for my ride. “Enjoying your vacation?” she asked.

“It's been interesting.”

“Those aren't the kind of words I usually hear to describe a vacation.”

“Well, they're the only ones that fit. I overnighted myself a package yesterday—a thick envelope.”

“It just arrived. I recognized your chicken scratch writing on the label. It's on your desk.”

“Put it in the safe, please.”

“I can do that.”

“Anything going on that I need to know about?”

“No, but the day is young. I've been sending calls over to Mr. Lanihan and I haven't heard any explosions from his office, so I assume he's handling things. Your girlfriend hasn't called in the last ten minutes, which makes my life easier.”

“Good. I'll be back in the office Monday.”

I had not intended to return to the Ohio Valley to create a shit storm, but that's exactly what I had done, and in a ridiculously short period of time. I'm not sure what I had hoped to achieve by visiting my old friends—a recommitment to our silence, guidance, perhaps reassurance that I should stay true to my oath to uphold the law? What I had hoped was to slip in and out the valley unnoticed. Instead, I had set off land mines everywhere I went, the repercussions reaching all the way to the halls of Congress.

I hopped into the back of the taxi and directed the driver to the Pacifica. The tires of the taxi had just bounced onto Dean Martin
Boulevard when my cell phone rang. It was Deak. “What are you up to?”

“Getting ready to blow Dodge. I think I'm pushing my luck staying here any longer.”

“You need to stay a while longer. The old man wants to talk to you.”

“Which old man?”

“Carson Nash.”

“Really? How did he find out?”

“Adrian called him in a panic after your visit. Apparently, he told Carson that everything that happened up on Chestnut Ridge was going to be made public. He also said you had the power to stop it if you wanted to, but you don't want to.”

“That isn't what I said.”

“I'm just the messenger, Hutch. Carson called Pepper and asked him if he knew anything about it. Pepper said he did and the old man went ballistic—started screaming and cussing into the phone. Pepper called me and said he thought Carson was going to have an aneurysm. He wants to meet us at the bank at six o'clock tonight.”

“That works for me. Are you going to be there?”

“I figure we all ought to be there. I can guarantee it'll be ugly. In spite of what Adrian's become, there's nothing more important to Carson Nash than preserving the memory of what his son used to be.”