Avenue and risked the wrath of the Midland Heights Police Department, whose chief, already on the warpath, probably had added my scalp to his Ten Most Wanted list. “There’s just one thing,” she said when she was done.
“What’s that?” I always serve up the straight line.
“Lester is here, and he’s going to sit in with you two.”
“We’d already discussed that. What about talking to Lester?”
There was a hesitation in her voice. “Lester is not willing to talk to the press right now,” she said. “I’m sure you understand.”
“Sure I understand,” I replied. “You tell Lester that I’m not willing to have him sit in on his mother’s interview unless he agrees to do one himself. I’m sure he’ll understand.” Stephanie stuttered, which was extremely unusual for her. “B-b-b-but Aaron, you said. . .”
“I never said he could sit in, listen to everything I’m going to ask, then prepare his answers ahead of time and be ready for any possibility. I never said he could gain the advantage before I even enter the room. I never said I’d agree to any of this. All I said was that I’d write a story for Snapdragon, and I can do that with or without Lester and his mother. Their participation is entirely up to them. But my participation with them is entirely up to me. I don’t exist to act as their public relations manager.”
There was a long pause, and I got the impression Stephanie, hand over the mouthpiece, was talking to Lester and/or his mother. When she came back, her voice was different, small and obedient.
“Lester says okay,” she said.
“He’ll talk to me?”
“That’s what I said,” and she hung up.
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Louise Gibson lived in a very nice little Victorian with a wraparound porch on a quiet, tree-lined street in Scotch Plains, a Union County town where the people who have money have real money, and the ones who don’t probably also have more than me. It was exactly the kind of place you’d expect a mother to live in, with real wood shutters and perfect clapboard siding, nothing plastic (or even aluminum) about it. Flowers were evident in the front garden. It lacked a porch swing, but you almost saw one there, anyway. A real Family Values house, straight out of Leave It to Beaver.
Inside was more of a scene from The Godfather. Louise sat in a chair with her back to me, looking out a window through the tiny crack of light between drawn room-darkening curtains. I resisted the impulse to kiss her ring, since I couldn’t actually see if she had a ring. She did move every once in a while, though, so I was assured it wasn’t Norman Bates’ mom sitting there with Stephanie throwing her voice from the next room. When you’re in the criminal investigation business, you have to watch out for ventriloquism, you know.
Lester, who up close looked even more like Legs, but smaller and smarmier (if such a thing was possible), was hovering to one side, smoking a cigarette like a Gestapo interrogator in a 1940s propaganda movie, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, palm up.
He wore a dark suit and tie, which I thought was a bit much. Of course, I was wearing a dark suit and no tie, which was about six steps above normal for me. Louise had opted not to sit in widow’s weeds, which I appreciated, but was in black. You got the impression she had been in black since Nixon resigned.
Stephanie introduced me, then left me alone with the two Gibsons. Her introduction was simple but flattering, as she called me a “wonderful reporter” who would “understand what you’re going through.” Personally, I didn’t much care what they were going through, but I did understand it. Intellectually.
I won’t comment on how wonderful a reporter I am. I think my record speaks for itself, damn it.
When I took the tape recorder out, Lester looked like he might faint, but Stephanie apparently had warned Louise, who nodded, not actually looking in my direction, but aware of every object in the room by radar, or that “eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head” thing your mother used to do to scare you into behaving.
I asked when the last time either of them had spoken to Le. . . uh, Louis had been.
“I spoke to him the night before he was killed,” said Lester, without so much as a blink when his mother winced at the word “killed.” “I was thinking of coming down to visit him and Stephanie