I asked if she remembered anything about her time at the factory, such as how she got clear of the falling forklift, but she said her last coherent memory was driving up behind Fly the Flag in Billy’s Miata—she couldn’t even remember who all had been present—if Aunt Jacqui had been there, or Buffalo Bill himself.
I told her I had her recording pen, but wanted to hang onto it, at least until we saw how the endless legal battles were going to shape up. “The state may try to impound it. I’ve actually put it in a bank vault to keep the Bysen mafia from stealing it out of my office, but, of course, their legal team is trying to suppress the recordings altogether.”
“You can keep it if you let me have a copy of the contents. Morrell says that William and Pat Grobian were arrested for Bron’s death. Is there any chance they’ll be found guilty?”
I made an impatient gesture. “The whole legal process is going to be a long and dreary battle; I’ll be amazed if it even comes to trial before Billy is married with grown grandchildren of his own…Marcena, how much of this business did you know, before Bron’s death. Did you know he was sabotaging the factory?”
Underneath her shroud of bandages she blushed faintly. “I got too caught up in it—it’s why I always get the best in-depth stories wherever I go, because I do get caught up in my subjects’ lives. Morrell says I manipulate the news I’m covering, but I don’t. If I take part, I don’t make suggestions or pass judgment, I just watch—it’s no different than Morrell going on a raid with a tribal chief in Afghanistan.”
She stopped to catch her breath, then continued in a more muted voice, “That factory owner—what was his name, Zabar? Oh, right, Zamar—he wasn’t supposed to die. And when Bron decided to use that bloke, that gang member, Freddy, I did say Freddy wasn’t the strongest filament in the bulb, but Bron said he couldn’t go into the factory himself, because his kid’s best friend’s mum worked there, and she’d recognize him if she happened to see him. But I did help make the little gadget over at his house—his kid was at school, his wife was at work.”
Her eyes sparkled again at the memory; it didn’t take much imagination to follow her mind down its track, to sex in Sandra’s bed while the wife was standing in front of the By-Smart cash register. She’d helped construct a murder weapon, but what she remembered was the sexual excitement. Maybe she’d feel something else when she recovered: she faced two more major surgeries before she could go home.
She saw some of what I was thinking in my face. “You are a bit of a prude, aren’t you, Vic? You take a lot of chances yourself—don’t tell me you don’t know that adrenaline kick from skating close to the edge.”
I fingered my own head bandage reflexively. “Adrenaline thrills? Maybe that’s my shortcoming: I take risks so I can get the job done—I don’t take jobs so I can run risks.”
She turned her head aside, impatient with me, or abashed—I’d never understand how she thought.
“What about those extra meetings with Buffalo Bill?” I asked. “He confess to all his dirty business practices?”
“Not in so many words. But a few admiring comments and he talked more than he realized. I’d say a streak of paranoia runs through the man, not enough to derail him, but the fact that he sees the world as his enemy means he’s always on the attack, which I guess has fueled his success. We had a lot of ‘hnnh, hnnhing’ over the necessity to do things like pile garbage in the parking lots of smaller shops to get customers to agree that they’d be smart to ‘By-Smart.’”
“So you’ve got yourself quite a nice story,” I said politely.
She grinned weakly. “Even though I don’t remember the climax, it didn’t come out too badly. Except for poor Bron. He was so greedy he couldn’t imagine there’d be a big fat stick of dynamite inside that carrot they were dangling in front of him.”
“Greedy isn’t the word I’d use,” I objected. “He was desperate for a way to help his daughter, so he was going to shut a blind eye to the risk he might be running.”
“Maybe, maybe.” Her color was fading; she lowered the hospital bed and shut her eyes. “Sorry, I’m weak as a cat, I keep dropping off.”
“You’ll recover fast when you’re out,” I said. “You’ll be back in Fallujah or Kigali, or whatever the next war zone is, in no time.”
“Hnnh,” she murmured. “Hnnh, hnnh.”