Death Wears a Tricorn: A Frameshifts Novel

By Richard Rose

Returning to Northern Virginia to live with his elderly aunt in Holburn , an imaginary town between Alexandria and Arlington, while he finds care for his wife in a nearby nursing home, retired journalist Harry Pettiford returns to the life of public relations that he’d hoped never to resume. Taking a job with the re-election campaign of a town councilman, Jerry Nuffield, Harry manages the staffers—mostly law students—and makes the contacts with local media and party backers that carry Nuffield to victory in a tight race. After the celebration, however, Nuffield is found, wearing only his underwear and a tricorn hat, with a memo spike in his chest.

Given his crude treatment of staff, his extramarital affairs, and his secret deals with local contractors that anger the local Hispanic community, Nuffield has many murder suspects. Harry unwillingly becomes part of the investigation, drawn into it by his childhood friend, Sheriff Lester Stihl, local reporter June Brightman, and by the discovery of another body—this time a young staffer with whom Nuffield had an affair.

When the kidnapping of a local contractor is connected to one of Nuffield’s deals concerning a housing project, Harry and June begin to suspect that the crimes are politically motivated. Already out of his depth as he slowly uncovers the history of a small terrorist cell operating between Holburn and the rural town of Wando, Harry is even more confused when June’s interest in him becomes more than professional. As the focus sharpens on the killer, the killer’s interest shifts to the meddlesome Harry Pettiford, who keeps getting in the way of his plans. As the novel races to the end, Harry realizes too late that he has become the next target. Readers will enjoy the understated humor, the characters’ development and interaction, and the growing suspense as every attempt that Harry makes to avoid involvement only ensnares him more inescapably.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Rose
• Release date: Feb 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781937698720

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

It was the time of month when the heels of the loaf meet, creditors bubble up, and petty larcenies seem feasible. This is not to say that Harry Pettiford had larceny in mind as he rounded the corner of Broad and Washington Streets, but he wondered how long he could float credit payments and post-date checks before Gerald Nuffield finally decided to pay him.

After a long campaign for Holburn Town Council, Candidate Nuffield was once again Councilman Nuffield, and Harry was ready to be shed of the whole business. If he hadn’t been strung out on debt, Harry would never have returned to Holburn to be Jerry’s factotum, or glorified gofer. When he was dismissed decades earlier as the station manager for WZDC in Washington, Harry had left Holburn vowing never to return to the D.C. area. Now here he was again, arranging radio and cable spots, planning meetings and hoping he could be a hanger-on long enough to find another job. So much for the elegance of the retirement years. His annuity was not keeping pace with medical costs and his daughter’s graduate school tuition. Given what Jerry had spent to keep his Town Council seat, however, Harry knew that he was less likely to be a hanger-on than left hanging.

Gerald Nuffield was padding around his hotel suite wearing only underwear and a tricorn hat given to him by the party chairman after his acceptance speech the night before. After what he had been through today, he just needed to kick back. Everybody needed that, he told himself. Nugent had made it a damned hard race. Even the bastard’s name was like his. Getting a higher profile had cost a bundle. Jerry had been on the Town Council for twelve years, but did it matter to anyone? People had no loyalty. They all had to be bought. Without an expensive, aggressive campaign, the choice would have been between an old Tweedledum and a young Tweedledee. And Jerry had no illusions about the way the vote would have gone, even without his promises to the Hispanic Coalition. He’d had to climb out on a limb to outspend the bastard.

He looked out the window of his hotel campaign headquarters, now strewn with leaflets and deserted. Seven floors below was Holburn Plaza, the town’s controversial sculpture garden. From this height, the statue of Revolutionary Colonel Charles Holburn, gazing across the Potomac to Washington, D.C., looked like a teetering stack of dominoes. Some of the more virulent critics had said that this sculpture did represent exactly the capitulation of tiny Holburn to its sprawling neighbors, Alexandria and Arlington. How appropriate, they said, that a town named for the nonentity who surrendered early in the war and returned to his estate to raise roses would be represented by a vague, angular stick-figure leaning over the river. Nugent had called it Up-Chuck Holburn during the campaign and blamed the two million dollar cost on Jerry. Well, now the name-calling was all over.

Jerry turned back into the room, his hairy paunch overhanging checkered boxer shorts. All that remained of the final telephone blitz was half a dozen desks littered with soft drink cans, Styrofoam cups and receipt spikes stuck full of pink phone slips. Now he needed to chill out, but he couldn’t get one phone call off his mind. He wondered what the caller really knew. He went to the bar and poured himself a whiskey. No, what did it matter? He was still in the game. Rena would soon be along. He needed to kick back.

Harry was shaving before the evening event at Demeter’s, a Friday-Saturday conference and showcase by local businesses for event managers. Passing himself off as an event manager would be eased by the free registration he’d received as a member of Nuffield’s staff. If he could make some contacts, he might land softly when Nuffield dropped him. As he trimmed his ears, he stared out into the twilight onto St. Giles Lane. He’d gone to parochial school not far from the house where he now rented a room from his elderly aunt, Clarisse Pettiford. It seemed that the more hair he lost from his head, the more sprouted from his ears. Harry was a large, beefy sixty-year-old with twinkling eyes and surprisingly nimble movements. As a courtesy, the conference organizers had invited the staffs of both Nuffield and Nugent. Like most two-day conferences, the first day was for business and the rest of the time officially scheduled with meetings that were unofficially unattended. It was an opportunity to network. Event managers, caterers, travel agents and economic development types were an ever-hopeful breed. Harry was ready to share someone else’s hope.

A figure wearing a hooded sweatshirt and carrying a package slipped into the service entrance behind the Holburn Plaza Hotel. None heard the quiet mantra being mumbled for a reminder and for courage:

Sometimes you just have to follow your gut. You know what’s right and how the plan will end. You are the means, even if you’re not around to see it all play out. Keep to the plan. Sometimes the only difference between triumph and disaster is the brave act of a single individual, an individual to whom things matter, to whom ideas matter, to whom the People matters.

Carrying a thin, flat box, the figure rode the elevator to the top floor, ran quickly down the empty hallway and slipped into an alcove to change clothes.

Ideas are our hearts. If we aren’t true to them, who are we? If we don’t work for our own ideas and for the People, then others will take our place. If someone doesn’t care enough to say ‘No,’ then the future will die stillborn. Someone has to keep faith, to believe, to act. Wait now for the right time to move. Watch the watcher and keep to your plan.

Harry parked in one of the underground lots near Demeter’s, rode the elevator to street level, and walked a block to the riverside high-rise with the restaurant on the top floor. As he had raced out of his room to arrive at the conference by the 7:00 p.m. social hour, the phone rang. The answering machine came on as he ran downstairs and out the front door. That call had interrupted his train of thought. Recently he had become more forgetful. He wondered what he had forgotten to do this time, but put it out of mind as he entered the building.

A year ago, he’d booked Demeter’s for Nuffield’s fundraiser. The banquet room looked over the Potomac with an excellent view of the coal pile at the power plant and the Blue Plains sewage treatment plant on the D.C. side of the river, a view full of civic responsibility. After once being lost in the warren of underground parking lots for almost an hour, Harry had learned where to park and had ever afterwards parked in the same place. The guard in the lobby looked up from her magazine long enough to examine his invitation and nod him toward the elevator. The burnished silver doors of the elevator slid noiselessly apart to reveal the black and white tiling of an Art Deco interior that made Harry think of the bath house in a KOA campground where Bea and he had stayed on a visit to Quebec. They were so surprised to find such an elegant latrine in a campground. As the elevator rose, he hoped that the maximum load computation had taken all of the tiles and potted plants into account. Just as the door was closing, he had seen someone in uniform rushing toward the elevator, but the doors closed and the elevator effortlessly swept him alone to the lobby. Demeter’s was named not for its wrought-iron statue of a man running from the restaurant but for Michael Demetrios, the corpulent owner who stood imperious, grinning and flat-footed beside the hostess.

Congratulations, Harry! We have Nuffield back and avoided another big spender, yes? Demetrios said, parroting some of Harry’s own campaign rhetoric.

Thanks, Michael. And thank you for all you did to make it happen. Harry pointed toward a sign pointing to the Event Management Symposium in the Banquet Suite. That’s where I’m headed.

Yes, indeed, said Demetrios, taking him by the elbow. They’ve already begun. I’ll seat you on the side. He looked behind him. Join us, please, Colonel.

Harry turned and saw the Air Force officer who had fallen in step behind them. Demetrios took them down a service hallway between the walls dividing the large banquet room. They both sat down immediately at a table near the door. The podium at the front of the room, which faced across the river to Blue Plains, was occupied by the main speaker, whom Harry had hoped to avoid by coming late. He’d heard him before. His enraptured message was that every event is a message. If he had something else to say, Harry missed it as he scanned the crowd. Barbara Nuffield, Jerry’s wife of thirty years, was sitting at the front table, perfectly coiffed, with Leiber handbag just visible. Beside her was Sheriff Lester Stihl. He always drawled, Yeah, ‘Stihl,’ like the saw. He had run unopposed as usual, and tonight he wore his festive cowboy formal wear with a bolo tie and snakeskin boots. June Brightman, a reporter from The Holburn Transcript, was seated across the room and had waved when he came in. Her broad, Swedish face was always a pleasure for Harry to see. She had known Bea and him in Roanoke before Bea’s illness. Harry forced himself to look away from her and listen to the keynote speaker, a curly-haired man waving his arms and occasionally mentioning that he would be signing copies of his book in the lobby afterwards. This was a dynamic speech, Harry decided, not because of anything that Curly was saying, but because all of his listeners were so pleased to be together and given a title like event managers. Harry even felt some of their exhilaration at finally knowing who they were and what they had been doing. When the speaker concluded, predictably, with the words so every meeting is a message, there was thunderous applause. Harry looked at the program under his glass of water and was pleased to see that the social came before the workshops. He turned to introduce himself to the officer beside him, a tanned, lean-faced bird colonel named Connors, who seemed equally unimpressed by the speaker.

Think we missed anything by coming late? Harry asked.

No comment, sir, Connors grinned. Out of my field.

You’re not an event manager, Colonel?

I’m here for the workshop on mission development, he said.

You have an interest in that area? Harry said, vaguely wondering what they were talking about. He suddenly wondered whether some of the workshops were classified for spooks and special ops.

I’m giving the workshop, said Connors. He smiled at Harry’s puzzled expression and handed Harry a business card.

Colonel Connors, I’m not going to ask you what ‘mission development’ is all about, because I don’t think I would remember it past the social hour, but I wish you all success. Harry reached into his pocket for his business cards and realized that he had no more. He shook hands with Connors and stepped away from the table to meet June Brightman.

Harry, how are you? It’s been a long drag for you to get Nuffield back onto the Council. He couldn’t have done it without you, June said with the kind of warm gaze that made you think you were the only one in the room.

That’s kind of you, June. I know that I didn’t always make it easy for you, he said.

Look, we were both doing our jobs, June said. My business was to pry and yours was to win. I think we both succeeded. You’re staying for the social?

That’s why I’m here, June, he said. I’m hoping to stumble into a new job.

That should be no problem, June said. How’s Bea doing?

There’s not much change from day to day, Harry said quietly. A bilateral stroke had left his wife of thirty years helpless in a nearby nursing home, and the expense of it was rapidly stripping away what was left of their savings. At least she doesn’t know anything.

What about you, Harry? June said as they walked up to the bar.

Hey, I’ve been pumped ever since that balloon went into my coronary, he said, pointing to a bottle of herbal tea. And no more hard stuff. He unscrewed the lid and poured the contents into a glass of ice.

Yeah, sure, Harry, June said, gazing at him knowingly.

Harry knew to be careful around June because he always wanted to say more than he should. A flattering gaze like hers was a gold mine for a reporter. People probably stopped her on the street just to bask in that gaze and tell her their secrets.

So you won’t be working for Councilman Nuffield? she said. Seems like he would want to hang onto you.

No, he flies solo now, Harry said.

And tries to pay off all his debts? She was still fishing, but Harry was not going to give in. OK, Harry. No shop talk.

June, you know that in D.C. all talk is shop talk. Harry sipped his drink.

Like for that duo? she said, nodding toward Barbara Nuffield and Lester Stihl, who were standing by the podium and engaged in an animated discussion.

Well, Lester may not like our party or our man, but he’s a pragmatist, Harry said. He knows that he’ll need every Council member if he’s going to sell community policing.

He’s already sold it, June said. The question is can he pay for it.

Harry nodded. Looks like Barbara’s finished. I think I’ll have a word with her. Catch up with you later, June. Harry was relieved to get away from June’s wide-eyed gaze before she had made him talk. Colonel Connors ought to have June Brightman give a workshop on making prisoners confess. That would be a message worth hearing.

Barbara’s glittering red jacket of Swarovski crystals matched her Leiber bag and red sandal high heels. Why be a winner if you couldn’t dress like this, Harry thought. She strode eagerly toward him.

Oh Harry, I’m glad to get away from that man. Just say anything.

Is Jerry still at the Hilton? he asked.

Yes, Barbara said, he told me this morning that he would be late again. He wanted to box up some things before you clean out the suite tomorrow morning. He sent me here just to show the flag.

And to show off that fancy jacket, Harry thought. Barbara loved to be seen.

I didn’t know that you were going to become an event manager, Harry said, smiling. Suddenly he thought of Bea wearing the same jacket.

What about you? she asked the same question June had asked less than five minutes ago. Did he look stricken?

Oh, I’m just here for the free quiche, he said.

One of the Nuffield staffers, Renate Brown, suddenly appeared beside Barbara. Harry had heard the other staffers talking about the way that Renate aped Barbara Nuffield. Here she was, dressed almost identically to Barbara, with the same hairdo, jacket and handbag. Everything matched but the shoes.

What lovely shoes, Barbara! Renate said. Where did you find them?

Harry had no doubt that Renate would be at Lord & Taylor’s first thing tomorrow morning. As Renate guided Barbara away from him, Harry glanced around the room for other staffers. Half a dozen of them were gathered around the roll-ups and cheese dip, probably plotting their next portfolio experience. He hadn’t had much in common with that group, but they had certainly worked hard for him. Harry had never encountered such a calculating group of young people. Most of them were recent graduates of Georgetown or Yale and clearly aspired to greater things than a Holburn Town Council seat. Nuffield was a small spongy step on their paths to greatness. Nuffield owed his re-election more to these earnest young staffers than to his well-heeled contributors or to his last minute promises to Holborn’s growing Latino community.

The white-jacketed employees of Demeter’s were already dividing chairs between the sides of the room for the two workshops. Harry was beginning to think that he should have come earlier to make the kind of contacts he needed. He wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone once the workshops began. It was already almost 7:30 p.m., and he was losing time as the social drew to a close. He noticed that Ernie Banks, a balding, elfin reporter for the local cable channel, was closing in on Barbara with a camera man. She looked desperately toward Harry, who nimbly intercepted the khaki-clad Banks. With Harry planted in front of him and the crowd squeezing around on both sides, Banks was going nowhere, so the diminutive reporter abandoned Barbara and stuck his microphone at Harry.

OK, Harry. Looks like I talk to you, said Banks.

Who knows, Ernie. You may learn something, Harry said cheerily as he watched Barbara turning to talk with Colonel Connors while they walked toward one of the workshop rooms. Renate Brown stood by the exit, looking wistfully after them. Banks shook his head and turned off the microphone, sending the cameraman on break and taking out a cigarette. Harry pointed to the NO SMOKING sign above the coffee urns.

"Just chewing on it, Harry. You gonna hang around, now that the election’s over? It’s not as