Free Walk a Black Wind by Michael Collins

everyone, did he?” I said.
    Sasser tilted his chair back and rocked in the quiet office. I had a feeling that I had just started walking on eggshells. Mayor Crawford’s voice was low and smooth. The lawyer addressing a jury he wanted to impress with his gravity, but firmly set straight at the same time.
    â€œHow do you know that, Fortune?” the big Mayor said. “The police here don’t know what Leland was doing in Dresden. We found no documents, and his lone partner doesn’t even know what Leland was really doing. If you have information about Leland, you should tell our police and Crime Commission.”
    â€œYou don’t know he was investigating the Black Mountain Lake project?” I said.
    â€œNo,” Crawford said, “we don’t. Why would he, there’s nothing to investigate. How do you think you know?”
    â€œLeland talked to Francesca about it. Didn’t she tell you?”
    â€œNo, she didn’t,” Crawford said, “not a word.”
    â€œShe told Felicia.”
    Sasser said, “Hearsay. Maybe Felicia got it wrong. My Crime Commission found no evidence of what Leland was doing, and nothing wrong with the project. I’m not in the project, but I’ve worked a lot with Commissioner Zaremba, and I’d be careful about accusing him or the city government.”
    His voice was matter-of-fact, but I heard the warning in it. So did Martin Crawford. His lawyer manner slipped into a smile, man-to-man, smoothing the ruffled waters.
    â€œThere are always nuts who think every public deal has to be crooked, Fortune,” he said, friendly. “They smell a shady deal when there isn’t one. It’s a way to get a reputation with the public. You get used to that in government.”
    â€œThis nut was dangerous enough to someone to be killed,” I said. “Someone thought there was trouble around.”
    Anthony Sasser said, “No one knows why Leland got killed. Maybe he got in trouble someplace else.”
    â€œA coincidence he was killed here, and that Francesca saw the killer, and now she’s dead?”
    Crawford said, “The police, and Tony there, questioned her carefully, showed her every mug book. All she saw was a man running, her identification was useless.”
    â€œMaybe she saw more than she said, or someone thought she had,” I said. “You seem pretty anxious to think Francesca wasn’t mixed up in the project.”
    Crawford let a silence stretch for a time as if he were thinking about Francesca and the project—a daughter and an important political situation.
    â€œI back the project, Fortune,” he said slowly. “We need the housing, that land is the best we can get. I must follow my judgment. It’s a normal, legal business arrangement.”
    â€œMaybe that’s what’s wrong with it—it’s legal, but not exactly ethical or moral,” I said.
    â€œIf you can find anything legally unethical,” Crawford snapped, “I’ll kill the project myself.”
    â€œYou’re a good lawyer, and Abram Zaremba probably has better lawyers,” I said. “It’ll be legal as hell, but there are legal deals that aren’t so moral. Favors, collusion, private arrangements that never show, little tricks of dealing. I’ve known legal deals that sent citizens for their guns when they figured out how they were getting fleeced. That drainage district, for instance. I’ll bet the only land in it is that swamp of Zaremba’s. A neat way of making the public foot the bill for draining one man’s land.”
    Crawford said, “The city, in my judgment, needs the project. Inducements are often necessary to entice a private businessman to help the city.”
    Sasser said, “Every public project benefits someone in our country, Fortune. You can’t build a sandbox without using someone’s land and paying him for it. A man has a right