InSight

scarred Archer’s face, but instead of detracting from his looks, he appeared rugged ― a sexy tough guy in a film noir. Touches of gray threaded a full head of perfectly groomed dark blond hair. His custom-made suit and tie screamed Italian, and peeking from under onyx cuff links on a starched white shirt, Luke spied a gold Rolex.
    Either Charleston pays their detectives much higher salaries than Hub City , he has family money, or he’s on the take.
    “What do you know about Martin Gentry’s plane crash?” Luke asked.
    “I pulled the case to refresh the facts.” Archer mouthed his words carefully. He pulled a pair of designer reading glasses from inside his breast pocket and referred to the notes he’d compiled for their meeting. “Gentry’s plane went down almost nine years ago. Pilot error, they said. The only suspicious element, to me anyway, was the pilot had been a crack birdman in ’ Nam . Flew more than a hundred missions. Not the kind of pilot who makes mistakes. No one else found it suspicious. Planes go down; happens all the time. End of story.
    “I have to be honest, Luke. I’m not about to resurrect that plane crash and go up against Carlotta Gentry without more than your hunch or the ravings of some lunatic.”
    “That lunatic is a Gentry, and he’s like that because Carlotta Gentry made him that way.” Luke refrained from mentioning that Stewart never implicated his mother, but what Stewart said about Scanlon would be interpreted as the ravings of a lunatic. Archer looked around the restaurant as if checking to see if anyone could overhear. Luke took care to lower his voice.
    “Carlotta Gentry is buddy-buddy with the police chief and most of Charleston ’s judicial elite. That’s how she got Stewart transferred to a hospital of her choice and why they issued a news blackout. Something called power. She inherited it from her marriage to Martin Gentry, and she holds onto it with an iron fist.
    “It’s hard to explain a city like this,” the detective continued, “although I’m sure Hub City isn’t much different. The cradle Charlestonians are very cliquey. She’s accepted because she’s filthy rich and married a Gentry, and she’s done whatever necessary to insinuate herself into every phase of Charleston society. Her foundation is known all over the world, a daily funding sponsor on public radio. But, and this is a big but , she’s a Serrano, the daughter of a Boston waste-disposal multi-millionaire rumored to be mob. No one talks about it, but that’s the conclusion. Bottom line? The powerful kiss her ass more out of fear than respect, although there’s that too. You’ll have a hard time getting anyone with credentials to speak against her. If others have suspicions of wrongdoing, they won’t blow the whistle for fear of a Serrano backlash. Half the city is in her pocket for one reason or another. The other half is on the take.”
    Luke didn’t catch all of Archer’s comments, but he got enough. “So, I have my work cut out for me.”
    “Yes, you do. Matt Devon was a good reporter and an even better friend. But he was foolhardy, and telling him to back off only made him more determined. He got screwed the first time he tried to nail Carlotta Gentry for manipulating the test results on Synthetec’s drug and playing numbers with the stock, and he ate crow until he regurgitated. Unfortunately, he ate it raw until he got his new stove.”
    Luke wanted to smile at the imagery but then thought about Matt. “Did you hear from him before he was murdered?”
    “Hey, it’s not murder yet,” Archer said. “And no, I didn’t speak to him. Matt called that morning, but I was on a stakeout and had my phone turned off. He left a message he had proof that’d send a shock wave through this city, but by the time I called him back, he was already dead.” Archer played with another chip, then focused on Luke. “I feel awful about that.”
    “We’ve all been through the Monday morning quarterbacking, wondering if we’d done this instead of that, the outcome might have been different. You had no control on this one.”
    “I keep telling myself that.”
    “What do you think he meant by shock wave?”
    “Beats the hell out of me. Matt talked like that. Everything was an exposé. I took his hyperbole with a grain of salt or else I’d have spent all my time tracking his leads.”
    “Did CSU go over the inside of the car?”
    “Like a mother digging for nits in her kid’s