by Susan Grant
“Sort of like Brace Bowie,” he murmured back.
Jana swore under her breath. No, exactly like Brace Bowie, developer, businessman and ex-fiancé number three. The breakup was complicated by the fact Brace had sunk a lot of money into cousin Viktor’s caviar bar. She had a feeling he wanted to pull out of the investment, but felt awkward leaving Alex and Viktor hanging. Coincidentally, a week later, Brace was called in for questioning regarding the bust-up of a black market sturgeon fishing ring. A suspect arraigned on poaching charges had pointed a finger at him. He’d come out clean, but the negative publicity had hurt his business.
Jana’d had nothing to do with the investigation, but neither she nor anyone else could convince Brace, and he’d come back slinging mud at a flashy press conference accusing her of pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into building her own empire, with an army of Department of Fish and Game “enforcer-commandos” to “strong-arm” her policies. He was going make sure she lost her senate seat in the November election. For ten nightmarish weeks until the city made him take them down, he’d displayed huge signs on several of his project sites downtown calling her legislative motives into question with slogans like: Spend-Happy Jasper Wastes YOUR Tax Dollars! Vote Her Out This Fall!
“Whatever happened to taking it like a man?” she muttered to Steve. “Then again, maybe if he’d been more of a man, I might still be with him.” Add Brace to her long list of bad choices. That man-vacation was sounding better by the minute.
The owner of the fish farm walked up to the microphone to begin the festivities. “Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s give a warm welcome to Senator Jana Jasper, who will lead us in our ceremonies today.”
To the sound of polite applause, Jana stepped up to the podium. “It’s opening day at Good Egg Sea Farm and that’s truly a reason to celebrate. Caspian Sea beluga sturgeon hover on the brink of extinction, wiped out by habitat degradation, commercial fishing and a black market run by the Russian Mafia. But with a little freshwater and aquaculture expertise, we’ve turned this small section of our state’s Central Valley into the caviar-farming capital of the world!”
She waited for the cheers to quiet down before continuing. “Welcome to California’s new gold rush! Black gold. And we’re not talking crude. We’re talking gourmet!” To more applause, she waved her hand in a sweeping motion at the huge circular tanks around her. “As Chair of your Natural Resources committee, I promise to champion legal enterprises like this one ceaselessly. Together we can stop the drain that illegal activities like poaching take on our wildlife budget—” A flip of a tail from an oversexed teenage sturgeon shot a spray of water that caught her across the jaw.
She continued, despite her cold-blooded hecklers. Using a tissue that Steve handed her to wipe off the drips. “Aqua-farms like Good Egg discourage poaching, smuggling and illegal importation. This keeps hard-won budget money where it belongs—funding crucial programs that help to protect California’s environment. Congratulations, Good Egg. Not only are you good for California’s taste buds, you are good for California’s future!”
As the crowd applauded heartily, one of the aqua-farm owners handed her a pair of scissors. To cheers and whistles, Jana cut through a bright purple ribbon draped across the footbridge.
As the crowd applauded, a reporter and a photographer entered the farm. They didn’t look familiar. Other than Good Egg’s staff, their families, representatives from Fish and Game, the only other observer was a reporter cloaked in a Moscow-style trench coat and hat representing a small newspaper serving the area’s Russian community. What an outfit. He looked more like a spy on undercover assignment rather than a bored part-time journalist hunting up news for a slow day. No one from the Sacramento Sun had bothered to show up, despite Steve’s press release. Apparently, the opening of a sturgeon farm wasn’t big news except to the local immigrant community.
Steve narrowed his eyes, signaling that he didn’t recognize the newcomers, either. She hoped it wasn’t one of the tabloids. When the Kennedys were being low-key, out of boredom the gossip rags came looking for Jaspers, who as a rule weren’t nearly as interesting. But now that she was newly single, maybe they’d wanted fodder for some lurid rumors: Sex-starved senator participates in sturgeon orgy.
Or, better yet: “A woman without a man is like a sturgeon without a bicycle,” claims perennially spouseless State Senator Jana Jasper.
A splash from the holding tank hit her across the chest. Jana inhaled on a gasp as a stream of cold water found its way down her cleavage. She glared at the prehistoric-looking fish ogling her from the churning water. No one says you can’t be turned into sushi—right here, right now.
The unfamiliar reporter smirked and whispered to the photographer. Jana’s instincts, always good, prickled. What were they up to?
She stepped away from the microphone. Welcome sunshine pushed through shreds of lingering fog and warmed the March morning. Under a fluttering banner was a buffet line from the heavens: bowls of hardboiled eggs, the whites separate from the yolks, minced onion, lemon slices, sour cream and toast to go with a rainbow of different caviars from inexpensive but tasty bright-orange salmon eggs to the much more expensive rich and nutty, creamy-tasting sturgeon roe. Jana inhaled the aroma, her mouth watering. She’d inherited her mother’s taste in fine Russian cuisine, and caviar was a favorite. It tasted best with iced vodka, but when Good Egg’s sales and marketing director offered her a flute of champagne to go with the feast, she was grateful. Every job had its perks. She took a sip.
A few flashes from the Russian newspaper’s camera, then, “A question, Senator!”
She turned around. The reporter she suspected was from a tabloid waved at her. “Jeff Golden, Los Angeles Times,” the man called out.
He was from the Times? Her hopes zinged up then plummeted. The Times was a major paper, though out of the area. It would be great publicity for her pet cause, or would it? With her luck, the guy was a Hollywood columnist suffering a slow week.
“Yes, Jeff,” Jana said pleasantly. Maybe he wouldn’t ask the usual questions: Will you ever settle down? Who are you seeing now?
I’m taking a man-vacation, actually.
The reporter returned her smile. He seemed friendly enough. “With today’s allegations against your father, U.S. Senator Jasper, and your brother, Jared Jasper, for the misuse of campaign funds, do you feel your own activities will be called into question next?”
Allegations? What allegations? The roar in Jana’s head almost drowned out the mumbling, the startled looks in people’s eyes, the cameras flashing. “Repeat your question, please.”
“Is the so-called spotless, eighty-five-year-old Jasper record in the political arena finally over? Or will this investigation expose what has always been there?”
Freeze your emotions. Appear calm. All her life she’d been trained to be in the public eye; her reaction to the unexpected question was almost instinctive. “I thank you for your interest, Mr. Golden. I have no comment at this time.”
She surrendered the podium to Steve. “Cancel lunch with the lumber lobbyists,” she told him in a private voice. Her heartbeat was all over the place but you couldn’t tell from looking at her.
“Done. Don’t worry about anything this afternoon. I’ll cover it or reschedule it.”
Today would have seen her up and down and in and out to appointments, committee hearings, meetings and back at the office. She answered with a curt nod. Having someone like Steve on the staff was invaluable. He and Nona, her chief of staff, could empty her day as fast as they could fill it.
Steve turned back to the reporter and smoothly changed the subject to one on which he and Jana were informed, while the circle of people standing around Jana widened, leaving her alone.
In politics, when you were on top, you were there in the company of friends. When you hit bottom, you were on your own.
Normal face. Keep smiling, and remain pleasant.
Turning away, she whipped her cell phone
out of her purse. Before she had a chance to hit her father’s private number, the phone rang. Mom, the caller ID read. Jana turned away and walked off the footbridge where too many curious ears were perked. “Mom, what’s going on? I heard—”
“Come home, Janushka. Right away.” The phone went dead.
Only to light up immediately. Jared. Her brother. “Jana, drop what you’re doing and meet me at the ranch. I’m on my way.”
“For the love of God, Jared, tell me—”
He hung up.
“—what the heck is going on,” she finished lamely. She stood there, staring at the phone in her hand. Dad’s integrity was beyond question. Jared was as full of himself as ever, the consummate ladies’ man and hotshot pilot, but as a National Guard officer and business owner he was as honest as they came. He, like Dad, had never come within smelling distance of scandal. An unblemished public record was a source of Jasper pride. Now this. It was time to get back to the ranch and find out exactly what was going on.
Chapter Two
JANA’S MOTHER and grandfather waited for her in the cozy, wood-paneled library. The room smelled as it always did in the cool months—of wood smoke and orange oil. The crackling fire added an atmosphere of tranquility that was completely false; all it took was one step into the room for the tension to hit Jana like a brick wall.
Grandpa sat in his wheelchair with shoulders hunched. He looks ancient, Jana thought. Her mother’s beautiful face was chalk-white. She was dressed elegantly in a white silk shirt, lots of gold chains and slim tan pants, but strands of blond hair slipped from her chignon: a telltale sign of trouble in a woman whose appearance was always immaculate.
Jana’s hands were cold as she pulled the heavy wooden doors closed behind her. “Okay, what happened?”
“The Coalition for Higher Ethics came forward with figures that bring into question your father’s campaign funds,” her mother said.
“The CHE?” Jana made a dismissive snort. “They’re a political action group—from the other side. They’re lying.”
“Of course they’re goddamn lying,” Grandpa growled. “But that never matters, does it? Guilty until proven innocent in the court of public opinion.”
“When’s Dad coming home?”
“I don’t know,” Mom said with a tired sigh. “He may have to stay behind over Easter in Washington to take care of this.”
Easter recess began at the end of the week. Dad never “stayed behind” during Easter recess or any extended break for the House. As in the Sacramento Capitol, the last couple of weeks before any recess were always packed with things screaming to be finished before the congressmen returned home, but when it was time to go, Dad was home for the holidays. All the Jaspers shared a deep attachment to the family and the ranch, and rarely did they spend the holidays anywhere else.
“Hey…” Tall and rumpled-looking in an open-collared button-down shirt and khaki pants, Jared strode through the double doors, shoving them closed behind him. In one smooth move, he slouched his athletic body in a leather recliner and steepled his hands in front of his nose—a sure sign of Jared’s unhappiness.
He was a Jasper, there was no getting around that, but he was so undercover about it that few people realized he was one of the Jaspers. Remaining above suspicion was almost an obsession with him; he’d never wanted favoritism or to influence decisions that could affect his business. Jana had happily taken up the slack for her siblings, whose interests lay outside the family predilection for politics. “Jared, how the heck did you get mixed up in this?”
Grandpa shot her a sharp look.
Don’t talk like a Girl Scout, he always told her, or no one but the teacher’s union and local church leaders will hear a thing you say. “Okay, Jared, tell me what the hell you’re doing in the middle of this shit?”
The curse words felt strange on her tongue, but Grandpa nodded, satisfied.
“They say the campaign contributions are from Delta Development,” Jared said through his fingers.
Double D was a real estate development consulting firm specializing in securing public and private funding for projects across the entire central valley of California. It was easy to see the potential ugliness in the charge that Jared’s business was secretly securing the support of a congressman who could influence legislation to benefit Double D’s clients. A congressman who happened to be his father. “Come on,” she groaned. “They have to know you wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“They say I contributed under a fictitious name. Donation laundering to hide the source.”
Jana sat heavily in the chair opposite him. “Hell.”
“Call it what it is, girl!” Grandpa yelled. He’d gone red, white and blue: white hair, his eyes vivid blue, his face red. It meant he was truly enraged, something that didn’t happen very often. “No need to candy coat it. It’s bullshit, plain and simple.”
“Your pressure,” Mom warned him.
He waved her away.
Jana pushed out of the chair and paced in front of the fireplace. “Let’s take this step-by-step. The charges are blatantly false—that, we know. So, we’ve either got an overzealous action group looking for publicity, or it’s a direct attack, someone who wants us to look bad.”
“Like that loose cannon, Brace Bowie?” Jared asked. “Mr. Billboard.”
“He was out to bring me down, not the family,” she pointed out.
“We’re a single entity to most people. The worse you look, the better he looks.”
“And after you were so nice to him,” Mom said. Her mother was as protective now as she was two-and-a-half decades ago when Jana was teased in school about not talking.
“I think it’s too early to point fingers,” Jana said. “Especially at Brace. We haven’t heard anything from him since the city made him take down those signs. This isn’t his style. Nasty billboards are his thing, not charges that could lead to prison, if Dad had been guilty.”
Grandpa growled, “It doesn’t matter who’s behind it. Don’t you see? Even after the kitchen is clean, this is going to stick around like the smell of rotten eggs. If this sways the election this fall…if Jana doesn’t win…” Gripping the handles of the wheelchair, he hung his head.
Poor Grandpa. All his hopes and dreams were pinned on her.
Jana went to him. Kneeling, she rested her hand on his leg. “It’s a long time between now and November, plenty of time to throw open all the windows and air out this stink. Now, tell me, you’ve been in this game a long time—tell me what to do to help get this kitchen smelling sweet again.”
He grabbed her upper arm. “Stay clean. You say you’re the Girl Scout of politics? Be her, then. Nothing less than virgin snow in everything you do and say until this is over. You hear me, girl?”
The feelings that coursed through her now brought her back to her childhood when she didn’t want to be the troublemaker, when she was the Jasper everyone worried about. When all she’d wanted was to be normal.
Grandpa wagged a finger at her. “No making headlines for anything but the bills you pass.”
“I’ll stay in, I swear. No dating. I’ll be a nun.” It fit nicely with her plan to take a break from dating, anyway.
“A nun?” Jared made an amused sound in his throat. “Don’t you think that’s a little above the call of duty? Don’t set these kinds of examples of extreme celibacy or Mom’s going to expect me to do the same.”
“I’d never expect that from you, Jared,” Mom said dryly.
As Jared gaped at his mother, who despite her angst had cracked a small smile, Jana assured her grandfather, “Just call me Miss Snow, Virgin Snow. I’ll stay under the radar. I’ll keep my nose clean.”
And she would. The last thing she needed was more trouble, especially man trouble, if she was going to keep public opinion on the Jasper side—and the Jaspers out of jail.
AFTER DINNER, Jana left for her high-rise apartment downtown. She always had her room to use at the ranch, and she often did, but
her cell phone was filled with text messages and voice mail, and she had a pile of paperwork to go through before the next day, not to mention preparing for an appearance with the first lady that included breakfast with a Brownie troop and judging their Save The Environment poster contest. Jana looked forward to a busy night. It would keep her mind from chewing on things she couldn’t help or change.
Her grip on the steering wheel remained finger-throbbing tight as she motored past Evie’s neighborhood on the way from the ranch to the highway. Roseville: a paragon of suburbia. The thought of taking refuge for the night in her sister’s noisy, loving home almost made Jana swoon, but Evie wasn’t home. The lucky girl was in Disneyland on vacation with her kids, John and Ellen. She’d picked a great time to be gone. But then Evie had always had a killer sense of timing.
Jana rolled into the parking lot of the Safeway supermarket in Evie’s neighborhood. “Ice cream,” she murmured. “Must have ice cream.” Yes, Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food…chocolate ice cream with gooey marshmallow, a caramel swirl and fudge fish. Not only would it give her the chocolate fix she needed to get through this, she’d be able to wreak symbolic vengeance on the sturgeon, one little chocolate fishie at a time.
She sat there, the motor running, her hands seemed glued to the steering wheel.
She thought of her normally lighthearted brother’s battle-weary face, how wan her mother had looked, and Grandpa’s rage when he should have been happily tending spring peas in the garden. They were good people. The best. They didn’t deserve what was happening. A weird sobbing breath came out of her. She bit her lower lip. No meltdowns, Jana. No, they’d beat this thing. All it would take was an accounting of the books. No crime had been was committed. By next week it will have blown over.