by Lauren Carr
“Chief O’Callaghan?” Erin Devereux said over the speaker.
“Good morning,” David said. “I’m here to see Nathan Braxton, please.”
There was a pause before Erin responded via the speaker. “If this is about the break-in the other night, Sheriff Turow is handling that.”
Preferring a face-to-face conversation to hanging out of the side window of his cruiser and yelling into the intercom, David sighed. “No, this isn’t about the break-in. I need to speak to Mr. Braxton. It’s important.”
“I’m afraid he hasn’t come down for breakfast yet.”
“Get him up,” David said. “Look, if it’s more convenient for you, I can come back later with my whole police force, which I’m sure will get the attention of your neighbors and the media.”
Instantly, there was a click, and the gates opened.
Her arm in a sling from the gunshot, Erin Devereux met David O’Callaghan in the foyer of the Braxtons’ home. “Everyone is getting a slow start today,” she said. “We were up late last night after the debate. Ms. Braxton was quite anxious to go over the details of what had come out.” The assistant lowered her eyes to peer at David through her long eyelashes. “I’m sorry your candidate got ambushed the way he did.” A poor actress, Erin failed to control the curl at one corner of her mouth, which gave away her lack of sincerity.
“I need to see Nathan Braxton as soon as possible,” David said. “Can you or one of his people wake him up?”
“The Braxtons don’t like to be disturbed when they are sleeping.”
“What’s the problem, Erin?” Hugh Vance said from the top of the stairs. He was dressed in a pair of white pants that accentuated his wide girth and casual clothes for golf.
“Chief O’Callaghan is insisting on talking to Nathan about something. He says it’s important.”
Hugh had reached the bottom of the stairs. With a smug expression, he asked, “What is this about?”
“When was the last time you saw your sister?” David asked.
David noticed a long trade of expressions between Nancy’s brother and assistant before Hugh decided to answer him. “Last night. Right before we all went to bed. Was it eleven o’clock, Erin?”
“Maybe a little after,” Erin said. “Closer to eleven thirty. Why?”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr. Vance,” David said in a gentler tone, “but your sister was found down by the lake this morning.”
After letting out a high-pitched screech, Hugh Vance covered his mouth with his hands and sank down onto the step.
“She’s dead,” David said. “I’m sorry.”
Erin sat down next to the distraught man and draped her arm across his shoulders. “What happened? How—”
“We’re still investigating it,” David said. “The medical examiner will be doing an autopsy.”
“What was she doing down there?” Erin asked. “I saw her go upstairs to her room right after our meeting to go over the debate.”
“I’m sorry to intrude on you at this difficult time,” David said, “but I do need to ask all of you some questions.”
“Where’s Sheriff Turow?” Hugh said, standing up. “Shouldn’t he be in charge of this investigation?”
“Since your police department is endorsing Gnarly, you do have a conflict of interest,” Erin said. “How do we know you didn’t kill her to eliminate the competition?”
“To win an election for mayor in a town with fewer than a thousand residents?” Shaking his head at them, David said, “Sheriff Turow is leading this investigation, and he will be here soon. In the meantime, until he gets here—”
“Erin, what are the police doing here?”
The front door slammed behind Nathan Braxton as he came in. David recognized the expensive suit—it was the same one he had seen on the live stream of the debate. Nathan had removed his tie and had undone the first three buttons of his shirt, but it was the same suit. Based on his slightly rumbled appearance, David doubted that he had been to bed—at least not to the bed in his home.
“Mr. Braxton.” David stepped forward and offered him his hand.
Nathan Braxton gave his hand a firm shake. “Did you and Sheriff Turow locate the burglar who shot Erin?” He looked from David to Hugh and Erin.
David swallowed. “It’s about your wife—”
Nathan’s eyes closed. He sucked in a deep breath. “I guess we should talk in the study.”
“I’m sorry to tell you that it appears that your wife has been murdered.”
Nathan’s eyes popped open. David saw stunned disbelief cross his face for only an instant before Erin rushed forward to hug him tightly.
Hugh’s voice was shaking. “She was killed down at the lake.”
“What was she doing there?” Nathan asked. “Who?” He directed his gaze at David. “What happened?”
“Oh, Mr. Braxton, I’m so sorry,” Erin said. “I can’t believe it either. We were all together just last night and were planning for her to win the election.”
Sniffling, Hugh slapped his brother-in-law on the back. “We’re all in shock.” When he tried to lead Nathan into the study, they found David O’Callaghan blocking their path.
“Excuse me, Mr. Braxton,” David said. “I know this is a very difficult time, but we do have some questions that we need answered. The sooner we talk, the sooner we’ll be able to get to the bottom of what happened to your wife.”
“Shouldn’t we call our lawyer first?” Hugh asked.
“Yes, you should,” George Ward said upon entering through the front door without pausing to knock first.
David was about to ask who had called the state chairman of their political party when Bogie hurried in behind him and ushered the police chief aside. “Talked to the security company. They have security cameras at the front gate, the backyard, and both sides. Motion activated. They’re sending us the recordings from last night.”
Half listening, David was more concerned about his witnesses comparing notes…and getting their stories straight. “Great,” he said to Bogie over his shoulder while breaking up the group. Upon seeing Officers Fletcher and Zigler walk through the door, David directed them to stay with Erin Devereux and told Bogie to get a statement from Hugh Vance while he questioned the victim’s husband in the living room.
As soon as they were out of earshot of the others, David looked Nathan Braxton up and down. “Can you tell me what happened last night after the debate?”
“There’s really nothing to tell.” Nathan lowered himself down into a wingback chair. “Once the debate was over, Nancy and her entourage came home, and I went to the bar.” He looked up at David. “How was she killed?”
“The medical examiner has to finish her exam first. Why didn’t you come home with your wife?”
Nathan offered David a small grin. “I’m sure you’ve heard about my reputation. The womanizing.”
“I’ve heard some stories,” David said. “I try not to pay attention to rumors. So many end up being false.”
“Most of what you’ve heard about my womanizing is true,” Nathan said with a smile of pride. “Especially those about the Stimulator.”
“The Stimulator?”
“When you’re married to an arctic ice queen like Nancy, believe me, you need some sort of emotional stimulation,” Nathan said. “As soon as Nancy would leave town for one of her many fund-raising endeavors for Braxton Charities, the Stimulator would swoop in to defrost me.”
“How did your wife feel about that?”
“As long as she had deniability—as long as she could claim that she didn’t know anything about it, and people could halfway believe her—she was fine.”
Unable to conceal the doubt on his face, David cocked his head at him.
“Nancy and I had an agreement.” Nathan pulled a cigar and a lighter out of
his jacket pocket. “She enjoyed the money and the connections that she hoped would grant her access to the power that she was obsessed with obtaining, and that money and those connections came from being Nathan Braxton’s wife.”
He paused to light the cigar. After a few puffs, he blew a smoke ring and continued. “I enjoyed the company of other women. As long as I was discreet and didn’t jeopardize her political ambitions, I could do what I wanted—and she could do whatever she wanted as long as I didn’t need to be subjected to the company of her idiot political friends.”
“Did you love your wife?” David was surprised by his direct question.
He was even more surprised by Nathan’s blunt response. “No.” He shrugged. “Nancy was a very difficult person to love. Even worse, she was extremely difficult to like, which is why she had to bribe her political party before it would endorse her—or commit voter fraud for her, if the rumors are to be believed. She had to get elected to an office someplace so that she could live out her fantasy of being queen.” He ended his statement in a mocking tone.
“Do you have any proof that your wife bribed her political party or that it committed voter fraud?”
Nathan chuckled before answering him in a whisper. “The legal term is ‘donation.’ Nancy made sure that large amounts of money went from Braxton Charities to her party. I doubt if it’s written down anywhere, but the agreement between those at the top and Nancy was understood.”
David peered at the former football star, who appeared to still be enjoying the sports-celebrity lifestyle to the max. Nathan Braxton was an attractive man who kept fit even though he was in his late fifties. “Okay,” the police chief said. “About last night. Your wife and her ‘entourage’ came home, and you stayed at the Spencer Inn. Did you meet the Stimulator at the hotel?”
“She has a name.” Nathan reached for David’s pen and notepad. “Eleanor Singleton.” He glanced up at him. “I assume you can be discreet about this.”
“We can’t promise anything,” David said. “Were you with her the whole time?”
“Even had room service bring up breakfast,” Nathan said. “Call Eleanor. I met her in the lounge at the Spencer Inn. The bartender will confirm we were there. He knows both me and Eleanor. After a couple of drinks, we went up to her room—shortly after ten thirty.”
David checked her name and phone number and the room number in which she was staying. “How long have you and Eleanor been together?”
“Seven years,” Nathan said without hesitation.
“And your mistress is okay with that?” David asked. “Most mistresses would be anxious to get rid of the wife and to move into the number-one slot.”
“Not Eleanor,” Nathan said. “I take very good care of her. She has a fabulous condo. Clothes. A car. She’s free to come and go and to do what she wants—even enjoy the company of other men. She travels—sometimes with me and sometimes without me. She has her own business—interior decorating. She has all of the fun and perks of having a career with none of the strings of a husband and a family to hold her back.”
“And you got to escape from a wife who you didn’t even like,” David said. “If you don’t mind my asking—”
“Why did I marry Nancy?”
David nodded his head. “You just told me that you didn’t even like her.”
“At one time I did,” Nathan said. “But then she changed. Nancy was always independent and ambitious. She wanted more than money. Her family had that. No, she had to have power—and she was willing to say or do anything to get it. When I set up the foundation, I did so with the intention of giving her something to do that would make her feel like a top dog—that would let her meet all of these celebrities and politicians and influential people and feel like a part of it. But the more she got, the more she had to have. Until that was all that it was about.”
David frowned. “Can you think of anyone who disliked your wife enough to want to kill her?”
Nathan paused to consider his answer. “Anyone and everyone who has ever met her.”
Bogie was finishing up his interview with Hugh Vance when David left Nathan Braxton. When the police chief entered the study, Bogie joined him at the doorway. Visibly upset, Hugh was sitting with his head in his hands.
“Anything?” David asked.
“He and his sister were close,” Bogie said. “She was the typical bossy older sister. Demanding and difficult. I asked if there might be any disgruntled former employees.” He chuckled. “He asked how long I had to listen to the list. Many were former employees of the charity. Most were former assistants who’d worked directly with Nancy. According to him, few lasted a year before Nancy fired them, claiming that they were working in cahoots with her political enemies to discredit her, or they quit, saying they’d rather live on the streets than work for an abusive witch. Erin Devereux is a record breaker. She’s lasted three years.”
“Wow,” David said. “Sounds almost like the mystery isn’t who killed Nancy Braxton but why it took so long for him or her to do it.”
Crossing the study in Hugh’s direction, the police chief said, “Mr. Vance, earlier Erin said that last night, everyone stayed up to go over the debate. Were you part of that meeting?”
“Yes,” Hugh said. “We met here.” He indicated the study.
“Who was included in that meeting?”
“Nancy, Erin, George, and I,” he said. “Nathan had some business that he had to take care of at the Spencer Inn.”
David suppressed a chuckle at the reference to “business.” “How did that meeting go?”
“Very well.” Hugh’s voice went up an octave, and his eyebrows shot up onto his high forehead.
“No disagreements?”
Instead of answering him, Hugh stared at his hands.
“Mr. Vance?”
“I guess it doesn’t matter now,” Hugh said. “Salma Rameriz was here, too.” He sighed.
“You didn’t mention her being here earlier,” David said.
“Because Salma’s public persona is supposed to be fair and unbiased,” Hugh said.
“Funny—I never thought of her as being anything but unfair and biased,” Bogie said. He was still wounded from the previous night’s attack on Gnarly.
“Truth is,” Hugh said, “Salma was always a big supporter of Nancy’s. They became good friends when Nancy ran for the state senate...and lost. Every time Nancy ran for office, Salma dug up dirt on her opponent and blew it out of proportion to discredit him.”
“Like that lie about Gnarly killing his handler in the army,” Bogie said with a low growl while moving in on Hugh.
“We had nothing to do with that.” Hugh held up his hands as if to block any blow that might come his way. “That’s the thing. Salma thought that we’d sent that story to her and told her to bring it up at the debate, but we hadn’t. Yes, Erin had dug up some story about Gnarly sneaking into a four-star general’s tent in Afghanistan and eating the steak dinner he had ordered for himself while the rest of the troop was having overcooked chicken—which shows utter disrespect for authority! But that was it!” He waved his hands. “We knew nothing about Gnarly killing his handler. But Salma thought that we had sent it! When we got back here last night, Salma was laughing about what a coup we had pulled and congratulating us on getting that story. We thought she had dug it up! Salma told us that Erin had sent her the story!” He mopped his brow. “That was when things blew up.”
“How did they blow up?” David asked.
Hugh uttered a deep sigh. “Somehow it got out on social media that Nancy had planted the phony story about Gnarly killing his handler. There were copies of the e-mail that Erin had sent to Salma admitting that the whole story was a lie—only Erin swore that the e-mail hadn’t come from her. Then the death threats came in.”
“Death threats? What death threats?”
Hugh was nodd
ing his head. “Gnarly’s supporters are very devoted to him. We all saw that. They’re a bunch of fanatics!”
“I wouldn’t call them fanatics,” David said.
“Can’t you see he’s a dog?”
“Nancy was a pathological liar!” David said.
“At least she didn’t drink out of the toilet!”
“Gnarly served his country! All Nancy served was herself!”
Throwing his muscular bulk between the two angry men to hold them back, Bogie shushed them. “Now let’s just try to get along.” Patting David on the shoulder, he ushered him out of striking distance of Hugh.
“Nancy and her team were not newbies,” Hugh said. “They knew that they would have to be very careful in discrediting Gnarly. I mean, you couldn’t call out Santa Claus for being a child molester—even if he were—without having to duck bullets from people wanting to shoot the messenger. So Nancy and her team knew right off that when it came to discrediting Gnarly, they would have to make sure that the source couldn’t be traced back to them. That way, Gnarly would be out of the race, and Nancy would be standing there clean and mud-free. But it didn’t happen that way. Immediately it was all over the Internet that the root of the smear campaign against Gnarly had come from Nancy’s camp. Within an hour of getting home last night, Nancy got two death threats, and Gnarly supporters were trashing her on social media.”
While David and Bogie were digesting that information, Hugh shook his finger at them. “You need to take a look at those loony dog lovers. They’re the ones who killed Nancy. Never did trust dog lovers. They’re all nuts. At least you can trust a cat person.”
“Did Nancy or anyone on her team have suspicions about who’d planted that story?” David asked him.
Hugh rubbed his chin. “Nancy worked hard.”
“That’s not an answer. Who did she think planted that story and released the e-mail on social media?”
“She blamed Erin,” Hugh said before hurriedly adding, “But that was only because Erin’s name was on the e-mail that went to Salma, and Salma didn’t notice that it wasn’t Erin’s real e-mail account.”