Primary Storm

by Brendan DuBois

  I looked into those familiar blue eyes, listened to the soft cadence of her voice, and I knew I couldn't do a damn thing. The election was just a few days away and my contacts were limited, no matter what Barbara thought about my talents. There was no way I could find out who was trying to hurt her-if, in fact, somebody was trying to hurt her-before the primary election. Not a chance in hell.

  So I should gracefully decline, and get out of this room, and let her go on with her life with her maybe soon-to-be-president husband, and in less than a week, she and her husband would be gone from my state and my life.

  Just a few days.

  I looked at her again. It looked like she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in days. If I told her no, I knew what would happen. More stress, less sleep ... And maybe this whole thing was why Annie and the others thought she was a diva. No wonder they had the impression that Barbara hated the campaign, if someone was actually trying to hurt or kill her.

  And if I said yes ... perhaps a chance at some peace and relaxation over the next few days. Then she would leave, go to South Carolina and beyond, and in the crush of campaigning that would follow, other issues would rise up, other demands on her time, and I think she would eventually move on. And maybe I would get an inaugural invite sometime next year.

  Maybe.

  "Okay," I said. "I'll do it."

  She held her hands up to her face and then lowered them.

  She swung over a bit to the nearest nightstand, scribbled something on a piece of paper. "My private cell phone number. Call me if you have anything, all right?"

  "Sure."

  She came over to me and I took the number from her hand, and I looked at her and she looked at me, and it was like the flow of water, reaching its natural state. She just sat in my lap. The smell and the sense of her being there ... I put my arm around her still slim waist and pulled her close. A bit of her hair tickled me. I kissed her and she kissed me back, and before it got any further, I said I had to leave.

  Which wasn't much of a lie, but it worked.

  I got out of the hotel room and a few minutes later, left to go home. By the time I got back to Tyler Beach, an hour later, clouds had rolled in, thick and gray and threatening. I listened a bit to the radio as I drove back east; we were going to have a nice dump of six to eight inches of snow overnight. Of course, given the time of year, most of the weather report was centered around campaign speculation, over who it might help and who it might hurt. As I went up Atlantic Avenue, heading to my home, I had a thought of what the snow might achieve, in terms of cover, and I was thinking so hard that I missed the turnoff to the Lafayette House parking lot.

  And as I made an illegal U-turn to come back, I had another thought. I went into the short-term parking area and after parking my Explorer went inside to the gift shop, where Stephanie Sussex was at work, handling a small crowd of people. Before me was a group of Japanese visitors, talking slowly and with great precision to Stephanie, and I waited in an area of the small store that had Tyler Beach T-shirts and sweatshirts for sale, as Stephanie carefully packed up the group's purchases.

  When they left I walked over and Stephanie placed my morning ration of newspapers on the glass-topped counter. "You're late," she said.

  "Yes," I said. "And good morning to you, too."

  That brought a laugh and as she rung up my purchases, she said, "There's a lesson there in the passage of time, if you saw it, Lewis."

  "What's that?"

  "That little overseas group. From a Japanese television network. NTK or something like that. The woman reporter, the one who does the on-air work, she was talking about a visit she had up to Porter. We tend to forget that's a very important place for the Japanese."

  "Some forget, others don't. The Russian-Japanese peace treaty. Where Teddy Roosevelt got the Nobel Peace Prize for manhandling Japan and Russia into a peace agreement, about a hundred or so years ago."

  I paid her and she passed over the change. "Good for you, Lewis."

  “That bit of history got the two of us talking, and she mentioned that her father was a naval aviator in World War II. Barely made it through the war alive. And I told her that my dad flew Wildcats off the Enterprise at about the same time. That's when we both realized our dads may have shot at each other once or twice. We both laughed, but you know what? A funny world, isn't it, how sworn mortal enemies, more than a half century later, can have their children share a moment without trying to slit each other's throats.”

  The newspapers were now under my arm and I said, "History sure is a funny thing. Ask you a question?"

  "Sure, go ahead."

  I made a quick scan of the store, noted that we were alone, and said, "The parking lot break-ins, last month and before."

  She looked cautious. "Yes?"

  "They've mostly stopped now, haven't they."

  "So I've heard."

  "Is it because of the surveillance system, keeping an eye on the outer parking lot?"

  Stephanie took a bottle of glass cleaner and sprayed some of the blue stuff on the counter. "Well, I've got to give you that. That was a question. I guess your visit with our local insufferable prick didn't pan out. So is it now dumped in my lap?"

  "What's the problem?"

  She tore off a sheet of paper towel, started wiping down the glass. "The problem is, it's how the Lafayette House has changed the past year. We used to be an overpriced white elephant, charming and fun with water pipes that banged in the middle of the night. Sort of a genteel snobby place, pretending to be one of those old New England upper-class resorts. Hung on by our teeth, year after year, until a sharp little hotel investment group from Switzerland took over and brought in Paul Jeter to run things. Which meant a new regime. A new approach. And new rules."

  "What kind of new rules?"

  The paper towel was now wadded up in her fist. "Rules that change the nature of this place. No longer are we the shabby, overpriced place where your parents and grandparents once stayed. Now we are trying to appeal to the very upper reaches of wealth, to offer them an experience that they can't get anywhere else. And part of that experience is anonymity and privacy. So if a guard for the Boston Celtics allegedly has a permanently rented room here, where he keeps his two mistresses ---"

  "Two?"

  "Allegedly, he has big appetites ... and as I was saying, if this supposed basketball player knows he can stash his two mistresses here, away from the eyes of the Boston news media, he'll pay dearly for that privilege. And the word will get out to other folks in similar circumstances, who wish to keep their hobbies and tastes secret. So the Lafayette House develops a nice little reputation for quiet and discreet service. Publicizing the supposed fact that the parking lot is under surveillance doesn't help that reputation, now does it?"

  "No, it doesn't. Where ... where might this alleged surveillance system be set up?"

  Stephanie threw the wadded paper towel away. "That's why you wanted to see Paul Jeter yesterday, right?"

  "Right."

  "Something happen over your place that morning, you looking to find out what's what?"

  "You could say."

  Her face was firm. "Lewis ... I'm sorry." There was noise at the entrance of the gift shop and a couple of kids tumbled in, wearing swimsuits, carrying towels, and expressing joy at the pleasure of being able to swim in a heated pool in January.

  “I see,". her head. "No, you don't. I need this job. It's relatively easy, pays reasonably well, and I get nice benefits. Nice benefits to help support a sick husband and help me do things for my church. That means a lot to me and ... I'm sorry, I can't help you."

  I managed a smile. "No problem, Stephanie. No problem at all."

  And so I left, newspapers under my arm, leaving her behind with her job and her history.

  Chapter Eleven

  At home I was in my upstairs office, looking out the window, watching the snow start to tumble its way down. Up above the rise of land stood the Lafayette House, and somewhere in ther
e was the surveillance tape of the nearby parking lot. I had an idea of where it might be, and I also had a couple of ideas of how I was going to get it.

  But there were other things to do, as well.

  From the Internet, I was able to call up a story from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and found out that yes, the good senator's wife had been in a car accident the previous month, while driving to a political function outside Atlanta. The story rated about four paragraphs and mentioned minor injuries on the behalf of Barbara Hale, and the usual and customary, "the accident remains under investigation."

  All right, I thought. Step one complete. Time for step two. In the bad old days, before information got digitized, to find out about the Georgia Bureau of Investigation would have meant a call to directory assistance, a phone call to a central number, and maybe a half dozen more follow-up phone calls, as you navigated the bureaucracy and killed most of an afternoon. Yet now, it was all there, at your fingertips; it took only a few minutes before I got a public information officer's name and phone number from a quick Internet search.

  Of course, this bit of information revolution didn't necessarily mean you got your information faster. Sometimes it just meant you hit the roadblocks that much sooner.

  The public information officer's name was Samantha Tuckwell, she sounded like a charming lady from the Deep South, and while she would give me the time of day in Atlanta, Greenwich, and no doubt Murmansk, that's about as far as it went.

  "So, tell me again what you're lookin' for, Mr. Cole?" came the sweet voice from some office park in Atlanta.

  "As I said, I'm a writer for a magazine based in Boston. Called Shoreline. I'm looking for some additional information about a traffic accident involving Senator Hale's wife, Barbara. It happened about a month ago."

  "And this story ... all about a traffic accident?" Although there was a fair sprinkling of Southern charm and hospitality in that silky voice from hundreds of miles away, there was also about a ton of skepticism.

  "Not just the accident. A profile piece about the senator and his wife ... and the accident's just part of the piece. A bit of human interest, that's all."

  "Well, hold on, will you?"

  "Certainly."

  I held on as instructed and looked out at the heavy snow and the increasingly dark sky. I wondered what the weather was like in Atlanta. My Apple computer was humming along contentedly in front of me, and it would just take a few keystrokes to find the exact temperature and nature of Atlanta's weather, but I decided not to. Sometimes, mysteries are best left mysteries.

  "Mr. Cole?"

  "Right here."

  "Mr. Cole, that accident took place on Tuesday, December twelfth, at six ten P.M., on Interstate Twenty. Mrs. Hale was the sole occupant of her automobile, a Lexus. She received minor injuries and was treated at the scene. The vehicle had to be towed away. The accident remains under investigation."

  "I'm sure it does," I said. "But it's been over a month since it happened. What was the cause of the accident?"

  "I can't rightly say, Mr. Cole. It remains under investigation." I switched the phone from one ear to the other. "Yes, I know.

  But could you get an update for me, please."

  "Why?"

  I pondered what to say, decided to go for broke. "Well, Miss Tuckwell --- "

  "Mrs. Tuckwell."

  "Sorry, Mrs. Tuckwell, I would think that it would be your job. To answer questions from legitimate news organizations and writers."

  "And your question is?"

  Could someone be so dense, or so crafty? I said, "I'm looking for an update on Barbara Hale's traffic accident. To see if a cause of the accident was determined."

  "Oh," she said, her voice cheerful again. "I certainly can find that out for you."

  "Wonderful. When do you think you can get back to me? Later today? Tomorrow?"

  "How does next Wednesday sound?"

  "Wednesday? Next Wednesday sounds awful. Why so long?"

  A soft chuckle, and I felt a bit of admiration that I was being played so well by this fine example of Southern womanhood. "Mr. Cole ... you seem to be a bright fella, and I've really enjoyed talking to you, but I'm sure you can figure out all on your own why I'm gonna give you a call next Wednesday."

  "Because it's the day after the New Hampshire primary."

  "Right," she said, almost purring. "That is entirely one hundred percent correct."

  "But I'm not going to do anything --- "

  "Mr. Cole, I've been on my job for a while and know all the ins and outs of dealin' with the news media. That means the rest of this conversation is off the record, and I'll ever deny saying it, but here it goes: we're awfully proud of our senator, we would love to see him in the White House, and we don't like the fact that your pissant little frozen state is gonna have a key part in whether or not our man gets there. Understand? And you may be doing an innocent story and all that, but it sounds like bad publicity to me, professionally speakin'. And even if it is bad publicity, I'll still be doin' my job by callin' you back. But I'm just gonna be doin' it next Wednesday. All right?"

  "All right. I understand completely. And Mrs. Tuckwell ... "

  "Yes?"

  "You're very good at what you do."

  A throaty laugh. "Why, thank you, Mr. Cole. And you have yourself a real good day, okay?"

  "Sure."

  After I disconnected from this underpaid public servant, I stared for a while at the computer screen. In doing a search for Barbara Hale and her car accident, other links had come up as well. Including one involving the actual shooting at the Tyler Conference Center. I had been inside the conference center, I had seen the shooting's aftermath from the parking lot, and I had missed some of the news coverage.

  So I had never seen the actual shooting footage.

  I moved the mouse and double-clicked a few times. That was going to change.

  The first link didn't work, because my Apple software --- being old and being Apple --- couldn't read the movie file. But the second link worked, and I felt the back of my neck tense up. I was back there in the conference room, feeling Sickly and warm and ---

  The footage went on, and there she was, up onstage with her husband. She was standing next to him at the lectern, just as I recalled. The speech went on and even though I knew what was going to occur in the next few moments, I had a dark sense of something bad about to happen. It was like the very first time, so many years ago, when I had viewed the Zapruder film of JFK's assassination. You wanted to stop the film. You wanted to shout out a warning. You wanted someone in the crowd, somewhere, to look up at the right time at the Texas School Book Depository.

  And you felt so powerless.

  A round of applause, the sound coming out quite nicely from my computer's dual speakers. Senator Hale was smiling. Barbara was right next to him, applauding along, and then she moved to the right a few feet, still applauding, and the applause died down and Senator Hale said, "Who among us ---"

  The gunshots were loud and rapid, and the crowd screamed and shouted, and Senator Hale flinched, and in a matter of seconds, a crowd of Secret Service agents were upon Senator Hale and Barbara and they were gone, just like that, as the camerawork got jerky, out of focus, and-

  My breathing was rapid. I swallowed. Barbara.

  I shut down my computer and went downstairs.

  Dinner was a ham and Cheddar cheese omelet, and I sat on the couch and balanced the plate on my lap as I ate. I ate with Annie in mind and watched some of the cable television shows, all of them with breathless reports of who was up in the polls, down in the polls, when the next poll was going to come out, and what was going to happen then. There was shouting, there was yelling, there were accusations, and there were talking heads from the Hale, Pomeroy, Grayson, and Wallace campaigns.

  I watched for about an hour, and in those entire sixty minutes, if anyone had talked about what was going on in our corner of the world, what was wrong, and how we could work together to improve it,
I must have missed it.

  After washing the dishes and putting them away, I was planning to take a walk across the way, when there was pounding at my door.

  I was in the living room and the sudden sound made me jump. Usually my visitors announce themselves through a phone call or such, and I don't like surprises. I thought quickly of securing my .357 Ruger --- usually kept downstairs in a kitchen drawer --- -but remembered that it was still in the possession of the Secret Service. My nine-millimeter Beretta was upstairs, but the knock came again and in that particular moment, I was tired of being afraid. So I left my weapons where they were and went across the living room.

  I opened the door to a burst of swirling snow and a young man and woman wearing Clive Wallace campaign buttons on their damp coats. "Good evening, sir," the young man said. "Can we have just a few minutes to talk to you about Congressman Clive Wallace?"

  Any other time, I would have politely said no and would have closed the door. But this wasn't any other time. The snow was quite heavy, and while the young man had spoken to me, energy and confidence in his voice, his companion had stood there, a brave smile on her face, but from the light from the living room, it looked like her lips were turning blue, and she was shivering.

  "Sure," I said. "Come on in."

  They came in, snow coming off their arms and shoulders, and they politely stomped their feet on the doormat. I closed the door. They were in their early twenties, energy just radiating from them, and they wore what I guess was called "protest chic," cargo pants and heavy boots and tweed coats, and those popular wool caps from South America with earflaps and long strings. He had a thin, stringy brown beard and she had long black hair that had mostly escaped her hat.

  In their thin-gloved hands, they held pamphlets, and the young woman passed one over to me. "My First Sixty Days, by Congressman Clive Wallace," and on the back was a photo of the congressman, who looked to be about the same age as his volunteers.

  "The name's James," he said, "and she's Julia. We're campaigning for Congressman Wallace, and I hope we can count on your support."