by Ed Gorman
‘May I help you?’
And then she did it. She raised her left hand and upon a certain finger was enshrined a certain kind of ring, one generally associated with the institution called marriage.
‘I’d like to see Detective Fogarty.’
‘Your name, please.’
After I told her, she said, ‘Why don’t you take a seat over there. She’s got somebody with her right now. But she shouldn’t be long.’
This was the same speech you heard in dental offices.
I sat down on a tufted dark blue couch that was so comfortable I had to resist the impulse to close my eyes and take a nap. Detective Fogarty would no doubt be impressed if she had to wake me up.
She appeared in a few minutes, a slender black woman barely tall enough to pass the height requirement. In her white blouse and black skirt and somber black-framed glasses she resembled a grad student more than a detective. Of course there were clues as to her real profession: the badge and gun clipped to her belt. She didn’t look much older than thirty.
‘My office is right down the hall. If you’ll follow me, please.’
She stood aside to let me walk in first. She pointed to a chair in front of her small metal desk. She was apparently a woman of few words. She closed the door then walked around to her own chair and sat down.
Numerous degrees, plaques, and a few photos of officials looking important covered the east wall. The right was given to framed photos of her family. All ages. A history there. If your eye was careful enough you noticed that the backdrop for many of the shots — including the two of her as a teenager — was the inner city.
She caught me looking. ‘Vanity.’
‘Not at all. The vanity is all those photos with you and those city officials. The family pictures are great.’
‘You know I never thought of it that way. But you’re right. That’s a very good point.’
‘I’m not as dumb as I look.’
She laughed. ‘That remains to be seen.’
‘Good one.’
She picked up a yellow Ticonderoga pencil and began to tap it against her left hand. ‘I dragged you down here because you appear to be the last person James Waters talked to before he was murdered.’
‘The last person you know of, you mean.’
‘The last person we know of so far.’ Then: ‘I’m told you and he were going to meet for dinner.’
‘He didn’t show up.’
‘Did he contact you to say he wouldn’t be there?’
‘No. The next time I heard his name mentioned was when I heard about his death.’
‘That’s when you met Lieutenant Neame, I suppose.’
‘Right.’
‘I’m taking over the case. The lieutenant is busy with two open cases that the mayor is very concerned about.’
‘I see.’
She dropped the pencil in her pencil holder and then folded her hands on the desk. ‘I realize that you didn’t have much of a chance to talk to him. I’ve already figured out your itinerary for the day.’
‘I probably spent seven or eight minutes talking to him in total.’
‘But he still wanted to go out and have dinner.’
‘Nothing notable about that, Detective Fogarty. Political people love to talk. War stories about old campaigns, kibitzing about how the new one is going. From what I’ve been able to gather he was a pretty lonely guy. Probably needed the company.’
She nodded and then gave me one of those assessing looks that are meant to intimidate. ‘What if he knew something he wasn’t supposed to?’
‘If he did I don’t know what it was.’
‘But he wanted to go out to dinner. You’d met him in a meeting for a very little time and yet you invited him to dinner.’
‘Well, “invited” is a little strong. We were going to have a little food, that’s all. It wasn’t anything formal.’
‘Did you get the sense that he wanted to tell you something? Was there any urgency when he talked to you?’
In fact, there had been. ‘No — I mean, I didn’t notice any.’ She wanted to keep me talking in case I’d accidentally say something she wanted to hear. I had to be careful. As much as I hated it, I needed to protect Ward, at least for now.
‘I see. You weren’t concerned when he didn’t show up?’
‘There was no chance to be concerned. Lucy Cummings called and woke me up from a nap and told me what had happened. That changed everything.’
‘The staff people I interviewed this morning said that they were worried about James Waters. Said that he had seemed agitated lately.’
‘Again, I knew him so briefly I had nothing to judge that against. He seemed anxious I suppose, but everybody gets that way when a campaign is this tight. And Burkhart has a lot more money than the Ward people do.’
‘They’re both wealthy.’
‘True. But Burkhart has access to a lot of right-wing money. They’re spending millions this election cycle.’
‘That’s what I hear.’ She gave me the police stare again. ‘So you’re a hired gun.’
‘In a way. I’m here as a favor to Jeff Ward’s father. He saved my father’s life back when they worked together. Tom Ward was my father’s protege.’
Her phone buzzed. She hit the intercom button. ‘Yes?’
‘Just wanted to remind you that you have the meeting in the chief’s office in less than ten minutes.’
‘Thanks, Julie.’ Her full attention came back to me. ‘So you’re here just as a favor. You’re an established hired gun who’s seen all kinds of problems with campaigns over the years. I have the sense that you’re also good at reading people. Picking up on their moods, maybe even their thoughts through their expressions and body language.’
‘You’re giving me way too much credit.’
She brushed aside my humble pie. Irritation crackled in her dark eyes. ‘But somehow you don’t pick up on somebody who to everybody else is clearly in some kind of distress. And he asks to talk to you and you don’t sense any urgency.’
‘I told you, you’re giving me too much credit. I’m no mastermind.’
She stood up. ‘If I didn’t have a meeting I need to go to I’d keep you here until you started telling me the truth. I have pretty good instincts, Mr Conrad. To me it’s obvious that there’s something you’re not telling me.’
‘I don’t like being called a liar.’
‘Well, now you know how I feel. I don’t like being lied to. And holding something back is a lie any way you look at it. If you want to get technical, you left campaign headquarters before our people could interview you — after you’d been ordered to stay.’
‘Requested to stay. Not ordered.’
‘You also lied to the apartment house manager about Mr Waters wanting you to pick up something in his apartment. You got there ahead of the police.’
‘A good lawyer, and I have access to one, would be able to show that neither of those are violations of law. A) I’ve made myself available to you and other detectives and I’ve answered all your questions. And B) yes, I lied to the apartment manager but at that time there was no indication that Waters’ apartment was part of a police investigation.’
‘What were you looking for in Waters’ apartment?’
‘I’ll be honest. I wanted to make sure his apartment wasn’t some kind of drug den or sex den. Things the press could make something of. Very bad for our campaign.’
‘How did you get in?’
‘Somebody at headquarters loaned me a key.’
Bitter amusement in her intriguing eyes. She touched her sternum as if her stomach was sending up fiery spears of pain. ‘No wonder people are cynical about politics with consultants like you running around. You’re not cooperating one damn bit and you know it.’
She walked around the desk to the door. She opened it and stood back for me to pass through. ‘I want a call before you leave town.’
Our gazes clashed.
As I started to wal
k through the door she said, ‘And that’s an order.’
TWELVE
I drove straight to the hotel.
The lobby was crowded. A banner read WELCOME PHARMACEUTICAL SALESPEOPLE! They were a prosperous-looking group standing outside the ballroom where their shindig was to start in a few minutes. I had nothing against any of them personally but their lobbyists were among the most treacherous in the business.
A prominent retired senator from our side now worked for their major lobbying firm. He didn’t want to damage his rep as a progressive so he cheated. If you worked fewer than twenty hours a week lobbying, you didn’t have to register as a lobbyist. He worked eighteen, nineteen hours and still got lots of great sentimental accolades on progressive websites. That’s why I agreed with so much of the anger the anti-government people felt.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat in a chair in front of the TV screen. The DVD player the hotel had brought to my room was, thankfully, easy to operate.
The DVD had slid into the maw of the machine and was now posting electronic blotches on the screen. Then the show began. According to the counter, the DVD ran eleven minutes and twenty-eight seconds and then ended.
I watched it all, then clicked off the machine with the remote and just sat there thinking about what I’d seen and what it might have to do with the campaign and what it must have represented to Jim Waters. This DVD would have brought him money and the kind of vengeance he’d waited all his life to have. The outcast would have been the one in power now.
I made the assumption that he’d stolen it. He’d been a bright guy but collecting the kind of material on the DVD would have presented him with an insurmountable problem. Likely this was the work of an oppo researcher or private investigator. Millions and millions of dollars are spent every campaign cycle collecting damaging information on opponents. Both sides do it.
So we were back to stealing. Waters had somehow learned about it and somehow managed to steal it. And somebody took great angry exception to what he’d done. No doubt the object of confronting him had been to get the DVD back. But something had gone wrong. They’d killed Waters but had not gotten what they’d come for. Now I wondered what Waters had been going to do with it.
I took the disk from the machine and put it back in its clear cover. Funny how the presence of an object can change once you know its true nature. Before, it had been just another DVD in a world of a billion DVDs. Not even a barely-dressed twenty-something on a cover. Grubby, utilitarian. But after seeing it, it now had the presence of a highly classified document. The first thing I did with it was hide it in a suit jacket with a special liner. I never wore the jacket but I’d had it altered so that nobody could find its contents without ripping it apart. You’d have to pat the coat down to feel it.
I left the room and the jacket. I didn’t want to haul the disk around. I didn’t know who I was up against. And right now I wanted to go see the very comely Mrs Rusty Burkhart and ask her just why she had been following Jim Waters around. And taking his picture.
You could spot the Rusty Burkhart headquarters from several blocks away owing to the enormous American flag that had been set up on top of the two-story building. Given the weather, they’d probably been doing a lot of taking down and running back up lately.
The headquarters itself was emblazoned with red, white, and blue. Large color posters of Rusty Burkhart in various poses with his rifle covered the downstairs windows. Tinny speakers played a really annoying country-western version of ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’ You wouldn’t think Burkhart would have much use for dandies, Yankee or otherwise.
Out front were three vendors: one giving away hot dogs, one giving away ice cream cones, and one giving away an assortment of soft drinks. Right now, even with the goodies being given away, foot traffic was thin and none of the pedestrians seemed interested. The silver Porsche was in a PRIVATE PARKING slot on the far side of the building.
When I walked in, a pretty teenaged girl in a red, white, and blue sweater rushed up to me and said, ‘Just sign this pledge, please. We want to get a list of people who are real Americans.’ Even her dark, curly locks were merry, bouncing away on her head.
I took the pledge card and read it. ‘So unless I believe in every one of these points I’m not a real American.’
Merriment and enthusiasm died in her violet eyes. She really was a beauty. ‘Well, I’d just say that if you don’t believe in these points it’s kind of funny you’d come here. If you’re press you have to make an appointment first.’
‘I’m not press.’
Confusion and anger spoiled her prettiness. She scorned me silently then said, ‘Mrs Hawthorne, would you come over here, please?’ Her voice had gone up a notch. She sounded desperate.
Mrs Hawthorne was a bulky woman of maybe fifty, dressed in an expensive and flattering gray tweed suit. She had her smile all ready for me by the time she reached us.
‘Hello there,’ she said to me. To the girl she said: ‘How may I help you, Melanie?’
I wondered if she’d ever been a flight attendant. Her words had that syrupy, grating falsity.
Melanie nodded to me the way she would to a pile of dung. ‘He doesn’t want to sign our pledge card. The one about being an American.’
Mrs Hawthorne made the flight attendant schmooze even more syrupy. I could imagine what she was really thinking: Everything’s fine. You’re embarrassing me and headquarters, Melanie. How many fucking times do I have to tell you
NOT EVERYBODY HAS TO SIGN THE FUCKING CARD?
What she said, of course, was, ‘Melanie. Now we’ve talked about this,’ smiling at me as she spoke. ‘Signing the card is optional. Some people don’t like to sign anything.’
‘Anybody who won’t sign this card isn’t a real American. Mr Burkhart said that himself.’
Let me get my hands around your throat, you little bitch, Mrs Hawthorne had to be thinking. Her face was tight now and her eyes blazed. She was probably going to reassign the ardent Melanie to making sure that all the fax machines and printers had plenty of paper.
‘Well, he didn’t put it exactly like that, Melanie. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go and see if Phil needs any help with the mail?’
‘I don’t like Phil. He never pays attention when we stand for the national anthem.’
Mrs Hawthorne and I would never become fast friends but at the moment I felt sorry for her. Every campaign of either stripe has volunteers who can’t be controlled. Windows get smashed at headquarters; door-to-door canvassing gets turned into arguments with citizens who made the mistake of opening the door; workers say stupid things in TV interviews. There are ops who encourage this. More of them on the other side by far but we have a few of our own. Mrs Hawthorne struck me as a pro at what she was doing. I admired her craft if not her candidate.
‘I’ll talk to Phil about that. Now why don’t you go help him, all right?’
Melanie pointed to me. ‘Be careful, Mrs Hawthorne. I think he’s a reporter trying to sneak in here.’ She stormed off.
‘I’m sorry about all this, Mr-’
‘Ketchum. Michael Ketchum.’
‘I’m sorry about this, Mr Ketchum. Once in a while our volunteers get a little too enthusiastic. Melanie has a tendency to go overboard.’ She raised a hand upon which had been bestowed a wedding ring that would easily pay for a year’s tuition at an Ivy League college. She indicated with a sweep of her hand how busy and industrious everybody was. And they were. I counted seventeen people working the phones, reminding people of why they should vote Burkhart and making sure that they planned to vote. And offering rides if needed. This was the ground war and it had damned well better be good. This one looked all too good. ‘Did you want some information on Mr Burkhart?’ The flight attendant smile. She was heavyset but the pleasant face had kept its charm. ‘Some people still haven’t made up their minds. So they stop in to pick up brochures. They take them home and study them with their spouses. We believe that if you put us
alongside our opponent we’ll look very good. Mr Burkhart was never a playboy, thank goodness.’
The little dig. It’s almost impossible to resist. You’re in a war. You’ve convinced yourself that the person you’re running against takes calls from Satan at least four times a week. The mere mention of his or her name unhinges you and your knife appears in your hand. This is all internal. In public you need to present yourself as rational and professional.
‘I was wondering if I could speak with Mrs Burkhart.’
The narrowed eyes, the second-thought reassessment. She had to be thinking that maybe Melanie was correct after all. Maybe I was a reporter trying to sneak past the guards to try to humiliate Mrs Burkhart in an interview.
‘Do you know Mrs Burkhart?’
‘Not really. But she was taking some photographs and I wondered if I could get some copies of them.’
‘Some photographs? I’m afraid I don’t understand.’
She appeared in the rear of the factory-like room. Even from a distance she was as imperious as a Hollywood goddess.
‘Mrs Burkhart!’ I called and started moving fast up the center of the aisle.
‘Please, Mr Ketchum. You shouldn’t-’
But I was pounding up the aisle in long strides. Mrs Burkhart was paying no attention. She hadn’t heard me call her name above the din.
When I reached her, she was just about to walk through the door she’d just come out of. ‘Mrs Burkhart! Mrs Burkhart!’
She turned. She was a gorgeous, golden animal kept gorgeous by an army of men and women whose job was to help her defy age and fashion. Her face had the wisdom of carnality in it, that immortal knowingness of how to please and control men. Even the brown eyes, no doubt courtesy of contacts, had a golden glow to them. Those eyes assaulted you. Today she wore an emerald suit of silky material that swept the long, lean lines of her body with a true majesty. In addition to sexuality she also radiated strength and health. I wondered if she’d try to beat the shit out of me. I was sure she had it in her to try.