Season of Fear

by Brain Freeman

  ‘Let’s keep it that way,’ Bush replied. ‘If people find out I’m playing both sides of the street in this race, that’s bad for business.’

  ‘We’re the ones who have everything to lose, Ogden. For you it’s just about money.’

  Bush smiled, and even in the darkness of the car, his teeth were white. He brushed lint from his lapel. ‘Not true. I want back in, you know that.’

  Walter finished his taco and crushed the paper wrapper into a ball. He didn’t like Ogden Bush. He didn’t like dealing with double agents and moles, but that was the price of the political game. The ends justified the means. Young people got into the game with high-minded ideals, but sooner or later the smart ones realized that winning dirty was a hell of a lot better than losing clean. There was no prize – and no power – for the ones who came in second.

  His relationship with Ogden Bush went back more than a decade. In those days, Bush was a newcomer. Smart, ambitious, but young and untested. When the 12th District incumbent dropped dead that year, Bush bucked the party establishment by helping a far-left state senator win the primary. He did it by trashing Walter’s own hand-picked candidate, but Walter didn’t hold grudges. He respected brass-knuckle tactics and people who took risks. Bush would have been a pariah if his candidate had lost, and they both knew it. Instead, Labor Day happened, and Bush hung the Liberty Empire Alliance like an albatross around Chuck Warren’s neck. The Dem won. Bush became a star.

  Even so, Walter knew that Bush’s arrogance would catch up with him sooner or later. Two years ago, Bush backed a black Senate candidate who was forced out of the race over allegations of cocaine use. Bush called it racism, and his accusations split the party and cost them the election. Party leaders excommunicated him. His business dried up.

  Walter knew how badly Bush wanted to get back inside the party after two years in the wilderness. That gave him leverage. When Bush wormed his way into Diane’s campaign, Walter approached him with a deal he couldn’t refuse: Become a spy. Pass along dirt they could use against Diane. If the Governor won, Walter would make sure that Bush got taken off the party shit list. If Diane won anyway, Bush could grab credit for steering the campaign.

  Politics.

  ‘What’s their plan for Chayla?’ Walter asked.

  ‘Lay low. Ride out the storm. They’ll have Diane show up at Red Cross sites and hand out soup and cookies. Lots of photographs. It’ll be a wait-and-see thing on the government response. If things go smoothly, they’ll congratulate the Governor – you know, this is no time for partisan divisions. If things go badly, they’ll let surrogates roast him for incompetence.’

  Walter nodded. He’d expected all of that.

  The back door of the Tahoe opened. Curtis Ritchie climbed inside, carrying an order of spicy shrimp, which he peeled awkwardly with one hand. He leaned between the front seats, carrying an aroma of garlic and cayenne, mixed with the cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes.

  ‘Shit, these are good. I wanted a taco, but the girls said these were better.’

  Walter twisted far enough to see the detective’s face. Ritchie carried a heavy load of blond stubble, and his unruly hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed in a couple days. ‘You want to flirt with teenagers, Curtis, do it on someone else’s time.’

  ‘I’m divorced. I’m a free man again. I like to shop around.’

  Walter snorted. ‘Like those chicas would give you the time of day.’

  He had been married for almost five decades. He still appreciated the appeal of young girls, but to him they were like something you admired in a museum. He’d seen too many middle-aged politicians self-destruct over affairs with pretty aides. Sometimes he thought every man who ran for office should be castrated first. There would be fewer distractions, and they might actually get something done.

  ‘So what do we know?’ Walter asked. ‘Tell me something.’

  Ritchie popped a shrimp in his mouth and licked his fingers. ‘My alter ego, Detective Curtis Clay of the St Pete Police, is still asking questions. You can’t rush these things.’

  Walter held up a hand to stop him. ‘Knock it off about that. I’m sure you’re kidding, because if you were really doing anything illegal, like impersonating a cop, I’d have to shut this operation down and get your license pulled. Right? I asked Ogden to make it damn clear that we were paying for investigative services only. If I’m ever asked to put my hand on a Bible in court, that’s what I’m going to say.’

  Ritchie smirked. ‘Yeah, of course, I was kidding. I’m a kidder.’

  ‘So what do we know?’ Walter repeated.

  ‘So far, nothing much,’ Ritchie said. ‘You wanted real dirt. That takes time.’

  Walter shook his head in frustration. He’d told Brent Reed to be patient, but patience wasn’t one of his own virtues. His blood pressure was always high, no matter how much medicine he took.

  ‘Look, Walter,’ Bush said, taking a shrimp from Ritchie’s basket, ‘we both know what the people at Common Way are like. You can’t win as often as they do without crossing the line. I don’t know if it’s bribes or wiretapping or what, but there’s something to find. I can’t dig into it myself, because we can’t have anyone finding out about our special relationship. That’s why we have Curtis here.’

  ‘Yeah, and what is Curtis here doing besides eating shrimp?’

  Ritchie grinned. ‘It’s really good shrimp.’

  ‘What about this kid Justin you told me about?’ Walter asked. ‘What’s the deal with him?’

  ‘Rufus tipped me off that Justin Kiel was asking questions about the Labor Day murders,’ Bush replied. ‘I asked Justin why, but he clammed up. I told Curtis to start checking him out, but somebody shot the kid in the head before we could figure out what he was doing.’

  ‘Who did it?’ Walter asked, staring at Curtis Ritchie.

  Ritchie’s brow furrowed. ‘Don’t know. I was following him, but the kid was smart. I think he made me. He went underground, and I lost him.’

  ‘The police think the murder was a drug thing, but it smells funny,’ Bush added. ‘He’s asking about Birch Fairmont, and then he gets popped? Makes you wonder.’

  ‘Is there something hinky about the Labor Day murders?’ Walter asked. ‘Something the FBI missed?’

  Bush shrugged. ‘Hard to say. Rufus has it in his head that Diane’s son was involved. If he was, and she knew, that’s huge. Back then, I wanted everyone focused on Chuck Warren and Ham Brock, because we needed to crush Chuck in the polls. Now? It wouldn’t hurt to have some ugly rumors about Diane and Drew.’

  ‘Sounds risky to me,’ Walter said. ‘Her son killed himself. We don’t need to generate any more sympathy for her.’

  ‘Common Way’s got someone looking into this, too,’ Bush added. ‘His name’s Cab Bolton. He’s a Naples cop. Caprice went around me and hired him herself.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Supposedly, there are threats against Diane, and he’s trying to track down the source. Of course, Caprice is smart. She may be trying to make sure there are no unexploded bombs in Diane’s past. Like Drew.’

  Walter jabbed a finger at Curtis Ritchie. ‘If there are any bombs like that, it’s your job to find them, so we can blow them up ourselves.’

  ‘Hey, I’m on it,’ Ritchie assured him. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on one of their researchers. Peach Piper. She’s been digging into whatever happened to Justin, too.’

  ‘Piper? As in Lyle’s sister?’

  ‘That’s her. I was following her earlier today, and she led me to somebody interesting. She’s been tracking a drug dealer named Frank Macy. Smooth character but a real whack job. He got out of prison on a manslaughter gig earlier this year.’

  Walter shrugged. ‘Macy. Is that name supposed to mean something to me?’

  Bush leaned across the seat and grinned. ‘I looked him up. F rank Macy sold drugs to Diane’s son Drew ten years ago. Small world, huh? As a little bonus, guess who his lawyer w
as? Ramona Cortes.’

  That was the first thing Walter had heard in days that put him in a better mood. ‘I like it,’ he said. ‘I like it a lot.’

  Ritchie finished the last of his shrimp. ‘Yeah, we figured you would. Macy could be our missing link to all sorts of shit. With any luck, he’ll beat a path right back to Diane and Ramona. Maybe we can take down both of those bitches.’

  24

  ‘Do you always carry a gun?’ Peach asked.

  Annalie punched the pause button on the remote control. The playback on the sixty-inch television in the Common Way conference room froze, leaving the Governor with his mouth open in front of the electricians at the union convention. It was Tuesday morning, and the two of them were reviewing hours of video footage gathered at campaign events, hunting for gaffes that could be used in campaign ads.

  ‘It’s Florida,’ Annalie said. She hefted her purse up and down as if she were working out with weights. ‘Even Mickey Mouse probably carries a piece.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you came back to check on me. Thanks.’

  ‘No problem. I didn’t want to take any chances. That guy in the red Cutlass was watching you. I don’t know if he was connected to Macy or not, but he definitely had his eyes on you.’

  Peach got up and paced. Inside the conference room, the stale cold air made her shiver. Outside, the building rocked, and the walls groaned. She wondered who the man in the Cutlass was. She was a spy, and she didn’t like being spied upon herself.

  ‘I talked to one of my contacts about Macy,’ Annalie added. ‘There’s not much buzz about him, but he had eight years in prison to make connections. He could be into anything.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What exactly did Diane say when you mentioned him?’

  ‘She got furious. She thinks Macy was the one who got Drew hooked on drugs. Though I don’t know why that would matter to Justin.’

  Peach sat down again. Annalie said nothing.

  ‘And then there’s Alison,’ Peach went on. ‘Justin wrote her name in the poetry book. He must have wanted me to find it. She must be important, too.’

  ‘You don’t know who she is?’

  ‘Deacon thought she might be a lawyer for the foundation, but I can’t find evidence that Justin ever contacted her.’ She added after a pause: ‘You would have liked Justin. There was something deep about him that you don’t find in a lot of people.’

  Annalie brushed her raven hair out of her eyes. ‘Well, if you liked him, I’m sure I would have liked him, too. You seem to be a pretty good judge of people.’

  ‘No, I don’t think I know people at all,’ Peach said. ‘I keep them away. Caprice says I’m too closed off.’

  ‘You’ve been through a lot.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s hard to get close to people. And even harder to trust people.’ She dragged words out of herself. ‘I mean, I don’t really know you, do I? I like you, but I don’t know anything about you.’

  Annalie smiled, as if she knew it was hard for Peach to say something like that. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘I don’t know. Where’d you grow up?’

  ‘Near Bonita Springs.’

  ‘Are your parents alive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Peach nodded. ‘People think it’s odd when I ask that, but I don’t really know what that’s like, you know? To have parents.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Did you go to college?’

  ‘UCF.’

  ‘I never wanted to go to college,’ Peach said. ‘What did you do after you graduated?’

  ‘Partied. Ran up debt. Experienced the joys of minimum wage.’

  They both laughed. Most Florida grads could tell the same story, spending the decade after school as beach bums. Even so, Peach watched Annalie fiddle with a pen on the table, and an unwelcome thought leaped into her head: You’re lying to me. She had no idea why Annalie would lie about her past, or what she was hiding from her. Or maybe she was just being Peach Paranoid again.

  ‘Well, like I said, you would have liked Justin. He would have liked you, too.’

  ‘That’s sweet.’

  They were silent. Annalie looked uneasy.

  ‘So Justin never said anything to you about Frank Macy?’ she continued. ‘The name never came up?’

  Peach shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Show me the photo again,’ Annalie told her. ‘The one you found in Justin’s safe house. Do you still have it?’

  Peach slid the paper from her pocket and unfolded it. Annalie studied it carefully, and she pointed to the edges of the picture.

  ‘Here’s what I don’t understand. This isn’t a copy of the article itself. The article was pinned up somewhere. See the cork paneling on the side? That looks like a bulletin board.’

  Peach had seen that, too. ‘So?’

  ‘So where was this taken?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You were in Justin’s safe house and his apartment,’ Annalie said. ‘Could it have been in there?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Maybe this was inside Frank Macy’s apartment. I could get in and search it.’

  ‘No, you will not do that,’ Annalie told her firmly. ‘If anyone goes in there, it’s me. I’m the one with the gun, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ Peach said, but she seethed with frustration. She needed a direction. She needed to do something. It was as if Justin were in the corner of the drab conference room, his arms folded, shaking his head at her in disappointment underneath his pork pie hat. Hey, come on, Peach, I’m counting on you.

  The phone in the conference room rang. Peach knew she should get it, but she couldn’t move. She stared at Justin in the corner as if he were real, with that I-know-everything smirk on his face. In her imagination, he winked at her and jabbed a finger at the phone as if he were pointing a gun.

  You’re going to want to take that call, Peach.

  Annalie reached across the table and grabbed the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’ And then: ‘What’s his name?’

  Annalie hung up the phone, her features dark with concern. ‘What is it?’ Peach asked.

  ‘There’s a detective out front who wants to talk to you about Justin.’

  ‘Is it Curtis Clay?’ Peach asked. ‘The fake cop?’

  Annalie shook her head. ‘No, this one’s real. His name is Cab Bolton.’

  25

  Cab sized up the young woman in front of him. She was pretty in a Carey Mulligan way, with page-boy blond hair and freckles. Her tiny mouth was constantly changing expressions, and her blue eyes had a luminous intensity. Her expression was severe and suspicious, like a yipper dog growling to protect its turf. She obviously had a paranoid streak, because he didn’t think anyone had ever studied his identification more carefully. After holding it up to the light and comparing his photograph, she called the Naples Police to get a description of him.

  Finally, she hung up.

  Cab smiled at her. ‘So? Am I me?’

  ‘They said if my head came up higher than your neck, it wasn’t you.’

  ‘I hope they mentioned the earring, too. And the hair gel.’

  ‘They said it was a pomade from London.’

  ‘They obviously know me too well,’ Cab said. ‘So now that you know who I am, how about you tell me who you are.’

  She sat on the other side of the conference table with her hands folded in front of her. The oversized armchair made her look small. ‘Peach Piper.’

  Cab heard the name and made the connection. ‘As in Lyle Piper?’

  ‘My brother.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Peach shrugged. ‘What do you want, Detective Bolton?’

  Cab didn’t answer immediately. His eyes wandered around the conference room. He spotted the frozen video on the television, and as he did, Peach reached for the remote control and shut it off. The Governor’s face disappeared. He glanced out the window behind him at the cubicle farm and saw dozens of earnest workers
in their twenties with bad haircuts. The room hummed with the white noise of air conditioning.

  He noted the arrangement of papers around him and realized that Peach hadn’t been alone in the conference room. Someone had been here with her, but whoever it was had left quickly.

  ‘What exactly do you people do here?’ he asked. ‘This place is kind of shabby for a big-name foundation, isn’t it?’

  ‘We do research.’

  ‘What kind of research?’

  ‘Political research,’ Peach said.

  Cab nodded. The girl didn’t want to give him details. ‘I get it. Secret, world-changing stuff, huh? You could tell me, but then you’d have to kill me?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Peach replied.

  ‘I thought opposition research was about catching politicians saying stupid things. How tough can that be? It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, isn’t it?’

  Peach didn’t reply, but her lips twitched with the tiniest of smiles, as if she were finally succumbing to his charm. ‘You still haven’t told me what you want.’

  Cab didn’t answer right away. He liked to meander with witnesses, which usually made them nervous and anxious to talk. Silence made people uncomfortable, especially around cops. However, as young as this girl was, she didn’t rattle easily or open her mouth. Behind her paranoia, Peach was obviously smart.

  ‘I asked at the desk to talk to someone who knew Justin Kiel,’ he told her. ‘They sent me to you.’

  ‘Why are you interested in Justin?’

  ‘I think you know why. He was murdered.’

  Peach played with the television remote control in her hand. ‘Well, yes, he was, Detective, but he wasn’t murdered in Naples. The crime took place in St Petersburg. So how does this involve you?’

  Cab smiled again. No doubt about it – she was smart.

  ‘I’m not actually investigating the murder itself,’ Cab admitted. ‘Not for the police, anyway.’