03-Keeping Mum

by Alyse Carlson

  Rob arrived first. She heard him shout as he came in and she responded with her own crazy screaming.

  “Annie called. She was stuck on the other side of town, but she called me. What the heck happened?” Rob said as he worked the cord. “And why didn’t you call 9-1-1?”

  “I don’t know—I think I panicked. Somebody thinks we’re too close, but I have no idea who. We’ve been all over the board looking.” She rubbed her wrists as Rob hugged her.

  “I sure wish you’d stay out of these things,” he said.

  “I didn’t really mean to end up gagged and tied to a chair. I was just here for a phone number, and we’ve all been asking questions.”

  “Obviously the right ones.”

  “Yeah. If we could just figure out which of the questions made someone nervous enough to try to scare me off,” Cam said.

  Rob helped her up. “Are you done for the night?”

  “Hardly. I came here because I needed Vivian Macy’s contact information. Plus, we need to report what happened. They’ll never catch this guy if we don’t.”

  “Now you want to report it.” Rob shook his head.

  • • •

  • • •

  They called the security office from where they were, and while they waited for the man to come up from the basement, Cam dialed Annie to reassure her she was okay. Annie called her a whole slew of names, but Cam had to hang up when the security man arrived to get a statement. He assured Cam the police needed to be alerted, but agreed Cam could talk to them the next day. Then he left.

  Rob frowned. “I guess that’s that. Does that seem strange to you? Just letting you go without talking to the police tonight?”

  Cam agreed it was, but was more relieved than anything. She felt like she wanted to get on with their business.

  “Can we call Vivian together?” Rob said. “Ask her to meet us for a glass of wine or something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Because that’s my requirement from now on. Enough solo investigating for you.”

  “My solo stuff was with Mr. Patrick and Samantha. I am alone with them all the time anyway.”

  “Well, you spooked somebody.”

  “Maybe we did—or maybe it was about the poker game.”

  Rob sighed. He knew she was right. It was far more logical somebody from the night before had come after her than her employers.

  “But how did they get in?” Rob asked.

  “They had to already be here,” Cam admitted. “Unless they got a key somehow, but I would have heard that.”

  “Exactly. Buddy system until we get this thing figured out.”

  Cam rubbed the side of her face. It was the first time she’d been hit, at least since Petunia reached her teens. Somehow, after that, the buddy system didn’t sound so bad. She agreed and then dialed Vivian, asking her to meet her and Rob at Arzu for a glass of wine.

  Vivian sounded confused at first. She asked if she should bring Nelson, Cam’s dad. But Cam explained she wasn’t sure how comfortable Vivian would be because some of the questions had to do with old flames.

  “Oh! Well aren’t you mysterious? I’ll see you in about forty minutes,” she said.

  Cam had Rob run her home to change, and then they went to Arzu to wait.

  “This is going to be awkward, isn’t it?” Rob said as they ordered a bottle of wine.

  “Probably.” She filled Rob in on what she’d learned so if she got tongue-tied, he could jump in. He was much better at these uncomfortable conversations than she was. When she reached the part about Samantha being the link, Vivian arrived, so Cam quit her tale midsentence.

  Rob poured while Cam stood up to greet Vivian.

  “Oh, this is so nice. I haven’t been here for ages. It’s one of my favorite restaurants.”

  Cam knew it was one of her dad’s favorites, too, and wondered how they hadn’t ended up here before. They ordered an appetizer and began with small talk, but Cam knew Vivian didn’t have all night to devote to them, so she finally convinced herself to begin questioning her

  “This is really awkward. But I know you know my dad wanted us to look into this. And I’ve just learned a couple of things that I felt like only you could explain.”

  “I have a habit of protecting my privacy, Cam. It’s hard to come by when you live in the public eye. And if it will help you clear me from police suspicion, I do have a theory. Though I already shared it with the police and they aren’t giving it any merit.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Cam said. “Law enforcement in this town can have tunnel vision. What is it?”

  “I was on my way into the courthouse to answer some questions about my telephone calls the day before yesterday and I passed Melvin Entwhistle on the street. He was being read the riot act by, I believe, Derrick Windermere’s daughter.”

  “Vera? What did she say?”

  “The little bit I heard was, ‘well, I could do a lot more damage than that,’ or something.”

  “Interesting. We’ll have to think about what that might mean. But the reason we called . . . one of the things the police are looking at is a romance that went sour between you and Derrick Windermere.”

  “I’d hardly call it a romance. We were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend who thought we might get along. I didn’t know anything about him at the time, and he was relatively charming. But by the third date, I’d learned something about his ethics and practices, and I told him it wouldn’t work.”

  “But he couldn’t take no for an answer?”

  “He seemed fine with it. He understood. In fact, I think he didn’t care for my ethics, either.”

  “Then why did he start to threaten you?”

  “Because I had threatened him, but that came about years later and had nothing to do with those few dates. I learned some of the loopholes he used and planned to close them when I got into office. I told him so, as a courtesy, so he could clean things up. But he took it as a threat and started threatening back. The trouble is, his kind of politics don’t really influence my kind of voters, so his threats were hollow.”

  “Why would your friends talk about a sour relationship as the reason for the animosity then?” Rob asked.

  “I’d have to know which friends to know that. It doesn’t make any sense to me, as I really never talked to anyone about it. I just chalked it up to a lesson learned. No more blind dates.”

  That was curious, Cam thought. Somebody did want to frame Vivian, unless she was being less than forthcoming.

  “Samantha admitted she was the one who set you up,” Cam said.

  Vivian sighed. “And to this day, I don’t know if she was being stupid or trying to strap me with baggage my political career couldn’t handle.”

  Cam laughed. She’d wondered exactly the same thing and admitted it.

  “Do you think all of this—framing you—is just about hurting your career?”

  “I doubt the murders were about that at all. But pointing to me after the fact? I think choosing me to frame could very easily be motivated by ruining my chances at a House seat.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “Interesting about Vera and Melvin,” Cam said after Vivian had left.

  “She did say she despised him.”

  “I wonder how she could ruin him, though.”

  “It was probably just talk,” Rob said.

  Cam didn’t want to argue, though she was a little annoyed that Rob seemed to keep defending Vera. But she went on to her next point. “So the person we’re looking for is a person who had it out for Derrick and Sully, and who also had it out for Vivian.”

  “Yeah, if it were only that easy,” Rob said.

  “It should be easy, shouldn’t it?” Cam said.

  “Probably, but I don’t know if in politics it is. And do we believe Vivian?”

  “I do.”

  “So then, what we need is the source of those friend comments.”

  “Which we could get from Jake,” Cam said
.

  “If Jake were interested in sharing that kind of thing with us. Annie said the notes didn’t have names.”

  It was a fair point. Jake wasn’t always forthcoming, and definitely wouldn’t be about a witness whom they might then harass. Especially one who had been discovered by their sneaking around.

  “But let’s think about this logically. How would the police have identified Vivian’s friends?” Cam asked. “I mean . . . they don’t know who she socializes and spends time with, do they?”

  “It would be people she’s seen with regularly, like lunch dates, colleagues, or volunteers.”

  “Supposed friends who just come forward with details,” Cam said.

  “Well, that class of people we can probably convince Jake to look at with a grain of salt.”

  Cam swallowed wrong and had to cough. Rob using a cliché was fairly unheard of. “True,” she said as she recovered. “People who volunteer information we can discredit as potentially having an agenda. So, Mr. Hotshot-Reporter, how do we figure out who she was seen with last week?”

  “She’s a busy lady. Let’s look at her appointment book.”

  “Right!”

  Cam called Vivian back, and fortunately, Vivian and her dad were having dinner in the very next room. Cam wondered how that had happened. Probably Vivian had called him and when she told him where she was, he’d just told her to stay put. It was his favorite restaurant, after all. Cam and Rob finished their dinner and then made their way into the next room.

  Vivian helped Rob access the archived calendar and they went over names, Rob taking note of the few who were social instead of professional. Vivian then sent the week’s worth of appointments to him by email so he and Cam could peruse it more slowly.

  They thanked her and left, heading to Cam’s house.

  “You really think the killer is one of these appointments?” Cam asked.

  “Not really. But I think one of these appointments is either friends with the killer or is gullible enough to be fed news.”

  Cam poured them each a glass of wine as Rob pulled the list up on the computer so it was large enough so they both could see.

  “There are a couple of familiar names here. That’s for sure,” Rob said as Cam sat back down.

  “Who?”

  “Vera Windermere-Sullivan, for starters.”

  “What? What would she have to do with Vivian Macy? Vivian told us the story about her and referred to her as Derrick’s daughter—it sounded then like she barely knew who she was.”

  “I think we’d need to ask Vera, though maybe we should ask Vivian first. It’s possible she just didn’t think we’d know who she was. Vera seems unlikely to be considered by the police as a friend, though. She’s the wrong age, and she’s connected to not only both victims, but a political rival, too,” Rob said.

  “I don’t know when logic has ever guided the police in this town,” Cam said.

  “That’s not fair. Granted, they’ve snuffed up a couple murder investigations. But for the most part, it’s a good, reliable squad. They just aren’t . . . very creative.”

  “They want easy answers,” Cam argued.

  “Don’t you think that’s understandable? And maybe because murder isn’t so common around here, they’ve been able to solve them more easily before this . . . spree we’ve had.”

  Cam had to agree that might be the case. “Anybody with a more logical friend connection?” she asked.

  “The other familiar name is Melvin Entwhistle, but he hardly seems the sort to gossip, and certainly not about a romance.”

  Cam scanned the list. There were about two dozen people in appointment slots in the week leading up to the fund-raiser, but Cam didn’t know most of the names.

  “Wait. This woman . . . Vivian said she’s a constituent, but didn’t you mention her name when you tried to talk to Chad Phillips?”

  “Lorraine Patterson? That sounds right. I’d need to check.”

  Cam dialed her cell phone and asked Annie to come downstairs. “Bring your laptop.”

  “Can Jake come?” Annie asked.

  “Sure. Bring him, too.” She wasn’t thrilled to have Jake in on things at this stage, but maybe it was best they start raising doubts about some of these supposed friends of Vivian’s.

  “Wait a minute,” Rob said. “Lorraine Patterson . . . Brian Fontana! I knew that name was bugging me!” He typed a search into his computer. “There!”

  “What?” Cam said.

  “Brian Fontana was working in Chad Phillips’s office when I tried to visit.”

  “You said that earlier, but it doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

  “And he and Lorraine Patterson had their heads together,” Rob went on.

  Annie entered in pajamas and Jake followed behind her looking sheepish. Rob shot a look at Jake and Jake blushed, embarrassed to have been called when they were apparently settled in for the night, but Annie seemed to figure they were all family. She plunked her laptop across the table from Cam’s, then came around to Cam’s side.

  “What are we looking for?” she said and half shoved Cam off her chair to get in next to her.

  “We have a Lorraine Patterson here—two of them actually. Rob says one of them was the gatekeeper when he tried to talk to Chad Phillips. We need to figure out if it’s the same one who met with Vivian. Vivian said she was a neighbor and constituent—that she had some concerns, but if that neighbor worked for Chad . . .”

  “Wait! Where did you get that name?” Jake asked.

  “Vivian Macy’s planner,” Cam said.

  “And why do you have Vivian Macy’s planner?”

  “She gave it to us,” Rob said.

  “Nice!” Annie said.

  “No! This is not nice. You’re interfering with a murder investigation again!”

  Rob got up and fetched Jake a beer.

  “We talked to Vivian Macy tonight,” Rob explained. “She told us there was no ugly breakup, just a couple of dates and a decision not to see each other anymore because they weren’t compatible. The bad blood came because of a loophole he was exploiting that she planned to close—something she warned him about, as a friend, so he could clean up his act first. Now, she might be lying, but we thought we should also try to figure out who these supposed friends were who left the potentially faulty information. And since we doubted we’d get the information from you, we figured the most likely people the police would look at were appointments and volunteers. So she gave us the appointments to get us started.”

  Jake sputtered for a minute. He didn’t look happy. Then finally he asked, “So what about Lorraine Patterson again?”

  “She was a gatekeeper I had trouble getting past when I wanted to talk to Chad Phillips about the election. Along with Brian Fontana, the supposed hit man, I should mention, but we haven’t figured out how that fits yet. Vivian met with Lorraine as a delegate—as a courtesy. But she’s connected to Chad, who loops back into this case from a few directions,” Rob said.

  “And how does he do that?”

  “We’re pretty sure he’s sleeping with Vera Windermere-Sullivan—daughter of one victim, wife of the other.”

  Jake ran his fingers through his hair. “You people will be the death of my career one day, I am sure of it.”

  “That’s not our goal. We just don’t think Vivian did it, and Chad looks like a pretty darned good pick. Is he even on your list?” Cam said.

  “Yes, but as yet, it’s a pretty long list and he’s not near the top.”

  “We’ve noticed there’s been no rash arrest this time,” Cam said. “That’s a nice change of pace.”

  Annie elbowed her.

  “What? You were one of those rash arrests, if you’ll remember,” Cam said.

  Rob pinched her then, and since she was sitting between Annie and him with only two chairs for the three of them, she decided it was probably time to shut her mouth.

  Thankfully, Rob picked up one of the strands of interest. “How many
of Vivian’s supposed friends volunteered information?”

  Jake looked at the three of them sitting there studiously, Annie in her sheep pajamas. “Just one, but she did suggest a few other names.”

  “And?” Rob asked.

  “And we talked to everybody, but you’re right. Volunteers sometimes have an agenda that should be examined.”

  “And?”

  “And Lorraine Patterson was one of the names on her list. So even though we hadn’t gone through all Vivian’s appointments, we had talked to Lorraine,” Jake admitted.

  Annie got up and went around to her own computer. She typed in a few things, wearing a look of concentration.

  “There!” Annie said.

  “What?” Cam made her way around and looked at the computer screen. Annie had just pulled up a picture.

  “Rob, is this her?” Cam asked.

  Rob followed and nodded.

  “The bigger mystery, since I found this by searching for Lorraine Patterson and Chad Phillips, is whether this is the Lorraine Jake talked to,” Annie said.

  Jake sighed and stepped closer. “Yeah. Same woman.”

  Annie entered a few more keystrokes and up popped a map showing that Lorraine Patterson lived near Vivian. They weren’t quite neighbors, but near enough that they might know each other for neighborly reasons . . . certainly near enough that Lorraine might have made an appointment as a constituent.

  “Very curious indeed,” Annie said. “Did she claim to be a friend then?”

  “She’d already been identified as a friend, so we didn’t ask.”

  “Who identified her?” Cam asked.

  “Ramona Pemberly.”

  Cam covered her face. “Do you know how easy it is to lead that woman down any gossip trail?”

  “You know her?” Jake asked.

  “She’s part of the Roanoke Garden Society, but more important, an incorrigible gossip. If anyone wanted to lead someone to a specific piece of information, letting it slip to her is a great way.”

  “I’ll be sure to let the team know,” Jake said. He didn’t look pleased.

  “Certainly worth asking Vivian what the meeting was about,” Cam added.