A Candidate for Murder

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  “Sometimes,” Allie said and raised one eyebrow so high it wiggled.

  I couldn’t keep from giggling. “Well, anyway,” I told her, “I hope whoever took Mark’s film gives it back.”

  “I wonder if he got a picture of Bitsy in that awful thing her mother brought her from Paris,” Allie said. “It’s a Claude LeBlanc, but it was all wrong for Bitsy. She looked like an African polar bear.”

  “There aren’t any polar bears in Africa,” I said, and rolled over on my stomach, laughing.

  “Well, a walrus, then,” Allie said. She went on with a crazy story about Bitsy’s run-in with one of the science teachers at Gormley, and I laughed until there were tears in my eyes. I put Mark and his missing film completely out of my mind.

  When the sun began to go down, I knew I had better get home and finish the report that was due in history.

  “See you tomorrow,” I told Allie, and climbed into Mom’s blue Cadillac, which she sometimes lets me use.

  I’ve had a driver’s license for months, and I wish I had a car of my own, but Dad said, “Don’t even think about it until you’re a senior.” Dad sometimes says he runs a tight ship, and he’s not talking just about his oil company.

  As I drove out of the circular drive in front of the Richardses’ house, the car’s headlights turned on automatically, but it wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t see the car that pulled from the curb behind me, its lights off.

  At first I expected the driver to notice he was driving without lights, but he didn’t, so I flicked mine a couple of times as a signal. But his lights stayed off, and his car stayed the same distance behind me. I cut down the nearest side street and picked up speed. When the car without lights did the same, I was positive I was being followed.

  This had never happened to me before. I was so terrified that for a moment I grew dizzy, and the shadows and shapes of trees and houses wavered and blurred.

  “Hang on,” I told myself out loud and took a couple of sharp, deep breaths. “Don’t let go. You can handle this.”

  Okay. Sure. I’d handle it. But how? What was I going to do?

  Chapter 2

  Was it my imagination, or was the car closing in? I tromped down on the gas pedal, and the Cadillac shot forward as I headed for the traffic on the nearby boulevard. These neighborhood streets were dark and quiet, and I wanted people around for safety.

  As I reached the boulevard the traffic light was just changing, but I managed to squeal around the corner before it turned red. From the sound of horns and the screech of brakes behind me I knew that the other car had made it through the light, too.

  I had to slow, and I dared a glance in the rearview mirror. The car that tailed me had its brights on now, creating such a glare that I wasn’t able to read the license number or see what the driver looked like. All I could make out was a dark, broad silhouette which was definitely that of a male.

  I gripped the steering wheel so hard my hands hurt, frantic to have people around me, to have people between me and whoever was in the car behind me. In the next block was a busy shopping center. At the nearest end was a large, well-lit full-service gas station, and that’s what I aimed for.

  I shot past two cars which were in line for the pumps and brought the car to a halt in front of the office. I didn’t stop to look back. I jumped out of the Cadillac and ran inside the station office.

  A muscular middle-aged man in grease-stained khakis looked up from the battered desk on which he’d been leaning, studying a map. He marked his place with a dirty finger and tried to hide the irritation that showed on his face as he asked, “What can I do for you, girlie?”

  I clung to the frame around the plate-glass window and studied the cars outside. “Someone was following me,” I said.

  He straightened up and peered through the window. “Is he still out there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what he looked like.”

  “What about the car? What make was it? What color?”

  “I don’t know that either,” I told him. “It was dark. Maybe dark gray or dark blue—something like that.”

  “Did you get a license number?”

  “No.”

  The impatience had returned to his face. “Are you sure somebody was following you? There’s a lot of cars out there. You coulda imagined it.”

  He thought I was an air-head, and I felt myself blushing. I knew that someone had been following me, whether this man believed me or not.

  “Could I use your phone?” I asked.

  “Local calls only,” he said.

  “It’s local. I want to call my father.”

  Grudgingly, the man nodded toward the phone on the desk, and I dialed my home number.

  “Don’t be busy, don’t be busy,” I said over and over to myself, and when I heard the phone ring I sagged against the desk with relief.

  Dad answered on the second ring.

  In a rush of words I told him what had happened, and where I was, and he said that he and Dexter would come immediately to get me.

  As I waited for them I stared out the window, eager for Dad and Dexter to drive up. Time stopped moving, and it felt as though they were taking forever.

  A month ago Philip, who had worked as our handyman butler, and sometime chauffeur, left us to move to California. Dad had replaced him by hiring Dexter Kline, who moved into the apartment over the garage. Dexter’s pleasant enough, but he has an odd, faded look: pale eyes, pale skin, pale hair; and for a large man he moves very quietly. He isn’t awfully good at being a butler, although he’s better than when he first arrived and didn’t seem to know what he was supposed to do. He’s not good at fixing things either. When the pipe broke under one of the bathroom sinks, Dad had to show Dexter what to do with it until the plumber got there. But Dad seems happy with Dexter’s work. Maybe he likes Dexter because Dexter’s a serious kind of person, and Dad’s a serious person, too.

  “Oh! There they are!” I burst out as Dad’s black Mercedes pulled into the gas station. I flung the door open and raced to meet Dad, who had stepped out of the car even before it had come to a full stop.

  I climbed into the Mercedes with Dad, and Dexter followed us in Mom’s car. As Dad drove I told him what had happened, and he said, “Are you sure it wasn’t a coincidence? The driver could have been taking the same route you did.”

  “He turned when I did.”

  “Was the street you took a direct way of getting to the boulevard?”

  “Well … maybe,” I admitted. “I guess it is.”

  “So anyone else could pick that route, too.”

  “Yes.”

  Dad thought a long moment, then said, “This person didn’t try to close in or force you off the road, did he?”

  “No.” I was beginning to feel stupid about the way I’d acted. “Maybe because you’re running for office …” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Dad gave me a quick glance, which surprised me. He’s the kind of person who never takes his eyes off the road. “Honey,” he said, “our family has always been in the public eye. We’ve taught you to take precautions, and we’ve tried to keep a protective eye on you, but it’s been important to your mother and to me that you never live in fear.”

  “I know,” I said.

  Dad reached over and took my hand, giving it a comforting squeeze before releasing it. “Cary, I don’t want you to start worrying about what might happen. Many people run for office, and their families are perfectly safe.”

  I forced myself to smile at Dad, even though I wanted to hide against his shoulder and hang onto him tightly, the way I did when I was a little kid and afraid of the dark. Maybe Dad was right that nothing bad would happen, but in my mind I could still see that car following me, and I knew that it wasn’t a coincidence. The driver had to have some reason for trying to frighten me.

  Mom’s questions were almost identical to Dad’s, and she finally said she was satisfied that there was nothing to worry about, althoug
h every now and then throughout dinner I caught her sneaking looks at me as though she were afraid I might disappear.

  I ate fast because I had that history paper to write. I went up to my room, sat in the middle of my bed with my notes spread around me, opened my notebook, and got to work.

  I must have been awfully tired, because the sudden, shrill blast of the telephone sliced into my dreams like a scream. I let out a yelp as I scrambled across my bed to snatch up the receiver before it could ring again.

  Still half asleep, I mumbled, “Hello?”

  A woman answered me. Her voice was low and slurred, and at first I couldn’t tell what she was saying. I thought I heard her say my name, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked.

  “You beg my pardon?” she said mockingly, each word slow and careful. She made a snuffling noise that could have been a laugh or a cry, and her voice dropped. “I asked you, what do you know about it? What do you know?”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “If they think you don’t know nothin’ you’ll be all right. You don’t know, do you?”

  It was pretty obvious from the way the woman’s conversation rambled that she was drunk. She hadn’t called me. She thought she was talking to someone else. “You have the wrong number,” I told her.

  “You’re just a kid,” she said, and she started to cry.

  “You dialed the wrong number,” I said. “Hang up and try again.”

  I put the receiver back in its cradle and slid off the bed, tugging my rumpled T-shirt and jeans into place. I tried to gather my history papers, which were scattered on the bed and the floor. So much for leaving my report until Sunday night.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the phone. What if the woman did dial again? What if she dialed this number? Her words stayed in my head, and I could still hear what sounded like Cary Amberson.

  But why would she be calling me? Why would she ask me what I knew? It didn’t make sense.

  I sat there maybe five minutes before I began to relax. She wasn’t going to call, I reassured myself. But I felt uncomfortable, even a little scared. Had the woman said my name?

  I needed to talk to someone about the call. I needed to talk to Mom or Dad.

  The door to my parents’ bedroom was closed, which meant that Mom was probably asleep, and the lights were still on downstairs, which told me that Dad hadn’t come upstairs yet.

  I winced as I stepped on the squeaky board just outside my bedroom door and hurried down the stairs as quietly as I could, thankful that the thick gold-colored carpet absorbed the sound of my footsteps. I raced across the entry hall and down the short hallway leading to the library, where Dad would be working.

  He was bent over his desk, writing in the greenish-gold puddle of light from his desk lamp. As he looked up, his eyes widened in surprise. “Cary?” he said. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I was,” I answered and smiled. “I fell asleep while I was writing my history report, but I got a phone call, and it woke me up.”

  It was late, and yet my father looked as he always did, tall, good-looking, and dignified, in total command, without a single blond hair out of place. It was a different story with me. As I’d passed the hall mirror I’d caught a glimpse of myself and wasn’t happy with what I’d seen. My long light-brown hair looked as though it had lost a battle with my blow dryer, my right cheek was still marked with red lines from sleeping on top of the wrinkled quilt, and my eyes (their bright blue color was the one great thing I’d inherited from my father) were puffy and red-rimmed.

  “It’s pretty late for your friends to call.”

  “It wasn’t one of my friends,” I said. “It was a woman saying some weird things.”

  Dad slowly laid down his pen and took off his glasses, never taking his eyes from my face. “Here …” He pointed to the chair across from his desk. “Sit down. Tell me about it.”

  I did as he suggested, facing Dad across his wide desk as though I were one of the officers in his oil company there to discuss business. It was a formal setting, but Dad’s a formal kind of person. It’s hard for some people to understand Dad. He’s even been accused of not having a sense of humor, but that’s not true. It’s just that he doesn’t laugh at a lot of silly stuff, and he’s never been very good at telling jokes. He wouldn’t laugh at a comic who slipped on a banana peel. He’d be more concerned about whether the person was hurt, because Dad is a kind, loving man. And he’s smart. He was smart enough to keep his company going during the oil bust back in the eighties, at a time in which a lot of independent companies folded.

  When I had told Dad everything I could remember about the conversation, he said, “It’s most likely that the woman dialed your number by accident.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Dad had said just what I’d hoped he’d say. I felt a thousand times better.

  “However,” Dad went on, “since you think you heard her call you by name …”

  “If,” I said.

  “If you did, it’s possible that somehow she had come into possession of your telephone number.”

  “But my number’s unlisted,” I complained. “It’s my own private line.”

  “A person’s privacy is never totally protected,” he answered. “Human nature being what it is, there can always be slipups.”

  I leaned back in my chair and grumbled, “Okay. Supposing the woman really did want to talk to me. Why? What she said didn’t make any sense.”

  Dad leaned back, too, and rubbed his chin. “Cary, honey, I’m sorry, but crank calls like that one seem to be part of the game of politics. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. I’d hoped that our home phones would be protected, and anonymous callers would simply phone the Amberson Company, but apparently that’s not the way it’s worked out.”

  “Are you telling me that crank calls have come to your office?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he said.

  The dark shadows that licked the edges of the room shifted and moved closer. I shivered and hugged myself, trying to rub warmth back into my upper arms. “You mean just because you want to be governor, crazy people are going to come after you?” I asked.

  Dad explained patiently, “No one’s coming after me. There are a certain number of unbalanced people in the world who enjoy making strange telephone calls. A detective with the police force explained that people of this type get their satisfaction out of just making the calls. They usually don’t do anything to cause physical harm.”

  “When did you talk to a detective?”

  “Delia took a threatening call. She was frightened and called the police.”

  I could just picture Delia coming unglued. Delia was Dad’s personal secretary at his Amberson Oil Company, and now that his campaign headquarters had been officially opened in a vacant store downtown on Commerce Street, she’d been put in charge of the volunteer staff.

  Delia usually fussed over me. She fussed over herself, too, but her strawberry-blond hair color was as fake as the smile she always gave me, and I didn’t like her.

  I was getting sidetracked. “Dad, if someone threatened you, shouldn’t you and the police take the call seriously?”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Dad tried to reassure me. “People who make calls like that have so much bottled-up anger it has to spill out somewhere, so it does through anonymous threats and obscenities.”

  “And you believe the detective? Are you sure that all these crazy callers want to do is talk?”

  Dad looked tired, and a frown wrinkle flickered between his eyebrows. “Cary,” he said, “all I can do is repeat the detective’s assurances that crank callers are usually harmless.” He shifted in his chair. “Look, honey, it’s late, and I have a great deal of work to finish.”

  “Okay, Dad,” I said. I got up, walked around his desk, and bent to kiss his cheek before I headed back to my bedroom. It really was late—almost midnight—so I quickly w
ashed my face, pulled on the oversized T-shirt I sleep in, and climbed into bed.

  My gaze was drawn to the telephone as I turned off my light. “Don’t ring,” I told it. “Please don’t ring.”

  I wouldn’t let myself think about the woman who had called. She was drunk. She was a nut. She was history.

  But the whisper of her words slipped through my mind. Cary Amberson. She had said it. I knew she had called me by name.

  Chapter 3

  Dad had already eaten breakfast before I came downstairs the next morning. It dawned on me that last night was one of the first times I’d been able to talk to Dad alone since he’d filed for the governor’s race.

  I helped myself to some of the scrambled eggs and toast that Velma Hansel, our housekeeper, had brought to the table, and sat down opposite Mom.

  I know everybody’s supposed to think of their mothers as old, but I’ve never been able to do that with Mom. She always looks terrific, even when her hair is out of place, even when she isn’t wearing makeup. Dad says that Mom still looks just like she did when she was in college. Of course, he has to be exaggerating, but Mom likes to hear it. I’ve never seen her in the courtroom, but if I were on a jury, and Mom were one of the attorneys on a case, I’d give her points just for the sharp, confident way she looks and moves and talks.

  Mom wasn’t confident this morning. She sat slumped over the open newspaper, just staring, not reading it.

  She’d mumbled a “good morning” at me when I came in and kissed the top of her head, and I hadn’t thought anything of her mumbling, because Mom’s always like that when anyone catches her in the middle of reading something important. But this was different. As Mom looked across the table at me, her face was pale, and the skin was tight around her eyes and mouth.

  “Mom, what’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you sick?”

  Mom shook her head. “It’s so unfair,” she said.

  “What’s unfair?”

  Mom stabbed at an editorial cartoon with one finger, so I got up and hurried around to her side of the table, leaning over her shoulder to see it.