The Candidate

by Lis Wiehl

  Jenny walks into the kitchen. “What’s going on in here?”

  “Big doings,” Erica says.

  “Can I help?”

  “Is the table all set?”

  “We still need glasses,” Jenny says, grabbing a couple. “Is Becky staying for dinner?”

  There’s an awkward moment. Erica hadn’t wanted to make the commitment of dinner. What if Becky and Jenny had zero chemistry? Then they’d all be stuck together through a clumsy meal. But now that things are going smoothly, should she tender a last-minute invite? But she was looking forward to one-on-one time with Jenny.

  “Oh, I can’t stay. I have a lot of research to do tonight. I’m putting together those dossiers you want on Mike Ortiz and Lucy Winters.”

  “Anything leap out at you?”

  Becky looks down and nibbles the corner of her lip, as if wondering if she should open up. “Celeste Pierce Ortiz is an . . . interesting woman.”

  “Say more.”

  “Well, she’s from one of San Francisco’s wealthiest and most socially prominent families. But she’s had an amazing career in her own right. Until she took a leave, she was one of the world’s most successful international bankers, specializing in China. In fact, the president named her a special trade ambassador to Beijing. She’s also written a couple of business books, is on at least half a dozen nonprofit and think-tank boards, and is worth an estimated 1.7 billion dollars.”

  “She’s a powerhouse, no doubt about that. I’ll see her on Monday at the Buchanan funeral.”

  “Will you have a chance to interview her?”

  “Doubtful. But I’m fascinated by her too. And her relationship with her husband.”

  “Plates?” Becky says to Jenny, who hands her two. Becky deftly plates the now perfectly done rice, the broccoli, and the glistening salmon.

  Erica is impressed—Becky rolled up her sleeves and dived in. The girl is a worker, no doubt about that. She salvaged dinner without breaking a sweat. And her insecurity, which could be off-putting at times, was starting to look more like a becoming modesty.

  “You didn’t learn to cook like this at Burger King,” Erica says. Becky looks at her in surprise and Erica says, “I’m a fellow alum.”

  “Wow, small world.”

  “I can still smell the grease,” Erica says.

  “Me too. Say what you will, though, Burger King taught me discipline, and compared to home it was a safe haven.” Becky immediately adds, “I’m sorry. That was too personal. I just meant that we didn’t have a lot of money, and there were other . . . issues.”

  The two women look at each other—they share a similar past, a similar struggle. They’re not spoiled rich girls, not middle-class or even working-class girls. They’re girls who’ve worked their way up from nothing, from less than nothing. Erica feels a wave of respect and affection for Becky.

  “I’ll leave you two to dinner,” Becky says, gathering up her bag.

  Erica walks her to the front door. “Thanks for coming over.”

  “It’s my pleasure, and privilege, really. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I just have so much admiration for you, Erica. You saved the world from a madman. You showed real courage and integrity.”

  “I’m going to stop you right there, Becky. I appreciate the kind words, but I’m not interested in being put on a pedestal.”

  Becky looks like she might burst into tears. “I’m sorry.”

  Erica puts a hand on her shoulder. “I think we’re both well advised to focus on our work. Burger King taught us that.”

  Becky’s eyes open wide and she nods her head, looking like a schoolgirl. “Gotcha. I’m sorry. I’ve only been in New York for a couple of months and I’m still—”

  “I forbid you to ever say ‘I’m sorry’ to me again.”

  Becky makes a zipping-my-lip gesture and Erica laughs. Then she leaves and Erica shuts the door behind her. That girl has a lot of growing up to do.

  “This salmon is de-lish, Mom,” Jenny says as Erica sits down at the kitchen table.

  “Becky’s a whiz in the kitchen.”

  “No more potato dumplings for moi.”

  “So you liked her?”

  “I did. She’s really nice and smart. And I think she’ll probably spoil me.”

  They laugh. Erica has noticed a growing confidence in her daughter, an opening out. In spite of her troubles at Brearley, the school is good for her. The girls are bright and the teachers challenge them, and Jenny is rising to the test. Her classmates may be privileged, but a little bit of privilege can be a good thing, especially if it’s backed by hard work.

  “I guess I’ll hire her, then.”

  “Can we go to the movies tomorrow?”

  “Depends on your homework situation.”

  “That’s under control.”

  “Is there anything you’re dying to see?”

  “The new Ryan Gosling.”

  “I smell a crush.”

  “Oh please, Mother, I’m not just some drooling fan. I’m his future wife.”

  They laugh again, and for a brief moment Erica feels suffused with happiness. She did it; she really did it—she brought Jenny home. To a good home. A place where her daughter can feel safe and nurtured and can blossom. Has Erica finally been able to free herself from the legacy that defined her own childhood? All those frigid Maine nights spent shivering under a Dollar Store Elmo blanket that felt like it was woven out of recycled six-pack holders, listening to the drinking and drugging and screaming on the other side of the prefab’s cardboard walls?

  And for her part, is Jenny finally forgiving her mother for all those times she saw her stumbling around in a vodka haze—and then that terrible dark night when it all came crashing to a head.

  “There’s a new Dateline murder mystery on tonight,” Jenny says.

  “I’m not sure I like you watching those shows, honey. They’re morbid.”

  “I think they’re interesting. I might want to be a lawyer.”

  “Really?”

  “No, I just said it so you’d let me watch those morbid shows. Come on, Mom, admit it—murder is fascinating.”

  “It can be. But you know as well as I do that it’s always the husband who did it.”

  “I’ve seen a few where it was the wife. Women can get weird too.”

  “Women can get weird, can’t they?” Erica’s phones rings, and she glances at the caller ID. “This is Moira.”

  “Say hi for me. I’ll put the plates in the dishwasher.”

  “Thanks, honey . . . Hi, Moy.”

  Moira Connelly is Erica’s best friend, a fellow reporter who stuck with Erica during her slow, sad fall and her final blackest hours up in Boston—and drove her to rehab on her day of reckoning. Moira now works as an evening news co-anchor on a local LA station.

  “How are you, amigo?” Moira asks. Just hearing her voice has a calming effect on Erica—she’d trust the woman with her life.

  “Hanging tough. Or trying to. You?”

  “I’m good. Any thoughts on the bomber?”

  Erica stands up and walks down the hall and into her office—she doesn’t want Jenny overhearing any of this. “Aside from the fact that he’s a coward and a psychopath? He’s a smart cookie, evading capture this long. I just hope they find him soon. Then the big question becomes, did he act alone? You hearing anything out there?”

  “Nobody wants to say it out loud, but people are asking who gained the most from Buchanan’s death.”

  “You don’t mean Mike Ortiz?”

  “It cleared the field for him. That was a poor choice of phrase, but . . .”

  “I suppose it’s the truth. But it’s pretty farfetched.”

  “So was the idea that Nylan Hastings poisoned Kay Barrish. Erica, we’re journalists. Speculation can be the first step on the road to the truth. And it’s not Mike Ortiz people are whispering about.”

  “Celeste?”

  “Bingo.”

  “What’s the word on her
?”

  “Once you get past that charming overbred exterior, she has a reputation for being an icicle, a ruthless icicle. And she’s tight as glue with a woman named Lily Lau who runs Pierce Holdings, the company that manages Celeste’s assets. And Celeste has a lot of assets.”

  “Say more.”

  “Lau is also Ortiz’s chief fundraiser and a key campaign strategist. She and Celeste are considered the powers behind the throne. Power can do strange things to people.”

  The words hang in the air a moment—power can do strange things to people—and then Erica says, “You know, Moy, I think I’d like to do a segment on the candidates at home. Try and get up close and personal, see what I find.”

  “I smell a reporter’s instincts kicking in.”

  “We are journalists.”

  Erica’s work in nailing Nylan Hastings led her into the heart of darkness. Man is capable of unthinkable acts of evil and depravity. She walks over to the window and looks out at the glittering lights of Central Park, their radiance turning the leafy canopy into a sea of iridescence. “Meanwhile, I’m consumed with the bombing story. Every federal law enforcement agency is working 24/7 to find this guy. Let’s hope there’s a break this week.”

  Erica hangs up and flashes back to the moments before the bombing, the look in Mike Ortiz’s eyes when he turned to his wife for permission to speak. Her short hairs stand up. Suddenly she feels chilly. Has the temperature dropped outside? She walks out to the foyer to grab her favorite red scarf from the row of hooks on the wall beside the coat closet. She always puts her scarves there when she walks in the door. But she doesn’t see the red scarf. She fingers through them. Definitely not there. She opens the coat closet. No scarf.

  She walks down the hall and into the kitchen. “Jenny, honey, have you seen my red scarf?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Erica scans the living room and her office, then heads into her bedroom. No scarf. A certain neurotic compulsion kicks in when she can’t find something, especially something she was sure she knew the location of. She distinctly remembers putting the scarf back on one of the hooks when she wore it the day before yesterday. She walks quickly back to the front door and checks again. Nope.

  Scarfs don’t just dematerialize. What is going on?

  Erica takes a deep breath and wills herself to cool it. It’s only a scarf. She must have left it at the office. Of course. That’s what happened. Right?

  Then she triple-checks the locks on the front door.

  CHAPTER 8

  IT’S MONDAY, AND ERICA IS in the temporary broadcast booth that GNN has set up outside the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, where the funeral of Fred and Judy Buchanan is being held. With the president and First Lady due at any moment, security is massive. In spite of that, Erica feels a wave of anxiety. She likes to think of herself as a battle-toughened pro, but the truth is the Buchanan bombing has unnerved her. It happened so suddenly—a boom, a flash, the blood, the bodies, the children, the thin line between life and death. Erica keeps seeing the crumpled, twisted corpses. Followed by Tim Markum’s bland, round face—such a benign mask for evil. She’s been having trouble sleeping, she jumps every time she hears a sudden noise, and she has begun to worry about Jenny’s safety on the streets of New York.

  But no matter how sleep-deprived and spooked she is, Erica knows she has a job to do.

  And today it’s an important one. The nation was convulsed by Buchanan’s murder; he’s the most prominent politician to be assassinated since JFK. And the horror has been magnified because it was broadcast live, caught on scores of cellphone cameras, and seen by billions of people around the world in the last five days. This day of mourning matters to the nation, to the people of Pennsylvania, and most of all to Philadelphia, where Buchanan was born and raised and is revered. The streets surrounding the brownstone cathedral are jammed with thousands of people who feel compelled to join in this public sorrow.

  Because she was there when the bomb went off, Erica is a part of the story. Today she wants to be part of the soul-searching that Americans are going through. How do you make sense of such horror? How does the country respond? Leaders from hard left to hard right are pouring into the cathedral—no matter what ideology, there’s no place for assassination in a democracy. Erica hopes that this coming together will have a ripple effect and Americans will start to see that what unites them is far greater than what divides them.

  She checks the monitor under Derek’s cam—midday anchor Patricia Lorenzo throws it to her.

  “This is Erica Sparks reporting from outside the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia. The joint funeral of Governor Paul and Judy Buchanan is scheduled to begin within a half hour. We are awaiting the arrival of the president and First Lady.”

  There is a camera inside the cathedral, a feed used by all the networks and also broadcast on a jumbo screen outside the cathedral, and GNN goes to it as Erica says, “As you can see, the cathedral is filled. Two former presidents are present, as well as over sixty members of Congress and fourteen governors.” GNN goes back to a shot outside the cathedral, panning the tear-streaked faces. “Perhaps more impressive are the many thousands of ordinary Americans who are lining the streets around the cathedral. Their shock and grief is palpable. Reflecting our nation’s mood, this is a city in mourning.”

  The other half of the story—the search for Markum—can’t be ignored, even today. “To bring us up to date on the search for the bomber, let’s go to Washington where Craig Bergen, GNN contributor and former head of forensic psychology at the FBI, is following every development.”

  Erica goes to split screen with Bergen, who is rumpled and intense. “Craig, is there anything new?”

  “My sources inside the Bureau tell me that progress is being made.”

  “Do you have any sense of how real that progress is?”

  “Believe me, nobody over there wants to raise false expectations.”

  “As a forensic psychologist, do you have any thoughts as to where Tim Markum may be hiding out?”

  “Psychopaths are more comfortable operating in familiar surroundings. Markum was raised in Montana, went to the University of Arizona in Tucson, and seems to have remained in that state. I know that tremendous manpower has been focused there.”

  “Do you have any sense of whether Markum acted alone or is part of a cell or a radical organization that may now be sheltering him?”

  “No terrorist organization has taken credit for the bombing. It’s only been five days, but they usually claim credit immediately.”

  “Can you tell us anything about his personality?”

  “This is a confident, single-minded individual. We can see on the video that he knew just what he was doing; he doesn’t seem to be nervous. In fact, I’d describe his affect as casual. Whether he acted alone or not, that young man is a cold-blooded killer.”

  “So there is no remorse.”

  “Quite the opposite. He’s feeling very powerful right now. Omnipotent even. I have no doubt he is watching today’s funeral and gloating.”

  “That’s a spine-chilling thought.” A squadron of black SUVs pulls up in front of the cathedral. “Thank you for your always fascinating insights, Craig.” Erica goes back to full screen. “The vehicles we see approaching the cathedral are not the presidential motorcade. Let’s see who it is.”

  The back door of an SUV opens, and Mike and Celeste Ortiz get out.

  “It’s Senator Mike Ortiz and his wife, Celeste. They look very somber, as if they’re still in shock.”

  Celeste Ortiz is stunning in a black suit, but she looks ashen, even a little unsteady on her feet, almost as if she’s tranquilized. There have been rumors fed to the media—which seem to originate from Ortiz allies—that Celeste feels it could just have easily been she and her husband who were killed in the bombing, and she’s having second thoughts about his campaign. She slips her arm through his as they make their way up the front
steps. Then he looks over to the crowd—and smiles that magnetic smile.

  Erica is brought up short. How inappropriate and even bizarre. Celeste gives his arm a jerk—the tranquilizers seem to have worn off in a flash—and they proceed into the cathedral. That image of the two of them—Mike’s behavior and Celeste’s reaction—sears itself into Erica’s mind.

  “Even in the midst of this tragedy, politics continues, and Mike Ortiz is now the presumptive Democratic candidate for president. His likely Republican opponent, Minnesota senator Lucy Winters, is already inside the cathedral.”

  Suddenly Erica hears pulsing music through her earpiece as Breaking News scrolls across the monitor. Then: “Throw it to New York, Erica, there’s a break in the bombing case!”

  “We’re now going to GNN headquarters in New York, where there is breaking news in the Buchanan bombing.”

  Erica watches as Patricia Lorenzo reports.

  “Surveillance video taken this morning at Philadelphia International Airport appears to show Tim Markum, identified by the FBI as the Buchanan bomber, arriving in the city on a flight from Houston, Texas.”

  The airport footage shows a young man who certainly looks like Tim Markum exiting a plane. He’s wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead.

  “Without positive identification, the FBI is referring to this individual as a ‘person of interest.’ According to reports of eyewitnesses, he left the airport and got into a taxicab. That’s all the information that has been released. Now let’s go back to Erica Sparks in Philadelphia.”

  Erica looks out at the scene around the cathedral. People huddle over their phones. As the news of the sighting sweeps across the crowd, there are exclamations of shock and alarm. The unanswered question is obvious: If the bomber is in Philadelphia, will he strike again? Here and now? Fear races like a wildfire through the crowd; there’s a sense of impending chaos; parents scoop up their children and start to run.

  “As you can see, the news of the bomber’s possible presence in Philadelphia has unnerved the crowd of mourners. There seems to be a growing panic, which we can only hope won’t lead to a stampede.”