Voted Out

by J. S. Marlo

  She hung up before giving him a chance to argue he couldn’t show up now. Less than ten minutes later, Stuart barged in her office with Gloria on his heels.

  Out of breath, the receptionist grabbed the doorframe. “Sorry, Liliane. I couldn’t stop him.”

  “No need to apologize, Gloria.” Liliane glared at her visitor. “Nowadays, wild boars have no sense of decorum.”

  The man towering over her desk snarled, drowning Gloria’s strangled chuckles as she closed the door behind herself. With his aviator style mirrored sunglasses, tight faded jeans, and fitted salmon shirt, Stuart resembled a jock facing a middle-life crisis, not an election.

  “Sit or stand, Stuart, but back off.” Liliane didn’t yell, leap to her feet, or threaten to punch him, but the arctic chill in her voice yielded the desired effect. “And lose the glasses. We need to talk.” And while they talked, she wanted to see his expression.

  The man stepped back, and with a defiant nonchalance, he removed his glasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket. “Happy?”

  “Yes. Now before you shift blame on someone else for bad penmanship, the nomination papers are fine, but I still need the original documents before the deadline or your candidate is out. That being said, this isn’t the reason you’re here.” She tossed the copy of the check in his direction. “When you leaked the copy of that check to Election Headquarters, did you know it was a forgery?”

  A muscle twitched at the corner of his eyes as he glowered at her. “Are you implying I knowingly made false allegations?”

  The guy was slipperier than a fish in an oil barrel. If he thought he could get away with something illegal, no doubts existed in her mind that he would risk it.

  “If you didn’t, you’ll have no qualms telling me how you obtained that photocopy.” Her best tactic consisted of cornering him and facing his wrath. “Unless you prefer that I give this to the police and let them investigate your candidate?”

  The cloud of an investigation rolling over his candidate’s head would jeopardize his campaign and obliterate his chances of winning. His next move should reveal where his loyalty lay and how much he cared about his party.

  He stared at her with venom in his eyes. “You’re bluffing.”

  “You tried to discredit a returning officer and the candidate of an opposing party by providing Election Headquarters with forged documents and you think I’m bluffing?” The answer Liliane received from Nathalie’s daughter at the credit union had shocked her. She never expected the check to be real. Someone with access to Thomas’ company check book stole one, forged his signature, and dropped it in the mailbox of Greg’s campaign office. While this was the only logical explanation, proving it belonged in a different story. A story for a later time. At the moment, she aimed to establish Stuart’s level of involvement in the smear campaign.

  “Okay, I’ll settle with you, but what I’m about to tell you can’t leave this room.” The man flipped open the visitor chair and straddled it. “A few weeks back, I came to work early and found an envelope in the mailbox of the party campaign office. It was addressed to the manager. The copy of the check was inside.” The small muscle at the corner of his right eye twitched again. “Everybody knows Finch supported that party, but I never imagined he’d blatantly contribute to it. Needless to say, I was stupefied and perplexed.” The little muscle contracted again. “Though I’m not an expert in forgery, I did suspect the check might not be as good as it appeared since it came from a corporate account and the amount exceeded the limit authorized by the law. That’s the reason I gave the copy to your election guy instead of leaking it to the media. Are you blaming me for taking the honorable road?”

  Her gaze riveted on her visitor, Liliane leaned back in her chair and waited in silence for the next muscle spasm. Seconds morphed into minutes during which he blinked a few times, without twitching. He rose to his feet.

  “Are we done here?” The man’s arrogance oozed from his stoic stance. “Or should I wait for the police to handcuff me?”

  His story matched Greg’s, which conjured up two divergent scenarios in her mind. “Does your candidate know about the check?”

  “No, so if I were in your shoes, I would think twice before ruining his campaign by involving the police.” A smirk tugged at his lips. “I’d hate to have to accuse you of colluding with the enemy.”

  “You have a good day, Stuart.” While Liliane hated to retreat, she opted for the route that sounded the safest at this point, and made him believe he won this round. “And on your way out, I suggest you apologize to the receptionist for your hasty arrival.”

  His smirk blossomed into a smile as fake as Thomas’ signature. “Of course. Have a good day, Liliane.”

  As he turned away, she spied the tiny muscle twitch again.

  ~ * ~

  The wildlife officers notified Ethan Mink that his immediate presence at the police station was required. He and his sons were scheduled to arrive in the evening. By then, Jasper hoped to be able to provide some sort of explanation.

  Yellow tapes cordoned off the Minks’ residence.

  Jasper parked in the empty driveway and entered the premises through the side garage door with the broken window.

  Though the car had been processed, he still donned gloves before opening the driver’s side door. The car was equipped with a push-button start. Jasper remembered looking into the purse abandoned on the front passenger seat. Among other things, it contained a wallet and an electronic key fob.

  A fine powder covered the ignition button indicating it had been dusted for prints.

  He called the lab. “This is Detective O’Neil speaking.”

  “If you’re calling about the Sophie Mink’s case, Detective, I’m almost done with the preliminary report.” The voice belonged to the younger man who worked the scene this morning.

  “That’s great.” Jasper commended their efficiency. “Can you tell me if the print on the push-button start of the car belonged to the victim?”

  “Let me see...” Papers ruffled in the background. “Yes, it matches the right index finger of the victim. I guess I should include that in the report.” The young man mumbled the last sentence. “Anything else, Detective?”

  Jasper would have preferred hearing a different answer. “Was there a glass or bottle of water, or any other liquid, in the car?”

  “Hold on...” The young man hummed as he processed his question. “We found an empty, and dry, thermos in the trunk. It didn’t look like it contained liquid in a while. No other containers.”

  While the absence of liquid didn’t prove anything—some people swallowed pills without drinking anything—it raised a red flag. “That’ll be all for now. Thanks.”

  Jasper stepped inside the house.

  The master bedroom was located at the end of the corridor. The walls were painted a soothing mint green while the thick carpet resembled a sea of moss. A bed devoid of any headboard stood in the middle of the room. No comforter covered the peach satin sheets. Three of the four pillows were fluffed while the remaining one sported the visible indentation of a human head.

  To refresh his memory, he looked at the photo he brought with him. In the confines of his office, the wall behind looked white, but under the sunlight filtering through the large window, it showed a tinge of green. While it could be an optical illusion created by the walls surrounding him, he nonetheless intended to ask the guys at the lab for their opinion.

  The sheets are different.

  That much he couldn’t deny, so he searched every drawer of every dresser and the walk-in closet before looking under the bed. No yellow negligee and no fancy white sheets. When the boys’ and the spare bedroom didn’t yield any results either, Jasper examined the bathroom with a fine-tooth comb.

  There was one thing that the victim’s purse or pockets had not contained. Sedatives.

  Jasper found a few prescription bottles, some over-the-counter medicines, but not the sedatives that saturated Sophie’s blo
odstream. The closet was filled with towels and more colorful sheets. His instincts told him to keep searching. When he peeked inside the empty laundry hamper, it reminded him to look in the washer and dryer.

  The laundry appliances were relegated to the unfinished basemen next to a discolored plastic tub and the hot water tank. A box of detergent pods rested on the dryer. He lifted the lid of the washer, but nothing encircled the agitator. When he opened the door of the dryer, a pillowcase tumbled into the laundry basket laying in front of it on the concrete floor—a white pillowcase with subtle tone-on-tone embroidery along the edges.

  He emptied the load into the basket and carried it upstairs. Someone at the lab should be able to confirm these sheets were identical to the ones on which the victim posed in her yellow negligee. While it wouldn’t prove they were the exact same, it raised the possibility the picture originated from here. He also didn’t stumble on an identical negligee in the house, which suggested the one the victim wore on the bed might have ended up at the motel.

  After dropping the basket on the kitchen table, he ventured into the master bedroom a second time. With the photo in his hand, he moved around the bed trying to determine from which angle the shot was taken. His only visual clues were the pillows and the embroidered edge of the top sheet indicating at which end the head was located. Once he figured out the angle, he used the camera on his phone to determine the distance. He took a step back, a second one, a third, then bumped his back against the window overlooking a fenced backyard.

  As he glanced between his phone, the bed, and the window, he came to a sudden realization. The photo couldn’t have been taken from the inside. The angle was too narrow. He rushed outside, and through the lens of the camera, peeped into the bedroom.

  That’s it. The window glass even explained the distortion in the image.

  As new questions swirled at dizzying speed in his mind, Jasper re-entered the kitchen to search the cupboards and garbage cans. Still no traces of any sedatives or empty containers. Not even a single dirty glass rested on the counter.

  He eyed the dishwasher. The clean/dirty indicator flashed green. He dialed the lab. Again.

  The house needed to be processed inside and out for the presence of an intruder—or homicidal friendly visitor.

  Chapter Twelve

  ~Life is too short to live with regrets.~

  By the time Ethan Mink was escorted into his office around 8:00 p.m., Jasper had formulated a working theory—a theory full of holes and conflicting elements—in which Sophie didn’t choose to die.

  Jasper closed the door behind his visitor. “Thanks for coming, Ethan.”

  “The wildlife officers didn’t give me a choice.” The strapping truck driver with a cavernous voice eyed him in obvious confusion. “What’s going on? Did something happen to Sophie? I tried calling her, but she didn’t answer.”

  Long ago, a doctor told Jasper there were no good ways to tell someone they lost a loved one. Just say the words, Jasper, because they’ll stop listening as soon as they hear the word ‘dead’. The advice had proven to be true too many times.

  “I’m sorry, Ethan, but your wife died this morning.” For his own sake, Jasper hoped never to stop hating these words.

  An invisible chasm opened under his visitor’s feet, sucking the life out of him. The haunting and painful memory of the day he told his son that his beloved mama would never come back home resurfaced in his mind. The man wobbling in front of him stared into oblivion with the same hapless and battered expression as Dillon did all these years ago.

  “Why don’t you sit, Ethan?” Jasper pulled a chair behind the broken husband, and with a slight nudge on his shoulder, convinced him to sit before he collapsed on the floor.

  Devastation choked the man, and until it released its clutch, adding any details would be pointless, so one buttock hitched on the corner of his desk, Jasper waited.

  Time slowed down to a crawl, but then his plight appeared to sink in and Ethan wiped the unshed tears from his eyes. “What happened?”

  Jasper studied the man. How much he would share in the next few minutes would be influenced by how the grieving husband handled the details.

  The report beside his thigh listed the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning.

  Upon hearing where they found his wife, Ethan burst into a litany of reasons why it couldn’t be true. Sophie wasn’t careless, or depressed, or suicidal, or anything else that might have led to her premature death. He reacted the same explosive way to the suggestion his wife abused sedatives or any other drugs.

  Jasper didn’t argue. Earlier in the day, one of his officers toured the drugstores in town. All the pharmacists confirmed the sedative wasn’t prescribed to any members in the household, and the results of his own search of the family residence corroborated what the husband told him. “Ethan, we’re looking into the possibility your wife was drugged and her death staged to look like a suicide.”

  At the mention of foul play, his visitor slumped in the chair. “Someone killed Sophie? Why? Who?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. To your knowledge, did she have any enemies? Did she fight with anyone recently? Did she receive any threats?” The lack of struggle and the fact the drugs were ingested, not injected, implied the victim knew and might have trusted her killer. When the husband made the effort of concentrating but drew a blank, Jasper decided to probe him about the picture. “Does your wife own a yellow negligee, Ethan?”

  “How would you know that?” His disbelief sounded like an affirmative answer.

  Jasper presented him with the picture. “We believe someone lurked in your backyard and took candid shots of your wife through your bedroom window.”

  “Someone was stalking her? Frig, it’s my fault. I should have stayed in town with the boys instead of taking them camping. We could have gone fishing for an afternoon, played ball, built a treehouse...” His face etched with regrets, he flipped the picture between his fingers. “Sophie is...was beautiful, and flirty, and playful. I knew guys ogled her. Maybe one of them got the wrong idea and...” His chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. “I gave her that negligee for her birthday. She always wore it when I got back after a long haul. If whoever did this thought he could make it look like she killed herself over the picture by leaving it in the house, he didn’t know Sophie.”

  The assumption the picture was discovered in the house alluded to the husband’s innocence—unless Ethan lied to throw him off his scent. Jealousy over an affair had to be one of the oldest motives in the book. “You don’t think the picture would have bothered your wife?”

  “No, if anything, she would have thought it was flattering. She wasn’t ashamed of her body, you know. Every week she texted me a new sexy selfie so I’d think about her while I traveled.” The memory softened his expression. “She was the best thing that ever happened to me. What am I going to tell the boys?”

  The same thing Jasper told his son. That their mom loved them. That she would forever live in their hearts.

  It might bring Ethan’s family some comfort, but it wouldn’t bring them closure until the police arrested the individual responsible for her death.

  ~ * ~

  From what Liliane observed, the training session that Amanda conducted was a success. Unlike Jasmin, she skipped the irrelevant details and condensed the information while emphasizing the important points. Her explanations were concise and easy to understand, and she didn’t digress from the material. The new training officer captured and held the attention of her class for the right reasons until the end. Tonight’s workers would be ready to face the electors and deal with them.

  The contrast between Jasmin’s and Amanda’s teaching methods was striking, and had Liliane been aware of it before tonight, she would have fought Thomas to give the position back to Amanda.

  No more battles. In a sense, she’d won the war, but one fire remained to be doused. If nothing incendiary flared up in the morning, she would pay a visi
t to his construction company.

  Alone in the lobby of the election office after ushering the workers into the night, Liliane waited for Amanda to finish disconnecting the projector and computer in the training room. Everyone else left at 9:00 p.m., and on her way out, Nathalie had reminded her of their late-night ice cream date.

  “Amanda? Are you almost done?” I’m hungry and I’d like to go to bed before it’s time to get up. She longed for a different kind of excuse to stay up all night, but unfortunately, nobody would warm up her sheets tonight. Their few experimental nights together had come to an end.

  “Liliane?” The new training officer scurried into the lobby with an object in her hand. “Is that an office key?”

  The unmistakable dimple key presented to Liliane was numbered five. “Yes, it belonged to Jasmin. Where did you find it?”

  “Underneath the projector when I shelved it.” Amanda backtracked and turned off the light into the training room. “Why would she have left it there?”

  The why didn’t bother Liliane as much as the when. Last time she’d seen Jasmin in the office was the morning of Thomas’ death. Did the yoga instructor intend to skip town even before Jasper questioned her? Did she forget something and come back during the night? It wasn’t inconceivable that Jasmin disarmed the alarm, relocked the front door, took whatever she forgot, tossed the key by the projector, and left by the back door.

  This morning, when she caught Sophie in Thomas’ office, Sophie claimed the alarm was off when she sneaked in. Liliane needed to ask Damien or Jasper if they remembered arming the system, because if they didn’t, someone else walked within these walls with impunity. “Not sure, Amanda. When you browsed through the training materiel, did you notice anything missing?”