Poisoned Politics

by Maggie Sefton

  I laughed out loud, then took a sip of coffee before answering. “You mean was it good? As in scream-out-loud, best-sex-I’ve-ever-had good? Ohhhhh, yeah.”

  “Thank gawd!” she exhaled. “I didn’t think your Double D, Danny Dangerous, would disappoint. Tell me, where did you two go for dinner? You said he had plans.”

  “That, he did. A catering truck arrived at the same time we got to my house from Senator Russell’s. They brought all sorts of delicious food in covered pans and set up everything before they departed. Danny and I never left the house all weekend. Except late Sunday afternoon, when we went out for a run.” I sipped my coffee and listened to Samantha laugh.

  “Mercy, I’m all aglow just hearing about it,” she said in an outrageous Southern Belle voice. “I simply love it. Shacked up all weekend. You’re a woman after my own heart, Molly. Fine food, fine wines, and fine loving. Oh, you did have wine, didn’t you? I hope Danny relaxed the ‘no wine’ rule for this weekend.”

  “Yes, he did. We had an unbelievable reserve Cabernet. I don’t want to know what it cost.”

  “Stop being an accountant. It’s about time you were properly taken care of, sugar. Your dear Dave and that politico Frank just weren’t up to the task.”

  I snickered. “You make me sound like an urban renewal project.”

  “You’re a project, all right. And you’re definitely difficult. Few men would even bid on it.”

  This time, I nearly choked on my coffee.

  “It’s the truth, sugar. I was about to give up on you until Danny showed up. You two have a connection so strong it gives off sparks. I can feel it. Clearly, you two are destined to be together.”

  “You’re such a romantic. You know I don’t believe in destiny. Danny and I were just lucky to find each other after all these years. I suppose I have the D.C. Dirt to thank for that. Maybe I’ll buy a subscription and stop mooching Casey’s.”

  “Make fun all you want, Molly. But you know I’m right. I know you, girl. There’s a romantic inside you, and you’re just afraid to let it out. Now you can. Don’t argue with me.”

  “What? Me, argue with the all-wise, omniscient Miss Thing? Never!”

  “I certainly hope Danny plans to stay in town for a while. Now that he’s got added incentive to do so.”

  “I think so, but I never really asked. It must have slipped my mind. Funny how sex clouds the brain.”

  “Amen to that. Well, I think I’ve had as much vicarious stimulation as I can handle right now, given that I need to meet Eleanor and her friends for another charity luncheon. This time in that patio off the Smithsonian’s Sculpture Garden.”

  I checked my watch. After eleven already. “Thanks, I needed the reminder. I’m meeting Natasha Jorgensen for lunch near the Capitol. We’re having burgers or hot dogs from a truck. The girl is a workaholic, but I convinced her she needed to take a break.”

  “That’s like the pot calling the kettle black. Say hi to Natasha for me, please. I’ve got to go put on the habit before I leave.”

  “Give Mother Superior my best,” I said with a smile as I clicked off the phone, closed out of the spreadsheet, and reached for my purse.

  _____

  It was well past noon and the August sun was beating down, relentless, reflecting off the asphalt of Pennsylvania Avenue as Natasha and I walked away from the food vendor cart. Dog Days of August. The sun glare was so intense, even my sunglasses couldn’t filter it all. My clothes were drenched already. No wonder my dry cleaning bills were so high.

  “There’re some benches over there under the trees,” Natasha said, pointing across the street.

  I took a bite of my New York–style hot dog with all the trimmings as I walked. Couldn’t resist. “Yummmmm,” I said, savoring. “I forgot how good these are.”

  “Yeah, it’s delicious, but I’ll probably regret it by late afternoon,” Natasha joked, licking mustard off the edge of the long bun.

  The traffic light changed just as we approached, so we scurried across the intersection as the mechanical birdy chirped its warning to the vision-impaired. Trees and shade beckoned ahead. Natasha and I fairly raced down the sidewalk and escaped into the welcoming shade.

  “Just in time. My scalp was getting sunburned,” I said as we walked toward an unoccupied bench. Two women had just vacated it.

  Others had sought the shade, too, sitting on benches reading, eating lunch, talking on cell phones. Several yards away I spotted a group of elementary-age children sprawled on the grass as two women passed out soda cans. It was too early for most schools to be in session, so I figured it was a church- or civic association-sponsored tour. The kids had the telltale uniform-color tourist bandanas.

  Tourists were everywhere. Piling off tour buses parked along Pennsylvania Avenue and adjoining streets, walking behind tour guides who managed to cross streets backwards while giving verbal instructions to their groups at the same time—in English and in multiple foreign languages. Tourists rolled by on large-wheeled touring vehicles, paraded in quiet disciplined lines and in unruly noisy bunches. Climbing the Capitol steps, posing for pictures around the fountains, traipsing along the avenues, and perched on the stone borders edging the National Gallery licking ice cream cones and popsicles.

  Two men passed us, both carrying what looked like iced coffees. “Whose idea was it to have lunch outside today?” I joked.

  Natasha swallowed her last bite of hot dog then grinned at me. “That’s okay. Even though the heat’s brutal, it still feels good to get away from the office and into fresh air. Even with the humidity.”

  I polished off the last of my hot dog as we claimed the bench. Opening the cap of my icy diet cola, I gulped down the cold liquid. Cold had never felt so good. “Ahhh, now I feel better.”

  Natasha followed suit, upending her lemon-lime drink, then exhaled a long sigh. “Boy, I needed that.”

  “Have you heard any more about your friend Gary?”

  “Yeah, his mother sent me a card thanking me for the flowers I sent to their home in Minneapolis. He had a lot of family there, so I’m glad his parents weren’t alone. They’re still broken up about Gary dying from a drug overdose.” She exhaled a long sigh.

  “I can’t imagine how hard that is for them,” I commiserated. “How about you, Natasha? How’s it going at Chertoff’s office? Are you feeling more settled in?”

  “Oh yeah. They treat me like I’ve always been with them. It’s been an easy adjustment. Of course, I have to study up on Congresswoman Chertoff’s committee and subcommittee work. But the August recess gives me time to catch up. The congresswoman is back in Iowa. So I have the time. Good thing, because I have a lot of late-night reading every night. That reminds me.” She reached into her purse and withdrew a small key-ring-sized computer storage drive and held it out. “I copied those files for you. I may be studying some of them myself, since Chertoff’s subcommittee deals with International Monetary Policy.”

  I took the little green storage drive and dropped it in my purse. “Thanks, Natasha. I appreciate your help. I’ll take a look in a few days.” No way was I going to research dry financial legislation while Danny was in town. We had plans every evening this week. Data searches could wait until Danny was off consulting … or whatever he did while away. Remembering my earlier conversation with Loretta Wade, I said, “Congressman Jackson is on the same subcommittee as Chertoff. In fact, last spring Sally mentioned that she and Jackson were working on something together. Were they drafting a bill?”

  “Well, they were, but it looks like it’s stalled now. So, I’m not sure where it’s going. Seems support has waned, if you know what I mean.” She eyed me before draining her lemon lime.

  “I have a good idea. Someone with more seniority has shifted his support. But with both Chertoff and Jackson behind the bill, you might see some movement. I’ve heard Jackson is a rising star.”

/>   Natasha smiled slyly. “Apparently. He’s a good guy. And a damn good congressman.”

  A woman walked past us, talking loudly on her cell phone. An older man squatted on the grass and threw breadcrumbs to the pigeons. Within a minute, he had an eager, cooing audience.

  Flying rodents, my father used to call them. He hated the pigeons and insisted that one of them would wait for him to walk from the Capitol every evening, then swoop down and deposit something on his expensive felt fedora. In an era when every gentleman wore a hat outside, this was a grievous annoyance. I always made sure I didn’t smile while I pictured my dignified U.S. Senator father shaking his fist at the feathered miscreant as it flew away.

  Curious, I asked, “Have you ever worked with Larry Fillmore? Since he’s Jackson’s chief of staff now, I figured both your offices might have collaborated.”

  This time, Natasha’s smile turned contemptuous. “That slime? I met with him earlier this spring when Wilson and the Ohio delegation were going to Omaha for meetings. What a jerk! And for the record, there’s no collaboration with Larry. It’s his way or nothing.” Natasha glanced at her watch. “Darn it. It’s over a half hour already. I’d better get back.”

  “Me too,” I said, as we both rose from the bench.

  “Thanks for thinking of me, Molly. I appreciate it,” Natasha said with a big smile. “You’ve been involved in this hothouse a lot longer than I have, and I forget how easy it is to burrow into work at the office and not come out until dark. It felt really good to be outside, even with the heat.”

  “We’ll do it again in the fall. Until then, we can always meet up while we’re running by the Canal. It’s a lot nicer in the mornings.”

  “Great idea.” She gave me a smiling wave as she walked away.

  “Take care,” I called as I started in the opposite direction. Tossing my empty soda can into a nearby metallic trash bin, I headed toward Pennsylvania Avenue to catch a taxi. I needed a cab to return to Russell’s office. Too bad Georgetown wasn’t on the metro line. Years ago, Georgetown’s longtime residents, dubbed the cave dwellers, gave a thumbs-down on metro stations in their neighborhoods. Foggy Bottom was the closest, and it was several blocks from the Russell mansion. A nice walk most times of year, but not in the Dog Days of August.

  _____

  Trask leaned back in a metal chair beneath the café table’s blue-and-white-striped umbrella and sipped his beer. Tucked away in a rear patio, Pennsylvania Avenue traffic noise was muffled and barely reached the sheltered bistro. Most of the D.C. lunchtime crowd had returned to their offices by now, and not many tourists ever discovered the small cafe. That was another reason Trask liked it. He flipped open his cell phone and pressed a familiar number.

  “We didn’t have to wait for long,” he said when Raymond’s scratchy voice answered.

  “Tell me.”

  “Jorgensen met with Malone for lunch today near the Rayburn Building.”

  “You gotta be kidding. The two of them together?” Raymond chortled. “Christ! Talk about dumb luck.”

  “It wasn’t luck,” Trask corrected. “I figured Spencer was going to cancel Jorgensen’s surveillance because nothing showed up. But I still had a feeling about her, so I watched where she parked this morning while she went running. Then I got into her car and bugged her cell phone. That’s how I learned she was meeting Malone. Jorgensen called her and said she’d be late for lunch.”

  “Were you able to get there in time?”

  “Yeah, with the cycle. They grabbed hot dogs off a cart on Penn then found a shady bench near the Rayburn Building. So I started feeding pigeons on the grass nearby.”

  “Were you able to overhear anything?”

  “Nah. Too much traffic noise. But I did see Jorgensen hand Malone a storage drive, a green one, exactly like the one I found on Jorgensen’s desk with Wilson’s files.”

  “No shit? Damn.”

  “Yep. That’s what I say. Now that ought to be enough for even those weak sisters on Spencer’s committee.”

  “Don’t bet on it. Spencer said the new members nearly peed their pants when they heard about the second termination. Too close to the first one.”

  “But Jorgensen knows everything Wilson did. She can cause trouble.”

  “Not quite everything. She wasn’t in that library room like Wilson was, eavesdropping on Ryker and Holmberg. Spencer is betting Wilson didn’t share that part with his staffer.”

  Trask made a disgusted noise then took a deep drink of beer. Even out of the sun, no one could escape the heat. “You know, it sounds like old man Ryker is slipping. Starting to make mistakes. What in hell was he doing, talking about that stuff in a public place?”

  “I hear you. Spencer said he damn near choked when Ryker told him about it. Ryker was just lucky he was still in the hallway when Wilson slipped out of the room, otherwise he’d never have known Wilson was eavesdropping.”

  “And he’s lucky they have us to clean up their messes.” He looked up at the young waitress and smiled. “I’ll take the quesadillas.”

  Raymond chuckled. “By the way, that was great work, Trask. I’m gonna put you in for a medal.”

  “Screw the medal. They can add it to my fee. I’ve got my eye on a bigger boat. Maybe I’ll check it out this weekend. If they’re not gonna worry about the Jorgensen chick, then I sure as hell won’t.”

  “Let’s wait and see what Spencer says. The fact that Ms. Malone may have a copy of Wilson’s files won’t set well. Last spring she was using the Allard girl to check some of the same information Wilson found out. But Malone stopped snooping after Molinoff took that dive off his balcony. Everything was all tied up, nice and neat. And now this. Crap! I’ll call Spencer now. He’s not going to be happy Malone is involved again.”

  “What is it with this Malone woman? I understand about her niece last spring. That one needed to be messy, and Malone found her. But you once said that Malone has a past history with Spencer’s group. I know Eric Grayson was her brother-in-law and all that, but she wasn’t even here in Washington when I did that job. So, what’s the rest of it?”

  “It’s … complicated.”

  Trask recognized Raymond’s tone when he was deliberately hedging. He snickered. “Okay. Let me know what Spencer says.”

  “At minimum, I think he’ll want us to find out what’s on those files Jorgensen gave Malone. So you’ll probably be checking her computer tomorrow.”

  “Roger that.” Trask clicked off his phone, just as a platter of quesadillas was set before him.

  eighteen

  Tuesday morning

  “Did you make it to that meeting on time?” I asked as I grabbed a small yogurt from the fridge. “You had to leave so early, I was barely awake when you kissed me goodbye.”

  Danny’s voice came through the phone. “By the skin of my teeth. There was an accident on Wisconsin Avenue that slowed me down. Whoever scheduled a meeting at six thirty in the morning deserves to be shot.”

  I hurriedly set my half-filled coffee cup in the kitchen sink. I was running late because of an early morning call from my daughter informing me of her promotion at a Denver law firm. “Where are we going for dinner tonight?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. Probably somewhere close so I can get you back fast and take your clothes off.”

  I laughed as I dropped the yogurt into my purse and headed out the back door. “I like the way your mind works. Hey, I’ll talk to you later. Gotta run to the office now.”

  “Call me later.”

  I clicked off my phone as I slammed the back door and gave it the usual final pull to lock it. Old wood was swelling with the humidity. I’d have to give Peter my “To Do” list for fall maintenance. Hurrying around the side yard, I skipped down the steps to the sidewalk as Bruce meowed his lazy “goodbye.”

  _____

  Peter leaned
inside my office doorway. “Hey, Molly, I’m going to need you to print off some files for me. I’m still knee deep in studying financial legislation that’s coming up in the Senate Subcommittee on Security and International Trade and Finance next month. Unfortunately, I’m running behind schedule.”

  “Sure,” I said as I rose to follow him down the hallway. “Are you and the senator still leaving for Colorado this afternoon?”

  “We’ve moved it up to late morning,” he said, rounding the corner into his library office. “That’s why I’m hurrying now. This recess came at just the right time, believe me. The senator and I are buried. We’ll be studying the whole time we’re there.”

  “You’re the second staffer who’s told me that this week,” I joked. “Natasha Jorgensen is buried in trying to catch up on some of that same legislation for Sally Chertoff’s House Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade.”

  “I feel her pain. Chertoff told me she and Randall Jackson were working on a bill involving regulation. She didn’t go into detail.” He picked up a pile of papers from his inbox with one hand and started sorting through more papers spread out on the desk. “Where is that flash drive? Ah, there it is.” He snatched it up and handed it to me. “Please print out the files on international financial and development institutions, okay?”

  “Sure thing.” I was about to head back to my office when an idea slid forward from the back of my mind. “You know, Karen was researching subjects similar to that before she died. And I have some files on a flash drive at home. If you’d like I could copy them for you. So you’ll have them while you’re burrowed in for the recess.”

  Peter looked up quickly. “Hey, I’d love to see anything Karen was researching. She was the best.” He checked his watch. “But you’ll have to hurry up. We’ve gotta leave for the airport in forty-five minutes. Luisa and Albert are out on errands, so Casey is driving us. Can you get back by then?”

  “No problem.” I gave a dismissive wave. “Let me start these files printing while I run back home. See you in a few minutes.” I hurried from the library, telling myself that research was research, right?