“The meeting was a disaster,” Fenwick said as they drove to Area Ten. “I didn’t know I was a ‘boar hunting beast of the primeval forest.’”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Turner said.
“Very funny.”
“Who called you that?”
“Who remembers? And who cares?” They drove in silence the rest of the way to Area Ten. Fenwick turned off the engine. Neither of them moved to get out of the car.
“Now what?” Fenwick asked.
Turner said, “I go home, pick up Jeff, and we go to his basketball game. I have no ideas on the case. We can send Blessing and his computers hunting for these fake liberal groups. He’s probably already tried everything possible to check them out. We’ve talked to most of the suspects and witnesses at least twice. We’ve tried every lead and every possibility. The commander, the press, and the politicians can scream their heads off, but we ain’t got nothin’. And I for one am going to have some time for my family.”
Minutes later, Turner walked into his house. Brian was on the phone. From what the seventeen year old said, it sounded like he was trying to convince a date to join him at the basketball game.
Jeff was in his room. He’d changed into his warm-up suit with ROLLING ROCKETS emblazoned in bright red on the front.
“You coming to the game, Dad?” Jeff asked.
“Sure am.”
“Ben said he was going to try and make it. I hope I get to play more this time.”
Brian, at the door to the room, said, “Just try your best, squirt.”
“Are you bringing Marcia?” Jeff asked his older brother.
“Said she’d be there.”
“I like her,” Jeff said.
“Have I met Marcia?” Paul asked. “Do I want to meet Marcia?”
“She’s just another one of Brian’s girlfriends,” Jeff said, “but she brought me popcorn and a Coke at the last game. She was nice.”
They arrived fifteen minutes before the game was to start. Ben met them in the parking lot of the field house. Paul walked in with Jeff on his shoulders. His younger son waved and called to his friends rushing about the court shooting baskets, warming up for the game.
Clark Burke sat on the bottom row of the bleachers. He saw Paul and stood up, giving him a mystified look. Paul introduced him to Jeff, Ben, and Brian.
Burke looked at all three of them quizzically. “You have two sons?” Burke asked.
“Yeah,” Brian said, “it makes him feel macho.”
A pretty blonde-haired girl waved to Brian from across the court. Brian practically loped over to her. Paul talked to the coach and the parents, most of whom he knew. He met Marcia. She smiled shyly at him and greeted him politely. Paul liked her already.
Even Myra, ace mechanic, showed up to cheer Jeff on.
The game began. Paul sat between Ben and Burke. The college student looked confused. During a break in the action he asked softly, “Why am I here?”
“I wanted you to meet my sons and my lover,” Paul said.
“Oh,” Burke said. He was very quiet for most of the rest of the game, although he did tell Turner early on that the campus police had two suspects in the trashing of Burke’s room. They were a couple of neo-Nazis who’d seen his name connected with the Gideon Giles investigation. They’d planned on attacking some gay person on campus, but figured he’d be more vulnerable and shook up if they attacked now.
“How they catch them?” Turner asked.
Burke told him that the guys had tried to trash another dorm room, but many of the floors had banded together to provide a crime watch on each floor. “They practically walked into a trap,” Burke said.
Turner told Burke he was glad they caught the guys and hoped that would be the end of the problem. “What about your computer?” Turner asked.
“Everything they wrecked, they’re going to have to pay for.”
Jeff got to play for five minutes and scored his first basket in a game. His team won by eight points. After the game Jeff twirled his wheelchair around and around the basketball court. “Did you see that, Dad?” he called when he calmed down enough to talk to people.
Paul hugged his son and congratulated him. Jeff and Brian exchanged a complicated series of handshakes. Myra hugged Jeff and kissed him on the forehead, but said she had other plans so couldn’t stop for the victory party.
Paul insisted Burke accompany them to the house for a postgame celebration. Burke wound up walking ahead with Brian and Jeff.
Paul unzipped his jacket and took a deep gulp of the fresh spring breeze. “This is beautiful,” he said.
Ben murmured to Paul, “Are you sure you want to bring him along?”
“Yes, he’s got a puppy crush on me. I figure it’ll save him some embarrassment. He hasn’t asked me for a date or declared his love. This way he sees how I live, you, the boys. I think he’s a decent kid. He hasn’t had a lot of chances to socialize with an older group of gay people. He’s had his peers, which can sometimes be more unsettling to the ego than anything else.”
They sat in the kitchen, laughed and talked, ate hot dogs and beans. Clark seemed to become more at ease after Jeff asked if he was a murder suspect and Paul told him no, that he was someone he’d met at the beginning of the investigation at the University.
Ben left a few minutes after seven. Paul left Brian and Jeff to clean the kitchen. He sat with Burke in the living room.
“This is really nice,” Burke said.
Paul thanked him. Silence fell between them. Paul let it build.
Burke sat on the couch, clasping and unclasping his hands. He said, “Thank you for not letting me make a fool out of myself.”
“You’re welcome,” Paul said.
“Brian and Jeff know you’re gay?” Burke asked.
“You’ll be able to tell your family someday,” Paul said.
“I hope so.”
Paul asked how his new room was. Burke seemed pleased with it. Burke brought up the murder and asked how the investigation was going. Paul outlined some of what they’d done.
“It’s still scary when I think about it.”
Later Brian offered to drive Burke home. Clark turned him down, but accepted a ride when Paul made a similar suggestion a few minutes later. Paul drove the college student to the dorm. They talked little. As Burke got out of the car, he said, “Thanks for inviting me. I’m glad I met all those people.”
Turner decided to stop in Area Ten before returning home. It was only a few blocks out of the way. He wanted to see if there’d been any developments connected with Ricken. At the admitting desk they told him nothing had been reported on the murder, but that the campaign finance irregularities had already been assigned to a special unit at 11th and State.
The squad room was deserted. On the fourth floor he found Blessing tapping the keys of a computer. The cop gave him a nod of hello and said nothing new had come in. Turner wandered over to the wall displays. He’d gone over Blessing’s chart of people. Now he gazed at the hundreds of campaign brochures displayed on one of the other walls. He studied them idly.
Blessing eased up next to him. “It’s something, isn’t it,” he said.
Turner nodded.
“I put them up in order by years. The ones you’re looking at are from the first campaign.”
Turner saw a younger Gideon Giles and his wife shaking hands, posing in front of significant landmarks in the neighborhood. The two cops wandered down the wall examining them.
“Funny,” Turner said when he’d gone through several years. “After the first year or so, Mrs. Giles stops turning up.”
Blessing joined him. For an hour they minutely inspected all of the propaganda documents.
“She’s not in any of them for the past six years,” Turner said.
“Why is that odd?” Blessing asked.
“Mrs. Giles told us she was very involved in her husband’s campaigns. You got all that stuff up here we took from Giles office
at the University?”
Blessing directed him to a stack of cartons, each labeled by its contents. It took several minutes for Turner to find the box with the materials from the top of Giles’s desk. “No photo of him and his wife,” Turner said, “and I’m sure there wasn’t one.
“Everybody has a picture of themselves and their wives and kids on their desk?” Blessing said.
“People like to personalize the space they occupy,” Turner said. “I’ve got pictures of my kids on my desk. Fenwick has one of his family. Do you?”
Blessing nodded.
“It’s a normal thing, but this guy had nothing. I think I want to talk to Laura Giles again.”
He called Fenwick and told him what he had found.
Fenwick showed up a half hour later. Together they drove to the Giles’s home. Alex Hill opened the door. He glowered at them, but led them to the living room.
Lilac Ostergard sat on the black leather couch next to Laura Giles, holding her hand. Laura Giles looked at the two detectives and shuddered.
“Want me to throw them out?” Alex asked.
“Alex, if you could wait in the den,” she said. “I’ll talk to you later.” She said this quietly and without anger. Alex hesitated, but Lilac gave him a sharp look and he left.
Lilac said, “Do you want me to go, Laura?”
“No, stay, please,” she said. She looked at the two cops.
“Why aren’t you in any of your husband’s campaign literature for the past six years?” Turner asked.
“You don’t have to talk to these men,” Lilac said.
Laura Giles whispered, “I felt so shut out.”
“You lied to us when you said you worked closely with him in his campaigns?” Turner asked.
Turner could barely hear her murmur, “Yes.”
“You went to his office on Monday, didn’t you?” Turner asked.
Laura Giles body quivered. She grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I knew his secretary was gone on vacation. If I saw anyone, I could just say I was there to see Gideon, but nobody was around. I found his supply of health-food drinks. I poured in the poison and ran. I was petrified that someone would see me on the way out. No one did. A few minutes later I met him in the quadrangle for lunch.”
Laura Giles told how she had endured her husband’s increasing coldness and cruelty for years. “It had been building for years. I was loyal and helpful during all that time. I had that fatuous politician’s wife look down perfectly. He used me all up. I’d done everything right, and he dumped me. It would have been better if there was another woman. It made me even angrier because I was competing against his ambition. I could fight another woman, but I didn’t know how to fight his career.
“He just didn’t care for me and, like a stupid fool, I still loved him. I was addicted to him, and the more he deprived me of his love, the more I needed it.” She continued in a whisper. “All the years we worked together, and he told me last week he wanted a divorce. He hadn’t told any one yet, because he wanted to think about how it would affect his political chances. Not because he loved me, but because of how it would hurt his goddamned career.”
Later at Area Ten, Turner avoided the brass that showed up, and dodged the press.
They did enough paperwork to satisfy the needs of the arrest and left the rest of it until the morning.
Turner found both of his boys in the front room watching television. “Little late for a school night, Jeff,” Paul said.
“We saw on television where you solved the murder,” Jeff said.
“Ian was on too,” Brian said. “With the guy who was here last night. They said they had the biggest scandal to hit the city in years. Was that part of the murder?”
Paul gave brief explanations. He tucked Jeff into bed, gave his son an extra hug. In the living room he found Brian reading a book. His son looked up. “Jeff finally calm down?” he asked.
“He scored his first basket. He’ll be in heaven for days.”
“Or until his next game,” Brian said.
Paul got up. “Don’t stay up too late,” he said.
Brian nodded. As Paul reached the bottom step to go up to his room and catch up on his sleep, Brian called, “Dad.”
Paul looked back at his son.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Brian said.
Paul smiled. “Me too. See you in the morning.”
ZUBRO • ST. MARTIN’S PRESS NEW YORK
Also by Mark Richard Zubro
A Simple Suburban Murder
Why Isn’t Becky Twitchell Dead?
The Only Good Priest
Sorry Now?
Principal Cause of Death
Stonewall Inn Mysteries
Michael Denneny, General Editor
DEATH TAKES THE STAGE
by Donald Ward
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MYSTERIOUS FRIEND OF OSCAR WILDE
by Russell A. Brown
A SIMPLE SUBURBAN MURDER
by Mark Richard Zubro
A BODY TO DYE FOR
by Grant Michaels
WHY ISN’T BECKY TWITCHELL DEAD?
by Mark Richard Zubro
THE ONLY GOOD PRIEST
by Mark Richard Zubro
SORRY NOW?
by Mark Richard Zubro
THIRD MAN OUT
by Richard Stevenson
LOVE YOU TO DEATH
by Grant Michaels
SWITCHING THE ODDS
by Phyllis Knight
BREACH OF IMMUNITY
by Molly Hite
POLITICAL POISON
by Mark Richard Zubro
POLITICAL POISON. Copyright @ 1993 by Mark Richard Zubro. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
DESIGN BY JUDITH A. STAGNITTO
eISBN 9781466802803
First eBook Edition : September 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zubro, Mark Richard.
Political poison / Mark Richard Zubro. p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-09364-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 0-312-11044-8
I. Title.
PS3576.U225P65 1993
813’.54-dc20 93-17035
CIP
First Paperback Edition: May 1994
Political Poison Page 19