The Senator's Wife

by Karen Robards

  “For a minute there you were looking at me like I just turned into Ted Bundy.” A sideways glance and a quick grin accompanied this accurate reading of her thoughts.

  “The thought occurred.” She settled back against the headrest again, glad of the cool blast from the air conditioner. Ditches on either side of the road boasted weeds, not water, and the ponds in the fields they passed looked brackish and stale in the bright sunlight. It had been so hot for so long that even the trees looked wilted. “So why aren’t you taking me home? At the very least I need to take a shower and change.”

  The skin on her legs tingled from the alcohol in the wet-wipes. She had scrubbed at them through the nylon of her pantyhose, but scattered red-paint freckles still marred them.

  “Where do you think that pack of jackals we just escaped from is going to head?”

  “Oh.” Ronnie drew in a breath. She hadn’t thought of that. Sedgely, the Honneker family estate just outside Jackson that was their Mississippi home, would be surrounded. Her last glimpse of the reporters, caught from over her shoulder as she and Quinlan jumped into his Buick, had found them scattering in all directions as they ran for their cars. They would be hot on her heels already. If they couldn’t find her, and she devoutly hoped they could not, they would head for Sedgely. Beautiful Sedgely, with its antebellum mansion, driveway lined with oaks bearded with Spanish moss, and genteel stone fence that wouldn’t keep out an enterprising six-year-old much less a rabid horde of newspeople, was probably even now under siege.

  “I’d better warn Dorothy.” Ronnie picked up the cell phone on the console with a glance at him. “May I?”

  “Help yourself. Dorothy?”

  “Lewis’s mother. She’s at Sedgely.” She punched in the number as she spoke.

  “Oh, yes. Grandma.”

  Selma, Sedgely’s longtime housekeeper, answered on the second ring. Ronnie held up a hand to shush Quinlan.

  “Selma, this is Mrs. Lewis. Is Mrs. Honneker in?”

  “No’m, she’s not.”

  Ronnie supposed that Dorothy was at one of her numerous ladies’ luncheons, which was just as well. She would rather Selma be the one to break this kind of news to her disapproving mother-in-law.

  “Can you get in touch with her? Did she leave a number where she can be reached?”

  “She’s at Miz Cherry’s.”

  Honoria Cherry was one of Dorothy’s oldest friends. Like the Honnekers, the Cherrys were old tobacco money. They owned the neighboring estate of Waveland.

  “Selma, listen: Would you call her over there, please, and tell her that a woman threw paint on me at the fair, I’m not hurt, and the press will be descending on Sedgely. I don’t want her to be caught by surprise.”

  “Tell her to say she doesn’t know anything about it if she’s asked,” Quinlan instructed while Selma talked in Ronnie’s other ear. “Tell her to tell Grandma that too.”

  “Selma says that reporters have already started to call, and there’s a strange car parked opposite the rear entrance. It’s empty, though,” Ronnie said to Quinlan, covering the mouthpiece with her hand.

  “Probably a reporter sneaking around, hoping to get a quick picture or a quote. Tell her what I said. She don’t know mithin’ about mithin’.”

  Ronnie repeated his words into the receiver, assured Selma that she was all right, and hung up.

  “Now for Lewis,” she said with a grimace, and punched in the number of his cell phone. When a disembodied voice said he couldn’t be reached, she was relieved. Lewis was going to be less than happy about this latest turn of events.

  “The Bell South customer is not available at this time,” she said to Quinlan, mimicking the prim tones of the recording, and dialed Lewis’s office in Washington. She gave the news to Moira Adams, his administrative assistant, requesting that it be passed on to Lewis when they located him. Duty done, she hung up and replaced the phone on the console. “Now what? I can’t go home.”

  “I thought I’d take you home with me.” That deep, too-southern voice was starting to grow on her, though as a general rule Ronnie wasn’t a fan of southern accents. Probably because Lewis adopted one whenever he crossed into Mississippi airspace and discarded it the minute he was winging toward Washington again. During the winter months, which they spent in their Georgetown row house, his southern origins were hardly detectable in his voice.

  As a consequence, she supposed, that slow, slurring drawl always sounded artificial to her.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ronnie objected. “Think what the papers could do with that. ‘Senator’s Wife Hides Out in Home of Political Consultant,’ or something. They’d end up making it sound like they’d caught me red-handed in a love nest.”

  She felt, and sounded, bitter. His expression as he glanced at her remained tranquil.

  “I have an apartment in Jackson, and you’re right, it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to take you there. If for no other reason than that they’ll be staking out my place too. I meant my mother’s house. She’ll be there.”

  “Your mother’s house?”

  “She lives just outside of De Kalb, which is about thirty miles from here. Nobody will think to look for you there. Give you a place to clean up, and a little breathing space, while we decide how to handle this.”

  “You’re from Mississippi?” Ronnie didn’t know why she felt surprised. That down-home accent should have been indication enough. But political consultants always seemed to come from somewhere else. They were constantly on the move, flying from place to place, campaign to campaign, election to election, the ultimate migrant workers. It was hard to imagine one with roots in a place like Mississippi.

  “Yup. Lived here most of my life. Actually I went to Ole Miss with Marsden. We roomed together one year.”

  Marsden was Lewis’s oldest son. By his first wife, the sainted Eleanor. Ronnie’s stepson, although he was eight years her senior.

  “Well, now, that’s certainly a recommendation,” Ronnie said dryly when she recovered from her surprise at the revelation, which gave her sense of trust in him a severe jolt. “Being a friend of Marsden’s is all you need to get a job with me anytime.”

  “Don’t get on with Marsden very well, hmm?” He glanced at her again, humor in his eyes.

  “I’d call that the understatement of the century. Marsden thinks I broke up his parents’ marriage, among other things. He loathes me. And I promise you, the feeling’s mutual.”

  “And did you?”

  “Did I what? Oh, break up Lewis’s marriage? No.” She hesitated. How much should she tell him? The surprising intimacy that had sprung up between them had to be weighed against cold facts: he was a hired political consultant brought in by Lewis’s office to “handle” her, and he had been Marsden’s college roommate.

  As far as inspiring her with confidence, his resume struck out on both counts.

  “Most of Mississippi thinks that, you know.” His tone was faintly apologetic as he delivered that unpalatable truth.

  Ronnie grimaced, glancing down at her ruined dress. “It’s pretty obvious.”

  “That’s what we’re going to change. Stick with me, lady, and in six months you’ll be as popular as corn dogs at a fair, I promise.”

  In spite of herself Ronnie had to laugh. “Does that come with a money-back guarantee?”

  “Absolutely.” He was smiling. “It’s all a matter of spin, you see. Most voters tend to view everyone in the political arena in terms of a stereotype. It makes it easier for them, doesn’t require as much work. The stereotype you fit into right now is ‘the other woman,’ younger and more attractive, who comes along and steals a basically good man from his faithful, loving wife of many years. If you think about it that way, it’s easy to see why they don’t like you.”

  “But it’s not true. Really not true. I didn’t steal Lewis. He was already separated when we started dating.” Ronnie couldn’t help it. She had to be clear on that point at least.

&n
bsp; “Which was?”

  “About six years ago. I had been working in his office for a few years before that, but we didn’t have a personal relationship until I knew that his marriage to Eleanor was, for all intents and purposes, over.”

  “How’d you two meet, anyway?”

  “I was just nineteen, a sophomore at the American University in Washington, and Lewis came and spoke to a class I was taking. I thought what he had to say was interesting, so I asked him a lot of questions. After class he came up to me in the hall and asked me if I would like to apply for a part-time job that had just become available in his office. I did, and was hired. I started out doing secretarial-type things for him and worked my way up the office food chain.”

  “So you worked for him.”

  Ronnie nodded, hesitated, and decided that there was no harm in giving him a bare-bones outline of the rest of it. After all, she had done nothing to be ashamed of, whether Marsden—and the voters of Mississippi—chose to believe it or not. What she wouldn’t say was how persistently Lewis had pursued her from the start. The truth—that Lewis had asked her out repeatedly, from the time she had joined his staff as a nineteen-year-old part-timer to the moment she had finally said yes—did not reflect well on her husband. Loyalty dictated that she keep that part to herself. “When I graduated, he offered me a full-time job as a legislative aide. He and Eleanor were separated by that time, although they kept it quiet for fear it would hurt his chances for reelection. After a while Lewis and I started dating. Eleanor was already involved with someone else. That’s the way it was all during Lewis’s last campaign, although Lewis and Eleanor appeared together in public when they had to. After the election was over, Eleanor got a quickie divorce, and Lewis and I got married. He thought that would give voters six whole years until the next election to get used to me. Only it’s been three years already, and they don’t seem to like me any better now than they ever did. What happened today is a prime example.”

  “That sure wasn’t any valentine, I agree.” Quinlan slanted a glance at her. “You have any plans to have a baby with the Senator?”

  “What?” Shock brought Ronnie upright in her seat. She could not believe he had asked her something so personal.

  “A baby’d warm the voters up to you, you know. Everybody loves a new mom and her sweet little baby. If you’re planning on having kids anyway, it’s something to think about doing before the next election. Three more years gives you plenty of time.”

  “If and when I decide to have a baby, it certainly won’t be to help win an election!”

  “Just a thought,” he murmured, unapologetic. His glance at her contained a hint of speculation. Ronnie wondered just exactly how much he really knew about Lewis. If he’d been Marsden’s college roommate, presumably quite a bit. But maybe not. Not many people knew the private Lewis. She wasn’t even sure if Marsden did.

  “Just how close are you and Marsden?” Ronnie asked suspiciously.

  “Friends once, more what I’d term acquaintances now. Don’t worry, I won’t be giving him weekly updates on you and your doings. I work for you, not him.” Quinlan smiled at her as he spoke.

  “Just so we have that straight.”

  He slowed at a stop sign, then turned left on a blacktop road that was even narrower than the one they’d left behind. On this one, two cars could pass each other if they both hugged the gravel shoulder, but it would be a tight fit. Sagging wire fences stretching between weathered fence posts bordered the road on both sides. In field after field small herds of black-and-white cows grazed in patches of shade provided by the occasional tree. A quartet of pigs lolled in a muddy stream, only the tops of their heads visible above the brown water. A pair of plump white geese pecked at something in the scrub grass beside the road. A farmer in a straw hat and denim overalls waved from his tractor. Quinlan honked, and waved back.

  “Do you know him?” Quinlan in his elegant suit seemed to have’ no connection to the hardworking farmer.

  “I know everyone around here. My family has lived in these parts for generations. Ah, here we are.”

  He slowed, turning in at a gravel driveway. Ronnie got just a glimpse of a battered metal mailbox on a weathered post before they passed it. Ahead of them was a two-story farmhouse, white clapboard, with narrow windows and a gray-painted porch and shutters, homely rather than grand, and obviously old. A big oak spread its branches over the scraggly front lawn, while a grove of silver maples sheltered a second entrance and a picnic table to the side. A sagging barn, bigger than the house and in dire need of paint, stood on a little rise at the end of the driveway. Not that driveway was quite the right word for the gravel trail over which the car bumped. It was more of a farm track, continuing on past the house through a small field with a grove of what looked like apple trees and a vegetable garden on the right, and a chicken coop and some other kind of outbuilding on the left. Quinlan pulled up alongside the house and stopped in a patch of shade provided by the silver maples.

  A teenage boy in baggy khaki shorts and a white T-shirt came out through the screen door at the side entrance, then paused on the concrete stoop as he saw the car. The door banged shut behind him.

  Quinlan got out of the car. “Hey, Mark! Why aren’t you at work?”

  Mark shrugged without answering. Another car pulled up behind them, tires crunching on gravel, and a horn tooted as Ronnie got out. In motion once more, the boy headed toward the newly arrived car, whose driver’s-side door was opening invitingly.

  “See ya,” he said to Quinlan with a wave, and slid behind the wheel as the blond girl who had been driving scooted into the passenger seat.

  “Ten o’clock,” Quinlan warned.

  “Midnight,” the boy shot back, slamming the door.

  “Ten,” Quinlan responded, unyielding, but if the boy heard, he gave no indication of it. He was already looking over his shoulder as he backed down the driveway with more speed than care. The car reached the road, pulled out, and was off in a shower of gravel, with a honk and a wave from both occupants.

  “Loren invited him to go swimming, so he called in sick.” Ronnie looked around to find a sixty-ish woman wearing blue gingham slacks and a white blouse standing on the side porch Mark had just vacated. She had weathered skin and short white hair, and she was frowning distractedly as she addressed Quinlan.

  “I figured it was something like that. That little girl is pure bad news.” Quinlan sounded grim. He then seemed to recollect his audience and looked around for Ronnie, who stood uncertainly on the other side of the car.

  “Mom, this is Mrs. Lewis Honneker, wife of His Honor the Senator. Miz Honneker, this is my mother, Sally McGuire.”

  “Oh, my,” Mrs. McGuire said, stepping down off the porch, hand outstretched. “This is a pleasure, Mrs. Honneker. I knew your—my goodness, would he be your stepson? That’s Marsden, of course. Well, I knew him pretty well at one time, and I know the rest of the family too. At least I did. Anyway, it’s good to have you visit.”

  “Thank you.” Ronnie smiled her best senator’s-wife’s smile and shook hands. The other woman’s gaze ran over first her and then Quinlan with growing surprise.

  “My goodness, whatever happened?” she asked, eyes wide as she looked at her son. “That’s not blood, is it?”

  “We got in the way of some paint,” Quinlan answered, shepherding Ronnie toward the house. “Miz Honneker here needs a shower and a change of clothes and then maybe something to eat. You got anything good in the kitchen?”

  “You know I do.” His mother was behind them as Quinlan ushered Ronnie through the screen door and into the cool dimness of what looked like an old-fashioned back parlor. There was even an organ against one wall. “There’s turkey, and some ham, unless Mark ate it all, which he probably did. And I have some cake, too, fresh baked. Red Velvet.”

  “My mom’s the best cook in Mississippi,” Quinlan informed Ronnie with conviction, putting his arm around his mother as she joined them. “Wait till you tas
te her Red Velvet cake. But first things first. The shower’s up those stairs, second door on the right.”

  “Those towels on the rack are clean,” Mrs. McGuire said. “I just put them out. And there’s shampoo in the closet. Anything else you find you need when you get up there, you just holler.”

  “Thank you.” Ronnie hesitated, feeling that it was slightly rude to go off to take a shower just like that, as though she belonged in their house. But from the expressions on the faces of both mother and son, she saw that they expected nothing less. She headed toward the narrow staircase at the far end of the room, all too conscious that they were still watching her. What would Quinlan tell his mother when they were alone? she wondered.

  The full story of what had happened, no doubt.

  The knowledge made Ronnie squirm inwardly as she climbed the stairs. It was humiliating to be so disliked, and for such a reason.

  Chapter

  6

  3:30 P.M.

  BILOXI

  TV EVANGELIST’S Daughter Found Dead

  The body of the 23-year-old daughter of televangelist Charlie Kay Martin was found at 4:00 P.M., Friday, floating in the Gulf of Mexico just off Deer Island. Biloxi police spokesperson Sgt. Connie Lott said that the coroner’s findings were not consistent with an accidental drowning in the death of Susan Marie Martin, and foul play is suspected. Long estranged from her family, Martin was thought to be living in Biloxi at the time of her death. A spokesperson for Mr. Martin said that the televangelist would have no immediate comment, but added that he and his wife were “heartbroken.” Sgt. Lott said the investigation is continuing.

  The article in the daily newspaper was small. Marla Becker would have missed it altogether had it not been positioned right over a travel agency’s ad for a two-night, three-day junket to Las Vegas for the incredible price of $199, airfare and a daily buffet breakfast included. A trip to Vegas was Marla’s dream. To her it was the ultimate destination, the one place where her fantasies could actually come true.

  It wasn’t that she wanted a vacation. She figured that, with her blond, leggy good-looks, Vegas was just the place to hook up with a high-rolling sugar-daddy type who would be interested in introducing her to the kind of life to which she was dying to become accustomed.