America the Beautiful

by Laura Hayden

“Can I offer you a ride?”

  Kate stared at him. He couldn’t be serious. “Back to Benton campaign headquarters? You and me? Are you trying to destroy my career? smear my reputation? mess with my digestion?”

  He laughed. “I guess that wouldn’t look so good. What if I dropped you off a few blocks shy of the building. What Emily doesn’t know won’t hurt us.”

  “You mean, what Emily doesn’t know won’t hurt you. What happens to me if she has areas of ignorance is another story. I don’t think it’s wise for us to be seen together.”

  “You mean it’s not safe?” He whistled. “That’s news to me. Or maybe not. I bet Emily is still circulating copies of that ‘Shoot to Kill’ poster of my face.”

  Kate performed her best double take. “You weren’t supposed to know about that,” she said in a shocked whisper.

  The look of surprise on his face was priceless. She waited a moment before bestowing on him her sweetest smile.

  “Gotcha.”

  WHEN KATE GOT BACK to the office, she knew it was high time she sicced her favorite investigators on the newly reformed enigma named Nicholas St. Andrews Beaudry. She wanted to know where he’d been, what he’d done, who he’d been with since the divorce. Sure, she knew the basics of his public life after Emily—his term in the Louisiana State Senate and so on—but what about his private life? Something was going on here. There were rocks to be turned over, secrets to be uncovered. For once, that didn’t give her insides the shakes the way it had since the Henderson catastrophe.

  She might feel horrible about it, but it was her job.

  Or at least it was another job for District Discreet.

  And Nick needed looking at if a political opponent ever had. His past with Emily and his present with their biggest opponent made it imperative that Kate figure out what they were dealing with. She told the still, small voice of her conscience to shut up and started to place the call. Then she put the phone down.

  Because of their almost-exclusively political clientele, the investigators had affiliated offices in practically every state capital in the nation. Kate knew that included Baton Rouge, Nick’s home base.

  It wouldn’t take even a phone call. One e-mail and Lee Devlin would get Nick under her virtual microscope and report back on what and who made him tick. Lee wouldn’t ask any questions as to why Kate was suddenly interested in information about Emily’s ex-husband. Such requests didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow when it came to the world of politicians and politics.

  Kate sent the e-mail.

  Four hours later, Lee called with some unusual news. “You’re right; the governor’s ex has changed,” she said. “Turned over a whole new leaf, grown himself a conscience, or just plain turned his back on the devil. And all this seems to have taken place three years ago. That’s when most of Beaudry’s life went up in a puff of smoke.”

  “What happened?”

  “Let’s call it a string of unfortunate events. His mother died of cancer, his father had a stroke, and one of his brothers took his own life after a failed marriage.”

  Ouch, Kate thought. That’d be a heavy load for anyone, with or without a working conscience. Maybe Nick’s sense of honor had been newly forged in the fire of disaster. Stranger things had happened.

  “So that’s what precipitated his sudden—what do we call it? Crisis of conscience? Enlightenment?”

  “Maybe,” the investigator said. “I’ve seen it happen before. When a man gets slapped in the face with proof of his own mortality, he’ll do one of three things: stay down, sink lower, or try to climb back up. Beaudry appears to be a climber. And so far it appears as if his changes are permanent. He’s been sober for two years. He didn’t even backslide when his father finally passed away six months ago—or at least I haven’t been able to dig up evidence of it, and that’s good enough for me. More often than not, losing a parent is the real acid test for what a person’s made of.”

  “So his religious conversion . . . ?”

  “It’s not something you can get a certificate of authenticity on, but it appears to me to be legit. When Nick’s back in Louisiana, he goes to the Methodist church he grew up in. It’s charming, but it’s too small and too poor to do him any good politically. When he’s in the capital, instead of attending some big, trendy nondenominational megachurch where he can get good press coverage and find lots of people to talk politics with—not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course—he drives out to a nice little neighborhood church in the Virginia suburbs. If anybody would know how to use phony religion to build a political base, it’s Nick Beaudry, but he’s steering clear of that entirely. I think he might just mean it.”

  “So now he’s the all new and improved Nick Beaudry.” Kate harrumphed. “Am I supposed to believe he’s taken vows of chastity and poverty as well?”

  “Nope. Neither. He’s not that different, though he does seem to be playing around less and shooting for permanence more. The arm ornaments are sticking around a lot longer. He likes women, and women like him. When I saw photos of him, I could see why. Yowza. So that part of his life hasn’t changed. He appears to have a healthy dating life, and his finances don’t seem to have suffered much.”

  “So I can’t translate that to he still prefers loose women to debutantes and still worships the almighty buck?” she asked, almost sadly. It would be easier for her to believe that Nick hadn’t really changed. Especially since he was on the other side of her political fight club.

  “I said dating life, not sex life. Like I said, judging from the A-list of women he’s dated in the last year or so, it appears as if he’s looking more for a missus than a mistress. But he’s not settled on any replacement for Emily yet. As to his funding, he’s got a nice, conservative stock portfolio and he’s scaled back his lifestyle considerably.”

  “Oh yeah? I bet he still drives a Porsche.”

  Lee laughed. “As a matter of fact, he does. But it looks to be the same one he bought while married to the governor.” She paused. “And he hasn’t so much as gotten a speeding ticket in it in the last ten years. I don’t know what to tell you, Kate. We were both expecting to find dirt on the man. But from what I’ve unearthed, it looks as if he didn’t sweep it under a rug but swept it out of his life. I don’t want to go as far as to guarantee that he’s a changed man, but it sure is looking that way to me. And trust me, I dug deep.”

  After she hung up, Kate pushed Nick’s possible religious conversion out of her head and turned her attention back to the campaign’s more immediate needs. Scheduling. Mail. Donations. Point papers. More mail.

  Including a letter with no return address and with her name in big block letters eerily reminiscent of the “YOU WILL DIE” note.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  Oh, no. . . . Not again. . . .

  The postmark had been blurred or faked, but in either case, she couldn’t quite read details like an originating city or post office. The whole look of the letter screamed, “Don’t open me!” Remembering the anthrax scares in Washington several years back, Kate didn’t even want to touch the thing.

  So she didn’t.

  Instead, she examined it carefully. Since it seemed thoroughly sealed, she used a tissue to pick up a corner of the envelope, slid it into a new manila envelope, and closed it. Then she put that in a plastic bag, sealed it with box tape, and left it on her desk beneath an overturned garbage can. Stepping out of the room, she motioned to the office manager, a sturdy woman named June who seemed to be the keystone to all the Manchester office operations.

  “Excuse me, but who handles mail security here?”

  The woman balanced her fists on her ample hips. “We’ve hired an outside agency to process all incoming mail.” She nodded toward Alex Michaels’s office. “The boss wants a daily breakdown—you know—amount of donations, letters of support, of complaints, weed out the crank mail, open suspicious packages, etc.” She craned slightly to look into Kate’s temporary office, spotting the up
side-down can sitting in the middle of the desk. “Did something slip through?”

  Don’t panic the help, Kate told herself. This could be nothing. “I’m not sure. I just got something addressed to me, and quite frankly, I don’t have a particularly good feeling about it. It’s probably nothing, but I thought I’d better play it safe . . . you know?”

  One quick call later and June had a security team member there to take care of the letter. Someone showed up with a biohazard box, sealed the letter, and whisked it away. Ten minutes later, the mail security guy returned and introduced himself as Ed Griggs.

  “The contents weren’t dangerous, at least as far as contamination of the paper went,” he said. “But you were right about the sentiments, Ms. Rosen.”

  He handed Kate a xeroxed copy of the message found inside.

  Repent Handmaiden of the Devil she who serves The Devil will die by the hands of True Believers.

  Kate stared at the crude letters with an odd sense of detachment. “Gee, it makes the ‘YOU WILL DIE’ note seem almost . . . pithy.” Griggs gave her quizzical look and Kate shrugged. “It’s not the first oddball threat I’ve gotten. The Secret Service dealt with the last one we received.” She dropped the paper to the desk; even though it was a copy, the paper felt . . . tainted . . . by the words. “They should probably see this too. You’ll need to give the original to the Secret Service, maintaining the chain of evidence from the moment it got into your hands. I’ll keep this copy for myself. But we’ll need a copy of the note and of the envelope, too, for internal security. I think we ought to attempt to discover where this came from ourselves.”

  “We’ve already contacted the Feds.” The man puffed up slightly. “But I doubt they’ll find anything we didn’t. Chances are good the perp used gloves—thanks to those CSI shows, they all know to do that nowadays. There was nothing inside the envelope other than the one sheet of paper.”

  “No suspicious white powder or anything scary like that?” She tried to find a disarming smile in her repertoire of tricks, but her humor was in short supply at the moment.

  “No, ma’am. No threats, no fake threats, not even any cornstarch or baby powder. Just the message,” Griggs declared. He tapped the sheet of paper. “And a weird one at that. It sounds like something some kind of zealot would spout. One who’s been off the meds too long.”

  A chilling thought hit her. And speaking of crazed zealots, exactly where is Daniel Gilroy these days? And his followers?

  “Uh . . . it does sound a little unhinged, doesn’t it?” She drew herself up to her full height, but she was several inches shorter than the security head. “Thanks. Oh, one more thing . . . I really don’t want news of this getting out. I’d like to keep the rumors around the campaign to a minimum.”

  Griggs shot her a snappy salute. “You call the shots, Ms. Rosen. Mum’s the word.”

  After he left, Kate called Wes Kingsbury’s cell phone and reached his voice mail. Rather than leave anything on record, she waited until she got back to her hotel room and called his home.

  His wife answered.

  “Anna? Hi, it’s Kate Rosen. Is Wes there? I need to speak with him if he’s not busy.”

  “Hey, Kate. Long time no see. Give him just a minute—he’s up to his elbows in suds, giving Dani a bath.”

  “I bet that’s quite a sight.”

  “Cuter than a calendar full of puppy pictures.” There was a muffled noise as if she was covering the receiver. But Kate could just about make out the words.

  “Honey? Phone’s for you.”

  There were a few more muffled noises, including one that sounded like a baby’s laughter and splashing water.

  “Hang on for a second while we play tag team with her. He needs to dry off.” She laughed. “Bathing Dani can be a real white-water adventure.”

  “I can imagine.” Kate and Anna chatted idly about the baby’s latest milestones. Normally, Kate was interested in babies—Dani, in particular—but today impatience distracted her from really enjoying the conversation.

  Less than a minute later, Wes came on the phone. “Hey, Kate. What’s going on?” Happy momma sounds joined the happy baby noises in the background.

  “I’m not sure. I’m hoping you can help me. Are you still in contact with Daniel Gilroy? You remember? Crazed cult leader extraordinaire?”

  “Not really. He stopped responding to my letters a couple of years ago. Why?”

  “He’s still in prison, isn’t he?”

  “You know? I’m not sure. Hang on. Let me step into my study. It’ll be quieter.” The sounds faded in the background. “Last I heard, he’d been turned down for parole. But that was some time ago.”

  Kate chose her words carefully. “If he does get out or is out now, would you consider him a potential threat?”

  “To the public in general? No. I think that once we broke up the militia, he lost the one group of people he could easily influence. It’d take him some time—maybe years—to gather another crowd of followers who could be so easily controlled.”

  “Why?”

  “The last group of followers was a gift to him from his father. Gilroy inherited the group as a whole from his father’s ‘ministry’ and hadn’t actually collected or united them himself. I never figured he had the charisma to pull off something like that again.”

  “What about his attitude toward you? Do you consider him a threat to you or your family?”

  Wes remained silent for a moment. “I never got that particular vibe from him. At least he never seemed to blame me for having any part in his incarceration. What few letters I got from him were pretty innocuous. Definitely not threatening.” He paused for a moment. “Where are you going with this, Kate? Do I need to be worried? What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know, Wes.” The image of the note she’d gotten today floated through Kate’s mind. “In the last few weeks, I’ve gotten two threatening notes. I thought the first one was for Emily and that I’d gotten it by mistake. But the second one came specifically addressed to me.” She hesitated. “It seemed like something that Daniel might write. Or somebody like Daniel, at least. Does the phrase Handmaiden of the Devil have any significance to you?”

  He sighed into the phone. “Oh, boy . . . that does sound familiar. Wait a second. I have my notes here.” After a few moments of rustling papers, Wes spoke again, this time sounding much more serious. “Yeah, it’s familiar. It was a term Gilroy used in reference to his wife, Connie.”

  Kate closed her eyes. Until this moment, the threat had been theoretical and the person behind it an anonymous, amorphous figure. But now Wes had offered some substantiation that the mystery man might indeed be Daniel Gilroy or at least somebody who knew him well enough to pick the same words to describe a woman. That was much scarier than an anonymous crazy writing her weird notes.

  Kate squeezed the fear from her voice, unwilling to expose her weakness even to a good friend like Wes. “What a lovely nickname. Should I assume that he didn’t get along with his wife?”

  “They did at first, but it’s a pretty sordid tale after the initial courtship. Connie was Daniel’s father’s assistant and instrumental in helping Gilroy Senior build his militia . . . er . . . flock. Then she married the elder Mr. Gilroy. But behind the old man’s back, Connie helped Daniel engineer a takeover of the organization, pushing Gilroy Senior out. Then she divorced him and married Daniel.”

  “She sounds like a real charmer. And the family values for the group seem more than a little twisted.”

  “She was a real piece of work, all right. I think she was the one who made all the trouble go down in the end. It didn’t take long for Daniel to realize he’d merely been her pawn. My theory is that she decided she needed to align with Daniel in order to get control from Gilroy Senior. But she must have figured it’d be easier to wrest control from Daniel than from Daniel’s father. And it all would have worked except for the accident.”

  “What accident?”

  “Connie an
d Gilroy Senior were killed in a car wreck two years before the infamous siege. The state troopers said it appeared as if they’d fought over control of the steering wheel, judging from scratches on Gilroy Senior’s arms and the skin under Connie’s fingernails. Pops lost control, drove off the road, and struck a tree head-on, killing them both. Daniel ended up with sole control of the militia without his father’s help or Connie’s organizational ability. In the two years he led the group, their numbers dwindled to about half the original size. They pretty much isolated themselves at the farmhouse to regroup.”

  “And now we don’t even know if Gilroy is still in prison or not.”

  “Not right now, but it’s easy enough to find out. I’m checking even as we speak. I just caught a friend of mine on instant messenger who works in Lorton at the correctional facility. He has access to the prison records from home and is looking for info on Gilroy right now.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And here comes the answer. . . . Let’s see. . . .” There was a moment of eerie silence; then he spoke again. “Daniel Gilroy was released on parole right before Christmas.”

  “Oh, great.” Her stomach flip-flopped. “So he could be the one sending the threats. But why me? Why am I suddenly getting these notes from him? I never even met the man. And you know how much I stay in the background. It seems like he’d be aiming at Emily, not me.”

  “Who knows? Maybe he’s decided you’re the Connie in the Emily equation—engineering the campaign from the sidelines but with an agenda of your own.”

  “But I don’t have an agenda other than Emily’s.”

  “I know, but we’re talking about someone of questionable sanity who may be tempted to stretch an analogy beyond all recognition for the sake of justifying his delusions. Daniel was quite taken with Emily, even after his surrender to authorities. He thought, in his own words, that she was a ‘mighty fine woman.’ He failed to protect his father from the scheming Connie, so maybe he’s planning to not make the same mistake again. Maybe he wants to protect Emily from the scheming you.”