Three Can Keep a Secret

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Gail Zigman looked up as Robert Perkins, her Chief-of-Staff, entered her office. “Shut the door, Rob.”

Surprised, he did so, before settling into a chair facing her desk. The governor made a big deal about her “door never being closed,” and worked to make the cliché a fact.

“You have a cell phone on you?” she asked, quickly signing a document she’d been reading as he entered.

He pulled it out of his pocket. “Sure.” Of course he had it, he thought. For him, it was like oxygen for a man with emphysema. He was constantly kidded for his dependence on the thing.

“Turn it off. The whole device; not just the ringer.”

“Off?” he asked, the phone in midair. “Like off-off?”

She put down her pen and narrowed her eyes slightly as she focused on him. She didn’t speak.

Embarrassed, he turned the phone off and dropped it back into his pocket.

“It’s a potential listening device,” she explained, “if you believe the latest paranoia, which in this case, I’m inclined to do.”

“Okay,” he said cautiously.

She leaned forward and pressed the intercom button on her phone and said, “Julie? No calls till I buzz you back, okay? And I mean it. No knocks on the door. Nothing.”

“Yes, Governor,” came the disembodied reply.

Gail fixed her attention on Perkins. “I’m about to tell you something that cannot leave this room. It can’t even be whispered to your pet parakeet. Is that very clear?”

“Very,” he said, his brain working hard by now. The entire office had been laboring around the clock, trying to keep ahead of the post-Irene demands and complaints-mostly aimed at bureaucratic red tape and slow action in general-but there’d been nothing demanding of such CIA-style twitchiness.

“Do you know of Harold LeMieur?”

“Sure,” he said immediately, caught unaware twice over. “Catamount Industrial. Lots of money. Likes to play kingmaker with people we don’t like.”

“Let’s start with that,” Gail suggested. “Tell me how he operates.”

Perkins frowned-the closed door and dead cell phone making less and less sense. This was Wikipedia-level information. “Pretty straightforward. He’s out front with his beliefs, and backs his kind of candidates by paying either directly or through a PAC. By definition, he’s not much of an influence in Vermont, since even our right-wingers see him as an extremist. There were a couple of folks a few years back who approached him for money, when the Take Back Vermont movement was gaining yardage, and he was happy to oblige. But that was about it. He doesn’t care about us, anyhow. Plays for bigger stakes, like governorships or congressional races in the rest of the country, and the occasional presidential hopeful. I always got the feeling that ever since he left Vermont, he’s been happy to not even think about us.”

“Does he have people here?” she asked.

“Sure. Sheldon Scott. Runs a lobbying firm in town for conservative causes. He and LeMieur go back to the beginning. I think they grew up together, somewhere in Franklin County, so Harold makes sure Sheldon’s well cared for. LeMieur’s big on loyalty-blood brother stuff. He has an inner circle like Howard Hughes used to have, and Sheldon’s near the top.”

Gail nodded. This, in part, was why she had Rob Perkins as her CoS, as the jargon had it. He knew everyone. “Can you get to him?” she asked.

“As in…” He left the implication dangling.

She smiled without humor. “No. I don’t do underhanded, as you very well know. I meant, can you arrange to have a private conversation with the man?”

“Sheldon?” Perkins asked, once again pondering the reasons for her paranoia. “Sure,” he said. “We know each other. I can walk into his office. I wouldn’t recommend it, though-not given that you’re my boss now. Too many tongues would start wagging.”

Gail hesitated, glancing out the window, and Perkins recognized that she was about to broach the Big Subject. He liked Gail Zigman, which was why he’d accepted her job offer. But he hadn’t voted for her in the primary. She’d struck him as too much the populist, an idealist who thought a democracy could actually be run by the people, for the people, instead of by bureaucrats, politicians, and moneyed special interests. Perkins was a practical, practiced swimmer of political waters. He’d worked for other governors and had grown used to the bad taste that resulted from making accommodations with the wrong people for the right reasons. When Zigman had approached him to be her Chief of Staff, he initially rejected the notion.

But then he’d rethought his prejudice. Was it so unbelievable that a neophyte like her could govern a state? Especially one as predisposed to such a fantasy as Vermont? She had won the election by openly defying the guardians of the status quo, including the state’s three Washington, D.C., delegates, who’d made only a grudging show of support after the primary. Succeeding against that opposition alone had been unprecedented.

In the end, Rob had said yes, if only to be part of what his heart and mind imagined would be a short-lived experiment-despite his hopes that it last far longer.

Those reservations made Rob Perkins perhaps the most effective of Gail’s allies-the thoughtful, cautious supporter, versus one of her ardent, damn-the-torpedoes fans.

Gail sat back in her chair and looked at him with a grim expression. “Let me ask you something before I go on,” she said.

“Shoot.”

“How’re we doing? Honestly, with no smoke and flattery.”

He smiled, given his ruminations. “About fifty-fifty,” he answered her. “You’re getting high marks for being everywhere at once. That’s good. They like seeing you with mud on your shoes, in the middle of the night, lending a hand. Dropping the borrowed National Guard helicopter was a good move. People were grousing about that. What’s pulling us down now is that we’re playing second fiddle to the U.S. government-represented by FEMA, fairly or not-and, to a lesser extent, organizations like the Guard, the Red Cross, and the Salvation Army. Compared to them, we’re looking ineffectual, even with most legislators rallying behind you. As usual, it’s things like road and bridge repairs that’re catching the media’s eye, and there, it sort of hangs on the political leanings of the editor. Some of them are giving you credit; others aren’t. And most of that goes back to how you won the election. There are a bunch of professional backroom people with their noses out of joint because of you.”

“How might I have handled this crisis better?” she asked.

He waggled his head back and forth, thinking of how best to present his thoughts. He wasn’t beholden to her, and that was his value. They each knew that. But he also wasn’t in the business of discussing fantasies.

“You personally?” he finally answered. “I don’t think you could have. Others would have gone first to the fat cats, in Vermont and outside, for money and political muscle. They also would’ve enlisted our two senators and the congressman for their clout. But that’s not your style, and you don’t have access to those people. I mean, Vermont’s DC-Three will do their thing, but not for you. They have to run again, too. And when they begin to bring in the money, you’re not going to be invited to the press conferences. It’ll be carefully done. It won’t be a direct slap in the face. But you won’t be in the photo ops. You dissed them pretty harshly when you ran.”

To his surprise, his words seemed to be making her feel better. She nodded slowly and said, “I may have come up with a solution for most of that.”

He didn’t bother hiding his surprise, which made her smile and quickly add, “It’s early yet. That’s why I asked to see you and why all the secrecy. A mouse squeaks in the statehouse basement at eleven fifty-nine, it’s all the talk at lunch. We all know that. But I’ve been approached with a proposal that might address your concerns, without my administration having to lower its standards in the process.”

Perkins didn’t like her almost prideful choice of words, but was caught by their implication.

“Who approached you?” he asked, recalling how the conversation had begun. “Not LeMieur?”

“Indirectly,” she told him. “Through Susan Raffner.”

“Raffner?” he asked, more startled still. He knew of Raffner’s importance to Gail, but approaching a governor with a quiet deal through a state senator was a new curveball to him.

And not one he liked. It was too odd, too irregular even for these rebels. Plus, LeMieur was the antithesis of a rebel. Why would he have chosen such a line of communication?

Gail appeared unconcerned. “Yes,” she said. “Susan came by my place last night. Said she’d been asked to be a conduit by LeMieur, who’d obviously done his homework about how best to reach me. Turns out he’s getting sentimental in his old age, and wants to do something for the state that gave him his start. In condensed form, he wants to use his billions to set up a parallel FEMA in the state, supported by the legislature and me, to directly address the very hiccups you were telling me about when we started this conversation. It would not be competition. From what Susan told me, it would be more like supplemental insurance.”

She removed a single sheet of paper from her desk and slid it over to him. “I wrote down what she told me, so that you could think about it and so I wouldn’t forget anything. You’ll see that I didn’t use names in that document, nor did I sign it. I’ve told you enough that you can fill in the blanks.”

He held it up. “I can keep this?”

“Yes, but read it now, in case you have any immediate questions.”

He smiled thinly. “Oh, I think that’s a guarantee.”

A silence settled on the office as he analyzed the proposal that Susan Raffner had outlined to Gail. He read it twice before placing it faceup on his lap.

He countermanded his teeming objections by asking, “What would you like me to do?”

“What do you think, for starters?”

“I’m very suspicious,” he answered. “But you probably already know that.”

“I counted on it. You’re not alone. That’s why we’re talking.”

Perkins nodded. “Okay.”

“In answer to your question,” Gail continued, “I’d like you to contact Sheldon Scott and arrange a meeting, as soon as you can. He’s not the one who approached Susan, so this would be a second foray into the LeMieur camp, coming from our direction and using different people. What I want to know from him speaks for itself.”

“In other words, is this legit?” Perkins suggested.

“Exactly. The best one to answer that will be LeMieur himself, of course, but at this stage, I just want to make sure this isn’t some huge con job that somebody totally unrelated to LeMieur might be pulling on Susan. And-through her-the rest of us. It wouldn’t be the first time a cat’s-paw was used underhandedly. Let’s find out if this is for real.”

Robert Perkins picked up the sheet of paper again and glanced at it, although he was no longer absorbing a single word. Having processed his own concerns about this risky offer, he couldn’t deny the elegance of the governor’s request. If he sat down with Scott and began a generalized conversation, it would take three sentences for him to discover if this offer was coming from LeMieur or not. It wouldn’t reveal what conniving might be behind it, but at least it would shine a light on the real cast of characters. It would be a start, along the lines of “know thine enemy.”

He stood up, folding the piece of paper and slipping it into his jacket pocket. “You got it, Governor. I’ll put out a feeler and report back, ASAP.”

She smiled at him. “Thanks, Rob. And the fact that you don’t like it gives me comfort.”

He nodded and left her office, lost in thought about this potential maze of mirrors, occurring amid a natural disaster, in a time of statewide financial instability and need. He knew politicians well. They reacted to events-sometimes wisely; often impulsively. The smart ones knew that when they were feeling comfortable, it usually meant that they hadn’t received the latest memo.

Rob Perkins couldn’t help wondering what kind of memo he’d be delivering at their next meeting. And he still didn’t know if his largely untested boss-while clearly and demonstrably smart-was in fact savvy, or had just been lucky so far.

* * *

Lester Spinney stood on the threshold between Gorden Marshall’s kitchen and his living room, as Joe had done a few days earlier. He was alone, Joe being up near Burlington, still chasing after the possible arson. Sam and Willy were down south-he on the Rozanski disappearance, she manning the fort in Brattleboro and helping to coordinate statewide resumption of day-to-day operations. The Vermont Bureau of Investigation was back up and running, now that the several flooded regional offices had been either cleaned up or transplanted, but Joe had felt that they should stick with what they’d begun, and let the other squads catch their collective breath. Normally, the Brattleboro branch wouldn’t have been so spread out, but that was part of how the VBI functioned-unhampered by local boundaries, and not necessarily tied to working with local police. The autonomy and responsibility that the organization gave its agents-all veterans of other agencies-had been one of the primary attractions for Lester when he’d signed up. Today’s assignment was a prime example of that. Joe had asked him to find out what he could from Marshall’s apartment, before it was returned to The Woods of Windsor and the inevitable next tenant.

Lester flexed his fingers inside his latex gloves and crossed into the bedroom. Most departments had either a specialized crime scene unit or called upon the state’s mobile forensic team to assist. The VBI could and often did do likewise. But this was a crime scene in the minds of but a few, and calling for the techs would have been difficult to justify. Lester knew, therefore, that he was less in pursuit of scientific forensic evidence, and more here to absorb a sense of the man who’d once called the place home.

That and maybe find out what had happened during the last hours of his life.

The stripped bed had been neatly covered with a coverlet. Instinctively, Lester dropped to the floor and laid his cheek against the carpeting, studying its nap between the door and the bed to check for the signs of a vacuum cleaner’s back-and-forth furrows. But it appeared as if they’d only addressed the bed following the removal of Marshall’s body. Les would have to double-check with Hannah Eastridge that such was standard protocol at The Woods, but he didn’t doubt it. His wife, Sue, had once worked at a far-less-upscale nursing home near Springfield, but she’d commented on how, even there, the staff was attentive to neatening up after a resident’s death, in part to make it easier on the family who’d come in later to remove personal effects. These places were production lines of sorts, after all-it wasn’t good for business to let a bed stay empty for long.

While he was on his hands and knees, Lester crawled along the floor, small flashlight in hand, sweeping his eyes to and fro, looking for any dropped or forgotten object that might prove useful. But the cleaning crew that came by weekly-and which Lester had already been told had last visited five days earlier-was apparently thorough. Aside from a single lost ballpoint pen that he found under the dresser, there was nothing.

Starting with the dresser, however, Les began working methodically from top drawer to bottom. He found a man’s jewelry box in the upper right-hand drawer alongside two watches, a Cross pencil, a plastic container of collar stays, and a stack of folded handkerchiefs. He slid the box to the fore, opened it, and discovered a jumbled assortment of cuff links, rings, association pins, and tie clips.

Grunting quietly, he turned to retrieve the camera that he’d placed on the floor by the bedroom door, and found himself staring at a man in a dark blue custodian’s uniform with a woman’s stocking pulled over his face. In the instant that it took him to register this, the man smacked him on the side of the head with something hard.

Lester felt his knees give out as he flinched against the explosive pain. He heard more than saw the shape of the man retreat, and lashed out to stop him, his hand flailing in the empty air.

“Stop,” he heard himself say, or thought he said, as he struggled in vain to stand, propping instead against the dresser. There was something happening in the room-what, he couldn’t tell-distinguished by a shadow falling across him, followed by the sound of running feet and the slamming of a distant door, which he knew to be the apartment’s entrance.

He finally lurched to his feet, smacking his shoulder against the open dresser drawer, and fell toward the bedpost, trying to reach the door while hanging on like the passenger of a ship about to capsize. He kept shaking his head, hoping to clear his vision.

His balance and eyesight improving, Les picked up speed as he cut through the kitchenette and tore open the front door. He ran out into the hallway, just in time to see the last of his assailant rounding a far corner.

“Jesus,” he muttered, touching his temple, and took off in pursuit, quickly glancing at his hand. There was some blood, but not much, which he took as a good sign. Running, he reached for his cell phone and auto-dialed the VBI dispatch number.

“This is Spinney,” he panted to the operator. “I’m in foot pursuit of a male inside The Woods of Windsor. Do you have my location?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, almost disturbingly calm. “Your GPS is coming through clear. Can you give me a description?”

“Male. Five-ten. Slim build. Dark blue maintenance uniform. Call Sergeant Carrier of the local PD and send backup.”

“Yes, sir.”

He reached the end of the hallway, recovered enough that anger had replaced astonishment. There was another corridor ahead-empty-with an EXIT sign above a door about halfway down. Reaching it quickly and yanking it open, he heard footsteps pounding down the stairs below him.

He exchanged his phone for his gun and took the steps four at a time, swinging from the steel tubular railing and kicking off the walls at each turn to give himself extra thrust. Below, he heard the bang of a fire door, suggesting that the man ahead had reached the outdoors and a broader choice of escape routes.

“Come on, come on,” he chanted to himself, hoping no misstep would result in a broken leg.

He reached the bottom and stopped abruptly at the door, listening intently over his own breathing. He was suddenly conscious of the possible consequences of crashing through that door-and maybe meeting a man with a gun.

He took two deep breaths, seized the door’s panic bar, and pushed slightly, keeping his body alongside the metal frame to one side.

It turned out to have been the wrong time for caution. When he finally exited the building, there was nobody in sight.

“Damn,” he said, and broke back into a run, heading toward the nearest parking area.

Coming over the top of the slope separating the building from the lot, however, the only signs of life visible were two cruisers with their lights flashing, entering from the highway at speed and splitting up to cover as much of the parking area as possible.

There were only a few empty cars scattered about, and nothing to be seen of a man on foot.

Lester stood panting on the crest of the small hill, his hands on his hips, scanning all that he could see for any motion, while four uniformed officers left their vehicles and spread out.

Spinney recognized Rick Carrier. “You see anyone driving away when you entered?” he shouted down to him.

Carrier shook his head and began walking uphill to meet him.

Lester checked the side of his head again, his adrenaline ebbing and his knees getting wobbly. He sat down on the close-cropped grass, pulling out his phone to issue an alert for an anonymous man of unremarkable stature wearing a maintenance uniform.

Right, he thought, as he pushed the CALL button. Good luck with that.