Flashpoint

At any other time this trip to Northern Illinois would be a pleasant break from the chaos of my office in Chicago. Dev Conrad and Associates is involved with five different candidates in this election cycle and now, in mid-October, each campaign is only three weeks from the finish. And in this election cycle nothing can be taken for granted.

So leaving my office for the day, jumping into my Jeep for a fast drive upstate, for an even faster drive through heavily forested land that showed the gleaming golds and burnished browns and elegant reds of autumn, should be an enviable twenty-four-hour vacation.

But I am still hearing Senator Robert Logan say: ‘We both know this phone may be bugged, Dev. You know where my cabin is. I need you up here now.’ And after that he hangs up.

Neither the sweet, piney breeze nor the sight of a mother deer helping her awkward fawn across the asphalt road can quell my sense of dread. Logan spent two terms in the House and is now running for his second term as a senator. He is a professional politician. He is one of those inherited-wealth men who votes generally to help those less fortunate.

He has the rangy looks of a small-town Midwesterner; the way he talks and walks and handles himself suggests a quiet self-confidence that is offset by his easy self-deprecating humor. He can afford this humility because he’s both handsome and bright. Third in his law school class at Princeton. He worked for eleven years in Chicago as a defense attorney, a soldier for the machine we have. He enjoys the brawl and the bravado of big-time elected office. Face it. There are few clubs more privileged than the United States Senate. People of every race, color and creed stand in line to kiss your star-spangled ass.

So what the hell is going on? He’s at his cabin and he’s obviously in some kind of desperate trouble. I start to think of all the possibilities, then I force myself to stop. Borrowing trouble, as my father said — he was a political consultant too, a very successful one — is a waste of time because your clients will just bring it to you free of charge.

Suddenly, through a sparse line of jack pines, I see the sparkling lake. I’ve spent a few weekends up here with the senator and his staffers. We fished and hiked the hills then settled in for a night of eating and drinking and working on the campaign. The lake lent everything we did a rich blue backdrop. And it was just as beautiful at night; I’d sit on the dock with a couple cans of beer and watch the stars as their lights were vaguely detailed in the water. My ex-wife still says that my years as an investigator for army intelligence made it impossible for me to relax, that as soon as we finished making love my mind went back to churning through the case I was working on. I always wished that she could have been with me on this big-ass dock at midnight.

I needed GPS because I hadn’t been here in some time and I had to reach my destination as quickly as I could. To the east was a deep forest. I recognized an ancient rusted CAMEL CIGARETTES sign on a field gate from my trips here. Turning right would take me down a twisting road that would switch back on itself and end a few hundred yards from the cabin.

I speed up now.

When the road ends you turn and drive on sandy soil to reach the back of a large A-frame house that by agreement everybody calls a cabin. It was big enough for a family of five and stocked with all the furnishings appropriate for life in the suburbs. ‘I’ll leave the roughing-it to Teddy Roosevelt,’ the senator once joked to a reporter.

I pull the Jeep up next to the cabin. As I get out I can smell the lake; fresh and chill. No sound from inside, no TV or music. Robert is a big fan of eighties music. I think he still wants to be Simon Le Bon when he grows up.

Then I hear the front door of the place opening, followed by footsteps on the roofed porch that spans the width of the house. ‘Dev?’

Even before I get around the corner and see him I can tell from the timbre of his usually deep voice that he is even more tense than he was on the phone. He speaks now a full octave higher.

Blue chambray work shirt, Levi’s, dark hair mussed and brown eyes those of a man barely in control of himself.

‘What the hell took you so long?’ he snapped.

‘I couldn’t get my jet pack to work so I had to take a regular plane.’

I think his smile surprised him as much as it did me. He shook his head then ran big, wide hands through his mess of hair. A splash of dark red caught my eye on the left sleeve of his shirt. ‘I don’t sound too crazy, do I?’ Then, ‘Thanks for coming, Dev. This...’ He waved his hand. And stopped talking.

I walk up on the porch as he just stands there staring out at the lake. A red speedboat is bouncing roaring sounds off the high cliffs on the far side of the water. Since he isn’t paying any attention to me I pause at the framed window next to the door and look in. Hardwood floors, an enormous fireplace, leather couches and chairs, a plasma TV screen that even an upscale sports bar would envy and a kitchen a Gold Coast chef gave him tips about building and stocking.

Out of sight are the two Murphy-like beds that can be pulled down near the back of the place. This is not to mention the shower downstairs and the two bedrooms upstairs. Oh, and the additional shower as well.

Something like a sob catches in his throat. His back is to me and now I see how stooped his shoulders are. I see again the inch-long trail of red darkness on his sleeve. My stomach clenches automatically. A few of my cases as an army intelligence investigator involved violence. What the hell is going on here?

‘Robert.’ Still not turning around.

‘What?’

‘You need to talk to me.’

‘Somebody set me up, Dev.’

His remark is close to the one uttered by the infamous Washington, DC, politician Marion Barry when one of his many mistresses cooperated with the feds in busting him for drugs.

But I know that Robert isn’t thinking about any such ironies now. He is lost in panic and helplessness. In some respects he has ceased to function.

‘I can’t help you unless you tell me what happened.’

His head hangs even lower. He won’t be looking out at the lake now. If his eyes are open he’ll be staring at the ground. ‘The back porch.’ Even speaking these three words seems to exhaust him. The head drops lower.

There is nothing to say. I can’t clap him manfully on the shoulder and say, ‘It’ll be all right, Senator, just let me handle it.’ That’s what they all want to hear, that’s what they all think they’re paying you for. Sometimes you can help them. The help may not be quite legal or even honorable, but as any operative will tell you that is the game and if you are unwilling to play the game then you’re quickly dealt out. In our silence birds cry out and somewhere in the forest I can hear a dog bark.

He turns and looks at me as I put my hand on the doorknob and push the door inward. Our eyes study each other. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. In his gaze there’s just frenzy.

My first impression is of some kind of overly sweet odor. Some kind of air freshener spritzed to a toxic level. All the windows are open, too. It’s actually cold in here. Autumn cold; even a hint of winter. The odor and the open windows means he’s trying to cover a smell. Given his crazed alarm, given the streak of blood on his shirt I saw, given his remark that somebody set him up, I know now what I’ll find on the back porch.

My stomach clenches again and despite the cold I know there’s light sweat on my face.

Oh, yes, sometimes you can walk on the dark side and keep your candidate from self-destructing. That is, if what you’re covering up falls within certain parameters.

I have the feeling that I’m about to see a dead woman. I also have the feeling — knowing now that he has probably been lying to me all along — that I know who she is.

Or was.

One

Fifteen days earlier I’d sat on a folding chair in a high school gymnasium watching Senator Logan conduct a town hall meeting. Given the state of the economy, mixed-to-racist feelings about the president of the United States and the leader of Logan’s party and the prospect of unions being busted, not to mention gay marriage, there was plenty to discuss.

The gym was decorated with yellow and black crepe paper and large papier-mâché images of a lion’s head. Apparently there had been a pep rally here earlier today. Hard not to think of your own pep rallies, the slap of basketballs on the shining floor, the feel in your arms of your first love knowing that all too soon she’d break your heart; and how small it would all seem when you visited it a few years later.

Logan was in his usual casual attire, the chambray shirt and jeans plus a gray tweed jacket. He addressed the crowd of perhaps a hundred through a stand-up microphone. The meeting had started promptly at seven and now, at eight, showed no signs of calming down.

Even though some of the questions were pointed, none had been personal or demeaning. The entire country was pissed off and generally with good reason. The citizens of Linton, Illinois, population 31,600, had every right to be just as pissed, especially given the fact that within the past two years three of its manufacturing plants had been relocated in the South.

But then came the inevitable.

If this was a movie role you’d cast somebody burly and menacing. He’d have wiry black hair and need a shave and maybe his teeth would be bad. His eyes and his voice would belong on the violent wing of the nearest psych ward.

You would not cast a maybe one-hundred-and-thirty-pound, fortyish man with thick glasses and a faint lisp as your choice to drop the birther bomb. He wore a short-sleeved shirt buttoned to the neck and tan pants that reached to his ribcage. He was a parody of a type and when he stood up my first response was to feel sorry for him. You could imagine the bullying he’d had to endure in school and the invisible sort of life he’d had as an adult.

But then he started waving a bunch of papers and that was never a good sign. People who wave papers announce upfront that they are going to say something crazy. George Bush was behind 9/11 had become a popular myth once again. A lot of papers had been waved at Robert about that.

‘Senator Logan, my name is Stan Candiss and I have proof here that your president is a Communist spy.’

Before Mr Candiss had grabbed my attention the gymnasium had been inspiring some high school memories of my own. I’d been thinking about the girls I’d taken to my junior and senior proms respectively, wondering what they were doing now, wondering if they ever wondered about me. But when Mr Candiss had stood up I’d sensed — despite my feeling a little sorry for him — that we were about to witness the inevitable moment in all town hall meetings: the conspiracy accusation.

Mr Candiss was apparently a known commodity locally.

‘God damn it, Stan; sit down and shut up.’

‘We’re trying to have a serious discussion here, Stan.’

‘Somebody should throw him out.’

Mr Candiss, it would seem, was not a beloved figure. Which did not stop him from continuing to wave his papers from his position in the last row of folding chairs — or from saying, ‘Whether or not the senator wants to hear about it, there is a website that proves that after the president was born in Kenya he lived for eight years in Moscow. If any of you have ever seen The Manchurian Candidate, you know how communists can turn human beings into assassins. This website documents how the president — our president — is going to turn our entire arsenal of nuclear bombs on our own country.’

Though there were a few giggles, the general response was cursing, grumbling and even threatening.

Logan handled it calmly. ‘I’ve actually seen that website. I believe you called my office in Washington a while back, Mr Candiss. You actually made our receptionist so curious that after she hung up she went right to the site and then started showing it to the staff. We were very intrigued.’

This time there was laughter. It wasn’t hard to imagine congressional staffers chortling over some whacked-out crap about the president nuking America.

‘These people laugh because they’re ignorant. Are you ignorant, too, Senator Logan?’

Candiss went back to waving his papers but was forced to stop when a huge man in a Packers sweatshirt and jeans reared up from his seat and stalked to the last row of folding chairs. Most of the people had swiveled around to watch the action.

You can never tell how something like this will play out. Harsh words can lead to violence. There is always the chance, given the fact that the NRA wants to arm everybody over the age of three, that a gun might appear.

‘We need to stay calm,’ Logan said. ‘Sir, if you’ll take your seat again—’

Logan’s local people had hired two off-duty police officers to handle security. They now appeared from their posts at the respective doors of the gym. They moved quickly toward Mr Candiss. They would stand next to him in case the big man tried to charge him. Then came the surprise.

‘Stan, I stick up for you all the time at the lumberyard,’ the man said, and there was real sympathy in his tone, ‘and I even listen to all your stupid stories at lunchtime. But we’re trying to have a serious talk here so please just sit the hell down and shut the hell up.’

Just about everybody in the gym applauded. Mr Candiss knew enough to look embarrassed and sit down. As the Packers man made his way back to his seat other men stuck their hands out to shake his. I admired the way he’d handled the situation. I’d have shaken his hand, too.

Logan had a few awkward moments but finally assured everybody that he was still interested in taking questions. His enthusiasm for the task only reminded me and his staffers of how our fortunes had changed in the last twenty-three days. The other side had dumped more than eleven million dollars in negative TV advertising into the state and we had started to feel its effects. For the previous two months we had managed to stay two-to-three points ahead, but now our internal polling showed that we were in a tie. Our opponent was a man named Charlie Shay, a folksy multimillionaire insurance executive who had once been considered too conservative for even this election cycle. Insurance people were not beloved in this country. But his bullshit Huckleberry Finn persona, created by a public relations team in Washington, was starting to take hold. There was one especially unctuous commercial where he was sitting with his grandson at sunset along a stream where he pretends to be fishing while handing out numerous lies about Logan. The closest Shay had ever gotten to fishing was opening a can of tuna.

‘Who’s she?’

Not only the question but the tartness of the voice brought me out of my thoughts about the election.

I was sitting between two women on the ass-numbing folding chairs. On my left was Caitlin Conners, who ran the day-to-day operations of the campaign for my firm. Caitlin was long, lean and red-haired, a college star in track with a pretty prairie-girl face and a sly smile. On my right was Elise Logan, Robert’s wife, a striking if somewhat ethereal woman you had to be careful with. She had suffered a terrible childhood trauma, so terrible that she had been sent to psychiatric hospitals throughout her life, most recently three years ago. Shay’s people couldn’t talk about this on paid media but their printed material coyly referred to it many times. I liked Elise more than I did Robert, actually. She was one of those wan beauties you always read about in Agatha Christie; I wanted to protect her.

I had to scan the crowd to see whom she’d referred to. I didn’t see the woman until my eyes reached the back of the gym.

From this distance she looked wrong not only for a town hall meeting, but also for a small burg like Linton. Just the way her hip was cocked, the way she smiled so obviously at Logan and the way her white silk blouse and tight dark skirt clung to her suggested that she likely had a big-city life somewhere. Not that she seemed obvious in any way; on the contrary, she was the kind of young woman — from here I guessed her age at around thirty — you saw in expensive clubs in Chicago and Washington, DC. I would have bet that the hairstyle had cost her three or four hundred and the duds an easy fifteen hundred. And if her facial features up close were as elegant as they appeared to be from here, I would probably be in danger of falling in love for an hour or two tonight.

The concern in Caitlin’s response surprised me. ‘She’s nobody, Elise. She’s probably press or something.’

The conversation ended when a cranky older woman in the crowd stood up and barked, ‘What are you going to do about high school girls sending pictures of their boobies to their boyfriends?’

Hilarity, as they say, ensued.

The next morning I flew back to Chicago, and in the battles that awaited me forgot all about the woman at the back of the gym and Elise Logan’s angry response to her. In fact, if I remembered anything it was the way the senator had responded to the booby question. He’d laughed and said, ‘My only solution is to bow our heads and pray.’ He’d gotten a big ovation. Then he’d gone on to make the correct pious noises.

Eleven days later I was with Caitlin and the senator again. I had talked to him every day, Skyped with him every other day or so and poured over the daily internal polls. We were up with women and African-Americans, but getting a miserable twenty-two percent of white working-class males, which was terrible for us, and trailing substantially behind with college-educated males, a group that tended to vote. Our opponent was a believer in taxing the grubbing poor and helping the much misunderstood but deserving rich. I suppose that explained it.

And now we were back in Chicago at a major fundraiser. My one and only dinner jacket was fraying on the left cuff but I assumed I could get through the evening without causing a social catastrophe. As I had been without woman since my friend of several months had decided to go back to her faithless husband after all — this time he’d be different, she’d said, and I cared enough about her to let the lie go unchallenged — I had vague hopes of meeting somebody tonight.

Combing my hair in my room before the festivities I puckered my lips then smiled at myself in the mirror. I almost always did this before a fundraiser where wealthy people were the targets. Some of them expected Olympian-level ass-kissing and always got it. They wanted you to know how important they were to the campaign and what they expected the senator would do for them when and if he returned to Washington for an additional six years. The Pope doesn’t get the kind of servility they expect. Fortunately that’s a small number of them.

This being Chicago, a small troop of security men with guns had been hired to make sure that nobody was packing and that everybody who walked through the front door was on the approved list. Assassination was not exactly unknown in America.

I arrived early and was met by James-never-Jim Logan, the younger and less successful brother of the senator. They were near twins physically. Tall, lean, lanky and both graying some — nice-looking if not quite handsome in traditional manly ways. Mid-forties, my own age.

But there the similarities ended. Their father had spent his life in communications — radio, mostly — and at the time of his death owned a large number of small and mid-size radio stations across the country. That was the basis of his sprawling fortune, a fortune Robert had overseen quite well before entering politics, where he was equally successful.

James was the swashbuckler. Fast cars, faster women and three failed start-ups in a three-year period. At that point, his own inheritance depleted, he patched up a quarrelsome relationship with Robert and began to live off his older brother’s charity. First he worked as a staffer for the then Representative Logan. But Robert made him do the kind of scut work most staffers have to do. So James did what every right-thinking American lad does who loves to sit and drink and toss the ol’ shit back and forth. He became a lobbyist, spending most of his time working for firms that were interested in snagging his brother’s vote. But it turned out that Robert’s charity didn’t extend to selling his vote to James’ firms so they fired him. Unhappily he went back to work on Robert’s staff.

‘I saw the internals, Dev. Not looking so good.’ James was friends with another group of consultants. He had tried to convince Robert to dump me and go with them. All this took place two years ago. He still took every opportunity to challenge me. Everybody knows somebody who’s better at a particular job than you are; consultants are used to that. But James makes it personal. Had I been less of the considerate gent I am, I would have brought up the subject of the loan he’d been begging his brother to make him. I’d caught them wrangling about it several times. James had another dumb idea for a dumb business — a public-relations agency for raccoons or something — and Robert was understandably sick of hearing about it.

‘I don’t like the internals either but we’re holding our own. And we have three weeks to go.’

‘What’s that expression? Whistling past the graveyard?’ Then he turned his attention to the doors and the sudden influx of sparkling high-end donors.

More than a dozen women in evening dresses were filing in on the arms of their husbands. James had two reputations — one as a heavy-drinking hothead and the other as a chaser. He was one of those mysterious males you run into occasionally. He didn’t have the looks or the charm to be successful with women but somehow he was. It could have been his brother’s money or his brother’s status as a senator, but somehow I didn’t think so because there was also the matter of the mysterious female. Women you credit with intelligence and judgment become slaves of a kind to men who treat them terribly. So maybe it was the bad-boy syndrome that kept James in contention. But fortunately I don’t know that many women so inclined, so most kept their distance from him. He specialized in treating women horribly; there had been a few lawsuits, in fact, and one abuse incident in which police had been called but the woman refused to press charges. This was after, I was told, Robert offered her a good chunk of change.

‘I’m a lot more comfortable in a union hall than I am in a place like this.’

I wanted to laugh but I couldn’t, of course. It was alleged by James he had the ‘touch’ (his word) with the working class, so he actually went to some meetings in union halls in Robert’s district. A union guy I knew who’d worked with James said, ‘He came to a meeting and left after twenty minutes. He claimed he had another appointment. But you could see that we kind of freaked him out. Like we’d give him an infection if he stayed long enough.’

An angel of mercy in the comely form of Caitlin Conners appeared in a strapless silver gown. Very fetching. She slid her arm through mine and said, ‘I hope you’re planning to dance with me tonight.’

‘If you’d ever seen me try to dance you wouldn’t be asking me that.’

She stuck her tongue out at me. I’d always loved her occasional immaturity.

‘I’ll dance with you,’ James said. ‘In fact, I already have.’

‘Yes, I remember. And by the time we were finished I’d wished I’d had my rape whistle.’ She obviously wasn’t joking.

Most men would have been embarrassed to hear a woman say that about them. Not James. He just grinned. ‘Oh, I forgot you’re a virgin.’

Caitlin’s laugh was piercing. ‘You’re such a clown, James, and you don’t even know it.’

Then she was brushing her lips against my cheek — all perfume and warm woman flesh — and hurrying away.

‘Bitch.’

‘She’s a friend of mine. And she’s not a bitch.’

‘They’re all bitches, Conrad. And when you grow up someday, you’ll realize that.’

He smirked and walked away.

A few dozen men and women in white coats were finishing their work with the tables that filled three-quarters of the small ballroom. The walls were hung with large color photographs of our senator doing various things including being sworn in, waving to people at a Cubs game, whitewater rafting in Colorado, looking somber as he delivered a speech to his colleagues, standing between a rabbi and a priest, shooting baskets with inner-city kids and hugging Elise and his teenage daughter Maddy to him. If we could have gotten a photo of him ascending into heaven we’d have had our victory in our pocket.

There was a stage with a six-piece band of mostly bald men in shiny red dinner jackets and blood-red cummerbunds. They called themselves the Cavaliers; four of them were lawyers and two worked at the same brokerage firm. Not rock-and-roll rebels but I’d heard them play several times before and they were just right for gigs like this.

There were enough small chandeliers to blind you and enough flowers to give you a sinus infection. The peach and red décor was smart and the red chairs comfortable. I’d tried one. I’d also scanned a menu. I was up for the Grilled Marinated Salmon with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce and Saffron Rice. For fifteen thousand dollars a couple — half that for singles — would you expect any less?

Within half an hour the place was filled with people of various ages and various colors all shiny and fine in their evening attire and almost immediately klatching up in groups of friends. Young men and women in red jackets — replacing the first battalion of white jackets — flitted about the room like worker ants offering cocktails while the Cavaliers tuned up.

When Elise and Robert appeared fifteen minutes later, everybody turned to the doors. They made their way toward the front of the room, throwing out smiles and nods the way royalty had once thrown out roses. A standing ovation was inevitable since everybody was standing anyway and little effort was required.

At an appropriate distance behind them, like a courtesan, came Caitlin. The problem was her smile. She’d obviously had to wrench it out of herself and I wondered why.

I’d hoped to talk to her before we both took our seats at the small table nearest the dance floor — just the five of us, Elise and Robert, Caitlin and I, and of course my good friend James — but there wasn’t an opportunity because exactly on time a burly guy from the Chicago machine grabbed the microphone that Robert would be using for his speech and proceeded to inform us of what a buncha great people we were and how we were gonna break the legs — so to speak — of our opponent. I exaggerate, of course, but not by much.

Dinner, it seemed, was served.

By the time both Robert and Elise had finished their first cocktail it was clear that they, too, were wrenching paparazzi smiles out of themselves. Robert kept glancing at her nervously and she kept glaring at him in return. Then they’d become aware of me observing them and up would come these rickety bullshit smiles like fading footlights.

James had excused himself after gulping down a drink. He was making the rounds of the tables, no doubt searching for tonight’s lucky woman, married or not. That he’d be interrupting people’s dinners wouldn’t bother him — not James. Or maybe he was smart. Maybe he just wanted to get away from the tension at the table. But whatever, he’d be hitting on women all through the night, taking what he considered the trophy back to his Michigan Avenue condo. The gossip columnists in Washington loved him. He was always good for a couple of sleazy lines. I’d finally convinced Robert to rein him in by threatening to fire him. James had gotten all in my face about it; like I gave a shit.

Caitlin kept telling Elise how pretty she looked and she did, her pale elegance in her mauve gown all the more endearing because of her palpable sadness.

What the hell was going on?

‘Excuse me,’ Elise said. I tried to pretend that I didn’t notice the tears in her pale gray eyes. ‘I need to visit the ladies’ room.’

As soon as she was gone Robert said, ‘Well, this is some goddamned night, isn’t it? I could’ve just stayed home if I wanted to hear her tear into me.’ Then, quickly: ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I love her. She’s the love of my life, in fact, and I was the one who screwed it up.’ Then he was on his feet and tossing his heavy white cloth napkin on the table. ‘I’m going to the john myself.’

‘All right,’ I said to Caitlin once he’d disappeared. ‘What the hell is going on here?’

‘He’s right. He screwed it up and he’s paying for it.’

‘Screwed what up?’

‘His marriage. He had a little affair three years ago and she’s never been able to trust him since. They’ve tried to keep it quiet but one night when we were in a private plane they woke me up with their arguing. I was able to figure it out in pieces. Some waitress in a Washington pub. Georgetown, I guess. The woman was crazy enough to call him — drunk, of course — late at night. Elise was able to find the number on the phone in the morning and called it. The woman answered. It took her a week to work on him — Elise, I mean — but he finally admitted that he’d slept with the woman three times. Which meant it was probably ten times or more. It really destroyed Elise. You know how fragile she’s always been anyway. It runs in her family. A lot of mental issues.’

‘Robert told me about that. What’s she so upset about tonight?’

‘Just seeing all these beautiful women, I guess. She starts thinking about him sneaking around again and kind of loses it. She feels threatened all the time. She’s seeing a therapist and taking anti-anxiety meds because it’s getting worse, but they don’t seem to be helping much.’

The first time you meet a potential client you expect to hear nothing but what a wonderful swell man or woman he or she is. You expect that. The problems come out in the following meetings when you’ve begun to work together. Oh, didn’t I mention...? Oh, I didn’t think that would be a problem! That was just a misunderstanding with the IRS. Eventually you get most of it but not all of it. When George McGovern ran for president in 1972 his vice-presidential choice, a man named Thomas Eagleton, forgot to mention the teeny tiny fact that he had spent time in a mental hospital for depression. McGovern probably hadn’t had much of a chance of winning anyway but getting stalled like that right at the start of his campaign sure didn’t help him.

Some of my clients don’t like the fact that when I hire opposition researchers to comb the past of our opponent I also pay them to comb the past of my candidate. I also tell them if I ever learn that they were involved in a felony that has come to light I will in turn inform the police of it. So if they ever have anything to hide tell me upfront so we can deal with it. I have been fortunate thus far; most of the things they haven’t wanted to tell me about dealt with infidelity.

Robert was back. He started to talk but by the time he was seated a small group of well-wishers had gathered around our table and were telling him how much they were enjoying themselves tonight. He was good at the blarney. Not a hint of anger. The men shook his hand and the women kissed his left cheek. He smiled as if he’d gone to acting school to learn how.

All this time the machine man had been introducing other machine politicians. The applause had diminished considerably after the fourth or fifth one. People got tired of seeing the farm team. They wanted to see the star of the World Series and tonight that was Senator Robert Logan.

When his name was announced everybody stood. The applause was fulsome and lengthy. The senator took the stage. And just as he did so Elise came back. She sat down without a word and turned her attention to the stage where the senator was just beginning his speech. The gray eyes were dry now, though the rims looked wounded.

Having had a hand in writing the speech there were no surprises for me. I wished I was sitting at the back. Watching people was a lot more interesting than watching the stage. Elise was one chair away from me. When I saw her start to lean forward I wondered what she was going to do. Then I realized she was putting her hand out for me to take. I was glad to hold it for her. I’d known a few people, including men, who’d been thoroughly devastated by love affairs gone bad. One of the guys had tried to cut his wrists. I’d visited him twice a week on a psych ward for two months. Elise and I smiled at each other.

Robert got another standing O when he finished his speech. The band waited for everybody who wanted to rush to the stage to congratulate him on solving all our national problems in just under seventeen minutes. Then the lights went low over both the dance area and the bandstand and they broke into the ballad ‘Laura’, which they hyped up just a bit.

I watched Elise stare in the direction of Robert. Though he’d moved off the area where couples were already dancing he was still surrounded by well-wishers.

Elise said, ‘Would you dance with me, Dev?’

Caitlin said, ‘Every woman in the office has tried to get him to dance for years.’

I said, ‘Is your insurance paid up, Elise?’

She had a sad, shy smile. ‘Robert stands on my feet. You couldn’t be any worse than he is.’

I must have done all right because she didn’t scream and there was no sign of bleeding. I did the old box step I’d learned in Catholic school. A rather buxom nun had taught the boys before letting us loose on the girls.

I was several inches taller than she was so she had no trouble placing her head against my chest. She was so slight and fine-boned I had to be careful of hurting her in some way. She was the flower-like princess out of a boy’s tale of noble knights. And soon enough she did what I’d known she wanted to do. Talk.

‘I’m such a child sometimes.’

‘We all are, Elise.’

‘I can’t imagine you being childish.’

‘You can ask my ex-wife.’

‘How’s she doing, by the way?’

‘Just about two years out now and she’s doing fine. Knock wood.’ Just before my ex-wife’s breast cancer operation she’d asked me to fly to Boston to be at her bedside along with her new husband and my daughter. I was kind of wary of him at first, but he turned out to be a hell of a nice guy and we got along fine.

I gave Elise an update.

‘It’s so nice you can still be friends. I’m sorry you had to split up.’

‘I wasn’t a very good husband.’

‘You put yourself down a lot, have you ever noticed that?’

‘I’m just stating a fact, Elise. I was on the road so much it was inevitable.’

She put her head against me again and we danced for a while without talking. I was back in high school or college with a pretty girl in my arms. I liked the feeling. Then she leaned back and said, ‘I know he loves me.’

‘I know that, too.’

‘It’s just that I’m so damned suspicious. My therapist said that this may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m afraid I’ll lose him but my behavior is pushing him into leaving me.’

‘Talk to him.’

‘That’s all I do. Talk to him. Or talk past him, really. He’s heard it so often he doesn’t even listen anymore and I don’t really blame him.’

As the song came to its end we started walking back to our table. She had some of the same problems her husband did in navigating the ballroom. People kept rushing up to her and squeezing her hand and kissing her cheek and throwing bouquets of flattery at her. She didn’t handle it as well as Robert did but she tried; the smile never left her lips and the voice gushed appropriately in gratitude. Only the anxiety in the eyes revealed her discomfort.

‘That’s one of the things I’ve never liked,’ she said when we were alone again. ‘Being on public display.’ But as soon as she said, ‘Maddy’s here!’ she hurried on ahead of me to the table where her nineteen-year-old daughter sat talking to Caitlin.

Maddy Logan was the same fragile size as her mother and every bit as beautiful, but there was a robust quality to her movements that lent her a vitality her mother lacked. Her mother was the immortal image in the portrait; Maddy was the living version. In her wine-red dress with the red flower in her fine pale hair, she was all demure sexuality and amused dark eyes. She rushed up to embrace her mother and they stood hand-in-hand talking to Caitlin and me as I sat down next to her.

‘Maddy’s in a play at Northwestern,’ Elise said. ‘She wasn’t sure she could get away to be here.’

‘I have a very tiny part. Two lines. They didn’t miss me at all.’

Elise was downright bubbly. ‘No wonder you and Dev get along. Trying to give either of you a compliment is impossible.’

Maddy laughed. ‘I’ll take any compliment you want to give me.’

There are many worse fates than sitting at a table with three attractive women. The waiter came by, we all ordered drinks and Caitlin, Maddy and I talked about how well the night was going while Elise, of course, scouted the territory for sight of her husband. The brief joy she’d shown with Maddy was long gone; I could see the tension in her shoulders and jaw line. Terrible suspicions would be crackling through her mind like summer lightning illuminating her worst fears.

And you had to give the dark gods their sense of humor, because as a group of people retreated from the dance floor after another song ended, there stood the senator and a woman who looked oddly familiar to me. Then I recognized her. The mystery woman who’d stood at the back of the gym during the town hall meeting eleven days ago.

‘It’s her again, Caitlin.’ The desperation was back in Elise’s voice.

Maddy clutched her arm. ‘It’s all right, Mom. He’s just talking to her — whoever she is. That’s all.’

Caitlin shrugged pretty shoulders. ‘This is the fifth time she’s shown up at our recent events. The last two times she’s managed to talk to the senator. He says he doesn’t even know her name.’

I didn’t like any of this. An elected official, from small town council member to president of the United States, is a target for so many people with bad intent. There’s always the possibility that the other side is setting a trap for you or that the very ordinary-looking person wishing you well is actually an assassin who managed to slip a weapon past security.

‘I’ll be right back,’ I said, already on my feet.

The two of them stood just outside the shadows of the dance floor. In the lighted area, which was at least three-fourths of the ballroom, people were sedately partying. You didn’t see a lot of ladies ripping off their clothes and dancing on tables at fundraisers, though something like that would be more than welcome on nights when the speeches were interminable.

The closer I got the more I realized that she was not quite human. She was a fashion magazine icon pretending to be flesh and blood. She had been cleaned, painted and dressed to please one of those photographers who are more famous than the women they shoot. In her shiny black dress her perfect body was almost a match for her perfect face. But nothing could quite match it. God had been in a very good mood the day He’d created her.

She sensed me before Robert did and was already luring me to her before he turned to watch me close in on them.

Five times at the senator’s recent events. She was wrong in every way. Before Robert could say anything I reached out, took her hand and said, ‘The senator needs to go back to his table, so how about having this dance with me?’

For just a moment consternation shone in those blue eyes; she knew she was in some kind of trouble but it had come on so quickly she hadn’t been able to prepare for combat. Then, ‘Why, of course. I’d never turn down a handsome man.’ To Robert, ‘It was so nice seeing you again, Senator. My group really appreciates everything you’ve done for women’s rights.’

‘Senator, your wife and daughter asked me to ask you if you’d come back to your table. Your daughter wants to tell you about the play she’s in.’

Robert, confused, embarrassed and angry, said, ‘It was very nice seeing you again.’ Then to me, restraining himself with great effort: ‘I’ll talk to you later, my friend. Be prepared.’

Then he stalked off.

She was a pro for sure. She was already sliding her arm around my waist as she said, ‘He’s bigger than you are. Think you could beat him up?’

‘I have an agreement with my clients. I don’t beat them up unless they don’t pay their bills.’

‘You’re a practical man. Good common sense.’

‘So just who the hell are you?’

A faux Southern accent. ‘I do declare, Mr Conrad, that you just might give me the vapors. I like strong, tough men.’

She knew my name, meaning that she would also know everything else about me.

‘Your name.’

‘Tracy Cabot. See, I’m easy.’

‘And you do what?’

‘Are you going to beat me up if I don’t tell you?’ At least she’d dropped the accent.

‘And you do what, Tracy?’

‘Oh, you’re no fun.’ And then she brought us together in a most pleasing way and as we held each other, the feel and shape of her body forced me to close my eyes for a time and just enjoy the touch and smell and urgency of her. She led me onto the dance floor and we danced.

‘Now, see, isn’t that better?’ She was having fun with the dumb guy. Give him an erection and he was your slave.

‘Who do you work for?’

‘Would you really expect me to tell you?’

‘No. But at least we’re cutting through the bullshit. I don’t want you around the senator anymore.’

‘Jealous? Want him for yourself?’

‘I want him to win. That means avoiding any setups.’

‘Maybe you haven’t heard. Women can vote now. They also have the right to go to political events and support their candidates.’

‘You must have quite the job. You have free time to track the senator all over the state. He was upstate the night before last and way downstate last night. And here you are now in Chicago.’

‘That’s another thing you mustn’t have heard about yet. They’re called airplanes. And sometimes women who have the right to vote ride those airplanes when they want to go somewhere.’

‘All I care about is that we understand each other. I don’t want you around the senator anymore. Period.’

She started to say something but I eased myself out of her clutches and started walking briskly back toward our table. I didn’t look to see how she was handling the unthinkable situation of somebody dumping her on a dance floor. Her irritating Southern accent came back to me; if being dumped on a dance floor didn’t give her the vapors nothing would.

The table was as cold and silent as a mausoleum. Caitlin was the only one who looked at me. She was tense and unhappy. Maddy held her mother’s hand and Robert scowled off into the distance. As subtly as I could I signaled Caitlin with a head nod.

‘Would anybody like to go to the ladies’ room with me?’ she said.

‘That sounds like a good idea,’ Maddy said with a fraudulent smile. ‘C’mon, Mom.’

The way she helped Elise up reminded me of the time I’d spent with my father in his last days. I’d held on to him even when he just wanted to cross the room. But Elise was only forty-two and as far as I knew in good health.

After they left, Robert said, ‘I should fire your ass.’

‘Go ahead and fire me. I don’t like working for morons, anyway.’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

We both knew we had to keep our voices low and our body language friendly.

‘This Tracy Cabot is following you all over the state. You’ve no doubt been photographed together at least three or four times when she comes up to talk to you. Right there’s a story.’

‘What story?’

‘A beautiful, mysterious woman in three or four different outfits photographed next to the sitting senator seeking re-election. I’m surprised nobody’s picked it up yet.’

‘Nobody cares.’

‘Elise cares.’

His cheeks became a deep red. ‘My wife is none of your goddamned business.’

‘And I care even if you don’t. The woman is a plant. How can you not see that?’

‘The woman is an admirer and nothing else.’

‘Robert, you’ve been in politics quite a while now. You know how this works. The other side sets out all kinds of traps. And you’re walking right into one.’

‘Bullshit. She’s just a woman with some money who appreciates how I vote on women’s issues.’

‘Have you ever been alone with her?’

He had to take the bullet between the eyes before he could speak. ‘What the hell? What kind of question is that?’

‘A simple one. Have you ever been alone with her?’

‘Of course not. I don’t play around. You know that.’

For now I had to let the lie go, ludicrous as it was. The list was long of elected officials who toted their mistresses and girlfriends along on the campaign trail. The ladies usually had protective meaningless titles to explain their presence. But I didn’t expect Her Highness Tracy Cabot to have a cover story that mundane.

The waiter took our order for a couple more drinks and we sat there not talking while we waited for them. Not talking to each other, I should have said. The senator had to play senator for his admirers, some of whom were starting the procession home. I wondered if he was as tired as I was. The situation with the Cabot woman and the confrontation with Robert had ground me down. I was still worried about Tracy Cabot. One thing I’d learned as an investigator was that a good share of the time your instinctive response to a situation was correct. And this whole thing just felt bad. Maybe very bad.

When the women came back, Maddy said, ‘Mom wants to go home, Dad.’

‘Of course, honey. Let’s go.’ He started toward Elise but her look stopped him. ‘We’ll see you later, Caitlin.’

Their departure happened quickly, so quickly that he only had time to snap at me, ‘My brother knows a consultant who could start work tomorrow morning. You’d better keep that in mind.’

As we watched them make their slow way through admirers, Caitlin said, ‘You must have really pissed him off.’

‘I did.’

‘That woman?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I warned him about her. He told me it wasn’t any of my business.’

‘He told me that he’s never been alone with her.’

‘Wow. You asked him that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You believe him?’

‘I want to,’ I said. ‘I really do.’

Two

I admit to being single-minded; selfish if you insist. My first thought seeing Tracy Cabot lying twisted on the floor four days after my run in with her was nothing as noble as a human life had been wasted. No, my first thought was There goes the election. I could justify this by saying that the party and thus the country needed this seat. That if one more representative of the Tea Party gets into the Senate the average American will grow ever closer to living in poverty. We will be on our way to oligarchy. So you could — could if you were being kind — see my first response as somewhat noble. But who would be that foolish?

She was dressed in a red silk blouse, stylish jeans and three-inch black heels. She hadn’t come out here to go hiking.

The wound hadn’t bled that much; somebody had hit her with something heavy on the right side of the head. Those dazzling eyes were dulled now and the mouth shaped in the form of an objection. Or curse. The most certain proof of death was the stench. It often is. From the looks of things, she’d been dead since last night.

Very soon the room would be full of police personnel performing forensic investigations of various kinds. There would be a traffic jam of reporters’ cars and vans. For now these would all be local. But Chicago wasn’t far away and the networks would have people up here within two hours. The circus would be in town and within six hours press from foreign countries already posted here would be striding the midway.

Sex. A senator. A murder. An international orgasm.

I was careful not to touch anything, including her.

The back porch was not only screened in but stuffed with plump comfortable furnishings, a dry bar and a corner packed with fishing gear. You could sit here and watch the sunset with all the melancholy sights and sounds of the dying day and share it like a prayer with your wife or lover. The best days of my marriage had been like that, that kind of shared peace and unspoken love.

But as I stared at it now I remembered for the first time that on the other side of the hill, maybe six or seven miles away, was the Logan family mansion. Civilization was only ten minutes away.

I looked for signs of a struggle and found one easily — a small bronze statue of Jack Kennedy. The upper portion was lurid with blood and hair.

My eyes found her again.

In most cases I would have wondered about her. Not as a character assassin paid by somebody to take down a damned dumb senator, but as a person, because behind the beauty and the expensive work — in natural light, without the heavy make-up, I could see that she’d had some done on her nose and cheeks — there had been a person of some kind. Somebody’s daughter — maybe even somebody’s mother, though that seemed unlikely. I’d wanted to bust her ass and then shove her in the face of her masters but I hadn’t wanted — nor certainly expected — this. Not this at all.

There was nothing else for me there so I went back to where Robert sat in a leather chair before the great dead fireplace. His right hand held a tall, clear glass that appeared to be filled with bourbon.

‘Go easy on that. We need to call the police.’

‘Oh, this’ll be great, won’t it?’

‘Robert, you lied to me. You were involved with her.’

‘No, damn it, not the way you say. We never had real sex.’

Just what I needed. I was in the company of Bill Clinton, Jr. We were going to parse words.

‘Hand job? Blow job? What the hell are we talking about here, Robert?’

He stupidly gunned his drink then shook his head miserably. ‘We, uh, laid naked together one night but nothing happened.’

‘You both had a religious conversion at the same moment?’

‘Fuck yourself, Dev.’

‘I need answers, Robert. We need to call the police and we need to get Zuckerman up here.’ Ben Zuckerman was the go-to criminal lawyer for our side in Chicago. He was a master.

‘I didn’t kill her.’

‘All right. That’s a start.’

‘You believe me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, God, Dev, thanks for believing me.’ I thought he was being sarcastic until I saw the tears in his eyes. He was coming undone.

‘You need to pull yourself together, Robert. We need to get your story straight so it’s coherent.’

‘I know, it’s just—’

‘How many times did you see her alone?’

‘Twice. The first time was in her hotel room. We had room service and made out a little. That was all.’

Microphones, video cameras...

‘How about the second time?’

‘A different hotel room. That was when we— When I couldn’t do anything.’

Microphones, video cameras...

‘Why couldn’t you do anything?’

‘I don’t know. Why can’t you get it up sometimes? Maybe it was guilt. About Elise, I mean. But that’s why I got so hot and bothered in the first place. Our sex life hasn’t exactly been great. Since I had that little fling, I mean.’

Your sex life isn’t very good since you stepped out on your wife so you step out on her again.

‘Now I want you to tell me everything you did so far today.’

His expression said that I was tormenting him and he resented it. But he spoke with forced patience. This was the man of privilege talking to a hired hand.

‘She was supposed to be here waiting for me. I’d made the mistake of telling her how great our cabin is, so she asked if she could spend a night here. She said she liked waking up in the country. She even managed to con me into giving her a key to the place. I didn’t want to but I was in no position to say no.’

‘God, Robert, she was probably planting cameras.’

‘I’m not completely stupid, Dev. I finally realized you were right about her. I was going to surprise her. She thought we were meeting to have sex. But I was going to tell her that she could go to hell and that I wouldn’t stand still for blackmail. I was going to dare her to go to the media. I was ashamed as hell and thought I’d finally gotten my brains and my balls back.’

He formed a fist to shake at the dark gods. ‘I was so stupid, Dev. I can’t believe how stupid I was.’ A sob; then the tears. Not for the dead woman. ‘All I can think of is what this’ll do to Elise. I never told you but she was in a kind of rest home last year after she had a hard time dealing with things.’

‘“Things” being your affair?’

‘I’d give anything to take that back. Elise is... She had psychological problems as a child. She saw a shrink for most of high school and half of college. It runs in the family. Her mother committed suicide and she always blamed her father.’ He made a face. ‘The old man was in love with somebody else and about a week after he told her, Elise’s mother killed herself. With a gun. Elise got all her anxiety attacks and depression from her mother.’ Then, ‘And she’ll leave me now, for sure. She deserves to leave me.’

More tears.

I went out on to the porch. I had Ben Zuckerman’s number on my speed dial. His personal assistant answered.

‘Hi, Stephanie. It’s Dev Conrad.’

‘Hi, Dev. I hope you’re in the city. It’s such a beautiful day.’

‘Actually I’m upstate for the day. But it’s nice up here, too.’

‘I love fall so much. My favorite time.’

‘Mine, too. Say, Stephanie, is Ben there?’

‘Yes he is. He’s got one of our temps in with him. I can buzz him if you’d like.’

‘I’d appreciate that very much. Thank you.’

The wait took about a minute and a half.

‘Hi, Dev.’

‘Hi, Ben. Listen, you’ve been to Robert’s cabin.’

He laughed. ‘I got the worst hangover of my life the weekend I went up there, supposedly to fish.’

‘I can’t say any more than this: we need you to fly up here now. Take a private plane if you need to and charge it to us. There’s an airport nearby. Call me back when you have the arrangements made.’

‘Hey, Dev. You’re scaring me, and I mean it.’

‘Nobody’s more scared than Robert is.’

‘I’ll have to blow off a couple of very important clients.’

‘You know how badly we need this seat.’

‘Damn it!’ he said and took a deep breath. ‘I really am dreading this. I’ll be on a plane as soon as I can. Give me your cell number again, huh?’

Three

Detective Frank Hammell stood with me on the porch as we watched a green Chevrolet two-door sedan come around the corner of the A-frame and stop. He and two of his uniformed men had been here for just over half an hour now. Bright yellow crime scene tape clashed with the more autumnal colors of the trees and grass.

He had made it clear from the start that he considered me at best a nuisance. I’d warned Robert three different times that after his brief explanation of how he’d come to find the body he didn’t have to say anything else until his lawyer showed up. He’d given me the name of a local attorney who was also a strong political supporter of his. He felt she could handle things until Ben got here.

‘There she is,’ Hammell said, watching a woman get out of the Chevy. ‘She’s a pretty one. And if you don’t think so, just ask her.’ His spiteful tone suggested a lot but since it was in code I didn’t know what he was talking about.

Her name was Jane Tyler. Everything about her, from the cut of her blue suit and starched white blouse — and certainly including her pretty, freckled face — suggested that she was a smart, confident woman who’d be good in a courtroom. This impression faltered for just a moment when her blue eyes met Hammell’s.

She came up onto the porch toting a slender briefcase. She nodded to each of us and then said, ‘Hi, Frank.’

‘It’s Detective Hammell these days, Jane. You should’ve figured that out for yourself.’ He was a tall man who might have played basketball in his high school days. At least, the graying crew cut suggested something like that. He wore a gray suit and black tie and blue shirt. He kept squeezing one of those little rubber balls that help your grip get more deadly.

‘All right, Detective Hammell. I’d like to talk to the senator if I may.’

‘Then this is the man you want to talk to. He seems to be giving the orders.’

I put out my hand and we shook. ‘I’m Dev Conrad. I work with the senator on his campaign.’

A good, open Midwestern smile. ‘Oh, yes. He talks about you all the time.’ Then to Hammell: ‘Detective Hammell, I’d like ten minutes alone with Senator Logan. And since I imagine you’ve got a couple of men inside I’d like to request that they wait outside while I talk to him.’

‘Why, hell yes, Jane. You and this Conrad are making my work easy for me. All I got to do is take orders and not worry my pretty little head at all.’

For the first time her blue eyes showed concern. ‘Detective Hammell, I’m not asking for anything irregular and we both know you don’t have to go along with it. If you’re against it just say so.’

‘Now how could I say no to a former family member?’

This time her look was one of exasperation. A soap opera was playing out but I still didn’t know the plot.

He moved from us to the door and said, ‘Carter and Banes, get out of there right now.’

As he spoke another car came around the side of the house. This one was a new silver Buick and had a doctor’s tag on the license plate. Probably the medical examiner.

The two uniformed men came out of the house. Both of them carried small evidence bags. All the bags were filled. ‘Our good friend the lawyer needs to talk to the senator.’

Neither of them showed any particular emotion. They were likely competent officers doing their job. They didn’t seem to share their boss’s enmity toward Jane. In fact, one of them was bold enough to nod to her and offer a whisper of a smile.

I heard one or maybe two vehicles making their way down the slope leading to the house. The place was getting busy.

‘You better get in there right now,’ Hammell said to Jane. ‘You know how Doctor Wilhelm hates to be kept waiting.’ His moderately civil tone surprised me.

Jane hurried inside.

The man who came up on the porch appeared to be in his fifties with graying hair that had once been red. He wore a V-neck blue sweater with a button-down white shirt underneath. Jeans and tan cowboy boots. Somewhere he’d bought himself a pair of mean green eyes, maybe at a gun shop. It was hard to imagine him comforting a patient.

Even before Hammell had had time to introduce him, Wilhelm leaned into the detective and grinned. ‘Looks like I’m gonna get the senator I want after all. Sorry about that, Detective Hammell.’ Hammell grunted but said nothing. Then Wilhelm glared in my direction. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Logan’s consultant.’

His hand went out. I took it automatically. Shockingly weak for such a medical cowpoke. I wanted to punch him in the mouth.

‘A little joke there, Conrad. My name’s Tag, by the way.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I’d never let my politics interfere with my job.’ He was covering his ass in case I wanted to give the press his name and repeat what he’d said. ‘Well, I’d better get in there.’

There were numerous cases around the country where medical examiners had been bought off. Most notorious was the case of the Chicago-area detective who’d allegedly murdered three of his four wives.

‘You’ll need to hold off ten minutes, Tag. Jane Tyler’s in there.’

‘Tyler? What the hell’s she doing here?’

‘The senator asked Mr Conrad here to get her. They’ve got some hotshot lawyer flying in from Chicago and she’s holding down the fort until he gets here.’

‘She’s about as cold a little bitch as they come.’ The word cold was, I suspected, attributable to the possibility that he’d hit on her and she’d spurned him. Why, here was a stud popular enough to be both a husband and a player — how could she turn down a prize like him?

An ambulance pulled into view, followed by another squad car. And right behind them, still coming down the slope, was another vehicle that was soon enough revealed to be a Channel 8 van. Like Jane and Wilhelm, they’d all have to park outside the yellow tape.

‘You have any ideas yet, Frank?’ Wilhelm asked.

‘Not yet. Way too soon. I’d like to talk to the senator but our friend here doesn’t think that’s a good idea.’

A man and woman in white came up from the ambulance. Hammell checked his watch and said, ‘Jane Tyler’s got four more minutes in there. We’ll just wait.’

‘This is really bullshit, Frank. I’ve got a lot to do.’

The ambulance woman rolled her eyes when Wilhelm said this. He was clearly a beloved figure in medical circles.

Jane beat her deadline by a couple minutes. She walked out with her briefcase and glanced around at the new arrivals. When her eyes stopped on Wilhelm her face tightened perceptibly. Then, ‘Detective Hammell, the senator would like to talk to you but I’d like to be with him when you do.’

She was being polite. She had the legal right to be with her client.

But a cop is a cop. ‘That’s fine. But I want to do it at the station.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes, I am. For one thing, Tag has to get in there, and for another the ambulance folks have to do their job after he finishes.’

A hefty man in a Bears jersey with a camera on his shoulder was shooting an attractive blonde woman in a tan Burberry who was talking into a hand-held microphone. The reporters who’ll go on to better gigs are the ones who know stories like these are the ones that will get them there. So they play it big.

‘I’d like to speak to Mr Conrad for a second,’ Jane said.

‘Then you can do it around the corner of the house, lady, because I’m going inside right now. Some of us have more important jobs than covering up for a lying politician.’ Wilhelm didn’t wear righteous indignation well at all.

Hammell nodded and Jane led me down the steps of the porch and a few feet around the house.

‘The senator would like you to drive over to his house and explain to his family what’s going on.’ She was good at reading faces. ‘It’s a terrible job and I told him that. But what he’s afraid of is that Doctor Wilhelm will call the senator’s brother, James, and all the information will come from those two. They’re big friends.’

I couldn’t help myself. ‘Wilhelm and James? Man, that James sure is a loyal guy.’

I was graced by the warmth of her smile. ‘I shouldn’t comment.’

‘You just did.’

‘Anyway, they really need to hear everything from somebody they trust and like. Elise and Maddy despise James. And Doctor Wilhelm started hitting on Maddy as soon as she turned eighteen. They all go to the same country club. The board there warned him he’d be kicked out if he kept it up.’

I thought of Elise’s angry and anguished face when she’d spotted Tracy Cabot at the fundraiser. I was afraid to think about how she would react to this. All I could hope for was that she was stronger mentally than she appeared.

‘To be fair, I have to tell you something about Wilhelm. He’s a wonderful doctor. My brother was in a car crash and we thought he wouldn’t live through the night. Wilhelm saved him through surgery. His problem is with younger women, and one of these days it’ll catch up to him.’

‘I still don’t like him. But I’m glad you told me he’s competent.’

‘More than competent. He’s very good. Now, I need to tell the senator that we have to go to the station. He’s not going to like it.’

‘I can come along if you want.’

She humored me. ‘Anything to get out of going to tell Elise and Maddy, huh? I don’t blame you for that. They’re very sweet people and they deserve a lot better than this.’

I went to my car wondering about her relationship with Detective Hammell. Speculation on the soap opera kept my mind off Elise.

Four

The mansion was a Shingle-style home with a gambrel roof that lent it a Victorian look. It had always been referred to locally as ‘the mansion,’ even though it really didn’t qualify as one. The Logans had liked the fact that it was more than a century old, despite all the renovations it had required before they moved in. The lovingly-tended lawn stretched from the top of the hill on which the house sat all the way down to the rural gravel road below. The driveway was paved and widened in front of the house.

Mrs Weiderman answered the door. She was a tall, somewhat overweight woman with pure white hair worn short and one of those sweet faces that grandmothers order online right after they get the news about the forthcoming child. I had seen her raise hell with reporters, nasty drunks at parties and anyone who spoke ill of any of the Logans, James, unfortunately, included. After she opened the door she stood smiling at me. ‘One of my favorite people.’

‘Let me say the same. How are you, Mrs Weiderman?’

‘Well, I suppose I’d be even happier if I was thirty years younger, forty pounds lighter and fifty times smarter, but I guess I’m doing all right. Now get in here and let me get you some coffee. Are you hungry?’

The house was quiet, though somewhere I could hear a muffled TV. Once she’d brought me into the living room she sat me down and said, ‘I believe you take it black.’

‘Thank you. I could use some coffee.’ I heard the anxiety in my voice and caught myself. ‘When it’s as good as yours it doesn’t matter what time it is, Mrs Weiderman.’

It was a large room of framed Monet prints, comfortable deep- red matching couches and chairs, a stone fireplace large enough to roast a buffalo in and a grand piano in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the forest. There was a dry bar tucked away; I had taken advantage of it quite a few times.

I got up from my chair, sat down again and once more got up. I was just sitting down again when Mrs Weiderman brought me my coffee and said, ‘Maddy wants to see you, too. I told you last time I think she has a little crush on you. They’ll be down in a few minutes.’

I thanked her then stood up again. This time I went all the way over to the grand piano and stared out at the woods. Whenever I got into trouble with my folks as a boy I imagined that I could run away and live in the forest. I never had a clear sense of what I’d do there, especially after nightfall, but eating leaves and tree bark sounded better than facing my parents’ disappointment.

When I heard them I turned around and saw that they knew. They didn’t know what, but they knew it would be bad. Maddy wore a tan crew-neck sweater, jeans and merrily striped socks; Elise was in a white blouse, black cardigan and jeans. Her feet were in black slippers.

‘I’m almost afraid to hear, Dev. I have to tell you that. You could have phoned — Maddy and I both know that this is going to be terrible.’

Maddy and Elise sat on a couch in front of the fireplace. I sat in the chair opposite them.

‘I called Dad’s cell,’ Maddy said. ‘A strange man answered and then let Dad talk. Dad said he was being taken to the police station and that he loved Mom and I very much. And that you were coming over to explain everything.’

So they did know some of the details in broad stroke. A police officer answering and a father telling a daughter that he was being taken to the police station was ominous.

The more difficult part for me would be telling Elise about Tracy Cabot.

‘I want to say right upfront that I believe he was set up by somebody to make it look as if he murdered someone. We all know Robert and we know that he would never kill anybody.’ I tried to establish my professional and moral authority but I doubted they even heard me. They wanted the facts.

Elise was ahead of me. ‘Someone was actually murdered?’

‘Yes.’

‘My God, Dev. A murder. I can’t believe it. Who was it?’

‘A woman.’

‘A woman?’ A subtle shift in her expression and tone of voice. She was figuring out the elements of the equation here. A woman, the police and Robert.

‘Was this a woman Robert knew?’

‘Only slightly.’

‘I see.’ And she did see. All too clearly. ‘Where did this happen?’

‘At the cabin.’

‘Our family’s cabin?’ She emphasized the word ‘family.’ ‘Where Maddy and I always ride our bikes? Where Maddy had her birthday parties when she was a little girl?’

I nodded.

‘I have the feeling, Dev, that you’re not telling me everything.’

‘I’ve told you everything I know, Elise.’ I spoke softly because I could sense the agitation growing within her.

‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were protecting Robert.’

‘I’m not, Elise. I don’t believe he had anything to do with the murder, if that’s what you mean.’

‘You know damned well what I mean.’

‘Mom, please—’

‘Be quiet, Maddy.’ Elise did not take her eyes from mine. ‘Was my husband having an affair with this woman?’

‘No.’ I wasn’t about to go into the finer details.

‘Did you ask him that?’

‘Yes. That was the first thing I asked him.’

‘And he said he wasn’t having an affair with her?’

‘Yes. And I believe him the same as I believe he didn’t have anything to do with her death. I don’t blame you for being angry and hurt, Elise, but our main concern is keeping him from being charged with murder.’

‘In other words, you’re worried about the election.’

‘Yes. No point in lying, I’m worried about the election. That’s my job in this. But we’re friends, Elise. You and I and Maddy. I hope you understand how much I care about you.’

‘And we care about you, Dev, you know that,’ Maddy said.

But Elise was having none of our Oprah hug. ‘Who was the woman?’

‘Her name was Tracy Cabot. Somebody hit her on the head with something heavy and killed her.’

‘She probably deserved it.’

‘Mother!’

Elise brought her slight hand to her face and touched fingers to her forehead. ‘Oh, God, forgive me for ever saying such a thing. I apologize to both of you.’ Then, as if she’d already forgotten the tone of her apology, the anger was back in her voice. ‘Dev, I don’t believe what Robert told you and this time everybody will know he cheated on me. It will be all over the news.’

Maddy angled herself so that she could see her mother straight on. ‘Mom, there’s no point in going through all this. There was a woman involved and she’s dead and the police think Dad did it.’

‘He was the one who found the body. Before the police got there I called Ben Zuckerman. He’s probably on a plane coming up here right now.’

‘I have a right to know if my husband was sleeping with another woman.’

‘He wasn’t.’

I was back to Bill Clinton word parsing. He would have if he’d been able to get it up but since he couldn’t he didn’t.

‘He told you that?’ It didn’t matter that we’d gone through this a minute or two before. She wanted to convince herself that he hadn’t so she could find some relief from the turbulent emotions that were suffocating her; but her history with men in general and her father and husband suggested otherwise.

Maddy flung herself back against the couch and folded her arms across her chest. Her mother’s persistence was obviously starting to grate on her.

‘Elise, listen to me. That’s exactly what he told me.’

‘He said to you, “I didn’t sleep with her.”’

‘Yes, he did. They weren’t, of course. But things were bad enough already.’

‘But he was going to meet her at the cabin.’

‘He was going to set her straight. That’s why they were meeting there.’

‘And now the police think he murdered her.’ Was there the faintest note of satisfaction in her voice?

This time when she leaned forward she put her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Maddy took her in her arms but Elise stayed hidden. She probably wanted to crunch herself into the smallest configuration possible. And maybe just disappear.

I remembered the dry bar in the far corner straight behind the grand piano. I walked over there and filled a small glass with bourbon and water. When I got back Elise was sitting up again, but from the gaze I wondered if she was in shock. The dullness of her eyes suggested it.

She took the glass with both hands. Like a child. She began drinking right away.

Maddy thanked me sotto voce.

‘That’s all I need. To become an alcoholic.’

‘Oh, yes, Mom. You drink so much. What’re you up to now — two drinks a month or something like that?’

‘Honey, you know how many alcoholics are in my family.’

‘Yes, but you’re not one of them.’

Elise had drunk most of the small glass. She set it carefully on the coffee table and then sat back and closed her eyes.

‘Are you tired, Mom?’

‘Uh-huh. Very.’ Eyes still closed. Willing the world away and I didn’t blame her.

‘How about if I take you upstairs and tuck you in for a while?’

‘It’s funny, Dev.’ Her eyes suddenly opened and she was staring at me. ‘I knew there’d be a woman. My father was like that. He’d make promises to my poor mother but he’d always go back to whoring around. And then one day he announced he’d fallen in love with some girl at his office. I’d actually met her several times before that and liked her. Very pretty and smart. I felt so guilty that I’d had those thoughts when my father told my mother about her. As if I’d betrayed my mother somehow.’

‘I’m sorry, Elise.’

She stood up abruptly. But she was uncertain, almost falling over, which she would have done if Maddy hadn’t bolted up and grabbed her around the waist.

‘Just lean on me, Mom. We’ll take it easy and get you tucked in.’

Mother and child, roles reversed.

As if I’d already gone, and as Maddy began slowly walking her out of the room, Elise said, ‘Tell Dev I’m sorry if I was a bitch.’

‘You weren’t a bitch, Mom. And Dev is our friend. He wouldn’t think anything like that.’ She accompanied this with a glance over her shoulder. Another sotto voce thank you.

Suddenly Mrs Weiderman came into the room and Elise broke from Maddy and rushed to the much larger woman, embracing her and putting her head to Mrs Weiderman’s chest. Elise began sobbing and the woman started stroking her small, fine head the way she would a child’s. Maddy stood in place watching them, a fond smile in her eyes and on her mouth. After two or three minutes Mrs Weiderman gently eased herself back from Elise and nodded to Maddy. Then Maddy took charge of her mother again.

I watched them leave. I felt bolted to my chair. I was getting like Elise. I didn’t want to stand up and meet the world again. The world I knew was always a harsh and deceitful one, but this new situation was a treachery I’d never faced before. My footing was anything but sure.

Mrs Weiderman came into the room and said, ‘I heard some of it, Dev, but I didn’t hear all of it. The police think that the senator killed a woman?’

‘Well, since she was found in his so-called cabin, they’re certainly interested in talking to him.’

She sat down with prim dignity on the edge of the couch, facing me. She lowered her voice respectfully. ‘Was he seeing her, Dev?’

‘I’m afraid so. But he told me that they had never slept together.’

‘Oh, Lord. Poor Elise. Her father and then her husband — and now her husband again. I feel so sorry for her.’

‘I don’t think he had anything to do with her death — that’s what I have to focus on now. I like Elise very much but I can’t worry about his marriage. Within a few hours the press will be out here en masse and the way they’ll cover it will help to hand the other side the election.’

‘Lord, I hadn’t even thought about the election.’

‘Let me ask you something, Mrs Weiderman: how many people had keys to the cabin?’

‘Everybody. The whole family. I have one. And old Mr Stokes, the handyman we use for lighter work.’

‘Does James have one?’

‘James...’ Then, ‘My Lord, you’re not thinking—?’

‘No, I just want to be sure I know of everyone who has a key.’

‘Oh.’ But I could see she still didn’t believe me. ‘Yes, James has one, too. He takes some of his women there. As Elise says, “That’s all right with us because it means he isn’t here bothering us.” I probably shouldn’t say this but right now I’m more worried about Elise than I am about the senator. Thank God Maddy’s strong. I think they would have divorced if it hadn’t been for her. She would sit with her mother for hours and listen to the same thing over and over and never complain. And she would question her father from time to time to make sure he wasn’t seeing that woman anymore. He resented it but he understood so he never got angry with her. And now—’

I suppose I heard the gunshot first but in my memory it and the scream are simultaneous. There was that second or two delay — it was the same with Mrs Weiderman — when we sat letting our ears inform our brains of the real meaning of the sounds... and then we were lurching from our sitting positions and racing to the sound of more screams from upstairs.

I recall staring up the flight of stairs in front of me; it might have been a mountain. I went up them two at a time with Mrs Weiderman, gasping, close behind me.