Before Another Dies (5 page)

“He was dead
before
you found him, right?”

“Of course, Nat. I wouldn't kill a man over a parking place.” I sipped my tea.

“I guess not. It's not like it was a chocolate brownie.”

“Now that, I might kill over.” I filled her in on what details I had. It was a short description of events.

“What is it with you? Trouble seems to follow you like a fog.”

“All I did was show up at work.”

“Did the media come after you?” Now she was getting down to business. Anchorwoman with years of political reporting turned researcher turned campaign manager percolated to the top. She didn't ask directly, but she wanted to know what I said and to whom.

“I haven't heard a thing so far,” I said. “I thought Doug Turner would be on my doorstep, but he's yet to show.”

“His mother died last week. He's up in Oregon taking care of her final affairs.”

“I didn't know that,” I said, embarrassed. “Was it in the paper?”

“The obits. Even that's unusual since she lived out of state. I think they ran it as a way of honoring Doug. He's been with the paper for a lot of years.”

“I'm sorry to hear about his loss.” I thought of my own mother and of the heartache I'd feel at her passing. “I'll send a card or something.”

“But no other media has come snooping around?” Nat pressed.

“No. I'm not too surprised . . .” I trailed off as Victoria appeared and set our lunch before us. We thanked her and she left. “I'm not surprised. There's no need to interview me. I know very little.”

“But if they catch wind that it was the mayor of Santa Rita who found the deceased, they'll want more. It's a great hook: ‘Mayor finds dead body.' I'd use it myself if I were still in the business. No, wait.” She paused in thought. “‘Congressional candidate finds body.' Yeah, that'd be the angle.”

“You're ruining my appetite.”

“You can take it. You're tough.” She picked up the wide spoon in her right hand and shoveled some chowder into her mouth. I attacked my salad. Gentle music—some New Age strain—trickled out of nearby speakers, struggling to be heard above the music of the ocean waves. It was no competition. The sea had been playing its songs since creation, and it would be playing the same tune long after some developer tore the Gull down.

“Now that the holidays are over, I assume we're in for the big push,” I said between bites of shrimp.

“Your life is about to get more complex. Running for mayor will look easy compared to this. So far, we've got the lead, or at least we think we do. Polls are iffy at this stage. Your name ID has gone up, but there are still too many people who don't know the name of Madison Glenn.”

“Martin Roth is still on board,” I said. Roth was the sitting congressman for our district, but he leaked his retirement early last year. Last November, he made it official. He was going home to stay, devoting his time to fishing and grandchildren. He carried a lot of political weight. If I was going to win, I needed his endorsement. He had implied that it was mine but implication was all I had. Politics is like white-water rafting: What you see on the surface is only part of the danger. It is the current and rocks below that are the real dangers.

“Roth will endorse you, unless Robert Till pulls some kind of coup.” Robert Till was the county supervisor whose district covered much of the same ground as the congressional district. He frightened me. He was well entrenched with the Republican machinery, a good communicator with natural charm and a chin worthy of Kirk Douglas. In his last run for supervisor, he took 58 percent of the vote in the primary. That was an enormous number considering there were four other candidates. He also had money, and money was the lifeblood of a campaign.

“It's Till that scares me,” I admitted. “The guy is a juggernaut. There are some in the party already touting him as the next congressman. I'm not going to get very far if I can't win my own party.”

“You will. We've been doing the groundwork. Don't sell yourself short. You're the darling of the party. They'll back whomever they think will win. Besides, I've been studying Till. He has an exploitable weakness.”

“You know my rules, Nat. Nothing underhanded or dirty. I agreed to run as long as I can do it in the cleanest fashion possible. No mudslinging, no name-calling, no investigations to find skeletons in the other candidates' closets.”

“I know and what's more, I agree. My point is he's not a perfect candidate. There are no perfect candidates.”

“I'm waiting for you to say, ‘Present company excluded.'”

“I wish I could, but you know as well as I do that you have obstacles to overcome. The March primary is just a couple of months off. After that, the real work begins.”

“If I win the primary.”

“You'll win.”

I loved her confidence but had a ton of doubts. “How can you be so certain?”

She shrugged. Just her right shoulder moved. “Being a pessimist doesn't help.” She paused, played with her chowder, then added, “You have to stay out of trouble. The news reports last year may have helped you, but they could come back and bite us on the girdle. You were both victim and hero. That works once. Twice, and it looks contrived.”

Last year two of my former campaign volunteers were abducted. One died. It's a long story and one filled with too many pains to relive. Each time I think of it and the friends it cost me, my stomach feels as if I had swallowed a handful of thumbtacks. “I can't change what has happened, Nat. It is what it is. I've learned to live with it, and my campaign is going to have to learn to get past it. I sure don't want to go through anything like it again.”

“I understand. I'm talking about perceptions, not reality. They are not always the same. There's truth and perceived truth. Take your new interest in church things.”

“What about it?” I was getting uncomfortable. Nat is a good enough friend that she doesn't sugarcoat things for me. She cares enough to speak the truth.

“After last year's crisis you started going church. I know it brings you comfort, but some are going to suggest it's just a ploy to get the Christian vote.”

“It's not,” I said, stronger than I intended. “I've tried to explain it to you.”

“You have explained it. You've told me about your husband's conversion before his death, and you've told me all about Paul Shedd and his influence on you. That's all well and good. For one, I've seen you change over the months, and all of the changes are good. My point is that the next two months are going to be crucial. You are a contender in this, and that means you now have a target on your back. I've been studying Till's last two campaigns. He's a nice guy until he gets cornered, then he starts throwing wild punches. I think that's going to happen soon.”

“I'll be ready for him.” I looked down at my lunch. The shrimp was firm and tasty, the lettuce crisp, the dressing tangy. So why was I losing my appetite?

“I think you're ready for any attack on the issues, but are you ready for a personal attack? Are you ready for innuendos?”

“I just can't see Till doing that.”

“It won't come from Till; it will come from some so-called citizens' group who pretend to speak for thousands. You know how this works. You've seen it.”

I had seen it and Nat was right. Till could let others attack me while he stood on the sidelines looking shocked at such behavior. The third-party candidates could raise questions. One didn't have to be evil to lose votes; they just had to appear evil or stupid. Campaigns have been sunk on misspoken phrases, doctored photos, and rumors.

Nat continued. “All I'm saying is, get ready. I think you are good enough to frighten Till and the others. You know the first rule of campaigning: If you can't run fast enough to be lead dog, then shoot the lead dog.”

“How poetic. I'll be ready.”

“You also need to be careful. Take this dead man in the parking lot thing. It wouldn't take much more than a question like, ‘Why is it violent crime follows Madison Glenn?' Or maybe, ‘Can we expect law and order from a person who constantly finds crime on her doorstep?' You get the idea.”

“I don't find crime on my doorstep. Just because—” Nat was looking at me and smiling. “I know, I know, perception and reality are not the same things. You don't suppose—no, that's too extreme, even for politics.”

“What? That someone killed this man in your parking place to rob you of some votes? Doubtful, but not impossible. It would take one sick puppy to go that far.”

“I seem to attract those kinds of puppies.”

We finished our meal and sat looking at the waves tumble on the shore. An elderly couple walked through the sand while their cocker spaniel barked at the waves. They held hands as they walked. We were close enough to the beach for me to see that they were well into their sixties. They walked in silence, like only old couples could, confident that more was communicated in the touch of their hands than in any words that could be spoken.

I thought of Peter. Of our love. Of his violent death and how much I missed him. Something began to twist in me as the Kodak moment became a reminder that I would never walk along the beach with Peter again. Not as a young couple. Not as an old one.

I had become a person of faith. Nat had mentioned Paul Shedd and the image of him floated to the surface of my thoughts. He was a former banker who went through a midlife crisis, but instead of buying a fast sports car or trading his adorable wife in for a younger model, he bought the Fish Kettle, a restaurant on the Santa Rita pier. It was one of my favorite places.

Paul Shedd had kept a secret from me for years, uncertain how to handle it. Peter, always on the lookout for new business clients, had been invited to go fishing with a group of businessmen. They would rent a half-day boat, a charter that would take them deep-sea fishing and bring them back. He soon learned that more than fishing went on there. On the way out and on the way back, the men held a Bible study. I don't know how Peter felt about it. For some reason, we never discussed it. He went out several times with them and seemed to enjoy their company. Each month he went out with them and each time he returned, he seemed a little different. I was never able to put my finger on it, but it was noticeable.

At some point, he decided to entrust his life to Christ. Last year, I didn't even know what that meant. On his way out of town, he stopped by the Fish Kettle to let Paul Shedd know. Paul gave him a Bible, one he had been reading and writing notes in. It was something Paul did. Each year, he would buy a new Bible, make notes in it as he read, then give it away to someone. That year, he gave it to Peter. Peter left the restaurant and drove to LA. Within hours he would be dead.

The police returned his possessions to me in a cardboard box that I left unopened for eight years. Inside the box was the Bible Paul had given him. I now keep it in a drawer in my desk at home. When I have the courage, I remove it from the drawer, trying to ignore the bloodstains on the cover, and read a few of the notes Peter had read shortly before he died.

It was through that Bible and several long conversations with Paul Shedd that my life, my eternity, changed. Faith has strengthened me, enabled me, empowered me, but I still hurt for the love I lost.

“So how's your love life?” Nat asked.

She asked just as I raised my glass to my lips. I almost choked. “Excuse me?”

“Your love life, how is it?” She gave another one shoulder shrug. “I saw you gazing at that old couple out there.”

“I wasn't gazing—”

“Yes, you were. It's my legs that are bad, not my eyes. You were getting misty.”

“I don't get misty.” I put my glass down and directed my eyes to the horizon. No couples out there.

“Yeah, you're a statue, all right. Granite, baby, that's you.” Her words were playful, but like a pillow fight that gets out of hand, there was a little unintentional pain involved. “Is the good doctor still coming around?”

“Jerry?” I snickered. Dr. Jerry Thomas always made me feel good. He was kind, funny, attentive, and patient—most of the time. A pediatrician, he had an office on Castillo Avenue. We dated in high school, but at that age I wasn't looking for love; I was looking for magic. We drifted apart. He married but his wife left him. She wanted more time than his physician schedule allowed. It left wounds. After Peter was killed, Jerry became more attentive, but never pushy. Over the years, he has tried to rekindle our high school love, but the flame has yet to take. Maybe my kindling isn't dry enough. I'm an optimist but Jerry is Olympic class in that department. “Yes, I see Jerry from time to time. We're old friends.”

“Uh-huh.” Nat grunted. “Friends are good, I guess. What about that handsome detective? I know you've got a thing for him. I can hear it when you speak his name.”

“Oh, stop!” I had to laugh. “First, college kids have ‘things' for one another. I'm far from old, but I'm well beyond those years. Second, we've never dated. He hasn't asked, and I'd probably turn him down if he did.”
Probably. Perhaps. Maybe
. “I'm not sure a mayor should date a detective on her police department. You just gave me a lecture about how things appear to voters.”

“Some things are more important than politics. Besides, after you're in congress, none of that will matter.”

“That's what I like about you, Nat, you can direct my political and personal life all at the same time. You're starting to sound like my mother.”

“I've met your mother. You'd be wise to listen to her.”

I started to launch another quip her way when her face clouded over. I noticed her staring at the elderly couple as they and their dog meandered down the shore. I wasn't the only one wondering who would hold my hand when I was old.