Death of a Political Plant (19 page)

“Oh, God, you startled me,” Louise gasped, clutching the damp bosom of her lawn dress. She stood perfectly still. Another stranger to deal with: She hoped he didn’t have a gun, but was too tired right now to get excited about it. She looked him over. He wore an expensive tan summer suit over a white shirt with tie. His dirty blond blown-dry hairdo was a little damaged at this point from the rain. Arrogant eyes peered shrewdly from a narrow face dominated by a sharp nose. His hands were stuck in his pockets and he stood in a well-practiced slouch position.

All he lacked was a hat with a press ID stuck in its band, but that, of course, was passé, and Charlie Hurd was anything but passé. She was looking here at a predator, the modern-day cub reporter trying to get ahead in a shrinking industry.

“You’ve made me,” he said, grinning, and she smiled back for the wrong reason, amused at his use of gangster lingo.

“Hi, Charlie,” she said resignedly. “I take it you are Charlie.” After a day like today, and the kind of life she had been living lately, she wasn’t going to bother to call him Charles.

“So Jay called me Charlie, did he?”

She leaned wearily against her car, then realized belatedly that the back of her skirt would pick up the film of mud on the side and imprint her buttocks like a photo negative. “Sure. Isn’t that your name?”

His mouth went into a little pout, and then he seemed to think the better of it and mustered a smile. “I prefer Charles, but that’s not important. You must be Louise.” He stuck out
his hand and she reluctantly shook it. Perhaps his fingertips were toughened from tapping on computer keys, but his hand was soft as a lady’s.

“I suppose you’re here because you heard Jay’s been murdered.”

“
Murdered
? Jay?” The young man stepped back dramatically, a little over-dramatically, Louise noted cynically. “The radio and TV just said he died from a fall in a fishpond, so I thought he tripped and hit his head or something. Now the cops think it’s murder—I’ll be damned!”

He was saying the right words, but something didn’t quite jibe. Then she knew what it was: Charlie expressed no sorrow for his colleague’s death. Hadn’t he been working closely with Jay for the past five months? Had no bond of friendship or respect been forged between the two men in that time? Or was she being as judgmental as the people in Camus’ The
Stranger
, who indicted the stranger for failing to weep at his mother’s funeral?

Coolly, she said, “There’s some outside chance it was an accident, but I don’t think so. I gave the police your name, so they’ll be questioning you. I just came from the station myself, so I’ve done my part.” Then she straightened and walked out of the garage. Charlie followed. His presence behind her was not comforting.

“But wait, Louise, I need—I mean—we all need Jay’s story. Where’s his story?”

She pulled in her breath. How did he know that Jay’s story was missing? Tightening her grasp on her ring of metal keys, she swung around and confronted him. “You don’t expect me to give you information about Jay, do you? If I did know about his story, my first inclination would be to give it to the police—or maybe that paper out west, because I’m sure he must
have been working for the Sacramento Union again. With all due respect, Charlie, I don’t know you from a hole in the ground—I’ve only had a couple of conversations with you, and those were pretty unrewarding.”

“You think I’m a prick.”

She folded her arms across her chest, keys still tightly clutched. “Maybe.”

“Well, then, the hell with you, Louise. You’re not helpful, and you say you’re an old friend of Jay’s. If you can’t help me get his story, I’ll find someone who can” And with that, Charlie Hurd turned and sprinted back to his car. He started it with a roar and screeched out of the cul-de-sac.

What on earth did he mean by that? Shaken, she turned up the mossy path to the house and had only gone a few steps when she felt a touch on her elbow. She gasped again, turned, recognized the tall figure, then exhaled. It was Chris Rade-baugh, from across the street. “It’s you! One more scare tonight and I’m going to have a heart attack!”

With his usual grace, the teenager apologized. “Sorry: the last thing I wanted to do was to scare you, Mrs. Eldridge. I just came over to see if I could help. Who was that guy who went off in such a rush? I saw him go into the garage after you, and it looked a little suspicious to me. The neighbor kids told me when I got home from work why the yellow police tape was up around the Mougeys’ house—I’m real sorry about your friend Jay.”

She took his arm companionably and they continued up the path to the house. “You wouldn’t believe how horrible it was, finding Jay’s body staring up at me from that pond…”

“Must have been pretty bad,” agreed the young man. “Uh, you’ll probably hate me for this—”

“For what, Chris?”

“For asking you something—in the name of science, of course…” If anyone was interested in science, it was the eighteen-year-old Chris, who was going to major in biology at Princeton. “I wondered if the body was floating. I mean, how long…”

Louise gulped. “He’d been in the water about twelve hours. Actually, he’d sunk to the bottom.”

Chris nodded soberly, as if that tallied with everything he knew about corpses in water. “And then, of course, those fish…”

She shuddered. “Some other time, Chris, not tonight.”

“Sorry. Just curious about those things—don’t mean to be disrespectful. Jay seemed like a real good guy that time I met him. So what about that character who just blew out of here in his sports car?”

“That’s Jay McCormick’s researcher, Charlie Hurd, poking around here trying to find out where Jay’s story has gone.” She turned to the teenager. “You realize, don’t you, Chris, that it was no accident. Jay was murdered, right next door to your house. He probably was killed for his story.”

Chris whistled. “Heck, the story that’s going around the neighborhood is that he tripped over that stupid bird statue. Look, Mrs. Eldridge, I know Janie and Mr. Eldridge get home tomorrow, because I’m picking ’em up, but is there anything I can do—I mean, do you have anything going on?”

The tall teenager had an eager expression on his face. He and Janie had been helpful in the past in finding out things about murders. Maybe he could help.

But, no, this young man was off to college soon and the last thing he needed was to be involved in some murky mystery about an investigative reporter who had obviously probed too deeply for someone’s comfort.

“The police will have to find out what happened to Jay. It’s not our job, and I won’t have time, because after a couple of days’ reunion with my family this weekend, I have to go back to work full-time.”

Hands in jeans pockets, he shook his blond head. “That’s like me, Mrs. Eldridge. I’m getting loaded up with things to do for going away. Especially since my folks are gone for twelve days and my mother left me a list of stuff I have to pack.”

“Then don’t worry about Jay’s death, Chris, I’m sure the police will find the answer.” She wasn’t so sure of that, but it was something that had to be said.

She went in the house and found several messages on the machine, including a commiserating one from Laurie Kendricks next door, who knew Jay was her friend and had been her houseguest. Another was Channel Five business. The third one puzzled her; it was from Gil Whitson. A stuttering, disjointed message: “
Louise, I’m just taking a minute between convention sessions here. I’m so sorry for making a fool of myself at your house. I hope I didn’t ruin the party. I’m sorry I lost my temper with your friend, sorrier than you will ever know. Can you forgive me? Please forgive me. I hope you don’t think I’m crazy, making that fuss about the fish. But fish are part of my life, maybe too big a part. Well, anyway, I hope someday we can meet on a happier note.
”

She leaned against the kitchen counter, folded her arms, and frowned. Gil Whitson was a wild card. Could he have come in before or after another person and figured in Jay’s death and the disappearance of his writing tools?

She was so tired and hungry that her body was near collapse, and yet she needed to find out something right now from Tessie Strahan. To fortify herself, she grabbed a peach out of the fruit bowl and poured herself a glass of milk, which
she spiked with chocolate. Then she placed the call to Jessie’s room at the Washington Hilton.

Tessie was a know-it-all, and that meant knowing it all about Gil Whitson.

“Sorry to take so long answering, Louise,” she said, “but I was in the tub. You only caught me here because I’ve found two nights of partying in a row is all I can handle. I must be failing; I used to go three nights in a row with no trouble. I’m going to bed right after we talk, so I can live to fight another day. Now I’ll answer your question.”

A veiled hostility had entered the woman’s voice. “I don’t understand how you can think Gil had anything to do with your friend’s death. Listen, don’t think I’m not sorry your friend died, though I hadn’t heard anything about it or I would have called you and offered my condolences. But believing Gil has anything to do with it is pretty far out.”

“Tessie, it’s not that I believe anything. It’s just that everything has to be checked out. I didn’t want to, but I told the police about Gil being over in the Mougeys’ backyard and having an argument with Jay.”

“I don’t know why you had to do that.”

There was a chill in Tessie’s voice, and Louise realized how little she really knew the woman. “I couldn’t not tell them. That would be illegal.”

Louise figured this would ring a bell with Tessie, the soul of probity. Her staccato voice softened, from machine gun to typewriter volume. “When you put it that way, Louise, I guess I can understand. And then, this man was your old friend.”

“And Gil is my valued new friend. The very worst thing
that could have happened, Tessie, is that Jay and Gil had a shoving match and Jay accidentally fell on this weird statue that stands right next to the koi pond. Then, maybe Gil became too scared to tell anyone about it.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Well,” said Tessie with a reluctance that sounded like it came from her very toes, “I hate like the dickens to drag this up. But of course, we’ve known Gil for years. Years and years. And Louise, let me assure you, we all have warts—I bet even you.”

“Yes, indeed I do.” Louise was excited. This woman knew something that might unravel the mystery of Jay’s death.

“Gil Whitson is a kindly man, we all know that. But he’s very high-pitched. He takes a drug to help him stay balanced.”

“Lithium?”

“Yes, but that’s very confidential. It enables him to bring out his artistry in his work, and not get into those extreme highs and lows he used to experience.”

“I’ve heard it’s a wonderful drug.”

“Now, back some years ago, about seven years, I think, a terrible thing happened to Gil. There was an incident with another designer, who was found mysteriously dead. Gil underwent a great deal of questioning, but there were no charges brought. He said it was just a, you know, quarrel between friends, and then the man died of a heart attack. But let me tell you, Louise, there’re lots of hot tempers among artists, you know that. And Gil is an artist, no doubt about it. Although he is quick to anger, and we see that occasionally just like the other night, I don’t think he would hurt a flea. Especially not your friend. Actually, the very reason he became a
koi doctor was because he discovered working with fish soothed his soul.”

“I could feel that sensitive side in him. A sensitivity and a gentleness. Even my cohost, John Batchelder, spoke of it after he interviewed Gil at the hotel’s koi pond.”

“Yet there was that incident…” mused Tessie, and Louise could hear the worry in her voice. “I suppose that would come up if they look into Gil’s past very closely.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Tessie, for being so frank about this. I know how hard it must be for you.”

“I just hope the police find another answer.”

“I think they will, Tessie. I can’t go into it, but there are others who are likely suspects in Jay’s death.”

“Thank heavens for that,” said Tessie.

After she hung up the phone, Louise realized that she was concealing the very evidence that might give police a lead on these other suspects. But she didn’t feel too guilty about it. She had already clued in the police to the possibility that Jay was writing about the presidential campaign. And she would relinquish those papers in the plastic folder after she had checked out a few more leads.

Meantime, she was puzzled by Gil. There was Tessie’s story, and more importantly, there was Gil’s remorseful voice pleading with her in the telephone message to forgive him. Forgive him for what?