The Governor's Lady (6 page)

“Now,” she said, “we begin.”

FOUR

Swallow-tailed coats and limousines weren’t the only traditions Pickett Lanier had turned on their ears when he took office as governor. There had always been, and everyone assumed always would be, an Inaugural Ball—a glitzy evening of sumptuous food, twenty-piece orchestra, and the state’s glitterati dressed to the nines—eagerly financed by lobbyists, who arm-wrestled to have their names in the largest type on the engraved invitations. The crowds, the social dazzle, had grown over the years to epic proportions.

Until Pickett.

Oh, a ball was still held. The glitterati and the lobbyists wouldn’t be denied that. But Pickett had shocked them by decreeing that the evening’s festivities would not be an official part of the inaugural activities. They argued. Cooper had been going to Inaugural Balls since she was an adolescent; they were rare times when her father didn’t shelter her from public view. She was dazzled. Everybody was in high spirits. She still enjoyed them when Pickett was lieutenant governor. They
were good dancers. People put off pulling and tugging on her until the ball was over. But no,
Governor
Pickett and his lady would not appear. Pickett let it be understood he had nothing against it; he was just trying to make political hay with the masses.

Instead, Pickett’s official celebrations served up tons of pork barbecue, baked beans, coleslaw, sweet tea, and bluegrass music. They were sprawling, rowdy affairs in the Agricultural Exhibit Hall at the State Fairgrounds, every living soul in the state invited. Many came, the mighty and the lowly and all between, to enjoy the food and music, to see and be seen, some simply out of curiosity. The lobbyists willingly financed it, too.

Cooper and Pickett headed for the fairgrounds after the Capitol ceremony and stood patiently for more than four hours, shaking every offered hand. Allison left early, before Cooper had a chance to talk to her, and was already on her way back to Atlanta. Carter stuck around for a while, then dashed away with friends before going by the mansion to cram fresh clothes into a bag for the trip back to New Hampshire.

It was nearly dark when the last of the mighty and lowly departed and they headed to the mansion.

“All right,” she said before they had gone a block. “Talk.” He cut a glance at the driver. She ignored it. “When Plato called about Roger, was he going to ask or tell?”

He took a moment. “Ask, of course.”

“Well, on TV this morning, you told.”

He kept his voice low. “What can I say? I messed up.”

“So I’m stuck with Roger Tankersley. For now.”

“Roger’s okay, hon.”

“Roger is a weasel. And I’ll bet his butt is puckered shut at the thought of being left here to tend to me while the rest of you gallop around the country making merry.”

“Roger knows the ropes.” He paused, waiting for a reaction. She
kept her silence. “Look, it’s just for starters, okay? Give you time to settle in, get familiar with things, the day-to-day stuff. You tell Roger what you’re comfortable with, what you aren’t. Feel each other out, give it a chance to work.”

She made no attempt to hide her irritation. “Pickett, there’s a helluva lot we should have talked about. I kept asking, and you kept putting me off while you dashed away to far-flung places. Too busy to care about the inconsequential stuff back home. I’ve hardly seen you since November. And now I have the whole damn thing in my lap.”

“We did the briefing book,” he said, “Every cabinet department—”

“You can’t govern from a briefing book.” She gave a jerk of her head. “So now I’ve got Roger Tankersley to help me figure it out.”

“Cooper,” he said evenly, “you asked for this.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And you knew what the agenda was. We were clear on that.”

“Keep hold of the home base while you try to save the world. But dammit, Pickett, things don’t grind to a halt here.”

He sat silent, studying his hands. Finally, he said, “All right, you’re in an awkward spot. But that’s why I’m giving you help. You’ll have most of the cabinet in place. And Roger. Just let ’em do their jobs while you get your feet on the ground.”

“I don’t really have any choice, do I?”

Plato was waiting when they reached the mansion, and he and Pickett hustled off to the airport. She sat alone at the dining-room table, picking at a plate of food from Mrs. Dinkins, enjoying the silence, drained of energy but mind still humming. It had been a good day. She gave herself the luxury of a little trepidation; there was so much she didn’t know. But then she shoved that aside. It was what it was, at least
for now. People were ready to help. Roger Tankersley, for all his nerdy fussiness, knew the nuts and bolts, and that was a start. She knew she was a quick study, and she had good instincts. And then there was her political pedigree—Cleve, who had governed well, and Mickey, who despite the disappointments, hurts, and estrangement was the consummate political operative. She figured she had absorbed a great deal, even as she had tried for so long to keep politics at bay.

I will help Pickett where I can, because that’s the deal, but I’m the one who has to govern, and by God, I will put body and soul into it.

The next morning was cold and overcast, the local TV news lively with the prediction of snow late in the day—just enough to enjoy, not enough to cause problems. It never snowed much, not since the blizzard years ago during Cleve Spainhour’s governorship.

The blue Ford was idling at the portico, Ezra Barclay standing at the open rear door.

“Mr. Barclay,” she said as she descended the steps, “I thought you were retiring.”

“Not just yet,” he said.

“Well, then, good morning.”

“And to you, Governor.”

Barclay was a state trooper lieutenant—close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, gold-rimmed glasses, mid- to late fifties. He had been Pickett’s driver since he took office as lieutenant governor sixteen years ago.

As the car turned out of the driveway onto the street, another plain blue Ford with two plain-clothes security officers leading the way, she leaned toward the front seat, watching Barclay’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “So tell me about this.”

“I got to thinking about it,” he said, glancing at her in the mirror.
“I don’t hunt, don’t fish, don’t golf, can’t make things grow. Retirement sounded dull to me, and downright terrifying for Eileen. So I thought I’d put it off awhile longer. That is”—another glance—“if it’s okay with you.”

“Good Lord, yes. I bet you’ve never gotten lost in your life.”

“Not since I was a teenager, courting Eileen. I could find my way to her house just fine, but at the end of the evening, I’d sometimes have a little difficulty finding home.”

She laughed. “Ain’t love wonderful.”

“Yes, ma’am. Me and Eileen have always agreed on that.” He shook his head. “Sorry, I do ramble on sometimes, Governor. Advancing age, I guess, though I’ve always been a little garrulous. I’ll try to watch that.”

“Mr. Barclay, I expect to have all sorts of people throwing facts and opinions at me, whether they know what they’re talking about or not. So it will be a great comfort to be in the presence of someone who occasionally just rambles. So ramble.”

“Thank you.”

“So, you’ll stick around to see the show?”

A nice, easy smile in the mirror now, and a wink, too. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Well, Mr. Barclay, we’ll see what kind of mischief we can scare up.”

Eight o’clock now, traffic heavy, cars with their lights on. Everything pale, washed out, under a thick, dull sky.

They stopped at a light. Barclay turned in his seat and thrust a card toward her. “Something you should have, just in case.”

She took it: EZRA D. BARCLAY, LIEUTENANT, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY.

“On the back,” he said.

She turned it over. Two handwritten numbers.

“Home phone, cell phone. Anytime, night or day.”

“Ezra, isn’t this above the call of duty?”

“No, Governor, it’s part of the call of duty.”

She tucked the card in her purse, grateful for the gesture but determined not to use the numbers unless she faced a catastrophic emergency—terrorists firing bazookas at the Executive Mansion, something like that.

She asked Ezra to turn on the radio. A wisecracking boy-girl disc-jockey team was saying that what was coming might be ice, might be snow, but was looking now as if, whatever it was, it would arrive by late afternoon, sooner than expected. They made jokes about staging a figure-skating championship on the streets. Or bumper cars.

“Do you remember the blizzard?” Cooper asked.

“Seventy-three,” Ezra said. “Nine or ten inches, as I recall.”

“Where were you?”

“Just out of trooper school, working here in the capital.”

“It was a mess.”

“First day, it was. Then most folks who weren’t already in a ditch figured out they weren’t going anywhere and just sat it out.”

“Troopers, too?”

“We put chains on our tires and kept going. Us and the National Guard. Picked up folks stranded on the roads, evacuated several nursing homes where the power was out. Went without sleep for a couple of days, but I’d lots rather help folks than arrest ’em.”

After a moment, she said, “We built a snowman.”

“I remember.”

“You do?”

“I escorted the Guard truck that picked up your friends and brought ’em to the mansion. When we came back to take ’em home, y’all were out there on the lawn with that snowman, some camera people taking your picture. Your mama served us hot chocolate.”

At the Capitol, a swarm of workmen were busy on the front steps dismantling the inaugural platform, loading scaffolding, plywood, and
folding chairs onto a flatbed trailer. The car swung left and around the side of the building and stopped at the gated entrance to the underground garage, the security car behind now. Ezra tapped several numbers into a keypad on the dashboard. The gate opened, and the car eased down into the garage.

Her cell phone rang, and she fished in her purse for it. Pickett. But just as she was about to flip it open, Ezra said, “Uh-oh.”

She stuck the phone back in the purse and leaned forward, peering through the windshield. Wheeler Kincaid and Roger Tankersley and three uniformed Capitol police officers were at the entrance to the private elevator that led to the Governor’s Office two floors above. The cops had surrounded Kincaid, who was yelling and flapping his arms. Roger watched, arms crossed.

Ezra stopped the car and spoke into his jacket cuff: “Orange.”

Noise from the car behind, doors opening and slamming, then two security men sprinting past.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

“Just sit tight, Governor.” He shifted the car into reverse and kept his foot on the brake.

She tried the door. Locked, no inside release. “Open it,” she said.

Barclay turned to her, frowning.

“Now!”

She heard the click, but before she could pull the handle he was out, dashing around the car, opening the door, keeping himself between her and whatever was going on at the elevator.

She peered over his shoulder. “What in the devil is happening, Ezra?”

He mumbled again into his cuff: “Situation?”

One of the security men gave Ezra a wave.

“Seems to be okay,” Ezra said, keeping a step ahead as she strode across the garage, heels clicking sharply on the concrete.

“Good morning, gentlemen. Do we have a problem?”

Everybody looked at Roger.

“This area is off-limits to the press, Governor, except on special occasions,” he said. “Mr. Kincaid knows that—”

Kincaid raised a hand. “Guilty.”

“—but he insisted on violating the rule, and now we’ll have to—”

She cut him off. “What, arrest him?”

“Well …”

“Let’s all just straighten out our wedgies here,” she said. “Mr. Kincaid, what’s so important that you’d risk incarceration by breaking Mr. Tankersley’s rule?”

“I need to talk to you,” Kincaid said, straightening his jacket and shooting his cuffs. “Now.”

“We have procedures,” Roger said. “Written requests.”

Pickett’s doing, she knew. Pickett hated surprises, especially being ambushed by press people, most especially Wheeler Kincaid. She put a light hand on Roger’s shoulder. “I’m sure you have rules, Roger, for good reason. And I depend on you to enforce the ones that are reasonable.”