Archer Mayor - The surrogate thief

It was against every rule, but Joe couldn't not share what was so much on his mind, even if he did think Gail's comments were approaching paranoia. "I may have an extra monkey wrench to add to that."

She lifted her head to look at him. "Joe, what's wrong?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you this, especially given that you're running for office, but I don't feel I really have a choice: the guy they just caught-Gabe Greenberg? The one in the news, who killed Hannah Shriver? He works for Bander."

Gail sat up, her eyes wide. "What?"

"We searched his house. In fact, we're still processing what we collected-it'll take days-but the connection to Bander is solid. Canceled checks, phone records, a bunch of stuff."

"What does he do for him?" She was clearly stunned by what he was saying.

"We're still piecing that together. He's lawyered up, and we haven't wanted to talk to Bander yet. I just thought you ought to know-political ramifications and all."

He watched her. She made an incongruous picture, the thoughtful strategist figuring the angles while completely naked. He felt suddenly more sentimental toward her than he had in months.

Gail and he had worked so hard to establish such an unlikely relationship that he hadn't noticed the simple truth: that theirs was a union unusual only on the outside. In fact, they were a pretty conventional couple, and they did make allowances for each other all the time. He'd been wrestling for some elusive answer to his recent discomfort, naively equating his loss of Ellen to losing Gail to politics, selling short in the process that since Gail was still alive, so was their love for each other. In itself, a new job wasn't going to end that-although any number of emotional missteps based on that assumption well might.

Gail finally gave a small shiver and slid down next to him again, pulling the sheet up over them. "No shit, political ramifications. I guess I can't worry about it, though-not officially, anyhow. Do many people know about this?"

"No, but it's bound to get out."

"This'll sound pretty bad, so I apologize beforehand, but do you think that'll be before the election?"

He couldn't repress a laugh. "That is pretty bad. I don't have the slightest idea, but if you're the one to leak it, it could come back to bite you."

She sounded grim. "I'm not sure I have much to lose. There're a lot of people out there already blaming me for everything bad, including the weather." She added, as if to pacify a protest he hadn't even uttered, "I know, I know. You've stuck your neck out a mile. I won't even tell Susan about this. But, Christ, what a potential bombshell. Can you imagine?"

"From Greenberg to Bander to Ed Parker?" Joe suggested.

She straightened again to stare at him. "You saying that's true?"

He pulled her gently back down. "No, not that I'm aware of. I was just floating a possibility. But keep in mind that Greenberg surfaced just as Bander was throwing all his weight behind Parker for what was looking like a shoo-in. One reason I just told you this is because people might turn it around and somehow point the finger at you."

She wrestled free again. "What? That I planted a hit man in their camp to make them look bad? That doesn't make any sense. I already have a snowball's chance in hell of winning this damn thing."

He was amused by her outrage. "I'm just saying it's a loose cannon on a tossing deck. It could injure anyone and everyone. Who knows what's going on here? People do the damnedest things to win elections-or to stop other people from winning them. Assuming this has anything to do with politics. Greenberg may have been acting entirely on his own."

Gail settled down before musing, "This is so bizarre. Normally, I'd just be horrified that someone had murdered somebody else. Now all I can see is how this might affect my chances. I'm starting to wonder what this is doing to me."

Joe briefly returned to his own thoughts along similar lines. For the moment, though, he merely comforted her. "You're fine, Gail; being realistic doesn't diminish your integrity. It's not like you made this happen."

She burrowed in more comfortably, clearly struggling to dismiss the matter for the time being. "Okay," she said in an artificially light tone, "I think I'll just wait and see. Thanks for the heads-up, though."

"Sure," he said, his mind already stretching ahead. He didn't believe for a second that Gabe Greenberg had acted on his own, and he knew for a fact that the present political race was but one aspect of all this. Greenberg was just a button man. The trick was to find out who'd pushed him-and why.

The next morning, Sammie Martens met Joe in the Municipal Building's parking lot as he was getting out of his car. It was cold, but in her enthusiasm, she'd come out in her shirtsleeves only.

"Hey, Sam," he said, collecting paperwork from his passenger seat. "What's up?"

"I couldn't sleep last night, so I did some extra poking around on the computer, taking a closer look at all the players we have going."

He smiled at her eagerness. "Don't tell me. You found something interesting."

"Laugh all you want, boss. I did a background check on Tom Bander."

Gunther paused. This wasn't what he'd expected. "And?"

She cocked her head slightly to one side. "He changed his name thirty years ago."

Now he straightened to stare at her, his paperwork abandoned.

She continued, "It used to be Ralpher. Sound familiar?"

"Yeah," he said softly, the word forming a thin cloud as it hit the cold air. "T. J. Ralpher-he was Sandy Conant's alibi in the deposition Hannah recorded. The same night Klaus Oberfeldt was beaten into a coma."

Gail's earlier concerns about Tom Bander suddenly came back to him in full force. And he'd thought at the time she was being paranoid.

Kathy Bartlett was the VBI's prosecutor, attached to the attorney general's office but permanently assigned to the Bureau or, as Kunkle was fond of saying, "for as long as this turkey can fly."

Kunkle wasn't along on the trip Joe took to Montpelier to meet with her, however. Willy wasn't among the VBI assets Gunther liked to trot out for review, especially to a no-nonsense person like Kathy, who'd been dealing with hardheads long enough to have lost all sense of humor about them.

Instead, Joe had brought Lester Spinney. A completely different sort from Willy, both physically and temperamentally, Lester had also once worked as an investigator for the AG right after leaving the state police, and therefore knew Kathy Bartlett personally. There was no particular strategy in having Spinney there, but Joe was of a mind that the larger the number of friendly faces around a table, the better.

All the more so when the topic to be discussed was a political hot potato.

After offering coffee, exchanging pleasantries, and otherwise settling her guests in, Kathy leaned back in her office chair and eyed the two of them watchfully. "So, right now, Mr. Greenberg's under lock and key for assaulting a police officer, possession of a lethal weapon, and other assorted junk, correct?"

"Yes," Joe concurred. "The local SA figured that would hold him in place until a better plan was cooked up."

"Yeah," she dragged out. "I talked to him on the phone. Seemed pretty eager to unload this one. That got my antennae quivering. You got an explanation?"

Spinney and his boss exchanged looks.

"Cute," Bartlett commented. "What've you handed me this time?"

"Right now," Joe answered, "it looks like Greenberg works for Thomas Bander."

"Okay," she said, holding up a finger. "That's money."

"Who's working overtime," Joe added, "to finance Ed Parker's campaign for the senate."

"That's politics." She held up another finger.

"Whose Democratic opponent," he continued, "is Gail Zigman."