Gregg Hurwitz - We Know

I wanted Frank's death to make sense the way it used to. I stared at the printout and the photos as if they could make it so.

Steve flipped the article up, eyed the line of text at the bottom. '"Interested in local politics,'" he read.

"That fucking bastard," Callie said. "His own child."

"What's with the quotation about seeing Jane Everett out by the freeway?" I asked. "Isn't that a bit specific for a short news blurb?"

"It's all an inference game," Steve said. "Oxnard's always had a meth problem at the outskirts. Trailers are a favorite for cooking labs."

"So the witness is lying? Putting Everett at the trailers?"

"Not necessarily. Bilton's people are smart.

Maybe they figured out a way to get Everett over on that side of town where she'd be seen. Or maybe she really did have some drug involvement, and they used that as a cover story."

"The two men of Hispanic appearance play nicely into that."

"Right. Wisely chosen as the dumping crew by Bilton's men because they match the meth-pushing pop in the region. Playing to racist fear is always good and distracting."

"If the police suspected that this was a drug-related killing, why didn't they just come out and say so?" Callie asked.

"Because the detectives can't go on record claiming they think a nice white girl from Sherman Oaks was meth-whoring on the wrong side of Oxnard," Steve said. "They want leads, sure, but they have to be careful. So they made sure the article was phrased to get the information out on the street without saying anything disrespectful."

"Maybe Bilton's people oversaw the article. Or the investigation."

"They wouldn't want their fingerprints on it. Plus, they didn't need to. They did something better." He tapped the printout. "Everyone thinks they know what happened here. Half the people followed the wrong trail, and the other half didn't want to ask uncomfortable questions. This is the perfect way to bury a body in unspoken implications."

"Two bodies," I said.

"You watch your ass, Nick. This isn't just a spin game with poll numbers at stake. This is about accusing the president of the United States of murder."

But I didn't feel afraid. Nor did I feel the usual swirl of paranoia. I wasn't jittery. I wasn't stressed out. I felt only a cold, calm rage.

I asked, "Any of the family local?"

Steve scratched his curly hair. "Everett's mom passed away in '01. Lung cancer. But I got an address for the sister at the office. I'll call you with it first thing tomorrow."

I stood and zipped up my jacket.

Callie looked at me disbelievingly. "We're talking about the commander in chief, Nicky."

I pointed at the witness's name on the article. Tris Landreth. "Will you get me her address, too?"

I thanked them both and showed myself out the back door.

Sitting in the dark Jag four blocks from Callie's house, I dialed Alan Lambrose. He answered perkily, saying his name like it was something to be proud of.

I said, "It's me. Nick Horrigan. I need to talk to the Man. Only him."

"You got a reach number?"

I read him the digits off the back of the disposable phone, hung up, and waited, chewing my thumbnail. I didn't wait long.

The same voice I'd heard an hour before coming across the airwaves. "Nick? Are you all right?"

Having access to a presidential candidate was the kind of thing I could probably never get used to. "Yeah, I'm fine. Where are you?"

"Franklin County. I'm told that's in Ohio."

The phone brushed against the Band-Aid, sending a jolt of pain through my face. "I need to see you. Privately. This has just jumped into a whole new league."

"What is it?" Wariness in his voice.

"Not over an open line. But the threat of it leaking was enough to get me out of Secret Service custody earlier tonight."

"You were in custody? Why didn't you contact me? We could have helped. Bullied the bullies."

"I didn't want to drag you into it. Besides, I wasn't being offered a free call."

His hand rustled over the phone, then he said to someone else, "I'm ready. A minute." Back to me: "Can you convey whatever it is to Alan?"

"No, Senator."

"I trust Alan implicitly. And he's in Los Angeles right now."

Trust no one. I didn't respond. I just stared through the windshield, unsure of how to refuse respectfully, until Caruthers rescued me.

"I understand," he said. "I'll be back in L.A. tomorrow afternoon. Can we meet at the condo at three?"

"I'd like to meet in secret. No agents."

"I can't promise no agents, and I can't come alone, but I'll see if I can sneak out with a few aides and maybe just James. But we'll talk alone. I'll have Alan call you first thing with a location. I'm sorry, but I really have to go. Oh-and Nick?" A weighty pause. "Watch your neck."

Induma opened her door, wearing a sheer nightgown, and the breeze lifted the hem, folding it back against her dark brown thigh.

I said, "He killed her. Thirteen days old. Had her dumped in a dirt lot with the body of her mother."

Induma didn't ask a single question. She just opened her arms, and I went to her, bowing my head and breathing in the scent of Kai lotion on her neck. Warm air behind her, the cold curling around us, tightening the skin of her arms, raising goose bumps. I felt her heart beating against the pit of my stomach. The strength of it, but also its fragility. I didn't want to let go of her, but finally I did.

She closed the door behind us, and I locked it and threw the dead bolt. We went to the living room, and I sat cross-legged on the couch while she listened patiently. When I finished, there was a hum of silence, and then she said, "What do you need?"

I said, "Cartoons."

We found him in short order, white chest puffed out, carrot at the ready. " 'Of course, you know, dis means war."' Animated shenanigans flickered across my numb face. Cunning rabbits, French skunks, elastic mice, with their speech impediments and well-drawn plans. They were a comfort, not an amusement. They never made you consider the fragility of their hearts beating against your stomach.

How clear it all was in the land of Merrie Melodies. Pull-string cannons. Red TNT cylinders with sparkler fuses. Throw on a hat and an accent and you're a whole new rabbit. Or just put your head down and burrow until you wind up in a bullring or the South Pole or Ketchikan, Alaska. Only problem is, when you do that, you lose track of where you're going and wind up lost. Or worse, right where you started.

The credits rushed by in a syndicated flurry, and then Induma clicked a button on one of four remotes surfing the cushions and the channel blinked and we were back in the real world. In anticipation of Thursday's debate, C-SPAN was reairing the one from Harlem that I'd watched the night the Service kicked down me and my door.

Induma looked across at me, gauging my temperature, but I didn't mind watching. I wanted to see Bilton in all his banality-of-evil glory. I wanted to see Caruthers dismember him verbally and sweep the dais with his parts.

Jim Lehrer hunched over the moderator's podium, his doll eyes impartial and unblinking. "Senator, I have a two-part question for you. Early in your career, you were for the death penalty, and now you're opposed to it. My first question is this: If June Caruthers were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?"

"Ah," Caruthers said, "the old Dukakis chestnut."

"Please let me finish, Senator. And the second part is, why the change in your position?"

Caruthers's green eyes gleamed. "If my wife were raped and murdered, I'd want to hunt down her killer and gut him. But in civilized countries we don't let the victim's relatives choose the punishment. Imagine if we did. To answer your second question, before we even get to a discussion about the morality of the death penalty, we're hamstrung by the unavoidable fact that it is ineffective, biased, and incredibly expensive. This has become increasingly apparent to me. I have had some shifts in opinion over the course of my long career. And thank God for that. How many of you want a politician who refuses to learn on the job?" A wicked pause. "Well, I suppose forty-six percent of you."