Jeff Abbott - A Kiss Gone Bad

‘I’m sure the press spoke to people at the marina. People could see which boat we swarmed over, I guess they knew his name. I’m afraid we can’t stifle the public. Or Pete’s friend Velvet.’

Faith rubbed her forehead. ‘Do you know what it’s like to have your life be tabloid fodder? It’s like showering in a glass bathroom.’ She shook her head. ‘I know… that y’all know what Pete did for a living. Delford told us. And I can’t let Aaron Crawford use this to defeat Lucinda. He could use Pete’s suicide as an unfair disparagement on Lucinda’s abilities as a mother.’

He was your husband. Father of your child. Do you even care one bit about him? Claudia wondered. ‘Such a tactic might backfire. Voters might see it as a rotten attempt to gain from Mrs Hubble’s personal loss.’

‘Never overestimate the voters,’ Faith said.

‘No confidential information will leak from this department. I’ll be sure all press inquiries are routed to me or Delford.’

‘I’m thinking of my son. Not the political damage to Lucinda,’ Faith said. ‘Sam… doesn’t know. You understand.’

‘Sure.’

‘And I would like to review any announcements that your department makes on the investigation.’

Claudia stiffened. ‘That’s not going to be possible.’

Faith set her chin in her palm and kept her tone relaxed. ‘Let me clarify, hon. I said review. Not approve or edit or block. If you’re going to release damaging information about Pete, I’d like the opportunity to prepare a statement on the senator’s behalf. Surely that’s reasonable.’

Claudia suddenly felt dumb in the face of this woman’s impenetrable confidence. ‘We’ll try not to blindside you.’

‘Thank you, Detective. I sure do appreciate it.’ Faith stood to go.

‘I need you to answer a few questions first,’ Claudia said pleasantly.

‘Delford took our statements. Surely you’ve taken the time to review them.’

‘It’s best if I can hear it from you. Please.’ Claudia gestured at the chair. Faith sat, folding her small Italian purse in her lap. It too was black. All the trappings of widowhood without the teary inconvenience of grief.

‘Were you in regular contact with him?’ Claudia asked.

‘Not until he returned to Port Leo. Before that – perhaps a couple of times a year. Sam’s birthday, if he remembered, and at Christmas. I imagine Christmas is his slow season.’

‘With so little contact, you can’t make a reasonable judgment as to whether he was suicidal, I suppose,’ Claudia ventured. Faith had already mentioned suicide twice, as though it were a given.

Faith frowned. ‘I think someone in porn has serious self-esteem issues. Don’t you?’

‘Perhaps. He didn’t send you child support?’

Nails clicked. ‘Why is that relevant, pray tell?’

‘I’m trying to determine if his son was part of the reason to come home.’

‘Making me and his mama squirm was the reason. We occupied seats of honor on his shit list, Detective. When Pete announced his intention to leave me and our infant son and go to California for this folly of being in movies, I knew he’d fail. He had lofty goals but no real talent and the self-discipline of a drug addict. When I found out he’d ended up doing… adult films, I wanted to be sure he could never hurt Sam. Or Lucinda.’ She rubbed her tired eyes. ‘I’ll give him a smidge of credit that he did send support for Sam every now and then, but he sent it to his mother. She would then turn the money over to me. I in turn would donate it to charity. Starving children in Ethiopia, monsoon relief in Bangladesh. Always a good cause far removed from us.’

‘Why give away the money if it was intended for your son?’

‘That money was earned on Pete’s back. Or other body parts,’ she said dismissively. ‘I didn’t want Pete’s smut translating into food in my son’s stomach.’

‘When was the last time you spoke to Pete?’

Faith shifted in her seat. ‘Yesterday morning. He phoned the house, wanting to talk to Sam.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘Depressed. Unhappy. If you had ended up like him – utterly failed, utterly cheapened – wouldn’t you be depressed? He’d seen the lives that Sam and I have built. Sam and I have a good life. I think Pete regretted the choices he’d made. If our lives are the candy store, he definitely had his face pressed against the glass.’

‘Do you know if he’d sought professional help?’

‘Pete on a shrink’s couch? Never. He thought couches were good for one thing and one thing only.’

‘You didn’t like the way he made his money or lived his life, but you didn’t object to him seeing your son?’

Faith tented her fingers beneath her chin. Her hands were like ivory. ‘No, I didn’t like it. But Sam’s like the rest of the Hubbles, he has a mind of his own. He wanted to see his father when his father came back, so I permitted limited visits. Better that than Sam sneaking around to see Pete.’

‘How would you characterize their relationship?’

‘Relationship my ass.’ Real anger tinged her voice. ‘Sam spent most of his childhood wondering what was so wrong with him that his father shunned him – as though the child were the damaged goods, not the man. But when he got to know his father, Sam finally realized Pete counts as little more than a sperm donor.’

‘You mentioned Pete was depressed when he called you. Can you be more specific?’

Faith fingered a wrinkle in her tailored slacks. ‘He asked if he could speak to Sam. I told him Sam had already left for school. He begged me to let Sam know he’d called and I agreed. We said good-bye and hung up. That was the last time I spoke to him.’

‘Do you know if Sam returned his father’s call?’

‘I gave him the message, but Sam didn’t seem particularly interested in phoning his father back.’

‘Let me get this straight, ma’am. He didn’t mention to you, after y’all found out Pete was dead, whether or not he’d talked to his father that day?’

Faith shifted in her seat again. ‘Sam probably talked to him, yes. I don’t remember. It was a very long, upsetting evening.’

‘How badly will it hurt his mother’s campaign if voters learn Pete was a porn star?’ Claudia asked.

Her throat worked. ‘I have no idea.’

‘Surely when he showed up, you had to calculate what the possible damage might be.’

‘Lucinda has been an outstanding senator for the past sixteen years. She’s easily won reelection and her approval ratings are high. There’s no reason to think she wouldn’t have the voters’ support.’

‘You sound like a press release given breath,’ Claudia said, and Faith stiffened. ‘No one in her office was eager to advertise about Pete, were you?’

‘I have no intention of being harangued by you.’

Claudia suspected the damage, from Faith and Lucinda’s viewpoint, would be considered catastrophic. Nuclear. Career-ending.

‘Do you know if he kept a gun?’ Claudia asked.

‘I have no idea.’

‘Do you know if he was having financial problems of any sort?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know if he was involved with drugs, anything illicit?’

Faith’s mouth tightened, as though a stench had drifted into the cramped room. ‘If I’d suspected for a moment he was a drug user, I wouldn’t let Sam within a mile of him.’

‘Do you know if he was still involved in porn?’

‘He told me he wanted to leave that business.’ Faith rubbed her lip. Perhaps it was more politic, Claudia considered, for Faith to paint Pete as on the road to reforming. A bad guy who’d come home to Senator Mommy and seen the error of his ways before his unfortunate demise. ‘If there is anything suspicious about Pete’s death – if it’s not suicide – then I suggest you take a long, hard look at that Velvet woman. She’s entirely unstable.’