John Sandford - Silken Prey

The house was a long and sprawling ranch, built of a yellowish stone and clapboard, with a fieldstone chimney climbing out of one end. The lot itself, just the part he could see, was the size of a football field, dotted with mature oaks, maples, and firs.

The chimney, Lucas thought, would lead down to a really gorgeous wood-burning fireplace, with logs as long as a big man’s arm. Lucas liked fireplaces, he just didn’t like burning wood—he had few allergies, but burning wood always seemed to set off his nose, and he’d wake in the morning with a sore throat.

He had designed his own house, and had put in a fireplace, though of a fussier, arts-and-crafts style, green tile surround and black steel—and a really, really good set of fake iron logs, which concealed the gas jets. Instant fire, with the push of a button. He’d been told he should feel guilty about that, but he didn’t.

Taryn Grant’s house was bigger than his, but not enormously so, at least in appearance; nothing like a southern mansion, which was what he’d half expected. Lucas had been all over the contractor on the fine details of his own house, and so he noticed them in Grant’s, like the copper flashing on the downspouts, the cabinetry-level detailing in the woodwork around the garage doors. He supposed that in this neighborhood, no house would be worth less than a million and a half; but looking at Grant’s house, he suspected that given the size and the detailing, three million might be closer to the mark.

Though if she were as rich as people said she was, that amount would be insignificant to her.

• • •

HE WALKED UP TO the front door, which opened as he approached it. A slender woman, probably in her mid-thirties, waited behind it. She had dark red hair, high cheekbones, and she wore a delicate turquoise necklace that chimed with her eyes. She looked a little like Kidd’s wife, Lauren, Lucas thought.

She smiled and said, “Agent Davenport? I’m Alice Green. Ms. Grant is waiting for you in the library.”

Which sounded just slightly snotty. Lucas thought, I’ve got a library, too , and then Green turned away from him and he saw the semiautomatic pistol clipped to the back of her slacks.

Lucas said, “You’re security?”

“Yes,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “I can stay with Ms. Grant where men can’t. Like ladies’ rooms.”

“Ex-cop or something?”

“Secret Service,” she said.

“La-di-da,” Lucas said. Green tilted her head back and laughed and said, “Yes,” and her reaction made Lucas like her.

• • •

GREEN LED THE WAY through the house. Through a side door, Lucas saw a gorgeous brick-floored porch with white-plastered walls and green-glass windows that looked out on a huge enclosed swimming pool. The house didn’t look much larger than his from the front, he realized, but was nearly as deep as it was wide.

The library was modest in size, with dark wood shelves filled with books that looked like they’d been read. Grant was sitting on a wine-red couch, and stood up when Lucas stepped into the room, putting aside a magazine. She smiled and said, “Agent Davenport . . .” and put out her hand.

Lucas shook it as he took her in. She was tall and solid, with muscles showing in her neck and forearms; bigger than she’d seemed when he’d seen her on television, but just as pretty. She was wearing a red blouse and black slacks, with a simple gold-chain necklace that looked old.

“Pleased to meet you,” Lucas said. “I won’t take too much of your time.”

“I’d say take as much as you need, but I really am jammed up,” she said, as she gestured at an easy chair, and sank back onto the couch.

Lucas took the chair and asked, “Do you know Bob Tubbs?”

“Bob Tubbs? I’ve heard of him. He works for the party. Has he done something . . . ?”

“You know he disappeared?”

A wrinkle appeared in her forehead. “Disappeared? I’m not tracking this very well . . .”

Lucas decided to slap her: “Basically, I’m wondering if your campaign employed Tubbs to sabotage Senator Smalls’s campaign by planting child pornography on his computer,” he said.

Another wrinkle in her forehead, and she sat back and said, “Well . . . no.”

Lucas had been watching her face for a flinch or any kind of frightened reaction, and what he saw was the beginning of rage. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but before he could, Grant jabbed a finger at him.

“Wait a minute! Wait one fuckin’ minute, here, buster,” she said. “Who are you working for? Are you hooked up to Smalls’s campaign?”

“I’m hooked up to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Ms. Grant,” Lucas said. “We believe that Mr. Tubbs planted the pornography on Senator Smalls’s computer. We believe Mr. Tubbs has been murdered to cover up that crime. There’s only one reason for him to have planted the porn, and that’s to sabotage Senator Smalls’s campaign.”

“Murdered? Did you say murdered?” The anger faded a bit, overridden by something else. Fear?

Lucas said, “Yes. He’s disappeared, and we think there’s a reason for it. We think he planted the porn, and then had to be gotten rid of, to cover it up.”

“Well, I mean we, I mean . . . We didn’t have anything to do with that, if it’s even true.” Now the anger came clawing back: “And you didn’t answer the question. Are you hooked up with Smalls’s campaign? Have you ever worked for him? What are your politics? We are less than a week from Election Day, and you come to me with this ? An accusation I can’t refute, because you can’t refute a complete negative? When you put this in the paper and on TV—and you will, won’t you?—it’ll kill me. Sabotage and murder? Are you kidding me?”

The anger was real and was getting hotter and Grant got to her feet and bent toward him: “Answer the question.”

She was nearly shouting, and Lucas saw movement at the corner of his eye, and two huge German shepherds ghosted into the room, focused on him.

He said, “The dogs . . .”

She half turned to the dogs and said, “Hansel, Gretel, easy ,” and the dogs’ gazes softened.

Green, who’d left the room, stepped in and said, “Ms. Grant . . . can I help?”

Grant said, “No, I’m okay, Alice. Agent Davenport has gotten me a little upset.” She sank back on the couch and said, “Well? What contact have you had with the Smalls campaign? Have you taken any money from him?”

Lucas was getting angry himself, and strained to contain it: but some leaked into his voice. “No. I’ve spoken to Senator Smalls about who had access to his computer, and I’ve taken information from him. I do not know him, except for the contact involved in this investigation. Personally, I’m a registered Democrat, and my wife has contributed to the campaigns of a number of Democratic candidates, including yours, I believe, though I have not. There’s no politics in this, Ms. Grant. What there is, is a vicious sabotage attempt, which would have reduced Senator Smalls’s reputation to tatters, and very probably a murder. So, if we could get back to the reason I’m here: you say you knew nothing of the pornography, and you didn’t know Bob Tubbs?”

She seemed to go through a brief internal struggle, then controlled it: “As far as I know, I’ve never met Mr. Tubbs, although it’s possible that he was at some of my campaign events—I know he worked for the party, and there’ve been a lot of people I don’t know at my events. So I may have seen him, though I wouldn’t recognize him. I have not knowingly spoken a single word with him. I’m not heavily engaged with the party—my candidacy is mostly self-generated. And the pornography, I know nothing about it.”