The Minstrel & The Campaign

by Lila K Bell

  For now.

  “You’re killing me, Mike,” he said. “Seriously. I appreciate it. I look forward to hearing more about your proposal. Maybe call me early next week and we’ll set something up. Great, thanks. See ya.”

  He hung up, still chuckling as he shook his head, but I’ll eat my hat if he gave “Mike” the time of day next week. Butter him up to get the campaign donation, and then be “too busy to chat” for the rest of the month. Maybe after the campaign, Mike, he’d say. Seriously, you’re killing me right now. I want to make sure I have time to listen to what you’re proposing.

  It’d never happen.

  Poor Mike.

  I hoped my own luck was better.

  “Good morning, Miss…”

  “Gates,” I said, extending my hand. “Fiona Gates.”

  “What can I do for you, Miss Gates?” he asked, accepting my offered hand and giving it a firm shake. I had to give it to him: the man knew the role he had to play and was doing a stand-up job of it.

  “I’m just doing my rounds of all the mayoral candidates, looking to hear their platforms and what not. I decided this year I wanted to be more engaged in local politics. I can’t complain if I don’t do my due diligence, right?”

  I flashed him a bright smile, the eager youth looking to gain a foothold in the political arena. Farewell, juvenile apathy, I was embracing my civic responsibility to make the best choice in the polls.

  If he bought it, all the better.

  “You haven’t seen any of my brochures lying around?” he asked, handing me one. “I’ll have to get on my campaign crew to put them in more places.”

  I accepted his printed smiling face, but shrugged. “I’ve seen them, but there’s something about having a dialogue in person to really gauge the sincerity of the platform, don’t you think? For example, I wouldn’t have known how involved you were in the community if I hadn’t come in here to see all the proof.”

  I gestured to the trophies and certificates, and Carlson beamed with pride.

  “I’ve been a city councillor for fifteen years,” he said. “You probably guessed from my name, but I’m the grandson of Michael Carlson, one of Brookside’s founders. The person Carlson Street is named after.” He paused with a smile. Was he expecting applause? “It’s been my joy to get the community involved in its own success. Charity tournaments, fundraisers, awareness campaigns — if there’s a cause you want to advocate, I’m the man who can help you shine the spotlight. My greatest passion is helping people help themselves, as I believe we all have a part to play, not to mention the ability to do it.”

  Give the man a soapbox and he would stand on it. Noted.

  “Is this your first year running for mayor?”

  His smile faltered, then warmed into something even more sincere. “My third,” he said. “Ms. Flannery is very popular with Brookside residents, and she consistently beats me out by a small margin. I can’t blame her — she’s done a lot of good for this town. But keeping my name on the ballot sticks me in people’s minds, so when she’s ready to retire to her well-earned break, I’ll be ready to step up in her place.”

  How very humble of him. But how much did he mean it?

  “I understand this isn’t your first foray into politics generally, though, is it? Weren’t you an aide for John Kingslake back in the day?”

  Now his smile disappeared, his expression drooping with regret. “Poor John. Yes, I was. That man taught me everything I know about running a good and honest campaign. He did his best for Brookside, for the groups who most needed his attention and support. He got me into volunteering.” He grinned. “He got me into golf. The man was a legend of his time.”

  Who did Carlson think I was? A reporter? Someone who needed the press release?

  “I’m sorry to hear what’s happened to him,” I said, working to keep him on the subject. He was obviously the kind of man who would spin the topic of conversation back toward himself as often as possible. A campaign strategy or a personality trait? Either way, it wasn’t endearing. “Did you know Amelia?”

  “I did,” he said, and pressed a hand to his heart. “She was beautiful, and so kind and caring. She organized all of our fundraising campaigns, all of our community events. She knew what the people wanted to see and what would most benefit them. I think she’s the reason John managed to get reelected so many times. As soon as she was gone… well, we all missed her. Though I can’t believe she was… all that time…”

  “You thought she’d run off?”

  “Of course,” he said, as though surprised I would suggest anything else. “Everyone did. She just didn’t show up to work one day. No word of goodbye or explanation. I remember John tearing his office apart looking for some kind of note that might have fallen behind his desk or something. It was a mess. Veronica and I, we did our best to help him search, but there was nothing.”

  He shook his head. “That was just the start, of course. Veronica and I would have done anything to protect John’s reputation, but the media insisted on dragging him through the dirt no matter what we said. They accused him of chasing her away, of obsession and stalking. There was the black eye he came to work with the day after she disappeared. It was known her father wasn’t fond of the relationship and that threw fuel on the fire. Everyone expected Amelia to show up in a couple of weeks, or at least to reach out. Eventually the scandal died down, and though I believe her mother put a lot of her own money into finding her, it was generally accepted that she wasn’t coming back. Still, to find her dead and buried under the courtyard? Shocking. So awful.”

  “It must have brought back a lot of memories.”

  “Sure. Of course it did. The four of us spent so many hours together. It was hard enough when she disappeared, but to know now that she was dead the whole time… It changes everything.”

  “Do you think the police have it right? Could Mr. Kingslake have killed her?”

  I knew I was getting close to gossip territory. I had no reason to ask these questions. They had nothing to do with my claimed reason for being here, but while Carlson seemed ready to answer whatever inquiries I had, I would continue to pry.

  “I don’t want to say anything bad about John. He was my mentor, and never in a million years could I have believed him capable of killing anyone. But I do remember tension between them. Arguments. When the police came to talk to him at the time, I suspected there was more to it than he let on. A fight with one of his constituents? Not in a million years. But I never thought the black eye had anything to do with Amelia. Now that he’s been arrested — I guess the police discovered what he was hiding.”

  If only he’d tell me. A black eye seemed like evidence of something if not murder.

  John, what are you doing keeping your mouth shut?

  “I just can’t imagine what it’s like to be in your position,” I said, soaking my words in sympathy. “To have been that close to where it happened. To maybe have even been there that night!”

  “Fortunately I was spared that pain,” he said. “I left City Hall early that evening for a hockey tournament. Must have been around around seven o’clock. I could have missed it — my team didn’t do very well.” He passed a hand over his face. “I don’t think I would have remembered all that if the police hadn’t hounded me so much at the time, but now the details are ingrained in my memory and I can’t help thinking that if I’d stayed behind, if I’d given the game a miss, Amelia might still be alive.”

  Tears moistened his eyes, and I wondered if there was more than just collegiate feeling for Amelia Wright. She’d been half John’s age, which put her far closer to Carlson’s. Had there been something between them? His regret, his obvious pain in speaking of her, could easily have been for a love stolen away from him.

  If that were the case, it was one more stone on John’s grave. He was in love with Amelia. How might he have reacted if she’d fallen for Robert Carlson?

  I tried to figure out how to get the question of the car accident
into the conversation, but saw no way to do it without giving the subject a jarring wrench into something I shouldn’t know anything about, so for the time being I left it. If Carlson was telling the truth about the hockey game, his car wouldn’t have been at City Hall. The arena was just on the edge of town. It was very possible Victor Wright had hit him there, far from where his daughter had been killed.

  There had to be another way to find the truth about the accident to confirm it one way or another.

  “Poor John,” Carlson repeated. “I haven’t been to see him yet, but I guess I should. Still, I don’t know what I would say. What do you say to a man suspected of murdering his secretary?”

  Administrative assistant, I wanted to say, but held back.

  “So you do think he did it, then?”

  “I don’t want to believe it, but how else do you explain the fact that she was found wearing his jacket?”

  I started. “His jacket? What do you mean?” This was the first I was hearing about any jacket.

  A red flush crept over Carlson’s cheeks. “The officer who came to question me yesterday let it slip. Don’t tell anyone I told you, all right? I’d hate to get him in trouble.”

  13

  I left Carlson’s campaign office with my head buzzing.

  To be honest, I hadn’t expected my visit to be so productive. Based on what I’d learned everywhere else, I’d expected more vagaries, lies, and evasion.

  Fair, I might have received just that, but at least he’d given me something to ponder. Amelia had been found buried with John’s jacket? That had to mean she’d seen him that night, that they’d been on good enough terms at some point during the evening for him to lend her his coat and not ask for it back before he left.

  Would it make sense to kill someone to whom you’d just lent your jacket?

  How could you do such and such? Oh, here, you look cold. Bash.

  It didn’t make a lot of sense as it played through in my head, but the possibility that it was a crime of passion remained. If Amelia had broken his heart, for example.

  Or the possibility remained that John had given her his coat, then gone home fully intending to get it back when he saw her again, and she’d still been wearing it when person Number Two had stepped outside and accosted her. Because again, if John had the foresight to bury her under the courtyard to be cemented over, burying the murder weapon, would he have been stupid enough to leave his jacket with her?

  If he thought she’d never be found, what would it matter? asked the naggy little voice in my head.

  I wasn’t going to find out by standing here, and obviously John wasn’t going to shed light on anything.

  There was also the matter of the car accident and Carlson’s alibi.

  What if Victor had hit Carlson not on his way home but on his way to City Hall as Carlson was leaving for his hockey game? It could have meant Victor was alone in the building with Amelia — except for Veronica, who might have mistaken Victor’s voice for John’s.

  I wished I could get my hands on that insurance claim. With that one little piece of information, I would know where both men had been and when.

  There was one sure way to get my hands on it… a little lockpicking after dark, a gentle break and enter…

  But if I was caught, Gramps would know I’d broken the law for his sake, and he’d have to live with it. There was a lot I was willing to risk for my own sake, but not if it made him feel responsible.

  Breaking into the crime scene had been bad enough. For Gramps, I would do things the slow, tedious way. I just hoped it wasn’t so slow that John would get convicted before I found my proof.

  My stomach grumbled, and I figured lunch would be a good idea. Some energy to figure out what came next.

  With my thoughts full of food, I drove home and bumped into Mother leaving the house.

  “Going somewhere fun?” I asked.

  “The Garden Society is planning their opening soiree for next season,” she said, casting her gaze anywhere but at me. “It will probably be a late night.”

  First evasion from John, then having to question a politician, and now my mother’s avoidance? It was too much.

  I put my hands on my hips and said, “Mother, please, will you cut it out?”

  Anger flashed in her eyes as she shifted to face me. “I will cut it out when I’m no longer upset. You humiliated me, Fifi.”

  “By catching a murderer?” I asked. “Have you forgotten that was my intention? I kind of saved Joseph Marley’s life.”

  “By committing some kind of — of — football move. At a funeral.”

  “Prevented a murder,” I returned.

  Mother huffed and glanced at her watch. “Fine,” she said after a moment had passed. “Perhaps I could see clear to forgiving you on the point that you saved a man’s life. Joseph himself had the courtesy to approach me at last night’s Historical Society meeting to ask how you were doing, so I suppose if he can get past this, I can. But,” she put her perfectly manicured finger in my face, “this better be the end of it, Fifi. I don’t need this family to become a laughing stock.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Good.” She leaned in and gave me an air kiss on the cheek. “Then go inside and moisturize. Whatever that woman put on your face the other day has left you completely dried out.”

  She gave me a finger wave, then turned on her heel and got in her car.

  Gramps stepped out of the sunroom as I came in, his eyes twinkling. “I see you made up with your mother.”

  “As much as one can,” I said, and threw my arms around Charlie as he bounded toward me. A wet tongue brushed over my arm, and I swiped it on my shirt to get rid of the drool. “Do you have time for a chat?”

  “For you? Of course, chickadee. Always. Come on, boy, let’s go outside.”

  Charlie stepped on my foot in his eagerness to run for the back door, and I waited in the sunroom for Gramps to return.

  “There, we’ll let him run himself ragged for a while, and we can talk uninterrupted,” he said as he settled onto the sofa. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I stopped by to see Robert Carlson this morning. Is he the guy you were talking about?”

  Gramps’ face lit up. “That’s him. His name brings it all back. The keener. I never met him, but John used to talk about him. A great face for the campaign, he said, but far too up his own… into himself to be much help around the office.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Really? He looked genuinely upset about John’s predicament.”

  “Unless the man has softened in the last twenty-five years, he’s probably wishing it hadn’t happened around election time. He’s an ambitious fellow. Back then, he’d take any opportunity he had to undercut John campaign. Not in any way that would make John lose — on the contrary, he wanted to be as close to a rising star as possible — but to shift credit and focus from John to himself. John figured it was so he could run for mayor in the next election and have people already know who he was.”

  Well that sounded familiar. After all these years, his strategy hadn’t changed a bit.

  “I think his real grief about Amelia’s disappearance was that it was just scandalous enough to make John lose the ballot. It set Carlson’s plans back at least a decade. He had to go the city councillor route instead of jumping a few steps.”

  “That’s cold.”

  “That’s Robert Carlson. John told me more than once that he wanted to fire the man, but the kid’s parents were family friends. He didn’t want to risk creating any bad blood or taking a hit to his campaign funding.”

  Some of my earlier suspicions returned, but I hesitated before broaching them. I didn’t want to risk insulting Gramps’s friend with accusations of jealousy. But the possibility was there, so it had to be addressed.

  “Do you think one of the reasons John might have had a grudge against Carlson was because of Amelia?”

  A furrow formed on Gramps’s broad forehead. “What do you mean? That t
here was something going on between them?”

  “Is it possible?”

  He chuckled. “No, I don’t think so. Not unless she was an incredibly good actor. She thought the man was a conceited ass and did her best to avoid being alone in a room with him.” His smile faded and the frown returned. “Though now that you mention it, I have to wonder. It was something that came up later, around when she disappeared, but John did mention something about her spending more time at City Hall after hours. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was jealous, but he was bothered enough to mention it.”

  “If it was close to the election, maybe she was just working late?”

  “That’s what she claimed. It could be worth asking John about.”

  I filed it away to discuss with the man later, though I didn’t look forward to it. By the way, I know you’re grieving over the death of your fiancée, but was she having an affair with your campaign aide?

  Classy, Fi. Real classy.

  If only my uncomfortable topics of conversation ended there.

  “I also took your advice and spoke with Irene Wright. The poor woman has been sitting on the suspicion all these years that her husband killed Amelia.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Not at all. There were tensions, and she’s pretty sure he lied about where he was that night. Then there’s the matter of a fender bender between Victor and Carlson, only I have no way of confirming where the accident took place. If it was at City Hall, and depending on the time, it could put one or the other in the clear.”

  Gramps tapped his cane against the ground as he mulled over the finer points of my concerns, and then said, “I would speak with Veronica again. That woman has a nose like a hound for any kind of lie or scandal. If Carlson was there that night, and if there’s any chance there was something going on between him and Amelia, she would know.”

  ***

  Gramps’s suggestion was solid, but as I left the house, my stomach full with a satisfying lunch, I realized I had no excuse to go see her again. Two events in a week that required my makeup being done? Even for Brookside that was a little excessive. Women who needed to be made up that often usually learned how to do it themselves.