Grass Roots

by Stuart Woods

  “Just pretend he’s not here,” she said. “He’ll take his pictures and go.” As if on cue, the man began snapping away.

  “Why don’t we go into the living room for this?” Will said, untying his apron. He hadn’t expected to be photographed in the kitchen.

  She guided him around the room, seated him first in an armchair, then at the computer, then leaning against the mantel. They got a few shots on the front porch and some by the lake; then Ann Heath dismissed the photographer, and he got into a car and drove away.

  “You came in separate cars?” Will asked, disquieted about being alone with her.

  “He was taking some shots at Roosevelt’s Little White House in Warm Springs, so we met here,” she replied, resettling herself on the barstool. She raised her glass. “To politics?”

  “I’ll drink to that,” he said.

  “You don’t mind?” she asked, switching on a small tape recorder and setting it on the bar between them. “It’s just for accuracy.”

  “Fine,” Will said. He was unaccustomed to being interviewed and had assumed she’d be taking notes in shorthand. He had also assumed she’d be short and plump.

  “Tom didn’t give me a bio,” she said. “Why don’t you just tell me a little about yourself—family, school, all that?”

  Will explained that he’d been born and raised here on the farm, how his parents had met, and the Irish connection; he told her about college and law school, about practicing law in a small town, about how he’d been hired by Senator Carr eight years before. “That brings us up to date,” he said.

  “Most men your age entering politics have a wife and kids and a dog to parade for a reporter,” she said. “Why have you never married?”

  Will laughed. He had been asked that question before. “Just lucky, I guess. I can dig up a dog, if that’ll help.”

  She smiled only slightly. “I expect you must have some special girlfriend.”

  “No one in particular,” he lied. He was going to have to get used to pretending Kate didn’t exist.

  Her eyebrows went up. “No wife, and not even a girl in the picture? You must be one of the most eligible bachelors in the state, maybe the country.”

  “I doubt it,” he laughed. “But I’m hardly the first bachelor to run for the Senate. John Kennedy was still single when he was elected to his first term.”

  “And something of a womanizer, too, from all accounts,” she said. “Funny, there’s no word around Washington on you. I checked.”

  “Oh, I went to a lot of cocktail and dinner parties when I was first in Washington,” he said. “I was often invited as an odd man, but I soon discovered that nobody in Washington is interested in people who don’t have power, and since I was a Senate aide instead of a senator, people seemed to sort of look through me. I wearied of that, I suppose, and anyway, working for Benjamin Carr has always been more than a full-time job.”

  “Odd man, huh?” she muttered. “Is that why you’re running for the Senate? So you’ll have some power of your own, and people won’t look through you at dinner parties?”

  “Hardly,” Will replied.

  “Just why are you running, then?” she demanded.

  “I was brought up to believe that I had an obligation to serve others,” he said, aware that he was sounding pompous. “I mean, everybody in my family, even those who weren’t in public life, always worked hard at some sort of community work. After I had been in Senator Carr’s office for a couple of years and had learned how the Congress worked, I began to think I might one day want to run for office.”

  “But why do you think you can do it?”

  “I’ve seen it done from up close; I know what’s involved better than most people who have never actually been elected to the Senate. You have to understand that even a very good senator is pretty dependent on his staff, and at one time or another during the past eight years, I’ve done just about everything a staffer can do for a senator.”

  “Are you implying that a senator is run by his staff?”

  “Certainly not, at least not in the case of a man like Ben Carr.”

  “There are some senators who are run by their staffs, though?”

  “None that I know of.” He wasn’t about to let himself be quoted on something like that. He picked up the salad bowl and his wineglass and headed for the small dining table, followed by Ann Heath and her tape recorder. They sat down and continued their interview.

  “Why do you think you would make a better senator than Mack Dean?” she asked.

  “Well,” he said, feeling his way, “I don’t think it’s a reflection on his performance as governor to say that what a governor does has very little to do with what a senator does.”

  “But Dean has been both a representative and a senator in state government.”

  “No argument there. I just feel that, with the experience I’ve had under Benjamin Carr over the past eight years, I’m better prepared to serve Georgia in the Senate than anybody else in the state.”

  “Even though you’ve never held elective office?”

  “I’ve been as close to being a senator as you can get without actually being elected. I don’t claim that would qualify me for governor but it certainly qualifies me for the Senate.”

  “Do you think you can be as good a senator as Ben Carr?”

  Will laughed. “I’m not sure anybody can be as good a senator as Ben Carr. You’re talking about a man whom a great many knowledgeable people have called the greatest senator in this century. I have, however, had the benefit of serving under him, and it has been a great education.”

  “Is Senator Carr going to endorse you?”

  “I have no way of knowing if the Senator will be well enough to endorse anyone, but before he became ill, he gave me to believe, in no uncertain terms, that if I ever decided to run for the Senate, I would have his wholehearted support.”

  “That’s easy to say, now that he can’t speak for himself, isn’t it?”

  Will fought the urge to raise his voice. “It would be impossible for me to say if it weren’t so. I still have to look the Senator in the eye every time I visit him.”

  “You mean we’ll just have to take your word for it?”

  “I hope the Senator will recover enough to say so himself.”

  “Isn’t it unusual for a man of your age to live at home with his parents?”

  Will felt himself redden. “Most of the time, I live in Washington. When I’m in Georgia, I have my own home not far from my parents’. You’re sitting in it.”

  She seemed to miss the rebuke. “Tom says you built this place yourself. Is that true?”

  “I designed it and built it with the help of two men who worked on the farm. I guess I can take credit for a third of the work.”

  “That’s becomingly modest,” she said, holding out her glass for a refill.

  “It’s the truth of the matter,” Will replied, filling her glass. “I worked on the framing and the roofing, but not the electrical or the plumbing. If I had, the place would have burned down or floated away long ago. I did most of the interior finishing myself. Of the skill required to build the place, carpentry is the one at which I am least deficient.”

  She took a large swallow of the wine. “How are the working people of Georgia supposed to relate to a man who owns a yacht, a Porsche, and an airplane?” she asked archly.

  Will managed a laugh. “I’ll try to explain about all three,” he said. “I spent two years in Ireland when I was in my early twenties, and I helped a couple of friends build the boat. The woman was killed in an electrical accident after the boat was finished, and the man was lost overboard in a single-handed race across the Atlantic. A merchant ship recovered the boat, and I was astonished to learn that my friend had left it to me in his will. That was more than fifteen years ago. I’ve kept the boat all these years, although the maintenance has been a strain, because I associate it so strongly with those friends and that time of my life. Before I would sell it, I
would take it out to sea and scuttle it.

  “The Porsche is eight years old; I bought it cheap four years ago from a senator who shall remain nameless, who had to get rid of it in a hurry because cars were built in his state, and he was up for reelection.

  “The airplane is ten years old. I bought it six years ago to make it easier for me to get home to Georgia when my father was more dependent on me to help out in our law practice. It has had the incidental effect of making me knowledgeable about the air-traffic system in this country, something I’m going to take a great interest in if I’m elected to the Senate.”

  “Are you a rich man?”

  “A poor man might think so; a rich one wouldn’t.”

  “Are you going to use your own money to run for the Senate?”

  “If I depended on my own funds, I wouldn’t get past next month. I’m going to need every campaign contribution I can get.”

  She continued with her questions, but less pugnaciously, asking about his positions on defense, social programs, and agriculture. She accepted brief answers, not seeming terribly interested. They finished lunch and the bottle of wine, of which Will had drunk very little. She didn’t seem affected, though. Will wondered if she drank a bottle of wine for lunch every day. He was clearing up the dishes when she switched off the tape recorder.

  “Enough of business,” she said. “Can I use your john?”

  “Sure,” he replied, pointing. “It’s through the bedroom, there.”

  She was gone for quite a long time; then, as he was closing the dishwasher, she called from the bedroom. “Who did this picture?”

  “Which one?” he asked.

  “Come here, and I’ll show you,” she called back.

  Will walked into the bedroom to find her looking at an abstract painting that hung at the foot of his bed. “Oh, that’s by an Atlanta artist, Sidney Guberman. He’s a friend.”

  She stepped closer to him, as if to see the picture from a different angle. “Really. Do you have many artist friends?”

  “A few, I guess.” He was suddenly aware that she had used perfume while she had been in the bathroom.

  “It’s a nude, isn’t it?” she asked.

  He laughed. “Maybe. It can be hard to tell in an abstract.”

  “I think this is a breast, right here,” she said, pointing. She turned to face him and stepped back, placing her hands on her hips. “Tell me,” she said, “do you like large breasts or small breasts?”

  Will sucked in a breath. “Are we off the record here?” he asked, regretting it immediately.

  “Oh, we’re all through with business,” she said. “I’m inquiring into your personal tastes now.”

  “Well,” he said, “I don’t think it would be politic of me to take a position on that subject, even off the record.” He tried to make it sound funny, but it came out wary. He was starting to sweat when he heard footsteps on the front porch.

  “Hello?” Tom Black called out.

  Will, relieved, turned and walked into the living room, followed by Ann Heath. “Hi, we’re just finishing. Ann was asking about a picture in there.”

  Tom hardly missed a beat. “I see,” he said. “Listen, I need a ride to Atlanta. You got room for me in your car, Ann?”

  “Sure,” she said. She turned to Will. “Well,” she said, holding out her hand, “I hope we can continue our discussion on art another time.”

  “Ah, well, ah, sure,” Will stammered, as she clung to his hand. “Thanks for coming down here. I appreciate it.”

  She gathered up her handbag and recorder and walked out.

  “Be right with you, Ann,” Black called. He turned to Will. “What the hell was going on in there?” he demanded.

  “She asked about a picture,” Will said, wondering why he felt guilty. “She’d had a lot of wine. I’m glad you showed up when you did,” he admitted.

  “Listen,” Black said, “a Gary Hart I don’t need.”

  “A Gary Hart you haven’t got,” Will said with feeling.

  “Good. I’ll call you from Washington in a couple of days to get a progress report. I’ll read your position papers; then I’ll get together with Hank. We’ll do some preliminary work on a TV campaign, maybe even do some storyboards.”

  “Fine,” Will said, “but don’t go beyond that until we’ve talked about the idea, okay? I don’t want to spend any unnecessary production money.”

  Black held out his hand. “Take care.”

  Will grinned. “You take care. You’re the one who’s going to be in the car with her.”

  Black rolled his eyes and headed for the door.

  22

  On Monday morning, Will went to the law office in Delano, read his mail, and made his daily call to the Senator. Then he moved to face what he had been dreading. He got into his car and drove to Greenville.

  As he entered the jail, the sheriff saw him coming. “I guess I know what you want.” He grinned, waving some papers. “I was just going to put them in the mail to you.”

  Sure he was, Will thought. He accepted the papers and put them in his briefcase. “I’d like the van, too, Sheriff,” Will said. “You’ve raked it over pretty good by now, I expect.”

  “Well,” said the sheriff, scratching his chin, “I don’t know about that.”

  “I can walk over to the courthouse and get an order from the Judge, if you like.”

  “Now, Will, no need to go to extremes,” the sheriff chided. He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a set of keys with a large tag attached. “Here you go. He’s not going to be driving for a while, anyway. Maybe not ever.” He grinned.

  “Don’t be such a pessimist, Dan,” Will laughed. “I’ll have that boy free as a bird in another month.”

  “Yeah, sure you will,” the sheriff laughed back.

  Will left the jail and walked around back to the parking lot. The chocolate brown van was parked in a corner, dusty and neglected-looking. Will unlocked the rear door, and sunlight flooded into the back of the van. The carpet was missing, and everything was covered with black fingerprinting dust. The cushions had been removed from all the seats and were piled in the back bay. He closed the rear doors, went around to the driver’s door, unlocked it, and got in. He switched on the ignition and cranked the engine; the battery was weak, but the engine caught. He let the engine run while he looked through the papers the sheriff had given him.

  On top was a receipt for the carpet. There was a lab report attached. The carpet had harbored a bloodstain, type A positive, that matched the victim’s blood type; fibers had been found matching a sweater worn by the victim. The sweater was described in some detail; it was from Rich’s department store in Atlanta, a size medium, of black lamb’s wool. Carpet fibers matching those from the van had been found on the victim’s clothes.

  Will laid the lab reports on top of his briefcase, got out of the van, and made a note of the vehicle identification number on the plate attached to the windshield post; then he got back into the van and drove it toward the Luthersville highway. He pulled into the MagiMart parking lot and went inside.

  Charlene Joiner was helping a customer, and he looked idly around the place while she finished. When the customer had gone, she came from behind the counter and offered her hand, cool and soft, as always.

  “Hi,” he said, “I managed to get Larry’s van released. If you can take five minutes off, you can drop me at my car, and then you’ll have wheels.”

  “Oh, good,” she said. “It’s been a bitch without a car.” She looked over her shoulder. “Mavis, will you cover for me for ten minutes?”

  “Sure,” the woman called back. “We’re not busy, anyway.”

  “Have you got a men’s room here?” Will asked.

  “Right through there,” she said, pointing at a door.

  “I’ll meet you in the van in two minutes,” he said. When he emerged, Charlene was in the driver’s seat. He got into the passenger seat, and she drove off toward the jail.

  “I g
ot the lab reports, too,” Will said.

  “How do they look for Larry?” she asked.

  Will had trouble not watching her breasts as she turned the van’s wheel. “Too soon to say. There was some blood on the carpet and some fiber evidence, too. I’ll do what I can to rebut the findings. What’s your blood type?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied.

  “I want you to go to a doctor or a clinic as soon as possible, today, if you can, and get it typed. Get something in writing.”

  “All right,” she said. She glanced sideways at him. “Are you really going to run for the Senate?”

  “Yes, I am, but keep it under your hat, will you? I won’t be announcing for another couple of weeks.”

  “You’ll have to run against old Mack Dean, then?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Think you can beat him?”

  “I’m sure going to try.”

  She pulled the van up in front of the jail, and Will put the papers into his briefcase and closed it. “I think you can beat him,” she said, smiling. “I’ll vote for you, anyway.”

  “Thanks for your confidence.”

  “Don’t mention it,” she laughed.

  It was a pleasant sound, her laugh. “See you soon, then,” he said, and got out of the van. She drove away, and he got into his own car. He had one more stop to make in Greenville.

  He drove out to the La Grange highway and found a sign directing him to the spot. Half a mile down a dirt road, he saw smoke rising ahead. A moment later, he stopped the car and surveyed the scene. There were half a dozen fires burning here and there. A hundred yards away, a bulldozer was pushing landfill over garbage. Will retrieved the papers from his briefcase and got out of the car. Flipping to the last page, a hand-drawn map, he walked along, referring to the paper and trying to get his bearings. After a couple of minutes, he stopped. A dozen yards away, he saw a strip of yellow tape on the ground. Printed on it were the words CRIME SCENE. DO NOT CROSS. He walked over, referred to the map, and saw the spot where Sarah Cole’s body had been abandoned.

  Will stood and looked around him, turning slowly through 360 degrees. Plastic bags, garbage, and more garbage. Then he stopped turning. Thirty yards away, in the trees at the edge of the Greenville City Dump, was a shack. Will started toward it, pacing off the distance. At the door, he stopped and had a good look. The shack had been put together from bits of everything—plywood, chipboard, scrap lumber, and tar paper. The front of the place was nearly covered in old hubcaps, shiny, dull, and bent. Will recognized one from a ’68 Oldsmobile, like one he used to own. There was a length of pipe protruding from the roof of the shack, and a wisp of smoke curled up from it.