Dark Horse

by Doug Richardson

  After a short but disastrous venture in Oklahoma City, Miles O’Detts had moved his family back to South County for a dream construction job that was to last through the end of the century. But after ten years of backbreaking struggle, all he could show for the move was a pending workmen’s comp claim, the terrific deal he’d gotten on his three-bedroom stucco house in Acre Lakes, and a job as a loading foreman at a newly relocated cardboard plant Like his father before him, Miles was Republican red, white, and blue. He thought Reagan was close to God, Bush got a bad deal, Barry Goldwater had lost his mind when he advocated for gays in the military, and the Cathedral Daily Mirror was a leftist rag on par with the New York Times. Yes. Miles was an Evening Breeze man, and before Hollice had a chance to interview his daughter, there would be some ground rules set.

  “The pinkos took advantage of my little girl. They bought her liquor, filled her head with crap, and paid her to sign some damn paper that was nothin’ but lies. That’s what you’re gonna print,” demanded Miles right off the gun. They were all seated in the O’Dettses’ lakeview kitchen. Hollice was struck by the huge hole that lay outside their garden window. Mrs. O’Detts was serving instant lemonade.

  “If that’s the truth, that’s what I’ll print,” said Hollice. “Can’t do you better than that.”

  Marshall Lambeer thanked Mrs. O’Detts for the lemonade and sat next to Hollice. “Miles. I called Hollice Waters because I knew he was fair. I knew he wasn’t political either way and he’d write it as it should be.”

  “Those Dutton people are telling just about anybody who’d listen that Shakespeare knocked my little girl up, then kicked her ass. I just wanna know if that’s what your paper’s gonna say, too.”

  “Not if it didn’t happen,” repeated Hollice. “Is she here? I’ve got a deadline.” It was almost five o’clock. If Hollice was going to file the story, he’d have to see the girl, get her statement, and check some facts. All by seven.

  “Go get Jenny, will ya?” asked Miles of his wife, though he sounded more like a drill sergeant ordering a recruit.

  In less than a minute young Jennifer appeared. On her face was hardly a hint of makeup—not even a smudge of lipstick to leave an imprint on an iced glass of lemonade. She was sixteen, but looked more like fifteen, thought Hollice. A real daddy’s girl. Not at all like the Lolita he’d pictured.

  By six Hollice still had some facts to check. Driving back from the interview, he ran it around in his head over and over again. Murray Levy of the Dutton campaign had approached Jennifer O’Detts. The girl had just received an abortion, not at Planned Parenthood, but at the North Cathedral Reproductive Rights Clinic, where the procedure was paid for by her boyfriend, a seventeen-year-old named Willy Nichols. Easy enough to check. From the car Hollice called his assistant, Shelly, and had her start the fact check.

  Next there was the plot.

  “This guy Murray?” Jennifer had said. “He said he’d found me out through some like prochoice people? They were for Mitch Dutton.”

  “What was he like?” asked Hollice.

  “Nice. Kinda cute. But I think he’s gay,” said Jennifer. “Not that I have a problem with that.”

  Jennifer had been feuding with her father, garnered Hollice. Probably about the abortion, and maybe, just maybe, supporting the Democratic candidate might be the way to get back at her right-wing father.

  “After I told him about the fight with my old man, that’s when he offered me the money. Two thousand dollars. That’s a lot, you know?”

  “It most certainly is,” said Hollice. “Whose idea was the bus ticket?”

  “His idea.”

  “Dutton’s.”

  “I never talked to him. Just that guy. Murray.”

  Two thousand dollars and a bus ticket far from her old man in exchange for a sworn statement and a signed assault complaint against Shakespeare McCann. That part, Hollice knew would be her word against Levy’s. The cash he’d seen was unmarked, and the bus ticket had no name on it.

  Still, Jennifer’s story seemed convincingly told, with just enough contempt and regret to make it all real. Her tale ended after she’d further claimed to have gotten on the bus and made it only as far as Houston.

  “That’s when I got scared to be so far from home.”

  “And you called your dad?”

  “I called my mom. I was too scared to talk to him.”

  “What happened then?”

  “They drove up to Houston and picked me up.”

  “Your dad and your mom?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Was your dad as mad as you thought he’d be?”

  Jennifer didn’t answer that question. She looked away, nervous, then shifted in her seat as a silent reminder of the licking she’d gotten when they’d arrived home.

  Later, Miles O’Detts had added that his daughter had wept in the presence of Shakespeare himself, getting on her knees and asking his forgiveness.

  “Questions,” said Hollice into his tape recorder. “Why would a front-runner with a surefire lead risk the race on such a stunt?” He flipped off the tape recorder and answered the question himself. Mitch probably hadn’t known about it. He was an elitist. And a lawyer, yes. But this down-and-dirty shit wasn’t his style. Mitch fancied himself a high-road moralist.

  “Question. If Dutton knew the girl was lying, what has him so scared of Shakespeare McCann? Is there dirty laundry in his own closet he fears will hurt him down the backstretch?”

  Mitch could be having an affair. Hollice himself had floated the rumor all the way back in May, and nothing solid had come back to him. Still, so what if he was? This was the nineties. It hadn’t hurt Clinton.

  “Question. If Dutton didn’t know the girl was lying, who did? Is Dutton in control of his campaign? Or is he a willing puppet of a national party that would prefer throwing money at needier candidates who were still on the political bubble?”

  Too cynical, decided Hollice. He shut off the tape recorder and switched his mind over to talk radio to see if anything was swelling on the Shakespeare McCann arrest. Rolling down the window, he twisted the dial to AM 970 and caught the last bits of “The Mark Shilts Show.” Calls were coming in from all over. The believers and the disbelievers. And even some who’d never heard of Shakespeare McCann. Who said there was any such thing as bad press? he wondered. This was going to make Shakespeare McCann a household word.

  He drove on and left the tougher questions behind. And also the ones he’d completely overlooked. Such as the brand-new Cadillac in the O’Dettses’ driveway, complete with factory window sticker. Or the sideways glances Jennifer would give her father when he was correcting her story. Looks that Hollice mistook as contempt instead of guilt. Nope. It didn’t matter as long as the horse race was on. It didn’t matter as long as Hollice would be getting those twelve column inches above the fold he’d most surely pocket in less than an hour. Tomorrow he would once again be Mr. Exclusive, leaving everyone else in his turbulent wake.

  Then he flipped on his tape recorder again. “Reminder. Next week ask Charlie for a raise.”

  SIX

  THE SOUTH Texas Democratic League dinner wasn’t quite the distraction Mitch needed. With all the hoopla surrounding the Jennifer O’Detts story, the five-hundredper-plate fund-raiser put on by the local party faithfuls was awash with the day’s buzz of arrest warrants and Shakespeare McCann. He had prepared a speech for that evening that touched mainly on the national economy and political reform. It was a serious effort that he’d hoped would carry him through the event without so much of the usual ear-bending and glad-handing. There were young minds in the room to inspire and even some old hands who could use some lift from Mitch’s fresh ideas. He was the front-runner and the podium would be his bully pulpit. Or so he’d thought.

  Instead, the news of Shakespeare’s folly only cemented in everyone’s mind that once and for all, the congressional seat that had been the property of Hurricane Hammond and the Republican party for so lon
g would now be flying Democratic colors. The evening had quickly turned from a fund-raiser to the coronation of Congressman Mitchell Dutton. The well-wishers descended upon him. Among them, the party lounge lizards. Die-hards of local politics with a shared fantasy of riding Mitchell’s coattails to Washington, D.C.

  Yes, he wanted to win. And yes, he surely wanted Shakespeare to fry in hell. But at what expense? The election was ten weeks away. It was presumptive and downright unfair of them to treat him as if he&rsd already won the popular vote.

  “Good evening,” he began, once he’d finally made it up to the dais. But that’s all it took. The room erupted with shouts and applause.

  “Thank you,” he offered with a smile and hands raised high. He resigned himself to letting them applaud. Then he would begin the lecture. Instead someone began singing “God Bless America.” And so followed the rest of the room. Yet it seemed more like a crowded stadium singing “Happy Birthday” to a famous ballplayer. They weren’t thinking about the song they were singing. They were just wrapped up in the happy emotions of the moment.

  Mitch Dutton. Congressman. The real thing.

  He looked left from the dais and caught sight of Fitz swaying and singing along. An ordinary party speech had turned into a big surprise party for Mitch. And when they were finished with “God Bless America,” they followed with a chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

  Still, as hard as he tried and as loud as they sang, he found it all so disingenuous. What had made him rise up from an afternoon funk rife with guilt and anger over the entire Jennifer O’Detts deal was his speech. Every word was from the heart. And every punctuation mark revised to emphasize the importance of the issues he would be discussing. And now he could see all they wanted were jokes, platitudes, and thank-yous.

  The speech can wait.

  Fitz had quickly scribbled the note and passed it up to Mitch. But he already knew what it said. He could feel the undertow. So, like a gentleman annoyed by the lateness of his dinner companion, he waited for the crowd to settle. Then, with aplomb, he returned to the microphone and said, “I accept your mandate.”

  Pandemonium. And once again, it began. The singing and rejoicing and applauding so hard, some would later wonder why their hands were so sore and their throats hoarse and scratchy. Meanwhile, while waiting for his next cue, Mitch neatly folded his speech and replaced it inside his coat pocket.

  10:54 P.M. Mitch made the last turns onto Flower Hill and the tree-lined drive up to the old Victorian house. The windows were rolled down and he could smell the late oleander’s bloom. It was an odd phenomenon that gave Flower Hill its name. There was never an off-season and there always seemed to be some kind of new budding and scent in the air. Azaleas. Magnolias. Especially the white oleanders. They bloomed late on the high island knolls. Another mystery.

  He could see the television flicker coming from the high right rear of the house. This meant Connie was awake. She couldn’t sleep with the television on and often used it to stay awake until Mitch came home. He turned off the engine, but sat in the car for a moment longer as he tried to ease his mind. The evening he had left behind was a whirl of emotion. All love and hate and mixed feelings. The unused speech was still in his pocket. Suddenly his thoughts switched to Jennifer O’Detts. How far had that bus taken her? All the way to New York! he wondered. Or did she stop for the night in Chicago, or maybe Baltimore?

  Climbing up the stairs toward the master bedroom, he could hear the familiar voice of Channel 9’s eleven-o’clock anchor, Bobby Gonzales. He couldn’t quite make out the words. But then again, maybe he was still trying to tune it all out. Connie was propped up in her usual position amongst the goose-down pillows, her knees pulled to her chest and reading glasses pushed against the bridge of her nose. She didn’t say “hello” or even a “how-are-you?” She was simply pointing at the TV and saying, “Did you see this?”

  He turned the corner into the bedroom until he caught a good angle of the TV. All he could see was a reporter outside the police station doing a live wrap-up.

  “What’d I miss?”

  “Wait. I taped it for you.” She was quick with the remote control. He suddenly recalled how it was a wonder to him that she knew how to program the VCR. He barely knew which end of the tape to load.

  “There,” she said, after she’d rewound the tape. “I can’t believe you haven’t seen this.”

  “Seen what?” he asked, nearly irritated. He sat on the edge of the bed with his jacket draped next to him.

  The videotape rolled. Shakespeare McCann was making his formal appearance at Cathedral PD, complete with handcuffs. A small crowd had gathered, no doubt marshaled to the station by Shakespeare’s campaign staff for a visual show of support. Then, before being brought inside, Shakespeare was quick with a quote. “The evidence will show that this is a cynical attempt to smear my name by my opponent, Mitch Dutton. I will be exonerated. Now, stick that in your hat and cook it.”

  A woman’s voice called out from behind the camera, “If what you say is true about Dutton, can you say how close he is to the mark?”

  “Depends on the marksman. If he’s a fellah who shoots first, and whatever he hits he calls the target? Then that’s my opponent. That’s Mitchell Dutton!” Shakespeare finished with a flourish, winking at the camera and raising his shackled fists into the air like a martyred leader of the revolution. “This injustice will not stand!”

  “Did you know about this?”

  “All day.” Mitch was back on his feet and on his way to the bathroom. He wanted to throw up.

  “They said he raped some sixteen-year-old girl.”

  “I told you before, Connie. He’s a bad guy and gets what he deserves.”

  “But I just can’t imagine…A guy like him…”

  He was back at the bathroom door. “You have one dinner with the guy and you think you know him?”

  “I was only saying he just doesn’t seem violent.”

  “Don’t judge a book,” was all he could say, and he was back in the bathroom.

  “What about the part where he said you were responsible?” But Mitch didn’t hear her. At least he pretended not to. The shower was suddenly running and he’d escaped into a sanctuary of hot water and steam.

  Thursday, Mitch’s morning run with the dogs was a full two hours earlier than the usual 7:00 a.m. At five he was awake after a night plagued with poor sleep and a nightmare about his father. It was the same scene as when he had gotten home. The stairs. The voice of Bobby Gonzales on the TV. Connie propped between the pillows, pointing at the TV set. On-screen was Shakespeare McCann, handcuffed with his hands held high in martyred victory. But the words were different. They were from the speech Mitch had failed to deliver the previous evening. The crowd was rapt and listening to McCann. Laughing at Mitch’s jokes. Stirred at his thoughts for government reform and a spiritual awakening to public service. Even the cops dragging McCann along thought it was a good speech. When the news story switched to the arrest warrant and alleged beating, the photo that appeared on-screen wasn’t of Jennifer O’Detts. It was of Mitch’s father, Quentin Dutton, bruised and battered by the fists of Shakespeare McCann.

  After he woke, he rose from bed, washed his face, and tried to return to sleep with the specter of the dream still haunting him. At the first signs of daylight, he got back out of bed, quietly dressed for his run, and encouraged the sleepy dogs to follow him downstairs.

  The morning was balmy and cool. The air was wet and a good fifteen degrees below the temperature of his sweat, making for a brisk run. Mouth closed. Air through the nostrils equalled no swallowed insects. Mitch had mastered the art of jogging in South Texas. The dogs kept pace at either side of him, turning corners as was their habit. God forbid Mitch would change routes. The poor animals wouldn’t know what to think of it.

  Mitch and the dogs had started so early on the run that the morning paper hadn’t yet arrived. Though it might not have mattered. It was another of Mitch’s mor
ning habits to pick up the paper only after his run. That way his mind would be fresh and unaffected during the workout. But had he not started so early, maybe he would’ve seen the headline staring up at him as he ambled down the front walk with the dogs. For when he got home, it was staring up at him like a cursed voodoo doll tossed upon his stoop.

  DUTTON CAMPAIGN CAUGHT IN PAYOFF SCHEME!

  And then the kicker underneath…

  Alleged Victim Recants Arrest Complaint Against McCann

  At first Mitch thought he’d misread the headline. Or that it was all some awful mistake. He picked up the paper and tore into the story following Hollice Waters’s byline.

  Jennifer O’Detts, interviewed at her family’s home near Cathedral City…

  But she was supposed to be in New York. Murray had put her on the bus only yesterday morning. Shakespeare had raped and beaten the shit out of her and she’d filed the complaint, for Christ’s sake!

  …alleged that the Dutton volunteer coordinator, Murray Levy, arranged for the payment of two thousand dollars cash and transportation to New York City in exchange for filing battery and rape charges against Shakespeare McCann…

  The dogs were barking. Mitch stopped his reading to look down the drive. The morning calm was busted wide open by the sound of an accelerating truck up the cul-de-sac. A news van was checking addresses, obviously looking at number after number until it would arrive at Mitch’s address, where in moments it would find the guilty candidate standing sweaty, shirtless, and chagrined on his front stoop, the Cathedral Daily Mirror in hand.