“He wouldn’t say. He just said to hang up and go.”
“But he was calling from the car?”
“I think so. I don’t know where from. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Did Mitch say I would?”
“He said the less I knew, the better.”
Behind the wheel of her Nissan Maxima, Rene wouldn’t bother telling her the rest. The part where Mitch asked her if she loved him. She’d rather forget that part, anyway.
“Mitch says your whole family’s in politics,” Connie said.
“Pretty much the whole clan,” answered Rene, wondering how much Mitch had told Connie about her. Especially when he’d told Rene hardly a damn thing about his wife.
“Must make for interesting table talk,” said Connie, trying to make polite conversation.
“It would. If we could ever get us all in one place.”
As they drove to the airport, the polite talk faded into a worried silence, leaving an icy trench between the women. The conversation had begun cordially back at the house, where Rene had diplomatically chosen to wait downstairs while Connie packed, pacing all the while, and killing those long twenty minutes with numerous checks of her own answering machine. When she thought they were finally prepared to go, Connie kept returning to the house to turn off a light or the gas or something else of minor importance. The last effort was to leave the dogs at a neighbor’s. By ten-thirty they were on the road. At eleven-forty, they were at the airport.
As instructed, Rene was to drop Connie at the airport and drive off unnoticed. Instead, when they pulled up to the curb, Connie stayed put in the passenger seat, staring dead ahead.
“You gotta go,” said Rene. “Mitch didn’t want anybody to see us.”
“I know,” said Connie, her eyes fixed on nothing.
“Do you want me to get a skycap?”
“I want you to please take care of Mitch.”
Jesus. Does she know? After all this time, does she know everything?
“Sure I will,” said Rene, hoping it would end there.
Connie nodded. “I know you love him. And right now, I suspect, he’s in a lot of trouble. He’s going to need someone he trusts.” She finally brought herself to look at Rene. She was awfully beautiful. Hard to resist. “Can he trust you?”
“I think he can,” answered Rene, trying not to show signs of nerves. She felt naked in front of Connie. Undressed to her soul.
“Okay,” finished Connie, opening the car door. “You better go then.” She wheeled a single piece of carry-on luggage behind her and never looked back.
Instinct. Wives can smell it on a man.
That’s what Rene’s momma used to say about her father when he’d come home from an afternoon of sport fucking. Wives just knew, that’s all. And Connie knew. Just like Rene’s momma. Never saying a word to anybody about it. Especially her man. Wouldn’t give ‘em the satisfaction of knowing that they were ever hurt.
Traffic was backed up along the airport route—strange for that time of night. Both southbound lanes were awash in the glow of red brake lights. Rene checked the inset clock in the dash: 12:18 a.m. Quickly she thought back to Connie. Did she know where she was going? Was there a plan in place wherein Mitch simply used Rene as a key? What was any of it about?
A mile ahead, she could see dark smoke reflected in hundreds of stalled headlight beams. Ahead there was an overpass and the faint glow of a gasoline fire. Rain, she thought. Slick roads. People die. Tens of thousands in traffic accidents every year. Thousands in Texas alone. Drunks who thought speed was something ol’ boys did on Saturday nights in their souped-up muscle cars and bigwheeled trucks.
At 12:32 a fire truck rolled by, hugging the soggy shoulder. Shortly thereafter followed Texas state troopers who quickly coned off northbound traffic into one lane and then began siphoning off the stalled southbound cars. Rene dropped her car into gear and followed the taillights.
As she neared the accident, she tried not to look. She feared traffic accidents. Had nightmares about them. But she looked anyway, drawn like all rubberneckers to face the grisly reality of human road kill. All she could see was the glow of a car ablaze in an empty irrigation canal. Flashing lights. Paramedic crews. No dead bodies. At least none she could see.
“Move it, move it, move it!” A flashlight blasted at her windshield, waved ahead by a state trooper. Beyond Rene was a clear highway. She’d slowed to a near stop, trying to get a good look at the wreck. And now the trooper wanted her moving. “Let’s go, lady!”
She hit the accelerator and left the scene behind her for the open road ahead. Taillights moved far ahead as traffic spread out along the slick asphalt. She found herself hugging the right lane and driving slowly. She was chilled. Her spine tingled in a sudden, unexplained terror. And for another three hours, she wouldn’t know why.
At four in the morning, Murray would call with horrible news. Mitch had been in a terrible car accident. McCann supporters were behind it. And the candidate’s car had been totally destroyed in a fire.
ELEVEN
MITCH HADN’T had the time to feel bad about manipulating Rene. He knew she was in love with him. There was nothing he could do about it. He had been too busy devising the last part of his plan.
The easiest move to plot, proved the hardest to execute. All the instructions were in Mitch’s memory. Ten years old, at least. From a time way back when Mitch was assigned as a co-litigator for an insurance carrier plagued by auto accident fraud. The plaintiffs were a cagey bunch of scam artists that would lease expensive cars, insure them for serious cash, and stage accidents in which the car and incriminating evidence were always consumed in a fuel fire. The carrier was forced to settle with the criminals and pass along the cost of doing business to its overburdened clients.
Mitch never forgot the simplicity of the swindle. All he needed was a deserted highway and a steep turn on a rise, often found over a concrete flood channel. Fortunately for Mitch, this was a scenario easily duplicated on Airport Route 15.
For three hours now, he’d gone from plot to conclusion over a hundred times in his head. He’d eventually settled on executing the final act of his play on the southbound route from Houston to fit the story he would later tell in sketchy detail. Simply told, the candidate had just dropped his wife at the airport, and the accident had occurred on the rain-slicked highway on his return trip to the Island.
All Mitch had to do was work the scam.
One. He picked the accident scene—a stretch of empty highway—looking it over before any state trooper or good Samaritan had the opportunity to stop, help, or ask directions.
Two. He circled back northbound on the highway to an exit ramp where he stopped the car and, with a tire iron, smashed the windshield as if it had been struck by a thrown object.
Three. He opened the gas cap to the car, took off his bloodied shirt, and, inch by inch, made a wick by twisting it into the gas receptacle.
That was it.
He climbed back in the car, once again waiting for a gap in traffic where he couldn’t see headlights for miles behind him. Then he rolled the Volvo back into the southbound lane and raced the mile or so up to the predetermined accident scene. In the candidate’s mind, it was all so painfully simple. Easy.
Stay calm, Mitch. Execute. And wait for help.
At the turn in the highway, he rolled his car onto the soft shoulder and set the parking brake. Heart pounding in his throat, he opened his door, stepped out, and checked the highway once again. Not a car in sight. All he had to do was light the wick and release the brake.
Light the wick? But with what?
A sudden panic set in. A flaw in the plan. He didn’t smoke. Didn’t keep matches in his car because Fitz would always want to smoke, and that damned lingering smell was enough to make Mitch sick. There was the cigarette lighter, but he had pulled the plug on mat when he bought the car. Had he thrown it out? Or just left it in the glove box?
He dove back i
nto the car. First, digging into the console between the two front seats, he dumped everything out. No lighter, though. Next he went for the glove compartment and madly rummaged. He tossed everything out. Owner’s manual. Audiotapes. Tissues. And no damn lighter!
Lights appeared. Far in the distance, two tiny headlights made the grade. He began tearing at the car, reaching under seats and between cushions. In moments the car would be upon him. A witness. A good Samaritan. And Mitch, caught with both doors open. Wick shoved into the gas tank.
Shut the doors! Crawl inside! Hope the car passes!
He stretched across the driver’s seat to the passenger door, reaching to swing it shut, when suddenly he remembered the whereabouts of the lighter. It was in the passenger door compartment. That’s where he’d put it. Slipping his fingers into the compartment, he fished around and came up with the lighter. Fast as he could, he jammed it into the receptacle and, while waiting for it to pop back up, peered through the rain-spattered back window to check the oncoming car.
The lights brightened. High beams, he thought. Maybe a mile out and closing. He rechecked the lighter. It had already popped up. He pulled out the plug and crawled from the car to the rear. He grabbed at the bloody shirt. He didn’t know if it would ignite. All he could do was try. So this was it. He stuck the lighter to the wick and prayed.
God, let this work. Please, God…
The wick flamed and seared his right hand, catching fire to the bandage. He screamed as he stumbled backward, only to see those headlights fast approaching. He had to scramble. It was now or never. He leapt back into the sedan and released the parking brake. Instantly the heavy car began to roll, and Mitch with it, his injured arm suddenly tangled in the damn seat belt. The car picked up speed. Mitch running along with it, trying to pull free. Jesus Christ! It was going to drag him down the hill and into the channel! He was going to die!
And the rest was a blur.
He recalled stumbling, the seat belt caught around his arm and hauling him down the embankment with the car. Then there was the left rear wheel. If he didn’t go over the concrete wall and into the canal, he thought the seat belt might give way and the wheel would roll over him, smashing his skull.
As the car plunged toward the flood channel, the seat belt finally gave way and, miraculously, the left rear tire skipped over Mitch as the car tumbled headlong into the canal, striking the concrete floor and erupting into flames. The last thing he remembered was the fireball. The sky alight, reflecting in the light rain. The fireball and the smell of his singed hair, curling from the heat.
Lila Gonzales, the driver of the oncoming car, saw the explosion and nearly lost control of her car. Unmarried and middle-aged, she was returning to the Coast from a Texas State Social Workers’ Conference in Houston. In her experienced opinion, the event had gone far too late into the evening. She was tired, frightened by the slippery road, and deathly afraid she’d fall asleep at the wheel and end up a double statistic. Unmarried and dead. Lucky for Mitch and his bungled plan, she was driving well under the speed limit.
The explosion rocked her vision, lighting the whole sky. Out of reflex she stomped on her brakes, sending her little Ford Fiesta into a four-wheel spin that nearly put her into the center guardrail.
Jésus Mío, thank Saint Christopher, there were no other cars, she later told the news cameras.
When she recovered control of her vehicle, Lila sped toward the wreckage ahead of her, crossing her heart and blurting a string of Hail Marys until she was out of the car and stumbling down the steep bank toward the fire. She found Mitch unconscious, shredded, and stranded at the edge of the canal. He looked as good as dead. Battered, bloodied, but alive.
A horn boomed. She screeched, nearly falling into the trench from fright. A southbound trucker had pulled over, his tractor-trailer rig stretching across the horizon of the overpass. He leaned his meaty body out the window and belted out, “You called for help yet?”
In the ambulance, Mitch regained partial consciousness. A paramedic came into focus. And Mitch thought he heard him say, “You’re gonna be okay, buddy.” Trying to talk, he gagged and could only cough into the oxygen cone. Leaning closer, the paramedic calmed him. “Just relax. We got ten more minutes drivin’ until you see a doctor.”
But he couldn’t relax. The aching from his right hand surged all the way up to his shoulder. “My hand,” he mumbled from underneath his mask.
“What’s that, buddy?” asked the paramedic, turning his ear to the cone.
With consciousness came unfinished business. Mitch hadn’t finished the play. The plotting wouldn’t work unless he laid that last piece of pipe. He shoved aside the oxygen cone and choked out a single word. “McCann.”
The paramedic stuck the oxygen mask back onto his face. “I said relax! Don’t try to move. You might have some broken ribs. You talk, you could puncture a lung.”
The other paramedic moved into his obscured periphery. She wore a sweet face that reminded him of Gina. Round and cherubic.
“What’d he say?” she asked.
“I think he said ‘McCann.’”
Then she recognized him. “Oh my God. You’re him. You’re that guy.”
Mitch was done, the curtain falling on his performance in three acts, each folding together into an accident that pointed the finger at Shakespeare McCann. The other pieces, he thought, were buried or burned or dumped in a stump-filled graveyard some sixty miles from the scene of the accident. Gina was dead. He couldn’t fix that. Connie was safe and on her way to San Francisco.
And he was alive.
The pain swarmed him, his consciousness fading. He lost sight of the paramedics. It was 2:18 in the morning. Mitch wouldn’t wake again until six.
Fitz heard about the accident closer to four when he got a call from Murray. He was still up, worrying. Ahead of Fitz lay November third and a potential slam-dunk. A win for Mitch and for the spin meister’s sagging career. Numbed by more alcohol, Fitz was on an emotional roller coaster he could no longer control. And when it was all over, what then? Another campaign? No way, he’d decided. It was time to move on. Win or lose, it was time for a career change.
From the moment Mitch had uttered “McCann,” word was passed ahead to the dispatcher that candidate Mitch Dutton was on his way to the Blessed Virgin Hospital at Cathedral City’s north end. When his home phone number turned up unlisted, the hospital called the campaign office, where they got a service. Service calls were forwarded to Murray. Murray called Fitz.
“Something about McCann.”
“Who said?” asked Fitz.
“I just got off the phone with the dispatcher,” said Murray from the hospital. “The paramedics said something about McCann. That’s all I got.”
Murray was first to arrive at the hospital, though all the EMT crew from the accident were still finding excuses to hang around. He did his best to eavesdrop. It turned out they were all waiting for the TV cameras to arrive and interview them.
“What’s it like down there?” asked Fitz.
“Well, the PD’s squared off against the state troopers in a jurisdictional squabble. And the woman who found him…” Murray referred to his notes. “Name’s Lila Gonzales. She’s here too.”
Poor Lila, she was still seated in the waiting room, hoping someone would take a statement so she could go home and get some sleep. She didn’t care much. She didn’t know Mitch Dutton from Shakespeare McCann. Didn’t vote.
“Anybody seen him?”
“Family and that’s it.”
“Connie there?”
“Nobody can find her. No answer at the house. So I sent my roommate over. I hope Mitch doesn’t kick my ass for waking up his wife.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll cover you,” said Fitz. “Just sit tight. Don’t make any statements. And I’ll be there in a half hour.”
“Yes,” answered Shakespeare.
“He’s in the hospital. Car accident. But he’s alive, from what I hear.”
“Anything else?”
“There was a fire. His car was toast.”
“Any other bodies?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was there anybody else in the car? Like some woman?”
“Woman? I didn’t hear anything about a woman.”
TWELVE
THE SCHEDULED Sunday press brunch was abruptly moved to the Blessed Virgin. Rene was in charge of disturbing the South County media chorus’s early morning peace, clueing them in to the news of the accident and the unexpected change of venue. All on two hours’ sleep.
In a black DKNY suit, she hit the campaign office and PowerBooked her way through the list. No, brunch would not be served at the hospital. They would try and have coffee and maybe some doughnuts. But this was politics, where sudden turns of events were expected. The campaign’s position?
We’re just glad he’s alive. Aren’t you?
She left the task of redialing the unanswered numbers to an ardent volunteer before she piled in her car and started for the hospital. In the quiet, she fused it all together. The call from Mitch. The warning. The drive to the airport. The fire on the highway.
God, Mitch. What’ve you done?
The concrete statue of the Blessed Virgin fixed atop the old teaching hospital had oxidized to such a degree that it bore a rusted patina, resembling dried blood. The locals fittingly called the hospital Bloody Mary’s. Appropriate, considering it boasted the busiest trauma room in all of South County. More car accidents were rolled through the Blessed Virgin’s doors in a month than through most other hospitals in a year.
The press conference was set up in one of the residents’ small amphitheater classrooms, crammed with cameras on tripods, battery packs, monitors, and hundreds of yards of cable that snaked to each of the stations’ news vans. The crews either complained about the cold coffee and stale doughnuts, or speculated about the fate of Hollice Waters, now missing well over a month, and wondered over their radios if the local stations would actually preempt football in exchange for the live microwave feed. Ten o’clock came and went. The natives were getting restless.
Dark Horse Page 38
