To Kill a Man - Maggie Costello Series 05 (2020)

by Bourne, Sam

  ‘And this is a woman currently in jail.’ It was Teller, leaving no room for misunderstanding.

  ‘The stuff about the dating sites and BDSM hurts her with older women, but nowhere near as much as we’d assumed before going into the field. And in other categories, many just don’t believe it.’

  ‘Don’t believe what?’

  All eyes turned to the head of the table, where Tom Harrison himself was sitting. No aw-shucks folksiness now; he was all business. That three-point lead among women, within the margin of error and against a novice whose name recognition had stood at zero a matter of weeks ago, had got his attention.

  Ellen now addressed him directly. ‘They don’t believe the police case against Winthrop, Senator. That she had somehow plotted to kill this man in cold blood. The dating sites, the messages, the browsing history – they shrug it off.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘In the groups, they mention fake news a lot. It’s become the go-to for any story or facts you don’t like.’

  ‘So they think this is fake?’

  ‘Well, Senator, they kind of want it to be fake, which we’ve discovered is very close to believing it to be fake. They move between either contesting the facts or saying those facts don’t matter. So either Natasha Winthrop didn’t go on those BDSM sites or, if she did, it doesn’t take away from what happened eventually – which is that she killed a serial rapist and suspected murderer.’ Ellen checked her notes. ‘The same phrases come up again and again. “She did the right thing, even if she did it the wrong way.” “She brought that man to justice.” And this one, “Sometimes you gotta take the law into your own hands.” In one group, in Tucson, a participant described Winthrop as a “superhero”.’

  Dan Benson watched the senator pale, no mean feat given his perma-tan. Spotting it too, Greg Carter – often the good cop to Teller’s bad cop – stepped in.

  ‘There is a flipside to this. Men are very uncomfortable with Winthrop.’ Now it was his turn to check his notes. ‘“Ball-breaker” comes up a lot, as you can imagine.’ There was a snigger, its precise location impossible to pin down, its volume somewhere between inaudible and imperceptible. Carter was turning pages on his notebook. ‘This is from a voter in Kentucky. Male, fifties, non-college. “I know you’re not meant to say this, but if it’s true that she was on those dating sites and asked that guy over to her house – well, you know, she kind of asked for it.” Also, “If you’re president, you’ve got to control your feelings. This woman sounds like she was out of control. I’d be frightened with her finger anywhere near the nuclear button.” That was in Ohio. All of those voters prefer you, Senator, by a country mile. The trouble is—’

  ‘I know what the trouble is. I know what the goddamn trouble is.’ On the second ‘trouble’, Harrison brought his fist down on the table, with such force it made the KeepCups and Chilly’s Bottles jump. ‘The trouble is, men don’t like this woman, but women love her. And there is no way to win the nomination of this party – the nomination for the presidency of the United States, I may remind you – by being on one side of a sex war, gender war, whatever. No way. I know this party and I know what it’s capable of. If this party fights itself, it will be vicious. There’ll be no coming back from it. I’ve seen our party divide on race before – before some of you were born – and we’re more than capable of taking lumps out of each other on this too. Believe me.’

  A silence fell on the room. For four or five seconds no one dared speak. Only Teller had the rank to do it. ‘Sir, I agree that these findings are serious.’

  ‘You’re goddamned right they’re serious! I’ve been in elected office for more than three decades. This woman comes from nowhere and she’s already within three points of me?’

  ‘That’s only among women,’ Ellen said quietly.

  ‘I know that. But think what she can get when she’s not behind friggin’ bars, people!’ More silence, not least at the shock of seeing the usually smooth, avuncular demeanour replaced by a behind-the-scenes persona few outside the senior staff had ever glimpsed. ‘Do we seriously not have any oppo on this wom— this person? Nothing? I mean, why are we not dumping twenty tons of horse manure on this lady? Can’t we use that thing we’ve got, the Imperial whatever-it’s-called that we’ve spent so much dough on?’

  Teller shot the senator a look, a glare whose unmistakable purpose was to shut him up. Or at least get him to swerve away from the subject. It seemed to work.

  ‘Opposition research. If we have any, surely now is the time to use it.’

  ‘While a police inquiry is underway—’

  ‘Yeah, I know the rules, Greg. But didn’t we all learn four years ago that the rulebook is gone? Finished. Kaput. Maybe you missed it, but there was a guy who won the last election by putting the rulebook in the shredder. It’s done. It doesn’t exist any more. We can’t wait for the police to do their thing. “Let due process run its course.” No, sir. OK, maybe it goes our way and the DC Police charge her – though judging by these numbers, even that won’t finish her off. But what if they don’t? What if they release her, cleared of all charges? Huh? You think about that little scenario?

  ‘No, my friends. We cannot afford to sit around, looking at numbers any more. We need to know everything about this person. She can’t have just come out of nowhere. She’ll have a record, somewhere: things she said that she shouldn’t have said, things she did that she shouldn’t have done, people she knew that she shouldn’t have known. Three points, folks! Three goddamn points. We need to take this little lady out, and pronto.’

  With that, the senator collected up his papers, rose to his feet and headed for the exits, at least three aides, Ellen included, leaping from their seats to leave with him.

  Those left behind all looked to Teller, waiting for a lead. Dan Benson noticed that the campaign manager swallowed hard before talking, the prominence of his Adam’s apple briefly testifying to his anxiety. When he spoke, there was a tiny wobble to his first word which he rapidly covered. Everyone was thinking the same thing: for a campaign manager to be chewed out by the candidate in front of the entire team had surely left Doug Teller’s authority in pieces. Still, he forced the sentence out.

  ‘You heard what Senator Harrison said. We must take Natasha Winthrop out and we must do it soon.’

  Everyone understood that as the conclusion of the meeting and Dan moved towards the door in silence with the rest of them. On his way out, Teller caught him, grabbing him by his elbow. Dan turned around sharply.

  ‘So, guess we’ve got our instructions, Daniel.’

  ‘Yep. Clear as day.’ Benson looked at his elbow, noting that Teller’s hand was still there.

  ‘One point that may not have come through. Winthrop herself is doing nothing right now. She’s in a cell, yes?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So some of our focus will need to be on those who are acting on her behalf.’

  ‘You mean surrogates, social media, all that?’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean something much more specific than that. Or rather someone more specific. Someone who is working hard as we speak in the service of Natasha Winthrop. No names, but if I say Washington’s go-to troubleshooter, you’ll know who I mean.’

  Chapter 36

  Thank God that is over. That was the hardest twenty minutes of my life. Actually, the twenty minutes was not so bad. But the waiting and the build-up, oh my God, that was just the worst. Worse than for any test or exam ever. Mom even noticed, the way I couldn’t eat anything when I got back from school. “Something’s up,” she said. “What is it? I can tell.”

  But I wouldn’t tell her, obviously. I wanted to wait till Dad was back, so I could tell them both at the same time. I knew we wouldn’t have long, just that gap between my Dad getting home and P coming back from his shift.

  As soon as Dad got back home, I came i
nto the kitchen and said I needed to talk. I could see my Mom looking worried. My Dad looked relaxed at first, until he saw my Mom and then he looked worried too. What is it? he said and I was like, can we just sit down? And I sat at the table and I kind of waited till they took out a chair and sat down too.

  I just said, It’s about P. And my Mom instantly said, Oh thank the Lord, I thought you were going to say you were pregnant.

  That kind of threw me a bit and I said, It’s about things P does to me.

  My Dad said, What? Something about the way he said it made me think he kind of knew. I don’t know why but that’s how it seemed. My Mom was just quiet. Sort of waiting.

  P does things to me. He’s been doing things to me since I was ten. Touching me and making me touch him.

  What? My Dad said again.

  He forces me, I said. He forces his —but I couldn’t say it. Not when it came to it, I couldn’t say the actual word. I don’t know why, but it had something to do with not hurting their feelings, which I know is insane, but that’s the only explanation I can think of.

  I don’t believe it, my Mom said. I just don’t believe it.

  It started when I was ten, I said. But it’s worse now, I said. What he does is worse. It got worse when I was eleven and worse when I was twelve and worse and worse. I could see how shocked my Mom was and so I sort of stopped, but it was such a relief to be saying the words after all this time. I kept on talking, telling them about Helen and what I’d seen, until eventually my Dad raised his hand and said, “OK, Mindy. That’s enough.” I think he was worried that it was upsetting me to say all these things, even though it actually felt like taking big rocks out of a backpack you’ve been carrying for years.

  They told me to get some rest, to go to bed. Though when they said “bed”, I think I saw my Mom kind of make a face.

  I’m sitting on my bed now listening to their voices. I can hear them talking and sounding upset, maybe angry. P’s coming home soon and I know this sounds crazy, but I’m scared for him. I keep picturing them throwing him out of the house, into the dark and the cold and him sleeping in the car or at the workshop or something.

  I’m a bit worried about writing this right now. I keep looking at the door, because one of them is bound to come in here to talk to me any minute now, and I don’t want them to see what I’m doing. I feel so bad for them. This must be a big shock for them too.

  Oh my God, I can hear something. It’s my Dad on the phone. Wait there.

  OK, I just cracked open the door and heard him talking to Helen’s Dad. I couldn’t hear much but he must have asked him what happened. Oh God, this is getting really serious. What if they call the police. I don’t want him to go to jail, I just want him to stop.

  I’m going to stop now. I’m just going to sit by the window and wait till P gets home.

  I’m writing this under the covers, pretending to be asleep. It’s hard to see, because I’ve just got the light of my torch, like a cone of yellow on the page. It’s quiet now and I don’t really know what’s going on.

  I heard P come home like maybe an hour ago. Mom and Dad were waiting for him, and they started talking to him immediately. I could hear my Dad doing that thing he does when he’s angry, like his calm voice which shows he’s not calm.

  I thought P would start shouting and throwing things, but his voice sounded calm too. That’s so weird, it’s kind of scary. Because it means things are not normal, something different is happening. I keep imagining that the police are about to come and take him away and it’s all my fault. I should never have said anything. And now the police will know that he did the same to Helen and probably Helen’s Dad wants to kill P and he’ll have to go to prison far away for his own safety, like they say on the news.

  I’m so stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have kept my mouth shut. I’ve ruined someone’s life.

  I must have fallen asleep. I woke up just now and it’s quiet. P has not come in here. They must have told him he’s not allowed in this room ever again. I wonder if he’s sleeping on the couch or maybe the police came and took him away when I was asleep. Maybe he’s in a prison cell right now, with those chains around his legs and handcuffs. Oh God.

  It’s twelve hours later now and I am not at home.

  I am in the house of someone I don’t know. They gave me some food to eat—mac and cheese—and showed me to this room. There was a small towel on the bed and a little bar of soap in plastic. I don’t think I can really explain what’s going on. All I can do is start at the beginning.

  I came down in the morning and could see that P had slept on the couch. He was gone though. Maybe he’d had to go to work early. Mom and Dad told me to sit down at the kitchen table. They had rings under their eyes. I felt sorry for them.

  Dad began, while Mom looked down at the table. I thought: she feels so bad for me, she can’t even look at me. She’s ashamed that this happened to me under her roof. She feels she let me down. I began to say, It’s not your fault, Mommy, but my Dad raised the palm of his hand, like a traffic cop and I realized he wanted to tell me what was going to happen. I was hoping they would tell me that P would not go to prison but that maybe he would live somewhere else.

  Mindy, we need to have a talk, he said. OK, I said.

  We’ve spoken to Helen’s parents and they’ve spoken to Helen and she said that nothing like this happened. Nothing at all.

  I didn’t know what to say. But then I said, But he told her he would kill her if she said anything. Just like he said to me. He always says that. He says he’ll put a knife inside my—

  Listen, Mindy. This has to stop. I know this can happen with girls your age. Maybe it’s all that time you spend in the library, all these books and stories or stuff on TV, maybe your imagination has been running away with you. Maybe you’ve been reading dirty books that you shouldn’t have. But making stuff like this up about your brother—

  I’m not making it up!

  Helen’s parents were shocked when I called them. Very upset. Weren’t they Carole?

  My Mom nodded.

  Course they were. They said straight away, Helen’s not that kind of girl.

  What?

  Even having to talk about that kind of thing on the phone—

  What do you mean, that kind of girl?

  Now my Mom said something. She said, The kind of girl who goes into the woods with a boy.

  And I said, But he forced her. That’s the whole point. He forced her. I saw it. Just like he forces me.

  We don’t believe you.

  That’s what my Mom said, just like that. We don’t believe you.

  I made this sort of stammering noise. Words didn’t come out. Just this sort of croaking, stammering noise: er, er, er

  My Dad carried on. I don’t understand why you’d make up something like this, Mindy. Is it for attention? Don’t Mom and I give you enough attention?

  I felt this weird sensation. It was different to anything I’d felt before. Like all the blood was flowing out of my head and my brain, like someone had hit a switch to power down a machine. I imagined how I must look, I imagined my face turning white, and then the flesh and skin falling off it, like a speeded-up film of a corpse becoming a skeleton, until I imagined I was just this set of bones sitting opposite these two other people. I couldn’t say anything.

  Now Mom spoke. These are terrible things to say about anybody, Mindy. Terrible things. You can’t just make up things like this, accusations. What if we’d believed you? What if Helen hadn’t told the truth? Think of what that could have done to Paulie. He’s loved you like a sister all this time, and you say these terrible things. He was so shocked when we told him about it when he came home last night. He was stunned that you could have said what you said.

  I was feeling kind of numb but that went through me like an electric shock. I tried to say, What do you mean, like a sister?
Like a sister? I thought I was, I thought . . . but I couldn’t finish it, I couldn’t say the words.

  I expected myself to cry, but my body was still powering down. Whole parts of me were shutting off, as I sat there. I could hear my parents —I could hear Jim and Carole’s words, but they sounded like they were underwater or coming through the wall of the house next door, or as if I was listening from the bedroom.

  But it’s true, I heard myself saying. It’s true that I saw him do those things to Helen. And it’s true that he did those things to me.

  I got up and began to unzip my jeans. I was going to pull down my underwear and show them how and where he’d done it—I thought they would be able to see it—but my Dad grabbed my arm and said, Stop that right now, young lady. And I heard my Mom, I mean Carole, say, She’s very disturbed. She’s got something wrong with her. She needs help.

  I was just saying, It’s true, It’s true, over and over again. I still wasn’t crying, but that was only because my body wasn’t working.

  We know Paul, my Mom said. We know who that boy is. We know what he is and what he isn’t. He’s our own flesh and blood.

  And that was when my soul left my body. That’s when I floated out of Mindy, and was just hovering above, like one of those dead people who’s not quite dead yet, looking down at these two people and this girl, Mindy. They were strangers to me, but that wasn’t the weird thing. The weird thing was that they were strangers to each other. Mindy was still calling them Mom and Dad, but they didn’t think Mindy was their daughter. That had been her mistake all along. Of course they believed P and not her. P was their son, and she was just a guest in their house.

  Now the voices were even harder to hear, like they were on TV with the sound turned down. I think my Mom—I mean Carole, Carole, Carole—was saying I carried that boy for nine months or something like that.

  I don’t remember if I stood up and then my Dad—Jim, I mean, Jim, Jim, Jim—said, Your mother and I have spoken and we think it’s best for everyone if we end this arrangement, or if it was the other way around. Maybe first my Dad, I mean Jim Hagen, said, We think it’s best for everyone if we end this arrangement and then I stood up. Maybe that came first. I don’t remember.