Up in Smoke

by Charlene Weir

Sean turned off the burner and dumped boiling water and pasta into a colander to drain. “Fromm and Garrett have known each other since—hell, I don’t know, since they were born maybe. I’m interested in Garrett. Like I said. I’m a reporter.”

  “Are you looking for scandal? Dirty little secrets hidden away in dark holes until they grow mold and smell like defeat, that can be brought out in the light and spread before a salivating public.”

  “Good Lord, have you been reading Edgar Allan Poe?” He shook the colander and dumped the pasta on a platter, poured sauce over it and put the whole thing on the table.

  “Dinner.” He held out a chair for her.

  She decided maybe she was hungry after all. “This is really tangled, Sean. I can’t just let you waltz in here and do what you want. You may think it’s funny, but I am the law enforcement in this town. And, if you laugh, so help me God, I will bash you over the head with that wine bottle.”

  He looked at her with horror. “And spill the merlot? I want you to know I paid—”

  “Sean—”

  “Sorry.” He twirled linguini around his fork. “When you get all official, I get nervous.”

  “Any reason?”

  “See?” Pasta securely wrapped around the fork, he took a mouthful, chewed and swallowed. “There you go again. What do you think I did? Killed the woman and poor old Wakely?”

  She looked at him. “No.” But Parkhurst didn’t feel that strongly. Cops were always suspicious of the individual who found a homicide victim.

  “Then why all this third degree, this where were you when the dog barked in the night?”

  Eyebrows raised, she held her look.

  “Oh, right. Just doing your job.”

  “So why were you at Gayle Egelhoff’s house the night she was killed?”

  More pasta twirling, more chewing, more swallowing. “To pump Wakely, like I said. No reason. Simple reporter’s curiosity.”

  “What time was that?”

  He took a sip of wine. “Nine o’clock, maybe.”

  “She died sometime between nine and two A.M. You and Wakely were the last people to see her alive.”

  “Except for the killer.”

  Susan ignored that. “Tell me about her.”

  “I didn’t have a chance to find out anything. Mid-forties. A little nervous. As I was pushing in the chair, she said to Fromm, ‘You have to tell the truth now.’”

  “Go on.”

  “Fromm said, ‘The truth is different for everybody.’”

  “What did she say?”

  “That was it.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “‘Vince didn’t.’”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “I don’t know. Wakely remembered I was there and closed his mouth.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Nothing else? They didn’t say anything else to each other? To you?”

  “Nothing. That was it. The whole entire stock of words that were said in my presence.”

  “What about after you left and stood with your ear to the door?”

  Sean drew himself up. “I’d never do such a thing. Besides, the door was solid wood.”

  30

  As soon as his shift ended, Demarco picked up his laptop, headed for the hospital and tracked down the doc at the nurses’ station writing on a chart. “How’s she doing?”

  “She lost a lot of blood.” Dr. Sheffield, stocky, muscular, black curly hair, stood with his feet planted wide, arms crossed over his chest, like he was prepared to protect the castle from roving hordes.

  “I need to question her.”

  “No.” Sheffield went back to scribbling notes.

  “I need to find out what happened.”

  The doc shifted his stance, gave Demarco a hard stare. “It was very dicey there for a while. She’s not out of the woods yet. You can’t bother her.”

  There were times when Demarco missed the Marine Corps. You didn’t put up with shit like this. If you wanted something, you asked, and you got an answer.

  Demarco shifted to civilian cop mode. Arrogant people only got more stubborn when pushed and if he wanted this guy on his side, he needed to back off. “Any permanent damage?”

  “Physical? With a whole lot of luck, probably not. She’s got a deep cut on her shoulder. Cuts on her hands. Lacerations and abrasions on her feet, minor stuff. A serious cut across her throat. It’s been stitched. That’s all that can be done for now. Later, she’ll need plastic surgery. She has a fractured mandible. Upper teeth wired and lower teeth connected by tie wires for immobility.”

  “She can’t talk?”

  Sheffield continued with his chart and his notes. “With her jaws wired together, not very well.” Stating the obvious.

  “How long will it take to heal?”

  “The jaw has an excellent blood supply. Six to eight weeks for the physical injuries. Psychological scarring is something else. Tremendous, I’d guess. That isn’t my field.”

  “She has a computer at home.”

  “Good.” Sheffield snapped shut the chart he was writing on and slid it in a slot, impatient, busy. Demarco was bothering him.

  Demarco held up the case he was carrying. “Laptop. I’ll ask, she’ll type.”

  Sheffield wasn’t happy, but Demarco kept chipping away and the doc did finally allow Demarco ten minutes, no more. Demarco, mindful of having said to Her Ladyship the Chief he’d be tactful, said thank you. He didn’t know how the chief had made her bones on the job, but figured it was through some political shit about having more females to look good to the powers that be.

  She was asleep when he walked in, looking young and vulnerable and bruised. Fluids dripping into her left arm, monitors on the wall behind her, wire cutters on the bedside table, handy for quick use in case of vomiting. He wanted the asshole who did this, wanted to grab him by the throat and smash his face. Snatching a chair, he silently lowered it beside the bed and sat. Three of his ten minutes went by before she stirred. Her eyes blinked open, she looked around wildly, face frozen in terror. She struggled to sit. He laid his fingers on her arm. “It’s okay.”

  She stared at him, the glazed look left and recognition came into her eyes. She settled back into the pillow.

  “Don’t try to talk, it’ll hurt.”

  Her hand went to the bandage on her throat and she trailed her fingers lightly across it and back. She swallowed, obviously painfully.

  “You know how to use a computer?”

  She shot him a look of such scorn, his mood lifted considerably. If she still had an attitude, she’d be okay.

  “Right.” He pushed a button to raise the head of the bed and placed the laptop on her thighs. “I’m going to ask questions, you type answers.”

  Her fingers tapped keys. Cool.

  “How did you get hurt?” He stood at her shoulder to see the computer monitor.

  Her face went blank. After a second or two, one by one black letters appeared on the white background. Don’t know.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Happens a lot. After an injury, you get amnesia. Docs even have a fancy name for it.”

  Suddenly, she tried to speak, winced, then typed Gayle?

  “You asking if your sister was killed?”

  She nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”

  Bad dreams. Thought maybe nightmare.

  “What do you last remember?”

  Furious typing. You!!! Tearing up house!!!!

  He hadn’t torn up anything, but he ignored that.

  She looked uncertain. What’s today?

  “Tuesday.”

  She puzzled something out in her head. Told me about Gayle?

  “Yes. You ran away.”

  A smug expression flickered in her eyes.

  “Where did you go?”

  Keys clicked softly. Friend.

  “You stayed with this friend?”

  Few hours.

>   “Then what?”

  Walked around. Thought what to do. She shot him a look like it was all his fault. Went home.

  “Why?”

  I LIVE THERE!!!

  “So? What? You thought you could just go back and we’d forget about you?”

  Tired. Needed shower. Wanted bed.

  “Okay. So what happened when you got there?”

  Nothing at first. Food. Shower. Clean clothes.

  “Then what?”

  Somebody in house. Searching.

  “Who?

  She shrugged. Man.

  “What man?”

  Don’t know. Getting a mite irritated, her fingers pounded the keys.

  “What’d he look like?”

  She hunched her shoulders and scrunched down lower on the pillow. Heard him coming. Hid.

  “Then what?”

  It was slow going, but typing out what she remembered seemed to help bring it back. When the intruder opened the closet door where she was hiding, he aimed the flashlight beam right at her eyes and she couldn’t see. The only thing he’d said had been damn and shit a time or two when thrown objects connected.

  “What makes you think he was searching for something?”

  Another look of scorn. This kid had a good line of them and if he’d been the smiling sort he’d have smiled.

  You see house? Mess!!!

  “What was he searching for?”

  Don’t know.

  “What did your sister have that was valuable?”

  Get real!!!

  “Money? Diamonds? Valuable stamps? Your Barbie collection?”

  She didn’t bother to type anything, she just adjusted the edge of her scorn number.

  “Tell me about your sister, tell me about Gayle.”

  She looked at him, suspicion crawling over her face. Why?

  “You’re beginning to irritate me, kid. Because someone killed her and I want to know why.”

  Nothing valuable!!!!!

  “Okay, then why was she killed?”

  The kid did that thing again where she looked small and fragile and had Demarco worried about overtiring her. He didn’t have much time left. Any minute either the doc would come in and throw him out or send someone to do it.

  Black letters took off across the screen. Father and mother squashed flat by tornado. Gayle married Vince. I lived with them. She took care of me. Always.

  She sniffed and like a little kid, rubbed her eyes with the back of one hand. He pretended not to notice. “Did Gayle seem any different lately? Worried about something? Scared about something? Special interest in something?”

  Yeah. Don’t know what. She and Vince argued a lot. He went off to see cousin. Had accident. Died.

  A nurse stuck her head in the door and told Demarco he had to go, Miss Egelhoff needed to rest. He nodded. The nurse stood waiting for him to get the hell out. He asked the kid, “You want to keep the laptop?”

  She shrugged. Pride wouldn’t let her ask even for that much. He put it on the bedside table where she could reach it. She looked so fatigued her face was the blue-white color of nonfat milk and the dark bruises stood out like face paint.

  “Keep the laptop till they release you, then we’ll negotiate.” He took a business card from his wallet and held it up. “Phone numbers. Also got my e-mail address if you need me for anything.”

  She typed something and he stepped back to read it. They were fighting.

  “Who?

  Gayle and Vince. Night before he left to go skiing.

  “What were they fighting about?”

  Don’t know. Vince yelled. Said time to speak up.

  “About what?”

  She shrugged. He laughed.

  “Officer,” the nurse said in that warning tone nurses and teachers have down so perfect.

  “I think if I don’t go,” he told the kid, “that woman is going to round up twenty-five strong men and try to throw me out.”

  She snorted.

  He started for the door and she tugged at his jacket and typed. She kept saying he was using a lie.

  “What lie?”

  She shrugged.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll be back later. You sleep. No sneaking off anywhere.”

  She grabbed the business card and held it up to stop him from leaving. Her fingers clicked How call? Can’t talk. How e-mail? No Internet.

  He punched her gently on the shoulder. “Smart-aleck. Ask a nurse.”

  * * *

  Susan gave another press conference, standing in front of the police department with reporters, cameramen, and television stand-ups behind a barricade of saw horses. A barrage of questions were thrown at her. She answered three. Yes, Wakely Fromm, Governor Garrett’s friend, had apparently shot himself. No, at this time, they weren’t treating it as a homicide. No, the governor wasn’t a suspect in the death of Wakely Fromm, be it homicide or suicide.

  They clamored about Vince Egelhoff and Gayle Egelhoff, both dead. Arlene Egelhoff, seriously injured. What about that? Was the Governor involved? Susan talked for two minutes without answering anything, then stepped back inside the department. Parkhurst gave her a thumb’s up and followed her to her office where he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms like the ghost of Christmas yet to come.

  “Even if it’s a homicide,” she said for what seemed like the thousandth time, “there’s nothing to tie in Jack Garrett.”

  “Except the fact that they’ve been together for the last twenty years.”

  “That’s evidence of caring, not homicide.”

  “We haven’t even started to look for evidence,” he said.

  “I keep telling you, there’s no reason to look.”

  “Sure, there is. We just haven’t found it yet.”

  Demarco appeared in the doorway and Susan suppressed the sigh he always provoked. She didn’t tell him to sit down. It would end up with her having to give him an order and that was a place she didn’t want to go yet. Excluding his dislike of her, he seemed to be a good cop. As long as she could tolerate the iron rod up his ass and his manner that bordered on subordination, she’d let it ride.

  “You get anything from the girl?” Parkhurst asked him.

  “Not really.” Demarco told them about the laptop and the question and answer bit.

  “You got nothing,” Susan said. “Not even a hint of who attacked her.”

  Demarco said through clenched teeth, “So far.”

  “You think if you keep questioning her, you’ll get something more?”

  “Maybe. The house was definitely tossed.”

  “By the same individual who attacked the girl?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “Man?” Parkhurst asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Was the suspect looking for something in the house or looking for the girl?” Susan picked up a pen and tapped it silently on the desktop.

  “My judgment, searching for something and the kid got in the way. Now he needs to get rid of her because she’s seen him.”

  “You said she didn’t get a good enough look to describe him,” Parkhurst said.

  “The intruder doesn’t know that.”

  “Could the girl herself have taken the house apart?”

  “She didn’t cut her own throat. Tear the place apart?” Demarco shrugged. “Yeah, she could have. She’s the type of kid who might do something like that, because she’s angry, but I don’t think she did.”

  “The intruder was looking for what?” Susan said.

  “I don’t know. Nor does she. She claims there’s nothing valuable in the house. I’m inclined to believe her. I didn’t find anything when I searched after the sister’s body was found.”

  “Did he find what he was looking for?”

  “No way to be sure.”

  Susan nodded. A person who searches for something, searches until he finds it, then stops and the remainder of the premises aren’t tossed. In this case the entire house was torn up. “What is this
girl angry about?”

  Demarco looked at her like she was a half-wit. “The shitty way life has treated her.” He waited a beat. “Ma’am.”

  * * *

  Todd was the fuel that propelled this whole train, Bernie thought, as Todd came into the living room and started pacing from the fireplace, around the couch, to the foyer, from the foyer, around the couch, to the fireplace. “Politics,” he’d told Bernie when Bernie got hired, “is show business and running for president is the greatest show on earth, not the circus with the elephants.”

  Jack Garrett couldn’t get anywhere without Todd. Even though Todd was consumed with a nervous energy, he settled squabbles like a house mother, coaxed work from distracted troops like a general and survived hours of boredom like a Buddhist. Now, with the first primary on the horizon, the speed would roll and build until they were all racing as fast as a snowball barreling downhill, running on hysteria and adrenaline. After x number of days with no sleep, nerves get stretched so tight, the ends get frayed and tempers flash. All these people who’d worked together and played together and gotten closer than families would eye each other with the blinding insight that every other member of the team was a cretin, and just like with families there would be idiotic feuds and unwarranted jealousies and outright hatred.

  The core group was all here. Leon Massy, media consultant, Hadley Cane, press secretary, Molly Garrett—the Governor was flying in from Topeka later—her assistant, Nora Tallace, Carter Mercado, the pollster, and Casilda Storm, though neither Mrs. Garrett nor Nora was happy about her. While Bernie liked Cass just fine, he was nervous about her being there since Mrs. Garrett had told him to get rid of her.

  Todd was the boss, the trusted leader. His was the highest authority and his word was law. When Todd spoke, everybody listened. He was the one who asked questions, made decisions, kept his eye on the goal, and never lost faith. He requested, commanded, and raised his voice to a thin edge when he didn’t get a quick enough response.

  When Jack Garrett flew from one city to the next, Todd kept track of the polls, gave final okay on which ads to run, studied the opposition research and romanced the backers for more money. He was the one who told Garrett the unvarnished truth, fired troublemakers, demanded more work, figured the best angle on day-to-day events and worked out what Hadley should feed the press. From the constant advice given by each of them, he selected the useful and ignored the rest. If Garrett got the nomination and if he got elected—two very big ifs—Todd was a shoo-in for chief-of-staff.