A Candidate for Murder

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  I had things to think about, too. Those men—Ben Cragmore and the other one. There was something about them that scared me.

  Chapter 4

  Dad was somewhere in his own thoughts as we drove to school, so we didn’t talk, but as we pulled up in front of Gormley Academy and I opened the door on the passenger side, Dad reached over and rested his hand on my arm. “I hope I can make things clear to you, Cary,” he said. “As you know, Governor Jimmy Milco is one of ‘The Good Old Boys.’ He’s firmly entrenched with long-time supporters. The best way—probably the only way—to stop Milco from what he’s doing is to put him out of office. That’s what I’m trying to do. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “I understand,” I said.

  I hopped out of the car and walked briskly across the grass. The first bell would ring at any moment.

  The campus was crowded—a sea of blue slacks and skirts and white shirts and blouses, the school uniform—but I had no trouble finding Justin. Tall people stand out, especially tall people with red hair. Justin was saying something, and at least half a dozen kids were crowded around him, leaning in to hear him with grins on their faces. Justin has a great sense of humor and was probably entertaining them with another new joke. I ran up behind Justin, but the group was so intent on what he was saying, no one noticed me.

  “So he says, ‘Homeless? Then obviously, they need to be put in touch with the right real estate agents.’ ” As Justin delivered the punch line, everyone laughed.

  I tried to take a deep breath, and my heart began to pound. Justin was my friend—more than a friend. How could he do this to me?

  One of the guys in the group spotted me. He stopped laughing and nudged Justin, who whirled to face me, guilt creeping over his face.

  I hate you! I thought, so suddenly and furiously angry that I wanted to stomp on his feet and kick his shins and beat him over the head with my history book!

  “Oh, Cary,” Justin said. His smile was shaky with embarrassment as he stammered, “Hi. I didn’t know you were here.”

  The hurt made my throat and chest ache, but I remembered Mom’s warning. The way we react will reflect on Dad.

  “Hi,” I forced myself to say and smiled as though I hadn’t overheard a word. “I just got here. Everybody was laughing. Something funny?”

  “Uh—just a joke,” Justin said. The bell rang, and he let out such a huge sigh of relief it would have been laughable if I hadn’t known the reason behind it.

  The group broke up as everyone left for class. Justin put an arm around my shoulders as we walked, bending his head in order to speak just to me. “Can I come by again after school?” he asked, his voice so low and soft that my anger began to melt.

  I’d always been honest with Justin, but I’d pretended I hadn’t heard the joke, so now I was stuck with my deceit. There was nothing else to do but go on as though nothing had happened.

  He nuzzled the top of my head with a kiss, and that settled the matter. I smiled up at him. “You can give me a ride after school, if you want to.”

  He squeezed my shoulders. “You know I want to.”

  “But not home,” I added as we stopped outside my geometry classroom. “I’m going to work at Dad’s campaign headquarters.”

  “Oh,” he said, and his glance slid away.

  I took one of his hands in mine and said, “Come work with me. It’ll be fun.”

  Justin didn’t answer.

  “Well?” I asked. I guess I was slow to figure things out, but I’d been so sure he’d want to.

  He looked back at me, and his skin behind the freckles was flushed. “Your father’s a real nice guy and all that, but if I—uh—worked for his campaign, well that would be—uh—committing myself, wouldn’t it?”

  Now it was my turn to be embarrassed. “I-I guess so,” I stammered. “I hadn’t thought about that part.”

  Justin took a moment to get things under control and said, “Cary, let me think about it. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, but I was disappointed and more than a little hurt. Why’d he have to make such a big deal about it? Couldn’t he do it because of me?

  The hallway was almost empty. “You’d better go,” I said, “the bell’s going to ring any second.” Before Justin could answer, I turned away and hurried into the classroom.

  The bell clanged just as I slid into my seat. Mrs. Trimble raised an eyebrow and gave me one of those you lucked out looks, but Allie, who sat across the aisle from me, sent me a grin and a wink.

  I wanted to tell Allie what Justin had said. I needed to talk to someone who’d care. But Mrs. Trimble isn’t the kind to waste a minute, so we were immediately plunged into proving theorems, and I forgot all about Dad’s campaign.

  However, after class Allie brought it all back to me.

  “My Dad said he’d kill me if I worked on your father’s campaign,” Allie told me as we walked together to history class, “and I believe him. He takes his politics seriously.”

  I stopped and stared at her. “You mean he won’t let you make up your own mind?”

  Allie wasn’t the least bit flustered. “Cary,” she said, “my mind will belong to me when I’m twenty-one, of legal age, and all that. Right now it belongs to my father’s bank.”

  “Bank?” I didn’t understand.

  “Bank, as in two board members being on the opposite political side from your father.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling stupid. “I was just thinking about you and me, not anyone else.”

  Allie just smiled. “You wouldn’t really want me to help at the campaign office,” she said. “I’d do all right with the phone calls, but I’d probably get all the bumper stickers stuck to each other and mess up something important.”

  “Yes. I guess you would.”

  We laughed, and Allie rattled on. “Say, that’s what I should do. I’ll volunteer to work for one of your dad’s opponents. That would be the best help I could give you. Which one will it be? So far, I think there are three in your dad’s party, counting your dad, who’ve filed for the primaries, although according to Daddy—and don’t quote me!—your father’s by far the best qualified.” She lowered her voice, stuck out her chin, and frowned as she imitated her father. “My guess is that Amberson’s going to take the damned primaries.”

  “Which candidate are the bank directors for?”

  “Oh, glory, none of the above! The directors are Good Old Boys. They’d never vote any way but their straight party ticket because their daddies did, and their granddaddies did, and if they didn’t too, there’d be such a rollin’ over in the graveyards that people hereabouts would think Texas was having an earthquake.”

  I giggled. When I was down, Allie could always make me feel better. I told her about asking Justin to work at headquarters with me and how he’d reacted. “I guess he may be getting some family pressure too. I understand.”

  “Sure. That’s it,” Allie said, her voice hearty.

  But it wasn’t.

  During lunch period Justin avoided me, so after school I was all set to call home and ask Dexter if I could take the car or—if he needed it—ask if he’d drive me to Dad’s campaign office. I was on my way to the telephone in the attendance office when I heard Justin call me.

  I turned and waited until he caught up. He was going to come with me. Good.

  But Justin took my arm and pulled me aside, out of the path of the kids who were heading toward the lot where their cars were parked. His eyes were dark with concern as he said, “Come on. I have to take you home.”

  I tried to tug away from his grip. “No!” I insisted. “I told you. I’m going to Dad’s campaign office.”

  “Cary, please,” Justin said. “Listen to me. You can’t go there now. Not after what’s happened. I have to take you home.”

  Chapter 5

  I was so scared that my legs wobbled and I gulped air as I tried to talk. “What’s the matter, Justin? Tell me!”

  “Wait till we’re in the car,” he
said and half-guided, half-dragged me out of the building and across the lot to his white BMW. Inside, he twisted to face me and said, “I called home to tell Mom I was going to be late because, well, I was going to work at your dad’s office with you.”

  He paused and gazed down at his hands, rubbing at an imaginary spot on the steering wheel. “Look, Cary, you’ve got to understand. I mean there are a lot of jokes about Charles Amberson, and who he thinks he is, and all that, and I know I should have told you right away that I’d help on the campaign, but I didn’t want the guys to make fun …”

  His voice broke into a mumble, and I reached out and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him as I turned him toward me again. “That doesn’t matter! I want to know what you were talking about. Why can’t I go to Dad’s office? You said, ‘after what happened.’ Tell me now. Did anything happen to Dad?”

  Justin looked surprised. “No one’s hurt, if that’s what you were thinking.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Well, reporters might still be there, and I’d just as soon keep you out of it.”

  “Out of what?” I was shouting, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Calm down. I’m trying to tell you. My mom was listening to the news at noon, and she heard that this morning somebody broke into your dad’s campaign office over on Commerce Street and sprayed paint around and ruined a lot of stuff.”

  I groaned and asked, “Who did it?”

  He shrugged. “Mom said no one knows.”

  “Justin, please take me to the office,” I said. “They’ll need my help more than ever.”

  “They’ll just tell you to go home.”

  “Either take me to Dad’s office, or I’ll go back to the school and call Dexter,” I said.

  “Okay. If that’s what you want,” Justin answered. He turned the key in the ignition, drove out of the parking lot with a bump and a screech of tires and headed toward the expressway.

  We got a good look at the damage in the large front room of headquarters through the wide plate-glass windows that used to be a storefront. Bright banners and posters still hung over the top of the windows and door, but they seemed incongruous now and out of place. No one from the news media was at the office when Justin and I arrived. The big story was over, and this was only the aftermath. The office was like a hollow shell without the crowds of people who’d been in it since the first day it was open. Dad was there. Mom, too, along with Delia, and a man who was a stranger to me. The four of them stared helplessly at the blue splotches on the desks and chairs, the phones, the computer, and the stacks and stacks of papers. Behind them, thin blue lines dribbled down the far wall.

  Delia was the first to notice Justin and me, and as she raised a hand in greeting the others turned and looked at us. Delia was standing next to an old, bald, stocky man who, even in this warm weather, wore a buttoned-up vest that stretched and gaped between each tattered buttonhole. He blinked at me, and his eyes shimmered behind thick glasses.

  Always proper, always correct, Dad shook hands with Justin, introduced him to Delia, and took my arm. “Cary, you haven’t met Mr. Sibley,” Dad said. “Edwin, may I present my daughter, Caroline, and her friend, Justin Willis.” To me he added, “This is Mr. Sibley’s first day as one of our volunteers.”

  We shook hands and greeted Mom and Delia, and it struck me as odd, with this frightening mess around us, that we should behave as properly as though we were at a dinner party.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked.

  “We sent them home,” Dad said.

  “I’ll go home, too, and change,” I said, “and come back and help clean up.”

  Dad shook his head. “Thank you for offering, Cary, but we’ve hired a professional cleaner to take on this job. It’s going to be even more difficult than it looks.”

  I surveyed the room again and shuddered. “Do the police have any idea who might have done this?”

  “It was my fault.” For the first time Edwin Sibley spoke up without mumbling, and I saw that the reason his eyes seemed to shimmer was that there were tears in them.

  “Nonsense,” Dad said.

  But Mr. Sibley persisted. “When I signed up yesterday, they told me they’d need more banners, so I volunteered to get here early and paint some, but I stopped so I could run down to the little snack bar near the corner and buy a Coke. I should have put the paint away, but I left the can on the desk and the door unlocked.”

  “No one else was here?” I looked toward Delia.

  “Well, I was, of course,” she said. “I had the responsibility of unlocking the office for Edwin, but at the time he left for the store I was in the restroom.” Her nose and cheeks grew red and she clipped each word, not wanting to have to answer to me. “And I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “None of us needs to take the blame,” Dad said.

  “The police think some kids may have done it,” Mom added. “They could be right. Some kids hanging around downtown could have seen Edwin leave the office, tried the door, then spotted the paint can.” She held out her hands to the room. “You can see the result.”

  I was disgusted with the creeps who had made this mess. “It’s so frustrating!” I said.

  For the first time since the introductions, Justin spoke up. “If we can’t help around here,” he said, “I’ll drive Cary home.”

  “Thank you, Justin,” Mom said. “That’s a good idea.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “We’ll see you at dinner, honey.”

  I followed Justin to his car, climbed in, and leaned back against the seat with a sigh.

  He gave a comforting pat to my knee and said, “I’m sorry all that happened, Cary, but don’t get discouraged. They’ll get everything fixed up soon and be back in business.”

  I didn’t answer. I was wondering if I should tell Justin about my weird phone call. Dad had said that people who made those calls didn’t do anything, but with this paint-spray thing happening the day after the call I wasn’t so sure Dad and the detective were right. What had the woman said? Something about “if they think you don’t know” … Know what? Who were the “they” she was talking about? What would they do?

  I’d just about decided to confide in Justin when he suddenly said, “Why don’t we talk about something else—something important? We’re running out of time. The Halloween dance is less than a week away.”

  I stiffened. “That’s what you think is important? A Halloween dance?”

  The car made a little wobble. “I mean it’s important because we’ve got to decide what kind of costumes we’re going to wear.”

  “I can’t believe you think that’s more important than what happened at Dad’s campaign office!”

  “Cary,” Justin said, his voice rising too, “I was just trying to change the subject. What’s done is done. It’s over. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I snapped.

  For a few minutes he was quiet. Then he said, “What’s wrong with you, Cary? One of the things I like the most about you is the way you laugh at things instead of letting them get to you.”

  “This is different.”

  “No, it’s not. You’re different.”

  “That’s dumb. What am I supposed to do—laugh because Dad’s office was trashed?”

  “You don’t understand what I mean.”

  “No! You’re the one who doesn’t understand!”

  Justin drove his BMW into our residential area and automatically dropped his speed as he passed the rows of huge old mansions, which seemed to stare down at us demanding proper behavior. Neither of us spoke until the car swung into the long curving drive that leads to my house.

  He brought his car to a stop so suddenly I was bounced forward. “When you’re in a better mood we’ll talk,” he said.

  I climbed out and slammed the door, knowing he hates it when anyone does that, and ran into the house, tears beginning to blind me. I wanted everything to be just as fine as always between us. Why did he have to ruin everythi
ng?

  Velma came into the entry hall, peered out the window as Justin drove away, and gave me a careful look. “Oh-oh,” she said. “Looks like somebody had a fight with her boyfriend.”

  I wiped away my tears with the back of one hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s the way to look at it,” she told me and smiled. “There’ll be lots of boyfriends in your future.”

  But I didn’t want lots of boyfriends. I wanted Justin.

  The kitchen smelled wonderful, with browned beef juices and herbs and seasonings. We were going to have another of Velma’s marvelous stews.

  Forget Justin. I wasn’t going to let what he said get to me. “Yum! That smells great,” I told Velma, and she gave me a big smile.

  “I’ve got some apples and those red grapes you like all washed and ready to eat,” Velma told me. “They’re in a bowl on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.”

  “Thanks,” I said, but I helped myself instead to a couple of fat chocolate marshmallow cookies from a package I’d put in the freezer to get hard. When I’m unhappy I don’t feel like being healthy.

  The phone rang, and Velma sighed. “That phone’s been ringin’ itself off the hook all afternoon,” she told me. “I wonder where Dexter is. He’s helped me answer when he’s had a chance. We got a long list of messages for your father.”

  As she answered the call I went upstairs to change into shorts and a T-shirt.

  I had no sooner pulled the shirt over my head and stuffed my mouth with tough, chewy marshmallow than my own telephone rang.

  By the third ring I had managed to gulp down the mouthful of cookie and said, “Hello.”

  There was a pause. “Hello,” I repeated, but no one answered.

  I was about to hang up when I heard a familiar voice ask, “Is this Cary Amberson?” It was the woman who had called me last night.

  “Yes. I’m Cary,” I answered.

  The woman cleared her throat, and I could hear her breathing, but she didn’t speak, and after a while I couldn’t stand it.

  “Do you want to talk to me?” I asked her.