The President's Daughter

by Mariah Stewart

  "What day is it?"

  "That's what I thought." His fingers kneaded at the knots in her shoulders. "Your muscles feel like poured concrete. Here, turn around-----"

  He turned her body so that her back was facing him, worked his thumbs just above her shoulder blades.

  "Oh, my God," she gasped as he began to massage from the base of her neck to her shoulder blades.

  "Just relax and let me see if we can scare away some of the tension___"

  "I'm beginning to feel like a rag doll," she said a few minutes later.

  "That's good. That means it's working."

  "Oh, it's working all right." Dina smiled to herself. It's working just fine. ...

  "Why don't you go on up and try to get some sleep?" he said after he'd reduced all of her muscular structure to jelly.

  "1 don't think I can move," she murmured sleepily.

  "Then I'll carry you." He started to rise.

  "That won't be neces—" Dina giggled as he lifted her from the sofa in one smooth motion. "Really, Simon, I can—"

  "Too late." He chuckled and made his way to the stairwell.

  "No, seriously, you can just put me down now." Dina stifled a laugh.

  "Not till I have you safely to your door."

  "That would be it, on the left," she pointed out when they reached the top of the steps. "Thank you for the lift."

  "My pleasure." He leaned down to nuzzle the side of her face. "I'll see you when I get back from Stinson's."

  "Simon."

  "Ummmm?"

  "I'm trying really hard to sort things out—about myself, I mean—but it may take a while." She looked up at him with eyes that darkened with all the swirling emotions of the past weeks. "It's hard to reach beyond yourself to someone else when your entire life is shifting right before your eyes. Hard to open up to someone—even though you may want to—when you're not really certain who you are."

  "I understand." He settled his arm around her neck and stroked her hair. "I'm in no hurry. I'll be here waiting when you do."

  No matter how long it takes, Simon silently promised as he held her for just one more moment. Some things were well worth waiting for.

  For the second morning in a row, Simon crept down the steps early, taking pains to avoid those steps he'd already identified as creakers. This morning, however, there was no Dina waiting on the bottom step, no thermos of coffee or fresh muffins.

  He sat with the engine running while he located Green Lake on the New Jersey map that was in his glove box. Not too far if he took the Commodore Barry Bridge and then picked up Route 322. From there, he could take one of several roads. He'd stop someplace once he crossed the bridge to ask which might be fastest. Then of course, there'd be the matter of finding Stinson.

  Green Lake, New Jersey, being what it was, however, with its population of roughly one thousand souls, finding Stinson had been relatively easy. Simon had stopped at the Green Lake Country Store, part of which served as the local post office, as he discovered when several folks walked up to a large open window and walked away sifting through the bundle of mail they'd been handed.

  "Excuse me," Simon said to the gentleman behind the window. "I'm looking for Peter Stinson. I was told he had a home in the area. Could you tell me where I might find him?"

  "You might ask in the store," the man told him. "Post office can't really give out addresses."

  Simon went inside and repeated his question to the person behind the counter.

  "You a friend of his?"

  "We have a mutual friend."

  "Heard he used to be something in Washington."

  "Long time ago." Simon nodded.

  "He and his wife bought the 1745 Isaac Martin House about eighteen months ago. They just finished renovating it. Sure looks good," said a fellow who sat sipping his morning coffee at a round table along with two other gents.

  "Rebuilt the garage and everything." One of his companions nodded. "He's been real active with the local birders."

  "I heard him tell Angus Simpson that he saw a Henslow's sparrow down near the marsh," a woman reading a newspaper commented without looking up from the page.

  "That right?" The coffee drinker turned in his seat. "Which side of the marsh?"

  "Would you happen to know the address?" Simon asked, trying not to appear impatient among the locals, who clearly were in no hurry.

  "It's the 1745 Isaac Martin House," the first man responded.

  "But what's the address?"

  "That is the address," the man behind the counter told him. "All of the homes in Green Lake have historical designations, the whole village being on the National Register of Historic Districts. We just refer to the buildings by their names."

  "How do you know which house is which?" Simon asked. "How do you tell them apart?"

  "The houses all have signs on them," someone said.

  "You want the 1745 Isaac Martin House, you want to go straight out here to the left, out toward the river. It'll be on the left side of the road; the siding's painted yellow and it has a big front porch," the woman with the newspaper told Simon.

  Simon thanked them for their help, then paused on his way out to purchase a cup of the fragrant coffee and a copy of the local paper.

  As promised, the 1745 Isaac Martin House, not three minutes from the country store, was clearly marked with a sign that hung next to the front door. Two rocking chairs graced the front porch. On one of them, a woman sat taking in the morning, a thick book in her hands and a fat cat on her lap.

  "Good morning!" Simon called to her as he got out of his car. "I was looking for Mr. Stinson."

  "You missed him by an hour." The woman smiled and slid an errant strand of pure white hair back behind her ear. "Are you from the birding magazine?"

  "No, actually, I'm a friend of an old friend of his. Are you Mrs. Stinson?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm working along with Dr. Philip Norton on a book about former President Hayward. He suggested I look up your husband, since Mr. Stinson was the party chairman when Hayward ran for office both times. We thought maybe your husband might have some remembrances or some little anecdotes to share about the former President."

  "Oh, my, I'm sure he'd like to be included in that."

  Mrs. Stinson smiled. "He's just down to the marsh, straight on through that path...." She pointed across the street. "But for heaven's sake, go quietly. He's been watching a pair of yellow-throated warblers build a nest down there for the past week, and there will be hell to pay if they're scared off."

  "He'll never hear me coming." Simon held a finger up to his lips.

  "Well, try not to give him a heart attack, either." The woman grinned.

  "I'll do my best to strike a balance," Simon told her as he headed off in the direction Mrs. Stinson had indicated.

  Simon trod softly on the path that cut through the tall grass, trying to avoid that bull-in-the-china-shop approach that would undoubtedly alienate Stinson before Simon could get within ten feet.

  He smelled the marsh before he saw it. The salty scent borne on a spring breeze engulfed him. A mid-westerner, Simon never quite became accustomed to the smell of the coastal wetlands, salt marshes and mud flats, brackish water and animal matter left too long in the sun.

  Up ahead, a man stood motionless at the edge of the marsh, field glasses held to his face. Simon tried to make just enough noise to alert the man that someone approached without being loud enough to scare away whatever it was he was looking at through his binoculars.

  "Green heron," the man whispered as Simon drew near. "I think they're building a nest there in that stand of reeds."

  Simon leaned forward to take a look but saw nothing moving.

  The man offered his glasses to Simon, telling him, "Look to the right of that one low branch."

  "I see them." Simon nodded. He watched for a moment, then handed the field glasses back. "Thanks."

  "You're welcome." The man gave Simon the once-over.

  "Are you
Peter Stinson?" Not certain of proper birding protocol, Simon kept his voice low.

  "Yes. You are ... ?"

  "Simon Keller. I'm working on a book about Graham Hayward, and Philip Norton suggested that I—"

  "Saw him not too long ago. He mentioned something about a book, but we didn't get much chance to chat." Stinson raised the binoculars to his eyes once again and seemed to be distracted by something that stirred in a clump of tall grasses. "What did you want to know?"

  "Well, I know that you were the party chairman while Hayward was in office, and since this book is intended to contain a selection of personal recollections about President Hayward, I wanted to see if you had something to contribute."

  "My recollections of Hayward, you say?"

  Simon nodded.

  "Graham Hayward was a horse's ass," Stinson pronounced as he pointed skyward. "Looks like a black-headed gull, right there. I'll be darned."

  "Ummm..." Simon glanced up. To a boy from Iowa, a seagull was a seagull. "Would you care to elaborate on that?"

  "He was a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do sort of fellow."

  "Everything I've read about him leads me to believe that he was a totally honest, moral, upright—"

  "Oh, please," Stinson muttered under his breath. "You ever see a yellow-winged warbler?"

  "Ah, no, I haven't."

  "Look on the low-hanging branch of that dead tree straight ahead."

  "Ah, yes, I see them.... Now about President Hay-ward ..." Simon held on to the glasses, hoping to prevent Stinson's attention from wandering again. "Are you implying that he wasn't as moral as he—"

  "Ask Norton. He knew."

  "Knew about what?"

  "About Hayward's girlfriend."

  Simon feigned shock. "Hayward had a girlfriend?" he whispered.

  "Yup. Young one. Beautiful girl, but young. Never a word slipped out about that, gotta hand it to Hayward's people there. Guess you're not going to slip it into your book, either, not with Norton involved."

  "Why would you say that?"

  "He'd never let that get out. He's like the keeper of the flame. Anyway, it's no secret that Graham's boy will be running in the next election. No way they're going to let that cat out of the bag. Why muddy the waters?"

  "Then why did you tell me?" Simon passed the binoculars back.

  "What's the difference?" He shrugged "You're working with Norton, so he must trust you. He won't let you use it anyway, but you probably already know that."

  "So that's the only scandal about Hayward, that he had a girlfriend?"

  "Isn't that enough?" Stinson snorted. "Can't tell you how pissed off I was when 1 heard about that. All those years of being Mr. Morality, making it hard on the rest of us to live up to his code, and here he was, doing just what everyone else wanted to do and was afraid to for fear he'd find out and give 'em hell."

  Stinson shook his head. "Hayward was a damned hypocrite."

  "How did you learn about her, the girlfriend?"

  Stinson watched a flock of birds take flight from the opposite side of the marsh. "From David Park."

  "The vice president."

  "Yes. He was quite excited about the prospect of moving up the ..." He stopped mid-sentence.

  "... the ladder?" Simon finished it for him. "Why would Hayward having a girlfriend make Park think he'd be moving up? Infidelity has never been an impeachable offense."

  "Hayward was in no danger of being impeached. But at one time he did make some ridiculous rumblings about not running for a second term."

  "Why would he do that?"

  "Because for one brief shining moment Hayward thought that he might walk away from it all."

  "From his office."

  "Yeah. Because of the girl."

  "But of course he didn't do that."

  "Nah. It was a stupid whim on the part of a stupid man. He never would have been permitted to do it."

  "Who talked him out of it?"

  "I did. Me and Kendall, actually. But as it turned out, he wouldn't have gone through with it anyway."

  "Why's that?"

  "The girl died."

  "Just like that?"

  "Yes. How's that for a coincidence? Hit-and-run, they said, but who really knows about these things?"

  "Did you know, Mr. Stinson?"

  "No, no. But I did wonder about it; I sure did. Just seemed awfully convenient, and they never did find the driver of the car. Another bit of convenience, if you ask me. Officially, no one heard or saw a thing, even though this accident happened on one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city. Now, granted, it was the middle of the night, but still, you had to wonder, you know? It just never sat right." Stinson looked Simon straight in the eye and said, "I'd wanted to strangle Hayward with my bare hands when he started talking about how maybe he wouldn't run again. All the time and money that went into building his political career. Not to mention the potential fallout in the Congress. But killing the girl? I can't imagine anyone who would have gone to such lengths. And Hayward ended up staying in office, but between you and me, he never was the same."

  "In what way?"

  "He lost his fight. The girl died, and he just sort of dried up. He died within a month of leaving office."

  "Yes, I know."

  Stinson raised the glasses to his eyes and scanned the heavens. "Guess it's safe to assume that that's one little anecdote that won't show up in your book, eh?"

  "Stinson admitted that he knew about Blythe, admitted he knew about Hayward thinking about not running for a second term, admitted he was less than pleased with it. But he gave no indication that he knew anything at all about your birth, and I don't see him as having anything to do with Blythe's death. He just gave me the feeling that he was as perplexed by that as we are."

  Simon stood in the narrow phone booth, the door closed over to keep out the sheets of rain that blew against the clear walls and streamed down the sides in thin rivers, mentally kicking himself for losing the battery charger for his cell phone in his move to Arlington. At the same time, he wished he could just magically transport himself back to Wild Springs, so that he could see Dina's face as clearly as he heard her voice. He'd found himself thinking an awful lot about that face today.

  "So we can cross him off our list of possible mystery drivers. Besides, he was leading a midnight bird walk through the marshes every other night for the past two weeks and would have been giving his lecture on migrating birds of prey at the time you were jumping over hedges."

  "You're sure?" Dina felt a tug of a disappointment.

  She'd wanted Stinson to be the one to have been behind everything, had been hoping against hope that somehow Stinson would quickly and easily and, without further threat to anyone's well-being, be revealed as the culprit so that they could be done with the uncertainty. Not a very likely or realistic outcome, she knew, but still, she'd hoped for a bit of a miracle.

  "Before I left town, I stopped back at the country store, which is sort of the newsstand, coffee shop, post office, social center of the town. The man behind the counter was on that walk."

  "Sounds like a neat little town."

  "I think you'd like it. Lots of old houses with lots of old gardens. They even had their own tea-burning incident back in the seventies." Simon paused, then added, "That would be the seventeen hundred seven-ties."

  "It might be fun to visit."

  "That trip will have to wait until I get back from Virginia Beach."

  "What's in Virginia Beach?"

  "Conrad Fritz. I'm going to be stopping in to see him first thing in the morning."

  "You're not coming back up to Betsy's tonight then?"

  "No. I'm going to head on down through Delaware and over the Bay Bridge Tunnel tonight, so that I can catch up with Fritz early."

  "And then what?"

  "I guess that'll depend on what Fritz has to say."

  "Simon, you're going to be careful, right? You're not going to... well, do or say anything that's going to cause him to, well
, to do anything to you, are you?"

  "Not if I can help it. The object is to narrow down the list of possible players on the bad guys' side, not on our side."

  "We being the good guys."

  "Absolutely we are the good guys."

  "Well, you be careful. You know what they say about good guys finishing last."

  "Not this time, sweetheart," Simon tried to cheer her with his best Bogie. "Not this time ..."

  Chapter Twenty

  Polly glanced up as the little bell over the door announced a customer. A small figure in a sunny yellow raincoat stood just inside the shop, shaking water from an umbrella, which was left by the door.

  "Hi!" Polly called from the counter where she'd been wiring dried hydrangea to a wreath. "Can 1 help you with something?"

  "Are you Ms. McDermott?" the woman said from the door.

  "No, I'm not. Is there something I could help you with?"

  "I was looking for Dina McDermott."

  "I'm afraid she isn't here right now."

  "I was hoping to discuss a garden renovation with her. I've heard she’s quite talented." The potential customer smiled warmly.

  "She's the best." Polly smiled back.

  "So they tell me. My husband and I are looking at an old farm that's for sale a few miles from here, and I was wondering if the garden was worth restoring or if we should just scrap it and start over." Another smile. "I thought perhaps we should get an idea of what something like that might cost. The renovations on the house alone are going to be major, so we thought maybe we should look at the whole picture."

  "Get an idea of what the whole project might cost." Polly nodded. "A smart thing to do."

  "So I was hoping to maybe get together with her as soon as possible. Is she expected soon?"

  "I'm not sure." Polly debated. This was the third inquiry about a potentially promising landscaping job since she'd spoken with Dina two days ago. Whatever was keeping her, Polly thought, it must be really important.

  "Look, why not leave your name and phone number, and I'll make sure she gets the message."

  "That would be fine. The last name is Dillon. Here, I'll write down the number for you. . .."

  Polly waited until the customer had left the shop before grabbing the phone and dialing Dina's cell phone but was forced to leave voice mail.