Silken Prey

by John Sandford

  “Didn’t even get a heads-up,” Schiffer said. “Well, when you get to Washington . . .”

  • • •

  THEY WERE ALMOST to the house when Schiffer said, “You know, I read a lot of history. One thing that I’ve noticed is that people who go a long way in politics seem to have some kind of destiny. Opponents die, seats open up when they need them, they get an appointment that’s critical . . . This thing with Smalls. This is a test, but you will beat him. It’s your destiny. You do ten years, work really hard at it . . . You’d be a hot, smart, rich, law-and-order Democrat, with loads of experience, and still young. . . . I mean, who knows where you could go.”

  Taryn didn’t laugh. No false modesty here; just a rich young blond woman with a burning case of narcissistic personality disorder. She did say, “We may be getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s get Smalls out of the way first.”

  “I’m just saying: it’s your destiny,” Schiffer said, looking across at Taryn in the dark. “You’d be a fool not to ride it hard as you can.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Lucas spent the afternoon chasing campaign committee members from Kidd’s list. By early evening, he had found and interviewed ten of the twelve.

  Two were out of town, one of those two would be back the next day, the other, not for a week and a half, having begun a hunting trip to Northern Ontario. Lucas was curious about that, because the timing seemed odd. He had a conference with Cory Makovsky, the gossip in the distribution center, who said, quietly, “He’s being fired.”

  “Ah. When was he last in here?”

  “Couple weeks ago. He was in charge of lawn signs, and the word is, there were a lot fewer lawn signs than the campaign paid for. Of course, it’s hard to know for sure, but the rumor is, we’re short about ten thousand signs at two dollars each. He went north before Bob Tubbs disappeared.”

  Lucas crossed the sign guy off his list.

  • • •

  LUCAS ARRANGED THE INTERVIEWS through Helen Roman, the office manager, who also found Lucas a small room with a desk and two chairs. He lined up those people who were working that day, the ten-of-twelve. He asked all of them the same questions, explaining that he was investigating the presumptive murder of Tubbs, but he focused on the four names isolated by Kidd.

  MacGuire, a big, square guy with short curly red hair, denied any knowledge of anything that Tubbs had been doing, and was out-front with his gay issues. But, he said, he had no real problem working with Smalls, as conservative as Smalls was. “Senator Smalls is conservative on social issues, and I lean the other way, except on guns—I’m pro-gun, to use the shorthand. But I’m very conservative on financial and economic issues. Something has to be done to get the country back on an even economic keel. That’s what I work on for the senator. Social issues, I’m not so involved with that. He is against gay marriage, and I’m for it, but we joke about it, you know? He’s not really anti-gay, per se—he’s got several gays on his staff, men and women both, and when one of them got married to her partner, he sent along a nice wedding present. So . . . it’s complicated. But I think of him as a friend. And there are a hell of a lot of worse guys in the Senate than Smalls, and Taryn Grant doesn’t seem a hell of a lot more understanding about gay issues than he is.”

  Lucas dug for opinions about other staffers, and MacGuire shrugged him off.

  “This whole thing is a mystery—I have no idea who’d want to set the senator up. I mean, on the staff. Maybe we’ve got a spy somewhere, I don’t know. But it’s not me.”

  “We need to know who it is, if he or she is there,” Lucas said. “That person’s life could be in danger from the same people who killed Tubbs . . . unless he or she did it. Then, that’d mean you’re working with a cold-blooded killer.”

  “Okay. I’ll think about it,” MacGuire said. “I’m not lying to you here, I really don’t know—but I’ll think about it, and ask around.”

  • • •

  RUDY HOLLY, the conspiracy theory guy, thought Tubbs had been taken off because he’d been behind the dirty trick involving the porn. “The Republicans in this state rarely do well . . . but now, all of a sudden, they are doing well. The Dems are frantic. I believe that there’s a force out there, funded by union money, that is putting pressure on people . . . probably set up the porn thing, then killed Tubbs to cover up. It seems so obvious. . . .”

  He went on like that for a while, and before he was done, Lucas had dismissed him as being ineffectually goofy, although his ideas about the killing were roughly the same as Lucas’s own. Holly said he had no idea who on the staff might have been involved with Tubbs, or might be working as a spy.

  • • •

  SALLY FEY SHRANK in her office chair when Lucas asked the question, her shoulders turning in, her neck seeming almost to shorten, as though she were trying to pull her head into a turtle shell. She looked up at Lucas and said, “Robert and I had an ambiguous relationship. . . .”

  She was twisting her hands, as she spoke. She was a slight woman, who might have been attractive if she’d done anything to make it so. But she didn’t: her clothing—she wore dresses—might have come from the 1950s. She wore neither jewelry nor makeup, but did wear square, clunky shoes. She looked at Lucas from under her eyebrows, and at an angle, as though she were worried that he might strike her.

  Lucas tried to be as soft as he could be; it wasn’t his natural attitude. “Ambiguous . . . how? Was this a sexual relationship?”

  “Yes. Twice. I mean, we . . . yes, we slept together twice. When he went away, wherever he went, it’s hard to believe that he might be dead, because he was so upbeat when I last saw him. . . . Anyway, I thought maybe the police would ask me about him, but nobody did, and I didn’t know what to do about that. I was scared. . . . I didn’t know what happened to him, and when he didn’t call me Saturday or Sunday, I thought he wasn’t interested anymore.”

  “When was the last time you heard from him?” Lucas asked.

  “Friday night, about . . . nine o’clock,” she said.

  “And when did you last see him?”

  “Friday night . . . about nine o’clock. I didn’t stay over.” Her eyes roamed the small office, meeting Lucas’s eyes only with difficulty. “I just . . . visited for a while, and went home.”

  “Then people began looking for him, and you didn’t say anything?”

  “Well . . . yes. I did think I should,” Fey said. “But one day came and went, and nothing happened, and nobody seemed to really know where he was, and some people thought he was drinking . . . and I just . . . let it go. I really didn’t have anything to contribute, and I thought I might get in trouble.”

  “Did he ever ask you . . . or suggest to you . . . that he might want to pull some kind of dirty trick on Senator Smalls?”

  “Oh, no, he would never have done that,” Fey said. “I mean, he might have tried to pull a dirty trick, but he wouldn’t have spoken to me about it. I like Senator Smalls and Robert knew that. The senator and I have common interests. He likes classical piano and he likes Postimpressionist art. If Robert had asked me to do a dirty trick on Senator Smalls, I would have refused and I would have told Senator Smalls. Robert teased me about that. About me being loyal.”

  Lucas worked her for a while, but in the end, believed her. “Are you friends with Ramona Johnson?” Lucas asked.

  “Ramona? Well, yes, I guess. We don’t socialize or anything, but we’re friendly.”

  “What is her attitude toward Senator Smalls?”

  “Well . . .” Fey’s eyes flew off again. “Oh . . .”

  “Nobody will know who said what in here,” Lucas said. “Did Ramona have some kind of grudge against Senator Smalls?”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t think so,” Fey said. “Just the opposite. I had the impression, mmm . . .” She trailed away.

  “You think they had a relationship?”

  “I, mmm, I thought it . . . possible,” Fey said. “Please don’t tell her I said that.”

&n
bsp; • • •

  JOHNSON WAS THE LAST of the ten people he’d question that day. Before he called her in, he phoned Smalls and said, “I have a somewhat delicate personal question to ask you.”

  “Ask.”

  “Ramona Johnson?”

  “No. Though the thought has crossed my mind,” Smalls said.

  “Would she have felt . . . neglected, or spurned?”

  “I don’t believe so. . . . No. I don’t see it. You think she had something to do with the porn?”

  “I don’t think anything in particular. I’m just trying to get everybody straight, and to cross-check what I can. Looking for motives,” Lucas said. “If you wanted to talk to somebody on the committee staff about art or music, who would you have talked to?”

  “You’ve interviewed Sally Fey . . . and she’s the one I would have talked to. I didn’t sleep with her, either.”

  “Okay. That’s what I needed.”

  “Wait a minute,” Smalls said, “I’ve got a question for you, before you hang up. Have you heard any rumblings from the AG’s office?”

  “I haven’t heard a thing. Should I have?”

  “Mmm. I don’t know,” Smalls said. “He had that guy over at the St. Paul police when this ICE woman copied the hard drive. Now there’s a rumor around that he wants to know what we found that brought about Rose Marie’s announcement.”

  “I think she told him.”

  “I’ve heard that he wants it in detail,” Smalls said. “He wants to know how it all came about. But all I’ve got is a rumor.”

  “I haven’t heard a thing,” Lucas said.

  • • •

  RAMONA JOHNSON was a fleshy, dark-haired woman with intelligent eyes and a smoldering, resentful aggression that piqued Lucas’s curiosity. He began by asking about her career, first as a researcher and then as a senior staffer. She had three degrees, she said, both a B.A. and a master’s in political science, and an MBA in business. She’d spent most of her life bumping against various glass ceilings, she said, and was presently planning a number of political initiatives involving Republican women’s work issues—glass ceiling issues.

  She had nothing to do with Tubbs, she said, and resented the fact that she’d been asked to talk to a police officer investigating his disappearance. “I know you think you’re just doing your job, but there are more and more police-state aspects to the way our various security apparati are conducting themselves. Really, your questions are no more than a fishing expedition.”

  “That’s what most investigations are,” Lucas said. “So, you had nothing to do with Tubbs lately. Have you ever had anything to do with Tubbs?”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve always been Republican policy, he’s always been Democratic operations. We’ve worked on opposing political campaigns, of course, and we sometimes go to the same parties. I’ve known him for years, but we’ve never been . . . intimate. I don’t mean that just in a sexual way, either. I mean, we’ve never really shared confidences.”

  “You know that possession of that child porn is a crime, and that the use of the child porn in an effort to smear Senator Smalls would be another crime, and that Tubbs, if we could find him, if he’s not dead, could be looking at years in prison? As would an accomplice?”

  “Is that a threat?” she asked.

  Lucas shook his head: “No. I’m telling this to everyone. I want everybody to understand the stakes involved. We’re naturally more interested in the possible, the likely, murder of Mr. Tubbs than we are in an accomplice who might not even have understood what he or she was getting into. We’d be interested in discussing a possible immunity, or partial immunity, with that person, if we could find him or her. We’d also want that person to know that if Tubbs was murdered, then he or she might be next in line.”

  “But that’s not me,” Johnson said. “Why are you telling me?”

  “Because if it’s not you, I’d expect you to talk to your friends about this. I want the word to get around. There almost certainly is an accomplice, and we really need to talk to that person . . . for her own protection.”

  “Well,” she said, “not me. Are we done?”

  Lucas spread his hands. “If you’ve got nothing else . . . we’re done.”

  • • •

  WHEN SHE WAS GONE, Lucas took out his cell phone, went online and looked up the plural of apparatus, and found that it was apparatus, or apparatuses, and not apparati. He said, “Huh,” turned the phone off and thought about Johnson.

  She was the most interesting of the staffers he’d spoken to, because of the underlying self-righteousness, anger, spite . . . whatever. She wore it like a gown. He’d seen it often enough in government work, people who felt that they were better than their job, and better than those around them; a princess kidnapped by gypsies, and raised below her station.

  He was still thinking about Johnson, looking at the blank face of his phone, when it lit up and rang at him. Rose Marie calling.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’ve got a problem,” she said. “That goddamn Lockes is about to serve subpoenas on all of us, to find out what happened that led to the press conference.”

  “Aw, man . . . Can’t you threaten him or something?” Lucas asked.

  “Elmer is going to talk with him, but . . . Elmer’s going away in two years, one way or another. Lockes wants his job.”

  “Is he going to subpoena the governor?”

  “I don’t think so—but he knows you were asked by the governor to look at the case,” Rose Marie said. “There’s nothing to do but be upfront about it.”

  “The problem is, I used a couple of personal friends as information sources and computer support,” Lucas said, referring to Kidd and ICE. “If I have to name them, they could be pretty goddamn unhappy.”

  “That will probably come up, but as technical people, they shouldn’t have too much of a problem,” Rose Marie said. “If they’re called, they just tell the truth, and go on their way. They were asked to help out in a law enforcement investigation, and they did.”

  “Aw, shit,” Lucas said.

  ICE would not be much of a problem; she’d worked with law enforcement, and had testified in court hearings about her work. But he dreaded calling Kidd, who’d always seemed to Lucas to be a reclusive sort, an artist, a fringe guy who, as it turned out, also knew something about computers. He shouldn’t have used him, Lucas thought: Kidd looked and talked tough, but might actually be too brittle for a rough-and-tumble political fight.

  He called Kidd, and was surprised by the reaction: “Don’t worry about it,” Kidd said. “I’m a guy you knew from back when, who’s worked in the computer industry, so you got me to take a look. I don’t mind showing up to tell him that, as long as I don’t have to wear a suit.”

  “You got a suit?”

  “Yeah, but I only wear it when I marry somebody,” Kidd said. “Listen, I’m pretty friendly with Jed Cothran and Maury Berkowitz. If you think this guy could cause you some real trouble, I could give them a ring. If they lean on him a little, with the governor, I don’t think he’ll be inclined to a show trial, or anything. If that’s what’s worrying you.”

  Lucas was surprised a second time: Cothran and Berkowitz had been Minnesota U.S. senators, one from each party. “How do you know those guys?”

  “Ah, back in the day, I used to sell do-it-yourself political polling kits. This was back before everything was run on polls, and everybody hired a pro. They were customers, young guys on their way up. They sorta became friends.”

  “I had no idea,” Lucas said. “I don’t think you need to call them—I was just worried you’d think I sold you out or something. Lockes won’t be interested in you. He’ll figure you for a technician. He’s more interested in the . . . political interplay. You might not even be called. In fact, the governor might be able to head the whole thing off.”

  • • •

  LUCAS WENT HOME. Ate dinner, messed around with the kids, told Weather what had happened
that day, including the possibility of a subpoena. “Why does everybody seem to think that Lockes is a horse’s ass?” she asked.

  “Because he’s a horse’s ass,” Lucas said.

  A little after nine o’clock, as Lucas was browsing his financial websites, Horse’s Ass’s minions arrived with a subpoena. There were two of them, one of each gender, and he knew the woman. Sarah Sorensen was a mid-level assistant attorney general, a bland, brown-haired woman who was wearing an animal-rights baseball cap. She gave Lucas the paper and introduced the male half of the delegation, Mark Dunn, who looked around and said, “This is a nice property.”

  There was a tone about the comment that suggested that a cop shouldn’t be living quite so well, and Sorensen picked it up and said curtly, “Lucas founded Davenport Simulations. You may have heard of it.”

  Dunn said, “Of course,” and shut up.

  Sorensen said to Lucas, “The subpoena is for tomorrow, but we’d like to have a little pre-interview here, if you have the time. We’d like to get this over with as quickly as possible—tomorrow, if possible. We need to know if we’ve contacted everybody necessary to get a complete picture.”

  Sorensen already had the names of all the people in the meeting at the St. Paul Police Department, plus the governor, and Neil Mitford, the governor’s weasel, and ICE. Lucas added Kidd’s name to the list, feeling guilty about it, even though Kidd hadn’t seemed bothered by the prospect.

  Sorensen said, “This Ingrid Eccols—ICE, you call her—and Mr. Kidd are essentially computer technicians?”

  “That’s correct,” Lucas said. “We contacted them because we had rather pressing time limitations, with the pornography allegations pushed up against the approaching elections. We got a copy of the hard drive the way we did, through Senator Smalls’s attorney, because it was convenient and fast. You understand that we didn’t change anything, that we were operating only from a copy of the computer hard drive, that the original was preserved.”

  “We understand that,” Sorensen said.