Deadly Politics

by LynDee Walker

  “It’s the endorphins. They’re good for your brain.” He winked.

  I snorted. “I’ll remember that.”

  “Experts will back me up.” He leaned back in the little black bistro chair, his stoic expression relaxing a bit, his tone easier. “You need a sounding board?”

  I tapped one finger on the edge of my keyboard, scrolling through headlines about the Baine kid. He was into sailing. Won a couple of regattas over the summer.

  “You can’t say anything to anyone.” I stood, taking my half-full cup of cold coffee to the sink and rinsing both mugs before I put them in the dishwasher, mostly to keep my hands busy. Was this the right thing to do? I hadn’t told Parker. I hadn’t even told Bob. I turned back to face Joey, bracing both hands on the edge of the countertop and pulling in a deep breath.

  “Of course not.” His eyes roamed my face, mine flicking away when he tried to meet my gaze. “You can trust me.”

  The words floated on an undertone of hurt that pierced straight into my gut and twisted.

  Joey wasn’t a colleague. He needed me to trust him. And he was the kind of smart that had gotten him into and out of some scary situations.

  What could it hurt to get his perspective?

  “The body wasn’t just in the capitol, it was in the governor’s office.” The words tripped out like I needed to say them before I changed my mind. “And the dead woman was a call girl I interviewed when all the shit with Senator Grayson hit the fan a couple of years ago.”

  Joey’s face went the sort of sallow yellowish that results when the blood drains from an olive complexion. “Lakshmi? No.” A tear escaped his lower lashes as he looked up. “That’s what Miller told you? You’re sure?”

  I nodded, my eyes locked on the tear sliding down his cheek. I’d never seen him cry. I stepped forward. Back again.

  What the hell did I not know now?

  Joey didn’t move, his face frozen in a mask of shock and grief I was sure would haunt my dreams in a nursing home someday. I swallowed hard. He was tough. Suave. And always, always in control. This was so utterly outside the realm of normal I had nothing for it, but comfort is a safe bet when someone you love is hurting.

  I dropped to one knee in front of his chair, running both hands up his bare arms. “Baby? How can I help?” I asked.

  He blinked. Shook his head. Focused on me.

  “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. How did you know her, and why do you care? The words bubbled up the back of my throat. I swallowed them. Nope. None of my business unless he decided to tell me.

  “I’m so sorry. If I’d known it was going to upset you, I wouldn’t have told you. At least, not like that.”

  He shook his head again. “Not your fault. I just . . . I hadn’t talked to her in ages. She told me once I ought to stay away from you if I didn’t want to lose my heart. She liked you. Said you were special. Not the kind of woman you sleep with and forget the next day, she said.”

  I understood the words spilling out of his face, but not the context.

  “She was a nice young woman who got caught up in a not-so-nice environment,” I said. “I was glad I had the chance to help her. But sorry she had to give up her graduate studies. She was brilliant. We need more brilliant women in math and science. And politics.” I tapped his arm lightly.

  “She always said she was going to be the next Nate Silver.” His voice had a hollow ring.

  It almost felt like I was watching someone have this conversation with Joey. Sort of strange and out-of-body to be talking with him about another woman. Especially one he was crying over. Lakshmi was smart and gorgeous and special. I didn’t know many women who wouldn’t feel a little inferior standing next to her. I pulled my hands back. Joey’s eyes widened.

  “Oh, princess, no. You think I . . . that we . . . no.” He shook his head. “She was a kid, for Christ’s sake.”

  An unsettling combination of relief and confusion washed over me. He put one finger under my chin, turning my eyes to his. “Her family . . . did you ever ask her about them?”

  “She said her dad lost his job, that he was a . . .” I reached back through my memory. “Something about him working for the government. Leaving to start his own company.”

  “Reynash Drake used to know a lot of very powerful people.”

  Oh. Like the kind of people Joey knew. So Joey knew Lakshmi because of her dad.

  “Holy Mano—” I stood. Paced a few steps. Grabbed a can of Darcy’s food out of the pantry and opened it, scooped it into her bowl, and scratched her ears as she nibbled at her breakfast.

  A smart young woman with an eye on a career in politics and a father who moved in powerful political circles once upon a time, linked first with a disgraced US senator and now with a rising-star governor hiding some family secrets.

  Charlie Lewis was free-falling down my list of concerns.

  “Did, uh . . .” Joey cleared his throat. “Did Miller tell you what she was doing in Baine’s office? How they found her?”

  I shook my head. “She was dating his son, according to her now-deleted Instagram. I figured that’s what she was doing in his office. Not that anyone’s going to let me ask him. But it sounds like I have a lot more work than I thought, piecing together what the hell happened here.”

  He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Focused on the dog lying across his bare foot. “Looks like it’s you and me today, Darce.” He tried to force brightness into the words, but it just came out strained.

  I returned to the table, tapped my computer screen back to life, and clicked my email open before I picked up the phone. Kyle answered on the second ring.

  “I need a favor,” I said by way of hello. “And I got my ass severely chewed yesterday thanks to your high-security tip I can’t do anything with, so I’m hoping you’ll take pity on me and pull a few strings.”

  “I’m not sure how strong my strings are today, but I could give it a shot.” He sounded distracted. “What do you need?”

  “A last-minute Saturday pass to Cold Springs. And a one-on-one unsupervised visit with Angela Baker.” There were indeed things I needed to know about Lakshmi. Things that wouldn’t wait for the pass I’d requested for Monday.

  Things dean-slash-madam Baker might just be the perfect person to ask.

  10

  The visitor’s gate at Cold Springs lives up to the name of the place: a wake in a cannibal enclave would be more inviting.

  A slouching deputy behind the thick plastic window leered his way through a laconic once-over, his murky brown eyes pausing on my feet.

  “Those could be classified as a weapon in some circles.” His accent was more hillbilly twang than Virginia drawl.

  My mouth flexed up in a tight, no-teeth smile. The red Manolos on my feet had in fact helped me out of a sticky situation or two. Not that I was telling him that. “I’m told height makes a person look intimidating,” I said. “I always figure an extra three inches can’t hurt, coming out here.”

  He twisted his mouth to one side, nodding. “I don’t suppose you’re looking to harm Ms. Baker, at that. You got some brains behind that face, don’t you?”

  “I like to believe so.” I pulled my press credentials back through the slot by one corner with my thumb and index finger.

  He flashed a crooked row of Big Chief–stained teeth as he signed a numbered placard for me. “Hope you get what you’re looking for before you leave, now. Let me know how I can help with that.”

  I shoved my bag into locker number three and managed to exit the other side of the guard shack without shuddering, walking quickly, head up, to the door at the end of the hallway.

  Facing the camera on the opposite wall, I held up the placard and clearly said my full name.

  Thirty seconds, and the door buzzed, the jolting sound echoing off the painted cinderblock and tile walls.

  Two more guards and a (cursory, because I also knew fitted clothing expedited entry) pat-down later, I was seated in a plastic c
hair at a metal table, watching a smaller version of Angela Baker than I remembered enter the little room through a door in the opposite corner.

  She’d fallen through the prison time warp: her face was easily ten years older for the nearly two she’d spent here. Cheeks that were once enviably defined and supple looked sunken and sallow, her skin parched and lined. The carefully kept caramel highlights I remembered from her trial were still there, though. Sort of—the lemon juice version was brassy and brittle. Conditioner that fits prison substance regulations is nearly impossible to find.

  The large guard who ushered her in backed out of the room and shut the door.

  Thank you, Kyle.

  Angela took the plastic chair across from me and nodded. “I like a woman who knows how to get shit done.”

  Her eyes were the thing that hadn’t been changed by this place, a striking shade of deep blue hovering just to the cerulean side of navy, bright and curious as ever.

  I struggled to keep my face blank. Two years ago, this woman was a young academic with a promising future. She’d gone from professor to assistant dean to dean by her midthirties, poised to take over for the chancellor who would retire in just a couple of months now.

  Charismatic. Savvy. Brilliant. The words had filled the coverage of her arrest and trial, every person on the campus who wasn’t turning tricks or looking to become one shocked at the revelations about their rising star.

  “I have one hell of a convoluted story on my hands. I’m hoping you’re going to help me untangle some part of it.”

  She shook her head, her eyes clouding over. “Lakshmi was a brilliant young woman.”

  And there was my first question. Even if she had a contraband phone or had been watching TV, nobody but me and the cops knew Lakshmi Drake was dead. I thought, anyway.

  “Dean Baker, how is it that you know what happened to Lakshmi?”

  She barked a short laugh, somewhere between amused and derisive. “Let’s drop the formality. I’m Angela. You’re Nichelle. I won’t ever work at a university again, even when I’m done with this.” She waved a hand. “I wouldn’t hire me for the custodial staff at a school, would you?”

  I pinched my lips together and shook my head.

  “I hated you for quite a while when I first got here, you know.” She watched my face carefully as she let those words drop.

  A couple of hard blinks I couldn’t help were the only reaction I showed. “A lot of people do. It goes with the job, I’m afraid.”

  Her thin face collapsed into a hundred lines when the corners of her mouth went up. “You are a tough one. Hell, I’d venture to say you’d do okay in here. It’s a different world, for sure, and not the kind where book smarts help you too much.”

  I nodded, holding her gaze. I had been in and out of enough prisons and around enough hardened criminals to know repeating myself showed weakness. I wouldn’t beg her to answer me. She had invited me here.

  So I bit down on the Back to Lakshmi? and waited, staring. My chest felt too tight to hold much air.

  She blinked first, pursing her lips and nodding slowly. “Okay then. So the way I see it, there are folks who think I’m the devil incarnate. I provided a service—a necessary one—to some folks, and for a long time everything rolled along and everyone was happy. Bright young women got through school with no debt. Marriages didn’t dissolve over affairs because of things people couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about or do.”

  I nodded. Every conversation I’d had with Lakshmi Drake backed up her position. Mostly, anyway.

  “I kept people’s secrets. I was trusted in powerful circles.” She paused there, her eyes moving to her hands, folded on the table in front of her.

  I forced myself to stay mostly still, leaning toward her the tiniest bit instead of popping right out of the chair. Her tone said she was getting to why she’d asked me here. Journalism since the Invention of the Printing Press 101: Interviewing people is a tricky line between knowing how to ask the right questions and knowing when to let them talk.

  “It never even occurred to me that anyone would get hurt. I never wanted that. Not Allison. Not Ted. Certainly not Lakshmi.” She raised her eyes back to mine and, hand to God, they were bright with tears.

  “I don’t think anyone thinks you knew any of that would happen.”

  “Plenty of people hold me responsible for it,” she said. “Secrets landed me in here. They’ve ruined and ended too many lives through all this.”

  Her thin shoulders, swallowed up by the drab gray scrub-like inmate uniform she practically swam in, lifted with a big breath. “It’s time for some of those skeletons to come out of their closets. But I don’t know whole stories, so I need a partner who can fill in the blanks. With the truth, not just with what’s easy and palatable. Experience tells me you’re my girl.”

  Partner? I laid my phone on the table. “You mind if I record this? I want to make sure I get everything right.”

  “Go ahead. I do, too.”

  I clicked the voice recorder on. “Tell me what you know about Lakshmi Drake.”

  “Lakshmi was a beautiful girl who found herself in a bind when her father lost his job.” Another deep breath. She closed her eyes.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell me this. The edge of the metal chair bit into my fingers, they closed around it so tight.

  “Lakshmi’s father’s company went under because of Ted Grayson.”

  I sucked in such a sharp breath I choked on my own saliva. Coughing, I nodded, waving for her to go on.

  She did not. “What did Senator Grayson have against Lakshmi’s father?” I asked when my lungs stopped spasming, my voice low for no reason I could think of besides instinct telling me to keep this as quiet as I could.

  She shook her head. “In politics, information is currency. Lakshmi’s father worked for the federal government, once upon a time, most recently on a project nobody in DC could get information on. Grayson is nothing if not nosy. He wanted to know what was going on. But nothing worked. Threats, kickbacks, all the usual suspects. They couldn’t find anything to blackmail the guy with.”

  My head started bobbing. “But his boss, not so much?”

  She flashed a half smile. “You are a smart woman, Nichelle.”

  I tapped one finger on the edge of the table, twisting my lips to one side.

  “If Grayson had something on the boss he could use as blackmail, why didn’t he just get that guy to tell him what they were working on?”

  “Because that guy didn’t know. He was a bureaucrat, not a scientist. No records were kept for anything they were doing. We’re talking top, top, top secret stuff.”

  We were? “What kind of secret?” I closed my eyes, Lakshmi’s voice whispering through my thoughts. “Experimental energy?” I asked. “Is that what her father did?”

  Top, top secret experiment energy wasn’t windmills or solar panels. Nobody would care enough to keep that kind of research quiet.

  “Politically volatile energy research in Virginia probably means coal.” The words trickled out slowly.

  Angela tipped her head to one side. “You know, Ted said something once, about by-products, my business and Rey Drake’s being similar. I told him unlike us, Lakshmi’s dad was trying to save the world. He got this weird look and shut up, and he never said another word about any of it in front of me. Aren’t the by-products of coal what’s bad about it?”

  “I think so.” That might be a thing Grayson would want in on, given the weight the mining blocs carried in the southwest corner of Virginia and the money the coal companies pumped into elections. “But I don’t get what Grayson accomplished by getting the guy fired. Didn’t he lose his shot at finding out what Dr. Drake was working on entirely?”

  She shook her head. “Ted excels at reading people. He knew Dr. Drake wouldn’t give up on what he was doing, and sure enough, he funded the startup of his own company, right here in Grayson’s backyard. The Drakes wanted to be close to their daughter, who was atte
nding RAU as an undergrad at the time. The way I heard it, the lab ran for two years on the initial capital, with a plan of getting grants to continue once they had a research record to show.”

  “But Grayson made sure the grants didn’t happen.” I reached into my memory for that last chat with Lakshmi. “She said her dad’s company went out of business in her junior year, right?”

  Angela nodded. “Ted sent me after Lakshmi when her grant and loan applications all also got mysteriously denied.” She arched an eyebrow and pieces of this puzzle rained into place in my head.

  “And then he requested Lakshmi as his regular . . . um . . . escort,” I said. “Did he think Lakshmi knew something?”

  “He had his bets covered either way. Ted doesn’t leave things to chance, and he likes to record every transaction.” She hit the word record hard.

  Oh hell. My eyes fell shut. “Tapes. So then he had something to blackmail her father with.”

  “Bingo. But here’s the thing: Allison was the only person besides me who knew about his little setup.”

  Allison, the pretty blonde girl who ran Grayson’s campaign office off campus and served as Angela’s student point woman for the underground sex trade on campus, was long since dead.

  And right there was why I was sitting in that chair.

  “And now Lakshmi is dead and you’re scared,” I said.

  “It’s not like someone dies in here every week or anything, but do you know how easy it would be for someone with just a little money—not even good money—to make sure I stay quiet?”

  I did. “So you figure the best defense is to talk?” I kind of wanted those words back as soon as they popped out. But I kind of didn’t. I wanted the truth. I didn’t want to help her get herself killed.

  “The way I see it, the only defense is to bring the whole fucking thing crashing to the ground. I don’t know what Ted found out about Lakshmi’s dad, I don’t know what the man was working on or what he’s done since. But my bullshit radar has been pretty well perfected in here, and Lakshmi Drake, dead in a popular governor’s office right before midterm elections that could be very good for the governor’s friends and very bad for Ted Grayson’s old buddies . . . something isn’t right.” She snorted. “A lot of things aren’t right, I guess.” She reached across the table and closed both her cold little hands over mine. I flinched. “Thomas Baine didn’t have anything to do with that girl’s death. I met him at several functions when he was the mayor. That man is the straightest arrow that ever was. Loves his wife. Believes in his state, in his country. He’s the once-in-a-generation idealist who goes into politics not for power or money or ego, but because he believes he can help people and make the world a better place. That puts a target on his head when people like Grayson don’t want their boats rocked.”