Once we were pretty sure the caller was telling the truth, and once I was pretty sure that the caller was Cassandra, it all fell into place. Why would she be acting weird, not wanting to tell but wanting to tell? Was she involved? Or was she going crazy because her boyfriend was involved?
“And you had to worry about protecting her, too.” Pam said.
“That was a problem,” I explained. “We didn’t know how much danger Cassandra was in. We couldn’t both sit around her place with Gerda, waiting for her to show up so we could talk to her. We were worried about her being in danger from three possible sources at that point: Maddux, Noel, even Werner. We really didn’t know what the hell Werner was doing in town.
“I went to Noel’s and found him trying to take off. Meanwhile, Cassandra showed up at home and told Rosie and Gerda everything she knew. Then they came racing to help me, dragging Cassandra along with them just in case someone came looking for her.
“The other two suspects, however, were nowhere near Berkeley. They were across the Bay, fighting with each other.”
“So Werner wasn’t really in it, then,” Lewis mused.
Rosie shook her head. “No. He was about as clean as a sleazeball can be.”
Werner had accepted Maddux’s support, and had agreed that in exchange, he would actually run for the governorship. According to Noel, he didn’t understand why Maddux thought he’d get a lot of votes in the general election, but he seemed willing to go along for the ride. That kind of attitude was what had attracted Maddux to him in the first place: his earlier plans to scuttle the party and go after personal power— that part had been true— and his willingness to cut a different kind of deal if he could get power that way. A perfect candidate, unlike Joe Richmond. A man who could be bent. A man who wouldn’t ask questions, wouldn’t get in the way of Maddux’s own plans and ambitions.
Lewis ordered a third martini. Pam had stopped drinking half an hour before. I wanted a cigarette, but nobody smokes any more, not even me.
“I saw the story in the paper,” Lewis said. “About the arrests they made out in the Central Valley.”
“Yeah, thanks to Chandler,” I said. He had known enough about the plan, and about Maddux’s habits, to send the police looking in the right drawers and strongboxes for the information they needed to get to the people who were actually going to carry out the sabotage. They were caught before word got out about Maddux’s arrest.
The target pesticide factory was in Fresno, smack in the middle of California. Some of their chemicals were pretty volatile, and Maddux had a man inside who knew just how to make them blow up “accidentally,” while giving himself enough time to catch a flight the hell out of there. Because the explosion would have poisoned the city, and the toxic cloud would have totally contaminated the immediate area for fifty miles around and drifted, like fallout, God knows how far.
– 30 –
THE party had started with four major candidates: Richmond, Carney, Werner and Gelber.
Richmond was dead, Werner was a Democrat, and Carney? Halfway through the first day, it became apparent that Carney wasn’t going for the endorsement at all. He was supporting Rebecca, and some of the people in his faction were going along with him.
There were three days of platform hassles before everybody could agree to be dissatisfied. The Vivos did include a wide range of political complexions, and the world-peace and social-ills issues came in for a lot of left-right fights. Both planks, unlike the strong ones on environmental problems, became very generalized in the end, mentioning no specific factions in Central America, no specific interest groups at home. After all, they wanted to become a real party.
On the fourth day, they got down to the candidates. A bunch of latecomers were making noise, but none of them seemed to have much chance of getting enough votes. By then, everyone knew that James X. Carney would make the big speech for Rebecca Gelber.
It was a dandy. He talked about how he had decided there was no more time to waste. He said their first foray into big-time politics had brought them corruption and that corruption had almost destroyed them. They had been through their baptism, he said, their trial by fire. And they were still alive. And to stay alive, now, they had to unite and come out fighting. They had a world to save. They had a candidate who would take their story to the voters. A woman who… he brought down the house.
When the voting was over, Gelber had it by a wide margin. In her acceptance speech, she talked about Joe Richmond, and a lot of people cried. Pam did, and I held her.
She talked about the future, and about change, about honor and nonviolence and respect for life. Then, at the end, she announced that James X. Carney had agreed to serve as her campaign manager.
The two of them ran one hell of a race.
for Adam
The author is very grateful to the following people for their help: Jean Askham, Voters Service Chair, League of Women Voters of California; Kevin Braaten-Moen, Political Reform Consultant, California Fair Political Practices Commission; Oliver Cox, Staff Counsel, California Secretary of State’s Office; Emmie Hill, Registrar of Voters, Alameda County.
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Also by Shelley Singer:
Jake Samson Mysteries
Samson’s Deal
Free Draw
Full House
Spit in the Ocean
Suicide King
Royal Flush
Barrett Lake Mysteries
Following Jane
Picture of David
Searching for Sara
Interview With Mattie
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The Demeter Flower
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About the Author
SHELLEY SINGER has had 13 novels, including a Shamus Award nominee, and several short stories published. Most are mysteries, including the six books in the Jake Samson series. Her most recent novel is Torch Song, a near-future thriller. She teaches writing online and does manuscript consulting. She has served as a judge in a number of fiction writing contests, including the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction writing competition. She lives in Petaluma, CA with two dogs an
d the love of her life.
Full Table of Contents
Chapter 1 • Chapter 2
Chapter 3 • Chapter 4
Chapter 5 • Chapter 6
Chapter 7 • Chapter 8
Chapter 9 • Chapter 10
Chapter 11 • Chapter 12
Chapter 13 • Chapter 14
Chapter 15 • Chapter 16
Chapter 17 • Chapter 18
Chapter 19 • Chapter 20
Chapter 21 • Chapter 22
Chapter 23 • Chapter 24
Chapter 25 • Chapter 26
Chapter 27 • Chapter 28
Chapter 29 • Chapter 30
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Guarantee
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Suicide King (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) Page 17
