Lieutenant

by Lesli Richardson

  When I eventually rejoin Carter at our table, I lean in. “Thank you for making sure Rebecca and her father were invited,” I whisper behind my hand.

  Carter smiles and leans in so he can speak in my ear. “Don’t worry, pet. I’ll never forget those who helped us get where we are now.”

  But as he leans back, I almost think…

  No, I must be wrong.

  Carter has different expressions—smiles, smirks, frowns. Over the years, Owen and I have grown adept at reading those expressions as if Carter were holding up signs telegraphing what he’s thinking. The three of us can hold entire silent conversations and understand everything.

  There’s one expression in particular I’ve seen the bastard extraordinaire wear plenty of times when he’s pleased about something especially devious he’s achieved, whether privately with myself or when with Owen, or something having to do with our law careers, such as delivering a devastating point against opposing counsel at trial. Or even something to do with the campaign, such as Owen scoring a powerful blow during a debate.

  Carter wore one such look when Owen took down Kevin Markos in that interview the Sunday after the school shooting.

  Or, maybe it’s just nerves on my part, and I’m seeing things that aren’t there. I opt to let it go. Because I know my husband, and even if there was something behind that smile, there’s something else I do know for certain—

  He’d never admit it to me anyway.

  Plausible deniability.

  Chapter Five

  Then

  When I was a kid, I learned about partisan politics before I learned my ABCs. When I played sports, I was never picked last. Not because I was good, but because I could play the game.

  The game of politics.

  I got As even when I didn’t have the best grades, because I could sweet-talk the teachers and they’d overlook my shortcomings, or give me extra chances to improve my grade.

  I learned.

  Boy, did I learn.

  I knew two things about myself before I reached high school—that I hated my father, and that I would make my own name for myself in this world.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love Daddy, the man who sang me to sleep, who taught me how to fish, who took me camping. Adore him.

  Rarely saw him, though, once he started advancing through the ranks politically. The higher the office he achieved, the less I saw of Daddy.

  If I wanted to spend time with my father, that meant I needed to become acquainted with and spend most of my time with Benchley Evans.

  It was Benchley Evans, politician and political operator, who I saw most often. The skilled lawyer who taught me everything I know about the game of politics.

  Daddy hoped I’d marry a nice guy from his party, settle down, have grandbabies.

  Daddy is highly disappointed.

  But Benchley Evans is not-so-secretly proud of me for setting myself up to be governor.

  Both men despise my husband, Carter. Mostly because, professionally, Carter is everything they aren’t…and everything Benchley Evans is, and more.

  My father would have much preferred I married Owen. Owen reminds me so much of Daddy.

  How little does he know.

  Owen owns my heart as much as I own him and his.

  They say girls marry their fathers. Except my father is two distinctly different men.

  I guess, in a way, that’s exactly what I did.

  * * * *

  One of my early memories is of going on a particular camping trip with Daddy and some of his friends. I didn’t understand until I was older that many of them were involved in politics in some way, either politicians, or lobbyists, or lawyers who had an interest in political doings, or even county or city employees.

  Momma wasn’t into camping, at all, but I loved everything to do with it. I also loved the attention I got from Daddy. He taught me how to take care of myself, how to set up my own tent, how to build and tend a fire—all of that. He’d been an Eagle Scout when he was a boy, and since he didn’t have a son…

  Well, he had me.

  There was an older girl, Rebecca Soliz, who frequently went camping with us…until she didn’t. There was a gap of several years before I saw her again, and at some point, she’d had a baby.

  Although that was something no one talked about.

  Rebecca’s father, Edward Soliz, was one of Daddy’s best friends. Rebecca and I used to share a tent, which I always thought was fun. I was seven, and she seemed so much older than me, even though she was probably thirteen or fourteen, at the time.

  Daddy bought a new, larger tent, one that had a privacy divider inside it. Once Rebecca stopped going camping with us, I shared a tent with Daddy. It was almost as good as being in my own tent, except Daddy snores like a chainsaw.

  At the time, Daddy was working for Hillsborough County as the county administrator. Back then, I didn’t know for sure what that meant, but I knew he was important. I loved going to visit him at work and talking to people. Even at that age, politics and government excited me.

  About three months after Rebecca stopped going camping with us, we went camping in the Withlacoochee State Forest. We’d never camped there before, but we were supposed to go canoeing the next day, and I was really looking forward to that, because I’d never been canoeing before. Ever.

  Friday night, after camp was set up, we had dinner. It was well past dark by then. Daddy sent me to bed in our tent while he stayed up drinking beer with his friends.

  “SusieJo,” he said—a nickname I only tolerated because he was my Daddy and he seemed to love calling me that—“do not leave that tent before daylight, no matter what, without me. Understand?”

  I chafed a little at that restriction. He’d never told me that before. “What if I have to go to the bathroom?”

  He pointed at our tent from where he sat in a camp chair by the fire. “You can see me from here. If I’m not in the tent, you call for me. I’ll hear you. If I’m asleep, you wake me up. It’s dark, and it’s a new campground you’ve never been to before, and I don’t want you getting lost out there. Plus, it’s hunting season. You wander off and get lost, you could end up shot accidentally. Understand?”

  “Yes, Daddy.” I didn’t question it further, because he was my Daddy. And I had heard a few gunshots that evening, but none close to our campground. So his reasons did make sense.

  I still thought it was kind of silly, but I was a fairly fearless kid and, again, he was my Daddy. Although we were kind of a ways from the campground bathrooms. Usually we camped closer to the bathrooms than we did this time, and it wasn’t like there weren’t other available campsites closer. Daddy and the men had picked a site at the edge of the campground, bordering thick woods.

  There were maybe only four other groups in the campground that night, and none of them were close to us. There also weren’t any lights in the campground, so admittedly I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of traipsing around a strange campground in the dark and possibly getting lost.

  I remember it was me, Daddy, Chris Norman—who was Daddy’s very best friend—another man named Morgan Wheedon—who frequently camped with us but who I didn’t like very much—and Chris Norman’s older brother, David. David was also a friend of Daddy’s, but he wasn’t in politics. He ran a chain of tire stores in and around Tampa. But David’s wife, Doris, worked for Daddy. She was his receptionist when he was the county administrator. Later, she would go on to work for him when he was elected to the county commission.

  At the time, I didn’t think about the fact that Morgan Wheedon hadn’t been camping with us since the time Rebecca stopped coming. And also that weekend, Rebecca’s father, Edward Soliz, wasn’t with us, either. It was the first camping trip he’d missed in a while.

  Morgan Wheedon had light blue eyes, red hair, and pale skin with lots of freckles. He had to use a lot of sunscreen or he quickly ended up sunburned. He always wore a really big straw hat, too. I remember he wasn’t married because he’d g
otten divorced recently. It seemed like my parents had discussed his divorce in hushed tones, always growing quiet or changing the subject around me, so I suspected it wasn’t a good thing.

  I fell asleep pretty quickly that night. It was a little on the cool side, meaning sleeping was easy and the bugs were practically nonexistent. A particularly close gunshot woke me up at some point in the night, but I didn’t hear anything else and ended up going back to sleep.

  When I awoke early the next morning, Daddy was snoring like crazy and I hated waking him up. It was just past dawn, but thick shadows and damp mist lay low to the ground.

  I crept around the divider and poked him in the shoulder. “Daddy, I need to go to the bathroom.”

  He rolled over, glanced at his watch, then sighed. “Is it daylight?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Go on. Take your whistle. Blow it if you get lost or have a problem.”

  “Yes, sir.” I wore it on an orange lanyard around my neck. It was one of Daddy’s rules, in case I ever got lost. So far, the only time I’d needed it was when a spider crawled out of hiding from behind the handle on the door after I was already in a campground latrine stall, and I’d been too afraid to try to get out.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d ever live that story down, but my Daddy had rescued me from the evil spider, laughing once he’d recovered from his initial fear that I was being attacked or something. He’d shoved a stick under the door for me and I used that to unlatch the door so he could yank it open and get rid of the spider.

  My hero to the rescue.

  I made my way through the quiet morning without incident, found the latrine, washed my hands really well, and made it back to find Daddy and the Normans starting to build a fire.

  The men acted tired, but that was normal for Daddy before coffee. Once that had brewed, and they all got a mug in them, they perked up.

  It was only once we started cooking breakfast that I realized what was wrong.

  “Where’s Mr. Wheedon?” I asked.

  Daddy and the Norman brothers shared a glance and then looked around.

  “Morgan!” Daddy called out. “You want coffee and breakfast?”

  “Or did you drink too many beers last night?” Chris Norman called out, laughing. But it sounded kind of…tight.

  David Norman smiled, but his expression looked nervous.

  “Do you feel okay, Mr. D?” I called him that to differentiate him from Chris Norman, who was Mr. N. They couldn’t both be Mr. N.

  “Just a little headache, SusieJo,” he said. “We drank too many beers last night.”

  Daddy was on his feet now. “Morgan? You gonna sleep all day?” He walked over to Mr. Wheedon’s tent and peeked in. “He’s not in here.”

  Chris Norman looked around. “Car’s here. Did he hit the bathroom?”

  “I didn’t hear anyone else when I was over there,” I said.

  “Morgan?” David Norman called out.

  Now all three men were up and moving, leaving me to cook breakfast while they started searching and calling for him.

  An hour later, we were gathered around a park ranger and a deputy, while Daddy and the Norman brothers gave them a description of Mr. Wheedon and their activities the night before. We ate dinner, then I went to bed. The men sat up and talked and drank beer, then they all returned to their respective tents—Daddy to ours, the Norman brothers to the tent they shared, and they all saw Morgan return to his tent.

  The deputy knelt and smiled at me. “How old are you, Susannah?”

  I didn’t feel any fear talking to the man because I was used to how friendly the bailiffs were who worked at the county building where Daddy worked. They always had smiles for me.

  “I’m seven, sir.”

  “Do you like camping?”

  “I love it. I want to be in the Boy Scouts, but I can’t. Our Brownie troop is lame. We just do crafts and stuff. Daddy takes me camping.”

  “Did you hear anything or see anything last night?”

  I started to say no, when I really thought about it. “I heard a gunshot last night that sounded close by.”

  All the men exchanged a look. “Do you know what time?” the deputy asked.

  “No, sir. I went back to sleep.”

  “Was your dad in the tent with you?”

  I solemnly nodded. “Yes, sir. Daddy snores.”

  The deputy and the park ranger stepped off to the side. Then the park ranger used the radio in his truck to call someone, said some codes.

  An hour later, the search party, led by a dog, found Morgan Wheedon’s body. He was sitting at the base of an oak tree about three hundred yards from our campsite, and had shot himself in the head.

  He’d left a note. At the time, I was too young to hear the gory details.

  It wasn’t until after we returned home Saturday evening, having packed and left the campground, including packing Mr. Wheedon’s things after the team of deputies finished going through all his stuff, that I thought about something I kept to myself.

  When the gunshot awakened me, I didn’t remember hearing Daddy snoring in the other side of the tent, and I never got up to check to see if he was there. I simply went back to sleep.

  Chapter Six

  Then

  It’s funny, in a sad kind of way, that Owen can’t accept how easily he won a spot on our HOA board, or how easily he won his primary while running for a seat on the Hillsborough County Commission.

  Daddy’s old seat, as a matter of fact.

  Owen is incapable of seeing himself the way others see him—smart, funny, articulate, and hot.

  Haaawwwt.

  He wouldn’t be our adorable boy if he hadn’t been raised by a raging narcissist, I suppose.

  And now…the general election. Running for a seat on the county commission is the first big step in his political journey. Because there isn’t a minimum age to hold the office, Carter wants to start him there, as soon as possible. It’s a four-year term. Owen’s twenty-six now, will be twenty-seven when he takes office.

  Carter keeps gently reminding me “if” Owen wins, except I know the truth—there is no doubt in my mind we’ll get him elected. He already made it through the primaries with Daddy’s endorsement. Now he just needs to take out his blue and red competition.

  That’s why we find ourselves driving over to Momma and Daddy’s house in Brandon on the Sunday after the primary election. We’re picking them up to go visit an old family friend. Daddy and Momma will be heading back to Tallahassee tomorrow morning, so it needs to happen today.

  Rebecca Soliz Martin is now a cut-throat GOP strategist who’s already made a legit name for herself in state politics. The three candidates she worked for during the primaries over in the Orlando area all won their various primaries. She’s literally taking only a couple of days off before hitting the campaign trail again, and if her candidates knew she was talking to us today, they’d all probably fire her immediately.

  We’re not the competition in terms of the office Owen’s running for, because none of her current candidates are running in or near Hillsborough County.

  But we’re not GOP, and her clients are.

  We last ran into her a few months ago at Daddy and Momma’s house in Brandon, when he threw a Super Bowl watch party. She and her husband, John, and their three sons, had all been in attendance.

  I can barely remember the girl who went on camping trips with us when we were kids, the girl I shared a tent with, and I haven’t seen her father, Edward, in years. He was supposed attend to the Super Bowl party, too, but ended up staying home because he was sick.

  This is a huge favor Daddy’s called in for us, for Owen, and I know it. When we arrive at Momma and Daddy’s house to pick them up and I hug Daddy hello, I whisper in his ear.

  “I owe you big-time, Daddy.”

  He chuckles. “Sweetheart, you have no idea, but that’s okay. Hands wash hands.”

  I catch Carter watching—Carter misses nothing. Owen is busy hugging
Momma. I swear she wishes I’d married Owen instead of Carter, but they’re just going to have to deal with it. This magic we have, the three of us, wouldn’t happen any other way, even if we can’t tell people the truth.

  Carter is driving, and Daddy gets in the front seat with him. Owen volunteers to sit in the middle of the backseat, between me and Momma, even though I offer to take the spot.

  Owen won’t let me.

  Our good boy, always thinking of me. Even though he’s likely going to be our state’s future governor and, at six-four, he’s way taller than me. Sitting scrunched in the middle has to be uncomfortable for him.

  Edward Soliz is widowed now and lives with his daughter and son-in-law in a house fifteen minutes from Daddy and Momma in Brandon. Rebecca Soliz Martin, her father, Edward, her husband, John Martin, and their three kids are all there when we arrive. Their oldest son, Eddie, named after his grandfather, looks nothing like his mother, father, or his two much younger brothers. He’s got light blue eyes, red hair, and pale skin and freckles. So pale that he looks like he’d explode in the sunlight. Reminds me of one of the Weasley kids from the Harry Potter movies.

  A little more thinking on it, and it itches my brain that he reminds me of someone from real life, someone I haven’t thought about in years. It triggers a memory of a camping trip when I was a little kid.

  I shove that memory away because, today, we’re focused on this.

  Getting Owen elected.

  I don’t have time for trips down memory lane with old friends right now. We’re here for work.

  Rebecca warmly greets us. Once we’re gathered in the living room, she tips her head as she studies Owen. “I have to admit, I was a little surprised when Benchley called me. I wouldn’t be taking this meeting with you all today if it wasn’t for how close he is to my father.”

  “We appreciate this,” Carter says. “But Owen is a candidate worth backing.”

  “I’ll be honest that I didn’t pay much attention to this race,” she says. “So I looked at his results. Impressive numbers, especially for a first-time third-party candidate. I’m guessing there’s a bigger picture?”