High Crimes

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  Georgia picked up her glass, mostly empty now, and sloshed the crushed ice around. The soft, crunchy sound was satisfying. “Does the name Willie Remson mean anything to you?”

  He thought about it, shook his head. “Should it?”

  She gazed at him, trying to suss out the truth. “No.” She put the glass down. “So, what are you going to do now?”

  “Go back to Tennessee, I guess. Try to pick up my life.”

  “Did you send an email to Erica Baldwin?” Georgia asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you like beef jerky?”

  He straightened up in a hurry. “What?”

  Georgia repeated the question.

  “What a weird question.”

  “Why is it weird?”

  “I dunno. Going from email to beef jerky? I don’t get it.”

  Georgia watched him carefully. “When was the last time you ate or thought about beef jerky?”

  “Never . . . Well, I don’t remember.”

  She didn’t see a tell. He was probably being honest. She asked for his number in case she had more questions, wrote it down, and gave him one of her cards, in case he recalled anything else. “Thanks for coming.”

  “I miss her.” His face was sorrowful. A twinge of guilt stabbed Georgia. She wished she could offer him more support, but she was running low on compassion.

  • • •

  After visiting the ladies’ room, Georgia headed to the front of the bar to leave. But when she saw what was happening outside, she froze. Vanna, with Charlie in tow, and JoBeth had just pulled open the front door of a parked car and were heading into the bar. Georgia’s pulse sped up, and her body flooded with adrenaline.

  What were they doing here? The only person who knew where she was going was Jimmy. What had he done? Frantic, she gazed around the room. No way could she deal with them now. She needed to escape. She thought about the tunnels in the basement, but the only way to get downstairs was through the trapdoor behind the bar. That wasn’t going to happen.

  She spun around and hitched up the collar of her jacket to hide her face, but she felt them looking her way, trying to pick her out of the few customers already in their cups. Thankfully, the door leading to Lawrence Avenue was only a few yards away. She hurried over and pushed through. Once outside, she sprinted down the street, wondering if Al Capone had felt the same panic when he bolted from the law.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Why the hell did you tell them where I was?” Georgia verbally pummeled Jimmy that night. They were in the apartment Jimmy was renting from Luke. Sparsely furnished, it had a transitory air to it, as if on some level there was an awareness of impermanence.

  He stood with his hands in his pockets, staring as if he didn’t understand her anger. “They really wanted to talk to you. Patch things up.”

  “Bullshit,” she seethed. “I don’t believe you. You knew how I felt last night. You had no right to get involved.”

  “As you remember, we didn’t talk much last night.”

  “So you figured today would be a better time for a confrontation?”

  He gazed at her with what she guessed was wonder at the raging lunatic in front of him. If she’d been in her right mind, she might have been surprised, too, at her raw fury. She felt her eyes narrow, her breath go shallow. It didn’t happen often, and when it did, she could usually control it. But this time she couldn’t wrap her arms around it. This was a rage that had been suppressed for years.

  Jimmy leveled a steady gaze at her. Not aggressive, not passive. “What do you want from me, Georgia? If it’s an apology, you got it. But if you’re looking for approval, well . . . I don’t know.”

  “What am I looking for?” She flipped her hair behind her ears. “How about loyalty for starters?”

  “You think I betrayed you?”

  She didn’t, not really. But she wasn’t ready to admit it. She tossed it back to him. “Do you?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “No, Georgia. No cop-suspect interrogation games. We both know how that turns out.” He folded his arms. “Whatever you think, they are your family. You rescued Vanna from certain death. You are helping raise your nephew. They matter. I know that. And so do you.”

  “But not JoBeth.”

  “No. Not your mother.” How could his gaze penetrate her soul like that? He knew her at her ugliest. But he didn’t run away. He could deal with her. Her rage began to dissipate, and she wanted to throw her arms around this man. This strong, complex man, whose love was the most precious gift she’d ever been given.

  “They’re gone, you know,” he said.

  “What do you mean ‘gone’?”

  “They left your place. They rented an apartment in Arlington Heights.”

  “Why there?”

  “Your mother couldn’t afford the North Shore.”

  “Vanna went with her?” She hesitated. “Charlie too?”

  He nodded.

  “Where did she—oh, never mind. I don’t care.”

  But Jimmy knew what she was going to ask. “She says she’s different. She stopped drinking. Got a job. Cleaned up. Put some money away for the day that Vanna called.”

  What about me? She never put away anything for me. “Right,” Georgia snapped. “And you bought that?”

  “Maybe she’s telling the truth. Maybe she wants to make amends. With you and Vanna.”

  “How do you make amends for ignoring one daughter and not the other?”

  “You have to start somewhere.”

  “I don’t. Not my problem.”

  Jimmy didn’t reply.

  “I think I’ll go home tonight,” she said.

  Disappointment flooded his face. “You don’t have to.”

  “I know.” She hoped she sounded conciliatory.

  “If you’re going home because you need to punish yourself . . . by not spending the night with the man you love, who loves you back . . . you might want to reconsider.”

  That was exactly why she was going home. But she’d never admit it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Owen Dougherty snapped the towel that normally hung over his shoulder. “Where you been, Davis? Place hasn’t been the same without you.”

  Mickey’s, a bar and grill in Evanston, was way past its prime but still managed to pack in a crowd. And the owner, Owen, only snapped his towel for special customers.

  Despite her black mood, Georgia grinned. “I can tell.” She glanced at the scarred bar, scuffed booths, and dim lighting. “It’s aged another five years.”

  Owen, a rotund sixtyish man who reminded her of Jackie Gleason, glanced around as if noticing the furnishings for the first time. “Then it’s a good thing no one wants to take it off my hands.”

  Georgia let his little white lie pass. She knew the offers were stacked up sideways. Evanston had been inundated by empty nesters with disposable income who were catered to by high-end establishments and restaurants. It took guts for Owen to hold on to Mickey’s. Then again, the bar was full. Maybe aging boomers needed a shabby Chicago tavern to remind them of their wild and wooly youth. Which would make Owen a marketing genius.

  “Hey,” Georgia said, “aren’t you supposed to be in Arizona, soaking up the sun?”

  “Yeah. But my daughter and her no-good husband went to Cabo, so . . .”

  His son-in-law usually ran the place when Owen was away. “What’s wrong with this picture?” she bantered.

  “Tell me about it,” he grumbled. “So. What’ll it be, gorgeous?”

  She should order a Diet Coke with lemon. She usually did. She asked for a Chardonnay.

  Owen didn’t react. He fished under the counter for a wineglass, set it down, and filled it with wine.

  “Anything to eat?” Which was Owen-speak for “If you’re gonna drink, you better eat.”

  It was way past dinnertime, but Georgia hadn’t eaten. “I’ll have the usual.”

  “Burger, bloody as hell, with fries, crunchy as bones.”
r />   “You got it.”

  He wrote down her order and waddled off to the kitchen. Georgia eyed the wine. Even after all these years, that first sip was pure heaven. She twirled the glass as if looking for the perfect spot on the glass to place her lips, found it, and took a sip. She shut her eyes and felt it slowly slide down her throat. She might even have let out a tiny sigh of bliss.

  But the contentment that came with the wine was short-lived. In lighter moments she called it the other-shoe theory of life. For every brief moment of joy, she would suffer an equally intense amount of misery. She never knew how, when, or why it came, but it always did. She felt destined to slog through life with one foot in the muck.

  Sipping her wine, she wondered whether Jimmy had a point. Could her mother have finally atoned for her shortcomings? Become responsible? Georgia doubted it. JoBeth was incapable of growth. But what if she was sincere? Maybe she wanted to be part of a family again. People did change as they aged.

  Nope. It wasn’t going to happen. Georgia wouldn’t let it. JoBeth would never be part of her life. Not after what she’d done. Georgia downed the rest of her wine and ordered another glass. Despair, her old friend, draped its arm around her shoulders.

  • • •

  She was three bites into her burger when her cell vibrated. Georgia fished it out of her bag. “Davis here.”

  “Georgia, it’s Erica Baldwin.”

  “Hi, Erica. I was going to call you tomorrow and give you an update.”

  “Listen. Something happened this afternoon, and you need to know.”

  “What?”

  “A significant amount of money is missing from the foundation.”

  Georgia slid off her barstool, shrugged into her coat, and went outside where it was quieter. “How much?”

  “About thirty thousand. It doesn’t sound like much, but—”

  “It’s not peanuts. How did you find out?”

  “We’ve got a new accountant, and she told us.”

  “New?”

  “She replaced Iris, our bookkeeper. She left about six months ago.”

  “You’ve been without a bookkeeper all this time?”

  Erica’s voice went small. “Jeffrey didn’t think we needed one.”

  “Oh.” Through the glass door Owen pointed to her plate of burger and fries and gestured for her to come in. Her mouth watered.

  “Who’s been doing the books?”

  “Jeffrey thought he could handle it. Until he turned everything over to the accountant for our quarterlies. That’s when they found the discrepancies.” Erica hesitated. “Georgia, I know we said you’d work a week and then reassess, but would you stick around for a while? I need your help.”

  “You want me to talk to your son.”

  “Yes.” Erica’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I just don’t think I can deal with this, too. Not right now.”

  Erica’s world had collapsed. Her daughter had been murdered, her ex was an adulterer, and now her son might have embezzled her money. Despite her own troubles, Georgia’s heart went out to her. “Of course.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Washington, DC

  Vic opened the side door to the Kalorama house and headed across the pantry. He tried to keep his tread light. He wished he was invisible. Bad news was never easy to deliver to Carl, and this was bad. He was only halfway across the main hall when Carl’s voice boomed.

  “I got your text. What the fuck happened?” He appeared in the doorway to his office in rolled-up shirtsleeves, khaki pants, and a face crimson with rage.

  “I’m not entirely sure, but bottom line, we got screwed.”

  “Who did it?”

  “I don’t know if it was intentional, but we were two votes shy.” Vic slid out of his coat.

  “Did you talk to Frances?” Frances Rosenblatt was chief of staff for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and, until today, their ally, they thought.

  “Not yet. She said she’d call.”

  Carl fumed, cursed, and stomped around the hall. His cell buzzed. He dug it out of his pants pocket. “What the fuck happened?” he snapped.

  A pause. “Yeah, well, what happened to all the campaign dollars we funneled to your guy?” Another pause. “This is bullshit, Frances. You know that. It was supposed to be an end run around sanctions. Everyone on the committee was on the same page. They wanted the deal. So what the fuck happened?”

  A long pause. Frances was clearly trying to explain.

  “The Uyghurs?” Carl said. “Are you shitting me? The Uyghurs aren’t a threat. There are only a couple thousand of them and the Uzbeks are killing them off right and left.” He snorted. “In between persecuting them. What the hell would they do with the weapons anyway? None of them know how to drive a goddamn truck, much less operate a surface-to-air missile. They’d shoot themselves before they’d be dangerous to others.”

  Carl listened to Frances but stared directly at Vic. Vic’s skin prickled with goose bumps. These were the worst moments. When they were skirting the law on behalf of a client. In this case, they’d promised an insurgent guerrilla group in Uzbekistan some armored vehicles, dozens of assault rifles, light machine guns, and a handful of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles. It was wrong, he knew, but it was the way the world worked. Carl had taught him that. “I scratch their back. They scratch ours.”

  But Vic felt a keen sense of betrayal. His own, this time. The fringe group wanted independence and were prepared to die for it. Without weapons they were doomed. The Uzbek government, their well-armed militias stocked with shiny new toys of destruction thanks to Russia, would crush the insurgents faster than ink drying on the bill of lading.

  Carl started to prowl around the hall. “FARA? Of course we did. Everyone has to, since Manafort. It just hasn’t come through yet.” He sucked in a long breath. “This is a farce, Frances. Something else is going on. No. Don’t tell me over the phone. Come over here. We’ll have cocktails in front of the fire.”

  One last pause. “No. I won’t throw you in. See you later.” He went into his office and tossed the cell on his desk. Vic followed. Carl spun around to face Vic. “She’s worthless, you know.”

  “She’s the chairman’s consigliere.”

  “She’s got no balls. If only McCain were still around—I’ll bet they got a warning from the NSC. Or the IC. Someone is playing us,” he muttered. “It’s a NatSec matter . . . how can something fly through the committee three months ago, then suddenly become such a serious matter that they bail on the arms deal?”

  “It’s a different world.” Vic winced as he said it. It was weak.

  But Carl didn’t pick up on it. “I don’t believe it. I think it’s personal. Someone is trying to screw me. The question is who. I wonder if it’s that prick over at—”

  Vic cleared his throat and summoned up whatever courage he could. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something, Carl.”

  Carl squinted. Suspicion filled his face.

  “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this—this anymore.”

  “NatSec? You’ve danced with them before.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  Carl studied his assistant. “A little late to reclaim your soul, don’t you think?”

  Vic shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m thinking I should go back home and practice law.”

  “To that little shithole in South Dakota?”

  “North River is not a shithole. My father has a solid family law practice, and he’s itching to retire.”

  “Why?” Carl canted his head. Then recognition lit his face. “I get it. You want a place to wash your hands and clean up. Park yourself for ten years. Then run for Congress.” He folded his arms and begrudged Vic a weak grin. “Not a bad strategy.”

  Vic shook his head. “That’s not the plan.”

  “Since when? I thought you liked knowing how the sausage gets made. You suddenly develop a case of ulcers?”

  “Maybe.�
� He drew in a breath. “We— You have to face facts, Carl. Someone was—is—squeezing you. They fucking threatened the life of your daughter. And then . . .”

  “I told you never to bring that up.” Carl started to pace. “That had nothing to do with this deal.”

  But Vic wasn’t finished. He wasn’t sure where his nerve was coming from. “But it set a precedent. You couldn’t deliver then—and now look what’s happened.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Carl continued to pace. “The Uzbeks are still in the hopper. It’s gonna go through.”

  “Okay. Sure. If you say so. The thing is, you know how word gets around in this town. People are talking. Your reputation is on the edge.”

  “Christ. You’re supposed to be working for me. Not against me.”

  “I am, Carl. But you’ve got to face facts. You’re down to a Hail Mary with the arms deal. The same thing happened to sanctions relief. People are beginning to realize you’re not invincible. And fracking? Who knows what’s going to go down?”

  Carl’s anger spiked. “What makes you think you’re exempt, buddy boy? If what you’re saying is right, we’ve both got targets on our backs,” he blustered. He opened a cabinet in the kitchen, pulled out a bottle of Bookers. He poured it into a glass—neat—and tossed it back. “There’s something else.”

  Vic squeezed his eyes shut. With Carl, there was always something else.

  “I’ve heard Dena’s case is active again. Some damn PI; a woman in Chicago. You need to keep tabs on her. And report back to me.” He poured more whiskey.

  “I’m already on it.”

  “And you’re still checking the group?”

  “Yup.”

  “You sure?”

  “Carl . . .”

  “Okay, okay. It’s probably just my ex-wife. She clearly didn’t believe the sniper theory.” He gulped down the whiskey. “But you’re right about one thing. Any unnecessary attention is a threat. We need to be prepared.”