Elected for Death

by Valerie Wolzien

  The story had struck Susan as being almost innocuous. Embarrassing, but innocuous. Theresa had met Ivan Deakin a few years before, when they served together on a special committee the mayor had set up to study whether an old lumberyard should be allowed to become a small shopping mall. As far as Susan could tell from Theresa’s garbled narration, the woman had become infatuated while reviewing diagrams of traffic patterns and reports on possible increases in tax revenue. Susan found it hard to believe, but she was wise enough to know that sexual attraction was completely illogical—and old enough to be thankful of the fact.

  The committee had been disbanded after presenting its conclusions to the town council. (Which, after voting to allow the shopping mall to be built, received so many petitions from outraged citizens, that it ended up placing a series of restrictions on the mall’s developers that led to a cancellation of the project. Now the old lumberyard was the delight of nocturnal teenagers, keeping the Hancock Police Department busy with calls from neighbors about strange lights from inside the wooden building, and Susan had to go to a neighboring town to buy yarn at a charming shop that had opened in the new mall there.) But according to Theresa, it hadn’t been all that difficult to find excuses to see Ivan Deakin even after the committee broke up.

  The Martels belonged to the local Unitarian church, but Theresa hadn’t been going much until she discovered that Ivan led a discussion group there. She then found that she had a passionate interest in what Susan seemed to remember was something like “Sexual Ethics in Modern Society.” She picked up a sheet of blank paper and made a note. It would be interesting to see if she could find someone else who had attended those discussions, Ivan’s sexual ethics being rather well known by those she had interviewed recently.

  Anyway, by the time that group disbanded, Theresa had gotten Ivan to join her as an adjunct professor at the local community college. Susan didn’t think she had been told what his field of expertise was; Theresa had been more interested in waxing eloquent about his speeches at faculty meetings.

  The puzzling thing, as Susan saw it, was that apparently their relationship hadn’t been sexual. Although, she reminded herself, it was possible that Theresa, embarrassed, had lied and the two of them had been meeting regularly at a sleazy motel in the afternoon for months. (Although not in Hancock. Zoning had taken care of that. Unless people were willing to risk meeting their friends and neighbors in the lobby of the very chic Hancock Inn, they had to go out of town to rent hotel rooms.) But why would a man who was a notorious philanderer pass up Theresa? According to the latter, he had never even made a tiny pass in her direction.

  In fact, she thought the man was a saint. This did not sound like the Ivan Deakin that Susan was coming to know. She turned off Jed’s computer and started upstairs thinking. She would ask Erika about this when they met tomorrow.

  She was exhausted and decided to shower in the morning. Remembering Rosemary Nearing, she put her dirty clothing in the hamper before slipping into a heavy flannel nightgown and climbing into bed. It was cold, and shivering, she snuggled next to her husband.

  He responded by snoring loudly. Lulled by the familiar sound, Susan drifted off to sleep.

  And woke up almost five hours later to one of the strangest sounds she had ever heard. Realizing groggily that she was alone in the dark, she turned on the light next to her bed and, squinting in the sudden brightness, ran out the door. The sound, she realized as she got to the hallway, was coming from the first floor.

  “What’s going on?” Chad appeared in the doorway across the hall, his hair standing on end.

  “I don’t …” Susan began, then became motherly. “Aren’t those the same sweatpants you wear to soccer practice? Shouldn’t you be sleeping in clean clothes?”

  “Mom! What is that noise?”

  “I—”

  “Susan, what did you do to my computer?” Jed appeared at the bottom of the stairway, his face scarlet.

  “I think I lost your speech, Jed. I’m so sorry. It was late and I was tired.”

  “You didn’t just lose the speech. You lost everything. Even the operating systems! I can’t believe it.” He turned and wandered out of sight, probably back to his study.

  “You really did it this time, Mom,” Chad commented. “I have a big day today, so I think I’d better get back to bed. Tell Dad if he divorces you, I’ll understand. I’ll miss your cheese soufflés, but I’ll understand.”

  Susan scowled at the door as it closed behind her son. Then she frowned. She should, she knew, go downstairs and see if she could help her husband out. On the other hand, in the mood he was in, he would probably say things that he would later regret, so it could be argued that she was doing him a favor by returning to bed and hiding under the blankets. She turned and went back into her bedroom. Clue was sprawled across the bed, managing to occupy both sides. It was a sign, Susan decided, and started toward the bathroom.

  No matter what the crisis, the day began with the same routine, and she had showered, gotten dressed, walked the dog (who had decided to get up when she realized Susan was wearing shoes), and was leaning over The New York Times as her coffeemaker began to produce a seductively fragrant brew when there was a knock at the front door. Susan trotted off to answer it, hoping that Jed had called someone who could help him retrieve whatever it was that she had lost in cyberspace.

  But their early-morning caller turned out to be Tom Davidson. Not surprisingly, he began his greeting with an apology. “I’m so sorry to bother you so early, Mrs. Henshaw—”

  “Don’t worry. We’ve been up for quite a while,” Susan said, opening the door wider for him to enter. “I don’t suppose you know anything about computers.”

  “Computer programming was my minor in college,” he answered, apparently unsurprised by the question. “In fact, it was my major until I took my first journalism course in the second semester of my junior year. That’s why I graduated a semester after the rest of my class—I had to get in some extra courses.”

  “My husband is having a terrible problem with his laptop and he has to fix it before he leaves for work,” Susan explained. “He’s in his study.”

  “Lead me to him. I can ask him questions at the same time. What sort of laptop does he have?”

  Susan frowned. She knew that “gray” wasn’t the answer he was looking for, but it was the only one she could come up with. “Why don’t you let him show you and I’ll go get some coffee. Do you take it black?”

  “No, white with lots of sugar,” the healthy young man answered, following her directions to Jed’s study.

  Susan dashed to the kitchen. If Tom could quickly fix the computer, if she managed to get enough caffeine into her husband in the next twenty minutes, and if the Merritt Parkway wasn’t crowded, he might just make it to work on time. She filled two mugs with coffee, put the sugar bowl and a small pitcher of milk on a tray, and ran to the study with it.

  The two men were huddled over the computer, reminding her of doctors examining an ill patient. She put the tray down on a nearby coffee table and fled back to the kitchen. She would have loved to ask if they were making progress; and assuming Chad hadn’t eaten them, there was a box of doughnuts she wanted to offer the men. Susan had an unjustified belief in the benefits of sugar and caffeine when problem solving.

  The doughnuts turned out to be untouched and Susan hurried back to the study with a plateful. She could hear the men talking before she entered the room. Jed was sitting at his desk; Tom was leaning back in a nearby chair. The computer was closed.

  “Everything all right?” she asked with as positive a voice as she could manage this early in the morning.

  “Well, let’s see,” Jed answered slowly, taking a chocolate-covered doughnut off the plate. “My computer is empty. There are no files. No running systems. It’s blank.”

  Susan started to apologize profusely.

  “But that’s okay. The programs can be reinstalled and I can get almost all my files from the machi
ne at work. I’ve lost all the files having to do with the election, but that doesn’t matter now.”

  “Because someone else has those files, too, and you can copy them?” Susan asked, thinking that she was finally catching on.

  “Because I’m going to withdraw from the race,” Jed answered, looking at her with a serious expression on his face.

  “But, Jed …”

  “I have to, Susan. Someone has been looking into our financial records and a serious conflict of interest has been discovered.”

  “I don’t understand!” Susan cried.

  “Then you’ll be able to hear about it all on your local cable channel news tonight. Or maybe your friend Mr. Davidson will share a prebroadcast version of his story with you.” With that, he got up and stalked from the room.

  SEVENTEEN

  “What have you done to my husband?” Susan screeched, slamming her hands on the desk and causing coffee and doughnuts to fly in all directions.

  “Blaming the messenger is a common response. But we don’t make the news, we just report the news,” Tom Davidson reminded her calmly.

  “Don’t give me that shit! My husband is one of the most unselfish people in the world. He got involved in this campaign because he wanted to contribute to Hancock. He had—and has—no intention of benefiting from office—financially or otherwise. He—why are you writing this down?”

  “I thought a personal statement from the wife—”

  Any and all beliefs in a free press vanished from Susan’s mind as she whipped the notebook from his hands, flinging his pen across the room in the process.

  “Hey! That’s a real Mont Blanc! It was a graduation present!” He scrambled over the couch to find his treasure.

  “What is this story about my husband?” she muttered, flipping through the pages.

  “What are you doing? I would go to jail to protect my sources. You’re not supposed to know who I speak with.” He grabbed his notebook out of her hands.

  Susan saw a name she recognized on the page before her. “If you’re depending upon Cassandra Chadwick for the truth, you’re making a huge mistake. The woman is as phony as her face!”

  “Huh?” Tom looked as though he thought she was going mad. “Listen, Mrs. Henshaw, why don’t I get you a copy of the story we’re going to run tonight and—”

  “Where?”

  “What?”

  “Where is that copy?”

  “I have the story in my computer.” He looked at her with horror, possibly thinking about what she had done to Jed’s laptop. “Down at the station. And the only person who knows the password to get in is me.”

  “So let’s go.” Susan headed for the door. “Do you want to drive or shall I? Or maybe I should follow you. I don’t know exactly where the station is.”

  “I’ll drive. But don’t you want to tell your husband where you’re going?”

  “I’ll call him at work when I’ve solved this problem,” she insisted. “Just let me get my purse and my coat.” A few seconds later she was suitably attired and opening the door for the young man. “We’ll go down to the television station, but you can explain more fully to me on the way.”

  “I—”

  “First, I want to know what Cassandra Chadwick has to do with this. Was she your source—is this your car?” she interrupted herself to ask.

  It was still dark, but the bright orange Volkswagen Beetle was illuminated by the Henshaws’ porch lights.

  “Sure is. My parents gave it to me for graduation.”

  “It’s wonderful.” Susan slipped into the passenger’s seat. “You might not believe this, but four friends and I once traveled almost all the way across the country in a car just like this during my last spring break from college.”

  “On your way to Fort Lauderdale, right?”

  “Actually, we were going to a peace rally in Washington D.C.,” Susan said. “There were thousands of these little guys there,” she added, running her hand across the dashboard.

  “Yeah, we saw old network news stories about that in one of my American history classes. Those must have been interesting times to live in.”

  She noticed the strange glance he gave her as he shifted into reverse. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t see you as a longhaired, dope-smoking hippie.… Not that I mean to insult you!” he added quickly, driving up over the edge of the curb on the way to the street.

  “You haven’t,” she said, smiling at his comment. “A lot of very different types of people were against the Vietnam War … and as a matter of fact, I looked very nice in tie-dyed T-shirts and bell-bottoms … and if you say anything at all about me and drugs on the air, I’ll sue the pants off you!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly. “I know things were different back then.”

  “Do me a favor,” Susan requested. “Assume nothing and please don’t keep talking as though I was born sometime in the Dark Ages. I can assure you I’ve never been on speaking terms with a dinosaur.”

  “Fine.”

  “Maybe you could tell me exactly what Jed is being accused of,” Susan suggested now that they were getting along better.

  “Jed—and you, in fact—stand to benefit financially if the Landmark Commission is not given the power that it will receive if Bradley Chadwick is elected.”

  “But our house was built after nineteen—”

  “It has nothing to do with the house you live in,” he interrupted.

  “Then how will we benefit?” Susan was sincerely puzzled.

  “Does the Malloy Fund mean anything to you?”

  She thought for a moment before answering. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “You actually own over nine percent of it. You and your husband, that is. You bought slightly over eight percent, but the dividends are reinvested biannually.”

  “Does this have something to do with that apartment complex over in Westport we invested in years and years ago?” Susan began slowly.

  “Exactly.”

  “So where does this fund come in?”

  “They bought the apartment complex. And then they sold that particular apartment complex and invested in a company that was building some single-family homes in this area. Then—”

  “Could you just tell me exactly what the connection is now—right now?” Susan asked, completely confused.

  “What the whole story comes down to over a dozen years later is that after a lot of buying and selling and a rather unusual trade of property a few months ago, you are one of the owners of a fund that owns property that will someday be an expensive single-family home in a desirable part of town where there are many other expensive single-family homes for sale—if the Landmark Commission has its way. Or, if Tony Martel wins and limits the power of the commission, the property is going to become two duplexes that, considering the shortage of rental property in Hancock, are guaranteed to be moneymakers.”

  “Are you sure that Jed knew about this? I remember we talked about buying into the apartment complex—it was being developed by a neighbor about the time that we were beginning to think about retirement—that’s the reason we chose to reinvest the dividends, I think. And as long as it was paying well, Jed never mentioned it to me. Maybe he didn’t even know.”

  “Maybe he didn’t, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? What matters is that he will benefit financially if Tony Martel wins and will lose financially if Bradley Chadwick does. And the voters deserve to know that. Think of Whitewater. Think of Teapot Dome. Think of—”

  “Wasn’t there a reporter killed during an election someplace out west?” Susan interrupted. “Maybe you should think about that!”

  Tom Davidson smiled knowingly. “But you wouldn’t ever kill me.…”

  “And Jed wouldn’t ever run for office hoping to benefit financially. And you know what I wonder about? I wonder how Cassandra knew about the Malloy Fund, don’t you?”

  “My sources are private. You may have seen Cassandra’s name in my
notebook, but that doesn’t mean that she was a source. She might even own shares in the Malloy Fund herself.”

  “Is she mentioned in the story?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then she’s your source. And I’d sure like to know who told her about it. We’re here, aren’t we?”

  “We are.” The tiny car slipped into the parking spot reserved for the station’s reporter.

  Susan got out and followed the young man into the building. She had once accompanied Chrissy’s fourth-grade class to Rockefeller Center on a tour of NBC. Tom’s entire station would have fit in one of the larger closets at that network’s facilities. There was a small office with three desks and an even smaller studio with two cameras, three chairs, a coffee table, and some equipment Susan couldn’t identify.

  Tom sat down before one of the computers and turned it on. “Why don’t you sit right there,” he suggested, nodding toward another desk. “But don’t touch anything!”

  “I don’t usually mess around with other people’s possessions,” Susan insisted, rather indignantly.

  “I’m sorry,” Tom apologized sincerely, and Susan remembered that he was a nice young man who was just slightly overenthusiastic about his first real job. “Here’s the story. I’ll print it out for you.” He pressed a few keys and a printer at Susan’s elbow started to churn out paper. She grabbed the sheets before they hit the floor and started to read immediately.

  “Why is this only printed on one side of the sheet?”

  “That’s the way we do things in my business,” Tom answered, emphasizing the personal pronouns.

  “Are you going to read this on the air?” Susan asked, realizing that she had never watched the daily news show that the cable company produced.

  “Yes. The news is rescheduled this evening because we’re covering the debate live at eight o’clock tonight. So we’ll go with this an hour earlier at seven. I told your husband that he is welcome to come on the show and respond. But he said he wouldn’t have time between work and the debate.… Say, you could do it for him,” Tom suggested.