‘That’s almost funny,’ Jess said.
‘You should see the kind of women who hang out down there. My people have to go there six, seven times a week.’
‘Just think if she actually knew something,’ Jess said.
Nan walked on the patio bearing a second coffeepot that appeared to be identical to the one on the table.
‘If you’ll excuse me, Jess, Abby and I need to get working on your schedule for the next couple days,’ I said. ‘I’ll call you as soon as we have something ready. And if you don’t like it, obviously we’ll change it.’
‘You really need to leave?’
‘I do. And the chief here will have plenty of questions to keep you busy.’
Then Ted was there. In his mind he was accepting a Daytime Emmy Award for Best Performance before Eight A.M.
Ted went immediately to Jess, kissed her on the cheek and sat down.
‘Dev tells me you did very well with the interview, honey.’
‘You didn’t watch?’
The little boy again: his mom had missed the game where he’d hit his home run.
Showalter said, ‘Well, we’ve got a few more things besides TV to talk about here. I’d like you to stay, Mr Bradshaw. I’ll have several questions for you, too.’
‘Really? Now?’
This actually sounded like the kind of work that just might get in the way of calling a few thousand friends. He’d want to know if they’d seen the interview and, if they had, just how fabulously fabulous they thought he’d done.
‘Well, I need to go and get to work,’ I said.
Showalter did not look amused.
But Detective Foster did. This time her smile made me want to propose living together or maybe even tying the knot. Something was going on here. Despite the superficial flattery of her seeming interest, she struck me as far too intelligent for teases. Those eyes were as shrewd and knowing as they were lovely. She wanted something from me.
I was heading for the door when I heard, from the living room, the music of Katherine’s laughter. After all she survived and all she might still face, her laugh, as melodramatic as this might sound, was an affirmation of life from someone who appreciated it, unlike a lot of us who bitch and kvetch about it with oblivious disdain.
I should have guessed she was with Joel. They sat on the loveseat near the grand piano and, as always, she seemed even more radiant in his presence, a radiance I never saw when she was with her parents. Joel paid attention to her — something I suspected she didn’t get much of from either Jess or Ted. They sat in the shimmering autumn sunlight, and fine figures they were.
‘Both my boyfriends at the same time. Come and sit down with us, Dev.’ Katherine smiled.
Joel had told me that Katherine always developed crushes on the older men who spent time with her.
‘One of us’ll get jealous in a minute,’ I said to her as I sat in an armchair across from them.
‘I wish I had a jealous boyfriend. I was going with this boy from Northwestern before I got sick. He still calls me sometimes but I think it’s out of duty, which makes me feel sorry for him. He’s a good guy. We weren’t ever in love or anything serious. We’d just started dating before I got sick. But he still doesn’t want me to feel deserted or anything.’
As she spoke I shifted my attention from Katherine to Joel. His blue eyes showed pain. She wasn’t trying to be noble, she was just stating facts. She didn’t even sound all that hurt about the guilty boy moving on. But Joel’s gaze reflected the hurt he felt for her. No wonder she liked her Uncle Joel so much.
He changed the subject abruptly. ‘I wish I’d seen you before you started talking to Showalter,’ he said to me.
‘I take it you don’t like him.’
‘Like doesn’t matter. But trust does.’
‘Why don’t you trust him?’
‘He’s hunting buddies with Dorsey. And bowling buddies. And Friday night football buddies. They both were jocks in high school.’
‘None of that sounds good.’
Nobody knew as much bad news as Joel Bradshaw. It wasn’t that he enjoyed it, but he knew he needed to share it because that was the best way to address it.
‘Dorsey’s got this big anti-crime photo op coming up. The usual thing. Candidate in front and a wall of cops behind him.’
‘Standard stuff.’
‘It’s scheduled for next Wednesday. A working day for some of the cops who’ll be standing behind him. There’s a town statute that forbids on-duty policemen to appear in any kind of promotional activity. It also forbids law enforcement officers to make any kind of political endorsements.’
‘Thanks for letting me know. I’ll talk to the mayor about it.’
‘Won’t do any good. Showalter has already convinced the mayor to waive the law in this case.’
‘And the mayor agreed?’
‘The mayor hates my mom, Dev. He’s a good friend of Dorsey’s, too.’
‘Bowling does it every time,’ I said. ‘You get two guys to start bowling together and they’ll be inseparable.’
Katherine’s laugh was my reward.
Joel said, ‘I’m just worried about how Showalter’s going to handle it. He’s really working as an agent for Dorsey. A dangerous one.’ Then, ‘But even he has limits to what he can do, I suppose.’
‘Now you’ve really got me worried. You know the town a lot better than I do. I hope we don’t have to get any kind of injunction for anything he tries because that might put us past the election before we could stop him.’
‘I keep waiting to hear about those two guys who showed up with guns at the debate,’ Katherine said. ‘Aren’t they likely suspects?’
‘I’m assuming that Showalter is checking them out. If they are involved they’re pretty dumb — showing up with guns and then trying to kill Jess a couple of hours later.’
‘They’re not exactly intellectuals, Dev.’
‘I know. But still—’
‘Maybe they left there and poured down some liquor and talked themselves into giving it a try.’
‘That’s possible. But they didn’t really hassle the security people or the police. They got turned away and just got in their car and left.’
Nan strode into the room. ‘Is anybody ready for a snack?’
‘I wish I could, Nan. But I need to get going.’
‘You always need to get going, Dev. One of these times you’ll actually sit down and let me make you a good lunch.’
‘I’ve had several dinners here before.’
‘Catered. For special events I’m just the greeter. A chef comes in. He won’t let me in the kitchen.’
‘He’s really a snob,’ Katherine said. ‘I don’t like him. I don’t even think his name is André Babineaux.’
‘What do you think his name really is?’ I asked as I started to leave.
‘I don’t know about the last name, but his first name is Bubba.’
‘I like that,’ Nan said. ‘Bubba Babineaux.’
Eleven
Abby and I spent five straight hours working on a new schedule for Jess.
She knew all the local people and all the local venues so she’d make suggestions, and if we both agreed she’d place the calls. We wanted sites an assassin couldn’t penetrate, knowing that no such site existed. Just because he’d used a powerful rifle last night didn’t mean that he couldn’t sneak in a handgun today. I called our final choices into Showalter’s office and his administrative assistant said he’d call us back after he’d looked them over.