Not panic, not hysteria. But stunned disbelief.
‘Who’s gone?’
‘Ruskin and Sarah,’ Jane said. ‘They drugged Guild’s coffee with something so he’d pass out and then they picked up all their things and ran out. Guild just called me now when he woke up. I want to get him to the ER to make sure he’s all right since we don’t know what they put in him.’
‘Does he remember what time it was when he passed out?’
‘The last thing he remembers it was an hour and ten minutes ago.’
‘What was going on then?’
‘He said that everything had gone fine until this Michael Hawkins showed up and started asking Ruskin some questions. Guild said that Hawkins asked him to leave so that he could interview Ruskin and Sarah but that he didn’t want to leave until he’d talked to you. He finally agreed to wait in the hall for twenty minutes.’
‘And then what?’
‘Hawkins came out exactly twenty minutes later and thanked him, and then rolled his eyes and made a joke about Ruskin and Sarah. Something about how he hoped his own kids never turned out like them. Then he apologized for leaning on Guild in the first place. The trouble came when he went back inside.’
Robert and Ben walked quickly toward me. Seeing me on my cell phone, Ben shot his right sleeve and pointed to his watch. He then stepped past me and opened the door and the two of them went through it. I followed them, still on the phone.
Jane continued her story. ‘When he got inside he needed to visit the bathroom. When he came out he said Ruskin and Sarah had a cup of coffee ready for him. He thanked them. As he drank it he started noticing how agitated both of them looked. He said Ruskin was up and wearing shoes. His Glock was jammed down the front of his pants. He asked them if something was wrong. Sarah blurted out that they didn’t want to talk to any federal agent you hadn’t approved of in advance. They didn’t trust anybody.’
By now we were outside. Robert was getting into Ben’s bronze rental Buick. Ben shouted to me, ‘See you at Channel Four!’
I waved back.
‘Guild said he tried to calm them down but that they acted “crazy.” His word. He said whatever they’d put in his coffee hit him around this time. He was kind of woozy for a few minutes and then he passed out entirely. That was when they escaped. He’s really embarrassed, Dev. He plans to apologize as soon as he sees you. He says he should’ve been suspicious when she had a cup of coffee ready to hand him right away since he sensed that they were acting strange. He couldn’t see why they were so agitated when it had been clear that Hawkins had just been interviewing them the way any kind of government investigator would have. He said their paranoia should have alerted him.’
‘Tell him he doesn’t have anything to apologize for. We’re dealing with two very unstable people here. Now I need to find them all over again before they do something really stupid. The idea of Ruskin toting that Glock around bothers me more than anything.’
‘Isn’t his arm broken? How could he shoot?’
‘Unfortunately his “shooting arm,” as he calls it, is fine. But right now I need to go. Robert’s going to make a statement on TV.’
‘I’ll be watching. Be sure to call me when you get a chance.’
‘I will. It helps me just to hear your voice.’
‘You say the nicest things.’
‘Come to think of it, I do, don’t I?’
Twenty-One
Channel 4 was housed in a refurbished two-story red brick building on the edge of a recently built collection of business buildings. I knew they were recent because they all had the same awkward science fiction look architects seem to prefer these days. A lot of glass and a lot of metal creating sharp edges and a zoo-like peek into the daily lives of their bustling workers. Now in an early dusk of mauve and salmon, in the stingy light of a half-moon, with the lower floors splashed with the headlights of cars rushing to get out of the parking lot and back to places where the overlords couldn’t get to them — not yet, anyway — the sense of frantic escape was unmistakable. Who could blame them?
As we approached the station, I could see a group of maybe thirty reporters and camera people packed in front of the Channel 4 doors. Ben’s arm shot out from the driver’s side of the Buick. He waved me on. We’d keep going right past them. I assumed — and was proven correct — that we’d go around the block and try the back door.
When we reached the rear lot a half-dozen reporters and four camera people bolted toward our cars. I needed to do what I could to make it safe for Robert and Ben.
I whipped my car into a spot on the back edge of the small lot and then waited for them to lurch toward me.
‘The senator is on his way into the station to make a statement. Right now that’s all I’m at liberty to say.’
Only two pairs of them tore after Robert and Ben. The rest of them stayed with me.
‘Is he going to resign?’
‘Is he going to admit that he killed her?’
‘Is he going to resign?’
‘Is he going to admit he killed her?’
The shouted mantra kept going as I rushed to the door. The otherwise dark lot was now being attacked by the alien eyes of the cameras and the unsettling bellers in the relative quiet. I guess they had to get something on tape so my retreating back was as good as anything. I could write the copy for Empire News: ‘Senator Logan’s political consultant refused to talk to the press but instead raced to the door, giving the impression — the same impression the senator has been giving since Tracy Cabot’s murder was first announced — that he’s hiding something.’
A man inside the building had been watching for me and opened the door so I could run inside with the pack of reporters only a few feet behind me. Safely inside, I would have turned and given them the finger except, as you might expect, I was far too mature to do something that juvenile. And I didn’t want to give the supermarket tabloids a juicy side story. ‘Killer Senator’s Consultant Flips Off Hard-Working Reporters Convincing Some That Murdering Senator May Have More Victims Buried Elsewhere! Aliens Involved?’
The man said, ‘You ever get sick of them?’
‘Never. They’re like family to me.’
He was slow to realize that I was joking but when he got it a grin broke his moon face in half. ‘If they’re anything like the ones here they’re pretty hard to take. But you didn’t hear me say that, of course.’ He was probably in his fifties, gone to flesh and weary humor. He wore one of those fish pins marking him as a born-again Christian. Despite that he seemed likable. ‘C’mon. I’ll take you to the senator.’
The makeup room was larger than I expected. There were three small tables with mirrors and bottles of makeup. The room was pungent with the sharp scent of hairspray. A fortyish woman so thin and gaunt I wondered if she’d been sick was daubing Robert up then standing back to appraise her work. Ben had fitted himself into a far corner and was talking low into his cell phone.
‘Are they putting your golden words on the Teleprompter?’ Robert said.
‘Yes, they are. I just hope there’s time for your country-western song, too,’ I said.
The makeup lady’s head swung around to me. ‘He’s going to sing?’
‘Don’t pay any attention to him,’ Robert said. ‘He thinks he’ll keep my spirits up by making these stupid jokes.’
She touched a bony hand to her chest. The fragility of the motion and the hand made me feel sorry for her. But the smile was full on and she looked appreciative that I’d made her happy. ‘Gosh, I was thinking how important this is for you, Senator. I voted for you, by the way, and I don’t believe any of this stuff. But when he said you were going to sing—’ She laughed. To me, she said, ‘I have an older brother like you. I was supposed to be the smart one but he’d tell me these stories and I’d always believe them. It was just the way he told them. Real low-key, the way you did.’ She shook her head then picked up a long black comb from the table and went to work on Robert’s hair. In the round mirror encircled in small light bulbs he’d begun to look TV ready.