“I’ll do that.”
RALPH DAY’S INSURANCE agency was in a strip mall on the outskirts of Hillsboro. Day walked into the waiting room moments after his secretary buzzed him. He was a large, affable man in his early sixties with a little excess weight and a full head of white hair. He wore a charcoal gray suit and a conservative tie and looked the part of a successful insurance salesman. When they were seated in his office, Kate explained Dennis’s involvement in the case. The ex-congressman had no objections to having a reporter sit in on the interview.
“I read about the shooting at the courthouse,” Day said. “Was anyone hurt?”
“We were lucky. The sniper missed with both shots.”
“Thank God for that.” Day paused. He looked pensive. “Can you tell me why Marsh is coming back after all these years?”
“That’s what everyone wants to know,” Kate answered.
“I guess it will come out at the trial. So, what did you want to ask me? I don’t know what help I can be. This all happened so long ago.”
“I guess I should start by asking you about your relationship with Arnold Pope Jr. around the time he was killed.”
“That’s easy enough. I hated Pope’s guts. No, let me amend that. It was his father’s guts I hated. Junior didn’t have any. He was just the old man’s puppet. There were times I actually felt sorry for Junior. He didn’t have a mind or life of his own.”
“Can you explain that?” Kate asked.
“Sure. Arnie Jr. was the political equivalent of one of those prepackaged boy bands the record companies put together. Senior started grooming him to be president from the moment he was born.”
“I’ve been doing a little research and you credited Senior’s money with Junior’s victory in your first contest.”
“No question. I raised a decent amount for my campaign but I couldn’t compete. I couldn’t prove it but I know that Senior violated every campaign financing rule on the books. He funneled money through friends, employees, PACs he created with straw men. Hell, I had some money for TV, but you couldn’t turn on a set without seeing Junior’s smiling face in front of an American flag.”
“Would he have won a second term if he wasn’t murdered?”
“I’m far enough from the race to give you an honest answer. Junior would have kicked my butt. The boy had no substance but that was a hard point to make with an electorate that wasn’t paying much attention to our race. Of course, everyone paid attention when he got killed, and I was able to get a lot of free TV time.”
“You won the seat, so maybe you would have won anyway.”
“No, not a chance. If Junior hadn’t died I would have lost, but Junior’s party had to scramble to find someone to run against me and the best they could come up with was a retired county commissioner that nobody liked much. Senior never forgave me for taking Arnie’s spot in Congress. Next time around, he tried to bury me under his money again. I was better prepared and I won reelection, but it was close and he came at me every two years until he finally got me after my third term.”
“Do you miss being in Congress?” Kate asked sympathetically.
“I did but I’m over it. Life’s been pretty good to me. I dealt with the setback and put it behind me.”
“I understand you were at the Westmont the evening Junior was killed.”
Day nodded.
“What can you remember about the fight and the shooting?”
“Boy, that’s a tough one. It was dark and very chaotic, and I didn’t have a real clear impression of what happened even then.”
“That’s okay. Just give it your best shot.”
“Okay, well, I didn’t go to the club to hear the guru. I wasn’t into all that self-improvement stuff. I came to be seen, part of the politicking. I got to the Westmont just as Marsh’s entourage arrived and I parked in the lot. I was almost at the front entrance when the fight started.”
Day stared into space for a moment, his expression blank. Then he brightened.
“I do remember a big black man fighting with a security guard. People were pushing to get out of the way and I was shoved back from the action. Then I heard a shot. When I turned I saw Junior staggering. I remember Sally running to him, but I didn’t see much of what anyone else was doing, because I was focused on Junior.”
“Can you remember anyone else in the crowd, a witness we can talk to who may have seen something?”
Day’s brow furrowed as he tried to remember the twelve-year-old scene. After a while, he rattled off a few names Kate recognized from the police reports.
“That’s all the people I can recall right now. I’ll think about it some more and if…”
Day paused. “Oh, I’ve got one more. Tony Rose was there.”
“You saw Rose?”
“He was on the edge of the crowd almost in a line from where I was but much closer to the pro shop.”
“Near the spot where you saw the guard and the black man fighting?”
“Right. He may have had a better view of the shooting. You should ask him.”
“I’ll be sure to do that,” Kate said.
“IT LOOKS LIKE the interview was a bust. Day doesn’t know much,” Dennis said.
“Yeah, but we didn’t know that before we talked to him,” Kate answered, concealing from Dennis the conflict between what Tony Rose had told her about his location when Junior was shot and Day’s recollection.
“You know, I feel bad about the way I acted when we were on our way to see Day,” Levy said. “I’d like to make it up to you.”
“Forget about it. I have.”
“No, seriously, how about dinner, tonight? You can pick the restaurant. I’m on an expense account. Make it someplace expensive and romantic.”
Kate turned her head for a second and Levy flashed a wolfish grin. The investigator made a note to ask Amanda for hazardous duty pay.
“Thanks, Dennis, but I’m living with someone.”
“He doesn’t have to know. Tell him it’s a business meeting.”
“Dennis, let me ask you directly. Are you hitting on me?”
Levy’s grin shifted from wolfish to sly. “Maybe.”
“Don’t.”
“By this time next year, I guarantee you I’m going to be famous and rich. You could do a lot worse.”
“Dennis, I’m trying to be nice and I’m trying to be clear. I’m in a serious relationship and it’s not with you. Furthermore, it won’t be, ever. Do you understand what I just said? And while you’re thinking about your answer, remember that I carry a gun and I know how to use it.”
CHAPTER 34
Twelve years ago, Sally Pope had made a vivid impression on the college student who was watching her father try his biggest case from the spectator section of a Washington County courtroom. The media portrayed Sally as a “femme fatale” and she embodied the secret fantasies of every school-girl who stayed on the straight and narrow. Women like Sally populated television soap operas and the romance novels serious young women read when no one was watching. Her looks were breathtaking and her figure was an advertisement for sex; she was mysterious and she may have been a murderess.
Something else had riveted Amanda’s attention on Mrs. Pope. Frank’s daughter could not help noticing the way her father’s eyes strayed to his client and the way Sally Pope’s hands strayed to her father’s forearm when they leaned close to confer. Amanda was living with Frank that summer. After the trial ended, he was conspicuously absent at night, often arriving home in the early hours of the morning.
Amanda had been fiercely protective of her father and not comfortable with the idea that he might be having a serious relationship with anyone. The possibility that the woman he was seeing could have murdered her husband ramped up the dread Amanda felt each time Frank disappeared.
Amanda never knew for certain that her father was romantically involved with Sally Pope and she never got up the nerve to confront him. Amanda almost forgot about Sally when she returned to the rigors of her college studies and the demands of the swim team, and she was very relieved when Sally left for Europe. But Amanda’s old emotions had resurfaced with the resurrection of the charges against Charlie Marsh.