I have to say that the press received all this respectfully. Yes, they gave her a respectful three or four seconds between the time she finished reading her statement and the time they started trying to rip apart what she said. They wanted to study the entrails for portents. But from the smiles Ben and Kristin were directing my way, I knew Susan had done very, very well.
Came the questions, came the answers: No, there was no point in naming the father. No, Bobby had not decided if he’d be staying in Aldyne. Yes, the friends of hers who mattered were happy for her. No, she didn’t think this revelation would hurt her, and if it did she felt she had done the right thing, anyway — she was proud to acknowledge her son, she wasn’t trying to hide it. No, there was no reason for Bobby to be interviewed right now — maybe later — but for now they were just getting to know each other. No, she didn’t want to say anything more about Bobby at this time; if he wanted to come forward and talk to them, that would be his decision, not theirs. No, as she thought she’d made clear, she hadn’t changed her mind on pro-choice — the decision she’d made twenty years ago was a personal one, not meant to make any kind of political statement.
All this took forty-three minutes. I kept shooting my cuff to keep track of the time. According to my watch, we had two minutes to go. That was the time we’d given the press. It was like sitting on a two-point lead in a basketball game. We needed to rush to the clock before any reporter lobbed a hand grenade.
Said hand grenade exploded with one minute to go. A pert young woman with horn-rimmed glasses and a stylish brunette bob had come in about ten minutes ago. I didn’t know who she was or what station she was with. All I knew was that she had a camerawoman with her and that she was skillful at angling her way through the clutch of reporters. She hadn’t asked a question until now, so Susan said, “Yes, Donna.”
I had no idea who Donna was, but I was about to find out.
“The police are looking for a young man named Bobby Flaherty. They believe he has information about the murder of a man named Craig Donovan. Congresswoman Cooper, is Bobby Flaherty the son you’ve been talking about?”
This would be one for Donna’s reel. TV reporters keep a tape of their best moments. They like to show a mix of the sentimental (kitten stories) and the bombastic (standing in front of a crooked businessman’s door and demanding that he come out and answer some questions). This was a big moment for Donna’s reel.
Susan’s eyes went wide and wild — panic. She bumped into the podium. Ben started to lunge forward, then pulled himself back. He had to leave her alone. If he rescued her in some way, he’d only make things worse.
The expected rumble worked through the crowd. Donna’s competitors would be pissed that she’d gotten the story before they did. A few of them were on their cells, calling their newsrooms for updates on the murder.
Susan took a deep breath, picked up her water glass, took a prim sip, set the glass down again, and said, “Yes, Bobby Flaherty is my son. I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to, Donna. But I hope you and the others here will forgive me for leaving now. As Bobby’s mother, I want to find out what’s going on.”
“Is there any possibility that he might be involved in this murder?” another reporter yelled.
Susan’s gaze was hard now. “No chance whatsoever.” And then she was turning away from the podium and they were shouting questions at her retreating form.
A handful of reporters tried to follow her back to the staff office, but Ben and Kristin and I moved fast enough to form a line that blocked them.
“Fun’s over,” Ben said. His voice was thin, as if he had trouble speaking.
Kristin glanced at me, shook her head. A camera caught her troubled expression and immortalized it. A telling image on the six o’clock news — Congresswoman Cooper staffer shocked at the breaking news about Bobby Flaherty.
“C’mon now,” Ben said to the remaining reporters. We started herding them over to the door.
“You’re Dev Conrad, right?”
“Yep.”
The man asking the question aimed his microphone at me. “Did you get any warning about this?”
“We’ll be issuing a statement very soon.”
“Maybe the congresswoman doesn’t know as much about her son as she thinks.”
“We’ll be issuing a statement very soon.”
“Any chance she might withdraw?”
“Any chance I could get you to leave?”
“You getting tough?”
“No. You asked me a question. Then I asked you one.”
“So you won’t say anything on the record.”
But we were at the door now. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go have a very strong cup of coffee. I wish we had enough to go around, but I guess we’re all out.” Behind me I heard Ben laugh.
The reporter and his microphone finally left.
The volunteers had collected in a far corner. They resembled the stunned people you see immediately after tornados, intense distress that as yet they couldn’t put into words. Hopes and dreams were collapsing, and they knew they were helpless to do anything about it.
Ben and I went back to the staff office. Kristin was alone there. She sat at her desk punching numbers into the phone with violent authority.
Ben and I listened.
Kristin spoke into the receiver: “Nick Rainey, please. This is Kristin Daly. Thank you.” She cupped the phone and said to me: “The news director at Channel 4. He has a son-in-law who’s a detective. His daughter is a big supporter of Susan’s.” Then: “Hi, Nick. I don’t have to tell you why I’m calling. We just heard. I wondered if you could give me some background. All we got is that the police are looking for Bobby Flaherty to question him.”
He spoke for a couple of minutes. All we heard was Kristin saying, “Yes” and “I see” and “Oh.” Finally she said, “Thanks, Nick. I really appreciate this.”
She turned her chair to face us. “Seems this Craig Donovan was sleeping with this local woman. She found him dead in his room. He’d been shot twice. The police think he was killed sometime last night.”
“What the hell is going on?” Ben said. “This is crazy.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “Just stay focused on the money. Monica and Donovan were partners in blackmailing Susan. Wyatt delivers the money to Monica. Donovan wants it all for himself. He kills Monica.”
“Then who killed Donovan?”
“Somebody who knew about the money and figured out that Donovan must have it. This person waits until Donovan is alone and then goes in, kills him, and takes the money.”
“A quarter of a million dollars,” Kristin said.
“Tax-free,” Ben said.
“The stranglehold.”
“What stranglehold, Dev?”
“Natalie’s money. That’s why Wyatt and Manning, and even Susan to a degree, stay with her. They need her money. And she extracts her fee by humiliating and degrading them. But this time it was Donovan who had Natalie in the stranglehold. This time she got to know what it feels like.”
“Don’t try and make me feel sorry for Natalie,” Kristin said. “I don’t have that much empathy in me.”
“I want to talk to Donovan’s girlfriend,” I said as I walked over and took my coat from the coat tree. “I’ll stay in touch, but I probably won’t be back for a while.”
“I’ll get a statement ready, and I’ll read it to you over the phone for your changes.”
“Thanks, Ben.”
“I’m still thinking about Natalie being at somebody else’s mercy. I’m a terrible person, I know, Dev. But I enjoy imagining how miserable she must be.”