After an hour, Harry asked, “Susan, do you need anything?”
“No,” Susan replied. “It’s wonderful to see this tribute to G-Pop.”
“And G-Mom, too. People love your grandmother.”
“Harry, if only I knew why he went out to the Avenging Angel. It haunts me.”
“Don’t worry about that now.” Harry kissed her friend on the cheek. “We can think about it later. Do you think your mother or G-Mom need anything?”
“No. I thought Pauline’s tribute exactly what G-Pop would have liked, him throwing back the fish because she cried.”
“Yes. Even Eddie behaved,” Harry said.
“More or less. He did promise to carry on G-Pop’s legacy. He could have concentrated on G-Pop and not said a word about his sorry self.”
“Susan, there’s no such thing as a politician who cannot talk about himself. It’s a form of malaria—once bitten, it forever recurs.” She half smiled.
“I used to hate funerals. Now I understand it’s the respectful way to say goodbye.”
Harry agreed.
—
As Harry walked down the hall lined with ancestors she noted a grieving Wendell Holmes at the foot of the governor’s chair.
Walking in, she knelt down to pet the sad dog. “Wendell, you made him happy.”
“He was my poppy,” the springer spaniel moaned.
“You have to take care of Penny.”
“I will,” Wendell promised.
Harry stood up. The door connecting into Mignon’s tidy workspace was open. She heard rummaging. Going over and looking in, she saw a focused Mignon opening the long desk drawer, shifting papers inside.
“Mignon.”
The young woman, without looking up, said, “I’m remembering things. Ha! Got it.”
Mignon held up a thumb drive as Harry came over to her. “I put everything on this, including sensitive information which I didn’t put on the page. I wanted to talk it over with the governor.”
“Let’s get this to Cooper right away without calling attention to ourselves if we can.” The two women moved through the crowded rooms surreptitiously, until finally locating Cooper.
Mignon took the deputy’s hand, placing the thumb drive in it. “Found it. I remember I made it.”
Expression unchanged, Cooper slid her hand into her pocket. “Thanks. I hope this tells us what we need to know.”
—
Later that night, sitting on the sofa, cats around her, Tucker at her feet, Fair sitting across from her in the deep club chair, Harry said, “It was a good sendoff, wasn’t it?”
“Was. I expected more raking his political career over the coals in the media. I’m glad they didn’t. Nothing to be done about it now. It’s not like he was Governor George Wallace.”
“Governors have to deal with Washington’s messes, don’t they? I mean, if there are budget restraints, the federal tap is turned off, the states can’t print more money. The federal government can print whatever they want. Any Supreme Court decision, the states get it in the neck. No matter what that decision is, there are those for it and those against. To me the biggest difference between the president and a governor is the governor actually has to solve problems, has to look his constituents in the face. Presidents can add another layer of Secret Service people, plus the usual phalanx of flunkies.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way, but you’re not far off, I guess. But the president deals with foreign policy. If there’s a wing nut anywhere in the world, he or she deals with it. Well, some don’t, but then the next guy is stuck with an even bigger mess.”
“Maybe they’re all cowards. At least Governor Sam wasn’t a coward.”
“Honey, I know equine health. Politics, I don’t know anything anymore. It all seems crazy to me.”
“Crazy, I think that’s why I can’t settle myself. That man crawled out to the Avenging Angel, the last yards he crawled so he could sprawl over those two tombs. I think he was trying to tell us something.”
Fair wrinkled his brow. “I can’t imagine what.”
“There’s something in that cemetery. Why was his nurse Barbara killed? And Mignon hit over the head and her computer stolen? You know, well, you didn’t know, that Susan’s mother was taking the computer home at night. And why was Crozet Media broken into? Whatever it was, the governor figured it out.”
“Then why didn’t he just come out with it?”
“Maybe he didn’t know until it was too late. Whatever it was, someone else knew. Had to.”
“Never thought of that. What could be so dangerous? Fraud? Robbing state funds? Misconduct while in office, bribes, that sort of thing?”
“He may have been wrongheaded, but he wasn’t a crook. Samuel Holloway was an old-time politician, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, but he wasn’t a crook.”
Fair thought about that, then replied, “It is hard to imagine him stooping that low.”
“Could he be protecting someone else?”
Fair put down his book. “If he would protect anyone, it would be Penny. Even if he caught Eddie with his hand in the till, he’d turn him in.”
“Exactly. Eddie has the most to lose. I know Eddie is behind this somehow. If he’s been on the take, he’s darn good at hiding it. Of course, he could have an offshore bank account.”
“That would come out sooner or later. Look at how our government browbeat the Swiss bankers.” Fair thought allowing some crime is better than criminalizing many activities.
“Putting money in offshore accounts does not necessarily signal a criminal,” Harry replied.
“Honey, are you thinking that the governor did not die a natural death?”
Stroking Mrs. Murphy’s cheek, Harry thought for a moment. “Why take the risk? He was close to death and his decline has been sadly apparent. Maybe he was pushed along but not actually killed? The only reason to kill him would be if he were planning to spill the beans before he died, make a clean slate of it. If our killer knew the governor’s condition, maybe he provoked his death with overexertion, something like that. He goaded the governor, who would die without a mark on him other than his needle marks from all the shots. It could happen. What I really think is that whatever it was he knew or wanted us to know, maybe he wanted it to come out after he died. Maybe to spare Penny. Fair, something’s just beyond reach.”
“If it is as you might think, then who is in danger now?”
“No one, I would think, unless someone else knows or has an idea. The computer is gone. Whatever was at Crozet Media might be gone. Barbara Leader is gone.”
She thought for a moment. “But Mignon found her thumb drive. She could be in danger, but only Cooper and I know.”
“Then it’s medical. If that’s your list.”
“Huh?”
“The one person killed is the one person with medical knowledge.”
“The man was dying of leukemia. How could that affect anyone else?”
“Maybe it was more. Who knows? Maybe he had AIDS. Something like that could be a bombshell. And you know, more and more older people are contracting HIV.”
“Now I’m more confused than ever.”
“Maybe that’s for the best, honey.”
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
“I can’t ask her that.” Susan shook her head. “I know she won’t do it.”
Harry walked over to Susan’s bay window as they retreated inside due to the heat. “It would be terribly upsetting to exhume the governor, but what if he was killed?”
“Given his tenuous hold on life, whoever did it would be stupid,” Susan countered. “Again, given his deterioration, why kill him?”
“If I knew that, I’d have this figured out. Okay, what if he wasn’t directly murdered? But whoever was in the house, whoever knocked Mignon over the head, knew that violent exercise or even a brisk walk, given his state, would hasten his death. I talked about that to Fair, and the more I think about it, the more I think I’m on the right path.”