An Eye for Murder (16 page)

The beard twisted around. “Hi. I’m Stephen Lamont. I’m with the
Trib
.”

I guessed I was supposed to be impressed. We shook hands. “You’re the one who’s covering Marian.”

“And you’re the one who did the piece on Chicago neighborhoods.” He looked me up and down. “Now you’re doing a campaign video?”

I stiffened, resenting the implication behind the word now.

As if I’d sunk to the level of a seedy huckster. “A Macababy’s gotta do what a Macababy’s gotta do.” I shrugged. It was the signature statement from one of the kids’ shows Rachel watched. Mac laughed. Lamont frowned; he obviously didn’t have kids.

He spread his hands. “Sorry.”

Sure you are. “So what can I do for you?”

“I was hoping you and I might be able to collaborate.”

“On what?”

“My series. I’m covering Marian’s campaign for the
Trib
. This could be an interesting sidebar.”

My brow wrinkled. “The video?”

“It’s a powerful tool. Part of the marketing arsenal. I’d like to explore how it’s conceived. What your expectations are. You know.” He grinned. “It could be a winner.”

I emptied my tray in the trash bin. I wasn’t anxious for any publicity. I didn’t want the world to know I was working for a political candidate. And I resented journalists who felt entitled to insinuate themselves into the inner workings of people’s lives just because they were the Fourth Estate. “You must be hard up if you think a campaign video is gonna make a good sidebar.”

Lamont aimed a finger at me. “Bingo. There’s slim pickin’s out here.”

“How come?”

“The lady’s gonna win by a landslide. Everybody loves her. There’s no contest. And we still have four months to go.”

He didn’t seem like the type to let a dull assignment stand in his way. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

“Hey. I’m scratching the bottom of the barrel,” he said. “Not your video, of course.” His ears turned scarlet.

“No, of course not.”

“Well, think about it.” He fished out some keys from a shirt pocket. “Are you gonna do the fly-around with her over the Fourth?”

I nodded.

“Me too.” He looked up and down again as he pushed through the door. “We’ll talk then. Ciao.”

I wiggled my fingers at him. He waved his keys. I turned around. Mac was smirking. “What?”

“Getting pretty fine and fancy aren’t we? With reporters covering you and all? You’ll be setting up your own digs in

River North soon.”

I shot him a look.

He shrugged. “Just kidding.”

“We’re doing a piece of fluff. Now he wants to do a piece of fluff on our piece of fluff.” I shoved my hands in my pockets.

Mac laughed. “He’s gotta eat, too.”

“Eat—or cannibalize?”

He pointed a finger at me. “Bingo.”

Chapter Twenty-three

“Your father was very progressive,” I said to Marian at the Clocktower Hotel in Rockford. “For a businessman of his time.” Marian was ensconced in one of the hotel’s suites so she could repeat her Milk Days performance the next day. The sitting room included a pea green sofa bed in a nubby worsted, two chairs in a flowery fabric, and chartreuse wall-to-wall carpeting. A bowl of fruit rested on the coffee table. Luxury by Rockford standards. Roger drifted in and out, Palm Pilot in hand, cell phone pressed to his ear. How B-ship.

“We try to keep that a secret.” She laughed. “It’s not very Republican.” She slipped off her shoes and leaned back on the couch. “God. That feels good.” She rolled her ankles. “Talk about instruments of torture.”

As she stretched her feet, I studied her. She had to be well in her sixties, but she cut a slender figure, with well-curved legs and ankles. Her honey blond hair was carefully streaked, and her patrician nose reminded me of the photos I’d seen of her father. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, but she’d capitalized on her best features and was the type I’d call handsome. Her eyes were her most interesting feature: clear, dead-on pools of gray that flashed warm or cool at whim.

She looked at me now with a pleasant, slightly anxious expression. “It went well today, don’t you think?”

“They ate you up,” Roger called from the doorway.

She smiled. “But how many of them can we count on in

November? Farmers are so ornery.”

“Not to worry. This is Iverson country, ma’am,” Roger deadpanned.

“Compared to what?”

“The inner city, for one.”

“I thought we were making progress there.”

“We are.” Roger angled his head toward me. “We’re riding the contract issue hard.”

“The contract issue?” I asked.

“Over two billion in city bond issues and contracts were let out to minority businesses,” he said. “But there were a few…snags…with the concept. You remember when that city contract was awarded to a female-owned firm, and it turned out to be a front for white men?”

I nodded. “The mayor was pretty embarrassed.”

“Well, we want to make sure no one forgets.”

“But that was city business, not state,” I said.

“That’s the beauty of it,” Roger smiled. “It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t on our watch. They’re Democrats.”

“I thought the mayor was a friend.”

“It’s an election,” he said cheerfully.

Marian lifted her shoulders in an apologetic shrug.

I looked at my notes. “I have a question.”

“By all means.”

“Okay.” I leaned forward. “You came out pro-choice.

You’re attacking the mayor for not following through on minority contracts. And I understand you’re going to appear at a Labor Day rally in the fall. None of that sounds very… very Republican. I’m confused.”

Marian helped herself to a cluster of grapes, then tipped the bowl in my direction. I bit into a peach. “You’re clearly a bright woman, Ellie.” She settled back in her chair. “But you don’t follow politics, do you?”

I shook my head.

She smiled. “That’s one of the reasons I hired you. I didn’t want someone too close to the process, either.” I was impressed she remembered.

“The political situation in this country today is far more complex than labels suggest. Constituencies we used to count on don’t support us anymore. Others, whom we have traditionally neglected, do.” She plucked a grape off its stem.

“Take labor, for example. There are many socially conservative blue-collar workers today. Men and women who want to protect their future by cutting down on imports and immigrants. They hate the Democrats for supporting free trade with China. They’d vote for Pat Buchanan in a heartbeat if they could. We want them under our tent.”

I thought about it. “I can understand that. But what about coming out pro-choice? Don’t you risk alienating a significant wing of your own party?”

Roger broke in. “Women go to the polls in higher numbers than men. They’re a critical swing vote.”

“Roger and I disagree about the women issue,” she said, cutting him off. “Don’t get me wrong. I do feel women should have control over their own bodies. But I don’t expect them to vote for me just because we share the same plumbing. I want women to vote for me because they share my vision.”

“Your vision?”

“How we’re going to solve the problems they care about. Schools. Social security. Health insurance.”

“You sound like a Democrat.”

She set the grapes down on a napkin and folded her hands in her lap. “I strongly disagree, my dear. We may discuss the same issues, but our solutions are quite different.”

Roger pounced. “Ellie, that’s enough. Marian needs to rest.” She waved him off. Roger’s cell phone chirped. He went out to the hall to answer it.

“So what is your vision?” I dug out a notebook from my bag. She was silent a moment, her eyes clouding in concentration.

“I believe that the real problem in our society is the loss of boundaries,” she said slowly. “People don’t know what to think, what to do, what to expect. Life has become too frightening, too complicated, too conflicted. Opportunities that used to be there are gone. Terrorists destroy our landmarks. Interest groups compete with each other—on a truly global basis now. Politics, in its own way, is reflecting this breakdown. That’s why one sees such confusion over labels.”

I scribbled furiously. “What’s your solution?”

“I don’t have all the answers. But I do believe people need strong leadership. Someone to help them find answers. Provide clear direction. I don’t give a damn what color, gender, or nationality they are; everyone needs guidance. The most successful civilizations, the Greeks, the Romans, even the Jews, are ones whose leaders had the courage and authority to lift their people out of chaos, to steer them to a higher order. I’d like the chance to provide that leadership. If not me, then someone else. But it must be done. Civilization is dangling on the precipice.”

I stopped writing. Her back was straight, and her eyes, now sharp and clear, were glued to mine. I saw ambition and determination in them. But there was something else in them, too, though it took me a moment to figure it out. It was conviction. And it was absolute. Marian Iverson couldn’t possibly be wrong.

Her face softened, and the spell broke. She leaned back. I closed my notebook. Roger came back in the room, his cell plugged into his ear.

“Can we talk about the video for a minute?” I asked. “Please.”

“I’d like to mention your father at the beginning of your bio sequence. To set the stage. In his own way, he was a pioneer, ahead of his time. Not unlike you.”

Marian twisted. “What do you think, Roger?”

Roger removed the phone from his ear. “About what?”

“I may have a lead on some stock footage of Iverson’s. A riveter during the war. I’d like to use it in the video, if it turns out to be decent.”

Roger frowned. “The video is supposed to be about Marian, not her father.”

“I understand. But his experiences reflect the influence and traditions she grew up with.” I shifted toward Marian. “And the fact that he allowed the union to organize, which of course we’ll mention, couldn’t hurt.”

“That might be desirable,” Roger admitted, as if concepts could be bought and displayed like furniture.

Marian broke in. “There’s actually film of my father?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s possible.” I explained how I’d called
Movietone News
. “They claimed to have footage of Rosie the Riveter, shot in Chicago in the early Forties, so I ordered it.”

“How fascinating,” she said. “I’d love to see it.”

“I’ll let you know when it comes in,” I said. “Your father passed away at the end of the war, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” She rose and moved to a sliding door that opened onto a tiny balcony. A pigeon strutted across the railing. “A heart attack.”

“A heart attack?” Linda Jorgenson said Paul Iverson committed suicide. Marian opened the door and stepped onto the balcony. I followed her out. Was it possible she didn’t know? Maybe her mother had shielded her from the truth. She would have been quite young at the time, perhaps too young to understand. Or maybe Linda Jorgenson got it wrong.

A loud voice came from the hall. It sounded like Roger. Marian didn’t seem to notice.

“Marian, one of the articles I read mentioned two Iverson children. Do you have a sibling?”

She gazed over the railing at the parking lot below, so still I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. The pigeon flapped its wings and lifted off. I was about to repeat the question when she spoke in a low voice. “I had a brother.” She turned around. “Gordon. He died at a young age. Before I went into the mill. I was living in New York.” The lines on her face deepened, and for the first time since I’d met her, she looked old.

“You lived in New York?”

“For a while during the Fifties.”

“I see. So there were just the two of you?” She nodded. She’d known a lot of pain, I realized, first losing her father, then her brother. All the men in her life. “Is that why you never married?”

The door to the suite opened, and Roger stomped in. Behind him in the hall, Dory Sanchez stood, her eyes swimming with anger. Roger slammed the door in her face.

Marian’s eyebrows shot up, as if she was waiting for an explanation.

Roger slumped on the couch, his face a mask of studied indifference. His knee jerked up and down.

Marian turned back to me. “After Gordon died, I went to work for the mill. Then, after we sold it, I traveled. I suppose…I suppose I just never got around to marriage.” Her eyes flicked to Roger. “Judging from the problems one sees in relationships these days, perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing.” The hint of a smile played on her lips.

I met her smile with my own. “One other thing. We’re going to need pictures of you as a young girl. Where I can find some?”

Her smile faded, and her mouth tightened. She stepped back in the hotel room. “Mother probably has some.”

“May I call her for them?” I followed her back in. She shrugged.

“I’d like to interview her for the video, anyway.”

A harsh sound came out of her throat. “Good luck. Mother hates publicity.”

“Maybe you can convince her.”

“Mother? I can’t convince her of anything. I don’t mean to sound cruel,” she added hastily. “My parents were—are wonderful people. But they grew up in different times. Their values were tempered by depression and war. We need new approaches today. We don’t always see eye to eye.”

I could relate to that. I nodded.

“Yes.” The sparkle came back into her eyes. “I knew you’d understand. But perhaps we should ask Roger.” She looked over. “What do you think? Should we interview mother for the video?”

“Actually, I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “It helps build continuity. Between the past and the present. Couldn’t hurt the senior vote, either.”

“Really.” She fingered the necklace at her throat, a thick gold chain. “Well, if you both agree, I suppose I’ll have to persuade mother.”

I looked at Roger and mouthed the word
Thanks
.

Marian caught the interaction between us. “I am glad you’re working with us, Ellie.”

I felt a flush creep up my neck. “I’d like to tape your interview next week. At the studio so we have maximum control over the location.”