Power Play (21 page)

*   *   *

The phone woke him up. Groggily, Jake reached for it while squinting at his digital alarm clock: 7:32
A.M.

“Jake?” Amy’s voice.

He snapped awake. “Amy! Where are you?”

“At home. We got back last night.”

“Through the blizzard?”

“It wasn’t that bad. We had a state highway patrol escort. The roads were plowed pretty well.”

“That’s good.” He slowly pulled himself up to a sitting position. “I was worried about you.”

“Franklin wants to talk to you. How soon can you get over to his house?”

Jake thought swiftly. “I’ve got a class at ten. Don’t know how many will show up for it, though.”

“Come over for lunch, then.”

“Okay. I’ll be there between twelve and twelve thirty.”

“Good.”

*   *   *

The snowfall was much less than Jake had expected. Listening to the radio as he shaved and brushed his teeth, Jake heard that the dire warnings of the night before had been replaced by more sober forecasts: The storm had blown through quickly, now it was clear, with high temperatures in the teens, overnight low near zero. No announcements of school closings. The kids are disappointed this morning, Jake thought.

Both before and after the weather report the station played advertisements for Harmon Dant. “A vote for Dant is a vote for our traditional values. A vote for Dant is a vote for
your
own way of life.”

Jake shook his head and wondered why there weren’t any ads for Tomlinson.

Snow had crusted into ice on his Mustang; it took nearly half an hour before Jake had cleared the windows enough to drive to campus. His ten
A.M.
class was filled: an even dozen students exchanging ideas about the extent of the frozen underground seas of permafrost beneath the iron-red deserts of Mars.

Jake had been to Tomlinson’s mansion often enough to park on the driveway, within a few yards of the front door. The butler knew him by sight and, after a whispered “Good afternoon, Dr. Ross,” ushered him into the family dining room.

Compared to the grandeur of the formal dining room, this chamber was smallish, almost intimate. The table could seat only eight—ten, Jake thought, if they wanted to squeeze a couple more in. A big window at one end of the room let in bright sunlight. On the opposite wall stood a portrait almost as big as the window: some elderly Tomlinson of yore, frowning petulantly down at his descendents.

Tomlinson was already at the table, in his shirtsleeves and tie-less. Amy sat beside him, wearing a pale yellow double sweater set and big gold hoop earrings.

Alexander Tomlinson sat at the head of the table, the expression on his face remarkably like the grouch in the painting. The butler showed Jake to the chair at the elder Tomlinson’s left.

“All right,” Tomlinson Senior said, in a loud, commanding voice. “Now that we’re all here you can start serving.”

A door to his right swung open and two uniformed servants carried out trays of food and a decanter of white wine.

The elder Tomlinson sampled the wine, nodded to the servant, then turned to his son.

“This man Dant is making a nuisance of himself,” he grumbled.

Tomlinson nodded, almost meekly. “He’s gaining in the polls, I know.”

“If you don’t do something—and soon—you’re going to lose this primary.”

“I’m not going to lose,” Tomlinson said tightly.

His father harrumphed.

Jake blurted, “Dant’s all over the radio. You can’t turn to any station without hearing his commercials.”

“Radio ads are cheap,” Tomlinson quickly replied. “We’ve put most of our money into television. TV gets more response.”

“You hope,” said his father.

Amy said, “Dant is playing the right-wing card. Family values—which is a code phrase for antiabortion.”

“He also talks about crime in the streets,” Jake said.

“But there isn’t any crime in the streets!” Tomlinson countered. “Crime statistics are down, not up.”

You ought to try walking in the streets in my neighborhood, Jake thought. But he kept it to himself.

“Family values,” the elder Tomlinson muttered.

“And lower taxes,” said his son.

“Well,” the father demanded, “what are you going to do about it?”

Before Tomlinson could answer, Amy replied, “Meet him head-on.”

“Eh? What do you mean by that?”

“Come out strongly for women’s rights. Let Dant talk to the ultraconservatives. We’ll talk to the biggest voting bloc in the state: women.”

Tomlinson stared at her. “Do you really think…?”

“You tell the voters that you support a woman’s right to decide for herself about family planning. There’re more women in this state who’ll vote for that than there are who’ll vote against it.”

“Meet him head-on,” Tomlinson mused. He turned to his father. “What do you think, Dad?”

The old man fixed his son with a stern gaze. “You’ve got to do
something
.”

Amy smiled warmly. “You come across so beautifully on TV, Franklin. Just look into the camera and smile that handsome smile of yours and tell the women of this state that you’re on their side. They’ll vote for you. I know they will. Even the Catholics.”

Jake wondered how much of Amy’s certainty was based on her personal feelings for Tomlinson. But then he remembered Tip O’Neill’s dictum about all politics being local. No, Jake said to himself, all politics is personal.

“And what about this MHD business?”

Jake stirred, realizing that the elder Tomlinson was talking to him.

“It’s … making progress, sir,” he equivocated. “They’re testing a new electrode design on the big machine up in Lignite.”

“What about this Professor Sinclair?” Tomlinson Senior demanded. “Is he going to make a public statement supporting Leeds?”

“No, sir, he is not.”

“Are you sure of that, Jake?” Tomlinson asked.

Jake nodded. “Sinclair will stay quiet. He won’t say anything, one way or the other.”

“He’s neutralized, you mean.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Good work, Jake,” said Amy, beaming at him.

“How did you do it?” Tomlinson asked.

With a shrug, Jake replied uneasily, “That’s between the professor and me. He agreed to stay quiet through the whole campaign, right through to November. I agreed to trust his word.”

The elder Tomlinson made a noise that was little short of a growl.

As he left the mansion, Jake thought he’d better call Sinclair and tell the professor that he hadn’t told Tomlinson about his wife’s addiction. That ought to satisfy Leeds and Nacho, he thought.

As he drove back toward campus, Jake turned on the car’s radio. For once, he heard no ads by Dant. But the news broadcast opened with:

“There’s been a double homicide in Vernon. Police report that Mr. and Mrs. Arlan Sinclair have both been shot to death in their home. According to Vernon police chief Peter Harraway, Sinclair shot his wife and then turned the gun on himself. Police are trying to determine his motive. Sinclair was a professor of—”

Jake snapped the radio off so hard the knob fell off in his hand.

REPERCUSSIONS

Jake drove straight to Bob Rogers’s office. The electrical engineering department’s secretary looked harried and drawn as she sat at her desk, phone to her ear. She half rose from her chair and held up a hand to stop Jake.

“Professor Rogers is in conference with the heads of the—”

Jake brushed right past her and strode down the hall to Rogers’s office. The poor woman watched, open-mouthed, the phone still in her hand.

Rogers wasn’t in his office, but Jake heard voices from farther down the hall, coming from the conference room. He walked to the door. Rogers was sitting with half a dozen older men and women: Jake recognized the university’s top brass, deans and administrators. Rogers saw Jake and raised a cautionary finger. Jake retreated back to the physicist’s office and waited there.

About fifteen minutes later Rogers came into the office, looking dismal. The others from the meeting paraded past the open office door, equally grim-faced.

“Well,” Rogers said as he slid into his desk chair, “I’m now the dean of the electrical engineering department, pro tem.”

“What happened?” Jake asked, dropping into one of the steel-framed chairs in front of the desk.

“They elected me to run the department,” Rogers said, his face still gray, bleak. “For the time being. Until—”

“No. I mean what happened to Sinclair?”

Rogers shook his head. “Lord knows. I never took him for the kind that commits suicide.”

“And his wife?”

“I don’t know. I met her once a few years ago. She seemed like a nice enough person.”

“This is terrible,” said Jake.

“It’s a shock.”

That’s when the realization hit Jake. It’s my fault! If I hadn’t gone up to Vernon, if I hadn’t confronted Sinclair about his wife …

My fault. All my fault.

Rogers was talking but Jake barely heard the words. The enormity of his responsibility felt like an immense weight pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe.

He struggled to his feet, made some lame words to Rogers, and tottered out of the office, past the same secretary, who gave him a vicious stare, and out into the cold, snow-covered quadrangle.

By the time Jake got to his office, Glynis Colwyn was standing at his locked door. She looked blazingly angry.

“There you are,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Jake as he unlocked the door. “It’s terrible, isn’t it?”

He ushered Glynis into his tiny office. She was wearing a heavy gray turtleneck sweater and faded jeans tucked into fur-trimmed black boots beneath a leather thigh-length coat, which hung open.

Jake gestured to the office’s only spare chair as he leaned tiredly on the edge of his desk.

“I know this is all my fault,” he began. “I feel awful about it.”

“Your fault?” She looked up sharply at him.

“You were right,” he said, feeling wretched. “I pushed him too far.”

Glynis shook her head. “That’s nonsense.”

“Is it? I confronted him about his wife, told him I was going to tell Tomlinson about it, and the next day he shoots the woman and kills himself.”

“Arlan Sinclair did not kill anyone,” Glynis said quite firmly. “He certainly did not commit suicide.”

Jake stared at her. “What are you saying?”

“Arlan didn’t kill himself. Both he and his wife were murdered.”

“But the police—”

“The police force in Vernon? I’d sooner believe Osama bin Laden.”

Jake saw that she was absolutely certain. And something else, there was something more, something that was making her tremble. Anger? Fear?

He looked into Glynis’s dark, exotic eyes and suddenly understood.

“My god, you were in love with him!”

She nodded once and her eyes filled with tears. “He loved me,” she said, her voice breaking. “He loved me.”

She buried her face in her hands and broke into sobs as Jake sat there on the edge of his desk, stunned. All her talk about being able to deal with Sinclair’s hitting on her—it was all talk, a sham, a cover-up.

He heard himself say, “I thought you and Tim…”

“That was nothing,” she said, her voice muffled. “I needed to get Tim’s trust. Nothing really happened between us. I did it for Arlan … for him…”

Jesus H. Christ, Jake thought. All this time she’s been Sinclair’s lover, his mistress. She even came on to Tim to help Sinclair. The bastard used her like a piece of Kleenex. Lev was right: Sinclair’s an unfeeling, totally self-centered sonofabitch. Then he amended, Was. Was.

He looked down at Glynis again, her body wracked with sobs. Leaning toward her, Jake put an arm around her shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Glyn,” he whispered to her. “I’m really, really sorry.”

She looked up at him, close enough to kiss. Tears runneled her cheeks. Her eyes were swollen, red.

“We’ve got to find out who did this, Jake. We’ve got to find Arlan’s murderer.”

*   *   *

Jake let Glynis stay in his office all afternoon. She seemed to pull herself together: dried her eyes, went to the bathroom. When she returned she began pacing the cramped office. Six steps in one direction, then turn. Six steps back, turn. She talked of nothing but finding who murdered Sinclair and his wife.

“He didn’t even own a gun,” she said, pacing. “He wouldn’t know how to use one.”

There’s nothing much to it, Jake thought. Especially at point-blank range. But he kept that to himself.

He took Glynis to dinner at the first place he could find, the Taco Bell just off the campus. She said very little, picking at the guacamole dip and chili that Jake had ordered for her. Maybe she’s all talked out, Jake thought. But her eyes were staring, looking far away from the here and now. She seemed stunned, unfocused, adrift.

Jake drove her to her apartment, a few blocks farther away. It was a decent building on a tree-lined street, although the trees were bare, dead-looking against the gray sky. Her three-storied building was the tallest structure on the block, flanked by older clapboard houses, several of them converted into offices for various university organizations.

As Jake walked her to the building’s front door, Glynis muttered, “My car … it’s still on campus.”

“I’ll come over tomorrow morning and pick you up,” Jake said. “Phone me when you’re ready.”

“I … Have they appointed someone to take … take Arlan’s place?” It seemed to take a teeth-gritting effort for her to get the words out.

“Bob Rogers,” Jake said softly.

She nodded. “Of course. Bob. I’ll be working for him now.”

“Maybe you ought to take tomorrow off. Nobody’s going to mind.”

“No,” she said, as she reached into her coat pocket for her keys. “No, I’ll have to go in. I’ll need my car.”

“Take the day off,” Jake suggested, more strongly.

Glynis shook her head. “No! I have to drive up to Vernon. I want to talk to the police there.”

Jake saw that she had regained her self-control. Despite her grief and turmoil she was utterly determined. She had a purpose to fulfill.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”