Power Play (32 page)

But standing on the rickety desk in the corner was a spanking-new computer, bright and clean.

Jake took this all in with a single glance once the blogger had opened his apartment door.

“Jake, this is Freeforall,” Amy said, with a straight face. “Free, this is Dr. Jacob Ross, professor of astronomy at the university.”

“Assistant professor,” Jake corrected as they stepped into the chaos of the room.

“Come on in,” said Freeforall. “We can get started right away.”

“What’s your real name?” Jake asked.

Freeforall shot him an annoyed glance. “Doesn’t matter.”

“He won’t use your name,” Amy assured Jake. “And he won’t mention the Tomlinson campaign, either. You’ll be ‘a reliable source.’”

They’ve got it all worked out, Jake realized.

Freeforall pulled a battered-looking rattan chair from the table by the sink and gestured for Jake to sit on it. He then settled himself in the wheeled padded chair in front of the computer and powered it up.

Turning to Jake, he began, “Okay, so what’s this about a couple of murders that Senator Leeds is connected with?”

Looking around for a camera, Jake asked, “This isn’t being videoed, is it?”

“Nope. Just audio,” said Freeforall. “Then I’ll transcribe it. Nobody’ll even hear your voice. Now tell me about Senator Leeds and these murders.”

Jake took in a deep breath, then started to unfold his story.

As he explained about Dr. McGruder, Freeforall interrupted him. “I understand somebody from Leeds’s office was in Florida when the doctor died.”

“That’s right,” said Jake.

“Who?”

“I thought we weren’t going to mention any names.”

“I’ll protect your name,” said the blogger, “but I want any names you can give me about the bad guys.”

With a shake of his head, Jake replied, “Let’s just say it was somebody who works in the senator’s office. And he’s connected with the gambling interests.”

“Somebody named Perez?”

“You already know!” Jake blurted.

Freeforall grinned smugly. “I know many things. I even know the name of the graduate student who was sleeping with Professor Sinclair.”

“You leave her out of it!” Jake snapped, half rising from his chair.

Freeforall put up his flabby arms to protect himself. “Hey, hey! Okay! I’m not gonna mention her name.”

Amy gripped Jake’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Jake. Calm down.”

Dropping back onto the creaking chair, Jake pointed at Freeforall. “I don’t want any mention of any grad student. Get that straight!”

“Okay, okay,” Freeforall said, his eyes wide, fearful. “I’ll protect her identity.”

“You won’t mention that there’s a grad student involved in this!” Jake insisted. “I’m your source. If that’s not good enough, forget it.”

“Okay, you’re my source. I’ve got it.”

The blogger resumed the interview, finally asking, “But what makes you say the professor was murdered? The police say it was suicide.”

Jake replied evenly, “Professor Sinclair was killed by a bullet fired into his right temple. But he was left-handed. Somebody shot him. Somebody killed him and his wife, then went to Florida to murder Dr. McGruder so he couldn’t reveal that Mrs. Sinclair didn’t have cancer.”

“Wow!” said Freeforall. “And that same guy from Leeds’s office was in Vernon when the professor was shot and in Florida when the doctor died?”

“That’s right. The same man. Who works for Senator Leeds.”

Freeforall seemed to consider this for a long, thoughtful moment. Then he summed up, “So you’re saying that Senator Leeds is involved in gambling, drugs, and three murders.”

“I don’t know if the senator is involved directly. But somebody who works for him sure is.”

“The senator would have to know about it, dontcha think?”

Jake nodded. “Yes, I would think so.”

“Great!” Freeforall banged his computer keyboard with a stubby finger, then turned back to Jake. “Great. This’ll go out on the Net before lunchtime.”

Amy got to her feet, beaming. “You did a good job, Jake.”

Great job, Jake thought. Sure. It’ll help Tomlinson, in an underhanded way. Maybe it’ll help nail Nacho and Leeds and the rest of the bastards who’re behind the murders. Maybe it’ll make Glynis feel better. Maybe.

Jake stood up, shook hands with Freeforall, and left with Amy. He felt as if he needed another shower.

DOCUMENTARY

With some trepidation, Jake logged onto the Freeforall blog that afternoon, in his office.

And there was his interview, in print, scrolling down his computer screen. True to his word, the blogger identified his informant merely as “a reliable source.” But there were all the other names: Senator Leeds, Nacho Perez, Professor and Mrs. Sinclair, Dr. McGruder in Florida, Captain Harraway in Vernon—and his insistence that Sinclair had committed suicide.

Now what? Jake asked himself. Does anybody read that grubby little guy’s blatherings?

His phone rang.

“Jake, have you seen the b-school’s student site?” Glynis asked, sounding excited.

“The business school—”

“They’re running an interview somebody gave to a blogger. It’s all about Arlan’s murder!”

Jake hesitated a moment, then said as evenly as he could, “Is it?”

“It was you, Jake, wasn’t it?” Glynis asked. “You gave the interview.”

“Don’t tell that to anybody else!” he snapped.

Glynis laughed. “Your secret is safe with me.”

For how long? Jake wondered as he hung up.

He called up his calendar for the day and saw that he was scheduled to do a scene for the TV documentary that Tomlinson’s public relations people were putting together about the promise of MHD. Nodding to himself, Jake thought, This’ll be a good day to be off campus.

He had already arranged with a teaching assistant to handle his afternoon class, so Jake hurried down to the parking lot and drove to the utility company’s power plant on the outskirts of the city, where Bob Rogers and the video crew were waiting for him. With Amy.

The power plant hummed and vibrated, huge turbines spinning endlessly, generating the electricity that lit the city and its environs. The turbines were taller than a basketball player, massive. Even though their metal housings were gleaming and spotless, somehow they looked old-fashioned to Jake, antiquated.

Bob Rogers was wearing an actual suit, dark brown, although he had a turquoise bolo at his throat rather than a normal necktie. Jake wondered if the sports jacket and open-necked shirt he was wearing would be good enough for the day.

Amy introduced them to the video director. “Jake, Bob, this is Wallace Ziegler, from Los Angeles.”

Ziegler was an austere, tall, slim man with an outdoorsman’s rugged, deeply tanned face and thinning silver hair. He was wearing a short-sleeved sport shirt and chinos.

“Call me Wally,” he said, smiling genially as he shook hands with Rogers and Jake.

“Wally’s worked a lot with Clint Eastwood,” Amy said, obviously impressed.

“Assistant director,” said Ziegler. “I handled some of his outdoor scenes.”

“Wow,” Rogers said. “What’s he like to work with?”

“A real stickler. Same as me.”

Jake asked, “Um, should I be wearing a tie?”

Ziegler gave him a fatherly smile. “No, you’re fine.”

A technician came up and clipped thumbtack-sized microphones to their shirts as Ziegler explained that they should just speak normally, stay relaxed, and pay no attention to the pair of cameras that would be trained on them.

“You just look at me, or each other. Talk as if you’re having a normal conversation. We’ve got the script cued up on the teleprompters, but you don’t have to follow it word for word. Just be your natural selves.”

Jake wondered how natural he could be with a team of cameramen and technicians surrounding them.

As they walked over toward one of the big turbines to begin their scene, Bob Rogers asked Jake, “Did you look at the news blogs today? They’ve got Sinclair’s murder splashed all over them.”

“I took a look before driving out here,” Jake said tightly.

“They’re claiming Senator Leeds is mixed up in it.” Rogers seemed to be eyeing Jake suspiciously.

He knows it was me, Jake thought. They all know it was me. Who else could give that interview, except for Glynis?

Amy Wexler stepped between them. “Ready for your moment of stardom?”

Jake forced a smile. “Yeah. It’s showtime. Isn’t it?”

They spent the whole afternoon going through a scene that would take up only a minute or two in the finished documentary, but it took more than three hours before the director was satisfied that they’d got it right.

Wally told the truth, all right, Jake thought. He’s a stickler.

The idea of the scene was to show how big the ordinary turbine-driven power plant was, in contrast to the compactness of the MHD generator.

Rogers was saying, “So they boil water and use the steam to spin the turbine, and the turbine spins an armature that generates the electricity. That’s the same way Edison did it, almost a hundred and fifty years ago.”

Jake’s line was, “And they get about the same efficiency as Edison got, don’t they?”

“Right,” Rogers came in on cue. “A little over forty percent.”

“CUT!” Ziegler boomed.

The director came smiling kindly up to Rogers and said gently, “You said ‘puhcent.’ Could you pronounce it ‘percent,’ please?”

“Oh, sure,” said Rogers.

“Okay, let’s take it from Jake’s line about the efficiency Edison got.”

Again Rogers said, “puhcent.” Again Ziegler roared, “CUT!”

“Gee, I’m sorry,” Rogers said. “I never realized I pronounce it wrong.”

“It’s all right,” Ziegler replied, a little tensely. “You’ll get it.”

Rogers finally said “percent” to Ziegler’s satisfaction, but it took four takes. And then one of the camera operators announced that his batteries had hit the redline and he’d have to replace them before they started the next take.

Ziegler puffed out a weary breath. “Let’s break for an early dinner.”

Jake began to realize why it cost so much to make a movie.

*   *   *

Over the next few days the blogosphere erupted with stories about the Sinclair murders. The regular news media began to pick up on the story. Jake watched a local television station’s interview with a very disgruntled Captain Harraway, in Vernon.

Looking like a dark thundercloud about to spit lightning, Harraway said grimly, “My forensics team decided it was a murder-suicide and the coroner’s inquest came up with the same finding. End of story.”

But the story would not end. CNN sent a reporter to Vernon, and the local news media began circulating a rumor that the FBI was investigating the case. The regional FBI office’s director would neither confirm nor deny the rumor.

Jake wondered how long it would be before Freeforall or somebody outed him as the “reliable source” that got the story started. He wondered what Perez was doing about it. And Monster.

He stayed away from Glynis, although he phoned her daily, to make certain she was all right. She showed up at the big rig outside Lignite the day that Jake, Rogers, and the video team shot the scene for the documentary there.

Glynis stood beside Tim Younger while Jake and Rogers went before the cameras to show how much smaller and more efficient the MHD generator was compared to the standard turbine plants.

“No need to boil water and make steam,” Rogers said, while Ziegler stood behind one of the cameras and smiled encouragingly. “No turbines. No moving parts at all. But this MHD generator is fifty
per
cent more efficient than turbine power plants. And bigger MHD plants will be even more efficient.”

As the video crew wrapped up its equipment, and Ziegler complimented Rogers on his pronunciation, Amy grabbed Jake’s arm.

“Isn’t that Glynis Colwyn over there?” She nodded toward where Glynis and Tim Younger stood, deep in conversation.

“That’s her,” said Jake.

“I hadn’t realized how good-looking she is.” Amy cast a knowing eye at Jake. “Should I be jealous?”

Jake gaped at her. “Should
you
be … come on, Amy. What about you and Frank?”

She managed to look surprised. “Oh, Jake, you just don’t understand, do you?”

“I understand,” he said. “I understand perfectly.”

But Amy shook her head, gave Jake a pitying smile, and walked away.

THE SECOND DEBATE

Two nights later the second debate between Tomlinson and Senator Leeds was staged at the Bok Planetarium. The two candidates stood at lecterns in the middle of the round, domed room, with the moderator—the blond, ebullient anchorwoman of the state’s most popular TV news show—sat on a stool between them. The planetarium was filled, every seat occupied and standees jammed in shoulder to shoulder all around the circular wall.

The park outside was thick with people sitting on folding chairs or picnic blankets as they watched the big TV screens that Tomlinson’s campaign staff had set up. A strong thundershower had soaked the grass earlier in the afternoon, but as the sun went down the skies cleared and a bright, nearly full moon rose in the east.

Aside from making the arrangements with Dr. Cardwell for using the planetarium, Jake had virtually nothing to do with the planning for the debate. He had tried to see Amy several times, but she avoided him, even stopped taking his phone calls.

He arrived early for the debate, hung out in Cardwell’s office as the planetarium slowly filled with spectators. At five minutes before eight, Jake went down with Cardwell and took the front-row seats that had been reserved for them. He saw Amy across the central space where the planetarium projector was stowed neatly below the floor. She was sitting next to Tomlinson’s father.

Bob Rogers sat behind Amy, and then Glynis came in with Tim Younger. They sat next to Rogers. Jake gave them a little wave. Rogers grinned at him, Glynis waved back, and Younger simply nodded. New England stone face, Jake thought.

Precisely at eight the candidates came in, entering the planetarium from opposite doors and striding down the sloping aisles like a pair of prizefighters heading for the ring. The TV anchorwoman came in with Senator Leeds.