Sex Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 6) (2 page)

Paul, the best high school principal in Bay St. Lucy’s history.

Except for Nina.

To whom Jackson Bennett now addressed his remarks.

Thus drawing her into the conspiracy.

“Nina, Jarrod Thornbloom is dead.”

“That’s terrible. How did it happen?”

“Plane crash. He and a pilot took off in his private plane from D.C., heading to Paris for some international conference. The plane disappeared from the radar screen around noon. The Coast Guard confirmed wreckage an hour later. No survivors.”

It could have been a manger scene, with the five of them spread out like wise men and shepherds; the blue jacketed 4Hers running here and there with brushes and buckets; and the dim lights humming high overhead, drawing upward the most agile of flies, those light enough to soar upward and leave their heavier counterparts, like buzzing drops of tar, to bumble about down below.

“Jarrod Thornbloom,” said Alanna to the group, “was an institution.”

No
, Nina found herself thinking.
He should have
been
in an institution.
And he should not ever have run for the House of Representatives fifteen months earlier.

At eighty one years old he had clearly begun to lose his mental capacity.

Some of his speeches…

But, she mused, he was a venerable fixture in Washington, a revered white-haired man, and he had, through the decades, served the state well.

Now he was gone.

All she could say was:

“I’m sorry. He was a good man.”

Silence for a time.

And then Macy, barely able to contain herself:

“Nina, there has to be a special election to replace him until next November.”

Jackson:

“The election will be in March. In some states, when a senator or representative cannot finish a term, the governor simply appoints a replacement. But in Mississippi, there has to be an election.”

“All right,” she said, nodding and wondering what all of this had to do with her.

John Giusti:

“Nina, there is a chance that Paul could run in this election. And that he could win.”

Macy beamed at her husband.

Then she said:

“It will be wide open. There will be several candidates. And the chances of a Democrat winning in District 58 this fall are not great. The Republicans have a lot of support.”

Jackson interjected:

“But Thornbloom
was
a Democrat, and he somehow managed to get elected time and again, for all these years.”

Paul leaned forward:

“Nina, as I’ve told you a few times, the governor and I have been working well together these last months. We see things the same way. I’m happy to have had the chance to go up to Jackson.”

“I know you’ve done well up there, Paul. We’re all proud of you. If anybody has a political career in front of him, it’s you.”

“I don’t know. I do know that the governor called me into his office this afternoon, just after the news broke...”

And
 
now Macy could no longer contain herself:

“He said Paul should run!”

Paul, embarrassed, shook his head:

“Now wait, Macy…”

“But he did, Paul, he did!”

“No.
 
He said perhaps I should
think
about running.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

Smiles around the circle.

Finally Jackson said:

“There are a good many reasons, Paul, to think you might have a shot at this. First, your relationship with the governor certainly won’t hurt. Both of you have similar ideas on educational reform. Second, you have Bay St. Lucy, and Bay St. Lucy is rich.”

“Are we allowed, as a city, to support a candidate?” asked Nina.

“Of course we are!” answered Jackson. “If the Bay St. Lucy city council says unanimously—and it will be unanimous—that we want to give a great deal of money to a candidate, because that candidate will advance the interests of our community—why there is no power in the state that could or would stop us.”

John Giusti:

“You’re a great public speaker, Paul. You were a great athlete, and that’s gold in Mississippi. You’re young. You’ve made no political enemies. There are people who disagree with your stance on standardized testing, of course, but…”

Paul shook his head:

“I’m not sure that would be a major consideration. I think, as an ex-principal, I can be certain of the support of all state teachers’ organizations. The question is, will that be enough?”

Pause.

“…and the answer is
no
. No, it won’t. I’m going to need vocal backing, and financial backing, from several other major powers. And Nina, that’s where you come in.”

Nina, somewhat taken aback, could only look around the strange circle of people who had gathered in this manger-like setting.

“What?” she found herself stammering.

“I said I need the support of other major powers.”

“And I’m a major power?”

“No, but you have close contacts with one.”

“What major power do I have contacts with? The Mississippi Cat Owners Association?”

Smiles at this.

Paul:

“No. You have contacts with Gulf Coast Petroleum. They’re a billion dollar industry. One of the largest in the state, bigger even than any timber or agricultural organization.”

She was beginning to understand.

“Well. I did make some friends there.”

“You saved the huge oil rig Aquatica. And in so doing, you saved their reputation, a hundred and fifty three of their employees—and maybe the whole eco-system of the gulf coast.”

Jackson Bennett leaned forward:

“Nina, I took the liberty of doing something this afternoon that—well, maybe I shouldn’t have.”

She looked at him, thinking almost instinctively:

Uh oh.

Here it comes again.

I’m going to get wrapped up in some incomprehensible and dangerous mess.

On the other hand…

…what kind of a mess could this be?

One of my best friends has a great opportunity.

Why not help him?

If I can.

And so, to Jackson:

“What did you do, Jackson? And what do you want me to do?”

“I called a friend of mine who’s one of Gulf Coast Petroleum’s attorneys. He’s based in Lafayette.”

“As is,” she said, “the whole oil industry.”

“That’s right. Anyway, I asked him if there was a possibility that you might fly over there and speak to someone higher up, on Paul’s account. Mainly to beg for their support.”

“And?”

“You have an appointment tomorrow afternoon with the CEO of Gulf Coast Petroleum, in their downtown offices. I’ve arranged for your air ticket.”

And so, there it was. Nina Bannister was going to Lafayette.

The ‘meeting in the livestock barn,’ as she now remembered it, had happened months ago, in February.

Now it was Tuesday, March 15, night of the special election to replace Jarrod Thornbloom.

Ten forty five PM.

Nina, having just gotten off the phone with some newspaper or other, went outside.

A group of smokers had gathered outside city hall.

Margot Gavin had joined them, after having worked late in her shop, Elementals: Treasures from Earth and Sea. Helen Reddington, not having successfully given up cigarettes, was in the small circle. So was Tom Broussard, slovenly, hulking.

The March sky was also slovenly and hulking, and a cool wind was whistling in from the gulf.

A few cars prowled the street of Bay St. Lucy, which had not quite gotten itself ready for spring break.
  

Tom made a comment about the weather.

Everybody nodded.

Somebody asked about his latest book.

He answered something or other, forgetting for the moment that he never talked about his books, for the simple reason that no one really cared and had only asked for the simple reason that there was not much else you could talk about with Tom Broussard.

Finally, Helen flipped the stub of whatever she was smoking into the gutter that stretched placidly a few feet from where she stood and asked:

“So how far down are we?”

That was in fact the question Nina had just been answering to the
Biloxi Town Journal
, and so she could say:

“Three hundred and forty seven votes, as of two minutes ago.”

“What’s left to report?” rumbled Tom.

“Seven counties, all in the north. Desoto, Tippah, Alcorn, Tate, Marshall, Benton, Prentiss.”

Margot huddled more tightly inside her Chicago Bears windbreaker and asked:

“They’re rural, aren’t they?”

Nina could not help smiling.

“All of Mississippi is rural. Even the cities are rural.”

They all stood for a time and watched the huge awful luminescent cross between a wrecked battle ship and a crashed jetliner that was their new modern city hall.

It did not speak to them.

And so Nina could only think back.

That trip to Lafayette.

The meeting with the CEO of Gulf Coast Petroleum.

Who happened, to Nina’s great surprise, to be a woman!

The corporation’s headquarters were housed in a building just as non-descript as any of the others in downtown Lafayette. There was nothing to distinguish it, save the letters GP etched primly in gray limestone above the doorway.

She was led through the door.

She and the tall blonde young man assigned to be her guide zigzagged though the ground floor of the building, rounding a deserted corner in what seemed to be a deserted hallway, entering a second elevator, and pushing a button for the second floor.

“Here we are. If you’ll just step inside...”

A heavy door opened before her.

The office she found herself in resembled the inner sanctum of a cathedral. There was a great, stained glass window behind her desk…a window that might have come from any of the reliquaries of Chartres or Lourdes…and beatific light poured into the small room, making her appear as the Abbess of a nunnery as she bent, bespectacled, over what seemed to be ponderous account books.