Sex Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 6) (5 page)

“It’s over.”

“What time is it, Edie?”

“Just a little after one.”

“I don’t… I must have…”

“You dozed off.”

“Where’s everybody else?”

“They’re outside.”

“What happened?”

“The northern counties. The ones we were so unsure about. They’ve all reported in. Tallies are done.”

“What happened?”

Edie simply shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I have bad news for you.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yes, there’s not much we can do about it.”

She could remember rubbing her eyes, already sleep-gummed, and looking around the strange gray vacant room, banners hanging like shrapnel after a mass attack.

“We fought a good fight, Edie.”

“We certainly did.”

“What’s that roaring sound?”

Because there was a roaring sound.

It seemed to engulf the building.

“Fireworks, I think. All the yachts in the Bay St. Lucy harbor have formed a ring, and they’re shooting fireworks over the city. If you come outside you can see.”

And she had gone outside, Edie beside her.

And she had peered upward at the March sky, now lit garishly in shades of sky rocket.

“They’re doing this for me?”

“Indeed they are.”

“Bay St. Lucy. God I love Bay St. Lucy.”

“I know. I know.”

“How much did we lose by, Edie?”

Edie stared at her.

“What?”

“I said, how much did we lose by?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said, ‘I’m sorry, Nina.’ When you woke me, you said, ‘I’m sorry.’”

“I am.”

“Then…”

“No more beachcombing for you. I’m sorry—but we’re going to lose you for a while.”

“You mean…”

“You won, Nina. By three hundred and fifteen votes. You’re a member of The House of Representatives now.
 
          

“Well. What do you know about that?” she whispered.

They sky exploded above her.

And for the first time she realized:

Nina Bannister was going to Washington!

CHAPTER TWO:
 
WELCOME TO WASHINGTON!

Precisely one week later, she arrived at Dulles International Airport, flown there by a private jet owned by Gulf Coast Petroleum.

She was met at the foot of the plane’s exit ramp by a tall, thin fortyish man, whose broad smile showed creases around both eyes that had obviously been caused by much sunshine or much happiness.

Or perhaps both.

“Congresswoman Bannister!”

He stepped forward and held out his hand.

She took it, realizing that a photographer was standing just behind him.

Shake of the hand!

Pop! Goes the flashbulb!

And Nina is officially in the nation’s capital.

“Congresswoman, I’m Dicken Proctor. I am—well, sorry to say, I was—Chief of Staff for Jarrod Thornbloom.”

“I know, I know, and thank you for your emails! I’m sorry I didn’t have time to answer all of your questions. It’s just been chaotic. And I want to tell you how deeply sorry I am—and everybody in Bay St. Lucy is—about the Congressman.”

“I know. It’s unthinkable that something like this could have happened. The Congressman and I were quite close. We had worked together for ten years. I drove him to the airport on the morning of…well, suffice to say, I’m still in shock.”

“They still don’t know the cause of the crash?”

A shake of the head:

“Not yet. Given the area where contact was lost. It’s very deep there. They found some wreckage but not the black box. And, of course, no way to recover the bodies.”

Nina knew nothing to say.

Dicken Proctor continued:

“Working for Congressman Thornbloom wasn’t always easy. He could be a difficult man. More so as he got older. But his heart was always in the right place; he fought passionately for the causes he believed in.”

“I believe that,” said Nina. “I really do.”

Although, she did not say,
I think he may have been losing his mind and getting senile, and last November I voted for a Republican.

No, that was not the thing to say.

“Well, I hardly know where to begin in introducing you to Washington.”

“Anywhere you like.”

“Come on then. We’ll get your bags and go on outside. We have a car waiting for you. I’ve booked you a room at the Hotel George. It’s not the most expensive hotel on the hill, but it’s one of my favorites. From the higher windows—and you’re on the fourth—you can see the capitol dome.”

“Great!”

“When various dignitaries flew into town to meet with the Congressman, I always arranged for them to stay there, unless they specified somewhere else. I think you’ll be comfortable there tonight—then tomorrow we’ll set about getting you a real place.”

“Lead the way.”

He did, and the two bags that Nina had checked were soon picked up.

The limousine awaiting her oozed darkness and quietness and comfort, and she appreciated the touch of the bottle of water sitting primly and coolly in a special holder just in front of her knees as she slid into the back seat.

The ride into the city was difficult.

Dicken Proctor was an unending stream of information—information she should have already known, she told herself, but the week following her election victory had gone by so fast—and she knew she should have been paying complete attention to him.

But Washington was flowing by.

And she had never been there.

And there were cherry blossoms everywhere!

And there—they were approaching the Mall!

Now they had turned on Constitution Avenue.

It was all there to her right, flowing by:

The Lincoln Memorial.

Beyond that, the Korean War Veterans’ Memorial.

And over beyond that, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

And there, there before them, now almost abreast of them—The Washington Monument!

So how could she listen, how could she talk, ask questions?

Still, somehow, she did.

“What will the first days be like?”

“Very very busy. One good thing is, we’ve already moved into the new office.”

“I have a new office?”

“Well, you have a different office. Offices on the hill are a matter of seniority. The Congressman had been in office over twenty years, and so he had a pretty elegant place.”

“And I?”

A shake of the head.

“Sorry. More like a boiler room. But we’ll make out ok.”

“And as for staffers?”

“You have eight, plus me. They’re a good bunch. I think you’ll like them.”

“What do they do? What do I do, actually? Seems stupid to be asking a question like that. I won an election to Congress, and now I have no idea what to do with myself once I’m here.”

“Don’t worry about it. Everybody’s confused at first. But the important thing is, get ready to do a lot of eating.”

“Eating?”

“Eating. Nobody meets anybody on Capitol Hill unless there’s a plate of food between them. And, of course, everybody wants to meet you. They would anyway, just out of politeness. But that campaign you ran…”

“Well, actually, it’s the campaign Jackson Bennett ran.”

“Maybe, but it was still remarkable. At any rate, you’re scheduled to meet tomorrow with the House Minority Leader at ten, and there are other congressmen calling to get in whenever possible. These meetings won’t last long; you just have to say
hello
.”

“All right. But afterwards—I mean, what is a normal day like?”

He smiled.

My God! There, out the window beyond him, is the Smithsonian!

“Congresswoman Bannister…”

“Nina, please. Just Nina.”

“All right, Nina; I won’t lie to you. A vast majority of your job is two things: answering letters—we get almost a thousand a week, and that’s real letters, not just emails, of which there are five hundred more—and helping to raise money. In the autumn, the main business of Congress is to propose legislation. In the spring, the main business is to generate money, to pay for the legislation. You’re already down for four fundraisers, one of which will require a trip back to Mississippi in two weeks. I’m sorry that I went ahead and said
yes
to these invitations, but…”

“No, no, it’s exactly what you needed to do. I’ll go wherever I’m needed.”

“Excellent. But there’s also the issue of where you’re going to stay. I mean, permanently.”

“You said in your last email that there were several possibilities?”

“There are. As you know, Congressman Thornbloom was a widower.”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“He lived by himself for the past eight years in a rather elegant townhome in Georgetown. But that has, in the last few days, been put on the market. We assumed it would have been somewhat difficult for you to live there.”

“True.”

“I’ve had several calls from your supporters, though––one of whom is a Ms. Daring.”

“Barbara.”

“Yes, the CEO of Gulf Coast Petroleum. She says that I’m to help you find a truly first rate-place, and not to worry greatly about the rent. So there are several things we can look at tomorrow.”

“Excellent. I don’t need much—I’m used to living in a two-room shack overlooking the gulf.”

“You’ll have several choices. Now, though, there is one more difficult matter I probably need to tell you about. I thought about waiting until next week, but…no, it’s definitely something you should be told of as quickly as possible.”

“What is it?”

“Well, as I mentioned a minute or so ago, congressmen get letters. No congressman can open and read and answer all of them. That becomes our job as staffers. We only show you the ones we feel to be truly important, or truly different.”

“I understand.”

“Occasionally there are crank letters. And some letters are obscene.”

“That would follow, I guess. Not all people like politicians.”

“No, they don’t. If the letters are truly scary, then we pass them along to the Secret Service. Sometimes they can trace them, sometimes not.”

“I take it, then, that I’ve been getting some scary letters.”

“Yes. Two came to you last week, just after the election.”

“You have them?”

“Here.”

Both letters were typed on elegant, cream-colored stationery.

The first said:

Congresswoman Bannister:

I AM SORRY TO HAVE TO CONTACT YOU IN THIS WAY, BUT I HAVE NO CHOICE. I AM COMMANDED TO DO SO BY A HIGHER POWER. YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THAT THE POLICIES CURRENTLY BEING FOLLOWED BY YOU AND YOUR PARTY ARE PURELY EVIL. THEY ARE THE WORK OF THE DEVIL. RENOUNCE THEM IMMEDIATELY, OR THE DIVINE CREATOR WILL TAKE HIS REVENGE ON YOU!

“Well,” said Nina, quietly, “that’s pretty creepy. No way to trace it?”

“No.”

“What policies does the divine creator hate so much?”

“I don’t know. The Congressman was an advocate of gay marriage. Abortion rights. Legalization of marijuana. The basic liberal agenda. A lot of people don’t like those positions.”

“Right. So. The second one?”

“Here.”

“Same stationary, looks like. When did it come?”

Dicken Proctor looked at her and said:

“This morning. It was in the mail this morning.”

She read:

TO NINA BANNISTER:

YOU ARE AN EVIL WOMAN. RENOUNCE YOUR BELIEFS, OR YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO LIVE.

“Well, that’s comforting.”

“I’m sorry to have to show you these.”

She shrugged:

“I assume that just goes with the territory. Any suspicious characters lurking around the Congressman’s office before his accident?”

A smile:

“This is Washington, Nina. Sometimes I think nobody lives here
but
suspicious characters.”

“Well. All I can say is, I’ll keep my eyes open.”

How did one do that, though?
she found herself wondering, in a world of suspicious characters?