The Candidate (7 page)

Mike offered his hand. The man took it, his grip firm. He looked Mike in the eyes. “I read about Jack Hodges,” he said. “If you work with him, you must be a good man. When you vote for him, think of us.”

Then he released Mike’s grip and wandered back to the group, joining them again, looking up hopefully as a truck turned slowly into the street, offering briefly the prospect of work.

* * *

DEE SURVEYED the scene in the American Legion Building in Newton, a small town about twenty miles from Des Moines. It was only 10:00 a.m., but already the room was packed with an exuberant crowd. Judging by the broad mix of ages, she guessed a good number of the crowd had taken off time from work. That was a hell of a good sign. She leaned on the wall at the back of the room behind the massed ranks of the press. Every so often a reporter or blogger approached her, notebook or tape recorder in hand, looking for a quote.

“Go on, git!” she said, waving them away like they were stray dogs, half-joking, half serious. “I’m not on the record. I’m on a break.”

She inwardly relished the attention though and enjoyed sending the reporters away, tails between their hapless legs. It was incredible, she thought, what had happened. The campaign’s latest internal poll numbers, which she devoured in her hotel room that morning, were still rising upwards. Now every day brought four or five campaign stops and each one was packed full. This was what she had dreamed of ever since she got in the game. To be at the heart of something big, something that could change the whole country. She closed her eyes a moment and listened to the local high school band striking up a welcoming tune and the deafening roar of the crowd as Hodges and Christine walked on stage. She opened them again and saw Mike standing beside her.

“Hey, buddy,” she said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were making sure logistics are all good for tomorrow’s run up to Sioux City?” Dee frowned. “And you’ve also got a little trip to the jail later, Mike. The warden is expecting you again. We’ve got to keep digging on our shooter. Keep interviewing her until we find something. It’s top priority.”

Mike looked past Dee’s shoulder and saw Hodges trying to quiet the crowd that was loudly cheering his name. It seemed an impossible task.

“She hasn’t said a word, Dee. Not a single word,” Mike said.

Dee smiled thinly, her lips disappearing into a pencil-drawn crease. “I’m sure you are quite the charmer when you want to be, Mike. It’d be a good idea to get that charm working.”

Mike nodded. “It’s all in hand,” he said. “I’m going back to the jail this afternoon. I just wanted to come by a campaign stop again. Soak up a bit of the feeling. I’ve felt a little too inside the loop the last few days.”

Dee knew what he was saying. She sometimes got that way too. It was good to remind yourself of why you worked 20 hour days. Of why scores of people did not see their families, spouses and loved ones for weeks or months. She put a hand on Mike’s shoulder.

“Good idea,” she said.

Together they stood in silence and watched Hodges work the rope line that kept the people at the front of the crowd from storming the stage. Then he stood back, gave a few thanks to local dignitaries and launched into his stump speech. It touched all the familiar points: the need for jobs to help ordinary folk live the lives their parents had, to give them better health care, to restore the country’s sense of dignity and possibility in the world. He seemed three feet taller than anyone else in the room as he spoke. His voice carried everywhere, full of dignity and purpose, warm, yet firm. It invaded the crowd, stilling them at first and then carrying them onwards and upwards, suddenly alive with possibilities. When it was over, there was a huge standing ovation. Hodges and Christine embraced, laughing and kissing like young lovers at a prom, beaming smiles and waving at the cheering throng.

“Those two must hug and kiss like that four or five times a day, but each time it still looks genuine,” said Mike.

“That’s because it is,” said Dee. “You never seen love before, Mike? Real, honest true love? There’s not much Jack Hodges does that isn’t the real thing. I’m pretty sure his marriage is part of it. Thank God for us. I’ve had more than my share of campaigns ruined because the candidate was a horn dog.”

They watched Hodges and Christine leave the room and then finally Dee gave an exaggerated wave of her arms as she called out to a waiting throng of reporters.

“Come on then, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, let’s hear what you have to say,” she said, and was immediately mobbed by a pack of reporters, clamoring with questions. Mike stepped back, eager to avoid the crush and attention. But one person followed him as he turned away. Lauren O’Keefe. She walked over and gently touched him on the arm. He looked into her open smile and stopped.

“Hi, Mike,” she said. “How’s the campaign treating you?”

Mike felt a flush of blood to his face. He could not help it and the sudden feeling caught him by surprise. “Good,” he said. “Tiring though. Non-stop work.”

“Did you see my blog post about the shooter? I was just wondering what you thought about it. Did it get any reaction from Hodges?”

Lauren’s face was still smiling, but Mike shook his head. “I didn’t see it, Lauren,” he lied. “And I can’t talk about stuff like that. On or off the record.”

Lauren shrugged. She did not seem to mind. “No problem. You want to go for a coffee somewhere? I promise no campaign talk. I’m kind of sick of it for a moment. I haven’t met anyone in weeks who has any kind of a personal life. I thought that was kind of sad and then I realized I was one of them.” She smiled again.

Mike looked at her for a moment. She really was pretty and the thought of spending an hour talking about anything but the campaign was alluring. Her smile broadened and she touched his arm.

“Come on, Mike,” she said.

* * *

FIFTEEN MINUTES later they sat in a little diner just off Newton’s pretty town square. It was a quiet place, just a handful of tables, a paper menu encased in plastic and a threadbare carpet on the floor. A waitress poured them coffee and Lauren stretched her arms backwards reaching over her head in a manner that suggested, had she been at home, she would be kicking off her shoes.

“So what’s the deal with you, Mike? Are you married to the campaign or do you have a wife and kids praying that Hodges loses and Daddy comes home.”

Mike laughed. “Single as they come,” he said, but he noticed his hand was absent-mindedly tugging at his ring finger as he said the words, feeling for a band of gold that had not sat there for years. She noticed too and raised an eyebrow.

“Divorced,” he said. “Married too young and she’s got a lot of… problems. Not her fault. She just didn’t know to cope with the hand she got dealt.”

Lauren looked sympathetic and instead of shying away from the issue she asked to hear more. To his surprise Mike found himself opening up about Jaynie, abandoning any pretence that this was some sort of date. He talked of the recent phone calls and his desire to help her. But he explained that he could not leave this campaign. Not now. It felt good to unburden himself, like letting the steam out of a kettle that was threatening to boil. Lauren listened and long before the coffee was cold in his cup, her hand was resting on his, telling him not to worry.

“It’s okay, Mike,” she said. “You think you’re alone in this circus. But you’re not. Everyone here is carrying their past behind them somehow, ignoring it while the campaign unfolds. Sometimes I think most of the people involved in this game are only doing it to run away from things in life. To throw themselves into causes bigger than themselves.”

Mike had never thought of it that way. He always saw his intense attitude towards work as a savior, not an excuse. Life was a mess back in Corinth Falls. Jaynie hurtled down a path of abuse and crime and he failed to stop her. Now he thought his work filled the gap she left behind. But maybe Lauren had a point. Maybe it all just bandaged over a still bleeding wound, not actually healing it. He smiled at her and then caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall. An hour had already passed. He stood up suddenly, remembering that he needed to make his appointment at the jail. He felt his chest constrict at the thought.

“I gotta go. Important meeting and I’m a bit late,” he said. He threw a few dollars down on the table and headed for the door. But then he stopped and turned around.

“Thank you, Lauren,” he said. “I mean that.”

* * *

THE WOMAN remained as blank as the first time he saw her. Her coal eyes did not even settle on him as she was led into the interrogation room. She sat just three feet away from him across a gray expanse of desk that might as well have been a vast desert, stretching out to some unseen horizon. She seemed unreachable. The prison guard from Mike’s first visit remained in the room this time. Mike noticed the smack of the man’s lips as he chewed on gum.

“She’s a crazy bitch, son” the guard said, as if the woman was not in the room with them, but instead still locked in her cell. “She might as well be dead.”

Mike felt a flare of anger at the words. It was disrespectful to talk about her as if she were not sitting in front of him. “Perhaps it would help if you weren’t here,” Mike said, turning around to look at the guard. The man weighed his options, wondering whether to take offense.

“Suit yourself. You got 15 minutes again,” he said. Mike waited until the door clanged shut and then turned to the woman.

There was nothing for him to do but to fill the emptiness with his own speech. “Where did you meet Senator Hodges? If you wanted to kill him, you must have had a reason. Did he do something to you? Or was it something he did to someone else?”

The woman stopped looking around the room and hung her head. For a moment Mike thought she might have drifted off to sleep.

“Was it Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Did you dislike him fighting in those wars?”

Still nothing. A blank wall of silence. Or was it sadness? There seemed a deep melancholia behind those eyes. Or perhaps Mike was reading too much of his own emotions about Jaynie into the situation. Seeing the prisoner as another lost soul in the world. Yet that puzzled him. He should be angry at this woman. She tried to kill a man he believed in. The one politician he thought might actually change this country for the better. But for some reason, he could muster no fury towards her. So he just talked. He talked of the campaign and how well it was going. Of how Hodges was being greeted by crowds of well-wishers. Of how the candidate won the debate and was climbing in the polls. For just a moment, Mike sensed a change in the room. Was it a quiver at the corner of her mouth? Or was it her lank, black hair, hanging over her face, suddenly twitching as she breathed out more heavily?

Mike pressed on.

Hodges, he told her, was a great man who would make a great president. America was waking up to his message. America was finally getting it and it all started here. In a campaign transformed by an act of violence that seemed like madness but that could change the world.

Mike paused. He leaned forward, his voice a whisper. “That change was thanks to you,” he said. “He will owe it all to you.”

The woman’s face snapped up and Mike shot backwards, his chair scraping on the floor. She looked at him now. Her eyes flared up to the size of saucers. Her breath came in ragged heaves and her whole body tensed, like a cat about to pounce. Her arms were on the desk and seemed rigid, the muscles in her hands bulging.

Mike backed off, realizing with icy dread, something he had not truly understood until now. This was a woman who tried to kill a man. She waited patiently for hours upon hours with that sole purpose. The eyes looking at him now were those of a killer.

And then the moment passed.

Her head sagged back down and her body slumped. Mike, a cold sweat on his palms, sat there. It was his turn to be silent now. He remained so until the guard came back.

“She say anything?” the guard asked. He jerked his head in the direction of the woman.

“Not a thing,” Mike answered. But she didn’t need to. Mike learned something without words. This woman was not mad. She was not deranged and without reason. She was a killer with a purpose.

* * *

OUTSIDE IN the cold, fresh air, Mike walked across the prison parking lot to his car. It was a relief to be out of the jail. His heart was still beating fast and he felt sweat freeze on his forehead as an icy blast swirled across the tarmac. He walked intently with his head bowed, so it was not until the last moment that he noticed a female figure leaning casually against his car, waiting for his arrival.

“Gotcha,” Lauren said.

Mike opened his mouth but no words came out.

“I knew you guys were looking into the shooter. But I had to follow you to make sure it was true,” she said. The note of triumph in her voice was unmistakable. Then she winced theatrically and shrugged her shoulders by way of apology.

“I’m sorry, Mike. You’re not mad about this are you?”

Mike gathered his feelings, finally realizing that he was actually more impressed than angry. Not only did Lauren have the right sources in the campaign to get a lead, she had the balls to actually follow his car to see where he was going.
But did she know anything new?
He thought fast. She did not know about the cleaner at the Havana. She did not even know about the motel. She could follow his car but she could not follow his investigation.