The Incumbent (14 page)

Jerry had driven me to my parents’ home, where I spent a few minutes with Celeste. She looked frailer than she had the night before. I told her to call at any time and if I wasn’t in the office, to call my cell phone. I gave her the number. “What about your dad? Still prefer to avoid him?”

The answer was immediate and definitive: “Yes.”

I invited her to join us for breakfast but she had already eaten. Mom had seen to that. I also suggested that she stay with my parents during the day. I didn’t tell her I thought it would be safer. She reluctantly agreed. Celeste was a balloon in a hurricane. Things were happening around her, things she could not control.

Breakfast with Jerry had gone well. He didn’t push his concerns and I made sure he knew I wasn’t upset with him. The eggs Benedict were good and, as Jerry had predicted, I felt revived. I had to admit, breakfast had been a good idea.

After breakfast I drove myself to work.

Randi arrived at her desk just two or three minutes after I plunked down in my leather chair. She was her usual cheerful self. “Did you get much sleep last night?” I assured her that I got enough.

“I have that closed-door, right?” I asked. These council sessions were not public meetings. No official notes were taken and no records kept. It was a time to make plans, assign duties, and air differences. The last item was becoming more common. I had no doubts that I would hear from Adler again. He was never happy unless he was miserable.

“Yes, at ten. I assume you want me there?” Randi took notes for me at such meetings.

“Of course. I need someone to throw her body in front of mine when the knives and guns come out.”

“It’s nice to be needed.”

I snickered. “I want to review the list of our campaign workers again.”

“Hearing the call of Washington?”

“No . . . I mean, I don’t know. Your report is intriguing. I studied it some last night. I want the list for a different reason. And could you check with the bank again? I want to know about any activity.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

I started to answer when Randi’s phone buzzed. She excused herself and answered it. From my chair I could see Randi’s work area. With the door open I could hear her conversations. After listening for a few moments, she said, “Hang on a sec.” She turned and looked at me. “It’s Fritzy. There’s a reporter out front who wants to talk to you about . . . the incidents.”

I’m not fond of reporters. They have a purpose and for the most part do a good work, but they pop up at the worst times, often get facts wrong, and feel their mere presence requires everyone to stop what they’re doing and give them their full attention. Still, dealing with them is part of my job, and I didn’t want the city thinking I was avoiding the press.

“Which reporter?”

“Turner.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. But I had some time before the closed-door session. There was no avoiding it. “Okay. Show him in.”

D
oug Turner was less than fastidious. Every time I saw him, he was dressed nicely, but his clothing never seemed to hang right. Either his shirt was tucked in too tightly, or it bulged around the middle as if the wrinkled cloth were trying to engineer an escape from his pants. This morning he wore black dress pants, a striped, button-down shirt, and an angry-looking red tie. Maybe the tie was angry because it was forced to hang straight while the stripes on the shirt all angled slightly to the man’s right. His belt buckle was a good inch and a half off center. I fought the urge to tilt my head to one side to try to even everything up.

Randi had shown the reporter in, and he plunged through the door as if he had been in my office a thousand times before. I rose to greet him, extending a courteous hand. He took it and gave it a shake, holding my hand a few seconds longer than I thought necessary. Once released, I took my seat again and caught myself wiping my palm on my pant leg.

“It’s good to see you, Mayor.” Turner sat down in one of the two guest chairs in front of my desk.

I smiled and stared at his tanned face, thick eyebrows, and square head. His hair was brown and showed no gray. He was a good ways past his forty-fifth birthday, and I was sure gray hair was someplace on his head, probably camouflaged by some color from a box with the phrase “for men” on the label.

“Sorry to be a little standoffish lately,” I said. “Some weeks are a little more constraining than others.”

“I imagine.” There was a slight smile. He reached into his coat pocket and began to remove something but struggled. The mouth of the pocket choked on Turner’s hand and whatever he held. He yanked several times before he freed the reluctant object. A second later he set it on my desk. It was black audiotape recorder.

My stomach tightened. “Is that necessary?”

“You don’t want me to make a mistake and misquote you, do you? The days of taking notes by hand are long gone, Mayor. You know that.”

I knew that very well. I also knew that a tape recorder was no guarantee that what I said would be rendered faithfully in the next day’s newspaper. I reached down and opened the lower of two file drawers on the right of my desk. The wood drawer slid open noiselessly and I quickly found what I was looking for. I retrieved it with much greater ease than had Turner. Holding it in my right hand, I closed the drawer. Like Turner, I set it on the desktop.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a cassette recorder.”

“You’re
going to record this interview?” He seemed wounded. “Don’t you trust me?”

“It’s not a matter of trust, Mr. Turner. I’ve been interviewed more times than I can count and I’ve been misquoted a good third of those times.”

“So that’s your protection?”

“Oh, I don’t think of it as protection. It’s just a way to jog my memory should I ever be asked to explain something I’ve said. Surely you understand.”

Turner understood, all right. He frowned, caught himself, then smiled. “I don’t recall you using a tape recorder the other times I’ve interviewed you.”

“Let’s cut to the chase, Mr. Turner. You’re here to ask me questions about the disappearance of two people who have some connection to me, not to quiz me about city ordinances. There is a criminal investigation underway. If you report me as saying something I didn’t say, or put what I say in a context that could raise eyebrows, then my life gets much more difficult. If asked what I actually said, I can just play the tape. Think of it as a means of protection for both of us.”

He nodded, then let his smile evolve into a grin. “I’ve always liked you, Mayor. Local politics hasn’t always attracted the sharpest knives in the drawer, but you’re an exception.”

“Thank you . . . I think.”

“It was a compliment.”

The ground rules were set, and I felt a smidge more comfortable, but just a smidge. All I had done with the tape recorder was to maintain dominance during the interview. Reporters, especially Turner, like to put people back on their heels. Once their targets are off balance, they probe with daggerlike questions. I’d learned that early on. I had no intention of tottering on my own heels in my own office.

Turner pressed the record button on his battered device. He then looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I followed suit. With both recorders doing their job, Turner leaned back in the chair, removed a small notepad from the inside pocket of his suit coat, and noisily flipped through a few pages, pausing over each one as if reading it for the first time. Then it began.

“I did some checking. First, I couldn’t help but notice that Lisa Truccoli was your treasurer. The second abduction was similar to the first, so I had to ask myself if a connection existed between you and Mrs. Stout. Since you didn’t meet with me yesterday, I had a little time to look back at some articles on your campaign and found her name, several times.”

I chose to ignore the dig, although several blunt comments flooded my brain. There was no sense in letting him choose the battles. “A great many people voted for me. If you take any five crimes in our city, there’s a good chance two of the victims were supporters of my campaign in some way or another. That would be nothing more than simple coincidence.”

“We’re not talking voters, Mayor. Ms. Truccoli was your treasurer and Mrs. Stout did fund-raising. Isn’t that right?”

“It is.”

“So then it’s safe to assume that these murders—”

“Abductions.”

“Yes, of course. So it’s safe to assume that these abductions are related to your campaign and therefore to you.”

“I would be cautious about assuming anything. The police are looking into that angle, among others.”

“Have the police interrogated you?”

“We’ve spoken but it wasn’t an interrogation; it was an interview.”

“What did they want to know?”

“You would have to ask them that. I can tell you that the questions were general in nature and that I’m happy to help in any way I can.”

“Are you a suspect?”

“In the abductions? No, Mr. Turner, I am not. At least not to my knowledge. The police have been very supportive and open. I have been the same with them.”

“What can you tell me about Ms. Truccoli?”

“Not much more than you already know.” I briefed him on her relationship to the campaign and on the work she did between election seasons.

“Were you close friends?”

“I knew . . . know her fairly well and trust her without reservation.”

“What about her family?”

“What about her family?”

“Could you tell me about them?”

I had been afraid he would go there. “I can’t add a great deal. My relationship was with Ms. Truccoli, not her family.”

“Is she married?”

“I believe she’s divorced.” In fact, I knew she was divorced, but I didn’t want to give Turner more than I had to.

“Children?”

“I know she has a daughter.”

“Where’s the daughter now?” Turner pushed.

“I understand she’s someplace safe.”

“Where would that be?”

“You know better than that.” I kept the fire out of the words, trying to remain detached.

“Better than what? I’m just asking where the daughter is. You do know where she is, don’t you?”

I struggled for a way out of the question. I didn’t want to reveal that I knew where Celeste was, let alone that she had been with me. I could think of no slick way to avoid answering, so I took the direct approach. “Do you have another question for me?”

“You didn’t answer the last one.”

“Well,” I said, standing, “if there are no other questions, I’ll have Randi—”

“Okay, okay.” Turned motioned for me to sit down. “I get the picture.”

I lowered myself into the seat.

“How about Mrs. Stout? What can you tell me about her?”

I recounted the basics but offered nothing personal about Lizzy or her family. Turner listened, nodded, grunted, and fiddled with his little notepad.

“Are you connected to the disappearances?” He was blunt. His face remained a passive mask of indifference.

“What do you mean, connected?”

“Do you know more than you’re telling?”

“No. Do you?”

He sighed. “Are you frightened?”

“Why would I be frightened?” Was he threatening a harsh, accusative article?

“You’re a very smart woman, Madam Mayor. I think you know what I mean.”

I said nothing.

He closed the notepad and returned it to his pocket. “Two people close to you have been taken against their will. For all we know, they may be dead—”

“Or alive.”

He nodded. “Certainly. Do you think you’re in danger?”

Ice water began to run through me. Once again I was forced to face something I didn’t want to see. “I have every confidence in the Santa Rita police. While I choose to be very cautious, I am not living in fear.”

He pursed his lips, reached forward, and turned off his recorder. I was amazed at my paranoia. Although I had watched him stop the recording, I still studied the device, making sure the record button was no longer depressed and that the spindle inside had stopped moving. Turner looked at me for a moment and again raised an eyebrow, then turned his eyes to my recorder. I turned it off.

“We’re off the record now, Mayor. Just so we’re clear: I know that Ms. Truccoli’s daughter is with you.”

The revelation pulled the rug out from beneath me. I answered with a tilt of the head.

“I have no intention of putting that in the article. I’m after the story and I want as much information as I can get, but I will not risk a young girl’s life for a few hundred words above the fold.”

“I appreciate that.”

“The police gave me very little information,” he admitted. “I know they found something at each site, but they aren’t telling me what. In cases like this, that’s to be expected.”

“What do you mean?”

He stood. “Kidnappings generally come with demands. Police often hold back clues from the public. It helps them distinguish between crank calls and the real thing. If demands are made, they want something that only the perpetrator can know. I think those clues have something to do with you. Am I right?”

“I can’t talk about that.”

He picked up his recorder and dropped it back into the reluctant pocket. “Something isn’t right here, Mayor. Be careful and take good care of the girl. Whatever is going on isn’t over yet.”

“How do you know that?”

“Reporter’s instinct.”

My politician instincts said the same.

chapter 10

I
looked up from my desk and saw Randi leaning against the doorjamb. She had several folders in her hand; a wide black computer bag hung from her shoulder. “Have laptop, will travel,” I said. “I assume it’s time to enter the lions’ den.”

“Yea, verily.” She smiled. “You love these closed-door meetings and you know it.”

“And here I’ve been thinking I hate them. Just goes to show you what I know.” A glance at the desk clock told me it was 9:55. The meeting was to start in five minutes, and my compulsion to be punctual kicked into overdrive. Closing the file I had been reading, I rose and started for the door. The file contained the meeting’s agenda. The church that had been denied the zoning change and conditional use permit had asked for a second opportunity to present its case to the whole council, meaning me. There was another zoning question on our docket, as well. This one was also an appeal for a second hearing, except the petitioner wasn’t a small church trying to broaden its ministry. We had bitterly debated the original request behind closed doors and in the council chamber. It was the most contentious issue we had faced in the last two years, and council divided down the middle. I had cast the deciding vote, and a company named BioMec was denied the zoning change they needed to build a five-story midrise on oceanfront property.