A Candidate for Murder (10 page)

He shook his head. “There was a large group around me at the time, and I didn’t even see him. The entire episode was over within two or three minutes. It was a minor incident.”

“They made a big thing of it on television,” I said, “and I hated seeing it happen to you.”

Mom’s voice was deliberately bright. “Let’s not talk about that. Tell us about your father’s speech,” she said. “I hope they broadcast the part in which Charles questioned how state construction jobs are awarded.”

Their expressions were so eager it hurt too much to answer. All I could do was shake my head.

Both Dad and Mom looked puzzled. “What part of the speech did they televise?” Mom asked.

“None of it,” I said. “They showed the other candidates first, and we heard just a sentence or two of their speeches. But when Dad was talking we didn’t hear what he said. The reporter just told us all over again about the man who tried to attack Dad.”

Mom bit her lip, and her eyes snapped with fury. “So much for equal time!”

Dad patted her shoulder and said, “The newspapers will run something about the speech.”

“But this would have been free television publicity, and they didn’t quote you at all!”

Dad smiled. “You’re beginning to sound like Delia.”

Mom had to laugh, in spite of her anger. “I can’t help it. I take this all very personally.”

“You can’t,” he said. “There are a lot of wild punches thrown in politics, and you have to learn to roll with them.”

Mom simmered down, but Dad hadn’t convinced me. I didn’t want to roll with somebody’s punch. I’d rather hit back.

*   *   *

While we ate breakfast the next morning, Mom, Dad, and I went through one of the local morning newspapers. There was coverage of the reception, but the story was mostly about the disturbance, as though that was more important than anything Dad had said.

“Politics! Yuck!” I muttered and flung my section of the newspaper on the floor. “Why do you want to go through all this, Dad?”

“Someone once said, ‘The first requirement of an administrator is that he prove trustworthy.’ I agree, and I want to give our state an honest leadership.”

“Is it really worth it?”

Dad gave me a long, searching look. “I hope you can answer that question yourself, Cary.”

Mom held out a clipping from last evening’s
Gazette
and smiled at me. “Your friend, Sally Jo, wrote a pretty good story about you, Cary. Congratulations on giving a fine interview.”

Dad smiled, too, and I could see the pride in his eyes. “You have more political know-how than I would have guessed.”

I wasn’t sure what they meant until I read the story. I came across as a nice clean-cut kid who was proud of her father. Sally Jo had quoted all the things I’d said to describe Dad, and she’d left out my caustic comments about politics. Actually reading in print the things I’d said gave me a peculiar feeling, and I was relieved that the article didn’t include what I’d mouthed off about.

The photograph of me was awful, though. She’d caught me while I was saying something, so there I was with my mouth open like a fish gasping for air.

Dad kissed us good-bye and said he was off to Wichita Falls where he was going to speak to the Chamber of Commerce.

“Good luck,” Mom said and gave him a big smile. She poured herself another cup of coffee.

When Dad left the dining room I leaned my elbows on the table and looked at Mom. “Tell me the truth,” I said. “How do you really feel about Dad’s running for governor?”

“We talked it over before Charles made his decision,” she said, but her glance slid away from mine.

“Mom,” I said, “Sally Jo reminded me that if Dad won, you’d have to give up your law practice, and I’d be in a new school in Austin without my friends.”

“I don’t know why she was being so negative,” Mom said. If your father becomes governor your life will be exciting. You’ll meet interesting people and—”

I interrupted. “Mom, she just wanted my reaction. She wasn’t trying to cause trouble. But she did make me think … not just about me, but about you, too. Won’t it bother you to give up your practice?”

“I won’t give it up,” Mom said. “I’ll be able to take a leave of absence from the firm.” She tried to smile, but her air of confidence didn’t fool me for a minute.

“You’d be away from the courtroom for what—four years? Eight, if Dad’s reelected? And what about your work with the rape crisis center? I know that means a lot to you. Wouldn’t giving that up be hard to take?”

“Oh, Cary,” Mom said, and she reached across the table and took my hands, holding them tightly. “Your father and I are a team, and this isn’t the first time
we’ve had to decide what was best for both of us. In this case running for office means so much to your father that it was my own decision to support him in what he wanted to do. I hope you can understand.”

“I’d be leaving Allie and Justin—and all my friends.”

Mom didn’t say anything. She just kept her eyes on mine, waiting patiently until I finally said, “Okay. I understand.”

She smiled and squeezed my fingers before she released them. “Good for you, Cary,” she murmured.

I wasn’t going to give in too graciously, so I added, “But I didn’t say I’d like everything about it.”

“Me, either,” Mom said. She rolled her eyes, and we both laughed. “Come on,” she told me. “It’s time to take you to school.”

When I arrived at school I found that Allie had tacked the article and picture up inside her locker at school, and Justin told me he’d put his copy on the bulletin board in his bedroom. A few of the kids in my class told me they liked the article, a couple teased me about the photograph, but a girl who I thought was a friend made a sarcastic comment about people who think they’re famous and turned her back on me.

Why? Just because my father was running for governor I was supposed to let it all go to my head? I pretended that I hadn’t heard her, but it hurt.

A new Charles Amberson joke was going around school, too, and a lot of people snickered about it, throwing quick glances at me to see how I’d react, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

It was a sunny day, not too hot, so I chose to study on
one of the outside benches, instead of in the library, during my free period, which comes last in the day. I was busy highlighting stuff in my English lit book when Mark suddenly sat down next to me and said, “You were wrong about somebody taking my film as a joke and bringing it back. They didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

He wouldn’t give up. “So who took it?”

“How should I know?”

“It all comes down to the fact that you’re the only one who didn’t want your picture taken.” His lower lip curled out in a pout.

“I told you, Mark, I didn’t take your film, and I have no idea who did. Are you sure you even had film in your camera?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

This set him off, and I couldn’t stand it. “We’re supposed to be studying,” I said. “Okay? So leave me alone!” I jumped up, grabbed my book, and walked away as fast as I could, but a picture popped into my mind. It was the terrace door at the country club and the man who stood there—Mr. Cragmore. Mark had left his camera on the table by the door. Could Mr. Cragmore have taken the film?

I remembered Mark snapping a photo of me as I stood at the curve in the terrace. I’d heard the men’s footsteps approaching before Mark had called out and taken the picture. Were the men in the shot, too? Had they thought they were and been afraid to take the chance? It didn’t make sense, but neither did the fact that Mark’s film just disappeared out of his camera.

I kept walking in the same direction, trying unsuccessfully to figure out an answer, until I reached the parking lot. I was turning, ready to go back to my study bench again, when I noticed an old, dark blue sedan pull out from where it had been parked at the far side of the lot. The window on the passenger side was down, and I caught a quick glimpse of the person inside the car—a broad-shouldered man with light brown hair.

The car came directly toward me, the afternoon sunlight blurring the windshield.

I don’t know what might have happened. I was too startled to run or even think. But just then Coach Mac and some of the senior guys came out of the nearest building and headed toward one of the school vans, which was parked in the lot.

The blue sedan turned to the left and drove out the exit, as though that’s what the driver had in mind all along.

Well, why not? What was the matter with me? I told myself that I couldn’t let my imagination go crazy and get scared by every little thing. Forget it. I had an assignment in English lit to finish. I went back to the bench and forced myself to concentrate on my work.

The first thing I did when Justin and I got to Dad’s campaign office that afternoon was ask Delia if she knew Francine’s last name.

“Of course,” she said. “It’s
Smith.
”

Francine Smith?
There went my imagination again. The name
Smith
didn’t have to be fake. A lot of people
are named Smith. “Did Dad tell you about …?” I began.

“Nothing was missing,” Delia interrupted. “I don’t know what the silly girl thought she was doing!” She picked up a heavy stack of papers and shoved them into my hands. “Could you sort these for me, Cary? For some reason they weren’t collated.”

I was beginning to know some of the regular volunteers, even though we didn’t have much time to talk to each other. I was curious about the people who volunteered. I found out that Mrs. Lane supported herself by selling real estate but felt so strongly about the need for a change of administration that she was donating time every afternoon to Dad’s campaign.

Another woman, who often shared my chores, was a retired schoolteacher. A couple of women held office in Dad’s political party; there were some grandmothers, some young women with kids in school, and even a few businessmen. Some came every day; some just showed up once in a while.

I tried to talk to Mr. Sibley twice because I was especially curious about him, but he didn’t have much to say to me or to anyone else. Once I asked him how long he’d lived in Dallas, and for an instant he stood motionless, staring at me as though he were a terrified rabbit. Then he seemed to pull himself together and hurried off without answering.

I didn’t expect Justin to come to the office much longer, especially after Delia lost her temper and blamed him for losing an entire mailing.

“The letters were in those boxes you took to the post office,” she said.

“I didn’t take any boxes or anything else to the post office,” Justin complained.

Delia jabbed a finger at a paper on a clipboard. “Right here is your name with a checkmark beside it,” she insisted. “Someone wrote it in and checked you out as you loaded the boxes.”

“It wasn’t me. Honest.”

She sighed and apologized conditionally, rolling her eyes when she said, “
if
there has been a mistake,” but she made a couple of strong comments about how important the letter had been and how expensive it was going to be to have it printed all over again.

I’d probably have to fold all those letters. I wasn’t looking forward to that, so grumpily I asked Justin, “How could you lose a couple of boxes of mail?”

“I didn’t,” Justin told me. “Somebody else did. I’ve been running a lot of errands, but I haven’t taken
anything
to the post office. Doesn’t anybody believe me?”

I believed him. There were so many people trying to do so many things, it was easy to see how a mistake could have been made. That wasn’t the only mistake. Stuff kept getting mislaid, somebody got one of Dad’s timetables scrambled in the computer, and a can of cola was spilled over a stack of posters, ruining all of them.

On the way home Justin and I talked about the Halloween dance, which was much more interesting than talking about all the grunt work we were doing in the campaign office. I had gathered all the parts of my
costume, and I couldn’t wait to see how Justin and Allie and Greg were going to look.

On Saturday, the night of the party, I got dressed in my roadie outfit, sprayed a wide streak of blue in my hair, and nearly died laughing when I looked at myself in the mirror.

Mom cracked up when she saw me. “That’s a great costume,” she said. “You look like some of those musicians on MTV.”

When Justin arrived to pick me up we all whooped with laughter. He looked hysterically funny in the straggly blond wig, but in that tight, torn T-shirt he looked kind of sexy, too.

I wanted to show off our costumes to Dad, but he was in his office with his campaign managers and a couple of state legislators.

“Maybe it would be better if you didn’t,” Mom said. “They’re discussing the investigation of that construction accident, and Charles asked me to take any telephone messages so they wouldn’t be interrupted.”

I suppose I should have realized that showing off a Halloween costume would be unimportant kid stuff. “I hardly ever get to talk to Dad anymore,” I complained. “I’ll be glad when he’s through with all this.”

“Cary, honey,” Mom said, “we’re still months away from the primary election. If Charles wins the party nomination—and I certainly hope he will—you’re going to have to face the fact that your father will be even busier then than now.”

“I know,” I said.

I tried to think of something to reassure Mom, but Justin grabbed my arm and swung me toward the door. “Come on,” he said. “The dance has already started.”

Justin and I stopped by the Richardses’ house to pick up Greg and Allie. Allie and Greg looked great, and Allie laughed so hard at Justin and me it made me feel good, like our costumes were really the best.

We parked in the big front lot of Loews Anatole Hotel, across from the Dallas Market Center. A few people stared at us as we entered the hotel, but there were enough kids in costume around so that I didn’t feel embarrassed. Once we were in the ballroom our school dance committee had decorated with pumpkins, skeletons, and orange and black streamers, it was lots of fun checking out the other costumes and going into hysterics about some of them.

The music was terrific, there was plenty of food, and it was a great party. But just like before, Mark tagged around after me with that stupid camera. That was one of Mark’s problems. He never gave up.