A Candidate for Murder (7 page)

Mom leaned forward. “Did the man call her by name?”

“Yes. Nora.”

“I don’t know anyone named Nora. Do you?”

“No,” I said.

“We’ll talk to the police about the calls, of course,” Mom told me.

I felt kind of sick. “Mom, do you think this woman is real? That someone’s really planning to hurt me?”

“Nobody’s going to hurt you, Cary,” Mom said, her voice firm. “You said the woman was drunk.”

“Only the first time.”

“What she told you didn’t make sense in either call, did it?”

“No.”

Mom took my hands and held them tightly. “We’ll keep her from bothering you again, honey.”

“How?”

“We’ll have the telephone company change your phone number.”

“I never thought of that!” I was so relieved I laughed. “Oh-oh! That means I’ll have to give the new number to Allie and Justin and …”

Mom stood and reached out a hand, pulling me to my feet. She wrapped me in a quick hug before she teased, “Cary, my love, will you please,
please
let me take my bath now?”

“Sure,” I said. We smiled at each other, and I left the room, but as soon as the door closed my smile vanished. I’d thought of a lot of friends I should give my new private number to—friends who knew the number I had now. Was this how Nora got my phone number? Through someone I thought would keep it private?

I started down the stairs, and as I reached the landing I saw Velma standing at the foot of the stairs. “There you are, Cary,” she said. “Thank goodness I don’t have to climb those stairs to tell you someone’s here to see you.”

“Who?” I asked, immediately hopeful.

“The boyfriend,” Velma said in a loud stage whisper, and my heart gave a jump. “Come to make up, I imagine, ’cause he brought you somethin’.”

Now the smile on my face was for real. I galloped down the stairs and into the living room where Justin was waiting for me.

He held out his arms. One hand dangled a small grocery sack. “Peace offering,” he said. “Ice cream. Your favorite. Double chocolate chunk.”

I laughed and wanted to run right into his arms, but Velma had followed me into the room.

“You want me to dish that up?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” I said. “We just need two spoons. We’ll eat the ice cream out on the patio.” It was the perfect place to be on a warm night with the spicy fragrance from the nearby banks of gold and red chrysanthemums, the hum of a few late cicadas in the elm trees, and only a soft blue glow from the underwater lights in the pool to break the darkness.

Velma brought us two long-handled spoons and turned on the outside lights that spotlighted the patio. As soon as she’d gone inside Justin turned them off. We nestled into one of the porch swings and shared the ice cream and a few chocolate-flavored kisses.

“I’m sorry about the way I put things,” Justin murmured against my ear. “I didn’t mean them that way. I know how important your father’s campaign is to you. If they want us to work in the campaign office tomorrow, I’m ready.”

“Thanks, Justin,” I said and added a kiss. A little later
I told him, “I shouldn’t have got so angry. I’m sorry about the things I said. You’re right. We have to start thinking about what kind of costumes we’re going to wear to the party.”

The patio lights flashed on, so brightly that we squinted.

This time it was Dexter, who announced, “It’s time to lock up now. Besides, it’s late and Cary has school tomorrow.”

Justin smiled as he got up and pulled me to my feet. “How many parents have you got?” he asked.

Too many
, I thought. I didn’t mind when Velma got a little bossy, but I didn’t like it when Dexter took it upon himself to tell me what to do.

As I walked with Justin to the front door he said, “See you at school tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the ice cream,” I said and reached up for one more quick kiss before we had to say good night.

As soon as I’d climbed into bed, I snuggled between the sheets, pulled the blanket to my chin, and immediately drifted into sleep.

It must have been very late when, mingled with my dreams, I heard the rumble of men’s voices at the foot of the stairs as Dad said good night to his visitors. And it was even later when I became aware of the slow, exhausted thump of his footsteps as he climbed the stairs to bed.

D
ad’s charges did get covered in the newspapers and on television, along with Ben Cragmore’s denial, but a political columnist, who’d been taking potshots at Dad, wrote a sarcastic story about Dad visiting the scene of the accident only because his advisers sent him and described Dad as being very careful not to get too close so that he wouldn’t get his thousand-dollar suit and handmade Italian shoes dusty.

I looked at the picture of the writer next to his column. “This guy wasn’t even there,” I said. “How can he get away with a lie like that?”

Before either of my parents could answer I said, “I know what you’re going to say—it’s politics. But please,
please
don’t say it!”

“Don’t pay attention to that column,” Dad said. “The collapse of the freeway is being investigated, so the truth will come out.”

“If someone’s actually going to print the truth, how will anyone recognize it with all this other stuff being written?” I asked.

“Cary,” Mom said, “don’t sound so cynical. Your father’s right. The truth
will
come out.”

I doubted it.

Before I had to leave for school a detective, who introduced himself as Sgt. Jim Slater, came to the house, and I told him what I had told Mom. He asked questions and made notes and said practically the same thing that the other detective had said to Dad about strange people who get their kicks out of making threatening calls but never follow through.

“But the woman didn’t threaten me,” I said. “It was more like she was trying to warn me about something.”

“Just another form of intimidation,” he said.

Mom told me that my phone number would be changed during the day, and I went off to school feeling a lot better about the whole thing and looking forward to my first day as a volunteer in Dad’s campaign office.

By the time I arrived at the office everything had been put back in order. Every trace of the blue paint was gone, and the room was crowded with all sorts of people. With the exception of Edwin Sibley—who nodded to me from across the room—and two men with good haircuts and well-tailored business suits, all the people in the room were women, from a good-looking girl with long, perfectly straight black hair, who was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, to a small-boned elflike woman with thin blue-white curls who was wearing an expensive black St. John knit with ropes of gold chains.

Each desk was staffed, and people were sorting mail, using telephones, and carrying large cardboard boxes
of who-knows-what back and forth from the front room to the offices at the back. I would have liked to get a look at what was in all those boxes. Campaign literature? Posters? Yard signs? Or did things like yard signs come
after
the primaries? There was a lot to learn.

I suppose I’d had a romantic notion about Justin working side by side with me, but Delia had something different in mind. She raised her voice over the murmur of conversation, interrupting it in order to introduce us to the group, and people beamed and giggled and applauded when Delia called me “the daughter of Texas’ future governor.”

I spoiled it all by blushing. Dad could stay calm and cool with all this attention, but I wasn’t used to it. I was trying to think of something nice to say in return when, all of a sudden, everyone went back to work, leaving me standing there with my mouth open. I closed it, feeling even sillier than I’d felt before.

Justin was immediately assigned to move some of the heaviest of those mysterious boxes, and I was led to what must have been the only empty chair in the room, behind a table near the front door, and given a pile of letters and envelopes.

“You’ll be working next to Marjorie Lane,” Delia said. “If you run into any problems you can ask her for help.”

I turned toward the heavyset woman in an expensive dress and loads of jewelry who was seated next to me, but Delia didn’t give me a chance to speak.

“Fold each letter in thirds, place it in an envelope, seal it with that sponge thingie, and toss it in the box on the floor,” Delia explained.

“What about stamps?”

“We’re using a postage meter,” Delia said. She didn’t have time to answer questions. She went over to talk to the two guys in business suits, and the three of them disappeared in the direction of the back offices.

Once again I tried to say hello to Mrs. Lane, but after the curious appraisal and quick nod of recognition she gave me when I first sat down, she never took the telephone receiver away from her ear. Rapidly, she was checking the names on a long list as she made call after call.

“We’re reminding you about the reception tonight at seven
P
.
M
. at the Hotel Adolphus. While all three of our party’s candidates will be honored, we hope you’ll give your support to Charles Amberson …” Her voice went on and on with the same message. It was being drilled into my brain, and I’d probably recite it in my sleep.

I knew about the other two candidates for the party’s nomination: Edna Poole, who was a judge in El Paso, and Stanley Barker, who was a state legislator from Houston. I’d heard Delia say, satisfaction in her voice, that neither of them had the name recognition Dad had.

Before I started my assignment I did a quick read-through of Dad’s letter. It sounded like Dad. It was straightforward and right to the point as he listed his major goals: eliminate graft in the state offices, develop a tough antidrug action, and consolidate some school districts in order to save money and stretch the equality funds even further. Unfortunately, I had to admit to
myself that the letter was kind of dry and boring, but I guessed most campaign literature was like that. I wondered how many voters would actually read it.

Boring. It made me remember what Mom had said about the way unwanted volunteers were sometimes gotten rid of, and I wondered if that was why I had been given this job. Fold letters and stuff envelopes, fold and stuff, fold and stuff.

The girl in shorts came over. “Hi,” she said. “My name’s Francine.”

“Hi,” I said, grateful for someone close to my age to talk to. “I’m Cary.”

“So we’ve heard.” She smiled and added, “This is just like in the movies. The boss’s kid starts at the bottom and works up.”

“Up to what?” I asked.

She raised one eyebrow and said, “Up to the inside, secret stuff.”

“I don’t know what kind of secret stuff you’re talking about.”

“Private investigator stuff. You know, like what one candidate finds out about another one, such as Jimmy Milco.”

“Why Governor Milco, in particular?” And why my sudden suspicion over a simple question? Was I beginning to mistrust everybody?

Francine smiled. “It’s just the first name that came to mind.”

“Well, to answer your question, if my dad finds out anything about Jimmy Milco he won’t keep it secret.”

“Come on,” she said. “You’ve got your Dad’s best interests at heart. Right?”

“Yes, but …”

“So there are probably things you know, maybe things you’ve overheard, that you’d use to help your father, if you could.”

She was studying me so intently that I looked away, embarrassed. What was she getting at?

“Nobody gives me any inside information,” I told her. “I’m just one of the volunteers.”

“Me too,” she answered and smiled, but I could tell from her eyes that wheels were still going around and around in her mind.

“Are you in high school?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Nope,” she said. “College. Political science major, as a matter of fact.”

I gestured toward all the volunteer workers in the room. “Then all this should be really interesting to you.”

“It is,” she answered. As Delia walked through the room, Francine caught her eye and quickly said, “Well, I’d better get back to work.” She hurried to one of the desks near the far end of the room.

I looked around for Justin, but he was nowhere in sight, so I went back to my job. Fold the paper, stuff in an envelope, and seal. Fold, stuff, and seal. Fold and …

Through the plate-glass windows I saw a young woman in jeans jaywalk across the street and approach the office. She was wearing a light denim jacket and her
blond hair was pulled to the back of her neck. She had a shoulder bag and camera case slung over one shoulder, and she carried a notebook. She caught my glance and smiled before she opened the door. “Hi,” she said. “It looks a lot different around here than it did yesterday morning.”

I smiled back. “Want a job? Try stuffing envelopes. One exciting fun-filled minute after another.”

She chuckled, shifted her notebook to her left hand, and held out her right. “I’m Sally Jo Wilson, with
The Dallas Gazette.
”

I shook her hand and said, “I’m Cary Amberson.”

One eyebrow rose, and her lips pursed as she took another look at me. “Ah-ha. The candidate’s daughter.”

“The future governor’s daughter,” I answered.

“Fair enough.”

I liked Sally Jo’s smile. It flickered back and forth on her face like a lightbulb that wasn’t screwed in properly, and it was so contagious that I couldn’t help smiling in return.

“How about an interview?” she asked. She placed her bag and her camera on the floor, pulled a pen from her shirt pocket, opened her notebook, and sat on the edge of the desk.

I hesitated, and she said, “Let’s see … Caroline Jane Amberson … sixteen years old, only child, born in Dallas, as was her father; mother born in Chamberlin, North Dakota; parents met at Southern Methodist University; married in 1972; Caroline Jane attends Gormley Academy, good grades, member of the Booster Squad, played the oldest Trapp daughter last
spring when the school put on their yearly musical, has a trust fund in her name—established by her grandfather—and has no police record.”