Authors: Julie Hyzy

Eggsecutive Orders (12 page)

She looked up long enough to catch my wink.

“You’re going to be sorry if I spend my whole vacation sitting in front of this computer,” she said.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let that happen.”

She was already typing. “You’d better not.”

CHAPTER 10

MY BREATH CAUGHT THE NEXT MORNING WHEN I opened the paper. With all the excitement yesterday running into Ruth Minkus at Arlington, I had almost forgotten about Howard Liss’s accusations. Almost. But not completely.

The newspaper’s headlines dealt with the Chinese assassinations, but I didn’t stop to read the coverage. All my focus was on getting to page two to see what new mischief Howard Liss was up to.

Whatever Happened to Mean Minkus?

The media (and dare I say it—the government) is persisting with society’s tendency to confer sainthood on an individual just because that person is dead. Have we so quickly forgotten the “Mean Minkus” appellation bestowed on our recently departed compatriot? I’m sure others aren’t so forgiving. In fact, I would be willing to bet that several high-profile celebrities are sleeping a little easier tonight now that the bulldog has bitten the dust. Whether they deserve the respite, or whether they’ve just dodged a bullet remains to be seen. It will be up to Minkus’s capable second-in-command, Phil Cooper, to determine what terrorist cells our favorite film stars belong to. If any.

My focus today is not on these superstars, but on the dead man. Let us stop singing his praises. Let us stop eulogizing him as though he were infallible and a loveable teddy bear just because he no longer walks in our midst. Let us admit he was a canker to many, and a hero to some. But if, indeed, he met his maker before his time, then I want to know who did it. You should want to know, too. You should demand to know. Perhaps then we will have ourselves a genuine terrorist to persecute. Who did it? I don’t know. Joel Minkus, the golden boy congressman—and soon to be senator if Ruth has anything to do with it—has not yet seen fit to make time for my questions. I hope he will reconsider soon. Time is our enemy. If anyone knows who Mean Minkus was targeting, we may have our best clue to our killer.

“You’re not actually reading that garbage, are you?” Mom asked from behind me.

Nana peered over my shoulder. “What does that crazy man have to say today?”

I let out the breath I’d been holding. “At least Liss isn’t attacking me again.”

“Good,” Mom said. “How anyone can subscribe to that man’s rantings, I can’t understand.”

“Rantings,” I said. “Good choice of word. This
Liss Is More
column might sell a lot of papers, but he sure seemed to be all over the place in terms of accusations. Today he’s on a whole new rampage. ‘Who was Minkus’s next target?’ ” I frowned as I turned the page. “Maybe that’s who the police should be investigating instead of me.”

“He’s a lunatic,” Nana said as Mom poured her a cup of coffee.

“What does that say about me?” I asked rhetorically. “I read him every day now.”

Mom patted me on the shoulder. “Well, of course you do,” she said in that soothing voice she used to use when I woke up during a nightmare. “He pulled you into this situation.”

I didn’t want to argue that I was already part of this situation before Liss ever got a hold of it, but the phone rang. I’d turned it back on this morning, hoping the onslaught from the press had subsided.

Nana looked up. “Do you think that’s your handsome hunk, Tommy?”

Mom and I exchanged a look. “No,” I said, with more than a little disappointment. “Ollie Paras,” I said into the receiver, forgetting this was my home phone. “I mean . . . Hello.”

“Oh my God, Ollie, there are people out on our front lawn. With cameras!”

In my effort to process the woman’s panicked words, I couldn’t place her voice.

“Why does anyone think we had anything to do with Minkus? You know we didn’t. Can’t you tell them? Steve is ready to go out there with a baseball bat.”

“Suzie,” I said, relieved to know who I was talking to. “Please, don’t let him do that, okay? It will just make it worse.”

“I know,” she said. “He knows it, too. But we can’t even leave the house to get the newspaper on the driveway without a hundred people shoving microphones at us and asking a million questions.”

“A hundred?”

“Well, at least a dozen. Hang on.” I heard her counting. “Well, there are five on the lawn and two by the street.”

“Have they been there since Monday?”

“No, just today. This morning. Why are they targeting us?”

I thought about that. Except for the camera crew and the White House staff, no one knew that Suzie and Steve had been part of Sunday night’s dinner preparations until I’d mentioned it to Jack Brewster, and then to the two detectives when Craig interrogated me. I couldn’t imagine who might have leaked that information to the press, but it was obvious someone had.

“I don’t have an answer for you,” I said, but my brain was trying to piece it together. “Did anyone come over to question you about Sunday’s filming?”

“Yeah,” Suzie said uncertainly. “Last night a detective stopped by and asked us a few questions, but he said it was just routine. Now this.” I could practically picture her gesturing out her front window.

“Try to keep a low profile,” I suggested.

“Do you have any idea what our schedule is like today?” Suzie asked, her hysteria returning. “We have two segments to film at the studio this afternoon. How can we get there if there are news vans blocking our driveway? What do they want from us?”

“Let’s take it easy,” I said, trying to work the same soothing magic on Suzie that my mom had been able to work on me. “First of all, they can’t be on your private property.”

“Hang on, let me peek out the window.” I heard the soft shift of metallic blinds. “No, they seem to be mostly on the street. Some are under the tree at the parkway.”

“Where do you live?”

She told me. I recognized the name as a posh Virginia suburb. “Okay,” I said. “As long as they—”

Suzie screamed.

“What?” I asked into the receiver. “What? What happened?”

When she answered, her breath came in short gasps. “One of them jumped up at my front window and took my picture.”

In the background I heard Steve swearing and threatening to grab a gun.

“Stop him,” I said.

My mom touched my arm. “What’s going on?”

I held up my palm to her. “Suzie,” I said, concentrating. “Stop him. Call the police. They can make the media back off. Trust me on this one.”

She dropped the receiver and I heard snippets of conversation as she pleaded with Steve to calm down. I turned to my mother. “The news folks are camped out at Suzie and Steve’s house.”

I’d already explained the SizzleMasters’ role in the current White House drama, so my mom didn’t need clarification. “Can they do that?”

I shook my head as Steve snatched up the phone on the other end. “Goddamn media!” he shouted.

I held the receiver away from my ear. Steve bellowed expletives, complaining about the lack of privacy they were suffering. “And now they go and scare my wife. Ollie, can’t the Secret Service do something about this?”

This didn’t seem like a good time to tell him that this didn’t exactly fall within the Secret Service’s jurisdiction. In the background, I heard Suzie ask, “What do we do?”

“That’s a good question, Ollie,” Steve said into the phone. “What
do
we do?”

“I’d suggest you wait them out—”

“You mean cancel our filming for today? That’s just wrong and you know it. We shouldn’t be prisoners in our own—”

“You’re right,” I said, interrupting him. “You shouldn’t. But can you think of any way to keep your commitments and avoid being run down by the newshounds?”

He was silent for a long moment. “Do you think they’ll give up by the end of the day?”

I doubted it. “Let me see if I can help,” I said, thinking that this conversation was exactly the sort of thing Tom wanted me to avoid. “Give me your number.” I had it on Caller ID, but giving Steve something rote to do might help calm him.

“Let me give you my cell and Suzie’s, too.”

I dutifully wrote down all the numbers he provided. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“I think we ought to sit down with you and talk about all this,” Steve said.

In the background I heard Suzie agree. “That’s a great idea. When can she come over?”

Come over? No way. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said to Steve, effectively cutting off Suzie’s train of thought. “Can you imagine what the press would do to us if I showed up at your house?”

“I still think we need to talk with you,” he said gruffly. Then, away from the receiver he addressed Suzie: “We can’t have her come here. Those vultures out there would skewer us.”

Suzie’s reply was inaudible.

“Let me call you back,” I said. “We can talk after I get more information.”

“Do you think they have our phones tapped?”

“Who?”

“The press. The Secret Service. The police. The NSA. Homeland Security.” With each tick of his list Steve’s voice rose until he reached fever pitch. “Do you think this is part of keeping us under surveillance? Do you know why they suspect us?”

“I don’t believe anyone really does, Steve,” I said. “I just think this is today’s news . . .”

“They suspect us all right,” he said cryptically. “But I’m not saying anything further on the phone.”

When we hung up, I ran my hands through my hair.

“What’s wrong?” Mom asked.

“I need to call Tom.”

I wondered how this would sound to him. Less than a day after he’d warned me to stay out of the investigation, I was essentially dragged back into it. He had to realize this was no fault of mine. These were just friends who were asking for my help. But I couldn’t do anything for them—nothing at all—without risking Tom’s career.

Although I had no desire to keep secrets from my mom and nana, I stepped out onto my balcony when Tom answered, shutting the sliding door behind me. The morning was brisk but the bright sunlight that had kept us cheered during our trip to Arlington yesterday was nowhere to be seen.

“How are you?” I asked him.

His voice was wary. “What’s going on? You sound like there’s a problem.”

“No,” I said, trying to inject a tone of “pshaw” in my voice. “No problems. I just was thinking about what we talked about and I figured I should bring you up to date.”

He expelled a breath. “What happened?”

I talked fast, explaining about Suzie and Steve and how they wanted to meet with me. I expected him to get angry about this turn of events, but after a long, thoughtful pause he spoke. “Some interesting facts have come to light,” he said slowly. Then, as though anticipating my question, he said, “I can’t tell you what they are, but we may need to talk with you again soon.”

“Like an interrogation?”

He didn’t laugh. That made me squirm. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll see what I can do to get the media to back off Suzie and Steve. And if you want to talk with them, go ahead. We’re not suggesting you can’t maintain your friendships.”

The words were pleasant enough, but the effect was ominous. “You’re going to be watching me?”

“Not necessarily.”

“You’re going to be watching
them
?”

“I never said that.”

I pursed my lips, frustrated. I wondered what these “new interesting facts” were that he wasn’t sharing. “There’s something else you should know.”

“Uh-oh.”

I hesitated. There was no easy way to say this, so I just blurted. “I ran into Ruth Minkus yesterday and she accused me of killing her husband.”

Tom was quiet for so long I thought he’d hung up.

“You there?” I asked.

“My God, Ollie. I can’t keep up with you.” I heard scratchy noises, as though he were rubbing his face. I shivered and it wasn’t just because it had started to drizzle. I stared up at the overcast sky.

“We went to Arlington,” I said, trying to explain. “And she was just . . . there. It wasn’t as though I sought her out.”

“Why didn’t you call me about this yesterday?”

Why hadn’t I? Truth was I’d been nervous about letting him know I’d had a run-in with the deceased’s wife and son. “I called you today. Besides,” I added, my own anger starting to return, “it’s not as though I’m ingratiating myself into the investigation. For crying out loud, I had a conversation with Mrs. Minkus. There’s no law against that, is there?”

I could practically see him shaking his head. “No, Ollie,” he said with such resignation in his voice that I was sorry I’d raised mine. “There’s no law against you talking with people you run into—or people you have a relationship with. I just . . .”

“You just . . . what?”

“I hope Craig is able to see things the same way I do.”

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