Dead Politician Society (21 page)

Jonathan couldn't breathe. He knew he should be out there, being helpful, doing something, but it was suddenly too much. He sat slumped on the floor of the St. Lawrence Hall kitchen, the tray he'd held moments ago lying with its contents scattered across the tiled floor.

Where was Diane? How could she be so blasé? She was probably enjoying the drama with the rest of them. And Jessica? Was she watching the scene with her family, just another evening's entertainment? And what about Brian, who was supposed to be Jonathan's trainee for the evening? He seemed more interested in positioning himself close to the politicians than in learning the ropes of the job.

And why were politicians so interesting to all these people, anyway? From Jon's observation, they were a bunch of insecure men trying to puff out their chests far enough to convince themselves that they belonged in the job. No one normal would run for office. Anyone with real confidence would know that you don't change the world by debating about it.

But Jonathan wasn't in a position to judge his classmates' or anyone's interests. He would still be a computer science major if he hadn't met Jessica in frosh week, and had that conversation — the one she'd probably forgotten about ten minutes after they'd had it — that had made him want to follow her until she felt the same way about him. He'd been shy until now, but it was happening . . . she was falling for him . . . but the timing was terrible.

This was too much — way too much — but he had to push himself forward. Jonathan found his tray and slowly picked up its fallen contents. Only one mug had broken, which he chucked into the broken dish bin.

Elly Shore burst through the swinging door from the main hall. “I can't take this. This fundraiser is the third event I've been put in charge of where a prominent guest is going home dead. Someone is out to get me.”

“Out to get
you
?” Jonathan wasn't sure how that added up. She wasn't the one gasping for life in front of two hundred people.

Elly glanced at Jonathan as if they'd never met. “When the connection gets made, which is only a matter of time, who's going to want to book Elly's Epicure, the Killing Caterer?”

“Maybe a Hallowe'en party.”

“You're lucky I'm understaffed tonight. Otherwise I'd fire you on the spot.”

Jonathan half-wished she would fire him anyway. “You didn't cater the event where Manuel Ruiz dropped dead.”

“So?”

“So you're not the connection.” He got to work refilling the tray he had dropped with tea and coffee service. “Sorry about the Hallowe'en crack. I really appreciate this opportunity.”

“Matthew Easton is a good friend.” Elly watched what Jonathan was doing. “Don't fill the sugars too much. We can't reuse what they don't consume.”

Jonathan removed a third of the sugar from each dish and replaced it in Elly's plastic bin. “Dr. Easton's a great professor. He encourages us to act upon what we believe in. And he doesn't treat us like children, which is a bonus.”

“And what do you believe in, that needs acting upon?” Jonathan could feel Elly's eyes burning a hole in the back of his tuxedo shirt.

“I guess I'm trying to figure that out.” Jonathan took some table cream from the huge stainless steel fridge, and began to fill the creamers. “Isn't that what university's supposed to be for?”

“Yes.” Elly's tone softened. “That's exactly what university is for.”

“So it's a good place to make mistakes, right? Sort out who you are, what you stand for, before going out into the real world.”

“It's all the real world. Now stop talking and get those coffee services set up. If we can't keep these politicians alive, at the very least we can keep the show going for the guests who've paid good money to be here.”

His tray ready, his arm fighting to stay steady, Jonathan pushed out once more into the main room, where John Alton lay fighting for his life.

Clare watched the action unfold with nothing less than horror. She had never seen a dead body, much less watched a person die. She supposed it should be all in a day's work for a police officer, but she was quickly finding out that she had a lot to learn about her own job.

She couldn't rush to Alton's aid — that would look ridiculous. And she couldn't go poking around the back of the house to see if she could find Diane or Jonathan or some other society member gleefully rubbing their hands together with a vial of poison in their pocket. Clare wondered if Cloutier had passed along her suggestion — or if anyone had thought of it themselves — and had an antidote kit at the ready.

Rory leapt up and flapped around his grandfather. Clare couldn't tell if he was helpful or in the way, but she could sympathize with his need to be doing something.

The crowd knew the score. Some of these guests would have been at the Working Child benefit, and they were all aware of the recent political deaths. Although the
Star
still hadn't printed the obituaries from Utopia Girl, it was obvious to the casual observer that foul play was going on.

But who was the non-casual observer?

No one had turned the microphone off, which may have been a good thing in that it kept the attention of the room focused on the podium, and therefore orderly. A doctor had been found; he pronounced Mr. Alton to be alive and struggling (a diagnosis which Clare found mildly obvious, as it was confirmed by the sound of his moaning and gasping for air). Within several minutes, paramedics arrived, and John Alton was taken out of the hall on a stretcher. On his way out, he turned his head and vomited all over a middle-aged couple. The couple remained stone-faced, continued to hold hands, and stood in place to watch the stretcher leave the room.

Alton's wife followed, sobbing but not uncontrollably. Clare wanted to cry at the sight of her. Within hours at best, her husband would likely be dead.

Left alone at the podium, Harry Dunne seemed at a loss. He asked the event's coordinator if he wanted to say anything to the crowd.

The coordinator looked like he wanted to do anything but. Clare didn't blame the guy. If he broke up the party before dessert and the speech from the prime minister, would he have to refund the guests' thousand dollars per head? If he kept the evening going and Alton died of the same mystery ailment that had killed the others, the organizers would look like they valued donations more than people's lives. Still, the man rose from his seat at one of the front tables and tentatively addressed the room.

“I think I speak for everyone here when I wish John Alton a speedy recovery from tonight's medical emergency.”

The crowd murmured its agreement.

“This episode is particularly alarming in light of recent happenings at other events.” He paused to wipe sweat from his brow. “We can only hope that if this is a related event, our haste in securing medical attention will ensure Mr. Alton's revival. I would like to thank everyone here for maintaining order. Special thanks to Harry Dunne and his grandson Rory, and to Dr. Alex Cummins for coming so hastily to John's aid.”

A couple of audience members applauded, but they quickly stopped when the mood in the room remained somber.

“Dessert is being passed around by the catering staff. I'd like to propose that we skip the preliminaries and move right to the prime minister's speech. I think it's only right that we end this evening early in honor of our friend and colleague's grave distress.”

Murmurs of “of course” and “absolutely” passed through the room.

John Alton!” Laura's voice echoed in her empty wine glass. “Well, that throws all bets out the window. He's about as much of a socialist as you are.”

“Sting.” Penny topped her up from their second bottle. “Still, I'm holding out for a connection. If we're lucky, his ‘obituary' will be arriving any second.”

“I thought those were being sent to your employee. Can you monitor your staff's emails?”

“Of course I can. Troops don't command themselves.”

Laura stood by Penny's window and gazed directly down. It felt impossibly late to her, but there were plenty of cars, taxis, and foot traffic five floors below. For the young people out clubbing, the night had barely begun.

“Here!” Penny clapped. She motioned for Laura to join her at her computer screen.

Laura stumbled a bit as she moved around the desk. They read the obituary together in silence.

Laura reminded herself to breathe deeply. Penny had shown her the other emails, but it was different reading one as it came in. She'd never been this close to evil.

“Well,” Penny said. “Out of our three committees in common, Alton was on none of them.”

“Was he even a city politician?” Laura heard herself slurring. It sounded more like “shitty politishun.”

Penny's mouth crinkled up in amusement. “Not that I recall. I think John went straight from his father's company to federal office. We can find out easily enough on the Internet.”

Laura watched as Penny loaded the search engine. “If he wasn't, will we have to throw out all our theories?”

“Not necessarily.” Penny went over to the bar and picked up their second wine bottle, which was empty. “Coffee?”

“Coffee would be perfect. What do you mean not necessarily?”

“Sometimes the three levels of government work together, forming a supercommittee, or a think tank of sorts. We can rule out homelessness — that's the city's all the way; neither the province nor the feds want to touch it.”

“Figures.” A lot of Laura's Brighter Day work dealt with homelessness, an issue that she felt consumed a lot of money without ever being humanely addressed. “Most of the homeless don't vote, so to hell with 'em.”

“My my, such public passion.” Penny pressed the On button on her coffee machine. “Have you been cleared of these murders, incidentally?”

“You're the one with the police source. Besides, I've been here with you while Alton was being killed.” Laura typed John Alton's name into Google.

“Where's Susannah tonight? You two could be in cahoots.”

The thought of Susannah, combined with the wine, made Laura feel heavy.

“Kidding,” Penny said. “Well, at least we can be each other's alibi.”

“Why would you need an alibi?” Laura clicked on a link that promised a mini-biography of Alton.

“The
Star
stands to gain a lot from our involvement with this case. You and I know that I wouldn't kill anyone to get ahead, but let's face it — the police are looking everywhere the smallest link might be.”

“I have something.” Laura's eyes skimmed the web page about Alton. “About ten years ago, he was on a think tank for health care.”

“What was it called?” Penny placed a cup under the spout of her coffee machine and pressed a button.

“Very original. Project Health.”

“Cream and sugar?”

“Yes, please.” Laura returned to the search engine, squinted at the screen, and after a couple of efforts, succeeded in typing in
Project Health Think Tank
. She clicked on the first result, read for a moment, then said, “The group had six members. Good Lord!”

“What is it?” Penny set Laura's coffee on the desk in front of her. Not that she needed it anymore: she suddenly felt stone cold sober.

“Of course I remember this think tank. Hayden was on it. It was all he could talk about for weeks.”

“Honored to be a member?”

“At first it was that innocent.” Laura rolled her eyes. “Then he started citing it as proof of his intelligence. Every time we had the smallest argument — like which route to take to my parents' house for Sunday dinner — he would remind me that he was the one who had been asked to join the think tank, and clearly I could benefit from listening to his wisdom.”

“Men are insufferable.” Penny pressed the button to make her own coffee. “That's why I'm —”

The machine's internal grinder kicked in, truncating Penny's sentence.

“Pardon?” Laura said, once the beans had been ground.

“Nothing. Who were the others in the think tank?”

Laura read from the screen. “Manuel Ruiz, Simon McFarlane, Marisa Jordan, and Sam Cray.”

Penny shook her head. “Not Libby Leighton. This can't be the connection.”

“Sam Cray is her husband. Might she have swallowed his poison accidentally?”

“Utopia Girl seemed confident she'd nailed the right victim.” Penny pulled up Leighton's “obituary” and she and Laura re-read it together.

“This doesn't condemn Leighton's policy,” Laura said. “Just her lack of . . . well, anything.”

“I don't think the other letters reference the real motive either.” Penny moved over to her own desk. “We have to keep looking.”

“Tonight?” Laura found the thought exhausting. “I think we should pack up until tomorrow.”

“In a minute.” Penny was looking at something on her computer screen. “Motherfucker.” Penny clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I forgot you hate swearing.”

“I don't hate swearing.”

“You never swear yourself.”

“I was well brought up.” Laura took a sip of coffee. “But I have many friends who weren't, so go right ahead.”

“Oh, crack me up. So I guess you don't care what I've found.” Penny moved her mouse and clicked.

“Of course I care.”

“Marisa Jordan — she's not a politician anymore, so I doubt she's next to die — introduced a housing bill. Ten years ago. It was the brainchild of Carl Haas, a Communist Party member who was also a rogue lobbyist. Hayden was on the committee in charge of assessing the bill's viability.”

“I remember that, too,” Laura said. “Carl Haas wouldn't leave us alone. At home, at restaurants — he even found us at one of the kids' soccer games.”

Penny's eyebrows arched. “Haas stalked you. Why didn't you call the police?”

“We felt sorry for him, I guess.” Laura wondered if Penny understood that her reporters did the exact same thing, and worse. “Plus the guy seemed harmless.”

“He probably
is
harmless. But someone is killing these men — and woman — and this is exactly the sort of connection I think we're looking for.”

“His housing bill was dropped, I guess?”

“Killed in committee. Wasn't even brought to Parliament.”

“Who else was on the committee?” Laura asked.

“Why do you think I flagged it? Leighton, Ruiz, and Alton.”

Laura wrinkled her brow. “Why would Alton be on a municipal committee?”

“Again, it was one of those supercommittees. They think if they take people from all parties and all levels of government, they'll come out with an unbiased result.”

“Or at least it will look unbiased to the scrutinizing public.” Laura didn't know why she felt so bitter about the reality of the political system. She put it down to the fading effect of too much wine. “Were there others on the committee?”

“About twenty in total. But they were mainly low-profile civil servants. My guess is only the politicians will be murdered.”

“Do you think this is it?” Laura looked at Penny excitedly.

“I think we should sleep on it.”

“You don't think we should phone the police? Warn Marisa?”

“Oh, Laura.” Penny shook her head. “If we go to the police, they'll take all the credit for our hard work.”

“But if we don't, and someone else is killed —”

“No one else is getting killed tonight. We'll sleep on it, and meet again tomorrow to decide how to proceed.”

“I don't know . . .” Laura felt like the right choice was obvious. “I thought our goal was to stop more murders.”

“Please?” Penny widened her eyes, and appeared oddly vulnerable.

Laura didn't buy the act, but she was too tired to argue. “Fine. Tomorrow.”