Dead Politician Society (9 page)

Clare cleared a space on her desk for her coffee mug. Maybe one day she would be neater, but she wasn't waiting anxiously. She watched her laptop go through its grueling opening routine, and wondered when she would justify the expense and buy a speedier desktop model.

She was waiting to hear back from Sergeant Cloutier. Clare was dying to tell her handler about the conversation she'd overheard between Brian Haas and Dr. Easton. Surely even miserable Cloutier would have to acknowledge that she'd done good work. If the Society for Political Utopia was real, then all kinds of possibilities opened up, not least of which was a club with a murderous mandate.

Was Matthew Easton involved in the society? Would more politicians die if the group wasn't stopped? Would Clare successfully go in, get the dirt, and keep the world safe for politicians? God, she hoped so.

Her cell phone rang. Cloutier.

“Finally,” Clare said. “I was beginning to think you didn't care what I had to say.”

“Can the dramatics, kid. I have other things to do all day than babysit your newborn ass.”

“I'm glad your day was full. But I have news.” Clare told Cloutier what she'd overheard that afternoon. “So what do you think? Is the group real? Do you think they're behind the murder?”

Cloutier grunted. “I think you watch too many cop shows.”

“I don't watch any cop shows.” That was a lie: she watched
Dexter
. But Clare didn't count that, because it wasn't formulaic or for morons.

“Then you read too many cheap detective novels. You know how rare it is for a group to pull off a murder in real life? They only need one dissenter — either before or after the fact — and the whole thing falls apart.”

“Fine.” Clare slumped in her desk chair. “I won't bother trying to penetrate the society.”

“Are you stupid? Of course you should penetrate the society. We just think the murder was more likely the work of an individual member than the group as a whole.”

Clare paused to process what he'd said.

“Um. Am I wrong here? You sound like you already knew about the society.”

“The group has been on our radar since that Marchand case four years ago. We don't have positive proof of its existence.”

“Thanks for telling me yesterday.”

“Must have slipped my mind.”

“Fine.” Clare was furious. “So despite not having told me about it, you
do
want intelligence on the society.”

“Intelligence.” Cloutier emitted a sound that disturbingly resembled laughter. “Now it's a spy movie. Kid, we're not
MI5
.”

“Information, then.” Clare wondered how polite she was supposed to be when the man found every opportunity to belittle her. “Have you also considered that Utopia Girl might be someone like Brian Haas?”

“Of course we have. No secret society truly wants to be secret. They want buzz, people who want to be members but can't find their way inside.”

Clare sipped her coffee. “You think there are others like Brian.”

“On the outside looking in? I'd be shocked if there weren't.”

“So should I look for people in the club, or concentrate on outsiders?”

“You should concentrate on understanding your job, first and foremost.” Cloutier snorted, reminding Clare of a horse she had once ridden. “You're not a detective. You're not being paid for your theories, nor are they particularly intelligent.”

“Can you remind me what my job
is
, then? You seem to have exhausted all the things it isn't.”

“You're the eyes Inspector Morton can't have. Think of yourself as a clumsy surveillance device, like those robots the U.S. Army sends into hostile territory. Go to school; get friendly with the other kids. Gather all the information you can, then give it to me.”

Why did he have to add “clumsy”? “Is there anything else you may have forgotten to tell me?”

“Vengel, stop pissing me off.”

When she'd hung up with Cloutier, Clare Googled
Haas Communist
and came up with Carl Haas, who had run for federal office three times consecutively in the riding of Mississauga South. Each time, not surprisingly, he had lost by a landslide.

She threw Carl Haas's name into the search with Hayden Pritchard's. Despite giving a warm endorsement of Pritchard's candidacy for mayor, Haas was never pictured with the mayor, nor did the mayor seem to have any links back to Haas.

Brian's dad, it seemed, had a fervor that bordered on fanatic. A couple of articles drew references to a Communist Manifesto. Clare couldn't figure out if the manifesto was supposed to be Carl's own, or if it was a more formal doctrine endorsed by the Party as a whole.

Haas's pet issue was housing. He wanted to disperse low-income families throughout his and other affluent ridings. He thought the government should buy houses in good neighborhoods, and rent them out to families for what they could afford. He argued that the only way to truly equalize the starting blocks was to give rich and poor children alike access to the same play groups, neighborhood facilities, and public schools. Haas was willing to open his neighborhood to lower earners. The problem was that his prospective constituents were not.

Clare wondered what the big deal was about playing with rich kids. Were they smarter, or better athletes, or something? Maybe they had better morals. Where she'd grown up, everyone had had pretty much the same — nothing. She hadn't noticed anything missing, but she might have done if she'd been thrown in to mingle with kids who'd had newer toys and more expensive clothes.

Clare was willing to bet that the housing bill Brian planned to introduce in class was an exact replica of what his father had tried to get through real parliament. His father had probably also come up with that idiot scheme to force people to be charitable with their excess riches. Poor kid — Clare wondered what Brian would come up with if he was allowed to have ideas on his own.

Her phone rang. Clare didn't recognize the number, but it was local, and she answered.

“Did we have a date tonight?” It was Kevin, the reason she hadn't watched the news the night the mayor was being killed.

“Shit.” Clare had forgotten they'd made plans for that night. “I got caught up in work. I'm so sorry. What time is it? Where are you?”

Kevin, to Clare's relief, laughed. “I guess I'll have to work harder to leave a lasting impression.”

“No, you were great. I was looking forward to that wholesome evening you suggested. Dinner and a walk, right?” She looked outside to see the light of day was fading. This time of year, that probably meant it was around seven-thirty. “We still have time for one or the other.”

“What are you? Ninety? We still have time for both. And then if you're lucky, a repeat performance of the night we met. So have you eaten?”

“No.” Clare moved to the bathroom and checked herself in the mirror. “But I need to shower first. I've been busy all day. I'm pretty sure I smell.”

“Busy working?”

What had she told him, the night they'd spent together? She'd been drunk, but Clare was fairly sure she hadn't told Kevin that she was a cop. Then again, why would she have hidden it from him?

“Busy at school.” She made the snap decision to run with her cover story. “And then homework. So where should I meet you?”

“How about if I come up there and help you get clean?”

“That could work.” Clare shut down her computer, made triple sure that any bills or mail with her real last name were hidden. “Are you close by?”

“I'm dangerously close by.” Of course he was in the neighborhood. They had agreed to meet at the Lamb to the Slaughter, the pub down the street where they'd originally met.

“Mmm,” Clare said. “I like danger.”

Jesus, Mom. You know that pisses me off.” Matthew shoved his plate away from himself. “I could be prime minister of this fucking country, and you'd find something wrong with how I live my life.”

“I just mean, wouldn't it be nice for you to settle down?” Anne Easton opted for a hurt look, which Matthew did not buy. “You're a good-looking man. You have a . . . well, a steady job, if not a particularly well-paying one. You're only a little past your prime. I'm sure there are lots of unmarried women who would find you a real catch.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Matthew smoothed his paper napkin on the cheap linen tablecloth. How could he have lived here for so many years without cringing at the tackiness of everything?

“I know you're holding out for a supermodel who's also a brain surgeon. But if you open your mind and look beyond skin deep, I think you'll find someone wonderful you didn't know you were looking for.”

Matthew stood up. “I'd love to stay and finish dinner. I do enjoy an overcooked pot roast. But I worry that if I listen to this drivel for a moment longer, I might start to believe you about my own limitations.”

“Sit down.” Matthew's father spoke softly. “I won't have you insulting your mother's cooking.”

“But you'll have her insulting your son.” Matthew grabbed his wallet and car keys. “I wish it could be different, but I'm afraid I have to leave.”

Matthew was shaking when he got to his car. It was ludicrous that his parents could still have this effect. The subtle little jabs, delivered with a smile. Were they designed to undermine his confidence? Or did his mother truly believe that she was being helpful? He wished he hadn't said that about the pot roast.

Matthew had no idea where he wanted to go. He was tempted to get onto Kingston Road, like he used to do when he was frustrated as a teenager, and take it all the way out of town until it turned into Highway
2
. A few times, when he was really angry, he'd made it all the way to Kingston, and driven around the perimeter of the penitentiary, before stopping at Tim Hortons to load up with coffee for the drive home.

But now Kingston made him think of Elise, and Matthew pointed his car toward his own house. He thought of calling Annabel back — she'd left a needy-sounding message — but he'd spent the previous night at her place, and he didn't want to give her reason to think of him as her boyfriend. Plus she sounded like she had a cold, which Matthew didn't feel like catching.

He didn't want to go home. Ethan's comment the previous day was nagging at him, and their interactions since then had been forced. Was Matthew mean to women? He didn't think so. He didn't lie to them. He slept around, but they could, too. It wasn't the
1950
s.

What he wanted was to go to a keg party in the backwoods and get absolutely soused, but his friends didn't have keg parties, and he could hardly crash his students' dorms. They were probably all studying anyway.

Maybe Elly wasn't busy. That was a fire he hadn't stoked in a while. He fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone.

“Elly's Epicure.”

“You expecting a business call at this hour?”

“It's eight o'clock, Matthew. I get business calls right up to midnight.”

“So . . . is this a bad time?”

“Not the best.”

“Sorry,” Matthew said. “Well, can you get away?”

“Doubtful. I have the kids to put to bed, then Emmett should be home around nine. I'll feed him, then I have to pop out to an event. The earliest I could be free is eleven.”

“I'm tired listening to all that.”

“Welcome to my life. Should we try for another night this week?”

“Yeah, maybe. What's the event?”

“It's a house party. You know Libby Leighton and Sam Cray?”

“Of course.”

Libby rode a bicycle to work, and wanted to legislate in the biggest carbon tax any country in the world had ever proposed. Thankfully, she wasn't on the side of the government. She also changed issues with the wind, so her passion was likely to be short-lived. Her partner was a right-wing senator. They must have had some crazy chemistry between the sheets, because their politics alone should have been enough to drive them apart.

“What are they like to work for?”

“Challenging.” Elly laughed. “They can't agree on anything, so I had to suggest that they separate the tasks for tonight's party. Libby chose the hot appetizers, Sam chose the cold. That kind of thing.”

“Are they nice people?”

“Yeah,” Elly said. “They're actually quite pleasant.”

“Maybe I could meet you at the party. We could sneak out back and do it in the alley.”

Elly snorted. “After the day I'm having, that sounds perfect. Unfortunately, I don't think it's practical. The staff like to go out back and smoke cigarettes. Not your students, of course.”

“How about if I head there now and scope it out? Worst case, you can hop in my car and we can find a deserted parking lot. Just like university.” When Matthew's options had been limited to ugly women.

“Yeah,” Elly said. “Yeah, that would be great.”

She gave him the address.