Death's Last Run (11 page)

MARTHA

LaGuardia security waved Martha on. She plied one foot at a time back into brown patent loafers, packed her laptop and iPad into her rolling briefcase, and headed for the lounge.

She felt strange, out in public for the first time in nearly two weeks, eyes on her from all directions. Though she normally passed through this airport several times a week, it felt foreign today, like she was seeing its kiosks and gates, learning its security regulations, all for the first time.

Several of Martha's colleagues resented being herded and scanned through with the masses. Some flew private if they had their own money. Geoff Kearnes, as governor of Georgia, had a jet his constituents paid for. But Martha felt that was hypocritical — using power the people gave you to live in an exalted world beyond their reach.

She smiled bitterly when the thought crossed her mind that she had not been raised to feel so egalitarian but had picked up this way of thinking — accidentally — from Sacha.

Martha saw a Starbucks and rolled her bag up to the counter. Instead of ordering her usual black coffee, she heard herself ask for a chai latte. Sacha's favorite. Martha stared absently as the barista made the drink.

She couldn't get Daisy's allegation out of her head. If Sacha had been smuggling
LSD
, where the hell was the daughter Martha thought she knew? If the adult Sacha was so far removed from the child Martha remembered, how much of a leap was it that she might in fact have taken her own life?

Daisy must be lying about the drugs.

Martha fished her BlackBerry from her pocket to compose a message to Ted. He was her assistant, but also her liaison to her campaign manager and to pretty much everyone else in her work life. She stopped typing when the chai latte appeared at the end of the counter. She clicked No to
Save Draft?

Martha took a long sip of the latte. For an instant — less than a second — she was with Sacha six years earlier in the Starbucks on Columbus at Sixty-Seventh, tasting Sacha's new drink of choice — the chai latte — while the young African-American barista grinned at Martha's order of a tall, black bold — the word
coffee
left off as implied. Sacha had caught the double entendre first, met the barista's eyes questioningly, and when it was clear he wasn't offended, all three had cracked up simultaneously.

That was the kind of stupid joke Martha couldn't share with anyone again. For one thing, it was mildly racist. For another, who would care?

Martha left Starbucks and rolled her briefcase down the airport hall. She stopped at the door to the executive lounge. On a regular day, she didn't think twice about waiting for her flight in the more private and comfortable setting. Not to mention more secure. She'd have her iPad or her laptop or sometimes both running, and she'd suffer the lousy coffee they had on offer. But today, Martha hesitated outside the lounge door.

She heard Sacha's voice challenging her to wait in the uncomfortable row seats with the bulk of her constituents, Sacha's laugh mocking Martha's objection that the public seating wasn't as safe, asking
Hasn't everyone here been scanned through high security
?

Martha tilted her case and headed toward the gate.

A young man in ripped blue jeans approached her. He had dark hair that flopped across his face, obscuring his eyes almost completely. His skin was dark, but not dramatically so — Latino maybe, or southern European. Or maybe New York Jewish. “Are you Martha Westlake?” he asked in unaccented English before a Secret Service agent placed his body between the young man and Martha.

The man was craning his neck to meet Martha's eyes behind the guard.

“Are you a reporter?” Martha asked.

“I have a blog.”

Another Secret Service guard stepped between the young man and Martha.

“Wow,” the man said. “You guys really don't like the Internet revolution, huh?”

Martha didn't know what to think of all the new media. Sacha had seen it as stripping down snobbery, making all viewpoints equally accessible, turning the world into a more casual place that was less hung up on decorum. Martha agreed that the Internet was doing those things; she just wasn't sure the effect was beneficial.

So maybe it was unwise to engage, but it was also unwise to snub the media during an election. Martha was interested enough to say, “Gentlemen, please move aside. I'd like to talk to this young man.”

Secret Service patted the man down, which made Martha feel like a heel. But she had to let them do their job.

Finally, she and the young man were face to face. Martha guessed his age to be around thirty, though he slouched like a belligerent teenager.

He said, “Am I right that you'd be interested in an interview?”

Martha's immediate urge was to say of course not. Ted arranged her interviews in conjunction with her publicity team. But today, she said, “An interview would be fine. Would you like to come into the lounge with me or are you comfortable out here?”

“I prefer to be out here, with the people.”

Martha resisted an eye-roll. Although the same thought had passed through her head minutes before, spoken aloud it sounded self-righteous. “Let's walk to my gate.” She took the lead in that direction. “What would you like to discuss?”

The blogger scrambled to manage his bulging shoulder bag while keeping up with Martha's clipping pace. “My real interest is in your daughter.”

Martha felt her heart stop. Just for an instant. She took a deep breath and said, “I'm afraid that's the one topic I wouldn't like to speak about. Politics, anything else — shoot. But my daughter is off limits for now.”

“Fair enough,” the blogger said — softly, which Martha appreciated. “Politics is fine. I presume you're headed to Detroit for the university talk?”

“Yes.” Martha hoped he didn't ask about Reverend Hillier.

“Your first public appearance since . . . I mean, in the past two weeks?”

“Yes.”

“Your popularity has risen dramatically in that time.”

Martha cringed.

“From a weak fourth to a strong second. Many think you're poised to come out ahead of Kearnes, if you can take Michigan.”

“Yes,” Martha said. “I've heard that speculation.”

“In your time away from the public spotlight, have you changed your stance on any key issues?”

“No.”

“Maybe your position on drugs has softened?”

Martha's chest felt heavy, like the frothy milk from the latte was sticking to the walls of her lungs. “I'm afraid I don't follow.”

“Perhaps your daughter's activities in Whistler caused a shift in, say, your hard line with end users? Or maybe even with smugglers?”

Martha tightened her grip on her carry-on handle. When they arrived at her gate, she leveled her suitcase and locked eyes with the blogger. “I've asked not to speak about my daughter.”

“I'm sorry I've upset you. I guess there was no nice way to ask that question.”

“Because the question is groundless. How could Sacha waitressing in Canada impact my position on narcotics in the United States?” This was not the tone Martha was supposed to take with press. She hoped the blogger didn't have a microphone running. The last thing she needed was a sound clip of herself sounding bitchy reaching an audience across the Internet.

The blogger frowned. “You really don't know?”

Martha perched on a hard row seat. She leaned back, which was even more uncomfortable. “Tell me.”

The blogger sat, too, leaving one seat empty between them. Martha appreciated the space.

“A source told me that Sacha was smuggling
LSD
. But not for profit. I heard she had an agenda of her own, with the greater good in mind.”

Acid smuggling for the greater good. Martha wondered how she could have missed this. She'd seen Sacha's idealism as intelligence, as compassion, when clearly her daughter should have been in psychiatric care.

“I'm Lorenzo.” The blogger reached out a hand, which Martha shook because it was easier, and likely wiser, than avoiding him. “Lorenzo Barilla. And . . . well . . . I promise that if you talk about Sacha — just a friendly piece about her life — I'll keep this information about the drugs out of my blog.”

“Fine,” Martha said. She knew that name. But why? “We can talk about Sacha.”

CLARE

Clare peeled off the comforter, then immediately pulled it back over her shoulders. Her room was freezing.

She smelled coffee, though. Easily a good enough reason to crawl out of bed and suffer the cold. She chose some thick black sweatpants and a hoodie with the slogan
I Think Therefore I'm Single.
She padded out to the kitchen.

“Coffee's made,” Jana said. “I don't know if you had time to get groceries yesterday, but you can have some of my cereal if you want. Just not my Smarties.”

“Thanks.” Clare pulled a mug down from the cupboard. She was tempted to eat all the hard-shelled chocolates just to see how Jana reacted. But that would definitely be a Clare, not a Lucy, move. Too bad she had to stay in character.

Jana glanced up from her laptop and said, “Nice hair.”

“Is it bad?” Clare hadn't looked in a mirror.

“Not bad if you're a strung-out rock star.” Jana turned back to her computer. “Holy shit. I just Googled Sacha's name and this blog came up. Dude has an interview with Sacha's mom.”

“Didn't you say Sacha's mom was a politician? She must be interviewed all the time.” Clare took a long sip of coffee. It tasted pretty good — not too dark, not too bitter, but strong and thick the way Clare liked it. “Is this coffee organic?”

“Yeah,” Jana said. “And shade-grown. Sacha used to insist on that — something about bird habitats. This is the first time Martha Westlake has been in public in two weeks.”

“Maybe her publicist told her it was time to get back on the campaign trail.”

“Right. What do you care? You never knew Sacha.” Jana clearly didn't like Clare's dismissive tone.

Clare picked up the bag of Mueslix and pretended to study the ingredients. “Fine, I'm curious.”

“Why? Because I said you look like her?”

“Maybe. Chopper said the same thing.”

Jana pressed her lips together forcefully, like she was deciding if she wanted to talk to Clare. After a moment, she said, “Did you see the teddy bear in your room?”

Of course Clare had seen it. And picked it up and flipped it over, like she had done with most things in the apartment. But since Lucy wasn't a cop, she wouldn't have been quite so observant. “No.”

“His name is Jules. Jules the Bear. I was going to bring him into my room but he only has one eye and that freaks me out. Mrs. Westlake says here . . .” Jana poked at her screen. “‘Sacha took Jules everywhere. If she went to her father's weekend home, Jules would go. When she had her interview at
NYU
, even though it was only a subway ride away, she tucked Jules into her knapsack for good luck. That's how I know my daughter didn't kill herself. If Sacha was going up that mountain to die on purpose, Jules would have been with her.”

Clare wanted a cigarette. There was a smoking area out back by the kitchen door. But it was well below freezing, and hard to smoke with gloves. Jana's rule inside was hard and fast: marijuana, not tobacco. So Clare warmed her hands on her coffee. “Sacha's parents didn't want Jules sent home with the rest of her things?”

Jana made a sound like she was sucking on her tongue. “You're pretty inquisitive, Lucy. For someone who allegedly doesn't care.”

“I guess I'm more curious than I let on.” Clare said. “It's a weird feeling, arriving in a town where this girl who kind of looked like you has just been found dead. Is what her mom says true? You think Sacha would have taken Jules with her, if she was going to . . . you know . . . kill herself?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course,” Clare said.

“Sacha left Jules behind on purpose. She didn't want him to see her in her final, awful moments. She loved him too much.”

“Um. How do you know?” Clare tried to keep her voice light — as in, not like an inquisitive cop.

“She left me a note inside Jules.”

“Inside?” Clare imagined Jana slicing up the bear, surgically or maybe violently, in order to find this note. If it existed.

“He has a zipper on his back. When Sacha was found dead, and it looked like suicide, that's the first place I looked.”

Clare tried her best to act like Lucy would, when the wheels in her head were screeching madly against each other. “That's so sad.”

Jana brushed a tear from her face. Real or forced, Clare couldn't tell. “I hate her for leaving, but her mom is so wrong. Sacha killed herself.”

Clare pulled out a chair and sat with Jana. She didn't know what to say. She had to get her eyes on that note, and if she could, she had to get the note to Amanda.

“Have you shown the letter to the police?” Clare decided to come right out and ask.

“I gave it to Richie on Sunday to give to the cops. I get it back when the case is closed, though.”

“Oh. Good.” Clare didn't give a shit who got what once the case was over. She'd be back in New York by then, fighting with Noah.

“Richie thinks the note should get rid of the undercover, once the handwriting analysis comes back and they know it was Sacha's writing.”

Clare wondered why Amanda didn't know about this suicide note. Maybe Richie hadn't actually given it to the cops.

“You want to read her mom's interview with me?”

What Clare wanted to read was the suicide note, but she'd have to find a copy first. “Yeah. Why not?”

Jana pushed her computer toward Clare so the screen was halfway between them. She scrolled back up to the beginning.

Martha Westlake Unplugged

A chance encounter at LaGuardia put me up close and personal with Martha Westlake, New York's junior senator in Washington. Did we talk about politics? No. Foremost on my brain — and readers' brains, and Martha's — is the death not even two weeks ago of Martha's 23-year-old daughter, Alexandra Westlake — known to friends and family as Sacha.

“Sacha may have fallen off the beaten path,” Senator Westlake told me, “but she would not have taken her own life.”

I asked the Senator what she meant about the beaten path.

“I judged Sacha harshly,” Westlake said. “For wanting to take time out in Whistler before she jumped into a high-impact career. But maybe my generation should have taken our twenties for self-exploration before ramming head first into our own adult lives. Maybe then we wouldn't have presidents who think bombing other countries is the optimal conflict resolution technique.”

I pointed out that Westlake sounded more like a radical than a Republican — that her party has led the United States into some of the most irrational bombing in history — and I asked her if she wanted me to strike that quote from her reply.

“I don't care,” she said. “Does anyone even read your blog?”

“Has anyone commented yet?” Clare asked.

Jana scrolled down to the bottom of the page. “135 people. The post has only been live for an hour.” She scrolled back up so they could keep reading.