“I've given up alcohol until we figure things out.” He was dressed the way she was in jeans, boots, a sweater. “Mac went home about an hour ago.”
“Good. He's got a family, too. There's nothing he can do here in the dark, anyway,” she said. To distract them both from the crimes against her and Oliver that were upper-most on their minds, she asked, “Anything else on the Taylor execution?”
Helen hadn't turned on the television and she didn't intend to. If there was anything she needed to know, someone would tell her. She was still Governor until midnight on December 31, but government offices were closed until Thursday for the Christmas holidays and would be closed most of next week as well.
Unless an emergency came up, she expected to be unoccupied for most of the last two weeks of her term. Until three days ago, she'd intended to spend the time with Oliver planning her senate campaign and making the transition to private citizen.
“Sometimes I think you've got ESP,” Frank said, chuckling a bit. “I'll miss that when the new gov takes over.”
She sipped her wine, nodding. “Telepathy would be useful. But for now the best I can do is guess. Let's see . . . Mac called. He wants a favor. Are you going to tell me what it is, or do I really have to use my telepathy?”
Frank laughed out loud this time. “You're good. Keep guessing.”
Helen pretended to think a minute. She'd been expecting the call. She'd told Jess Kimball that she refused to halt the Taylor execution because there were no legal grounds to support a stay. Helen's reasoning had been flawless, but only an excuse. She didn't grant Jess's request mostly because the fallout would have buried them both alive. At some point, Helen intended to explain her decision to Jess. She hadn't expected that time to arrive so quickly.
“Jess Kimball desperately needs to talk to me. She's found the missing evidence.” Somehow, every time she thought she was finished with Tommy Taylor, he came back to bite her like a rabid cat with nine lives. He was doing it again, even after death.
“Almost right,” Frank said.
Helen took another sip of the wine. “What did I miss?”
“Jess didn't call. She's here. Want me to send her away until next year when she'll be someone else's problem?”
Helen set her wine glass down on the side table with regret. She'd need a clear head to handle whatever Jess had come to drop in her lap. “It's not going to get any easier, unfortunately.”
“No.” Frank stood, reached into his pocket, pulled out his two-way and instructed a member of his team to escort Jess into the room. “I'll be close by if you need anything.”
Frank left for the kitchen, where his team had set up temporarily. Given the security issues, only law enforcement and medical personnel were on site. In the next few days, Helen would need to work out different arrangements. For now, Frank and Mac doubled as Helen's assistants too, when necessary.
In came Jess without speaking and put what looked like a white banker's box down on the coffee table in front of Helen and sat in the oversized chair Frank had vacated. The brown leather and heavy wood frame all but swallowed her whole. She was a petite woman, with a mop of curly blonde hair dressed tonight in black jeans and a blindingly bright orange and red shirt made of a shiny fabric. She radiated energy, which made Helen feel all the more tired. Something had stoked Jess up since last they'd talked, and Helen was too weary to joust with her. She reminded Helen of a fireball or maybe a firefly, something small but ferocious that burned too hot to last forever.
“What's in the box, Jess?”
“Before we get to that, can I ask you something?” Without waiting for Helen's consent, she plowed ahead. “Who is Ben Fleming, anyway?”
The question came out of nowhere. Helen wasn't prepared for it. She did what she'd been trained to do when a journalist blindsided her.
Stall
. She responded with a question of her own. “Why do you ask?”
Jess jumped up and began to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace. The fire's glow surrounded her, completing Helen's mental picture of the smaller woman as some elemental creature made of fire, set to explode.
“I'll tell you why,” Jess said. “Everywhere I go on this Tommy Taylor thing, Ben Fleming is there. He was at the hospital when I came to see you. He was at the execution. He knows everybody and says he knows stuff he shouldn't know, like a hacker or a stalker. The guy is creepy.”
Was she hyped up on drugs or something? Helen glanced toward the small radio on the table next to her wine. She could reach it easily if she needed to call Frank. “Ben? Creepy?”
“It's the voice, and his manner. He acts like he's talking me down off a ledge and waiting with a straitjacket. On the surface, it's all very soothing, but I get the feeling he's getting juiced up by everybody's pain.”
Without warning, Jess seemed to run out of adrenaline and collapsed into the chair. When she resumed speaking, her tone was calmer. “I mean, I know he's a grief counselor. So sure he'll be present during tough times. And he's probably good at his work. Butâ”
A double rap on the door on the opposite side of the fireplace from the one Frank and Jess had used to enter through the kitchen was abruptly followed by the squeak of the hinges as it opened. An unmistakable baritone voice preceded him into the room.
“Helen, I'm going to be leaving now, but I'll be back to sit with Oliver for a while tomorrowâ” When he'd reached the point where he could see Helen's legs extended toward the fire and that she wasn't alone, Ben Fleming began to apologize as he moved closer, his sight line still partially impeded. “Oh, I'm sorry. Please excuse me. I didn't realize you had a guestâ”
He'd limped all the way around the corner of the big fieldstone fireplace, using the entrance from the corridor leading to the master bedroom, and could now see Helen completely, as well as Jess in the oversized mission-style chair.
He stopped, apparently surprised. “Ms. Kimball, isn't it? You're not stalking me, are you?” He laughed.
Jess smiled thinly. “Hi, again.”
“Are you feeling better?” Ben asked Jess.
“Better? About what?”
“Oh,” said Ben, “I mean over the last twenty-four hours or so. It must have been tough for you.”
“What do you mean?” Jess said, shooting a glance at Helen.
Ben's deep voice softened with sympathy. “Just that after so many years searching for your missing child, seeing the Taylor case, a child-killing case, end so dramatically, it must leave you a little deflated. Thinking about Peter and all.”
From the firm set of Jess's mouth, her flaring nostrils, Helen thought she might ignite. Instead she said nothing, but simply stared at Ben with a mixture of disbelief and disdain.
Ben seemed unperturbed by her reaction. “If you ever need me, I'd be happy to help you, you know. Helen can give you my number or would you like a card?”
He stepped toward Jess, which Helen took as her cue to intervene. She stood quickly and said, perhaps a little louder than necessary, “I have the information if we need it. Thanks for coming, Ben.”
She almost told Ben not to come back, that she would be home with Oliver and they didn't need him anymore. But some instinct told her not to shut that avenue, at least not just yet.
He looked back and forth at them again. Clearly, he wasn't sure what they were doing in the same room, and he wanted to know. “I may be a bit later tomorrow. I have a few condolence calls to make in the morning. It could take me a while to finish.” Helen offered nothing further. “Good night, then. Good night, Ms. Kimball.” He turned and limped toward the door that Frank had used as his exit.
Helen waited long enough to be sure Ben was out of earshot before she rose from her chair. She walked to the house phone on the desk in the corner, turned her back to Jess and pushed a couple of buttons. When Frank picked up, she said in a quiet voice, “Frank, Ben Fleming just left me. Please be sure he gets safely off the property, will you? And would you mind asking someone to bring us a pot of strong coffee with two mugs? Thanks.”
When she replaced the receiver, she returned to the chairs by the fire and told Jess, “We have a lot to talk about and it's a long drive back to your hotel. Can you stay the night?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Thornberry, Florida
Saturday 9:00 p.m.
HELEN LEFT JESS TO HER OWN THOUGHTS while she busied herself stoking the fire, moving the glass of red wine out of the way to make room for a cup of coffee, not talking until the coffee arrived. She offered Jess a cup and poured one for herself before resettling this time on the loveseat across from Jess where she would have a clear view of the journalist's face and entire body.
Helen had interviewed thousands of people over the years. Crime victims, criminals, witnesses, politicians, potential employees, people from every walk of life, all ages, education and social levels. She was an astute judge of character. By the time this conversation was over, Helen planned to know everything she needed to know about Jess Kimball, even if it took all night.
Soft questions first was the rule Helen had always used to greatest effect. But she didn't have any soft questions tonight. Everything was important. Where to start? She glanced at the square white box on the coffee table between them. Might as well get the obvious one out of the way, she thought.
“What's in the box?”
Jess stood up, moved to the box, lifted the lid off. The odor of cigarette smoke wafted from the box's interior and wrinkled Helen's nostrils. Jess pushed it toward Helen. When she looked inside, Helen saw a red handbag nestled in a big plastic bag and outside the plastic bag, a pair of latex gloves.
Jess then recounted her last encounter with Vivian Ward after Taylor's execution, followed by her return to Vivian's home to retrieve the red purse. She concluded by saying, “You were right, Governor.”
“After all we've been through together, I think you should call me Helen, don't you?”
Jess nodded and smiled weakly. “Vivian would never have given us this evidence until after Tommy Taylor died. And if she'd died before Taylor, then this would have ended up in a landfill somewhere.”
Helen continued drinking her coffee, thinking three or four steps ahead. There were so many legal and practical issues here to sort through. “Let's start with the items themselves,” she said. “That explains the handbag. Where did you get this other stuff?”
“I had the box and the big plastic bag in my SUV, along with the latex gloves. I wore the gloves the whole time I was in the house. I opened the purse only to see if I had the right one. Otherwise, I haven't touched anything.”
“Why do you think you've got the right red handbag here?”
“I'll show you.” Jess stood and donned the gloves, then lifted the large plastic bag containing the red purse out of the box and set them both on the coffee table. When she opened the plastic bag, Helen nearly gagged on the overwhelming stench of cigarette, which somehow reminded her of the smoky reek of arson that permeated the grounds around the burnt barn.
Jess lowered the plastic bag, opened the clasp on the purse, and opened the top wide, revealing its contents.
Inside, Helen saw four evidence bags, three sealed with stickers that appeared to have been placed there by law enforcement. There was handwriting on each sticker, but she couldn't read it without lifting the evidence bags from the purse. In one bag, Helen saw a yellowed cigarette butt from a filtered cigarette. Odd how the mind works, she thought, for she instantly recognized Tommy Taylor's tobacco brand, after all these years. Each of the other two evidence bags contained a single strand of hair. None of the stickers appeared to have been tampered with in any way.
The fourth bag was also sealed with a large intact sticker of a different size and color. It contained a sealed white business envelope. On the outside of the envelope, she could make out the typewritten words without her reading glasses: “For Helen Sullivan. From: Arnold Ward.”
Given the nature of the items, Helen's mind cut through the thorny legal issues quickly. “You've done a nice job here, Jess. Are you sure you're not a lawyer? Or a cop?” She took a deep breath and stood. “Close the purse up again. Put it back in the plastic bag and back in the box. Put the gloves in too, and put the lid back on just as you had it when you brought it here.”
She walked over to the house phone again, but this time, she kept her eye on Jess every minute. She punched a couple of buttons. “Frank, I'm also going to need a certified videographer, a law enforcement officer to take a couple of recorded statements, and maybe a crime scene technician. How long will it take you to get the appropriate folks together?”
She listened a few moments and was about to hang up when she remembered one more thing. “I need to speak with the attorney general. Last I heard he was headed to Utah on a ski vacation. Can you find him for me?”
Strictly speaking, none of this was Frank's job, but she trusted him, it was late, and someone had to handle things. The entire situation was a powder keg. Instead of saving her successor from unnecessary controversy, she might have handed him the biggest public relations bomb of her tenure.