The Company She Kept (10 page)

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

“A fucking disaster.”

“The docs're saying Cila Lewis will come through without any permanent damage,” Joe said.

Bill Allard glared at him, his years as a no-nonsense road trooper showing through his administrator's thin veneer. “
Fine.
Which has nothing to do with the price of eggs, as if you didn't know it. The fact that one of our own didn't get killed in this mess isn't going to make the headlines.
Her
shooting
him
will see to that.”

Allard pointed out the window of his office, despite there being nothing to see besides a distant brick wall. “Have you ever seen so many news trucks and reporters camped out front of this building? Ever?”

Joe didn't respond. In truth, he hadn't. And Susan's spectacular murder combined with a related death in a police shoot-out was only part of it. Lately, Vermont had been regularly leading the news roundups—Gail's dramatic and unconventional gubernatorial victory a couple of years ago, Tropical Storm Irene's devastation of the state shortly thereafter, and several recent
New York Times
stories about Vermont's heroin epidemic immediately popped to mind.

Allard was still ranting. “And Christ knows what's next, right? I have no doubt your maniac poster child Kunkle is out there as we speak, cooking up something. What do you have him doing, anyhow?”

“He's in the trenches with everybody else,” Joe answered vaguely.

Bill Allard finally calmed down. “What
are
you going to do next?” he asked, his tantrum swept away as quickly as it had arrived.

“Try to connect Nate Fellows to Raffner's murder. That would be the shortest distance between the dots. I've already got people seeing what he was doing when she was killed, as well as interviewing his pals and associates, and tearing his house apart. A guy with that much attitude is not gonna be self-effacing. If he did it, he told somebody, and we should know about it, probably within twenty-four hours.”

“And if he didn't?”

Joe shrugged. “None of this has slowed down our checking her background, associates, and activities. That's still going full guns. We are starting to run into resistance, though—just so you're aware.”

Allard had settled back at his desk and now looked up at him suspiciously. “What kind of resistance? From the governor? She's the one telling us to damn the budget.”

Joe was shaking his head. “Not from her. In her book, we can't do enough, fast enough. It's from some of Susan's inner circle. I know a few of them from decades back, and a couple can get pretty extreme. They're starting to suggest we're up to something more than a murder investigation.”

Allard's face darkened again. “What? All this is some conspiracy? To what end? The fucking woman is
dead,
for crying out loud. Seems like her buddies ought to be pissed at whoever did it.”

He rubbed his face with both hands. “Why're we never the good guys?” he asked rhetorically.

*   *   *

Gail scanned the faces of the key staffers gathered in her office. Alice Drim, her personal assistant, general factotum, and volunteer reelection manager; Rob Perkins, her omnipresent chief of staff; Joan Renaud, her legal counsel; and Kayla Robinson, her press secretary. Solid people, loyal and committed to her and the office she occupied. Alice and Kayla were the youngsters, both gangly and in their late twenties; Rob was tall and middle-aged, like Gail herself; and Joan was the old hand, although her looks made her appear more wizened than she deserved.

To a person, they had past governmental experience, for the pro tem or the house speaker or even some politician from out-of-state. They were professionals at what they did—and not personal friends, as Gail had been used to as a Brattleboro politician—with the contradictory effect that their skills sometimes made her feel like a virtual amateur, despite her own achievements.

Right now, for example, reading Renaud's severe demeanor, Gail knew she was in the doghouse, but in the eyes of a woman far too polite to ever voice her disapproval. Joan was old school, which struck Gail as ironic, given her own reputation as a maverick. But a smart maverick, Gail liked to think, and therefore ill-inclined to have an equally nonconformist—and possibly careless—lawyer. Still, at moments like this, following Gail's impulsive—and unmonitored—meeting with Joe earlier, she knew that she'd stepped on Joan's sense of caution and propriety.

She wasn't really concerned, of course. She was partially indulging in body language interpretation solely to get her brain back on track. In fact, she didn't want to be here, or to be having a staff meeting. Ever since receiving the news about Susan, she'd been stuck with a humming in her head as if a bumblebee had dropped into her ear. It served as accompaniment to the steady ache in her chest.

“Governor,” Rob began, “before we begin, I just wanted to say how sorry we are for your loss. Senator Raffner was an ally, a friend, and a trusted confidante.”

“And pushy and opinionated,” Kayla added with a supportive smile.

“And usually right,” Alice finished gamely, like the second half of an amateur comedy team.

“Thank you.” Gail returned with a smile, feeling its artificiality stretching her skin.

Rob got straight to his first item for discussion. “Governor, I just got a call that there was a police shoot-out in Newport. A man named Nathan Fellows was killed who the VBI believes may have had a hand in Senator Raffner's murder.”

Gail stared at him, thoughts of Joe flooding her mind. “Is everyone else all right?”

“One of their agents was hit—Cila Lewis—but she'll be fine. She was actually the one who killed Fellows in self-defense. He started shooting when they approached to question him. Some neo-Nazi.”

“And they're sure he was the man who killed Susan?” Gail asked.

Here, the answer was vaguer. Joan Renaud supplied it, in her legal capacity. “Governor, I was in on this phone conversation. The police are obviously keeping a lid on things for the time being—although I suspect that will only last a few more hours—but they were focusing on Fellows for largely circumstantial reasons. Now that he's dead, they're doing their best to see if they can connect him to Senator Raffner's death, but it's far from certain.”

Gail absorbed this, fighting the urge to ask questions she knew they couldn't answer. She moved on, therefore, by asking, “What's next?”

Taking her cue, Rob continued. “The senator's memorial services are scheduled for two days from now—one here and one in Brattleboro. It seemed the best way to reach most of her friends without putting too many on the road.”

“Letters, cards, and e-mails have been coming in like nobody's business,” Alice added. “All saying how much she meant to everyone.”

Kayla Robinson leaned forward and placed a couple of sheets of paper on Gail's desk, her strong, angular features poorly served by a severe haircut. “I came up with a few thoughts you might like to use in your speech. We assumed you'd want to say something.”

“Which doesn't mean you're obligated,” Rob said immediately. “Everyone would understand if you simply attended.”

“No,” Gail reassured them, picking up the sheets without looking at them. “I'll speak. Thank you.”

Kayla took advantage of the gesture to say, “Governor, along the lines of dealing with the press about this, was there anything said between you and Special Agent Gunther that we should know about?”

Gail shifted her gaze back to the inscrutable Joan, who was writing a note to herself, or pretending to, eyes downcast. Gail imagined the conversation that had preceded this meeting, where they'd worked out how best to negotiate the emotional shoals surrounding her.

“He asked when Susan and I had last been in touch. I told him it was via text and that nothing of substance was discussed.”

Kayla opened her mouth to follow up, but Renaud made a barely perceptible motion with her hand that stilled her. A silence settled onto the room, obliging Gail to add, “He also asked how I was holding up. We are old friends.” She hesitated, aware of the value of saying too little versus too much, but then said, “I told him that she'd been my keel—the love of a lifetime.”

The stillness in the room reminded her of a time in childhood, when she'd taken a dare and grabbed hold of a rope strung horizontally over a pond. The goal had been to reach the far side dry-footed—moving hand-over-hand—but she'd tired and stopped, and gradually become aware of her ebbing strength, along with the guarantee that she'd eventually drop into the cold, dark water.

She'd been paralyzed briefly, caught between inevitability and the growing realization that—although the outcome would be the same—she did have the power to willfully open her hands and choose action over fate. The fall to the water had thus been transformed from resignation to excitement, and her surfacing from the cold depths with arms held high afterward had been accompanied by a surprising sense of self-confidence.

She watched the people before her absorbing her words, and applying their own interpretations. With the smallest click of something true falling into place, she sat back and waited, the fascination of an outside observer pushing through her grief, if only briefly.

Rob Perkins—the most seasoned of the group, and certainly the one who was most experienced with the political game's rougher aspects—was the first to speak. “Is that what you were thinking of saying at the memorial, Governor?”

His dispassionate tone notwithstanding, Gail could see the wariness in his eyes. Despite the newness of her administration—her first reelection campaign was just beginning, following the Vermont standard of a two-year term—they'd experienced a number of high-profile struggles, some of them self-inflicted.

“You have an objection?” she asked neutrally, studying their discomfort as if eavesdropping on the conversation.

But he shook his head. “Not with the sentiment, certainly.” He chose his next words carefully. “But I think we all work better with twenty-twenty vision.… And that one's choice of words does matter.”

“Meaning, was I having an affair with Susan Raffner?” Gail asked, her growing decisiveness mirroring that feeling when she'd surfaced from the pond.

“That's none of our business,” Renaud said quickly. “Nor should it be of any relevance.”

Gail nodded in acknowledgment. “I grant you that in legal terms, Joan. But in fairness to Rob, let's acknowledge the conclusions that've already been drawn—or which'll be drawn soon enough: Susan was a lesbian, she was murdered, and she was put on display as an antigay statement. She was also the best friend and political adviser of the single, never-married, female governor of the state. You think I don't know how many people already think I'm gay?”

“That doesn't mean you have to acknowledge the gossip,” Kayla countered. “People also complain that you're rich, or from New York, or Jewish, or who knows what else. The governor is as much an institution as a person, and one thing that Vermont's always done well is to leave the personalities of its politicians at the door when it comes to public debate.”

“I agree,” Rob stated. “And I don't think that particular question has even vaguely reached the status of needing to be addressed. Like Joan said, it's nobody's business.”

“It is mine, though,” Gail told them, grateful to be taking these first steps. “Because I did love her, and we were lovers.”

She noticed Alice Drim's cheeks flush slightly, and felt a sympathetic pang of regret. She'd heard through the office grapevine of Alice's recent breakup with her longtime boyfriend.

Rob recognized that they'd just ventured beyond the perimeters of mere political debate. “Are you sure that's what you want to say, Governor?”

“Susan's death is a high-profile murder case with an apparently sensationalist motive,” Gail replied. “She'll become a tawdry tabloid headline instead of a life that deserved much more.” She addressed Kayla Robinson directly. “You're the media expert, Kayla. What do you really think's going to be remembered about her after all the dust has settled?”

To her credit, Kayla responded with her own question: “Will your coming out change any of that?”

“It could even fuel the fire,” Alice said quietly.

“My ‘coming out,' as you put it, would allow me to honestly and openly speak to her qualities as a friend, a political leader, and a fellow human being, while relegating her sexual orientation to secondary status.”

The group's universal body language spoke clearly of its disagreement.

Rob tried introducing a broader perspective. “Governor, I don't think there's a person here who doesn't share your view of the senator, or doubt your feelings for her. None of us wants her memory tarnished or her legacy eclipsed by the way she died. That being said, could I kick around a few purely political considerations?”

Gail's instinctive reaction was to say no. She was in no mood to be analytical about an emotion powerful enough to override all rational debate. For the first time since hearing of Susan's death, she was feeling positive. But she nodded—if just barely—and answered, “Of course.” This was, after all, what remained in Susan's wake: the team that she'd helped Gail to select, and who represented the support group she saw more frequently than anyone else.

“Right now,” Rob began, “there's nothing forcing us to do anything hasty—no tropical storm or breaking political scandal. I'm suggesting that we pause to weigh the pros and cons of whatever it is you may be considering.” He smiled supportively. “It's not often we get the luxury of time.”

But, reading her closed expression, he knew that any such luxury was provisional at best. He therefore kept going without waiting for a response. “You might, for example, reconsider using a phrase like, ‘She was my keel,' which—regardless of its truth—suggests that you no longer have one. More to the point, you could voice your long-standing support and backing for the LGBTQ community, while responding to any direct questions concerning your private relationship to Susan as being just that—private.”