A Candidate for Murder (9 page)

I tried to remember what the room was like when Delia had announced it was time to lock up. I closed my eyes, and I could picture some of the people and where they were standing, and I could see them pick up their things and cluster at the front door, moving through, then stopping to chat in small groups out on the sidewalk. Many of them walked toward the parking lot, as I did.

But I couldn’t put Francine into this picture.

Of course, I had been more concerned with Justin, and I was awfully tired from folding letters for a couple of hours. Had I seen Francine leave and just not noted it? Or was it possible that Francine had hidden in the rest room and didn’t leave at all?

I walked past a couple of small offices to the one in which I’d found her and turned on the light. It was Delia’s office—a small room with a desk, three chairs, and two file cabinets on the far wall. One of the drawers in the nearest file cabinet was open.

There were two posters on the wall, one with a campaign slogan and the other with an enlarged photograph of my father, just the barest of smiles on his lips. He looked earnest and sincere.

I was beginning to hate the words. They sounded like campaign promises, like something waved around only until after elections, but in Dad’s case they weren’t. They were the way he really was. I studied his photograph and tried to disassociate myself from it. Suppose I were a voter, a person who didn’t know Charles Amberson at all. Would I believe the expression on his face?

A sound at the front door made me jump, and I ran to the hallway. I could see my mother, dressed in a smooth black sheath and pearls for the reception, peering through the window as my father unlocked the door. Mom looked relieved when she spotted me. The door swung open, and I hurried toward my parents.

“I didn’t touch anything,” I said, “but Francine did.
One of the file drawers is open, and I’m pretty sure she was going through the desk.”

“Who is Francine?” Mom asked as she and I followed Dad back to Delia’s office.

“All I know is that she’s majoring in political science,” I said.

“Where?” Mom asked.

I shrugged. “She didn’t say.”

Dad stopped in the doorway, surveying the room before we entered. “What’s her last name?”

“I don’t know that either.”

We silently and cautiously walked into the room as though someone were going to jump out at us. Mom asked Dad, “She must have been searching for something. What do you think it was?”

“I have no idea,” he said.

“Francine said something that now seems a little strange,” I told them. “She said I was the boss’s kid, starting at the bottom. Then she asked if I’d move up to working on the inside, secret stuff. I didn’t know what she was talking about. What’s the secret stuff?”

Dad shrugged. “Some of our operational methods, I suppose. Results of our investigations of the governor’s questionable tactics. Mailing lists of those who support our campaign. Nothing confidential is kept here. The young woman who was going through the files couldn’t have found what she was looking for.”

“I wish I knew why she did it,” I said. “It couldn’t have been for herself. She must have been working for someone.”

“Jimmy Milco?” Mom said. “That information you’re
collecting on the construction—” She stopped abruptly, as though she were afraid to put the rest of her thought into words.

Dad calmly answered, “The girl was probably just a student, as she told Cary, and she may have had some romantic, grandiose ideas about uncovering what she hoped was secret material.”

Mom didn’t answer, and I didn’t think Dad had reassured her any more than he had me. “Aren’t you going to see if she stole something from the files?” I asked him.

“Not now.” Dad looked at his watch and moved toward the light switch, shepherding Mom and me out of the office. “Delia’s the one who’d know if something were missing. She’d also have the list of volunteers and their addresses and phone numbers. We’ll put her to work on it tomorrow morning.”

“And bring someone in to check for wiretaps,” Mom said.

“Yes,” Dad agreed. “There’s always that possibility.”

So … he
did
think it could be something more than he was letting on. “Francine was going through your papers,” I insisted. “She might even have stolen something. Don’t you want to call the police?”

“No,” Dad said. “The publicity could create even more of a problem.”

By this time I’d scooped up my shoulder bag and we’d reached the front door.

“We’ll walk you to the car,” Dad said. He locked the door behind us.

I looked back at the well-lit office. “You forgot to turn off the light,” I said.

Dad shook his head. “Your mother and I might as well wait there until it’s time to appear at the reception. The Adolphus is just up the street, and there’s no point in driving all the way home.”

I looked at my watch. It was close to seven. “Do you have to wait until eight to show up? Can’t you just get to the reception early?”

Mom laughed and gave Dad a wink. “No,” she said. “The crowd should be on hand, as well as the television cameras. Grand entrances for candidates are an important part of the political structure.”

As we reached Mom’s car I turned to give both Mom and Dad hugs. “I hate politics,” I said. “It should be simple. People who want to run for office should give their reasons why, and voters should decide which reasons are the best. But there’s so much mean, sneaky, lying stuff involved.”

Mom still had one arm around my shoulders, and she gave me a comforting squeeze. “Life isn’t simple, Cary,” she said. “Unfortunately, the way things should be and the way they actually are can be very different. When—
if
—you study the law someday …”

I interrupted. I wished I hadn’t asked the question. I really didn’t want to talk about or think about the governor’s race. It was frustrating. Infuriating. “Don’t think of me as a future lawyer,” I said with a laugh. “Right now I’m trying to decide whether to be a ballerina or a brain surgeon.” Grinning at that old joke, I
climbed into Mom’s car and drove off, leaving them standing together, holding hands.

When I got home Dexter wasn’t in sight, but Velma winked at me and said, “That boyfriend of yours called. I told him you’d call him back
after
you ate dinner. I’ve got it ready for Dexter to serve right now, soon as I can find that man.”

Her eyebrows dipped in the barest of frowns as she spoke. I looked from one side to the other, stepped close to Velma, and lowered my voice. “What do you think of Dexter?” I asked.

Her glance shifted to cover every corner of the room, just as mine had done. “He gets his work done,” she said. “That’s all that counts.” She paused just an instant and leaned toward me. “There is one thing. I never can tell when he’s nearby. He don’t make much noise when he walks.”

I nodded. “It’s kind of creepy.”

She straightened and said matter-of-factly, “I wouldn’t say that. It’s just that I’m still used to Philip bein’ around. Dexter’s a lot different.”

As soon as I finished dinner I called Justin to give him my new telephone number.

“I’ve been waiting for you to call,” he said. “I was talking to Greg. He and Allie think that the four of us should go to the Halloween party dressed like heavy-metal roadies. What do you think? We could get some of that colored hair spray that washes out and spray a streak in your hair and you could comb it up or something so it would look real weird.”

I giggled. “How about you?” I asked. “And Allie and Greg? There are going to be
four
of us looking weird, I hope.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been hunting around, and I’ve come up with some good stuff. My aunt’s got this scraggly, blond, long-haired wig she wore once at a costume party. I can wear it and a ripped black T-shirt with a skull on it and some jeans that are full of holes. What do you think?”

“Sure,” I said, caught up in the idea. “I know where I can get a knit miniskirt, and I’ll wear black tights with a lot of holes in them and a torn T-shirt. Oh … and real heavy makeup. Won’t I look great?”

We both laughed, and Justin said, “We’re all going to look so tough the chaperons will want to throw us off the dance floor.”

We talked for a while, until Justin’s mom told him she had to use the phone. Right after I hung up I called Allie, who broke up.

“It kills me,” she said. “We’ll look so wild it’ll drive the chaperons crazy.”

I gave her my new number, and we started talking about the party and Justin and Greg—our favorite subjects. But suddenly another voice interrupted. It took Allie and me a couple of seconds to figure out that someone else had cut into our conversation. “What?” I asked. “Who are you?” I’d heard the words the woman was saying, but they hadn’t sunk in.

“This is the operator,” she patiently repeated. “I have an emergency call for this number. Will you please end your conversation?”

“Right now,” Allie said. She hung up, and I stammered, “Y-yes?”

“Hold on, please,” the operator said to me, and the next voice I heard was Mom’s.

“Everything’s all right, Cary,” she said over the noisy voices in the background, so I immediately knew everything
wasn’t.

“M
om!” I begged, scared to death. “Is Dad all right? What’s the matter?”

“Cary, please. Just listen,” Mom said. “Your father’s fine, and I’m fine. I’m calling you only so that you’ll be prepared for the ten o’clock news.”

“What …?”

“Listen!” she ordered, so I did.

“A man at the reception created a disturbance,” Mom explained, “and—of course—the television cameras caught it.”

“What did he do?”

“He tried to make his way through the crowd and reach Charles.”

“Why? Was he trying to hurt Dad?”

“I have no idea,” Mom answered.

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know,” Mom said, and her voice sounded tired and strained. “It was all a nightmare. People were shouting and pushing, and I didn’t hear much of what
the man was yelling. It was something about oil companies ruining the ecology.”

I realized that I was clutching the telephone receiver so tightly that my fingers hurt. I tried to relax, but I shivered again. “Did he have a gun?”

“No. Fortunately, he didn’t.”

“Did they catch him?”

“Yes. The hotel security officers were very efficient. It was over in just a few minutes.”

“Oh, Mom,” I said. “What if the man had been able to reach Dad!”

Her voice was strong enough to keep me from giving in to tears. “I wanted to reassure you before you caught the story on TV.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I mumbled. Why didn’t Dad give this up? Why did he want to do this to himself?

“We’ll be home in a couple of hours, honey,” she said.

“You mean the party’s going on anyway?”

“Of course,” she said. “In fact, in just a few minutes your father will be giving his speech.” She paused, then said, “Oh-oh! They’re starting now. I’ve got to run.”

“Good-bye, Mom,” I said, but she had hung up so fast I wasn’t sure she’d heard me.

I filled Allie in on what had happened, because I knew she’d be biting her nails until I called. I tackled my homework next and finished it just before the ten o’clock news began.

The attempted attack on my father wasn’t the lead story. There were some problems in the Mideast, and a plane crash in Peru, and other world news items before the TV station got into the story about the political
reception and the man who caused the commotion in the ballroom of the Hotel Adolphus.

I could hear the man shout something about oil companies ruining the land, but the camera wasn’t close enough for me to see his face.

One of the station’s reporters appeared on camera, red, white, and blue balloons and streamers and a noisy crowd behind her, and began telling us what we’d just seen.

The camera finally zeroed in on the three candidates in Dad’s party. We heard one or two sentences from Edna Poole about her plan for new laws on drug abuse, before the cameras focused on Stanley Barker, who had an idea about developing Texas ports; but when it was Dad’s turn to be televised, we didn’t hear what he was saying. The reporter kept going on about how Dad had been attacked by a man who was upset about what was happening to the ecology. I didn’t want to hear that again. I wanted to hear what Dad had to tell people about his campaign.

But the coverage of the political reception was over. The station went into a soft drink commercial, then into a political pitch for Governor Jimmy Milco, in which a man with a crown sat with his back to the camera. People scurried around with frightened faces, bowing and scraping, while a deep, authoritative voice asked, “Does Texas need a king? A man who’s interested only in power and wealth—wealth his oil company squeezes out of the people? Or do we want to keep a real governor—a man who cares? Governor Jimmy Milco?” As the commercial switched to Milco’s gap-toothed grin
and heavy jowls, I muttered, “Jerk!” and snapped off the television set.

This had to be the commercial Sally Jo had asked me about. Of course it made me angry, but for more than the commercial itself. It was that
king
idea again. What was this—some sort of conspiracy between the newspaper cartoonist and Milco’s campaign office? It was too coincidental that they both had come up with the same weird idea at the same time, because Dad had never acted like a king. He ran a successful independent company, and there was a certain amount of power that went with that. But he wasn’t power crazy, and he had a lot of loyal employees. Sure, Dad makes a lot of money, but the way we live is just comfortable, not overdone. Dad thinking he’s a king? What if people believed that stupid commercial?

I sighed as I realized that some of them, who didn’t know better, probably would.

When Mom and Dad came home I could hear excitement and happiness in their voices. Mom hugged me with delight. “Your father was terrific! I’m so proud of him! You should have seen how well his speech was received!”

“I saw the news on television,” I said. “They showed the man who was coming after you. Weren’t you scared, Dad?”