Big Sick Heart: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery (6 page)

“Maybe that’s what’s going on,” I said, “or maybe
it’s just a prop for her story about Arlen coming in to say goodnight at ten.”
Ryan was sitting in a chair, his eyes following me as I circled the big table
in the middle of the room. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got right now for
suspects.”

“Start with Margaret.”

“Sure,” I said. “What’s her motive?”

“Easy. He’s having sex with someone: Connie, Jonathan
Ahern, hookers. It doesn’t matter. But it’s not his wife. She finds out. She’s
angry, humiliated.” He paused. “You know, there’s one thing I wanted to ask you
about.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“Did you notice Arlen’s room and Margaret’s room
aren’t next to each other? Connie’s between them.”

“That could be just the way it worked out this
time.”

Ryan took out his notebook. “I think it’s worth a
call to the clerk who checked them in yesterday—see if they said anything to
him about it or just booked the four rooms.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Long shot, but worth following
up.”

“Could Margaret not know that her husband is
having sex with someone else?”

“It’s probably more like she doesn’t want to
know,” I said, “so she ignores the signs that are obvious enough to everyone
else. Or maybe she just doesn’t care.” I knew we didn’t have enough to go on
yet. “Okay, what about her role in the Soul Savers business?”

“Yeah, she’s jealous that Arlen is the front man
and getting all the attention. And maybe all the bucks?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Did you notice she said
it was her idea to put Jonathan up on the stage?”

“Yeah, and she said she sought him out that first
night in Georgia. She sees that she’s the brains.”

“We definitely have to get to the bottom of that,”
I said. “Follow the money and the perks. Okay, another suspect.”

“Jonathan Ahern,” Ryan said.

“Motive?”

“He disagrees with Hagerty on the issues?”

“Okay,” I said. “But Margaret says they’re adults
about it. And we saw them acting like buddies last night at the bar.”

“Right, but maybe Ahern was faking it, really
hated Hagerty.”

“True. What do you make of Margaret going out of
her way to tell us Soul Savers is supporting Ahern?”

“Well,” he said, “it’s something she has to figure
we’re going to find out eventually, so she gets points for tipping us off to
it.”

“Or it’s her way to tell us he’s a lowlife who’s
sponging off people he doesn’t even agree with.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But her argument is plausible:
he doesn’t have any other means of support. Maybe Research Horizons is just a
website and a P.O. box, and they don’t even have enough money to support him.
So if he kills Hagerty, there goes his own job.”

“Okay,” I said. “What about the sex angle?”

“Let’s see. Ahern could be having an affair with
Connie.”

“Or with Hagerty.”

“If he’s involved with Hagerty,” Ryan said, “they
could’ve had some kind of fight. But there’s no evidence either of them is
gay.”

“Yeah, I know that,” I said, still walking the
room. “But at this point, we’re just talking about the possibilities. When we
find out whose sperm is on the towel, we’ll know a little more.”

“Or Ahern and Hagerty could’ve both been involved
with Connie and they got into a fight.”

“That could make sense. Ahern’s an okay-looking
guy, much closer to Connie’s age. Connie’s a junkie hooker shows up at Soul
Savers, Hagerty takes her in, starts doing her, but after traveling around with
Ahern, those two get together.”

“Yeah, I like that better than the two guys are
gay.”

I laughed. “Well, I don’t know which image is
worse: those two guys in bed, or Hagerty boning the young girl, with his socks
on.”

“One more suspect: Connie.”

“That one’s easy. He’s doing her. One night she
realizes how disgusting he is. He makes her do something kinky and she wigs
out. Picks up whatever it was with a point on it and just goes crazy on him.”

“That is, if she has the physical strength to do
it,” Ryan said.

“Yeah, that’s right. So, we definitely have to
check that out when we interview her.” I had another idea. “Boot your laptop,
okay? I wanna look at those two sites.”

Ryan drummed his fingers on the conference table
while the laptop came to life. The heating system rattled and hissed in the
ceiling, pushing out the warm air with its stale metallic smell. “Okay, here’s
Research Associates,” he said as I sat down next to him. “What do you want to
see?”

“I want to see whether the organization has any
money.”

“To see if Ahern really travels with the debate
for his spending money?”

“Yeah. Any reference to other people in the
organization? Any photos of the staff or the headquarters?”

There was a home page, with a little bio of
Jonathan Ahern and a thumbnail photo of him. No other people, no list of
contributors, no endorsements. The address was a P.O. box. “Looks like Ahern is
the whole show,” Ryan said. “Let me look at the source code, see if there’s any
credits to someone for making the site.” He hit a few buttons. “No. It’s an old
FrontPage template. Ahern could’ve made it himself in half an hour.”

“Okay, go to Soul Savers,” I said. Ryan pulled up
the site. “Now we’re talking.” While the site was loading, we saw a video
montage of Arlen Hagerty speaking to a packed church, Arlen hugging a little
black girl at a picnic, Arlen with a furrowed brow sitting at a table in a
business meeting, studying important-looking documents. “Looks like the Arlen
Hagerty Show, huh?”

The video faded into a screen that linked to other
videos and all kinds of information about the mission, position papers, photos
of Arlen Hagerty with national political figures, and instructions on how to
get involved with the mission and donate to its causes. Ryan clicked on About
Us, which pulled up a group of photos of a stately three-story brick building
on a broad expanse of land, the lush green lawns accented by ornamental
fountains and massive rock sculptures. White clouds dotted the brilliant blue
sky, the sun rays glittering off the golden cross atop the building.

One of the photos was a group shot of the
headquarters staff, with Arlen standing proudly in front of a group of a dozen
mostly young, well-scrubbed staffers. They were named in a caption.

Ryan said, “No Connie in the picture, or
Margaret.”

“That’s interesting, isn’t it? I can understand
why Connie isn’t there, but you’d think he wouldn’t diss Margaret. What’s she
called in the list of officers?”

“Vice-President.”

“Uncool. It’s an expensive site, though, isn’t
it?”

“Judging by its size and complexity, I’d say we’re
talking about a full-time person to maintain this. It wasn’t made by a
secretary.”

“Yet no space for Margaret.” I got up out of the
chair. “Let’s track down Connie.”

*  *  *

She was in the coffee shop
off the lobby, sitting at a small table in the corner, half hidden by a pillar.

“Are you Connie de Marco?”

She looked up, then paused. “Yes.”

I touched my shield. “Detective Karen Seagate, my
partner Detective Ryan Miner. Mind if we sit down?”

Connie’s face was impassive. She nodded, gesturing
for us to sit.

Ryan said, “First, we want to express our
condolences. Arlen Hagerty was an important part of your life. His death must
be quite a shock to you.”

She sat there, her expression blank. “Thanks.”

I said, “We’d like to talk with you about him. Can
we talk here?”

Connie had finished a plate of something that had
syrup on it. A big glob of butter, still round from the scoop, balanced on the
side of the plate. A cup of coffee, half empty, sat on the table. To its side
were three empty creamer cartons, each with its torn corner pointing to the
bowl holding the full cartons. Next to each empty carton was an empty packet of
sugar, aligned neatly. “Here’s fine with me,” she said.

“All right, thanks,” I said. “When did you last
see Arlen Hagerty?”

“Last night. We were going over arrangements for
the next few days. Next stop was going to be Lewis and Clark State College in
Idaho.”

“Where did you meet with Mr. Hagerty?”

“In his room, about 10:30 last night.”

“Was this an unusual meeting in any way?”

“No, we met most nights on the road. My job is to
do all the arrangements—the hotels, the sites for the debates, the
transportation, everything. I’d go over all the arrangements with him.”

“Did you generally meet in his room?”

Connie looked at me for a moment, the silence
telling me what she thought of the question. “Yes,” she said. She drank the
rest of her coffee in one gulp, put the cup down, and turned it so the handle
lined up with the edge of the table.

“And when did you leave his room?”

“Not sure.” She didn’t look like she was trying to
remember. “Between 11:00 and 11:30, I think.”

“Tell us a little about Mr. Hagerty,” I said. “How
did you meet?”

Connie sighed. She started to talk, the words
coming out like someone else had written them. Her eyes looked distant. “I was
in some trouble at the time. I’d left home. I was maybe sixteen, had some
problems with my folks. I got mixed up with some people I shouldn’t’ve. I saw a
billboard for Soul Savers. I was hungry, they took me in.”

Ryan said, “This was a shelter for runaways?”

Connie looked at him like she’d rather be talking
to me. “You could call it that,” she said, then turned back to me.

“You seem to have come a long way, this position
of responsibility Mr. Hagerty gave you,” I said. “Tell us about that.”

Connie’s face was expressionless. “Soul Savers got
me back in school. I took courses in computers, you know, secretarial stuff.
Started helping out at their headquarters. That’s where I met Mr. Hagerty. He
liked me, let me help the woman who did his arrangements from the main office.
I learned the routine. That’s pretty much it.”

“How’d you get from the main office to traveling
with him?”

“As the trips got longer, Mr. Hagerty decided he
needed a person with him on the road. The woman I worked for didn’t want to do
it—she was older, had a family. So he invited me. Not like I had a reason to
stay in my studio apartment.”

“Did he ever consider having Mrs. Hagerty do your
job?” I said.

There was a trace of a rueful smile on Connie’s
face. “No, I don’t think that would have worked out.”

“How so?” Ryan said.

Connie turned to him. “She doesn’t want to have to
do that kind of thing. She wants to concentrate on the big picture. That’s what
she calls it: ‘the big picture.’” She looked impatient. “I want a cigarette. Do
you mind if we go outside?” She signed the restaurant check.

“No, that’s fine,” I said. Connie led us out of
the restaurant and around to the side of the hotel. We were out of the wind,
and with the sun high in the sky, the temperature in the forties, it was
pleasant. She took a cigarette out of her bag and lit it. She leaned against
the brick wall of the hotel and closed her eyes in the bright sunshine.

I said, “Tell us a little about Margaret Hagerty.
What’s your relationship with her?”

Connie paused, as if she was planning what she had
to say. “Margaret has been very good to me. Not everyone would let me travel
with them.”

“You mean because of your background?”

“That’s part of it. Someone like me, most people
assume I’m going to steal from them, whatever. Or that I’m still using.”

“What kinds of things have you learned from her?”

“You met her, right?”

“A few minutes ago,” I said.

“She knows how to dress, how to act polite. You
know, how to behave with other professional-type people. I didn’t know anything
about that world. You understand.”

The sun was bright on her face. Her hair was a
medium brown, pulled back in a ponytail. She wasn’t wearing any makeup. The sun
showed faint crows’ feet starting around her eyes. There were a few acne scars
on her left temple. Her nose, thin and straight, was framed by strong cheeks
bones. She had a minor overbite, not really obvious, but enough that her
parents would have rushed her to the orthodontist if she had come from the
right side of the tracks.

A logging truck downshifted to make it up the
slight rise on the highway in front of the hotel. I waited for the rumbling to
stop. “Do you get along with her okay?”

“Sure,” Connie said. “I do my job, she does hers.
I mind my own business. She’s not looking for a friend.”

“And Jonathan Ahern?” She turned to me and
focused, for the first time. “What can you tell us about him?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Is he a friend?”

“No,” she said, her gaze drifting off again. “He’s
part of the show. Just another room to book.”

“Do you ever go out for a drink after the debates
with him and Mr. Hagerty?”

“No, I don’t drink,” she said, taking a folding
metal ashtray out of her coat pocket and stubbing out her cigarette. She folded
the ashtray and put it back in her pocket. “Besides, I’m not one of the guys.
That’s not my role.” She unbuttoned her jacket and pulled back the lapels so
the sun could warm her dark blue cotton turtleneck.

“Got it,” I said, catching a whiff of the diesel
from the logging truck. “Did Mr. Hagerty or Mrs. Hagerty ever talk with you
about why they have separate rooms?”

“I know they have separate rooms at home. Maybe
she just wants some privacy. I don’t get into that.”

“Do you know whether they sleep together?”

Connie gave me a look that said, Back-off. “I
don’t know—and I don’t care.”

“Do you know whether Mr. Hagerty used to have sex
with anyone, either at home or on the road?”

Connie said, “Listen, Detective. I’ve told you
what I know. I’ve got a job with the Hagertys. I make the arrangements for the
debates. I also do anything else they need me to do, like getting special food
when Mrs. Hagerty wants it, or dry cleaning. I’m their assistant. Whatever they
do in their private lives, that’s not my business.”