Obsession, Deceit and Really Dark Chocolate (19 page)

—C’est La Mort

“YOU WETE EXPECTING HIM?” I ASKED DOUBTFULLY. THE EXPRESSION ON
Fitzgerald’s, Rick’s and Maggie’s faces said that this was anything but a planned meeting, but if that was true what the hell was going on? Fitzgerald didn’t immediately come to greet us. Instead, he stepped back from the host and started rapidly pressing buttons on his cell. I glanced over at Maggie, half expecting her phone to ring, but her handbag remained silent.

“Well, Maggie, you certainly called it when you said it was a small world,” Rick said with what I think was supposed to be a chuckle, but came out more like a whimper.

Maggie finally tore off a piece of the popover she had been ignoring and methodically covered its entire surface with a thin layer of butter. This was a woman trying to buy time to think. “Today is full of amazing coincidences, isn’t it?” she finally said.

I had no idea how to respond to that. If Fitzgerald lived in San Francisco I might buy the coincidence line, but he lived a good forty minutes away.

“You must have
some
idea of why he’s here,” I said. Fitzgerald was now talking on the phone, and even from across the restaurant I could sense his agitation.

“I honestly don’t,” Maggie insisted. “Rick?”

“Perhaps he…wanted to buy a gift for his wife,” he ventured. “Yes, that would make sense. He’s always buying her little presents.”

“A gift,” I said flatly. “He couldn’t buy a gift in say, Walnut Creek?”

“We don’t have a Neiman Marcus in Contra Costa,” Maggie said.

“So?”

“So it’s
Neiman Marcus.
” From her tone I could tell that she thought that explained everything.

I glanced back at Fitzgerald. He was off the phone now and heading toward us.

“Isn’t this a pleasant surprise,” he said once he’d reached our table. The smile on his face was too big and his voice too boisterous. For a politician Fitzgerald seemed to be ill-practiced in the art of faking enthusiasm.

“Are you here to buy a gift for Jan?” Maggie asked, obviously trying to lead his remarks.

“What? No, no, I have a lunch meeting with Robin Striffler.”

I lifted my eyebrows. Robin Striffler was another name I knew. She had started a grassroots campaign in Santa Rosa to prevent supermarkets from selling magazines featuring articles inappropriate for children. According to her, that was pretty much all of them. She had become famous by hosting a series of public
Cosmopolitan
magazine burnings in three consecutive weeks. Of course, no one was willing to give her little organization magazines to burn, so she and her followers had to buy them—a lot of them. It had been a banner month for
Cosmo.

Rick looked even more puzzled than before. “I thought Robin was going to Tennessee this week to take part in a
Maxim
burning.”

“She postponed her trip by a day,” Fitzgerald explained. “She’s spending the night in the city so she can be closer to the airport, and at the last minute she called to see if we could meet here. I think she’s planning to endorse our campaign.” His shifted his weight back on his heels, and turned his attention to Mary Ann. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“What am I thinking,” Rick said, quickly straightening up. “This is Mary Ann Walker. Mary Ann, this is my boss.” He laughed as if he had made a joke.

Mary Ann shook Fitzgerald’s hand, albeit a bit tentatively. “It’s good to meet you.” Was she blushing? “Rick’s told me a lot about you.”

“I could say the same, but it would be an understatement.” Fitzgerald slapped Rick on the back hard enough to make him jerk forward. “Wilkes has done nothing but sing your praises for the past week. If Gallagher here could get the media as enthusiastic about me as Wilkes has gotten us about you I’d have this race in the bag!”

I saw Maggie’s shoulders tense. “I was just telling Sophie about what a wonderful, honest and principled man you are, and she
is
the media. She’s writing for the
National Review.
But of course you know that. That’s why you’ve been encouraging me to speak with her.”

There was an entire coded conversation going on between these two that I was unable to decipher. By the miserable look on Rick’s face it was clear he was in on it, too.

Maggie and Fitzgerald continued to stare each other down. “You’ll have to stop by my table when Striffler shows up. She enjoyed meeting you the last time,” Fitzgerald said.

“Of course,” Maggie agreed. She watched as Fitzgerald retreated to his table, a good twenty feet away from us.

“I’m still having a hard time believing this was a coincidence,” I admitted.

“I know it’s odd, but that’s exactly what it was,” Maggie said with a shrug. “I’m truly delighted to hear that he’s going to be meeting with Robin. Her organization consists of the demographic we’re trying to reach.”

“Mmm, right. I can see that.” I took a long sip of water and silently considered how much nicer our country would be if people had to pass a psychiatric evaluation before being allowed to vote.

I spent the rest of our meal peppering Maggie with questions, hoping to get her to divulge something useful, but all of her answers were predictable and unrevealing. Unlike Rick, Maggie managed to talk about Eugene without exposing him as a “researcher.” She talked about the challenges of being part of a political campaign and how Fitzgerald and his ideas about legislated morality made it all worth it. I could see why Fitzgerald used her as a media consultant. She chose her words carefully and they all conveyed exactly what she wanted them to, nothing more, nothing less. What I did find interesting was Fitzgerald’s nonexistent lunch date.

We were in the restaurant for a good forty-five minutes and Fitzgerald sat there the whole time by himself. The waiter would periodically try to take his order, but he would wave him away, most likely claiming to be waiting for his companion. Eventually he ordered a bottle of spring water. Every ten minutes or so he would get on his phone, and he never took his eyes off our table. Rick sent him a few nervous glances, but Maggie didn’t look at him once. My guess was that she didn’t want to bring my attention to him, but her steadfast refusal to look his way actually made his presence even more conspicuous. Fitzgerald was the big white Republican elephant in the room.

So maybe it was Fitzgerald who had something to hide, not Anne. After all, if Eugene was willing to turn on Edward Bruni, why not Fitzgerald? It was clear from Peter’s letter that whatever information Eugene had discovered, he’d had it for weeks before he was shot. Maybe he’d sat on the scandalous tidbit because he was reluctant to hand a congressional seat over to the Democrats.

Except it didn’t make sense at all. Maggie said that Eugene’s betrayal of Bruni was known by everyone in the political world. If Fitzgerald had a dark secret, why would he hire someone like Eugene? And if Eugene was sitting on the information, why kill him? Anne was still a more logical suspect. Still, it was Fitzgerald who was currently creeping me out.

When the waiter presented us with dessert menus, Maggie and Rick both quickly declined without waiting to see if Mary Ann or I wanted something. “We’re in a bit of a rush,” Rick explained as he handed our server his credit card. “Just put this all on my card and bring me the slip to sign.”

“Where are you two off to now?” I asked.

“Walnut Creek,” Maggie answered as she pushed her handbag up on her shoulder, clearly wanting to bolt for the door the minute Rick signed the receipt. “We have another meeting.”

“Do you think Striffler is standing Fitzgerald up?”

Rick swallowed and Maggie looked out the glass windows. “I’m sure she has a good reason,” she said. “I do hope she hasn’t been in an accident or anything horrible like that.”

Rick signed the receipt before the waiter even had a chance to take his hand away from the leather case that held it. Maggie jumped up from her chair and then waited impatiently for the rest of us. “Forgive us,” she said, “but we really are in a hurry.”

We all followed Maggie out of the dining room. No one said goodbye to Fitzgerald, who was talking on the phone again, his eyes glued to Maggie’s back. “Where are you parked?” Maggie asked as we walked out of the Rotunda.

“Ellis O’Farrell garage.”

“As are we. Shall we walk together to our cars?”

“Actually, I thought I’d let Mary Ann sell me some products. Something to go with the new skin Tiff Strauss gave me.”

This time Rick actually winced at the mention of Tiff’s name. Come to think of it, he was the one who needed cosmetics. His skin tone had taken on a rather unattractive shade of green. Mary Ann had her hand on his arm again, but this time she wasn’t so much holding on to him as she was holding him up.

We descended the three escalators leading to the ground floor and stopped abruptly a few feet away from the Lancôme counter. “It truly was a pleasure to meet you both.” Maggie shook both mine and Mary Ann’s hand. Her palm was damp, despite the moderate temperature in the store. She shot Rick a stern look and he meekly kissed Mary Ann on the forehead before tailing after Maggie. She was on her cell phone before she even hit the sidewalk.

“Mary Ann, what the hell was that?”

Mary Ann avoided my eyes and quickly took her place behind the counter. “I don’t know what brought Fitzgerald here.” She started tinkering with the free-gift-with-purchase display.

“Why do I have the feeling you’re not telling me something?”

“Sophie, I—” Something behind me caught her attention and she stopped short.

I whirled around and there was Flynn Fitzgerald, standing at the foot of the escalator, glaring at me. I’ve always hated the cliché about shooting daggers from your eyes, but for this instance the expression was felicitous. For reasons that I couldn’t even begin to guess at, this man hated me. I could physically feel his detestation from thirty feet away.

And then he looked away and walked out, leaving me with nothing but a hazy sense of foreboding.

13

My boyfriend doesn’t understand my need to be the center of attention. That’s why I love my stalkers. They get me.

—C’est La Mort

I CONSIDERED GOING AFTER FITZGERALD. BUT WHAT WOULD I SAY?
I wanted to press Mary Ann for more information, but as soon as Fitzgerald left, one of San Francisco’s most beloved socialites walked in and demanded Mary Ann’s services. It was only another minute before Anatoly was at my side.

He gave Mary Ann a curt nod, then placed a hand on my back and directed me out of the store.

“How was South San Francisco?” I asked.

“A waste of time. Espinoza barely remembers Eugene, and why would he? He’s been arrested so many times in his life he’d have to have a photographic memory to recall the names of all of the officers who have hassled him. Besides, he was in a halfway house during the week in which Eugene was shot. He couldn’t have gotten to Antioch late at night without alerting the police of his whereabouts. How ’bout you? Did you have better luck?”

I filled him in on all the details as we stood in front of the f lower stand on the corner of Stockton and Geary.

“So Fitzgerald said he came here to meet with Robin Striffler?” Anatoly asked. “Isn’t she the magazine burner?”

“That’s the one. He said they had a lunch date scheduled today.”

“But he ate alone.”

“Exactly. Either Miss Pyromaniac stood him up or Fitzgerald was lying about the meeting.”

Anatoly crossed his arms, appearing to ponder this news. “So Fitzgerald came over to your table and told you he had a lunch date at the same restaurant. Why lie about something when you know you’re going to get caught?”

I shook my head, not having an answer.

“I’d suspect him of following me, Maggie or Rick, but he was very rattled. The moment he saw all of us at a table, he became agitated and got on his cell phone. I really don’t think he expected to see us.” I snapped my fingers in the air. “I know! Maybe he was calling the person he’d planned to meet and told them not to come
because
we were all there. Maybe he came all the way to San Francisco because he didn’t want anyone he knew to see him!”

“No,” Anatoly said dismissively as he pulled me back a little so as not to block the steady stream of tourists and homeless people who were trying to make their way down the sidewalk. “That’s not it, either.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Sophie, if you wanted to keep a low profile, which table in the Rotunda would you request?”

“Oh, I see your point.” His point was that there wasn’t a single table in the Rotunda that wasn’t completely visible to all the other tables in the restaurant. Round restaurants didn’t have corners to hide in.

“Maybe we need to start looking at Fitzgerald a little more closely.”

“Why?” I snapped. “There’s obviously something going on with Fitzgerald, but it’s not like he would kill his own adviser.”

“Researcher,” Anatoly corrected.

“Whatever. The point is that they were on the same team and it was a
good
team. Eugene dug around in Anne’s past, Anne’s poll numbers dropped. Fitzgerald had no reason to kill Eugene. Anne did.”

“Why are you so reluctant to look at other possibilities?” Anatoly asked.

“Because I don’t want to make this more complicated than it needs to be.” A few tourists did a double take as they walked by, probably hoping that my rising voice was the precursor to a photo-worthy violent fit. “Every time I blink there’s another twist, another goddamned turn. First it’s my old mentor asking me to seduce her husband, then there’s a murder—somebody shot Melanie’s husband!” Now the tourists were really interested. We were attracting a small crowd. “I’m dealing with politicians and suicidal mascots, and you! We broke up because I couldn’t deal with the complications you brought into my life and now I’m dealing with you every day!”

“You chose this for yourself, Sophie, and we broke up because you wanted to make our relationship
more
complicated,” Anatoly retorted.