We continued to watch TV returns as first Mann and then Knight took narrow leads. Mom finally got bored and went upstairs. The kids stayed in their rooms, briefly coming out to say goodnight when they decided to turn in. Yuri and I continued our vigil.
When 66 per cent of the districts had been counted, Knight started pulling ahead. Slowly, very slowly, he began to take the lead. The Mann supporters began to appear less jubilant and the crowd at their party thinned out a bit. Bobby had showed up late, at a time when it looked like he had a chance to win. He continued smiling and glad-handing, maintaining appearances on the outside, but most likely mentally preparing his concession speech. The rest of the Mann family seemed to have vanished.
“Wonder where Ashley has been all evening?” I said.
“Isn’t she supposed to show a brave front, stand by her man?” Yuri’s sarcastic question made me even more skeptical about her absence.
“The question is, will he stand by her?”
Meanwhile, there were more and more people gathering at the Knight headquarters, including reporters. I recognized several who had apparently abandoned ship at the Mann party. Now they were maneuvering through the growing crowd, pausing occasionally to thrust a microphone in someone’s face. “How do you feel about what looks like a positive outcome for your candidate?” we heard one ask. Stupid questions like that always irritated me. How did she think the volunteer felt? Then again, the reporters had just spent the better part of an evening filling in the hours with inane chatter while waiting for results. Maybe it was too much to expect that they would have any creativity left.
“I’ve had enough,” Yuri announced. “You going to stay up until it’s called?”
“No, it looks like Knight is a sure thing at this point. Although not by much.” It crossed my mind that Brian would have been pleased. At the same time, Knight’s win would take the sting out of what Gretchen hoped to accomplish with her article. There were always tangential winners and losers in any political race.
After Yuri left, I turned off the TV and went to bed, hoping I’d wake to good news about the Knight campaign. I like to review election results in print, so I figured I’d pick up the local paper and a cup of coffee on my way to work and savor the good news once I got to the office. The next morning, however, the headline wasn’t about election results. Instead, it read:
Bobby Mann’s wife commits suicide.
“Damn.” I briefly wondered what Mom would say when she saw the news. Personally, I very much doubted that Ashley had committed suicide. It seemed to me that it was more likely the Mann family had tidied up loose ends before they packed up and headed back east, but I doubted we’d ever be able to prove it. I looked at the headline again. They hadn’t even honored her by using her name in the headline.
Underneath the headline the election numbers showed that Knight had won by a tiny lead, one that might normally have ended in a demand for a recount. Instead, Bobby Mann had conceded. According to the article, he was devasted by his wife’s suicide. Bobby had refused to comment, so they had interviewed his brother, Randy, about her death.
“The stress of the campaign was just too much for her,” Randy was quoted as saying. He added, “But my brother is a survivor. He will get through this.” The implicit message as I understood it was that he would deal with his grief and try again for office at a later time.
Yuri was standing by the coffee maker when I arrived. “An overdose. Pills. Can you believe it?”
“I wonder where she got them.”
“You’re not thinking what I’m thinking—?”
“Probably. She wasn’t ‘family.’ And mourning your dead wife isn’t as damaging to a political career as visiting your convicted murderer wife in prison. I wouldn’t put it past them to have provided pills and a ‘strong suggestion’ that she avoid a murder trial by taking them.”
“Can you force a person to take pills?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they tricked her, told her they were something else. I just don’t believe suicide was her idea. I think she would have gone for bluff and bluster. People that live a privileged life always think they can get away with anything. Even murder.”
Yuri was quiet for minute. “I think you’re right,” he said as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “And if you’re right, I hate the thought that the Mann family might skate. That guarantees Bobby Mann will simply move on and run again. Nothing will have changed.”
“Except that three people are dead.”
The telephone rang. It was Gretchen. “Mum’s the word, but I wanted you to know that I found two images,” she said. “You were right—there was a connection between Ashley and Jim Gossett. He could have been blackmailing her.”
“Or, maybe she was his Mrs. Robinson,” I countered.
“Well, I’m opting for the former. I also found two Mann campaign volunteers who remembered her asking questions about Brian. At this point, I think I have enough bits and pieces to string together a fairly convincing argument.”
“You don’t feel a little bit sorry for her?”
“Because she took her own life rather than face two murder charges?”
“Well, there’s that. But I think she paid a heavy price for marrying onto that family.”
“Hey, my focus is still on bringing down the Manns, making them pay the consequences for their greed and underhanded dealings. But now the story is not only a tale of political intrigue, but one of murder and suicide. Even though Bobby lost, I think I might be looking at a Pulitzer. Or maybe it’s the basis for a book. True crime. Who knows?”
Later that morning, Yuri and I returned to the now familiar topic of Ashley as murderer. “What I can’t picture is how she managed to get away with murder, twice, without getting caught.” Yuri still didn’t see her as anything but a trophy wife.
“I’ve thought all along that killing Brian was a spur-of-the-moment decision. And it’s doubtful that either Brian or Jim had reason to fear her. That would have given her an advantage.”
“But what about the weapons? Both were killed with blunt instruments. Did she bring them with her? And what happened to them?”
“Good point. You’d think her victims would have noticed if she was carrying a baseball bat,” I said. “Or a Neanderthal type club.” I was kidding, but that gave Yuri an excuse to jump to a new topic.
“Neanderthals have been unfairly stereotyped, you know.”
I groaned. “Sorry I mentioned that.” Before he could head off on a trivia tangent, I continued my argument. “Seriously, there could have been something handy at the campaign headquarters. And she could have concealed a weapon in a large purse when she went to see Jim.”
“I’ll give you that. It’s possible. But there’s still the issue of how she disposed of the weapons.”
“She wasn’t a suspect, so she had plenty of time to dump them somewhere. In a lake, a dumpster, down a ravine. They may never show up. Sometimes even inept criminals are just damned lucky.” Although in Ashley’s instance, her luck had run out.
“Think Randy helped her?”
“I doubt it. But I bet he hired Devine to look for Brian’s research.”
“And someone to burgle Gretchen’s house.”
“Then there’s the mysterious dark sedan at the park. The more I’ve thought about it, the more convinced I am that whoever was driving the sedan had been hired by the family to keep an eye on Ashley. They may or may not have suspected her of the murders, but they undoubtedly considered her a loose cannon.”
“Do you think the person in the sedan would have stopped her from shooting you if Grant and I hadn’t showed up?”
“I guess it depends on what their orders were.”
“Another thing I can’t decide is whether Ashley’s the one who shot at us in the parking lot. I still think it could have been Randy. Or someone Randy hired.”
“And I still think that Randy somehow got his hands on Brian’s research.”
“Or it could have been someone else who was on the list.”
“Either way, we’ll probably never know.”