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Jack removed the price sticker from the Balvenie forty-year-old single malt scotch. $3,800 a bottle. Not a trivial amount, even for him, but it would be worth it. Next he fiddled with the cell phone. Larger than his own, but still not out of the norm. He tested the hidden recording capability and found nothing so obvious as a beep or a microphone icon.
There was a soft chime from the entryway.
Caries slid the phone and bottle into his briefcase, latched it shut, walked to the door, and opened it. When he found attorney Lana Decateau standing there, he said nothing. A moment passed, then another. She had made an appointment.
He expected her.
But he had not expected her.
“Governor, thank you for seeing me.”
Jack took in her deep brown eyes, and her full red lips. She was dressed in a warm brown suit that complemented her skin tone, with a lavender silk blouse underneath, highlighting her curves. Her thick black hair fell loose and heavy around her face.
He couldn’t help it, he just stared.
Fortunately, Ms. Decateau appeared used to the lag time most men and some women experienced in functioning when she arrived. She courteously waited for him to regain his powers of movement and speech and invite her in. When he did, Jack showed her into a living room with high ceilings that was filled with a riot of color—reds and pinks and bright greens and blues—from the sofa and chairs to the pillows, tapestries, and paintings on the walls. There were modern and period pieces side by side. A grand piano was clearly the centerpiece.
Caries gestured to a lime-green cushioned settee and Lana sat down, while he chose the piano bench across from her. He watched as she pulled her phone from her purse and checked to make sure it was off so they would not be interrupted.
“I appreciate you taking the time to see me,” she said. “My investigator is out sick, and with budget cuts I’m the only stand-in. I expect that having run the state, you can understand.” She smiled. “I’m here to try to better understand the relationship between Ms. Tamara Barnes and my client, Mr. Sean Verston, who I’m sure you’re aware has been arrested for her murder. He was found at the scene, but there was no weapon and the DA is leaning heavily on a motive of jealousy. Did you know Mr. Verston?” Her southern accent, the ups and downs of it, carried well in the space designed for the acoustics of jazz.
“Sean worked with my office on legislation for Senator Rorie Rickman. I didn’t know him, other than in passing.”
“Did you have occasion to see Sean with Ms. Barnes?”
“They dated when she first came to work with me.” He paused. “I gather it didn’t end well.”
“When you say you gather, did you witness anything between them or did she speak of it with you?” She brushed a loose lock of hair back off her brow.
“I didn’t ask. She didn’t say. But there was talk around the capitol, and when Tamara took a leave for several months some thought it was to get away from Sean.”
“Nothing concrete, nothing you saw or got directly from Ms. Barnes?”
“No.” Jack laid his hands on the baby grand’s keys, softly, without sound. “Tilly is . . . was . . . family to me, a sister, really, but we didn’t talk about everything.” Still looking at the keys, he tried again. “We knew we could count on each other though.” He looked up. “Maybe you have family like that?”
“I wasn’t aware you and Ms. Barnes were acquainted before she came to Sacramento.”
“We were both foster kids in New York City. It’s a big population there, of course, but we were placed in a special program for gifted kids. I was several years ahead, but we took the same city bus to the internship. When I left, I told Tilly—Tamara—I told her to look me up if she ever got to California. She did, and I meant to look out for her . . .” Caries’s eyes unfocused, and he looked down, silent. Then he glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, I have to go. It’s the annual jazz award auditions.” As he stood, he asked, “Do you like salsa?”
Lana tilted her head, her eyes on his. “The condiment or the music?”
“Either . . . Both.”
Jack smiled as he grabbed his briefcase and jacket and escorted her to the door.
* * *
FORTUNATELY, IT WAS foggy and the air was crisp and cool. Although Camper didn’t mind, Maren hated leaving him in the car and would never do so if it was warm out, windows cracked or not. From her advocacy work related to child health and injury prevention, she knew that at 80 degrees outside the interior of a vehicle could reach 120. And the weather was shifting in Sacramento. Any day now it would be 100 in the shade.
The football field at San Loomas High, home of the Fighting Panthers, was dotted with white-canopied booths. Teens were scattered across the expanse of artificial turf. Nearly all were toting instruments. Jenna and Danny were in line for the registration table.
“We’re here. They’re fine.”
Maren had called to reassure Polly, who sounded weak and tired.
“Marty said he would ring when he arrives, I gave him your mobile,” Polly said. “You can’t miss him. Over six feet, Genghis Khan mustache. You don’t need to wait for him though. You can leave now if you like. Jenna can reach me.”
“Get some sleep,” Maren said. “I’ll stay until Marty comes.” At least if he gets here before the sun burns through and Camper needs rescuing, she thought. It was 9:00 a.m. She figured she had until ten.
Jenna and Danny returned, each holding a bright-blue folder with the California seal in gold on the front. Among the papers inside was a sheet detailing the history of the award that featured a photo of its founder, Governor Jack Caries. Thick, wavy brown hair, large blue eyes. The man must have been born camera-ready, except for teeth that just missed being perfect in a way that said, “I’m a man of the people, not a movie star.”
Maren took a deep breath. She had seen Jack Caries many times and knew him slightly through her work, but it gave her a start to see his image now that she believed he might bear some responsibility for the deaths of Marjorie Hopkins and Tamara Barnes.
Of course, she’d also been sure that Ray Fernandez had a role in the murders.
In fact, the list of her deferred or denied hunches was now bordering on embarrassing. Still, she reminded herself no pain, no gain. Or something like that.
“Can you help me with this?” Jenna removed a badge from the folder, her name in large black letters on a white background with a blue and gold ribbon proclaiming “Governor’s Jazz Awards, Invited Musician.”
Maren pinned Jenna’s badge onto her jacket, did the same for Danny, and then consulting the schedule, shepherded them toward the school’s auditorium.
According to the agenda, an opening band would play, followed by “Remarks by the Governor.” Then award hopefuls would head to their assigned classrooms for auditions. Thirty-three finalists—three from each of the eleven instruments—would be selected to return another day to play chosen pieces before an august panel of experts.
Maren found three seats together about ten rows back. She took the one on the aisle so she could exit easily when Marty showed. Twenty minutes past the program’s official start time, the auditorium was still three-quarters empty. She heard late-arriving attendees grumbling about a shortage of parking and long lines to get packets and badges.
Jenna and Danny kept busy on their phones, chatting with friends who weren’t there and playing games. Maren found it odd that two best friends seated next to one another weren’t directly interacting, but she knew it had become the norm. She figured she might as well join in and opened her iPad. The most recent email was from Evie, an update on the interns’ work on Simone Booth’s tapes.
Maren,
I think you’re going to want to take a look at this.
Simone left 634 tapes. Tapes 629, 630 and 631 are interviews with Hopkins’s sister, colleague, and boss. 632 is an interview with Caleb Waterston. 633 and 634 are two interviews that Booth evidently intended to do, but never happened. For each of those a tape is labeled, but it’s blank. One was a scheduled interview with Tamara Barnes the day of Ms. Barness’ death. The second was intended for an interview with you, “date to be determined.”
Evie
Maren was reeling. She reread the email three times. In addition to the background interviews Simone Booth had done for Marjorie Hopkins’s obituary last year, it looked like she’d recently undertaken research on Rickman’s cell phone bill, with plans to speak to Maren and Waterston. That made some sense, since the new cell phone bill linked to the first cell phone bill, which, in turn, related to Hopkins’s research.
But why had Simone Booth planned to interview Tamara?
Before she could gather her thoughts, the house lights dimmed and the audience broke into applause. Maren quickly powered down the tablet and looked up to see a young man with shoulder-length black hair in a shiny purple jacket and narrow print tie tuning a stand-up bass. A pale, redheaded teen stood at the front of the stage fiddling with the mouthpiece on his sax. The two were soon joined by a guitarist and more horn players—trombone, trumpet, and clarinet, as well as a short acned young man carrying an oversized silver horn that Maren didn’t recognize.
She would have to unravel the connections in Simone’s work later. There was nothing she could do in the dark. She became aware again of her young companions, Jenna and Danny.
Jenna had put her phone away and seemed transfixed by the scene unfolding before her. “Look, a French horn,” she whispered to Maren. “And there’s an oboe,” she said reverently, eyes wide, as though spotting a white-throated needletail, which Maren understood from Noel to be one of the rarest birds in existence. “You almost never see them in jazz bands,” she added wistfully.
Until then Maren hadn’t known a fourteen-year-old could be wistful.
The musicians ceased their individual activities and launched into “Take the A Train,” a Duke Ellington tune that Maren recognized. Despite the young age of its members, the band was really good. As the song hit its stride, Jack Caries walked onstage, staying off to the side, giving the musicians his full attention and nodding slightly to the music. When they finished, Caries approached an empty microphone center stage, just his height, evidently set in advance for him. His voice was clear but soft as he spoke into it. Not commanding—enveloping.
“Let’s thank the musicians. These are last year’s Governor’s Award winners. They sat where you sit now.”
When the applause subsided, Caries scanned the room slowly before speaking again, as though inviting each person into the conversation. “There are no wrong notes in jazz . . .” He waited a beat. “If I hit a G when the chord calls for an A, it won’t matter. Not unless I stay stuck on the music as written.” Again, a measured pause. “If, instead, I reach for a new sound, a new moment, if I break through to the unknown . . .” Caries’ voice rose. “That’s jazz . . . that’s truly jazz.”
He turned purposefully and crossed the stage to the baby grand, casually seating himself. He placed both hands palms down on the cover before opening it to display rows of perfect black and white keys.
Caries’s left hand set the rhythm diligently, a repeating tone. His right joined in to craft the melody with a delicacy that begged the listener to hear nothing else.
It wasn’t greatness. But it was beautiful.
Maren sat stock-still, absorbed, as she wondered if a man who could feel so deeply and create such music could also willfully end a life.