On the Campaign Trail
Buxton opened his door to Ken Bass and Linwood Bean at their first knock. He had the politician’s knack of being “on” at a second’s notice. He took in their anxious faces and waved them into chairs, automatically going to the coffee machine and setting about making the first pot of the day. “I just had a phone call from Jennifer Cates, Jim,” Ken Bass said. “She says she wants us to stop trying to kill her. She says she wants her life back.”
Only the whiteness of his knuckles gave away Buxton’s anxiety. “Are we trying to kill her, Ken?”
“Someone is.”
“That isn’t much of an answer.”
Linwood Bean sighed, glanced at Bass, and took over. “Our information is that there have been a couple of further attempts on Lila Friedman, so an officer is now posted there 24/7. And someone forced your daughter’s… Jennifer Cates’… car off the road. She suffered minor injuries in the accident and then disappeared from the hospital the next day.”
He already knew about the accident. “How minor?” he interrupted.
“Concussion. Broken wrist. Scalp laceration. Severe contusions.”
Buxton nodded. “Go on.”
“She next surfaced in a camp outside of Elmira. The camp was surrounded by New York state cops, but she got away. Excuse me, Jim, you want the whole chronology or just the bottom line?”
“Bottom line,” Buxton said. He was thinking about the girl in the video. The proud Valedictorian. Delicate and fine boned. He was thinking of Lila Friedman’s body. He was thinking about how contact with him was bringing heavy damage to these two women. Of how they possessed the ability to do heavy damage to him. Was it possible his campaign manager had decided to eliminate them? And what the hell was he supposed to do now?
“Okay. Well, I’ll back up just a little. We have reason to believe that Alfonso’s people had her stashed in a house belonging to one of Alfonso’s pet troopers, waiting for some damage to her face, sustained when she resisted the troopers, to heal. The trooper was shot inside the house. We believe the shot was intended for Jennifer Cates. She was then removed from the premises in the trunk of a car, in order to…”
Buxton dropped his head into his hands. “That girl. My daughter…” he began. The words were awkward. “My daughter is being stalked like an animal. Do you think we have something to do with this?”
“Let me finish,” Bass said. “She was last seen getting on a bus in Albany, headed for Boston, with a young man carrying a guitar case. The young man is believed to be an undercover cop named Terrence Trask.”
“So she’s on her way to Boston with a cop? Why? Why would Alfonso let her go? And why on a bus? Why not just drive her home?”
“If she’s going for the tape,” Ken Bass said, “she’ll only do that if she thinks she’s getting away.” He looked at Buxton. “That goddamned tape again.”
“We assume she didn’t know the guy was a cop” Woody said. He set a small tape recorder on the table. “But somehow she figured it out. They recorded this conversation a while ago.” He played Jenny’s conversation with Andy Mason.
Buxton listened eagerly. Her first words. His daughter was twenty-one and he was hearing her words for the first time. She sounded exhausted, beaten down, at the end of her tether. She sounded like Lila Friedman. “You think Frank is involved in this?”
They nodded.
“Which means I’m involved.”
Ken Bass looked abashed. “We weren’t sure. Well, we still aren’t sure, but tonight, after her call, we… Our FBI sources have linked calls on Frank’s cellular phone to a Dino Stormont. Mr. Stormont is believed to be in the… uh… elimination business.”
Buxton saw the ashes of his bright hopes piling up around him. “Ken? Woody? What the hell do we do? Can we contain this?”
He paused, considering how cold that sounded. Containment was necessary, though. He hadn’t come this far to fold his tent now, leaving the field to Alfonso. Alfonso was a selfish, ignorant scum-bag. Possessed of the necessary ambition and a vast well of artificial charm and charisma. And well advised. But he would be a bad leader. Bad for the people. Bad for the country. And he was willing to stalk and imprison this young woman to use her for his own purposes. But was it any worse than what he, or his campaign was doing? Of course not. Alfonso wanted to use her; Buxton’s people—his people—wanted to kill her.
He struggled to quell a rising panic. In his entire career, he’d never panicked. This was not the moment. He didn’t want to quit. He promised himself if he went down, Alfonso was going, too.
“She says if we don’t leave her alone, she’ll use the tape,” Ken Bass said. “I think she’s going home to get it.”
“Jesus!”
“I don’t think she wants to use it. Because of her mother. But she doesn’t see she has a lot of options. She’s got her back to the wall.”
“Can we contain it”” he repeated.
If she got the tape, Alfonso might get it from her. Damn! He’d never imagined it might come to this. That tape was supposed to have been destroyed. “For God’s sake, call Frank off before—” He hesitated. ‘What the hell do we do now? You’d better get Frank in here. We need to talk.”
The door burst open. Maggie Buxton, her face as pink as her robe, stormed in, Frank Follet right behind her. She pointed a finger at her husband, so angry she could hardly speak. “You! You lying, cheating bastard! How could you do this to me! How could you have a child with another woman and never tell me? How could you!”
She slammed the pictures down in front of him. “And try as I may, the goddamned girl won’t die!”
“For Christ’s sake, Jim. She didn’t mean it literally. You can’t seriously think we’re out there gunning for the girl.”
Buxton looked up from his contemplation of the carpet. He swallowed, perhaps for the first time in his political career at a loss for words. He took a deep breath, opened his mouth, then, without speaking, resumed his study of the carpet.
“Jeez, Jim,” Frank continued. “You can’t imagine I’d take a chance like that with your campaign. Sure, I’ve been accused of being willing to do whatever it takes, but there’s ruthlessness and there’s insanity, which is what you seem to be accusing me of.” He carefully adjusted his suspenders. “I’ve never been accused of insanity. Why, if I didn’t recognize the stress we’re all under, I’d be deeply offended at your lack of faith.”
“Save it, Frank.”
They say when you’re drowning, your whole life rushes before your eyes. Buxton felt like he was drowning now, drowning in a filthy pool of political duplicity, ambition and corruption, in the meltwater of his own high hopes and personal failures. Drowning because he’d neglected to check the equipment himself and now he was stuck in a leaking lifeboat with no life jacket. He was drowning in the conflicting currents of his own emotions, with a lifetime in politics floating through his mind like old news clips. Highlights of a career he wasn’t ready to see end.
Incredible as it seemed, even though he was running for the Presidency, a race that represented the consummate exercise of political ambition, he hadn’t understood until now how ambitious he was. Ambitious enough to want to believe Frank Follet, believe Maggie hadn’t meant what she said. He wanted to believe the woman he’d shared thirty-five years of his life with couldn’t cold-bloodedly contemplate the murder of two innocent people, one of them his own child. Wanted to believe, but didn’t.
They were all waiting for him. He could feel their eyes on him. He wanted the presidency, a job that called for a decisive nature, for a ruthless—Frank’s good word—ability to make decisions. Courage under pressure. He didn’t feel presidential. He felt like throwing up. In this room with his wife, his two closest friends, and the campaign manager he despised, he didn’t see any of them.
He saw Lila Friedman’s face in the doorway of his office, her shining eyes slightly slick with tears, her brilliant smile a little shaky. Saying, in her husky voice, “You give ’em hell in Washington, Jim. The only way I can bear having my heart broken, the only way I can bear losing you, is knowing that every one of us who cares about Maine, about honesty in politics, and about vulnerable people, gains by having you looking out for our interests in Washington.” One tear running in a shining river down her cheek.
“I’m not coming to the party,” she’d said. “I’d cry and make a fool of myself. I don’t like making a fool of myself and I don’t like people knowing my business. I haven’t got a politician’s face. I’d look at you and everyone would know this silly baby lawyer has fallen in love with her boss.”
He’d wanted to brush away the tear, take her in his arms, and swear he’d never leave her.
But Lila had been good at reading his mind. “Don’t even think it, Jim. You can’t turn back now. So few decent people get a chance at a higher calling like this. You’ve been honored with a very special opportunity. Take it and don’t look back. And don’t worry about me.” She’d touched one small fist to the breast of her jacket. “You will always be in my heart. My own private hero. I’ll be fine. I’m getting to do what I love.”
She’d shut the door and kissed him one more time, leaving the wetness of tears on his face. “Go out in the big bad world and do good, Jim. And don’t lose your soul.”
He’d never seen her again.
Don’t lose your soul. Buxton looked into the well of emptiness inside him and wondered if he had. He raised his eyes from the carpet. “Let’s assume you are more ruthless on my behalf than I am for myself, Frank. And have taken certain steps to prevent embarrassment?”
Frank Follet managed a sickly smile but said nothing.
“Call off your jackals, Frank. Leave Lila Friedman and my daughter alone.” The only response was a low growl from Maggie when he said “daughter.” She bared her teeth and he fought the urge to shield his throat.
When none of them moved, he shifted to the issue that consumed them all, and snapped out his questions. The beginning of damage control. “Do we have complete deniability on this? Can anything be traced back to us? What else do we need to do?”
Frank had located his voice. “Find the girl. Find the tape. And find a way to keep her from talking.”
Jesus, Buxton thought, he hasn’t heard a word I’ve said. Nor did he miss the look that passed between Frank and Maggie. So it was true. He should fire Frank right now and file for divorce.
“Call off your jackals,” he repeated.