Gathering String (65 page)

“Well, the FEC is picking up steam. Judith’s going to be called on to explain what she's been up to, and Dodson’s fuming over the idea that Politifix is going to come off looking like it was used as a political chit. He keeps barking about what the
Times
went through with Judy Miller, and he wants to head off that kind of trouble by being the first to run a story on it.”

“So? I’m not that involved. She gave me a few ideas on where to look for dirt on Erickson. Any politically savvy wife might have done the same.”

“Come on, Sam. You and Dodson and I all know that’s not exactly the way it played. She was a conduit between you and Morton, and you knew it at the time.”

“So what does Dodson want me to do? Go on the record with the reporter doing the story?” Sam almost laughed at the absurdity.

But Johnson’s voice stayed grim. “That seems to be the general idea. He says he wants it all out in the open.”

“Bloody fuck,” Sam muttered, running his hand through his hair. “Steve, however bad we were together, she was my wife. I don't want to be the one to put a knife in her. What if I won’t comment? Will he shit-can my ass? Because I really need corporate backing me up when that grand jury catches up with me.”

Johnson sighed, and after a moment’s hesitation, bluntly said, “He feels like you’re a whole lot more trouble than you’re worth. If this story exposing Erickson had jelled, but … Sam, you can't know how bad I feel about this.”

“Wait a minute,” Sam actually felt dizzy. He'd watched colleague after colleague, men and women, face it. Now he realized it was finally his turn. He was losing his job. There was a low buzzing in his ears. If he wasn't a newsman, then who the hell was he? The firmness of his tone belied the crawling panic, “This story is going to come together, I guarantee it. But Steve, I need a little time. Please. Just buy me more time. Tell him you can’t find me. Come on, it’s not like I usually have my fucking cell phone charged. He’ll believe that you just can’t raise me. Get me two, three days, and I’ll lay the Republican candidate at his feet.”

“Sam,” Johnson sounded doubtful, and Sam braced himself, knowing there was only so much Steve could do without jeopardizing his own position. But then, as he always had before, his friend came through. “OK, I’ll try to stall. He promised you Politifix would have your back with the HIPAA investigation. I guess I’ll have to help him keep that promise. But I don’t know how long I can song-and-dance the guy, so you have got to move your ass and nail this thing.”

When Sam ended the call, he sat back and closed his eyes. He had been lying to Johnson. The only thing he could guarantee with any certainty was that the story was slipping through his fingers.

Gathering itineraries was an exercise in futility. He wasn’t going to be able to prove anything from them. Even if they showed Erickson had returned somewhere again and again in the early months of his first term, how would Sam prove he’d been going to the facility where Carl Erickson was being treated? The drunk probably wasn't admitted under his real name. And even if Sam did stumble on the right place, how could he gain access to those records? It wasn’t likely he’d find another doctor willing to risk his medical license to hand them over. No, Sam knew he was a long way from nailing down this story. All he had was Johnson’s gift of a little more time.

Strange as the day started, it only became more surreal for Jack. He had the sensation that he was standing on the outside, watching himself move through the day. He watched himself explain to his surprised employees why he was back early. He watched as he introduced the new reporter to the school superintendent who dropped by to meet her. He watched as he returned phone calls, signed off on the payroll, and edited copy. He watched himself take the emailed copy of Swede’s speech and write the centerpiece story on his acceptance. He watched as he posted it to the website and then laid out the front page of the evening paper and sent it to the press. He did it all while his mind’s eye insisted on drifting back to the same disturbing image.

Sam Waterman was in his house, working at his desk or wandering around the other rooms. And, sickening as that picture was, it didn’t stop Jack from desperately hoping Sam would find something. Something that would bring Swede Erickson down, something that would get Sam the hell out of the farmhouse and end the nightmare that had become Jack's life.

The press had just started to rumble when the phone on Jack’s desk rang. The caller ID screen read “Rolf Carlsen,” and with a frown, Jack leaned forward, wondering what the dunderhead wanted.

“Jackie?”

The sound of Swede’s voice made Jack catch his breath, and his jaw clamped with a rippling of muscles so rigid they hurt. He responded softly, “What do you want?”

“Just to make sure you got the email. You did, didn’t you?” The matter-of-factness of Swede’s voice made Jack close his eyes.

“Yes.”

“So? What did you think? Pretty good stuff, huh? It should get the crowd roaring. I especially like the line about the ‘heroes of the greatest generation, saluting our mission from afar.’”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Jack’s voice shook with the effort to stay low, his anger nearly blinding as he gripped the phone. “You really expect me to talk about this?”

“Why not? We always do.” Swede’s voice was light enough, but there was a subtle, colder edge that Jack was fast coming to recognize.

Jack hunched forward, the receiver dipped low toward his chest, “Because, you sent your psychotic brother out to my house. And when he came, he brought a gun.”

“I just meant to make sure you’d play ball, buddy, and hustle you on home. Pete’s a little high-strung, that’s all. It goes all the way back to him and Pop …”

“I don’t want to hear it. If you think I, we, can still …”

“Of course we can,” Swede’s voice hardened a bit more. “People will notice if we aren’t still close, and I can’t have that. Families have falling-outs all the time. We’ve always been each other’s family, Jackie, however pissed off we might be with each other. Now look, I’m sorry about Pete and the dog. I guess the mutt got a little noisy when Pete was letting himself in. God knows, I only wanted him to rearrange things a little, just enough to goose you on home and keep you there.”

“Well, I’m here,” Jack snapped.

“Right. And Pete just got back to Kansas City for my speech tonight, so don’t worry. I’ve set him straight and took your house key away from him. Like I said, I feel bad as hell about the dog. And I lit into him about what he did in her studio too.” At this last, the flush of anger drained from Jack’s face, leaving it white. “Just stick to our bargain, Jack, and I’ll never, ever have any reason to give him back that key.” There was a slight pause, and the deep voice sharpened, “OK?”

“Yes,” Jack came back thinly, “I understand.”

“Good. Look, email me a copy of your story, OK? I know Mama will want to read it. She’s your biggest fan.” Then he hung up.

For a few minutes Jack stared straight ahead, his heart hammering. Then he pulled Sam’s card from his pocket, and called the cell phone number.

“Yeah?” Sam answered on the first ring.

“Have you been up in Tess’s studio?”

Jack could hear papers shuffling before Sam said, “Look man, I’m not violating the sanctity of your precious home, OK? I’ve kept myself confined to the study, the head and the kitchen. I’ve been searching these itineraries …”

“Christ!” Jack could hear Sam’s feet on the stairs. “Well, I just got the flight plans. Johnson nagged the hell of them to get them today. I’ll start comparing them to the itineraries …” he paused, and then said, “Did Tess say anything was wrong in here?”

“She said some paint had been thrown around, but her work was OK. I didn’t think too much about it. I wasn't in there last night or this morning.”

“Well, it looks fine,” Sam must have just passed the doorway. Jack could hear footsteps on the hardwood floor of the room. But then there was a sharp intake of breath, and Sam muttered, “Oh, fuck.” After a slight hesitation he added, “Maybe you’d better bring home some wall paint, Hoss.”

“What?” Jack asked, breath suspended.

“Back here, on the porch with all the windows, someone scrawled something across the wall. In red letters. It’s faded. She must have tried to wash it off, but …”

“Damn it,” Jack hung up and went for the darkroom.

Sam pocketed his phone, took one more look at the wall in front of him with a sharp frown of disgust, and then went back into the main room of the studio. Faintly he could see where Tess must have mopped paint from the floor as well, but he didn’t see any more shadowy letters like those on the wall. And with growing relief, he checked her work and found it hadn’t been touched.

Slowly he studied what had been hung on the walls, and then, gently, he pulled back the pieces that leaned in the corners. She did have a way of bringing out the most interesting things. He could see that she was concentrating on the transition of light into dark. She had an amazing gift in playing out people’s faces. He’d done a lot of interviews in his time, and knew how much could be learned from faces rather than words. The way Tess portrayed them, his imagination was immediately fired by the stories he saw in her subjects’ eyes or the way they held their mouths.

Gradually, he worked his way back toward where her easel stood in the bright sunshine. Walking around to see what she was currently busy with, he stopped short.

It was a picture of Jack. Unlike her other work, this one wasn’t a painting over a photograph. She’d drawn him bare-chested, sketching out his heavy muscles in dark, shadowy colors. The line of his shoulders spanned the canvas, then fell downward, angling steeply to his waist. He was looking down and to the left as if he were just turning away. His left hand was raised, going to his brow to brush back the heavy hair that fell forward over the curve of his forehead. It was the hair that brought most of the light into the picture, and she’d played out the strands in what looked like a thousand shades of pale gold, beige, yellow and the faintest touches of rich, reddish brown.

In spite of the darkness of the body, she’d been painstaking in detail. The arch of his high cheekbones, the clean line of his jaw, the shadow of his fine-boned nose, even the bristles of his eyelashes were clear. If Sam had looked, he would have seen the small tattoo on his right bicep, the faint line of a scar in the hair over his left temple, and even the thin bit of shine that was his wedding band.

But Sam’s eyes were riveted on one thing. The only other light came from the reflection of something that hung from his neck. Tess had been vague here, the bright disk seeming to be caught in motion as the body turned. But Sam knew with a twisting in his heart what it was. Tess’s St. Francis medal. He’d touched it, warmed by her skin, too many times not to know it with certainty now. Uncomfortably, Sam recognized the sudden urge to reach out and touch it again now. He jammed his hands in his pockets.

Tess had called Jack a “classical study,” and she certainly made her point, unfinished though it was. It was an exceptionally stirring, frankly erotic painting, and he frowned with consternation, his face flushing. He felt as if he’d walked in on them together. “Jesus,” he muttered softly to himself, “No wonder they’re having a child.”

Brooding, he moved away to the battered desk that stood in the corner, next to a bookshelf, glancing over the messy piles of photographs, letters, bills and tubes of paint that littered the top, searching for any distraction. Glinting color on the bookshelf caught his eye and he realized it was the starfish, the five Lalique crystals he’d given Tess after Tofino, one on each shelf. He stared at them. Finally, he reached out and picked up the smallest, the one that was sapphire blue. Running his thumb along the facets, he turned his hand just a little, to catch the light and watch it twinkle.

She was having a child. Convulsively his hand closed around the bit of crystal, and he looked back toward the easel. Tess was having Jack’s child.

His mouth grim, he turned back and put the little starfish down carefully, exactly as it had been. And after a long hesitation, he dug into his pocket and pulled out his own battered medal. For a long while, he looked at it in the palm of his hand, and then slowly reached out and laid it next to the crystal. For just a heartbeat longer, he stared at them together, and then he left, closing the door softly behind him.

Meanwhile, the “classical study” was just rounding the sharp corner of the old darkroom where his wife was working. But rather than finding her absorbed under the soft glow of work lights, the regular overheads were on, and she was sitting on a stool at the counter, sorting listlessly through a pile of photographs, her face drawn and bloodless. When she heard him, she looked up with a small, worried smile. “How’s it going?”