The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (55 page)

“I’m going to kill you!
”

Ben hopped
toward her,
still on his knee
s
,
and
look
ed
up. “
Keera
Torrens
,
I love you.”

“I hate you!” She couldn’t help but look down at the ring.
Her face softened.
“
What…w
hat is
this?”

“It’s your engagement ring.”

“Don’t say that
.
”

He held up
the ring
. “It comes from a long line of happy marriages.”

“It’s…beautiful.”

“
I promise to be a good husband—despite evidence to the contrary.”

She groaned.

“
Will you
spend your life with me
?”

She unclenched her left hand and stuck it downward. “I bet it doesn’t fit
.
”

All he could do was pray that
Powell
’s wife possessed
a finger
of Keera’s size. He held his breath and slipped the ring on. It
resisted around the
second
knuc
k
le,
but he forced it all the way
.

Keera couldn’t take her eyes off the ring. She touched the
diamond and the gems around the band
, raised her hand against the light,
and
turned
the ring
from side to side.

Ben stood. “May I kiss the bride?”

“Yes.” She sniffled. “You may.
”

Outside the glass wall of the conference room, a half-circle of spectators began clapping. The P.A. system crackled, and someone started whistling a
vague
rendition of
T
he
Wedding M
arch
.

Porter was in his office, scanning the last batch of reported traffic accidents and violations involving motorcycl
es
in the past
forty-eight
hours, covering Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.
Only four
came up,
and of those, none was listed as yellow or black.

His private pager beeped. He grabbed it and read the message:

Biker
boy @ hospital 2 C black chick.

Exhaling
in relief, Porter contemplated the message for a moment. He brought up the tiny keyboard on the beeper’s touch-screen and typed
with
the tip of his forefinger:

Follow @ distance; wait 4 opportunity 2 finish
off
; report when U R done.

Chapter 55

Having lost an hour or so, Ben decided to ride straight to the Mormon
t
emple. He took
Rt.
29 South and then the
495
beltway
toward Rockville. Traffic was moving at
a
snail
’s pace
, all five lanes filled with vehicles.
Impatient, h
e
sped up,
cut
ting
between the lanes
of cars and trucks
, threading the large motorcycle through tight spaces
,
avoiding side mirrors that jutted out at face-level.
Urban riding was an art,
built on years of experience of
calculated risk-taking, and he was very good at it. Two or three miles later, the clump of dense traffic thinned out, and he was able to go really fast.
The heated handgrips kept his fingers from freezing, but the space between his collar and the bottom of the helmet allowed some air to enter, and he felt his neck beginning to hurt.
But as the road curved to the right, f
a
rther ahead
,
the familiar sight of the Mormon
t
emple came into view.

Approaching
an
overpass, he noticed a line of graffiti
above the highway
:

We’re not in
Kansas anymore,
Toto!

A moment later, t
he white castle
appeared,
dominat
ing
the
skyline
ahead.
The DC Mormon Temple
was enormous, its towers and spires
rising high above the treetops, reaching for heaven.

As he took
the exit,
Ben hummed, “
We’re off to see the wizard, the wizard, the wizard…
”

He
followed the signs to t
he access road
, which
was perfectly landscaped with shrubs and flower beds that seemed to belong in spring, not in winter.

Advancing slowly down the access road, he
veered right,
across
the
shoulder and
through the
knee-high flower bed
,
into a wooded area
thick enough to shelter the GS
. He took off the riding gear, which he rolled up and tied with a bungee cord to the seat. After lacing up the
white
dress shoes and straightening up the suit, he
shouldered the bag Streep had packed for him and
walked the rest of the way.

Crossing though the parking lot, where most
vehicles
were
vans and
SUVs that could accommodate large families, Ben noticed the abundance of political bumper stickers. It was not unusual to see those around the heavily partisan Washington area, but here there was an odd unanimity to it. Without exception, all the bumper stickers supported Joe Morgan and the Republican Party
. A
t the same time, there was not a single off-color one. Most of them were simple, blue-and-red sticker
s
with a straightforward message from Morgan’s campaign:

Restore America’s Soul!

Boot
the
F
ood-stamp
P
resident!

Yes, W
e Believe!

Sociali
sm ≠ American

God + Freedom = American Exceptionalism

Ben crossed the plaza, and his gaze was drawn up to the Angel Moroni, a golden statue that was perched atop the highest spire, blowing a long trumpet. In his pocket, Ben felt the
tiny angel on the
key
ring
with
the memory flash
drive.

T
he phone rang
,
and
Porter
saw
‘
HR – Cindy G
’
on the caller ID display
. She had taken a liking to him when he had first arrived from Colorado and was processed by Human Resources. He knew the type—middle-aged divorcée with one or two grown kids and a pudgy midriff that spoke of long evenings in front of the TV. Being privy to his personnel file, she knew he had no children and was not a heavy consumer of medical services. His family status—
Divorced
—told her he wasn’t likely to be gay.

He
exhaled and picked up. “Porter here.”

“And Cindy is here too,” she said. “
I missed you at the cafeteria. Did you go out
, like,
for lunch?”

“No,” he lied.

“Are you a hungry bear now? I
f you wait till five, I’ll feed you, like, if y
ou want?”

Her flirtations were clumsy, but he had kept her optimistic, accepting her invitation for a Saturday
night dinner in Towson and, another time, for a Sunday brunch at the
Inner Harbor. She wanted to “show him around town”
and laughed out loud at his humorous teasing and his compliments, which were never explicit enough to ignite an open solicitation on her part. He was careful not to cross the line, keeping her at bay with occasional hints at a painful breakup with his fictional ex.

“
Maybe another time.
I just had a quick sandwich.
My morning appointments
ra
n
overtime.”

“
Anything fun?
”

“Hardly. Traffic planning
sessions
with local churches ahead of the Christmas season. You know, staggering services so we don’t have to send troopers to multiple locations at the same time.”

“Of course! That’s so important! I remember last year
, like,
at the end of our Midnight Mass, the traffic on Old Baltimore Road was
horrible and
—”

“I’ll be right there,” he said toward his closed door
and picked up the
handset, taking her off
speaker.
“
Sorry.
Got to go to a meeting
.”

“Oh
,
sure
, I understand
. Call me
later
, okay?”

“Sure
. Was there something you wanted to tell me
?”

“
Not really, except that someone was, like, asking about you.
”

“Yes?”

“
It was odd
.” S
he lowered her voice conspiratorially
.
“
Someone was
asking a
bout your record
and
your previous postings
and, like, any
disciplinary
proceedings
—”

“Really
?”

“I made you look good,
sweetie. D
on’t worry!” She laughed.

“You’re the best.” Porter hesitated. His file had nothing in it to cause alarm, but if
someone
wanted to dig deeper and s
tarted calling people,
the record
might not hold. “Now I’m curious.
” He chuckled. “C
an you tell me who it was?”

“It’s confidential!” Cindy giggled. “But you can try
, like,
guessing
?
”

“A man or a woman?”

“I knew you’d ask that!”

“A
woman
?”

“
Yes, you could say it’s a woman, like,
kind of
.
”

That was a giveaway.
“The butch lieutenant from Hate Crimes?”

“I didn’t tell you!” Cindy laughed. “But you still owe me
, like,
a dinner
or something?
”

“You got it
.
” Porter hid the anger in his voice. “And don’t
pay any attention to
Fran
DeLac
ourt.
She’s just fishing
around
because I caught a friend of hers me
ssing
around
with evidence
at a fatal accident site
.
”

“Figures. These people are, like, immoral, you know?”

“I agree.
Did she say anything?”

“Not really. I mean, not much
to discuss, with your past
postings
being classified
.”
Cindy’s voice was touched by awe. “I’d love to hear about it sometime. Will you tell me?”

“Sure, but then I’ll have to kill you.”

“Oh, my God!” She burst out laughing. “You are so funny!”

“
Call you later
,” he said
.
“
Thanks!”

Porter
left his office and
walked by Lt. Francine
De
La
c
ourt’s office. She wasn’t there. Was she going to meet
Ben
Teller
so
mewhere? How much did she know?