LITMIR.BIZ

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presented Jack with a new theory about the money in Diane Cragin’s safe. Perhaps that had been funds she should have given to the party headquarters and hadn’t. Skimming from the top—something that had gotten people killed since money was invented, and probably before that. “What if someone wants to be a member but wants to hang on to their funds at the same time?”

      “They can,” she said. “There’s nothing that says they have to give a certain amount back. They can keep every penny they raise if they want to.”

      “But—”

      “But you’d better not need the party’s help for anything, ever. If your opponent launches a smear campaign against you and you need some slick TV ads, don’t think the party’s going to give you the funds. If you’re, say, a judge and you want to run for state treasurer, don’t think you’re going to be the party’s candidate for that position. They’ll have already picked someone, and you can run as an Independent if you want to, good-bye and good luck. And if you want a seat on the Ways and Means Committee or Armed Services, forget it. You’ll be lucky to be a junior on the Joint Committee on Printing. How do you think senators and congressmen get assigned to a committee in the first place? The party’s steering committee portion those slots out as they see fit. If you get a plum spot on Foreign Affairs, you’ll be expected to produce more funds than your colleague with a seat on some low-profile thing like Education Workforce.”

      “I see,” Jack said. “Hence the board.”

      “The wall of shame.”

      “Or extortion.”

      Riley said, “It’s like we’re back in Stalin’s Soviet. The party is everything, controls everything, dictates everything, and if you’re not in a good position within the party, you’re nobody. Except that instead of one party, we have two.”

      Jack glanced at his partner, figuring his mind had formed the same theory about the murder. But how to prove it? Someone, somewhere, must have kept a tally of how much Diane Cragin had raised and how much she had returned to the party and how much she should have returned to the party—unless Diane kept the only sums and that information rested inside her laptop or her phone. But maybe she had been too busy for that and those accounting duties fell to her girl Friday, the hardworking Kelly Henessey.

      Lori said, “But back to the vigilante murders. How’s that going? Last time I talked to Rick Gardiner, he had spoken to the Phoenix PD but hadn’t gotten anywhere.”

      Not getting anywhere could be described as Maggie’s ex-husband’s modus operandi, but that didn’t comfort Jack now. Officially the investigation of the murders that Jack had committed had been turned over to Jack—a good thing—but Rick had not given up on ferreting out Jack’s connection to them. A bad thing. Maggie had thought that telling him of their fictitious love affair would get Rick to avoid them both, but it had only given him more incentive to deconstruct Jack.

      But it sounded as if Rick had at least stopped talking to Lori Russo. Perhaps he had finally figured out that the happily married woman would not be slipping him any benefits in return for a story.

      Jack said, “No. Dead end.”

      “What about the murders in Chicago and Atlanta?”

      If he could feed her enough tidbits—fake tidbits, of course—it would keep her from digging on her own. Especially since they currently had a juicy political assassination to keep her busy. “I’m going back and starting from scratch on those. It’s difficult in Chicago because they have more murders than they know what to do with.”

      Lori said, “I wish I could help, but we’ve been so busy with this election coming up.”

      He made a sympathetic grunt. At least she hadn’t found the murders in Atlanta and Minneapolis. He needed to keep her away from Rick Gardiner. It would be nice if he could keep everyone away from Rick Gardiner.

      “But I may be able to get to Phoenix early next month.”

      No, no, no! “Really?”

      “The paper is planning a big spread on the immigration crisis, and my editor wants to send someone to Yuma, visit the border, check out the Minutemen and plans for the wall and what all. I’m hoping to get the assignment—it’s practically unheard of for the paper to pay for travel these days—and if I do, I could take an extra day and go to Phoenix. It’s only three and a half hours away.”

      He schooled his voice to sound casual, and thought he almost succeeded. “What will you do there?”

      “Line up appointments with the officers who worked the cases I found. I know you said they weren’t connected, but it would still make an interesting sidebar to the story. Maybe it’s a national phenomenon. Lawlessness picks up in times of cultural stress, and Lord knows we’re stressed.”

      His adopted name couldn’t get him in trouble in Phoenix, but he knew of at least three places in the police station itself with his picture displayed. All he needed was for Lori Russo to walk by, glance around, say to her escort Gee, I know this guy, and Jack’s current world would disintegrate. He’d have to be out of the city with no trail left by the time she landed at Hopkins International. Go to his house long enough to pick up the go-bag and the cash, grab Greta, and head for some part of the country he’d never been to before. Don’t hesitate, don’t look back, don’t repeat the same mistakes. Don’t ever see Maggie Gardiner again.

      Maybe the paper’s budget would prove too tight. Maybe.

      He really needed Lori Russo to not visit Phoenix, Arizona.

      Diane Cragin’s chief of staff rescued him by emerging from the conference room and waving the cops toward her.

      “Thanks for the lesson,” he said to Lori Russo. Might as well stay on her good side.

      “Don’t mention it. Just keep me up-to-date on your hunt for the vigilante killer.”

      “I will,” he lied, and walked toward Kelly Henessey.

      Chapter 6

      She invited them into the conference room, but Riley told her they preferred to conduct individual interviews—meaning her and her alone. She led them to a tiny room with no window, which she said served as her office when she and Diane were in town. Kelly had lost the discombobulation of the morning but also any last bit of patience.

      “What are you guys doing here? I mean, I want to find whoever did this to Diane, obviously, but I don’t see how I can and I have an awful lot to do and it all needs to be done immediately.” She slumped into a swivel chair and didn’t seem to notice that the two cops had no choice but to stand. Or maybe she did, but in either case nothing could be done about it, as the space had no room for more chairs. “And on top of everything else, I’m technically out of a job.”

      None of this made Jack feel sympathetic. “Like it or not, you seem to have been the closest person to Diane Cragin. We have no choice but to start with you. First of all, we need the passcodes to her laptop and phone.”

      He flipped open his notebook, pen at the ready, all business with no room for bullshit.

      She said, “I don’t know.”

      “Really.”

      “Seriously, I don’t know. Why would I? I have my own laptop, I never used Diane’s for anything. If she wanted me to have a document or a file or an e-mail, she would forward it.”

      “She never wrote those passwords down? Had no contingency plan for if she forgot them?”

      “A, Diane never forgot anything”—Yet she wrote down the safe combination, Jack thought—“and B, she had me. If she wanted an e-mail sent, she would dictate it to me. If she needed to read a bill, I would forward it to her phone and she’d use the audio feature. Frankly, I don’t think she was too computer savvy. . . . I doubt she used her laptop for much, and mostly made calls with the phone.”

      “Imagine

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