LITMIR.BIZ

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ahead, I’m done with it. There might be black powder on the cabinet and the faucet, though.”

      Kelly had the sense to stop before her pricey-looking clothes brushed the dirtied countertop edge. She got a glass from the second cabinet she opened and filled it from the tap. Then she noticed black powder from the faucet handle on her fingers, turned it back on, rinsed, turned off, still had traces of black. She finally solved the conundrum by soaking a paper towel and washing off the handles, then rinsing her fingers and filling the glass before turning the tap off, talking all the while. “I mean, this could be some psycho stalker, right? Someone who thought she was sending him love messages through the press releases and then imagined a rejection as well?”

      Jack donned gloves to look through the pile, and Maggie did the same. “Did she have stalkers?”

      “A few in the past. Nothing recent. Usually the FBI would pay them a visit and they’d decide to switch their attentions to someone else.”

      “We’ll take a look. Are there any that aren’t here? Are some thrown out upon receipt?”

      “Nothing is thrown out. You want to make a point to your congressman, send an old-fashioned letter. Not a phone call, not an e-mail. Someone has to actually open a letter, read it, and put it in a file, where it stays.”

      Maggie read over Jack’s shoulder as he quickly skimmed the letters. Nearly every one accused Diane Cragin of being a racist and usually added in another form of bigotry such as homophobia, zenophobia, or ageism. Some insisted that charter schools were destroying the American educational system by letting public schools deteriorate while private concerns used taxpayer-provided subsidies to steal all the best students. Many linked her with big oil and big energy, which explained why solar power and electric cars couldn’t get a foothold in the country’s business model.

      If this represents a sampling of the suspect pool, Maggie thought, this investigation is off to a rough start.

      Kelly, meanwhile, pulled a bottle of prescription meds from her purse and worked the childproof cap between her palms.

      Jack asked, “Who is Randy Cunningham?”

      A sigh of the greatly put-upon. “Used to be a representative. California.”

      “This letter refers to he and the senator collecting bribes.”

      “Ancient history,” she sneered, and then remembered to add, “and not true. At least not on Diane’s part.”

      When she saw this did not satisfy him, she explained in more detail. “This was a really long time ago, like 2005.”

      “Oh, yes,” Jack said with a straight face. “Ancient history.”

      “Randy Cunningham was on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee for a while. During that time he sold his house for close to two million dollars to a guy named Mitchell something. This Mitchell something owned a defense contracting firm, specialized in counterterrorism analysis and all that. Mitchell’s company begins to get defense and intelligence contracts figuring into the tens of millions.”

      “Wow,” Maggie said.

      “About fifty percent of the national budget goes to defense—the discretionary budget, I mean. Of the entire budget, fifty percent plus is health costs and Social Security, and defense is actually about seventeen.” Her shoulders quivered in a small shrug. “It’s still a lot of money to play with.”

      “How does the senator figure into this story?” Jack asked.

      “Mitchell eventually resells Cunningham’s house at half the price. Meanwhile, when Cunningham is in DC, he’s living rent-free on a yacht that belongs to Mitchell. Eventually this all comes out, some reporters in San Diego get a Pulitzer, and Cunningham went to jail for a couple of years.”

      “And the senator?”

      “Diane was his chief of staff at the time. And . . . she had sold her condo for way more than market value to some woman who worked for a subsidiary of Mitchell’s company. But, as I said, never charged.”

      Jack pointed out, “This e-mail says Diane was a crook then and is still one now.”

      Kelly remained unimpressed and popped two pills into her mouth, then swallowed the water. “It’s not a secret.”

      “Did anyone consider themselves particularly harmed by Cunningham and the senator?”

      “I have no idea. I was in, like, ninth grade at the time.”

      Now Jack sighed.

      “Look at this,” Maggie said.

      A handwritten message addressed to Senator “Jezebel” Cragin stated that she had clearly been paid off by the company that got the crib renovation contract, since they had a terrible record with water construction projects. The letter ended by pointing out that she proved Andrew Feinstein’s maxim that politicians are like prostitutes, only considerably more expensive.

      The words weren’t particularly ominous, but the handwriting—all capital letters that didn’t stick to the lines and became more unstable toward the bottom of the page—indicated a strong emotion. The writer had not signed a name or left a return address on the envelope.

      Maggie said, “He says she will be struck by lightning.” She and Jack exchanged a glance.

      Kelly said, “Yeah, that’s the one I thought was weird. They’re not opioids.”

      “What?” Maggie asked.

      “These.” She held out the bottle long enough for Maggie to read Sarafem off the label. “I’m not crazy and I’m not addicted to pain meds, or alcohol, or oxy. I have a medical condition.”

      “Okay.”

      “Not everyone in DC is a coke-sniffing addict.” The woman stowed the bottle and hung her tote bag off the back of a chair. “They’d be a lot easier to get along with if they were. I’m going to need Diane’s stuff—her phone, her organizer, her laptop . . . even though she really didn’t do a lot on her laptop. I did it all on my laptop. For a former lawyer, she wasn’t much of a typist.”

      “All her personal property will eventually be released to her next of kin,” Jack said.

      Kelly’s face contorted with horror. “But her kids—they don’t care! They won’t even know what all the party stuff is, and we can’t wait that long, anyway. And technically, you know, it belongs to the RNC.”

      Jack sounded implacable. “We can deal with disposition once the investigation is complete.”

      “But—”

      Riley came back inside. “I got rid of the powers that be, but some guy in a suit just showed up.” He looked at Kelly Henessey. “He says he’s your lawyer.”

      “I don’t have a lawyer,” said Kelly Henessey.

      Chapter 4

      Before Riley could hustle her outside to deal with the nother-lawyer guy, said guy had managed to dart around the contamination officer and into the small foyer, where he thoughtfully wiped his feet on the mat and paid no attention to his supposed client.

      “Who are—” Kelly began.

      “My name is Raymond Stanton. I’m the Central Committee Chairman of the Cuyahoga County unit.”

      Riley protested. “I thought you said—”

      “And I double as an attorney for the party. I’m here to take possession of all RNC equipment.”

      “You’re prompt,” Riley said.

      “Has the house been cleared? I can collect the items now.”

      “We can’t disperse any of the woman’s possessions until it’s all gone through probate.”

      “I am here only for RNC equipment.

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