two looks pretty distinctive. That’s the amount?”
“Yep. Guess they didn’t bother with a dollar sign. Come to think of it, Miss Diane didn’t bother with a ledger or tally or little black book. This much money, you’d think she’d keep track of the running total.”
“Maybe it’s on her laptop,” Maggie said. “Our digital gal says it’s got a passcode, but she might be able to crack it.”
“Try her birthday,” one of the patrolmen suggested. “It’s always their birthday.”
“They’ve got equipment to download and copy the whole hard drive,” she said.
“A computer system to crack other computer systems,” he said. “Sounds disloyal.”
“What’s this?” Jack asked. He had found another tally note, but this one had something on the other side. It had been torn from what looked like ordinary copy paper, with printed words on the other side: 426–115th Co and below it ealth Adminis and under that Our Own Directiv.
“A report? Meeting minutes? Press release?” Maggie suggested.
“Could be anything.”
Maggie photographed it and slipped it into an envelope, labeled to correspond with the relevant stack and bag. Then they went back to work. Maggie made coffee. Carol made several “Look! A squirrel!” jokes as if she might pocket one of the stacks while their heads were turned. Conversation between the patrolmen moved on to which fast cars to put in the garage of their newly lavish homes.
The final count: $964,858. And, mercifully, no cents.
Then they all had to trade stacks and recount to make sure the first person had gotten the number right. Any discrepancies meant the stack had to be counted a third time. By the time everything jived, all six people had cricks in their fingers as well as their necks, but it was done and could be sealed and locked and noted and signed for so that Maggie could process all of it at a later date. If any of it went missing, a later count would reveal that.
Long past their lunchtime, the two patrolmen were especially happy to go.
“You’d think counting money would be fun,” one said.
“Only when it’s yours,” said the other.
Chapter 5
Jack and Riley went to find Kelly Henessey at the Republican National Committee office to ask, among other things, if anyone knew the name of Diane Cragin’s niece. Jack had even Googled his way to the senator’s website while Riley drove, but it did not mention any family members by name, saying only that Diane Cragin was “a mother” and that she “had family in Cleveland.”
“Maybe she wants to protect their privacy,” Riley suggested.
“That’s a charitable view.”
“I’m a charitable guy. Full of faith and hope. These days, even chastity,” he added, clearly unenthused about this last bit.
“What happened to . . . um . . .”
“Marcia. Wasn’t going to work. I got tired of catering to her while she catered to her loser son.”
“Oh. I noticed you—” He stopped.
“Noticed I what?”
“Looked like you lost a few pounds.”
“Oh. Yeah . . . weird, I guess, how that works. When I’m not seeing someone I have the time to eat less restaurant food, get plenty of sleep, work out once in a while. I thought men were supposed to be healthier when they were in a relationship. Not that it matters, since I don’t have much of a choice.”
“That’s too bad,” Jack said, trying to convey sympathy and loyalty as well as a complete lack of necessity to hear anything more about the situation.
“Not you, though, huh?” Riley said.
This startled Jack away from his Googling. “Oh. Um. Gardiner talked?”
“Have you ever known Rick Gardiner to keep a secret?”
Riley referred to the knowledge that Jack and Maggie were sleeping together—which they weren’t, not in any way, shape, or form, but Maggie had decided to tell her ex-husband that in the hopes it would explain the private conferences she and Jack occasionally engaged in. She had also hoped it would prompt Rick to avoid any thought or mention or especially investigation of Jack, and by extension Maggie. This had seemed like a good idea to her, because sleeping together was not illegal, whereas covering up a murder quite definitely was.
She had apparently miscalculated. Embarrassment or distaste had not caused Rick to keep the information to himself—obviously—and he may not have stopped digging into Jack’s past.
In the meantime, he would have to smooth this over with Riley. Unwritten rules forbade holding out on your partner, particularly when it involved good gossip. “I should have clued you in.”
Riley lucked out with an open meter space on Huron and killed the engine. “No problem,” he said, meaning it clearly was.
They climbed out of the unmarked vehicle and walked up the alley between the Halle Building and the Cleveland Athletic Club. Halle’s department store had been an elegant institution for 91 years, expanding beyond Cleveland to several other states. It had also become the namesake of Halle Berry. Johnny Weissmuller, Tarzan to fans, had once set a world backstroke record in the Athletic Club’s pool. The buildings had more than 200 years of experience between them but did not impart any of that wisdom to Jack, who struggled to find his words. “I was going to tell you, but it’s . . . new.”
“No, it’s not.”
They had emerged onto Euclid Avenue but now Jack froze, blinking to adjust from the dimness of the alley and the inexplicable certainty of Riley’s pronouncement.
Riley noticed, and explained: “It’s hardly a surprise, pal. I saw this coming from the minute you two met.”
“What does that mean?”
Jack’s partner sounded almost grim. “It means that when you two are together, it’s like no one else exists.” Riley pulled the glass doors and stepped inside, but returned to the street a second later. “You coming?”
Jack pulled himself out of the stupor into which this observation had thrown him and entered the building in silence.
It wasn’t hard to locate the Cuyahoga County division of the Republican Party, since the window wrapping of two large panes facing Euclid advertised its presence. Once past the spacious marble lobby with its bank of brass elevators and soothing fountain, the party rooms were cramped and utilitarian. Old desks, lots of filing cabinets, one large conference table that seemed to be used for storage and stuffing envelopes, and a dry-erase board large enough for a high school classroom were crammed into the wide main area. Jack smelled both dust and sweat, as well as day-old pizza and fresh coffee.
They were told by a short, effusively polite girl in very pink lipstick that both Kelly and Raymond Stanton were on a conference call and would be with them shortly. Jack
