freshen up before the fund-raiser.”
“What time—”
“It started at five, and she was on time for once. Her speech went well. About nine, I think, she told me she was leaving and to make sure Ken and Andre and Jade had everything they needed.”
“Did she have any plans to stop anywhere?”
“I didn’t ask, but I doubt it. She didn’t say anything, and she looked pretty tired.”
“Not surprising. That sounds like a pretty busy day.”
She blinked at Riley as if this statement baffled her. “They’re all like that.”
“Where was this fund-raiser?”
“City Club. It’s on Euclid—”
“Yes, I know,” Riley assured her. The City Club, established 1912, had been in its current location for 35 years. “Did she have any arguments with anyone in town? Any beefs?”
A hint of a smile, the first one Jack had seen from her, at the old-fashioned term. “Beefs? About a million, but nothing unusual. Everyone is on the same page as Diane—they know she’s doing what’s right for the state and for Cleveland. Carlyle is a pain, but—”
“Who’s Carlyle?”
A half eye-roll. “The EPA inspector for the crib renovation.”
“Crib?” Riley asked.
“The water intake facility,” Jack said. Riley’s eyebrows raised again, apparently surprised that a relatively recent transplant like Jack would know the term. The “crib” took in water for the city’s supply from a structure about three miles offshore in Lake Erie. Like the senator’s home, it had been there for about one hundred years and carefully maintained, but still some extensive upkeep was due. Jack had read about the reno job in the Herald once or twice.
Kelly went on. “He’s making a fuss about it, but that’s what the EPA does—makes a fuss. Diane wasn’t worried, the facts will back us up. Wait—has anyone called her kids?” Already pale, she blanched further. “Will I have to do that?”
“We can make notification,” Riley soothed, and asked where the family members lived.
“Her daughter’s in Texas and her son’s in Washington—the state, not the city. She has one grandchild . . . I’m not sure if it’s her son’s or her daughter’s. Hey, she has some sort of a niece or something in town here—she can tell Diane’s kids. They’d be, like, cousins, right? So that will work.”
“What’s the niece’s name?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know. And we’re going to have some sort of state funeral! I don’t even know how to do that!”
Riley continued with the softened voice. He was good at it, much better than Jack. “I’m sure someone in Washington has experience with situations like this. Did she—”
“The RNC will know what to do, but I’ll have to—” Kelly Henessey mused, lost in thought over discreet coffins and invitation lists. Doing her job to the end, Jack thought—admirable but perhaps not helpful right then. If Diane Cragin had any enemies bitter enough to murder, or had gotten mixed up in a deal dirty enough to kill, they would have to overcome Kelly’s professional reticence. Political second-in-commands existed to protect their bosses from every sling and arrow, and she would continue to polish Diane’s star even in death, out of either a sense of loyalty or a sense of polishing her own résumé at the same time. No one in DC would want to hire someone who couldn’t keep a secret. “The governor has to appoint someone for the rest of the term—no problem since he’s the same party, but it seems silly for two days . . . he’ll only pick his choice for the new candidate anyway—but the election. Oh my God, the election!”
“Miss Henessey—”
A breeze swept through the yard, and the chill seemed to jolt Kelly back to herself. The sky remained gray, and the temperature hovered in the midsixties—not bad for November in Cleveland. “Why are we standing out here? Can we go inside?”
“Not yet. We’re still processing.” But this time Riley’s tone couldn’t smooth over the logic. The young woman became still as she stared at him.
“What do you mean, processing?”
He told her that they needed to establish all the facts about her boss’s death, due diligence, giving the care and attention, etcetera, and all the while Jack watched Kelly Henessey as a hawk watches a mouse, looking for any sign that she already knew what had happened.
He saw none.
When Riley finally confessed that Diane Cragin’s death had been anything but natural, Kelly reacted by not reacting. He may as well have spoken in Swahili.
“What do you mean, homicide? Someone killed her? On purpose?”
“Extremely on purpose,” Jack said.
“How? Why? I mean—who? Did they shoot her?”
“No,” Riley said. “We’d like to ask—”
“Was she stabbed?”
“No—”
“Then how can you be sure she was murdered?”
“We’re sure,” Jack said, and his tone must have convinced, because she accepted it—that her boss was not only gone but willfully gone—and then her eyes changed and focused and became hard.
“Where the hell was Devin?”
“The Secret Service agent?”
“Yes, the Secret Service agent! The guy whose job it is to protect Diane?”
Riley told her how the senator had banned the agent from accompanying her inside, that he checked the courtyard and saw it was empty, waited for her to lock the gate behind him, said good night, and left, the same as every other night.
The routine of this procedure must have been true, because Kelly did not argue it, only ran her hands through her hair in apoplexy.
“So he did it, then. That fat fu—um, they did it. I can’t believe they actually killed her.”
“Who did?” Riley asked.
She burst back into full-on agitated, stalking to and fro across the fallen leaves, hands increasing the lift of her hair, voice moving up a decibel or two with every fresh obscenity, until Jack demanded, “Who?”
“The Democrats,” she snapped. “Who else?”
Chapter 3
The press had begun to gather outside the tiny walled yard, and Maggie had finished processing the kitchen, so the detectives brought Kelly Henessey inside, where her accusations could not be overheard by neighbors or reporters with notepads and parabolic mikes. Maggie steered her toward the old wooden table and its three chairs and away from the countertops, sink,
