The Incumbent (36 page)

“I’m just one person on your client list, Allen. This is too extreme for you.”

He shook his head. “You’re the
only
name on my client list. My partners are pushing me out. I should be working the statewide elections, not the chicken-feed local stuff, but they think I’ve lost my edge. I’m one of the founders of the firm—one of the founders! But that gets me nothing. My partner has positioned himself for a takeover. I needed a loan because of my debt, and my partner agreed to give it to me in exchange for a controlling interest. I was a fool. I gave it to him. I needed a success and soon. I was on the verge of losing everything.”

“But the election isn’t for nearly two years.”

“I know that, Mayor. I’m not an idiot.” He waved the gun. “That’s when Ms. Portman approached me. I went over the file. We had drinks and then this stupid idea comes out of her mouth. ‘Let’s make the mayor a hero,’ she says. ‘It will be easy and no one will get hurt.’ I thought she was joking, so I went along with the planning. It was fun, but then it began to make sense.”

“I can’t believe this ever made sense,” I said.

“Shut up!” Dayton snapped. “Besides, you should be directing your criticism at your faithful aide. The whole thing was her idea.”

I looked at Randi. Her head was down and she leaned heavily on the crutches.

“There’s something you don’t know,” Randi said to Dayton.

“I think I know enough already.”

Randi grimaced. “No, you don’t. Not by half. I need to sit down. My leg feels like it’s on fire.” She hobbled to a chair.

“I don’t care how you feel,” Dayton said. “You’re the only one who can link me to this whole stupid plot.”

“And me,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess now that’s true.” He raised the gun. “It appears I’m not the only one who makes colossal blunders.”

I had hoped to hear sirens by now, but the night air was silent except for the sound of waves crashing on the shore, their gentle roar rolling through the open glass doors.

A motion. A man staggered into view. In the moonlight, I could see his hands bound in front of him. Tape covered his mouth and blood trickled down the side of his head. A trail of tape dangled from his right cuff. Somehow he had freed his feet. He tottered and I was certain he would fall.

“I said there’s something you should know,” Randi repeated. “They know about you.”

“Not possible, unless you’ve told them something.”

I spoke up. “She’s hasn’t told anyone anything. Something she’ll have to deal with.”

“The police have video of you leaving the house but never returning. Right now it’s a puzzle to them, but they’ll figure out that you faked . . . that we faked your abduction.”

“I don’t believe you,” Dayton said, but his hand began to shake. I began to fear that the gun would go off by itself.

“It’s true, Allen,” I said and then told him about Nat Sanders. It clicked with him.

“It still doesn’t prove anything.”

“It will,” I assured him. “I think it’s time you gave me the gun.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You know I’m the only sane one in the room. I overheard you say that Lisa was still alive. Lizzy died by accident. You’re not a killer, Allen. You’re a political consultant. It’s time to put this campaign to bed.” I held out my hand. “The police are on their way. I called before I came down.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not good at lying, Allen. The whole sordid affair is over. You know it. Randi knows it. I know it.”

Tears began to run down his cheeks. “It was all meant to help. No one was supposed to get hurt. You said so, Randi. No one was supposed to get hurt.” He raised his tremulous hand and pointed the gun at his head. “There’s no way out. No other way.”

“Don’t do it, Allen.”

The guard charged. He hit Dayton in the lower back and both men plummeted forward. I heard the impact, I heard Dayton’s breath forced from his lungs, and I saw the gun tumble to the floor.

The guard’s taped wrists made his struggle with Dayton difficult; still he was able to climb on Dayton’s back and pin him to the floor. He made a muffled sound through the gray tape over his mouth. I tried to strip the tape from his wrists. He shook his head and made motions to something behind me. Yanking his hands away, he reached for the tape on his mouth and pulled viciously.

“Don’t!”

He wasn’t looking at me. Before I could turn there was sharp, loud crack and something wet hit me on the back of the head. It began to rain red. I turned as fast as I could. I wasn’t fast enough to change anything, but I was quick enough to see Randi drop the gun, then fall to her knees.

Half of her head was gone.

She dropped to the carpet.

A siren cut the night.

epilogue

I
n the movies, the heroine saves the day and then runs into the arms of her great love. In my case, I crawled into the kitchen and vomited. Seconds later my father appeared, then used words I had never heard him use. “Maddy? Maddy!” He found me, sat on the floor, and took me in his arms. I dissolved into a quivering hysteria.

Celeste was the next to arrive, followed by my mother. We became a heaving mass of tears. No one asked what happened. No one asked who was to blame; we just held each other until there was no longer enough strength to express emotion.

The police arrived minutes later and took Allen Dayton into custody. They moved me and my family outside. Under the canopy of a peaceful sky, draped in ivory moon glow, they asked questions. I answered as best I could. An ambulance arrived and I marveled at the irony. I knew it was standard operating procedure, but there was nothing they could do for Randi. They examined me, seeing the blood in my hair. I assured them I was fine, but they made their examination anyway. I no longer cared.

West arrived five minutes later, surveyed the scene, then took charge. We sat around the large glass-and-iron deck table. The color had bleached from my mother’s face. My father was furious, with no one to vent upon. Celeste sat like a statue.

I explained everything I had heard and seen. I shook. I couldn’t stop.
So this is a nervous breakdown.

West listened patiently and asked few questions. “I’ll be back.” He rose from his seat and walked around the house. I did my best not to look inside but unexplainable inner pressure made me direct my eyes that way. A lump covered by a black tarp lay between my dining room and living room—a lump that had teased me about men just a few hours before. My sadness was profound. Even though Randi had been part of the stupid scheme, she was still one of the few people I had allowed close to me. A very large piece of me lay under that tarp.

More police showed. Some took photographs while others strung yellow tape around my house. Fifteen minutes after West left, the Coroner’s Office showed: two men pulling a gurney behind them. They had to wait for Detective West to return. One lit a cigarette and gazed out at the ocean. Just another day’s work for him.

Minutes passed like eons. It seemed as if the sun should have risen hours before. Conversation was minimal. We each sat in our own bubbling vat of shock and fear. Strength came from the proximity of loved ones, not in words.

Another person emerged from the side yard. Chief Bill Webb walked through the crowd of police, which parted like water before the prow of a ship. The fire in my belly broke into an inferno. I wanted none his snide remarks, no “I told you so,” none of his down-the-nose glances. He stepped to my bench and sat down. At first he stared at the table, and then he let his eyes rise to mine. They were soft, the flint having morphed into cotton. He held out a hand and I took it. We sat that way for the next ten minutes. Occasionally an officer would approach with a question, but Webb would drive the man back with a look.

Nearly an hour had passed since West left. Then I heard his voice echoing down the side yard. “Make room, gentlemen.” I turned and West appeared. He smiled, then stepped to the side.

Lisa Truccoli emerged from the darkness.

T
wo days later we buried Elizabeth Stout. Her husband stood unflinching through the graveside service. Tears rolled off his cheeks in silence. I laid a red rose on her dark coffin. Three days after that I stood next to the open grave of Randi Portman. The crowd was small; most were there to support me. Randi’s parents huddled close to each other, exchanging strength through an umbilical shared only by those who measure their married life in decades. Detective Judson West stood to my left, Dr. Jerry Thomas to my right—bookends to my worn and tattered tome. It was good to have them there. My parents stood by, eyes shiny with tears.

After the funeral, beneath the boughs of a large oak tree, West filled us in on what he had learned over the past few days.

Once in police custody, Allen Dayton had held nothing back. He made no pretense of innocence, nor did he claim to be a victim. He had been within a second of pulling the trigger that would end his existence. That changed a person.

According to West, Dayton’s rendition had been concise. The plan, which originated with Randi, had been to abduct Lisa and Lizzy, then release them after there was enough press coverage. The abductions were simple enough. Dayton explained and Lisa confirmed that the abductions didn’t take place in the homes but near a restaurant close to the Santa Rita Yacht Club. Randi had called both women and asked for a meeting, stating that she was working on a proposed congressional campaign for me. Since they had been instrumental in my previous elections, she wanted them involved early. In turn, they met with Randi at the Crow’s Nest, the yacht club’s public restaurant. It is a high-class place with a reputation that extends as far north as San Francisco. I had held a thank-you dinner there after I was elected mayor, so Lisa and Lizzy had been there before.

It tore at my heart to realize that each had walked into danger out of loyalty to me. Lisa explained that she met with Randi, who described the congressional campaign she was envisioning and wanted to know if Lisa would participate. She also said that Lisa had to keep it a secret because Randi wanted to spring it on me.

Randi excused herself early, pleading another meeting, paid for the lunch, and left Lisa to finish her meal. As Lisa left the restaurant, she was accosted by a skinny man who said, “If you want to see your daughter alive again, then come with me.” Lisa did what any mother would do—she followed. The man led her to a boat, telling her that Celeste was waiting for her. Once below deck, the man pulled a gun and bound Lisa, locking her in one of the small staterooms.

She would stay there for nearly a week.

The boat returned to shore twice during the following week. The first time was the next day, when they brought Lizzy on board. Dayton admitted that Randi had used the same ploy with her. It returned one other time, in the early-morning hours when Lizzy’s lifeless body had been removed. Anytime they came close to shore or another boat, Lisa was gagged and locked in the stateroom. It had been in that room where she had helplessly watched Lizzy die. Lisa had no way of knowing why the death occurred.

The third party in the abductions was a surprise to me. Dayton, feeling no compulsion to save himself, felt none to save the other man—a man I had met. Randi and Dayton had recruited a private detective who was well down on his luck. A drug addict with expensive tastes, he was susceptible to cash. His name was Ned Blair, and he was the same Ned Blair who accosted us in the coffee shop. I had felt that Randi was overreacting, but bought into the suggestion that she was trying to make amends for showing Dayton the file without my permission. The truth was, she had arranged the conflict to heighten the deception. What she hadn’t planned was interference from a Good Samaritan, interference that led to a scuffle and a broken ankle for her.

I still had trouble believing it—a conspiracy between an ambitious assistant, a washed-up consultant, and a drugged-out PI. If it had worked, Lisa and Lizzy would have been put ashore one night, the boat would have been abandoned, and Blair would have disappeared into the night with a few thousand dollars in his pocket.

Lizzy’s death changed everything. The PI panicked, Dayton cracked, and Randi was left holding a fistful of trouble and a future lived out in prison, not on Capitol Hill.

When West finished, he shook my hand and said, “You are an amazing woman.” Then he turned to Jerry. “Take good care of her.” Jerry said he would and put his arm around me. I watched West walk across the carpet of grass and enter his car.

I hated to see him go.

T
he call came a month after the tragedy in my home. I was back on the job, seated in my office. The house had been professionally cleaned, the carpet replaced, and I was learning to live in the home of a suicide—a difficult task. If my home were not so closely associated with my husband, I would have left it immediately, but it was his pride and joy, as well as mine. For now I’d try to live there.

It was just after eight when the ringing drew my attention from the paper I was reading. I answered. It was Nat Sanders.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” she said.

“Good thoughts, I hope.”

“Yes, good thoughts. I hope this isn’t too soon, but such things shouldn’t wait too long. I’ve been doing research. You’ll remember that’s what I do.”

“I remember.” I could picture her at her computer, her ever vigilant video cameras scanning the area around her house.

“I’ve been following the news and the trial. I asked some questions and ran some numbers. I think it’s time you started planning your run for Congress.”

“That’s what started this whole thing,” I said with disgust.

“No, greed started this whole thing. Your aide was correct. Now is the time you should run. I want you to know that I’m here for you. I’ve prepared a file for you to look at . . .”

I
t was early, and the parking lot at the foot of the pier was nearly as empty as the freeway was full. That was fine with me. I had gone to the office for an hour, then come here, drawn by an invisible cord. I carried only my purse and one other item. I strode quickly with my head down, watching the scene between the slats change from asphalt to sand to water churned by small waves. Halfway along I came to the Fish Kettle restaurant. Locked tighter than a drum, as I knew it would be. I’d come prepared. I removed a quarter from the change purse in my bag and began to tap the window with it. Paul Shedd had been right; it was an annoying sound.