I came down the last flight of stairs in time to answer that one.
“Special Homicide,” I told him. “We found some troubling images on your grandson’s cell phone.”
“What do you mean, ‘troubling’?”
At the bottom of the stairs Mel and Marsha Longmire stood on either side of an angry older gentleman in a wheelchair. Since the man was seated, it was difficult to tell how big he was, but he struck me as a large man, with a fringe of iron-gray hair around a balding pate. Knowing Gerry Willis had recently undergone bypass surgery, I expected him to look wan and sickly. He did not. His coloring was great, and from the fit he was pitching, there was nothing at all the matter with his vital signs or mental faculties.
“Snuff film,” Mel said in answer to his question.
“Snuff film,” Gerry repeated. “As in somebody died?”
Mel nodded. “Apparently,” she said.
Gerry Willis’s hardened eyes flashed in his wife’s direction. “You knew about all of this and didn’t tell me?”
“The doctor says you need to take it easy. I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Screw the doctor! My grandson is under suspicion in a homicide and you didn’t want to worry me?” he demanded. “What’s the matter with you, woman? Are you nuts?”
In that moment, Governor Marsha Longmire crashed to earth. She was an ordinary human being caught in the everyday turmoil of living in a blended family, loving her husband and wanting to protect him from his progeny’s folly. It was the old blood-and-water routine all over again, only this time Marsha was on the wrong side of the equation, the water side.
“Ms. Soames and Mr. Beaumont are just leaving,” Marsha said. “Once they’ve gone, I’ll be glad to tell you everything.”
“No,” the First Husband responded. “If this has something to do with Josh, you’ll tell me everything about it right now, all three of you.”
Governor Longmire shook her head in frustration. She’d had every intention of smuggling Mel and me into the house and out of it again without raising any alarms as far as her ailing husband was concerned. That was why she had hustled us first into the study across from the front door and why she had then unceremoniously herded us on upstairs. We were unwelcome but necessary visitors, and she had wanted to steer us clear of the first floor as much as possible.
Unfortunately for her, that plan had just come to grief.
“As you wish,” she said to her husband.
She watched as Gerry Willis rolled his wheelchair away from the landing and through an arched doorway into what was evidently the mansion’s formal living room.
With a resigned sigh, Marsha Longmire turned to us. “After you,” she said.
Chapter 6
For years, the Rainier Club was the last bastion of male privilege and exclusivity in downtown Seattle. It was built in that separate but equal era when “men were men.” For social interaction, women were expected to toddle off to the Women’s University Club, for example, and not make a fuss about it.
All those male-only rules are changed now, and the Rainier Club’s lobby has changed, too. The living room in the governor’s mansion was reminiscent of all those bad old days, and it hadn’t changed a bit. It was fully stocked with reupholstered period furniture that was long on looks and short on comfort. I hoped that somewhere upstairs there was another living room with furniture that was actually comfortable.
Unwilling to let the evidence boxes out of our direct control, Mel and I carried them into the living room. Gerry Willis rolled his chair to a place of prominence in front of an immense fireplace while the rest of us arranged ourselves around him as best we could. Mel and I sat side by side on a sofa that had been built without taking the vagaries of the human shape into consideration.
“Well?” Gerry demanded abruptly. “What’s going on?”
His barked question could have been answered by any of us, but Mel and I stayed quiet, leaving the field open for Marsha to respond.
She did so, giving her husband an abbreviated version of Josh’s overnight adventures. She told about his being spotted making his rope-ladder exit and how, upon his return, she had confiscated his iPhone in punishment. She ended by relating her discovery of the appalling video and making the fateful call to Ross Connors.
“I had to do that,” she said. “I couldn’t just ignore it.”
“No,” he said. “You couldn’t. Show me the film. I need to see it.”
“Gerry, it’s really rough. Are you sure?”
“Show me,” he insisted.
Glancing in Mel’s direction, Marsha nodded. Without a word, Mel donned a pair of gloves. Then she opened the box, retrieved the phone, turned it on, and held it up for Gerry Willis’s viewing pleasure while she played the vile video in question.
I was more than a little surprised by Gerry’s response or, rather, by the lack thereof. He watched the film from beginning to end without comment and without blanching. It made me wonder what Mr. Gerard Willis had done before he became “First Spouse.”
The video ended. Mel switched off Josh’s iPhone and returned it to the box.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Willis said. “Just because that video turned up on his phone doesn’t mean Josh is involved in what happened.”
Parental denial is pretty much standard the world over. “Whatever it was, my kid (or grandkid) didn’t do it. Couldn’t possibly have done it!”
Next Mel retrieved the bag containing the scarf and handed it over.
“We found the scarf in his bedroom,” Mel said quietly. “It was concealed between Josh’s mattress and the box spring. Josh claims it was placed inside his locker at school without his knowledge.”
“That isn’t necessarily the same scarf,” Gerry argued, handing it back.
Mel smiled at him before returning the scarf to the box. “Believe me, Mr. Willis,” she said. “We’re going to make every effort to determine if this is the same scarf.”
“Where’s Josh now?” Gerry asked.
“He’s upstairs with his attorney, Mr. McCarthy,” Mel said. “Your wife saw fit to-”
Gerry turned a disbelieving eye on Marsha. “Does that mean you’ve hired Garvin to be Josh’s defense attorney?”
“He’s good,” Marsha said quickly. “He’s very good.”
“He’s also very expensive.”
Marsha nodded. “He is that, but you need to go back to bed now, Gerry. It’s four o’clock. It’s time for your medication-the one you’re supposed to take with food.”
“I’m not going back to bed,” Gerry said determinedly. “I need to think. If you’ll bring the meds, I’ll take them here.”
Looking depleted, Marsha Longmire stood up. Right that minute she was a long way from being Governor Longmire.
“I’ll go make some sandwiches for everyone, then,” she said. She turned to Mel and me. “Is tuna on whole wheat okay?”
I remembered then that we hadn’t had lunch.
“Sure,” I said. “Tuna would be great.”
I should have thought that the governor would have a cook at her beck and call. There’s a good reason I don’t play poker. Most of the time the expressions on my face are a dead giveaway. That’s what happened this time, too.
“Today is the chef’s day off, and we’ve had to cut back on her helper’s hours. So on Mondays Gerry usually cooks. Not at the moment, however, so you’ll have to settle for what he likes to call my burnt offerings.”
For the first time I saw a look of genuine affection pass between the governor and the First Husband.
“You’re not such a terrible cook,” Gerry said. “I don’t think anyone is going to starve.”
Marsha smiled gamely. Since we had been turned into inadvertent guests who were evidently going to be there for a while, she must have decided that a bit of hospitality was in order.
“What would you like to drink?”
“It’s summer,” I said. “Iced tea if you’ve got it.”
Marsha turned to Mel. “And for you?”