“I’d appreciate that.”
“My name is Detective Priya Kapoor. I’ll bet you’ve never heard of a cop with that name before.” Unaccented English. “I was born and raised in Chicago. I’m a White Sox fan.”
I wondered how many hundreds of times she’d said this in her time on the force. “No, I never have.” She wasn’t beautiful but she was erotic, the dark velvet eyes and the wide tender mouth inspiring flare-ups of lust in my drained body. It had been a while.
“First of all, Mr. Conrad, I take it you’re in town on business.”
“Yes.”
“Would you mind telling me what that business is?”
“I work with Congresswoman Cooper on her campaign.” Usually an occupation wouldn’t tell her anything. But Monica Davies had been in politics and so was I. “I’m a political consultant.”
“That’s very nice. I voted for her.” The cruise director voice again. I’m just a friendly lady going through the motions, Mr. Conrad, said the voice. But the erotic eyes had become the dubious eyes. “That’s very interesting.”
“Oh? How so?”
She sat down on the dining-room chair opposite me. The first time I’d seen her park her fine small bottom anywhere. “Mr. Conrad, it’s late, as I said. So let me ask you, do you really want to put me — and yourself — through the charade of pretending that you didn’t know Monica Davies?”
“I met her a few times, yes.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that. You’ve saved both of us at least ten minutes. May I ask where you were tonight?”
“If you’re asking for an alibi, I have a good one.”
“Fine. Good alibis make my job a lot easier. Believe it or not, I enjoy eliminating people as persons of interest. That way I can concentrate on the guilty party.”
“There was a fund-raiser for Congresswoman Cooper at the Royale Hotel tonight. I was there all evening. I didn’t leave until about thirty or forty minutes ago.”
“And I’m hoping that a good number of people saw you.”
“A large number of people. And all night long.”
Somewhere in the pocket of her jacket her cell phone rang. “Excuse me.”
I tried to make sense of her and the phone conversation, but I couldn’t. The county morgue was mentioned. The rest of it was lost on me.
After putting her phone away again, she said, “Do you know Greg Larson, Ms. Davies’s partner?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think of him?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Why not?”
“Because we hate each other. Anything I’d say about him would be prejudiced.”
“Why do you hate him?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me, Mr. Conrad.”
My fingers started drumming on the table. As if I didn’t control them.
“Mr. Conrad?”
“I’m in a business that can get dirty. I’ve been dirty myself and I’ll be dirty again. But it’s a matter of degrees. Most people on either side have lines they won’t cross. Larson crosses them all the time.”
“You’re quite angry, Mr. Conrad. I can see it on your face.”
“You asked how I felt about Larson. I told you.”
“Have you seen Mr. Larson?”
“Yes. He came to the fund-raiser tonight.”
“Isn’t that strange? Him coming to a fund-raiser for his opponent?”
I made it a joke. “He came to torment me.”
“And did he succeed?”
“He sure did. I don’t like being in the same room with him.”
“Did you feel the same way about Monica Davies?”
“Pretty much. They both did the same kind of work.”
“One more question, Mr. Conrad. The patrolman told me that you had some kind of altercation with somebody in a car behind the hotel a few minutes ago.”
“It wasn’t an altercation. I just wanted to say hello to an old friend.”
“Apparently he didn’t want to say hello to you. The officer told me that you were shouting at him and chasing after his car.”
“He obviously didn’t recognize who I was. He might not even have heard me. In college he always played the radio very loud.”
Her sly smile was a review of my story. It closed opening night. “I’d never take up fiction if I were you, Mr. Conrad.”
She stood up. “I see I have two more people I need to talk to, and I’m sure you’re ready for some sleep.” She offered her long, sleek hand. As I stood up I took it. She was strong. “I’m sorry I had to trouble you with all this.”
“Doing your job.”
She gave me her best broadest, emptiest smile. “Now, that’s not what you’re really thinking, is it?”
“No,” I said as I started to turn away. “No, I guess it’s not.” I was too tired for any more of her droll inquisition.
“Give the female patrol officer all your contact information, if you would. I hope you have a good night’s sleep.”
I muttered through room number, phone number, home address, home telephone number, and headquarters phone number with the officer taking down all the information. Then I turned, yawning, toward the elevator.
Part two
Chapter 11
I got into headquarters just after seven the next morning. I’d spent forty-five minutes on the StairMaster in the hotel gym, then had an egg and a piece of toast and three cups of coffee in the café. I was the only one in the office for a time. I didn’t want to think about Monica Davies and why Bobby had had her card and how Susan Cooper might be involved in all this. I forced myself to go through the internals that had been faxed late last night.
The difference between public polling and internal polling is sometimes complicated but generally comes down to the fact that internal polling is done in more depth. Public polling is about the horse race; internal polling goes after demographics — age, occupation, general political beliefs — and delves into issue details. Another factor is where respondents come from. Public polling tends to use random numbers from the phone books. Internal polling uses registered voters. What made me happy this morning was the sudden shift we were seeing in rural voters supporting Susan. We’d been lagging behind. But now we’d jumped up by four percent and that was encouraging. Same with blue-collar males. Duffy was still ahead with this group, but in the past week we’d added three percent blue-collar males. The trend was up, and we were sitting on a story tying Duffy to some union-busting operations done by two companies he owned part of. We had decided to hold these until the next debate. This would help us get more blue-collar votes.
Ben came in with his hand wrapped around a large paper cup of coffee and the scent of autumn morning on his clothes. “You don’t look too bad.”
“Thanks, neither do you.”
“You think we’re getting respectable in our old age?”
I laughed. “You’re going to have us buried before our time.”
He sat down at his desk. “Well, since you’re so young and studly, did you get lucky last night?”
“Nope.” Then I looked up from the internals I was still going over. The way he’d said it — “You mean you got lucky last night?”
He swiveled in his chair so I could see him and his big happy face. “Hold your applause, but yep, I did indeed get lucky last night. This reporter from Channel 6. The NBC affiliate. Forty-three and worried about her job with all these hotties coming right out of college and working for half of what she’s making. I like her.”