“Thanks for the warning,” Ben said.
“I shouldn’t have been so flip about it,” Manning said, apparently feeling guilty for making a joke about Natalie. “She just wants to make sure we win, Ben. That’s all.”
I was trying to concentrate on the conversation, but just then I saw a hawk riding the air and looking magnificent as hell doing it. In my days as an investigator for army intelligence I’d spent some time in the Rockies working on two different cases. I’d started to envy birds, serene and self-possessed.
I dragged myself back to the conversation. “How’s Susan?”
Manning shifted position. In terms of interrogation body language I could see that I’d made him uncomfortable. “Just very busy. And just can’t shake that cold of hers.”
“She has a cold, David? Since when?”
“Really? You haven’t heard her sniffling, Ben?”
“Oh, that. I figured she was using cocaine.”
Manning smiled. “Don’t say that around any reporters. Duffy’s trying to play up her past.”
“The polling we’ve done, her past doesn’t seem to matter all that much. Less than ten percent say it’s a concern.”
I said, “We’re having a little trouble with her, David.”
“Oh? Trouble?” And he shifted position once again.
“Ben tells me she disappears sometimes without telling anybody where to find her. And she’s lost her edge a few times in debates and interviews.” I tried not to sound confrontational. It wasn’t easy. I’d learned that Manning was good at evading direct questions.
“She’s had some problems and Natalie’s aware of them. She’ll probably ask you for a little advice about it, in fact.”
“You’re her husband, David.” This time I sounded angry and meant to.
“I’d rather let Natalie talk to you about it, Dev. And anyway—” He glanced longingly at his car, the golden chariot that would take him far from us and our questions. “Anyway, I need to get to the foundation. I hope it goes well with Natalie. Wyatt’ll be with her. He’s good at keeping her calm.” Wyatt was her husband.
He had a nervous smile for each of us and then hurried to his car. We watched him go. He even gave us a wan little wave just before he backed out.
“I can’t help it,” Ben said. “I feel sorry for him.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said. “That’s quite the family he married into.”
“A soap opera that doesn’t need any writers.”
“Oh, God, I’d forgotten that one.” A conservative columnist had written a piece about Natalie’s various “difficulties” with the campaign consultants she’d used on Susan’s first campaign. She’d gone through three different firms. He’d come up with the soap opera line and it was, unfortunately, a good one and a true one.
“Well, let’s go inside and I’ll rip up your innards with some coffee I made.”
I’d had plenty of Ben’s coffee in my time. He wasn’t kidding.
Chapter 3
Within half an hour the headquarters was open for business. The front part of the building was for the public and was manned by volunteers. In the rear was a long, narrow office for paid staffers. If you’ve ever worked for a newspaper you know what a campaign office is like: phones, faxes, computers; men and women who are the modern-day version of camp followers. Only in this instance they’re following campaigns. They’re political junkies who get paid for their obsessions. Both parties have them; neither party could function without them.
The modern political campaign has gone high-tech, of course, but it still serves the old masters. On any given day a campaign manager and his staff deal with a long list of jobs — fund-raising, Web sites, direct mail, grassroots organizing, yard signs, writing speeches, interpreting polling, dealing with the press, endlessly revising the candidate’s schedule, and trying to chase down any persistent rumors about the opposition, most of which turn out to be bullshit. There’s a lot of disinformation coming from both camps, disinformation meant to confuse the other camp and make them waste time trying to make sense of it. Then there are the staff wars. Some groups gather for a particular campaign function smoothly, a real team. Others are warring factions that can seriously damage a campaign or even destroy it.
In the three hours I sat at my computer in Ben’s office that morning, I saw nothing but professionals going about their jobs efficiently and cordially. This was a testament to Ben’s judgment. He’d chosen his people carefully. I checked on the other campaigns my firm was working on. There didn’t seem to be any serious problems with any of them. The only trouble was here with Susan Cooper’s sudden, mysterious loss of interest in her campaign.
I spent some time up front, too, meeting the volunteers and getting their assessment of the campaign thus far. During the day the volunteers tended to be retired women and men. A new category had recently been added — the unemployed. With the economic disaster facing the country these people divided their time between looking for work and trying to help the candidate they thought had a genuine interest in helping them improve their situation.
I was just wrapping up a phone call with one of our people who was spending the day at the state capital when somebody peeked in the office door and said, “She’s here!”
He made it sound as if we’d just been invaded. And he wasn’t far from wrong.
Chapter 4
Natalie Dowd McConnell Cooper Byrnes was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on July 4, 1960. Despite the fact that she remarried after the death of her second husband, Senator John Cooper, she continued to use his last name. Her family had been prominent both before and after the Civil War and had moved easily into national politics. Her great-grandfather, her grandfather, and her father had all served as senators. Natalie Dowd was so much of an elegant beauty that a famous portraitist named Ralph Hodges fell in love with her in the course of painting her for the family’s mansion wall. She’d been fifteen at the time, and Hodges forty-six. A rumor still persisted that they’d mated up. Natalie loved the attention. Not every Southern debutante found herself in the pages of People and The National Enquirer. Her father allegedly hired a man to murder Hodges but was dissuaded by his wife. Hadn’t the family reputation suffered enough already?
Natalie went to New York City, where she performed in several off-Broadway plays. This was where she met and married Randy McConnell, an actor who was plucked from the stage to play a TV action hero in a series that would run for several years. He took Natalie along with him and they were married in Los Angeles. Four years to the day after their wedding vows, McConnell broke the nose of his male costar, accusing him of sleeping with Natalie. Nothing was ever proven, but the incident did bring Natalie back into the public eye and led to many TV acting jobs. She’d worked hard with a vocal coach and lost her accent entirely. With her killer looks and competent acting skills she was able to support herself quite well when McConnell finally sued her for divorce after finding her at a party in a gazebo with another family friend. McConnell didn’t hold up well during all this. He went on three different talk shows pretty much snockered and hinted that his ex-wife was something of a tramp. Natalie’s father immediately sued him for slander.