Unusually-if typically for this woman-Raffner’s only request in exchange for all of this had not been a cabinet appointment or the leadership of some agency. It had been to request an endorsement from Gail in Susan’s run for one of the two Windham County state senate seats.
And it had worked, if controversially. Winning as a Democrat hadn’t been much of a reach in Vermont’s southeast corner; but Gail’s stirring of the pot by backing Susan against the Democratic incumbent had caused a real hornet’s swarm. The man in question had been popular, if only mildly competent, and had been serving for sixteen years before Candidate Zigman had vouched for Susan on the stump. The two women broke the rules and outraged their own party bosses, and created an effective if inaccurate image of Raffner’s stunned opponent as a chauvinist, do-nothing male who was probably harboring malicious intentions toward women, children, farmers, gun owners, and the American Way. The poor bastard never knew what hit him, and on election night, Gail and Susan had briefly retreated amid the hoopla to raise a private glass to their dual success.
It wasn’t just the victory they were toasting. On various levels, they were angry women, fed up with the status quo, tired of waiting for change, and happy with the turmoil they’d stirred up. The fallout afterwards would be predictable, of course, and was already starting. Both women winning by popular landslides while thumbing their noses at the Old Guard-including Vermont’s Washington delegation, nicknamed the DC-Three-had prompted a chorus of angry muttering from the back rooms that guaranteed an untold number of future headaches for each of them. But in the short term, as for so many idealists preceding them, that hadn’t mattered. They were flush with success, and presumed that the spirit that had carried them here would sustain them while in office.
It was a miscalculation common to many a dreamer.
In the meantime, Gail now had her best friend in the senate. However, she’d also lost her closest advisor as a result, and Susan had already twice taken opposing views to a couple of the new governor’s pet projects, but such was the rigor of their mutual honesty that details like that mattered little. In an ironic homage to much of the politics predating modern extremism, they embodied the older tradition suggesting that close friends could be politically opposed while still finding enlightenment in each other’s insight.
As with right now. Gail pulled out her cell phone and dialed the number she knew better than her parents’.
“Nice interview on VPR,” Susan answered without preamble. “I might not have gone on so much about that funding issue. Uncle Sam always sounds more generous on the heels of a disaster than he does a year later when the checks need to be written.”
Gail knew better than to be sidetracked by someone else’s issue. It was a lesson that Susan herself had taught her early on. Instead, she ignored the comment and got straight to the reason for her call. “Stretching back into Vermont political history,” she asked her friend, “what can you tell me about Carolyn Barber? Governor-for-a-Day a long time ago?”
Raffner didn’t mind and didn’t hesitate. “Wow-that’s a name from the past. Like bringing up the Black Dahlia in Los Angeles.”
Gail raised her eyebrows at the obscure reference, but stayed silent, knowing Susan’s process.
“One of the most famous unsolved murder cases in U.S. history,” came the follow-up.
“And relevant how?”
“Okay-a stretch, I’ll grant you. But just like you had no clue about the Black Dahlia, most Vermonters have never heard of Carolyn Barber. At the time, it was seen as a publicity strategy run amok, since most of the coverage made fun of it. But there were rumors that some kind of deal was responsible.”
Gail frowned at the phone. “A deal? What was the point? Did money change hands?”
But here, Susan proved less helpful. “Not that I know of. Barber was a nobody, and as far as I know, nothing happened as a result except for the bad press. Of course, I wasn’t there, and it wasn’t like it was news even a month later. I only know about it because I love this stuff, and I went to school with a girl named Carole Barber-no relation, I think-and it stuck in my head.”
Gail considered what she might be missing. Susan interrupted her thoughts. “Why do you want to know about her?”
She opened her mouth to pass on Joe’s news from the state hospital, but then shut it again, reconsidering. She had lived for years in Joe’s company, often serving as his sounding board on complicated cases. Discretion had become ingrained over time, and she felt its tug upon her now, if for no discernible reason. “Her name came up in conversation,” she answered truthfully enough. “It didn’t mean anything to me, but it sounded odd. I just wondered if you knew anything.”
“I can dig into it, if you want,” Susan volunteered. “You are the governor, after all.”
Gail laughed. “Right-like you have nothing better to do. I wouldn’t even put my own staff on this.”
They chatted about other matters for a few minutes, mostly the flooding and its impact and implications. There was little else being discussed anywhere in the state, and probably wouldn’t be for some time.
Nevertheless, once the call ended, Gail remained thoughtful about what had stimulated it. She still wanted to know how a governor-even a bogus one-could have ended up in a mental facility, and then gone missing.
As for Susan Raffner, she wasn’t the least misled by her friend’s dismissal of Carolyn Barber’s importance. As she pocketed her phone and set out for her next meeting, she made a mental note to dig into Barber’s moment of fame-and why the chief executive had thought it worthy of special inquiry.
* * *
Willy negotiated the washed-out road gingerly, pausing occasionally to figure out where to point the SUV next, sometimes opting for the field alongside.
“Might be faster if we walk,” Sammie suggested, clinging to the handhold by the doorframe.
“Might be,” Willy agreed, to her surprise, “but I like having the radio nearby.”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “You expecting trouble?”
“I’m expecting a half-wit Li’l Abner,” he countered. “We don’t show up in some official-looking vehicle, he’ll shoot our asses off for sure. Probably will anyhow.”
Willy had been born and bred in New York City-a place that he’d clearly left only in body. “It’s a rural state,” she instructed him defensively. “Not a backward one.”
He laughed and jutted his chin straight ahead to indicate the road. “Right-clearly.”
“That’s the flood, you moron,” she remonstrated.
“It is now,” he suggested. “You ask me, it was no better before.”
The large vehicle gave a lurch and there was a grinding, scraping sound from underneath that made them both wince. They’d borrowed it from the Brattleboro police, and while Willy clearly didn’t care about its condition later, Sammie was less sure about how they’d gotten hold of it in the first place.
“You sure you got the chief to sign this over?” she asked, settling herself more securely after the jostling.
“It’s gotta be over the next hill,” Willy avoided answering, adding unexpectedly, “You call Louise?”
Sam cut him a look. “You know I did.”
“Emma okay?”
A sarcastic comeback offered itself, but not about this. Emma was sacred ground for them, if for divergent reasons. While each was a wounded survivor of childhood, their own child represented a different type of hope. To Sammie, Emma was a reward to be cherished and protected; to Willy, she was more like the cross between a miracle and a mirage-the latter image being one that could wake him up in a cold sweat and make him visit her bedroom just to confirm her existence.
Instead, therefore, Sam merely said, “She’s great,” and changed the subject. “What’s the name again? Rozanski?”
“That’s what’s on the headstone,” he told her. “Herbert Rozanski. But this woodchuck empire belongs to somebody named Jeff MacQuarrie-Jeffrey, according to the records; Jeff on the phone. He’s supposedly a relative.”