Oetjen nodded.
Sam leaned onto the desk again. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I understand,” Oetjen said meekly.
* * *
Back in the car fifteen minutes later-and after borrowing a photo of Oetjen and Whitledge posing before the statehouse-Sam turned to her partner and asked, “How much you wanna bet she’s on the phone right now?”
Lester laughed. “You and Willy really are a match made in heaven.”
* * *
Joe was on the interstate when his cell phone went off. Someone had asked him once what he looked forward to the most when he retired. He’d reached into his pocket, extracted the cell, and answered, “Turning this damn thing off, once and forever.”
But right now, as usual, he pulled it out and answered, “Gunther.”
“Hi. It’s me.”
Despite his eagerness to reach his destination, he pulled over to the side of the interstate.
“Hey, there, Governor. How’re you doing? I’ve been hearing the news reports. I can’t quite figure it all out, but it sounds like you have your hands full, as if Irene wasn’t enough.”
Gail Zigman sounded tense and exhausted. “Tell me about it. Imagine trying to make political hay while the whole state is hurting. These damn people are like maggots, I swear to God.”
What Joe had been hearing, of course, was far from anything that simple or clear, running the gamut from a political ambush to a prime example of neophyte arrogance and inexperience, combined.
“I am sorry,” he said, hoping to steer clear of a lengthy debate. As a couple, they’d been compatible on some levels, and less so on others, making many of their friends wonder how they’d stayed together as long as they had. One of their points of divergence had been Gail’s tendency to see issues in starker shades of black-and-white than he.
“I thought about calling you,” he added. “But with all this, I didn’t want to get in the way. I know you’ve become the proverbial one-armed paperhanger.”
“Oh, Joe,” she said sadly. “You should know you can always call. I would never be too tired or too busy to talk. You’ve always been my safe haven.”
Thinking back, he considered that “often” might have been more accurate than “always.” But he appreciated the sentiment, and felt all the more generous in light of what he and Beverly had reignited.
“I guess the bottom line,” he offered, “is that the governorship is a long way from the Brattleboro selectboard.”
“Well, yes and no,” she half agreed. “Some of the brains are as small, but you’re right about the numbers being bigger. Speaking of which,” she segued, “what do you know about a guy named Sheldon Scott?”
Joe was silent, grateful to have pulled off the road. Scott, of course, had surfaced in the past history of the late Gorden Marshall.
“He’s a lobbyist, isn’t he?” he asked noncommittally.
“He’s a right-wing, flesh-eating barracuda is more like it,” she responded. “He’s the son of a bitch behind the mess that’s making Irene look like a summer shower.”
Joe frowned. Even at her most stressed, Gail rarely gave in to such narcissistic language. He’d been hearing of a few thousand people who might have argued with her about the relative impacts between Irene’s devastation and Scott’s political shenanigans.
“You really are feeling the heat on this, aren’t you?” he asked. “I don’t think many of us on the outside are getting the full story.”
“You probably never will, Joe,” she said. “I’ll be a one-term wonder because of this prick, and he’ll slink back into the slime. Nobody will ever hear about all the backroom knife-wielding that went into this. It has nothing to do with the people or the state or doing what’s best for the poor bastards whose houses went downriver. This is about power, and men, and the good ol’ boy system-alive and well, even in this socialist Nirvana.”
Joe pulled in his chin at the vitriol, and tried to introduce a little levity. “Hey, don’t hold back. Tell me what you think.”
She tried to play along. “Never can and always will, Joe. Someday, you’ll be arresting me for sedition or something.”
He laughed. “That can’t be against the law in Vermont.”
“Well, this crap should be,” she countered darkly, adding, “So, what do you know about Scott?”
“Just what I told you, and it sounds like considerably less than what you already know.”
“I need more,” she said bluntly.
He didn’t respond, holding the phone to his ear and staring out at the traffic as if in suspended animation. In all their time together-through her brief stint as a deputy state’s attorney, her years as a selectman, even during her recovery from being raped, Gail had never asked him to break the law on her behalf.
Until she’d run for executive office, when she’d asked him for something inappropriate concerning the previous governor. That, Joe had refused to do.
Now she was on the brink of doing it again.
“Have you thought through what I think you’re about to ask?” he asked her.
“You getting technical on me?” she shot back.
“I’m remembering my oath of office,” he said carefully.
But not carefully enough.
“Meaning I’ve forgotten mine?” she asked sharply.
“No. Meaning that you’re under a huge amount of pressure and you need all the help you can get.”
“Which you won’t give me.”
“Which you don’t want,” he argued levelly. “Gail, you will always have a piece of my heart. You know that. But you don’t want to do this.”
She didn’t respond.
“Ask me for something I can grant,” he said, “and it’s yours. That’s probably why you called in the first place. You just got a little blurry ’cause we’re friends. Don’t worry about it.”
In the persistent silence, he added, “Look, I realize I don’t know all the details, and that it’s probably complicated as hell, but I bet you can beat it if you bring it to the people who voted you in. You were the one who told the wheeler-dealers and the politicos to take a hike, and it got you elected. That’s your strength, not playing their game on their terms.”
“I know how to politick, Joe. You stick to catching bad guys.”
He quieted, letting the frustrated egotism of her comment linger between them.
“I’m sorry. I gotta go,” she finally said. “I didn’t mean to jam you up. Take care.”
The phone went dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Pierson Library in Shelburne is tacked on to the old town hall, which looks, from Route 7, like something close to Thomas Jefferson’s heart as an architect. The actual library, however, is in the modern ex-town offices and police station to the rear, and coincidentally shares a large parking lot with the same fire department that responded to the Barber residence a couple of blocks to the south.
It was here that Joe Gunther was headed when he’d spoken with Gail-direct from his scrutiny of the old Vermont State Hospital admission forms-and here that he hoped an old-fashioned piece of pure, unadulterated inspiration might bear fruit.
He introduced himself at the front desk and asked for the reference librarian.
He was met by an amused response. “I’m afraid we’re not that big or fancy. There are only six of us here, including the director. Maybe you should talk with her first.”
He was escorted to the office of a lively middle-aged woman with long red hair, who greeted him with a surprisingly firm grip.
“How may we help you?” she asked after introductions were made and the circulation assistant had left.
Joe looked a little self-conscious. “This is a long shot, in more ways than one,” he admitted. “But if somebody were to walk in here asking how to find a historic local celebrity-maybe an old politician who was famous back when-what might you tell them?”