The Incumbent Read online

  “Do you want to stay here? The guest room is available.” The guest room was my old bedroom.

  “Thanks, but no. I need to sleep in my own bed tonight. I’ll be all right.” I hesitated, then added, “Be sure to lock things up tight and be careful answering the door. If you have the slimmest doubts about anyone, call the police.” I had new fears that my parents might be on the short list for abduction. I couldn’t live with the knowledge that something had happened to them because of me.

  “I don’t think you should stay alone,” Dad whispered. I assumed Mom was in earshot.

  “I’ll be fine, Dad. I don’t mind being alone.”

  “Let me have the phone,” Jerry said and held out his hand.

  “What?”

  He wiggled his finger in a hand-it-over motion. I complied. “Greg, this is Jerry. I’ll stay with her tonight.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said quickly. He ignored me.

  “No, it’s no trouble. It’s my honor. I’ll bring her by bright and early in the morning.” He listened for a moment. “Don’t worry about anything; I’ll make sure she’s okay.”

  I smiled, trying to picture gentle Dr. Jerry Thomas fighting off attackers with his rectal thermometers of death. He handed the phone back. “Here, tell your father good night.”

  I did and then returned the phone to my purse. “You didn’t ask to stay at my house.”

  “What would you have said if I’d asked?”

  “I probably would have said no.”

  “That’s why I didn’t ask.”

  “It’s unnecessary, you know.”

  “Is it? If I dropped you off on your doorstep and drove off into the dark, I would spend the rest of the night worrying about you. It’s okay, you can trust me. I am a man of old-world gentility.”

  “You get the couch.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  Truth was, I’d put him in the room where Celeste had slept the previous night, but for the moment the threat was all I had. “And you have to make your own coffee in the morning.”

  “I am man of exquisite education. I can handle coffee making. Just point me at the percolator.”

  “Percolator? When was the last time you saw a percolator?”

  “Okay then, show me the drippy coffeemaker thing.”

  “I’ll make the coffee; you’ll break something.” I was grateful for the humorous give-and-take. It gave my mind a breather from the darkness that swirled in it. I let a few moments pass before saying, “Thanks for going with me, Jerry. I’m glad you were there.”

  “I’m afraid I got a little testy with the detective. I tend to be overprotective.”

  “You were just being gallant.”

  Jerry laughed loudly, then snorted. “Sir Jerry the Gallant!”

  It was good to have company.

  Although the clock on the desk in my home office read twenty past midnight, I was wide awake. I had fixed the bed in the guest room, shown Jerry where the bathroom was, laid out some clean towels, and left him to his own purposes. He chose to forego the guest room. “I’ll just snooze on the sofa. I don’t think anything is going to happen, but I’ll be in a better position to hear it down here than I would in the guest room.”

  It made no difference to me. I had changed into silk pajamas and donned my robe. Despite following my usual evening ritual, I was too keyed up to sleep, so I went into my office. I tried to avoid any thoughts of Lizzy and Lisa. Instead I threw myself into the “Glenn for Congress” file. I read the material again, this time allowing myself to pause and make notes, something I didn’t have time to do earlier.

  Randi had pulled together a variety of information. The packet contained demographics, district breakdowns, and Republican versus Democratic versus third-party also-rans. Paperclipped together were “Key Issue Concerns,” a summary of issues likely to come up in a campaign. There were also financial reports of previous contestants, revealing how much money they spent seeking the congressional seat. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I would need to spend three times what I had to win the office of mayor—maybe four times as much. And if there was a strong contender to challenge my run, I could spend far more than that. It would take a lot of fund-raising.

  The thought of fund-raising made me think of Lizzy again, and guilt swarmed over me like locusts. Here I was, thinking of my future, when Lizzy and Lisa were . . . who knows where? The guilt was misplaced, I knew, but that made no difference. Emotion, especially negative emotion, is immune to logic.

  I placed the file aside and turned the page of a yellow legal pad I was using to jot down notes. My mind was spinning like cogs in a sewing machine. A compulsive doodler, I began drawing little meaningless images: swirls, stars, and arrows. That gave way to words. I tore off the doodle-tattooed page and stared at a fresh, blank page.

  At the top I wrote, “Lisa and Lizzy.” Underneath that I penned, “Similarities.” I paused and waited for an epiphany, an inspiration that would give form to the mess of thoughts heaped up in my mind. None came. “Start with the obvious,” I told myself. “What do they have in common?”

  The only light in the room was the soft glow that poured from the green-shaded banker’s light on my desk. The rest of the room was as dark as a sepulcher. The blue ink seemed pale in the light as I wrote the first and most obvious connection: “Me.” Under that I wrote, “Campaign.” Other ideas came easier: “Professional Women,” “Married,” “Santa Rita.” I even wrote, “Initials.” Both had first names that began with the letter L. It was a stupid connection, but it was a connection nonetheless. I immediately thought of Superman comics. When I was eight, I developed a short-lived interest in the comic book hero. Truth was, I thought he was dreamy. My father, who as a child had read uncountable issues of comics, told me that the initials L. L. played an important role in the superhero’s life. Even his girlfriends had names like Lana Lang and Lois Lane. One of his arch enemies was Lex Luthor, and so on. I asked Dad why that was and he said, “One does not question the wisdom of the comic gods.” Then he winked. He didn’t know and neither did my husband, who confessed to a love for the adventures of the Man of Steel.

  I stopped, then drew a horizontal line across the middle of the page, scribbling, “Differences” just below it. Maybe there was some revelation in what they didn’t have in common. The list was small: “Children,” “Age,” “Neighborhood.” I ended up with an orderly but anemic list. The only meaningful connections I could make were the most obvious: both were women, both were married (although Lisa was divorced), and both were connected to me through my campaigns, specifically the money side of them. The differences were no more revealing.

  I fell back to doodling—circles, stars, spirals, boxes. Lost in thought, I let my mind percolate on its own. After a few moments I set the pen down, frustrated that I had made no progress. I looked at the pad of paper and saw that my doodles had new neighbors: a box defined by four dots and a triangle formed by three. The picture of Lizzy with the spots of blood over her eyes and mouth flashed like sheet lighting in my mind. Ice water flowed down my spine. Why geometric shapes? Why make them with blood? What would the next one be?

  The last thought made my brain seize. The next one? The next one! Would there be another abduction? I looked at the dots again. A square and a triangle. Was the answer in their shape or in the number of dots?

  I rubbed my eyes. I felt as if I were looking at a handful of jigsaw pieces. How could I put together the puzzle if I didn’t have all the pieces? But so far, the pieces came with an abduction. That was a lousy way to get information.

  Something else rose to the top of my attention. Aside from the presence of blood, and that amounted to only seven tiny drops, the crime scenes gave no indication of violence or great struggle. West told me about Lisa’s house: there was a tiny mess of cards on the table, and one vase was on its side. Not broken, just lying on its side as if it were set that way. Lizzy’s was no different. How does an abduction take
place and leave so few signs?

  It was as if both women had invited their kidnapper into the house. That would mean that Lisa and Lizzy knew their attacker. But who?

  My neck ached. The stress was catching up. Weariness finally settled over me and I went to bed, but I didn’t go alone. The question, “Why?” followed me into slumber and haunted my dreams.

  I don’t believe in ghosts. Not in the usual sense. I’ve never seen gossamer shapes floating through my house, leaving ectoplasm footprints on my carpet. I’ve never heard the bumps in the night or seen books float across the room. I’m just not a believer. Too pragmatic. Too skeptical. The only immaterial thing I ever believed in is love: the love of my parents and the love Peter showed me every day of our married lives.

  In that sense I am haunted. My husband is dead. I know that. I wake up to that ugly truth and it follows me into an empty bed every night. I consider myself fortunate that alcohol has never agreed with me. The few times I tried it in college, I became sick enough to cure my curiosity. Maybe it’s genetic. Neither of my parents drink. If I had been prone to the juice, I would have slid down the slimy slope of addiction. The pain was that great.

  Still, I tell no one of the dreams that occasionally rise in my sleep-shrouded mind. In the years since Peter’s murder, he has come to me once or twice a month. When the sun is long set, when the stars cling to an obsidian sky, when sleep has filled the inside of my skull, he comes. I tell myself it is an illusion; still, he is there.

  I’ve entertained the idea of seeking professional help, of spending time on the couch with some bearded man with a notepad sitting in a chair just out of sight and asking, “And how does that make you feel, Mrs. Glenn?” If that ever got out, my political career would implode. Perhaps that shouldn’t matter, but it does.

  The dreams should bother me, but they don’t. In truth, I’ve come to enjoy them. A few moments with Peter in a dream are better than no moments at all. It may mean psychological instability but it is my instability and I have grown comfortable with it.

  Some of the dreams are cathartic; others pierce the soul. The best illusions are those in which I hold him and he wraps his thick arms around me. If I’m lucky, I wake up still smelling his cologne; if not, he drips through my arms, becoming the nothing I now have, and I awaken to a wet pillow.

  This night, I dreamt of him standing in my home office with a plain cardboard box in his hands. I recognized the box. It was the one on the floor of my office closet. It was brown and dusty. It was a box I had avoided over the years. A box I had left untouched since the police gave it to me. I knew what was inside. They told me. Not in detail but in general. At least I think they did. I was not at my best.

  “These are his personal effects,” the detective had said. I can’t remember his name but I can see him standing in the LAPD substation not far from where my husband died. He was a stocky man with a thick face and kind eyes. I can’t remember the date. It was two weeks after the murder and one week after the funeral. “We can’t release the car yet, since it’s evidence in an ongoing trial, but both prosecution and defense have released these to you.”

  I had taken the box in trembling hands and tried to whip my emotions back into the basement of my mind. I thanked him, went home, walked upstairs, put the box in the closet, and never looked at it again.

  Now dream-Peter held it in his dream-hands. He didn’t speak. He never speaks in these dreams. He is just there until daylight melts him away. No words are needed. Communication happens through our eyes, through our expressions. He looked sad to me. His eyes met mine; then he looked down at the box.

  I hated that box. Everything in it had belonged to him, and they were there when the bullet ripped his life away, killing his body and wounding my soul forever. The lid of the box was where I had left it when it first came to me—pressed down on its cardboard sides. Two things were impossible: throwing away the box and opening it.

  Slowly, like the second hand of a clock, he raised the box, offering it to me.

  I stood motionless as a marble statue. Didn’t he understand? Couldn’t he comprehend? Sadness was in that box—ugly, mournful, searing sadness. To open it was to face the murder all over again. To open it was to be reminded that evil wins and goodness dies. To open it would be to face the very thing I had worked so hard to keep out of my mind. Those weren’t just his personal effects; they were witnesses to the cruelty. They would not remind me of him as my house did, as photos did; they would remind me of the small bullet hole in the side of his head and the gapping crater it left on the other side. They would conjure up the evil spirit of the men who held life as no more important than a hamburger wrapper, something to be wadded up and thrown away.

  Why couldn’t dream-Peter understand that?

  I looked up from the box and into my husband’s eyes. There was silent pleading there, coaxing, encouraging, compelling me to take the box and to open it.

  I shook my head.

  Peter dissolved.

  The box lay where he had stood.

  I cursed my cowardice and prayed for sunrise.

  chapter 9

  The radio alarm came to life at 5:30. The sonorous voice of the announcer slapped me awake. More startling were his words. I have the radio set to a local station that plays adult contemporary music, broken only by commercial spots and twice-hourly news. This was the bottom-of-the-hour presentation. “Another abduction took place late yesterday afternoon when Elizabeth Stout disappeared from her home in Santa Rita—”

  I slapped the off button. I had gone to bed with the kidnapping on my mind and now I awoke to it. I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and sat for a moment. My stomach was sour and I was depressed. Not the way I like to wake up. The dream hung in my mind like a foul English fog.

  Rising, I wobbled into the bathroom and did what I do every morning. After splashing water on my face, I changed into a pair of shorts and a cotton T-shirt. I then donned a pair of gray and orange Skechers sneakers. I spent the next forty-five minutes on the treadmill. It was normally an invigorating experience, but this morning I struggled with the task. My heart just wasn’t in it. Still, I put one foot after another until I had cranked out a quick two miles. I know women who jog every day. Up at dawn and onto the streets, and they do so eagerly. For me exercise is a discipline, one to which I am committed but seldom enjoy. By the end of the walk I was fully awake, and my coursing blood and heavy breathing made me feel more alive.

  A shower followed. I love showers as much as I hate exercising. There is something meditative and therapeutic about standing under a stream of warm water. It seems a good place to spend a few hours, something I would have done this morning had I not been afflicted with an incurable case of responsibility and duty, something for which I blame my parents. Reluctantly I got out, toweled off, and used the blow dryer to clear the condensation off my mirror.

  The mirror is a prize Peter found at some garage sale. It is oval with gold antiquing around the frame. He loved it and I have grown attached to it over the years. However, the image it reflected this day was that of a different person. The dark hair was there, but it hung down over my shoulders, sodden and heavy. The face that gazed back had dark circles under moist eyes.

  “Great. I’m going to have to put my makeup on with a trowel.” A bag over my head would have been easier and perhaps more attractive. I began the ritual and when done, felt a little better about myself.

  At seven o’clock I emerged from my lair and walked down the stairs into a thick, enticing aroma. I found Jerry sitting at the table in the dining area, a newspaper in his hands. In front of him was a large mug of black coffee.

  I made a face. “How can you drink coffee black?”

  “It’s a guy thing. I prefer a large latte with a double shot of vanilla, but I was afraid you’d think I was a wimp.”

  “No need to put on airs with me. I wouldn’t consider you a wimp, just prudent.” I poured myself a cup, dumped in a packet of Equal, and added a
splash of evaporated milk.

  “How did you sleep?” He carefully folded the section he had been reading and reinserted it into the newspaper. For a moment I expected him to roll up the paper and replace the rubber band.

  “Okay, I guess.” I took a seat at the table. “Not my best night.”

  “Restless? I can imagine.”

  “How about you?”

  “Like a log.”

  “No bad guys coming through the window?”

  “If they did, they were quiet. What say we go out for breakfast? We could go over to Hennison’s for some eggs Benedict.”

  “I don’t normally eat breakfast, at least not a big breakfast.”

  “You should make an exception. You’re under a great deal of strain. Stress is hard labor. It taxes the body. You need a consistent supply of food to keep going.”

  “Is that your considered medical opinion?”

  “It is. And a little change of scenery will help you cheer up.”

  “What makes you think I need cheering?”

  Jerry leaned over the table and his tone turned serious. “Even I can see that this is starting to wear on you, and it’s only been, what, a couple of days? Go to breakfast with me.”

  “I was planning to go into the office early—”

  “Go to breakfast with me.”

  “Okay, okay. You win. You should have been a salesman.”

  “I would have made better money.”

  “Oh, come on, all doctors are rich,” I teased.

  He shook his head. “I’m in peds.” He pronounced it peeds. “You’re thinking cardiologists and surgeons. A man doesn’t go into pediatrics to get rich.”

  “You’re rich in other ways, Jerry. Anything in the paper about Lizzy?”

  “A short article. Not much in it. They probably had to squeeze it in at the last moment.”

  I nodded. “I wish I could do more.”