Obsession, Deceit And Really Dark Chocolate. Kyra Davis

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СКАЧАТЬ live psychotic actors. Well okay, it wasn’t a lot of fun when people were trying to kill you, but the rest of it wasn’t so bad. Plus, for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I felt compelled to help Melanie with this. Logic told me that Eugene’s death was probably a random act of violence. If that was the case I could talk to a few of his co-workers, tell Melanie she was imagining things and leave it at that. Melanie could rest easy and I would never have to talk to Anatoly again. That was a good thing. I nodded eagerly. “I’m up for it.”

      Melanie offered me a shaky smile. “Very well. Should we start the questioning now?”

      “You mean of you?”

      “Yes. I assume there’s information that you’ll need from me.”

      “Um, yeah…okay.” I quickly tried to formulate a few passably intelligent questions. “Who was Eugene closest to on the campaign?”

      “I’m not sure I know the answer to that. He was very close to Flynn Fitzgerald, perhaps more so than most of the other strategists and consultants. Fitzgerald’s media consultant, Maggie Gallagher, was a friend. We had her and her husband over for dinner a few times. Eugene was also an old family friend of Fitzgerald’s top political strategist, Rick Wilkes.”

      “Had he complained about any problems at work?”

      “No. Well, he was frustrated that Anne Brooke is always neck and neck with Fitzgerald in the polls. Considering her character, she should be trailing far behind by now.”

      I took a deep breath. A lot of very unpleasant information had come out about Anne Brooke since she announced her bid for Congress. And if the Republicans had run someone who was a moderate, Brooke’s career would have been political toast. But the Republicans had given their endorsement to Flynn Fitzgerald, a man who was just to the right of Pat Robertson. Although Contra Costa County citizens were definitely more conservative than their Bay Area neighbors, they were understandably reluctant to vote for a man who had blamed single mothers and “queers” for the downfall of our society. Unless Brooke was caught making out with Fidel Castro, she could probably prevent Fitzgerald from getting a double-digit lead on her.

      “Anything else?” I asked. “Was he having problems with any of his coworkers? Or anyone at all, for that matter?”

      Melanie shook her head. “Eugene was opinionated, and that sometimes rubbed people the wrong way, but in the end most found that he had a good heart. He had a subtle charm that tended to transcend political differences.”

      I smiled slightly. I had been exposed to some of that charm. It had been nice to meet a man who had really believed in something, even if his beliefs differed from mine.

      “Tell you what,” I said as I pushed myself to my feet. “I’ll find a way to talk to some of the people he saw or worked with regularly and see if I can find out anything.”

      Melanie swallowed hard and looked up at me from her seat. “Do you want me to introduce you to anyone? Because—”

      “You don’t want people to know that you’re looking into Eugene’s death…or rather his life,” I finished for her. “No, I don’t need introductions, but if anyone in his circle invites you to a social event and you can find a way of bringing me along without it looking suspicious, give me a ring.”

      Melanie f lashed me a relieved smile. “I can do that.” She got up and walked me to the door but hesitated before opening it. “There’s one more thing I was hoping you could help me with.”

      “You’re pushing your luck.”

      “I just wanted to know what—” Her voice caught and she looked down at the floor. “What were Eugene’s last words?”

      There were two ways to go with this. I could tell her the truth, that her husband’s last words had been “Goddamn furry shit,” (which was either evidence of the fact that he was completely delirious or that he truly had a problem with sponges that wore pants) or I could lie.

      “Tell Melanie I love her,” I said confidently. “His last words were tell Melanie I love her.”

      “Really? But wait…” Melanie’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Are you sure he said Melanie?”

      “You really need to get over this jealousy thing. He wasn’t cheating.”

      “I know, I know,” she said quickly. “It’s just that he so rarely called me Melanie. He always referred to me by my pet name.”

      I swallowed and looked away. “Well, it was kind of a stressful moment, I could have misheard him. What’s his pet name for you?”

      “Curly. He loved my curls.” She held up a lock of wavy hair that would have been f lat as a board without the help of her stylist.

      “I’m sure that’s what he said. There was a lot to take in at that moment.”

      For instance, I could have heard “furry” when in fact what he said was “curly.” My mentor and former professor could be a Goddamn curly shit.

      I popped in the latest Gorillaz CD and turned over in my mind all the things I had just learned, which wasn’t a lot. With traffic it took me over an hour to get back to San Francisco. Even if I had misheard Eugene, it didn’t mean anything other than that he was in pain, delirious and pissed off at his wife. (Melanie wasn’t capable of violence.) Besides, I was ninety percent sure that I did hear him correctly. Eugene had been cursing someone named Furry. Which, of course, raised another question: was Eugene the adulterous type after all? Wasn’t it possible that someone who was dorky enough to call his naturally straight-haired wife “Curly” might also be dorky enough to call his mistress “Furry”?

      But what kind of woman would sleep with a man who called her Furry? No, Eugene had to have been delirious. It didn’t really matter; this entire mess was much ado about nothing. I decided to shelve the whole thing until tomorrow and spend this time on more productive activities like cursing at the traffic.

      My cell phone rang just as I was contemplating the best way to stir up a little road rage.

      “C’est Sophie.”

      “Hello, Sophie, it’s Melanie. I just thought of a social event that you could attend where you would meet almost all of Eugene’s friends and coworkers.”

      “And what would that be?”

      “His funeral.”

      I felt the beginnings of another headache coming on. “Melanie, I can’t interrogate people at a funeral.”

      “Of course not. I just thought you might be able to meet a few people and make connections. If someone happens to volunteer something useful you can pursue it at a later date.”

      Gee, that sounded like great fun. Melanie would be busy receiving all of Eugene’s friends while I walked around by myself trying to initiate conversations with grieving strangers.

      “If I come I want to bring a friend…actually, I want to bring Leah.” My sister was one of maybe ten Republicans who actually lived in San Francisco. If nothing else she’d be able to help me come up with topics of conversation that would play well with the politicians Eugene used to hang with.

      “Then СКАЧАТЬ