Let Justice Descend. Lisa Black

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      “You sound cynical,” Riley said.

      The woman shrugged, dug a bottle out of her pocket, and shook two pills into her hand, swallowing them without benefit of water. “It is what it is, and this is what it’s always been. There are groups with influence and groups with less influence. Say a million years ago you had five people living in a cave and the only word they knew was ugh. I’ll still bet each one could tell you who was top dog of that cave and who was in the number two slot, all the way down to five. That’s not corruption. It’s reality.”

      Jack asked, “What about the combination to the safe?” He and Riley hadn’t wanted to mention the safe or the money in it, figuring they would keep that one quiet until someone wanted the funds enough to admit knowledge of them. But they were getting nowhere fast, or even getting anywhere slow in this investigation. They needed to start making things happen.

      But Kelly merely blinked at him. “Safe?”

      “The one in her house.”

      Still, only a mild frown. She gestured with her hands, sketching a square in the air. “You mean like an actual safe? A box?”

      “Yes.”

      “Huh. I didn’t know she had one.”

      And Jack had to admit she didn’t seem particularly interested in the idea—meaning either she had been unaware of the stacks of cash, or she knew of cash but didn’t know where it had been kept . . . or she was a very, very good actress.

      An older man whose tailored shirt did a good job of concealing his paunch poked his head in the door. “Morton’s in. He’ll be here by this afternoon.”

      Kelly’s face burst into a wide smile, the first genuine one Jack had seen on her. “Fabulous!”

      “Taxes look clean, wife has a job. Two kids, though—gotta put them through the wringer. We can’t have any surprises.”

      “Ages?”

      “Six and ten.”

      “No problem. I can do that.”

      Riley said to the man, “Excuse me. We’re in the middle of an interview here. Would you mind not disturbing us?”

      The guy glanced at the detective, seemed unable to interpret this non sequitur, and continued speaking to Kelly: “Mark will get you the Facebook buys and the video digital pre-rolls in about twenty.”

      “Got it,” she said, and the man left. Jack watched his partner’s face flush to a deeper hue. Not since they’d investigated a firm of financial mavericks had the cops felt so disregarded, and at least the mavericks had been somewhat interested in who had been killed and by whom. Former senator Diane Cragin seemed to have been tossed out with yesterday’s newspaper. But, he supposed, they had little choice—the election dictated that work had to be done and done quickly. The staff probably assumed they couldn’t help solve the murder anyway . . . especially if no one there had actually committed it.

      Kelly was explaining to them that they had found a replacement for the dead senator, an assistant state treasurer who had shown talent for community appearances and could deliver a killer speech. They weren’t entirely sure of his stand on charter school vouchers, but he seemed willing to listen. He’d been agitating to run for governor and had jumped at the chance to go straight to a national setting. He would be willing to listen to a lot of things.

      Riley said through slightly clenched teeth, “Ten-year-olds need a lot of vetting?”

      “Are you kidding? Kids and spouses are land mines. Their exes, jobs, finances, hobbies. Did the wife smoke pot in college? Is the kid flunking math? Getting in fights at school? Cutting? You’d be amazed at how many school-age children are on Prozac. We’re starting from scratch with two days to go. They can dig up a lot of dirt in two days.”

      Riley didn’t bother to ask who they were. “Well, let’s hope the kid doesn’t pick his nose on camera. If you can’t give us the passcodes to her electronics, then at least give us the account numbers so we can write a search warrant. If you paid the bills, you must have them.”

      She opened her laptop and gave him this information without comment. “Oh, and someone here remembered the name of Diane’s niece. It’s Minella, Collette Minella, and they think she lives in Bedford, or maybe Barberton. Also, Diane’s will is at her office in DC. I knew that, and my secretary overnighted it to me. Who do I give that to—you guys? Her executor? I used to be a lawyer, you’d think I’d know this stuff.”

      Riley said that probate was not the job of the detective unit, though they would like to know the executor’s name. “But right now we need to talk about the personal side of the senator. As we said, you knew her better than anyone.”

      “Happy to help, but full disclosure—I’ve only worked for Diane for a little over seven months. She was demanding but fair, and I’ve learned more in that seven months than I did in three years with the assistant governor of Oklahoma, but it was still a work relationship. We weren’t besties. We spent about sixteen hours a day together, so we didn’t go barhopping afterward or catch a movie on the weekend. If she had regular sex with anyone I don’t know who that might be. If she hated someone—well, besides Joe Green—she didn’t tell me. And if she felt terrified to death that one particular person wanted to kill her, she never mentioned it. That EPA guy is always giving her a hard time, but I’d be amazed if he had the guts to kill somebody. Like, astounded. If that’s what you were going to ask.”

      Yes, Jack thought. That’s exactly what we were going to ask.

      Riley hesitated as well, then said, “No critics who were especially vitriolic?”

      “These days? That’s the only kind there is.”

      “Diane was polarizing?”

      Kelly shook her head, black locks swishing back and forth over her shoulders. “The audience comes pre-polarized. Conservative and definitely liberal are no longer adjectives, they’re titles. Moderate is an epithet.”

      Riley qualified his question. “Any that were particularly credible in some way?”

      She appeared to give this some thought, shaking her head no, until a memory came back. “OMG, yes! I mean, not in person, but I know we had a second letter that mentioned being struck by lightning. Hang on, let me find it.”

      She bustled into the next office, partly visible through the open door, and dug through a box on the floor. Returning with a yellow sheet of legal-sized paper, she almost made it to the door before a young man came by and thrust a schedule under Kelly’s nose, pronouncing radio spots as the best he could do. She disagreed. He disagreed with her disagreement. She said she wanted the rush-hour times and he should not take no for an answer.

      No sooner had she dismissed him than a middle-aged man who looked as if he should have a cigar clamped between his teeth stepped up and unfurled a poster featuring a gap where a photo of the new senatorial candidate would be placed. Bright red letters above the white space screamed VOTE FOR TRUTH IN POLITICS ON NOVEMBER 6. Beneath it in smaller caps: BECAUSE SOMETIMES YOU FEEL LIKE A CROOK, SOMETIMES YOU DON’T. “What do you think?” he asked anyone in earshot.

      “It’s not exactly subtle,” Riley said.

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