Hot Spot by Michael Craft

Author:Michael Craft
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Tuesday, September 10

My tight deadline shrank overnight from forty-six hours to thirty-six. The debate would begin in Chicago the following evening at eight o’clock, which would place it, inopportunely, smack in the middle of Thad’s going-away party.

On Tuesday morning at around eight o’clock, Sheriff Pierce stopped at the house on Prairie Street to join us for breakfast. Neil and I told him about Lowell Sagehorn’s threat to dump Carl Creighton from the gubernatorial ticket if the circumstances of Betty Gifford Ashton’s death were not clarified prior to the debate.

“Just what I need—more pressure,” remarked Pierce with a put-upon but good-natured sigh. “Harley Kaiser has been relentless in needling me to make a quick arrest. He’s now threatened to bring the whole matter before the county police-and-fire commission. I’m not sure what he intends to accomplish—other than to publicly question my competence and to openly cast suspicion on Roxanne. It’s bad enough that Harley has a vendetta against Roxanne as a liberal, outspoken outsider. Making matters worse, Harley has enjoyed hefty campaign contributions from the Ashton family, so I’m sure he’s feeling some payback pressure.”

Pushing my coffee away (I had no taste for it), I asked, “When’s the next meeting of the commission?”

“Thursday. So Lowell Sagehorn’s Wednesday-night deadline is as good as any. God knows, we now have plenty of motivation to get this wrapped up.” Pierce ticked off on his fingers: “We want to solve a murder and see justice done. We want to clear Roxanne of the unwarranted suspicions that are rising against her, promoted largely by Blain Gifford. We want to prevent Carl’s political career from being needlessly, unfairly ended. And a highly personal motivation—I don’t want to give Harley Kaiser the satisfaction of grandstanding against me, my department, or my investigation.”

I could have added, but did not, a motivation of my own—to preclude the need for Roxanne and me to own up to our lie of omission, which would devastate Carl (possibly threatening his and Roxanne’s days-old marriage), would leave Pierce feeling betrayed (probably ending our friendship, certainly destroying his trust), and would irreparably undermine the credibility of the Register and its esteemed investigative reporter turned publisher (me).

Neil was telling Pierce, “Roxanne hasn’t come out and said it, but I know the situation is really starting to scare her—as well it should. She came up here for a nice, simple wedding, and now, three days later, instead of lolling on a beach, sipping virgin mai tais from a coconut, she’s pondering the possibility of murder charges against her and the demise of her husband’s career. One thing’s for sure: she hasn’t been her spunky old self.”

“Well,” said Pierce, cutting one last slice of kringle (raspberry, my anytime favorite), “let’s see if we can fix that. After all, Mark and I have all day to figure this out—and most of tomorrow.” He was being facetious. The success of our mission seemed chancy at best.

In the pit of my stomach, something acidic was punishing me for harboring facts Pierce deserved to know.

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