Running Mates by John Feinstein

Author:John Feinstein [Feinstein, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-80093-0
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

JAMELLE TOURRETTA

Kelleher and Ann had just finished their coffee, having studiously avoided any discussion of what had happened between them in the early morning, when the phone rang.

Ann, who had put on a sweatshirt and shorts, shook her head as she got up to answer it. “Has to be for you,” she said. “There’s not a single living human being who would call me at nine o’clock on a Sunday morning.”

She was right. It was Sims. “They found Jimmy Dumont,” he announced when Kelleher picked up the phone.

“Fantastic!” The sense of relief was immense. A thousand pounds were lifted off his back and from the pit of his stomach. “Do they think he’ll talk?”

“Not likely,” Sims said. “They found him face down near a rest stop on I-64—with a bullet in his head. Someone killed him execution-style.”

Kelleher suddenly felt nauseated. Not so much at the notion that Dumont was dead but because he knew that would have been the way he would have ended up if Dumont had gotten him into the car. Beyond that, though, the plot had taken yet another unfathomable twist. Who would kill Dumont and why?

Sims sighed heavily at the other end of the phone. “Bobby, I can only protect you for so long. The cops are all over me wanting to know who tipped me about Dumont.”

“Alan, I can’t be in the middle of this. At least not right now.”

“I can protect you for a day or two,” Sims said. “But that’s it. Now tell me exactly what happened.”

Kelleher went through the entire evening’s events in detail. When he finished, there was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

“Gordy has to be told right away,” Sims said. “She has to be protected if this thing isn’t over yet.”

“Can you tell her without telling her your source?” Kelleher asked.

“Impossible. She’ll demand details. And she’s entitled to them. But I think I can convince her to keep the details to herself. She can simply tell Bearnarth there’s been a threat made against her. They’ll beef up security on her say-so without demanding to know why. At least for now. But the next question is: what the hell are you going to write?”

That was a damn good question, one Kelleher had been pondering in the shower. What was really called for, he knew, was a first-person story detailing what had happened. But he couldn’t put himself into the middle of an ongoing story; it would, in effect, take him out of the story as a reporter. That was absolutely the last thing he wanted. He was starting to smell blood. He knew he was close, probably closer than anyone else. And right now, that was all he cared about.

“I’ll write about Dumont, about how he and the other two guys were ID’d off the picture, and about his background at UVA and in right-wing political causes.” Saying that reminded Kelleher of something he had seen in Dumont’s suitcase. “Hey, Alan, do the letters LOL mean anything to you.

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