33

The day had turned fine, with all the blue skies and sunshine and hundred-proof air that spring could provide. Ice won’t be a problem again until next year, Kane thought. Cocoa pulled up in his cab and Kane got in.

“Let’s go see Samantha,” he said.

Samantha lived in what was called the Highlands, a hilly area of single-family homes just north of downtown. With Cocoa driving, the trip took five minutes. She lived in an apartment at the top of a big, white place with green trim, up a long set of white steps that ran beside the structure.

“Great,” Kane said, starting up the stairs, swinging his bad leg behind him at each step.

“Jeez, you look just like Chester,” Cocoa said from behind him. “You know, the guy on the old TV show?”

Kane saved his breath for climbing. The staircase creaked and groaned with each step.

She gets plenty of warning of visitors, Kane thought.

When he got to the top, Samantha was standing in a bathrobe in the open door. Behind her was a small kitchen. A young woman wearing a large football jersey sat at the tiny table, drinking coffee.

“Mr. Kane,” she said as he reached the landing, “what are you doing here?”

Kane stood for a moment catching his breath.

“I’m investigating the White Rose Murder,” he said, “and I was hoping you could give me a little information.”

“Her name was Melinda, not Rose,” Samantha said. “She was a real person, not some sort of character in a sensational story.”

“Sorry,” Kane said. “I know better. Anyway, I have some questions and I’m not sure you want your friend”—he inclined his head toward the woman at the table—“to hear them or not.”

Samantha looked at the woman, who glanced up from her coffee cup and smiled, then back at Kane.

“What makes you think I’ll answer questions?” she asked. “You don’t have any standing to compel me.”

“I have reason to believe that you have information material to a murder investigation,” Kane said. “You can talk to me, or I’ll be back here within the hour with a police officer and you can talk to him.”

“Reason to believe,” she said. “What reason to believe?”

She stood looking at Kane for a moment, then snapped her fingers.

“Dylan told you, didn’t he?” she said. “The little weasel.”

She looked at Kane some more, then shrugged and stepped back.

“I should have known better than to trust a man with a secret,” she said. “You’d better come in.” She looked at Cocoa. “Him, too, I suppose.” She turned to the woman. “Meg, honey, I think you’d better go. I have to speak to these gentlemen.”

The woman got to her feet, giving Kane a view of a fine set of legs and what lay above them.

“Better go?” she said. “Something’s come up and the piece of ass better go?”

She stormed out of the room. Samantha followed. Kane could hear soft voices, one pleading, the other hissing. Then the woman came back out fully clothed, burst past Kane and Cocoa, and flew down the stairs. Samantha came back into the kitchen with a rueful smile on her face.

“Young people.” She said. “So impetuous. Can I give you coffee? No? Well, we better go into the living room where we can be more comfortable.”

When they were seated, Kane said, “I know that you knew Melinda Foxx. Could you tell me the nature of your relationship?”

Samantha laughed.

“The nature of your relationship,” she said. “I like that. We were lovers.”

Kane opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand.

“This will go faster if I just tell you the story,” she said. “You can ask whatever questions you have afterward. Is that okay?”

Kane nodded, and she began.

“I met Melinda last year, when she first got to Juneau,” Samantha said. “She was quiet and seemed nervous in a new job, but she was beautiful and I was attracted to her. If this were a TV show, I’d say my gaydar went off, but the truth is, my gaydar isn’t all that good. But I decided I’d give it a try anyway. So I made excuses to see her and to take her out for drinks after work. I thought I was scheming on her.

“Then, one evening, we were sitting in the Baranof just having a drink and she said to me, ‘You’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?’ She didn’t sound scandalized or offended, just curious. I denied it, of course, but then she proceeded to tell me that she had had a couple of boyfriends in college and the sex was fine, but she was hoping that I was interested in her because she wanted to try it with a woman, an experienced woman, to see if that didn’t suit her better.

“We came right back to this place and made love,” Samantha said. “She seemed to like what we did, and me, and we carried on for the rest of the session. We were careful when we were in public. I took her to Vegas over Easter break and bought her a few things. We were happy, I thought. Then, the last day, at lunch, she thanked me and told me that it was over.”

“Just like that?” Kane asked.

“Just like that,” Samantha said. “I thought it was odd, but I didn’t mind so much. With the life I lead, I’ve more or less given up the idea of a permanent relationship.”

“Why did you think it was odd?” Kane asked.

“Well, I’d gotten to kind of like Melinda, as a person I mean,” Samantha said. “She seemed sweet and full of ideals, but the way she broke it off was so…bloodless and clinical that I began to wonder if it was all just an act.”

“Was it?” Kane asked.

Samantha looked out the window for a minute or so.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know. If it was, she was a first-class schemer. Anyway, I didn’t see her again all during the interim, but a couple of weeks after the legislature reconvened I ran into her and we had coffee. She acted like I was an old friend, and she seemed nervous and happy at the same time. I asked her about her love life, and she gave me this smile and said, ‘I’ve decided there’s no such thing as love. Only sex and politics.’

“So I asked about her sex life, and she laughed and said I was the only one she knew who would ask such a question. I kept after it, and finally she said, ‘Active.’ So you’re seeing more than one person? I asked her. Men or women? And she just laughed and didn’t answer. And then, without saying this was related to the rest of the conversation, she asked me what I thought of Letitia Potter. Gorgeous and bloodless, I said, and she said, ‘You’d be surprised’ and wouldn’t say any more. That was the last real conversation I had with her.”

“So that’s what you were talking about when you told Dylan that Melinda had a new friend?” Kane asked.

“It is,” Samantha said. “She didn’t come right out and say it, but I got the strong impression she and Letitia Potter were lovers.”

Kane thought for a moment and said, “So, when Melinda Foxx turned up dead in that…that obviously sexual way, why didn’t you tell the authorities about this?”

Samantha looked at him like he’d grown a second head.

“You mean, why didn’t I suggest that the Senate Finance chairman’s daughter was gay and right in the middle of a spectacular murder?” she said. “I make my living as a lobbyist, Mr. Kane. How long do you think my clients would have stuck with me if I’d done that? Besides, I didn’t really know anything, did I? And her father said they were together at home at the time of the murder. And the police arrested Senator Hope so quickly. I thought the whole thing had been solved.”

Kane got to his feet. He thought about saying something about how weak her rationalizations were but realized it would be a waste of time. It seemed that if you couldn’t rationalize iffy things, you didn’t belong in politics.

“Well, thank you for your time,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” Samantha said as she followed him out through the kitchen to the door. “Perhaps you could answer a question for me.”

“What’s that?” Kane asked, turning on the landing to face her.

“Why didn’t you just ask Dylan about all this?” she said. “I told him the same story.”

“You did?” Kane said. “When?”

“Last night,” she said. “At the bar. He came in all pumped up about how you and he were getting along better, and how he wanted to help you. So I decided I should tell him, probably because I’d been drinking shots with some people before he got there. Then he left, saying he was going to crack the case, and Meg sat down at the table and one thing led to another and I forgot all about it until you showed up.”

“You know where the Potters live?” Kane asked Cocoa.

The cabbie nodded.

“Then let’s get there,” Kane said. “Fast.”

He ignored the pain and took the stairs three at a time going down. When he got to the bottom, he limped quickly to the cab, pulling his cell phone from his pocket as he did so. He slid into the cab and punched in Tom Jeffords’s private number.

“It’s Sunday morning,” Jeffords barked. “This had better be important.”

“And a good morning to you, Chief,” Kane said cheerfully. “Have you seen the paper this morning?”

“Oh, it’s you, Nik,” Jeffords said. “I did see the newspaper. It looks like bad news for Hiram Putnam.”

Jeffords didn’t sound at all sorry that his political ally was in the soup.

“Well, between that and two murders in O. B. Potter’s office—not to mention the other scandals around these guys—you should be a happy man,” Kane said.

“Why would you think that, Nik?” Jeffords said. “The governor, the senator, and I are political allies.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen how that works,” Kane said. “I figure the reason you wanted me to come down here was because you wanted Putnam and Potter to be in as much trouble as possible so your mayor had a clear shot at the nomination for governor.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Nik,” Jeffords said. “If Governor Putnam and Senator Potter are in trouble, I don’t see how that affects me. I’m just a local police chief.”

Kane laughed.

“It would be fun to fence with you for a while, Tom”, he said, “but I need something fast. I’m doing your dirty work now, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t help. I need you to talk to whoever you need to and have a Juneau Police detective named Crawford meet me in thirty minutes at the Silver Bow coffee shop.”

“Can’t you just ask him yourself?” Jeffords said. “You know my reluctance to become involved in this affair.”

“I could,” Kane conceded, “but I’m not sure he would come. He’s been warned off the White Rose Murder by his boss, at the behest of your political pals. The only way his boss would let him get involved is if some other political heavyweight asks. And that’s you.”

“Look, Nik,” Jeffords began, “I’m afraid you have an inflated—”

“It’s Dylan, Tom,” Kane interrupted. “I’m afraid he’s in trouble and that I’ll need official help. So just do it, please. Thirty minutes. Crawford. Silver Bow.”

“I—” Jeffords began, but Kane overrode him.

“If you need any more incentive,” he said, “I think this will take Potter off the board completely. Your guy will have a clear run.”

There was a brief silence.

“I was going to say that of course I will help,” Jeffords said, his voice thick with frost. “Not everything is politics.”

Maybe not, Kane thought as he put his cell phone away, but I never thought I’d hear Tom Jeffords say so.