“Congressman Walker, there’s still a missing woman out there. And she disappeared after being in your office. What happened that night? Why did Lara Mayhew leave? Why did she quit?”
Walker looked like a beaten man. He shook his head. “I loved Garth Hubbard,” he said quietly. “But we disagreed on a few fundamental issues. He was the one with the power—the chance. So I went along with him. It was that simple. When he died, I changed the platform. Lara Mayhew couldn’t accept the changes I wanted to make. She said I’d made certain bills so convoluted that no one knew what they were anymore and wouldn’t vote for them. She begged me to keep my promise. I told her I was keeping my promise—to myself. That was it.”
“Then where’s Lara? Why would she be in hiding?” Meg demanded.
“I don’t know,” Walker said. “I just don’t...”
“You should speak with Manheim, that monster!” Kendra broke in. “Oh, Lord, and to think I turned to him when I found the...the tongue on our doorstep!”
One of Walker’s office staff walked in to say that the press had assembled for his conference.
Walker stood and took a deep breath. Kendra straightened his jacket.
When he was gone, she turned to Matt and Meg, tears in her eyes. “You’ll stay with us? I need him to get through that speech in Gettysburg. We have to rally around him. He’s a good man. Maybe even a great one. Please, help me. Help him. He’s devastated by all this, devastated for the poor women who’ve been killed. He has to make that speech in Gettysburg and I’m afraid of his enemies, afraid of what they might do. They hope he’ll resign. As I said to my husband, don’t let them win.”
“We’re public servants, Mrs. Walker,” Matt said. “We go where our special agent in charge tells us to go.”
She seemed to accept that. She smiled. “Thank you. My husband believes in you both. And so do I.”
Meg didn’t waste any time. As soon as they were out of the office, she said to Matt, “We have to talk to Ellery Manheim again. Everyone seems to think this is over—that Manheim is like a Ted Bundy, the charming fellow next door, political campaigner by day, mad monster by night. They think the killing’s stopped. But you’re the one who convinced me Lara could be alive. I’m new to all this. Do what you need to so I can get in to see Manheim.”
He didn’t care that it was daylight. He placed his arm around her shoulders and met her eyes. “The Krewe is a team, Meg. You know the magic we have. Yours is the same as mine.”
“And what’s the magic?”
“We speak with Adam Harrison.”
*
It was Meg’s turn to sit across the table from Ellery Manheim. They were alone; he was waiting on the attorney he’d hired but had agreed to speak with her as long as anything he said was off the record. She was grateful that he was willing to see her at all. She had, after all, been the first to see the tongue in his desk.
Of course, he started the interview with “I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill any women!”
“Mr. Manheim, what I’m hoping you’ll help me with is a living woman—or, at least, one I pray is still alive. I’ve spoken with Congressman Walker. He says Lara Mayhew left because he wasn’t going to adhere to amendments to a bill he was working on with Congressman Hubbard. Is that true?”
“Yes, it’s true. Lara thought he was changing course and compromising in totally the wrong direction. That he wasn’t willing to stand up for his principles. She was upset and angry. She said he’d do anything to have his way.” Manheim hesitated. “I have a feeling that she suspected he was glad Congressman Hubbard was dead—and that Ian might even have argued with him or something, tried to provoke him to instigate the heart attack.”
“Did he?”
He shrugged, a rueful smile lifting his weary features. “You should know. You dug him up.”
“I didn’t personally dig him up, Mr. Manheim. And I’m asking you, what do you think?”
“I wish I could say I thought Walker did do something. I wish I could say he’s a murderer. But to the best of my knowledge, Walker argued with Hubbard but in the mildest, most civil terms. And to the best of my knowledge, he’s done nothing evil in his life.”
“What about your closest associates? Joe Brighton and Nathan Oliver?”
“You think a man as big as Oliver could’ve snuck into Congressman Walker’s house without being seen? I doubt it.”
“Do you suppose he could have hurt someone? Could Oliver have done something to Lara Mayhew or to these other women?”
“No, he’s a gentle giant,” Manheim said. “He really is.”
“What about Joe Brighton?”
“Joe’s a good guy, too.”
“So, on the night Lara disappeared, did you all split up when she left?”
“I think we talked for another little while. Joe was afraid she’d start bad publicity, a campaign to say that Walker was a liar and a traitor to his ideals.” He brightened suddenly. “I had nothing to do with your friend’s disappearance and I can prove it! I’m the one who drove Walker home that night.”