“Turn that off,” he says, nodding toward a wooden stereo cabinet and record player, on which a lick of blues guitar is playing. When no one heeds his instruction, he crosses to the stereo and lifts the needle off the record himself. “Axel called the family,” he says, taking a hearty swallow of his whiskey. “This morning, Axel spoke with the girl’s mother and stepfather.”
The handful of neighborhood folks who’ve gathered, Jay’s clients each of them, have congregated in the sitting area of the living room. But around a long, elegant dining room table are faces from the campaign Jay doesn’t recognize: a heavyset white woman with stick-straight gray hair running down the back of her blue Hathorne T-shirt; a white man in his late forties, in brown slacks the exact color of his neat, close-trimmed hair; and a young black guy in shirtsleeves and slacks, who’d been on the phone when Jay walked in. He flips his cell phone closed, pushing down the antennae with his teeth. He’s the youngest in the room by a decade.
“This is my grandson, Mr. Porter,” Sam says. “Neal Hathorne.” Neal shakes Jay’s hand.
“Heard a lot about you, sir,” he says.
Up close, Jay can see the family resemblance. He’s on the short side, like his grandfather, but he has the same caramel-colored skin as every Hathorne Jay has ever laid eyes on, the same diamond-sharp features that tell the legend of distant Cherokee blood running through the entire brood. Their bright, honey-colored eyes stare out at him from portraits and photographs across the plush living room. Axel in his dress greens from the army; Ola, Camille, Delia, and Gwen, the four beauties, in graduation uniforms, cotillion whites, and wedding gowns. There are two doctors among them, a banker, and a professor of engineering, the Hathornes having produced a line of incredibly accomplished children. Grandchildren too, if Neal is any indication. This one graduated law school at the University of Texas, Sam says, smiling, full of elder pride.
“He’s running his uncle’s campaign.”
“And we’re on top of this, trust me.”
He can’t be more than thirty, slim as a department-store model, and handsome too. “You Ola’s son?” Jay asks, thinking he sees a resemblance there.
At the question of his lineage, Neal turns, caught off guard.
“No.”
He offers nothing further, neither as a courtesy nor as a clarification.
Jay glances again at the family portraits on the walls, trying to place the young man, to divine from which Hathorne he sprang.
“We’re in touch with the police department,” Neal tells the others.
Behind him, the front door opens and in walks Johnetta Paul. “What the hell, Sam?” she says, trailing a smoky scent of Shalimar. She’s wearing a custom pantsuit in fuchsia, her signature color, her braids woven into a rather large, boxlike structure on her head. She is the incumbent councilwoman for District B, which includes parts of Fifth Ward and all of Pleasantville. Like Axel Hathorne, she is heading into a runoff on December tenth, having been ill-prepared for a challenge from a political upstart out of Clinton Park. “I’m getting calls, Sam, one month before the goddamned runoff I’m getting calls from people wanting to know how scared they should be,” she says. She’s a woman in her fifties, but carries herself like an impatient, overly made-up teenager, flitting restlessly.
“Where is Axel?” she demands.
“At the Chronicle’s offices downtown.”
“Well, tell him to get his bony ass down here.”
“He’s meeting with the editorial board at the paper, making another pitch,” Neal says. “We barely secured their endorsement in the general.”
“And that’s only because the Chronicle couldn’t figure out a way to sell papers in this city if the editors didn’t endorse the first viable black mayoral candidate in memory, especially against a Pop-Tart like Wolcott,” the white woman says. “But we can’t necessarily count on their support again. Behind the scenes, everything I’m hearing on the ground is that the paper is pushing for Wolcott.” Then, remembering herself, she turns to the room, as if meeting new members of the campaign’s team. “Marcie Hall, communications director.”
Arlee and Ruby Wainwright exchange a glance, but say nothing. Jim, Ruby’s husband, frowns.
“We did well on Tuesday,” Sam says. “But some of the numbers were troubling. Bob Stein at Rice is polling the new landscape, tracking where Acton’s votes are going. We’ve got twenty-nine days to push this thing our way.”
“Our way, exactly,” Johnetta says. “I was the first one on the council to come out for Axel, the ‘Pleasantville ticket,’ you called it, and I don’t intend to be dragged down ’cause Axe is too slow to get on top of this thing.”
“Sit down, ’Netta,” Sam says, the pet name only fueling the long-standing rumor about the real nature of their relationship. “Unless you’ve already forgotten who put you in that council seat in the first place,” he says, not bothering to look her in the eye, not needing so much as a glance to shut her up.
“What are the police saying?” Jay asks, getting back to the girl.
“They’ve opened a case,” Neal says.
“That’s it?” Johnetta says.
“That’s a start,” Neal says. “And not as easy as you might imagine. The girl was eighteen. She was living at home, but as far as HPD is concerned, Alicia Nowell is an adult female. For all they know, she doesn’t want to be found.”
“What about the others, Sam?” Arlee says.
Mr. Wainwright clears his throat. He’s a retired engineer, and he speaks in a deep baritone, hands clasped behind his back. “Did the police detectives indicate a belief that the cases are connected? This girl and the others?”
“We didn’t really get that far.”
“Well, what did they say?” Johnetta says.
Neal sighs. “We’ve left several messages at the precinct. Axel left word with the chief downtown. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear back.”
Arlee is stunned. “You haven’t even talked to them?”
“Good lord,” Johnetta says.