Mysterywriter's Final Spring

I gave it a lot of thought then decided to just wait for the Governor's wife. I slipped into the tent to take a nap. It is the one thing I had learned from writing. If you cant work it out, sleep on it. I awoke to the sound of crunching gravel on the steep driveway leading to my campsite. It could have been anyone of the women who weren't sleeping with me. I had to smile at that thought. If I had expected the final spring to be filled with sex, I had really been foolish. I could see as I lay on the bedroll drifting in and out of sleep, that I had been kidding myself all along. Nothing a single person did in life made a hell of a lot of difference. One in a billion might have made a lasting impression on mankind, but certainly no more than that. I thought all that before I even looked out of the tent.

The car behind my worthless van wasn't the yellow sports car or even the black limo. It was instead a very plain Ford.not plain in the police unmarked car kind of thing but plain in the family car kind of way. I guessed right when Mrs Thomas emerged. I took a quick look at my watch and found it to be almost eight P.M.

"Well you made it?" I smiled at her even thought I didn't have anything to smile about.

"Of course I made it. I want to know what is going on every bit as much as you." She wasn't smiling at all.

"I don't know if you really do or not." I dropped my smile at that moment.

"Looks like you pissed somebody else off besides me." She did smile at that point.

I removed my cell phone from my shirt pocket then the card from my wallet. She stood quietly while I dialed the number on the card. The phone rang in my ear but not in her purse or on her body. The phone even got answered by someone. The someone told me that I had the wrong number since there was no one named Martha Stewart at the number."

"What was that for?" she asked curiously.

"Just wanted to make sure that it wasn't your cell phone."

"Checking out my alibi. Don't worry," She was smiling again. "I wouldn't have had it any other way. So now Burke, what is going on?"

"Actually I am trying to sort through all this now. Truth is I expect you already know." The look she gave me was either academy award material or she didn't have a clue. "You know a black guy named Gerald Evans?"

"I don't know him but I have seen him around now and then. Why do you ask?"

"Is he an employee of your husband's"

"I have no idea who he is frankly. I have just seen him around."

I debated it a few minutes then gave in to my baser nature. "He is the man who runs Nightlite, the escort service your daughter works for."

"You must be mistaken, he cant be running an escort service. He works in Raleigh not Charlotte. And I am pretty sure he is connected with the party somehow."

"Yeah well, he is the one from Nightlite who came to see me. He had a bs story for me but it was believable. So now if that is not the truth what is?" I asked it of her but hoped she didn't have the answer.

"I have no idea. It makes absolutely no sense at all."

"Sure it does, it is just twisted."

"I don't understand." she declared.

"You have a choice right here. You can leave me here and get a head start, or you can drive me to your daughter's and find out what the hell is going on."

She turned her back on me, then walked to the picnic table. She sat looking at the lake. Since nothing was changing while she thought it over, I left her alone to work it out in her head. It was my guess that we both had the broad strokes, she had to know that I was going to figure it out and hand it to Dee on a platter.

"Can you keep this quiet?" she asked.

"That is your job. I am going to keep my word to everybody."

"Who is everybody?"

"I owe Mike. If I find out who did him, then I am going to roll over. Dee gets the story what she does with it is up to her and I guess you too. I am going to write the book, if I live long enough. You do have to remember that nothing I write gets published anywhere so likely ten or twelve people will know the story. Also I write fiction so they probably wont know who is who. I expect they will be thinking the guy who made it to the white house before you guys."

"So, if we are not involved in the murder and I can control Dee, then it pretty much goes away?"

"I would expect that to be the case."

"Okay, let's go find out who is doing what with who."

"Sounds like a good idea Mrs. Thomas."

"You might as well call me Jessy. We are not friends but we are in this together sort of."

She drove me to her daughters house. It was late enough that her son was asleep when we arrived. June was in a night gown and ready for bed it appeared. June was an attractive lady. Then again few wouldn't be with their nipples pointing out of a see through gown.

"What do you want?" Her tone was vicious. I would have expected it to be with me, but to use it with her mother surprised me.

"Hold on kid. I think I am going to ask the questions."

"Oh are you really?" she asked. She didn't seem quite ready to toss me out. Probably because her mother was in the room.

"Sure I am. You are going to answer or go down for god alone knows what crimes."

"You gonna get me busted for prostitution. The Mr. Writer is a misdemeanor. A hundred dollar fine."

"Okay, how do you feel about accessory to murder. The is twenty big ones in dykeville."

"What the hell are you talking about. I didn't have any thing to do with that reporter's death."

"You made at least two calls. One of those calls probably got Mike killed. That sweetie puts you in a cell."

"I called no one."

"Want me to get the cops to secure a court order to look at your phone records. I expect to see a call to Nightlite at least. Possibly one to your mother here at the statehouse."

"Mamma what are you doing with this nut?"

"I came to find out the truth."

"You have known the truth for years. You just wanted to be the Governor's wife so badly that you let it happen."

I let them fight it out but I listened closely.

"You know your loving husband was coming to my room. Some of the times writer her smelled of her perfume. He was having us both on the same night."

Jessie burst into tears, but she didn't deny it. Right at that point I got worried. If she knew that June was going to be telling that story, why in hell would she allow me to come along.

"So you are going to meet the governor on the weekends?" I hoped she would say yes and end it but I feared that there was more.

"Are you kidding writer, I am too old for him now. Now I am whoring for him. Of course he does it through somebody else with a fake cover story."

"Evans and Nightlite," I said to let her know that I knew already. That kind of thing keeps them talking.

"Exactly, when they approached me, I honestly didn't know. It all sounded so reasonable and I needed the money."

"So when did you figure it out?"

"I recognized a couple of the clients and they of course recognized me. When I confronted Gerald he explained it. I had become a political operative whore. The guys lined up to screw the governor's step daughter and it was recorded and photographed. I am told a lot of votes went daddy's way because of it."

"Jesus Christ," I said.

"Nice family huh writer?"

"And the rape?"

"I'm so screwed up that I agreed to it. I didn't know when or that my son would see it. I don't know that it would have made any difference. I am way past caring what they do to me."

"And Mike?"

"I have no idea writer. I called the Charlotte number, then I called mom here. See writer she is the one who set this project up."

"I did not dream it up, I am just running it. Gerald suggested something like it, but we needed someone we could trust. June was giving it away anyhow might as well get paid for it and do us some good along the way."

"To get back to the subject at hand, how about the rape and Mike."

"June reported the Rape because her son saw it. She had to tell him something and she panicked."

"Panicked my ass, mom he shouldn't have to grow up with my shit hanging in his head."

"You could have said no," Jessy replied.

"So who killed Mike?"

"None of us, hell we might have but nobody could have made such a decision for days not minutes."

I was inclined to buy that since it was my thinking too. "I guess that pretty much does it then."

"Now writer what are you going to do with all this information."

"Let me tell you what I am not going to do. I am not going to the police. You blackmailed a bunch of crooks, so what..... You sold out your own daughter, that's between you and god...June here filed a false police report a misdemeanor with a fine, so why bother... As for Mike, I have no idea what happened on that road. If the cops ever point a finger at you, I will come forward."

"And Dee?"

"Like I said before, she gets the information. What she does with it is up to her. I will write the book just like I planned, but like I said maybe ten people will read it."

Mom had the small automatic out of the bag before I could react, I had nothing to react with anyway.

"I can't let you do that."

I'm afraid I laughed when I should have been serious. "Jessie, you know I am dying anyway. The bullet sounds like a good idea to me at the moment. If I were you and June here, I would think that over. The cops are going to frown on murder, Dee knows where I am by the way. You cant clean all the blood up and June is gonna take the fall for it. Then what do you care, she has been taking the fall for you all along."

"Mamma put down that pistol or I will kill you. I am not going to prison for murder. I have done enough for you." The double barreled derringer looked like a cannon at that moment.

"Put down that thing June, you know you are not going to shoot me." The noise filled the room.

I found out later, after I woke in the hospital, what had happened. Jessie shot me, then June shot her. I was a little disappointed to wake up at all. When I checked out of the hospital, I put the first mandatory payment of my hospital bill on the visa card.

I went back to testify at the inquest that cleared June. It all came out. The smoking gun could never be found, so the Governor finished his term. The white house dream turned into a nightmare when CNN picked up Dee's story.

As for Mike's death, an eighty year old woman took her car in to have the bumper replaced. When asked about the bumper, she told the repairman that she hit a deer on highway seventy. And the sugar in my gas tank wasn't tied to any of it. It was Zandy, Dee's little friend. I guess she wanted to make sure the summer tour had ended. She let something slip to Dee, so Dee told me about it. It was supposed to head off an investigation or something. Then again, she might have wanted me to kick Zandy's butt for her. Either way I didn't, I just took the check Dee offered as hush money. After all it wasn't the principle it was the money.

The end