Cold Page 19

  “What kind of work do you do here, Mr. Werner?” Burkitt asked, almost certainly aware of the game Holloway and I were playing. They taught it at Quantico, after all. You don’t need a warrant if you’re invited in.

  “I do a few different things,” Werner said, sinking into his chair and planting his mug on his desk like some sort of flag. I looked into his office, giving it a quick once-over. It was decorated in a similar style to the waiting room, with photos of him with powerful people, presumably mostly state and local and less national, since I recognized few of them. There were two I did recognize, though; one of him shaking hands with the late President Gerry Harmon and the other with him clasping the hand of then-VP, now-President Richard Gondry. I could tell by Gondry’s hairstyle that it was before his accession to the throne.

  “You know who I work for, right?” I tossed that into the room like a grenade, trying to get Werner to be forthcoming in a way I suspected was not natural for him.

  “Sure,” he said, coolly, from behind that same shit-eating smile. “And I’m happy to help the FBI any way I can. You wanted to know about the funeral we paid for? We did it as a public service thing. The Jane Doe in question? Got a lot of local media attention because they thought she might have washed down the spillway from near here.” He tried to look me in the eye but was thwarted by my sunglasses. I got the feeling he was very practiced at looking people in the eyes and lying to them. “We figured…it would be a decent thing to do, picking up the tab so she didn’t get thrown into some potter’s field.”

  “That was, indeed, damned decent of you,” I said, attributing no decency to him at all. “Did it get you any good press?”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t for press. Like I said, public service.”

  “You have a few companies in this office,” I said. “How many employees do you have?”

  “Full-time?” Werner grinned. “Just me and my secretary. We employ quite a few consultants and some part-time—”

  “What does Rouge Future do?” I asked, cutting him off because I didn’t need to hear that particular line of bullshit to its conclusion.

  “We’re an LLC,” Werner said, emphasizing that up front for some reason, “oriented toward trying to organize the Baton Rouge area for the bright future that it could be the recipient of, provided the right leadership initiatives.”

  “Wow, there sure were a lot of buzzwords and qualifiers in that word soup,” I said, blowing air between my lips. “What about these other groups? 21st Century Louisiana Circle Jerk and Werner Consulting?”

  His grin never wavered. “Well, 21st Century Bayou is a PAC—political action committee—designed around environmental issues that affect the bayous of Louisiana, and Werner Consulting is a strategic messaging firm oriented toward assisting candidates in crafting and honing their campaign communications and tactics.”

  “Politics,” I said, not bothering to hide my sneer of disgust. “You’re a political operative.”

  “Guilty as charged,” he said, eyes flashing above that grin, probably not realizing just how poor his choice of words was. “Can I ask what this funeral we paid for has to do with—well, whatever you’re here for? The attempt on Governor Warrington’s life, I assume?”

  “How did you know that was what I was here for?” I asked. It was hardly a stretch for him to have heard about my arrival and the purpose of my trip on the local news, but I wanted to see if he tried lying.

  “That news spread in political circles like a good, dirty rumor,” Werner said, eyes still sparkling. “Everyone knows why you’re here, even people unconnected to local politics.” Somehow, he simultaneously made the phrase “local politics” sound like it was the name of his god and made people unconnected to that sound like the lowest form of life, and without a lot of variance in tone. His facial expression moved quite a bit, though, ending in a sneer for a moment. “Interesting, interesting.”

  “What’s interesting about an assassination attempt?” I asked. He didn’t bother to answer, shrugging instead. I cocked my head at him. “If you had to speculate on a motive for killing Governor Warrington, what would you say it is?”

  That sent one of Werner’s eyebrow skyward in concentration. “It’s politics. And assassination is hardly a new concept in Louisiana politics, though you probably don’t know anything about that.” And he was back to smirking.

  “Boys,” I said, staring at him evenly, “I believe he’s calling me dumb.”

  “Not dumb.” His teeth were even, and still on full display. “Just ignorant. And maybe uneducated, at least with regard to local history.”

  “Yes, my education is hardly the stuff of legends,” I said, “but I am familiar with Huey Long.” I met the slight flicker of surprise in his eyes with a grin of my own. “Even an uneducated idiot like me can learn a lot on Wikipedia. And I’m sure all of it’s true, too.”

  Werner let out a pained chuckle, trying to keep his smile in place. “Be that as it may, I wouldn’t care to speculate on reasons why some lunatic might want to kill Governor Warrington.”

  “What about his school bill?” I asked, and at this point I was just plunging him like a toilet to see what would come up. Or to irritate him, since he seemed to be getting thin on patience. It wasn’t like I had anything else to be doing. “That seems to have ginned up some opposition.”

  “It’s a financial life preserver for the underprivileged,” Werner said, and I caught the first hint of exasperation from him. “That’s a hardly a reason for killing a man.”

  I let my eyes play over the wall behind him, looking at the framed pictures. There seemed to be one missing, I realized, sandwiched between a couple of others that seemed to lean just slightly, as though they’d been pushed closer together to hide the fact that one had been removed. “Say.” I pointed at the gap between the angled photos. “Who was in the picture that used to hang there?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Werner said, tightening up immediately a few notches. Now the smile was gone. I sure did seem to have that effect on people a lot. And he’d been trying so very hard to keep smiling, too.

  “Pretty sure you do,” I said without missing a beat.

  Werner blinked a couple times, showing hints of ire at my calling out his bullshit. “Hey—where’s the other guy that was with you?”

  “Right here,” Holloway said, and he stepped up to the door frame next to me. I’d heard him coming back this way, but quietly. Apparently, his search was complete.

  Werner didn’t seem to find his sudden appearance satisfying. “Look, I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’ve tried to be helpful—is there anything else I can answer for you?”

  “Besides the picture question?” I pointed behind his head again. “And the motive question?”

  “Yes,” he said, “besides those, which I have already answered with ‘There is no missing picture’ and ‘I have no idea,’ respectively.”

  “I have one,” Holloway said, and I made way for him to stand in the doorway so he could face Werner down as he asked. “Who pays you?”

  “This is a business,” Werner said, and boy, did he stiffen up at that one.

  “I thought it was a PAC,” I said.

  “Two of them, actually,” Werner said. “But I also have my companies here—”

  “That’s a lot of different operations in one office,” I said. “Do they all pay you?”

  Now he seemed to be locked into an uncomfortable position, shoulders stiff and tight. “Yes, of course.”

  “What kind of work do you do for them?” I asked.

  “Management, messaging, janitorial.” Werner shrugged, all traces of the smile long gone. “Whatever needs to be done.”

  “Who are your clients?” I asked. “Your donors?” I was asking Holloway’s question again, but a little more directly.

  “That’s privileged,” he said, and rose, signaling our interview was at an end. “Now if you don’t mind—”

  “I mind,�
� I said. “I’m not done yet.”

  “Well, I am,” Werner said, “and I’m going to have to ask you to leave. If you want to continue this conversation beyond this point, I’m afraid I’m going to have to refer you to my lawyer to set an appointment.”

  Burkitt, Holloway and I traded a look with each other, a very similar one that was also practically taught at Quantico. “Why do you want us to talk to your lawyer?” I asked, taking the lead again. “Are you guilty of something?”

  Now he smiled again. “No. But I’m an expert on messaging, and I’m well aware of what happens when an unpleasant narrative takes hold. I know my rights, and I’m not talking to you again without my lawyer.”

  “I don’t think you know as much about your rights as you think you do,” I said, pushing off the door frame, “but we’ll just leave it here for now. I’m sure we’ll see you again, Mitchell Werner. Can I call you Mitch?”

  “Please don’t,” he said, jaw tight.

  “How about ‘Mitch the Bitch’?” I asked. “Is that right out?”

  “Yes, it’s right out,” Mitchell said, pointing at the door. “Where you should be. Thank you. Good day.”

  “What do you think he’s thanking us for?” I asked as I headed out the door. “Not putting him in jail?”

  “You’re hilarious, Ms. Nealon,” Werner said.

  “’Tis often said.” I nodded sagely as we made our way out the front door. “Usually by people who aren’t all that funny themselves, like you. I can only assume they recognize talent when they see it.”

  He didn’t bother replying, instead just locking the door once we were all out with a heavy click that echoed down the shoddy hallway of the office building.

  “Well, that went fantastically,” Holloway said with all due sarcasm.

  “Yeah, it did,” I said. “Did you notice how touchy he got about that missing picture?”

  “I’m not so sure there was a picture missing there,” Holloway said. “I didn’t notice much of a gap.”

  “Color me shocked that you didn’t notice a decorating faux pas, Mr. Straight Eye for the Scotch Guy,” I said. “Did you see it, Burkitt?”

  Burkitt shook his head. “Ah, no.”

  “Men,” I said, as a kind of muttered curse. “Trust me, it was there. The two pictures on either side had been pushed in and were crooked from being off balance on their hangers.”

  “Okay, so there’s a picture missing,” Holloway said as we made our way back into the building lobby. “So what?”

  “Was there any major Louisiana politician you didn’t see in a picture in that office, Burkitt?” I asked.

  Burkitt thought about it a second. “I don’t know them all, but…no. It was pretty well covered, I’d say. Two senators, several US house members, a lot of Louisiana legislators.”

  “So he’s got a veritable who’s who of Louisiana politicians on his wall,” I said, a little gleam of triumph in my eye as I hit the exit door back into the sweaty, steamy outside air, “with one very noticeable exception, and he just so happens to have a curious gap right in the middle of his wall just behind his head—the place of honor, you could call it, even.” I looked right at Burkitt and he nodded, getting it, then to Holloway, whose face was curiously neutral. “Anyone care to take a guess at which slimy politician of our mutual acquaintance—the one politician that any loser slug who prides themselves on their local political connections would definitely want everyone to know, without doubt, that they were connected to?”

  The answer, of course, was so obvious that even Holloway got it, hungover as he was.

  Warrington.

  35.

  My phone rang as I was about to get into the SUV just outside Mitchell Werner’s office. It was a Louisiana number, so I answered without thinking too much about it. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Ms. Sienna,” a peppy, female voice that sounded oh-so-familiar greeted me. “It’s Michelle Cheong. How are you?”

  “I woke up this morning and my feet still hurt,” I said, waving Holloway and Burkitt back toward the SUV so I could talk. “How’s my least favorite yoga pants mom/Triad boss?”

  “I’m doing just fine, thanks for asking,” she said, way too brightly. “Got a busy schedule ahead of me today. Yoga classes, you know. Maybe bump some guy off later.”

  “I can’t tell whether you’re joking or not,” I said.

  “I’m totally joking. Probably. Listen,” she said, “I was wondering—am I going to see you at the library dedication later?”

  That one caused me to tweak an eye muscle, I raised the People’s eyebrow so fast. “Uh, wasn’t planning on it. Civic engagement is all well and good, but I’m not really from here, so a library dedication isn’t really something that’s a great use of my time. Kind of like running barefoot along Bourbon Street after someone whose cell phone number you had.”

  “Totally slipped my mind,” Michelle said, completely chipper. “I just figured you’d be at the library dedication since, y’know, the governor’s going to be there. But if you’re too busy—”

  “Sonofa,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Sorry, didn’t quite get that,” Michelle said, and by her glee, I could tell she’d damned well heard me. “Anyway, gotta go. Yoga class starts in fifteen. Laters, as the kids say!” And she hung up.

  “What was the local Triad boss calling you about?” Holloway asked, hanging out at the passenger door as I wandered back toward the SUV, lost in thought. “Trying to get you to participate in a barefoot 10k?”

  “Hah, no,” I said. “Tipping me off that Governor Warrington is doing a library dedication later today.” I shook my head as Holloway opened the door and I climbed up into the back of the SUV. “Sounds like another opportunity for our assassin to do her work.”

  36.

  Olivia

  I woke to the dual sounds of a lovely buzzing of my phone and a thumping on my door. The second stimulus solved the first because my phone shot out of my hand like it had been launched when the first thump landed.

  “Who is it?” I asked, scrambling out of bed. I was still fully dressed, because I hadn’t quite trusted the housekeeping in this motel. The air conditioner was humming like it was on its last legs, a repetitive thunk! noise coming between steady rattles out of the window unit. I positioned myself next to the door, back against the wall, realizing that if they answered in a hostile manner, I had no solution or action to take.

  “It’s your mother,” came Veronika’s heavy voice from the other side. “Seriously, Brackett. This is a new town and you’re such a shut-in as to make Howard Hughes look like a social butterfly by comparison. Who do you think it is?”

  I opened the door and found Veronika staring at me dourly, the usual sparkle of mischief gone from her eyes. A white bandage was taped on her forehead. She looked past me at the room before letting loose a little shudder. “It’s everything I feared it would be, and you actually stayed here.”

  “It’s what Reed paid for,” I said, looking at the room as though I’d expected it to change into something out of the Taj Mahal during the space of our conversation. “You want to come in?”

  “Hell no,” she said, shaking her head for extra emphasis, the dry, hot air flowing in around her. It was already bright out there. “What happened after I passed out? Did you get the hostile?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “I, uhm, launched them into the desert, but when we went to the scene, they were already gone.”

  “Wow. I don’t remember that.” Her dark eyebrows knitted together in concentration. “How far did you launch them?”

  “A few miles,” I said. “They landed in the desert outside Summerlin South.”

  Veronika nodded in grudging respect. “Not bad. Did they leave anything behind?”

  “A mangled ID,” I said. “I gave it over to the Vegas PD. They’re running it for a match.”

  She was quiet for a minute, lost in thought. “You launched this speedster for miles, and they walked away from it?” S
he eyed my room again. “I’d ask to sit down, but there’s no way in hell I’m sitting in there. Consider me floored enough to require seating, but not desperate enough to take it from this place.”

  I looked over the motel room again. “It’s not that bad, I don’t think.”

  “Sweetie,” Veronika said, oh-so-patronizingly, “you should be on birth control before sitting anywhere in that place. Men seeking a ten-minute rental for a quickie with the corner hooker would take a pass at this motel.”

  My eyes got wide. “Wait—you think there are hookers working here?” That would explain the noises I’d heard from a few doors down during the night.

  She shook her head. “Even meth heads would take one look at this place and be like, ‘Naw, dawg, we’re better than this.’” She started to put her hands on my shoulders, but apparently thought the better of it, stopping them about ten inches away. “Olivia. Get the hell out of here before it’s too late.”

  “It’s really not that bad,” I said, and the sunlight glinted against something about three feet from the open door. I reached down and picked it up; it was my phone’s heavy Otterbox case. The screen had a small crack in it from its most recent launch. “Oh, darn.”

  Veronika stared at the phone in my hand. “Is that what I heard hit the wall after I knocked…?” She shook her head. “Never mind the trivialities. Okay, fine. You won’t move? Let’s track down this speedster son of a bitch and deal with him so we can get you out of this place and into somewhere that won’t result in you becoming a mother just because you accidentally cuddled with the blanket during the night.”

  I ignored that comment, instead focusing on something more important to me. “Uhm, when we find them, how do you want to…deal with them?”