07 Uncorked - Chrissy McMullen Mystery by Lois Greiman Page A

around his throat. “Wouldn't that same passion guarantee that you would try to exonerate your only son?” His sigh was heavy and long suffering. “I would so love to, Christina. Truly I would, but as I’ve said, I feel it is time for Gerald to fight his own battles, to—”
    “Senator?”
    I turned my head at the sound of a female voice. The woman standing beside our table was in her late thirties. She was round on top, small on the bottom, and disappeared to practically nothing in between.
    “I’m so sorry to interrupt.” She sounded a little breathless. Maybe I would too if I had no in-between. “But could I bother you for a photograph?” The senator delayed just a moment, as if debating whether it would be better to insult a potential constituent or to interrupt a conversation concerning the continued well-being of his only son. In a fraction of a second, he graced her with his million-watt smile.
    “Certainly,” he said.
    She gushed. They stood. Someone took about forty-seven pictures.
    “Thank you so much,” she crooned.
    “My pleasure.”
    “And I hope the rumors are true.”
    “Rumors?” he asked.
    She leaned in close. “A little birdie told me you might yet run for president.”
    “Well…” He smiled. “Let us keep that between us and the sparrows, shall we?”
    “Of course,” she said, and giggled as she made a motion to zip her lips.
    He smoothed a hand down the front of his thousand-dollar suit coat, sat down and sighed. “How I long for a simple life,” he said.
    I still didn’t stab him. “You could move to Nelson, Nebraska,” I said.
    “What?”
    “Population four hundred and twenty-seven. I hear it’s very picturesque.” He stared at me a moment, as if trying to ascertain if I was kidding, but I kept my expression deadpan, and he sighed again. “There are times when I would like nothing better than to return to my agrarian roots, Christina, but I feel that this great country of ours…this wonderful, sprawling land”—he waved one benevolent hand at the world at large as if blessing it with his presence—“it is not finished with me yet. And I cannot in good conscience leave—”
    “You’re selling him out.” The idea struck me like a thunderclap.
    “What?” He looked both shocked and appalled. “Christina—” he began, but I huffed a laugh.
    “You’re hoping for another public office and you want your constituents to believe you’re so honest, so unbiased, that you won’t even pull any strings to save your own son.”
    “Christina, you cut me to the quick!”
    I jerked to my feet, finding, with some surprise, that my fork had come with me. But he was still talking.
    “You wound me to the core.”
    “I might,” I snarled and tightened my grip on the sterling silver handle, “if you don’t even try to the learn the truth!”
    He held my gaze with steely steadiness. “Is it the truth you want, Christina? Is it really?”
    I blinked. “Of course it is.”
    He nodded once, as serious as death. “Sit down, my dear.” I felt an odd premonition tingle the soles of my feet, but remained as I was, bent at the waist, leaning into his face like a slavering hound. “I prefer to stand,” I said.
    “Very well then,” he said. “The truth is this; Gerald was at Andrews’ house the night he was shot."
    “What?” I felt myself weaken at the knees.
    “Sit down, Christina.”
    “You’re lying,” I said. My tone sounded fuzzy.
    “Sadly, I am not.”
    I searched his eyes, his expression, his body language. He looked old suddenly and hopelessly honest. “How do you know?” My voice was barely a whisper.
    “I know because Gerald told Captain Kindred that it is so,” he said.
    I blinked, nodded, took a deep breath and drifted back into my just-abandoned chair.
    "What else did Kindred tell you?"
    "He said it would do my son no good if I got involved."

Chapter 9
    Reality is for guys who don’t know how to make shit up.
    —Michael McMullen, who made up