First Lady by Michael Malone Page B

didn’t let folks down like Mavis does. But what it is, is, I read where Mavis has got a real problem with alcohol.”
    â€œYeah, that’s what I hear too.”
    â€œIt’ll mess you up.”
    â€œIt sure will.” I thought of the winter sun tediously moving across the ceiling of my small room in a Blue Ridge Mountains sanitarium—so many years ago that I’m sure Zeke Caleb knew nothing about my own real problem with alcohol. I thought of Mavis Mahar on the Tucson stage, swaying from drink, her beautiful arm raised in the dusty afternoon bar light, reaching high for the next note with her outstretched hand, a ring on each finger…. “Reeee-lease me…and let me love again.” How long had she stayed there singing for seventeen people instead of forty-seven thousand? Where had she gone next in the black limousine? To meet Andy Brookside? Was he the man all the sad songs were for?
    Zeke yanked off his clip-on black bow tie and, pulling open his stiff collar, took a long deep breath of the night air. “Well, I’m proud of the Chief and I’m out of here. This is worse than desk duty. I tell you, I’m trying for a K-9 division job. I’m waiting for my dog. She’s in Holland getting trained.”
    â€œAh, a Dutch girl, huh?”
    â€œYeah, I’m going to call her Heidi.”
    â€œOkay.” I asked him to check back with Nancy and then to page me with any news. I knew he was right: if things did go wrong at Haver Field, or anywhere else in Hillston, Cuddy would take it personally. As he left, he handed me an envelope he’d found on Cuddy’s desk. “Chief Mangum, Private” was typed on the front. “Probably just congratulations,” he said.
    As I moved back toward the Yarboroughs, I heard Carl oddly snap at Cuddy. “It’s the last thing I need on top of this fucking garbage strike.”
    Cuddy said, “I bet it’s the last thing that girl he killed needed too.”
    â€œWell, if Savile can’t handle it, get some damn help.”
    â€œI have every confidence in HPD homicide.”
    Dina, embarrassed, started talking effusively about Measure for Measure. Then Carl abruptly excused himself from Cuddy and moved away to join a group of men smoking on the mansion steps. They included the current Attorney General Ward Trasker and the majority whip of the state senate. Cuddy was left walking alone.
    I joined him and handed him the envelope from Zeke. Distracted, he opened it. There was nothing inside but the clipped editorial from the Hillston Star calling for his resignation. The paper’s front-page banner was attached with the word “STAR” circled in red and a large red question mark beside it. He started to toss it in a nearby trashcan. I took it from him.
    â€œHey, Justin, a lot of people want me to resign. What are you going to do, sue them?”
    I asked him where else he’d seen red magic marker used to send him a nasty message. Wasn’t it on the label tied to the toe of G.I. Jane’s corpse?

Chapter 5
Dina
    In the State Dining Room, everyone circled pretty tables set with gold-rimmed plates, finding their places by the numbers on replicas of the gold Raleigh Medal sticking out of garlands of tiny roses, gardenias, and miniature orchids. Because of Lee’s absence, I’d been moved to Table One with Cuddy, Andy, the Yarboroughs, a college president, and today’s other prizewinner, Mrs. Boodle. Fulke Norris and his wife were at Table Two with other former Raleigh Medal winners; everyone ignored the fact that the Hillston police officers who’d arrested their son were seated only five feet away.
    It was an elegant meal. Despite Bubba’s disparagement, the “drama queen” banquet coordinator had prepared a dinner for sixty-four that looked better organized than most military campaigns. Effortlessly, lobster bisque changed to grilled quail changed to pork