The Company She Kept Page 8

  She wasn’t really concerned, of course. She was partially indulging in body language interpretation solely to get her brain back on track. In fact, she didn’t want to be here, or to be having a staff meeting. Ever since receiving the news about Susan, she’d been stuck with a humming in her head as if a bumblebee had dropped into her ear. It served as accompaniment to the steady ache in her chest.

  “Governor,” Rob began, “before we begin, I just wanted to say how sorry we are for your loss. Senator Raffner was an ally, a friend, and a trusted confidante.”

  “And pushy and opinionated,” Kayla added with a supportive smile.

  “And usually right,” Alice finished gamely, like the second half of an amateur comedy team.

  “Thank you.” Gail returned with a smile, feeling its artificiality stretching her skin.

  Rob got straight to his first item for discussion. “Governor, I just got a call that there was a police shoot-out in Newport. A man named Nathan Fellows was killed who the VBI believes may have had a hand in Senator Raffner’s murder.”

  Gail stared at him, thoughts of Joe flooding her mind. “Is everyone else all right?”

  “One of their agents was hit—Cila Lewis—but she’ll be fine. She was actually the one who killed Fellows in self-defense. He started shooting when they approached to question him. Some neo-Nazi.”

  “And they’re sure he was the man who killed Susan?” Gail asked.

  Here, the answer was vaguer. Joan Renaud supplied it, in her legal capacity. “Governor, I was in on this phone conversation. The police are obviously keeping a lid on things for the time being—although I suspect that will only last a few more hours—but they were focusing on Fellows for largely circumstantial reasons. Now that he’s dead, they’re doing their best to see if they can connect him to Senator Raffner’s death, but it’s far from certain.”

  Gail absorbed this, fighting the urge to ask questions she knew they couldn’t answer. She moved on, therefore, by asking, “What’s next?”

  Taking her cue, Rob continued. “The senator’s memorial services are scheduled for two days from now—one here and one in Brattleboro. It seemed the best way to reach most of her friends without putting too many on the road.”

  “Letters, cards, and e-mails have been coming in like nobody’s business,” Alice added. “All saying how much she meant to everyone.”

  Kayla Robinson leaned forward and placed a couple of sheets of paper on Gail’s desk, her strong, angular features poorly served by a severe haircut. “I came up with a few thoughts you might like to use in your speech. We assumed you’d want to say something.”

  “Which doesn’t mean you’re obligated,” Rob said immediately. “Everyone would understand if you simply attended.”

  “No,” Gail reassured them, picking up the sheets without looking at them. “I’ll speak. Thank you.”

  Kayla took advantage of the gesture to say, “Governor, along the lines of dealing with the press about this, was there anything said between you and Special Agent Gunther that we should know about?”

  Gail shifted her gaze back to the inscrutable Joan, who was writing a note to herself, or pretending to, eyes downcast. Gail imagined the conversation that had preceded this meeting, where they’d worked out how best to negotiate the emotional shoals surrounding her.

  “He asked when Susan and I had last been in touch. I told him it was via text and that nothing of substance was discussed.”

  Kayla opened her mouth to follow up, but Renaud made a barely perceptible motion with her hand that stilled her. A silence settled onto the room, obliging Gail to add, “He also asked how I was holding up. We are old friends.” She hesitated, aware of the value of saying too little versus too much, but then said, “I told him that she’d been my keel—the love of a lifetime.”

  The stillness in the room reminded her of a time in childhood, when she’d taken a dare and grabbed hold of a rope strung horizontally over a pond. The goal had been to reach the far side dry-footed—moving hand-over-hand—but she’d tired and stopped, and gradually become aware of her ebbing strength, along with the guarantee that she’d eventually drop into the cold, dark water.

  She’d been paralyzed briefly, caught between inevitability and the growing realization that—although the outcome would be the same—she did have the power to willfully open her hands and choose action over fate. The fall to the water had thus been transformed from resignation to excitement, and her surfacing from the cold depths with arms held high afterward had been accompanied by a surprising sense of self-confidence.

  She watched the people before her absorbing her words, and applying their own interpretations. With the smallest click of something true falling into place, she sat back and waited, the fascination of an outside observer pushing through her grief, if only briefly.

  Rob Perkins—the most seasoned of the group, and certainly the one who was most experienced with the political game’s rougher aspects—was the first to speak. “Is that what you were thinking of saying at the memorial, Governor?”

  His dispassionate tone notwithstanding, Gail could see the wariness in his eyes. Despite the newness of her administration—her first reelection campaign was just beginning, following the Vermont standard of a two-year term—they’d experienced a number of high-profile struggles, some of them self-inflicted.

  “You have an objection?” she asked neutrally, studying their discomfort as if eavesdropping on the conversation.

  But he shook his head. “Not with the sentiment, certainly.” He chose his next words carefully. “But I think we all work better with twenty-twenty vision.… And that one’s choice of words does matter.”

  “Meaning, was I having an affair with Susan Raffner?” Gail asked, her growing decisiveness mirroring that feeling when she’d surfaced from the pond.

  “That’s none of our business,” Renaud said quickly. “Nor should it be of any relevance.”

  Gail nodded in acknowledgment. “I grant you that in legal terms, Joan. But in fairness to Rob, let’s acknowledge the conclusions that’ve already been drawn—or which’ll be drawn soon enough: Susan was a lesbian, she was murdered, and she was put on display as an antigay statement. She was also the best friend and political adviser of the single, never-married, female governor of the state. You think I don’t know how many people already think I’m gay?”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to acknowledge the gossip,” Kayla countered. “People also complain that you’re rich, or from New York, or Jewish, or who knows what else. The governor is as much an institution as a person, and one thing that Vermont’s always done well is to leave the personalities of its politicians at the door when it comes to public debate.”

  “I agree,” Rob stated. “And I don’t think that particular question has even vaguely reached the status of needing to be addressed. Like Joan said, it’s nobody’s business.”

  “It is mine, though,” Gail told them, grateful to be taking these first steps. “Because I did love her, and we were lovers.”

  She noticed Alice Drim’s cheeks flush slightly, and felt a sympathetic pang of regret. She’d heard through the office grapevine of Alice’s recent breakup with her longtime boyfriend.

  Rob recognized that they’d just ventured beyond the perimeters of mere political debate. “Are you sure that’s what you want to say, Governor?”

  “Susan’s death is a high-profile murder case with an apparently sensationalist motive,” Gail replied. “She’ll become a tawdry tabloid headline instead of a life that deserved much more.” She addressed Kayla Robinson directly. “You’re the media expert, Kayla. What do you really think’s going to be remembered about her after all the dust has settled?”

  To her credit, Kayla responded with her own question: “Will your coming out change any of that?”

  “It could even fuel the fire,” Alice said quietly.

  “My ‘coming out,’ as you put it, would allow me to honestly and openly speak to her qualities as
a friend, a political leader, and a fellow human being, while relegating her sexual orientation to secondary status.”

  The group’s universal body language spoke clearly of its disagreement.

  Rob tried introducing a broader perspective. “Governor, I don’t think there’s a person here who doesn’t share your view of the senator, or doubt your feelings for her. None of us wants her memory tarnished or her legacy eclipsed by the way she died. That being said, could I kick around a few purely political considerations?”

  Gail’s instinctive reaction was to say no. She was in no mood to be analytical about an emotion powerful enough to override all rational debate. For the first time since hearing of Susan’s death, she was feeling positive. But she nodded—if just barely—and answered, “Of course.” This was, after all, what remained in Susan’s wake: the team that she’d helped Gail to select, and who represented the support group she saw more frequently than anyone else.

  “Right now,” Rob began, “there’s nothing forcing us to do anything hasty—no tropical storm or breaking political scandal. I’m suggesting that we pause to weigh the pros and cons of whatever it is you may be considering.” He smiled supportively. “It’s not often we get the luxury of time.”

  But, reading her closed expression, he knew that any such luxury was provisional at best. He therefore kept going without waiting for a response. “You might, for example, reconsider using a phrase like, ‘She was my keel,’ which—regardless of its truth—suggests that you no longer have one. More to the point, you could voice your long-standing support and backing for the LGBTQ community, while responding to any direct questions concerning your private relationship to Susan as being just that—private.”

  Gail remained silent.

  “Being that this is Vermont,” he forged on, “I doubt the subject will even come up, but certainly that kind of statement would mark the beginning and the end of it.” He held up a finger. “On the other hand, if you do choose to honor her memory as you’re suggesting, I think we should be prepared for a national reaction that might do exactly what you’re dreading.”

  “Go on,” she said without inflection.

  “What I’m envisioning has both good and bad aspects. People like Ellen DeGeneres will probably want to give you airtime; the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund might offer advice and funding sources for your campaign; and others will come in to help, too. On the other hand, the Rush Limbaughs, the neo-Nazis, and whoever else you can name will come out of the woodwork and do their best to turn your loving gesture into a three-ring circus.”

  He kept going: “What we sometimes forget up here in our isolated woods is that on one level we’re fully one-fiftieth of the entire United States. If one of our senators switches parties, like Jim Jeffords did in ’01, it can cause as big a ripple as if our governor announced she was gay. People’ll take notice. Keep in mind that in dozens of states across this country, you can still be legally fired if you’re gay. It’s a big deal, and it could completely swamp Susan’s memory and your own ability to mourn her loss as you’re hoping to.”

  As he’d been speaking, Gail’s mind had wandered inward, retracing her history with Susan, with Joe, her years in Vermont, and her sometimes tumultuous journey to this office, including the life-changing rape—most of which no one could have anticipated, and none of which had been influenced by the things Rob was mentioning.

  Whether it had been privilege or self-confidence or stubbornness or fate, Gail’s motivators had never revolved around what people thought of her. She’d been calculating at times, even ruthless, she conceded. She recognized moments when she’d pushed Joe beyond his own moral code, and when her ego had chosen principle over ethics. But throughout, she believed she’d never weighed or protected her own image.

  Perhaps noticing her distraction, Rob shifted tack slightly. “Let’s talk local for a moment. I know I said that your coming out would have little effect within Vermont, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore its impact. There’s still a huge number of quiet, pissed off, conservative people in this state—our own silent minority—even if they often don’t vote because they think themselves outnumbered.”

  “Like the ‘Take Back Vermont’ conservative movement a few years ago?” Kayla Robinson suddenly asked. “Their numbers were surprisingly big.”

  “Exactly,” Rob seconded her. “The liberals were amazed, as if these thousands of salt-of-the-earth people had all of a sudden sprung out of nowhere.” He waved his hand to encompass the room. “We liberals are constantly forgetting about those folks. We better not if you’re dead set on making this move.”

  “When I make it,” she corrected him, working to control her resentment at being lectured.

  He let that one lie. “I’m talking our equivalent of the soccer moms,” he pressed. “Traditionally minded, churchgoing or God-observant women who feel threatened not just by gender-bending concepts, but even the notion of a woman being unmarried after thirty. I’ve heard them called ‘ballot box bigots,’ although I think that’s being overly judgmental, but they and their like-minded friends are a force to consider.”

  “May I ask a question, Governor?” Joan Renaud asked, her expression making it clear that she really didn’t want to.

  Gail nodded, meeting her eyes.

  “This is not a legal question. In fact, it’s none of my business, but given your apparent conviction and the fact that you seem to be inviting all viewpoints, I was wondering if you were going to announce that you are lesbian or bisexual?”

  Everybody stared at her, making Renaud shrug ever so slightly and stammer, “Well, it looked like now was the time to ask.”

  Rob laughed self-consciously, aware of how his counsel had approached being a harangue, but not wanting it to be derailed by what he considered a side issue. “If what I’m anticipating happens, then that’s the sort of question we should come to expect. Governor,” he emphasized, addressing her eye-to-eye. “Some people get outed, others get caught, still others don’t care about the consequences. But you are a high-profile, fast-rising chief executive. We all work for you here, and we’ve been in the trenches with you. Am I wrong in assuming that you are a woman of ambition? Would you turn down an offer of political advancement? Something beyond the governorship?”

  Gail still didn’t respond, but her lips were now pursed.

  He kept at it, nearing recklessness. “I don’t think so. Your ascent has been meteoric. Another reason that the national press is circling overhead—even without hearing what you’re considering—is that you’ve already appeared on the ‘stars to watch’ lists of several publications. You’ll have to live with this choice forever, ’cause everybody’s going to be watching like you wouldn’t believe. And with this, you will have given them license to talk about the one thing that’s normally awkward to discuss, which is sex.”

  At last, he stopped. The void left in his wake caused them all to look up, as if following the footsteps of someone who’d just left the room. Even Rob at that point muttered, “Sorry.”

  Gail weighed her response. She was angry, and inclined to show it, as she frequently did. On one level, what she’d just been subjected to was insensitive, belittling, and deserving of rebuke. But even with her grief having reduced her to a shipwreck survivor, she recognized the need not to lose hold of the flotsam that could save her political life—regardless of how unpleasant it might appear.

  With that in mind, Gail took her chief of staff off the hook, despite her tamped-down emotions struggling hard to break loose. “No sorries. I couldn’t be happier that you’re all with me right now. You are my people, my trusted advisers, the reason I sit at this desk. I rely on your support, but even more on your honesty, and that’s all I’ve heard today. I trust you. Susan used to comment that I couldn’t get better than what I have in you—all of you—and this is proof that she was right.”

  She placed both hands flat on her desk, convinced that Susan would have been proud of her covering her emotions so
well. “That being said,” she went on, “I’d like to digest it for just a little bit, if you can stand it. Rob mentioned the luxury of time. I know that the police are trying to figure out exactly what happened. That’ll allow us to issue no-comments legitimately at least for a couple of days, in that we supposedly don’t want to second-guess law enforcement efforts.”

  As her staff began getting up and heading for the door, she concluded, “I do assure you that you’ll know of my plans before the first memorial. No surprises. I promise.”

  They filed out. In the awkward and voiceless shuffling of everyone’s departure, Gail’s last four words hung in the air like resonant notes out of chord.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Standing at the window, Joe looked across the street at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, a Second French Empire building housing the town’s library and art gallery. It had always reminded him of the My Fair Lady set on the inside, and the Addams family’s home on the outside—complete with spiral staircases, skylights, leather books, and squeaky wooden floors. There had been times when he’d traveled the hour north from his family’s farm in Thetford just to sit in the gallery, enjoy its huge Bierstadt landscape of Yosemite, and feel as if he’d drifted back into the eighteen hundreds.

  But not this time. Now he was on the second floor of the courthouse opposite, in the VBI’s Northeast Kingdom field office, following up on the Nathan Fellows shooting. Behind him were Lester Spinney, Bev Tetreault, and Robert Whallon—the latter two teammates of Cila Lewis, who was still recovering in the hospital. The three had been assigned to collect what they could on Fellows and see if—after the fact—he fit the bill everyone was hoping he would. Joe had just arrived to be briefed.