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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

''What did they have to say about her?''

"She had severed all ties. Nobody knew what had happened to her. One drag queen that I spoke to, in exchange for a twenty dollar bill, said she told him she was going to give up the night life, go to business school and improve herself. That's all he remembered. He never saw her after she quit working at the club where they shared a stage.

"This is pure conjecture, but I think Carole underwent a complete transformation, finessed her way into the Rutledge law firm, then once on the inside, saw a way to take her self-improvement  campaign one step further by marrying Tate. Remember the piece I did several years ago on prostitutes, Irish?" she asked suddenly.

"While you were working at that station in Detroit? Sure, I remember it. You sent me a tape. What's it got to do with this?"

"The personality profile of those women fits Carole. Most of them claim to hate men. She was probably no different."

"You don't know that."

"No? Look how she treated Jack. She flirted with him to the extent of damaging his marriage, but I get the impression she never came across. If that isn't malicious, I don't know what is. For the sake of argument, let's say she didn't view men too kindly and set out to ruin one whose future looked the very brightest, while at the same time elevating herself."

"Wasn't she scared that someone would recognize her, that her shady past would eventually catch up with her?''

Avery had thought of that herself. "Don't you see, that would have iced the cake. Tate would really be humiliated if it was revealed what his wife had been before he married her."

"He must be a real dunce," Van muttered, "to have fallen for it.''

"You don't understand how calculating she was," Avery said, leaping to Tate's defense. "She became everything he could possibly want. She laid a trap, using herself as the perfect bait. She was pretty, animated, and sexy. But more than that, someone who knew Tate well coached her on the right buttons to push to elevate lust to love."

"The one who wants to kill him."

"Right," Avery said, nodding grimly at Van, who had voiced her hypothesis. "He must have sensed, as Zee did, that Carole was an opportunist.''

"When he approached her, why didn't she run to Tate?"

''I'm not sure," she admitted. "My theory isn't without holes. Maybe being the bereaved widow of a public official held more allure than being a senator's wife."

"Same status, but no inconvenient husband," Irish speculated.

"Hmm. Also, she wasn't sure Tate would make it to the Senate. Or maybe her coconspirator made it financially profitable for her. In any case, once they were married, it was her responsibility to make life miserable for Tate—a job she did with relish."

"But why was someone out to make him miserable?" Irish asked. "It always comes back to that."

"I don't know." Avery's voice was taut with quiet desperation. "I wish to God I did."

"What do you make of the latest message?" Irish asked. She raked a hand through her hair. "Obviously, they're going to make their move on Election Day. A gun of some kind will be the weapon of choice."

''That gets my vote.  No pun intended,'' Van added drolly.

Irish shot him an irritated glance, then said to Avery, ''I don't know. This time the symbolism seems a little too obvious."

"What do you mean?''

''I'm not sure," he admitted, gnawing on his lip. Absently, he picked up Avery's glass of brandy and took a hearty swig. "What happened to the subtlety of the earlier notes? Either he's testing your mettle or he's the cockiest son of a bitch I've ever run across."