“Mrs. Vogler—may I call you Tootie?”
“No.”
His composure started to snap and fray.
“Fine. Mrs. Vogler, we can’t leave this community center alone because this community center is falling down,” he cried, pointing to the chipped paint and flickering lightbulbs.
“So,” Tootie said. “Fix what’s wrong. We’re not arguing that nothing needs to be done around here, but why are you tearing the whole thing down?”
“Everything needs to be redone here. Plumbing, electrical, a new roof, a new pool. Part of the foundation was damaged during the storms six years ago and I’m telling you the truth—it will cost more to fix Jimmie Simpson, in the long run, than it will cost to rebuild it. I know your lives will be disrupted—”
“I count on the day care here, Mr. O’Neill,” one of the mothers said, steely-eyed and angry. He’d blown it again. This wasn’t even part of his official job as mayor pro tempore, or president of City Council. He’d taken it on at the mayor’s behest, since the totally deserted and decimated Office of Neighborhoods and the overworked Parks and Rec department couldn’t do it. But now he was regretting it; he’d had more trouble with the public than any one man could handle.
“Look,” he said, inwardly sighing and trying to start fresh. Again. “I’ve started this off on the wrong foot.”
“I’d say,” Mrs. Vogler muttered, and he gritted his teeth.
“The parks and recreation department,” who should be handling this mess, he thought but didn’t say, “are working to move your programs to other centers in the city.”
“I don’t have a car, Mr. O’Neill,” a woman said. “It just won’t work!”
“For you,” he said and then winced as everyone sucked in a scandalized breath. Backtrack, Carter. Backtrack. “This is going to be better for this neighborhood in the long run—”
“And what would you know about Beauregard?” another woman asked, who he couldn’t see. She was short and in the back, but he caught a glimpse of black hair and pointy features. She looked like an elf.
Great. He even had elves after him.
Honestly, he wanted to go back to his office and get to work on the budget. Or poke himself in the eye with a pencil. Anything would be better than this.
“Are there any more questions?” he asked, admitting defeat. “About things that haven’t already been covered?”
“Yeah.” A young man, partially hidden behind Mrs. Vogler, stood and revealed himself. Blood instantly boiled behind Carter’s eyes.
All he needed today was this.
“No press,” he told Jim Blackwell, who, for a month, had been chasing him from function to function like a hound after a fox. And there wasn’t much farther Carter could run.
“I’m just a concerned citizen, Deputy Mayor,” Jim said. Smarmy bastard. Carter’s title wasn’t Deputy Mayor; there wasn’t even a deputy mayor position in this city. But when Carter took over the neighborhood issue task force, the Gazette had run a political cartoon of him on the front page with a ten-gallon hat, shotgun and a deputy star. In the background, the mayor, as sheriff, snored at his desk.
The deputy part of the joke had stuck.
“Are you aware your father’s arraignment has been postponed?” Jim asked.
The question drew whispers and gasps from the women in the crowd.
“I do not discuss my family with the press,” he finally said, trying to keep what was left of his dignity in front of the suddenly wide-eyed crowd. He’d worked long and hard to put the Notorious O’Neills behind him, but his father’s arrest last month had stirred up all the old rumors.
“I have a question.” It was the elf again, waving her arm in the back row, but Jim talked right over her.
“Last month, your father was arrested in possession of The Pacific Diamond, which was initially part of the Ancient Treasures exhibit stolen from the Bellagio seven years ago. The Pacific Diamond, Ruby and Emerald were all taken.” Jim flipped his notes, putting on a heck of a show for the spellbound public. “One man was arrested at that time, a…Joel Woods, who had the emerald in his pocket. He served seven years, claiming all along that he’d worked alone.”
“What is your point, Mr. Blackwell?” Carter asked, biting every word.
“Well—” Jim smiled, looking around at the crowd he held in the palm of his hand “—this is interesting, though slightly off topic, but Joel Woods’s son is now dating your sister? Is that right?”
Carter didn’t say anything.
“Right, sorry, off topic. Back to your father. According to the D.A., they’re postponing the arraignment in order to reexamine your father’s involvement with the original theft. Both your parents were questioned during the initial investigation.”
“Excuse me?” elf girl was saying, but Carter held up a hand, putting her off. Rude, he knew, but he had a fire to put out. A city-politics mosquito to slap down.
“Whatever my father has or has not done, I’m sure will be handled by the appropriate authorities. I have no contact with him.”
“What about your mother?”
“My mother?” he asked, startled by the question.
Don’t tell me she’s gone and gotten arrested, too.
“I haven’t seen her in years.”
“Would you say…ten?” Jim asked, consulting his notebook, and suddenly the room spun. Carter was dizzy. Sick.
There is no way he could know, he told himself. No way.
“Am I right?” Jim asked. “You would have seen her when you testified on her behalf in court ten years ago.” Jim held out his tape recorder, his bland face crowned with conceit.
Jim had made a career of shining a light into the dark corners of the previous administration, but for the last two-and-a-half years, Jim Blackwell had been stymied in his efforts to pull up any dirt on the current administration.
But Carter’s father’s arrest was changing all that.
“You’ve already done this story, Mr. Blackwell,” Carter said. “When my father was arrested, you took great care in giving the residents of Baton Rouge a good look at my bloodline. And I say now what I said then—I am not my family. I have very little contact with my family. I do not discuss them. I think you’re repeating yourself,” he said.
“I’m just trying to get my time line straight. You testified on your mother’s behalf in a breaking and entering case ten years ago. You seem a bit fuzzy on the specifics, which makes me wonder what else you’re fuzzy on. There is, after all, a thirty-carat ruby still on the loose.”
“We’re done here,” he said stacking his cards, getting ready to leave. Amanda, his assistant and soon-to-be campaign manager, swung up on his left.
“Answer the damn questions,” she breathed in his ear. “Or it looks like you have something to hide.”
And then she swung away.
Nausea rolled through him. He did have something to hide. He had a whole family tree of criminals and rogues that needed burying. But Carter gritted his teeth, and stayed. “Yes, it has been ten years since I’ve seen my mother. We are not in contact. And I have no idea where the ruby is.”
“You were her alibi in the breaking and entering case,” Jim said. “The charges against her were dismissed on the basis of