Gathering String Read online

  Dodson nodded, but Bundy insisted, “He’s got the goods and knew it. He let the others shoot holes in each other for a year, and now he’s going to step out on the stage as the pristine virgin.” Her tone went mocking, “The smart ones don’t get rushed by an impressive hard-on, Sam.”

  Sam’s jaw set. “You are so full of …”

  He was cut off when Sarah Mills, the deputy editor, appeared in the doorway. “Twitter just lit up with a shitload of tweets that Erickson is in.”

  Dodson leaned to his laptop keyboard, bringing in his Twitter feed and hitting a link. He read aloud, “Governor Swan August Erickson plans to announce his candidacy tomorrow at 11 a.m. central time in Lindsborg, Iowa …” He stopped to see which news site he was on and yelped, “The Lindsborg Journal? A copyright story in the Lindsborg fucking Journal?” No one else in the room said a word. “After all this, the SOB gave it to the hometown paper. Erickson just stuck it to us all.” He ran his hand down his face, then looked over at Steve Johnson. “Get Sherry to book a couple seats on the next flight out. We’ll need a shooter.”

  “Rick Higgins is freelancing these days,” Johnson responded. A friend of both Sam and Steve, Rick’s head had rolled in the last Trib bloodletting. Johnson never failed to suggest the father of five for a shoot. It helped that his work was top-notch. “He’ll probably go stringing for HuffPo and maybe the LA Times too, to share the travel expenses.”

  Dodson nodded. “Call him and get us in on it.”

  As Johnson rose, Dodson glanced from Sam to Evie and then back again, jabbing a finger at Sam. “Saddle up. And kick it into high, Sam. No good comes from forcing Politifix to suck hind tit, and I want Erickson to know it. Get out in front of that bastard. Right now.” Sam nodded and hustled out the door.

  Chapter 2

  Rick Higgins was one of the few former Triblet photographers who would even consider working with Sam Waterman. Taking his eyes off the road, he glanced at the passenger’s seat and sighed. Sam usually had to be dragged into the hinterlands of the Midwest, kicking and swearing until hell wouldn’t have it. But today he was unusually quiet, glaring straight ahead, impatience in every line. As if to emphasize the point, Waterman abruptly slapped the radio switch, cutting off Tami Fuller's strident, "Swede Erickson is just this month's flavor ... "

  Feeling Higgins’s eyes on him, Sam looked over with a raised eyebrow in mute question and Higgins muttered, “You tired or trying to kick the smokes again?”

  “Both,” Waterman grunted.

  Higgins dug into his shirt pocket for a pack of gum and tossed it in Sam’s direction. “Here. It’ll take the edge off. Makes your breath all nice and minty too,” he laughed.

  “Fuck you,” Sam snorted, but glancing from the corner of his eye, Rick saw his taciturn companion faintly smile as he unwrapped a stick. Maybe that was why the two always did OK on the road. Neither took the other too personally or too seriously.

  Not many could strike a comfortable balance with Waterman these days. Sam had always been edgy, but ever since photographer Tess Benedict’s abrupt departure from the Trib nearly three years ago, Sam had grown more cutting, more bitter. Most of the Tribune staff held the loss of their talented, hardworking young colleague against Sam, and Higs knew that was a big part of Sam’s decision to leave. If he hadn’t known Waterman so well, and been his friend for so long, Rick might have cut him dead as well.

  Looking over with a covert glimpse, he saw Sam’s hawkish eyes scan the horizon, working his nicotine deprivation out on the gum. Always preferring to let sleeping dogs lie, it pained Higgins that wasn’t an option today. He’d take almost any gig these days, but he sure as hell didn’t want to go with Sam to Lindsborg. If he hadn’t needed the work, he would have turned Politifix down. But he had a big family to support. Now he needed to speak up, and he needed to do it soon. He drew a deep breath, but it was Sam who broke the silence.

  “We have got to be getting close. Christ, I’m desperate for the sight of civilization.” Sam inclined his dark head toward the gently rolling, cornstalk-stubbled fields stretching toward the horizon and then rubbed his eyes, as if to blot them out.

  The car droned on, over the lip of another hill, and suddenly Higs smiled and pointed, “Well, lookie there.” A silver water tower seemed to rise from a barren field. Sam squinted, straining to read the block letters in the deepening dusk, until he finally made out the word "Lindsborg."

  “Thank God almighty,” he sighed, and stretched into the backseat for his sport coat, pulling an itinerary from the inside pocket and looking it over. “Oh bloody, fucking hell …”

  “What?”

  Sam waved the paper. “We’re staying someplace called the Tall Corn Inn.”

  Higgins’s laugh was nearly a groan as the car reached the bottom of the hill and he turned it off the highway. “Sooner or later you throw a tantrum when you're sent out into the boonies. Can we skip the drama this time?”

  “Small towns suck and you know it.”

  “No, I don’t know it. Look at this place. Well-kept houses, tidy yards, not a slum or a building over three stories, what the hell is wrong with that?”

  Waterman’s sharp-eyed stare took in the small shops along the square. “There’s not a decent hotel or restaurant for 100 miles. If there’s even a movie theater in this burg, it’s probably showing, ‘It’s a Wonderful-fucking-Life,’ to rubes who think Jimmy Stewart is still alive.” Sam shook his head and looked over. “Of course, you being a boy from West Texas, I can see that you might be impressed after looking at sand and mesquite half your life.”

  Higgins shrugged good-naturedly. “Hey, I look at things with a photographer’s eye. As they say down home, Lindsborg, Iowa, is ‘right purdy.’ Think your nose is out of joint because the little daily here beat your ass on the announcement?” He was looking for the opening he needed, still reluctant, but certain the only decent thing to do was speak up.

  “Bullshit. It’s not my fault that Erickson played the ‘screw the media elitists’ card and handed it to some old geezer publisher in his hometown.”

  “Sam, a young guy named Westphal owns the Lindsborg Journal. He …”

  “What I need to nail down is why it took Erickson so long to commit,” Sam spoke right over him. “Something’s been holding him back.” Snapping his gum, he looked out at the neat front lawns going past. “Maybe this is the place to find out what it is.”

  Higgins took the short reprieve. “You are such a city slicker. Swede Erickson couldn’t keep any secrets in a squeaky clean town like this. Everyone knows everyone else’s business here. Hell, you could probably ask that old lady on the corner over there who his first lay was, and she’d be able to tell you. Provided, of course, it wasn’t her daughter.” Both men laughed. “No, Sam, if you’re dreaming of striking Pulitzer gold here, think again. Not in this town. They’re clannish folks out here in the country.”

  Waterman shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  In the few seconds of silence that followed, Higs looked over at his friend one more time, drew another deep breath and then forced out, “Listen, about that little daily here, you should know that Tess …”

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that.” Sam cut him off. “She’ll probably be here soon, if she’s not already. The Des Moines Record is all over this, and they’ll send their best.”

  Higgins shook his head. “Buddy, she’s definitely here. She …”

  Sam nodded. “But this is going to be a major clusterfuck. What are the odds I’ll spot anyone from the Record’s team, let alone …”

  “She’s not at the Record any more.” Waterman turned to him sharply, but Higgins kept his eyes on the street in front of him. “She’s still doing some freelancing, but mostly she’s taking a swing at her artistic work. She’s making some progress with it too.” Still Sam didn’t speak, waiting. Higs set his jaw. “Sam, she’s married.”

  There was only silence. When Higs looked over Sam’s angular features remained unmoved,
but the growing quiet vibrated with tension. It was a long moment before Sam asked, “When?”

  “About a year.”

  “A goddamned year, and you didn’t have the balls to …”

  Higgins’s calm voice cut off Sam’s rising one. “I’m telling you now.”

  Sam looked back out the windshield, the thin line of his mouth drawn so tight it nearly disappeared. Higs went on softly, “Her husband, he’s the young guy who owns the daily right here in town. The Journal.” Higs waited again for Sam to say something. When he didn’t, Higs finally added, “With you coming to Lindsborg, I thought …”

  “Yeah.” Waterman’s voice was ominously soft. “Thanks.”

  The silence loomed again, and Higs murmured awkwardly into it, “I know it must feel like I just shoved a horn in your gut but …”

  The stern face turned. “I appreciate the heads-up. Now let it go.” Still Higs groped for words, and Sam snapped, “Let it go.”

  Higs nodded with a sigh and said, “Check your phone. What street is the Tall Corn Inn on?”

  ************

  The crowd started gathering at daybreak and built through the morning. Tess Benedict stood on the roof of Jay’s Drug Store, looking down and considering all the possibilities for the best angles, the clearest shots. When she was finally satisfied, she took a few more seconds just to stare. This was Lindsborg? The sleepy little town she reluctantly knew so well had gone crazy, the street swollen with townspeople and media.

  From her memory came Waterman’s clipped, sarcastic voice, “Another bloody clusterfuck,” and immediately she closed her blue eyes, like the shutter of a camera snapping down, closing out the light, shutting out the memory. When she opened them again she saw a tall figure appear near the back of the raw wood platform that had been hastily erected in the middle of the grocery store parking lot. In the dreary November mist, she raised a camera, checking through the telephoto lens just to be sure.

  Jack. What the hell was he doing up there? But she knew. Swede had asked him to join the group, and Jack wouldn’t tell him no. She shook her damp blond curls back from her face. In her heart she was sorry Erickson was making a run at the presidency, however enthusiastic Jack might be. It brought it all back, the life she used to live. On the normally placid hometown street, it was milling right below her.

  “Just for today,” she whispered to herself as she turned away, just because Jack had asked her. God knew she could still crank it out like a machine. With one last check of the settings on the cameras around her neck, she reminded herself this wasn’t her job any more. This wasn’t her world anymore. Today she was just visiting. She turned and ran down the stairs, into the rising noise of the crowd, throwing herself into the fray.

  Nearly an hour later, Sam Waterman jammed the iPhone he’d used to live-tweet the proceedings into his pocket and hunched his coat collar up around his neck. Miserable with the cold drizzle trickling down his neck from the back of his thick hair, he pushed his way against the current as dozens of photographers rushed past. Erickson’s announcement speech had been just what Sam expected and he was annoyed that there had been no gaffes, not a single misstep. Damn, that hayseed could speak. Now Erickson was waving and posing with his family, but the gray, heavy weather forced all the shooters from their assigned positions as they struggled for sharp pictures of the newest candidate.

  Sam's eyes, full of anticipation and dread, were scanning the crowd when a jostling photographer’s camera bag caught him in the ribs, stirring an old wound. Snapping, “Watch it!” he got a grunted “Sorry” in reply, but he didn’t hear. He spotted her across 15 feet and 30 other press people, and it stopped him cold. His plan, if he saw her, was to keep right on moving, just as if she was any one of the photographers he didn’t know. But he couldn’t.

  She was moving quickly, her easy grace achingly familiar as she swung through the throng toward the podium. “Tess!” Her name seemed to rush from a hole in his chest, and for a split second he caught his breath, embarrassed by the rawness of the gasp that no one else heard. Then he turned on his heel and went after her, not thinking about what he intended to do or say. As he drew close, she blazed away with a digital camera, the motor drive stuttering. Then she dropped it and raised a video camera, the switch so quick and practiced it seemed to have hardly happened.

  How many times had he watched her work? Almost within reach, he stopped in surprise as Governor Erickson spotted her too and with a huge smile, moved over to give her a better shot. For a split second the man seemed to pose just for her. Then, with a wink, he looked back over the crowd, waved one last time, took his wife’s arm and left the dais.

  Still Waterman watched, aware that she had no idea he was almost directly behind her in the heaving crowd. Near the back corner of the platform he saw a tall, blond man nod to her with a grin and Tess’s hasty salute in reply. Then she turned, her slight figure melting into the stream of the press flowing after Erickson as he shook hands with the crowd.

  Sam knew he could go on his way, file his story and leave first thing in the morning just as planned, without her ever knowing he was there. A small, niggling voice of sanity whispered just to let her go. It was the easy, and probably the decent thing to do. But he’d be damned if he’d be that noble. She owed him. And as he turned and went in the opposite direction, he knew where he’d find her

  Chapter 3

  The overcast brought an early dusk, and Jack Westphal noticed the streetlights come on as he ducked through the door of TJ’s tavern. The only faces he could see in the dim light were the glassy stares from the deer and elk heads watching silently from the walls. Walking toward the back, he brushed his damp blond hair back and squinted into the gloom. Then he smiled, and in a few long strides came to a table in the darkest corner, tossing the evening’s Journal onto its scarred surface as he pulled back a chair. “This is the last place in town anyone would look for you.” He laughed as he sat down.

  Swede Erickson grinned as he picked up the paper. “That’s why I’m here. Christ, a man can only take so much shaking hands and smiling for the cameras, and then he’s got to hide.”

  “Better get used to it.”

  Erickson nodded with a wry grimace, then barked a laugh as he looked down at the front page. “Tess caught me winking.”

  “Just be glad she’s not shooting any in here,” Jack gestured at the grimy surroundings. “I thought Betty would be serving up champagne and hors d’oeuvres back at the house by now.”

  “She is.”

  “And you left?” Erickson only nodded, and Jack snorted, “I bet she’s thrilled.”

  Erickson looked up from his reading. “She’s undoubtedly furious. But she’ll cover for me. Lord knows she can handle all those pissant state legislators and I’m glad to let her.” For a second he considered his own words and then asked, “You don’t have that little recorder you’re so fond of on you, right?” Jack grinned and pulled the digital audio recorder out of his pocket. It was running. “Christ,” Swede laughed, “this isn’t an interview. Come on, buddy. Since when did I have to tell you when we’re off the record?”

  “Since you became a presidential candidate,” Jack clicked it off. “Gotta find new audio clips for the site where I can.”

  “Well, I already gave you plenty today,” Swede said, as a grossly fat man in a stained Hawaiian print shirt walked over and slammed two draws down in front of them. “Thanks, T.J.,” Erickson said to the man’s back as he walked away without a word. “Impressed as hell, isn’t he?” Jack raised his glass for a sip and his heavy shoulders in a shrug. Erickson mopped at the sloshed beer on the table with a couple napkins. “Maybe that’s why I had such an urge to come here. A good dose of reality after that dog-and-pony show today. Any guy who served Pop as often as T.J. isn’t going to let me forget it.”

  Jack’s smile faded. Since Carl Erickson’s death it was unusual for the governor to mention his father at all, let alone on a day like this. “This isn’t what I expe
cted, Swede.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you. What did you expect?”

  “I’m not sure. I suppose I thought you’d be all charged up. Like all those stories Dad used to tell about you before a big game.” Jack's family had farmed in the area for years, but his father had also been the basketball coach at the local high school. Swede Erickson had been Jim Westphal's first standout player. His son, Jack, had been his last.

  “Sometimes you’re still such a kid,” Swede muttered, and tasted his beer.

  Jack flushed. “What’s going on?’

  “Nothing.” Erickson looked down at the paper, as if continuing to read, but after a moment he looked up again. “In spite of what the pundits say, it’s not clear sailing to the nomination. This is going to be a bitch of a campaign. That Idaho harpy is pulling the party apart, and don’t think that old bastard Morton will give up until someone drives a stake through his heart.” Jack didn’t say anything, letting the silence grow, and Swede finally sighed, “Look, this happens every time I run. Once I’m committed I always have a moment of remorse. I mean, I was there at the house, shaking hands all around with a bunch of small-town politicians telling me how sure they are I’m going to win it all, and I seemed to be the only one who remembered that just a few years ago I was no different from any of them.”

  “But,” Jack said, “major people in the national party, not just Iowa hicks, approached you to run . . .”

  “Right, I’m aware,” Swede cut him off. And then he smiled, belying the abruptness. “Hey, this is just a case of post-coital cold feet. All I need is to sit with a good friend, some place where I’ll never be anything more than the grocer’s kid, until it passes. Thank God you didn’t think it was a joke when I texted and asked you to meet me here.”