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Clete stretched out in his leather recliner and reached for a cigar. David rose and began to pace.
“There’s this girl.”
“I figured,” Clete said, waving out the match he’d used to light his cigar.
“I met her when we were here last summer.”
“Local girl? Where’d you meet her? What’s her name? Who’re her people?”
“Her name is Becky Sturgis, but you wouldn’t know her. She’s trash, a nobody. I picked her up at a redneck lounge out on the highway. She was drunk when I got there. We scoped each other out, wound up dancing. We flirted, started necking. It got hot and heavy real quick. She was all over me. We either had to go outside, or it was going to get embarrassing. We’d barely cleared the door of the place before she pulled me to her. We did it right there against the wall of the building.”
It would have been hypocritical to chastise his protégé for a sexual indiscretion. When he was David’s age, he’d had some pretty wild escapades himself. It was only with maturity that he had learned the value of discretion and good judgment. Nevertheless, he felt that some chastening was called for.
“Several great statesmen have been denied the White House because they got their brains and their peckers confused. They got it mixed up which one to screw with and which one to think with.”
“I know that,” David said tightly. “I honest to God thought she was harmless. She was pretty, sexy, and unencumbered. She lives alone, works at a dairy as a dispatcher for their delivery trucks, has no family to speak of.”
Clete grunted skeptically. “If she’s so harmless, what brings you to my door at this time of night, bloodied up and looking like you might lose your supper on my dearly departed wife’s prized oriental rug?”
“I… I killed her.”
Clete’s lips went so slack that the lighted cigar almost fell into his lap. Gradually he recovered his wits enough to leave his recliner and pour another brandy, this one for himself. He quaffed it almost as greedily as David had drunk his. Clete could see his dreams for the young man dissolving like a sugar cube.
David Merritt had so distinguished himself as a volunteer in the Armbruster campaign that he was soon offered a paid position. When Clete first met him, David had only recently been discharged from the Marines. He was disciplined and intuitive. He required little or no supervision and executed every assignment with aplomb and expediency. It wasn’t long before Clete vested him with more responsibility.
Following his election to the Senate, he invited David to join his staff in Washington. For the past two years David had proved himself a valuable asset and a quick study in politics. Clete had already laid big plans for him, because he saw that David had what it took to make an excellent politician.
He had a hands-on, working knowledge of economics because he’d had to make do with the meager resources available to him in his youth. In his spare time, he studied law and government procedure. He had a distinguished military service record. He was handsome and articulate and, until tonight, free of scandalous baggage.
It took every ounce of self-control Clete possessed not to walk over and slap the shit out of him for being so stupid. “I guess you had a good reason for killing her,” he said harshly.
“I swear to God it was an accident.”
“Don’t swear it to God,” Clete roared. “Swear it to me, boy.”
“I swear it, Clete.”
He studied David’s face for a long time but saw no signs of dissembling in the shattered expression. He was one scared young man. “Okay,” Clete said. “What happened?”
“First I’ve got to backtrack. After that first time, I began seeing her whenever we were here.”
Clete rolled his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “At Christmas?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Easter?”
David nodded.
“While you were courting Vanessa? You’ve been playing us both for fools,” he shouted.
“You’ve got it wrong, Clete,” David said emotionally, his voice cracking. “You know how I feel about Vanessa. I love her and want to marry her, but…”
“But you felt the urge to dip your wick into some trashy girl who gets drunk and screws against the outside wall of a redneck beer joint. Is that your idea of how to conduct your love life?”
The outburst cleared Clete’s head. He returned to his recliner and let his temper simmer as he puffed furiously on his cigar. David wisely gave him time to calm himself. Finally he snarled, “Give me the rest of it.”
“On our last trip here, she called me to come see her out at her place. When I got there…” He paused, dragged his hand down his face. “I couldn’t believe it. Her stomach was out to here.”
