Dead Watch

“These same people, on both sides, have had this state mired in a political bog for fifty years. Now we’re moving again. Now we’re getting things done. So we create a volunteer force, to help keep an eye on possible terror targets, to help elderly people get their meals, to help mobilize in case of natural disaster, and they call them Nazis. Isn’t that just typical? Isn’t that just what you’d expect? I have two words for them: ‘Fuck ’em.’ ”
    He’d actually said “Fuck ’em,” scandalizing the press corps, but nobody else, and his popularity moved up a half dozen points in the polls.
    Two years earlier, with Goodman then only a year in the statehouse, Lincoln Bowe was running for a second term in the Senate. He was widely assumed to be an easy winner.
    With encouragement from the White House, Goodman had supported a lightweight Democrat named Don Murray, and had been the local force behind the Murray campaign. The president had done a half dozen fund-raisers. The campaign went dirty, and Murray beat Bowe by four thousand votes, with an independent candidate trailing far behind. Goodman and the Watchmen had been either credited or blamed for Murray’s win, depending on which party you were from.
    The bitterness that flowed from the campaign had never stopped.
    Jake made Richmond in two hours and fifteen minutes, including a frustrating six minutes behind a fifty-mile-per-hour, boat-towing SUV that precisely straddled the highway’s center line; and an accident in which a blue Chevy had plowed into the rear of another blue Chevy. A highway patrolman was talking to the Chevy drivers, both women in suits, while ignoring the traffic jam they were creating.
    By the time he got to Richmond, he was pissed, and Richmond was not the easiest place to get around, a knotted welter of old streets cut by expressways. Goodman’s office was in the Patrick Henry Building on the southeast corner of the Capitol complex.
    Jake found the building, and after ten minutes of looking, spotted an empty parking space four blocks away, parked, and plugged the meter. He got his cane and briefcase out of the backseat, walked over to Broad Street, across Broad past the old city hall, and left along a brick walkway.
    The walkway and the capitol grounds were separated by a green-painted wrought-iron fence; the fence was supported by posts decorated as fasces, which made Jake smile. As he approached the Patrick Henry Building, he saw two Watchmen sitting on a bench outside the door, taking in the sun. They were in the Watchman uniform of khaki slacks, blue oxford-cloth shirts, and bomber jackets.
    When Jake came up with his cane, they stood, two tall, slender men, friendly, and one asked, “Do you have an appointment, sir?”
    “Yes, I do, with the governor.”
    “And your name?”
    “Jake Winter.”
    One of the men checked a clipboard, then smiled and nodded. “Go right ahead.”
    As Jake started past, the other man asked, “Were you in the military?”
    Jake stopped. “Yes. The army.”
    “Iraq? Syria?”
    “Afghanistan,” Jake said.
    “Ah, one of the snake eaters,” the man said. “Have you thought about joining the Watchmen?”
    “I don’t live in Virginia,” Jake said.
    “Okay,” the man said. “We’ll be coming to your neighborhood soon. Think it over when we get there.”
    “You were in the army?” Jake asked.
    “He was a fuckin’ squid,” the other man said. “Excuse the language.”
    Jake laughed and said, “See you,” and went inside.

    Inside he found an airport-style security check. Goines showed up, apparently alerted by the Watchmen, as Jake was processing through the X-ray and metal detectors.
    “Mister Winter?” Jake nodded, and as he retrieved his briefcase and cane, Goines said, “This way.”
    Goines was annoyed. A small blond man with a dimpled chin, a ten-cent knockoff of his boss, he carried a petulant look. His eyes were like a chicken’s, and like a chicken, he cocked his head to the side to look at Jake as they rode up a couple of floors in the elevator. He led the way to his office, past a secretary in an outer cubicle, and said, “This better be important,” and pointed at a chair as he settled behind his desk.
    “There are some indications that the Watchmen may be involved in the detention of Lincoln Bowe,” Jake said, crossing his legs. “The president wants me to find Bowe. He wants me to find him now.”
    “What indications?”
    “Rumors, mostly,” Jake