Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

about the skeleton in the Handley closet,” he said to me. “I’m married to a firebrand radical.”
    “A woman after my own heart,” I said, and meant it. Jodie smiled. “Oh, there’s Betty Blaine,” she said. “I’ve got to talk to her about something. Will you excuse me a moment?”
    She fluttered gracefully away, energy and good nature fairly seething from her pores.
    “At last we’re alone,” said the senator in a stage whisper.
    “Again,” I said.
    “Yes. I think we’d better have a little talk, don’t you?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Good. How about my car?”
    We walked out the back sliding doors, because they were closest, and around the house. Apparently he’d been able to get a parking place when someone else left, because he wasn’t parked nearly so far away as Mickey and I. He opened the door of a tan Mercedes to let me slip inside. While he walked around to the other side, I inhaled the odor of newness and thought resentfully that it was a pretty fancy car for a man of the people.
    He waited a moment to see if I’d speak first, but I didn’t. “I want to thank you for the other night,” he said, “and to apologize for my idiotic behavior. I didn’t know who you were at the time, of course.”
    “You were upset.”
    “Upset! It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” He looked at me with an appealing earnestness. “Would you believe it if I told you I love my wife?”
    “Of course. Anyone would love her.”
    “You know far too much about me, my girl.”
    My neck prickled. “Is that a threat?”
    The senator smiled and patted my hand. “Good God, no! I was admitting my own embarrassment, that’s all.” He became serious again. “I hope you can understand. I don’t completely, myself, but I think it’s something to do with power, something about guilt…”
    “That makes you… made you go to Kandi, you mean?”
    “Yes. I’ve done some reading on it, and I don’t think it’s too unusual. You see, in my job so much is at stake. One compromises so much, and there is so much corruption everywhere… I don’t know. The best I can say is that I feel a need to be punished for my part in it. At least I think that’s what it is. Do you understand?”
    “As you say, I believe it’s quite common among politicians. I can read, too, you know. But why are you telling me all this?”
    “You’re an intelligent girl, Rebecca. I’m telling you because I mean to appeal to your sense of compassion for a fellow human being. A human being with an affliction, if you will. I want to beg you—
beg you
—to keep it to yourself. I think it would kill Jodie if she found out.”
    I was horrified. “Hurting Jodie is the last thing I’d want to do,” I said. “I hope you understand that I realize the seriousness of the thing. I also wouldn’t want to hurt you. You’re working on some things in Sacramento that are important to me, and I don’t see how your… affliction, as you put it, could interfere with your work. Unless there was a scandal about it, which would destroy your credibility. So why would I want to create one?”
    He opened his mouth to speak, but I stopped him. “On the other hand, I am adamant that the police must be told you were at Elena’s Friday night. A woman has been murdered, after all.”
    “I’ve already told them.”
    “Good. Then you needn’t worry about my telling anyone. You have my word.”
    “Thank God!” He sank back against the seat and closed his eyes, like a man who has come to the end of a long and arduous task. “Thank God!” I was quite sincerely sympathetic to him, no matter how much I liked Jodie.
    As we walked back to the party, though, I felt I had to have the answer to another question. “Didn’t it bother you,” I asked, “when we were having that conversation about prostitution with Jodie? It was excruciating for me.”
    “Bother me! My dear girl, my stomach felt like someone had lit a fire in it.” He made a fist and struck a tree trunk. “I hate lying to her! I hate it!”
    “Does it make you feel guilty?”
    He sighed. “Of course. And the more guilt I feel, the more I need…”
    He didn’t finish the sentence, but I didn’t need to be told.
    We reentered the house and went our separate ways. I tried to have a good time, but the evening was pretty well spoiled for me.
    Mickey and I managed to get away about eleven o’clock. “Your shadow’s back,” she said as we turned into my block.
    Sure