Dirty Game. Jessie Keane

dreaded the cook’s day off.

      Once Zoe was gone, Marsha reached out and gave Gerry’s knee a comforting pat.

      “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she said. “When I found out he’d been sneaking in and out of the house, I just went ballistic. I couldn’t believe he’d pull a stunt like that with you so sick. I thought that taking away his electronic equipment was the only punishment that would have any kind of impact, but then when I saw the video …”

      “I know,” her husband said. “I’m sure you did the right thing. That goes for calling in Garvin as well. But if Josh really did do this terrible thing”—Gerry paused for a moment, gathering himself—“then I should pack up and move the two of us out of here right now. None of this has leaked into the public yet, has it?”

      That question was directed at Mel and me. We both shook our heads.

      “That’s a blessing,” Gerry said. “But it’s a reprieve that won’t last long. Even if these folks don’t do it, someone will leak word to the press. Once that happens, the opposition will be calling for your head on a platter. The party will drop you like a hot potato. Just you wait, the next time you’re up for reelection, the party bigwigs will be backing someone else in the primary. If Josh and I leave now, before this all hits the fan, we might be able to do some damage control.”

      “You’re not leaving,” Marsha said firmly. “Neither one of you is leaving.”

      There were steps on the stairs—heavy steps—that were definitely not Zoe’s.

      Garvin McCarthy poked his head around the end of the archway. “You shouldn’t be talking to these people,” he said curtly, addressing the governor. “You shouldn’t, and neither should your husband.”

      I didn’t like it that he spoke about the First Husband rather than to the First Husband when Gerry Willis was right there in the room. Subtract two points from Mr. McCarthy, although, being a criminal defense lawyer, in my book he was already in negative territory to begin with.

      “Call me at the office,” McCarthy added. “Or on my cell. You have them both.”

      Marsha nodded.

      “Don’t bother showing me out,” he added gruffly. “I know the way.”

      “He’s an arrogant bastard, but he’s also the best money can buy,” Marsha said, turning to Gerry. “He’ll do what needs to be done.”

      This time Gerry was the one who nodded. For the first time, he looked ill. His skin color had faded. Obviously Marsha was right and this was too much for him.

      “I think I need to go back to bed for a while,” he said.

      Marsha jumped to her feet. “Are you okay? Should I call the doctor?”

      “No,” he said. “Don’t call the doctor, and you don’t need to come with me. I just need to lie down for a while. I believe I overdid it.”

      He rolled himself out of the room while Marsha subsided onto her chair. She waited until Gerry was out of earshot, then she turned to Mel and me.

      “Just you wait,” she said. “If this kills him, I’ll strangle that little shit with my own two hands, and you may quote me on that.”

       CHAPTER 7

      BEFORE LEAVING THE GOVERNOR’S MANSION, WE EACH gave Marsha Longmire our business cards loaded with the full collection of contact information. She looked at the cards and nodded. “I’ll be keeping a very close eye on Josh,” she said. “He won’t be going anywhere or doing anything without my knowing about it.”

      What was it my mother used to say? Something about locking the barn door after the horse was already gone. I decided against passing that bit of folk wisdom along to the governor.

      “Good idea,” I said.

      Once outside, I loaded the evidence boxes into the backseat of Mel’s Cayman. “Next stop Todd Hatcher?” she asked.

      I nodded.

      “Do you have an address?”

      “I’ll call Ross’s office and get it.”

      While we had been in the governor’s mansion, we’d had our phones turned off. Two of the missed calls on my phone were from Katie Dunn, Ross’s secretary. One of the missed calls on Mel’s phone was also from there.

      “You wanted to talk to us?” I said when Katie came on the phone.

      “Mr. Connors would like to see you both,” she said. “He’s in a meeting right now and has another one early this evening. He was wondering if you’d mind stopping by his house later this evening, sometime around eight.”

      “We’ll be there,” I said. “Meantime, we need the physical address for Todd Hatcher. I know where he used to live, but I understand he’s moved.”

      Katie gave me the necessary information, a rural address outside Oakville, half an hour away. I relayed the message and the information to Mel. While she set off in what constitutes rush-hour traffic in Olympia to get us there, I sat back to enjoy the ride. When Mel is making like a Formula One driver behind the wheel, I often find it helpful to think about other things. In this case, I thought about Todd Hatcher.

      Call me a hopeless romantic. I love happy endings, or, rather, happy beginnings.

      Todd Hatcher is a very smart guy with a Ph.D. in economics, a couple of books to his credit, and a natural flair for computers. In the olden days, he might have been a prospector out wandering in the wilderness during the California gold rush. These days he’s a geek who specializes in data mining. As I understand it, that’s what his latest book is all about—data mining for fun and profit.

      But Todd is a most unlikely-looking geek, not at all the buttoned-down type. He wears cowboy boots and cowboy hats—not the rhinestone-cowboy variety, but the scuzzy down-at-the-heels boots that have seen years of wear in all kinds of terrain and all kinds of weather. He’s tall, skinny, and bowlegged from too many hours in the saddle. That’s how he supported himself through college—working as a ranch hand in southeastern Arizona.

      When I first met Todd several years ago, it took some time for me to realize that Ross Connors had stumbled on a diamond in the rough. Back then, Todd was barely making ends meet. He lived in a studio apartment, got where he needed to go by using a bus pass, and existed on a diet that consisted mostly of Top Ramen noodles. He was a kid from a small town in the desert stranded in the big-city wet of western Washington where it really does rain, even though tourists who come through the state in the summer are convinced that it never does.

      The work Todd did and still does for Ross Connors helped put him on a more stable financial footing. Getting his doctorate and having his first book published didn’t hurt. Both of those professional accomplishments led to his doing consulting work for other states. Within a matter of months his life had turned around: he was still living in western Washington and it was still raining, but instead of using a bus pass to get around, he was driving a new dual-cab Ford pickup truck. To ward off a bad case of homesickness he started following the local rodeo circuit, sometimes participating, sometimes as a spectator.

      That was what had taken him to the Kitsap County Fairgrounds out on the Kitsap Peninsula the previous summer. Each year during the Kitsap County Fair and Rodeo, one of the rodeo’s evening performances benefits the breast cancer foundation Susan G. Komen for the Cure. At that performance, everyone is supposed to wear pink, and a local organization donates money to the foundation for everyone who wears pink and wins one of that night’s events.

      As Todd told me shortly afterward, “It takes balls for a cowboy to wear pink.”

      On the evening in question, he had screwed his courage to the sticking place, dressed himself in a brand-new pink Western shirt, and showed up. Sometimes the fates are with you and