Dead Politician Society

Chapter 58: Clare

Clare watched Cloutier’s thick jowls chew his donut. He chomped slowly, like he deliberately wanted to extend this conversation about Clare's incompetence.

“This is pretty bad, right?” Clare said.

“Pretty bad.” A crumb fell from the corner of his mouth. “No matter how well you think you played it, your professor’s suspicion alone is a big deal. I’ll talk to Morton, but I think we’ll have to pull you from the case.”

“No!” Clare pleaded with her eyes as well as her words. “Matthew believed me, I’m sure he did. And I’m in now. Not into the society, but I have an in with virtually every suspect.”

“Virtually? Who’s still missing?”

“Jonathan’s tricky. I haven’t found any points in common, anything he and I can talk about. I tried to ask him if he could recommend a video game I might like, but he muttered something brief and turned away.”

“Okay. So you’ve made headway with Diane Mateo?”

Clare nodded. “I called her to apologize for being rude to her in the subway. I wasn’t really rude, but I could have stood up to Jessica on her behalf, and I didn’t.”

“She accept your apology?”

“Wasn’t even mad. She laughed it off like this is all a game of strategy. Said she didn’t blame me one bit for playing things that way. We’re not friends—I don’t even know if she has friends—but it’s something.”

Cloutier looked bored. “The inspector’s going to let the paper run the story.”

“The obituaries? Why now?”

“Four people are dead and no one’s in custody. Tourists are leaving town halfway through the film festival, which makes the chief worried for his own job. Time to shake Utopia Girl out of her tree.”

Clare looked into her coffee. It was murky and unappealing. “Can we ask for editorial approval of the story before they run it?”

“There’s no ‘we’ here, Vengel.”

“Simpson.”

“Not for much longer.”

Clare swallowed hard.

“Jessica Dunne,” Cloutier said. “She’s the rich kid who invited you to last night’s party?”

Clare nodded.

“You arrive together? She leave your sight at all?”

“We met outside on King Street. She was a few minutes late, but we'd arranged to meet out front and I didn’t want to go inside and find her family on my own.” Clare opened her bag of donut holes and looked inside to choose a flavor. She picked chocolate. “We were together all night until Alton collapsed. Except for a couple of bathroom breaks.”

“Yours or hers?”

“Excuse me?”

“Who took the bathroom breaks?”

“We each took one. Separately.” Clare pinched the donut hole between her fingers and studied it. It looked like a very brown meatball. She suddenly didn’t want it anymore.

“Okay I realize girly stuff doesn’t come naturally to you, but next time, you go together to the bathroom.”

“Next time?” Clare was hopeful.

“Yeah, next time in ten years, when you’re undercover again. How long was her bathroom break?”

Damn. As in, did Jessica have time to go slip something in John Alton’s drink?