Dead Heat by Linda Barnes Page A

lives here. One of his speech writers.”
    â€œIs the senator here much?”
    â€œOh, yeah. Especially lately, with the marathon coming up and the election. Brian’s a real home and family man so he’s a regular commuter between Washington and Boston.”
    â€œOdd that the whole family hasn’t packed up and moved to Washington.”
    â€œCoffee?” Collatos asked.
    â€œBlack.”
    Spraggue left the uncomfortable couch as soon as Collatos went off in search of refreshment. He circled the room, pulled back one edge of a curtain cautiously. The unmarked car was in place. An envelope on the polished wooden mantel caught his eye, a packet full of amateur photographs. He shook them out in his hand: Donagher; two towheaded boys, maybe ten and fourteen years old; the pastel woman. The perfect political family. Except that the smile on the pastel woman looked tight, forced.
    He heard Collatos’ footsteps and shoved the prints back in their packet, placed the envelope back on the mantel. He wondered if Donagher’s wife made a practice of leaving the house by the back door, scurrying down a neighbor’s driveway, wearing a concealing hat. Maybe she was avoiding the patrol car out front. Spraggue kicked himself for not heeding his first impulse and following her. Then he kicked himself again for the thought. Follow Donagher’s wife. What the hell for? He clenched his teeth and warned himself off.
    When Collatos returned with the coffee, Spraggue was seated decorously on the couch, tapping his foot against a square of drab, but expensive rug.
    â€œWant a doughnut?” Collatos asked. “Did you know that politicians live on doughnuts? We got glazed, plain, jelly, sugarcoated—”
    â€œWho spotted me at the reservoir last night?” Spraggue asked, refusing the doughnut with a shake of his head.
    Collatos took his time selecting a particularly gooey lump of dough that oozed red jam when bitten. “Want to meet him?” he asked.
    â€œWhy not?”
    The man with the wire-rimmed glasses started talking as soon as Collatos ushered him into the room. He was last night’s apparition all right, wearing a gray suit, instead of a dark one. His tall, skinny silhouette, his stick-out Adam’s apple, left no doubt about it.
    â€œPleased to meet you,” he said, offering a gawky handshake. “You scared the hell out of me last night. I almost called the cops right then. If Pete hadn’t been awake when I got home, if he hadn’t realized who you were—”
    â€œAnd how did you manage that?” Spraggue asked Collatos.
    â€œMurray saw your car. A goddam silver Porsche, and I’m not supposed to know who it is?”
    Spraggue turned to the man called Murray. “Just what game were you playing at the reservoir last night?”
    â€œHe sounds like a cop,” Murray said, and Spraggue remembered how many times Menlo had asked him similar questions during their unfriendly session downtown.
    â€œMurray is Senator Donagher’s campaign manager,” Collatos said hurriedly, as if his title explained the man’s presence at the reservoir. “Murray Eichenhorn—Michael Spraggue. Sit down and drink some coffee, Murray, and don’t antagonize the man, please.”
    â€œHey,” Eichenhorn sent Spraggue a disarming smile that would have worked better if it hadn’t been practiced as much. “Look, I don’t mean to be difficult. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I was tied up all day in meetings. The Donagher campaign’s really starting to rev up. And then I got word that some nutcase tried to shoot my man. I almost had a heart attack myself. But I was booked solid; I couldn’t get over to the reservoir. Insomnia and curiosity sent me out on a wild-goose chase in the middle of the night, that’s all.”
    â€œWhat were you looking for?”
    â€œSure you’re not a cop?”