Grand Master by D.W. Buffa

the past, had been leading up to them. “I imagine the
only real question is which of them thought of it first.”
    Dazzled by how quickly she could get to the
heart of things, the smile faded from Bobby’s lips. “There are
people who were around them for years, who thought they knew them
better than they ever knew anyone, who insist that it was only
after a lot of other people started talking about what a great
president she would be, and how this was the first real chance to
elect a woman, that they began to consider the possibility.”
    Helen’s eyes went wide with wonder; her mouth
began to quiver as if she were about to laugh. “What was it you
told me, not that long ago: the closer some people are to power the
more willing they are to believe? But, whichever of them was the
first to think of it, that’s all gone now, isn’t it? Robert
Constable is dead. Or do you think she might try anyway?”
    “Run for president? I doubt it. She has other
things she has to deal with now.” He said this with a worried
expression, and then hesitated, not quite sure how to tell her what
had happened, and what, because of it, he had to do. He got up from
the chair and sat next to her on the sofa. “Constable didn’t die of
a heart attack.”
    Helen guessed at once what it meant.
“Someone…?”
    “Murdered him, assassinated him, that night.
A woman did it, a woman he was with.”
    “In the hotel, where he died?” she asked,
wanting to be sure.
    “He’d picked her up somewhere - which means
that she knew where he would be and how she could get his
attention; or someone sent her there, someone he knew, someone he
trusted. She used a needle, injected him with a drug that stopped
his heart, caused cardiac arrest. There’s more to it, but that
doesn’t matter now. No one knows about this. You’re the only one
I’ve told. I wish I didn’t know, but when she -”
    “She?”
    “Madelaine Constable. At the reception after
the funeral, she asked to see me. She wants me to find out what I
can about what happened. She thinks that I might be able to do
something without anyone finding out. She’s worried about what will
happen if it becomes known that the President was murdered before
we know who did it and the reason why it was done.”
    Helen jumped to her feet, angry at what he
had been asked to do. “You can’t do this, Bobby! She’s using you.
Don’t you see that? The only thing she’s worried about is how this
might affect her.”
    Bobby reached for her wrist and tried to give
her assurances. “That’s why I didn’t promise anything, except to
see what I could find out; why I told her that whatever I found out
there was going to have to be an investigation, and that the public
was going to have to know.”
    “Why do it at all, Bobby? What good will it
do? Why take the risk?”
    “Because there’s a sense in which I think
she’s right. Whatever way this affects her - that’s not important.
What is important is how it affects the country. If I can find out
something before it hits the papers we might stop the kind of
panic, the kind of wild rumors that will tear the country
apart.”
    She did not disagree, but neither did she
doubt her own belief that he was being drawn into someone else’s
game. “There’s something she isn’t telling you. She’s never done
anything that wasn’t based on a calculation of her own
advantage.”
    Bobby got to his feet and took her by the
hand. He smiled in a failed attempt to convince her not to worry,
that he could take care of himself. “Whatever she might be
thinking, she can’t use me to cover up what happened.”
    “Because you told her that you wouldn’t do
that? But maybe all she wants is time.”
    “If that’s what she’s after, I’m afraid she
doesn’t have much left. Constable had a meeting scheduled the next
morning with Quentin Burdick of the Times. He must have thought
Burdick was onto something important, because he cancelled
everything else he had