The Fixer's Daughter Read online

  “Then you didn’t mean it? Really?” Callie exhaled in a long, loud sigh.

  “Course I didn’t mean it. It was the only thing I could think of.” Buddy stopped and gave it another moment’s thought. “And like I said, it wouldn’t have worked.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “A Death In Westlake, Part 4, by Callie McFee and Oliver Chesney.”

  She kept staring at her screen, the slightest of smiles crinkling her eyes. It might not look like much, just the online version of an article from a free weekly paper – a headline, a sub-head and several pages of scrollable text. What made it unique was the never-before-seen photo she’d taken of her brother placing the mighty Keagan Blackburn in handcuffs just steps away from his mansion. At the top was a counter, tallying up the hundreds of thousands of readers who’d clicked through since they’d gone online just this morning. Two weeks had passed since that night in the field, and the public was still hungry for any leftover crumbs.

  The rest of the media had followed the story, of course. How could they not? The CEO of a major company arrested on two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. Callie suspected that her father could have made the attempted murder charges disappear, but at some point, even for a political animal like Buddy, things got too personal.

  As soon as she heard the knock on her wall, she clicked back to her homepage, but not soon enough. Oliver stood in the doorway. “If it isn’t Wonder Woman with press credentials and a shotgun.”

  She lifted a single eyebrow. “How long have you been thinking that one up?”

  “Good, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Come on. You need to savor these moments. They don’t come often. Whenever things go shitty, you can look back on this.”

  “If I savor them too much, I think it’s like a curse, like walking under a ladder.”

  “Like I said, they don’t come often.” She expected him to walk on, to continue on his end-of-the-day circuit of the cubicles, but he stepped inside and lowered his voice. “Are things still okay with State? No repercussions from the department? I know he wasn’t happy when you outed him as your source. The last time you said anything…”

  “It’s better,” she said. “Turns out my brother is untouchable. It was his collar, a huge one. Plus the department is dealing with Blackburn’s vanishing arrest record. No one wants to add fuel to the fire.”

  “Good.” The young publisher took two more steps into her cubicle, pulled up her single guest chair and sat down. If she’d had a door, he probably would have closed it. “I know you don’t want to talk about a book deal, but we got another offer.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You know, if you answered your phone, they wouldn’t call me and I wouldn’t have to bug you.” He took a beat. “There’s also a movie offer. Well, Netflix. This New York agent has a client, some big TV writer. They want to option the rights. You wouldn’t have to write anything, just talk to them and be a consultant. They mentioned Jennifer Lawrence for you. Can you believe? Don’t you think that would be cool? She’d have to go red, of course, and she’s really hot as a redhead.”

  “I hope you told them no.”

  “Hey!” He leaned in. “What did I say about savoring?”

  For Callie it wasn’t about savoring her fifteen minutes. It was about protecting her father, about keeping the cameras away, about leaving certain questions unanswered and letting the story die a natural death. And there were the Crawleys. She doubted if Briana’s parents would savor seeing their little girl depicted on their home screen as a sugar baby.

  “They could do it without your cooperation,” Oliver warned. “The agent made sure to mention that. The public record.”

  “I know,” Callie said. “And I checked the copyright laws. They can use any public information in their movie – arrest records, police statements, trial documents. But a lot of the details were first revealed in our story, revealed exclusively, which is copyrighted by the Austin Free Press. I doubt they’d want to do it without us. I wouldn’t cooperate, State wouldn’t, the Crawleys wouldn’t, my dad wouldn’t.”

  “Really?” Oliver seemed skeptical. “I don’t know him well, but I’d think Buddy McFee would relish the attention.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t,” she lied. “How about you?”

  “Me neither,” he assured her. “I just want to see Jennifer Lawrence with red hair and a Texas accent. Is that too much to ask?”

  Callie switched off her laptop and began packing up for the day. “By the way, I’m taking a personal day tomorrow. It shouldn’t be a problem with deadlines.” Her phone rang before she could explain further. She checked the screen, rolled her eyes and hit the ignore button.

  “Another movie offer?” Oliver guessed. “Maybe with Bradley Cooper playing me?”

  “In your dreams. No, it’s a friend. Nicole. She calls all the time. I’ll call her back.”

  “Nicole from the TV station?” Oliver’s brows formed two straight little lines. “Where you used to work? I hope Nicole and her people aren’t trying to poach you.” He said it half as a joke and half not.

  Callie didn’t have the energy to lie. “They want me to come on as on-air talent and as a producer. I told them no, but she keeps calling.”

  “Good.” He looked like he wanted to rush over and hug her. “I mean, good for me. I know we can’t pay you as much, but I could come up with a little raise. We just doubled our ad rates.”

  “Don’t worry – although a raise would be welcome, don’t get me wrong. I had my chance over at KXAN. It’s not for me.”

  “Good,” he repeated and instinctively reached out to touch her upper left arm. At the last instant, he pulled back. “Sorry. I keep forgetting.”

  Callie smiled. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt. Probably the easiest gunshot wound I’ll ever go through.”

  “I hope so. I mean, I hope you never get shot again.” He leaned in, as if to tell a secret. “I gotta say this, Callie, hiring you was the best thing I ever let myself get talked into.”

  She tilted her head. “Interesting way to put it. Who talked you into it?”

  “Who did?” he said with a trace of a stammer. “You did. I mean, when you came in to interview. Anyway, I’m babbling. Feel free to take your personal day. Take two.”

  “I am taking two, one for me and one for Jennie. She’s helping me move.”

  “That’s tomorrow? So soon?”

  “A vacancy opened up in Sherry Ann’s building. There are scads of U.T. students there, so maybe I’ll get to relive my college days. They could use some reliving.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me?” He seemed disappointed. “If you postpone it to Saturday, I can help.”

  Callie slipped her laptop into her bag. “That’s very sweet, but the van is coming tomorrow from my storage locker in Dallas and, to be honest, there’s not all that much. I’m thinking of it more as a girls’ day than a moving day.”

  “Understood. Have fun.” He offered a timid half-wave as she headed out of her cubicle. “Thanks for not quitting.”

  *

  The first thing Callie saw as she turned off Hacienda Road was the unmistakable figure of Gil Morales, limping along the gravel path leading up to the main house. A week ago, he’d been released from the burn unit and part of his physical therapy was to walk, half a mile or more three times a day. As with everything, Gil took the regimen seriously, almost zealously, doing a circuit from the house to the road and back, morning noon and night, whatever the weather. Callie was surprised to see him on his phone, in clear violation of his instructions to concentrate and stretch the area around his thighs where they’d taken the skin grafts for his arms.

  As she approached, Callie slowed down to wave hello. Gil had just gotten off his call and waved back. “Calista.”

  “Don’t want to interrupt your therapy,” she shouted out the window, slowing her truck to a crawl.

  “No, no. This is an extra. Why don’t you stop for a minute and t
alk?”

  Callie knew what this was going to be about, but good manners demanded that she stop. “Who was that on the phone?” She put her truck into Park and leaned out.

  “Our old pal, Felix Gibson.” Gil’s face had healed, turning from a post-fire red to a kind of orangey gray. There was a shiny tightness to his skin that would probably never go away, and he was clean-shaven for the first time since Callie had known him. She could see that he wanted to lean up against the truck, the typical posture of a Texas stop-and-chat, and had to prevent himself.

  “What did Felix want?” she asked. “Or what did you want from Felix?”

  “You assume it wasn’t just friendly.”

  “Nothing is just friendly.”

  Gil’s orange-gray mouth tightened into a skeletal grin. “Felix wants to drop over to discuss his primary coming up. I told him your dad was too busy. That’s what I tell pretty much everyone. It only makes them want him more. I thought arresting one of the biggest shakers might make him a political pariah, but just the opposite. Now he’s looking clean and smart and strong. Hell, he could run against Felix for attorney general and win.”

  “Please tell me that’s not happening.”

  “Course not. My heart couldn’t take it.”

  “Good to hear.” Callie looked over her steering wheel at the house. There were still some repairs to do, but it had been restored to a semblance of its perfection in record time, as if nothing had happened – nothing but a fire and Angus’s death and Gil’s disfigurement. They’d been back in the house for only a week, and tomorrow she would be leaving.

  Gil was also staring at the house, looking pensive. “You think Felix Gibson was responsible?” Callie asked.

  Gil mulled it over. “Hell, I don’t know. At first… I mean, happening right after that disastrous dinner. I was in pain and pretty paranoid.”

  “And later on. He was so anxious to get into the study, to see if everything was destroyed.”

  “I was anxious, too,” Gil admitted. “No one, from the governor down, wanted the arson squad finding something that might open some long-closed door. When I ran back into the fire, I could tell it was all gone.”

  A suspicion teased at the edges of Callie’s mind. “Was that the real reason you ran back in? I thought you went back to save Angus.”

  “Of course I went back for Angus.” His outrage seemed genuine. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t see everything else. Dammit, Callie, what kind of ass do you think I am?”

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Gil.”

  “That’s okay,” he said, still sounding upset. “Anyway, no arson’s gonna happen now. We have this security system. State of the art. And I’ll be cutting back his work load.”

  “Dad’s not going to like that.”

  “We’ll take it day by day.” Gil shifted his weight from one aching leg to the other. “You sure I can’t persuade you to stay? It would add years to his life.”

  “And take years off mine.” She turned, her eyes catching his. “That was your plan from the start, wasn’t it? To get me to move back home.”

  Gil’s skull-face grin faded. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it was you.” He didn’t answer. “You called the Morning News and had me fired. Then you called Oliver Chesney and asked him to give me a job. Anything in your power to bring me home.”

  “Is that what Oliver told you?”

  “He said he let himself be talked into hiring me. I knew right away it was you.”

  She had expected Gil to deny it, but he seemed proud. “It wasn’t easy, you know. They didn’t want to let you go.”

  “Well, that’s nice.” For a second, she felt flattered. “Wait a minute, three other people were fired that day. You had them all fired?”

  Gil shrugged. “Couldn’t be helped. We had to make it look like a layoff. The paper was over-staffed anyway.”

  “You… It didn’t matter that you were hurting people? Their families? It didn’t matter that you were uprooting my life? Oh, no. Not an issue.”

  Gil shifted his legs again. “Was I so wrong? Was that the wrong choice, digging up your shallow new roots and bringing you home? How many friends did you have there? Tell me. How much family did you have? Your daddy needs you, Callie.”

  “I’ll still be around.”

  “It’s not the same. He needs consistency. In whatever world he wakes up, the man needs the familiar. People and things from before.”

  “Is that what I am, some kind of prop? Part of his daily surroundings?” Callie shook her head and bit her lower lip. “Like Sarah? Like Angus?”

  “Don’t be maudlin. You’re a McFee. Being part of this family is a gift. Honestly, I think it would be sad just living for yourself, not being a part of something bigger.”

  Callie knew what he meant. “I used to feel that way. Hell, I was bred that way. But now… You’re more his family than I am. I’m sorry, Uncle Gil.” Without another word or a moment more of hesitation, she slipped the truck into Drive and continued up to the house.

  Her last evening at the ranch was a subdued one. Gil ate in his own part of the house, leaving Callie and Sarah to deal with Buddy. At dinner, he was in a quiet mood, barely saying a word as he worked his way through the sweet and sour pork chops, mashed potatoes and green beans. She never knew where he was during these quiet spells. Every now and then she would try to ask questions and bring him out, but he would respond only reluctantly, mumbling as few words as possible.

  Afterwards, Callie helped Sarah in the kitchen, just to give herself something to do. The last few weeks had felt strange in a way she couldn’t put into words. It was both comforting and uncomfortable, both nostalgic and sad, to sleep in her old bedroom and have Sarah once again in the house, to keep her company and gossip with, just like the old days.

  From the kitchen, Sarah went back to her own little suite. Angus didn’t follow. He had been on his bed by the pantry, waiting for any scraps that might fall from the counters. Angus had been with them less than a week, a rescue that State and Yolanda had picked up from the shelter. He was an Irish setter several years younger than old Angus but sharing the same gray face and laid-back ways. When Buddy was in the present, he realized it was a different animal. When he was in a fog or visiting the past, he didn’t seem to notice.

  Angus padded his way from the kitchen to the front study and his favorite dog bed. Callie followed, rapping lightly on the doorjamb before intruding. Her father was in his usual spot, a brown leather armchair almost identical to his previous one, with a little pillow acting as a bolster for his lower back. He was dozing, his head back and to one side. On the arm of his chair was his wooden Cohiba, artfully balanced, its long wooden ash poised over a duplicate of his old wicker wastebasket.

  Callie was about to retreat. They would say their goodbyes in the morning, when he might be in a more receptive space. Then she smelled the air and noted the wisp of smoke spiraling up from the cigar. A second later and the burning ash fell into the wastebasket.

  At first, she was puzzled. Had the little sculpture come to life? But the cigar was indeed real, as was the ash, now smoldering on the hardwood bottom of the wastebasket. She was just picking it up when her father roused himself back into consciousness.

  “Daughter of mine.” He grunted, shifted in his chair and threw her a lazy smile. His gaze lowered to the cigar in her hand. “I didn’t have my morning one, so… As long as I finish it before midnight, I’m good with your mother.” He reached out and she handed it back.

  “Cohibas,” she said. “Where do you keep them?”

  Buddy frowned. “I can’t remember. I found this one… I don’t know where. I think your mother’s been hiding them from me.”

  Callie made a mental note to tell Gil. He would draw the same conclusion that she was drawing now. A lit cigar falling into a wastebasket full of paper… How funny.

  After all their worry and paranoia about the fire, all their suspicions of the ruthless Texas elite, the solution
would prove to be something as simple as this. Buddy had promised Anita on her deathbed never to smoke again, and he was a man of his word – except, of course, when he was in the past and she was still alive. Callie and Gil would sweep the house in the morning, looking for whatever stash he’d left behind.

  Buddy took a long, satisfied puff, releasing it through his nostrils. “Why don’t you sit with me?” he asked, pointing to the chair opposite his own. “Till I finish this little piece of heaven.” She nodded. She would sit by him until it was safely extinguished. “How about a little whisky?” he asked. “Want me to get you a little drop of whisky?”

  She chuckled. “I’ll get you a little drop of whisky.” At the bar, she took two cut crystal rocks glasses. Just as she was reaching for the bottle of brown water, she realized that her father, in his current state, would raise holy hell at the taste. She located the real stuff, the bottle of Buchanan’s at the back of the cabinet above the bar, and poured him two fingers neat. For her own glass, she poured the same amount, two fingers neat, but from the bottle of brown water on the bar. Like her father on a good day, she had grown used to the taste.

  Settling down in the new leather armchair opposite his, Callie McFee toasted into the smoky air. “To family,” said Buddy, toasting back.

  “To family.”

  THE END

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  The Fixer’s Daughter has been a long time coming. I had proposed a kernel of this idea in the Monk writers’ room well over a decade ago. Like most kernels, it was a simple what if. What if a powerful politician, the holder of a dozen explosive secrets, begins to suffer from dementia? At the time, the other writers and I were unable to “find the funny” in the situation and still treat the character with respect. The kernel remained on an index card pinned to our cork board, along with a dozen other half-born ideas until the very end of our run. Had the show gone on for nine seasons instead of eight, who knows, we might have cracked it.