“There’s not much to search,” I said, carrying my phone through Brendan’s condo. He was tidy for a bachelor. It was almost suspicious how little there was, come to think of it. Who doesn’t have some bills sitting on a counter? A stack of crumpled receipts or a notepad left beside a phone? I picked up the receiver in the kitchen and thumbed through the menu to access the call log, but like most landlines, it contained a dozen telemarketing calls, scam numbers, and one from a time-share resort in Florida.
I hung up the receiver, hugging the blanket around me. The condo was spotless, not a single crease in the hotel-quality duvet or a crumb on the counter. Not a speck of spit on the bathroom mirror or toothpaste in the sink.
The only stray item in his bedroom was a newspaper left on the dresser. It had been folded open to the local politics section. I picked it up, doing a double-take at the photo on the page.
Brendan smiled brightly in the image, his crisp black suit jacket and burgundy tie standing out against the pale blue backdrop of his headshot.
Executive Director of Local Non-Profit Announces a Run for City Council.
“Huh,” I mused. “Riley and Max were right. Brendan’s running for local office. Looks like he submitted his petition to the city in January. The official announcement hit the paper last week.”
“Maybe Brendan’s campaign manager would know where he is.”
“There’s a number in the article. Hold on. I’ll call you right back.” I disconnected from Vero and dialed the number for the campaign office I’d seen in the article. I got routed through several phone trees before a human finally answered.
“I’m trying to reach Brendan Haggerty,” I said. “I’m a closefriend of his grandmother and it’s urgent that I speak with him but he’s not answering his phone—”
“Mr. Haggerty is on leave for a personal matter.”
“Do you know where I might find him?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have that information.”
“Did he say when he’ll be back?”
“I don’t expect him until next week. Would you like to leave a message?”
I had already left him several, including one from his grandmother’s phone. Brendan obviously didn’t want to be found. “No, thank you.”
I disconnected and called Vero back. “No luck. All they would tell me is that he’s away on personal business.” The timing felt awfully suspect. Who takes a week of personal leave on the heels of a major career announcement?
I remembered Riley’s warning to me behind Mrs. Haggerty’s house… that Brendan Haggerty was running for office and the public deserved to know what had happened in his grandmother’s community. But why? Had they only been concerned with his transparency as a candidate? Or had they suspected there was more to Brendan Haggerty’s story?
I skimmed the rest of the article, which contained a brief rundown of his qualifications, including a mention of his participation in the citizen’s police academy a month ago. If he was posturing for an election, his participation in a program like that would look good on his platform. And the fact that he’d attended it with his elderly grandmother would have held promise as a heart-tugging human-interest story before she’d been arrested. I searched the article for any mention of Mrs. Haggerty, but her name was noticeably absent.
“Check in the closet,” Vero suggested. “That’s where all the sleazy politicians hide their skeletons.”
I opened Brendan’s closet and riffled through his hangers. His shirts had been pressed and sorted by color. His loafers were polished and organized on racks. “Nothing odd in here. It’s neat as a pin.”
“There’s no such thing as a clean politician, Finlay. Keep looking.”
Hangers screeched as I pushed aside his suit jackets, revealing a small cardboard filing box in the corner of his closet. I lifted the lid. There was a collection of newspapers and clippings inside it. “I think I found something.” The headlines of most of the news articles were recent, dated within the last few weeks.
“What is it?” Vero asked as I picked one up and skimmed it.
Body of Missing Local Man Is Found Buried in South Riding.Under the headline was a photo of Gilford Dupree. There were several clippings in the box about the silver-haired businessman, some containing photos I’d already seen on the TV news, others containing grainy shots that appeared to be screen grabs from social media pages. Below them, I found a handful of articles that predated the discovery of Dupree’s remains. Most had been published the year he went missing. Human-interest pieces about the quiet mortgage broker who’d mysteriously disappeared from a local park, each article culminating in pleas for witnesses to call his wife with any information.
“There must be a dozen articles here. They’re all about Gilford Dupree.”
Vero’s laugh was bitter. “Of course Brendan was following the news. The lying jerk was probably praying his grandma would be indicted so he’d have an excuse to get rid of her.”
“He wasn’t just following it, Vero.” I struggled to convey in words why this hidden stash of articles was so disturbing to me. “It’s like he was collecting details about the case. Like he was scouringthe news for information about the crime.” Like he was studying it. Names and dates had been circled. Every small detail of the case that police had disclosed had been highlighted. Notes had been furiously scribbled in the margins—odd forms of shorthand that were hardly legible.
Was he trying to exonerate his grandmother by solving the investigation himself?
Or was he trying to stay one step ahead of it?
The observation Vero had shared with me earlier that morning began to take on new significance as I stood in Brendan’s closet.
