Free Dev Conrad - 03 - Blindside by Ed Gorman

Did he belong to a terrorist organization? The local hate radio boys and girls will be slandering him every time they’re on mike. And they’ll use that slander to paint our whole campaign.’
    â€˜He wasn’t gay and he didn’t take drugs and he sure wasn’t in favor of terrorism,’ Lucy said. As she spoke her voice rose defensively.
    â€˜God,’ Kathy said, ‘those brochures with Jeff in all those tuxedos and dinner jackets and with all those bimbos. Think what the radio jerks can do with them.’
    â€˜He told me they were all from very good families,’ Lucy said. She sounded serious.
    Kathy joyously put a maternal hand on Lucy’s shoulder. ‘Sweetheart, we know he got a bj from one of those very good family girls in the parking lot of a Burger King one night. And I mean outside the car.’
    â€˜God,’ Lucy said. ‘I forgot.’
    Kathy smiled devilishly at me. ‘That was probably the one and only time he was ever at a Burger King, by the way.’
    I spent the next hour and a half going through every newspaper in the state. They all had extensive websites. Then I went to the sites of the TV and major radio stations. The coverage ran predictably. The conservative sources had already turned Jim Waters’ murder into a mystery with hints of the diabolical. ‘Friends said that although they liked him, he was often strange and secretive. He had worked as a speechwriter for Congressman Ward for three years, even during the time that the congressman was under suspicion for seeing several women outside his marriage.’ Nice way to work that in. If they’d had more time they would have worked Ward’s history to include bedwetting, public nose picking and leading terrorist cells in singing anti-American rap songs.
    The more moderate outlets, print and electronic alike, weren’t as hostile but most made the point that with the election so close a murder was not exactly what the congressman needed. They all cited the noon press conference and predicted that it would be well attended. Then I saw a quote from a fat junkie who had a radio show. It was a long quote. I could only stomach a few sanctimonious lines of it. God and family values. I wondered what any of his three former wives would make of it.
    As I was about wrapping things up I decided to check on Burkhart’s site. Any kind of official comment would wait until after the press conference of course but Sylvia had gotten her first shot in already. ‘I want to offer the Waters family our true condolences. I’m told he was a very bright young man and an extremely hard worker. This is why it is so important that our youth get off to the right start. They get caught up in all these liberal causes and they lose their way. You can’t have a mission that includes drugs and sex and a belief that big government can solve everything and expect to stay sane. I’ve seen a lot of my friends destroyed by these things in my lifetime. I certainly hope this wasn’t the case with poor James Waters.’
    Well, she hadn’t included horse fucking anywhere in her list of liberal sins so I guess that put us ahead of the game.
    When my cell phone toned I was glad to see the name Sarah Conrad on the caller ID. My twenty-two-year-old daughter was a senior at Smith. She planned to work for my firm over the summer as she had the last two summers. Then she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Right now she had a live-in boyfriend, Robert, who was an intern at a local hospital.
    â€˜Hi, honey.’
    â€˜Hi, Dad.’ But it wasn’t the usual happy ‘Hi, Dad.’ This one was serious. ‘You busy?’
    â€˜You all right?’
    â€˜Dad, Mom has third-stage breast cancer.’ Now I could tell she’d been crying.
    Norman Mailer once wrote that the most powerful word in the world was cancer. He knew what he was talking about. I had a dozen thoughts and