Free Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 02 - Capitol Offense by Mike Doogan Page B

patted his toupee a couple of times like he was patting a dog.
    “I think you should conduct your own interviews up there in the Capitol, if you can get people to talk to you,” he said.
    “Why wouldn’t people want to talk to me?” Kane asked.
    “Politics,” the lawyer said. “It’s a good thing for some people if Senator Hope is carrying this charge around as long as possible, even if he isn’t found guilty in the end. The removal of his vote, and his voice, from the process advances their political agendas.”
    Kane nodded. He was already thinking about how hard it would be to get a straight story out of anybody involved with the legislature. Even if they wanted to be honest, their political ambitions and animosities would color everything. It’ll be like trying to grab a handful of snakes in a vat of olive oil, he thought.
    “What about your client’s version of events?” Kane asked.
    “Our client,” the lawyer said. “He’s our client now. I’ll let you read his statement to me, but there’s nothing very revealing in it. He says he knew the victim, had dealt with her once in a while because she worked for the Senate Finance chairman. He says he’d been at a reception, returned to the Capitol to do some work, and went to Potter’s office on the off chance he’d be there. Said he wanted to talk about a domestic partners bill of his that’s hung up in the committee. Said he found the woman’s body and the next thing he really remembered was somebody reading him his rights.”
    Kane let the silence gather before he spoke.
    “That’s it?” he said. “Nothing about who saw him at the reception. In the Capitol? Nothing about what kind of work he had to go back to the office to do? Nothing about how often he’d seen the victim? What he thought of her?”
    By the time he finished, Doyle was red in the face.
    “It’s just his preliminary statement,” the lawyer all but shouted. “I’ll have plenty of time to get all that.”
    “Jesus,” Kane all but shouted back.
    The two of them were silent for a minute.
    “Okay, the truth is, I can’t get the guy to talk to me,” Doyle said. “I’ve visited him every day, but that’s all he’ll say. That, and that he didn’t kill Melinda Foxx.”
    “Then I suppose I’d better have a try,” Kane said. “I’ll need a letter of authorization from you to show to the people at the prison and, I suppose, to Hope.”
    Doyle slid a folded paper across the table.
    “Already done,” he said. “Here it is.”
    Kane opened the paper, read it, refolded it, and tucked it into the pocket of his suit coat next to the letter from Mrs. Foster.
    “So he’s hiding something, but you don’t know what,” Kane said.
    The lawyer nodded.
    “Then I’d guess we’d better let that go until later,” Kane said. He thought for a moment. “What do you know about the victim?”
    The lawyer shook his head.
    “Not much yet,” he said. “She was twenty-four. Graduated from Princeton a couple years ago, went to work for Potter. Said to be good at her job.”
    “Nothing about her personal life?” Kane asked after he’d finished making notes in the little notebook he always carried. “Her habits? Her ambitions?”
    “So far it’s all de mortuis nil nisi bonum, ” Doyle said. “But that should change soon. Gossip is the common currency of the legislature.”
    He looked at his watch.
    “I’ve got to get to work,” the lawyer said. “You can reach me here or where I’m staying, at the Mendenhall Apartments up the hill.” He rattled off a couple of phone numbers. “Or you can try my cell.” He gave Kane that number, too. “Now, what are you going to do first?”
    “I’m going to read Hope’s statement,” Kane said. “Then I have to make a stop at the police station.”
    “The police station?” Doyle said. “What for?”
    “Well, normally it would just be a courtesy call, to let them know I’m working on the case,” Kane said, “but in this