The Second Mouse - Archer Mayor [35]
“What happened when news of the pregnancy got out?” Joe asked as the soup arrived.
“The opposition went wild. They screamed cover-up; they claimed that if this was withheld, then other more important information might well have been, too. They demanded retests and spread rumors that the woman had been on drugs or drunk or had a bullet in her somewhere.” She shook her head, smiling. “It’s all so ridiculous in retrospect. A true tempest in a teapot. It didn’t make the national news; it didn’t change the course of anything. But at the time, it was all anyone could talk about, and it damn near cost Howard Medwed his job.”
“Why didn’t it?” Joe asked, starting in on his meal.
“Because I took the heat,” she explained. “I told everyone that I’d been the one who’d both discovered the pregnancy and covered it up. I took a drubbing for it and was properly pilloried behind closed doors, but I wasn’t fired outright, and Dr. Medwed gave me a glowing recommendation for my next job. The opposition didn’t get their man in, Medwed stayed put for another six months, and the office’s reputation was safely handed off to the next generation.”
Joe thought about all this while Hillstrom halfheartedly poked at her French onion soup.
“And that’s what Floyd Freeman is holding over you?” he asked eventually. “How did he find out about it?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? Things like that eventually get out. The price of living in a small world. The point is, he did.”
“Why don’t you just tell him to drop dead?” Joe suggested.
“Normally, I would, but therein lies part of the problem. I’ve told him to drop dead ever since he became my boss a few years ago. He doesn’t know what the OCME does, except in the crudest sense, and he doesn’t care. It’s all about the bottom line with him. Initially, before the new governor came in and the whole power structure shifted, I could pretty much dismiss him. I had my allies to protect me. Now I no longer do. Freeman’s never forgotten my early treatment of him, and at last, along with the power, he now has the ammunition he’s always craved. He’s dangling it over me, making it his life’s work to force me through his hoops.”
Gunther scowled. “That’s ridiculous, Beverly. He doesn’t have enough to fire you—”
But she reached out and stopped him in midsentence by taking his hand, her expression deadly serious. “Joe, don’t. I’m on the receiving end here. I know what I’m facing. Don’t tell me what can or can’t happen.”
This time he did grab hold of her fingers. “I wouldn’t dream of it. That’s not where I was going. I don’t doubt your assessment. It’s just that legally speaking, what he’s got on you doesn’t seem that dangerous. Maybe you’re too close to it to see that clearly.”
Hillstrom smiled and squeezed his hand supportively. “Or maybe you’re not close enough.”
“What do you mean?”
She let go and sat back in the booth, looking unusually vulnerable and frail. Dressed as she was and with her hair loose, weighed down by her recent troubles, she displayed none of her typical self-confidence, seeming instead like a normal human being running low on options.
“Daniel’s left me,” she blurted out. “I have a huge house and two daughters in college. If there’s a divorce ahead and a major financial readjustment, I cannot afford to lose my job. This is it for me, in any case. I’m too old to qualify for another office. I’d have to do consulting work, and while that can be lucrative, there are no guarantees. Plus, Freeman would still be out there, more than willing to smear my name and ruin my prospects. It’s too big a risk. For my girls’ sake and my own sanity, I don