“I took Emily here when she was younger,” Lou said.

“I like to ride here when I have time.”

“With the president?”

“That would happen only if it would help him in the polls. Plan B was for Victor to come here unless I gave him a signal that I wasn’t interested in talking to you.”

“Let’s hear it for Plan B,” Lou said.

Chapter 38

CHAPTER 38

“Martin absolutely deplores Russell Evans for humiliating him at a time when the polls have him at an all-time low. Russ’s father was a farmer like my dad, but Russ got a master’s degree and ended up going into academics. I always felt close to him. He and I are mutually interested in kids’ nutrition. Martin has forbidden me even to mention his name.”

“That’s got to be hard,” Lou said.

Walking slowly through the dense night, the two physicians shared information along with bits about each other’s lives. Their conversation was easy and animated except for Lou’s account of the almost-certain death of Anthony Brite, which was obviously painful for her to hear. After a while, it was as if he and Darlene Mallory had been longtime friends. Still, the tension that had brought them together was never far from the surface.

Lou sensed another feeling building inside him as well—the excitement of merely being close to her.

“Assuming those killers are connected with Russ Evans and Double M,” she said, “Anthony’s death only underscores the importance of our figuring out what’s going on.”

According to Double M, she went on, Gretchen Rose, whose name the president had submitted to Congress as Evans’s successor, had strong views on states’ rights and limitation of federal involvement in setting agriculture policy. Evans was close to her polar opposite.

“And that horrible tape?” Lou asked.

“Martin is quite the skeptic, and is already extremely prejudiced against Russ. I needed to find the girl on that recording to convince him that someone was manipulating his administration. Sadly, that’s not going to happen now. But Double M has another plan—something that he’s asked me to make happen. That’s where you come in.”

“Tell me.”

Darlene tucked her hands into the pockets of her Windbreaker. “It’s all about corn,” she said.

“That’s about as far as I had gotten in Kings Ridge,” Lou replied, “before the well ran dry. I feel like the six blind men each trying to describe an elephant.”

He described the findings that led him, Cap, and George to refer to William Chester’s crop as Frankencorn.