“Boss,” said Bradshaw. He pushed back from the desk and stood to shake their hands in old-fashioned courtesy. “I haven’t been called that in a while. Smartest thing Candace did was keep Gracie Farmer on as office manager after I retired.”
As the older man sat back down, Terry Wilson exchanged a quick glance with Dwight. A clerk at the courthouse had pulled the Bradshaw separation agreement and given them a quick overview. “Complete division of all the marital property and then at the last minute, they opted for a do-it-yourself separation instead of a divorce. Probably because of the business. It’s in his name alone, but she got to do the day-to-day running while he bowed out.”
So yeah, Dwight thought, Bradshaw might have wanted to retire at age what? Fifty-seven? Sixty? But today, he certainly looked like a farm boy who was happy to be back on the tractor again.
“I believe you read the letter your wife left?” Dwight asked when the formalities were out of the way.
Cameron Bradshaw sighed and nodded. “I saw it, but I was in such a state of shock. When her cleaning woman called me . . . I went right over—that horrible bag over her head. I tore it open, but it was too late, of course, and I guess I did read the letter while I was waiting for the rescue squad to come, but I was looking for a real reason for her to do this and—”
“Malfeasance as a county commissioner?” said Terry. “Kickbacks from special interests? Those didn’t seem like sufficient reasons?”
“To you maybe.” The older man seemed to brush them away like so many pesky gnats. “But for Candace to kill herself over that?” He shook his head. “I’d have thought it would take something more personal. Like cancer. Or maybe problems with someone she was seeing. You know. As for those other things, well—”
He broke off helplessly. “She wouldn’t have come to me with personal problems, of course, and she didn’t have any professional ones.”
Dwight frowned. “Even though she says in her letter—”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” he interrupted, leaning forward to make his point. “If she was in professional trouble, she would have asked for my help. She always came to me when she was in over her head with county business or our company here. Position papers she didn’t quite understand. Reports and technical papers. That sort of thing. Statistics and projections were always hard for her. And nonlinear concepts. I was the only one she trusted to explain them.”
“You told her how to vote on the issues?”
“Good heavens, no!” He drew himself up as if Dwight had suggested that he cheated at cards. “That’s not what she wanted. She needed to grasp the main points so that she could discuss them without sounding dumb. And she wasn’t dumb, although people like Jamie Jacobson thought she was ignorant because their literary allusions went right over her head. She only had a GED and she wasn’t much of a reader, but common sense? About practical concrete issues? She was sharp as anybody. It was the esoteric and theoretical that she had trouble grasping. She was always giving me hypothetical scenarios. If A had this or did that, how would it impact on B or C? That sort of thing.”
“And you explained it all to her?” Terry Wilson said doubtfully.
“When I was much younger, I wanted to be a teacher, Agent Wilson, but I needed to make money, to salvage what was left of the family fortune. I think I would have been a good teacher.” His voice was wistful. “I wish she had told me what the real problems were. I could have helped her.”
Dwight felt sorry for the man’s grief. “You still loved her?”
Bradshaw gave a sad, hands-up gesture of resignation. “I never stopped. Oh, it was stupid of me to think she could be happy making love to someone so much older, but once we were living apart, we could be friends again and I liked knowing that she relied on me and on my discretion—”
“Your wife didn’t name names in her letter, just general accusations. Do you know who she meant?”
“I’m sorry. I really don’t remember any of the details. Do you have it with you?”
When Dwight shook his head, Bradshaw said, “Could I get a copy?”
“We’d rather not right now, sir. We’re trying to keep her allegations confidential until we have a chance to investigate.”
“Of course, of course. I understand. When will you—” He paused to find the right words. “When may we make arrangements for her funeral?”
“It shouldn’t be too long,” said Dwight. “I hope we can count on your cooperation and the cooperation of her staff here?”
As Bradshaw hesitated, Terry Wilson pulled out a court order he’d obtained to search the offices of Bradshaw Management for anything related to Candace Bradshaw’s position as chair of the Colleton County board of commissioners.
Before her husband could put his glasses back on to read it, the office manager tapped at the door and opened it without waiting.
“Sorry, Mr. Bradshaw,” she said formally, “but some people are here.”
“They’re with me,” said Wilson of the two women behind her, special agents who specialized in documentary evidence.
Dwight grinned, recognizing the Ginsburg twins, which was how Tina Ginsburg and Sabrina Ginsburg were known around the Bureau. They were no relation but had somehow wound up in the same division. Mid-thirties, one was an attractive blonde with an easy laugh; the other an intense brunette. Both had stiletto-sharp minds and the hunting instinct of foxhounds for sniffing out white-collar wrongdoings.
“They have a warrant, Gracie,” said Bradshaw. “I’ll clear out of here for a couple of hours and you show these gentlemen where Candace kept her commissioner’s files.”
“You don’t think you should stay?” A tall woman with a long plain face and a heavy jaw, the office manager was probably in her late fifties. Her clothes were a rainbow of primary colors: a bright blue jersey topped by a canary- yellow knitted vest that was edged in red wool and embellished on the back with multicolored 3-D yarn figures in a village market scene that suggested Central America. She did not seem happy with the situation. “All our
