Page 80 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

“First of all,” she said, “Do you recognize that name?”

Ellery’s eyebrows raised. “Gannett Hoover—guy with two last names and no personality. He’s a local politician,” he said slowly. “A state assemblyman.” Ellery frowned because hedidrecognize the name. “He ran under the auspices of the progressive ticket, but when Jackson and I were doing a deep dive on him—”

“You do a deep dive on your local politicians?” Taylor asked politely.

“Don’t you?” he replied. “I like to know who’s beholden to whom.”

“Indeed,” she said. “I couldn’t be prouder. But continue….”

“He’s getting his money from a conservative Super Pac,” Ellery said, the information flooding back. “He was a plant. I remember because it was a scandal two years ago, and he’s back up for reelection, and getting out the news that he’s a fake Democrat is brutal—people are afraid of betraying the party. Why?”

“Becausehewas the assemblyman who presented the Educational Organization of the Year award to your Stepford Dragons. The award was in the stack of paperwork Jackson emailed you last night, which goes to show your young man knows his scoundrels. What can you tell me about his district?”

“He represents the fourth district,” Ellery said, thinking hard. “He’s got property out in Sonora, I think it is—some enormous monstrosity of a house. Anyway they’reveryred, and apparently that was how he got elected. PutDon his papers, flew a certain candidate’s flag on his truck and in front of his house. It was a big joke to his constituents. He’s spent his entire term trying to rescind free school lunches and dispossess the already homeless. Ha ha.”

His mother’s upper lip curled in a devastating sneer. “Hilarious.”

“Agreed,” Ellery told her. He and Jackson had been distracted during that election, but he still felt the outrage. “So… did he recruit the Stepford Dragons or—”

“Oh, son. Have some faith.” She reclaimed her laptop and began to open files. “Now, I looked at what you’d sent me yesterday while I was on the plane. Do you remember where all these women seemed to come from—their point of meeting before they changed their names and started trying to rip books out of schoolchildren’s hands?”

“Florida State,” Ellery said.

“Do you recall any men involved in their little group? Any names?”

“Conway Schmitt,” Ellery supplied promptly, and that made her sit up.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Ellery said. “Because one of the women was known to all the kids as ‘Twitty.’ And it was driving us crazy until I got Piper Lutz to make the connection. Conway Schmitt, Conway Smitty—”

“Conway Twitty,” his mother finished dryly. “Yes, I get it. Poor man. The singer, not this piece of work. But yes. Tell me whatyouknow about Conway Schmitt.”

Oh God. Yesterday—it might as well have been eighth grade. He sucked in another long draught of coffee and tried to make his brain fire. “He was arrested,” he said after a painful moment. “For”—he wrinkled his nose—“—child molestation. He was a preacher who reached out to touch his choirboys. He’s in jail—”

“Oh no, he’s not,” his mother said, and Ellery set down his coffee cup.

“But he was sentenced to fifteen years.” Oh God. He saw where this was going.

“In an extremely conservative state in the Bible Belt,” his mother said grimly. “He was paroled in five. And… you’ll never guess what he did when he got out.”

“Left the state and changed his name?” Ellery had a thought. “He’s not Gannet Hoover, is he?” And then, answering his own question, “No, no…. Hoover is about ten years too young.”

“No, not Hoover,” his mother said. She turned her laptop around again. “Here’s a picture of Hoover giving his award to the Stepford Dragons. What do you see here?”

Ellery studied the picture, a smiling, dapper Hoover, poster boy for the straight white male with his perfectly coiffed trophy wife next to him as they presented the certificate to Valerie Trainor on stage at a luncheon.

And there in the corner of the stage—balder, paunchier, and not smiling—was the man Ellery recognized from his own research that afternoon.

“Prison was not kind to him,” Ellery murmured. The man who had been sentenced to prison had been smoothly handsome, slender, with a high forehead and a rather rakish blue-eyed gaze. The man who had emerged from the crucible was beefier and thicker, from his biceps to his lips, and his bulldog expression did nothing to make him less of a bruiser. His nose had been broken, and a cheekbone as well, and Ellery would make a bet that he was wearing dentures from the small number of teeth the man was showing in lieu of a smile.

“No,” his mother acknowledged. “And….” She frowned. “There’s… something. Something between Gannett Hoover and Conway Schmitt.”

“What’s his name now?” Ellery asked, scanning the article and not finding it before returning the laptop to his mother.

“Newton Dwayne,” she said absently, and Ellery frowned.

“Okay, that’s… that’s weird. That both names arealmostthe names of old country singers. Conway Twitty, Wayne Newton—”

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