“It could be coincidence. What makes her a lead?”
Our lunches came. My organic burger glowed with Ponce de León health.
“It seems the government may have some interest in her husband.”
“Reeeally.” She took a draw from her paper straw and pushed her glass forward, like you do when you’re signaling for a refill. “Enter the marshal. What can you tell me about that?”
“You first.”
“Fine. Are you familiar with Charlie Walker, the NRA’s almighty Tallahassee lobbyist? Lord of Guns?”
I nodded as I chewed organic proteins.
“Then you know that woman in your picture is his wife, Elizabeth,” she said.
The waiter dropped by and refilled Allison’s iced tea. He also added fresh ice to the glass. “You know them?” I asked. “Charlie and Elizabeth?”
“What does that matter?”
“Everything matters.”
Allison bobbed her head as if I’d finally spoken her language.
“Charles E. Walker runs the Gunshine State of Florida,” she said. “There are some of us—although at times I feel we are doing nothing more than circling the wagons—who do not believe a gun lobbyist should hold the reins of democracy. Who believe the government should aspire to a higher calling than an assault rifle on every kitchen table, a gun next to every teacher’s apple, and a Glock for every tot.”
I squirmed up in my chair and as I did, my gun, under my sports coat, rubbed up against my lower back.
“Two million people in this state have a concealed carry permit,” she said, cutting me an angry glance. “Know how they got it? The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. In the state of Florida, it’s the same folks who regulate the tomato on your burger who determines who gets to play cowboy or not. Charlie had the licensing moved from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement because the Department of Agriculture can’t share in the national database of criminals. This way, even ex-convicts can, and do, get permits to carry a gun. Add that to Stand Your Ground—the state’s legalized murder law—and God’s waiting room has become the new old Wild West.
“It only gets better,” she said, apparently not done with her tirade. “The head of the Department of Agriculture is no longer an NRA stooge. Undaunted, the NRA is now lobbying to have gun licensing transferred to the Department of Finance that is headed by an unabashed NRA zealot.”
She stabbed her quiche with her fork. “Remember Marjory Stoneman Douglas?”
I nodded, choosing to remain quiet and let her vent.
“Seventeen dead kids and the NRA’s response? Arm the teachers with handguns. A handgun is no defense against an assault rifle, and the shooter will go for poor Miss Murphy first. This country has more registered guns than people. Yet—beyond all human ability to reason—the NRA’s stock answer to gun violence is to issue even more guns. Unfuckingbelievable. These people make big tobacco look like Mother Teresa.”
She reached for her iced tea but then stopped, her hand clenched in a miniature fist. “Listen, I didn’t mean to jump on my high horse. I’ve got nothing against hunters—God knows we’ve got a deer problem, and I’ve got no issues with someone owning a handgun, but semiautomatics? The Pulse nightclub is just down the road from here. Forty-nine dead. The shooter had a two-thousand-dollar Sig Sauer semiautomatic. It’s designed to kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible. It did its job incredibly well. Even duck hunters are required to a use a plug that limits the magazine to three rounds—the law is intended to give ducks a fighting chance. Why don’t we give people the same chance as ducks? Any son of a bitch who groups assault rifles with the Second Amendment is an idiot.”
“Do you have an opinion on the matter, Ms. Daniels?” I asked, hoping to lighten her mood.
“It’s Mrs.” She hissed it out with enough venom to quarantine our corner of the counter.
I wasn’t interest in her politics. I was interested in finding who killed Andrew Keller and why. “Elizabeth Walker,” I said.
Allison sucked her cheeks in between her teeth and welded her eyes to mine. “You think my mouth is just a loose cannon? It’s not, Mr. Travis. My nephew died at Stoneman. My sister . . . it’s been tough. It’s easy to read the papers when you don’t know the victims. It’s hard to breathe when you do. No time heals those wounds.”
“My deepest sympathies for your sister’s loss.”
“You and the rest of the circus.”
We were quiet for a moment. “I didn’t mean that,” she said and shook her head. “But the world just goes on in a dispassionate spin. And my sister? Every day for the rest of her life now belongs to the after part. She’ll always have that demarcation line. You don’t conquer the death of a child. You live with it, and it saddens life forever.”
I considered throwing out another worthless condolence but decided that silence was the greatest respect I could show. Allison excused herself as if she were eager to distance herself from me. I asked the waitress, who had refilled my iced tea, for a glass of ice. I was irked that while Allison’s drink had received special attention, mine was down to a few surviving shrunken cubes, rendering the tea purgatory cool. As I tapped the new cubes into the glass, Allison returned.
“I’ve met her,” she said. Her words, short as they were, came out before she landed in her chair.
“Elizabeth Walker?”
She nodded. “At fundraisers, political get-togethers. When we all hobnob around each other and pretend we get along. Plastic smiles on our faces while we nurse our drinks as slowly as we can because you sure don’t want to get smashed around your adversaries.”
“Have you ever considered a different career, Mrs. Daniels?”
“You didn’t catch me on the best of days.”
The bill came and I fidgeted in my seat to get my wallet out. As I did, I brushed my jacked back, exposing my gun. Allison glanced at it and then quickly looked away. While in my wallet, I fished out a card and handed it to her. She smoothly extracted a card from her purse and palmed it to me.
“What can you tell me about Mrs. Walker?” I asked.
I braced for another broadside attack of cynicism, but she pulled up. “She’s nice,” she said as if surprised by her own assessment. “Friendly. The perfect hostess. She stays in the background. If she has political views, she certainly doesn’t broadcast them. She runs a big nonprofit for childhood literacy. Founded it, actually. From what I hear, she is well respected.”
“Kids?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure what the story is there.”
“Anything in her past to indicate that if an old flame approaches her, he needs to be snuffed out?”
“No. But I hardly evaluate people with that thought in mind. You mentioned earlier that the government is looking into Charlie Walker. Your visiting marshal.”
“I said they may have some interest in him.”
“Same thing.”
“That’s all I know.”
“Liar.”
“Not this time.”
“But you’ll tell me what you can when you can?”