Lady Justice and the Candidate by Robert Thornhill Read Free Book Online Page B

fellow officers, and that was very special.
        When Murdock took his seat, Maggie rose from her seat.
        You could hear a gasp from the congregation. No one expected the grieving widow to speak.
        “Everyone here today will miss Walt Williams --- no one more than me.
        “While we mourn his loss we can take comfort in the fact that he gave his life doing what he loved the most.
        “A few months ago, I was giving Walt grief because he wanted to take on another one of those bone-headed undercover assignments. I just couldn’t understand why he would want to risk losing everything we had together for the job.
        “I’ll always remember his words, ‘I’m sixty-eight years old and a couple of years ago, I thought that my contributing days were over. I figured that all that was left was social security and maybe three days a week as a greeter at BuyMart.
        ‘Then this came along.
        ‘We did something good tonight. We took two dangerous drug dealers off the streets and just a few days ago, we saved a baby’s life and delivered him back to his parents.
        ‘How many guys my age get to do something like that?’
        “He was right, of course.
        “Just recently, a woman that I admire very much said of her husband, who is very much like Walt, ‘he is a man of passion and what is life without passion?’
        “Walt’s philosophy was that we are all going to die sometime, so if we are going to die it might as well count for something.
        “Walt gave his life for something that counted and something he believed in. We should all be so fortunate.
        “I love the man with all my heart and I’m proud to be his wife.”
        Helen leaned over and patted my shoulder, “You’ve got something pretty special there.”
        When Maggie was seated, the bagpipes played Amazing Grace, as is the custom at officer funerals.
        As the strains of the beautiful hymn filled the sanctuary, the camera panned the mourners.
        Tears were streaming down Ox’s face and I was thankful that Judy was there to comfort him.
        Two officers folded the flag that had been draped over the casket and stood at attention as the bugler sounded taps.
        Captain Short saluted and presented the flag to Maggie as the report of twenty-one rifles was heard from the courtyard.
        When the service concluded, Ben took my hand.
        “I think we found exactly the right person for this job. It’s an honor to serve with you.”

CHAPTER 6
     
     
        Now that Walt Williams had been officially laid to rest, it was time to get to the business at hand.
        Ben’s campaign had scheduled a rally at the Sprint Center for the day after my funeral.
        Again, closed circuit TV cameras had been set up with a live feed into my hotel suite. This event had been designed as a crash course for me to observe what my role was to be for the next four months and to learn the platform on which Ben was running.
        Participants were being charged $25.00 a head to help defray the cost of the rally and from the looks of the line that had formed outside the Center, the cost hadn’t been a deterrent.
        It seemed that voters were fed up with 'politics as usual.' The public had just been subjected to five months of political wrangling as candidates slung mud at one another in the Republican primary.
        Now that a frontrunner had emerged, the Republican victor and the incumbent President were squaring off for another four months of bare-knuckle politics.
        The problem was that the Democrat’s first term in office had been less than stellar and the Republican challenger was not widely accepted by his own party or by the populace at large.
        What loomed on the horizon was another presidential race where voters would find themselves, once again, casting their ballots for 'the lesser of two evils.'
        Word of the upstart candidate from Montana