Time Bomb by Jonathan Kellerman Read Free Book Online Page A

little substance.
    Armed with few facts and needing to stretch the broadcast, the newspeople flashed more file clips: a segment on Massengil’s State House fistfight, a year before, with an assemblyman from the northern part of the state named DiMarco. The bout had taken place in the chambers of the legislature, the two of them going at it verbally—some esoteric issue having to do with gerrymandered districts. Massengil had come out of it without a scratch; DiMarco had suffered a bloody lip. The camera showed the loser pressing a crimson handkerchief to his mouth, then cut to footage taken today: DiMarco leaving his Sacramento office. Asked about Massengil’s temper and how he thought it related to the sniping, he passed up a chance for retribution, said it wouldn’t be prudent to comment at this time, got in his state-issued car and drove away. Discretion, or a loser’s reticence.
    Next came a retrospective on Gordon Latch—the speedy, compressed history that only a TV photomontage can accomplish, beginning with a twenty-year-old film: Latch, hirsute and bright-eyed, marching with Mario Savio at Berkeley, shouting slogans, getting busted at the People’s Park. Cut to a hippie-style marriage in Golden Gate Park to the former Miranda Brundage. The bride, only child of a movie tycoon, former art history grad student at Berkeley, former Young Republican fashion plate programmed for Deliberate Understatement and the Junior League, had worn tie-dye.
    Latch had radicalized her fast. She got arrested with him regularly, dropped out of school, lived in splendid Telegraph Avenue squalor. To the press, the irony was irresistible: In Hollywood circles, Fritz Brundage had long been regarded as a crypto-fascist—a prime mover behind the McCarthy-era blacklist and a passionate union-buster. The media covered his daughter’s wedding as if it were hard news. Latch played to the cameras, enjoying his role as First Radical. Soon after the wedding he took Miranda to Hanoi, recorded messages for the Viet Cong exhorting GIs to desert their posts. The networks were there with open mikes. The Latches returned to the United States topping the Ten Most Hated List, fielding death threats and possible prosecution for sedition.
    They went into seclusion at a ranch owned by the old man. Somewhere up north. People wondered why Fritz had given them sanctuary. The government decided not to prosecute. There were rumors of Fritz’s calling in markers. Latch and Miranda stayed out of the public eye for five years, until Fritz died, then emerged, the heirs to a fortune. Freshly barbered and mature. Apologetic for Hanoi, self-proclaimed “democratic humanists,” eager to work within the system.
    A move to the West Side of L.A., a couple more years of good works—environmental activism, groceries for the homeless, charity camps for disadvantaged youths—and Latch was ready for the electoral process: a City Council seat vacated by the car-crash death of a well-loved incumbent with a well-hidden drinking problem and an abhorrence for delegating authority. No designated successor, a sudden vacuum filled by Latch. And some generous monetary transfers from the former Brundage estate to the party’s coffers.
    The only protests against Latch’s nomination came from veterans’ groups. Latch met with them, ate crow, said he’d grown up, had a vision for the city that transcended partisan politics. He ran against token opposition. Reg-iments of college students went door-to-door in the district distributing potholders and talking clean air. Latch won, made an acceptance speech that sounded downright middle-of-the-road. Miranda seemed content to host political teas.
    She photographed well, I noticed. Kneeling on the beach scraping tar off an oil-slicked pelican.
    End of montage. The anchorman offered a two-sentence review of the racial tensions at Hale. More shots of crying kids. Worried parents. A long view of the empty schoolyard.
    The tail end of the