Leo made his way down the train, gripping the handrail as the ancient locomotive lurched from side to side. Even during his days as a fighter pilot, doing tail spins, he hadn’t felt so sick. And it was all the President’s fault. A short whistle-stop tour of the Midwest by rail, because Jed liked trains. He had mumbled something about the gentle motion aiding his thinking. At which point Leo had switched off and prayed for a national emergency, or at least another crisis which needed him to remain in D.C. No such luck had befallen him. Instead, he was stuck on the train journey from hell.

Of course there were upsides. The main one being that Josh’s woman had finally been tamed. Happens it took death to do it, but she wouldn’t be interfering with any more of their bills any time soon.

“Ah, Leo,” Danny said somberly, opening a door and sticking his head out. “I was just coming to find you.”

“We’re in the middle of a campaign. Some of us have work to do. You remember that, right?” Leo grumbled, pressing his back to the wall as the train took a corner. Josh said it was stress relieving but Leo’d seen little evidence of it so far.

“So I missed a few important briefings.” Danny shrugged and stepped back into the compartment. “It isn’t as though I can’t catch up. You guys screw up, CJ saves the day and two days later you do it all over again.”

“Yeah.” Leo slid into the vacant seat and removed his glasses. “So, you wanted to see me?” He glanced around the compartment and his eyes fell to the tall Secret Service Agent in the corner. “Okay, so this isn’t going to be good.”

“Mr. McGarry.” Ron nodded and stepped closer to the table.

“This is about Amy.”

Danny allowed the flicker of a grin to cross his lips. “And what makes you think that?”

Leo rolled his eyes and gave him the look he normally reserved for Josh when he’d done something dumb-assed. “Because you’re interviewing everyone.”

“Right,” Danny said quickly, suddenly feeling a little idiotic. “So where were you between midnight and seven a.m.?”

“Working,” Leo stated matter-of-factly.

“On what?”

“Um, let me see, you’re a reporter, I have top secret codeword classification. Yeah, I’m gonna tell you what I was working on.”

“Were you alone, Mr. McGarry?” Ron asked in a monotone, his hands, as always, positioned behind his back.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure about that?” Danny prompted. “Margaret wasn’t with you?”

“I don’t like what you’re implying,” Leo muttered defensively. It seemed that everyone and his mother wanted to matchmake him these days. First it had been the President and Jordan, then Abbey and some doctor, and now the senior staff had taken it upon themselves to find Leo a suitable friend.

Changing tack, Ron intervened, “And you worked all night?” His voice betraying little of the disbelief he felt.

Leo turned his attention to the agent. “I took a break sometime around 3 a.m. I went for coffee.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“Yeah, a steward.”

“No one else,” Danny pushed, pacing around the table. “Like I don’t know, maybe-Amy?”

Leo shook his head. “What do you think I am? The Casanova of the West Wing? First Margaret, now Amy.” That was one woman Leo’d had no intention of touching with a bargepole, not unless it was to shove it somewhere. A small smile flickered across his lips at the image and he promptly dismissed it.

Danny didn’t say a word, his eyes flickering back and forth between Leo and Ron. Leo was hiding something. He was suddenly defensive and obtuse.

“I wasn’t implying anything,” Danny stated. “So you didn’t see Amy after you boarded the train?”

Leo hesitated for the briefest of seconds before answering. “I was looking for Josh. We’re campaigning in Illinois shortly and I wanted to make sure he was going to be okay.”

“Did you find him?”

“No.”

“But you found Amy?” Danny asked, getting caught up in the cadence of Leo’s voice. He watched Leo carefully, checking the fine handmade suit for tears or signs of blood.

Leo sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Josh and his dame are inseparable. If he’s not working, he’s at her apartment having sex.” And Leo knew all about their sex life. More than once Josh had recited the nights they had spent together. Thankfully, he had kept the really graphic moments to himself. Clearing his throat, Leo added, “Josh has been less than discreet about their bedroom activities. The images are enough to keep me awake for months.”

“So why the coffee?”

Leo shrugged, “Margaret likes me to eat a couple of times a day. Or, at the very least drink. It’s my way of keeping her happy.”

Ron placed his hands flat on the table. “Let’s get back to when you were looking for Josh. So, you found yourself in Amy’s room? What happened next?”

Leo turned his attention to Danny and grinned, “Well, she opened the door and flung her arms around my neck before sticking her tongue down my throat.”

Danny stopped pacing and stared at Leo. “Excuse me?”

“She thought I was Josh, you idiot,” Leo groaned.

Not an easy mistake to make, Danny concluded. Leo was five four, with grey thinning hair and a slight paunch. Josh was six foot, with unruly hair and a firmer physique. He made a note to check whether Amy wore glasses or contact lenses.

“She realized her mistake, of course?”

Leo nodded.

“And?”

“And what?” Leo asked casually.

“What happened next?” Danny sighed, his agitation obvious.

“I asked if Josh was there, she said he was walking the train so I left,” Leo explained. He glanced at his watch and groaned. He needed to get back to work and he still hadn’t spoken to Josh.

“So you were in her room, what? Two minutes?”

“Something like that, I don’t know,” Leo growled, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Look, I didn’t kill her.”

Danny smirked. “But you were with her slightly longer than you said?”

Leo frowned and picked up his glasses from the table. He turned the glasses around between his fingers before looking directly at Danny. “Yes.”

Ron moved around the table until he was standing over Leo. “How long? Long enough to kill her?”

“If you think the good cop, bad cop is intimidating me, there is something you should know,” Leo growled dryly. “I’m not easily intimidated.”

“Except where Karen Cahill is concerned,” Danny spoke.

“Oh for the love of God. I made a simple joke about her shoes,” Leo growled, dropping his spectacles on the table with a clatter. “How was I to know women have a special relationship with their shoes.”

“Was that what you and Amy fought over, her shoes?” Ron fired quickly.

Leo paused to think for a moment. “I don’t think she was wearing shoes. I remember because I wondered why her feet were so dirty.”

Danny let out an exasperated sigh at the lack of progress. “Leo?”

“Right, Amy.” Leo folded his hands on the desk and leaned back in his seat. “After I extracted myself from her arms, she invited me in. She had ordered food for Josh and herself, and as he wasn’t hungry, she thought I might like some.”

“Very cosy,” Danny muttered under his breath, scribbling notes frantically. “So the two of you shared an early breakfast?”

Leo gave Danny one of his widest grins, the one he reserved for his girls. “Yeah, we had cheese.”

Part Three: Margaret by Rhonda

"Come in," Ron Butterfield sternly requested, opening the dining car door for Margaret.

Nervously, Margaret entered the narrow room filled with vinyl covered booths and the odor of stale donuts. The room was empty expect for the three of them, herself and her two interrogators.

Danny Concanon was waiting for her, smile and notebook at the ready. The reporter was sitting at one of the linen covered tables, his green suspenders the only spot of color on his black dress shirt and matching black slacks.

"Hiya, Margaret," he chirped, his fondness for the quirky secretary evident in his easy manner. "How's tricks?"

Margaret stopped just inside the doorway, her hands tightly clasped in front of her. "What do you mean by that?" she asked, her face expressionless. "Are you implying that I have a propensity for chicanery or deception?"

"Neither, though there was a rumor about a forged signature on an official document," Danny quipped, tapping his pencil against his spiral bound notebook.

Glancing at Ron Butterfield out of the corner of her eye, Margaret's face turned beet red. "You shouldn't give much credence to rumors. They are inherently unreliable."

Noticing Margaret's discomfort with Ron Butterfield, Danny made a motion towards the dour Secret Service Agent. "Didn't you mention some calls you needed to make? I'm sure I can fly solo on this interview. I've never thought Margaret particularly dangerous."

Giving Margaret a careful "once over" as if considering frisking her for weapons, Ron finally nodded and walked out of the dining car without comment.

"Have a seat," Danny suggested, getting to his feet and pulling out a chair for her. "I promise not to take up too much of your time."

Frowning at the reporter as though afraid he was going to yank the chair out from under her at the last minute, Margaret carefully sat down, keeping her back ramrod straight and positioning her feet, crossed at the ankle, one directly in front of the other.

"Leo needs me to type up some meeting notes this afternoon," Margaret warned, crossing her arms. "I really don't know how I can help you with your investigation."

Danny smiled and walked over to a coffee urn on the counter. "Sometimes people know things that they don't know they know." Holding up an empty coffee cup, Danny silently offered her coffee.

She nodded.

"Use anything in it?" he asked, filling the cup with the dark liquid.

"Please add one and a half teaspoons of non-fat creamer and two packets of Equal," she primly responded. "The blue packets not the pink," she added as he reached for the wrong artificial sweetener. "Scientific studies show that some artificial sweeteners cause cancer in rats, but I'm of the opinion that rats are actually very fragile creatures and susceptible to many diseases, cancer among them."

"Really," Danny replied, setting her coffee down in front of her. "If they're prone to so many diseases, I wonder why there are so many of them."

Leaning towards him as he took a seat across from her, Margaret lowered her voice. "Well, one theory concerns reincarnation and some connection to Egyptian rulers." At his look of disbelief, she confided, "Not all of the hieroglyphics in the tombs have been translated. Personally, I think that female rats are just extremely fertile. It may actually have to do with the number of times that the male rat manages to . . ."

"Uh, okay," he interrupted, rubbing his forehead. "Well, we should . . ." Shaking his head to clear the rat mating images from his mind, Danny glanced down at his notebook. "Where were you between midnight and 7:00 a.m.?"

"On this train," she dryly replied, taking a cautious sip of the hot liquid in her cup.

"Okay. I'll rephrase my question. Which train car, or cars, were you in?"

Swallowing, Margaret set her cup back on the table. Cupping both hands around it, she stared at the toffee colored liquid. "As soon as we left the station, I went back to my assigned car, Sleeper #1, and unpacked. You know you can't leave rayon folded too long or the wrinkles set in. Of course rayon is much better than cotton as far as wrinkles go. The only advantage is that you can steam some of the wrinkles out of cotton. Do that to rayon and it'll shrink two sizes. I did bring some cotton garments, but I supposed that, on a train, hot water would be limited and running a shower for a long . . . ."

Clearing his throat, Danny quickly interjected a new question. "After you unpacked, where did you go?"

"I took my overnight bag and walked down to the women's bathroom. I wanted to get cleaned up and changed into my night clothes before there was a line for the facilities."

"Did you see anyone?"

"Who?

"Anyone."

"When?"

"When you left your sleeping quarters."

"Before or after I left the bathroom?"

"Both, either, or during," Danny responded trying to hurry up the questioning. So far he'd learned little about anything other than rats and rayon. Neither of which had killed Amy Gardner.

"I saw my bunk mates coming down the hallway when I left the bathroom. I think it was very poor planning for Ron Butterfield to assign four of us to one car. Can you imagine how crowded we were with all of us in that one little room?"

Danny narrowed his eyes as he listened to her complain about the crowded conditions. "It was my understanding that the overcrowding situation in Sleeper #1 occurred because no female staff member would share a car with the deceased?"

Margaret sniffed and retorted, "Well, the way it turned out, sharing a car with Amy Gardner could have been more of a health hazard than the muffins in the West Wing Mess Hall."

Looking through his notebook, Danny stopped and made a note on one page. "You have a problem with muffins, don't you?" he asked, glancing up at Leo's assistant.

"You mean muffins in general or muffins sold in the Mess?"

"I mean you get a little hysterical when the subject of muffins comes up. I heard you once shut down the whole West Wing e-mail system with a muffin virus."

"That's absolutely not true," Margaret screeched, abruptly standing up and rattling the dishes on the table. "Who told you that? I just forwarded an e-mail responding to another e-mail about the erroneous calorie count in the cinnamon-raisin muffins. How could I have known that it was going to be forwarded to all the office staff and then, when they each responded, the number of e-mails would snowball with e-mails flying back and forth, faster and faster and . . . ."

"So you've used muffins as a weapon before?" Danny alleged. "Did you kill Amy Gardner?"

"What?" she asked, confused and wringing her hands. "What do muffins have to do with that woman's death?"

"You left one in her room when you paid her a visit last night." Standing, Danny rounded the table and stopped in front of the tall secretary. "You're good, Margaret. But you made a mistake. She didn't eat the whole thing. Ron said the muffin was filled with rat poison along with the raisins."

"You're crazy," she shouted. "Even if he was just making fun of me, I should have taken Toby up on his offer to have them analyzed. I've tried to warn people about those muffins, but if they refuse to listen to me, it's not my responsibility."

"Did you tell Amy Gardner about the muffins? Margaret? What else did you warn her about? You did see her last night, didn't you?"

"Yes, damn it," Margaret sobbed. "I saw her, but I didn't kill her."

Calmly, Danny took Margaret's arm and led her back to her seat. "Tell me what happened."

For a while, Danny didn't think she was going to answer. She was bent over the table, elbows on the white linen, her face hidden by both hands. He waited as her sobs died down.

Finally, he tried again. "Margaret, tell me what happened between you and Amy Gardner.

Straightening her back, she moved her hands off the table into her lap. In a halting voice she said, "After I changed into my gown and robe, she saw my necklace."

"What?"

"When I passed her in the hall, coming from the bathroom, I dropped it. She saw the necklace Bruno gave me."

"A necklace?"

"It had my name on it," she whispered, staring down at her folded hands.

"I don't understand. Why was that a problem?" Danny questioned, pulling his chair up close to hers.

"She laughed at me," Margaret said, raising her swollen eyes and staring at the reporter. With misery etched on her face, Margaret mimicked Amy's distinctive speech pattern. "I see Bruno struck again. He hands out these necklaces like candy, along with that line about not remembering your name. How many times did you sleep with him before he asked you for help in dealing with Leo? Margaret, darling, he's not really that good in bed."

"You and Bruno have a thing?" Danny asked, completely flabbergasted.

"Had," Margaret hissed, anger clouding her features. "He wanted me to sign Leo's name to one of his travel vouchers, a trip I knew he didn't take. It was clear to me then that he really didn't care about me, that he was just using me. He actually believed that I would betray Leo for him."

Raising an eyebrow at her in disbelief, Danny questioned, "If you and Bruno were quits, why did you still have the necklace? Why wear it?"

Embarrassed, Margaret swallowed hard. "To show him that he didn't matter to me. To make him think that the only reason I had an affair with him was for the jewelry. That I was using him." And then, as an afterthought, she quietly added, "And as a reminder to myself that men don't really think about me that way."

"Oh Margaret," Danny responded, his face softening. "You don't really believe . . ."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Margaret angrily interrupted him. "Don't - Just don't."

"Margaret," he tried again, gently touching her shoulder.

Indignantly, she shrugged off his hand. "I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I take care of my own problems."

"Was Amy one of those problems?"

Wide-eyed, Margaret stared at Danny.

"She - she threatened to tell Leo. I couldn't bear for him to know how stupid I was."

"What did you do, Margaret? How did you stop her?" Danny asked, afraid of her answer.

For several seconds, there was complete silence, then she took a sip of her now cold coffee.

"Nothing," she calmly replied, her poise recovered. "I didn't have to do anything. Someone else did it for me."

As Danny stared at Leo's personal assistant, he tried to decide if she was telling him the whole truth. He really couldn't imagine Margaret hurting anyone, even Amy Gardner. Well, maybe she would to protect Leo. But Leo didn't need protecting here. Did he? There was more to the story than she was telling, of that he was certain.

Margaret, her face expressionless, stared back at him as he deliberated.

Just as he decided to accept her denial, she smiled.

Part Four: Interview with Sam by Evelyn

"Sam? Got a minute?"

"I’m kind of busy here." The Deputy Communications Director turned away from the mirror after running the comb through his hair one more time. At last, he turned to face the red-headed, bearded reporter. "Do you think my hair is too big? I mean do you think it looks too 80's-ish?"

"Uh, Sam. A woman was killed last night. Do you have any thoughts on that?"

"Well she didn’t have very good hair," he said pensively, turning back to the mirror and again checking his own tresses.

Danny and Ron had searched the train for the Deputy Communications Director before finally discovering him staring into the mirror in the sleeper cabin he had shared with Josh and Toby the previous night.

"Why don’t we sit down?" Ron Butterfield suggested.

The three men perched on the sleeper’s bunks.

Sam rubbed his hands together, over and over again. "Out, damned spot! Out I say!"

"Pardon me?" Ron asked.

Sam patted his pants pockets. "Have you seen my penknife?"

"Can’t say that I have," Danny answered.

"I seem to have misplaced it. Oh, well. How can I help you?"

"Did you hear anything unusual last night?" Danny asked.

Sam shook his head. "Who could hear anything with Toby snoring like a freight train and Josh snorting like a pig?"

"Did you talk to Amy last night?"

"I’ve never met Amy Gardner in my life."

"Never?"

"At no time was I ever in the same room with the woman, but of course, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t hate her with the heat of an NBC supernova promo."

"Wow, you really did despise the bitch," Danny muttered under his breath.

"I’ll say just one word, well actually two."

Ron and Danny looked expectantly at the debonair, suave, perfectly-coiffed Deputy Director of Communications.

"Call Girl."

"Huh?" The Secret Service Agent and well-worn reporter’s jaws dropped.

"I never knew that Amy Gardner was a whore," squeaked Ron.

"A lying, cheap whore," Sam confided, winking at his two interrogators. "Unlike the high-priced call girl that I accidentally slept with."

"Are you telling me that Amy Gardner charged for sex?"

"What do you call someone who trades sexual favors for something she wants?"

"He’s right, she is a slut," murmured Danny.

"She gives call girls a bad name," Ron sneered.

"And that’s why you hated her?" Danny asked.

Sam stared off into space. His face became wistful and he whispered, "No. I hated her because ever since she arrived on the scene I’ve been acting like a complete idiot and I don’t know why."

"I heard about you and the penny," Danny whispered. "You really are a dork."

Sam sighed a soulful sigh.

"Did you hear the one about the aliens stealing the gold from Fort Knox?" Ron asked the intrepid reporter.

"No shit? Who said that?" the fiery redhead yelped.

Ron nodded his head in the direction of the Deputy of Good Hair Days.

"It’s worse than that," Sam whispered.

"What else did she do to you?" Ron and Danny exclaimed in horror.

"I used to be a player. I always got the girls. That’s why a high-priced call girl like Laurie was more than willing to sleep with me for free. Do you get how good I was in picking up chicks?"

Danny and Ron nodded. "You were ‘da man.’"

"Damn right," Sam boasted proudly, but then he paused, tears beginning to flow silently down his cheeks.

"But then that bitch came on the scene and I haven’t had a woman look at me since. Do you remember Ainsley?"

"The hot Republican?" Danny panted.

"She could make a good dog break his chain," Ron whistled.

Sam nodded. "Well we definitely were moving towards a thing. We bantered. All that talk was like foreplay. And then poof, Amy shows up and Ainsley tells me she’s leaving for Miami."

"And you never....." Danny asked with a leer.

Sam shook his head sadly.

"And then..." Sam’s voice broke.

"What more could happen to you?" Ron asked solicitously.

"Connie just disappeared completely with no explanation."

Ron and Danny gasped. "But...but she’s on the train, Sam," they exclaimed.

"Sure she may be on the train, but that’s the first time she’s been seen by any West Winger in more than seven months. Amy Gardner showed up and Connie totally vanished from the White House. And that woman wanted me. As soon as I brought the Spanish, I thought she was going to jump me right there on the couch. Or was that CJ who wanted to do me on the couch?" he asked quizzically.

"CJ? You? On the couch?" Danny said indignantly.

"It doesn’t matter," Sam said wistfully. "Once Amy arrived on the scene, all available women vamoosed. I admit I was having a dry spell after Laurie, but then all of a sudden two women wanted me. But once that bitch showed up,
well... I haven’t got laid all year."

"Amy Gardner made you a shell of your former shallow self," Ron offered sympathetically.

"Thank God you’ve still got your hair," Danny nodded.

"She had to be stopped. You understand that, don’t you?" Sam pleaded, rubbing his hands together over and over again.

Ron and Danny exchanged glances.

"Are you saying that you killed Amy Gardner?" Danny pressed, pen hovering over his notebook.

Sam looked up and stared into space.

"Did you kill Amy Gardner?" Danny whispered.

Sam smiled. "Of course not. Why would I kill her. I didn’t even know her."

Part Five: Interview with Bruno, Connie and Doug by Rhonda


"They're going to try to blame us for this, aren't they?" Doug complained, as he paced around the dining car. "Forget we didn't even know the woman. The President probably believes ‘his’ Senior Staff is too pure of thought and deed
to stoop to murder, especially one as messy as this one. No one in the Bartlet Administration could stand getting their hands that dirty, even to save themselves."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," Bruno dryly answered, while continuing to read the latest polling numbers spread out over one of the linen covered tables. "If we don't recover a half dozen points with the women's groups, I think the staff will draw straws as to who gets to hand Josh his head on a platter. Ms. Gardner managed to do a lot of damage in the short time she had her claws into Leo's fair-haired boy."

"What Doug means is that we're not in the President's trusted inner circle, so naturally he'll be more likely to think the murderer was one of us three," Connie calmly explained. Sighing, she added, "How long are we supposed to wait
for Sherlock Holmes and Watson to show up? Didn't the message say 3:30 pm?"

"It's probably some kind of a mind game," Doug blustered. "They want us to sweat a little before the questioning starts.

Without raising his head, Bruno mumbled, "If you're hot, turn up the air conditioning."

"Why am I the only one worried about this?" the speech writer asked, rubbing his hand over his bald head as if hoping to be granted three wishes.

"You're not really worried. You're just anxious," Connie said, getting up from the table and checking out the status of the coffee on the sideboard. Wrinkling her nose at the thick, black-colored brew, she asked, "If I make another pot,
will anyone else have some?"

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Doug whined, continuing his pacing.

"You don't like my coffee?" she countered, surprised. Turning to face him with the pot in her hand, she said, "You should have said something. Is my coffee too weak? I can make it stronger if you want. No one ever said anything bad
about the way I make it before."

"Not the coffee, Connie. Stop telling me what I mean. I speak perfectly adequate English. I don't need an interpreter."

Connie opened her mouth to protest, but Bruno interrupted.

"Connie, make the coffee. Doug sit down and quit rubbing your head. Your hair is gone and it's not coming back, no matter how much you massage your scalp," an irritated Bruno declared, clicking his pen closed and folding up the
printouts he'd been studying. "Concanon just wants to know where we were during the time Amy Gardner was killed. I'm sure we all have perfectly good alibis. Don't we?"

When neither answered him, Bruno looked up. "Well?"

"Uh, that would depend on exactly when she was killed," Connie softly said, ducking her head as she carefully put a clean filter in the coffee maker. "I went to bed early."

"What about you?" Bruno asked, staring at the unusually quiet speech writer.

"I was working on the speech for Pittsburgh."

Crossing his arms, the campaign manager leaned back in his chair and declared, "Let's have a look at it while we're waiting."

Doug's face blanched and he walked over to where Connie was spending an inordinate amount of time measuring out the proper amount of coffee grounds.

"Doug?" Bruno growled. "What's going on?"

His back to Bruno, Doug coughed and said, "I might have seen Amy Gardner last night?"

Narrowing his eyes, Bruno countered, "Might?"

"What Doug means is . . .," realizing what she was doing Connie stopped. "Uh, sorry."

"Now you quit?" a flustered Doug challenged, trying to stall for time. "Tell him."

"Doug and I saw Amy last night," Connie blurted out. "But we didn't kill her."

"That's good to know," Danny Concanon asserted, as he and Ron Butterfield made their presence known. As everyone's head swiveled to the now open door, the reporter quipped, "Maybe we should have knocked first?"

Ron escorted Bruno and Connie out, so the dining car was empty except for Danny Concanon and the increasingly nervous campaign speech writer.

"Doug, how long have you been using Rogaine?" the red-haired sleuth asked, his notebook opened to a half-filled page.

Startled, Doug ran his sweaty palm over his scalp for about the tenth time in the last five minutes. "I - I was given - I got a bottle as a gift," he stuttered. "I never actually used it."

"Someone gave you Rogaine as a gift?" Danny repeated. "Sounds more like an insult to me. Who gave it to you?"

Doug looked at the reporter and then down at his hands. Starting to run a hand over his head again, Doug caught himself at the last minute.

"Amy Gardner gave it to you didn't she?" Danny asked, pinning the speech writer in place with his piercing gaze.

"The bitch thought it was funny," Doug erupted, slapping his hand on the table. "Well, you can see who had the last laugh."

"Is that why you killed her? She made fun of you?"

"The only thing I did to her was open the damn bottle and toss the contents in her face. Figured it would serve her right if she had to start shaving every morning."

Scribbling a few notes in his small notebook, Danny closed the tattered cover, a pensive look crossing his face. "I think I'd better talk with Connie next. Send her in on your way out."

"I didn't kill her," Doug grumbled as he marched across the room. "If I'd wanted the cow dead, I'd have thrown her off the train and commandeered her compartment. Least that way I'd have had a private place to finish this damn
speech Sam dumped on me."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Why was Doug having trouble finishing the Pittsburgh speech?" Danny asked, as he poured Connie a cup of coffee.

"He can't write with anyone else in the room. He says they suck up too much oxygen and depress his creative juices."

"What?" Danny laughed, sitting down across from her. "I knew the guy was a little off center but . . ..."

"He's really very sensitive," Connie protested. "He just doesn't have great verbal skills."

"So is that your role? Explaining Doug to everyone else?"

"I don't . . . Well, maybe I do. It's just . . ." her voice faded as words deserted her. Taking a sip of her coffee, Connie set the cup back on the table and ran her forefinger slowly around the rim. "I'm in love with him."

"I figured," Danny chuckled. "You'd have to be to put up with his attitude."

Offering Danny a small smile, Connie took another sip of coffee.

"So do you love him enough to kill for him?" Danny blurted out.

Choking on the coffee in her mouth, a startled Connie ended up spitting most of it out and spraying the reporter.

As Danny swabbed at the stains, Connie grabbed a bottle of water from the sideboard and wet a napkin. "I'm so sorry. You just surprised me and . . ."

"Yeah, well, I saw that technique work in a Columbo movie once. I forgot Peter Falk always wore an overcoat."

"Look, Danny - can I call you Danny?"

At his nod, Connie worked at blotting the coffee stains off of his silk tie. "Doug and I saw Amy last night. We didn't remember that car was assigned to her. We were just looking for some private place for Doug to write. The door
was open and we walked in. When we noticed her suitcase, we turned around to leave, but she was in the doorway, sneering at us."

"Go on," Danny requested, taking the damp napkin from Connie's hand as she started to clean the stains on the lower part of his shirt.

"Oh," she blushed and sat back down. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking."

"Yeah, well," he grinned. "I want to stay objective. Go on with your story, please."

"Amy asked us what we were doing in her room. I told her, but she didn't believe us. She accused us of spying for Josh Lyman. We tried to leave - really," Connie assured the reporter, "but she was ready for a fight and we
were in her line of sight."

"She tossed a box of Rogaine at Doug. Said she bought it just for him and that he should try growing some hair, maybe with some luck it would even grow him a backbone. They got into a verbal sparring match and Doug opened the box and unscrewed the cap on the bottle. He tossed the contents at her. She lunged at him. I tried to separate them, but it was no use. Amy shoved me against the wall and I dropped my file folder and research materials on the floor. By the time I had gathered them up, Doug had stormed off with Amy screeching after him like the Wicked Witch of the West."

"Is that when you left your thesaurus in her room?"

Nodding her head, Connie finished her coffee and pushed the cup and saucer away from her.

"But that's not the last time you saw Amy last night, is it?" Danny asked, reaching over and stilling her suddenly shaking hand.

Connie just stared at him and refused to answer any more questions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Let's get this over with in a hurry, shall we?" Bruno remarked, as he strode into the dining car. "I've got a campaign to run."

"Fine," Danny said, flipping open his notebook to a clean page and ripping it out. "Write out your confession and we'll call it a day."

"Funny," Bruno smirked. "I can see why you're such a hit with the female staff."

"Maybe they just like me because I'm a likeable guy," the reporter joked. "I've heard that's not your problem."

"I do all right," Bruno laughed. "I certainly don't have any problem finding someone to warm my bed, and I certainly don't spend years trying to coax a woman out on a date."

The reporter's face turned a deep purple. "Let's try and stay on topic."

Opening his notebook, Danny took his time and calmed down. Locating a particular page, he made Bruno wait while he reread it. Tapping his pen against the paper, Danny looked up and asked, "When did you end your affair with Amy
Gardner?"

At Bruno's stony silence, Danny added, "Or, maybe you never did end it. Were you seeing her at the same time you were seducing the Chief of Staff's assistant?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bruno growled. "I hardly knew Amy Gardner."

Changing tack, Danny flipped a page and said, "A source reported that Ms. Gardner gave you something when you came on board last night. What was it?"

Shaking his head, Bruno relaxed in his chair. "A little joke. She gave me a 100 dollar bill wrapped in one of those flowery smelling dryer sheets."

At Danny's blank stare, Bruno waved one hand in the air saying, "You know, the ones that keep your clothes from sticking when you take them out of the clothes dryer."

"What's the joke?" Danny smirked. "Was she showing you how to launder money? I hear the Gianellis of Chicago know a little something about that already."

"Funny. You're a funny, funny boy." Bruno crossed his arms and said, "Ms.Gardner handed me the $100 and the dryer sheet all rolled up together like a ‘pig in a blanket.' She said this was the only way I'd ever get soft money into
the campaign, that the Bartlet Administration was too ‘ethical' for anything else. I gave it back to her and told her to show it to Toby."

"So Ms. Gardner knew you well enough to give you campaign advice? The great Bruno Gianelli taking campaign advice from a former women's issues lobbyist and Gillette's new COS. I don't think so." Danny paused. "Did Josh Lyman know about your affair? Did he discover your nasty little secret?"

Narrowing his eyes, Bruno pushed back from the table and got to his feet. "Josh Lyman couldn't find his ass with both hands. He never suspected a thing. Amy played him like a fiddle; that is until he got her fired. But she had plans to
fix that."

"Did you kill her?" Danny called after him as he headed for the nearest exit.

Smiling, Bruno opened the door and paused. "I didn't kill her."

"But you know who did?" Danny pressed, rising to his feet.

Bruno stared at him for a moment. A shadow passed over his face and he muttered, "Maybe," before walking out the door.


Continue to Part Six