A Farewell to Legs (17 page)

“He came on to talk about his 23rd Psalm in the
Schools thing,” Suarez said. “You know, the shorthand for
‘religious schools getting government money and blowing the
separation of church and state out the window.’ Gibson comes on,
all smoke and mirrors, and gets himself bent out of shape when I
call him on it.”

“I hear he took a swing at you.”

“Yeah. I told him he was working against family
values by trying to make the schools only for kids who come from
certain
families, and he, um, took exception to that.”

“I’m told you got mad and threw him out, told him
never to come to your studio again.” Suarez made sure his chair,
and not his guest’s, had a bottle of Evian water on a small table
next to it. “I hear you actually had to be held back by your
producer. I hear you told Gibson you’d kill him if you saw him
again.”

“That’s right.” There was a rundown sheet on the
table next to the Evian water. It was stamped “preliminary,”
because this was Thursday, and the show would air live Sunday
morning. I guess the water was preliminary, too.

“May I see a copy of the tape?”

“I’ll make sure my assistant gets you one on the way
out,” said Suarez, who never stopped smiling.

“Aren’t you concerned that a guy whom you threatened
on live television turned up dead six days later?”

“Why should I be? I had no motive to kill him.”

“You were mad at him for hitting you on your own
show,” I tried.

Suarez laughed. “Mr. Tucker, are you in show
business?”

“I have my aspirations.”

“Who doesn’t?” He looked heavenward for a moment,
deriding amateurs like me as a reflex. “Well, you need to learn one
thing about the TV business,” Suarez said, taking on an air of
condescension only those with disproportionate self-esteem can
muster. “You don’t ever kill someone who gets you ratings like
that. Geraldo got hit with a chair, and nobody remembers what the
argument was about, but they remember him with the broken nose. You
can’t buy publicity like that. It was the same thing with
Gibson.”

“You mean. . .”

“Absolutely. It was
great
television.”

I
took a long shower when I
got back to the hotel, and then Abby and the kids came in from the
hotel pool. My wife, demurely covering up with a pair of sweat
pants over her bathing suit, was still enough to melt the fillings
in my lower molars.

“Did you cause cardiac arrest in any of the men down
there?” I asked her.

“Only one,” she said. “Luckily, there were
paramedics standing by. Had you warned them I might be swimming
today?”

“Yes, I felt it was my public duty.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I brought the one-piece.
They revived him without even using the paddles.”

I kissed her, then got the exciting run-down on a
day spent looking at a large statue of a man in a chair, then
swimming indoors.

“It was spooky, Daddy,” Leah said. “I thought he was
going to get up and walk toward me.”

“I know, Puss,” I said. “But he was such a nice man.
He wouldn’t hurt you.”

“It would be cool, though,” my son chimed in. “Like
a monster movie.”

Asperger’s Syndrome kids like Ethan—and other
children on the autism spectrum—reach a level of maturity during
their pre-teen and adolescent years that approximates about
two-thirds of their chronological age. Ethan, at twelve, was about
as mature as the average eight- or nine-year-old. So he was very
much into monster movies right now, as long as they weren’t too
scary. He loved the original
Dracula
, although he was also
addicted to the Mel Brooks version,
Dracula: Dead and Loving
It
, which has not yet achieved “classic” status. Mel is a
genius, but I’ll take
Young Frankenstein
over
Dracula
any day.

Stephanie had insisted we have dinner at her house
that night, so we got into our “good” clothes (the only one who
looked classy was Abby) and took the Metro to a stop near her
brownstone.

I had been prepared for the fact that Steph lived
better than I did (I’m prepared for that fact with most people I
know), but I wasn’t ready for the three-story, original brick,
1800’s-era home with Stephanie Jacobs Gibson standing in the
doorway.

Keep in mind that I’m not an architecture reporter.
I’m used to a house where you’re lucky if the walls have no holes
in them. This was more like a place where you’d be amazed if the
walls didn’t have Picassos on them.

Still, it wasn’t a museum—it was a home. The house,
as far as I could tell, embodied the tug-of-war between Legs’
desire to show off what a big deal he was and Stephanie’s natural
inclination toward living the most normal family life she could
provide for her children.

Her sons, she said, would not be joining us that
night. Steph and I had discussed that point ahead of time. The
conversation would invariably have drifted toward the murder, and
that was not something Leah and Ethan needed to hear. So I would
meet privately with Jason and “Lou Jr.” as Stephanie called him,
Saturday.

We sat down to dinner in a large dining room. The
food was already on the table—there was no sign of servants,
although I was willing to bet Steph hadn’t done all this work
herself. The conversation began with Halloween costumes (Ethan had
been Dracula—Leah, some Powerpuff Girl or another), and then moved
on to the city of Washington, D.C.

“If you like, I can help with the executive tour of
the White House and the Capitol,” Steph said to Abby, who was
smiling a radiant smile I knew meant she thought Steph was showing
off.

“No thank you,” Abby said. “But I think we want to
see everything every other regular citizen does.”

“You know, I think that’s wise,” Stephanie said.
Pretty soon, there might be an invisible fistfight in the room,
given the looks that were being passed back and forth. Of course,
being an idiot husband, I had told Abby about Stephanie’s odd
behavior at Louise’s house, and that might have had something to do
with the level of tension. On the other hand, the kids saw nothing,
and thought this excursion was just too cool.

Stephanie had asked about their eating habits, and
I’d explained that Ethan, especially, was very particular about the
way he eats, which is not at all unusual with Asperger’s kids. And
she had provided exactly what I’d said he’d eat: Hebrew National
hot dogs, French fries (pardon me:
Freedom
fries) and water.
Luckily, Leah will eat all those things, as well as many others, so
we were covered for both kids. The adults were having somewhat more
elegant fare—Chicken Kiev on a bed of rice and vegetables.

“What do you think you’d like to see while you’re
here?” Steph asked Abby.

“Well, since it’s Ethan and Leah’s first trip, we
thought maybe the Washington Monument, the Capitol, and some of the
Smithsonian Museums. Air and Space, definitely.” Abigail is the
only woman I know who can look elegant while eating asparagus.

“All very good choices,” Stephanie said, nodding.
“Not the White House?”

Abby flashed me a look, and I shrugged the tiniest
bit. “I think we’ll wait until there’s a president we’d rather
visit,” said my wife.

Stephanie, to her credit, did not react—she just
nodded. I had no idea if she agreed with Legs’ politics or not, but
they had bought her this house and all the things that went with
it.

“Yeah,” said Leah. “We don’t like this president. We
wanted the other man to win.”

“A lot of people did,” said Stephanie. “But I guess
we have to deal with what we get.”

Leah, waving her ketchup-laden hot dog, decided to
elaborate. “We didn’t vote for him. How come we have to listen to
him?”

“Do you get Cartoon Network?” Ethan piped up.

Stephanie looked from one to the other. She decided
Ethan’s was the easier question. “I don’t really know,” she said.
“After dinner, you can check, if you want.”

Ethan looked at Abby. “May I please be excused?”

“Not yet, Ethan.”

“Mom!” Leah sounded wounded. “Ethan just cut me
right off! He didn’t say ‘excuse me’ or anything!”

“I know, honey,” Abby said. “We’ll talk about it
later.”

“But it’s not
fair
!” Leah gestured with her
hot dog, which went flying and landed, ketchup side down, of
course, on the Oriental rug.

Me: “Leah!”

Leah: “Oops. Sorry.”

Abby: “Oh, my. Leah, you’ve got to be more
careful.”

“
Now
can I be excused?” I don’t think I even
need to identify the speaker.

Stephanie, however, was all purpose. Before I saw
the hot dog hit the floor, she was up, grabbing a bottle of club
soda from the sideboard behind her. With her napkin and the soda
water, she managed to obliterate the stain before I could even get
out of my chair. “Wow!” I said. “Do you do windows, too?”

Steph stepped back to admire her work. “If you get
to it quickly,” she said, “there won’t be any mark at all.”

“And since you knew my family was coming tonight,
you had plenty of club soda lying around.”

She stopped, and looked at me strangely. “Actually,”
she said, “it was for Louis. He used to drink that stuff like it
was going out of style. I haven’t gotten out of the habit yet, I
guess.”

“I’m sorry,” Leah said in a small voice.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Stephanie told her. “Nobody’ll
ever know.”

“No,” said Leah. “I’m sorry your husband died.”

Stephanie looked at her a moment. “So am I, Leah. So
am I.”

It turned out Stephanie did have Cartoon Network, so
we stayed for a few hours after dinner. The kids went inside to
discover the delights of
Cow and Chicken
, while we talked in
Steph’s living room. Steph and I decided on a time for me to
interview her sons on Saturday.

Finally, though, we packed up the brood, still
complaining about having to leave while
Scooby-Doo
was on
(on Cartoon Network,
Scooby-Doo
is
always
on), and
found our way back to the hotel. It was late, so we packed the kids
off to bed (although both of us harbored suspicions they’d search
for Cartoon Network on their bedroom TV) and then retreated to our
own bedroom. It was hard to believe we’d awakened this morning at
home in New Jersey.

I lay down on the bed, and reached for my overnight
bag on the floor. Abby was getting herself cleaned up in the
bathroom, and I could see her through the open door, taking off
makeup. I found the script in my bag, and pulled it out.

“I brought some reading material for you,” I called
to her.

She walked out of the bathroom and looked, saw the
script. Abby smiled. “You know,” she said, “it’s awfully late, and
I’m tired.”

“You always read before bed.”

“Yes, but what I’m saying is, I can either read some
of the script, or. . .”

“Or?”

She walked to her bag and started to rummage through
it. “Or, I can put on that nightgown you picked out. Now, which one
will it be?”

I am so weak.

I
t had taken a good deal of
maneuvering to get me an interview with Madeline Crosby. After all,
it was Legs Gibson’s rumor-mongering that had kept her off the
Supreme Court, so she was-n’t likely to acquiesce to a plea from
Stephanie. And if Crosby had even heard of
Snapdragon
, it
was likely to have been in the context of the odd classical music
review they might run to fill space between the headbangers and the
rappers.

So, I had had to rely on Mitch Davis, over at
USA
Today
, to pave the way. Davis, after much grousing about
“giving aid and comfort to the enemy,” had made a couple of phone
calls and advised me never to call him about this story again.
Spoil-sport.

Crosby maintained a home office in, of all places,
the Watergate complex, on the assumption that lightning never
strikes twice in the same place, I guess. I was buzzed in on
Saturday morning while Abby and the kids were out looking at Archie
Bunker’s chair and the Fonz’s jacket at the Museum of Cool Stuff
From Television. That Smithsonian is really a fun place.

In her mid-fifties, Madeline Crosby was not (forgive
me, Madeline!) a beautiful woman. But she had a face so full of
wisdom and wit, and eyes with just the right hint of sparkle, that
it never occurred to me she was anything but lovely.

She had been an up-and-comer out of the John
Marshall School of Law in Chicago, class of 1970. A year clerking
for Justice Thurgood Marshall didn’t hurt, and by the late 1980s,
Crosby was too strong a candidate for the Federal bench to be
denied. It wasn’t until the mid-90’s, when she was nominated to the
Supreme Court, that the allegations of an abortion—a
legal
abortion, it should be noted—were made, not terribly
surreptitiously, by Legs Gibson. Her nomination was scuttled within
a week, although the abortion issue was never directly cited.
Everyone knew Legs’ news leak had done the job it had set out to
do—it kept Madeline Crosby from being a terrific Supreme Court
justice, because her point of view wasn’t far enough to the
right.

Crosby gave me a curious, but not interested, glance
as I walked into her office. She was reading a document on her
desk, wearing a pair of half-glasses that I would no doubt need
within five years. She gestured to a chair.

“Sit down, Mr. Tucker.”

I did so, and took out my tape recorder as I waited.
I also had a reporter’s notebook and a pen, but they were mostly to
give my hands something to do during the interview. I don’t trust
tape recorders, but I confess that I don’t take notes as carefully
when I’m using one as I do otherwise.

Crosby put down the document and took off the
glasses. She regarded me carefully, trying to determine if I were
friend or foe.