Absolute Power (47 page)

*   *   *

“K
ATE
, I
KNOW HOW YOU FEEL, BUT YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME
. He didn’t blame you for anything. None of this was your fault. Like you said, you were pushed into the middle involuntarily. You didn’t ask for any of this. Luther understood that.”

They were in Jack’s car driving back into the city. The sun was eye level and dropping perceptibly with each mile. They had sat in his car at the cemetery for almost two hours because she didn’t want to leave. As though if she waited long enough he would climb out of his grave and join them.

She cracked the window and a narrow stream of air engulfed the interior, dispelling the new-car smell with the thick moistness that heralded another storm.

“Detective Frank hasn’t given up on the case, Kate. He’s still looking for Luther’s killer.”

She finally looked at him. “I really don’t care what he
says
he’s going to do.” She touched her nose, which was red and swollen and hurt like hell.

“Come on, Kate. It’s not like the guy wanted Luther to get shot.”

“Oh really? A case full of holes that gets blown apart at trial leaving everyone involved, including the detective in charge, looking like complete idiots. Instead you have a corpse, and a closed case. Now tell me again what the master detective wants?”

Jack stopped for a red light and slumped back in his seat. He knew that Frank was shooting straight with him, but there was no way in hell he was going to convince Kate of that fact.

The light changed and he moved through traffic. He checked his watch. He had to get back to the office, assuming he had an office to go back to.

“Kate, I don’t think you should be alone right now. How about I crash at your place for a few nights? You brew the coffee in the morning and I’ll take care of the dinners. Deal?”

He had expected an immediate and negative response and had already prepared his rejoinder.

“Are you sure?”

Jack looked over at her, found wide, puffy eyes on him. Every nerve in her body seemed ready to scream. As he walked himself through the paces of what was, to both of them, a tragedy, he suddenly realized that he was still totally oblivious to the enormity of the pain and guilt she was experiencing. It stunned him, even more than the sound of the shot as he sat holding her hand. Knowing before their fingers ever parted that Luther was dead.

“I’m sure.”

That night he had just settled himself on the couch. The blanket was drawn up to his neck, his bulwark against the draft that hit him chest high from an invisible crevice in the window across from him. Then he heard a door squeak and she walked out of her bedroom. She wore the same robe as before, her hair drawn up tightly in a bun. Her face looked fresh and clean; only a slight red sheen hovering around her cheeks hinted at the internal trauma.

“Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine. This couch is a lot more comfortable than I thought it would be. I’ve still got the same one from our apartment in Charlottesville. I don’t even think it has any springs left. I think they all retired.”

She didn’t smile, but she did sit down next to him.

When they had lived together she had taken a bath every night. Coming to bed she had smelled so good it had nearly driven him mad. Like the breath of a newborn, there was absolutely nothing imperfect about it. And she had played dumb for a while until he lay exhausted on top of her and she would smile a decidedly wicked little smile and stroke him and he would ruminate for several minutes on how it was so crystal-clear to him that women ruled the world.

He found his baser instincts creeping firmly ahead as she leaned her head against his shoulder. But her exhausted manner, her total apathy, swiftly quelled his secular inclinations and left him feeling more than a little guilty.

“I’m not sure I’m going to be very good company.”

Had she sensed what he was feeling? How could she? Her mind, everything about her, must be a million miles away from this spot.

“Being entertained was not part of the deal. I can look after myself, Kate.”

“I really appreciate your doing this.”

“I can’t think of anything more important.”

She squeezed his hand. As she rose to go the flap on her robe came undone exposing more than just her long, slender legs and he was glad she would be in another room that night. His ruminations until the early-morning hours ran the gamut from visions of white knights with large dark spots disfiguring their pristine armor to idealistic lawyers who slept miserably alone.

On the third night he had settled in again on the couch. And, as before, she came out of her bedroom; the slight squeak made him lay down the magazine he was reading. But this time she did not go to the couch. He finally craned his neck around and found her watching him. She did not look apathetic tonight. And tonight she was not wearing the robe. She turned and went back inside her bedroom. The door stayed open.

For a moment he did nothing. Then he rose, went to the door and peered in. Through the darkness he could make out her form on the bed. The sheet was at the foot of the bed. The contours of her body, once as familiar to him as his own, confronted him. She looked at him. He could just make out the ovals of her eyes as they focused on him. She did not put out her hand for him; he recalled that she had never done that.

“Are you sure about this?” He felt compelled to ask it. He wanted no hurt feelings in the morning, no crushed, confused emotions.

For an answer she rose and pulled him to the bed. The mattress was firm, and warm where she had been. In another moment he was as naked as she. He instinctively traced the half-moon, moved his hand around the crooked mouth, which now touched his. Her eyes were open and this time, and it had been a long time, there were no tears, no swelling, just the look he had grown so used to, expected to have around forever. He slowly put his arms around her.

*   *   *

T
HE HOME OF
W
ALTER
S
ULLIVAN HAD SEEN VISITING
dignitaries of incredibly high rank. But tonight was special even compared to past events.

Alan Richmond raised his glass of wine and gave a brief but eloquent toast to his host as the four other carefully selected couples clinked their glasses. The First Lady, radiant in a simple, black dress, ash blonde hair framing a sculpted face that had worn remarkably well over the years and made for delightful photo ops, smiled at the billionaire. Accustomed as she was to being surrounded by wealth and brains and refinement, she, like most people, was still in awe of Walter Sullivan and men like him, if only for their rarity on the planet.

Technically still in mourning, Sullivan was in a particularly gregarious mood. Over imported coffee in the spacious library the conversation ventured from global business opportunities, the latest maneuvering of the Federal Reserve Board, the ’Skins’ chances against the Forty-niners that Sunday, to the election the following year. There were none in attendance who thought Alan Richmond would have a different occupation after the votes were counted.

Except for one person.

In saying his good-byes the President leaned into Walter Sullivan to embrace the older man and say a few private words. Sullivan smiled at the President’s remarks. Then the old man stumbled slightly but righted himself by grasping the arms of the President.

After his guests had gone, Sullivan smoked a cigar in his study. As he moved to the window, the lights from the presidential motorcade quickly faded from view. In spite of himself, Sullivan had to smile. The image of the slight wince in the President’s eye as Sullivan had gripped his forearm had made for a particularly victorious moment. A long shot, but sometimes long shots paid off. Detective Frank had been very open with the billionaire about the detective’s theories regarding the case. One theory that had particularly interested Walter Sullivan was his wife having wounded her assailant with the letter opener, possibly in the leg or arm. It must have cut deeper than the police had thought. Possible nerve damage. A surface wound certainly would have had time to heal by now.

Sullivan slowly walked out of the study, turning off the light as he exited. President Alan Richmond had assuredly felt only a small pain when Sullivan’s fingers had sunk into his flesh. But as with a heart attack, a small pain was so often followed by a much larger one. Sullivan smiled broadly as he considered the possibilities.

*   *   *

F
ROM ATOP THE KNOLL
W
ALTER
S
ULLIVAN STARED AT THE
little wooden house with the green tin roof. He pulled his muffler around his ears, steadied his weakened legs with a thick walking stick. The cold was bitter in the hills of southwest Virginia this time of year and the forecast pointed unerringly to snow, and a lot of it.

He made his way down across the, for now, iron-hard ground. The house was in an excellent state of repair thanks to his limitless pocketbook and a deep sense of nostalgia that seemed to more and more consume him as he grew closer to becoming a thread of the past himself. Woodrow Wilson was in the White House and the earth was heavily into the First World War when Walter Patrick Sullivan had first seen the glimmer of light with the aid of a midwife and the grim determination of his mother, Millie, who had lost all three previous children, two in childbirth.

His father, a coal miner—it seems everyone’s father was a coal miner in that part of Virginia back then—had lived until his son’s twelfth birthday and then had abruptly expired from a series of maladies brought on by too much coal dust and too little rest. For years the future billionaire had watched his daddy stagger into the house, every muscle exhausted, the face as black as their big Labrador’s coat, and collapse on the little bed in the back room. Too tired to eat, or play with the little boy who each day hoped for some attention but ended up getting none from a father whose perpetual weariness was so painful to witness.

His mother had lived long enough to see her offspring become one of the richest men in the world, and her dutiful son had taken great pains to ensure that she had every comfort his immense resources could provide. For a tribute to his late father, he had purchased the mine that had killed him. Five million cash. He had paid a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus to every miner in the place and then he had, with great ceremony, shut it down.

He opened the door and went inside. The gas fireplace threw warmth into the room without the necessity of firewood. The pantry was stocked with enough food for the next six months. Here he was entirely self-sufficient. He never allowed anyone to stay here with him. This had been his homestead. All with the right to be here, with the exception of himself, were dead. He was alone and he wanted it that way.

The simple meal he prepared was lingered over while he stared moodily out the window where in the failing light he could just make out the circle of naked elms near the house; the branches waved to him with slow, melodic movements.

The interior of the house had not been returned to its original condition or configuration. This was his birthplace but it had not been a happy childhood amid poverty that threatened never to go away. The sense of urgency spawned from that time had served Sullivan well in his career, for it fueled him with a stamina, a resolve before which many an obstacle had wilted.

He cleaned the plates, and went into the small room that had once been his parents’ bedroom. Now it contained a comfortable chair, a table and several bookcases that housed an extremely select collection of reading material. In the corner was a small cot, for the room also served as his sleeping chamber.

Sullivan picked up the sophisticated cellular phone that lay on the table. He dialed a number known only to a handful of people. A voice on the other line came on. Then Sullivan was put on hold for a moment before another voice came on.

“Goodness, Walter, I know you tend to keep odd hours, but you really should try to slow down a bit. Where are you?”

“You can’t slow down at my age, Alan. If you do, you might not start back up again. I’d much rather explode in a fireball of activity than recede faintly into the mists. I hope I’m not disturbing something important.”

“Nothing that can’t wait. I’m getting better about prioritizing world crises. Was there something you needed?”

Sullivan took a moment to place a small recording device next to the receiver. One never knew.

“I only had one question, Alan.” Sullivan paused. It occurred to him that he was enjoying this. Then he thought of Christy’s face in the morgue and his face became grim.

“What’s that?”

“Why did you wait so long to kill the man?”

In the silence that followed, Sullivan could hear the pattern of breathing on the other end of the phone. To his credit Alan Richmond did not start to hyperventilate; in fact, his breathing remained normal. Sullivan came away impressed and a little disappointed.

“Come again?”

“If your men had missed, you might be meeting with your attorney right now, planning your defense against impeachment. You must admit you cut it rather close.”

“Walter, are you all right? Has something happened to you? Where are you?”

Sullivan held the receiver away from his ear for a moment. The phone had a scrambling device that made any possible tracing of his location impossible. If they were trying to lock in his position right now, as he was reasonably certain they were, they would be confronted with a dozen locations from which the call was supposedly originating, and not one of them anywhere near where he actually was. The device had cost him ten thousand dollars. But, then, it was only money. He smiled again. He could talk as long as he wanted.

“Actually I haven’t felt this good in a long while.”

“Walter, you’re not making any sense. Who was killed?”

“You know I wasn’t all that surprised when Christy didn’t want to go to Barbados. Honestly, I figured she wanted to stay behind and do some alley-catting with a few of the young men she had targeted over the summer. It was funny when she said she wasn’t feeling well. I remember sitting in the limo and thinking what her excuse would be. She wasn’t all that creative, poor girl. Her cough was particularly phony. I suppose in school she used the dog-ate-my-homework with alarming regularity.”