Capitol Murder (30 page)

“Very well.” He leaned back, walking a finger across her barely covered chest, pinning her to
the table not with his finger but with the intensity of his eyes. “I believe you are sincere. I
will give you what you crave. Because you can still be of use to us. Soon we will perform the
final rite of purification. And then, my dear—” He brushed the matted hair from her face. “—then
we will have all of eternity before us.”

“I still can’t believe it,” Glancy said, pounding his fist on the conference table. “As long
as I’ve been in politics, I’ve never been played like that. I might have believed it from anyone
else, but not Shandy. Not in a million years.”

Ben tried to be sympathetic. “Just shows to go you. You can never really know a person.”

“But I did know her, Ben. I did. I just didn’t see this coming.”

“Well, it’s over now. We have to move on.” They were seated around a conference table in Ben’s
borrowed law offices. After hours of being grilled by the police about the death of Amber Daily,
Loving had dropped by to deliver an update, then left again to resume his investigation.
Christina and Jones were present, though, as well as all the members—all the remaining members—of
Glancy’s staff. Amanda Burton was fielding phone calls from the press, Marshall Bressler was on
his cell trying to minimize the political damage, and Hazel was keyboarding a flurry of
documents, some legal, some political. “What was in that letter Shandy gave you, anyway? Before
court was in session.”

“The height of objurgation.” Glancy flung it across the table. “Her letter of
resignation.”

“How decent of her,” Christina said. “Saved you the trouble of firing her.”

“And gave her an out in the event that she might be held in contempt of Congress for
testifying against me,” Glancy said. “Not that any charges are likely to be brought now. The
press are treating her like some heroic whistle-blower, not like the b—” He glanced up and caught
Christina’s eye. “Okay, the unsavory person that she is. Amanda tells me that
60 Minutes
and
20/20
are engaged in a bidding war to get her on as a guest.”

“I thought they weren’t allowed to pay for interviews,” Ben said.

“Oh, they won’t pay her anything directly. They’ll just . . . make a contribution to her
elderly father’s pension fund or something. Maybe they’ll give her a free hour of prime-time TV
to promote her new CD. That’s how they got Michael Jackson.” He snorted. “Next they’ll be
offering to pay for the film rights to her life.
Erin Brockovich
, Part Two. Except
without the cleavage.”

“Do you have anything we might use to impeach her testimony?” Ben inquired. He’d asked before,
of course, but it never hurt to try again. “Judge Herndon knows Shandy took us by surprise. I
think he’d let me call her back as part of the defense case, if we had a decent reason.”

“I hardly know anything about the girl. Contrary to the picture painted by Mr. Padolino, I am
not a serial sex addict. And it isn’t because I’m such a pure soul—it’s because I know you cannot
keep a secret in this town. I strayed once—only once—and of course the whole damn world knows
about that now.”

“So Shandy—”

“I hired her in a rush the day this mess began. I never had a chance to socialize with
her.”

“You’ve said some very complimentary things about her since. Talked about how she was taking
care of you. You’re still saying you thought you knew her,” Christina pointed out.

“After the murder. When she was spying on us. I thought she was trustworthy.”

“And there was never anything . . . untoward?”

“When would I have had a chance? Yes, I do tend to hire attractive interns. It’s not because I
want to sleep with them; it’s because it’s good politics. Even interns have a role, and a good
intern can sometimes make the difference between a bill that passes and a bill that fails. We all
are more persuaded by attractive people; it’s just human nature. Hiring young pretties isn’t
sexist—it’s smart.”

“Glad you hadn’t figured that out yet when I came on board,” Marshall said, his hand covering
his cell phone.

Glancy grinned. “And just for the record, I did not ask if she was wearing thong underwear.
Why would I? I’m a senator, for God’s sake. You make one remark like that and you’re on the six
o’clock news.” He bristled. “I don’t know what the big fuss is about those damn thongs, anyway. I
never liked them. I much prefer—” He caught himself. “Well, never mind.”

“What about the others?” Christina asked. “The other interns and job applicants who
testified.”

“Look, I’m not going to pretend I’ve never done a little flirting. I am a human being, and
moreover, I’m a politician. If I can work a little charm on someone to get what I want, I will.
There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“The incident with the zipper—”

“Didn’t happen. If my fly was open, which I doubt, it was an unfortunate accident, and I
certainly didn’t do it for that woman’s benefit. Ask yourself this: if all these incidents are
true, why didn’t anyone say anything about it at the time? We’ve got a Senate watchdog oversight
committee, an Ethics Committee, and a hound-dog press. Any one of them would love to get their
hands on a story like that. Plus it would guarantee the tattletale tubs of TV time and probably a
job. Why would they remain silent?” He balled his fists and pressed them together. “This is just
like what they did to Clarence Thomas. Not that he’s any great gem. But how is it all those women
who were sexually harassed never said a word about it—until he was appearing on televised
hearings?”

“So you think she’s lying about you just out of spite?”

“Spite? Hell, I think she’s on the payroll. It’s Paula Jones time, all over again. Give me
enough money and I’ll say anything.”

“And who would want to bankroll Shandy’s lies?”

“Anyone who doesn’t want to see me on a national Democratic ticket. And believe me, there are
a lot of them.”

“A right-wing conspiracy?” Christina said, arching an eyebrow.

He grimaced. “Count on Hillary to express something real in a way that makes it sound like a
paranoid fantasy. I’m not talking about some secret society. I’m talking about rich Republicans,
period. Even though there are more registered Democrats in this country than Republicans, the
Republicans typically fund-raise more than three times as much money for national elections—and
produce twice as many attack ads.”

“What about the Delia Collins incident?” Christina asked. “The one Representative MacReady
told the jury about?”

“Never happened. I remember that woman—I met with her on several occasions. But I did not have
sex with her. Not under anyone’s definition of the word.”

Christina stared at him, trying not to appear dubious. “You’re sure about that.”

He stared right back at her. “Believe me, Ms. McCall—if that woman had given me head on the
floor of my office, I’d remember.”

“But you didn’t vote for the bill she wanted passed.”

“There never was any vote. I killed it in committee. Didn’t want to. I hate it when insurance
companies play games to avoid giving treatment to people who need it. I would’ve loved to have
helped that woman. But I have too many insurance companies making large contributions to my
campaign coffers. There aren’t that many big businesses in my district, and most of them
predictably support the Republicans. I can’t afford to alienate the insurance money. Sorry to be
blunt about it, but that’s just the way it was.”

“And Delia Collins couldn’t change your mind?”

Glancy looked across the room at his administrative assistant, who was still whipping people
into line over his cell phone. “Marshall Bressler couldn’t change my mind, and I’d do almost
anything on earth for that man. He lobbied hard to get me to change my position. When he went
through his auto accident, his insurance company didn’t pony up for half of the therapy he
received, which they deemed either ‘optional’ or ‘nonmedical.’ If I hadn’t bankrolled his
recovery, he might not have made it. So he was naturally sympathetic to this insurance reform
bill. He’d mapped out an entire campaign detailing how we’d drum up enough popular support to
replace the insurance money. ‘Let Delia Live’ was going to be the operation slogan. But it was
just too risky. I couldn’t do it.” His head lowered, and when his voice returned, several moments
later, it was considerably quieter than before. “I was greatly saddened a few months later to
read that Delia Collins had died.”

“Well,” Ben said, trying to be consoling, “to be fair, most experimental or untested therapies
don’t turn out to be worth much. Desperate people turn to desperate remedies.”

“I know. But still.”

Amanda Burton slammed down her phone. “Look, Kincaid, I’ve been trying to go easy on you, now
that I know how sensitive you are and how easily intimidated you are by any woman with balls, but
you’ve got to give me something.”

Ben blinked several times. “Could you . . . be more specific?”

“I need something to tell the press. They keep asking me for our take on the Shifty Shandy
testimony. Who are we calling to launch our defense? What’s our story? They want to know. And I
can’t give them satisfactory answers, because I don’t have any! I can’t tell them our story when
I have no idea what it is!” She hunched across the table, poised on her fingertips, her blouse
gaping. “I’m good, Todd. You know I am. But I can’t spin air!”

Ben tried to remain calm. “Tell them we have no comment at this time.”

“We might as well confess! The East Coast evening news cycle will start in twenty minutes. I
can guarantee they’ll have more coverage of the Gospel According to Shandy. We need something to
counter that.”

“As soon as we’ve made up our minds—”

“It will be too late!” She glared at her boss. “I’m not kidding here. If this goes unrefuted
in the press, your career is over. I don’t care if you’re totally exonerated. I don’t care if the
Pope himself declares you his next saint. Your career in politics will be extinguished.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Glancy said calmly. “I’m not sure, but I think everyone at the
table understands your position.”

She turned toward Ben. “We’ve been paying that investigator of yours a fortune. What has he
got for us?”

Ben coughed into his hand. “Well, none of this is verified as yet, but he believes that
Veronica Cooper may have been involved with . . . um . . . how to say it? Involved with some
occult figures.”

“Occult figures?” She was practically screaming. “What, like Casper the Friendly Ghost?”

Ben carefully scrutinized the grain of the tabletop. “No. More like . . . vampires.”

Amanda pressed the heel of her hand against the bridge of her nose. “You’re telling me
Veronica Cooper was a vampire?”

“Of course we don’t mean to say that she really was a vampire,” Ben quickly added, hoping this
sounded better to her than it did to him. “Just that she thought she was a vampire. Or . . .
wanted to be a vampire. Or . . . something like that.”

“Loving is still working on it,” Christina added. “But one of Veronica’s friends—whom we
believe was also involved in this group—has turned up dead. Strangled in her hospital bed.”

Amanda swore. “Fat lot of help she’s going to be.”

“The point is,” Ben said emphatically, “if someone felt the need to kill her, Loving must be
onto something.”

“Yeah, he’s onto a bunch of crackpots. How do we know it has anything to do with this case?
Listen to me, Kincaid—if you go into the courtroom with this vampire crap, they’ll laugh you all
the way back to Oklahoma.”

“You’re out of line, Amanda,” Christina interjected. “Whether you appreciate it or not, Ben is
handling this defense very well. Brilliantly, I’d say.”

“Look, Goldilocks, you may think your partner walks on water, but he’ll never be able to sell
this vampire crock to a DC jury.”

“We weren’t planning to lead with the vampire crock. I mean—”

“What else have you got?”

“Well, numerous compurgators . . .”

“Character witnesses? You can’t lead with toady testimony!”

“We weren’t planning to lead with toad—I mean—”

“Then what were you planning to lead with?”

Christina cleared her throat. “Well, to tell you the truth, we haven’t decided.”

“What?” She clenched her fists again. “Todd, I begged you to hire DC counsel. I
begged
you.”

“Even if you had, they’d be telling you the same thing, if they had any sense.” Christina’s
cheeks were flushing. “You should just tell the press ‘no comment,’ whether they like it or not.
And let us get on with our work.”

“I know what you’re thinking, sweet cheeks,” Amanda said, drawing up to her full and
considerable height. “I know what you’re all thinking. Amanda’s just a PR flak. A petty
annoyance. Nothing to do with this case. But let me tell you something. I’ve got my finger on the
pulse of the people. People just like the sixteen sequestered souls on your jury. If you don’t
start listening to me—and if you don’t come up with something better than anything I’ve heard in
here today—Senator Todd Glancy of Oklahoma is going to be convicted of murder in the first
degree. That’s not a prediction. It’s a guarantee.”

“What the hell did you think you were doing!”

Lieutenant Albertson threw himself down into his desk chair. His office was not large, and
with both Dr. Aljuwani and Loving’s considerable bulk in there, they were pressed close enough
together to feel each other’s breath.

“He told me he was the girl’s father,” Dr. Aljuwani explained.

“Told me the same thing,” Loving said. “Even showed me his ID.”

Albertson tossed his hands up in the air. “Well let me give you a news flash. Three days ago,
a DC traffic cop found a ’97 Jaguar coupe registered to Robert Daily on the side of I-349. It
appeared to have been abandoned. Upon inspection, he found Robert Daily stuffed in the trunk.
He’d been shot three times in the heart.”