Capitol Murder (36 page)

“Oh, blessed Tiamat, Guardian of the Darkness, hear our plea. Help us to find the Lost
Children of the Blood.”

As one, the rest of the assemblage chanted, “Goddess, hear our prayer.”

“Help us find the path to immortality and reclaim the spirit of our ancestors, the Nephilim of
the Annunaki.”

“Goddess, hear our prayer.”

“Lead us not unto the wicked ways of the pretender, the Killer of the Spirit, the cursed
Nazarene, the Perverter of Souls.”

“Goddess, hear our prayer.”

“Please accept our sacrifice—”

Loving’s head jerked up.

“—as a token of our fealty, our unyielding devotion to your psychic strength. Hear me, the
Sire of the Circle, and all your servants in the Inner Circle as we ask your blessing. Offer unto
us your greater glory and our nourishment.”

“Goddess, hear our prayer.”

The room fell deadly silent. The leader—the Sire—reached up and removed the cowl from his
head.

Just as Loving had thought. It was Daily—or rather, the man who pretended to be Daily. The man
who killed Daily, and Amber. He was the Sire!

His spine tingling, Loving watched as the man slowly drew back the sheet from the sacrifice
upon the table. It was a woman, very young, blond, and medium weight. Even with her face silent
and ashen, Loving recognized her from the picture Shalimar had shown him. It was Beatrice.

She was not moving, hadn’t moved since the ceremony had begun, which meant she was either
sleeping, drugged—or worse.

There were too many of them for Loving to try a frontal assault. Even assuming he was the best
fighter in the room, he was massively outnumbered. A failed attempt could leave him dead, or
Beatrice, or both. The smartest thing would be to get back outside, call in the cops, then create
some kind of disturbance—something to interrupt the ceremony and prevent them from sacrificing
Beatrice before the police arrived.

He turned and started for the door—

Someone was standing in his way.

The cultist obstructing his passage was wearing a brown hood, but it did not entirely conceal
his face. Even in the darkness, his visage was hideous. Gold fangs descended from his mouth. His
eyes glowed red. His face was scarred, apparently by design.

“Why are you here?” the voice within the cowl hissed. “You are not of the Circle.”

Loving bolted. His best hope now was to outrun them. But just as he was hitting his stride,
someone tripped him, causing him to tumble to the floor. He pulled himself up as quickly as he
could, but by that time he was surrounded.

“Look,” Loving said, “I can explain. I was lookin’ for the Presbyterian church and I got lost
and—”

He never got to finish his sentence. He heard the whistle of something swinging around in the
darkness, something solid, moving fast. For an instant he felt the impact upon the back of his
skull. And then the world was consumed by blackness.

No one who hasn’t done it can understand what it is to try a case, Ben thought as he wiped the
sleep out of his eyes and tried to focus on the witness outline he held in his hands. Civil or
criminal, it was all the same, at least from one standpoint—the enormous all-consuming immersive
nature of the experience. Once the trial began, the rest of the world disappeared. There were no
more lunches with friends, no phone calls to Mom, no trips to the local cineplex. During a trial,
Ben usually existed on four hours of sleep a night, and he sometimes suspected Christina never
slept at all. Despite the pressure, the exhaustion, and the sleep deprivation, he had to keep
himself in peak condition and clearheaded. The key to success was to always remain one step
ahead—not only planning his case but also anticipating its flaws and preparing for the responses
of his opponents. It was a daunting, hellishly difficult task. Even still, he had often thought
that trial practice wouldn’t be so bad if you could just eliminate one element.

Clients.

“Congratulations, Kincaid. You’ve really screwed things up now.”

Amanda, naturally. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Have I? I thought yesterday went rather
well.”

“Shows what you know. You’ve fucked us royally, and we’re going to sit down right now and
figure out how to fix it.”

Ben pushed away from the table. There was no point in explaining to this woman that he had
gotten up three hours before court began so he could prepare his defense, not so he could talk
about its PR ramifications.

“We did a lot of overnight polling, after the evening news reports. The results were not
good.”

“I thought Marie did the prosecution serious damage on motive, and also gave us back a
feasible alibi. Our jury has a lot more reasonable doubt running through their brains now than
they had before.”

“I wasn’t polling the jury,” Amanda said curtly. “I was polling the voters. The men and women
who put Todd Glancy into office.”

“I’m not concerned about them.”

“I know. That’s the problem.”

Ben felt his neck stiffening. “If we lose this trial, what your voters think isn’t going to
matter anymore.”

“What do you mean,
if
we lose. You’ve been hired to win, you schmuck. And we expect
you to deliver. My job is to make sure Todd still has a career after the trial. And that’s not
going to happen if you keep painting him as some depraved sex pervert!”

“That part wasn’t my idea. Marie put that in on her own.”

“You should’ve stopped it.”

“I tried.”

“Don’t give me
try
!” The woman was almost shouting. “This isn’t the 4-H Club, farm
boy. I don’t care about
try
. I care about results. That testimony should never have come
in.”

“I agree. But it did, so now we have to live with it.”

She sat on the edge of the table, flipped her hair back, and extended her chest. “We’re going
to do a lot more than that. We’re going to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.”

“And how exactly are we going to do that?”

“Easy. I want you to kill the private investigator.”

Ben assumed that by
kill
she meant “don’t call him to the stand,” but given who was
speaking, he wondered if he should check. “You must be kidding.”

“I’m not. If you put him on the stand, Padolino will spend all of cross quizzing him on
everything he knows about Todd’s sexual practices and preferences.”

“Very likely.”

“And given that he was apparently following that bimbo intern around for months, he’s probably
going to have a lot to tell.”

“That’s the price we pay to get his testimony about Veronica Cooper.”

She shook her head emphatically. “The price is too high.”

Ben was just as resolute. “We have no choice.”

“Of course we do. And I just made it.”

Ben’s face crinkled together like aluminum foil. “Do you want to destroy Todd’s case? We
have
to use the investigator.”

“We should just go with Todd.”

“Just go with the defendant? His own self-serving testimony? When we have someone who can
corroborate it? You’re out of your blinking mind!”

Amanda leaned in so close Ben could feel the darts of her blouse pressing against his shirt.
“I can assure you I’m perfectly sane. I can also assure you that I know what’s best for Todd, and
if you don’t listen to me, I’ll string you up feetfirst from the Washington Monument.”

“Lady, how can I say this nicely? Buzz off.” He returned his attention to his outline.

She grabbed his collar. “Don’t you turn away from me. Don’t you dare turn away from me! I’ve
taken down bigger men than you, Okie. Much bigger. All it would take is a few phone calls and
you’ll never practice law again!”

“Amanda?”

Both heads whipped around to see Marshall Bressler wheeling himself into the room. He was
holding a bottle of blue-colored pills. “Anyone got a bottle of water? I’m a wreck without my
morning medication.” He looked up. “Oh. Is this a bad time?”

“Depends on your definition of a bad time,” Ben said, removing Amanda’s hands. “I think Amanda
was about to commit her first murder. That we know of, anyway.”

Amanda clenched her fists and made a sonorous growling noise. “You are so . . . infuriating!”
She whipped around to face Marshall. “This man is trying to destroy everything I’ve worked so
hard for!”

Marshall raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t that be what
we’ve
worked so hard for?”

“He insists on calling that damn detective.”

“Did you read his report?” Marshall asked. “I think it’s safe to say his testimony will end
the media portrayal of Veronica as an angelic innocent.”

“What the hell do you know about the media!” She looked as if she were about to pull her hair
out by the roots. “All the media will report is the talk about sex. And Padolino will make sure
there’s lots of it. Enough to fill the front three sections of the
Post
. Did you see the
poll results I e-mailed to you?”

Marshall waved a hand in the air. “You know I never look at e-mail, and you should never put
anything important in one. Republican eyes are everywhere.”

“Paranoid much?” Ben asked.

“Yeah, that’s what they were saying back in ’04, and then we found out the Republican staff
members of the Judiciary Committee had been hacking into our restricted e-mail messages for more
than a year, sometimes even leaking them to right-wing pundits. Remember that story?”

Ben frowned. He did.

“These poll results are irrelevant,” Ben said. “Any negative fallout is irrelevant, as I’ve
been trying to explain to Amanda. It’s an unfortunate consequence of what we have to do to make
sure our favorite politician doesn’t get a lethal injection.”

Marshall tilted his head to one side. “I’m not sure trashing Veronica will do it.”

“It won’t hurt.”

“What we really need,” Marshall continued, “is to give the jury an alternate suspect.”

Both Ben and Amanda stared at him.

“Reasonable doubt is fine, but once Padolino starts talking his trash in closing, he’ll wash
all their doubts away. We need more. We need doubt plus a bogeyman. A good one. That might do the
trick.”

Ben laid his pencil to rest. “Did you have anyone in particular in mind?”

“Does it matter? Just pick someone.”

“Okay. I pick Amanda.”

She shot invisible poison daggers at him.

“I’m serious, Ben,” Marshall said.

“I am, too. And if we had a viable potential suspect, I’d be the first to put the theory
before the jury. But I won’t pick someone at random and trump something up.”

“It could work.”

Ben shook his head. “You’ve been watching too much television.”

“At least give it some thought. How about the junior senator from Oklahoma? He had plenty of
motive to want Todd out of the way.”

“I won’t do it,” Ben said emphatically. “Given the way this case is being covered, even the
slightest courtroom accusation could destroy someone’s life. It’s a totally unethical
tactic.”

Marshall pursed his lips. “You’re sure about this. No Mister X?”

“Not unless it’s a Mister X whom I really believe might’ve done the deed.”

Marshall nodded slowly, then pivoted his chair around and wheeled himself toward the doorway.
“Then let’s hope one turns up.”

“Psst!”

Christina looked up and saw Padolino leaning out the hallway door of his office, motioning.
“Can you come in for a moment?”

“Ooo-kay.” She stepped inside. He slammed the door quickly behind her. “Is there some reason
for the secrecy?”

“Well . . . I thought it best we not be seen talking together. You know, before the trial is
over. Wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.”

“That you’re conspiring with the enemy?”

“Something like that. And I didn’t want to get you in trouble with your boss.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that.” Christina stared at him, at the way he was
twitching his fingers, pacing back and forth. He never acted this nervous in the courtroom—or for
that matter when he was speaking on national television. “What can I do for you?”

“I was just wondering . . .” He fidgeted with the edge of his desk. “I wondered if maybe, you
know, when this case is over you and I could, like . . . get a drink together. Or something. I
know your boss doesn’t drink. Do you?”

“Absolutely,” she answered. “I’m a fiend for club soda. Are you serious?”

“What? Did I do something wrong? Do I not seem serious? I just thought, maybe, you know, you
and I—”

“Is this some sort of psych-out plan? Some dastardly plot to weaken the defense by making
advances to opposing counsel?”

“No! Not at all.” He pressed his hands together. “I’ve just been, you know, watching you. I
mean, not in a bad way. Just during the case and all. And I thought maybe you and I should get to
know each other better.”

Christina’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t know whether to believe the man or not. And it didn’t
much matter, in any case. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think my boss—who by the way is
actually my partner—would appreciate it.”

“But I already asked him.”

Christina froze. “What?”

“I asked him. If it would be all right if I asked you out. I mean, for all I knew there could
be something going on between the two of you. Some of my staff thought there was. So I did the
honorable thing. I asked him.”

“And he said . . .”

“He told me to go right ahead. Do whatever I wanted to do.”

“Is that a fact.” Christina turned, careful to keep her face from registering emotion. “Well,
in that case—”

The door swung open so fast it almost hit her in the face. Steve Melanfield came barreling
through. “Paul! Great news. We—” He saw Christina and stopped. “Oh. Hello.”

“Back at you,” Christina said. “What’s the good news?”

He looked at her, then back at Padolino, then back at her. “What the hell. I suppose it
doesn’t matter. Everyone will know soon. My people in Oklahoma City tell me it’s at least ninety
percent certain we’re going to have a new senator.”