No Way to Treat a First Lady (22 page)

DAG Clintick took her time walking Damon through his background.

"You served
two
tours in Vietnam?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Was that unusual?"

Boyce knew very well she was just trying to get him to object.

"Probably was not typical."

"Why did you serve two tours in Vietnam?"

"I wanted us to win."

Jurors one, six, and fifteen were nodding.

Boyce thought,
This one is the real article, and he's coming right at us.

"What did you do in Vietnam, Mr. Blowwell?"

Beth whispered, "Shouldn't you be objecting?"

"Shh."

"My job was to kill the enemy."

"You were Mr. MacMann's campaign manager and, when he became president, his political director at the White House. What did that job entail?"

"Killing the enemy."

The courtroom erupted in laughter. Judge Dutch himself grinned. Boyce thought,
Slick, very slick.

"Did you and the President have frank discussions?"

"Wouldn't have been much point in having unfrank discussions."

"Of course. You were his confidant, after all." Ms. Clintick smiled. "He trusted you."

"And I trusted
him."

"Did President MacMann ever discuss his wife with you?"

"Objection."

Sidebar.

DAG Clintick continued, "Did the President ever confide in you whether he was dissatisfied in his marriage?"

"He did. He told me that he wanted to divorce Mrs. MacMann."

The courtroom stirred.

"Did he say when he wanted to divorce her?"

"Immediately following the reelection."

Judge Dutch had to gavel the courtroom to silence.

"Did he say whether he had made this intention clear to Mrs. MacMann?"

"He told me that he had discussed it with her."

"And what was her reaction?"

"She was not pleased. He said she had called him a name."

"What name?"

"It's a pretty salty term."

Judge Dutch reluctantly gave Blowwell permission to continue.

"She called him a 'cocksucker.' "

Gasps, gaveling. Network censors scrambled, too late, to hit the bleep-out button. Throughout America, mothers cautioned their children that such language was not to be repeated in their households. In Europe, the sound of laughter could be heard through a million windows. In Asia, there was confusion as precise translations were sought. Judge Dutch finally removed his useless glasses.

"So it would be fair to say that Mrs. MacMann was displeased by the President's revelation of his intention."

"I would say yes."

"Did the President say if Mrs. MacMann had said anything further with regard to her intentions?"

"He told me that she was planning to run for public office herself—the governor's office that he had held—after the President was re-elected. He said she told him that she would agree to a divorce once she had accomplished that. She told him that the only way she would leave the White House was on her terms."

Murmurmurmurmurmur.

"Thank you, Mr. Blowwell. No further questions for the witness at this time, Your Honor."

Boyce was fantasizing: His associate burst through the courtroom doors, breathless, tie askew, bruised, even missing a shoe. He was clutching a U.S. Army dossier designated "Top Secret." Inside was a report that Sergeant Damon Blowwell had been dishonorably discharged for massacring an entire elementary school of peace-loving Vietnamese children, including the school mascot water buffalo, Phong. He had decorated the bar at the noncom officers' club with their little pigtails. Not only that, but—

"Counselor?"

"Well," Boyce said once they were back at the hotel behind closed doors, "your campaign to rehabilitate yourself is coming along nicely."

"Don't start."

"I think I'm doing an admirable job of not starting. You're lucky I don't have a spittoon handy."

"Damon blew that conversation way out of proportion."

"No, darling. What he blew was us. Out of the water."

"You recovered well. I thought your cross brilliant, insinuating that he was a religious fanatic and war criminal."

"We did not 'recover' today. All that was purely for the benefit of juror three."

"Which one is he?"

"She. By now you should know these people better than your own relatives. The lesbian who hated her Baptist military father."

"Oh, her."

"In case everyone else in the jury fell in love with Damon, she's our only hope. My God, what a disaster."

"Damon was spinning. It wasn't untrue, but he made it sound worse than it was."

"Did you call Ken a 'cocksucker'?"

"Yes. And he was."

"When you take the stand again you can tell the jury it was a pet name. My widdle cocksucker. You do realize that Blowwell would not have taken the stand if you hadn't testified? His lawyer told me as much. It was your testimony that finally put his needle into the red and made him come forward with all this."

Boyce took off his tie and hurled it across the room as if ridding himself of a snake that had wrapped itself around his windpipe. "What
is
it with all these war heroes? You can't throw a stone in this case without hitting one. Didn't your husband ever hang out with
normal
people?"

"I think Damon has a problem with female authority."

"He can discuss that on TV with Oprah when he writes his book Meanwhile,
we
have a problem, with
him."

Boyce picked up the phone and buzzed.

"George? Boyce. Did you get anything on him?... No VC ears?... Are you sure? I'd lay odds there's a My Lai in that man's record somewhere. Have you spoken to
everyone
in his platoon?... Well, track him down in goddamn Peru, George, I don't care what it takes.... Then
hire
a goddamn helicopter. What about his AA friends? I
know
AA types are fiercely loyal to each other, but we're not dealing with samurai warriors here, George. They're recovering alcoholics. You get 'em alone, you pull out a bottle of hundred-dollar Scotch and hold it under their noses, and I promise, within ten minutes they'll be singing 'Whaddya Do with a Drunken Sailor' and telling you everything you want to know." Boyce hung up.

"What?" he said to Beth, who was looking at him with horror.

"Remind me," she said, "was I in class the day they taught us to suborn recovering alcoholics?"

"Uncivil Procedure 101. My favorite course."

Beth suddenly paled.

"You okay?"

She bolted for the bathroom door. She emerged ten minutes later looking shaky.

"Didn't mean to upset you," Boyce said.

"I've been upset since the seventies."

"Now you're cookin', George." Boyce hung up.

"Great news," he said to Beth. They were having breakfast, Boyce tucking in heartily to his usual hot oatmeal with wheat germ and mixed berries. Beth bird-nibbled at a muffin and sipped at tea. Her color was still off.

"Guess who beat up an antiwar protester in the seventies for lipping off to him and calling him a baby murderer? Sergeant Blowhard!"

"I'd have done the exact same thing."

"This information was not easy to come by. You could be more enthusiastic about it, you know. Apparently he was tanked when he slugged the guy. That's why he brought it up in AA. This is good. We can use this."

"Oh, Boyce, you didn't pour booze down some poor alcoholic's throat to get this? I just don't think getting recovering drunks drunk is right."

"Don't get ethical me with me, Spittoon Girl."

Beth burst into tears. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just can't seem to get a grip."

"It's okay," Boyce said, helpless as any male confronted with a weeping female, "I'm not going to subpoena a recovering alcoholic."

"You're not?" Beth blew her nose into a stiff Jefferson Hotel napkin.

"Not because I've gone soft," Boyce said. "With the mood the country's in right now, the jury would award Blowwell damages for skinning his knuckles on an antiwar protester."

Beth blew her nose. "Probably right."

He patted Beth's hand. "We'll figure something out."

"Let's go now to our special legal correspondent, who is outside the courthouse. Jeff, how did it go today?"

"Peter, this was
not
a good day for the defense. Beth MacMann's attorney, Boyce Baylor, filed a motion last week seeking to have Damon Blowwell examined by a court-appointed psychiatrist, in an effort to establish that Blowwell—as the motion put it—has a history of 'vicious sociopathic behavior characterized by extreme violence.' The basis for this is that Mr. Blowwell allegedly hit an antiwar protester back in the seventies. Baylor seized on the incident and tried to have Blowwell's court testimony, considered highly damaging to the former First Lady, thrown out by Judge Umin."

"And how did the judge rule today?"

"Just ten minutes ago, Judge Umin
denied
the motion. Morever, he did so in unusually harsh language, indicating that he is growing rapidly
impatient
with the defense."

"So Mr. Blowwell's testimony stands?"

"Yes. Further, we've just learned that Damon Blowwell has filed a thirty-million-dollar defamation suit against Boyce Baylor. So the atmosphere down here at the U.S. District Court is highly
charged.
Peter?"

Beth had taken some kind of downward turn that had Boyce at a loss. It was as if she'd lost interest in her own case. In court, she stared straight ahead, a terrible, guilty-looking eye posture—and twice had passed him urgent notes saying she needed a five-minute recess—"NOW!!" The moment they were granted, she flew toward the side door.

Naturally, these quick exits did not go unnoticed. It is difficult to go unnoticed when you are being seen live by over one billion viewers. Commentators remarked that she seemed to be under quite a lot of stress. Asked about this on the steps of the courthouse one day, Boyce was sorely tempted to say, "She's on trial for murdering her husband. Of course she's under 'considerable stress,' you pigeon-brained idiots." Instead he remarked that the reason for her downcast countenance was that, as former First Lady of the land, it tugged at her heartstrings to see the country she so loved torn apart by this tragedy.

But as one pundit put it, the country was not being torn apart. If anything, it was rapidly approaching unanimity on the matter of her guilt.

"Boyce?"

"What?" He was in a foul mood. Judge Dutch had denied yet another motion, his case was going down in flames, and the night before on Perri's show, Alan Crudman had declared that Boyce Baylor had made a "tragic error" in putting Beth on the stand. He knew very well Boyce had tried everything short of locking Beth in a closet to keep her from taking the stand.

"There's something I need to tell you."

He'd been afraid of this. It had happened before. And it always happened right about now: The client would break down,
just
as Boyce was about to go in and give his closing argument, and blubber all over his legal pad that—sob, gasp—they
were
guilty. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that with me as I prepare to go in and tell the jury that they are about to make a terrible mistake.

He said, "Beth, you could really help me right now by—"

"I'm pregnant."

They were in the car going to court. He could hear the courtroom rumbling from this atomic news, the media gasping with pleasure—a whole new layer of scandal!—the shocked, drawn faces of the jurors, spectators clamoring, Judge Dutch, eyeglasses fogged, gaveling, gaveling, ordering the bailiffs to clear the courtroom. He saw headlines, the evening news, heard the titter of his colleagues. He saw it in all its dire and awful vividness.

"That's so... great," he squeaked.

He was seized with joy. He'd never heard such good news. He'd never wanted children by any of his wives, sensing as he had that none of the marriages was likely to last. And now the only woman he had ever really loved had just announced that she was pregnant by him! Admittedly, the timing could have been better—twenty-five years later and in the middle of her trial for murdering the President of the United States. Otherwise it was wonderful news.

He detached himself from her long enough to ask, "But—you were on the pill."

"I went off them about the time we went to trial. I was getting headaches and the doctor said to stop for a while while he monitored my estrogen. I never got around to going back on. It wasn't as though I were likely to get pregnant, right? I thought you might have guessed. All those trips to the bathroom."

"A lot of clients have to use the bathroom in a hurry. Nerves. I was focused on the case."

The case!

He saw himself standing next to Beth in front of Judge Dutch. For the sentencing. Judge Dutch was wearing contacts so his glasses wouldn't fog. Beth's belly was huge with child. She was wearing maternity clothes. They held hands, not proper in court, strictly speaking, but they couldn't help it. Judge Dutch's voice kept catching in his throat. "In light of your condition, Mrs. MacMann, the United States will not avail itself of the sentence of death which would normally be imposed in such a grievous, indeed, heinous case. But because you have been found guilty of one of the most serious crimes there is—if not
the
most serious—it is the judgment of this court that you serve the balance of your life in prison, without possibility of parole."

He heard the gasps, the sobs. He turned, saw the tears streaming down Beth's cheeks as she stood there for the last time in her life wearing nonprison clothes. Saw the marshals approaching with steel manacles and leg chains. Heard Judge Dutch straining to control his own emotions as he concluded that this terrible tragedy had claimed more than the life of the President of the United States—it had forever blemished the honor of the United States and, perhaps most tragically of all, had robbed an unborn child of its mother, who would be only a person in an orange uniform on the other side of thick glass. Case closed, and may God have mercy on us all.