Premeditated Murder (16 page)

“Mmm-hmm. Did you tell her that you gave the computer to creepy Vernon Browning?”

From the first moment that she met him, Sammy had distrusted Browning. But for Matt, especially on the day the world turned upside down, the man had been a godsend.

It had all happened so suddenly. At 9:05 that morning, Matt was sitting at his desk, reading through an endless pile of political aides' résumés. He had no experience in putting together the kind of staff that he needed, and no political connections, so he was starting at absolute zero. Add to that Matt's natural reluctance to delegate, and the frequent interruptions for actual vice-presidential duties—a weeklong trip to attend the NATO conference in Iceland, an even longer visit to Poland, Hungary, and then Russia for economic meetings, an endless number of important funerals and political fund-raisers—and Matt's progress in assembling his staff was embarrassingly slow. For a man who was first in the line of succession to the most important job in the world, Matt's offices were startlingly underpopulated. A secretary, a few temporary assistants on loan from the White House, a handful of interns.

Until 9:06, when a dozen Secret Service agents burst into Matt's office and carried him, just about literally, to an underground bunker, where he was soon joined by the National Security Advisor and the Speaker of the House.

And at 9:25
A
.
M
., the three of them sat staring at a speakerphone in the middle of a conference table, as the Chief of Medicine at Walter Reed Army Hospital explained to them that at 9:17 that morning, President Graham had been pronounced dead of an aneurysm.

In the hours that followed, Browning was everywhere. He worked tirelessly with the Press Secretary, the Director of Communications, and the rest of his staff to manage the tremendous flow of information that was surging through the media. He seemed to be continually on the phone with senior members of Congress. And knowing that Matt had not had an opportunity to put together any kind of staff to support him in the White House, Browning offered to stay on as Chief of Staff for as long as Matt needed him. Then, at Matt's request, he organized and attended emergency meetings with the Cabinet and then with senior staff, so Matt could ask each and every one of them, as a personal favor to him and, more important, as a favor to the country, if they would stay on in their capacities while Matt finished out the final year of President Graham's term of office.

“I told her that I skimmed through what was stored on the computer and then I gave it to
Chief of Staff
Browning, who stayed on at his post at my request, by the way, and who continues to be an invaluable assistant in my transition.” He held out a forkful of the pie to Sammy. “Are you sure you don't want any of this?”

Sammy made a face. “That doesn't keep him from being creepy,” she retorted. “And Veronica Graham knows he's creepy, too. So what did she say when you told her?”

Matt redirected the fork to his own mouth. Oh, boy. Sammy had no idea what she was missing. “She said that she was sorry about adding something else to my busy schedule, but she was afraid there might have been something important on the computer, and then she said that she was sure that Vernon would be able to answer any questions I had.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Sammy said. “I bet she did.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” she said. Which, in the language of Sammy, really meant
something, but you aren't ready to believe it yet.
They'd come back to it. “Then what happened?”

“Then she handed me a small case of CDs,” Matt said, “and told me that she'd found them as she was unpacking after the move. She thought Jim might have used them on the laptop, and so she decided, just to be safe, that she'd give them to me to look into in case there was something sensitive on them.”

“So, did you check to see if they had those memos on them?”

“Yeah. They aren't there.” Dessert was finished. Damn.

“So what's the problem?” Sammy asked.

“I don't get it. Veronica Graham's a very bright woman. First she goes out of her way to hand me a computer which she's afraid has sensitive things on it, which it doesn't, and then she gives me a bunch of CDs because she's afraid that they might have sensitive things on them, which they don't. Why is she giving this stuff to me? She knows how much time all this takes. She knows how valuable a President's time is. I had to blow off two important meetings to go through those useless CDs. She's acting like this is some giant priority …”

“Maybe it is. Maybe you just haven't seen what she wants you to see.”

“But if she wanted me to see something, why doesn't she just come out and show me?” Matt argued.

“What if she can't?” Sammy replied. “What if whatever she wants you to see is too controversial or painful for her to be direct? Whatever it is, though, you can be sure that she didn't give the computer to Vernon Browning for a reason.”

“Oh, please,” Matt said.

“Oh, please yourself,” Sammy responded. “I've seen her look at that man, and she doesn't trust him any more than I do.” She paused for a moment. “I have no idea what's on that computer, or on those CDs, but I'm absolutely sure Veronica didn't show them to Vernon Browning because she didn't want Vernon Browning to see them.”

“Which, as unreasonable as that is, still doesn't explain why, if there's something I need to know, she doesn't just tell me. I mean, all she'd have to do is point something out to me …” His voice trailed off.

“What is it, Matt?” Sammy asked.

“She
did
point something out to me,” he said, pushing back from the table and heading for the door. “I know where the Cullhane memos are. They're in my briefcase in the library.”

“Hey, wait for me,” Sammy said, jumping up and following him. “I want to see, too.”

Matt walked down the hall with Sammy until they reached the library. They entered the large room, and Matt walked over to his briefcase. “You know those CDs that Veronica gave me?” he said.

“I thought you looked at them already,” Sammy replied.

“Not all of them. Two of the CDs in the case were music CDs.” Matt took a couple of disks out of the briefcase and held them up. “
Sinatra Classics from the Fifties
and
Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.
I just figured Jim liked to listen to these while he was working, or maybe that they were stuck in there by mistake.”

“Or maybe they were the only ones Veronica wanted you to pay attention to,” Sammy said, as Matt sat down and started up the laptop he kept on the desk in the library. Sammy pulled over a chair and sat beside him.

“Just because they're labeled one thing doesn't mean …” His voice faded as he inserted the Sinatra CD into the computer. And sure enough, the disk contained text files, not music. Each file name was merely a number. Matt opened the file labeled number 1. A memo titled only
Judge John Swain, U.S. District Court, Arizona
was displayed on the screen. Matt read it silently, while Sammy looked over his shoulder. When they finished, Matt closed the file and opened number 2. That memo was titled
Judge Risa Abramson, U.S. District Court, New York.
Again Matt and Sammy read the memo. “You want to keep going?” Matt asked, looking back at Sammy. She nodded, very serious. Number 3 was titled
Judge Mitchell Stanton, U.S. District Court, Michigan.

“That's the guy who killed himself,” Matt said, as they began to read. When they were finished with that one, Matt closed the file, turned off the computer, and turned to his wife. He had never seen anything like this in his entire career. He didn't even know where to begin.

Sammy held out her hand, and he took it. “This is worse than I thought,” she said quietly. “What are you going to do?”

Matt took a deep breath. “Well, it looks like the first thing I need to do is to talk to the former first lady,” he told his wife. “I owe her at least that much.”

Detroit, Michigan

LENA'S HOURS AT THE CONVENIENCE STORE ON Sunday were hideously early. She had to be there at five
A
.
M
. to open up with pompous Gary, receive all the papers, and get them ready for the day's rush.

So when she got home at two that afternoon, Lena was already dead tired, and definitely not up for another discouraging few hours futilely searching for Officer Halsey. Her plan was to spend the rest of the day on the couch, going through last week's obits and police blotters while she watched the Pistons. It wasn't that she really liked basketball—she just felt vaguely disloyal when she didn't watch. Everybody else in Detroit did. It was like some kind of Midwestern requirement.

When Lena went into the kitchen to get the stack of newspapers, though, they weren't on the counter by the phone, next to the refrigerator. That was weird. Well, okay,
maybe
that was weird.

That was the problem with being a messy person. Lena never knew when she really lost something, or when she was just looking in the wrong place for it.

Like her DVD of
Dead Again
. Now,
that
was lost. Lena loved that movie—Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson were just perfect—and had spent hours one night looking all over her apartment for it when she just didn't want to watch anything else. In the end, she'd exhausted herself searching, spent a few minutes rereading an old letter she'd uncovered, and then fell asleep. She never did figure out where that DVD went. It was possible that she'd loaned it to somebody at school …

Anyway, she
knew
last week's newspapers were around here somewhere. She saw them just yesterday—or was it the day before?—when she'd been late to work and had spilled some coffee on the counter, next to where she'd taped her work schedule so at least she'd never lose that. Where could they be?

In the living room, she looked under the pile of junk mail that she'd left on the couch, and then under the magazines that she'd stacked up on the coffee table the other day in a totally unsuccessful effort at reorganizing her apartment that had lasted until she got distracted by a story in last month's
Rolling Stone.
Then she went into the bathroom and checked the magazine rack, which was overflowing with reading material dating back to her sophomore year. No luck.

Her last chance was the bedroom, and sure enough, there they were, sitting right on top of all of the other papers that she'd been keeping for the past however many years. Jeez. She really must be losing it. She couldn't believe that she'd stacked last week's newspapers on top of the already-read pile. She had absolutely no memory of doing that. It really was weird, because usually it took her forever to move papers onto the already-read pile.

Wait a minute. Not only did it take her forever to move papers into the already-read pile. She
never
moved them into that pile unless she actually had already read them. Lena may have been messy, but she was organized.

Okay. Maybe not exactly organized. The first time Becca saw Lena's apartment, she laughed for ten minutes and then said it looked like a recycling center that had been hit by a tornado. But despite the clutter, Lena knew where a lot of her stuff was. And she knew that she never moved unread stuff into the already-read pile.

In fact, if she were inclined to be paranoid, Lena would have suspected that somebody else moved those papers.

But that would have been stupid. Break into a messy person's place and move a few things around. What? To make them think somebody broke into her apartment? Sure. That was likely.

Oh, well. Lena grabbed the papers and headed out to the living room and turned on the TV.

After she spent five minutes looking for the remote.

TWELVE

Dear Kev—

     I really wish I could send this letter to you. I miss you so much I can barely breathe sometimes. It's hard for me to get out of bed. All I want to do is cry.

     All I do is cry.

     I think about you and Mommy all the time. I miss you so much. I will see you again one day.

Love, Daddy

(Letter #14 from Calvin Thompkins to deceased son, Kevin)

Accused Mass Murderer to Be Reevaluated for Mental Impairment

Calvin Thompkins, the man authorities believe was responsible for the brutal murders of six U. Mass students this past January, is expected to soon be reevaluated by psychiatrists to determine whether he is sufficiently healthy to be transferred back to the prison where he had originally been awaiting trial. Attorneys for Thompkins have not been available for comment on Thompkins's recent transfer to the mental hospital and whether it would result in an attempt to raise an insanity defense at trial …

     
Boston Post
polls show that public sentiment did not change significantly after Thompkins was transferred to the hospital and after it was learned that his wife and five-year-old son were killed in a terrorist bombing in 1998. The latest polls show that if put to a vote now, area citizens favor a guilty verdict by a margin of approximately eight to one, with about ten percent of those polled claiming to be undecided …