The President's Assassin (16 page)

We had passed through the exit and were now outside in the parking lot, standing beside Jennie’s shiny black government sedan. Somewhere nearby, a helicopter was waiting to whisk us off to Richmond and Mrs. Calhoun Barnes. It was an ideal night for flying—a beautiful evening, not a cloud in the sky, lots of glittery stars, the air still and humid. Also nearby, somebody, perhaps named Jason Barnes, was plotting another murder.

We stopped walking, and she continued to hold my arm, and it became, well...a little distracting. Between this case and her diabolical boss, Jennifer Margold was under crushing pressure. She looked nonplussed, but I wondered if it was getting under her skin. The sexes tend to handle these things differently. Men get grouchy, and/or they drink a lot, or they climb up on a watchtower with a sniper rifle. Women feel compelled to be nurtured, they need physical contact, reassurance. It all goes back to the womb, I think. I’m not really good at reading women. I said, “You’re smarter than him.”

“Perhaps.”

“Outthink him.”

“In this game, the fox sometimes beats the owl.”

She pulled my arm and turned my body, and we ended up facing each other, about a foot apart, maybe less. Her breath smelled cinnamony, and a cool breeze blew the hair off her forehead. She smelled and looked yummy. The woman was in distress and was vulnerable, which surely accounted for the spasm of protective machoism I was feeling. We looked into each other’s eyes and I realized I was attracted, a little infatuated, and curious to see where this was going. But I was already involved, and of course, mixing office politics and sex is a recipe for getting doubly screwed.

I recalled a woman friend once informing me that what makes men different from women is simple: A woman wants one man to satisfy her every need, where a man wants every woman to satisfy his one need. Not true—simply not true. But true enough.

She said, “This is my problem...not yours. I’m telling you because...because, I don’t want you getting cut down in the crossfire.”

“I can take care of myself.”

She smiled. “Still...watch your back.”

“No problem. I’ve handled George with one arm tied behind my back.”

I had the sense that my mucho-machoness wasn’t selling, but she said, “Oh yeah. Over a woman...right?” When I failed to reply, she said, “Is it...I mean, are you...still involved?”

“Are you?”

“Well...call ahead for Saturday nights.”

“I meant, anybody special?”

“Me? You know, the occasional billionaire bachelor...a few Nobel prizewinners. The problem with D.C. is you never meet anyone interesting.” I think she was kidding and maybe replying in kind to my maladroit evasiveness. She squeezed my arm. “What about
you
?”

“Oh...me? Well, it’s a little complicated.”

“Complicated?”

After a moment I said, “She’s not exclusive.” I added, “So...I guess, I don’t have to be. Right?”

“I don’t know your arrangement.”

“Well...neither do I.”

Which raised the ever-evocative question—was it a good thing? Actually, Janet’s career, my career, and the time and distance between Washington and Boston were in the middle, we both knew it, and neither of us had taken a single constructive step to rectify it. That said something, I think. Ours was a sometimes thing, leaving me too much free time, too much freedom, and we all know idle hands become playful hands.

Of course, I’m Catholic, and coital loyalty and that till-death-do-you-part thing are big with us. So is the obvious corollary, the get-it-all-out-of-your-system-first thing. I said, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Why would I be worried about it?”

“Oh.” Had I misread a signal here?

She smiled. “We’re partners. Partners should know a little about each other, right?”

“Right. So...are you a cream and sugar in your coffee person?”

“Tea person, Earl Grey preferably. No additives.”

“Blood type?”

“A pos. Yours?”

“Ice water.”

She laughed.

Anyway, a mass murderer was running around Washington, her boss was cutting her throat, mine wanted to throttle me, and there I stood, lightheaded and giddy, making an idiot of myself.

Time to change the subject, and I said, “Richmond.”

“Right. Judge Calhoun Barnes, what do you know about him?”

“As your boss said, he was on the short list for the next Supreme Court opening.”

“Why is that past tense?”

“He died.”

“Oh. Well, he must’ve been a good judge.”

“Judges are always in the eye of the beholder. The profile I read on him described him as a law-and-order fanatic, ultraconservative, a strict constructionist, brutal on criminals. Great guy, if you’re a prosecutor. A monster, if you’re the accused, or representing the accused.”

She looked at me and asked, “Do you know how he died?”

“I do.”

“Don’t keep things from me.”

I smiled. “Find out when we get there.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A
S
I
SAID
,
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE PERFECT NIGHTS TO FLY
,
CLEAR SKIES IN
every direction, silvery moon, no wind or choppiness, and it was smooth sailing as we left Washington in our wake.

I was becoming very intrigued with the woman beside me, and as I knew virtually nothing about her, this was a little presumptuous and possibly premature. When somebody dissects criminal minds for a living, you have to wonder.

After we got comfortable, I said to her, “Tell me why you decided to become a shrink.”

After a moment, she smiled. “As in all shrinks are nuts and what’s a nice girl like me doing in a strange place like this? Isn’t that what you’re asking?”

“Exactly.”

“Watch it, pal.”

I smiled. “I would think it’s very challenging to remain sane when you study the criminal mind. Doesn’t it—”

“Get to me?” After a moment she said, “You know the hardest part? Putting yourself in the frame of the victim. That comes with the job. You have to see and observe a crime from both angles.”

Having prosecuted and defended, I also had experienced that part of the job, albeit with a bit more healthy detachment than allowed in her field. So I had an idea where she was coming from. It sucked.

She continued, “The easier part is understanding the criminal. I know this sounds...maybe a little abnormal...but for a trained psychiatrist the criminal mind is endlessly fascinating. The things they do, how they do it, why. Also you bear in mind that it’s for the greater good. If you don’t answer those questions, you can’t find them, you can’t catch them, and you can’t get them off the streets.”

I said, “I knew a shrink in the Army. A little offbeat, but basically a good guy. Over a beer one night he told me that after sessions with the real nutsos, he thought of home, his wife, his kids, and that brought him back.”

“A professor of mine called it the anchor that keeps the ship from drifting. Being single, I think about my parents, about my childhood in Ohio.”

“Mom and Dad must be proud of you.”

“Mom and Dad are dead. Car accident, when I was thirteen. They left one night to get some groceries, it was snowing, and they never came back.”

“Brothers? Sisters?”

“None. But my parents were both wonderful. Dad was an executive at a food company, an up-and-comer. Mom, she was just Mom. He was tall, handsome, and brilliant, and she was beautiful and charming. Dad read to me every night, and Mom fixed my boo-boos.”

“Good memories.”

“The best.” She smiled. “Now I’m going to sleep. Keep talking if you like. I’m going to stop listening.”

I catnapped until the bounce of the machine setting down jarred me awake. Through the window, I could see that we were in a large, lit parking lot in the middle of Richmond proper and, more happily, that we hadn’t crashed. I don’t particularly trust things without wings that fly. I checked my watch. Nearly midnight.

Through the window, to our left, and about forty yards off in the distance, I noted the distinctive roof and columned portico of the Capitol Building of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

I recalled from some high school state history class that this building was regarded as an exemplar of neoclassical Roman architecture, planned by Thomas Jefferson, who had also designed the University of Virginia, erected Monticello, invented a bunch of furniture, drafted a constitution, was a Secretary of State, a President, ran a plantation, and raised a family, or possibly two. I can barely find time to do my laundry.

Jennie’s head rested comfortably on my right shoulder, and I gently nudged her awake. Her eyes opened and I informed her, “We’re here.”

“Where’s here?”

“Maybe where it all began.”

“Do you really believe that?”

I replied, “I believe in Chekhov’s rule.”

“The Russian writer?”

“Same guy. If a gun is revealed in Act One, it must go off in Act Four. The gun already went off—it’s time to go back to the first act and find out why.”

She sat up and stretched. She said, “I’m going to confess something you might find...a little strange.”

“You like me?”

She punched me. “Not that strange.” She said, “I hope we’re wrong. I truly do. I’d hate to think one of the good guys turns out to be a bad guy.”

Nice sentiment, although I really hoped she was wrong. If we didn’t get a break soon, the federal government was going to be depopulated, and Ms. Margold and Mr. Drummond were going to be standing on somebody’s carpet explaining why we let that happen. Surely she knew that. I said, “Get your stuff. Let’s go.”

About thirty feet from the helicopter, a shiny blue Crown Victoria and a shiny young man, who introduced himself as Special Agent Theodore “call me Ted” Baltimore, awaited us. Ted jumped into the driver’s seat, we climbed into the backseat, he twisted around and informed us, with true southern surliness, “Buckle your seat belts.”

I said, “Wha—”

“Don’t you argue with me, sir. Bureau policy. Buckle up or the car ain’t movin’.”

I felt a strong urge to choke Ted to death. But Jennie said, “Thank you, Agent.” She buckled up, glanced at her watch, and asked, very nicely, “You live here, Ted? In Richmond?”

“Sure do.”

“Like it?”

“Yup. Born hereabouts. Home for me.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Ted.” After a moment she added, “You have eight minutes to deliver us at Mrs. Barnes’s front door. Eight and a half, and I’ll have your ass shipped off to the northern tip of Alaska.”

“You’re kiddin’, right?”

“It’s late, I’m tired, and I’m having a really bad day.”

The stakes and the pecking order apparently crystallized in Ted’s mind; he punched the accelerator and burned rubber out of the parking lot. We took a right and then a left and another right and then we barreled at high speed down a wide boulevard filled with office buildings. Ted asked Jennie, “All right with you, ma’am, if I flip the lights and siren?”

She said, “Yeah, great idea—wake everybody up.” I made a note to remember that Ms. Margold woke up a tad on the moody side.

“Yee-hah,” squealed Ted, reaching out the window and slapping a light on the roof.

I leaned forward and asked Ted, “You go to Ole Miss?”

“Hell no!” He laughed. “That school ain’t good for nothin’, ’cept, sometimes, maybe football.” After a moment he added, “Alabama U—better football, better parties, and better women.”

“Right.” And there, in a nutshell, was the mentality of the young, virile southern male. Ted yelled, “Hey, what the hell y’all got goin’ up there in Washington? A goddamn war, sounds like.”

So, having nothing better to do, Jennie and I took turns giving Ted a watered-down version of the killings, withholding the juicy parts, like why and who, which wasn’t difficult, since the who remained an open question, and we had not a clue why. That could change in the next hour, or it might not. But it hadn’t changed yet. Anyway, everything we informed Ted about he could get off the morning news, and when we’d concluded our little duet, Ted commented, “Sheeeit.”

Having lived in the South, I was aware this amorphous expression actually meant, “Well, that’s a sizable issue, and I sympathize with you.” It can also mean, “Sounds like you’re utterly fucked.”

Anyway, having gratified his curiosity and established a spirit of mutual bonhomie, I asked Ted, “Did you know Judge Barnes?”

He scratched his head and thought about that. He said, “He was federal. Had a few cases got worked up to his level. Never testified myself. Heard his reputation, though.”

“And what was his reputation?”

“A good judge. Hated criminals. Heard he was a fine man, too.” He added, “Damned shame what happened.”

Jennie asked, “What did happen?”

I suggested to Ted, “Why don’t you take a stab at that?”

“Sheeit.”

In this case, I believe the aphorism meant, “Forget it, pal.”

“Suicide,” I informed Jennie. “The judge hung himself.”

“Not exactly,” Ted corrected. “The man shot
and
hanged hisself.”

Jennie asked, “Simultaneously?”

“Hard to do sequentially,” Ted replied with a rare, thoughtful expression.

Jennie asked, “Is that possible?”

“Guess so.”

“But...how?”

“Seems he got hisself up on a stool, slipped a rope ’round his neck, and put his granddaddy’s revolver in his mouth. Pulled the trigger and kicked at the same time.”

“That’s unusual,” commented Jennie.

“Yup,” replied Ted. “A meticulous man. Don’t see many like that these days.”

No kidding, Ted.

Jennie turned and asked me, “Do we know
why
he killed himself?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out.”

We had just departed a business section and entered a long and obviously prosperous urban boulevard. Homes of considerable size and grandeur closely bordered the sides of the street, grand manses from another time and another era, when Richmond was widely regarded as the Rome of the South. Times change, the Old South is gone, the New South has risen, and Atlanta and New Orleans have long since eclipsed Richmond as business, cultural, and political epicenters. Richmond has become a backwater, but it remains a lovely, even pleasant place, while Atlanta now has all the character and charm of L.A. sans palm trees. Narrow grass strips divided the thoroughfare, and every block or two stood a statue of a long-dead Virginian hero disinterring old myths and glories. “Still the best street in Richmond,” Ted informed us. “Used to be, took tobacco money to live here. Mostly, nowadays, it’s lawyers and doctors.”