by Diane Capri
I hit the ball, taking a cue from one of my friends who visualizes the heads of her enemies when she hits a golf ball. I imagined Sheldon Warwick’s disgusting smirk, grinning up at me from the tee and I hit that ball with all the strength of my indignation. It worked. This time, my drive was much longer than his.
Who’d have thought being unwilling to pulverize my enemies was a golf handicap all these years?
We rejoined at Warwick’s ball. I didn’t tell him how I’d hit mine so much farther, but it frightened me a little to acknowledge to myself that I felt a little calmer.
I had no proof of my theories that would be admissible in court. There are two types of admissible evidence: direct and indirect. Physical, documentary and testimonial evidence is direct. Circumstantial evidence is indirect. And conclusions, such as the ones I’d come to based on deductive reasoning, as far as the law is concerned, are simply fiction.
If I couldn’t prove Warwick killed Andrews, it didn’t happen. The only way I’d be able to hand Michael Drake the man who killed Andrews, and convince Drake to let George go, was to get a confession. Or, I could allow Frank Bennett to do the rest of the work for me. I worried that Warwick wouldn’t answer my questions, and I was a little surprised when he did.
“How’d you get George’s gun?” I asked Warwick as he hit his second shot about a hundred yards off to the right. The fairway dog-legged to the left. Not his day. Next we met at my ball.
As he watched my second shot, he said, “I didn’t get George’s gun. Andy had it. I think Robbie brought it with her when she meant to kill him.” Warwick smiled knowingly. “Andy laughed about it. He said Robbie had never done anything right in her life. She couldn’t even hold on to her husband. I picked the gun up off his desk and put it in my jacket pocket when he wasn’t looking, before we walked out to his fishing boat.”
He seemed to enjoy taunting me with the details. Was he crazy, too? Or was it just arrogance? He probably felt safe because he knew I’d never be able to prove anything he said if he denied it under oath. I’d discovered no forensic evidence to tie him to the general’s murder and there had been no witnesses.
Rage borne of impotence flooded my body and I gripped the golf club so tightly my hand began to throb. The intensity of my emotions shocked me. I really might have hit him. I imagined myself swinging the club upward to knock him down, knock that smug look off his face and that entitled attitude out of him.
I wanted to do it. I really wanted to. Only forcing myself to put the club head on the ground and press it there kept it from flying toward his head until he returned to his cart. That, and knowing that if I didn’t get him to confess, George would be indicted for murder.
We’d both need another fairway shot on this par five hole, so once again, we met at my ball. My anger hadn’t abated. This time, his ball was just a short distance away. I set up and hit. He hit a few seconds later. Both shots landed on the green, although his was closer to the pin.
“Why’d you shoot him, Sheldon, if all you had to do was wait and let some anti-abortion nut do it for you? Or one of his kids or lovers? Why get your hands dirty? It’s the end of your career, you know.” He sank his putt and it was my turn.
As I set up, he grinned at me. His arrogance was amazing. He actually thought he could commit murder and get away with it. But then, so far, he’d been right. “Timing, Willa, timing.” We both knew he wasn’t talking about the golf game.
He leaned both hands on his club and waited. “He did it to himself. I finally realized that if Andy had been confirmed and gotten on the Court, he’d only have been satisfied for a while.”
He walked a few steps, knelt down and eyed the supposed trajectory of the ball. “But his confirmation was not going to happen. Mostly because of his own belligerence and foolhardiness.”
“Why did that bother you?”
“I told him that night that I was voting against him,” Warwick said. “He said if I did, he would destroy us all. He said he’d frame me for the murder of Thomas Holmes. Which, of course, I had no part of. Except that he’d blackmailed me into keeping quiet about it after I found out he killed Thomas.”
This story wasn’t what I’d expected to hear. I’d thought Andrews had threatened to expose Benson and Warwick’s own criminal conduct in covering up Charles Benson’s drug activities. “How was Thomas Holmes’s death a part of all this?”
Warwick stood at the ball, leaning on his club, talking as if we were discussing the weather. His blasé, patronizing attitude was infuriating. “Andy made a pass at Thomas, but Thomas wasn’t gay and he had an immediate, visceral, irrational response. Panicked, I guess.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Thomas was high at the time, of course. On cocaine. He had a gun in his hand and threatened Andy with it. They struggled. Andy was stronger and quicker and a better shot.”
He acted as if what Andrews had done was nothing more serious than a social gaffe. “He killed Thomas and then he covered it up.”
If it really happened like that, I thought, the verdict could have been self defense. But the problem would have been explaining Andy’s sexual advance toward Thomas. For that alone, Andrews would have been court-martialed.
Warwick shrugged again. “I swear, I didn’t know he was going to kill Thomas before he did it.”
“But, when the other sexual harassment complaints came out during the hearings, you and Benson sabotaged Andrews, didn’t you?”
He shrugged again. “I wouldn’t put it that way, exactly. I went to talk to Andy, to try to persuade him to withdraw his nomination. He wouldn’t hear of it. He was raging, irrational. We argued. That was when he threatened to frame me for Thomas’s Holmes’s death.”
“And how would he have done that?” The idea seemed too far out, even for Andrews.
Warwick looked directly at me now. “Andy said he’d tell the world that I had asked him to kill Thomas to keep him away from my son. He would have done it, too. He said he could supply enough evidence that people would believe him.”
And then it clicked. The surveillance tapes. They must have shown Shelly Warwick as well as Charles Benson and Thomas Holmes using drugs. Andrews still had them, after all these years. That must have been why Warwick helped with the initial cover-up. To keep his own son out of jail. That, and to keep from being personally embarrassed. It was the only thing that made sense.
I’d never understood how Andrews got possession of the tapes in the first place, but this time, Andrews must have threatened to use the tapes to prove Warwick had a motive to kill Thomas Holmes. If Warwick was in Korea at the time Holmes died, the motive tape might have been enough to embarrass Warwick out of office. The report I’d read had not said exactly where Thomas Holmes’s body had been found. Somewhere that both Andrews and Warwick could have been, too, obviously.
Without clear proof, Andrews’s threat might not have been strong enough to push Warwick to murder, unless both Andrews and Warwick believed the revelation would also open the old criminal case and its cover-up.
Warwick said, “He laughed when I said I’d kill him first. He laughed at me. Me. Andy was laughing at me. Can you imagine?” His indignation was almost comical, except that he was so deadly serious.
I could imagine, actually. I’d felt something like the same level of rage at Warwick just a few moments ago, myself.
If Warwick was to be believed, Thomas Holmes had tried to kill Andrews, and failed. And Robbie Andrews had been goaded to take a gun to face her father’s condescension. I recalled how Andrews had baited Warwick and led both Tory Warwick and George to violence the night he died. Not to mention the heated argument the entire Andrews family had both on the way to dinner and on the way home that same evening.
The general was more than capable of inspiring violent rage in others, even taking pleasure in it. In the end, Andrews pushed one man too hard. Andrews had inspired Warwick to kill him.
Warwick, though, could have been discussing his last appea
rance on Meet The Nation. “So the world is better off. End of story.”
He gestured to the foursome behind us, waiting for us to finish on the green. Was he insane? Had something in his brain simply snapped? His behavior was far from rational and an involuntary shiver made me glad we were in a public place.
I glanced up to see the foursome advancing on us. “And what about the surveillance tapes? What did you do with them?” The tapes were tangible evidence I could use. I needed to find them.
Warwick’s face flushed red again and he struggled to get himself under control. But he didn’t answer my question. Instead, he said, “Of course, you won’t ever be able to repeat any of this. Even to free your precious George.”
Warwick had to think I’d go to the media with what I had figured out on my own to save George, even if disclosing Warwick and Benson’s secrets would cause their destruction. What choice did I have?
As if he’d read my very thoughts, he told me why he’d bothered to confess his involvement to me.
“You have no corroborating evidence and I’ll deny it all.”
His smug derision caused me to retaliate, too soon. “Where’s that beautiful grey cashmere jacket I saw you wearing the night before Andy died, Sheldon? The one that must have a very inconvenient bullet hole in the pocket?”
I’d asked Ben Hathaway to get a search warrant for Warwick’s house when I left the voice mail message on my way to the golf course. I’d also told Olivia about it. I expected that we’d find the same grey fibers in Warwick’s jacket that were stuck to the bullet that killed Andrews. The jacket and the tapes would free George.
Warwick’s face flushed full with color now. He clenched his teeth and his nostrils flared. The short fuse, especially for ridicule, that had triggered his murderous impulse toward Andy was obvious. For the second time, I was glad there were lots of people around.
Then, he laughed again, wickedly this time. “The trash truck picks up in our neighborhood on Saturday morning, Willa. Isn’t that convenient?”
I remembered a trash truck behind me as I sat at the curb after the golf tournament that Saturday when I’d first heard about Andrews’s death on the radio, and my heart sank. If I’d known about the jacket then, maybe Ben Hathaway could have found it. Now, locating the jacket in the landfill would be impossible. And Hathaway’s search pursuant to the warrant would turn up nothing in Warwick’s closets.
“Then I’ll testify,” I said, belligerent.
“I doubt it,” he replied, smugly. His confidence was unshakable. He never expected to be called to account. Not for any of it.
“How are you going to stop me? Shoot me, too, right here on the golf course? That would be a little awkward wouldn’t it?” I taunted him.
I learned another lesson at that point. It’s best not to be sarcastic to a murderer sitting in a golf cart when you’re on an injured foot.
He gave me a narrow-eyed glance that quelled my sarcasm.
“Think about it,” he said.
Then, he sped off in his cart toward the clubhouse. By the time I caught up with him, he’d left the cart with the bag boys and escaped into the men’s locker room. I couldn’t very well chase him in there, so I leaned up against the wall near the entrance and waited.
After a while, he came out. With the mayor, Michael Drake, the CJ, and two other politicians. CJ looked at me as if he couldn’t believe I had time to play golf, with my heavy caseload. The others nodded at me, said hello, and went out to their cars. Drake gave me a smug look. He held up his pager and waved it at me to let me know he’d be called the moment the grand jury returned his indictment, any minute now.
I wouldn’t have spoken to Drake on a bet. But I couldn’t separate Warwick without accusing him of something we both knew I couldn’t prove. I’d look like an even bigger fool if I tried and failed.
As I stood there deciding what to do, Jason drove up in a Mercedes sedan, Warwick got in and Jason waved at me as they drove off toward the airport.
By the time I found Greta and followed the car, both Warwick and Jason had entered the Senator’s private plane. I watched it taxi down the runway, probably on its way to Washington.
I’m not sure how a woman looks with her tail between her legs, but that’s exactly how I felt. Full of impotence, I fished around in my bag for my cell phone and dialed Chief Hathaway. He still wasn’t in.
What a mess.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
Tampa, Florida
Tuesday 5:35 p.m.
February 1, 2000
WHEN I GOT HOME, George was there. I decided to come clean and tell him the whole story, including my confrontation with Warwick, the botched attempt I’d made to get a confession out of Robbie and that I now did not know where she was. He was, as always, a lot of help.
“Call Ben Hathaway,” he suggested.
Not knowing what to do next, I ignored him and went in to the shower. The water stung my scraped elbows and my ankle had begun to throb again. The pain was a reminder of how badly the day had gone.
When I returned, he’d poured me a Sapphire and tonic. After I lit my cigar, George casually mentioned that Ben Hathaway had called and was on his way over. I was sitting there with my hair wet, no makeup on, in my bathrobe. Great. Hathaway knocked at the door and George went to let him in.
I heard George lead Ben into the living room and offer him a drink. Always the consummate host, even to a man who has accused him of murder. When they made my husband, they definitely broke the mold.
We only had one chair big enough for Chief Hathaway to sit in, so I knew where they were. When I walked into the room, George got up, as he always does when a woman enters. Ben, not to be outdone, heaved his bulk out of the chair. I’m sure he expected me to excuse him from the courtesy. He’d have to think again.
“Good evening, Ben,” I said, not shaking his hand but taking my customary seat near George on the sofa. I had already warned George that I would do all the talking. The last thing we needed was him making admissions we’d have to deal with at trial if I couldn’t persuade Hathaway to convince Drake.
We hadn’t asked Olivia to join us.
Hathaway sat back down with a thump, settling his big butt on the delicate seat. I wondered how long that chair would last. Aunt Minnie’s mother had owned it, but the spindly legs wouldn’t survive if Hathaway continued to visit us.
“Well, Willa, suppose you tell me what you’ve been up to. I understand you have some theories about who killed General Andrews. Besides George, here, I mean.” He turned his head and winked. And George actually laughed. Men are so impossible.
I gritted my teeth and drew my bathrobe together. It was hard to maintain my judicial dignity with wet hair and no clothes on.
I told Hathaway almost everything, ending with a description of my encounters with Robbie and Warwick this afternoon. He raised his eyebrows a few times during the telling, but maintained his silence until the end. When I’d finished, he pulled out his notebook and made me tell it all again.
Our conversation lasted several hours, well into the night. Hathaway naturally had a lot of questions. It took him a while to accept my answers, but when I could respond to each objection he raised, he finally began to piece the puzzle together for himself.
It helped, of course, that he knew me. He already realized that I was what lawyers called a credible witness.
I shared almost everything I knew, but I didn’t tell either of them about the Men’s Tennis Club. Andrews’s affair with Jack Williamson, which Jack had admitted to Robbie, established that Andrews was bisexual and helped to explain why he’d killed Thomas Holmes. Still, I didn’t need to disclose the tennis list of partners to get the point across. After all, I had Dottie’s eyewitness account of the love nest, as she’d described it.
When I explained what happened to George’s gun, why Robbie had taken it and left it at her father’s house, and how Warwick had used it to kill Andrews, I expected it to be the final blow to Hathaway’s ske
pticism.
Chief Hathaway could interview all the witnesses himself to confirm the stories I told him, before he took the evidence to Drake. I didn’t care how he got Drake to agree to drop the charges against George, only that he got the job done.
Yet, Hathaway wasn’t totally convinced. Maybe because my husband’s life was at stake and I wanted so desperately for someone else to have killed Andrews. He made me no promises, other than to “look into it.”
I told him he had until tomorrow morning. Then, I’d call Frank Bennett and tell him everything.
But would I? With Andrews dead and President Benson in the last few months of his last term, would I set Frank Bennett on a course that would cause so much personal pain to the Benson and Warwick families as well as public pain to the entire country?
I’d told George about Charles Benson’s drug crimes and his father’s criminal cover-up. George had shared my outrage. But what we would do about it now, neither one of us had decided before Hathaway arrived.
Hathaway frowned now. “It’s amazing what kind of mischief people will get into,” he twirled his hat in his hand. “I can’t believe none of Andy’s enemies got him. Why does it always have to be a friend or a member of the family?”
“Let’s not speak ill of the dead, Ben,” George admonished. “Andy was a good man once. Life dealt him some harsh blows.” I was about to interrupt when George held up his hand to stop me. “I know he did some despicable things. But judgment is not for us to make, Willa. That’s someone else’s job.”
“Actually, I am a judge and I make judgments all the time. Forgiveness may be divine. I’m not.” I turned to Ben Hathaway and suggested that he might want to get started finding those surveillance tapes, since they were the only hard evidence that remained to support my theories.
“What about George’s fingerprints in Andrews’s den?” Ben asked us both.
“I’m sorry I can’t answer that,” George said, making me want to strangle him. “I gave my word.”