The Nomination

by William G. Tapply

  Katie found Mac’s hand and squeezed it.

  He took a deep breath. Then he said, “Does this—what happened to Simone and Jill—does it make you think about Mom?”

  He felt her go stiff and motionless, as if she was holding her breath. He was afraid she’d try to pull away from him. If she did, he thought he would keep his arm tight around her. He’d hold onto her, insist that she allow him to hug her. He’d hug her with both arms. He’d refuse to let her go. He’d make her know that he would always hold onto her whether she thought she wanted him to or not. He’d always be there. He would never walk out some evening and not come back.

  After a minute, he felt her relax. “I think about Mom all the time,” she whispered.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he said.

  “Not now.”

  “Sometime, though,” he said. “Sometime soon. We should talk about Mom. Talk about what happened. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he said. He kissed the top of her head, then stood up.

  Katie looked up at him. She’d been crying, and she made no effort to hide it from him. Mac took that as a good sign.

  “You coming downstairs?” he said.

  “In a minute.”

  “Do me a favor?”

  “What, Daddy?”

  “No more Wagner today.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m not in a Wagner mood anymore, anyway.”

  JESSIE HAD BEEN more or less following the Great Lakes northerly and easterly. She’d been taking her time, feeling oddly reluctant to end her odyssey and the sense of independence and anonymity it gave her. She stopped at antique shops and art galleries, driving secondary roads through Ohio and Pennsylvania into New York State, tracking the Lake Erie shoreline up to Buffalo, then along the Canal to Niagara Falls. She’d stopped at the falls to take a look. It was amazing how human beings could commercialize the beauty right out of something so spectacular. She’d felt the same way the first time she saw the Grand Canyon.

  She skirted the cities of Rochester and Syracuse, and on Tuesday afternoon she found herself in a town called Pulaski, which seemed to have a disproportionate number of motels and inns and lodges and restaurants for its size.

  She took a room at a motel, and when she asked the woman behind the counter to recommend a place to eat, she learned that the locals pronounced Pulaski “Plask-eye,” with the emphasis on the first syllable, and that the main source of income in the town was from out-of-staters who came here to go fishing in the lake and the river that ran into it. Apparently at certain seasons fishermen from all over the northeast flocked to Pulaski, New York.

  Mid-May evidently wasn’t one of those seasons. There were plenty of vacancy signs, and Jessie didn’t have to wait for a table at the mostly empty Italian restaurant, where she had a nice antipasto and some decent veal scaloppine and two glasses of red wine.

  Back in her motel room, she took out her cell phone. She’d been thinking about it for the past few days, ever since Friday night when she heard Simone Bonet’s voice and chickened out. She thought about it in the daytime while she drove, thought about it while she waited to fall asleep at night, thought about it when she woke up in the morning.

  Jessie guessed she was becoming obsessed.

  She had to do it. She had to find out. Then she wouldn’t be obsessed anymore.

  She took out the note that Simone had written, unfolded it, hesitated for just a minute, then dialed the number.

  It rang four times. Then there was a click, and a woman’s recorded voice answered. It sounded like the woman who had answered when Jessie called before. “Hello,” said the voice. “We’re not here now. Please leave your name and number and we’ll get back to you.”

  Jessie pressed the “end” button on her phone and dropped it on the bed. She flopped back onto the pillow and looked up at the ceiling. It was disappointing. She’d spent all that time working up her courage to call, and now nobody was there.

  Maybe she should have left a message, given her cell phone number. If Simone Bonet was as eager to talk with Jessie as she’d said in her note, she’d return the call.

  But Jessie didn’t want to be surprised. She needed to control this situation. She would call at a time when she felt ready to talk.

  She figured she was less than half a day’s drive from Beaverkill, New York.

  CHAPTER 18

  Pat Brody typed in his password and saw the blinking icon indicating that a new e-mail was waiting. He retrieved the encrypted message and instructed his computer to translate it.

  It was from Bellwether. The subject line read “Patchman Report.”

  Blackhole reports Patchman married underage girl, Saigon ’74, never divorced. One daughter, abandoned or sold, present status unknown, possibly named Jessie. Eye injury not, repeat, not line of duty. One witness, not yet eliminated, potentially useful. Verification documents, tapes, photographs, not recovered. Advise. Time of essence. Bellwether.

  Brody read it again, letting the implications sink in. He found himself nodding. He’d had a bad feeling about Larrigan all along.

  So the judge was a pedophile and a bigamist and a hypocrite and a fake hero, and there was proof of all of it, but the proof, the documentation, had yet to be recovered.

  Jesus.

  Bellwether wanted instructions. Brody had to make a decision. The first and obvious choice was to call the whole thing a big mistake and try to minimize the fallout. Go to the president and tell him he had to withdraw Thomas Larrigan’s nomination—or, better, convince Larrigan to make up some excuse and withdraw himself—before it was too late.

  No good. Politically speaking, it was too late, especially given the decision the president had made to link himself with Larrigan in a personal way and announce his nomination before they’d had a chance to complete their investigation.

  Pat Brody blamed himself. He’d had no information, but he had a bad feeling, and even though it was clear that the president had made up his mind to go public, it was Brody’s responsibility to step up and speak out, to do his job as advisor.

  All too often, this president made it clear that he didn’t want advice. He was full of enthusiasms. He was impetuous. He was like a big kid. To some voters—the majority of them in the recent election—this translated as vigorous, active, energetic, lovable.

  Sometimes, though, it translated as stupid and heedless and just plain wrong-headed, and according to the polls, this was how it had been going with increased frequency lately.

  Larrigan was Pat Brody’s mistake, and he was certainly prepared to take the fall for it, if that would solve the problem. But Brody knew that the president’s reelection chances would be considerably diminished if his poor judgment about the Larrigan nomination ever came to light. If Larrigan withdrew, regardless of what explanation they could concoct, the press would never let the president off the hook. If Blackhole could come up with this devastating information, sooner or later some Woodward or Bernstein would get the story, too. Probably sooner.

  The judge’s eye was not a war injury? His wonderfully jaunty eyepatch, his trademark, the emblem of his heroism—it represented a thirty-year lie?

  In a way, a self-serving lie was as bad as pedophilia and bigamy and baby-selling.

  All in all, just devastating.

  According to Bellwether there were photographs and tapes and documents to confirm it all. If they weren’t recovered, sooner or later they’d come to light. They’d be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the tabloids.

  Christ. It would be the worst kind of scandal. This wasn’t some complicated financial scam that Mr. and Mrs. Average Voter couldn’t understand and wouldn’t care about. Just publish a photograph of the man with the black eye patch. Anybody could understand this story.

  This story had human interest. More than that. Human fascination. Larrigan was the president’s personal choice for the seat on the Supreme Court. They played golf together. Their wives were college
classmates. The president could never distance himself from the judge. The time had passed for that.

  The media would find out, and they’d milk it, and it would be one more example of the president’s bumbling, another source of jokes for Letterman and Leno, front-page news for the tabloid and supermarket trash mongers, an excuse for even respectable reporters to poke and probe into the backgrounds of other presidential appointees.

  At best it would be a distraction from the business of the nation, a drain on energy and money and manpower. It would further erode the already shaky credibility and authority of the president and his administration both at home and abroad.

  At worst, it would destroy the president’s chances of getting reelected. That was intolerable.

  Pat Brody couldn’t ask the president what he wanted to do about this. Pat Brody couldn’t ask anybody. He was absolutely OYO on this one. On your own. That’s why he was called a trusted advisor.

  He turned back to his computer, read Bellwether’s cryptic message one more time, then clicked on “reply.”

  Bellwether: Instruct Blackhole imperative recover all evidence, neutralize all witnesses. Emphasize all. Agree time of essence. Meet usual place 23:00 Wednesday. Read and delete. Shadowland.

  Then Brody opened a blank mail document, typed in Blackhole’s code, and wrote “Instructions” on the subject line.

  Blackhole: Bellwether instructions forthcoming. Emphasize finish job soonest. OYO as always. Meet usual place 23:00 Wednesday. Read and delete. Shadowland.

  Brody read over his two emails, clicked on “send,” then deleted his sent-mail and received-mail files.

  And so, just like that, it was done. Pat Brody had fulfilled his responsibility. He’d made the decision, and now it was out of his control.

  Experience had taught him that in this job, it was important to worry about the things over which you had even a small degree of control. But it was equally necessary to forget about the things which were beyond your control. Otherwise the job would devour you.

  So now it was in Blackhole’s hands.

  JESSIE TRIED THE number again from her motel room at a little after eight the next morning. Again it rang and rang before the answering machine picked up. And again Jessie hung up without leaving a message.

  She couldn’t figure out why this bothered her. She didn’t even know this woman who thought she was her mother. Why should she care that nobody answered the telephone? Why did it give her an empty feeling? Why did this woman have to write that letter and bring this complication into her life in the first place? Before she’d received that letter, she never thought about her birth mother, never wondered about her, never cared.

  So where the hell was Simone Bonet, now that Jessie was ready to talk to her?

  She unfolded her New York road map and spread it out on her bed. Pulaski to Beaverkill. As near as she could tell it was between 200 and 250 miles southeasterly. She could take 81 due south into Pennsylvania, then cut east on 84. That would be the fast way.

  But she’d been avoiding the interstates since Illinois, and she saw no reason to change. She enjoyed the secondary roads. She liked seeing the countryside, skirting the population centers. Besides, she felt safer driving the uncrowded two-lane state highways. And still there lingered that reluctance to arrive anywhere, to end this long cross-country journey, to begin the next part of her life.

  So she figured five or six hours by the back roads. Get some breakfast, hit the road by nine, she’d be in Beaverkill in the middle of the afternoon.

  She crammed her stuff into her backpack, left the motel key on the bedside table along with a five-dollar bill for the maid, and went out to her car, which was parked right in front.

  She unlocked the back door and tossed in the backpack.

  That’s when she saw her duffel sitting on the passenger seat, where it had spent the night.

  Jessie made a fist, punched her palm, and muttered, “Stupid!” She’d been sloppy. She should always have a gun within reach. Until last night, she’d been lugging the duffel into whatever room she was staying in, and she’d been sleeping with the Sig nine under the pillow beside her.

  Last night she fucked up, and it could’ve killed her. She had to think that way. Always.

  This mother shit, it was distracting her, making her careless.

  You survive by assuming that Howie Cohen has somebody on your tail, that the guy in the truck behind you plans to shoot you, that the middle-aged woman sitting by herself at the bar works for Cohen, that the guy in the business suit who pulls up to the gas pumps next to you has been sent to assassinate you.

  You’ve got to think that way all the time.

  Relax and you’re dead, Jessie thought.

  She’d been lucky this time. She couldn’t let it happen again.

  A STATE POLICE cruiser was parked behind Jill’s Wagoneer in the turnaround in front of Simone’s house. Mac saw a uniformed officer sitting behind the wheel. A man in gray suit was leaning against the fender talking into a cell phone.

  Mac pulled in behind the cruiser, got out, and went over to the man in the suit. “I’m Mac Cassidy.” He held out his hand.

  The man snapped his phone shut and shoved it in his jacket pocket. “Detective Alberts, state cops,” he said. He held out his hand.

  Mac shook his hand. “I was expecting the sheriff. Sheriff Norris.”

  “This is no longer a local investigation,” said Alberts. “Norris told me you were coming.”

  Mac shrugged. “Okay. Did he tell you why I wanted to meet him here?”

  “He thought you might be able to help us.” Alberts was a tall, slightly stooped guy, with thinning blondish-brown hair. Somewhere in his forties, Mac guessed.

  Mac nodded. “I’ll try. And maybe you can help me. I’m writing a book about Simone. What happened here, it’s got to be part of the book.”

  “Pretty cut and dried,” Alberts said. “The Rossiter woman shot the Bonet woman twice in the chest, then turned the gun on herself. Murder-suicide.”

  Mac found himself shaking his head.

  “You don’t buy it, Mr. Cassidy?”

  Mac shrugged. “What do I know?”

  “You knew these ladies. I mean, you’re writing a book.”

  “I didn’t know them well. We really had only just gotten started.”

  “But you spent some time with them. Here, at this house. Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Ms. Bonet, she was famous?”

  “She used to be in movies. You didn’t know that?”

  Alberts shrugged. “I don’t know anything about either lady. I understand they pretty much kept to themselves. People respect each other’s privacy around here. So Ms. Bonet was a movie star?”

  “Not really a star. More like a cult figure. She was in some avant garde films in the eighties. She did nude scenes.”

  “Nude, eh?” Alberts looked away, and Mac wondered if he was offended.

  “She was mysterious,” Mac said. “Had secrets. Didn’t reveal much. People were interested in her. She was a kind of Reagan-era cultural icon.”

  The detective gazed up at the sky. “Does it surprise you that these ladies would carry out a suicide pact, Mr. Cassidy?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe if I saw how it looked.”

  “I can tell you how it looked. Ms. Bonet was half sitting up in bed with two bullet holes in her chest. A lot of blood. Ms. Rossiter was lying on the floor to the left of the chair, a bullet hole in the right side of her head. Not much blood at all. Powder burns on her hair and scalp. Looked like she had the gun pressed right against her head. The gun, a little .32, was lying on the floor, three rounds gone. It was registered to Ms. Bonet. Gunpowder residue on Ms. Rossiter’s right hand and wrist.”

  Mac shrugged. “Sounds like a murder-suicide, all right.”

  Alberts narrowed his eyes at him. “But . . . ?”

  Mac shook his head. “But nothing. I guess they probably committed suicide,
just the way you say it looks. But let’s say that’s not what happened. The only other explanation is, somebody killed them both and tried to make it look like suicide.”

  Alberts nodded. “And?”

  “Okay,” said Mac. “If somebody killed them and set it up so it would look like Jill shot Simone twice in the chest then turned the gun on herself . . . which, you say, is exactly what it does look like . . . but if somebody did it . . . killed them . . . tried to make it look like suicide . . . the question is why.”

  Alberts nodded. “And who.”

  “Well, sure,” said Mac. “Who, too. The who and the why go together.”

  “That’s a pretty wild scenario,” said Alberts.

  “But just for the sake of argument, let’s say that’s how it happened,” said Mac. “What about a motive?”

  Alberts spread his hands. “Near as we can tell, nothing was taken from the house. There’s money and jewelry and silverware and art. A lot of stuff that looks pretty valuable. It’s all still there. This wasn’t a burglary.”

  “What about ... ?” Mac let his voice trail off.

  “No sign of sexual assault on either woman. Nothing like that.”

  “Can you think of any other motive?”

  Alberts shrugged.

  “So it must’ve been suicide.”

  “We talked to Ms. Bonet’s doctor, Dr. Mattes,” said Alberts, “and he said she was dying of multiple sclerosis, that the disease was progressing rapidly, and that she’d been pretty depressed about it. He prescribed something for her, but in her situation, he said it wouldn’t necessarily do much for her depression. The doctor also believes that these two women were, um, lovers, very devoted to each other. He thought it was entirely possible that Ms. Bonet would decide she wanted to die.” Alberts spread his hands. “Murder-suicide.”

  “You’re comfortable with that?” said Mac.

  Alberts nodded. “Sure. You’re not, huh?”

  “I’m surprised, that’s all,” Mac said. “I know Simone was depressed and sick, but she had things she was looking forward to.”

  “Like what?”