by Allan Topol
"What?" she cried out. "What the hell?"
As she turned up the volume, she listened in stunned disbelief. Once she heard the words apparent suicide, she couldn't listen any longer. She hit the power button. She took her glass and the bottle of Finlandia out on the balcony. Something was terribly wrong here. Charles would never commit suicide.
In a blank daze, she continued drinking until she finished the bottle of vodka. Finally, trembling from the cold, she decided to go inside. That was easier said than done. Unaccustomed to consuming so much alcohol, she couldn't control her movements. She staggered around the balcony. Objects jumped in and out of focus. She knocked the bottle onto the concrete floor, where it shattered into hundreds of pieces. Too drunk to make her way around the broken glass, she cut her feet in half a dozen places.
Coming inside, she stumbled into the kitchen, then bandaged her feet crudely with paper towels ripped from the roll and collapsed on the living room sofa. She was close to dropping off into a drunken sleep, but she still couldn't forget about what she had heard. Maybe it was all a mistake.
She grabbed the remote control, turning on the television again. She saw a sad reporter, a microphone in his hand. "Maryland officials have confirmed that the cause of Senator Charles Boyd's death was suicide. There is considerable speculation as to whether the senator was in fact guilty of some crime, which is the subject of the grand jury investigation. That may have caused him to take his own life."
"No!" Taylor screamed. "No! He didn't do it!"
She began pounding her fists against the sides of her head. Harder and harder she punched until she thought her head would explode. Somewhere she heard a bell, a doorbell ringing. A man's voice shouted, "Open up, Taylor. Open up right now."
It's Charles, she thought. He's alive. He's come back to Washington.
She hurried to the door, staining the Oriental carpet with bloody footprints on the way. After fumbling with the lock, she managed to open the door. "Oh, Charles," she yelled, and threw herself into his arms.
But it wasn't Charles. It was Coop.
Again the fists. This time she began pounding them against Coop's chest, wanting to punish him because he wasn't Charles.
She began to cry. For the longest time she cried and she cried. Suddenly she pulled away from him. On instinct she ran to the bathroom, where she threw up in the toilet, over and over again in an anguished retching, until there was nothing left but a dry gasp. Then Cooper took her back to the bed, and she passed out.
At one-thirty in the morning she woke up. Except for shadows on one wall from the moon outside, the room was dark. Cooper turned on a night-table lamp. He had been sitting in a chair watching her.
"He's dead, isn't he?" she asked.
Cooper nodded. "Wes Young found him."
She was silent.
"You cared for him a great deal, didn't you?"
She nodded her head. "He was a good man."
"It's over, Taylor," he said flatly.
"What happened?"
"He took a gun with him, went into the bathtub, filled it up with water, and fired a single shot into his head."
"That can't be right," she shouted, bolting into a sitting position. "He didn't kill himself. He never would have done that."
"He left a note for Sally on the computer screen."
The oddness of this fact stopped her for a moment. "Say that again."
"His wife, Sally. He left her a note on the computer screen asking her to forgive him. Saying 'Love, Charles.' She released it to the media."
Taylor waved her hands, shaking her head. "That proves it. He didn't kill himself. He couldn't stand her. He'd never leave her a note like that."
Cooper gave her a narrow look. "What are you telling me?"
"They killed him. The phony trumped-up charges didn't do the job. They realized from his statement that he would never quit. So they killed him."
"Who's they?" a skeptical Cooper asked.
"The same people who put together this bogus case."
He looked at her sympathetically. "We'd better both get some sleep. I'll go in the other room."
"You don't believe me, do you?"
"Truthfully, no."
"They killed him, Coop, " she mumbled into the pillow, crying herself back to sleep.
* * *
In the cold light of morning, nothing made sense.
She found Cooper in the kitchen, sitting at the small butcher-block table with his back to her, eating a bowl of cereal and reading the morning Washington Post. When he heard her approach, he stood up and turned around.
"Have you thought about what I said?" she asked him.
"To tell you the truth, you weren't making an awful lot of sense. There's nothing mysterious here. Senator Boyd violated the law. He lied to you, and he took his own life. End of story."
Taylor looked exasperated. "He's innocent. There's some type of conspiracy at work here. Don't you see that?"
She could tell he didn't believe her.
"And just who is this group of conspirators?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"And what's their reason for wanting Boyd out of the race and Webster back in the White House?"
"I don't know that either."
"Oh, great. Then what makes you so sure this conspiracy exists?"
"I know the senator. There's no other explanation."
Cooper frowned.
"They can't get away with this," Taylor continued emphatically. "Dammit, Coop, nobody has the right to destroy a man's life, to manipulate our election process, and then do God only knows what in the next four years."
"You don't even sound rational." Taking her hand in both of his, Cooper said, "To hell with Charles Boyd. I'm concerned about you. I think that you should worry about yourself for a change."
"He was winning," she insisted. "The senator would have made an excellent president. He was a leader in the Senate. Everybody respected him. He could get things done. He had so many good ideas for the country."
Cooper tossed the newspaper across the table. "The top medical people in the state of Maryland and at the FBI dropped everything yesterday and went out to his house in St. Michaels. They all agree that Boyd shot himself. They haven't found any other fingerprints in the house. No evidence at all to support your theory. They're convinced it's a suicide."
"C'mon, Coop. They're just saying that to alleviate public anxiety and because that bastard McDermott made it clear he wants the whole thing wrapped up in a hurry."
"You've got no basis for thinking that."
"I know what Charles told me Saturday at St. Michaels about the Mill Valley transaction. He's innocent."
He looked at her with empathy. "I wish I could agree with you. Really, I do. But I don't see a single shred of evidence to support your belief that he was killed as part of a conspiracy." Cooper was losing the little patience he possessed. "Give me hard information to go on. Not your supposition. Anything."
She thought about his request. In a flash something came to her. "The senator hated the idea of guns in a house. He led the legislative effort on the issue. He repeatedly told me he'd never have one. He criticized me for keeping one in my place in Aspen for protection in the woods. If he killed himself like you're saying, that gun had to be in his house, because the Secret Service limo took him directly to St. Michaels from the courthouse, but it couldn't be. He'd never have had a gun in the house." She rolled her hands into tight fists for emphasis. "Now I know I'm right. And you do, too, because you know what his position was on the issue of gun control."
Cooper shook his head in disbelief. "People often say one thing and do another. Politicians are the worst offenders. I don't have to tell you that."
* * *
Frustrated that Cooper didn't believe her, Taylor went for a run in Rock Creek Park. As she tore along the jogging path at a faster speed than normal, she kept replaying in her mind all of the facts Cooper had told her. By the time she got back to her Watergate
apartment, soaked with perspiration and breathing hard, she was even more convinced that the senator had been murdered. She wasn't as sure, though, how she would go about proving it.
At home, she had nothing to do. With Charles dead, the campaign was over. She decided to go down to the office at the law firm and catch up on all of her work. It would be better to keep busy, not dwell on the awful death. A memorial service was scheduled for the senator tomorrow. Then maybe she'd be able to start coming to terms with it.
A few minutes after she arrived at her office, Harrison wandered in. "I came to see how you were doing," he said in a kind voice.
"Thanks, Philip. This isn't my best day of all time."
"Well, for what it's worth, I'm very sorry. I know how you feel."
No one ever knows how you feel, she thought. "Thanks for all your help in connection with the investigation and through the long campaign. Particularly your advice in dealing with Cady." She gave a weary sigh. "The surgery was performed professionally, but we lost the patient."
He shrugged. "You can't possibly blame yourself for anything that happened. Boyd never told you the truth about the Napa winery sale. He was guilty on the election-law violation. There's no way you could have pulled a rabbit out of that hat. And as for his suicide—"
Eyes wide open, she stared at him. "It wasn't suicide!"
Harrison pulled back in surprise. "What are you telling me?"
"Somebody shot him and made it look like he did it himself."
Harrison took a plastic cigarette out of his pocket and shoved it into his mouth. "You can't be serious."
"I've never been more serious in my life. There's some type of conspiracy at work."
Harrison shook his head in disbelief. "You've been under tremendous pressure lately. You're imagining things. You have to let it go."
The respect she had for Harrison made her pause for an instant, but that was all. She knew she was right. "Let's think like lawyers," she said, motioning for him to sit down. "Let me lay out the facts in my case."
He moved to the chair she indicated and carefully took a seat. "Okay. Go ahead."
"Fact number one: He hated guns. He would never have had one in his house. He was one of the strongest advocates for gun control both in the House and the—"
"There are plenty of hypocrites on that issue."
She frowned, though she knew he was right. "Fact number two: He went out to St. Michaels to write a speech establishing his innocence. He told me and Kendrick before he left for St. Michaels that he would fight this all the way. His words."
He considered that idea, weighing it for a moment. "Not persuasive. The guilty always say that in the beginning."
"Fact number three: He would never have left a note like that for Sally. He couldn't stand the woman."
Harrison gazed at her keenly. "How do you know so much about their marriage? You weren't having an affair with him, were you?"
Her face reddened. She resented the suggestion, even when it came from Harrison. "No," she said emphatically. "Not ever."'
"Good. Then you have to agree with me that nobody knows what goes on in someone else's marriage."
"That may be true, but I knew the senator," she said. "We spent a lot of time together."
He nodded. "That's really what this is all about," he said in a fatherly way. "You admired and respected the man. You don't want to admit that he wasn't what you thought he was."
She stared hard at Harrison. She couldn't believe he was saying that. "That's not what this is about at all. He was innocent. There's some type of conspiracy at work here. I know it."
At the idea of a conspiracy, Harrison smiled sympathetically. "Can I make a small suggestion?"
"What?"
"I think you're tired—"
She slammed her fists on the desktop, ready to pounce on him. "No, I'm not."
"Listen to me, please. I'm your friend. At least let me finish."
She nodded.
"You've had a terrible shock. A man you put a lot of your faith in is dead. My advice is go away for a while. Down to the Caribbean, or maybe the South of Spain or the Greek isles. Someplace far from here. Take about a month off and travel. Forget about Washington totally." He held up a hand to stop her protests. "I'll make sure the management committee understands. I'll cover all of your cases and clients at the firm. I'll get a good litigator to argue the case in the Mississippi supreme court. I'll keep Fujimura happy on the new acquisition."
Taylor appreciated the sacrifices he was willing to make for her. "Thanks, Philip. You're nice to offer that. I really appreciate it. You're a good friend." Her face grew hard again. "But I'm not leaving town. Not until I know what really happened to Charles. I owe him that much."
Harrison frowned. "You're being unfair to yourself. The best thing would be for you to get far away from Washington for a long vacation."
"And besides, I want to help Crane defeat Webster in the election."
Harrison took the cigarette out of his mouth and fiddled with it, while shaking his head in exasperation. "Now I know you're not thinking clearly."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's not even certain Crane will be at the top of the Democratic ticket. From what I hear, there's total chaos in the party, not only about whom the presidential candidate will be, but the process for picking him. Brill's arguing that since he got the second-highest vote tally at the convention, he should be the candidate. It could take days for them to sort it out."
"Well, when they do, I want to help the candidate."
"That doesn't make any sense. You can be sure that whomever the Democrats pick, you'll be persona non grata with the candidate and his campaign staff. They'll want to distance themselves as much as possible from the image of Senator Boyd, and your very presence would bring Boyd front and center. So I would forget about any more political work for a long time if I were you."
Harrison's words rocked her back on her heels. She refused to believe what he was telling her. "But suppose there is some type of conspiracy at work here, and suppose the senator was murdered as part of it?"
"Enough with the conspiracy." His voice was firm. "Let go of this illusion before you wreck your own life."
"I'll never let go of it."
* * *
Harvey Gladstone was anxious to get home.
As his weary legs carried him up four flights of stairs and across title parking garage at the San Francisco airport, he was looking forward to the three-hour ride home by himself. It would be a chance to unwind and distance himself from the nightmare that had taken over his life. Climbing into his red Ford Taurus, Gladstone thought about his grandson in a Los Angeles hospital. For the first time in weeks he felt optimistic. When he had called from Dulles to tell Louise that he would be arriving at San Fran at five this afternoon, she had been ecstatic. The doctor had called from L.A. to say there was a good chance that a heart might be available for Carl. As far as Senator Boyd was concerned, Gladstone felt some sadness, but he had done what he had to do. He had no reason to feel remorse. With the senator dead, he wouldn't have to testify anymore.
Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge as a blanket of fog rolled in over the bay, Gladstone told himself, "Forget about everything that happened with Senator Boyd. It's over."
* * *
Half a mile behind Gladstone's red Taurus, Terasawa drove a bulky black Lincoln Navigator. There was no need to follow any closer. After he had confronted Gladstone when he was fishing on Saturday, Terasawa had installed a homing device under the rear bumper of the Taurus. This evening he had picked up Gladstone's trail the instant the car moved toward the exit at the airport. Now that they were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, Terasawa had another reason to relax. He knew exactly where Gladstone was going. He had already been there once.
An hour later the two cars were traversing the floor of the Napa Valley. Terasawa still kept his distance. There was no need to do anything that would alert Gladstone to his presence. He had
a plan. He knew exactly what he wanted to do.
* * *
As Gladstone turned west, climbing into the mountains, a light drizzle began to fall. Exhausted and afraid of falling asleep, he opened the window halfway on the driver's side, letting a blast of cold air hit him in the face. The radio was playing country-western music, a ballad about unrequited love. He turned up the volume.
The rain began to make the road slick. Gladstone knew this mountain road like the back of his hand. He also knew how hazardous it could be, even in daylight. The road was full of turns.
Gladstone hunched over the wheel and strained his eyes to see. The fog thickened. He clicked on the lights. Take it slow and easy, he told himself.
From nowhere, a large, dark object suddenly appeared along the road in the trees on the right. What the hell's that?
A second later the object darted across the road. It was a deer with large antlers. Gladstone slammed on the brakes. His car skidded to the left, crossing the center of the road and crashing against the soft dirt of the hill on the other side.
He didn't think he'd done any serious damage, just dents and some scrapes, so he straightened his car out and continued the upward climb on the winding road. "Goddamn deer," he muttered. "There are too many of them. The state should give the hunters more time."
Gladstone became aware of a car coming up from behind. Nearer and nearer the vehicle approached, until it was sitting on Gladstone's bumper. The bastard's following too closely, Gladstone thought. He hated it when another driver tailgated. If the road weren't so narrow and winding, he would have pulled over and signaled the other driver to pass.
He honked the horn and held his hand up above the roof, waving to the rear, hoping the other driver would get the hint. In defiance, the asshole honked back and kept getting closer. What the hell is this? Gladstone thought. Some nut must be trying to play a stupid, dangerous game.
Nervous, Gladstone kept glancing in the rearview mirror. The car behind turned on its high beams, sending a blinding light into his rearview mirror. My God, what's he trying to do?