Senator

by Richard Bowker

  "Not that Tobin said. Of course, why would he confide in me? Jim, I really think you'd be better off if you got someone—"

  "Forget it, Roger. I want you. Set something up for later on."

  "But not for immediately after the press conference," Sam Fisher said. "We don't want the media to get shots of Jim jumping in a car to go be questioned by the police."

  "Okay," Roger said. "I'll do my best."

  "If the DA's got anything," Harold pointed out, "he'll probably leak it to a friendly reporter, see if he can nail you in front of everyone."

  "They won't have anything," I said, not at all sure I was telling the truth.

  For lunch I had a sandwich in the kitchen. Out front the media people started setting up on my lawn. It wasn't much of a lawn, but this wasn't going to do it any good. Sam Fisher was prepping Liz, who looked as if she were having bamboo shoots stuck under her fingernails. Sam had already picked out my clothes: chinos, casual shirt, sweater. The family man at home on a typical Saturday in the fall. Angelica wandered through, looking disgusted with all the activity. I glanced over the talking points Marge had written up for my opening statement. This would be okay—if Liz cooperated, if the police hadn't come up with anything. I just had to assume that's the way it would be.

  Danny didn't return my call. I suppressed the urge to call him again; it would just make Melissa unhappier.

  * * *

  "I don't think I can go through with it," Liz said as the moment approached.

  Sam looked at me. He was gnawing a knuckle. Harold gazed at the kitchen ceiling. Marge was out with the media people; she and Liz didn't get along.

  "You don't have to do it if you don't want to," I said carefully. "You understand that. But we would all be grateful if you did."

  "I don't know," she whispered. She was wearing a wool skirt, a white blouse, and a powder blue sweater. She looked as if she had stepped out of a Talbot's catalog. Her forehead had creases in it that appeared only when she was at her most tense. Her arms were folded tight across her chest. I thought she might be about to throw up.

  "Oh, for God's sake, Liz," Roger said from the kitchen table. "Just stand there and look beautiful and say you love your husband. That's all you have to do. You'll be great. Trust me."

  She looked at Roger. I expected her to bolt from the room—to lock herself in the bathroom, maybe, and leave me to deal by myself with the unwashed hordes waiting outside. But she didn't. "Okay," she whispered.

  Sam clapped his hands together. "That's the spirit," he said. "Whenever you two are ready, then..."

  I went over to her. "Thanks, Liz," I said. She didn't reply. "Shall we do it?"

  She didn't move. "Do it," Roger said. I held out my hand. She hesitated a moment longer, then took it. I led her through the hallway and out the front door. Her hand was moist. The sun was trying to break through the clouds. The cameras clicked and whirred. We stepped up to the microphones.

  "Let me just make a brief statement before taking your questions," I began. "As I said to you last night, this has been a terrible, senseless tragedy, and Liz and I want to help in any way we can to bring Amanda Taylor's murderer to justice. I also understand the public's curiosity about my role in the tragedy, and so I've called this press conference to try to clarify it. It really wasn't much of a role, I'm afraid, and people looking for scandals and sizzling headlines are going to be disappointed. But it's important to get the truth out, and that's what I want to do today."

  I stopped, and the questions assaulted us. I pointed at a friendly reporter from the Quincy Patriot Ledger; I knew she'd give us an easy one. "Senator, have you been in touch with the victim's family?"

  "No, I didn't want to intrude on their grief at this time. They do have my deepest sympathy, of course, and if they want to speak with me—in person or by phone—I would be happy to share with them what I know. Liz and I are also planning to attend the funeral, which I understand is scheduled for Monday morning."

  A slick young reporter from Channel 4 was next. "Are you afraid the district attorney will use the investigation of this murder to embarrass you politically?"

  I shook my head. "I've known Francis Cavanaugh for a long time. We've had our battles, but I respect him, and I'm sure he knows that the public would not stand for any attempt to politicize a murder investigation. We want this campaign to be about the issues, and I hope the Democrats want the same thing."

  See, Liz? Nothing to it. The next one was for her. "Mrs. O'Connor, your husband said last night that it was on your recommendation that he agreed to let Amanda Taylor write a book about him. Is that true, and if so, could you tell us why?"

  "Well, of course it's true," Liz said with just the right touch of asperity at the question. Good girl! "Ms. Taylor interviewed me as part of a story she was doing about Cabot College. During the interview she expressed her admiration for my husband and mentioned that she had considered writing a book about him. She asked me if I wouldn't mind finding out from Jim what the chances were of getting his cooperation. I was happy to oblige. I thought she did a good job on her article about Cabot, so why not?"

  "What was your reaction when you found out that your husband had discovered Amanda Taylor's body?" another reporter called out.

  "What do you think it was?" she shot back. And then she paused—too long. I glanced at her. You can do it, Liz. Please. "I suppose you want me to say I was jealous or something," she said. "That's the sort of thing that sells newspapers, right? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I love my husband, and I stand by him. He is a good senator and a good man. You should believe what he says."

  There it was then. Not what Sam Fisher had fantasized, but as good as we were going to get. She had told the reporters to believe me, but she hadn't quite said she believed me herself. I had the feeling that her statement had been scrupulously truthful, and that was tough to pull off under the circumstances. So what would happen if someone else noticed what I had noticed? What if she was asked what she believed about me and Amanda Taylor, not what she thought everyone else should believe? Would she feel obliged to go on being truthful?

  I waited for the follow-up to come. I did a mediocre job of handling a couple of questions directed at me: Why were the interviews conducted in her apartment? Did I have a theory about who murdered her? And then I began to relax. No one was going to follow up on Liz's response. It would sound too obnoxious, perhaps, although that usually didn't stop reporters. Perhaps there were just too many interesting aspects to the scandal to concentrate on one of them. I wasn't going to worry about the explanation, though. They had let it pass, and so would I.

  Meanwhile, the questions kept coming. Had I seen Amanda Taylor socially? No. Didn't I think it was a bad idea to be alone with her in her apartment? In hindsight, it apparently was. How did I think her murder would affect the election? I have every confidence in the voters, blah blah blah...

  And more for Liz: How friendly had she been with Amanda Taylor? I didn't really know her at all, except for that interview. Did she resent my relationship with the victim? Absolutely not.

  It became clear that we had won the battle. No one had a smoking gun to show the world. Liz was holding up well enough. The worst thing the media could pin on me—today, at least—was an error in judgment in going alone to a single woman's apartment. What the voters would think, of course, was still open to question.

  Finally Sam Fisher signaled, and I called a halt to things. We had given them enough. Liz and I retreated to the house as the print reporters headed off to file and the TV reporters hung around to do their wrap-ups.

  Kathleen was the first to congratulate us. "You guys were great," she said, hugging us each in turn.

  "Thanks, kitten," I said. Liz looked embarrassed.

  "How come you don't campaign more, Mom?"

  "Your father does just fine without me," Liz replied, and she went upstairs.

  Kathleen shook her head. "Mom really was good, you know," she said.

  "
She saved my life," I said.

  "Are you campaigning tomorrow?"

  "Looks like it."

  "Can I come?"

  "You know your mother doesn't want you to."

  "Maybe if you insisted—"

  I rolled my eyes. "I'm in no position to insist on anything right now."

  Kathleen shrugged. "And then you go back to Washington?"

  "Monday. After the funeral. I'm sor—I mean, that's the way it is. I'm a busy guy."

  "I know," she said. She looked as if she wanted to say something more, but then she thought better of it and followed her mother upstairs. She was probably hoping that this murder would make things better between Liz and me: the family pulling together in the face of adversity. It didn't seem likely.

  I went into the kitchen, where my staff was busy dissecting the performance. The consensus was favorable. We hadn't been overwhelming, but we had done the job. After half an hour of rehashing I went upstairs and found Liz in our bedroom, reading a book about reincarnation. "I just wanted to thank you," I said. "You were great out there. Everyone says so."

  She looked up from the book. "I go to the funeral," she said, "and that's it."

  "Okay," I said. "The funeral is all we need. So, um, I have to see the DA now."

  Good luck, dear. Liz stared at me. "Will you be back tonight?"

  "Yes. I'll be back."

  She nodded and returned to her book.

  I stayed standing in the doorway for a moment, and then I went back downstairs.

  It was time to find out just how much trouble I was in.

  Chapter 6

  The press was waiting when Roger and I arrived at the Suffolk County Courthouse. Cavanaugh had made sure my triumph earlier in the afternoon wouldn't go unchallenged; the late news would show me as a potential murder suspect as well as a suburban family man. I no-commented my way through the reporters and met Tobin and Mackey in a dreary conference room; I had undoubtedly been in it a lifetime ago for some plea-bargaining session with one of Tobin's innumerable predecessors.

  Mackey looked uncomfortable; Tobin looked wired. This could be the big case that would make his career, he was probably thinking. You need only one after all; he didn't have to look further than my own career for evidence of that.

  For Mackey, on the other hand, I was sure that this case was nothing but a pain. He didn't need headlines; he didn't need a career. Above all, he didn't need everyone in the state looking over his shoulder. And he liked me, I was sure; most cops did. I was on their side after all. I wanted to put the scum in prison, where they belonged. Mackey didn't want to think of me as being part of the scum.

  "Thank you for coming in to see us this afternoon, Senator," Tobin said when we were all seated.

  "My pleasure, Jerry."

  "There are just a few things we'd like to go over with you, if you don't mind."

  "I'd like to get it established at the outset whether or not my client is a suspect," Roger said.

  "It's much too early for us to have any suspects," Tobin replied. "We're still just trying to get the facts straight here."

  "Fine," Roger said. We could tell the press that the DA's office had stated unequivocally that I wasn't a suspect.

  "There are a couple of points we wanted to clear up," Tobin continued. "First, we haven't found any tapes of these interviews the victim was supposed to be carrying out with you."

  I had known that one was coming. "Well, I'm not aware that she was necessarily taping those interviews," I said. "Maybe she just took notes afterward or something."

  "We haven't found much in the way of notes either," Mackey pointed out. "How long has she been at this?"

  "We had our first discussions around the beginning of this year," I responded. "But you say there are notes," I added quickly.

  "Some," Mackey admitted.

  "And were there tapes of other interviews?"

  "There appear to be," he said.

  My heart sank. I thought of the tapes scattered on the floor of her office. Were those the ones? In any case their existence meant I would win this battle and probably lose the war. Damn you, Amanda, I thought. You didn't deserve to die, but I didn't exactly deserve what you did—or are going to do—to me.

  "So we've established that there are notes and tapes," Roger said. "Is there a problem?"

  "Just trying to clear up a point," Tobin replied, smiling. "And there's this one other point has us puzzled. We've been looking through Amanda Taylor's articles for Hub. Frankly, they don't seem to be written from, let's say, the conservative point of view. Lots of, you know, look at the poor oppressed people whose needs are being ignored. Just wondering why you'd pick that kind of person to write your biography."

  That was another obvious one. They weren't having much difficulty building their case, and it was only going to get easier. "Sympathy for the poor and the oppressed is not incompatible with conservatism," I responded pompously. "It was precisely Ms. Taylor's sympathetic response to other people that attracted us to her. We didn't want a doctrinaire right-wing tract. We wanted a portrait of me as a human being."

  "Isn't it possible you got more than you bargained for?"

  "This is absurd," I said. "Do you think I killed Amanda Taylor to steal these supposed tapes of our interviews, and then came back a few hours later to discover the body and call the whole world's attention to her death?"

  "We haven't reached the point of having any theories," Tobin responded. "But I suppose it's possible to imagine a cool, calculating killer who might do something like that just to throw suspicion off himself."

  "Oh, for God's sake," Roger said. "We don't have to put up with this nonsense."

  He got up as if to go. Mackey was staring out the window, tapping his pencil against his knuckles. I gestured for Roger to sit back down. "Well, I can see that this campaign is going to get very interesting," I said. "So what else have we got to talk about?"

  Tobin reddened but didn't respond.

  "Jim, we need to find out where you were late yesterday afternoon," Mackey said.

  And there was my main problem. "We have a staff meeting at campaign headquarters on Friday afternoons," I said. "I think the one yesterday got out, oh, fourish." It had ended at precisely four o'clock, I knew. Harold told us he had another meeting to get to—in the Back Bay, I realized with a shudder.

  "We're interested in your whereabouts specifically at four forty-five yesterday afternoon," Tobin said.

  "Your ME must be pretty good if he can pinpoint the time of death that accurately," I said—as if I could avoid answering the question by criticizing the investigation.

  "We've got a witness," Mackey said. "A lady on the fourth floor. Said she saw a well-dressed white man, wearing a hat and carrying a black umbrella, enter the building at quarter to five."

  "How could she tell he was a white man," Roger asked, "if he was wearing a hat and she's way up on the fourth floor?"

  Good old Roger might not have wanted this case, but he hadn't lost his savvy. "She saw his hand when he opened the door," Tobin said.

  "Do you know this man was involved in the murder? Did your witness hear sounds of a struggle? Did she see the guy leave?"

  Tobin should have told Roger to go to hell. At this point it was none of our business what they'd gotten out of their witness. But he let himself get drawn into it. "She didn't have to hear anything for this to be significant," he said. "She sees someone enter the building at around the time when the ME says the victim died, and no one else who lived there claimed to have had a visitor at the time. I think that's worth pinning down."

  "Could've been an insurance salesman," Roger said. "Or the person who put up that sign I saw about a lost cat."

  "Rest assured we'll look into those possibilities," Tobin replied. "In the meantime, I'd appreciate an answer from your client."

  All eyes turned to me. If I had an alibi, we could end this torture right now. "Let's see," I said. "I'd say that at quarter to five I was sitting in my c
ar at Wollaston Beach, looking out at the ocean."

  The room was silent. I think Tobin was too stunned to gloat. Only a confession would have been better for him. "Do you have any witnesses who saw you there?" he asked after a few moments.

  I shook my head. "Oh, somebody may have noticed me, but no one that I'm aware of. I didn't have anything on my schedule from the time the meeting ended till the speech in Newton, so I was driving home. But the traffic was brutal, what with Friday rush hour and the bad weather and all, so I decided to get off the expressway at Neponset and just work on my speech somewhere for a while. Otherwise, as soon as I got home, I'd just have had to turn around and leave."

  "And no one saw you until you showed up in Newton?"

  "That's right."

  "And your campaign headquarters are in the city somewhere."

  I nodded. "We've got office space over at International Place."

  Tobin appeared to think it over, but how much thinking was required? I could easily have gotten from the meeting to Amanda's place in time to be the mysterious stranger with the umbrella and the hat. In time to murder her. Tobin had even seen the umbrella.

  So, no alibi; not even close. A United States senator, someone whose every waking minute was managed by a zealous staff—in the middle of a brutal reelection campaign—had a three-hour hole in his life during which a beautiful woman he had known under suspicious circumstances had been murdered. Tobin didn't have to be Hercule Poirot to figure out that this was pretty damaging.

  "Jim, what was your speech about?" Mackey asked. He was still playing with his pencil, not looking at me.

  "Oh, values, issues, the future—that sort of thing."

  "Pretty standard stuff?"

  I saw where he was heading. I shrugged. "I suppose so."

  "I mean," Mackey went on, "don't candidates work up a kind of all-occasions speech to give during a campaign? Why was this speech so different you had to work on it for a couple of hours?"

  "Well, I suppose it wasn't, Mack. But I didn't feel like driving all the way home. I was at loose ends."