Senator

by Richard Bowker

  Mackey nodded gloomily; Tobin twitched. He had undoubtedly found out that my wife and I weren't getting along especially well. Did that help his search for a motive? It probably did, I realized. "So you weren't telling the truth when you said you were working on your speech?" Tobin demanded.

  "Oh, now, Jerry," I responded. "I sat in my car and stared out at the ocean and worked on my Democrat jokes. Want to hear some?"

  "I'd like to go into more detail about your relationship with the victim," he said.

  And so it went. Tobin and Mackey probed, and I gave them what I had to. The lack of an alibi was the only real damage, but it was serious enough. Tobin excused himself at one point, and I figured he went to tell Cavanaugh the good news. Whether or not they could pin the murder on me, they could certainly justify making me a suspect. And that would make Cavanaugh's life worth living once again.

  "I think that will be all for now," Tobin said finally.

  I stood up immediately. "I enjoyed it, Jerry," I said. "Keep in touch."

  "Don't worry, Senator. I will."

  I nodded to Mackey, who didn't look happy. "Mack."

  "Jim."

  Roger and I left the room. "How long till they leak it?" I asked him as we walked along the musty corridor.

  "Wouldn't surprise me if they already did," Roger replied. "Tobin wasn't going to the bathroom when he left the room that time."

  "As I live and breathe, if it isn't Jim O'Connor," we heard a cheery baritone voice say. We looked up to see Francis X. Cavanaugh grinning at us from a doorway.

  Even on a Saturday afternoon the district attorney was wearing his usual three-piece suit and starched white shirt. He always looked as if he were on his way to a wedding. And he always looked as if he were just back from Florida; his tan verged on the miraculous. It has never been entirely clear to me why everyone refers to him as the Monsignor. It isn't that he is especially holy, although he spends virtually every Sunday morning of his life speaking at a communion breakfast somewhere in the county. Possibly it's because, with his tan and his head of curly white hair, he looks like the pastor of some affluent suburban parish, the kind of priest who spends his days working on his backswing rather than saving souls. He is in his early sixties now, but he looks almost exactly the same as he did almost twenty years ago, when I came to him and asked for a job.

  I didn't get it, and that was only the start of the problems between the Monsignor and me. I'll have to bring up the rest of them before very long.

  "Here on a Saturday afternoon, Francis?" I said. "I'm impressed. You just don't slow down."

  "The criminals don't slow down," he said, "so how can I?"

  "You should leave more of the work to your trusted assistants. I was just talking to one of them—Jerry Tobin? Nice kid."

  "He speaks very highly of you as well."

  "He does? Well, that makes my day. Be seeing you, Francis."

  "Jim?" The Monsignor smiled. "I just wanted to assure you that we are going to be scrupulously fair in this investigation. Politics and personal history will have no place in it."

  I smiled back. "Francis, that's good to hear. And I appreciate your taking the time to tell me."

  "I thought you'd want to know."

  Cavanaugh retreated into his office with a friendly wave. Roger and I continued down the corridor. "The bastard smells blood," I murmured.

  "Maybe you should tell the press about this alibi business," Roger suggested. "Launch a preemptive strike."

  "I suppose I should."

  "How come you didn't mention it in the meeting last night? Harold will be—"

  "Yeah, yeah. How was I supposed to know the exact time of death? How was I supposed to know what kind of witness they'd come up with? This is just bad luck."

  "Okay, Jim," Roger said. "Take it easy."

  Bad luck. I have never believed in luck.

  I faced the reporters yet again and gave them my version of what had just taken place. It was tricky this time: I had to plant the first hints that the DA's office was politicizing the murder case, but I couldn't sound as if I were whining. The public still probably perceived Cavanaugh as only doing his job. However, I wanted to help the moment along when the public's perception would change.

  The questions weren't hard. There was nothing much to ask me once I'd explained about my hours at the beach. All in all I figured the day would turn out to be a draw.

  Afterward Roger and I drove over to campaign headquarters. A lot of people were there, and I gave them a pep talk. "Get the word out," I said. "We're going to work harder than ever. We're not going to let the Democrats steal this election with innuendos and false accusations. We're going to fight back, we're going to get our message across, and we're going to win." They loved it.

  Then another meeting of the brain trust. Art Chandler had flown in from Washington. He is the head of my Senate staff down there; gaunt and brilliant, he isn't much on campaigning, but he's a whiz on the intricacies of the Senate. And Ronald Steadman was there, bringing with him the results of his polling.

  Steadman wears thick glasses, and his face always has a slightly puzzled look on it, as if he can't quite remember why he is talking to you. Today he was wearing hiking boots, a plaid shirt, and a black leather tie about a millimeter wide. He looks like the kind of guy who never leaves his computer, but his appearance is at least partially deceiving; you can't do what Steadman does without understanding people as well as you understand numbers.

  Someone had ordered in a bunch of hamburgers and Cokes. We passed out the food, and I started the meeting off on a depressing note by summarizing what had gone on with Tobin and Mackey, in case anyone hadn't already heard. Then Harold turned to Steadman. "What have you got for us, Ron?"

  Steadman passed around copies of a few pages of printouts. "First, I should point out that the nightly tracking polls weren't scheduled to start for a couple of weeks," he began, "so we had to put this together on the fly."

  "We should start tracking immediately," Harold said.

  "If you've got the money, I certainly recommend it. This looks like it's going to be a very volatile situation."

  We would have the money, unless things got really bad; Republicans can almost always outspend Democrats. They generally have to, actually, because Democrats tend to attract more volunteers. Anyway, tracking polls were going to be crucial in a close race like this. Every day you find out: Is your message getting across? Is your opponent making inroads? What groups do you have to concentrate on? Crucial and expensive.

  "Let's do it," I said. I glanced at the results. "What's significant here?"

  "Well, looking at the big picture, we can see that there's not much movement from the last poll," Steadman replied. "A couple percent more undecided, but that's well within the margin of error. You still hold a ten-point lead, your favorables are still quite high across the spectrum, but so are Governor Finn's. So there hasn't been a catastrophic shift, at least not yet. But remember what I told you before, that a senator's favorability rating is likely to drop more than a governor's in the course of a campaign. Everyone knows their governor, and they've pretty much made up their minds what they think of him before the race. But they have no idea what their senator is up to down in Washington. Finn starts publicizing some of your votes, and suddenly people realize they don't agree with you about a lot of things. So your numbers start to erode."

  I nodded. You could hide for six years, but eventually you had to come out into the light of day.

  "Women," Harold said, staring at the numbers.

  Steadman looked at him with the respect of one professional for another. "Women," he agreed, sipping his Coke. "They're the potential problem, Senator. When we asked if last night's incident would have an effect on their vote, eighteen percent of women said yes or maybe, compared with only four percent for men. Of course, most people say they're just going to wait and see, but the numbers are interesting anyway. Women like you, Senator. You're young, good-looking, dynamic—
but also maybe a little dangerous. And they like Finn, too. He's not that much older than you, but he's got more of a fatherly feel to him. They think they understand him; they think they can trust him. So now they begin to have their doubts about you. Maybe you're not so nice after all. Maybe you're a bit too dangerous. And if Finn begins pounding away at your votes on abortion, family leave, day care, that sort of issue, you have a problem."

  I bit into a hamburger. It was cold. Yes, I had a problem. "I think we've gotten everything from Liz we're going to get," I said, "except the funeral."

  "Well, that could be enough," Steadman said. "We did the phoning this morning, so the effect won't show up until tomorrow. Of course, you also have this alibi thing to contend with now."

  "And meanwhile, we're losing the whole focus of our campaign," Sam Fisher complained. He got up and began pacing. "We've got an event set up tomorrow at the Hampden County Jail. We bring the TV crews in, show how overcrowded it is, make a pitch for Jim's plan to offer federal aid for prison construction. So do we go through with it or not? We show Jim inside a prison, maybe people get a totally different message from the one we want to send them."

  "Art, what's the prognosis for the bill?" Marge Terry asked.

  Art shrugged. "Tough to call at this point. We want to offer it as an amendment to the omnibus crime bill, but it's not even clear the crime bill will come to a vote before the end of the session. We're getting squeezed from the left and the right, and of course the President is opposed. I'm not wildly optimistic."

  "Maybe we shouldn't make such a big deal about it then. If we lose, it makes us look incompetent, even if people agree with us."

  "Crime is our key issue, though," Sam pointed out. "Voters blame Finn for the rising crime rate. Your car gets stolen, it's gotta be someone's fault, right? Jim's the guy who puts criminals in prison. Problem is, it's tough to put anyone in prison when you're a senator."

  "We've done our best," Art said.

  People laughed.

  I looked over at Harold, who was doodling on Steadman's printout: a series of vertical lines. Then he connected them with two horizontal lines. Prison bars.

  "So what do we do?" Kevin asked.

  "We go on the offensive," Harold replied, not looking up. "Make Amanda Taylor's murder a symbol of our campaign, not theirs. Dare them to solve it. Voice the outrage of the people when they fail. Ignore Jim's involvement. That's just accidental, and anyone who says different is heartlessly using this tragedy for political gain. 'Look,' we say, 'nice young white girls are getting murdered in their apartments in broad daylight. The state's going to hell. And who's been in charge? Bobby Finn. And now he wants to be your senator. Well, Bobby Finn doesn't deserve a promotion. He deserves retirement.' "

  Everyone was silent for a moment, pondering that strategy. It was tempting. We had to counterattack. If your opponent can keep you on the defensive, you lose. On the other hand... "What if they do solve the murder?" I asked Harold finally.

  "Then you're in the clear," he replied, still not looking up from his doodle, "and we don't have a problem. Right?"

  "You're so clever, Harold," I said. I reached for another hamburger, and the debate began.

  Chapter 7

  "President Kenton says he's against crime, but he's consistently opposed my bill to provide federal aid for construction of new prisons. Governor Finn says he's against crime, but what has he done to solve the crime problem in Massachusetts? Where are the bold new ideas he promised us once upon a time? It's easy to say you're against crime. It's a lot tougher to do something about it.

  "As you know, violent crime has touched my life quite recently, as it has touched almost everyone's life in this state. We all want to get the criminals off the streets, but we can't do that if there's nowhere to put them. That's why it's so important to pass this bill. That's why it's so frustrating to have President Kenton and Governor Finn oppose it. And that's why I'm so pleased to have Sheriff Amado's endorsement. He shares my frustration with the Democrats' inaction at the state and national level, and he shares my resolve to do something about crime once and for all. Thank you very much."

  I shook hands with the sheriff in front of the cameras. Reporters shouted questions about Amanda Taylor at me, but I ignored them. I had said what I had to say about the murder; now it was time to move on.

  * * *

  We had bought into Harold's idea. There wasn't much choice, we decided. We had to define what the race was about. It had to be about the condition of the state, about my defense of traditional values. We couldn't let it be about my voting record in the Senate or my possible involvement in a sensational murder.

  I didn't want to bring Amanda into the campaign, even though I believed what I said about violent crime. Usually when I bring up the issue, I talk about how my grandmother was mugged more than thirty years ago on her way to Good Friday services. But I have told that story so many times that I can scarcely summon up the real memories of those events anymore; all that comes are the words I use to recount them. Would Amanda's murder follow suit? Probably. If lies can seem like the truth when you're a politician, the truth can come to seem like a lie. I had protected Amanda—and us—while she was alive, but now that she was dead it was no longer possible.

  The Sunday coverage of the murder was more or less what we had expected. Our press conference and the revelation about my lack of an alibi got equal play. The Globe interviewed Amanda's father, who said that she spoke highly of me. Friends and coworkers remembered her as bright, popular, and ambitious. No one could think of a reason why she would be murdered. She hadn't talked about the book very much, but she had talked about it. No one mentioned anything about a boyfriend. "She always seemed to be too busy to date," one of her fellow reporters remarked. "'There'll be time for that later,' she used to say." No one said anything about her politics.

  The Herald found out about the strange message the murderer had left on Amanda's computer and shrieked it to the world: "she had to die," murderer says! If my involvement hadn't been enough to keep the case alive in the papers, that message would have done the trick by itself.

  I called Danny from the car phone on the way back from the media event at the prison. "Oh, Jim, he's out," Melissa said. "I told him to call you, but—"

  I pounded the dashboard in frustration. Startled, Kevin looked over at me. "Damn it," I said, "this is important, Lissa."

  Melissa started to cry. "I'm sorry, Jim," she sobbed. "I tried to—I said—but you know how he gets."

  "Okay, Lissa. Okay. I know you tried. I'm sorry. I'll call again later."

  I hung up and stared out the window, trying to control my temper. Only Danny could make me this angry.

  After the campaigning was over for the day, I dropped Kevin off and took the car. There was no problem this time; he knew where I went on Sunday evenings.

  My father lives in a pleasant garden apartment in the pleasant Boston neighborhood of West Roxbury. The apartment complex is not exactly elderly housing, but it has more than its share of old people. "Full of old devils like me," as my father puts it. "But at least there's a few normal people here, too." My father is opposed to housing for the elderly. Actually he's opposed to the elderly as well. Campaign consultants always recommend getting him out on the road talking to senior citizens' groups about what a swell guy I am and how the Republicans aren't really going to steal their Social Security checks. But he's as bad as Liz about campaigning for me. In the first place, he's not at all sure that the Republicans won't steal people's Social Security checks. In the second place, he hates senior citizens' groups. "Bunch of boring people sitting around complaining about their kids and their arthritis," he explained to Harold once. "Or they play stupid games and go on stupid outings like they're in kindergarten. All they're doing is taking up space until they die."

  Harold decided that my father would not be an asset to the campaign.

  My father is in reasonably good health, considering that he hates doctors and goes
to them only under duress. Nevertheless, he has convinced himself that he is not long for this world. "I'm rereading Dickens, Jimmy," he told me. "When I'm through with Dickens, I have this feeling I'll be through with everything."

  When I showed up on Sunday night, he was in the middle of Bleak House. "Lawyers, Jimmy. Dickens had them pegged."

  "Scum of the earth," I agreed. I got out the bottle of bourbon and poured us each a drink. "Only thing worse is politicians. Cheers."

  "Cheers." He sipped the bourbon. In my middle age I have taken to wondering what I'll look like when I grow old. My father gives me a foreshadowing: black hair gone gray and thin, ears sticking out more, a road map of broken blood vessels visible beneath the skin. He looks more Irish than he has ever looked, as if his heritage is finally asserting itself as he heads toward the grave. He will probably end up a shriveled leprechaun of a man, hunched over in his favorite chair and bewailing the sorry state of the world.

  And beneath all the complaints he will probably be content.

  "Tough couple of days, sounds like," he said.

  Which was his way of saying that he had followed everything that had happened over the weekend, and his heart went out to me, and if there was anything he could do, I had only to ask. Except that, as a card-carrying Irishman, he would never dream of saying any of that.

  "I've had better," I agreed. I'm a card-carrying Irishman, too.

  "How's Kathleen?" Is my granddaughter taking this all right? You can't ignore your family, Jimmy. Your family is more important than anything.

  "Kathleen is doing okay. She was explaining to me about fractals yesterday. A fractal is a measure of something's complexity. I thought you'd want to know. She showed me some wild patterns you can create on a computer with them. I don't know how she does it." I'm paying attention to her, Dad. You don't have to worry about that.

  "Fractals, huh? I had enough trouble with fractions. And those word problems. Someone's filling the pool while someone else is emptying it. Could never figure that stuff out."