Marge, wily media person that she was, managed to imply that it was sexist and demeaning to women to suggest that the only reason a female reporter would cross the continent to meet a male senator was that she had the hots for him. I thought this was a particularly clever tactic. People might not have any qualms about accusing me of being a lecher, but they might feel guilty about thinking that the murder victim had nothing better to do than to be the object of a lecher's attentions.
The strategy for dealing with the wheelchair shocker was more difficult. Voters couldn't figure out how to react to it any more than the pundits could. The statement had been too articulate to suggest that I was becoming unhinged, but it seemed too out of character to be a campaign ploy. So what did it mean? Harold and company didn't know; I couldn't or wouldn't explain it to them. So they had to make something up.
They tried to float two separate and not quite contradictory interpretations of what I had said. In the first, they made the case that it represented nothing new. I had always been opposed to police brutality. I had always been willing look at things from the other person's point of view. I had always been honest in my responses to questions.
In case people didn't buy that, the braintrust offered a second interpretation: Yes, Jim O'Connor has grown in his years in office. He is no longer the doctrinaire law and order Republican he might once have been. Look, for example, at his iconoclastic positions on defense. O'Connor's ability to grow is one of his great strengths.
This latter interpretation had the advantage of quite possibly being true, although Harold couldn't have had any idea why. The problem with it was that it left me open to the charge of political expediency. Was I growing, or was I just trying to make sure my appeal was broad enough to get myself reelected? I needed liberal votes to win in a state like Massachusetts; maybe this was just a cynical ploy to claim some of them.
There was no real way of defending against that sort of charge, except to make people trust me. If they trusted me, they would see everything I did or said in the most positive light. And that kind of positive perception of me was just what we were in danger of losing because of Amanda's murder and Williams's article.
The Democrats did not decline the golden opportunity I had offered them, of course. Cavanaugh chose this moment to strike, and he hauled me in for further questioning. So Roger and I had to make our way once again past the TV cameras into the courthouse building.
This time we assembled in Cavanaugh's own office rather than a bleak conference room. Photographs of the enemy grinned at me from every wall. Cavanaugh shaking hands with Finn. Cavanaugh shaking hands with President Kenton. Cavanaugh, the Chamber of Commerce's Man of the Year. Mackey sat in a corner, expressionless; this was the Monsignor's show.
Roger—my faithful friend—began with the obligatory protest. "This is pure politics, Francis, and we resent it. And the people of Massachusetts are going to resent it, too."
The Monsignor nodded, hands folded on his chest, as if he were relaxing after a hearty meal. He looked content, as if the dream of a lifetime were about to come true.
It would be easy enough for us to make the case that it was pure politics, I reflected. We could point out that if Finn became senator, the lieutenant governor would become governor, and the current attorney general might then run for lieutenant governor in two years. And that would finally open up the AG's job for Cavanaugh, after I had snatched it away from him so long ago.
But looking at Cavanaugh, I couldn't believe that he was interested. He was getting old; his time had passed. Revenge was more important to him now than ambition. He wasn't going to let this opportunity slip away.
"Your client was the one who failed to reveal pertinent information to our investigators," Cavanaugh replied to Roger's charge.
"It's not our job to determine what you might possibly consider pertinent," Roger said. "Do you want to know what Jim had for breakfast the Tuesday before the murder? Does his brand of socks make a difference? We're not mind readers. Ask us specific questions, and we'll be happy to respond."
"Clearly the nature and extent of your relationship with the victim is of interest to us," Cavanaugh said to me. "You don't need to be a mind reader to figure that out."
"I have already explained the relationship," I replied.
Cavanaugh shrugged. "Maybe we don't believe you."
"Then arrest me for obstruction of justice or something. I don't have to sit here and be called a liar, Francis. Especially by a Democrat."
Cavanaugh grinned. Roger laid a hand on my arm. "Specific questions, Francis," he said. "Otherwise we won't get anywhere."
Cavanaugh turned to Mackey. "Take him through it, Mack," he said.
Mackey looked at me with the expression of a public servant just doing his job. "Jim," he said. "Every meeting. From the beginning."
It was torture. The only point to it was to see if I would lie, and I was smart enough not to. They had all the records of her charge cards. They knew when she had been to Washington and where she had stayed. So I admitted to those meetings, and that was that; there was still no smoking gun. She had taken a couple of other trips; Mackey quizzed me on those, but they had nothing to do with me, and I knew I could prove it.
And then Mackey brought up something new. "Your second meeting with Amanda Taylor—you said it was at a cafe in the Back Bay?"
"That's right. But honest, Mack, I can't remember the name. One of those little places on Newbury Street."
"Doesn't matter. We've talked to your waiter. He remembers the two of you vividly. He even overheard some of your conversation."
I didn't change expression. The jerk had wanted to argue with us instead of serving our food. "Did he now?"
"Yeah, he says Amanda was talking like a Ronald Reagan clone. The thing is, Jim, you told us before that you knew about her politics. Sounds like she was lying to you in this restaurant."
"I don't remember it that way at all," I said. "We found some areas of agreement. Even liberals believe in individual responsibility."
"Isn't it possible that you only found out about her real politics later? And wouldn't that have made you pretty angry?"
"Angry enough to kill her? Come on. I'm a professional, Mack. Ask Harold White and Marge Terry. I had them run a check on her before I even met her at that cafe. I knew what I was doing."
Mackey shrugged. It was shaky, but if he was looking for a motive, that might help him establish one. Actually it made me feel a little better that they were still fishing around for a motive. "Jim," he went on, "can you tell us why, if the victim was working on this book since the first of the year, she apparently didn't interview anyone before late August?"
"She interviewed me," I said.
"Interviews for which we have no tapes and only very sketchy notes."
"Haven't we been through this before?" I said. "I don't know anything about her writing methods. Maybe she was too busy to interview anyone else until August. Maybe she wanted to get to know me better before she put anything on paper. I really don't see what this has to do with anything."
Oh, yes, I did. Mackey didn't press the issue, but he didn't have to. A jury could decide if I was lying about this supposed book.
Cavanaugh had little to say during the interrogation. It was clear that he was letting Mackey take care of the details. Perhaps the details didn't even matter at this point. After an hour Mackey gave up. He had a little new information, but surely not enough for an arrest. Not unless they were still playing games with the tape of Danny's interview.
Not unless Cavanaugh wanted to make an arrest no matter how little evidence he had.
"Francis, mind if I speak to you in private for a minute?" I said as the meeting ended.
Cavanaugh looked a little surprised, but he simply said, "I'm at your service." Mackey and Roger left us alone in the office. Cavanaugh sat back in his chair. "Now what can I do for you, Senator?"
"There's something I've always wanted to know, Francis. Why didn't
you hire me when I applied for a job here? I would have worked hard. I would have shown up on time."
Cavanaugh smiled. He looked as if he'd just sunk a birdie putt. "Been gnawing away at you all these years, huh, Jim?"
"I've been curious," I said. "Sure."
"Thought you were gonna be God's gift to the DA's office, right? Thought we should roll out the red carpet for you as soon as you consented to work for us, right?"
"I thought I met the employment qualifications. And I didn't drool or pick my nose during the interview."
Cavanaugh nodded. "You were a swell candidate all right. I got some heat from the assistant DAs for turning you down."
"So why did you do it?"
He steepled his palms and looked out the window. "Because," he said softly, "I knew what you were up to—even if you didn't know it yourself. You were going to come in here and set the place on fire, and after a few years you'd start feeling stifled, you'd get the urge to move up, but there'd be nowhere for you to go. So you'd decide the old man didn't have it anymore—he's out of touch, the place needs new blood—and you'd run against me. And probably you'd win."
I had never thought of that. "You thought I'd be another Francis X. Cavanaugh," I said.
"Spittin' image," he agreed.
"Well, even if you were right, not hiring me was still the worst mistake you ever made," I told him. "If you'd taken me on, you'd have had a clear shot at attorney general, and I'd have run for DA to succeed you."
Cavanaugh nodded. "And maybe I'd be the senator today, and you'd still be the DA."
We sat in silence for a moment, brooding about the road not taken. I wondered just how much time Cavanaugh spent brooding like that nowadays.
"Even so," he said after a while, "it wouldn't have made a difference if you hadn't pulled that stunt with Paul Everson."
"I didn't pull any stunt," I said. "Everson did it on his own."
Cavanaugh gave me a disbelieving look.
"Are you going to arrest me?" I asked.
"I'm going to let you twist slowly in the wind," he replied.
"There's not that much time left for twisting," I pointed out. "The election's less than a week away."
"You can do a lot of twisting in a week."
"Do you think I'm guilty?" I asked.
Cavanaugh smiled again. "Everyone is guilty," he said.
* * *
Outside the courthouse I made a brief statement to the reporters. I didn't bother with subtlety. The DA was playing politics with the case, I said. He was harassing me to cover up the police's inability to solve it. I reminded everyone that Cavanaugh had a grudge against me that went back many years. I expressed my hope that the voters would realize what Cavanaugh and the rest of the Democrats were up to.
I didn't wait around to take questions.
* * *
My father was feeling better, but he was still in the hospital, grouchier than ever. When I visited him, he was worried about the insurance, the car, the overdue library books, the unpaid rent.
Danny had promised to take care of everything, but that didn't stop my father from worrying. I offered to look into things.
"No, no, it's too much trouble, you've got enough to do," my father said.
"Actually I don't," I said. "I've been pulled off the campaign trail for a couple of days for various reasons."
"I never heard you talk about that riot at Harvard," he said.
"Kids weren't supposed to talk to their parents back in the sixties."
"They say you brought it up just to get votes."
"Everything I do is to get votes. The only reason I'm gonna take care of your insurance is because I want to make sure of yours."
"Oh, Danny'll handle it."
"And maybe I'll get Danny's vote, too. Although that's a lot more doubtful."
"Danny." My father sighed.
"I'll be back tomorrow," I said.
I drove over to my father's apartment and let myself in. Just as he seemed diminished outside his apartment, it seemed smaller and more ordinary without him in it. The armchair where he always sat looked worn and shabby; the rugs were threadbare, the dishes chipped and mismatched. It didn't feel right being there without him.
I went upstairs and sifted through the papers on his desk, looking for his auto insurance policy. But I couldn't concentrate. I started to think about having to clear out this place when my father finally left, as he would have to, sooner or later, one way or another. What would he want to take with him; what could he take with him, as his world shrank yet again? Would he care about his armchair, his favorite mugs, this worn oak desk at which I had once sat to do my homework? Or would he take nothing—except, perhaps, the photographs of Danny and me in our moments of triumph?
And I remembered the other time he had moved—out of the old house in Brighton—back when Danny was starting his bar and I was starting my law career, and it was clear that no one was going to be living with him there ever again. I wanted no part of Brighton, and Danny had bought a two-family a couple of blocks over, convinced that he was going to make a fortune in real estate in addition to being a successful businessman. We all spent a sweaty summer weekend sorting and packing and—mostly—throwing away. In a corner of the attic I found an old steamer trunk, and in it was a yellowed gown, carefully folded. I suppose I knew its significance immediately, but I brought it downstairs to my father for confirmation.
He took it from me and fingered a sleeve. "Well, this would be your mother's wedding gown," he said.
"Want to keep it?" I asked.
He looked at me, and I realized that I shouldn't have asked, should have simply pitched it myself or packed it up without his permission. Because now he had to choose, and this was the kind of choice he had never before had to make.
He looked back down at the gown, and what he saw when he looked at it I will never know, because I wouldn't dream of asking him and he wouldn't dream of telling me. "Not much use to anyone now, is it?" he said.
I took it back from him. "I'll take care of it," I said. He nodded.
It is sitting in my attic now. I never told him; he never asked.
I decided that I needed a drink. I went back downstairs, and I saw my father sitting in his armchair.
It wasn't my father, of course. It was Danny, looking more like my father than I would have believed possible. We were now about the age that he had been when we were growing up, and the trials of living had etched themselves in our faces—Danny's more than mine. But it wasn't his face so much as his posture, the way he slumped in the chair, like an old man who had gone through too much. He's giving up the struggle, I thought. He's falling into old age. My father, for all his talk of dying when he finished Dickens, was at least still struggling. "I didn't hear you come in," I said.
"I saw your car outside," he replied. "Didn't want to disturb you."
"I was just, uh—"
"You were just doing what I promised Dad I'd take care of. After I talked my boss into giving me the afternoon off to come over here."
Sure you did, I thought. You lie well enough to be a politician. "I haven't done anything," I said."Really. It's all yours."
Danny shrugged. "I don't care. I just don't want you treating me like I'm totally irresponsible."
I sat down. "Lighten up," I said. "This is hard on all of us. I was just remembering when we moved him out of the old house. What a job that was."
"Won't be so hard this time," Danny said. "The junk we collected in that old place. All those books of yours."
"All those baseball cards of yours."
"Probably worth a fortune now. Wonder where they all went."
I thought some more about the old days and the junk that accumulates. "Danny, do you remember one Saturday afternoon when I played touch football against you over at the field? There was one play where you caught a pass and put some fakes on me. You left me standing there as if I was stuck to the ground. I'll never know how you did that."
Dann
y brightened. That was his kind of memory. But then he shook his head. "I don't remember ever playing football against you. You always said you hated games." He considered. "That made me think you were a wimp sometimes. But I knew you weren't, not really. Actually I sort of admired you."
I was surprised. Surprised that he hadn't remembered his triumph over me, and even more surprised at his admission that he had admired me. "Well," I said, "maybe I made it up."
Danny grinned. "That's okay. I've been known to make up a thing or two myself." He arose from the chair. "I better go upstairs and take care of business."
"Okay," I said. "I'll see you, then."
"See you."
Danny went upstairs. I hung around for a moment, staring at the lonely pair of photographs on the wall. Something had happened just then, but I wasn't sure what it was. I gave up trying to figure it out finally, and I got in my car and drove home.
* * *
There wasn't much happening at home. Liz was out—at school, I hoped—and Kathleen was working on her computer. "Wanna rake leaves with me?" I asked her.
She looked up from the computer. "Don't you have something important to do?"
"Hey, don't blow your chance for some quality time with the old man."
"If you don't get out there and win this election, I'll have plenty of chances for quality time," she pointed out.
"True," I said, "but they also serve who only stand and rake."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know. C'mon, let's go outside."
We found a couple of ancient rakes and some plastic barrels in the toolshed, and we set to work transferring the leaves from the front lawn to the woods behind the house. There were hundreds of barrels' worth of leaves to be moved, and the lawn beneath them was scarcely worth exposing; I never had any time to work on it, and Liz had lost interest since she went back to school. But I felt so wholesome performing the chore—on a crisp fall day, with my perfect daughter helping and the cat sitting on the front steps supervising—that its futility didn't matter. "Sometimes I think normality is within our grasp, Kathleen," I said.
Senator Page 32