"Every one of them."
"No way Cavanaugh could have gotten hold of any before you did?"
Mackey shook his head. "Why, Jim?"
"I was just wondering if there was anything, you know, revealing on any of them."
"You mean, any dirt?"
"Well, yeah."
He considered. "We were looking for dirt, of course," he said. "All Cavanaugh wanted was dirt. But there wasn't really anything the Democrats could use. She was talking mostly to your friends after all. That's part of what made me think it wasn't a hatchet job."
"Just wondering," I said. And I was wondering about something else. "The notes," I added.
"Yeah. There were just a couple of pages. Sort of... impressionistic. Like I said, if she was working on a book, I figure there'd be a lot more. Anyway, they're another one of the things that's got me confused about this case."
"I don't suppose it'd be possible for me to see a copy of those notes," I remarked, trying to appear casual.
"I don't know, Jim. Now that I'm off the case—"
"If you can. I'm curious, that's all. Find out what she had to say about me."
"Well, I'll see what I can do."
"Thanks again, Mack."
He disappeared into the night, and I was left behind, staring into the darkness.
* * *
I returned to my office and left a message for Finn. He got back to me in twenty minutes. "I didn't have anything to do with this, Jim," he said before I could utter a word. "You've got to believe me. I just heard about it a few hours ago, and I've been trying to talk Cavanaugh out of it." He sounded desperate. He needed me on his side.
"When is he going to have me arrested?" I asked.
"The day before the election is what he told me. That way you wouldn't have a chance to put your spin on it, get some positive publicity."
"He's crazy. It's bound to make you look bad."
"He said for me to hold a press conference and denounce him if I wanted to, say it was all his idea and I didn't believe Jim O'Connor was capable of murder."
That sounded familiar. "Like the Paul Everson trial," I said.
"What? Oh, right. Right. He never got over losing that case, I think."
"But Jesus, didn't you tell him this'll end his career? Talk about spectacular defeats; he'll never win this one. He won't even get an indictment with what he's got on me."
"Jim, I told him that. I used every argument and threat I could come up with. The thing of it is, he doesn't need me on this. He's got Washington backing him."
Washington? "You mean the President?"
"Yeah. If Cavanaugh can help me win, fine. But the main thing is to get you out of Kenton's way for two years from now. The Monsignor's tired of being DA. He's getting old; he doesn't need the headaches. Kenton's promised him some cushy federal job when things quiet down. So he destroys his old nemesis and picks up a President for a friend. It's quite a deal."
I thought it through. They haul me off in handcuffs in time for the six o'clock news. Cavanaugh gives a press conference and makes the case that Mackey had just made to me, only without Mackey's doubts. He swears there's nothing political about the arrest. He conducted a painstaking investigation, he points out, and he points out how much grief he took for not making an arrest even sooner. If it was political, why isn't Governor Finn backing him up? And just to show that he has no hidden agenda, he announces that he won't be running for reelection—or for any other office.
Finn wins or he doesn't; Cavanaugh doesn't care. But Cavanaugh gets his indictment because, despite what I said to Finn, you can almost always get an indictment. He has motive, he has means, he has opportunity; he has enough. The trial would be... when? Next summer at the earliest. He strings things out as long as he can.
In the meantime, I can't raise money for the presidential race, I can't build an organization, I can't get any early endorsements. Who would back someone who's going to be on trial for murder?
Cavanaugh lets Jerry Tobin or some other young sacrificial lamb handle the trial, and there's a week of lurid publicity while they bring up San Francisco and my key to the Back Bay love nest and the eavesdropping waiter and whatever else they can come up with. Tobin gets blown away when the case finally goes to the jury because there's nowhere near enough evidence to convict, but by then it's too late for me. I'm damaged goods. I have my freedom but no future. Kenton gets reelected, and Cavanaugh has an IOU as big as the one I had for Finn.
And this was the best I could hope for. The worst was that sometime between the arrest and the trial Cavanaugh stumbles across the truth about me and Jackie Scanlon. Tom Glenn faces prison again, perhaps, and figures he can cut a deal. Donato decides he could use some help from his old friends and trades what he knows for a handout....
"This is very bad," I said finally.
"Jim, please," Finn said. "I know it's bad, but you've gotta believe I'm trying to hold up my end of the bargain. I'll work on Cavanaugh some more tomorrow. Just don't—"
"All right, Bobby," I said. "All right. Do what you can. But hurry, would you? For both our sakes."
"Okay, Jim. Thanks."
He hung up. I tried to figure things out for a while, but that was a waste of time. Finally I went upstairs and got in bed beside Liz.
Amanda's notes, I thought.
And then I fell asleep.
* * *
The next day was as busy as the one before. Harold hadn't found out about Cavanaugh's plan, and I didn't tell him. He would just want me to launch a preemptive strike and denounce Cavanaugh before he had a chance to arrest me; but I had promised Mackey I wouldn't go public with the information, and I didn't feel like going back on that promise any more than I felt like destroying Bobby Finn.
Any more than I felt like campaigning. The surge of energy I had felt after the conversation at Finn's house was slipping away, to be replaced by the brooding confusion that had become my dominant state of mind before it.
Did I really care if the trial kept me from running for President? Did I really care if I lost this election? Maybe, like Carl Hutchins, I should be afraid to win, afraid of six more years of decisions and opinions and lies.
How would I act if I were arrested?
How would Kathleen take it?
What would Liz do if I went to trial? She had felt compelled to tell Amanda about Jackie Scanlon. Would she feel compelled to tell the world?
Amanda's notes. What was in Amanda's notes?
In the late afternoon I was the guest on a radio call-in show run by a popular talkmaster whose politics were somewhere to the right of Louis XIV. He was not happy with the things I'd been saying lately, and he let me, and his listeners, know it. This was okay actually; there's nothing like being attacked by extremists to increase your appeal to moderates. The callers sounded angry at me, but I don't think they really were. This guy would stir them up while they listened, but after a couple of beers and a few hours of TV they would calm down and see things my way.
Tony from Revere was on the air, defending the police to me, when I saw Mackey beyond the glassed-in broadcast booth, talking to Kevin Feeney. I longed to go out there and join them, but instead I had to sit and listen to Tony struggle to make his point. "The police, see, they don't, like, it's not easy bein' a cop, right? They're the guys on the front lines, you understand what I'm sayin'? I mean, I think we owe them, like, a lot of support, instead of, you know, puttin' 'em down."
I assured Tony that I couldn't agree with him more, that I had always supported the police and they had always supported me.... My eyes never left Mackey. After a brief conversation he handed Kevin a manila envelope, then left the studio. He never looked at me.
During the next commercial I hurried out to Kevin. "Mackey gave you something," I said, unable to make the incident seem unimportant.
Kevin nodded a little sullenly. He was still upset with me. "Mackey said it was personal," he replied, and he handed the envelope to me.
It felt
thin. "A couple of pages," Mackey had said. I longed to rip the envelope open right there and read the contents; but the commercial was almost over, and they were signaling for me to come back, and Kevin was looking at me curiously, and I decided to wait until I had some privacy. I returned to the broadcast booth, clutching the envelope, and I talked to Ralph from Somerville about foreign policy.
The privacy didn't come until Kevin dropped me off in Hingham late that night. The house was quiet; Angelica was snoozing on the kitchen radiator; the refrigerator hummed softly. I had been at a cocktail party, a last-minute fund raiser that Roger had organized to see us through the last couple of days of wild media spending. I had eaten soggy canapés and drunk watery Coke, but now I decided that I needed some real food. I opened the refrigerator.
Tuna.
I thought of the night Amanda was murdered, standing in the same silent kitchen, staring at the same food, afraid to talk to my wife, wondering what was to become of me. Had anything changed since then? I certainly felt different. In a couple of days I could be in a jail cell. Maybe I deserved to be in a jail cell. But maybe America would be losing a great leader if that's where I ended up. I felt different, but I wasn't sure I understood what the difference meant.
I put a little more mayonnaise in the tuna and made myself a sandwich. Then I sat down at the kitchen table, opened the envelope, and looked inside.
I pulled out two badly photocopied pieces of paper; the police had evidently exhausted their budget for toner over at headquarters. The printing was dot matrix; I had no idea if it came from Amanda's printer. There was a yellow Post-it stuck to the first sheet. On it Mackey had scrawled:
All I could come up with. Pls don't show to anyone else.
Mack
P.S. Cavanaugh thought it was interesting about Everson.
I crumpled the Post-it and threw it away. And then I read what was on the sheets.
Who is he? I can't figure it out... probably because he can't figure it out himself.
You find a way to come to terms with life. You are successful; perhaps you are even happy. But it's not you. The you is buried beneath the quick grin, the perpetual sense of obligation. Not buried, really. It's in the basement of a house of cards, a house that grows more elaborate, and more fragile, with each passing year and each new triumph.
Until finally it collapses, and you have to start over.
Paradigm shift.
Did it happen in Harvard Yard?
Surely it happened with the Everson case. Everson tells him he's guilty, and down come the cards. What am I doing with my life? Where did I go wrong? How can I fix what I've suddenly realized is broken?
So he starts over, and he's successful once again, but is he any more real?
Is it happening again?
I think he loves his wife. But which he is it? One that he left behind years ago? Or—more likely—one that he should have left behind years ago, that he continues to carry with him out of the same old sense of duty?
He is afraid to look too closely at himself, still afraid after all these years that what he will see is a mother killer. Afraid that he will see someone—something—fundamentally irrational. Guilty before he knows what guilt is.
Original sin.
Irish.
And the rationality is just part of the façade—he fears. The brilliant legal mind means nothing when he's down in the basement.
The foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
Part of him wants to escape his own complexity, but he can't do it, any more than he can stop being witty, or being Irish. He wants to relax. He thought—he hoped—that I was relaxation. Then he found out I was part of the complexity, and that frightened him away. I have to make him understand that the complexity is all right, that he is all right. That we are all right.
He wants to be President.
He wants to be anything but President.
Oh, Jim.
Imagine writing your biography.
Angelica was sitting on the table now, staring at my uneaten sandwich. "You're not allowed on the table," I informed her. She moved a little closer. I gave her some of the tuna.
I read Amanda's notes a second time, and then a third. The foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart. Yeats. I remembered the drunken evening I had recited the poem to her. Champagne brought out the Irish orator in me. Was Yeats right about the heart? It was certainly starting to feel like it.
I folded the pieces of paper and put them in a locked drawer of the desk in my office. Then I went upstairs and woke up Liz, as I had on that other awful night. She stared at me groggily.
"I'm sorry to bother you," I said, "but I have to ask you a question. It's kind of important."
"Go ahead," she said, yawning.
"When you talked to Amanda that time about Jackie Scanlon, did you also mention Paul Everson?"
Her face took on that half-defensive, half-aggrieved expression I had become so used to. "I wanted to make sure she knew all the bad things about you," Liz said. "What happened with Everson was as bad as what happened with Scanlon—maybe worse. You should have done something about him, but you never did. Instead you used the case to get yourself started in politics. It wasn't right."
The old arguments sprang to my lips. How could I have done something? It would have been unethical. Besides, that isn't the kind of society we live in. Liz stared at me, daring me to make my stupid rational objections. This wasn't rational, she knew; it was personal. You don't let wife-murderers go free, just like you don't put your family at risk to cover up for your brother's idiotic mistakes.
I didn't accept the challenge. "Thanks," I said. "Sorry to wake you up."
"Why do you want to know?" she asked.
"Just—just trying to fit everything together," I replied vaguely. And then I went into the bathroom to forestall any further questions.
I stared at myself in the mirror.
He is afraid to look too closely at himself.
I was getting old. In the blink of an eye I would look like my father. My world would close in around me as his had, and nothing would be left but my memories—if I chose to remember them. Or, more likely, there would be no choice. Like Donato, like Bobby Finn, I would never be able to escape the consequences of what I had done.
And if only the memories remained, they had better be good ones. I didn't want to end up like Donato or Finn, suppressing the memories or twisting them to suit my needs.
I put on my pajamas and got into bed next to Liz. She had fallen back to sleep; evidently her interest in what I was up to had not run very deep. When she was old, what would her memories be like? I wondered. Would she regret her life with me—except, of course, for Kathleen? Or would there be moments that remained beautiful, not retrospectively ruined by what I later became? Perhaps that night at the Ritz I had sprung for when I was still a penniless law student. Or one of my proposals—at Danny's wedding, or in front of the health and beauty aids at Stop & Shop. Our own wedding day. Or perhaps just a walk along the beach, an early-morning kiss, a gaze full of shared understanding.
I couldn't tell. I couldn't even tell if I loved her, or if it was some other me who longed to take her in my arms and whisper to her how sorry I was.
I didn't do it. She wouldn't understand, and I knew I couldn't find the words to make her understand.
After the election. Everything would get fixed after the election.
Maybe that would be too late.
I stared into the darkness of our bedroom, alone with a thousand memories, trying to see if any of them could tell me what I should do.
I knew now who had murdered Amanda Taylor.
But that was only the beginning.
Chapter 28
I sleep alone here. Surprisingly, I sleep rather well. The memories are exorcised during the day, apparently, leaving my dreams to go their own way.
First thing every morning now I go for a tramp through the snowy woods in back of the house. I know them well enough at this point tha
t I'm not afraid of becoming lost and ending up a blue-skinned corpse facedown in a snowbank, food for wolves in the spring thaw. I haven't seen another human being in my travels; I wouldn't know what to do if I did. I am so used to solitude that I might just turn and run. Or I might embrace the startled stranger and burst into tears.
Not likely anyone would recognize me, with the beard I have managed to grow.
There is much more gray in my beard than in my hair.
After the walk in the woods, I make my breakfast: usually fried eggs, juice, and coffee. I am getting quite good at frying eggs. The urge to read a newspaper hasn't gone away, but it's more under control than when I first arrived here. Instead of reading, I force myself to listen to the silence. After breakfast I pour myself another cup of coffee and go upstairs to work.
Some days, like today, I have difficulty getting started. It's almost over now, and that means I have to face the hardest part. None of it has been easy, to be sure, but when I think about what I did, about what I tried to do...
No, I can't just think. I have to write. I can't let it escape, any of it. It is all too important. Especially the parts I would rather leave out.
The sun is shining brightly against my computer screen, making it hard to see the words I type. The sun didn't shine at all that day. The fog had returned, and the world was shrouded in gray.
* * *
I drove along the Mass Pike in my own fog. It was early Sunday evening, two days before the election. I had called my father and made my excuses once again; that would buy me some time. But I was supposed to be somewhere afterward, and when I didn't arrive, my staff would worry for a while and then panic. Kevin would call Harold, and Harold would call me. And call and call.
But none of that mattered now. I was lost in my fog, and I knew that I was never going to come out.
Traffic was heavy and slow at first, as the Boston drivers coped with the rotten weather; the red brake lights snaked off into invisibility a dozen car lengths ahead of me. Past Worcester the traffic dwindled but the fog got worse, so that I seemed to have the highway all to myself—my personal road to hell.
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