Senator

by Richard Bowker

  I drove on. Just a couple more blocks, and a lifetime, to my destination. It was late, but I didn't care. It was long past the time when this should have been resolved.

  The house was in darkness. I jabbed the bell several times, and then a light came on in the window to the left of the door, a silhouette appeared behind the curtain. A few moments later the porch light came on, and Melissa opened the door. She was wearing a faded terry-cloth robe; her hair was uncombed; she looked old and tired. My expression told her that I knew, and her eyes filled with tears. "Can you understand, Jim?" she said. "I had to lie for him. What else could I do? I love him. After all this time, after all he's done, I still love him."

  She sounded very much like Liz, talking about me.

  "I'm sorry, Lissa," I said. I walked past her into the house.

  He was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, pulling on a jacket. He looked at me; his eyes were frightened. "Danny," I said.

  He turned and ran.

  Melissa grabbed my arm. "Please, Jim," she said. "He'll come back. He's got nowhere else to go."

  Perhaps, but I couldn't wait. I pulled away from her and followed Danny through the kitchen and out the back door.

  He was climbing over the chain-link fence that separated his tiny backyard from his neighbor's. "Danny!" I called out, but he ignored me. He dropped down heavily on the other side of the fence and started running again.

  I ran after him.

  I ripped my pants and cut my knee on the fence, but I made it over. I was out of shape—had never really been in shape—but so was Danny. Gasping, I pursued him past the neighbor's house and out onto the street.

  We must have been a strange sight to anyone who happened to notice us chugging through the side streets of Brighton: Danny in his jacket and pajama bottoms, me in my torn pants and wing tips. Not your average middle-aged joggers. Not your average time for jogging.

  But I didn't feel especially strange, though my lungs were on fire and my knee throbbed from its encounter with the fence. These were my streets, and this was my brother, and it could have been thirty years ago, when running was something that only kids did, and you would chase one another just for the fun of being alive.

  Except that I never chased my brother, because I never could have caught him.

  "Why are Danny and me so different?" I asked my father once, thirty years ago or more.

  "Different?" he replied, looking at me blankly. "I never noticed any difference."

  I couldn't tell if he was kidding. Still can't.

  We staggered through a couple of turns, with me gaining ground despite my knee, and then Danny picked up speed as he entered a playground.

  No, not a playground, I realized as I followed him. The playground, where I had once before tried to catch him, back in his glory days.

  Danny ran past the slides and seesaws out to where the big kids played. Onto the football field, which cut across the outfield next to the baseball diamond. He stopped at about the fifty-yard line; I stopped at the twenty. "No more games, Danny," I said, bent over, hands on my thighs, trying to catch my breath. "This is for real."

  He didn't reply. Instead he planted his feet, dangled his arms at his sides, and looked to his left—looked, I realized, at an imaginary quarterback barking out the count before the snap. I waited, watching him. And then abruptly Danny was running toward me. He looked back and raised his hands, palms together, caught the phantom pass, and tucked the phantom ball under his arm.

  I was the only thing between him and the end zone.

  He headed to my right, and I ran laterally to catch up to him. I was a few yards away when he slowed and started putting the famous O'Connor moves on me: a head fake, a dip of the shoulder, a sudden burst of speed.

  In his glory days Danny would have left me in the dust. But things had changed. Thirty years had passed; the fakes were still good, but no longer good enough. I lunged and caught him around the waist. He dragged me forward with the desperate strength of a man whose career—whose life—depended on scoring this touchdown. When we both finally collapsed to the ground, I don't know if we were in the end zone. I don't know if he won the game with his last-minute heroics. I only know that we were tangled together, lying in the mud.

  And there we lay, my Irish twin and I, wet and breathless, gasping in each other's arms.

  If Paul Everson had been watching this time, would he have been able to tell the difference between us?

  "Jimmy, I screwed up," Danny said as he regained his breath. "All my life I've been screwing up, but this was the worst." That wasn't sweat on his face, I realized, and it wasn't the rain; he was crying.

  "Take it easy, Danny," I said. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"

  "I shouldn't have told her about Jackie Scanlon," he said. "But she knew. She already knew, Jimmy. I just wanted to put you in a good light—honest. But after I left, I thought about it, and I realized how bad this was gonna be for you, and I decided I had to do something about it. I know I should've just told you and let you decide how to handle it, but I had the flu and I was lying in bed and I couldn't do anything but think about it, and I thought, maybe this once—"

  He stopped for a moment and sobbed. We pulled away from each other and sat up.

  "I just wanted to get the tape back," he went on. "And anything else she had that mentioned Scanlon. Sort of put the fear of God into her. I never meant to hurt her. And I sure never meant to hurt you, Jimmy. Or, I don't know, maybe I did. It's all so complicated, you know? One minute I'm jealous of you, and the next minute I'm so proud of you I could burst. One minute I'm grateful for all you've done for me, and the next I resent it that you've had to do so much. I can never seem to figure anything out, you know? I just sorta muddle through."

  "I know the feeling, Danny," I said. And then I prompted: "So you went to her apartment"—probably wearing my hand-me-down raincoat, I realized. Head down in the fog, looking enough like me to fool even my old roommate.

  "Yeah, well, I guess I stopped to have a few drinks first, to get up my courage. And when I got there, she claimed she didn't have the tape anymore; she'd erased it and given it to this guy Paul Everson. She said she wasn't writing about you, that she was in love with you and was just trying to understand you. But that didn't make any sense. Why would she give the tape to Everson? If she loved you, why was she sneaking around behind your back interviewing people?"

  "I don't know, Danny," I had to admit.

  "I was just going to threaten her," he said, "but I screwed up. She ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. I wrestled it away from her. I was mad at her for lying to me. I was mad at myself for being so stupid. I was drunk, and I wasn't thinking straight. I had the knife in my hand. She was trying to get away from me. And then... then..."

  "It's all right, Danny," I said. "I know what happened then."

  Danny struggled to get control of himself and finally went on. "And of course after, I turned the place upside down looking for the tape and it wasn't there, there wasn't anything I could find about Scanlon, and all the time I think someone's gonna show up any minute and that'll be the end of everything. So then I give up and I try to make it look like a robbery, but I was too scared to even do that right. And, I dunno, the computer was on and it was just sitting there, so I just started typing; I was trying to convince myself more than anything—you know, that it wasn't all a waste, a stupid awful mistake. 'She had to die. She had to die.' " He paused. "So then I go home and I get back in bed and I wait for the cops to come and haul me off.

  "But you were the one that got into trouble, not me. How was I supposed to know you'd discover the body? And I thought, Jesus, all I was tryin' to do was get him out of trouble.

  "And then people started talkin' about how you two were probably lovers, and that was the worst. I mean, what if she was telling the truth about everything? But if there was something going on, you were probably just foolin' around with her, right? No way you really loved her—right, Jimmy?"
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br />   You idiot, I wanted to scream at him. What do you know about me? Why do you keep trying to drag me down with you? I did love her. And you took her from me before I had a chance to tell her.

  And then I stared at my brother, sitting in the mud, dirty and helpless and pitiful, awaiting my answer. And in that moment I learned something about love.

  "No," I said. "There was nothing between me and Amanda Taylor, Danny."

  He closed his eyes. "I didn't think so, Jimmy. I didn't think so." He sounded immensely relieved. And then he turned solemn. "I'm sorry I lied to you about this. I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll turn myself in if you think I should."

  Did I think that? If he confessed, it might save me. He wouldn't have to bring up Jackie Scanlon; he wouldn't even have to bring up Jim O'Connor. He made a pass at her during the interview, and she rejected him. He was drunk. He was crazy. It was a stupid argument. Second-degree murder, open and shut. Cavanaugh wouldn't even get a trial out of it.

  If he confessed, justice would be done. The tide of lawlessness and anarchy that threatened our precious American way of life would be held back just a little. And Amanda's family might find some small satisfaction in knowing her killer had been caught.

  If he confessed, my father's heart would break.

  I couldn't tell him what to do. I didn't know anything anymore. "Do what you have to, Danny," I said. "Don't do it for my sake."

  "The hell of it is," Danny said, "I feel like my life is finally turning around. Did I tell you about this job they called me about—like out of the blue? I really think I'm gonna get it. And I promised Lissa I'd quit drinking, and I know I can do it this time. I hit bottom there for a while—I mean, Christ, murder. But now—"

  He fell silent. Justice, I thought. Everyone is guilty.

  Everyone is innocent.

  "Let's go home," I said.

  Danny looked at me. "Okay, Jimmy," he whispered. "Okay."

  I tried getting to my feet, but my knee complained. Danny reached out a hand and helped me up. And then we walked out of the playground and back through the streets where we had grown up, the dull working-class neighborhood that I had been so thrilled to get out of, that Danny felt so trapped inside.

  "Born here, and looks like I'm gonna die here," he murmured. "Pretty depressing, huh?"

  "I don't know," I said.

  "Yeah, I don't know either. The old neighborhood has some great memories—right, Jimmy?"

  Most of them had never struck me as particularly great. Danny was just trying to work up a little nostalgia again. But then I changed my mind. The memories were great, I realized, because they were ours. And that was reason enough. "Yeah," I said. "Great memories."

  He pointed to a house. "Remember the time that crabby Mrs. Donnelly chased after us with a hockey stick when we were cutting through her yard?"

  I had never cut through Mrs. Donnelly's yard. "Great memories," I repeated.

  "She's dead now. Most all of 'em are dead. But still."

  When we strolled into Danny's house, Melissa was waiting, terrified, in the kitchen. "It's all right," I said to her. "Everything's going to be all right."

  She closed her eyes. "Thank God," she whispered.

  Danny sat down at the kitchen table. "I've never been so tired in my life," he said.

  I sat down at the table next to him. "Anyone got a Band-Aid?" I asked.

  * * *

  Cars littered my driveway when I finally pulled into it, and the house was ablaze with lights. Kathleen came running out to greet me as I got out of the car. She hugged me and laid her head against my chest. "Everyone's so worried, Daddy," she said.

  "It's all right," I said. "Everything's going to be all right." I walked inside with my arm around her shoulders.

  The brain trust was in the kitchen. They didn't know whether to be relieved or angry—except for Harold. He was angry. "You look like hell," he said. "Where have you been?"

  I glanced down at my pants, torn and caked with dried mud. "Playing football," I said. "Sorry I didn't let you know. It won't happen again."

  "Don't do us any favors."

  "Jim, my sources say that Cavanaugh's going to arrest you tomorrow," Roger announced mournfully.

  "Today," Marge corrected, glancing at her watch.

  Kathleen looked up at me, tears in her eyes.

  "No, he isn't," I said, squeezing her shoulder.

  "If you're counting on Finn to help you out," Harold said, "forget it. It was a clever idea, but it won't work. He's been in touch; he thought I knew what you were up to. Fat chance. Anyway, Cavanaugh isn't budging."

  "Doesn't matter," I said. "I've got a better idea."

  "What?"

  "You'll see."

  Harold looked as if he were using all his self-control to keep from strangling me.

  "I told Harold about Donato, Senator," Kevin said. "I think maybe if we—"

  "We're leaving Donato out of it, Kevin. All I have to do is make a phone call, and everything will be taken care of. Tomorrow—today—it's business as usual. One last day of campaigning, and I'm going to make it a good one. I've let you down a lot these past few weeks, but I won't let you down anymore."

  People stared at me. They were thinking: It's too late. And I thought: Maybe they're right. But I couldn't let them feel my doubts, or everything would fall apart, and then they would certainly be right.

  "You owe us an explanation," Harold said.

  "I know I do. But you're not going to get one. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Now why don't you all go home and get some sleep? I'm going to make my call, and then I'm going to go to sleep myself."

  I kissed Kathleen on the top of the head and walked out of the kitchen. No one stopped me; they were all too dazed. I went into my office, shut the door, tossed my jacket onto a chair, and made the phone call. Afterward I sat behind my desk for a while, listening to the cars pull out of the driveway. Even the cars sounded bewildered. When I came out, the kitchen was empty, except for Angelica, who looked at me expectantly. I smiled and gave her some milk, and then I turned out the lights and went upstairs.

  Liz was sitting up in bed, waiting for me.

  "Hi," I said, starting to undress.

  "Hi."

  "Sorry for all the fuss."

  She looked at me. "For a guy who's going to be arrested on a murder charge in the morning, you don't seem very worried."

  "I'm innocent. Justice will prevail. Everything's going to be all right." I was going to keep repeating that until I believed it.

  "I happened to notice that my gun is missing," Liz said. "Would you know anything about that?"

  I stopped putting on my pajama bottom and looked up at her. "It's in my glove compartment. I'll bring it in first thing in the morning."

  "Jim," she said, "you didn't do anything stupid, did you?" Her eyes glistened with incipient tears.

  "I've done more stupid things than I can count," I said. "But I think I managed to avoid adding to them tonight."

  "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"

  I thought: Could I? "After the election, Liz," I murmured. "We'll talk about everything after the election."

  That seemed to satisfy her, at least for the moment. She lay back against her pillow. I got in bed next to her, and we fell asleep as if this had been just one more normal day in our normal marriage.

  Chapter 30

  "I don't usually speak to the press. But I thought it was important to inform the public why I went to see the district attorney just now, and that's why I've asked you all to come here this morning.

  "I explained to District Attorney Cavanaugh that I possessed certain information that I felt was crucial to his investigation of the murder of Amanda Taylor. In fact, I was in Amanda Taylor's apartment on the afternoon she was murdered. As you may know, I was Jim O'Connor's college roommate, and he later defended me when District Attorney Cavanaugh's office charged me with the murder of my wife. So naturally Ms. Taylor was interested in interviewing
me for the book she was writing about Senator O'Connor. Since I happened to be in Boston on business that day, I agreed to meet her at her apartment.

  "I arrived there at four o'clock. I saw a young man in a hooded sweatshirt leaving the building as I entered, but I thought nothing of it at the time. I rang the bell, but there was no answer. The inner door was open in the lobby, however, so I decided to go up to her apartment and knock on the door in case the bell was broken. Her door was unlocked as well, and it looked as if someone had beaten on it with a hammer.

  "I went inside. The apartment had been ransacked. I searched the place, and I discovered Amanda Taylor's body on the kitchen floor. And then, I'm sorry to say, I panicked and left the scene of the crime.

  "Why did I panic? It's simple. I had been on trial for murder before, and I didn't want to be implicated in another one, particularly when it bore a superficial resemblance to the death of my wife. I don't know why anyone would think that I was involved, but I didn't want to take any chances. What I did was wrong, and I only hope I have helped to make up for it by finally coming forward today.

  "Why did I wait so long? you may ask; certainly this is something the district attorney wanted to know. Well, the longer I waited, the harder it became. Once the police investigation started, of course, I was doubly afraid to come forward since I had no good explanation for not reporting the crime. But finally I began to feel very guilty about my silence. The investigation didn't appear to be making much progress, and I felt that perhaps my information might help get it going again.

  "I expect that I may end up in trouble for coming forward. Perhaps some people might even suggest that I murdered Amanda Taylor. I assure you that I did not. The best evidence I can give of my innocence is that no one compelled me to do what I'm doing today. Certainly the district attorney's office has not contacted me, and I'm not aware of any press reports linking me to Amanda Taylor or her murder. I only want to see justice served. The district attorney, I believe, received my information in that spirit. I trust that you will, too."

  Kevin Feeney received the information in a slightly different spirit. "They're screwed, Senator! The Democrats are screwed!" he whispered to me as I finished an interview with a TV anchor that morning. Kevin looked as if he wanted to kiss me. The station played a tape of the press conference for me afterward. Everson looked contrite, serious, imposing. The questions after his statement were skeptical, focusing on his relationship with me, but he didn't rattle. This had nothing to do with me, he said; as far as he knew, I wasn't even a suspect. Besides, he didn't even know if his statement would help me.