“Tell me you had nothing to do with this,” Caroline said.
He turned to her and detected a vulnerability he hadn’t seen in many years, other than in the months following Matthew’s death—and that had been grief and despair more than weakness. Her eyes looked plaintive, needful, the way they’d looked when they met twenty-five years ago, when she was as insecure as she was ambitious.
“Tell me you had nothing to do with this,” she repeated with a very slight trembling in her voice. He pulled the covers off her. She had on a short dressing gown, essentially a white T-shirt, but it had doubtless cost several hundred dollars. At fifty-one her body was still nearly flawless. He ran a hand along her thigh, pushing up the dressing gown. He’d forgotten how soft her legs were, how firm. They felt expensive, like fine cloth. He’d barely touched her since Matthew’s death and hadn’t, until that moment, realized how much he’d missed it. She turned away.
“Not until you talk to me,” she said.
He angled himself on top of her and yanked the nightshirt above her waist.
“Answer me, Julian. Tell me—stop that.”
It was over in less than a minute.
She turned her back to him the moment he moved off her and it occurred to him that the plane crash had affected him more than he suspected. How else to explain the sudden, urgent need, dormant for two years? He detected a slight vibration on the bed. Caroline was crying. When he placed a hand on her shoulder she shrugged it off. He reached around her and pulled her to him, gently pressing her into his chest.
“It will be all right, Caroline,” he said softly. She shook her head. “I’ve never failed, you know that. I’ve never failed at anything.”
She pulled away, eyes swollen and red with tears.
“Matthew,” she whispered.
Was she reminding him of his one failure, a catastrophic one? Was Matthew’s death his failure? Or was she merely suggesting that some things were beyond his control? He didn’t want to contemplate either possibility, so he pressed her face into his chest in a pantomime of comfort giving.
• • •
Harry and Marcella Lightstone heard the news while watching CNN in the bedroom of their suite at the Manchester, New Hampshire, Radisson. There was a debate tomorrow at which the presence of the candidates’ wives was all but mandatory, which explained the rare presence of both of them at the same location. There would be a lot more togetherness in the coming months, and if he won the nomination—a remote possibility, even with, as of that evening, a somewhat narrowed field—there would be even more togetherness afterward. They were mostly silent as they took in the news that Senator Charles Moore was dead, along with his pilot and two campaign aides. Harry felt paralyzed by conflicting emotions: the loss of a friend and colleague, the sudden promotion of his own candidacy, the inevitable delay of the debate, and the too-awful-to-consider notion that the crash was no accident.
“The race has narrowed to four candidates,” said a political commentator on CNN. “But in a sense it’s narrowed even further. The conventional wisdom is that Harry Lightstone and Gabriel Rooney will fight over the far-right block that Senator Moore had locked up, leaving the other two to duke it out for the party’s moderate center.”
“Conventional wisdom,” Harry said, turning to Marcella. “He’s been dead less than an hour.”
“You’ll need a statement.”
“I’ll have Michael draft something in the morning.” Michael Steers, his communications director, would find the right combination of remorse and inspiration.
“No, I think we need to get something out tonight.”
He looked at her. Marcella’s profile could not be described as attractive, but she had grown into her looks in the eighteen years of their marriage, from a young woman unable to find a style that suited her to a confident woman of forty-two with a sense of style and a presence that evoked words like “handsome” and “striking” in press coverage. He considered telling her about Julian Mellow, about his suspicions about the crash. But she’d never had much respect for his fortitude, and she’d think him even weaker and more craven than before, first for what he’d done in San Francisco, then for what he’d agreed to in New York, and he couldn’t take that added burden just then. Then again, perhaps she wouldn’t care. She wanted the White House far more than he did.
“It’s nine at night,” he said. “What good will it do—”
“We need to be first. By tomorrow morning all the candidates will have a statement out. If we act quickly we’ll have the eleven o’clock news to ourselves. Get one of the media girls up here.” The campaign employed two full-time media relations professionals, both women in their thirties, both staying at the Radisson.
“Charlie Moore was a friend of mine.” His voice broke, as much in response to her coldness as for Charlie. “One of the finest men I knew.”
She stood up and crossed to his desk. “Excellent, we’ll use that.” She began tapping out a statement on his laptop while he sat there, staring at live footage of the smoking wreckage in Maine, wondering in a halfhearted way if he wouldn’t be better off where Charlie was at that moment.
“This is why we worked so hard to get your campaign infrastructure up and running as quickly as possible,” she said as she typed. “So we wouldn’t let opportunities like this one slip by. I’ll email the statement down to the girls, who’ll send it to the networks, but you should prepare some off-the-cuff remarks for a live broadcast. Maybe something from the sidewalk in front of the hotel; that’ll give the impression of impromptu honesty. I think I can get at least one news crew over here, a local Manchester station, but they’ll upload it to the networks if it’s any good. Try to dig up some anecdotes about Charlie, personal stuff, and don’t forget to mention his wife and kids. This could be an important night for us.”
• • •
Billy Sandifer was in the visitors’ lounge of the Newman Center when the news came through. Rebecca was next to him on the sofa, brushing the hair of her doll. There wasn’t much hair left to brush; she went through dolls every few months, and usually he remembered to bring her a new one when he visited, always the same one, from American Girl, the Felicity model in colonial frock and hat, her eyes as blank as Rebecca’s. It had to be Felicity. He’d been distracted lately and forgotten the doll. Rebecca was fourteen, and though breasts had appeared over the past year, her face looked much younger. Autism had that effect, preserving a kind of physical innocence, but she still looked too old to be fussing over a doll’s hair, and the breasts were something he couldn’t quite get used to. Did all fathers feel that way about their daughters’ breasts, or was it the doll and the sweetly blank face and the fact that she’d never be womanly in any meaningful sense? She wore a very loose cotton T-shirt and baggy cotton sweatpants, always the same outfit, which she had in multiples. Shortly after he left Williston, when they’d briefly lived together, Rebecca had squirmed and squealed whenever he forced a pretty blouse or sweater on her, then scratched her arms and shoulders raw until he let her take it off. Most clothes felt like sandpaper on her skin, according to one of the earliest therapists he had consulted. His beautiful daughter could not bear the touch of wool or silk or synthetics of any kind. Or him.
Some of the residents at Newman seemed more engaged than Rebecca, and sometimes he blamed himself for this, wondering if perhaps he might have forged a closer bond with her if he’d been around for her earlier years. Mostly he knew it wouldn’t have made a difference. In addition to being on the autism spectrum, Rebecca was “functioning in the mentally retarded range,” as one specialist had put it. The center had done wonders for her, making her more independent, self-reliant. But there was nothing they could do about making her the daughter he wanted. Not an intelligent, vivacious, achieving daughter—he’d long since given up on that. But a daughter who smiled when he entered the room, responded to his touch without flinching, offered something, when he left her, to encourage a return visit.
&nbs
p; He watched TV for a few moments as the bodies were removed from the wreckage, the cameras keeping a respectful distance. Four people on the plane, the announcer said. Billy had figured there’d be at least that many and was vaguely relieved that there hadn’t been more. An attendant entered the room and, speaking slowly and quietly, said that visiting hours were over. The sound of her voice caused Rebecca to start, and it was a few seconds before she stopped shivering. A car alarm from the parking lot could cause her to clasp her hands over her ears, as if an air raid siren had gone off inches away. Her father’s voice, however, had virtually no impact.
He placed a hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. She didn’t exactly squirm or pull away, but she didn’t exactly look at him either. Her indifference felt worse than rejection; he never got used to it. She stood up and walked directly to the attendant, a pleasant, plump, gray-haired woman. That’s what a hundred grand a year bought—friendly, grandmotherly attendants instead of the surly prison wardens he’d seen on tours of state institutions. He looked back at the screen in time to see two policemen carrying a black, zippered body bag from the fuselage. Something else a hundred grand a year bought: a dead senator, a dead pilot, and what was presumed to be two dead campaign aides.
“Goodbye, sweetie,” he said to Rebecca in the hallway. She hugged her doll to her chest as the attendant led her back to her room.
Chapter 17
Since his trip to San Francisco, Zach had forced himself to put the Julian Mellow–Harry Lightstone–Billy Sandifer connection out of his mind. Sarah had not found out about the trip, but she’d become more and more insistent that he find meaningful work. He’d been trying. And in truth, he hadn’t been able to dig up anything more on the connection. He scoured the internet, read every financial report he could lay his hands on, but the three men never appeared in articles together, never attended the same events—sometimes he wondered if he had fabricated the links among them, imagined them out of some need to make his nemesis even more sinister than he really was.
That night, after Sarah fell asleep, Zach felt a surge of restlessness. He quietly got out of bed and went to the living room, where he turned on the computer and navigated to the New York Times site, where he learned that Senator Charles Moore had died in a plane crash ten minutes after taking off from a landing strip in Barrie, Maine. He flicked on the television, turned the volume down, and watched with grim interest as various experts assessed the new political landscape now that one of the lead players was off the field. Where did these pundits come from on such short notice? Did the networks keep them in some sort of holding tank behind the studio, on the off chance that disaster might strike? Did they sleep in their suits, fully made up, just in case a plane crashed, a car skidded off an icy road, a heart gave out? It seemed monstrous, somehow, to so quickly and dispassionately piece together a new landscape around the sudden and tragic absence of one of its inhabitants. Harry Lightstone and Gabriel Rooney were now the frontrunners. In fact, there was Senator Lightstone in front of a hotel in Manchester, sending his condolences out to “the family.” He sure as hell hadn’t wasted any time, though he looked genuinely distraught, despite vows to continue his campaign for “the very values that Charlie fought for his entire career.” Standing just behind Lightstone was his wife. Her face was frozen in a mournful frown, but something about her eyes, the way they seemed to be looking past the scene at hand to that new landscape the pundits were talking about, made her appear more calculating than dismayed. Zach had never much admired Harry Lightstone, or Charles Moore, for that matter.
He clicked to the Arthur Sandler email account and encountered the usual profusion of spam. He worked his way down the list, deleting pitches for penis enlargers, Viagra prescriptions, and porn sites, until one email got his attention. “Yes, I’ve seen this man,” read the subject line. The sender’s Yahoo address was LoveHaight. Zach opened the email.
Hey. Yeah, so I saw this note you tacked up on the board at Castro Coffee, must have been there a long time because half of it was covered with more recent stuff. I’m at the place right now.
Zach had forgotten about the photo he’d taped to the wall. In the months since his trip to San Francisco he hadn’t received a single call or email.
Anyway, I saw the guy in the photo. Billy Sandifer, used to be this major anti-globalist back when. We all were. Protesting trade talks, that kinda shit. Billy would hook up with me when he came to SF. Later I read he went to jail for blowing something up, I don’t remember what. I was never into politics much then, but he and I did ludes together in SF when he was in town. Guy was seriously off the wall. This one time? We were looking to score some weed in the Tenderloin and this black dude pretends he’s gonna sell us a dime bag or something and ends up pulling a gun on us and taking every cent we had. I thought it was all over and when he took off with our cash I figured that was the end of it. Not Billy. He takes off after the guy, tackles him, and starts beating the shit out of him. I kicked the gun out of his hand and got our money, but Billy wouldn’t let up, he would’ve killed the fucker if I hadn’t pulled him off. Mr. World Peace, right? Mr. I Just Wanna Help the Kids. I don’t think he gave a shit about workers and trade. He just needed to make trouble. A freak, you ask me. Anyway, yeah, I saw him last November, in the Castro, a Wednesday morning, I think. Walking fast down Church Street. I was heading to a job, I do renovations, probably worked on half the Victorians in the Castro, and it wasn’t until after he passed me that I realized who it was. I called his name but he kept walking. I know I had the right guy because he started walking faster after I called his name, which kinda confirmed it for me. Anyway, don’t know why you want information about him, but that’s as much as I know. Don’t try to contact me, by the way. Won’t work. I opened a Yahoo Mail address to send this. I put that period of my life, drugs and shit, behind me a long time ago and I don’t need trouble. And Billy, he scared me. I don’t need that shit now. I just thought I’d write and let you know that I had seen him. Last person I thought I’d see in the Castro, you know what I mean? Straight as an arrow, least he was in those days. But who knows? Peace.
Zach reread the email, then found some paper and began making notes. Billy Sandifer had flown to San Francisco on Julian Mellow’s jet, gone more or less directly to Church Street, where, within a few hours, Danielle Bruneau had been murdered. At the same time, a parallel story was taking place: minutes after Sandifer got off the jet, Senator Harry Lightstone got on. The night before, Lightstone had been seen leaving the Saint Francis hotel a few steps ahead of Bruneau.
Zach put the pen down and considered what he’d written. As he saw it, Harry Lightstone and Billy Sandifer were connected in two ways: by Danielle Bruneau (or Dan Bowdin) and by Julian Mellow. It didn’t exactly make sense, but it couldn’t be pure coincidence either.
And now the senator was associated with a second tragic death, this time of his political rival.
“With the New Hampshire primary just two weeks away, it remains to be seen if the Moore campaign will officially lend its support to another candidate,” a pundit was saying.
Remains to be seen? Smoke was still swirling up from the wreckage. Zach used the remote to turn off the TV and was about to log off the computer when he had a thought. He Googled “Barrie, Maine” and found the town’s official site. The private airstrip was noted, but the nearest commercial flights came into Augusta. He found the phone number he needed on another site and called the sole airline that connected the New York area with State Airport in Augusta. A reservation clerk picked up almost immediately.
“Yes, I was scheduled to meet a passenger arriving from LaGuardia earlier today, a William Sandifer. I was told he got on the plane but I never saw him. Can you confirm that he was on the plane?”
“Which flight was that?”
Zach had to guess. “The ten fifteen.”
“No, I’m sorry, there was no one by that name confirmed on the ten fifteen.”
“Maybe that was the problem; he to
ok a later flight.”
“Let me see…I can check the one thirty for you.”
“That would be great.”
He heard her typing, then her voice. “Sorry, he wasn’t on that flight, either.”
“I wonder if I could have gotten the day wrong. Could you check yesterday’s flights?”
More typing, then she chuckled. “Looks like you got your wires crossed, sir. Mr. Sandifer was on the one thirty flight yesterday. I hope that helps.”
Instead of elation, Zach felt a sense of dread fall over him. It was one thing to draw dotted lines on a piece of paper between Danielle Bruneau in San Francisco, a nineties radical, and a ranking member of the US Senate. Even he thought it was all a bit too loony to be credible. It was another thing to act on a stupid hunch only to learn that your most paranoid fantasies were in fact grounded in reality.
“Zach, what are you doing?”
He almost jumped out of the chair.
Sarah stood in the doorway to the bedroom.
“I thought you were asleep,” he said.
“The TV woke me up.”
“Senator Moore’s plane crashed. He’s dead.”
“That’s horrible.”
Every instinct told him to leave it there, but he couldn’t. “Sarah, I got an email tonight. This guy in San Francisco, he saw Billy Sandifer on the street where that prostitute was killed, remember I told you about her? Billy Sandifer and Harry Lightstone were on Julian Mellow’s plane together. Well, not together, but the same day. And Lightstone and the hooker were at the same hotel together. So anyway, when I saw the news tonight about the crash, I don’t know, it just seemed too weird that Lightstone was involved with—or, not involved with, but in contact with two deaths. I called the airport nearest where his plane took off, Senator Moore’s plane, not Julian’s. And guess what, Billy Sandifer flew into that airport yesterday afternoon. I’m going to check with the car rental agencies up there in Augusta, just to confirm, but I’d bet you anything he rented a car, and maybe someone spotted him heading south, or near the Barrie landing strip, that’s where Moore’s plane took off…” He checked his watch. “Five hours ago.”
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