by Peter Stone
The employee started knocking nonstop at the dressing room door. “Okay, lovebirds,” she said. “Out of there.”
Lena sheepishly opened the door and shot the clerk an apologetic smile. I played along and followed Lena out of the store, shoulders slumped in feigned shame.
The sidewalk was swelling with foot traffic from the early- evening commute. Lena’s demanding eyes seemed to ask, What now?
“Lena . . . ,” I reluctantly admitted, “I told Katie things. I told her—”
“You what?” she snapped. “Do you realize—”
“I know, I know.” I cut her off and finished the sentence in my head. Whatever I told Katie will be used against me. Katie belongs to BIB. She knew all along. Katie is a killer. Then I saw that it was just after five p.m., the photo shoot with BIB less than a half hour away. “I need to get back to the office,” I said to myself.
“You can’t go back there,” Lena warned.
“Memo said I have to continue as if everything’s normal,” I told her. “And besides, if I suddenly disappear, they’ll think something’s up. And believe me, they’ll find me.”
“Look, I know I said you should look into this, dig deeper, whatever.” She placed both hands on my shoulders. “But I think it’s time to leave this alone. You confided in the devil.”
Twin chills shot from my upper back and through the sides of my head, then ricocheted throughout my brain. Katie Campbell. Mentor. Murderer. Very poorly chosen confidante.
“Thanks,” I said, easing away from her. “Keep that video; don’t show anyone. I need to tell Memo. I need to get back to the office before . . .”
My footsteps and thoughts were frantic. I bumped into some lady in a pantsuit, who sighed loudly in response. I kept walking and pulled out my phone to text Memo the latest. There were seventeen missed calls from Berto.
I dismissed the calls and started texting Memo. Katie Campbell killed Ariel. Have video. Followed by, Do u have statement from Meteer yet?
The phone screen filled with Berto’s name. This time I picked up.
“Berto. What the hell?” I said, almost jogging to the entrance of Metro Center. “What’s going on?”
“That’s my question. I’ve been calling you for days. You don’t answer my calls anymore? What’s going on?” he shouted.
I answered: “Look, I can’t really talk right now. I’m—”
“That’s all you ever say to me these days,” he interrupted. “I’m sick of it.”
“There’s no way you would understand,” I explained.
“Oh, nice. So you go to Washington, DC, and now you are all grown-up, and the stupid friend you left behind in Lagrima wouldn’t understand. And I have to call you three thousand times to get you to tell me that.”
“Look, this is insane political stuff. You work in a grocery store—,” I said and then immediately regretted as I stepped down into the Metro station.
“Used to work at a grocery store,” he cut me off.
I stopped just short of losing cell signal in the cavernous station below.
“What?” I asked.
“They’re shutting down the store,” he explained. “I lost the job. My mom doesn’t know how we’re going to pay the rent. But I’ll stop there. You wouldn’t understand. . . .”
I heard the whir of the advancing train. My last chance to get back to the office for the immortalized close-up with BIB. And if I wasn’t there, they would start asking questions. BIB, Katie, whoever else . . .
“Berto . . . ,” I said. “I’m sorry, and I suck, but I have to go.”
“You did it,” he said, somewhat defeated.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You became a douchebag,” he responded.
“That isn’t fair, Berto,” I retorted, as the braking train announced its arrival at the station. “Berto?”
There was no response. He said what he needed to say. He had ended the call and maybe our friendship.
I ran down the escalator and was the last person to get on the train headed back toward Capitol South. And even though I looked around the train for signs of any threat, all I could see was Katie’s frozen, illuminated, criminal, black-and-white face.
24
I made it to the southeastern corner of the Capitol exactly one minute before Katie led a parade of BIB, Zeph, Hillary, and a geared-out photographer to the site of the traditional summer photo. Even though I had run from the Capitol South stop and my light blue shirt blotted perspiration from my stomach, I tried to appear calm and cool. And blissfully unaware of Lena’s discovery.
“Sweaty much?” taunted Hillary, who had gone full-on skintern for the occasion. She looked as if she had prepared to walk the red carpet at the Teen Choice Awards show—some ponytail Mohawk thing going on in her hair, fresh coat of severe makeup, and an all-black outfit that was Congress on top and club below. She self-consciously pulled down her skirt, while pushing away a dutiful Zeph, who was attempting to fan her with a manila folder.
“Nice” was all I could muster to communicate my diminished tolerance of Hillary and amazement at Zeph’s advanced stage of emasculation.
“Hi, Cameron,” said a cheery Katie, who held BIB’s briefcase and a clipboard of files while the photographer readied the congressman for his close-up.
She knew I knew about Branson. But she did not know that I had just seen her in the dooming, final moments of Ariel’s life. It took all of the manufactured warmth I could muster to respond, “Hey, what’s up?” I didn’t look her in the eye.
Act normal. Memo’s admonition rang in my head.
“Well, are we going to do this or what?” said BIB, with the golly-gee enthusiasm of a grandpa about to take pictures with unruly grandkids. He looked sharp and shiny. Too electable to be trusted. “We’ve sure loved having you with us this summer.”
The photographer positioned Hillary and BIB in the center, with Zeph and me on either side. The massive Capitol building behind us was the rich butter yellow of late-afternoon sun. Hillary let out a giggle that seemed to indicate her glee at this seminal moment in her life. Then a louder, naughtier squeal confirmed that her excitement was more connected to Zeph’s likely grabbing of her butt.
Without warning, the photographer began clicking away. As the brief session proceeded, BIB slowly moved his left arm around my back, his hand covering my shoulder. His hand felt uncomfortably heavy, as he let out the kind of fake laughter that people do when they’re trying to have a natural smile in a photo. The only thing that stopped me from lurching away was the permanency of the record that was being taken. I smiled back.
“Looking good!” approved Katie from behind the photographer. “Okay, we’re done.”
Hillary leaped over to the photographer so she could see the digital results.
“Zeph, you look so handsome,” she said, now publicly embracing their once-hidden relationship.
BIB shook his left hand as if he was flicking something off of it.
“Boy, you really are sweating,” he said to me. I looked down at my two-toned light blue and dark, sweaty blue shirt.
“See, Congressman Beck, I said that too!” commented Hillary. “Are you mowing lawns in your free time, Cam? You’re so good at that. . . .”
Before I could reply to the insult part, BIB added, “You know what Truman said . . .”
Katie chimed in, “If you can’t stand the heat . . .”
“Get out of the kitchen,” followed BIB, his eyes seething. The pithy political quote sounded more like a warning. A mandate to get the hell out of his business.
“We’ve got to prep for your committee meeting in the morning, BIB,” said Katie before placing her hand on the lower part of his immaculately suited back and guiding him toward the Rayburn building.
As Zeph, Hillary, and I walked back to the office, I glanced at the phone Memo gave me and saw a missed call from him. Now disputing the chemical content of elementary school cafeteria hot dogs, Hillary and Zeph didn’t
seem to notice that I stayed outside as they walked in the door. Memo picked up after a single ring.
“What is this video?” was his greeting.
“Katie,” I told him. “She killed Ariel. I have it on tape.”
“What exactly do you have on tape?”
“A security camera—it shows Katie pushing Ariel into the car of this drunk guy. Just before she died.”
“That’s a friend opening a car door for another friend,” he said. “Hardly homicide. And how’d you get access to security camera footage, anyway?”
“You have to see it, Memo. Katie knew that Ariel would die, or get hurt. Isn’t that what BIB wanted? To get Ariel out of the picture? And this makes it look like he didn’t do anything at all.”
“Which is exactly the problem. Good luck connecting those dots for a grand jury.”
Katie’s intention and guilt—so clear to me in Lena’s video—were fading under the microscope of legal scrutiny.
“You haven’t answered my question, by the way. The tape?”
“It’s my friend Lena, the Mexican Ambassador’s daughter. She has all these security guard friends and—”
“Excuse me?” interrupted Memo. “Now you have an assistant in all of this?”
“I thought she could help. And you’re not exactly the most pleasant person to work with, if no one’s told you before. . . .”
“Okay, I’ve gotten the unpleasant thing before. Whatever. And this tape might be helpful supporting evidence, assuming your amiga did her homework and obtained it legally. But you need words—a confession—to seal the deal. And you need to not tell your little girlfriend about our . . . project. Look, kid . . .”
I shrugged off the word “kid” as I heard it through the phone. I’m your partner in this, dude.
“One murder at a time, okay? I told you to lie low. Our goal here is the Branson thing. Once we take care of that, the circumstances of Ariel’s death will fall into much better focus.”
“But we can’t let them get away with this, Memo! A girl died because it was convenient for BIB. And Katie made it happen.”
“Do I need to be concerned about you?” Memo asked. “Look, I really appreciate your help this summer, but now you need to just be an intern and let me do my job.”
“You’re able to do your job because I’m more than just an intern,” I reminded him.
“Fine, yes, you’re right,” he admitted. “But so am I. Please. Eye on the prize. And the prize is Branson. Gotta go.”
He hung up, and I put the phone in my pocket. As I walked the wide marble halls back to the office, I glanced around to make sure no one was there and then kicked the wall as hard as I could. The cold white surface, of course, bore no bruise as a result. And I realized that, as much as I wanted to expose the Branson scandal, it was Ariel’s death I really wanted to avenge. She had taken me under her wing, after all—if only for a week. She was trying to help Memo, just like me. She was just a few years older than me. And Memo dismissed my efforts with a first-things-first philosophy that sounded more bureaucratic than brave. And I know it’s selfish, but I thought about the CVSU contract, and how the Branson thing could get caught up in court for years. Ariel’s death was more recent, and news of BIB’s role in the accident would sink him in the court of public opinion, which is what really matters anyway. And sinking BIB meant my dad got the contract. Memo had promised.
I took a deep breath before walking back into the office, where twenty minutes stood between me and the end of the day. I sat at my desk. Ariel’s desk. My left shoulder throbbed from BIB’s aggressive grip and my jaw clenched from the letdown of Memo’s response.
As much as I wanted to deny, it had been a summer of uneasy smiles. Of triple meanings and double lives—myself included. It was a foggy maze—you couldn’t see the next level of bad until it was six inches away from your face. And it looked right back at you.
While I studied satellite Google images of Lagrima, my desk phone rang. It was the first time anyone called me the whole summer.
“It’s for you, Carter,” Hillary said from the reception desk. “Some weirdo insisted that I transfer the call directly to you. And you’re lucky, because I almost didn’t answer. It’s closing time.”
She joined the prompt end-of-day exodus from the office as I picked up the line.
“Cameron Carter?” a young, nasally voice inquired.
“Yes,” I replied. “Who is this?”
“This is Congresswoman Nani Lancaster’s office,” he said. “She’d like to see you now. Longworth building.”
“What is this about?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, but Congresswoman Lancaster said it’s urgent and that you shouldn’t mention it to anyone over there. Okay?” He abruptly hung up the phone.
The last time I had seen or heard of Nani Lancaster was her mournful but resolute interview in the aftermath of Ariel’s death. Had she discovered that there was more to her daughter’s accident than a plastered law student? Could she help? I thought of my own mother, and the excruciating lack of answers that surround any fatal car accident. What if they had been driving three seconds later? What if the car battery had been dead? What if the chief of staff hadn’t pushed her daughter into the passenger seat of a drunk driver?
I started texting Memo about the invitation, to let him know. To ask his permission. But he had communicated his priority: Branson. And this was a meeting with Ariel’s mom—perfectly timed and irresistibly ambiguous. I deleted my text to Memo. He would have said no, and I wasn’t willing to accept that.
Ariel wouldn’t, and neither would I.
I left the office, joining the wave of workers that exited the Rayburn building and then weaving my way against the departing throngs, into the Longworth building. It was the runt of the congressional office buildings, dwarfed by the Rayburn on one side and the Cannon on the other. Even still, the marble interiors and row of representative state flags down the hallway were bright and majestic. I followed the directory until I reached Lancaster’s state flag—the royal-blue banner of Virginia. I looked more closely at the text on the flag, which read SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS. I tried to recall the meaning of this phrase and why it sounded so familiar when a slender, balding staffer emerged from the office.
“You’re here,” he said. “Right this way.”
The foyer of Lancaster’s office was bathed in a cheap, fluorescent hue that belied the stately hallway steps away. A coffee table was covered with year-old People magazines whose brittle cover wraps clung to the other pages like a sheet of dead skin you suddenly notice on the arch of your foot. The yellowing walls and mismatched couch and chairs confirmed that junior representatives get the last pick of offices and furniture. The staffer led me into Nani Lancaster’s cozy office, which glowed dark amber in the twilight hour. A malfunctioning light panel flickered spastically above.
“Representative Lancaster, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” I said as I walked closer to her desk.
“Virgil!” she shouted. “This light. Please, someone fix this light. Strobing away. Someone’s going to have a stroke. It turns this place into Studio 54 after dark.”
Or a haunted house.
“Sit down,” she instructed coldly.
The office door clicked shut behind me. I eased my way into a flaky old leather chair, which crunched as I sat down.
She was a pale imitation of the strong and confident woman who had spoken to me and the families of America on TV earlier that summer. Far from the attractive and trustworthy-looking leader in her congressional photo, she sported bags under her eyes and silvery roots that revealed her rich brown hair was an expensive disguise. It was like when a person posts an old photo for an online dating site, only to reveal a much more haggard and hazardous reality in person. My first instinct was sympathy—to provide consolation for this poor woman who probably just wanted justice for her daughter. Justice and answers.
“I am so sorry about your daughter,” I said. “Y
ou know, she was my first friend in the office. Only one who really went out of her way and made me feel at home the first week I was there.”
She looked down and took a long, slurpy sip from her mug. Then she looked up at me while licking her teeth behind her closed lips.
“Cleo Beauregard,” she enunciated, fighting back a hint of slurred speech. She placed her mug on the desk and then leaned her head on a tall leather chair, the back of which towered at least two feet above her.
“Pardon?” I asked.
“Old coot.” She laughed oddly to herself. “Record thirty-two terms in Congress. Can you believe that?”
She had issued an urgent invitation to talk about the most tenured congressman in history?
“Up and resigns from Congress one day. And guess who they ask to take his spot?”
“Your special election?” I answered.
“B-I-N-G-O,” she sang-spelled and chuckled to herself. I began to suspect the contents of her mug. “School board president, beautiful daughter, malleable husband with a respectable but not too demanding career. A few lost elections under my belt, but I wasn’t taking things too seriously then. I was clean, ready.”
“The perfect candidate,” I observed.
“The perfect candidate,” she concurred. “And then you know what they tell me about Beauregard? Senile as a swan the last ten years he was in office.”
I questioned whether swans could suffer from dementia as Lancaster droned on.
“ ‘But no one can know,’ ” she air-quoted. “ ‘Need to uphold his reputation. Need to keep the party happy,’ they told me. We all tell the stories we want to believe. The stories we need others to believe.”
She slurped from her mug again and reflected on her own words.
“So I make it to DC, big fanfare and all. And I meet BIB. And he takes me under his wing, shows me the ropes, as they say. Invited me into conversations where a junior rep—let alone a female junior rep—just didn’t belong. He made me.”
“That’s what he does,” I observed. “He makes people.”
Even though the room was overpoweringly air-conditioned, I felt my palms start to sweat. Lancaster took off her sweater to reveal a sinewy, bare set of arms and a billowing, sleeveless purple blouse. She rolled her head around her neck, simultaneously enjoying and suffering through each crack and pop that ensued. And then she looked at me with the suddenly fierce clarity of a symphony director.