“Mind if I join you?”
“Absolutely,” Ken MacMann said heartily, displaying more ivory than a Steinway piano.
Beth looked even more disappointed.
They made small talk until the French fries arrived, when Boyce, feeling more and more leery, decided to plunge in.
“So Beth tells me you had to quit the navy for medical reasons.”
Beth stiffened.
“Yeah,” Ken said.
“Must have been serious.”
“Nah. Navy regs, is all.”
“So what was it?”
Beth kicked him. “He doesn’t want to talk about it, Boyce.”
“Just asked.”
“You know what the worst part of it was?” Ken said. “Saying goodbye to those navy nurses.”
“But you had to leave, is that it?”
“Boyce. Will you stop?”
“It’s okay. I could have stayed in, but it would have been a desk job.”
Boyce wondered if a penis was considered essential equipment for line duty aboard a navy ship.
Awkward silence descended on the table.
Ken said, “If you really want to know—”
“Oh God,” Beth cut in, “seven forty-five!”
“Is the world scheduled to end?”
“I have to get back to the library.”
“Well, go ahead,” Boyce said. “I want to hear about Ken’s wound.”
Beth’s eyes narrowed.
“I took a tracer round through the stomach. It kind of never fully healed.”
Beth turned to Boyce. “Why don’t you tell Ken about your squash injury. The one that kept you from being sent over there?”
On their way back to the library after Ken had left them, Boyce said, “You had to bring up my knee?”
“You were being a dick.”
“I was trying to get you an answer to the question that clearly had been tormenting you.”
“Good night.” She peeled off.
A week before finals, Beth knocked on Boyce’s door. She was flustered.
“I guess we need to talk.”
“We are talking.”
“Okay,” she said, exhaling, “Ken’s asked me to marry him.”
Boyce stared. “Did you tell him you were already engaged? To me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So, then?”
“I told him yes.”
“How can you be engaged to two people?”
She kissed him tenderly on the top of his head, the blow-off spot. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she said. “It just happened.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Beth and Ken were married two months later, by Chief Justice Wiggins.
Chapter 5
Did you have to say that about the attorney general sacrificing me on the altar of his burning ambition?”
“You missed the key word,” Boyce said. “Sacrificing a widow on the altar of his burning ambition.”
“I don’t think of myself as a widow.”
“Start.”
“But why piss him off? I bet he’s ballistic by now.”
“Worried he might get really mad and indict you for murder? I want him mad. I want them all mad. Mad people make mistakes. We need the other side to make mistakes, since you’ve made so many of your own so far.”
“Such as?”
“Where do I start? Like talking to the FBI without counsel present. People who rob convenience stores know better.”
“How would it have looked? Hiring a lawyer.”
“Smart.”
“Boyce, I was in shock, for heaven’s sake. Have you ever woken up in bed with a dead spouse?”
“I’ve gone to bed with some.” He sighed. “I’m frankly surprised at how you screwed this thing up.”
“Is abuse included in your thousand-dollar-an-hour fee, or do you bill separately?”
“Separately, under ‘photocopying, telephone, facsimile, and messenger services.’ ” He read the FBI report. “Why did you refuse the polygraph? It was the right thing to do, but since you did everything else wrong, I’m curious.”
“It was insulting,” she said hotly. “I’d just come back from burying him at Arlington. I thought it was grossly inappropriate to ask me to take a lie detector test.”
“Your outrage is convincing. I almost wish we could put you on the stand.”
“I want you to put me on the stand.”
Boyce laughed. “Under no circumstances are you taking the stand. What’s the matter with you? Have you forgotten everything you learned in law school?”
“I want to tell the truth.”
“Boy, you have forgotten everything. Including the most important rule of all: The truth has no place in a court of law.”
“I don’t remember being taught that.”
“In the real estate business it’s location, location, location. In a trial, it’s perception, perception, perception.”
“Perception,” Beth said. “Look at this.” She held up the New York Post.
REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD!
LADY BETHMAC AND SHAMELESS BAYLOR
It was a photo of the two of them from the mock trial at Georgetown.
Boyce shrugged. “They’ve been calling you that for years.”
Beth slammed her palm down on the conference room table. “Well, it’s not pleasant.”
“Look at you. And you want to take the stand? By the way, how come you didn’t wipe your fingerprints off the Paul Revere silver spittoon after you hit him with it?”
“Nice try.”
Boyce smiled. “Good girl. We’ll use the fact that your fingerprints were all over Mr. Spittoon as evidence that you didn’t murder him, since a murderer, even a moron, would have wiped her fingerprints off the murder weapon. But forget taking the stand. Or I’m on the next shuttle back to New York. I’d forgotten how uncomfortable commercial aviation is.”
“Oh, spare me. Your little jet would fit in the lounge of Air Force One.”
Boyce chuckled. “Why didn’t you just tell the FBI that you threw the spittoon at him?”
“I panicked. I was scared. There he was in bed next to me, dead. If I’d told them what happened, it would have looked …”
“Like you killed him.”
“But I didn’t kill him, Boyce. I chucked the spittoon at him. It did hit him, on the forehead. But it wasn’t that hard. He barely flinched. Well, he went back a bit. But he didn’t fall down.”
Boyce stared.
“I’ve thrown heavier things at him, you know.”
“That’ll sound good to the jury, when you take the stand. ‘I’ve thrown heavier things at him, you know.’ ”
“I’m telling you, it didn’t make a dent. He just called me a bitch, went to the bathroom, got into bed, turned off the light, and went to sleep. Next thing I knew, I’m having my breakfast and he’s—dead.”
Boyce looked at the D.C. medical examiner’s report and Bethesda Naval Hospital autopsy report in front of him. “Cause of death, epidural hematoma resulting from blunt-force trauma. Time of death, between three-fifteen A.M. and five A.M. Tell me this: After you ki—After you both went to sleep, did you wake up in the night to get a drink of water? To pee? Walk the parapets? Rub the blood off your hands?”
“I slept right through. I always sleep like a rock after I’ve clocked him.”
“Don’t forget to mention that, too, to the jury, when you take the stand. This Secret Service agent, Woody Birnam, who claims to have overheard an argument between you and the decedent—”
“Why don’t you just call him Ken? It’s not like you didn’t know him.”
“Huh!”
“If you’re still churning about it, I think you owe it to me to say so.”
“Owe you?”
“Boyce, I’m going to need all of you in court. Not just all of you minus the ten percent that’s still seething.”
“If I were still seething and churning, why o
n earth would I have taken this case?”
She looked at him. “First, so that you could finally get the whip hand in this relationship.”
“I always have the whip hand in the attorney-client relationship.”
“Second, to show the world that you’re so goddamn magnanimous, you’d defend the woman who du—who broke up with you back when.”
“Magnanimity is for wusses.”
“And third, in order to lose the case on purpose—in such a way that everyone would say, ‘Oh, even Shameless Baylor couldn’t have gotten her off,’ so that I’ll end up in jail or on death row. Just to get even with me.”
“I cannot believe,” Boyce said, affecting chagrin, “that you think that I’m capable of that. Is this what politics does to a person’s soul?”
Beth laughed. “Oh dear, that’s good. Look, I need to know. Are you in or out? Psychically.”
So much for the whip hand. “I’m in.”
“All right, then.”
“For the record,” Boyce said, “the decision to break off our engagement was mutual.”
“Of course it was.”
Dammit. There was no winning with her.
“Why were you so sure that he’d been doing push-ups with Babs in the Lincoln Bedroom?”
“The look on his face when he came in and I flicked on the light. He didn’t look like he’d been in the Sit Room deploying aircraft carriers.”
“His philandering, was it as bad as the rumors and reports?”
“Worse. What’s so funny?”
“I was remembering how worried you were that his willy had been shot off by the Vietnamese. But if you knew he was having an affair with Van Anka, what—pray—was she doing as a guest in your house?”
“I know, I know,” Beth said, defeated. “It’s so—God, the deals you strike.”
“I have to explain it to the jury. I mean, here’s this hump-happy husband and you’re allowing him to bring bunnies in for sleep-overs down the hall.”
“I didn’t invite her. I can’t stand her. I don’t like anything about her. Even her singing, much less her quote-unquote acting.”
“So what’s she doing there in Abe’s bed, pumping the commander in chief?”
“It’s … she’s a star. She draws. Her husband, Max, is a huge financier, major donor to the party. They’re a power couple.”
“Okay, so why not have both of them over? You could do a foursome.”
“Screw you, Boyce.”
“Just trying to be helpful.”
“We did have them both over. But neither of us really liked Max. He’s a bore in that way that some financiers are. Then there was some heat in the papers about some of his business connections. Anyway, he sort of stopped coming. Babette was the friend, anyway.”
“I’ll say.”
“She put on fund-raisers. Raised a lot of money for us.”
“A jury averaging twenty-five thousand of income a year will be thrilled to hear it.” Boyce studied the Secret Service log. “Jesus. She spent more nights in the Lincoln Bedroom than Lincoln. Fifty-six visits in two and a half years? Did she get miles?”
“We had an arrangement. Ken wasn’t to sleep with her when I was in residence.”
“This was an interesting marriage you had.”
“Who are you to talk? Four marriages, the last one, to that Victoria’s Secret model, lasted how long? Six months?”
“We were blissfully happy the first two months.”
“Boyce, you’re the Elizabeth Taylor of trial lawyers. Do not lecture me on how to conduct a happy marriage.”
“We still have to sell it to the jury. You have an arrangement—somewhat unusual by the standards of the American presidency, you may admit. He breaks the arrangement and the next thing you know, kaboom on the noggin and they’re saddling the riderless horse for the trip to Arlington. Forgive me, but we have some explaining to do for Mr. and Mrs. Jury.”
“I didn’t kill him. I know I did not kill him.”
“Fine, but you whacked him with the spittoon and next morning he’s Mr. Frosty. Reasonable human beings, including the FBI, the Justice Department, the attorney general, the media—”
“The media? Reasonable? Human?”
“—and, according to the latest poll, sixty-eight percent of the American public, two-thirds—think you killed him.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“For a thousand dollars an hour, yours. But you want to start with the jury’s worst suspicions. It’s always the best baseline. Okay. So he could have slipped in the bathroom and gotten back into bed and died. But that’s not much in the way of an alternate narrative. For one thing, there’s the Paul Revere hallmark they found stamped on his forehead.”
Boyce studied the photograph of the President’s forehead. “It’s kind of pronounced. We’ll do some computer enhancing … we can probably make it look ambiguous. Get some friendly skin experts in, make it …” He grunted. “Maybe if we showed it upside down.… Well, we’ll figure something out.”
He tossed the photo aside and gave Beth an assessing look. “You’re looking good these days.”
“Thank you,” Beth said in a businesslike way.
“Do you work out?”
“When I can. What does this have to do with anything?”
“Do you exercise? Pump iron? Treadmill? Tae-bo, whatever it’s called?”
“A trainer used to come four times a week. Why?”
“Because the jury is going to be wondering if you were strong enough to lift a”—he glanced at the autopsy report—“two-hundred-and-eight-pound dead president off the floor and into bed. I see the War God put on a few pounds over the years. What do you weigh?”
“Hundred and thirty-eight.”
“We start jury selection in four months. I want you down to one twenty.”
“You want me to look anorexic? The media’s going to see through that.”
“It’s not for the media. It’s for the jury.”
“The prosecutor will find a way to point out that I’ve lost weight since the incident.”
“And we’ll say, ‘You insensitive swine, of course she’s lost weight. She lost her husband. This is a grieving widow, look at her, and you’re putting her through this hell.’ ”
“I’ll lose the weight.”
“Look on the bright side—you can take up smoking again. You used to love to smoke after … wards. The maid, this Sophie Williams, who brought you a hot breakfast while War God was cooling beside you, does she like you?”
“Like me? I suppose.”
“No, no, no, do not ‘suppose.’ When she takes the stand, will she, a black woman, convey to a substantially black jury that you are a wonderful, kind, thoughtful employer who remembers staff birthdays and whose kid broke his arm and whose aunt just died? The sorts of things that thoughtful big people do for the little people?”
“I should think. Yes. You know, the Lady Bethmac thing was never—that was unfair. I’m not a bitch.”
“Hm.”
“I am not a bitch, Boyce. Just because I fired some people on the White House staff.”
“Why’d you give them the sack?”
“In one case because the staffer was giving my husband blow jobs on Air Force One.”
“He was head of state. How many did you sack?”
“Over the two and a half years? Nine.”
Boyce groaned. “This is going to be such an easy sell to the jury. You didn’t kill your husband, despite the fact that he was humping the guest down the hall, as well as half the employees on the federal payroll. What really happened was he got up in the middle of the night, consumed with remorse for his cheating ways, decided to commit suicide by smashing himself in the forehead with an antique spittoon, and just before dying, tucked himself back in bed. It’s so obvious. We’ll move for summary dismissal.”
Chapter 6
Babette Van Anka had been in the public eye for over two decades now, since her spectacular fil
m debut in Expensive—And Worth It, as the suburban housewife who secretly moonlights as a prostitute to support her family after her stockbroker husband is shot by a commuter train conductor upset over the bad stock tips he had given him. At the time of the President’s death, her career had been in decline. She was now getting more press coverage than she’d ever had.
Their “special relationship” had been the subject of unremitting news stories ranging from sober headlines in the Times (ACTRESS SPENT 56 NIGHTS IN WHITE HOUSE, subheadline “Wealthy Financier Husband Was Also a Guest—Four Times”) to the more exuberant ones in the supermarket tabloids (BAB’S NIGHTS OF BLISS WITH KEN). Inside one of the tabs, someone was quoted saying, “Babette Van Anka, she’s so bad you wanna spanka.”
Babette lived in Bel Air, the moneyed enclave in the hills looking down on Los Angeles, with her third husband, Max Grab, the international financier. He advised a number of sultans of the oil-rich archipelagoes of Southeast Asia. He was said to have, as it is put, “ties” to influential Chinese.
The Grab–Van Anka mansion was large even by Hollywood standards. The grounds included a private hippodrome and his and hers helipads. The hippodrome had caused controversy. When their neighbors complained about their plans to blast away half of the side of one of the Hollywood Hills in order to accommodate it, there was a stink. Since Babette passionately embraced environmental causes in addition to peace in the Middle East, some delicacy was required. They hired Nick Naylor, who had once been the chief spokesman for the U.S. tobacco industry.
Naylor produced a letter from an organization that taught handicapped children to ride horses. The letter praised the Grab–Van Ankas lavishly for so generously offering them unlimited use of the new hippodrome. The enraged neighbors never regained the public relations offensive.
The blasting proceeded, the hippodrome was finished, complete with chandeliers and potpourri instead of sawdust, Max Grab having an aversion to the smell of horse by-products. Max also had an aversion to handicapped children, as it turned out. The organization was quietly presented with a check by Naylor and a note suggesting they seek other facilities. The Grab–Van Ankas were no amateurs when it came to the art of spin.
No Way To Treat a First Lady Page 4