Corruption of Power

by Brenda English

  It also probably explained how she could stand to be married to Hubbard Taylor, a wealthy-in-his-own-right owner of a chain of car dealerships, who always struck me as someone who had spent his life running away from himself. Adversity can forge children into two kinds of adults: those who lose their fear of what might happen and who grow up determined to be a match for life, and those who never lose that fear and who overcompensate in some way to cover it up. Taylor was one of those insecure self-made men whose bombast covered a gut-deep fear that people still could see the poor and powerless little boy who grew up hard and fast in rural southwest Virginia.

  But he obviously adored his wife, as he should, and she genuinely seemed to care for him. She had even put her own health at risk six years ago when, still in an intensive physical-rehabilitation program, she had thrown considerable energy into helping Taylor with his first—and, as it turned out, his successful—campaign for a seat on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

  As a supervisor, Taylor was part of the governing board of one of the richest counties in the United States, with a multibillion-dollar annual budget as large as that of some small countries. Four years later Taylor ran again against heavy Republican opposition and money, and won hands down, due in no small part to his wife’s popularity among the people in his Great Falls district. Lately there had been considerable talk about Taylor running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, an idea apparently being pushed by his mentor, Ed Lloyd, the senior U.S. senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia and the man who had persuaded Taylor, an early and heavy financial supporter of Lloyd, to enter politics in the first place.

  Now Janet Taylor was dead, murdered, according to her husband. As I pulled up to the end of the long, curving driveway where half a dozen reporters from the suburban and Washington papers milled among the usual space-hogging convoy of radio and television remote-broadcast trucks, I thought about how many people’s lives Janet Taylor had touched and improved. If her husband were dead, his family would miss him, but a week later a dozen other politicians would be ready to take his place, with little disruption in the political process. His wife, however, was different—one of the irreplaceables whose absence would leave the world a meaner, colder place.

  I drove beyond the last of the TV trucks in my high-school-graduation present (at thirty-four, I can just barely remember that far into the distant past.): a 1976 white VW Beetle convertible that was used even when I got it and that I intended to drive forever because I actually could identify the engine parts. It was unbelievably reliable. It had never left me stranded, which was more than anyone could ask of a piece of machinery, and I still thought it was cute, even after 183,623 miles. I found a place to park a few yards away from where a uniformed cop was talking to a small group of people I guessed were neighbors. The cop wasn’t letting them get even as close as the press. As I got out I heard my name called. Turning, I saw Ken Hale walking rapidly toward me, his usual buttoned-down and jacketed Brooks Brothers look now whittled down to a white oxford-cloth shirt and a tie at half-mast in the welcome warmth of a late afternoon in mid-May.

  “Hi, Ken,” I greeted, walking over to meet him. Instinctively, we both moved away from neighbors and from the other reporters to compare notes. “What’s the story?”

  “Man, Sutton, this whole thing is just too weird,” he answered. He looked up the drive toward the white-columned house, now dripping with the colored strobes of police-cruiser lights. “What a thing to happen. And to Janet Taylor! I mean, I can see why any number of people might go after her husband, but why her?”

  Just then I saw Oren Young, one of the News photographers, walking up behind Ken.

  “Hey, y’all,” Oren said, chewing his ever-present Dentyne gum. None of us had ever seen him without a wad of it in his mouth, even at lunch. How he ate a sandwich and still kept his gum intact was one of the great newsroom mysteries. Some of us believed he had a hollow tooth in which he secreted the stuff while he chewed. We joked that the gum was probably a tension reliever and the only thing that kept Oren from becoming a serial killer. “I take it that we can’t get up to the house?” he asked.

  We all eyed the uniformed policeman who leaned against the side of the police cruiser that blocked the end of the drive, his arms crossed over his chest and a take-no-crap expression on his face.

  “Nope,” Ken answered, running his hand through sandy-brown hair. “The cop over there says forget it. But he did announce a few minutes ago that someone will be down here in a while to tell us whatever they can.”

  “Which will be next to nothing,” I opined, knowing how the police, always convinced it will put their investigation in jeopardy, hate telling news reporters anything unless it serves some purpose of their own. “I heard Taylor was at a board meeting when it happened?”

  “Yeah, him and at least fifty other people, including me. It ended about four, and he left. I was still there interviewing Rhodes Gray, the Mount Vernon district supervisor, when his secretary ran in to tell us. Apparently, after Taylor found his wife, he called Mannie Sims, his assistant, who was still in the office, and Mannie told him to call nine-one-one. I got over here as fast as I could.”

  “I was told Taylor said she’d been strangled. You hear anything like that?”

  “Beth—that’s Gray’s secretary—said Taylor told Mannie the same thing. Said he found a scarf wrapped around her neck.”

  “Any sign of Taylor since you got here?”

  “No, he’s still inside with the police. They—”

  Ken was interrupted by a piercing whistle from the cop in the driveway.

  “Okay, listen up, people,” the cop said, his hand dropping from the small radio attached to the left shoulder of his shirt and over which he had just been speaking. He put his thumbs in his belt and moved away from the car, then planted his feet in a wide-legged stance that told us he thought he had something of importance to impart to us.

  “Bill Russell will be out in a couple of minutes to answer your questions,” he said, his voice booming out to reach all of us. “So just hang tight.” Then he stepped back to the cruiser and resumed his sentry duty.

  Ken, Oren, and I moved in the direction of the driveway, along with the rest of the press pack, and as we got there I saw Bill come out the large double front doors, along with two other men. One, I knew, was Chet Stewart, head of the police department’s criminal investigations bureau, who could be expected to show up where a supervisor’s wife had been murdered. The other was a stranger and one of the most gorgeous men I had ever seen.

  * * * *

  “Okay, okay, settle down,” Bill said, once he, Stewart, and the hunk reached the end of the drive and we all pressed closer and began shouting questions at him. “If you folks will bear with us, we’re going to tell you what we can. When we’re done, you can ask questions and we’ll tell you the same things again.”

  Chuckles and groans issued from the reporters.

  “And then,” Bill continued, deadpan, “we’ll be available for a few minutes for you TV and radio people to tape us saying the same thing for the third time.”

  The newspaper reporters in the group laughed out loud at that, always happy to see someone take a dig at our electronic colleagues, whom most print journalists consider lightweights and prima donnas. We were rewarded with a few glares, a couple of obscene gestures, and widespread hissing. They didn’t share our opinion.

  To an outside observer, our low-key levity probably would seem completely inappropriate, considering the circumstances that had brought us together. But most of us had held this same vigil, outside some house or other location where murderous violence had put in an appearance, too many times. We all—reporters and police alike—learned quickly to defend ourselves by stepping back emotionally, often through humor, in order to keep the horror of the things we saw and reported from burrowing inside where we lived. As soon as the cameras rolled, as soon as the first genuine question was asked, however, we all would be
serious professionals again.

  “Officer Russell,” I said, elbowing my way in front of a Barbie doll from the cable news channel, “I believe I already have notes on this same press conference, where you don’t know anything, from when Ann Kane’s body was found. May I just go home now? I have laundry to do.”

  “We’d all appreciate it if you’d go home, McPhee,” Bill said, his mouth serious but his eyes telling me he still knew exactly how to take my digs at him. “Dirty laundry is what you do best.”

  From time to time I also deliberately needle Bill in front of other reporters, because it squelches complaints of favoritism.

  He knows why I do it and always responds in kind, so I was prepared for his comeback, and for the hoots of laughter at my expense from the other reporters. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, was the reaction of the good-looking guy in the charcoal-gray suit and who now was standing to Bill’s right. As the words left my mouth his attention locked on me, dark blue eyes glaring out from under black brows and a thick shock of equally black hair, pinning me to the spot, searing me with a look I usually got only from people who personally had felt the sharp point of my pen. His mouth, ordinarily probably quite appealing, had tightened into a grim, straight line that spoke volumes of disapproval—of me. I was riveted, by the ferocity of his gaze and the unexpectedness of his reaction.

  And then there was my own reaction. He was looking at me with a fierce expression. I was looking at him in shock. His eyes had filled me with an overwhelming sense of recognition, of familiarity. It left me confused. I knew perfectly well I had never met him. I was sure of it. But there was the feeling that I knew him from somewhere.

  “Most of you already know Chet Stewart from the criminal investigations bureau,” Bill said, looking at Stewart to his left, who nodded to the press. “And this is Detective Noah Lansing, who will be in charge of the investigation. He’ll answer your questions.” I dragged my attention back to my surroundings, trying to focus on the fact that Bill had been speaking again.

  Detective Noah Lansing held my look for another heartbeat, which I realized was very loud inside my ears, before turning away to listen to a question from Paul Carlson, the inept morning-show cohost at Channel 3 and a mental dead ringer for Ted from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show.

  Christ, I thought as Carlson stuttered his way through the twisted syntax of the reportorial-challenged who is lost without a TelePrompTer, what did I do to him? Him being Noah Lansing, total stranger, whose hostility had just left me speechless and whose presence left me off balance.

  “First, maybe I should just tell you what I can, and then I’ll try to answer questions,” Detective Lansing said, looking away from me to the rest of the group, his expression now perfectly neutral and professional. He appeared unperturbed, in spite of his glare at me, as microphones waved in front of him and red on-the-air lights came to life on TV remote cameras, whose operators were happy to be able to get Lansing’s live comments on the tail end of the local six-o’clock-news shows. He opened his small notebook and thumbed backward for several pages.

  “The call to nine-one-one came in at four thirty-seven P.M.,” Lansing began, once he found the notes he wanted. “The caller identified himself as Hubbard Taylor and said he had just found his wife dead. The dispatcher asked if he was certain, and Mr. Taylor responded that she had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. The dispatcher immediately sent police units and an ambulance to the address.

  “A police unit arrived first, and the officers found Mr. Taylor sitting on the front steps of the house, very distraught and saying he couldn’t go back in the house, that Mrs. Taylor was dead.

  “The ambulance also arrived at about that time, and the paramedics and police officers entered together, bringing Mr. Taylor with them. They found Mrs. Taylor inside. The paramedics confirmed that she was dead. Cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner, of course. I can tell you that there were signs of trauma to the upper body, so we are investigating this as a homicide. We haven’t located any witnesses at this time. The Taylors’ maid was not in the house because it was her day off. Officers are searching the property and those next to it. They’re also checking to see if any neighbors were home during the afternoon and might have seen anything suspicious. But at this time we have very little to go on. All we can say for certain is that Mrs. Taylor is dead, and foul play is being considered. Okay, I’ll take questions now.”

  All hands waved at once, mine included. Detective Lansing pointed to a reporter from Channel 7.

  “Did Taylor try CPR?”

  “We don’t know,” Lansing told him. “Although the nine-one-one dispatchers are trained in giving CPR instructions over the phone, the call was cut off before the dispatcher was able to do that.”

  Lansing looked back at our side of the group and waved a hand at Ken Hale.

  “Mr. Taylor was at a board of supervisors’ meeting this afternoon. Can you tell how long his wife’s been dead, and is he a suspect?” Ken always knew what the most important question in any story was.

  “At this time we have not identified anyone as a suspect or ruled anyone out,” Noah Lansing answered carefully. “We have confirmed Mr. Taylor’s attendance at the meeting, which was televised, and his wife appears to have died sometime during that time period. Mr. Taylor is quite upset, as you can imagine, so we will be talking with him at greater length later. It will take a while before we have official word from the medical examiner on the exact cause and time of death.” He pointed to Trudy Gernrich of the Post and nodded.

  “Was she raped?” Trudy, like me, could be refreshingly direct. Well, I considered it refreshing.

  “Again, we won’t know until after the autopsy,” Lansing answered.

  “When do you expect to have those results?” I called out my question without raising my hand, a move calculated to get an answer without drawing attention to the fact that I was the questioner, since Lansing didn’t seem inclined to acknowledge my existence. It worked.

  “In twenty-four to forty-eight”—he began answering automatically even before he finished turning toward me, then realized who had asked—“hours.” He bit the last word off and looked immediately to another reporter. But not before I felt the ice of his blue eyes again. And not before I was hit once more with a feeling of undeniable and powerful familiarity, like a fist in the stomach.

  After a couple more questions from the group, each answered by Lansing in equally brief fashion, Bill Russell interrupted to call a halt.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the investigation is continuing,” he said, gesturing up toward the house, where a medical examiner’s van had moved up to the front door, “and we all need to get back to it. So we’ll take a few more minutes to give you radio and TV folks anything else you need for your news shows and then we have to go.”

  The print reporters, Ken and myself included, hung around to listen, just to make sure someone more quick-witted didn’t ask a question that elicited new information. When Bill finally cut off the individual interviews, several of the members of the press began to drift toward their cars and remote trucks for the drive back to their offices and studios. I stood against my car, cell phone in hand, to dictate a story to Rob Perry, who would send it up to the page-one desk. Oren got into his own car, waving—and chewing furiously—as he drove off, but Ken waited with me, to give Rob what he knew for the story whose byline we expected to share. Bill, Stewart, and Noah Lansing were walking briskly up the drive to the house, deep in conversation, none of them giving us a backward glance.

  * * * *

  “Here’s the deal,” Rob Perry was saying. “The two of you are on this story for the duration.”

  It was 7:30 at night, and my workday was in its fourteenth hour. Ken and I had returned to the paper from the Taylor home and Rob was sitting on his desk, feet up in his chair, coffee cup in one hand, unlit cigarette being used as a pointer in the other, talking to us as we stood facing him. The only place Rob could smoke these days
was in his private office on the west side of the newsroom, but he couldn’t function without a cigarette, even an unlit one, in his hand. He also had a habit of loosening more and more of his clothes as the deadline got closer, a habit attested to by his current dishabille: tie loosened and halfway down his chest, the top two buttons undone on his shirt, and his sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up.

  “Was there some question?” I asked slightly caustically, but not expecting an affirmative reply.

  “As a matter of fact, there was,” Rob said, using his irritated-parent tone of voice. “Mark Lester tried to take over the story and give it to Sy Berkowitz. He said it was page-one news and deserved page-one reporting.”

  Mark Lester is the editor for the front page. Sy Berkowitz is the so-called special-projects reporter who followed Lester from their previous paper in Philadelphia. I knew I had just been chastised, even if indirectly, for being too cocky and presumptuous.

  “He can’t do that!” Ken barked, standing up straighter in outrage. Ken looks mild-mannered, but he can be ferocious when it comes to his stories. “We cover the board of supervisors and the cops. It’s our story!”