She looked at her notes for more good news, increasingly wary of throwing the floor open for questions. Over sixty people had shown up for the town hall meeting. At least a third of them appeared to be press.
“And that summarizes my legislative agenda. I know a lot of you turned out tonight hoping to hear more about the big story in the news . . . about the allegations I was involved in my husband’s death. I want all of you to know these charges shocked me as much as they did you. Many of you knew Bas, and—”
“If the charges aren’t true, why is your son lying?” a voice shouted from the back of the room. Other reporters chimed in with similar questions, all clamoring for a sound bite.
Randy jumped to his feet. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. This is not a press conference. The congresswoman called this meeting to discuss her legislative agenda with her constituents, and their questions are her priority.”
A hand went up in the audience and Glynn sucked in a breath. “Yes?”
Marlon Calder, an area farmer, was a regular at her public events. He cleared his throat as he stood and looked around nervously, apparently intimidated by the presence of so many cameras and reporters. He nodded as he addressed her. “Congresswoman.”
“Yes, Mr. Calder. Do you have a question?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s sort of like the one that fellow just asked. As you know, my son Virgil was a friend of your husband’s, and because of that, I always supported him . . . and now you. I met your boy a few times, and I always thought he was a nice young man.”
“Thank you. I think so too.”
“Can you tell us why he’s saying you killed Bas?”
Glynn left the microphone and paced slowly in front of the crowd, rubbing her chin pensively. “I wish I knew the answer to that, Mr. Calder. The fact is my son has had a great deal of difficulty dealing with the loss of his father. I think part of the problem stems from the fact that Sebby—my son—was the one who discovered Bas after he’d been electrocuted in the bathtub. I have always maintained that I was asleep when the accident occurred. I had returned from Bosnia only two days earlier and was jet-lagged. My son awakened me after the accident and I found Bas dead. That, Mr. Calder, is absolutely all I know.”
On Michael’s advice, she was careful not to say anything that would contradict a defense of sleepwalking.
“Thank you.”
Several hands went up as he sat back down. Glynn called on Warren Pewter, a Democratic activist who dogged her at nearly every public event. “Have you considered stepping down and allowing the governor to appoint someone to fill out your term?”
It was exactly the question she would have expected from Pewter, especially since Indiana’s governor was a Democrat and more likely to appoint someone from his own party. “No, I have not.” Without hesitation, she pointed toward a woman on the front row, a face she didn’t recognize.
“I just wanted to say that I’m embarrassed about being the laughing stock of the whole country because people think we elected a murderer to represent us. Whether you did it or not, I agree with that man. You should resign for the good of the whole district.”
Her comment brought a murmur of discussion, which erupted into argument in only a matter of seconds.
Glynn held up her hand to quiet the crowd. “I’m sorry you feel embarrassed, and I can understand that, but here’s how I see it. If I resign, some people will think it’s because I’m guilty. I’m not. Furthermore, our constitution says I’m innocent until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And that’s a very important distinction. When my trial begins, that man over there”—she pointed to Michael—“will defend me against the charges. You will probably hear conflicting versions of events. Jurors will have to decide if the evidence against me proves beyond a reasonable doubt that I committed the crime for which I’m charged. You’ve all read that in books or seen it on TV, right?”
Heads bobbed up and down.
“How many of you have sat on a jury before?”
Several hands went up.
“You know, then, that if the evidence against me causes a reasonable person to have doubts about my guilt, I should be acquitted of the charges. But no matter what the jury says, I know all of you will be sitting in judgment too. You’ll go to the polls next year and decide if I’m the person you want to represent you in Congress. I’m not asking for your vote for next year. This isn’t the time for that. I’m asking for your vote of confidence today, and for your commitment to the principles of justice that make this country great.”
She hoped her words would buy her some time and leeway, but there was one more thing she wanted to say tonight, perhaps the most important message she could convey.
“I want everyone here to know how much I love my son. Nothing he might say could ever change that. This is a very difficult time for us, but we will beat this together, and we will heal. I want to ask all of you to please respect my son’s privacy on these matters as much as possible.” She pointed to the reporters at the back of the room. “And that goes double for you guys.”
On that note, Randy was ready to wrap things up, but one woman jumped to her feet, insistent on making a statement. Valerie Clarkson, a school curriculum supervisor, smiled warmly at Glynn.
Glynn hoped Valerie would remind people one last time of the positive impact her legislative acts had had on local issues, and she wasn’t disappointed.
“I just want to say thank you, Congresswoman, for all the hard work you’ve done on our behalf in Washington. That preschool bill you’ve been pushing in Congress is just what we need to get our test scores up and get more funds for our schools.”
Glynn smiled her appreciation for the praise.
Valerie turned and faced the audience. “And as far as that other stuff goes, I think everyone should also keep in mind that this woman lost her husband tragically, and she’s obviously still heartbroken about that, or she would have married again.”
Glynn felt a sinking in the pit of her stomach as she watched the crowd nod in unison. They weren’t going to like it on Sunday when the other shoe dropped.
“All in all, I think it went about as well as we could have expected,” Michael said. They had managed to escape the meeting without a confrontation with the press, and were now debriefing in the living room of Glynn’s modest home. “You did a great job of choosing your words about what you remember. It’ll be easier later if we have to go with the sleepwalking defense, because you won’t be on record saying Sebby’s making this up.”
“I hate this, Michael. I hate even thinking I might have killed Bas. How could I have done something like that and not even remember a thing about it?” She kicked off her shoes and crossed her feet on the coffee table.
“You heard what the doctor said. Most sleepwalkers remember nothing.” Michael relaxed too—as much as Glynn had ever seen—by slightly loosening his tie.
“I also heard him say most sleepwalkers do it on a regular basis. If that’s the case, why hasn’t anyone else ever noticed me walking around at night in a coma?”
“Perhaps that’s because no one has been there to notice. You haven’t slept with anyone regularly. Have you?”
Glynn shook her head. “Even when I was seeing Stephanie, we rarely stayed the night together. Just a handful of times when we went out of town.”
“So for all you know, you walk in your sleep all the time. You leave doors open, lights on, dishes in the sink.”
“That’s what Charlotte said. But I told her it was hard to separate what might be me sleepwalking from what is definitely typical after-hours behavior of a teenager.”
“You need to stop making assumptions that work against you and try seeing the other side. What if it wasn’t Sebby doing those things? What if it was you all along?”
Glynn still didn’t want to think about it, because her mind’s eye conjured a scene in which Bas frantically pleaded with her not to push the television into the tub. She could almost see it, but she couldn�
��t bear to think it might have happened.
“I got this report before I left my office. You might want to take a look.” He handed her a two-page executive summary of an opinion poll from her district. The lead question asked if voters would support her in the next election.
“I’ve lost twelve percent.”
“I know. Your vote tallies from the last race are on the second page. I think it’s going to be an uphill fight to keep your seat, Glynn.”
“The election’s nineteen months away. What’s my job approval?” she asked, scanning the bullet points.
“We got a lot of neutrals. They’re reserving judgment.”
“So that’s not a problem if I’m acquitted.”
“You said it yourself, Glynn. Reasonable doubt isn’t going to satisfy everyone, especially if we go with the sleepwalking defense.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think the sleepwalking thing is a last resort. But that’s because my job is to get you acquitted, not to get you re-elected. You need to decide what’s important here before we start playing it up. If getting re-elected is what you want, we need to forget about you sleepwalking and go for broke that Sebby didn’t see what he claims.”
“My list is already long enough.”
“What list?”
“I was telling Charlotte the other night that I had three priorities—getting Sebby back on track, beating breast cancer and staying out of prison. That’s enough to worry about. I’m not going to add getting re-elected on top of it.”
“I’ve got to agree with you on that.” He stood and pulled on his overcoat. “And on that note, I think I should go and let you get some rest.”
“You’ve missed the last plane back to D.C., you know.”
He shrugged. “I’ll manage.”
“Don’t go ordering a private jet, okay?”
“I guess I should have rented a compact, huh?” he said, nodding through her window to the curb, where his limo waited.
“That’s what I do. Or I have Randy pick me up if I’m going to be here more than just a couple of days.”
He smirked and picked up his briefcase. “Since you bring that up, I think you ought to cancel any more trips back here before the trial. I’m going to need you in D.C. to prepare your defense, and I hate to think how much things are going to heat up once the story breaks about Stephanie.”
“I can’t bother to care, Michael. Being around Charlotte has helped me see another side to all of that. If you can’t be happy in your own skin, you can’t be happy anywhere.” She walked him to the door.
“I like Charlotte. She’s been a big help to us.”
“I like her too. She’s been the only good thing to come out of this.” Glynn could feel her face getting red, and bit her tongue before saying too much. “See you Monday?”
“Come to my office when you finish for the day. We can prep your appearance on CNN. It will all be old news by then.”
She watched him walk to the waiting car, then shut her door and locked it. Not since her first visit home with Bas had she felt so out of place in rural Indiana.
Glynn drove by the farmhouse twice, confirming that her mother-in-law’s car was parked in the back. On the third pass, she turned into the driveway, her stomach in knots as she readied herself for what would surely be an awkward meeting.
As a mother, she understood Irene’s perspective. The woman had lost her husband and son tragically, and the only sliver of each that remained was Sebby. Irene had to cling to her grandson, even if it meant alienating her daughter-in-law.
By coming to the house today, Glynn hoped to convince her they could fight this together, that it might take both of them to pull Sebby from the dark abyss where he had spent the past eleven years. He would know more loss in his lifetime, and she and Irene could share with him the strength they had developed through losses of their own.
Her hands shaking, she turned off the engine and got out. The seven steps to the front porch felt more like seventy, but she finally reached the door. Drawing a deep breath for courage, she knocked sharply on the wooden screen. The sound of footsteps inside quickened her pulse further.
And suddenly, there he was, facing her from the other side of the screen. “Mom?”
“Sebby,” she whispered, her knees almost giving way. “Oh, son . . .”
“Go away,” Irene barked, appearing abruptly to step between them at the door. “Go now, or I’ll call the sheriff. You’re trespassing.”
Glynn stepped back in shock as the door slammed in her face. If she lived to be a hundred years old, she would never forget the look of anguish in her son’s eyes.
Chapter 18
“I can’t believe this is happening again,” Tina said, laughing as she reached for more chips.
Roy grabbed the remote and turned up the volume on Charlotte’s television. “Hush, I want to hear what Thomason says.”
Glynn came up behind them with a tray of cheese and crackers. “I’m starting to think I have a guardian angel who sneaks around and takes compromising videos and posts them on the Internet just when all the cameras are about to point in my direction.”
Michael and Charlotte joined them just in time to hear the Senate majority leader respond to the commentator’s question. “Anytime we have an abuse of the public trust, we take it seriously. Our party leaders are going to have a long hard look at Senator Woodson’s behavior, and if he is found to have committed ethical breaches, he will be held accountable.”
“I would think soliciting a prostitute meets that threshold,” Roy said. “Some might even call it a criminal offense.”
“Nah, Democrats don’t consider that criminal,” Tina joked.
“Hey, watch it,” Charlotte said. “Some of us are enlightened liberals.”
Michael watched the interview from over their shoulder. “I think it’s amazing someone just happened to be there with a camera to film that. What are the odds?”
“It’s common knowledge in congressional circles that Woodson’s been doing this for several years. It was just a matter of time before someone made hay of it,” Roy explained.
“And he’s not the only one,” Tina added. “One of these days, they’re going to catch—” She covered her mouth and mumbled something that sounded like Allan Stines.
“Well, whoever did it, I appreciate it,” Glynn said. “I need all the help I can get.” At Charlotte’s urging, she had gathered her closest friends on the eve of her trial. Roy was set to testify in her defense, describing her marriage to Bas as a happy union. Tina wasn’t involved in the trial, so she was charged with minding the office.
“You’re going to get through this,” Roy told her, though his voice didn’t sound as optimistic as his message. Of all her friends, he was the one who seemed most worried, not so much about the outcome, but her well-being.
Glynn said, “I got another request from Allan Stines last week to step down. He said they were negotiating with the governor to appoint a Republican to fill my seat.”
“I hope you told them where they could stick that,” Charlotte said, handing Glynn a steaming mug of lemon verbena tea.
“I don’t know. The only two people in Congress who’ll take my calls are Madge Heflin and Thad Culbertson. I always said I’d step aside if my constituents called for it, and the last round of numbers from Randy doesn’t look too good.” Glynn nodded over to her aides. “Tina told me coming out of the closet would be political suicide. Looks like she was right.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I made a whole career of getting inside people’s heads, but that one still escapes me.”
“There’s Glynn,” Tina said, pointing to her head shot on television.
“Jury selection begins tomorrow in the trial of Indiana Congresswoman Glynn Wright, who is charged with murdering her husband, former Representative Sebastian Wright, eleven years ago. In the studio with us today, from the school of law at American University, are legal experts . . .”
�
��Great. Trial by pundit,” Glynn said wryly. “Aren’t people tired of hearing this? There hasn’t been anything new to talk about for three weeks, but they can’t let it go.”
Roy snorted angrily. “They won’t be happy unless they ruin somebody. They’re all despicable.”
“Just wait until Wednesday when they start playing snippets from the Court Channel,” said Michael. “Do we all have something nice to wear?”
Glynn slipped back into the dining area and sat down at the table, glad to be surrounded by her friends. Anyone looking in might have thought the casual, relaxed gathering was a game day party. In fact, the pressure had been building on all of them as the trial grew closer, and this was the perfect chance to vent together, since Michael had asked everyone not to speak about the trial to others. It was also a reminder for Glynn of Charlotte’s mantra, that sharing the load meant a lighter yoke for everyone.
Charlotte had single-handedly lifted a heavy burden from her shoulders, opening up her home for Glynn to hide from the press’s constant badgering for a comment, and to have meetings with attorneys and expert witnesses out of the watchful eye of speculative reporters. These days, she seemed to rest better at Charlotte’s house, especially after her radiation treatments had ended two weeks ago. Being around Charlotte relaxed her, and she was already dreading a return to her quiet home once the trial was over. Only Sebby could fill the void in their brownstone, and each time she allowed herself to entertain the idea that he might not return she found herself drawing closer to Charlotte for comfort and support.
It might be difficult for Sebby to come home, Charlotte had said, no matter how the trial finished. Either he would believe she murdered his father and resent her, or he would accept an alternative explanation and feel guilty for bringing this upon her. It might be many months before they could talk again, and that thought was almost more than Glynn could bear.
But two weeks from now, at least this horrid chapter would be over. Michael maintained her odds of acquittal were high, as he was certain he could introduce to the jury either reasonable doubt about what Sebby had seen, or explain how it wasn’t her fault. But that was little consolation if she couldn’t win her son’s faith again.
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