The President s Assassin

by Brian Haig

  She ignored this aside, and me. True to her craft, she was wandering around, immersing herself in the environment from which Jason Barnes was hatched. Having dealt with a few criminal profilers, I don’t pretend to understand their skills, and it all sounds a bit psychobabbly, in my view. But they do put a lot of bad guys in the slammer, so I guess they’re okay.

  Anyway, we reached the end of the hallway, and where I expected the kitchen there was instead a small waiting room, through which we passed into a spacious, wood-paneled office. The agent who had escorted us inside and guided us through this maze of old furniture and dead Barneses stuck his head into the room and announced, “Special Agent Jennifer Margold is here.” He backed out of the office without introducing me, and left us alone with our subject.

  We walked to the middle of the room, where Mrs. Barnes remained seated—actually enveloped—inside a huge brown leather club chair with her legs resting comfortably on an overstuffed ottoman.

  As I mentioned, Mrs. Barnes did not rise, nor did she offer her hand or proffer a greeting; she merely waved languidly in the direction of a long leather couch punctuated with buttons.

  I glanced at our hostess as we sat—she seemed composed, almost smug, perhaps even expectant, as if we were here for her to interrogate us, rather than vice versa. Was she in for a big surprise.

  Anyway, compared to Calhoun’s portrait, Margaret Barnes was younger, by perhaps a decade, and at least physically, she and he were an interesting study in contrasts and contradictions. She was tiny and slender, frail actually, with a pallor that was unnaturally pale. In fact, her skin was nearly translucent, unlike so many southern ladies who looked like sunbaked prunes. Her features were beautiful and, were it not for the dark circles and deep crevices that surrounded her eyes and the sagging lines around her mouth, might even be considered youthful. Probably these were scars of grief, though they could be something more, something less immediate, something more intrinsically soul-sabotaging.

  She looked at me and said, “I’m sorry...I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Sean Drummond.”

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Drummond. Are you also an agent?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “Well, I’m...” What was I?

  “A consultant,” Jennie cut in. “He’s helping us close some old case files.”

  Mrs. Barnes smiled and said, “Oh...well, that’s nice.” She gathered her thoughts and added, “I don’t understand why you chose to come at this late hour. Though as they say, better late than never.”

  In fact, there was no way Mrs. Barnes could understand why two federal agents were visiting her house after midnight, though she obviously had an idea, and that idea seemed not to trouble her. Jennie squeezed my leg, a gesture I understood to mean, Don’t spook this lady.

  Jennie withdrew a tape recorder from her pocketbook and held it up for Mrs. Barnes to observe. She explained, “I’m required to inform you that I’ll be recording our conversation.”

  “I...is that necessary?”

  “I’m afraid it is.” She smiled reassuringly and added, “You’re not suspected of any crimes, Mrs. Barnes. It’s just a procedural formality.”

  Mrs. Barnes smiled at me. “I suppose as long as I’m not a suspect...”

  I smiled back. “Completely harmless.” A tape recorder in the hands of a federal agent is never harmless, incidentally.

  After a moment, she said, “Goodness...my manners! Would either of you care for a drink? I know it’s late...maybe an aperitif?”

  I love the way southern women handle these common courtesies like a careless afterthought. I mean, they know it’s phony, you know it’s phony, and that just makes it more charming.

  Margaret Barnes’s accent, incidentally, like so much in this house, was a relic, what used to be called a plantation accent—a concoction of squashed vowels and expressive little midsentence bounces. I was sure a ton of Daddy’s money went into finishing schools and Sweetbriar College perfecting her sugary tumble of intonations.

  But in response to her kind offer, Jennie glanced at me and replied to Mrs. Barnes, “Thank you, we’ll have to pass.” She added, emphatically, “Hoover’s law—federal officers never drink on duty.”

  I smiled at Mrs. Barnes. “Scotch, if you have it.”

  Jennie coughed into her hand.

  Mrs. Barnes laughed. “’Course. My husband, Calhoun, adored a good scotch. Perhaps you’d be so good as to pour me a sherry as well?”

  I got up and walked to the built-in bar across the room. Incidentally, the coda of southern gentility is hospitality, and I was a little surprised that she sent me to fetch the drinks, but happily, hospitality also means a well-stocked bar, and Judge Barnes was a thoughtful host. I poured myself a glass of Calhoun’s Glenfiddich, and for Margaret I poured a glass of sherry I was sure Calhoun wouldn’t be caught dead drinking.

  I walked back and held her sherry slightly beyond her grasp, until it was apparent she could not slide forward and grab it, and it was apparent why. Margaret Barnes was a cripple. I said, “Excuse me,” and placed the drink in her hands.

  “That’s quite all right.” But I think she was a little peeved, because she diverted her eyes from me and toward Jennie. She said, “Well! So, to what do I owe this late-night visit...Jennifer? Or do you prefer Jennie?”

  “I prefer Jennie. Could we begin with a few questions about your husband?”

  “Oh...then this does concern Calhoun?”

  “I’d like to begin there, yes.”

  Margaret Barnes did not bat an eye. She leaned back and her eyes shifted around the room, bringing transparency to why she had chosen to meet us here, in the back study, instead of the living room, or the front parlor, which probably was her custom.

  Large and expansive walls surrounded us, and upon them hung the full and impressive regalia of Calhoun Barnes’s long career and many accomplishments: his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Virginia, framed documents ordaining him a city magistrate and then as a federal judge, an array of local awards, and a huge menagerie of photographs of the judge with famous personages.

  I immediately ruled out self-esteem issues, frustrated narcissism, or excessive modesty as motives for Calhoun’s suicide.

  From the rogues’ gallery, I picked out three former United States Presidents, a slew of Virginia governors and senators, and in the middle of this menagerie, where it could not be overlooked, a younger Judge Barnes sharing brandy and cigars with Saint J. Edgar Hoover, in this very same room, actually on the very same couch upon which Jennie and I sat. So there we were, so to speak, cheek-to-cheek with greatness.

  Also, in the far left upper corner was an old black-and-white photograph of a very young Calhoun Barnes in fishing waders and a plaid shirt, with his arm around an equally young and considerably tinier Justice Phillip Fineberg, also in fishing gear. Interesting.

  I met Margaret Barnes’s eyes. I noted the obvious. “Your husband was very...successful.”

  “I suppose he was.” She added, “I believe all men should have their private enclaves where they can view their triumphs. Don’t you think that’s so, Mr. Drummond?”

  I nodded. “My many accomplishments hang on the wall over my toilet.”

  She forced a smile. I think my northern charm was wearing thin.

  We were supposed to recognize, and we did recognize, that Calhoun Barnes had formed powerful alliances and connections, that his widow wasn’t without resources, and that a federal power dance was out of the question. Jennie commented, “Your husband obviously had an extraordinarily successful career. Why did he...well—”

  “Kill himself? I know what Calhoun did, Jennifer. He put a gun in his mouth, and he slipped a noose around his neck.”

  “All right. Why?”

  But she appeared not to want to address this question yet. It was her intention to control this session, and she suggested, “Would I bore you if I went
back a bit in time, to when Calhoun and I met?”

  Beyond words. I replied, “Not at all, ma’am.”

  She took a long sip of sherry. She said, “I think it’s important for you to know the Barneses are a venerable name in this city. Calhoun’s great-grandfather owned a large and prosperous plantation in the tidewater area. His grandfather was an officer under Stonewall Jackson and was not without accomplishment on the battlefield. He turned to law after the war, moved the family here, and lawyering became their family vocation. In fact, Calhoun’s daddy was also an attorney and became a highly regarded judge himself. There was even talk of his daddy ending up on the Supreme Court. I think, had not the Negro issue become so divisive and inflammatory, it likely would have happened.”

  Nobody spoke for a few moments as we sat and absorbed this tale. With southern aristocracy, family histories are like shadowboxing in a darkroom; you have to fine-tune a bit. In a nutshell, I understood her to say, Calhoun’s family once owned a huge spread, big bucks, and mucho slaves, the Civil War came, the slaves hightailed it, the money dried up, the carpetbaggers elbowed in, the Barneses fled, became city folk, became professional, became successful, remained bigots, and history caught up with them. No wonder Faulkner had such a ball with these people.

  That’s the problem with the whole southern notion of family tradition and lineage; if the past is lily-white, it’s okay, I guess—otherwise it’s like being born with ten tons of shit on your back. The past is never the past with these people. Somehow this shaped Calhoun Barnes, and somehow this also shaped Jason Barnes.

  Mrs. Barnes continued, “My family had a fine pedigree as well. Many thought Calhoun and I would make a good match.”

  Jennie commented, “He was a handsome man.”

  “Yes. Calhoun was many things, Jennifer. He played football at the University...Later, he became quite accomplished at tennis and golf. And brainy? At law school, he received a slew of offers from prestigious judges and firms from Atlanta to New York.” She looked at Jennie and asked, “Are you a lawyer? I know many FBI agents are.”

  “No. I trained in psychiatry.”

  She sort of shrugged dismissively. “An interesting field also, I suppose.”

  Jennie nodded, and I wondered what was going through her mind.

  Mrs. Barnes said, “A week after Calhoun passed the bar, he and I walked together down the aisle in the chapel at St. Christopher’s, his prep school. This was 1965. He was regarded as quite the catch, and I was regarded as a very lucky woman. But Calhoun didn’t want to work for an important judge, or at a big firm.”

  I asked, “Why not?”

  “Well, I suppose we weren’t inclined to depart this city for any amount of money.”

  It sounded like a lovely sentiment, and we both nodded in acknowledgment. Of course, all the money they wanted was in the city.

  She added, “But I think Calhoun didn’t want to go through the clerking or associate phase of law. He was a hungry man, ambitious and quite impatient. He decided that if he opened his own practice, he could jump ahead of everybody.”

  Hoping to get us out of this pit of nostalgia, I commented, “I would think he needed partners.”

  She looked at me a moment. “You’re right, Mr. Drummond. And he knew just the right man...the top man of his law class, in fact.”

  I pointed in the direction of the framed picture. “Phillip Fineberg.”

  “Yes...Phillip.”

  “Good choice.”

  She did not acknowledge that judgment, and instead sipped from her sherry and studied the ceiling.

  She remarked, “It was...well, an uneven relationship at first.”

  “Because Fineberg was Jewish?”

  She nodded. “We were always more progressive than Selma, but it was...in those days, in this city, complicated to be Sephardic. A lot of business occurs on golf courses and at social events, and Phillip didn’t— You understand, don’t you?”

  We understood. I also understood that a man with Calhoun’s background and conservative leanings didn’t partner with a social pariah to correct a racial injustice, or as an act of generosity.

  Anyway, we listened as she prattled on about how Calhoun carried Fineberg on his strong back, the local boy with all the right stuff, schmoozing and boozing, roping in clients by the boatload. And it worked—Barnes and Fine, the title the partners delicately chose for their firm, became highly regarded, successful, and prosperous, in that order.

  The chemistry between the founding partners was flawed, and often strained, but greed was the aphrodisiac. Calhoun hauled home the fish, and Fineberg gutted and filleted them, from the backroom, hidden behind his truncated name. The footwork, the research, the briefs, and court preparation fell on Fineberg’s brilliant shoulders, and Calhoun was the courtroom shark, racking up victories, hammering witnesses, earning quite the local name as a brainy brawler. Interestingly, Fineberg never once set foot in a courtroom except to deliver a late filing or to help Calhoun haul his thick briefcases back and forth.

  It was an intriguing tale with all the makings of a good tragedy, and you sensed where this might be going, but Mrs. Barnes suddenly looked up and said, slightly surprised, “Your glass appears empty, Mr. Drummond. Would you be so kind as to refill both our containers?”

  So I did.

  At the bar, I turned to her and asked, perhaps undiplomatically, “By the way, what happened to your legs?”

  She glanced at me. “My legs are fine.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought—”

  “You thought wrong. My back was broken.”

  “Oh, well, I’m sorry. How?”

  “An automobile accident.”

  “I see.”

  I handed her the glass and she immediately took a long gulp of sherry. Eventually, she exhaled deeply and said, “I suppose you’re wondering about the rumors?”

  “Exactly.” I had not a clue what she was talking about.

  She stared into her drink and swirled it around a moment. “It’s true that Calhoun drove that night. We never denied that.”

  Jennie tried to catch up and asked Mrs. Barnes, “Could we go back to the beginning?”

  “The beginning? Yes...that would be spring, 1975, a few months after our son was born. I don’t recall the evening overly well. But that sounds a little odd, doesn’t it? I mean, you’d think...”

  Whatever you’d think she let drift off. “We were at the country club,” she continued, “celebrating with a client. Calhoun’s firm had won a rather sizable settlement. We were driving home when it happened.” She looked at me and added, I thought oddly, “But I’ve never blamed Calhoun.”

  Jennie asked, “The accident—the police investigated?”

  “Calhoun found his way to a phone and he called the hospital and the police.”

  “And the police came?”

  “Yes. An officer arrived shortly before the ambulance.”

  “And did he do an investigation?”

  “There was no need for that, at all. The night was rainy, our car simply lost its traction and hit a tree. Nobody was injured. No property was damaged.”

  “You were injured.”

  She hesitated, then said, “The officer knew Calhoun. He spared us that indignity and inconvenience.”

  I noted, “Your insurance company wouldn’t regard it as an indignity. The repairs...your medical treatments—who paid?”

  “Us...of course.” I suppose we both looked surprised by that revelation, because she explained, “My husband was highly principled, Mr. Drummond. It would have been improper to make somebody else pay for a mistake he regarded as entirely his own.”

  I wasn’t sure how we got waylaid on this particular tangent, which appeared, on the surface, to have no bearing to our investigation. Yet some instinct told me it was relevant, possibly even important. Another instinct told me she was lying, or, at the least, withholding an important piece from this tale, and it wasn’t hard to guess what it was. I said, “Mrs. Barnes, if
your husband was intoxicated, he was a menace to the public, and his behavior was possibly criminal.”

  She looked at me a moment. “I did not say Calhoun was drunk.”

  “Was he?”

  “Well, there was not such anxiety in those years about drinking and driving. It really wasn’t—”

  “Answer my question.”

  “Calhoun’s frien— The officer recognized we had suffered enough. He—”

  “Was or was not your husband intoxicated?”

  “Calhoun always held his liquor well.” She paused, then added tersely, “I have no idea why you’re asking these questions. I hardly see how they pertain to what you’re here to investigate.”

  I looked at Jennie. She turned to Mrs. Barnes, as if nothing amiss had been said, and asked, “This happened when? A few months after your son’s birth? Right?”

  “Yes. There were unfortunate complications...internal injuries, and...well, further babies became beyond our means.”

  An interesting way to put it. I mentioned, “That must’ve been difficult for you.”

  “Oh no, Mr. Drummond. I think our difficulties would have been magnified greatly with another baby.”

  “Because you were in a wheelchair?”

  “I was bedridden for several years. More operations, rehabilitation clinics, and so forth. Then came the wheelchair.”

  Jennie said, “Yes. It would’ve been hard enough just raising...I apologize...your son’s name?”

  “Jason...Jason Nathan. Fortunately, Calhoun was an extraordinary father, very attentive, very active in Jason’s life. They were exceedingly close.”

  Jennie commented, “That’s unusual.”

  “Unusual?”

  “A professional man raising an infant, in those years...”

  Clearly we had tripped over some hidden wire in her psychic security system, because she raised an eyebrow and interrupted, “Why are you interested in that?”

  “We’re not,” I insisted. “What happened to the firm?”

  “I do not believe I’m ready to answer that.” She looked at me and asked, “Exactly what are you two doing here?”

  When neither of us responded, she said, “I assumed...at least, I expected...”