The Jury Master

by Robert Dugoni

  “Don’t all felons have to register?”

  Molia laughed. “Easy. My sister is one of them. And run a Department of Motor Vehicles check and see if we can get a picture of this guy. And I noticed a sticker on the bumper of his car in the lot. It’s a rental but not from one of the big ones. Check and see if there’s a reservation under the name Blair. I’ll call you back in half an hour.”

  “Christ, Mole, anything else? How ’bout I make you a sandwich and hold your dick while you take a leak?”

  “Sandwich would be nice,” Molia said. “The dick thing is just sick.”

  56

  THEY WALKED ACROSS Pennsylvania Avenue at a brisk pace, the heat of the day stifling and humid. Sloane was sweating, and his heart pounded like that of a condemned man taking his last walk. His mind had gone blank. He felt as if he were being swept along in a powerful current, unable to swim out, and with no plausible way to avoid the inevitable: a meeting with President Robert Peak.

  Rivers Jones continued his soliloquy about the Department of Justice and its vast resources as they covered the fifty yards between the two buildings, making analogies to steam engines rolling. Sloane heard intermittent bits of the monologue but was focused on a different conversation: the one he’d had with Aileen Blair. Blair said her husband did not like political functions, that he was a homebody. Did that mean he didn’t go, or that he didn’t like going? She said he didn’t like leaving Boston, but again, that could mean he didn’t leave, or he didn’t like leaving but did it anyway. A lot of husbands did things they didn’t want to do. Aileen Blair said she had been to her brother’s office before, but she hadn’t mentioned the White House. Surely Joe Branick brought his family to the White House. What person with an opportunity to do so wouldn’t? And Branick and Peak had been friends since college. Peak must have been present at Branick family events. Had Jon Blair been there? The chances were, he had been. Then again, Aileen Blair was the youngest, and by a good margin. Maybe by then her oldest brother had moved out of the house. Shit, Sloane didn’t know what to think except that he needed to come up with something fast.

  Jones facilitated their access through the West Gate. Uniformed Secret Service officers checked him for weapons but did not request any further identification, Jones apparently having orchestrated everything in advance. He handed Sloane a pass from the security officer, and Sloane dutifully clipped it to his sport coat as they continued toward the visitors’ entrance on the north side of the West Wing. It was surreal. The West Wing. Sloane was on the White House grounds. He followed Jones up four steps, where two marines stood rigid beneath a portico. The marine on the left snapped sharply to the side and pulled open the door.

  Jones led Sloane down a paneled hall adorned with a portrait of Robert Peak and other photographs of Peak meeting world leaders. They came to an officious-looking lobby with an American flag in each corner, a dark brown leather couch between them, matching chairs to the side. Sloane took a seat on the couch while Jones announced himself to a bevy of people working behind a counter. Then he sat beside Sloane to continue his one-sided conversation.

  Sloane’s mind remained blank, and he wouldn’t get much time to fill it. Just a minute after Jones sat down, a middle-aged woman in a smart blue suit with a black brooch that looked like a huge bug stuck to her lapel suddenly loomed over them. “Mr. Jones. Mr. Blair. The president will see you now.”

  She led them through an interior door and down a hall. Men and women walked in and out of offices, the sounds of telephones and voices spilling into the hallway. The woman turned right and came to an abrupt stop. She gave three purposeful taps on the door before pushing it open. Then she walked in, holding the door open behind her.

  Jones turned to Sloane and put out his left hand. “After you.”

  Sloane wanted to turn and run. He briefly considered feigning illness; the chances that he could throw up on Jones’s shoes were good at the moment. But he steeled himself for the inevitable and willed himself to step inside.

  President Robert Peak sat in profile behind an oversize ornate desk, the telephone pressed between his shoulder and ear. He was clearly trying to cut short the conversation. He faced a bronze sculpture of a fly fisherman, and a large rainbow trout mounted on the wall, its mouth open and head cocked to the side. Despite his inner turmoil, Sloane thought the room smaller than he envisioned. A round royal-blue area rug embossed with the presidential seal covered nearly every inch of the hardwood floor. The seating area in front of Peak’s desk consisted of two couches with a marble coffee table between them, and a rocking chair. Sloane couldn’t help but acknowledge the immensity of the history that had been made inside this room, and recalled the grainy black-and-white photographs of John and Robert Kennedy from history books, the two men huddled together, grave expressions on their faces during the showdown with the Russians. Sloane was about to have his own showdown, and he decided he wasn’t going to go down without trying.

  Practicing law taught lawyers to accept the inevitable. There were moments in a trial when nothing they could do or say could change their client’s fate. They could be right and still be found wrong. They could win on the evidence and still have a jury rule against them. The thought brought Sloane a strange, comforting peace. If Robert Peak knew Jon Blair, Sloane was already screwed. There was nothing he could do about it now. Wasting energy worrying about it would not change the outcome. But if Peak and Blair had never met, then he still had a chance. Branick and Peak were reported to have been good friends. Peak would be comfortable talking to a perceived family member. Sloane’s fortunes had taken a dramatic turn either for the worse or for the better. If he was going to get information about Joe Branick, there was no better place to get it.

  Practicing law had also taught him much about reality and perception. The two were not the same. It was impossible for any lawyer, no matter how organized or capable, to be prepared always. Good lawyers acknowledged this and focused instead on appearing prepared. There were survival techniques in court: Speak only when asked a direct question; if you did not know the answer to a direct question, rephrase the question to fit your answer; talk in general terms rather than specifics; get what information possible, be thankful for it, and sit down and shut up. Get in and get out. The less time you spoke, the less chance you had of making a mistake.

  Peak hung up the phone, seemed to pause to mentally change gears, then stood and came around the desk. He had the posture of a man with chronic back or knee pain, a former athlete paying the price for the pursuit of glory. Unlike the Oval Office, Peak appeared bigger than on television: about Sloane’s height, but with wide shoulders that carried more weight comfortably. With a full head of gray hair, his jacket off, his shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his forearms, Peak looked like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company about to put a shovel in the ground at some ceremonial groundbreaking. He extended a hand to Jones. Jones turned to introduce Sloane.

  “Mr. President, allow me to introduce Jon Blair.”

  PARKER MADSEN HUNG up the telephone. When it did not immediately ring he used the moment of silence to catch his breath. He had fought more battles than he could remember—pushed his body beyond physical and mental exhaustion in the sweltering jungles of Vietnam and South America and through the oppressive sand of the Middle East—and when the battle was over he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t rest. Amped on adrenaline, his mind reworked each mission over and over, dissecting it, determining how the result could have been better, the effort more efficient. He loved the rush of seeing things go off according to plan, his plan, perfectly orchestrated, every man pulling his weight, doing exactly as ordered without question or hesitation. The pleasure it brought was better than sex, though nothing compared to the pleasure he felt during the engagement. Even as his rank steadily increased, Madsen never left his men—never let them go into combat without him, never sat in a tent looking at computer screens while his men risked their lives in the field. A soldier first, Madsen remained a soldier. God,
he loved it.

  But now he was tired. Alberto Castañeda, Mexico’s president, had not stuck to the plan. The son of a bitch had strayed from it significantly, as the Mexicans were prone to do. It explained why a country of such immense size and natural resources, one that Henry Kissinger once said had the greatest potential to affect world politics, would always remain a bit player. Its leaders were just too damn disorganized and irresponsible. They had spent months arranging for meetings in clandestine locations to keep news of the negotiations from leaking—the last thing they needed was to piss off OPEC and the Arabs without a viable alternative in place—and what does the Mexican president do? He appears at a press conference in Mexico City to announce a tentative accord between Mexico and the United States to increase Mexico’s oil production and corresponding sales to the United States. The press was now demanding specifics.

  After the initial shock of Castañeda’s blunder, the West Wing regrouped, drew up the drawbridges, and hunkered down. Madsen gave strict orders to the White House press secretary that no confirmation of Castañeda’s statement was to be released; the White House was to have no official comment. First they needed to find out exactly what Castañeda had and had not said. Calls to reach him had not been successful. Whatever Castañeda did say, Madsen feared it was premature. Mexico’s chief negotiator, Miguel Ibarón, had hinted that Mexico was prepared to accept the most recent United States offer, which had precipitated the South American summit, but there had been no further confirmation. It was not that simple. Agreeing to assist the Mexicans to increase their oil production and actually being able to do it profitably were two entirely different things. It was not like the Middle East, which spewed oil from each hole punched in the ground. Madsen preached caution, but Robert Peak, more concerned that Castañeda had stolen the spotlight and desperately in need of a little illumination with his approval rating plummeting, compounded Madsen’s problem by scheduling an evening address to the nation. It had only further stirred the news media pot.

  Madsen stretched his neck and felt it pop. His legs ached for exercise, and his ear remained red and sore from the relentless telephone calls, one politician or bureaucrat after another. It was what he detested about Washington: the need for every decision to be considered, reconsidered, and considered again. Everyone had an interest. Everyone had a political chit to call in. No wonder nothing was ever accomplished. There were so many middlemen, so many t’s to be crossed and i’s to be dotted, you couldn’t take a crap without needing presidential authorization to wipe your ass.

  That would change. Madsen would be a commander in chief unlike any Washington had ever seen. He’d make decisions. His decisions would stand.

  While he waited for a draft copy of the president’s speech, Madsen picked up one of the newspapers on his desk. The stack remained untouched. He scanned the headlines and paragraphs his staff had underlined. After a quick twenty minutes he picked up the paper at the end of the stack, a copy of the Boston Globe. The double-column headline caught his attention immediately:

  BRANICK FAMILY TO

  HIRE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  He smirked. Let them. Let them spend their money. Maybe then they’d be satisfied. Their investigation would come up blank, and they’d be forced to back off their criticism of the DOJ. Death was another thing that separated civilians from soldiers. Soldiers understood that death was always a possibility. People lived and people died. Some died in service to their country, defending the principles on which it was founded. Others died of old age. But they died. It was their time. Soldiers came to accept death as a part of nature’s cycle. Civilians never did. They grieved for years for deceased spouses, parents, and children. They made shrines to those who had gone before them, prayed to them for guidance and counseling. When his Olivia died Madsen had allowed himself forty-eight hours to get his affairs in order and move on. He had needed just thirty-six.

  He read the article beneath the headline. The news conference had been held in Boston, outside the family home. The article reported little of substance. Madsen was about to put it down when his eyes shifted to the photograph accompanying it. A woman stood at a microphone, surrounded by a dozen people. It looked like a gathering of the fucking Kennedys. The caption identified the woman as Aileen Branick Blair, Rivers Jones’s nemesis. That brought a wide smile to Madsen’s face. Jones had sounded relieved to learn that Blair was heading back to Boston and sending her husband to clean out Joe Branick’s office. Madsen looked at his watch. Jon Blair was likely meeting with Peak at this very moment. Then it would be over. The family wouldn’t want to dig in the boneyard Madsen had created for them.

  He looked again at the photograph. Joe Branick’s family encircled Blair like a gospel revival group, the whole Irish Catholic clan present in a show of support, starting with the man directly at her side. Her husband.

  Jon Blair.

  PEAK REGARDED SLOANE with the doleful blue-gray eyes and measured smile that had become famous during the campaign, and which Washington satirists now exploited in political cartoons. Nothing in those eyes indicated either recognition or confusion.

  “Jon. It’s a pleasure. I only wish we could have met under different circumstances.”

  Sloane felt the collective weight of a thousand gorillas lifted off his shoulders. “Mr. President,” he said, shaking Peak’s hand. “Thank you for seeing me. I can only imagine how busy your schedule is. I hope I’m not taking up too much of your time.”

  “Call me Robert, please, and don’t apologize. This was my idea, after all. I’m sorry Aileen could not be here. I haven’t seen her for quite some time.”

  “She’ll be disappointed,” Sloane replied. He looked to Jones. “We didn’t know . . .”

  “I understand. I wanted to speak to you directly,” Peak said. He looked to Jones. “Thank you, Rivers.”

  Jones turned to Sloane and shook his hand, all business. “There’ll be a car waiting at the West Gate for you. You’ll be escorted there.” He handed Sloane a business card. “Please feel free to call me at any time, for any reason.”

  Sloane took the card. “You’ve been most accommodating, Mr. Jones. I’m very grateful to have had the chance to meet you and for all of your hard work. I’ll be certain to pass it on to the rest of the family.”

  Jones beamed like a kid getting a compliment in front of the class, gripped Sloane’s shoulder, and exited through the door where the woman with the bug jewelry stood waiting. The door closed behind her.

  Peak guided Sloane to one of the two blue-and-beige striped couches. He sat in the rocking chair, taking a moment to pour himself a glass of water from a pitcher on a marble table. “I’m supposed to drink eight glasses a day for a thyroid condition. I use the bathroom more than I use the telephone.” He held the pitcher up to Sloane.

  Sloane nodded. “Please.”

  The glass would also serve as a prop, something to keep his hands occupied and to allow him to stall for time, if he needed it.

  “How’s Barbara doing?” Peak asked, as if on cue.

  Sloane took the cup and sipped at the edge. He knew from the newspaper articles that Joe Branick’s wife’s name was Katherine. Branick had two daughters. It was unlikely Peak had singled out one over the other. By process of elimination he deduced that Peak’s inquiry was about Branick’s mother, but he couldn’t take the chance he might be wrong.

  “As well as can be expected. She’s taking it hard. This is about the last thing any of us ever expected.”

  Peak’s chest suddenly heaved and shuddered. He removed a handkerchief from his back pocket and blotted his eyes, which had quickly watered. The emotion seemed to come from nowhere. Sloane had not expected it.

  “I’m sorry.” Peak took a moment to regain his composure. “Other than Sherri, you’re really the first person I’ve had the chance to talk with about this since I delivered the news to Katherine. I guess it overwhelmed me.”

  “I understand,” Sloane said. Despite the sudden burst of e
motion, he could not feel the depth of Robert Peak’s pain. When he tried it was like a rock skipping across the surface of a body of water, deflected away.

  “Joe and I have known each other for forty years. It seems like only yesterday we were at Georgetown. We had so much ambition.” He smiled at the memory and cleared his throat. “We talked about this, you know? We talked about sitting in this very office. The first time we met here we had a drink and toasted to ambition and fulfilled dreams.” Peak blew out a breath. “I can’t believe he’s gone. I get up every morning and I think it was just a bad dream, that it wasn’t real. Then I see a story in the paper or I turn to ask him a question at a staff meeting, and he isn’t there.” He shook his head. “I relied on him heavily. I relied on his advice so heavily.”

  Sloane nodded in silence.

  Peak continued. “I’ve known Katherine almost as long as I’ve known Joe. You know, I was the best man at their wedding?”

  “Yes,” Sloane said.

  “The hardest part was talking with little Joe, seeing his pain. They were so close. I envied their relationship. God knows I love my daughters, but . . . well, when Joe asked me to be little Joe’s godfather, that was a very proud moment for me.”

  “You’ve been a good friend, Mr. President. I know Joe felt the same way.”

  Peak shook his head. “Robert, please,” he said again. “And I’m not so sure. If I had been a better friend, perhaps this would not have happened.”

  The door to the room opened. The woman with the killer brooch entered carrying a tray of sandwiches and fruit. She left it on the table between them. “Rivers indicated you had lunch plans. I thought you might be hungry,” Peak said.

  Sloane nodded. “I’m fine, but thank you.”

  There was a brief pause. Peak rubbed a hand across his chin, then sat forward, getting down to business. “I wanted to speak to you directly, Jon. I’m afraid the investigation has uncovered some troubling information.”