My King The President

by Tom Lewis

  “No, why?”

  “Funny you should want stuff on Judge Koontz. Timing, I mean. It was just announced. He was appointed to head up the new Commission. We’re running a big front page piece on it today.”

  “What new Commission?”

  “Congressional. You know, like the Warren Commission after Kennedy got shot.”

  At that moment, I couldn’t say why, but those words sent every nerve sensor off in my brain like the burglar alarm at Fort Knox. “Interesting. Thanks for the call, Walt.”

  I think he said “No problem” again but if he did, I didn’t hear it. I hung up, grabbed my coat and ran out to hail a cab—

  —And ran smack into Special Agent Thurmond Frye before I got half way through the lobby.

  “In a hurry, Jeb?”

  Since I was a boy learning the ancient game of chess, Cal always preached to me that the best thing to do when caught by a surprise move is to immediately attack. “Would you believe? I was on my way to see you. You’ve just saved me a taxi ride.”

  “Really. What did you want to see me about?”

  “I promised Abby McCarty I’d call her. Figured you knew where she is.”

  “Uh, huh. Had your coffee yet?”

  “Not yet,” I lied again. “Why? You in the habit of coming all the way over here for morning coffee? The Mayflower coffee shop’s good, but not that good.” Gambit. Counter. Answer a question with a question.

  “Came to talk to you, of course. Come on. My treat.”

  We took the far corner table, and since Frye didn’t bother to remove his coat, I knew this would be a short session. We ordered and I waited for him to make his next move. Thurmond Frye was what Cal calls a gray man. Gray hair, gray eyes. Gray skin. Gray everything. A man more comfortable in shadows than sunlight. He was also a throwback to an earlier age. The J. Edgar days. Not one of those button-down, smug lawyer types the FBI usually recruits now. He was big; he was smart, wary, and innately dangerous. Like a giant mongoose. I’d badly underestimated him once, in Mexico, then got lucky and managed to pull him out of a very tight spot when we got caught by some nasty Federales in a place where neither of us should have been. He owed me one, but we both knew neither of us would ever bring it up.

  “I had word you were back,” he said. “What are you doing here, Jeb?”

  I took a moment to sip from the heavy mug. I knew it was Frye’s style to know the answer to a question before asking it. It was cover story testing time. “I’m going back to work. Temporary thing, doing some guest articles for Ernie Latham at the Post.”

  “Yeah, I know about that. I checked with him this morning. I hope that’s all you’re doing, because if you’re up to anything else, I would not be a real happy guy, and you wouldn’t want me to be a real unhappy guy, would you?”

  “Nope.”

  “And if I thought you were up to your old amateurish tricks, or poking your nose into my investigation, it could definitely cause a boil on my ass. Not fatal, but irritating as hell, and boils have to be lanced. You follow?”

  “All too well. So you’re running the show?”

  “Our end of it, and we’re the point people for the new Koontz Commission.”

  “My, how you’ve risen.”

  “I’ll ignore that. Look, old friend, turned out that business down in Mexico was productive for me and could just as well have been for you. By the way, I’m sorry your book about it was a dud. Things don’t always work out the way we’d like. So, do your little articles and go home, Jeb. There’s no big story here. I doubt if the Koontz Commission thing will take a more than a week.”

  “I take it you’re ignoring the rumors, too.”

  “Rumors are just that. Nothing more. Facts so far indicate a pretty open and shut. No conspiracy. What did you want to talk to Mrs. McCarty about?

  Clever bastard. You won’t trip me up that easily. “Personal condolences, that’s all.”

  “You can’t. She’s in seclusion. Hey, don’t give me that look. She requested it. Wants to be as far, figuratively and literally, from Washington as she can get. Can’t blame her for that.”

  I was forced to play my only ace. “You owe me one, Frye. I want to at least talk to her on the phone, and I know you can set it up. She and Mac were both friends of mine. Good friends. I promised her I would at the funeral. Remember?”

  An almost imperceptible tinge of red began to show around his jaw line. “I’ll see what I can do. Meantime, don’t let me find out you’ve been lying to me today. Have a good one, Jeb.”

  He stood, dropped a five on the table and left me sitting there. He hadn’t even touched his coffee. This had been a warning. Shot across my bow. Something didn’t fit, though. Thing was, as I sat there mulling it over, that if President Tyndall’s murder was indeed so “open and shut”, why was Thurmond Frye concerned about me butting in?

  I waited another ten minutes to be safe, and went out. It had started raining again, but there were plenty of cabs available.

  A youngish, probably overworked priest at St. Michaels named Ralph told me Father Flaherty was away on a required retreat in Maryland and would be gone two weeks. Whether that was true or not, or whether Flaherty had chosen to purposefully escape Washington and all that was going on, I had no way of knowing. I hadn’t been expecting that, and had already sent the cab on its way. So, I trudged through the rain the two blocks to Reilly’s, cursing myself for forgetting, in my haste, to grab either a hat or an umbrella.

  That Sean Reilly recognized me was something of a surprise. What he said to me when he came to the booth I’d sat down in was a bigger one. “Mornin’, Mr. Willard. Tim said you’d be back. Somebody here you should talk to.” He looked around to see if any of the early customers were watching. They weren’t. “Come with me, please.”

  I followed him through the café doors into a neat, rather large kitchen. A stout, smiling woman whose face looked like a well-polished apple turned from the grill, wiped her hands on her apron, then stuck one out to me. “I’m Moira, Sean’s better half.” She cocked her head to the right. “Go on in.”

  Sean pulled a brown curtain aside, revealing a small dining room, behind which was a staircase. I barely heard him tell me the stairs led up to their living quarters, because sitting at their linen-covered table, stirring a cup of coffee, was Liz McCarty. She looked up, managed a small “Hi,” and then looked back down into her cup. I noticed several things at once. She was dressed in a waitress uniform, her hair pulled back and pinned, she wore no makeup, and, she had been crying all morning long.

  In the softest of voices, Reilly said, “Take all the time you need, honey. We don’t have much of a crowd yet. Glad to see you, Mr. Willard. You’re welcome in my house anytime.”

  I sat down opposite the embarrassed girl. Gave her one of my best smiles and another one to Moira Reilly who silently placed a cup of delicious smelling coffee under my nose. “What’s wrong, Liz?”

  Long pause. Fidgeting. Lip-chewing. Then it came in jets, between sobs. Had to leave school just shy of finishing Master’s at University of Virginia… Kicked out of apartment in Charlottesville… Clothes tossed out into the freaking street… Volkswagen trashed and burned by students… Nowhere to go… No money… Mac had been paying bills… Co-signing student loans… They knew I was his sister… Moira and Sean came through… Gave me a bed and a job… “Why, Jeb? Why in God’s name did he do it?”

  “I don’t know, Liz. But I’ll find out, if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

  Promising to help her in any way possible, I got away as quickly as I diplomatically could. Cal used to say walking in the rain helps tamp down the fires of anger. It did, but not by much, especially since I’d had no chance to ask her the same question. No matter, since the way she’d asked it of me showed she knew nothing. Nothing at all.

  My first official day on the job was rapidly going south, but my disposition improved a little when I got back to the hotel and found Walt Erikson asleep in one of the lobby
chairs, briefcase resting on his skinny chest. Over a tasteless room service lunch we washed down with Heineken, I started to read the enormous printout he’d brought. After three pages, plus the inability to shove Liz McCarty to a back burner, I gave up. “I don’t have the patience for this right now, Walt. Hand me the short version, and please don’t say ‘no problem.’ ”

  I was doubly impressed with Walt’s work when the short version turned out to be very short. I scanned the high points, already highlighted in yellow:

  Ezekiel Joshua Koontz— One of the “Most-Admired-Men-of-America.”

  Born 82 years ago at Beckley, West Virginia

  Harvard Law School (dates)

  Successful Beckley law practice (dates)

  Circuit Judge (dates)

  Federal Judge (dates)

  Appointed Supreme Court by Carter

  Served 20 years, resigned unexpectedly

  Unofficial guru to every President since

  Never married

  Gourmet cook, loves music, parties

  World-class domino and poker player

  Heading new Commission re: Congressional Investigation

  I put the single sheet down. Concentration was slipping badly. I’d have to go back over it tonight, when I’d cooled off. “Did you bring the tapes?”

  “Yessir. Got ’em right here.” He fished them out of his briefcase and laid them on top of his printout. “And Mr. Latham says to tell you he set up the interview with the Judge for the day after tomorrow. I’m to tag along as the photographer. Don’t worry, I have some experience.”

  “Good old Ernie. Thinks of everything. Thanks, Walt. You better go on back to your family. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  Walt left, and I sat down to make another attempt to study his long printout. After half an hour, I gave up again in frustration, made myself a drink, and had started to the bathroom when I heard a knock on the door. I quickly looked around to see if Walt had forgotten something. He hadn’t, so I slammed the glass down, took three steps and yanked on the doorknob, my mood now blacker than the inside of a stovepipe. It took a couple of painfully mortifying, speechless seconds before I recognized the former First Lady, Jean Tyndall!

  “Well, Mr. Willard, are you going to invite me in or not?”

  Chapter 5

  Once I had gotten over my pubescent crush on big-breasted Edith Conway way back when at Tryon’s Cove Middle School, there hadn’t been many times when I’d been at a loss for words around women, even Washington women, whether they were wives of Senators, ambitious pages, or cocktail waitresses. Now, within the relatively small space of twenty-four hours, I had been practically struck dumb by two; the new lady President, and now the widow of the man whose place she’d taken. I must have managed some kind of reflex gestures, though, since I quickly found myself sitting across my coffee table from her, an actor’s smile on my face, silently praising the dependable Mayflower housekeeping staff, and listening to her explain the unannounced and totally unexpected visit.

  “Ernie Latham’s editorial today mentioned you were back in town and doing a series of articles on people close to my husband. Do I qualify?” Her teasing laughter was light. Like a dab of Cool Whip.

  I found my voice, and promptly lied through my teeth. “Top of the list. I wanted to talk to Abby, too, but I guess that’s not possible right now.” I told her about Thurmond Frye’s little house call.

  “That’s actually why I’m here. Abby asked me to talk to you in person. To thank you for being such a good friend.”

  “I really appreciate that. I can’t tell you how much I felt her pain, and yours. You have both lost so much.”

  “What about the country?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The country’s loss. Do you feel that, too?”

  I didn’t understand her question at all, but I responded the way I thought she wanted me to. “Why, yes, ma’am. That’s a given.”

  “Then you’re as wrong, as duped as everyone else. Buck Tyndall’s death was the best thing that could ever happen to these United States.”

  I hoped my face didn’t show the astonishment I felt hearing those words. Here was this tiny wisp of a woman who had been a gracious White House hostess, a charming and attractive personality who had, at his elbow, buffered many of her husband’s rough edges while tirelessly championing women’s rights, now in essence telling me to my face that his murder was good for the country! This time, I made no response at all. Cal would have been proud of me.

  “Do I shock you, Mr. Willard?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You certainly do.”

  “And you still want to interview me?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Again came that frilly, lilting laugh. “Because you and I both know Ernie Latham doesn’t have the journalistic courage to print one word of it. My husband was close to turning this country into a police state. No one in America knows just how close. You know what I called him?”

  “What?”

  “Every morning—those mornings I saw him, I mean, I’d say, ‘What do you want for breakfast today, my King the President?’ I’m sorry about the way it happened, but at last I’m free of the bastard, and so is the rest of the country.”

  “Are you telling me you hated him?”

  “With every fiber of my being. But I wasn’t alone, was I? Where have you been these past few years, Mr. Willard? Except for soldiers and cops, every thinking person in this country hated his guts. Especially Snow White and his smart-ass dwarfs. Boy, did Buck turn the tables on them!”

  She abruptly stood up. Dropped a card on the coffee table. “Well, I can see by the look on your very handsome face that I’ve told you enough to entice you to my suite at the Watergate next Monday at four for cocktails and a long talk. It’s Absolut you drink, right?”

  She was gone before I could gather wits enough to react. I felt like a confused victim picking up pieces of his brain after a tornado had blasted through it. My rip sheet would need revising, and right away, too. I decided to do it in my favorite place; the ancient claw-footed bathroom tub—the only one I had ever seen long enough for me to stretch out in. I made myself a drink, went in, turned the water on, and then looked at my watch. It was past time for Cecil’s shift to begin, and I needed his expertise. I called the desk.

  He hadn’t changed. “Hel-lo, darling. I think it’s marvelous you’re back. I have truly missed you. How may I be of service today?”

  “I need your special shopping skills, Cecil. Like yesterday.”

  “Do you now? So what do we need, precious?”

  “Two new suits, some shirts, underwear, a sport coat, shoes, socks, ties, pretty much everything, plus I need what I was wearing today dry-cleaned by tomorrow at eight. It’s hanging in the same place. Just let yourself in. I’ll be in the tub.”

  “My goodness. Sounds like old times.”

  “Speaking of time, you’re wasting a lot of it talking so much, Cecil.”

  “Oops. Right. Everything by eight tomorrow. Bye, darling.”

  Cecil Hathaway was from the Cayman Islands, black as black can be, and gayer than a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, but he was the world’s greatest procurer. For a price, he could deliver anything, and I do mean anything you want, to your room. And fast. I had not brought many clothes with me to Washington, nor did I have time to shop. To be honest, I didn’t own much of a wardrobe any more, unless you count khaki shorts, tee shirts, and boat shoes—not exactly the proper duds for where I’d be going.

  I soaked and sipped; trying to sort out what Jean Tyndall had told me. She apparently had more she wanted to unload, and I found myself looking forward to the coming Monday as much as to my visit tomorrow with Judge Koontz.

  Long baths usually make me hungry. I decided to treat myself to a steak downstairs before watching the tapes Walt had brought. I got out of the tub, dried off, and was putting on my robe when yet another knock on the door came. This time, however, I recognized Cecil’s usual; two raps,
followed by two more. “Come on in, Cecil.”

  I had my back turned to the door when Cecil opened it, and in his most professional voice, said, “Excuse me, Mr. Willard, sir, but you have a guest.”

  I turned, and nearly dropped my teeth when my father marched right in ahead of the worried looking night clerk. “Cal? What the devil—?” When he started to tell me, I held up a finger. “Wait just a minute.” I picked up my suit and handed it to Cecil. “You need some money now?”

  “Oh, no sir. We can settle accounts later. I shall have this back as promised. Have a nice evening, sir.”

  He hurried out, closing the door softly behind him. Cal said, “Is he British?”

  “Sort of. What are you doing here, Cal? You couldn’t possibly have gotten the boat—”

  “Take it easy, pal. Sammy’s on the way with your boat. Pete Suggs was back in Tryon’s Cove with nothing to do, so I asked him to help Sammy. I drove because we needed the car after bringing the boat up. Besides, I thought you might need an extra pair of hands and feet. You think you can use your influence to get me a room here for a few days?”

  I was pretty sure that was another thing Cecil could arrange, so I nodded. “Why the car? I told you I’d pay for yours and Sammy’s airfare home.”

  “I know you did, but we’re not going back to Tryon’s Cove. Sammy and Pete are going to help me with a few things I need to do at the cabin, so we’re going to drive back together down through the Shenandoah valley and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Pretty this time of year.”

  “Okay. You hungry?”

  “Very hungry.”

  “Just let me call room service. I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

  The New York strips were long gone and the excellent bottle of Cabernet down to the last half glass before Cal asked his first question. “So, who do you think ‘Snow White and the dwarfs’ may be?”

  “No idea, but they must be people who had a big bone to pick with Tyndall. Possible motive. Maybe I’ll find out Monday. What she said got me thinking like an investigator again. Like, who stood to gain the most from Tyndall’s death?”