Exclusive

by Sandra Brown

  “Not if you’ll leave the cigarettes.”

  Barrie smiled in agreement. Once she’d checked the cassette recorder, she began. “You left several intriguing messages on my voice mail at WVUE.”

  “You thought I was a kook.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Otherwise you would have called me back.”

  Charlene was going to be an exacting dance partner who wouldn’t tolerate a single misstep. Barrie took another tack. “You’re absolutely right, Mrs. Walters. I thought you were a kook. In fact, I still think you might be.”

  Leaning forward, Charlene winked mischievously. “I got them believing I am. Loony, I mean. I found Jesus right after I got here, but it was getting crazy that worked miracles. Crazy people can get away with just about anything. You’d be amazed.”

  Charlene Walters was crazy, all right. Crazy like a fox. “The first time you called me,” Barrie said, “you left the message ‘He’s done it before.’ To whom were you referring?”

  “Well, who do you think, dimwit? The President, of course. David Malcomb Merritt.” She stabbed the tabletop with a broken, yellow fingernail. “He killed that baby boy, that little Robert Rushton, sure as I’m sitting here.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Are you dense, or what? Don’t you listen? Like I told you, he’s done it before. He killed another baby. Years ago.”

  This was the information Barrie had come to Mississippi to hear. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific than that.”

  Charlene exhaled a plume of smoke. “David Merritt was working for Senator Armbruster. Good-looking hotshot, he was. Had women by the dozens. One of ’em got knocked up. Her name was Becky Sturgis. She had a baby boy while Merritt was off in Washington. When he come back, she sprung the kid on him. He didn’t cotton to the idea of being a daddy and husband. But Becky, she’d made up her mind to marry him and kept pestering him about it.

  “So one night, when her little baby was only a few weeks old, he went over to her trailer house to have it out with her. They got into one hell of a shouting match. The kid was squalling. He choked it to death.

  “Maybe he didn’t intend to kill the kid. Maybe he just wanted to hush his crying. But since he had killed him, I guess he figured he ought not to leave any witnesses. He beat Becky Sturgis to a fare-thee-well.”

  Snorting her sinuses clean, Charlene twirled the cigarette like a miniature baton. “There’s no excuse for that sorta violence against women. None whatsoever. Even if I weren’t a convicted felon, he wouldn’t have got my vote, on account of it.”

  The tale was too much to absorb all at once, so Barrie cushioned her mind by thinking how interesting life was. The nation’s history could very well be altered by this comically birdlike septuagenarian who was serving a life sentence for armed robbery and murder.

  But who would ever believe it? Did she believe it? Charlene’s credibility was as thin as rice paper. She could have invented this story to help fill her idle time. Robert Rushton Merritt’s death had sparked her interest. Barrie’s SIDS series had fanned the flames of her imagination. She’d found a sucker who would listen, who had come all the way to Mississippi to speak with her. Making up this story could be the best entertainment Charlene had enjoyed in years.

  Or it could be true.

  Either way, Barrie decided to proceed with caution. This could be the story of the century. If she blew it, not only her future but the nation’s would be sacrificed to her ineptitude.

  “It all sounds very…”

  “Unbelievable,” Charlene said when Barrie faltered. “You don’t have to believe me. Ask ol’ Cletus Armbruster.”

  “The senator?”

  Charlene screwed up her wizened features in disgust. “He’s the crookedest politician ever to walk the face of the earth, and that’s saying something.”

  “He knows about Becky Sturgis?”

  “Knows? Hell, girl, who do you think made the problem go away?” Charlene exclaimed. “Merritt went to him that very night. The senator took care of it.”

  “Senator Armbruster is a powerful man, but even he couldn’t make two bodies disappear,” Barrie argued. “Wasn’t there a criminal investigation?”

  “If you want to call it that,” Charlene said with a contemptuous flick of her cigarette in the general direction of the ashtray. “Armbruster’s pockets were crowded with city and state officials. He called in favors, is all. Becky and her little baby didn’t mean shit to them good ol’ boys down to the courthouse.”

  Barrie shook her head in disbelief. “Armbruster couldn’t have been involved. He wouldn’t have allowed Vanessa to marry David Merritt, knowing that he was capable of—”

  “What planet you been living on? Course he would have allowed her to marry him. He fancied his daughter being First Lady.” She hocked up a glob of phlegm and spat it on the floor. “Sons of bitches. All of ’em. They think they can do anything they want and get away with it. Folks like me and my old man, we had to pay for our crimes. But not people like Merritt and Armbruster.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Barrie said. “If everything you’ve told me is true, it took place, what, twenty years ago? If Armbruster successfully covered a double murder, he would have covered his tracks equally as well. There’s no way to prove it ever happened.”

  Charlene slapped the tabletop, startling Barrie and causing her to jump. “You’re the stupidest gal the good Lord ever gave breath to. You think I’d spend my money calling you up there in Washington, D.C., and put my scrawny neck on the line if I didn’t have no proof?”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “It’s better than you deserve.” Bill Yancey leaned over the table, placing his hands flat on its smooth surface. “Provide us with evidence that the President smothered Vanessa’s baby and was attempting to kill her, and you’ll be granted immunity from prosecution.”

  Spencer Martin maintained his silence. Throughout the interrogation, he’d been admirably stoic, staring straight ahead, remote as a statue, as though detached from the circumstances in which he found himself.

  The office was now cluttered with rubbish from several carryout meals and empty coffee cups. It was almost steamy with the tension generated during the long night and following day. Despite his protests, Daily had been taken to a hotel. Two FBI agents had accompanied him and were ordered to stay with him and see to his needs until further notice. William Yancey and Gray Bondurant had spent all day in that office, anxiously awaiting word from Barrie.

  When she’d finally called from the Mississippi prison and recounted for them her conversation with Charlene Walters, Yancey had said, “We can’t proceed without some inside help, and Spencer Martin is as inside as you can get.” He’d ordered that Spence be brought in for questioning. Spence had come peaceably but had not yet cooperated.

  Gray, who was against Spence’s getting immunity, was being vindicated by Spence’s stubborn silence. He had warned the attorney general that he’d have better luck getting statements from a turnip, and he’d been right.

  “I told you this would be an exercise in futility,” he said now. “That’s why he declined your offer to call an attorney. He knew he wasn’t going to say a goddamn word. You could torture him to death before he’d rat on David Merritt.”

  But Yancey wasn’t yet ready to give up. “Mr. Martin, some of your former operatives are willing to testify against you to avoid prosecution themselves. You’re implicated in several serious crimes, good for years in federal prison.”

  Nothing.

  “Howard Fripp? That name strike a bell, Mr. Martin? It should. You’re a suspect in his murder case.”

  Spencer didn’t even flinch.

  “He’s not going to tell you a thing,” Gray said. “He won’t even tell you that I shot him and locked him in a root cellar. If he did, he would have to explain what he was doing out there. You’re wasting your time.”

  Yancey ran a hand over his balding head. “Very well, M
r. Martin. This offer is good only for the next thirty seconds. If you reject it, you’ll be subjected to a congressional investigation the likes of which will be unrivaled in American history.”

  Spencer Martin came to his feet. “If you had evidence of any wrongdoing on my part, I’d be under arrest. Don’t try to strong-arm me again, Bill. It doesn’t dignify either of us.”

  Yancey grumbled a curse.

  Spence gave him a smirking smile, then headed for the door.

  “Yancey, all right with you if I have a private word with him?”

  It was clear that Yancey didn’t like the idea, but he granted permission. Gray followed Spence out into the hallway.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Spence’s nonchalance vanished. He grabbed Gray by the throat and slammed him against the wall. His face was ugly and flushed with fury. “I’d like to kill you for putting me in that fucking cellar.”

  Gray threw off Spence’s hands and shoved him away. “But you won’t. Because killing me would be stupid, and no one’s ever accused you of being stupid, Spence. Not until now.”

  A flicker of interest appeared in his eyes. It was fleeting, soon replaced by his characteristic cynicism. “Who are you, the good cop?”

  Gray shrugged. “Take this for what it’s worth. You should have accepted Yancey’s deal.”

  “Do you really think he, or anyone, could bring down David’s administration?” Spence chuckled. “It’ll never happen, Gray. You’ll all be made to look like idiots for trying. You’ve aligned yourself with the wrong side, pal. We’ve been scrupulously careful. David’s airtight. You know that.”

  “Whether or not his administration collapses is inconsequential to you, Spence. You’ll never know one way or the other, because you’ll be long dead.” Spence’s smirk lost some of its insolence. “Beginning to catch on now, Spence? You were in on David’s plans for Vanessa, probably for the baby as well. So, as long as you’re alive, he’s not airtight. Once that occurs to him, you’re history.

  “David will find himself another Ray Garrett. Remember him? That nice young Marine assigned to assassinate me when I became an embarrassment to the Oval Office? Too bad you’re so goddamn self-assured you can’t see the hazardous position you’re in. Yancey’s deal would have afforded you some protection.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Perfect, Spence. The defensive comeback of every dumb schmuck who has no other defense to offer.” Gray opened the office door, saying over his shoulder, “Watch your back, pal.”

  * * *

  It was midafternoon of the next day when Barrie returned to Washington. A lot had happened in her absence. Dr. George Allan’s attempted suicide had been reported on the front page of the Post. He was in a coma, his wife at his side.

  “How’d they manage to keep it under wraps for two days?” Barrie asked.

  “Out of deference to his family,” Gray told her. “That was Neely’s line anyway.”

  They were guests of the federal government in a comfortable hotel suite. U.S. marshals were posted outside the door. Bill Yancey was on the telephone in the adjoining room. Every once in a while, they caught snatches of his intense conversations.

  “Poor Amanda. It must have been horrible for her to find him like that.”

  “The gunshot woke her up. She rushed into his office. If she hadn’t, he would have died at his desk.”

  “I hope for her sake he makes it, and that if he makes it, he’s not a vegetable.”

  “Either way, it’s rough for her and the kids,” Gray said. “What was the son of a bitch thinking?”

  “I guess he was desperate and didn’t know what else to do.”

  “There’s always an alternative to that, for chrissake,” he said angrily. “Yancey probably would have offered him a deal to turn state’s witness.”

  “If he pulls through,” she said, “I’m sure that’s exactly what Bill will do.”

  She saw the consternation in Gray’s face and remembered that he’d lost both parents when he wasn’t much older than the Allans’ sons. He also looked tired and haggard, unshaven and irritable. They were all frazzled. It had been an eventful forty-eight hours.

  And there was no respite in sight.

  At least Daily was out of harm’s way and resting peacefully. He was in comparative luxury in another suite of the hotel. When she stopped in to see him, he’d grumbled about not being allowed to go home, but he was enjoying cable TV, room service, and the companionship of the two young FBI agents who’d been assigned to guard him. They were a captive audience for his tall tales about his years as a newsman.

  Barrie glanced down at the copy of the Post on the coffee table and referenced another front-page story. “Would Spence be offended by the small write-up he received?”

  “Flattered, more likely,” Gray said. “He cultivated his mysterious persona. The less anyone knew about him, the better he liked it.”

  “I can’t believe it.” Barrie scanned the concise story again.

  “I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen. It was only a matter of time before David took him out. The only thing that surprises me is how swiftly he struck.”

  “You really think Merritt arranged this mugging?”

  “Mugging my ass.” Gray shot her a retiring look. “Spence was dropped outside his apartment by two guys who all but had FEDS tattooed on their foreheads. What kind of muggers select a victim who’s got that kind of heat around him? Spence was always armed. Besides his knife, he carried a pistol in an ankle holster. Whoever mugged him was aware of that. They knew exactly how to disarm him.”

  After what Barrie had learned in Mississippi, she didn’t doubt Merritt’s ruthlessness. Without a qualm, he could have his most loyal friend killed. Shivering with fear, she hugged her elbows. “We’re on his hit list too, aren’t we?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Then what does he think of this?”

  She indicated the third big news story on the front page, which involved her and Gray. Vanessa Merritt had gone on record saying that she had prevailed upon her friends, Barrie Travis and Gray Bondurant, to remove her from Tabor House. They’d been clandestine because of the hospital’s strict policy against visitors. The confusion, resulting in Barrie and Gray being suspected of kidnapping, was absurd, she’d said from her hospital bed. Travis and Bondurant had delivered her directly to her father, who’d had a helicopter waiting. Did that sound like a kidnapping?

  “I’m sure Clete scripted it and that David isn’t happy about it,” Gray said of Vanessa’s statement. “It would have been convenient for him if we’d been shot as fugitives. But now he has no choice except to back his wife’s account of the event. No one’s going to disbelieve Vanessa and Clete.”

  “If I were John Q. Public, I wouldn’t believe anything positive they said about us. Not after the incident in Shinlin.”

  He shrugged. “We’ve all kissed and made up.”

  So it seemed, particularly when the attorney general walked in and gave them the latest update. “Senator Armbruster wants to see you.”

  “Me?” Barrie exclaimed.

  “What for?” Gray asked suspiciously.

  “He wants to give her an exclusive. He says she’s owed one.”

  “Exclusive about what?” Barrie asked. “What could it be?”

  “Don’t get excited,” Gray said. “You’re not going.”

  “The hell I’m not! I can’t pass up an exclusive.”

  “You’ve already got one.”

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t have another.”

  Gray turned to Yancey. “Ever since Barrie got back, all you’ve done is talk on the telephone, while we’ve been sitting here with our thumbs up our asses. Why aren’t we doing something? With what you have, you can end this thing now. March into the Oval Office, handcuff the bastard, read him his rights, and get it the hell over with.”

  “It’s not that simple. We’re talking about the President of the United States.”


  “I know who we’re talking about,” Gray shouted. “And he’s a murderer.”

  “Calm down,” Yancey shouted in turn. Then, in a more reasonable tone: “We all understand your desire to exact vengeance for Mrs. Merritt and her baby. If the President is guilty of the crimes attributed to him—and all evidence points in that direction,” he added when he saw that Gray was about to interrupt, “then we must tread very carefully. We make one mistake, and he’s scot-free. While we’re waiting for lab reports, I see no harm in having Barrie talk to Armbruster.”

  “I’ll tell you what the harm is,” Gray said angrily. “He’s as much a criminal as David. You heard what that Walters woman said. The list of charges against Clete is as long as my arm. Barrie could be walking into a trap that’ll get her killed.”

  The attorney general shook his head. “Armbruster said that Mrs. Merritt is being released from the hospital this afternoon. She’ll be there too, so he couldn’t have violence in mind.” Yancey turned to Barrie. “I gather you’re game?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Where and when?” Gray snapped.

  “The senator’s house. Eight o’clock.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  At precisely eight o’clock Barrie rang the doorbell. It was answered by a Secret Service agent who asked politely to see her satchel. He searched it, then handed it back to her and ran a portable metal detector over her.

  Senator Armbruster came forward to greet her. He pressed her hand between both of his and said effusively, “I hope we can put all our misunderstandings behind us after tonight, Miss Travis. I’ve already spoken to your former employer at WVUE. As a personal favor to me, he’s agreed to reinstate you. You can have your job back.”

  “Thank you, Senator, but I no longer wish to be employed at WVUE, especially as a charity case.”

  He smiled magnanimously. “Frankly I don’t blame you. After tonight, you’ll be able to sell your story to the highest bidder.”

  “I’m curious about the nature of this exclusive you’ve promised.”

  “Then I won’t keep you in suspense any longer.”