President's assassin sd-5

by Brian Haig

  "But you can't… It's not his fault."

  "Whose fault is it, Margaret?"

  She did not reply

  "Margaret, help us understand."

  Mrs. Barnes sipped from her sherry, and from her expression I wasn't sure she could piece it all together. She said, "He… his childhood…"

  "Being robbed of his mother?"

  "Yes. And my husband, he was very… he was quite strong-willed. And headstrong."

  Jennie said, "I know this is difficult, Margaret. But Calhoun's dead. He can never hurt you again." She reached forward and she turned off the tape recorder. She said, "Whatever you tell us stays between us. I promise."

  I knew why she did it, but turning off the recorder was, I thought, a bad move. But also, I realized in that instant that Jennie had picked up something I had missed entirely. Actually, she had picked up a lot I had missed, and I was curious to see what. Mrs. Barnes looked up at her. Jennie said, "It's going to come out. It can't stay hidden any longer. For your sake… for Jason's sake, tell us."

  After a moment, Mrs. Barnes blubbered, "You can't imagine."

  "Yes, well… I don't want to imagine. I need you to describe it. You'll feel better by telling us."

  For a long moment, Margaret Barnes stared into Jennie's face, but it was not clear she understood a word. Jennie prompted, "Start with how he really broke your back."

  With a distressed expression she recoiled back into her seat. "I don't want to talk about that."

  "Yes… yes, you do. You've always wanted to talk about it. Haven't you?" She added, "For Jason. You owe him this."

  In the past two minutes Margaret Barnes had learned her son was a homicidal maniac, that the two agents in her home had come to destroy her soul, that she was about to become the most shamed mother in the country, and possibly that she would spend the remainder of her years in prison. Interrogations are a tricky business, and every experienced interrogator will tell you there is a moment, not a crescendo necessarily, but a turning point after which the subject either blurts out everything or the lawyers take over. In fact, she looked at Jennie and asked, "Shouldn't I call my lawyer?"

  Jennie glanced at me. I stood up and said,"Sure, Mrs. Barnes." To Jennie I said, "Hand me your cuffs." To Mrs. Barnes I ordered, "Put out your hands. After we've booked you, you can call your attorney from the holding cell of the nearest police station."

  Margaret Barnes stared at the cuffs in my hand for a very long time. Basically, a hardened criminal has been through the wringer a few times, and knows better than to talk to coppers under any circumstances. But ordinary people don't appreciate how the odds are stacked against them; they think they can bluff and outsmart cops, they think they can get away with a medley of half-truths and half-lies, and as first-timers, they still believe they have their untainted reputations to protect.

  Some combination of all these thoughts went through Margaret Barnes's mind, and eventually she said, "All right. He… I mean, Calhoun… he beat me… and he threw me down the stairs. He was in a rage that night. He'd been… well, he'd been drinking… but he wasn't…" She stared at me and, as though to underscore the one irrelevant truth she'd told, insisted scornfully, "He wasn't drunk."

  Jennie said, "And afterward-together-you fabricated the car accident to conceal the truth."

  Mrs. Barnes nodded.

  Jennie said, "He threatened you, didn't he? He said it would ruin both your lives, and Jason's."

  Again, she nodded. "I never lost consciousness. He… he hovered over me, and… and I couldn't move my body… and, so we both knew I was badly hurt and…" She tried to stifle a heavy sob. "He threatened to kill me, Jennifer. And he would- believe me, I had not a doubt he would. He… he could be brutishly violent."

  Jennie allowed a moment to pass. She said, "I understand your decision, Margaret. I believe he might have killed you, and I'm sure he would've looked for a way to cover that up. But afterward… well, afterward, he controlled you, when you could go out, what you could do, when you could use the toilet, your feeding, your entertainment, and-"

  She was nodding furiously. "I felt like… like an animal."

  "He was a cruel man, wasn't he?"

  "Beyond your imagination. He left the house every day, the good family man, the federal judge… you have no idea how normal… how charming he could be outside this house… how admired… how misjudged. But inside…"

  "I do understand, Margaret. Calhoun was sick. He was addicted to control. He needed his partner to depend on him. He needed his wife to be subservient, and it may have been an accident, but probably he was satisfied when you ended up crippled and became absolutely dependent on him." Mrs. Barnes was still nodding as Jennie spoke, and Jennie paused and with exquisite timing suggested, "And from Jason, from his son, he also demanded absolute obedience, didn't he?"

  Tears were now streaming down Margaret's face and she was intermittently sobbing and drawing short breaths. The first dark secret was out, and it was like plucking the cork on a dusty bottle of champagne.

  "I… my son and I… we have no relationship. We haven't.. well, we haven't spoken in years."

  "We'll get to that. Tell me about your family."

  And for the next ten minutes, Margaret related what it had been like to be a wife, to be a mother, and to be a son in the house of Calhoun Barnes, a greater monster than we had even imagined. Margaret Barnes, as Jennie said, did want to get it out, and it came like a torrent, a sobbing collection of endless nightmares for her, and for her son.

  As I listened, I was struck that Jennie had also been surprisingly prescient back at Jason's townhouse; Calhoun had been a terrorizing, overbearing bully who whipped and beat his son to a pulp for the tiniest infractions, who demanded and enforced perfection in matters and habits large and small. The things that could trigger Calhoun's volcanic fury ranged from the trivial to the arbitrary. Little Jason once bought a turtle from a school classmate; Calhoun discovered the turtle, thrashed Jason with a belt, crushed the turtle under his foot, then forced Jason to clean up the squashed mess and, afterward, to wash his hands one hundred times. Adolescent Jason got into a schoolyard fight, which was fine, but he lost, which was not, and Calhoun thrashed him so badly he missed three days of school. And so forth, and so on.

  Because the mother was equally terrorized, and because she was bedridden, and then handicapped, young Jason was forced to confront his monster alone, unprotected and vulnerable. But I think not even Jennie had anticipated the unremitting ferocity the father unleashed on his son. Margaret eventually commented, "But you know the oddest thing? Jason actually looked up to his father. He admired him, and he obeyed him, and wanted always to please him. The two of them were.. unnaturally close. Jason idolized his father." She took a deep breath. "I did not lie about that." She inquired of her confessor, "Don't you find that peculiar?"

  "I find it normal, Margaret. We see it sometimes in hostage situations. There's even a term for it-the Stockholm syndrome. The combination of applied terror and victim helplessness creates mental dependency, and, perversely, even affection and loyalty. For a young boy, trapped in the home of such an abusively dictatorial man, I'd be surprised to hear otherwise."

  "I… yes, I could see how that explains it." In fact, she might-in her own way she probably had succumbed to the same bewitching phenomenon.

  Jennie asked, "Did Jason ever learn the truth about your injury?"

  "No. We… I kept it from him. I thought… a child… a son.. should not have to bear such a terrible truth. Don't you think that's so?"

  Jennie glanced at me, pointed at Margaret's glass, and I got her another refill. I was tempted to tell Margaret that whatever her intentions, she had made a serious, even fatal miscalculation. In truth, she had made many mistakes, starting with her marriage, but mistakes compound, and some are worse than others, and cumulatively they become a disaster. Had the boy understood his father's barbaric nature, he might have learned to despise, rather than admire and obey, the beast domi
nating his life.

  In fact, the hour was very late, and I was tired and becoming increasingly impatient to learn exactly what had triggered Jason's rage-but Jennie continued her pursuit, methodically and patiently Margaret's marriage to Calhoun had been a carnival of smoke and broken mirrors, and I was sure she had entertained strong visceral feelings, but she had never intellectualized or verbalized the causes and effects to others, or probably even to herself. Or perhaps she had, but with only the knowledge of how it had destroyed her life. Now she knew how it had destroyed her child's also, and she needed to rationalize the adjusted causes and effects.

  For the next few minutes, alternating between a whispery intensity and hurt chokes and sobs, she detailed how Calhoun had estranged her from Jason, isolating him and isolating her. Daddy taught his boy to admire strength; Mommy was crippled, Mommy was weak, Mommy deserved contempt. Also, Mommy was physically incapable of caring for and protecting him, magnifying Jason's emotional enslavement to his father and his alienation from his mother. It struck me that young Jason might also have felt a sense of betrayal. Margaret had failed in nearly every sense, both practical and emotional, to be his mother, and a child is concerned not with cause but with effect.

  Even I could understand that no child would emerge from such a malevolent and viciously manipulated environment healthy in mind, conscience, and soul. Jason's head was probably a shopping cart of pathologies, Oedipal guilts, and sexual confusion. No wonder the guy wasn't married yet. But Margaret finally paused to catch a breath, and Jennie, the good cop, asked her, "Another sherry?"

  "Uh… if you'd be so kind."

  Jennie handed me Margaret's glass. Being the bad cop carries its heavy burdens. I felt really bad about getting a witness liquored up and loose-lipped, but in murder investigations you do what works. As I got up, Jennie suggested to Margaret, "Now I think it's time to figure out what happened, why Jason has taken the course he's on."

  Margaret thought a moment, then said, "I think… I suppose, his father."

  "This was somehow related to the firm your husband and Phillip Fineberg started?"

  "Oh… I believe most certainly it was."

  "Can you explain what happened?"

  Margaret waited for me to bring her the refill, then started, "As I mentioned, the fit between Calhoun and Phillip was never good or particularly healthy. Theirs was a partnership of convenience, at best. I think that with success and wealth, they needed each other less and disliked each other more."

  "That's how it usually works," Jennie commented.

  "Actually, I think Calhoun and Phillip were consummately jealous of each other." She paused for a moment before she added, "They grew to really hate one another."

  "How long were they together?"

  "Fifteen years. The last four or five were misery for them both. Calhoun complained viciously about Phillip. And I knew Phillip thoroughly despised Calhoun as well. And of course, by the seventies, the opportunities in this city toward Jews had changed greatly. Phillip knew it, and so did Calhoun."

  "Was there a blow-up?"

  "Oh, nothing so reckless. They were both smart men, and quite greedy. They knew to manage their situation discreetly. Richmond is a small city, after all. They would invite unwanted scrutiny, and their legal competitors would have eaten them alive." She paused a moment, then said, "Phillip finally ended it."

  "How?"

  "In a most interesting manner. One day, he just never came back to work."

  "He… what? He just quit?"

  "In a manner of speaking. He accepted a position at Yale Law, teaching, I think, tort law. Calhoun learned afterward that, behind his back, Phillip had discussed partnerships with several of those large northern firms. That proved to be fruitless. Phillip's lack of courtroom experience completely disqualified him, and he wasn't willing to again start at the bottom. In the end, I'm sure he concluded, teaching was the only respectable escape. The pay was stingy, but with the money he had made at the firm, he could live quite comfortably."

  "And he of course blamed this on Calhoun."

  "Well, I'm sure he did." She nodded. "Rightly so, I suppose. Though I also think Phillip would have been a miserable litigator. The man was gifted with a gloriously brilliant mind-but had no tact or charm, or even the ability to manufacture charm, the trick Calhoun so readily mastered. To be frank, both were disgustingly arrogant men, but Calhoun could hide it."

  I suggested, "But there's more, isn't there?"

  "Between those two, there was always more, Mr. Drummond." She sipped from her sherry and said, "Do you believe that these two very smart lawyers failed to create an agreement for what would happen in the event their firm dissolved? Both men kept all their money invested in the firm, withdrawing what was needed for their personal expenses, and left the remainder sheltered from taxes. This was another of Phillip's brilliant ideas. Don't you find that ironic?"

  She looked at Jennie and me to be sure we understood. "So Calhoun simply decided to keep all the money."

  "And how did Phillip respond?" Jennie asked.

  "In the way all lawyers respond."

  "He sued."

  "With great outrage. The matter was handled in a claims court here. Phillip represented himself, which was, I think, very naive on his part. But as I said, he had a very large ego, and I think he had always felt he could do better than Calhoun in court, if only given the chance. Of course, Calhoun tore him apart. He showed that Phillip had never taken a case to court and described him as nothing but a glorified clerk."

  I commented, "That's why they always say lawyers should never represent themselves."

  But she wasn't interested in my insights; she looked at Jennie and said, "Afterward, Phillip swore Calhoun had arranged to have the case handled by a judge he was friendly with. He also insisted that Calhoun had blocked him from getting access to the firm's records, and the founding document Calhoun showed the court had been doctored to indicate Phillip was never a full partner."

  "He got nothing?" I asked.

  "Oh… not nothing, Mr. Drummond. He asked for four million. He walked away with thirty thousand."

  "And about the judge being a friend of Calhoun's-was he?"

  "Well… I don't know that they were friends, exactly. They attended the same private school together, and were members of the same country club, and the same church." With a bemused half-smile she concluded, "I suppose they were… acquainted."

  Jennie asked, "And what was Fineberg's response?"

  "As a civil case, there was no appeal. But anyway, I think he concluded the game was rigged against him in this city. He left bitter, and we never heard from him again."

  "And the firm?"

  "For about six months, Calhoun tried going it alone. But without its legal mastermind, he began to lose large cases, and-"

  "And he arranged a judgeship," I said.

  "Yes, Mr. Drummond. And frankly, it better suited his natural talents and temperament. It was said that he ran the tightest courtroom in the Commonwealth. My husband worshipped law and order, as you might imagine. Felons did not get mercy before his bar."

  "I'll bet" In fact, it was all beginning to make sense. But we needed to move this along, and I said, "So the years passed, and eventually Calhoun was notified he was under consideration for the Supreme Court. What happened?"

  Of course, Jennie and I had already figured out what happened: Phillip Fineberg got his long-awaited revenge. Still, it was important to understand who else was involved, and how. In general terms, we now had a partial understanding of how one victim was connected to Jason Barnes. We needed to advance that understanding, and we needed to establish connections to the others, to piece together how a family spat became mass murder.

  After a moment, Margaret said, "About seven months ago, Calhoun was asked to visit the Justice Department, where he met with a smart young lawyer from the White House and several senior Justice people. They notified him he was on the President's final list. It had come down to tw
o final candidates; the President wanted a trial judge with a strict law-and-order pedigree, and Calhoun had the inside edge. They had reached the point of no return, the lawyer advised him. So he asked two questions-was there anything in Calhoun's background they should be aware of, and was he willing to expose himself to the scrutiny involved in these matters."

  Jennie commented, "Was this notification a surprise for Calhoun?"

  The sherry had gone to her head, and she giggled. "Goodness, no

  … he had plotted this moment for years. His father's failure to make the court was, I think, a burden his whole life. And when Phillip was brought onto the court ten years ago, it was, for Calhoun, as though he had been electrocuted. As I said, the two men were bitterly competitive."

  I got up and took her glass, which was again empty, and went to retrieve another refill. Margaret looked exhausted and tipsy, and her speech was becoming slurred. Jennie asked her, "And what happened?"

  "Apparently the White House circulated the list of candidates with the serving justices."

  "I would've thought that was done earlier in the process," I commented.

  "I would guess, Mr. Drummond, that it was done earlier."

  Of course. Fineberg probably waved off on Calhoun's name in the early rounds, allowing him to become a finalist, allowing him to think the high court was within reach, and allowing his name to surface publicly. These two guys had long memories, and they played for keeps. The public humiliation of a federal judge is relevant only to his own jurisdiction, whereas a finalist for the Sacred Tribunal dances on the largest stage, and the fall from grace would be from an even loftier height. In fact, I wondered if it was Fineberg who found a way to introduce Barnes for consideration to the court in the first place. Margaret suggested she thought this was the case and added, "Phillip plotted his moment brilliantly. He began feeding damaging tales and insinuations about Calhoun, providing leads to the background investigators. Calhoun was recalled to Washington several times to offer his side of things."

  "What kind of things?" Jennie asked.

  "That as a lawyer, Calhoun had bribed some judges. That as a city magistrate he had done a few favors for the governor-a quid pro quo arrangement-in return for which the governor would assure Calhoun's elevation to the federal bench."