It’s pretty dirty stuff___’
Collins felt the constriction in bis chest. He continued to remain silent.
Tynan resumed, picking his words slowly. ‘Many weekends, your wife used to go visit her father alone. Or say she did. Rowley, her husband, finally became suspicious. He had her followed. He learned - well, how should I put it? -he learned Karen was an active participant in a sex group in Houston. They got together, undressed, indulged in nude sex orgies. And she took part - sometimes with assorted men, sometimes with women, straight sex, perversions … I won’t go into details, but -‘
‘That’s a filthy lie, and you know it!’ shouted Collins, half out of his chair.
Tynan sat unruffled. ‘I wish it was, but it isn’t. Our witness overheard Rowley accuse Karen of all that.’ His hand moved to the folder. ‘Would you like to see the testimony that the witness gave us in private?’ ‘No, thanks.’
‘Anyway, after that scene, the witness heard the gunshot and had the glimpse of Karen standing over Rowley’s
body.’ Tynan studied Collins briefly, then spoke again. ‘Now, this witness won’t come forward of her own free will. She doesn’t want to be involved in such a messy affair. But if forced to testify under oath, she will do so. It would mean a second trial. This time it is unlikely there would be a hung jury. However, it will please you to know, I did not permit my people to submit their new evidence to the District Attorney in Fort Worth. I thought that would be improper without consulting you first. Furthermore, despite her - her own weaknesses - God knows what led her to behave as she did - I have a certain amount of sympathy for Mrs Collins. In a different way, her husband was an even more unsavory character. He was after her money - her father’s money -and he used her. He probably threatened to expose her sexual misconduct to get more money out of her. Some might say she had considerable provocation to act as she did. Certainly that was a consideration in my mind when I ordered the evidence withheld. Finally, perhaps most important, I would prefer not to embarrass a member of the Administration, of the President’s team, at a crucial time like this. I think you can understand that. I think everyone connected with the case has suffered enough, and there is no need to make it a public matter again. Under the proper circumstances, it could all be easily forgotten.’
Collins was sickened - not only by the information about Karen and the threat to her, but by Tynan’s undisguised blackmail. The revulsion he felt toward the man burned inside him. Until now, he had never felt capable of killing another human being. This moment, he wanted to get his hands around Tynan’s neck. But he held on to his sanity.
He sat very still, trembling only inside.
At last, he was able to speak. ‘You’re willing to forget it, you say, under the proper circumstances?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What are the proper circumstances? What do you want from me?’
‘Only your cooperation, Chris,’ said Tynan blandly. ‘Very little, actually. Oh, let’s say what I’d want from you is your pledge that you’ll stay on the team with the President and myself and support the 35th Amendment to the very end.
What I would not want from you is any disruptive performance like a resignation at this time or any public statement denouncing the Amendment. That’s the price. Very reasonable, I think.’
‘I see.’ Collins watched as Tynan closed his folder and carefully returned it to his briefcase. ‘Aren’t you going to let me see the rest of the evidence?’
‘I’d better hold on to it for safekeeping. You have enough to go by. You also have your wife. She’ll fill you in on anything you haven’t heard.’
‘No, I mean the name of the new witness you found. I’d like to have that, at least.’
Tynan smiled. ‘I think not, Chris. If you want to see the witness, you’ll have to see her in court.’ He locked the briefcase. I guess I’ve said about all there is to say. You definitely have enough to go by. What happens next is up to you.’
‘Vernon, you’re the worst slimy bastard that ever lived.’
Tynan’s smile held. I don’t think my parents would have found that credible.’ He became serious. ‘If I have a fault, it is that I love my country too much. If you have a fault, it is that you love your country less. It’s because of my country that I want your decision now.’
Collins stared at him with loathing. Finally he let go, gave up, and slumped back in his chair.
‘Okay,’ he said wearily, ‘you win. Tell me again - exactly what do you want me to do?’
*
It was the first time in his marriage that he had hated to return home to his wife.
He’d had no stomach for work after Tynan had left him, but he had deliberately stayed on late in the Justice Department, wanting to be alone, wanting to think. He had been torn by conflicting emotions. There was shock at what he had learned of Karen’s background. There was disappointment in her for having withheld the events of her recent past from him. There was confusion about her guilt or innoceence in her husband’s death (a jurv had deliberated
four full days and still had not been able to clear her). There was fear that harm would befall her now that Tynan was ready to have the case reopened.
Overriding all that was the picture Tynan had painted of Karen’s secret sex life on the outside. The naked orgies. The promiscuity. The chain of perversions.
Collins didn’t believe it. Not a word of it. Still, the images remained, would not go away.
He had no idea how to feel about her, what stance to take toward her, how to handle her. These attitudes were unresolved in his office, and they remained unresolved now as he inserted the key in his front door, unlocked it, and entered his home.
He wanted to put off the confrontation, avoid her, but he knew it would be impossible.
Apparently she had heard him enter.
‘Chris?’ she called out from the dining room.
‘I’m here,’ he called back, and headed into the corridor to the bedroom.
He had pulled off his necktie, was divesting himself of his suit coat, when she appeared.
‘I’ve been on tenterhooks all day,’ Karen said, ‘ever since you called, just waiting to hear what happened. I started to pack. We are going to California, aren’t we?’
‘No,’ he said dully.
She had been walking toward him, to kiss him. She stopped in her tracks. ‘No?’ Her brow creased. She searched his face. ‘You did resign, didn’t you?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘I don’t understand, Chris.’
‘I wrote the letter of resignation. Later I tore it up. After Vernon Tynan came to see me. After he left, I tore it up. I had to.’
‘You - had to,’ she repeated. ‘You tore it because of - ‘ She looked stricken.’ - because of me?’
‘How did you know?’ he asked with astonishment.
‘Because I knew it might happen. I knew he’d do anything to stop you from opposing him. The other night at dinner, when that writer, Ishmael Young - when he said Tynan investigates everyone around him, knows everything
about everyone who counts in a person’s life - I knew. I knew he might go after you - and find me. I was very scared, Chris. That night, when we were going to sleep, I decided for the hundredth time to tell you. I really meant to tell you. I started to, but you’d already fallen asleep. Then in the morning everything else happened, got in the way. I should have told you. Oh, heaven help me, what a fool I’ve been. Such a poor secret. One you should have heard from me.’ ‘I should have known, Karen, if only to be able to protect
you.’
‘Yes, you’re right. But not to protect me. To protect yourself. Now that Tynan’s told you … I don’t know what Tynan’s told you - but you’d better hear the story from me.’
‘I don’t want to hear it now, Karen. I’ve got to go out of town to deliver a speech. When I get back to Chicago -‘
‘No, listen.’ She had come up close to him. ‘Tynan told you - what? That
my husband was killed by a gunshot wound in Fort Worth, in our bedroom? That I’d been overheard more than once saying I wished he was dead? The truth is, we’d had another terrible fight. One of a million fights. I ran out, went to my father’s. Then I decided to return home. Try one last time. There was Tom on the floor. Dead. I had no idea who had killed him. I still don’t know. But several people had heard us fight, had heard me say I wished he was dead. It’s true. I had said it a number of times. Naturally, I was accused. The evidence was flimsy, circumstantial, but we had a new D.A. trying to make a name for himself. I was indicted, tried. It was the worst kind of torment. Is that what Tynan told you? Did he tell you all that?’
‘Most of it. He said you got a hung jury.’
‘That hung jury,’ she said contemptuously. ‘Eleven of them were for my acquittal from the first minute. One man, the twelfth, held out for guilty for four days before the jury gave up. That one holdout was finding my father guilty, not me. He’d once been fired by my father, I learned afterwards. The D.A.‘s office didn’t want to try me again because the evidence and jury had been so overwhelmingly in my favor. They knew it was useless. They freed me, and dropped it. To escape the notoriety. I stopped using my married name and
left town. I went to work in Los Angeles, where I met you a year or so later. That’s all of it, Chris. I never told you because it was past, it was behind me -I knew I was innocent -and after I fell in love with you, I didn’t want anything to spoil our relationship or put doubts in your mind. I didn’t want the sordid affair to soil what was so fresh and lovely between us. I wanted a new start. I should have told you. I should have, but I didn’t, and that was a mistake.’ She caught her breath. Tm glad it’s out at last. Now you know the whole story.’
‘Not quite the whole story, according to Tynan,’ he said. ‘Tynan’s found a new witness, a woman who says she saw you standing over Rowley with the gun. The witness saw you or heard you do it.’
‘That’s a lie! I didn’t do it. It’s an absolute lie. I came in and found Tom dead. Tom had already been murdered.’
Listening to her, watching her closely and uneasily, he listened and watched for truth, and felt he had it, yet the images of her persisted. Karen stripped naked, Karen sick-crazy in a roomful of equally naked strange men and women. Karen locked in perversions with males, with females.
‘There’s still more, Karen,’ he found himself saying. He had not meant to speak of the orgies, to give credence to them, but he felt compelled to have it all out. ‘I don’t believe any of it, but I must tell you. The witness told Tynan…’
He spilled it out.
As he spoke, her horror mounted. When he was done, she was near collapse. ‘Oh, no,’ she whimpered. ‘No, no -such terrible lies - every word made up, untrue. Absolute fantasies. Me? Behave like that? You know me, Chris, you know me in bed. I’m shy, I - Oh, Chris, you can’t believe it-‘
‘I don’t, I told you.’
‘I swear on the life of the child we’re going to have -‘
‘I know it’s not true, darling. But there’s a witness who will swear under oath that it is true, that and the murder -‘
She seemed to rally her strength. ‘Who is this witness?’
‘I don’t know. Tynan wouldn’t tell me. But that’s what he’s holding over our heads. He threatened to open up the
case again unless I played ball. So I decided to remain on
the team.’
‘Oh, Chris, no.’ She went into his arms, fiercely holding on to him. ‘What have I done to you?’
He tried to soothe her. ‘It’s not important, Karen, darling. All that’s important is you. I beHeve you, and we’ll never speak of it again. Let’s forget Tynan -‘
‘No, Chris, you’ve got to fight him. You can’t let him do this. We’ve nothing to be afraid of. I’m innocent. Let him reopen the case. In the long run, it won’t hurt us. The main thing is, you can’t let him blackmail you into silence. You’ve got to fight back, for my sake.’
He disengaged himself from her. ‘I’m not fighting back, for your sake. I’d never subject you to another ordeal like that. We’re just going to forget it and go about our lives as
before.’
He started to move away, but she followed him across the bedroom. ‘But it’ll never be like it was before. Chris, if you’re afraid to fight him over this, you must believe his version of the story, not mine -‘
‘That’s not true! I just won’t let you suffer that hell again.’
‘You’re going to give in, keep silent, while the California Assembly passes the 35th tomorrow and the California Senate ratifies it three days later? Oh, Chris, please don’t let it happen.’
Collins held up his wristwatch. ‘Karen, look, I’ve got twenty minutes to change, eat, finish packing, and call Tony Pierce in Sacramento before the driver comes by to take me to the airport. I’m addressing a convention of ex-FBI agents in Chicago tomorrow. I have to be there. I’ve got to hurry.’ He took her in his arms and kissed her. I love you. If there’s more to talk about, we’ll talk about it tomorrow night.’
‘Yes,’ she said almost to herself. ‘If there is a tomorrow night.’
Standing at the podium, before the six hundred assembled guests crowded into the pale gold Guildhall ballroom of Chicago’s Ambassador East Hotel, Chris Collins turned another page of the speech he had been reading to the annual gathering of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. He saw that only one more page of his speech remained to be read, and he was grateful.
His delivery of the speech had been lifeless, and the reception until now lukewarm.
Collins was not surprised. There were too many factors that had inhibited both the content of his address and its delivery. There had been lack of concentration. There had been discouragement. There had been caution.
He had been unable to concentrate because his mind had been elsewhere. Back in the conference room of his office suite in the Department of Justice, where Vernon T. Tynan had bested him, blackmailed him into silence about how he really felt. Back in the bedroom of his house, where he and Karen had suffered the revelation of the murder and trial in her past. Back in his native California, where it was early afternoon in Sacramento and where in less than an hour the State Assembly would convene to become the first of the two state houses to vote on the 35th Amendment.
He had been deeply discouraged during his flight to Chicago last night, throughout this morning, and during the
meal with his hosts. His mood of defeat and depression had pervaded his entire speech. Each succeeding hope to defeat the 35th Amendment in California, in either the Assembly or the Senate, had been cut down. The death of Chief Justice Maynard had been the crudest blow. Maynard, alone, could have turned the tide, and he had been ruthlessly eliminated at the eleventh hour. Then, the refusal of the President to dismiss Tynan, which might have brought Tynan’s activities into the open and damaged the Amendment, had been another blighted hope. His own determination to fight the Amendment alone in these fading days had been a cause for some small optimism, but Tynan had effectively suffocated it. There was left only The R Document, and so far it had eluded him, constantly hidden from sight and out of reach.
Above all, to the detriment of his speech, he had been shackled by caution. Or maybe fear was the better word -shackled by fear. The members of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI whom he had come to address were preponderantly Tynan men. Under J. Edgar Hoover, the society of FBI alumni had numbered 10,000 former agents. Many of them, after leaving the FBI, had gone on to have successful careers in law, industry, banking, thanks to Hoover’s patronage and support. Now, in Vernon T.Tynan’s tenure, the society of FBI alumni had a membership of 14,000 men and women - although only a few were women - and the great majority were still subject to the FBI discipline ingrained in them and grateful for Tynan’s seal of approval that had helped catapult them upward in their new careers. For Collins, this was a hostile audience. Not that they k
new he differed from them. Only he knew. But it was enough to disturb him.
The speech that he and Radenbaugh had prepared had been carefully honed to suit this audience. Since he knew that he could not attack the 35th Amendment, Collins had decided to avoid voicing any opinion on the resolution. He had proceeded on the assumption that the resolution would be made into law, and had dwelt on the point that more was needed to contain crime and lawlessness in America. He had expounded, in broad terms, upon the other reforms needed in the country. He had dealt with crime and its
causes. He had dealt with the social roots of crime.
He had known, from the start, that this would not excite his pro-Tynan audience. These ex-FBI agents wanted a ringing affirmation of their Director’s 35th Amendment. They wanted rockets and fireworks proclaiming the death of the obstructionist Bill of Rights and the birth of the new Committee on National Safety headed by Tynan. Instead, they had got the wet blanket of social reform. They had been let down and bored.
Also, Coffins had been conscious of the fact that the audience was infiltrated by Tynan’s spies and informers, ready to report to the master any deviation Collins made from the text ordained by the Director. Anticipating this, after his confrontation and deal with Tynan yesterday, Collins had reworked his speech several times on the flight to Chicago and in his hotel suite this morning, watering it down constantly until it was a puddle. Any slip into dissent, he was aware, spelled a special kind of doom for Karen.
He knew, of course, that there was also a small coterie of listeners in the audience who were anti-Tynan and anti-35th. He did not know who they were, but he did know that Anthony Pierce was their leader. Collins had even been cautious about contacting Pierce late last night and again this morning. It would be dangerous for Karen if Tynan learned that he had sent for Pierce and was meeting with him privately after the speech. This morning Collins had gone to an obscure telephone booth outside the hotel to call Pierce. He had arranged to meet with Pierce not in his own suite but in an unoccupied single room of the Ambassador Hotel - reserved under another name - after he had finished speaking and had left the ballroom. They had agreed to watch the live television report on the California Assembly vote in this room, and if necessary, he would risk revealing to Pierce his defection from the Administration’s stand on the 35th and help the lobbyist in any strategy possible to defeat it in the State Senate three days from now.
(1976) The R Document Page 27