Damage Control: A Novel

by Denise Hamilton

  My laptop was already out, my fingers moving across the keys. The Paxtons looked stunned at the speed with which Faraday was moving.

  “I will do whatever it takes,” the senator said, “and so will my brother.”

  “You’ll both be asked for DNA samples,” Faraday said. “They may want to swab the entire office.”

  Simon Paxton examined his hands and rotated them. I thought I saw a tremor cross his face. Slowly he nodded.

  “Did the coroner say whether Emily had been sexually assaulted?” Simon asked.

  “They are not releasing that information,” said Faraday, “but they’ll be looking for DNA. Maybe she had consensual sex with her killer.”

  “Dear God,” said the senator.

  “Has either of you ever been to her apartment?” Faraday asked.

  “No,” said the senator.

  “Never,” said his brother.

  Faraday surveyed the room.

  “The one question every reporter is going to ask is why. Why would you risk your career and your marriage for a roll in the hay with a girl younger than your niece?”

  Simon Paxton looked at his hands again. It was unfortunate, seeing as how Emily Mortimer had been strangled.

  “I don’t know.”

  Faraday studied him, picking bits of tobacco off his lips.

  “Is your marriage in trouble?” he asked hopefully. “Maybe you and your wife were living separate lives? It happens. People grow apart.”

  Simon seemed to consider, then dismiss this idea. “No,” he said at last. “I love my wife. And I’m sure that when I tell her she’ll forgive this temporary . . . lapse.”

  Faraday looked at me, as if to get my opinion, but I looked away. I didn’t know Simon Paxton or his wife.

  “You seem awfully sure of that, Mr. Paxton,” Faraday said softly.

  “Political wives,” said Bernstein. “You see it over and over, when these things hit. They’re pros.”

  “Is that how it’s going to be, Simon?” Faraday asked. “It’s a powerful media image. A vote of confidence that says, he’s my man and I’m standing by him and you should too. Our data shows it could be worth ten percentage points to your brother in the polls.”

  I marveled at Faraday’s ability to reduce all human impulses and emotions—even marital infidelity—to raw statistics. It seemed monstrous.

  Simon nodded. “She’ll do it,” he said, with savage confidence.

  “She in L.A.?”

  “Flew in this morning.”

  “She may want to have some Xanax handy. It’s gonna be a command performance.”

  I considered that if Simon Paxton’s wife had half of Miranda’s sangfroid, we’d be in good shape.

  * * *

  I was on the upstairs landing, carrying a bag of chips back to Anabelle’s room when the doorbell rang.

  Anabelle’s mom, dressed in her tennis whites, opened the door to two policemen who held Luke by either arm. Luke was eighteen and had crashed his car drag racing on Mulholland. His eyes were dilated and he gave his mom a goofy grin.

  Miranda Paxton ignored her son.

  “Officers, I can’t thank you enough for bringing him back. This is really above and beyond the call of duty and I’m ever so grateful.”

  She turned to Luke and her voice hardened. “Thank the officers, please, then go get yourself cleaned up.”

  When Luke disappeared, his mother said, “He broke up with his girlfriend last week and has been absolutely despondent. You probably saved his life by bringing him home, officers. And I can assure you that this will never happen again. We’re going to take away the car keys and put him in a twelve-step program. Can I invite you inside for a lemonade? It’s so muggy outside. I think I’m going to have something stronger. Would you care to join me?”

  The officers declined politely and left. When she closed the door behind them, Miranda Paxton didn’t go see how her son was doing. She picked up her racket and strolled back into the twilight to finish her game.

  * * *

  “Do you have a problem with drugs or alcohol?” Faraday was asking Simon Paxton.

  A hesitation. Then the senator’s brother replied, “No.”

  “How about prescription pills? People can get addicted before they even know it.”

  Simon shook his head.

  “Pity.”

  Faraday looked around the room. “That knocks out rehab. It’s a cliché by now, but it’s still a valid excuse. You were high, drunk, you were non compos mentis. Oh, well. Maggie, let’s see Simon’s statement.”

  I handed over my laptop and Faraday read it to himself, nodding.

  “Yup. It’s all here. And most important,” Faraday said, reading aloud: “ ‘Senator Paxton was unaware of my infidelity until I informed him of it earlier today.’ ”

  “Put in that I didn’t kill her,” Simon Paxton said hoarsely.

  “Unnecessary,” Faraday said. “We say you’re cooperating fully with the police. That’s enough.”

  “I said put it in.”

  “If that’s what he wants, let’s just do it,” said the senator.

  Faraday slid the laptop back and I wrote: “I would like to make it clear that I am innocent of Emily Mortimer’s murder.”

  When I read it aloud, Faraday made a face. “It sounds Nixonesque. He’d like to make it perfectly clear, yadda yadda. Protesting too much.”

  “Can’t you find some other way to say it?” Simon Paxton asked in a pained voice.

  “We’ll try. Maggie, please draft the senator’s statement now, unless he’d like to write it himself.” Pause. “No? All right. Senator, while she does that, could you please draw up a list of powerful people who support you or owe you a favor. Your pastor. Your former commanding officer, who’s hopefully risen to the rank of general by now. And some congressional colleagues on—”

  “What for?” Simon Paxton asked suspiciously. “This is my scandal, not his.”

  “Your brother enjoys broad bipartisan support,” said Faraday. “So we need a Republican as well as a Democrat who’ll speak to the senator’s honesty and integrity. While he lies low, these people are going to be his surrogates, out there in force, testifying publicly about his character.”

  The senator swallowed hard. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.”

  “We need to be ready.”

  The brothers conferred, wrote down some names, and passed them to Faraday.

  “I’d like them to do the interview in my office,” Harvey Lambert said. “A neutral place.”

  “Right,” said Faraday. “Simon, with your wife at your side, you man up and admit your mistake. You express remorse. Meanwhile, we release both statements and have Henry’s political allies ready. The way this breaks is all-important, and the more control we can maintain, the better position we’re in. The Post will spin it their own way but we’ll preempt them. Senator, you will get on the phone with the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. Here are your talking points: You have volunteered to speak to them because you want transparency and openness. You’d like to come clean about your brother. You’re very sorry for the Mortimers’ loss. And . . . you’re cooperating fully with the police.”

  10

  You really need to cultivate your poker face,” Faraday said as we drove back to the Blair Building.

  Sick to my stomach was more like it. I plucked at the leather piping upholstery of his Mercedes 450SL.

  “Maybe someone who doesn’t know the family would do a better job,” I said. “I worry that my emotions are clouding my judgment.”

  “Why, Maggie? You’re a natural.”

  “Except for my poker face.” I shook my head. “I used to idolize Henry. The whole family. I grew up with them. When I met Anabelle, my dad had just died and things were bad. I was probably clinically depressed. The Paxtons helped me through all that. I’m here today in large part because they believed in me.”

  “Then this is a rare opportu
nity to thank them,” Faraday said, “and show them how much they meant to you. It’s your turn to believe in Henry.”

  “If I’m doing such a fine job, why did you send Fletch to shadow me this afternoon? I almost gave the game away.”

  “Fletch said you kept your cool.” Faraday hesitated. “But it doesn’t hurt to have backup when we don’t know what we were dealing with.”

  “The whole thing is giving me panic attacks.”

  “I don’t want you to have a nervous breakdown, but I do need you. You provide a link to the family that no one else in the office can. A sense of trust and confidence. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll give you a break tomorrow, let you work on a different case. But I still need you on Paxton, Maggie Silver. You’re my right-hand man.”

  “What’s a body man?” I asked, remembering.

  “Not what you think.” Faraday shot me a grin. “It’s an assistant who accompanies a politician when he travels. He’s on call twenty-four/seven, and he makes sure his boss gets to the next gig on time, takes his meds, makes his plane. A body man drives the car, upgrades the hotel room, and orders the takeout. He collects all the gifts and letters handed to his boss and fends off the groupies. And he’s got a Sharpie ready for autograph seekers.”

  “Politicians have groupies?”

  “Why not? They’re celebrities like anyone else. They’re in People magazine and on TV.”

  “Speaking of which, Sentier is waiting to find out when he can interview the senator,” I said.

  “We’re going to stall him until ten p.m.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then it will be one a.m. on the East Coast and everyone’ll be asleep.”

  “They’ll put it on the web,” I pointed out. “But it won’t break in a big way until morning. It buys us time.”

  * * *

  Back at the office, I called home and asked Mom to TiVo CSI.

  For once, I was grateful for my small, uncomplicated family. If you didn’t count alcoholism, premature death, a latchkey childhood, cancer, and divorce.

  “I thought you were Earlyn,” Mom said. “She’s bringing a widower over for dinner tonight. They met when she did that L.A. River cleanup last month.”

  “Isn’t Earlyn afraid you’ll steal him from her?”

  “Don’t be a wiseacre. She’s bringing him for me.”

  “Is this a date?”

  “I don’t know,” said my mother, her voice suddenly shy and girlish.

  Incredible! My own mother went on more dates than I.

  “I’m making fried chicken,” she went on. “Earlyn is bringing her potato salad. And don’t start lecturing me, it’s a vinaigrette dressing, not mayo.”

  “What’s the widower bringing?”

  “At our age, honey, all he needs to bring is himself.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Mom.”

  “I’m kidding. Virgil’s bringing dessert and wine. Or maybe a dessert wine. I can’t remember.”

  “You should try my Aricept. Works wonders.”

  “Maggie! That’s for old people with Alzheimer’s whose brains have turned to Swiss cheese.”

  “So imagine how well it works on someone young and healthy.”

  “Aren’t you a little old to be experimenting with drugs?”

  “Experimenting is when you’re seventeen. What I do is purely maintenance.”

  “You need to flush all those pills down the toilet.”

  I rolled my eyes and said, “And you need to stop sneaking cigarettes with Earlyn. You think I don’t see lipstick traces on the butts? No one else around here wears Hot Coral.”

  “If you think I’d take even one puff after everything I’ve been through, you’re crazy.”

  I could picture her biting her lip and crossing her fingers as she spoke. The earnest way she’d look at me. As if she almost believed it herself. But I kept quiet. Because cancer trumped everything.

  “Besides,” said Mom, “you’re the one with a problem. Those pills.”

  “You’re not the boss of me anymore, Mom. Sometimes I think you forget that.” I hung up before I said something I’d regret.

  Muttering under my breath, I typed Fred Sentier’s name into Google.

  He was twenty-eight, had grown up in Rhode Island and worked for the Providence Journal for two years before landing a job in the suburban hinterlands of the Post. From his stories, Fred Sentier enjoyed nailing those in power, which didn’t bode well for Simon and Henry Paxton. I looked to see what he’d covered recently, but the stories had tapered off several months ago.

  I fished around some more and pulled up a blog reference from DCInsider.com, listing a round of recent layoffs. And then I was out of my seat and running down the hall, yelling, “Faraday, Faraday.”

  My boss shoved a file into his desk drawer.

  “The Washington Post laid Fred Sentier off in June,” I said.

  Faraday’s eyes shot to razor sharpness. “So who’s he working for? What’s his motivation? I don’t like this.”

  “Maybe he landed at another paper?”

  “In this economy? Not a chance.”

  Faraday’s eyes went to the clock. It was seven thirty p.m. Then he buzzed Tyler and Fletch and Sam in and repeated what I’d learned.

  “What if he’s not writing a story?” said Tyler. “Maybe his severance ran out and he’s thinking blackmail.”

  Everyone turned to me, and I assured them that Sentier hadn’t asked for money.

  “Still,” said Faraday, “something doesn’t smell right. I’m not convinced this weasel is selling the story to his old bosses at the Post. He could be up to anything. On the other hand, he could also get hit by a car on his way home.”

  Faraday’s eyes glinted evilly and a sudden chill went up my spine.

  He sighed. “But somehow I doubt we’ll have such luck.”

  His computer beeped and he leaned forward to read the message.

  “Simon Paxton’s wife is on board,” he said with satisfaction. “Maggie, call that hack and tell him your boss wants to chat.”

  I looked at him with surprise. “You don’t think I can handle it?”

  “It’ll look better coming from a higher-up. That’s elementary psychology.”

  I dialed, explained, and handed the phone over. Faraday put it on speaker.

  “Good evening, Mr. Sentier. I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”

  He winked at us.

  “No,” said Sentier. “I’ve been waiting for your call.”

  “Glad to hear it. You know I hate to interrupt you guys on deadline. Listen, I have good news. The senator and his brother and chief political adviser, Simon Paxton, have both agreed to talk to you. That’s right.”

  He conveyed the details and Sentier immediately began to pump him, asking when the affair had started, whether the senator’s wife knew, and if he’d planned to leave her for his aide.

  “All of your questions will be answered,” Faraday said.

  “But I need to talk to him now,” Sentier said urgently. “Ten o’clock is too late.”

  Faraday said, “You think we’re going to blab to the New York Times or C-SPAN? Hell, no. It’s your story. You investigated this thing and found something everyone had missed. We respect that and we’d like to give you as much as we can. And that’s why it’s going to take a little time. Some new facts have come to light as a result of your investigation, and we’re giving you first crack.”

  “Tell me about those things,” Sentier said silkily.

  “Soon enough, Mr. Sentier.”

  “Look, your girl promised that if I held the story, you’d leak me details on another case.”

  Faraday’s hand went to his collar. He hooked in a finger and tugged at his necktie, loosening it.

  “You sure do strike a hard bargain, Mr. Sentier.” He paused. “May I call you Fred?”

  “You can call me anything you want provided you keep up your end. Now give me something on this second case so
I know you’re for real.”

  “Do you ever watch the TV show Dream Factory on Thursdays? The one with Trent Holloway?” Faraday said.

  “I know who he is.”

  “Good. We’ll talk more tonight.”

  “I need details now, so I can prepare,” Sentier said mulishly.

  “You’ll get them after the Paxton interview. You’re already running us ragged, Fred. We’ll see you at ten. Good-bye.”

  Faraday hung up, looking pleased.

  * * *

  At nine p.m., Faraday assembled us in his office for final instructions.

  We’d just sat down when Fletch gave a strangled yelp and looked up, his eyes wide. At that moment, every line on Faraday’s phone lit up.

  “It’s out,” Fletch said. “And it’s the lead story on the National Enquirer’s website. ‘Senator’s Love Tryst with Murdered Aide.’ ”

  “Son of a bitch,” said Faraday.

  He swiveled to pull it up on his screen while the rest of us jumped up to read over Fletch’s shoulder.

  “U.S. Senator Henry Paxton shared a hotel room one night in May with his beautiful young aide Emily Mortimer, who was found strangled two days ago. Stanford Sentier, a veteran waiter at the Mission Inn of Riverside, said Mortimer opened the door to the senator’s hotel room dressed only in a bathrobe and personally signed a hotel chit for a $120 bottle of champagne at 1:24 a.m. Sentier said he didn’t realize the intimately clad girl in the senator’s room in the middle of the night was the murder victim until he saw Mortimer’s photo on TV.”

  “That scumbag,” said Tyler. “He wanted to pump us one last time before it went live.”

  We read on.

  “A spokeswoman said Senator Henry Paxton was meeting with LAPD detectives and would be unavailable for comment until this evening but promised the Enquirer an exclusive interview in which he would detail his romantic relationship with the murdered aide.”

  “The fuck he did,” said Faraday, in a cold hard voice that unnerved me way more than his tirades.

  “Wonder how much they paid them?” Tyler asked gloomily.

  “More than a waiter earns in a year,” said Faraday.

  For about ten seconds, we were silent, fortifying ourselves for the onslaught. The phones blinked like NASA Mission Control. Computers and BlackBerries warbled and trilled like a bushful of birds. Three secretaries appeared at the door, holding messages and looking concerned.