Laila wasn’t meeting my husband secretly. At least not on this occasion.
She was meeting Suzana Treese. And for some reason that scared me even more.
I was back at the Capitol Police entrance within the hour. I’d been able to get through the security of the lot with my new identification as Mrs. Jude Birch, but I hadn’t yet received enough clearance to make it through the non-descript door without a lengthy conversation with a woman behind the Capitol Police intercom. She seemed surprised I even knew it was the Capitol Police office, which I thought should convince her even more easily that I belonged on the inside.
But it didn’t.
“Please. It’s Aby Boyle. Aby Birch. Jude Birch’s wife. I have a meeting with Officer Bruce. I need to talk to him. It’s urgent.”
“Mrs. Birch. Calm down, please.” I realized I was still out of breath from my trailing adventure. I made a mental note to get back to yoga this week with Mena.
Mena.
Did she know her mother was in on the threats to Jude? Did this mean her mother was involved in the threats to Dominic Treese as well? Had she threatened her own husband?
My mind was racing, and even though I knew I should be doing the very thing this faceless woman at the Capitol Police advised, to “calm down,” I couldn’t.
“Please. I’m begging you. Please just get Officer Bruce, ask him if he didn’t tell me I could come here anytime with new information. Go ahead. I’ll wait.”
I pictured the woman on the other side of the intercom giving the finger to me grandly. I imagined she must be rolling her eyes and pointing at me in the video screen monitor doing a nervous dance leaning in and bending back out trying to get my message through the intercom onto sympathetic ears. I imagined Officer Bruce running in and bellowing, “Of course, I want to see her. Let her right in.”
I stood outside in the cold for a few more minutes, my arms circling my own waist in a hug. Finally, the intercom buzzed with some loud static and a curt, “Hold on, Mrs. Birch. Officer Bruce will be right with you.”
The door came open and standing there was Officer Bruce.
I practically fell into him as I’d been leaning against the door talking animatedly with the intercom. I was so relieved to see a human person, I almost hugged him.
“Aby, calm down. Calm down. You’ve got yourself all worked up. And my staff along with you.”
“We need to talk. As in right now.” I pointed my way to the elevator, and pushed past Officer Bruce, giving him no option but to follow along after me.
“Aby, don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic here?” Officer Bruce asked as we exited the elevator and walked down the hall.
“You wanted me to spy on a woman you claim is threatening to kill my husband and you’re calling me melodramatic?” I hissed over my shoulder.
When we got back to Bruce’s office, I slammed the door behind me.
“Why is Laila meeting with Suzana Treese?”
His look told me what I needed to know. He knew something. He knew a lot more than he had told me.
“Bruce, you suck at poker. I need more information before I go running around town following and taping a woman who apparently has much bigger connections in this town than I do. Tell me, Bruce. What do you know about Suzana Treese and Laila that you’re not telling me?”
“Aby, listen. We don’t have a lot of information about Suzana Treese. She’s an immigrant, who’s kept herself fairly under the radar in recent years.”
“But you’re working with her daughter. Why don’t you ask Mena some questions about Suzana?”
Bruce whistled through his teeth. “I didn’t expect this right out of the starting gate with you. I really didn’t. Listen, Aby. Here’s what I can tell you. We have some reason to believe that Laila is working for a corporate client that’s become incredibly powerful recently. That client has some very powerful enemies and if what you’re telling me is correct, then Suzana and Laila might be working together on the same side. This changes this case. Elevates its profile. And—well—elevates the level of protection you’re going to need, Aby.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t need protection from Laila.” I said it with more confidence than I felt.
“Aby, listen. Laila? She works for Out The Bullies.”
I knew it.
“Are you saying that Out The Bullies is now threatening my husband?”
“Possibly. And that means that if Laila and Suzana are working together, Suzana may be working for Out The Bullies, too.”
“But her husband is a huge investor in IM. Aren’t there conflicts of interest there?”
“Or a huge double-cross.”
Things once blurry started to come into focus. “Are you saying that both Laila and Suzana are trying to double-cross Dominic Treese?”
“I think it’s safe to say they have both been working together to derail his political aspirations.”
“Oh my God. Do you think Mena knows?”
“I don’t. But if I were you, right now, Aby, I’d be cautious with everyone.”
I rubbed my temples, thinking about Monica and Gary and the cat and mouse games I’d been playing the last few weeks of the campaign. How far into this thing had I gotten without even knowing? How much should I share with Officer Bruce? His own words rang in my head:
I’d be cautious with everyone.
“Well, as you already know, Jude’s campaign was supported grandly by Out The Bullies. But it was at Laila’s insistence. I think Jude and I have been pulled into something much bigger than a disgruntled ex-girlfriend threatening my husband. I’m not helping you any further unless you promise to protect me.”
“It’s fine, Aby. You can give back the microphone. We’re going to need to amp up security here, and I’m going to have an officer follow Suzana Treese and Laila for a few days.”
I thought about the money trail from Out The Bullies to me through Laila. I thought about all the times Laila had made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. About the warnings from Gary that she had her own agenda here. She was dangerous. I knew that. And I’d already gotten in too deep with her.
“You know what? I’m not leaving here, until I get some protection. I understand I’m not within your jurisdiction, but I’m not going to just waltz out of here unprotected.”
“Aby, the best way to protect yourself is to help us get to the bottom of the connections between Out The Bullies, Laila, and Suzana. We know you’ve been an ardent user of the Out The Bullies beta app for years now. In fact, we think Out The Bullies may very well have been tracking you through its geofilter on the beta app.
“What?” I felt so foolish. Had I been helping Out The Bullies spy on Jude’s whereabouts through me? What else had I been inadvertently helping them with?
And what about Laila?
“When we get to the bottom of all of this, we’ll be able to trace everything much more clearly and iron out the vendetta Laila Rogers has against your husband. And Dominic Treese. Did you know there was talk of Dominic Treese being nominated by the Republican party instead of Donald Trump? We think there were some enemies of Treese even then who worked to make sure that didn’t happen.”
A long ago memory came to me: in Little Miss Whiskey’s, the first time I met her. Laila high fiving with Jude when Donald Trump announced his plan to run for office. Jude admitted in the car on the way home that there was someone else the party was supposed to put forward. Someone worse. Laila and Jude were never fans of Dominic Treese.
What had he done?
I thought again about the familiar hug shared by Suzana and Laila no more than an hour earlier.
More of Laila’s overheard words came back to me from behind that conference room door months ago—if I knew what she had to tell me, I’d need an apology from Jude, she had promised. Moreover, Monica had insinuated that Jude might not come out squeaky clean in the expanded version of the exposé that she was working on.
Laila had m
outhed “Thank you” that night of the Donald Trump announcement to Jude.
What was he hiding?
Maybe Laila’s hands weren’t clean in all this, but neither were Jude’s. I wanted to uncover the truth. And I wanted to out Laila. But more than any of that—I wanted to protect the man I loved.
“I think I can help you connect a lot more dots than you even realize. But I need protection.”
“We’ve been all through this, Aby. We don’t have jurisdiction to give you your own security.”
“Not for me. For Jude. We can both help you, but, I’m not going to put him at risk without your promise. I won’t go forward unless he can have protection. You have provisions for Witness Protection, right?”
Officer Bruce nodded slowly.
I nodded more quickly in response.
“Then that’s what I want. For both of us.”
“The thing is, Aby, if we were to even discuss this up the chain—up the ladder—you’d have to decide whether you were willing to leave everything behind. And everyone.”
“I don’t have any family. No family other than Jude. It’s ok. I don’t really do too much other than go to and from the office.”
“Aby, you’re not understanding me. You’d have to leave D.C. We don’t have the manpower to protect you here—in this busy metropolis. So you’d have to leave. And you’d have to take on an assumed identity until the case was resolved. Or longer.”
“I’d have to lie about who I am for the rest of my life?” The irony of Officer Bruce’s suggestion was not lost on me.
“Right. Or until it was safe to come out again. We’d have to evaluate that on a year-by-year basis.”
I saw the elephant in the room. The one Officer Bruce was dancing around.
“And Jude?”
“He’d have to be willing to go along with it.”
“He’d have to be willing to lie along with me?”
“Yes, or—”
“Yes or what?“
I grabbed onto the “or” as if there really was an alternative.
Officer Bruce said, “He’d have to be willing to lie until we closed the case. Or we couldn’t protect either one of you.”
“I don’t know about all this. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Ok, well, I’ll write everything up. If you want protection from Laila Rogers, Suzana Treese, and Out The Bullies, you’ll have to agree to some parameters. I’ll send you the terms for your review.”
I nodded, and as I drove home, I thought about how crazy it all sounded.
How could I convince Jude, the man who had never lived anywhere but D.C., to leave this city?
I thought about the sadness I’d heard in his voice during the taped conversation with Laila. Something was haunting him. Laila was haunting him.
I remembered all too well how Rafe had done that to me. How I’d wanted—no, needed—to escape him. Jude seemed to need that as well.
We could leave this crazy world behind for a while. Maybe we’d escape on Front Runner for a while? Maybe that was the way to convince Jude to go along with it? He could come clean about whatever role he’d had in threatening Dominic Treese. Laila could stop blackmailing him. And we could get on with our lives.
The thing is, I didn’t have much time to try to convince Jude to run away with me. Within 72 hours of my last conversation with Officer Bruce, I was maintaining a vigil with Jude who’d been gravely wounded in a shooting ruled to be “gang related” by the D.C. police.
Of course, given all that I’d discovered in the weeks leading up to the shooting, I strongly suspected otherwise.
Chapter 28
“Jude, what’s in the box?”
“Important documents. Like passports and such.”
“And I put a letter in here. A few months ago. I think it was right before the shooting, now that I think about it. A letter to you. I hid it from you.”
“You hid a letter to me?”
“It’s a letter asking you to agree to lie. About everything.”
Officer Bruce’s letter detailed much that I’d wanted to tell Jude myself. The connection between Laila and Out The Bullies. The rise in stature that Out The Bullies had been able to achieve because Laila had green-lighted the ad expenditures. The possible campaign finance violations. It detailed the fact that Laila and Suzana were working together to threaten Jude and had probably been responsible for derailing Dominic Treese’s campaign as well. It was conspicuously absent of any reference to Philomena Treese. It was conspicuously absent of any reference to Jude being complicit in any of their actions.
In the letter, which indicated that it had been served “Via Hand Delivery” on January 25, 2019, the date of the shooting, Officer Bruce stated that in consideration of evidence I would provide on the foregoing links, I’d get my own private security outside of the D.C. city limits, until the completion of any trial that came about as a result of the information, complete with new identification, new documentation, and new job assistance.
There was room for a notarized signature by me, and a conclusion that read, We can discuss similar arrangements for Congressman Birch at his convenience. Contact me to discuss.
Officer Bruce had been calling me constantly since the shooting, but I’d been putting him off.
We need to discuss the deal, he kept saying.
I’m not ready. I need more time.
I wondered if the fact that Jude had been shot kept him up at night, and whether he felt like a heel going along with the D.C. Police Department’s ruling that it was a bunch of gang bangers, in light of everything he and I both knew. There hadn’t been any follow-up to the original exposé by The Washington Truth. Monica hadn’t called me in months, and I was starting to think that maybe our new normal had arrived.
Until Jude busted out the fire box.
I sat with Jude, next to the open fire box, trying to explain why I’d done all I’d done.
“I didn’t want Laila to get away with threatening you, Jude. I don’t know what you and she did to sabotage Dominic Treese’s campaign, and I’m not sure I want to know. But I wanted to protect you. Do you understand?”
Jude nodded. “I do. I understand.”
I proceeded more gently. “And the thing is, Jude, I don’t think your shooting was accidental like they keep saying.”
Jude looked down at the fire box sadly and silently.
“Would you want to go away, Jude? With me? Get away from Laila and the Treeses? Go where you might be safe?”
I waited for his answer, and I had no choice but to believe him when he said, “No, not like this.”
I put my head in my hands. It didn’t seem possible that our choices were so severely curtailed simply because Jude could no longer lie. Jude reached out and put his hand on my arm and I felt lighter, as if he’d absorbed some of the sadness I was feeling. And then he asked, “Do you think there’s a way, Aby? Do you think there’s a way to fix my brain so I can go away with you and pretend we’re other people? At least for a while?”
I thought about Dr. Drake’s prognosis.
Jude can’t lie.
“I don’t think so, Jude. But it’s ok. I’m going to stay here and take care of you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I haven’t talked to Laila since the shooting, have I? I’m having trouble remembering.”
I shook my head sadly. I’d kept Jude here and away from the Capitol ever since he was discharged from the hospital. Officer Bruce told me they had been tailing Suzana and Laila the last few months, but that both were lying low. Possibly they were waiting until Jude reemerged back into the world.
Officer Bruce kept telling me we were running out of time. That he was getting a lot of pressure from Mena to wrap this case up. To link Laila to Jude’s shooting, and to her father’s case as well. Apparently, he hadn’t shared Suzana’s potential role. I had a feeling Mena wouldn’t be pushing so hard if she knew about that.
In my last phone conversation with Officer Bruce,
the day before Dr. Drake’s latest diagnosis, Officer Bruce said his case had some missing pieces, and that he was going to have to subpoena both me and Jude. He said that we’d have to make a decision soon about whether we were going to tell all we knew and become cooperative witnesses in the case they were putting together, or whether we were going to have another role altogether. A less favorable role—one without police protection.
Mena and I didn’t talk about the ongoing investigation. We did our work at the Foundation and ignored each other. We didn’t go to yoga, and we didn’t talk about her father.
Or her mother.
I wondered constantly whether Dominic Treese had showed up at the hospital that day in his black Mercedes to actually warn me about his wife.
Sitting with Jude and his fire box and my fears, I decided I’d call Officer Bruce and tell him that we’d cooperate. Even without police protection. We’d have to face down the threat of Suzana and Laila and Out The Bullies right here. Together.
Chapter 29
I left Jude in his room, and headed downstairs to my flamingo-flanked couch, and sat in it.
I was about to dial up Officer Bruce, but an odd number popped up, and I let it go to voicemail.
I wondered if Monica was returning yet again.
I gave it a minute, and then I listened to the voicemail.
“Mrs. Birch. It’s Fiona, the Congressman’s night nurse. Anyway, I’m calling from my cell number. Give me a call when you get a chance.”
I realized I hadn’t seen Fiona in a few days, and I wondered why. I called her right back.
“Hi Fiona. Sorry, I let the voicemail pick up because I didn’t recognize this number.”
“Yeah, sorry to bother you. I’m calling from my personal cell. I got fired and I didn’t want to leave the Congressman without getting in touch with you.”
“Fired? What happened, Fiona?”
“Well, my supervisor wrote me up for being a few minutes late a couple of times this month. But really, I think it was because I kept telling her she needed to call you. She thinks I’m getting too involved with some of my patients. Told me to stop trying to play God. Or doctor.”
Why We Lie Page 22