Rita smiled and swung her arm as best she could around the woman who towered over her by a good eight inches. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I need that every once in a while.”
The news herd shifted to alert as the first entourage emerged from the Capitol to approach the cameras and microphones set up on the marble steps. Activity quickened as techs jumped back into trucks to make sure pictures were clear and cameramen positioned for rolling footage, flicked on their high beams and back pedaled to catch the speakers descending. Like an incoming tide, the media crowd surged forward.
Kate and Rita waited through the posture and appeal process at the news podium. Kate scribbled notes. In less than half an hour, the circus ended, the high wire performers disappeared into limousines, the news crews packed up for a return to home base.
“Now for the real stuff.” Kate laughed as she tugged at Rita’s sleeve. “Just another thirty minutes and I’ll be able to sit down to talk about why you came over.”
At least no wind whistled through the halls of the Capitol. Rita rubbed her hands together as she tagged after Kate. They headed down a corridor lined with office doors. Some opened onto to secretaries guarding the inner sanctum; some closed the power cells from prying eyes. Kate halted in front of Senator Charles Strutt’s door.
“I’ll be ten minutes. No more,” she promised. “That’s all he’ll give me anyway.”
Rita nodded as she followed Kate inside.
“Kate, you’re right on time.” Randy Wyman stood beside the secretary, looking over her shoulder at the PC. “Come in. And you must be Rita Mars.” Wyman extended his hand.
Rita studied him. Strutt’s chief of staff, when she covered this beat, had been a guy by the name of Donald Grimm of the Maryland banking Grimms. She shook Wyman’s hand.
“I’ve read many of your stories.”
Rita noted that he’d read them. He didn’t say he liked them or agreed with them.
“Come in, please.” Wyman ushered them into a tiny cubicle in an adjacent room where Kate and Rita sat in chairs stolen from another cubicle and had no room between their chair and Wyman’s desk to cross their legs.
Kate proceeded with her questions for Wyman. He was the staffer in charge of the controversial bill as it struggled through committee. As such, Wyman was a more important source than any of the Congressmen who claimed sponsorship. They would be mouthpieces; it was the staffers who moved the mountains.
Rita sat back and took in this interview. She found herself instantly categorizing the young man in front of her. Law school definitely—Georgetown or UVA. He had his own political ambitions, looked like money was a driver for him. He was attractive, dark haired and dark eyed, but preoccupation with his role as courtier detracted and gave him a hardness. She smirked while Kate went on with her interview.
“So, do you think conservatives can kill the bill’s chances?” Kate asked.
“I believe,” Wyman said as he assumed his best earnest expression, “that the American public doesn’t truly understand how significantly they will benefit from this agreement. They’re driven by some kind of primitive emotional response that prevents objective assessment.”
Oh My God, Rita said to herself, mumbo jumbo at its finest. She glanced at Kate who scribbled a note without so much as a sarcastic look, without a question as to what the hell he thought he was saying.
“We want to make it worthwhile for those who join with us in accomplishing this landmark legislation,” Wyman said.
Ok, Rita said to herself once more. So now we’re giving bribes to the fools who cross party lines.
“And furthermore, we feel that once this agreement is in place, its true worth and benefit will be apparent.” Wyman smiled on this note.
Rita gritted her teeth. In other words, you’re pushing this thing down the throats of the people and they’ll have it whether they like it or not. Great, it’s the American way of government.
Kate smiled and thanked Randy Wyman for his interview. They all stood, but before the two women left, Wyman spoke to Rita.
“And what brings you back to The Hill? Is it Bobby Ellis’ death as I’ve heard?” Wyman’s eyes held her.
“I am looking into his death as a possible murder.” Rita met his probe without blinking.
“Oh really. Any solid leads?”
“Only enough to confirm it as murder,” Rita answered.
“But no killer as yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Well,” Wyman said, “I hope you get to the bottom of it. It was very sad.” He came around the desk to escort them to the office door.
“I’m working on one other thing for Bobby too.” Rita didn’t move.
Wyman halted. “And that is?”
“I’m going to finish the last story in his series.” She scanned for response, but saw nothing.
“Which was?” Wyman shuffled his feet and looked off to his left.
“His secret—and now mine—until I go to press,” Rita answered.
“Keep me in the loop?” Wyman asked.
“Absolutely,” said Rita.
Chapter 21
The beer-bellied man in the VFW garrison cap kept staring at her. Every once in a while, he shifted in his seat and nudged one of the two boy scouts who sat on his left side. The older woman in the pink wool suit with the amazingly abundant bosom coughed frequently and blew her nose; she had a lipstick smudge on her teeth.
Rita felt like she was in the doctor’s waiting room. People squeezed next to one another in the meager seating that lined the small stuffy reception area in Senator Hillman’s office. A few people stood in the corridor; some had coffee in Styrofoam cups.
The secretary stared obliviously at her PC screen typing furiously. She seemed mindful of the supplicants only as the door to the senator’s office opened and it was time to announce the next in line. That door opened at ten-minute intervals to expel an audience and allow a new group inside. During that opening, a young man in a starched shirt with gold adorned French cuffs would snake his way in to the senator and rush out as the next interview began.
The waiting room never emptied but continued to fill and overflow as Rita waited an hour for her exalted ten minutes. Calls chirped in loud and constantly on the secretary’s desk. Sometimes she answered and sometimes an unseen force in another room intercepted the signal. People dropped in and left messages and packages. Staffers hustled in and out of their office area.
Rita squirmed in her seat. She hated sitting. She remembered that part of her former life that she’d hated so much. Waiting rooms of the important where she cooled her heels and thought about taking up smoking just to pass the time. She much preferred the clandestine meets in the bars or the back roads where the interaction was quick and intense—and then done with.
“I’m getting my picture taken with the Senator.”
Rita turned to the woman who sat beside her. She had on a blue wool suit with an enameled American flag pin on her lapel. Her perm gave her a foreboding grey helmet, but her smile was something you had to return.
“Congratulations,” Rita said.
“I was elected to the state central committee two weeks ago and I wrote him a letter and he told me to just come on over.” The woman’s electric smile beamed on again.
Rita smiled. “That’s very special.”
“I did a lot of work for him and he said he was very grateful. He signed the letter himself.” The woman jostled her with an elbow. “Doesn’t do that for everybody, you know.”
Rita nodded. She refrained from telling the woman about signature machines and the other paraphernalia that Congressmen employed to offer the illusion of special and caring constituent concern.
“Rita Mars.” The secretary didn’t look up as she read off her list.
Brett Hillman greeted her with his hearty constituent handshake. “Ms. Mars. I’m so happy to meet you. I understand you wanted to see me about some information on that healthcare bill. Bad piece of legis
lation, ill thought out and detrimental to American families. I’m always happy to work with the press to explain my viewpoint.”
Hillman sat behind his polished walnut desk. Flanking him were the flags of the United States of America and the flag of Pennsylvania. Behind him immediately were photographs of himself with Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
“Actually Senator, I’m here to ask a few questions about Bobby Ellis.”
The welcome light shut down in Hillman’s face. “You can get out of this office right now.”
“I thought you were always happy to work with the press,” Rita countered.
“To work with responsible, honest people, not lying panderers to scandal mongering.” Hillman rose to a rigid military stance.
Rita continued to sit. “I’m asking for ten minutes, Senator. I’m not here to pry about donations. I’m here in my official capacity as a private investigator working on a murder case.”
Hillman wavered. “What do you mean a murder case? And I thought you were with the press.”
“I used to work with Bobby Ellis on the Star . I’m a private investigator now. There is reason to believe Ellis was murdered and the incident is reopening. If you don’t cooperate with me, you will eventually have to speak to the police. If I can get enough information from you now, you may not have to face that.”
Rita didn’t let his eyes escape hers.
“What do you want to know?” Hillman’s voice was weary as he slumped into his chair.
“I want to know about your interaction with Bobby.”
Hillman sighed and shook his head. “I took some trips, ok? Everybody does it. But he made it into something unethical and distorted the facts when he wrote that fucking story.”
“I don’t care what your official line is,” Rita said, “and I care even less if you were bought.”
Hillman reddened and brought his fists to the desktop. “I did nothing wrong.”
“As I said, that’s unimportant to me.” Rita studied his face as she spoke. “I want to know why you became his target, how he found out about the trips, and what happened between you and him.”
“I don’t know how I got to be his target.” Hillman sat back. “There were a bunch of people who accepted those junkets from the drug lobby; guys who took the speaking engagements. But in that damned article he made it sound like I was the only one.”
“He came here and confronted you?”
“Talked to my administrative assistant, Pete DeVane. Pete tried to talk some sense into Ellis, cooperated even until it was apparent this was a lynching. I tried to talk to Ellis myself, but he wasn’t going to hear what I said.”
“You were pissed,” Rita prompted.
“I was pissed. Publish and be damned I said finally.”
“Which he did.”
“And that’s when I held my press conference.”
“Where you threatened him and then punched him in front of a roomful of reporters,” Rita said.
Hillman reddened again. “Stupid. He knew he had me pinned to the mat, but he came there to gloat. My temper got the best of me. I started screaming at him after I made my statement and he got in my face. I’m not proud of it and I know it doesn’t look good. But I didn’t kill the guy.”
“Why not?”
Hillman stared at her.
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Just what I said. He threw a monkey wrench into your campaign for re-election. I saw your polls just after the story broke. You could have lost your seat.”
“I could have, but I didn’t,” Hillman said. “For one, I made a statement where I acknowledged the questionable nature of my accepting lobby gifts. The stuff about punching Ellis at the press conference never got out of the room, Pete DeVane took care of that. And then Pete launched a massive mail-out and ad blitz just before Election Day. I survived. Ellis didn’t. I figured I was out of the woods.”
“You didn’t see him again after that press conference.”
“Not once.”
“No more letters?”
“None.”
“Where were you on September 20, the Saturday night Bobby was killed?”
Hillman’s fist pounded the desk. “I told you I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“So, you’ll be able to tell me where you were and substantiate it.” Rita watched stubbornness grip his body. “You’ll want to tell me instead of the police.”
Hillman let out the angry breath he had been holding and flipped his desk calendar. “Dinner at Burning Tree Country Club.”
“National Pharmaceutical Association?”
“God damn it, it was a fund raiser for the homeless.”
“But they were the sponsor.”
Hillman said nothing and Rita’s interview was over.
♏
Five a.m. The internal alarm sounded and Rita Mars’ eyes flipped open. It was always dark at this hour. It was the hour her father rose every morning of his tortured life. He got up at that time because that’s when the booze from the night before wore off and he had to stumble to his stash to quell the shakes.
That hour of the morning haunted her even after she had been gone from her parents’ home for over twenty years now. It was the reason she hated staying overnight with her mother and sleeping in her old room. It was her motive for jumping out of bed and hiding in the activity of the coming day.
“Hey, you.” Rita stroked the silky head of the Great White Hunter who maintained his curled sleeping position without opening an eye.
Coffee was waiting. She had the machine on a timer. Rita gulped down her first cup along with a glass of orange juice. She hated that damned drive to Washington again. For an instant, a chilling thought streaked across her mind: maybe she’d quit the paper because she thought she was getting too old, couldn’t keep up with the frenetic pace. No way, she said to herself.
Today was warmer and there were fewer people milling around the Capitol when she arrived. She skipped up the endless flight of marble steps to assure herself of her earlier assessment that she wasn’t getting too old. Hell, she’d run five miles this morning.
Rita swung into the Senate cafeteria and chose a table for two near the back in the press section. Within seconds, her appointment appeared. He looked around for a moment until Rita waved.
Peter DeVane carried a leather binder under his arm. He was a clean-shaven blond with very smooth skin and a slight build. He was not handsome, but he would make a statesman like appearance when he grew into his political career. In his youth with his oversized tortoise rimmed glasses, he offered a solid and scholarly presentation.
“I have to be at a committee meeting in fifteen minutes,” DeVane said when he sat.
“You’ll be there,” Rita assured him. “Want some coffee?” The aroma of fresh brew wafted through the room.
“Don’t have time.”
“Staffers never have time.”
“What did you need to see me about?” DeVane asked.
“Ok, I need to ask you about Bobby Ellis. I want to know what kind of contact you had with him while he was working on that story about your boss.” Rita’s eyes never left DeVane as she looked for tells.
DeVane swallowed before he answered, but his voice was steady. “The usual. He said he had some information about senators accepting trips and favors from some high-powered lobbies. To tell you the truth, I thought he was working on Charles Strutt.”
“Strutt?”
“Yeah, he’s notorious for funny money. Christ, he has a war chest a third world dictator would envy. Anyway I thought Ellis was on a fishing expedition. He asked me about Hillman’s contributions. I said they were a matter of public record.”
“But they weren’t all public records, were they?”
“No, but then neither is anyone else’s”
“That seems the most prevalent rationale these days—everybody else does it.”
“Look, do you want information on Ellis or did you come here to gi
ve an ethics lecture? Hillman told me to cooperate on the Ellis stuff, but I’m not about to help burn my senator.”
Rita pursed her lips. “Is that how you felt? Ellis tricked you into betraying your boss?”
“In a way.”
“You were angry with Ellis,” Rita said.
“Furious.”
“You patched up the initial damage, but Ellis held some additional cards. He could have come back and finished the job.”
“No.”
“You had to put the real fix in.”
“No.”
“You told him you had a story for him. You lured him to West Virginia and you killed him.”
“I did not.” DeVane flew up from his chair so that the table tipped toward Rita.
She jumped up to confront him, but even as she did, she knew that the slim young man in front of her probably didn’t have the physical strength to strangle Bobby Ellis who was taller and outweighed him by a good forty pounds. “You hired somebody.”
“I’m going to my meeting.” DeVane turned.
“I’m not finished,” Rita called after him. “And I know your boss doesn’t want his name linked to a murder investigation.”
DeVane paused, but did not face her.
“I told him I would keep this out of the paper and away from the police, if I got the right answers.” Rita waited.
“Quit badgering me. I’ll tell you what I know.” DeVane turned around.
“Deal.”
DeVane came back to the table, but neither of them sat.
“Where were you the night of Ellis’ murder?”
“What day was that?”
“Twentieth of September, a Saturday.”
“With Hillman at Burning Tree,” DeVane answered.
“Witnesses?”
DeVane thought for a moment. “Yes, a couple of other senators and admin assistants.”
“Do you know someone by the name of Miriam Blalock?” Rita asked.
“Who?”
“Never mind. Last question—what was the subject of Bobby Ellis’ last story?” Rita focused hard.
DeVane licked his lips. “I don’t know. I guess I thought it was about Charles Strutt. He seemed to be hanging around his office a lot.”
DRIVEN: A Rita Mars Thriller Page 17