Twisted Justice

by Diane Capri

  Saving that debate for later in the weekend, I braced myself for bad news and asked instead, “Why are you all dressed up?”

  “I’m meeting Jason downstairs for dinner in a few minutes. You might want to join us.” He must have sensed my instinctive refusal because his tone softened and he added, “You don’t see Jason very often and I don’t know when he’ll be in town again.”

  Jason Austin’s mother, Kate, took me in when my own mother died and my stepfather couldn’t face life without mom. I was only sixteen then, a time that seemed light years ago.

  Did I want to have dinner with George and Jason? I was ambivalent about the idea. I literally felt my head wagging back and forth, like the cartoons I watched as a child, as if I had an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, while I considered my answer.

  It’s true that I don’t see Jason often, and I do enjoy his company, the angel pointed out. But he makes me tired, the devil responded. Jason’s brand of brilliance is a struggle to be around and I didn’t really feel up to it tonight.

  Conversations with Jason involve only important matters; he thinks his work is vital to the world; the trivial has no place in Jason Austin’s life. Even trivial things like family. Jason lives in Jason’s world. The rest of the 270 million people in this country live somewhere else.

  If he wasn’t the closest thing I had to an older brother, I wouldn’t have been able to stand him.

  Jason also happens to be the chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee the committee responsible for Andrews’s confirmation hearings. I’d seen him on television yesterday, sitting at the right hand of his boss, Senator Sheldon Warwick.

  Part of my ambivalence was that I knew Jason was here to discuss politics with George and I’d had enough of that. I needed a break.

  Still, the angel won the argument. Before George left, I told him I’d shower and join them downstairs. Otherwise, I’d be dining alone in my flat, again. I’d been alone enough lately. Obviously, my husband wasn’t going to return to me, so it was up to me to join him.

  I savored my cigar, finished my drink and undressed as I headed in toward the shower. I glanced longingly at my oversized bathtub. When we renovated Aunt Minnie’s house, we added closets to replace the old wardrobes, and expanded the bathrooms and bedrooms. We replaced the plumbing, but I insisted on keeping the mammoth, claw-footed tub.

  I loved that tub. It was a place to soak my cares away.

  But I knew that if I got into the tub that night, I’d never get out. So I took an invigorating ginseng gel shower instead and tried to convince myself that I still had some energy left.

  I dried my hair (two minutes), put on my face (three minutes) and slipped into a wine silk pantsuit with a cream chemise and low-heeled sandals (one minute). No jewelry. George says I’m fast, for a woman.

  As I looked at my reflection in the full-length mirror, I noticed I could have used a little more concealer for the shadows under my eyes. I reached for the tube, but then threw it back in the drawer. No amount of makeup would conceal those circles.

  Glancing at the clock on my way out, I saw that it was just barely nine o’clock. Maybe I’d get to bed before midnight, with any luck.

  I stopped on the landing to lock the door and then turned around to look into the foyer of the restaurant below. Peter, George’s Mater d’, stood near the exit, chatting with a departing couple. Peter appeared enraptured by whatever the portly gentleman was saying while he simultaneously gave his attention to the man’s equally well-fed wife. Both gazed at Peter as if they wanted to take him home and fatten him up.

  Tampa’s oldest five star restaurant has been trying to woo Peter away from George for years. A Kentucky restaurant even sent Peter a racehorse for Christmas last year. He rejected all offers. He was devoted to George and Minaret. Peter would never work anywhere else. Of course, I think Peter is already employed at the epitome of his chosen field. Not that I’m biased.

  I walked slowly down the stairs, watched the guests, and looked anew at Aunt Minnie’s tastefully decorated foyer. When she lived here, the house was her private home and these were her secretaries, breakfronts and sideboards. Even the small butler’s table and the upholstered loveseats in the center were hers. The soft blue fleur de lis wallpaper duplicated hers in gilded excellence.

  Would Aunt Minnie be pleased to have her beautiful things returned to usefulness or horrified that strangers came into her home for lunch and dinner seven days a week?

  It didn’t matter. Without the restaurant, we couldn’t afford to keep the house. Aunt Minnie, to the extent her ghost might still be with us, would just have to cope, I thought, as I made my way toward the dining room.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tampa, Florida

  Friday 9:05 p.m.

  January 21, 2000

  I PASSED THROUGH THE foyer and waved to Peter over the heads of the departing oversized guests. The restaurant owner’s wife has certain obligations that I preferred to ignore tonight, but when I was present here, I had to play the role. Most of the time, I enjoyed it.

  Standing in the doorway to the main dining room for a few seconds, I was able to draw strength to pass the gauntlet of diners between here and George and Jason’s far corner table.

  When I surveyed the room, I noticed a number of familiar faces, not all of them welcome ones. Inhaling courage, I stepped cautiously into the fishbowl, feeling a little like a criminal in a line-up, knowing all eyes would be cast my way, making judgments.

  At the Andrews’s table, no one seemed to be having a very good time. Deborah threw me a beseeching glance. I hardened my heart, smiled encouragement, and kept going.

  Further on, I nodded to Senator and Tory Warwick, who were eating alone at a window table overlooking the garden. My initial thought was: Why are they here?

  Tory had on a red, low-cut dress by a certain designer she’s favored since her breast implant surgery enhanced her figure a few months ago. I hoped she would behave herself tonight.

  Senator Warwick himself looked very stylish in a grey cashmere suit, pink silk tie and the black, reverse calf, bench made shoes that are his trademark. The first time I’d seen the shoes, I’d wanted a pair for myself, until I found out what they cost. They looked like comfortable Hush Puppies to me, but Jason assures me there’s a huge difference. I suspect most of the voters think they look like Hush Puppies, too, which may be the point.

  “The fact is you have to be rich or have a well-employed, working spouse to be able to afford the job of civil servant,” Jason had told me. Although we both knew that politicians act like champions of the poor and average income people because more of those folks vote.

  I passed a few more tables and only had to stop briefly to speak to one other local couple before I finally reached George and Jason. I felt like I’d just crossed Times Square on New Year’s Eve, or Ybor City’s Seventh Avenue on any given Saturday night, weaving through close crowds, seeking a safe haven.

  Jason stood up and leaned over so he could give me a light, polite, southern hug. Kind of a lean across the body and a small pat on the upper back. This pseudo hug is the southern equivalent of the New York cheek-to-air kiss, I guess. It took me the longest time to get used to the gesture when we moved here from Detroit years ago. Jason is no more southern than I am. Maybe since a southern Democrat controlled the White House, the hug had become a politically correct Washington thing.

  “Hey, Willa, you look great, as always,” he lied.

  I wondered when Jason had learned to lie so smoothly and why he was lying to me now. Was he so oblivious to my troubled appearance? Or did he simply not care? I thought I knew Jason well. Maybe not. Maybe none of us really knows another. Or ourselves for that matter. With renewed objectivity, I examined him closely.

  Jason is a solid, dependable-looking man. He’s average: average height (5’10”), average coloring (brown hair, hazel eyes) and an average dresser (Brooks Brothers). Actually, on the dressing thing, he could get the same
suits at Stein Mart for half the price, if he had more imagination.

  “Thanks,” I said, kissing him on the cheek. Then, seeking to encourage more candor, I told him, “You look as tired as I feel. Don’t you ever get a break?”

  He failed to take the opportunity I offered. “When I accepted the job, the title sounded so good, I just thought it would improve my resume.” More lies. Jason had never leapt without looking in his life and I knew he hadn’t done so when he accepted the job of chief counsel to the senate judiciary committee at Senator Sheldon Warwick’s request. My radar, already up and humming, sharpened considerably.

  Jason had worked as Warwick’s aide for the previous ten years. The chief counsel position was a promotion, of sorts, and for a politically ambitious man like Jason, a very powerful post. His ability to participate in and influence the selection of judges who might serve on the courts of the United States for the next twenty years was more than just a resume builder.

  Before we could sit down again, Frank Bennett, one of our local television anchors, approached our table. Ignoring the kick I gave him under the table, George invited Frank to join us. It seemed everyone who had gathered in Tampa for tomorrow’s Blue Coat golf tournament had planned dinner here first. But then, George’s was the best restaurant in town. Where else would they go? Maybe for the first time ever, I wished George owned a waffle house.

  Once we were all seated, Jason asked, “How’d you get the night off, Frank? It’s a busy time for you reporters, with the nomination and the assassination attempt and all.” His tone implied annoyance, or maybe something closer to anger.

  “I covered all that at six,” Frank responded. “I’m working on the President’s trip to Tampa later tonight. I thought if I came over here, you or George might give me something I can use for the eleven o’clock news.” Frank looked around, then said, “It was just luck to find all the main players in the Andrews debacle in the same dining room.”

  Luck had nothing to do with it. The local media, like everyone else, knew Washington-based Tampa residents had planned to play in the Blue Coat charity golf tournament tomorrow. But someone must have tipped him off that all of them were sitting in this one dining room. I don’t believe in coincidence.

  “Wait a second,” I said. “Why is the President in town? Didn’t anybody stay in Washington this weekend?”

  “Apparently not. They just moved the judiciary committee here, I’d say.” Frank glanced around the room and let his gaze rest pointedly on General Andrews’s table and then Warwick’s.

  George and Jason exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher and George said, “You’d better not have a camera in here, Frank,” with the sternness he usually reserves for misbehaving Labradors.

  “Of course not.” Frank managed to sound wounded before he grinned. “I got the footage when everyone crossed the bridge as they arrived. The camera crew is still over there, waiting for the departures. Where we can bombard them with questions.” He stopped a beat for effect. “We wouldn’t think of bringing a camera in here.”

  “This is private property, Frank,” I reminded him.

  “Is it? I thought it was a public restaurant.” Frank said too sweetly, before he turned to Jason. “Hasn’t anyone told your boss that he and the nominee are on the same team? Warwick and the other Dems seem to be going out of their way to make George’s team the winner here.”

  Jason looked down at his heavy crystal wine glass, studying the circles the red wine had made on the cream damask table cloth. He seemed to be considering Frank’s question, but probably was only timing his answer.

  Senator Warwick and the other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee had been openly hostile to Andrews’s nomination on national television for the past three weeks. Yesterday’s questioning was the topper. Every news reporter had made more than one comment about it on every newscast, news magazine or teaser since the televised hearings began.

  Jason must have strategized a well prepared response, although he acted as if he was thinking about it for the first time.

  The curious thing was that the committee’s hostility hadn’t dented Andrews’s popularity in the daily and weekly polls that controlled everything in political America now.

  Like everything else inside the beltway, I viewed this as one great political game that usually made me yawn. If General Andrews got Borked, the insiders’ euphemism for a nominee being attacked and rejected by the committee instead of being submitted to the full senate, the story would be over.

  And it was all old ground between George and Jason. They’d argued every angle endlessly for weeks now. My interest had long since evaporated.

  But Frank was still looking for his sound bite. The trick to dealing with the media is to ignore what they ask you and answer their questions with what you want them to repeat. Jason had lots of experience at this and finally delivered what I was sure he’d planned to say all along, something he knew Frank would air. “Senator Warwick supports the President, Frank,” Jason said. “What the President wants, we aim to deliver.”

  Both Frank and George seemed satisfied with that, which was curious, I thought at the time. But I noticed that Jason didn’t say what the President wanted them to deliver.

  After Frank left us, he stopped briefly at Warwick’s table and then the general’s. The tension in the room was as thick as concrete.

  George said, “Why don’t we talk about something besides politics?” He flashed a wicked grin. “Jason, anything new on the romance front?”

  Jason smiled wanly and I laughed at their antics, even though I knew they were purposely designed to relax us all.

  “Way to go, George,” Jason quipped back, “Choose a comfortable, non-controversial topic, why don’t you?”

  Jason’s bad luck in love was a family joke. He always seemed to choose the wrong woman, one way or another. He kept us amused with his self-deprecating accounts of failed relationships for the next hour while we consumed the heavenly cuisine for which diners are willing to pay George’s exorbitant prices.

  We ordered the chef’s special Grilled Beef Tenderloin with Marsala Mushroom Sauce, Roasted Garlic and Brie Soup and dill bread. By the time we got to the Coconut Cardamom Custard Tart with Oven roasted Bananas, our fatigue and all bad humor had completely dissipated. Even the tension seemed a little lighter. Anger starves on heavenly food.

  “Coffee and cigars on the veranda of the Sunset Bar?” George suggested. When I hesitated, he added to entice me, “It’ll be quieter. And there’s a full moon tonight casting a shimmering trail over the water.”

  We started toward the door, coincidentally following Senator Warwick and his wife, Tory. The Warwicks didn’t see us and we were about to pass safely out of the dining room, when they made a tactical error. Warwick turned to avoid a tray sitting in the aisle and walked within six feet of the Andrews’s dinner table.

  That was when General Andrews glanced up and saw us. He raised his voice almost to the shouting point. “I’d sneak on by if I were you, too, Sheldon. You’ve always been a coward.”

  Senator Warwick, perpetually cognizant of his public image, said, “Andy, now is neither the time nor place to discuss this. Why don’t you come by the house in the morning and we’ll talk about it.” That was the wrong tone to take with a general, even a retired one, and apparently the wrong thing to say as well.

  Andrews’s next statement was even louder. “Sure, Sheldon. Then you can blow smoke up my ass in private instead of saying whatever it is you have to say in front of everyone here.”

  Abruptly, Andrews rose, knocking the chair over backward as he stood. He threw his napkin down on the table by his plate and started to move toward Warwick, who was now almost all the way past the table.

  “It hasn’t bothered you to attack me in front of the entire country in those damn hearings you’re heading up. Why should it bother you to have it out, here and now?”

  Deborah Andrews placed a restraining hand on her husband’s arm, but he shook it
off.

  “This doesn’t concern you, Deborah,” he snarled.

  “Do you want to step outside, Senator, and settle it right now?” General Andrews challenged, his chin high, with the air of a man accustomed to fighting his battles with his fists.

  There was no way Sheldon Warwick could beat Andrews, if it came to that. I noticed Tory Warwick’s nostrils flair and her eyebrows come together over her perfectly sculpted nose. Tory was the wildcat, everybody knew. She’d been raising hell in Tampa all her life.

  By this time, we had reached the Andrews table and both George and Jason tried to calm things down while all eyes in the crowded restaurant watched the show. George walked toward Andrews and Jason approached his boss.

  Deborah’s eyes had widened to the size of cornflower blue saucers. She’d be blaming herself for this, I knew. Deborah believed everything her husband did was her fault. The twelve step program she’d completed hadn’t been able to change her basic personality.

  Calmly, quietly, George said, “Gentlemen, please. You’re upsetting my guests. Why don’t we just ”

  Before George could work his magic, Tory Warwick had had more than enough. I glanced up and noticed Frank Bennett standing in the doorway, taking it all in.

  Which is why I didn’t see Tory Warwick reach over, pick up a full lead crystal water glass, draw back and throw it with all her strength at General Andrews. If she’d hit him, it would have knocked him cold, she’d thrown the heavy glass with the force she’d perfected as the baseball pitcher she’d been in college.

  Unfortunately, Tory’s aim wasn’t improved by her alcohol consumption and she missed. The next thing I knew, I was flat on my butt on the floor.

  Tory didn’t knock me out, but I definitely felt dazed. I reached up and felt the tender spot on my forehead, just in front of my right temple. A small “Oh,” slipped from my lips. My first thought was how Frank Bennett would report this scene on the eleven o’clock news. At least it wasn’t on film.