by Diane Capri
But the question stirred my memory. Something I’d seen or heard was buzzing around, just out of reach. The fingerprints. In the den.
“There were other fingerprints in Andrews’s home office, weren’t there?” I asked.
But I was still preoccupied. What had I seen there? What was I thinking?
“All of which are accounted for, Willa, including Robbie Andrews and Sheldon Warwick.” Ben replied. “George’s are the only fingerprints that remain unexplained.”
George and Ben debated George’s refusal to prove his alibi and I barely listened. Something about Andrews’s den. What was it?
Unable to persuade George to say more, Ben prepared to go. Before he left, Ben said, “Warwick’s out of the jurisdiction now, Willa. And he’s right that we have no evidence to connect him to the murder. You’ve seen the forensics, just as I have.”
Ben held his hat in his hand.
“I’ll testify against him,” I said again, the tone of my voice rising of its own volition. “This is outrageous. The man is guilty of murder and he has to stand trial.”
Ben shook his head. “Warwick will deny the murder, pitting your credibility against his. With no corroboration, it’s just he said/she said. The despicable nature of Andrews’s character will come out and tarnish Andrews’s reputation further and hurt his family.” He stopped a couple of beats. “Is that what you want?”
Of course, he was right. But I couldn’t let it go. My whole life was about serving the judicial system. I did my job every day, as best I could, under a caseload so heavy it sometimes seemed as if I was drowning in sludge and would never, ever find my way to the top of it all.
“Well?” he asked me again.
The problem was that I knew all the reasons why Warwick would never be convicted. I saw all the holes in the evidence, all the missing proof. Hathaway was right. Warwick would keep going right on with his life, no matter what. I could simply accept that, or I could go down swinging, causing a lot of pain to a lot of people in the process.
So, after one more weak protest, I gave in. For now.
“I don’t want to hurt Deborah and her family any more than they’ve already suffered. But I want George out of trouble and I want his name cleared. How are you going to do that if you don’t arrest Warwick? And we can’t leave the man in the Senate, for God’s sake!”
“I’ll talk to Drake, tell him your story,” Hathaway started. “It’s not my story, Ben, it’s the truth,” I interrupted him, hotly. “We’ll check it out. Drake will need some political favors from Warwick one day, if he doesn’t owe some already. The investigation will remain open, the case unsolved.” He looked at me squarely now. “Assuming I can get enough corroboration to get George’s indictment dismissed, will that do it for you?”
At the words George’s indictment, my stomach twisted with those same maggots that seemed to have taken up permanent residence since George was arrested.
I hadn’t realized the indictment had been returned by the grand jury. Ben probably had it in his pocket right now. The knowledge took the last of the fight out of me.
Ben’s solution was far from perfect, but it would take care of most of our problems. “That doesn’t clear George’s name, though. I want you to release a statement saying that George’s gun had been stolen before the murder occurred. I want you to say George is no longer a suspect and you made a mistake. I want you to say you’re sorry.”
Ben sighed. “Ok, Willa. If Drake approves, I’ll do that.”
George said, “That’ll be fine, Chief. We appreciate your help.”
Ben turned to the door. “I’m really sorry for all the trouble this has caused you,” he said, in our general direction. “You understand I had no choice but to arrest George. I knew the real killer would turn up sooner or later.”
I resisted the urge to throw something at him as he left the room.
And then I remembered the dirty fireplace. Where Warwick must have burned the old surveillance tapes showing Thomas Andrews, Charles Benson, and Shelly Warwick snorting cocaine.
If they were still there, the residue would provide corroboration for my testimony.
EPILOGUE
IT WASN’T EASY TO tell Olivia about what had happened to Thomas. She’d already expected the worst and she’d gotten most of it right. I think telling her about Thomas’s real relationship with Charles Benson, Shelley Warwick and their drug use was the right thing to do, but I’m not really sure. Before I told her, Olivia thought her brother was a wonderful young man who had been murdered by a cold-hearted General. Tarnishing the image of the dead in the name of honesty may not always be the right choice.
The charges against George were dismissed after we explained the facts of life to Drake ourselves. What made Drake do the right thing was the certain knowledge that he’d never have gotten George convicted at trial and he didn’t want to face the public humiliation or ruin his perfect record. If he’d openly opposed Warwick and Benson to pursue who I thought was truly guilty, his career would have been over.
I’d told Drake my hunch about what happened to the surveillance tapes. Whether he checked it out or not, I didn’t know. We waited for Warwick to be indicted, but that never came. Nor was President Benson ever exposed. Whether Drake owed Warwick any political favors was a question I didn’t want answered.
Frank Bennett was still sniffing around the story. He might put the puzzle pieces together for himself, eventually. I stashed my journal away in our safe deposit box, in case I ever needed a contemporaneous record of my investigation.
I’m a judge and a lawyer. I know that in a court of law, if you can’t prove it, it didn’t happen.
After the charges were dropped, George and I had several long conversations about the investigation and the events leading up to his arrest. He finally admitted that he’d been at Andrews’s home the night of the murder and that’s how his fingerprints came to be in Andy’s den. He’d joined Warwick and Benson there, trying to convince Andrews to withdraw his name from the confirmation process. Of course, Andrews had refused.
George left before Robbie arrived that night, so he hadn’t known what happened later. His mere presence in Andy’s study on the night of the murder would have given Drake more ammunition anyway. George had refused to reveal his whereabouts because he’d given his word to keep the meeting confidential, to the President, the leader of the free world, a man I now thought of as a common criminal.
During the morning hours, when I was at the Blue Coat, George told me he’d met with President Benson, Senator Warwick and Jason to discuss how to defeat Andrews’s confirmation and the President’s sabotaging emissary. As I suspected when I first heard about it, the President had fully intended his actions to be revealed after Andrews was rejected by the committee. He planned to prove that he’d withdrawn his support for Andrews once Andrews was rejected.
What George told me was information I’d never have obtained any other way, and I’d promised not to reveal. With these revelations, George and I began to communicate better and I felt happy that I’d regained some of my marital privilege; I now knew things I couldn’t be forced to reveal. But I was still shaken by the magnitude of the secrets George had kept from me as well as the secrets I’d learned about the marital relationships of others.
Even after I told him that Warwick was a murderer, Jason continued to work for Sheldon Warwick because he claimed Warwick was going to retire and endorse him for the next senate race. I thought there was still more to the Benson, Warwick and Andrews story than I knew and I suspected something was going on with Warwick that I hadn’t discovered.
I doubted any promises Warwick made to Jason could be relied upon and I was sorry to hear that Jason’s ambition was as great as I had feared. Ambition is like electricity: it can be helpful or destructive. It looked like Jason was going down the destructive path, but he wouldn’t listen to me or to George when we tried to dissuade him. All we could do was hope for the best.
George mo
ved back into our house and things pretty much returned to normal between us. By normal I mean we went back to our usual routines. We ate together, slept together and were our joint best friends. I knew he was grateful that I’d helped him, but if he admitted it, then he’d have had to acknowledge how close he’d come to prison and destroying our marriage. Both of us tiptoed around that.
But our relationship had changed. It would be some time before we found our way around each other again. Now, picking up the pieces and reassembling our life would take time. As Kate said, one privilege of marriage is handling the surprises.
THE END
