“You mean my bedtime?”
“No, no way I could be back that early.”
“So we can’t have any fun until Saturday?”
“I’ll manage to have some fun.”
She sat up on the bed. “Don’t you go havin’ fun without me, Reuben. Senator Reuben.”
He kissed her on the forehead and said he’d try to make it home “before all the fun is spent.”
“Bring me somethin’ from Tiffany’s.”
“Like a diamond bracelet?”
“Hmm. Yes. But don’t forget to put your card in the box. Otherwise I might get it mixed up.”
He poked her in the stomach with a finger, and blew her another kiss.
Walking up Seventh Avenue, Reuben found himself wishing he were less readily recognizable. He knew that relative invisibility was possible to achieve. Kaltenbach had told him that some public figures—even some movie stars—can go from one end of a city to the other without being stopped by a single person. “But then you’ll run into the bit player in a movie or the guy who wrinkles his brow on TV to tell you about erectile dysfunction, and he might not make it three blocks without somebody recognizing him. Even if they think it was somebody else! You remember Adolphe Menjou?”
“Sort of,” Reuben had said.
“Well, just about everybody who had a mustache and a sort of a dapper look, which means most barbers and all French barbers, was stopped because he was Adolphe Menjou, only usually he wasn’t.”
Reuben paused to extend his hand to a greeter carrying a Bergdorf-Goodman bag. “Thanks. Thanks a lot. I’ll pass your word to the Senate!” Don’t slow your walking pace. Maybe he should take to wearing a hat—hats often confuse people. Trouble with that is Jack Kennedy made wearing hats unconstitutional. At least for presidents. Or presidents-elect. Reuben wasn’t that. Yet. Maybe he would buy a hat just for when he had to walk a few blocks in a city.
He returned the greeting of the black woman at the reception desk. “Thanks. Thanks very much, ma’am.” In the elevator, no one addressed him. It helped, in discouraging impromptu interruptions, to appear engrossed in a newspaper. His Washington Post, held up in front of him, told of the FDA’s quest for authority to regulate tobacco consumption. Thank God North Dakota isn’t a tobacco-growing state!
He followed instructions and knocked on the door of 2337. Griswold was seated behind a desk. He rose, and pointed to the chair opposite.
“We’ve got a complicated situation in Letellier. And in Winnipeg. Let’s deal with Winnipeg first.
“The Vital Statistics Agency records that a marriage license in your name and that of Henrietta Leborcier was issued on Wednesday, November 14, 1969.”
“Does it say whether it was mailed or picked up?”
“Presumably mailed. The register says, ‘Care Saint Anne’s Church, 119 First Avenue, Letellier.’ The document was in a loose-leaf binder. The page recording your license has been…withdrawn.” Griswold handed a folder over to Reuben. “It can always be reinserted at the agency, should you choose to do that.”
Reuben nodded. He slipped the folder into his briefcase. “And then?”
“And then I arranged to send someone to Letellier. My associate, Dumont, went to Saint Anne’s and asked if he could examine the church records for November 1969. The pastor, Father Daniel, said there had recently been interest shown in his church records for that month. ‘You are representing whom?’ the priest asked. Dumont said that he was tracking down Henrietta Leborcier because of a bequest.
“Father Daniel said the parish kept records of baptisms, first communions, confirmations, marriages, and funerals, records accessible to responsible parties. He took Dumont to his study and pulled down a heavy leather-bound volume. Dumont examined it and looked for November 1969.
“And, yes, the names are there. The matrimony is recorded on November 18, and there are the signatures of the two principals.” Griswold paused.
“I remember!” Reuben thumped his forehead with his right hand. “The marriage license!”
“You remember what, Senator?”
“We didn’t have a marriage license!”
“Then how is it that you were listed in the registry as having married?”
“What happened,” Reuben spoke now excitedly, “was that when Henri—Henrietta—proposed that we should be married, the father asked, did we have a marriage license? Of course we didn’t. But dear old Father Lully, dumb shit, said, ‘Never mind. I have marriage-license application forms. Just fill one out, and I’ll send it on to Winnipeg. On account of the required twenty-four-hour waiting period…’ I remember exactly! He was counting out the days on his fingers—he said, ‘They’ll get the application day after tomorrow, November 13, send the license back to me the next day, November 14. To play it safe, I’ll set the wedding date at November 18.’ That is exactly what happened.”
“That corresponds with our examination,” Griswold nodded. “The Vital Statistics Agency reports that the Castle-Leborcier license was issued on November 14. And the church registry records the marriage on November 18.” Griswold raised his hand. “Is there any way you could prove that you were in Grand Forks on November 18?”
“I doubt it. That’s one week after the actual date, meaning that it was also a Sunday. We—I, actually; I was chairman of the Student Council—I got to use the university station wagon on Sundays. That’s how we drove to Letellier. But the offices of the Dakota Student—I was also the editor of the student newspaper—are closed on Sundays, so I wouldn’t have been on record as being there. And there are no classes Sundays—and in any case professors don’t keep rosters of class attendance.”
“Senator—” Griswold had raised his hand again as if to arrest the flow of reminiscences. “Senator, it doesn’t look to me as if you can prove that you and…Ms. Leborcier…weren’t in Letellier on the day recorded in the registry of Saint Anne’s. But”—he needed to shake his raised hand to stop Reuben—“I’m not sure it would make any difference.”
“What do you mean? If the church records are just plain false?”
“If they are false, the Province of Manitoba could charge Father Lully with a clerical misdemeanor—if he’s still alive. But your signatures are in the parish registry. So the good father acted impulsively? What kind of punishment would you expect would be meted out? For writing ‘Sunday, November 18’ instead of ‘Sunday, November 11’—twenty years ago? As long as that registry survives, there is no way you can guard against the charge that you were married to Henrietta Leborcier in Letellier on November 18, 1969.”
Bill and Susan were waiting for him at the airport. Susan handed him the large manila envelope. “This is what you asked for.” He nodded, and she said, “See you Monday, Senator,” and left.
Bill drove Reuben to the restaurant on G Street. They were shown to a booth in a dimly lit corner. They ordered drinks and steaks.
Rode was quiet. He knew something was up. He waited for Senator Castle to set his own pace.
Castle spoke randomly about duties ahead and projects undertaken and the need to be present for Monday’s vote on the tobacco bill.
The steaks were served, and Reuben started cutting into his, but without paying it the kind of appreciative attention he habitually showed when served good steak. He filled his wine-glass.
“Can I trust you, Bill?”
“Senator—Reuben—I will do anything for you. Anything at all.”
“You realize I’m going to be president of the United States.”
“Yes, sir. I know that. That’s where you belong. And anything I can do to make that happen, I’m doing for the benefit of my country.”
Reuben took out Griswold’s card from his pocket and handed it to Bill. On the back were written a name and a telephone number.
“This man,” he pointed to the card, “knows what to do. What you have to do is go to Winnipeg, check in at the Radisson Downtown, and call and let him know where you are. When he arrives at your hotel roo
m, hand him this envelope. That’s all. Just make sure it’s him.”
“How do I know it’s him?”
“He’s been told to show you his passport. His name is René Benoît. Give him the envelope and get back to Washington.”
“Consider it done, Reuben.”
CHAPTER 44
Letellier, October 1991
Emile Chevalier stared at the embers. His three colleagues rested, one of them flat on his back on the wet grass. A second one stood, leaning on the fire-hose carriage. “Okay to roll it back up, Chief?”
“I guess so. The fire’s certainly out. There’s nothing left to hose down.”
Indeed there wasn’t anything left at 119 First Avenue for fire to consume.
Chevalier angled his powerful flashlight to the right, then scanned left, moving his hand slowly, directing the beam searchingly.
Plainly visible was the limned outline of what had been the porch. And there was the phenomenon of the surviving brick chimney—this had tantalized Emile as a boy and, later, vexed him. He first remarked the surviving chimney as a fifteen-year-old, permitted for the first time to serve as assistant to his dare-devil father, fire chief of Letellier. What he noticed was that chimneys, in some shape, survive even heat and flames that would treat solid steel safes as if they were made of wax. The chimney would somehow stay up, often for days, even weeks, after the fire was out.
Chevalier was satisfied by the performance of the Letellier Fire Squadron, if not exactly proud. They had God to thank for Claudette’s having reached the telephone downstairs before the fumes overcame her. This would have happened to her even five or six minutes later. But it was too late for poor Father Daniel, asleep in his bedroom on the second floor.
It was reasonably assumed that he hadn’t suffered. His charred corpse was lying on what remained of his bed as if he had never wakened. His pipe was at his side. Emile would arrive at no judgment on that delicate score: every year, at the harvest fair, he touched down on the danger of smoking in bed.
What else could it have been? It was just the beginning of October, and there was no sign that a fire had recently been lit in any of the rectory’s three fireplaces. Yet it would be unusual for a spark from a tobacco pipe to set off that sort of class-A fire—a fire that had consumed so quickly, even hungrily, the substantial wood-frame house. It was mysterious. He’d say that to the fire examiner from Winnipeg. He simply declined to rule that the fire was accidental.
The inspector would be on the scene before noon. Chief Chevalier had already reported the fire over the phone, describing, in the professional shorthand expected, its deadly consequences.
Emile very much needed to sleep; so did the three other members of the fire company. There was only the one formal job left to do, and his camera was ready to take sequential photos, going right around the 800-square-foot carcass of the old rectory. That would be done well before the sun came up. He would look especially hard for clues.
CHAPTER 45
South Bend, October 1991
Justin liked to tease Allard about golf, a sport Allard had pursued two or three times a week ever since they began life together at Notre Dame. When on Thursday, lugging his clubs, Allard huffed his way into their room late in the afternoon, Justin leaned back in his desk chair and, speaking in French as was their custom, said, “Allard, I had a call from the dean’s office. Canada has instituted a draft and you are to report to Quebec for duty.” The jape had a lifetime of almost two seconds, which Justin thought justified the effort. He went back to work while Allard pulled a towel from the closet and strode off to the showers.
But Allard was a good sport, and an hour later he leaned over from his desk on the other side of their shared room and removed the headphone from his ears. He was listening, as he regularly did, to the Canadian Broadcasting station in Montreal. Justin broke in: “What’s hot in Canada, Allard?”
“Tais-toi,” Allard half whispered. “Your mother’s town in Manitoba is Letellier, right?”
Justin nodded, and Allard adjusted the knob. The broadcaster in Montreal was giving the nightly news, province by province. In Manitoba, he reported, a fire in the town of Letellier had demolished the rectory of the Catholic church, leaving the pastor, who was asleep when the fire started, dead. Allard turned up the sound. “The deceased is Father Henry Daniel, a native of Ottawa, who was for many years the pastor of Saint Anne’s, the adjacent church, known for its modern crystal-glass cross, which was destroyed. Mademoiselle Claudette Crognard, the housekeeper at the rectory, survived but is receiving treatment at the hospital in nearby Altona. The Winnipeg fire examiner has reported that the cause of the devastating fire was not immediately apparent, and that investigation continues.
“In Alberta—”
Justin signaled Allard to turn the radio down. “Saint Anne’s,” he said, “was my mother’s parish. She was baptized in that church.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Justin. I don’t guess there’s anything the government of Canada can do for you.” Allard was not being sarcastic. As the son of the Canadian ambassador, he liked to accumulate Canadian information of interest, usually on matters such as student scholarships and travel. If there was any chance he could intercede for an American friend on official business he was always willing to try.
“Allard…” Justin hesitated for a minute—but what was there to lose? “Allard, it happens that my mother was married in that rectory and that the record of that marriage was kept there, with other official records.”
“Again, Justin, I’m sorry. But there are other records, surely, of that marriage.”
“It’s a mysterious situation. Let me think about it for a bit.”
After a few minutes’ silence he picked up the telephone and put in a call to Maria Cervantes at the university in Grand Forks.
When he had finished speaking with her he said to Allard: “There is something you might be able to do for me. The only other record of the marriage would be in Winnipeg, at what they call the Vital Statistics Agency. Allard, could you arrange for someone there to look for records of a marriage license?”
“Certainement,” he said. “Write down the names.”
At noon the next day Justin found a note on his desk. It was from Allard, reporting that no record of a marriage license in 1969 or 1970 for the two people named was to be found at the Vital Statistics Agency.
Justin sat at his desk. His frustration raged.
Again he picked up the phone and reached Dean Cervantes. She had an answer to the question he had put to her yesterday: nothing had survived the rectory fire.
Justin walked, with some deliberation, to the offices of The Observer. Student reporters and editors were hard at work on the large issue scheduled for homecoming week. Harry Jenks, a senior editor, was in charge.
Justin greeted his colleagues and sat down at a computer in the editors’ room. He pulled the file from his briefcase and began to write.
“Senator Reuben Castle, who will appear on campus on October 28, is expected to run for president. ‘The coast is pretty clear,’ to quote Professor Chafee of the Government Department.
“The president of the Lecture Series Committee, which is sponsoring the visit by Senator Castle, goes further than that. ‘He is still a long shot,’ says Henry Fisher ’92, ‘but there is genuine enthusiasm for him and I think his visit to South Bend will confirm this.’”
Justin gave the particulars of the forthcoming visit and went on. “Senator Castle is a special favorite of the Democratic Party’s liberal wing. He identified himself with it as an undergraduate activist at the University of North Dakota, campaigning vigorously to end the Vietnam War.
“Mr. Castle served in Vietnam and entered the law school at the University of Illinois in 1972, but left it after one year in order to begin an active career in politics. In 1976 he was elected to Congress, as the sole representative of North Dakota, and four years later was elected to the Senate, succeeding Republican Senator Milton R. Young, who
was retiring.”
Justin drew a deep breath and plunged in.
“A visitor to Grand Forks, looking into student life at the University of North Dakota in the late 1960s, would find evidence of Reuben Castle almost everywhere. He was the editor in chief of the Dakota Student, the undergraduate newspaper, and he was chairman of the Student Council.
“There is speculation, in Grand Forks, that as an undergraduate he impregnated a fellow student, whom he proceeded to marry at a secret ceremony in Letellier, a town in the Canadian province of Manitoba seventy miles north of Grand Forks.
“Senator Castle has never acknowledged that marriage—” He stopped.
He shut down the computer. Then he restarted it and printed out what he had written. He grabbed the pages from the printer and stuffed them into his satchel. He jotted a note to Jenks. “Harry, sorry I didn’t get the story on Castle finished, but I won’t miss the deadline.”
Back at his room in Dillon Hall he found a note from Student Affairs taped to the door. “For Justin Durban: Please call Mr. Eric Monsanto at 701-777-2020.”
Justin picked up the telephone and dialed the Monsanto office, but at that moment Allard came into the room. Justin put the receiver down to abort the call. He didn’t want even Allard, by now his closest friend, to hear what he was going to say.
Allard was back from class and preparing to go to the links. He was lively on the matter of the missing marriage license. “That kind of thing doesn’t happen in Winnipeg. I don’t mean people don’t steal things, but it’s unusual enough to make you feel that somebody was up to something. When you add that to the rectory being destroyed, you get a smelly situation.” He reached for his golf cap and then his clubs. “Don’t suppose you want to take up the sport—sport?”
Justin smiled and waved his roommate out the door.
Quickly he dialed again. When he heard Eric Monsanto’s voice, he said, “Mr. Monsanto, before you tell me what you have on your mind, I’m sorry about that deception when I was up with you a few weeks ago. I’ve been on a—well, a hot story, and I had to keep a low profile.”
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