Capitol Murder

by William Bernhardt

  He knew what she was waiting for. And the pathetic thing was, he wanted to comply. But he couldn’t make himself do it. No matter how hard he tried. So he bumbled something inane about what a “swell girl” she was, and she left.

  Yes, he was definitely tiptoeing past her door, too.

  He slid into his desk chair and thumbed through the mail Jones had left. Bills, bills, and more bills. A possible case in Creek County against a crop-dusting school. A small-time Internet florist that wanted to sue its fulfillment service. Nothing remotely interesting. Nothing likely to make him rich overnight. And nothing that was ever going to help him work up the nerve to do right by-

  “Christina!” He sat upright, startled by her sudden appearance. “What-”

  She marched past his desk, grabbed him by the shoulders, raised him to his feet, and planted a big wet one right on his lips.

  “Ub-dub-what-”

  “Yes, yes, I know your rules. No smoochies in the workplace. But today I think you’ve earned an exception. I just got word from the courthouse. Father Beale is going to be released!”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “You know I wouldn’t joke about something like that. He’s been wrongfully incarcerated for far too long. It’s an embarrassment to the entire state.”

  “So our appeal finally worked.”

  “Appeal, schmiel. It was your book that did it.” Not long after he had tried Father Beale’s case-and lost-Ben began writing his second nonfiction book. It had finally been published about a month before, and the sales had been considerably better than those for his first book-which meant they were at least in two-digit numbers. Bad Faith had also generated a fair amount of media attention, especially in legal circles.

  “The governor, archconservative that he is, couldn’t help but get involved after you turned up the heat, Ben. People were calling for Father Beale’s release all over the state-heck, all over the nation. Greta van Susteren devoted an entire hour to the case, for Pete’s sake. Make no mistake, Ben-this had nothing to do with any judge, jury, or legal argument. You made this happen.”

  “Well… I’m glad he’s getting out, anyway.” Which was putting it mildly. Father Beale had been Ben’s childhood priest, a man he loved dearly for all his faults. Losing his case had been a devastating blow. “I want to be there when he’s released.”

  “I knew you would. I’ve made all the arrangements.”

  “Great. That’s just… great.” Ben had been trying to avoid her eyes, but something about Christina made that impossible. Whether he wanted to or not, his gaze returned to her long strawberry-blond hair, her freckled nose. She was half a foot shorter than he was, and yet everything she did, everything she said exuded confidence and fortitude. “Look…” He hesitated. “About last night…”

  Her eyes turned up. “Yes?”

  “I just-I just wanted you to know that-that-”

  “Yes?”

  Ben felt beads of sweat trickling down the sides of his face. “That you were totally robbed by that Says You! fake definition round. I mean, who on earth would know that babbing was some kind of eel fishing? Arnie has a way of bluffing that takes everyone in. And-and you shouldn’t feel bad about missing that one.”

  Her head moved slowly up and down. “Thanks, Ben. Appreciate that.”

  A large crew-cut head bobbed into the office. “Hey, you guys got the TV on?”

  It was Loving, their investigator. A huge man, built like a storage freezer, but at heart as soft as a new pair of Hush Puppies.

  “No,” Ben answered. “Why? Oprah going to help you find fulfillment by buying some book?”

  “Nah. Somethin’ really excitin’. On C-SPAN.”

  Something exciting on C-SPAN? Ben thought. That’ll be the day. “What about?”

  “Come see for yourself. It’s that Senator Glancy guy.”

  “Glancy?” Christina turned her head. “Don’t you know him, Ben?”

  He nodded. “Went to law school with him.”

  “Friends?”

  He shrugged. “His family knew my family. Titans of Nichols Hills, that sort of thing. But no, he and I were never particularly close. My mother is constantly comparing us, throwing his success in my face.”

  “Why? Because he was a successful and fabulously wealthy oil magnate and then got elected to the Senate, and you’re a-a-”

  Ben waited. “Ye-es?”

  “-a… increasingly prominent attorney. Let’s go see what Loving is talking about.” She did a quick about-face and headed out of the office.

  Ben almost smiled. Smoothly done, Christina. Very smooth indeed.

  Ben and Christina stared at the small television set in the office lobby, their lips parted. Even in black and white, it was difficult to believe. Or stomach.

  “And you say they’ve been running this all morning?”

  “Oh yeah,” Loving replied. “You know how these news guys are. They get their hands on somethin’ this good, they’re gonna find some reason to play it over and over again. Before, the talkin’ heads were usin’ it for a discussion of character issues. Now it’s some kinda chitchat about employer ethics. It’s all just a big dog-and-pony show so they can run the tape.”

  Loving may have a homespun way of expressing himself, but Ben knew he wasn’t wrong. In a previous age, the press, of their own volition, declined to ever print a photo of FDR in a wheelchair or using leg braces. Today they would show… this. Repeatedly.

  “How did they get it?” Ben wondered aloud.

  “No one seems to be sure. They said the tape showed up on a C-SPAN reporter’s desk.”

  “I am so totally disgusted,” Christina said. “I mean, an affaire de coeur is one thing, but this-”

  “Jiminy Christmas,” Ben groaned. “They’re starting it again.”

  Christina’s lips pursed. “Let’s just hope they resist the temptation to use slow motion.”

  The video was black and white and grainy, but it was still clearly Senator Todd K. Glancy, D-OK, in the foreground, wearing a blue business suit. Kneeling before him on a sofa was a brunette woman who couldn’t possibly be older than her early twenties. She was wearing nothing but lacy undergarments, a black push-up brassiere, and panties connected by a garter strap to fishnet hose, like something you might see in a Victoria ’s Secret store window. No, Ben thought, it was too tacky for Victoria ’s Secret. Maybe Frederick ’s of Hollywood. No, still too tacky. Maybe Ashlyn’s Adult Toy and Costume Shop.

  The lead anchor appeared on the screen, a somber expression on his face, continuing his prosaic commentary. “Again, we want to caution our viewers-what you are about to see will shock you. We are airing this only because it is clearly newsworthy, and because it could have profound ramifications for the future of this country. Nonetheless, if there are any impressionable minors in the viewing area, or for that matter anyone who might be offended by graphic sexual content, we strongly urge you to remove them, or to turn off your television immediately.”

  Brilliant lead-in, Ben thought. Guaranteed no one on earth would be changing the channel. Especially impressionable minors.

  As the tape began, the audio was staticky, but captioning at the bottom of the screen helped fill in the gaps. The young woman on her knees bore a lascivious grin. “I’ve been watching you all day,” she said, breathily. “Trying to contain myself. But it’s been hard. You are so hot.”

  “Am I?” Glancy replied.

  “Oh yes. God, yes. You’re a firecracker. Every woman in the office dreams about getting a piece of you.”

  Glancy’s voice softened. “Tell me more.”

  “I’ve heard them talking about it, the secretaries, the other interns. How incredibly sexy you are. The fantasies they have about you. How they cream every time they get a whiff of you. How they’d give anything-anything-just to get you inside them.”

  “Does that include you?” he asked, a sickening, raffish expression on his face.

  As if to answer, with both hands,
she pushed in on her bosom, which was already all but spilling out of the brassiere. “What do you think?” she asked, in a coy, singsong voice. “Brand new.”

  “Which,” Glancy replied. “The bra or the boobs?”

  “The bra, silly.” She put her finger in her mouth, sucked on it, then pulled it out, slowly, biting down on her nail just before she finished. “The whole outfit. I’ve been wearing it under my suit all day. Just waiting for you. Waiting till we had a chance to be alone together. You like?”

  “Yeah,” Glancy replied. Because the camera was focused on the woman and the sofa, his head was now off the top border of the screen. “I like.”

  The woman lay back against a sofa cushion with her legs slightly spread. “You want to show me how much you like it?”

  “I think I can do that.” His hands moved below the screen, but it was obvious he was pulling down his pants and advancing toward her.

  The woman’s eyes ballooned. “Oh God. I didn’t mean-I-You’re-”

  “Waiting for you, baby.” She leaned back as if to lie down, but he held her by the shoulders and pulled her closer to him. Pixilated masking obscured his groin area. “Show me how bad you want me, baby.”

  “Oh, honey, I-I-can’t-” She was staring at him-staring at his pelvis-with unmasked horror. “I can’t-put-that-”

  “Sure you can, baby.” He pulled her closer to him, even though she was visibly resisting. “I’m your Sugar Daddy, right? Your all-day sucker. You said you wanted me inside you. Here’s your chance. Get to work.”

  “Oh God, Todd, I-” As he pushed her face nearer to him, the pixilated masking spread from his groin to cover most of her head, but the audio continued uninterrupted. “Please, I-I-mmph-”

  Her voice was obscured by a series of gagging noises. The captioning couldn’t possibly transcribe this dialogue, but it didn’t matter. No matter what language viewers spoke or wrote, they would have no trouble interpreting this scene.

  The man’s head was still off screen, but his torso stiffened. “Oh yeah. Oh yeah, baby. That’s it. That’s exactly it.”

  “Mmmph-mmm-” She was struggling, but with his arms locked around her, there was nowhere to go. Her eyes, the only part of her face that wasn’t obscured, were wide and panicky.

  “Just a little more, baby. We’re almost there.” His hips started rocking. “Oh my God. Oh yes. Oh yes.” He began to shout, twisting back and forth. “Oh yes! Oh yes yes yes yes yeeeeeessssss!”

  When he was finished, he leaned back, releasing her, and pulled his pants up. He smacked her once on the side of her left buttock. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  As soon as she was free, the woman rolled over. Her head was out of the camera frame, but the audio made it clear she was retching, then gasping for air, then retching again, her body convulsing with each new upheaval.

  And then, abruptly, the tape ended, replaced by the image of the commentator who had introduced the piece. “And there you have it. Cynthia, what do you think?”

  She didn’t need to speak. The expression on Cynthia’s face effectively conveyed what she thought. “Well…,” she began slowly, “of course, dressing up or playacting during sex is not that uncommon. The domination-subjugation model is a common facet of many people’s sex lives, and some forms of… punishment, such as spanking, while arguably aberrant, are not that unusual. But what we just witnessed on that videotape, particularly given the persons involved and the apparent absence of consent, went far beyond the bounds of… of… I mean, did you hear the girl vomiting? He obviously-”

  Ben switched the television off. “Ugh. Too much information.”

  Loving’s lower lip protruded. “I was kinda interested…”

  “I think we’ve seen enough. I don’t need the color commentary.”

  Christina had a hand pressed against her mouth. Her face had turned a greenish tint that, Ben noted, did not go particularly well with the red hair. “Are you okay? That was rather gross.”

  “Übergross,” Christina corrected him. “What do you think will happen to Glancy?”

  Ben puffed out his cheeks. “Well, for starters, I think he’s probably going to be dropped from my mother’s Christmas card list.”

  The phone rang. A moment later, Jones held his hand over the receiver and whispered across the lobby. “Ben? It’s for you.”

  At the moment, Ben had an overwhelming desire to brush his teeth. “Is it something that can wait?”

  Jones shook his head fiercely no.

  Something about the expression on his face made Ben’s Spidey-senses start tingling. “Who’s calling?”

  “It’s from Washington. As in DC.”

  All heads slowly turned toward Jones. Ben made his way to the phone. “Where in Washington?”

  Jones pointed toward the caller ID screen on his phone console. “The U.S. Senate, that’s where.” He pushed the receiver firmly into Ben’s hand. “I think you’d better take the call.”

  2

  WASHINGTON DC, THE NEXT DAY

  Ben was crushed with disappointment as they exited the overpass for I-395. Even though he knew they were nearing Capitol Hill, the neighborhood was, to put it politely, a dump. They were surrounded by all the hallmarks of abject poverty: low-income housing, trash in the streets, rampant graffiti, broken chain-link fences, homeless people holed up in cardboard boxes. He spotted two teenage boys in stocking caps huddled between homes, doing what looked very much like a penny-ante drug deal. Ben had read that DC had an astronomical crime rate, and gazing at this neighborhood, he didn’t doubt it.

  Jones turned onto C Street, and the view gradually improved. Shantytown gave way to tall narrow brick townhouses, one squeezed closely up against the next. He could believe that congressional staffers could conceivably live here, although he was beginning to understand why most members of Congress had places in the suburbs.

  “We’ve arrived,” Jones said at last. “And we’re early. Let’s take a spin around and see the sights.”

  Ben gazed at the shimmering image of the Lincoln Memorial in the famed Reflecting Pool. Magnificent. The cherry trees were in bloom, and the Main Mall was dotted with picnickers, families tossing Frisbees, and aging hippies handing out flyers. They whizzed by the Holocaust Museum, then the Vietnam War Memorial-the first one. Ben marveled at its sheer stark blackness. A perfect commemorative of a stark black war, he thought. And all those names.

  “There it is,” Jones said, pointing ahead of them. He was driving the rental car down New Jersey Avenue, and doing an admirable job of it, maneuvering through the frenzied DC traffic. They raced past the corner of Independence and South Capitol.

  Ben didn’t need Jones’s help to spot it-Capitol Hill, the white sculpted dome glistening in the bright sunlight. A magnificent work of architecture. Again Ben felt his heart swelling. Gazing at this fabulous construction, it would be easy to become a superpatriot. Especially since, from this distance, you couldn’t make out any of the people who inhabited it.

  “This is the House side,” Ben said. “We need to get around to the north-that’s where the Senate is.”

  Jones complied. “Which building?”

  “The Senate has three office buildings-the Russell, the Dirksen, and the Hart. Senator Glancy’s office is in the Russell.” He leaned forward and pointed. “That one.” Jones turned toward First and Constitution Avenue.

  “That’s the side entrance where he told us to come in,” Ben continued. “I’ve got our passes.” Jones pulled up behind a cab stand. Ben, Christina, and Loving popped open their doors.

  “Shouldn’t there be some sort of formal greeting party?” Christina asked. “Team Kincaid has arrived.”

  “Guess all the heralds and buglers are momentarily occupied.”

  A sign by the curb informed them in no uncertain terms that although this was a valid drop-off point, anyone trying to park here would be immediately apprehended by surveillance guards. “Wait a minute,” Jones said. “What am I going to do?”

>   “Guess you’ll have to stay with the car,” Ben replied, gathering his briefcase.

  “What am I, the chauffeur? I’m a college graduate, Ben. A skilled professional.”

  “Sorry. I don’t see any alternative. We’ll call you when we’re done.”

  Jones watched, teeth clenched, and the three of them clambered out of the car, leaving him behind. “Swell,” he muttered under his breath. “We come all the way to Washington, DC, and once again I’m stuck at the children’s table.”

  “Can you believe the security?” Ben whispered to Christina. They were standing in line, waiting for their turn to be scanned and searched by the officers posted at the X-ray and metal detectors.

  “After 9/11? Yes, I can.” She stepped forward, laying her briefcase flat on the conveyor belt, then waiting while the female Capitol police officer waved a metal detection wand from her head to her toe. “Would you think it funny if I told you I’m getting a real charge out of this?” The guard laughed, but not much.

  Loving was next through the portal. He had to take off his shoes, then his belt, but he got through in a minute or two.

  And then it was Ben’s turn.

  “Sorry for the inconvenience,” the officer said, “but this is the seat of the American government. We can’t be too careful.”

  “Right, right,” Ben said, as he removed his college ring, then his belt, then the brand-new Harold’s shoes he’d bought just for the occasion. His mother told him that important people judge you by your shoes.

  “Thank you, sir. Appreciate your cooperation.” The officer waved the wand over him again-and it beeped just as it reached his waist.

  “Sir,” the officer said, “do you have any, er… any studs?”

  “Studs?” Ben tried not to raise his voice. He knew the man was only doing his job, an important job, but this was a little exasperating. “Of course not.”