Capitol Murder

by William Bernhardt

Herndon inhaled heavily, then said, “Sustained.” Which was surely his way of saying that although Ben was technically correct, he couldn’t see that it made much difference.

  “You use the word lie in pretty cavalier fashion, ma’am. Is it possible that Senator Glancy didn’t know she was in the building? That she didn’t report in to his office?” That was what Glancy had told Ben.

  “Then why would she come?” Shandy asked, exasperated. “She couldn’t work for him if he didn’t know she was there.” Her voice dropped a notch. “And she couldn’t blackmail him or have sex with him, either.”

  “Your honor!” Ben protested, but the judge was already on it.

  “Miss Craig, you know what is and is not permitted on the witness stand. You will confine your testimony to what you have seen and heard.”

  “Yes, your honor.”

  “I won’t tolerate any more such remarks, particularly not with testimony of this importance. Do that again and I’ll have you removed from the courtroom.”

  “Yes, your honor. Sorry.”

  Herndon leaned back, obviously still angry. But there wasn’t much he could do to such a contrite witness. “The jury will disregard the witness’s last statement. You may proceed, Mr. Kincaid.”

  Ben tried to salvage what little he could. “You keep saying you ‘followed’ Senator Glancy. But that isn’t really accurate, is it?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, you said yourself that you didn’t see him leave. You only guessed what door he exited through. You can’t ‘follow’ someone if you don’t actually know where they are.”

  “I thought I knew. And I proved I was right when I found him.”

  “Found someone,” Ben insisted, but even to himself he was sounding increasingly desperate. “All you can say for sure is that Senator Glancy left and you found someone in his hideaway. If he in fact just went to the men’s room, you weren’t following anyone, right? You discovered someone.”

  “I don’t think that’s what happened,” she said sullenly.

  Ben decided to let it drop. He’d made his point, and she was never going to agree with him. “Miss Craig, why didn’t you say anything about this when it happened?”

  “I did.”

  Ben did a double take. “Miss Craig, I’ve probably seen you almost every day for the last five months, and you never once-”

  “I’m not talking about you. Why would I tell you? You work for-” She looked at Senator Glancy with such contempt it was palpable. “-him. I went to the police.”

  Ben turned slowly toward Padolino. “You told the police all this? Months ago?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “But you continued to work for Senator Glancy.”

  “They asked me to. Just in case I might see or hear something incriminating.”

  “You were-you-” He looked back at Christina, searching for help. He’d never encountered anything like this in his entire career. “You were an undercover mole in the senator’s office?”

  “If you want to put it that way.”

  Ben looked at her harshly. “Miss Craig, did the police-or anyone in the prosecutor’s office-instruct you to withhold what you knew from me?”

  “Absolutely not. They said I didn’t have to volunteer anything. But they told me that if you asked, I had to tell what I knew.” She paused, her eyebrows rising. “As it turned out, you never asked. Neither you nor your partner nor any other member of the defense team asked if I knew anything about Senator Glancy’s relationship with Veronica Cooper.”

  And why would we? Shandy had just started work the day of the murder. Padolino had calculated this perfectly.

  “For that matter,” Shandy continued, “I was told not to eavesdrop on any conversations between Senator Glancy and his lawyers, and that if I did by chance overhear any communications between them, I was not to repeat the information to the police.”

  So Padolino had covered his ass perfectly. Small wonder he always knew what Ben was doing, that he never made any decent plea offers. He had a mole in Glancy’s camp the whole time.

  “Let me ask you one more thing, Miss Craig. Do you have a conscience?”

  Padolino rose. “Your honor, please.”

  Shandy held up her hands. “No, let me answer that. I don’t mind. Mr. Kincaid, helping the police capture a murderer does not in any way offend my conscience.”

  “Move to strike,” Ben shot back. “You don’t know-”

  “Sure, I’ve had to pretend to be Senator Glancy’s friend. I’ve had to put up with him staring at my boobs when he thinks I’m not looking, dropping things on the floor and asking me to pick them up, asking me to adjust his tie so he can press up against me, finding accidental excuses to paw me one place or another. But I put up with it-waiting for this moment. The moment when I could help put away the man who killed Veronica Cooper.”

  There was more cross-examination after that, more redirect, lots of shouting, many arguments before the judge, and several carefully drafted instructions to the jury on exactly what they could and could not consider as evidence. Ben filed a motion to suppress based on the prosecution’s withholding of information, but given that he’d had complete access to Shandy during the pretrial period-more than Padolino, in fact-he knew it wouldn’t fly. In the end, none of it mattered, because the true bellwether of a trial was written on the faces of the jurors-and when he looked into their eyes he could see exactly what they thought. They thought Todd Glancy was a murderer, and they were ready and willing to give him the punishment he deserved. Barring an unforeseen miracle, this case was over and Glancy was going to death row.

  “You don’t understand. I have to talk to her!”

  Loving and Daily stood outside the Bethesda ICU, as they had been for the last twenty minutes, arguing with Dr. Aljuwani.

  “I understand your pain,” the doctor answered, “but I believe it is you who does not understand the situation.”

  “You said she was awake.”

  “Her eyes are open, yes, and she is stable. But she has not spoken or in any way indicated that she is aware of her surroundings. She is breathing through a respirator. She cannot talk and you cannot talk to her. She would not understand what you were saying.”

  “I don’t care about that. I just-” His voice choked. Tears began to form in his eyes. “Please. I need to see my little girl. Just-just to know that she’s safe. I’ve been looking for her, waiting for this, wanting it, for so long. Please.”

  Aljuwani blew out his cheeks. “You will not attempt to question her? Not even talk to her?”

  “No. Not if you say I shouldn’t.”

  The doctor was obviously conflicted. But Loving could also see a great deal of kindness and sympathy in his eyes. “Very well. But only for five minutes. And only you. I will not have a crowd in there.”

  “Understood.” Daily turned to Loving. “See you in five?”

  “I’ll be here. Give Amber my best.”

  Daily entered the private room in the ICU alone, as the doctor had instructed. No one else was present, not even an attending nurse.

  “Amber?”

  Her eyes were open, as the doctor had said, but there was no light in them, no indication that she heard him.

  “Amber?” he repeated, but still there was no sign of recognition, no indication of consciousness.

  He walked to the side of her bed. “Good.” He switched off the respirator unit, then removed the plastic cup from her mouth. Almost immediately, her breathing became strained, irregular. Her body heaved. She gasped for air.

  “And just in case that isn’t fast enough…”

  He pulled the pillow out from under her head and shoved it down on her face. She began to convulse, to thrash back and forth on the bed. Her arms flailed and grasped at the air, as if some subconscious spirit was struggling to get free. But he held the pillow down tight. And less than a minute later, the thrashing stopped. The heart monitor flatlined.

  “Guess you weren�
�t immortal after all,” he said, smiling to himself. He put the pillow back where it had been under her head, then started quietly for the door. “Farewell, my princess of the night. Sweet dreams.”

  Part Three. Stupod Lasts Forever

  *

  18

  S he did not know how long she had been lying on the uncovered mattress in this immense room, nothing to cover herself but the soiled damp sheet that clung to her naked flesh. She had no sense of time or space, perhaps because of the drugs, perhaps because the extended separation from the outside world, from the normal diurnal cycles of day and night, had so thoroughly eliminated her sense of time and place.

  She knew she was no longer in the chapel. This room had no rose window, no windows at all, no source of light but the glaring fluorescent bulbs that hung directly overhead. Her face and hair were sticky with blood. The pattern had repeated itself over and over again-the bright lights, the sharp pain, the electric current rippling through her body, the physical punishment, the moments of calm interrupted by more agonizing pain. The draining. And the questions, the never-ending questions. She had told them everything she knew but they acted as if they did not believe her, as if she might actually lie to them. For what? For Colleen? She was beyond help. For Veronica? She, too, was long gone. And she had no idea where Amber was, or even if she was still alive. There was nothing she could tell them. And yet, the needle remained in her arm and the relentless questioning went on and on and on…

  Her vision was a turbid fog, just like her brain, and since they all wore identical robes, she couldn’t be sure who it was when the door opened. The sound of his voice told her-it was the Sire. He stood beside the bed upon which she lay. She gazed at his long hair, his thin blood-red lips and the phlegmatic expression she had come to interpret as a smile of pleasure.

  “I must know everything,” he said simply.

  “I’ve told you everything.”

  “What you have told me is useless.”

  “I don’t know anything about Amber.”

  “Never mind that. I found Amber on my own.”

  “Is she here?”

  “No. I couldn’t get her away. There were too many people around. I had to simply… eliminate the threat.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “What I need to know now is who else you have spoken to. Friends? Family? Your sister? My minions tell me she’s in town. Looking for you. What did you tell her, Beatrice?”

  “Nothing. I promise you. Nothing!”

  He leaned closer, letting her feel his heat, his breath, his intoxicating scent. Despite herself, she was aroused beyond anything she had ever imagined in her life; her need was so intense she would do anything.

  “I can give you so much,” he said, whispering into her ear. “Make you feel like you’ve never felt before.”

  “Oh please. Oh please yes please.” She squirmed on the table, her legs thrashing, her hips grinding. “Please. Give it to me. Give it to me!”

  “Only when there are no more secrets. When there is nothing between us.”

  “There is nothing!” she screamed, and even though her arm was hooked to the IV, she jerked forward, teeth gnashing, biting at him. “Please! I burn, master. I burn!”

  “And if I give you what you want, what will you give me, my darling?”

  She jerked back and forth on the table, growling like a feral beast. “Punish me, master.”

  “Do you deserve to be punished?”

  “I want to feel the hurt,” she gasped. “I need the hurt.”

  “You must control yourself, my child.”

  “Hurt me!” she screamed, an earsplitting cry that reverberated through the room. All at once he reared back his hand and hit her, his knuckles smashing against her face. A trickle of blood flowed from the corner of her lips. She thrust her tongue out and licked it up, rubbing it across her lips, savoring the taste. “I need more, master.” Her voice was low and guttural. “You know what I need.”

  “Very well.” He leaned back, walking a finger across her barely covered chest, pinning her to the table not with his finger but with the intensity of his eyes. “I believe you are sincere. I will give you what you crave. Because you can still be of use to us. Soon we will perform the final rite of purification. And then, my dear-” He brushed the matted hair from her face. “-then we will have all of eternity before us.”

  19

  “I still can’t believe it,” Glancy said, pounding his fist on the conference table. “As long as I’ve been in politics, I’ve never been played like that. I might have believed it from anyone else, but not Shandy. Not in a million years.”

  Ben tried to be sympathetic. “Just shows to go you. You can never really know a person.”

  “But I did know her, Ben. I did. I just didn’t see this coming.”

  “Well, it’s over now. We have to move on.” They were seated around a conference table in Ben’s borrowed law offices. After hours of being grilled by the police about the death of Amber Daily, Loving had dropped by to deliver an update, then left again to resume his investigation. Christina and Jones were present, though, as well as all the members-all the remaining members-of Glancy’s staff. Amanda Burton was fielding phone calls from the press, Marshall Bressler was on his cell trying to minimize the political damage, and Hazel was keyboarding a flurry of documents, some legal, some political. “What was in that letter Shandy gave you, anyway? Before court was in session.”

  “The height of objurgation.” Glancy flung it across the table. “Her letter of resignation.”

  “How decent of her,” Christina said. “Saved you the trouble of firing her.”

  “And gave her an out in the event that she might be held in contempt of Congress for testifying against me,” Glancy said. “Not that any charges are likely to be brought now. The press are treating her like some heroic whistle-blower, not like the b-” He glanced up and caught Christina’s eye. “Okay, the unsavory person that she is. Amanda tells me that 60 Minutes and 20/20 are engaged in a bidding war to get her on as a guest.”

  “I thought they weren’t allowed to pay for interviews,” Ben said.

  “Oh, they won’t pay her anything directly. They’ll just… make a contribution to her elderly father’s pension fund or something. Maybe they’ll give her a free hour of prime-time TV to promote her new CD. That’s how they got Michael Jackson.” He snorted. “Next they’ll be offering to pay for the film rights to her life. Erin Brockovich, Part Two. Except without the cleavage.”

  “Do you have anything we might use to impeach her testimony?” Ben inquired. He’d asked before, of course, but it never hurt to try again. “Judge Herndon knows Shandy took us by surprise. I think he’d let me call her back as part of the defense case, if we had a decent reason.”

  “I hardly know anything about the girl. Contrary to the picture painted by Mr. Padolino, I am not a serial sex addict. And it isn’t because I’m such a pure soul-it’s because I know you cannot keep a secret in this town. I strayed once-only once-and of course the whole damn world knows about that now.”

  “So Shandy-”

  “I hired her in a rush the day this mess began. I never had a chance to socialize with her.”

  “You’ve said some very complimentary things about her since. Talked about how she was taking care of you. You’re still saying you thought you knew her,” Christina pointed out.

  “After the murder. When she was spying on us. I thought she was trustworthy.”

  “And there was never anything… untoward?”

  “When would I have had a chance? Yes, I do tend to hire attractive interns. It’s not because I want to sleep with them; it’s because it’s good politics. Even interns have a role, and a good intern can sometimes make the difference between a bill that passes and a bill that fails. We all are more persuaded by attractive people; it’s just human nature. Hiring young pretties isn’t sexist-it’s smart.”

  “Glad you hadn’t figured that out yet when I
came on board,” Marshall said, his hand covering his cell phone.

  Glancy grinned. “And just for the record, I did not ask if she was wearing thong underwear. Why would I? I’m a senator, for God’s sake. You make one remark like that and you’re on the six o’clock news.” He bristled. “I don’t know what the big fuss is about those damn thongs, anyway. I never liked them. I much prefer-” He caught himself. “Well, never mind.”

  “What about the others?” Christina asked. “The other interns and job applicants who testified.”

  “Look, I’m not going to pretend I’ve never done a little flirting. I am a human being, and moreover, I’m a politician. If I can work a little charm on someone to get what I want, I will. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “The incident with the zipper-”

  “Didn’t happen. If my fly was open, which I doubt, it was an unfortunate accident, and I certainly didn’t do it for that woman’s benefit. Ask yourself this: if all these incidents are true, why didn’t anyone say anything about it at the time? We’ve got a Senate watchdog oversight committee, an Ethics Committee, and a hound-dog press. Any one of them would love to get their hands on a story like that. Plus it would guarantee the tattletale tubs of TV time and probably a job. Why would they remain silent?” He balled his fists and pressed them together. “This is just like what they did to Clarence Thomas. Not that he’s any great gem. But how is it all those women who were sexually harassed never said a word about it-until he was appearing on televised hearings?”

  “So you think she’s lying about you just out of spite?”

  “Spite? Hell, I think she’s on the payroll. It’s Paula Jones time, all over again. Give me enough money and I’ll say anything.”

  “And who would want to bankroll Shandy’s lies?”

  “Anyone who doesn’t want to see me on a national Democratic ticket. And believe me, there are a lot of them.”

  “A right-wing conspiracy?” Christina said, arching an eyebrow.