Capitol Murder

by William Bernhardt

  “More like a tax dodge, isn’t it?”

  Marie drew herself up and looked squarely at him, without a hint of embarrassment. “Mr. Padolino, I understood your goal here to be prosecuting someone you genuinely believed to be guilty of murder, not generally slandering someone just for the pleasure of doing so. I’ve allowed you to confirm the existence of the account and the withdrawal. I think that puts an end to the inquiry.”

  It wasn’t often in his career that Ben had seen a witness so thoroughly take command of a cross-examination, much less effectively overrule the judge without anyone in the courtroom daring to saying a word about it. He stopped wondering if she might conceivably have political ambitions, and started wondering how long it would be before she was sitting in the Oval Office.

  Beads of sweat dripped down the sides of the prosecutor’s face, always pleasurable for a defense attorney to observe. At the same time, Ben knew that when smart men became desperate, they did desperate things. And that certainly proved to be the case.

  “Ms. Glancy, you mentioned before that your husband had unusual tastes. I gathered from the context that you were describing his sexual predilections. Would you please explain exactly what you meant?”

  Glancy leaned toward Ben. “You’ve got to stop this,” he whispered, but it was unnecessary, because Ben was already on his feet.

  “Objection!” Ben said emphatically. “Not relevant.”

  The judge disagreed. “I think she opened the door to this. Overruled.”

  “Your honor,” Ben insisted, “this is obviously just a prosecutorial ploy to salvage his case by slandering the defendant. There is-”

  “I’ve ruled, counsel.”

  “Your honor, this is the defendant’s wife!”

  “And I said I’ve ruled, Mr. Kincaid!” Herndon rose slightly out of his seat. “That’s my nice way of saying sit down and shut up.”

  Ben reluctantly did as he was told.

  “So,” Padolino continued, “could you please describe these unusual tastes? And don’t spare us the details.”

  For the first time, the jury could see Marie hesitating, gathering her thoughts.

  “Damn,” Christina whispered into Ben’s ear. “Why did she have to bring this up in the first place?”

  A very good question, Ben thought. It certainly wasn’t in her testimony when they had rehearsed it the night before.

  “Well,” she said, drawing in her breath, “you’ve seen the video.”

  “We certainly have. Your point?”

  “Todd,” she said, sighing heavily. “Todd is very into the whole subjugation-domination thing. He likes-well, you can see it in his whole life, everything he’s ever done. He wants to be in power. He wants to be in control.”

  “Like in the video, when he forced himself on Veronica Cooper?”

  “Oh, I think that was more playacting than anything else. They were both willing participants. But it was playacting Todd liked.” Her eyes moved downward. “Unfortunately… I didn’t.”

  Glancy squeezed Ben’s arm. “You’ve got to shut this down,” he hissed. “Isn’t there any way?”

  “I already gave it everything I had,” Ben replied. “More objections now would only remind the jury how badly we want to keep this out.”

  Padolino resumed. “Would this subjugation fetish involve… certain positions?”

  “Obviously. The woman in any position of powerlessness. Restrained. Bent over a chair.”

  “Would it involve violence?”

  “Objection!” Ben shouted, genuinely outraged. “This has gone far beyond all reasonable claims of relevance. This is nothing less than a prurient intrusion into a public figure’s private sex life.”

  “It’s a character issue,” Padolino answered.

  “Well, isn’t that what they always say,” Ben shot back.

  “It goes to the likeliness of the affair, or affairs. Which goes directly to motive. And the propensity for sexual violence-well, the relevance of that is obvious.”

  “I’ll allow it,” Herndon said. He didn’t even have to think about it. And as painful as it was, Ben knew his decision was correct.

  “Pain was-is-a turn-on for Todd,” Marie continued. “But it’s more than that. It’s not just the pain, it’s the… debasement. The sense that he’s reducing the woman to a piece of meat. A plaything. Something that exists only for his pleasure. That’s what he gets off on. I wouldn’t let him do that to me. So he found other women who would.”

  “Like an employee who thought she had to please her boss?” Padolino asked.

  Marie scoffed. “Like a desperate drug addict who liked sex and lacked the strength to say no.”

  Padolino had the sense to know this was as good as it was going to get. He ended on a high note and sat down. Ben declined to redirect.

  “What the hell was that?” Ben whispered to Christina. “Her testimony was going brilliantly. Even the cross was going brilliantly. And then, at the very end, she tanks. Destroys her husband’s reputation.”

  “Nothing she said proved Todd was a murderer,” Christina noted. “She cast serious doubt on the prosecutor’s theory of motive.”

  “Who cares? She made him look so ugly, so perverted, I’ll never be able to generate any sympathy for him in closing. I couldn’t rehabilitate Mother Teresa after testimony like that.” He wiped his hand across his brow. “And it wasn’t necessary. Why would she do that? Why would she do that to him?”

  Christina watched Marie carefully as she walked coolly down the nave and out of the courtroom. “A woman scorned,” she said succinctly. “Hell hath no greater fury.”

  Peering over the balcony, almost all Loving could see on the inlaid tile floor on the level beneath him was the five-sided star enclosed in a circle-a huge pentagram in the center of the darkened room. The twelve figures surrounding the circle were wearing brown hooded cloaks, like monastic friars of an ancient order, all participating in an uncanny ritual. In the center was a large stone block-the altar, no doubt. A sheet was draped over the top of the altar, but Loving could tell there was something, or someone, under the sheet. Much as he wanted to find Beatrice, he hoped it wasn’t her, because the entire time he’d been in here he’d never once detected the slightest movement under the sheet.

  After Loving passed through the rear door of the chapel and a long corridor, he found himself on this balcony. A spiral staircase led to the lower floor, but he decided to stay here where he had a better view, and it would be more difficult for the hoods below to spot him. The low lighting cut both ways: it made it harder for him to detect what was going on down there, but it also made it harder for them to see him watching-which was good, because he was fairly certain they would not be pleased.

  The men had been chanting for almost ten minutes. He suspected it was Latin, but he couldn’t really be sure-he hadn’t gone to college and they hadn’t covered this in the truck-driving class he’d taken at the Tulsa Vo-Tech Center. At long last, they fell silent. One man stepped forward, entered the pentagram, and laid his hands upon whatever was under the sheet.

  “Let us pray.”

  As one, the rest of the men did not bow their heads, but instead raised them, pressing their hands together and lifting them above their hoods.

  “Oh, blessed Tiamat, Guardian of the Darkness, hear our plea. Help us to find the Lost Children of the Blood.”

  As one, the rest of the assemblage chanted, “Goddess, hear our prayer.”

  “Help us find the path to immortality and reclaim the spirit of our ancestors, the Nephilim of the Annunaki.”

  “Goddess, hear our prayer.”

  “Lead us not unto the wicked ways of the pretender, the Killer of the Spirit, the cursed Nazarene, the Perverter of Souls.”

  “Goddess, hear our prayer.”

  “Please accept our sacrifice-”

  Loving’s head jerked up.

  “-as a token of our fealty, our unyielding devotion to your psychic strength. Hear me, the Sire of
the Circle, and all your servants in the Inner Circle as we ask your blessing. Offer unto us your greater glory and our nourishment.”

  “Goddess, hear our prayer.”

  The room fell deadly silent. The leader-the Sire-reached up and removed the cowl from his head.

  Just as Loving had thought. It was Daily-or rather, the man who pretended to be Daily. The man who killed Daily, and Amber. He was the Sire!

  His spine tingling, Loving watched as the man slowly drew back the sheet from the sacrifice upon the table. It was a woman, very young, blond, and medium weight. Even with her face silent and ashen, Loving recognized her from the picture Shalimar had shown him. It was Beatrice.

  She was not moving, hadn’t moved since the ceremony had begun, which meant she was either sleeping, drugged-or worse.

  There were too many of them for Loving to try a frontal assault. Even assuming he was the best fighter in the room, he was massively outnumbered. A failed attempt could leave him dead, or Beatrice, or both. The smartest thing would be to get back outside, call in the cops, then create some kind of disturbance-something to interrupt the ceremony and prevent them from sacrificing Beatrice before the police arrived.

  He turned and started for the door-

  Someone was standing in his way.

  The cultist obstructing his passage was wearing a brown hood, but it did not entirely conceal his face. Even in the darkness, his visage was hideous. Gold fangs descended from his mouth. His eyes glowed red. His face was scarred, apparently by design.

  “Why are you here?” the voice within the cowl hissed. “You are not of the Circle.”

  Loving bolted. His best hope now was to outrun them. But just as he was hitting his stride, someone tripped him, causing him to tumble to the floor. He pulled himself up as quickly as he could, but by that time he was surrounded.

  “Look,” Loving said, “I can explain. I was lookin’ for the Presbyterian church and I got lost and-”

  He never got to finish his sentence. He heard the whistle of something swinging around in the darkness, something solid, moving fast. For an instant he felt the impact upon the back of his skull. And then the world was consumed by blackness.

  22

  N o one who hasn’t done it can understand what it is to try a case, Ben thought as he wiped the sleep out of his eyes and tried to focus on the witness outline he held in his hands. Civil or criminal, it was all the same, at least from one standpoint-the enormous all-consuming immersive nature of the experience. Once the trial began, the rest of the world disappeared. There were no more lunches with friends, no phone calls to Mom, no trips to the local cineplex. During a trial, Ben usually existed on four hours of sleep a night, and he sometimes suspected Christina never slept at all. Despite the pressure, the exhaustion, and the sleep deprivation, he had to keep himself in peak condition and clearheaded. The key to success was to always remain one step ahead-not only planning his case but also anticipating its flaws and preparing for the responses of his opponents. It was a daunting, hellishly difficult task. Even still, he had often thought that trial practice wouldn’t be so bad if you could just eliminate one element.

  Clients.

  “Congratulations, Kincaid. You’ve really screwed things up now.”

  Amanda, naturally. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Have I? I thought yesterday went rather well.”

  “Shows what you know. You’ve fucked us royally, and we’re going to sit down right now and figure out how to fix it.”

  Ben pushed away from the table. There was no point in explaining to this woman that he had gotten up three hours before court began so he could prepare his defense, not so he could talk about its PR ramifications.

  “We did a lot of overnight polling, after the evening news reports. The results were not good.”

  “I thought Marie did the prosecution serious damage on motive, and also gave us back a feasible alibi. Our jury has a lot more reasonable doubt running through their brains now than they had before.”

  “I wasn’t polling the jury,” Amanda said curtly. “I was polling the voters. The men and women who put Todd Glancy into office.”

  “I’m not concerned about them.”

  “I know. That’s the problem.”

  Ben felt his neck stiffening. “If we lose this trial, what your voters think isn’t going to matter anymore.”

  “What do you mean, if we lose. You’ve been hired to win, you schmuck. And we expect you to deliver. My job is to make sure Todd still has a career after the trial. And that’s not going to happen if you keep painting him as some depraved sex pervert!”

  “That part wasn’t my idea. Marie put that in on her own.”

  “You should’ve stopped it.”

  “I tried.”

  “Don’t give me try!” The woman was almost shouting. “This isn’t the 4-H Club, farm boy. I don’t care about try. I care about results. That testimony should never have come in.”

  “I agree. But it did, so now we have to live with it.”

  She sat on the edge of the table, flipped her hair back, and extended her chest. “We’re going to do a lot more than that. We’re going to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.”

  “And how exactly are we going to do that?”

  “Easy. I want you to kill the private investigator.”

  Ben assumed that by kill she meant “don’t call him to the stand,” but given who was speaking, he wondered if he should check. “You must be kidding.”

  “I’m not. If you put him on the stand, Padolino will spend all of cross quizzing him on everything he knows about Todd’s sexual practices and preferences.”

  “Very likely.”

  “And given that he was apparently following that bimbo intern around for months, he’s probably going to have a lot to tell.”

  “That’s the price we pay to get his testimony about Veronica Cooper.”

  She shook her head emphatically. “The price is too high.”

  Ben was just as resolute. “We have no choice.”

  “Of course we do. And I just made it.”

  Ben’s face crinkled together like aluminum foil. “Do you want to destroy Todd’s case? We have to use the investigator.”

  “We should just go with Todd.”

  “Just go with the defendant? His own self-serving testimony? When we have someone who can corroborate it? You’re out of your blinking mind!”

  Amanda leaned in so close Ben could feel the darts of her blouse pressing against his shirt. “I can assure you I’m perfectly sane. I can also assure you that I know what’s best for Todd, and if you don’t listen to me, I’ll string you up feetfirst from the Washington Monument.”

  “Lady, how can I say this nicely? Buzz off.” He returned his attention to his outline.

  She grabbed his collar. “Don’t you turn away from me. Don’t you dare turn away from me! I’ve taken down bigger men than you, Okie. Much bigger. All it would take is a few phone calls and you’ll never practice law again!”

  “Amanda?”

  Both heads whipped around to see Marshall Bressler wheeling himself into the room. He was holding a bottle of blue-colored pills. “Anyone got a bottle of water? I’m a wreck without my morning medication.” He looked up. “Oh. Is this a bad time?”

  “Depends on your definition of a bad time,” Ben said, removing Amanda’s hands. “I think Amanda was about to commit her first murder. That we know of, anyway.”

  Amanda clenched her fists and made a sonorous growling noise. “You are so… infuriating!” She whipped around to face Marshall. “This man is trying to destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for!”

  Marshall raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t that be what we’ve worked so hard for?”

  “He insists on calling that damn detective.”

  “Did you read his report?” Marshall asked. “I think it’s safe to say his testimony will end the media portrayal of Veronica as an angelic innocent.”

  “What the h
ell do you know about the media!” She looked as if she were about to pull her hair out by the roots. “All the media will report is the talk about sex. And Padolino will make sure there’s lots of it. Enough to fill the front three sections of the Post. Did you see the poll results I e-mailed to you?”

  Marshall waved a hand in the air. “You know I never look at e-mail, and you should never put anything important in one. Republican eyes are everywhere.”

  “Paranoid much?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah, that’s what they were saying back in ’04, and then we found out the Republican staff members of the Judiciary Committee had been hacking into our restricted e-mail messages for more than a year, sometimes even leaking them to right-wing pundits. Remember that story?”

  Ben frowned. He did.

  “These poll results are irrelevant,” Ben said. “Any negative fallout is irrelevant, as I’ve been trying to explain to Amanda. It’s an unfortunate consequence of what we have to do to make sure our favorite politician doesn’t get a lethal injection.”

  Marshall tilted his head to one side. “I’m not sure trashing Veronica will do it.”

  “It won’t hurt.”

  “What we really need,” Marshall continued, “is to give the jury an alternate suspect.”

  Both Ben and Amanda stared at him.

  “Reasonable doubt is fine, but once Padolino starts talking his trash in closing, he’ll wash all their doubts away. We need more. We need doubt plus a bogeyman. A good one. That might do the trick.”

  Ben laid his pencil to rest. “Did you have anyone in particular in mind?”

  “Does it matter? Just pick someone.”

  “Okay. I pick Amanda.”

  She shot invisible poison daggers at him.

  “I’m serious, Ben,” Marshall said.

  “I am, too. And if we had a viable potential suspect, I’d be the first to put the theory before the jury. But I won’t pick someone at random and trump something up.”

  “It could work.”

  Ben shook his head. “You’ve been watching too much television.”

  “At least give it some thought. How about the junior senator from Oklahoma? He had plenty of motive to want Todd out of the way.”