Capitol Murder

by William Bernhardt

  “Really. And did you tell her about the other girl as well?”

  Christina’s ears pricked up. Not because of the accusation, but because savvy Mr. Padolino had used the word girl. Not the more politically correct woman.

  “What girl?”

  “The other one. The Senate employee with whom you’ve admitted having an affair.”

  Glancy thought a long time before answering. “No.”

  Padolino smiled, triumphant at last. He returned to his table, picked up a small manila folder, then returned to the podium.

  “I’m worried,” Christina whispered to Ben.

  “Why? What’s in the folder?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m worried.”

  “Senator Glancy,” Padolino said, breaking the silence, “what was the name of the other woman with whom you had a sexual liaison?”

  He exhaled heavily. “I said before, I see no purpose in dragging someone else through-”

  “I’m afraid you have no choice, sir. You must answer my question.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You’re under oath.”

  “To tell the truth. And I have. But that doesn’t extend to the unnecessary tarnishing of the reputation of an innocent person.”

  Padolino pressed his hand against his heart. “Once again, Senator, I am moved by your breathtaking nobility. But in fact, you have another reason for wanting to keep her identity unknown, don’t you?”

  “This is despicable,” Glancy said, increasingly angry. “You’re using my silence to imply things that aren’t there.”

  “Who’s your other lover, Senator Glancy?”

  “I’ve told you, I refuse to answer the question.”

  “Are you pleading the Fifth?”

  “No. This isn’t about self-incrimination. This is about protecting others.”

  “Let’s all remember that he said that.”

  Judge Herndon cut in. “Mr. Prosecutor, if you so request, the court can order the witness to answer or be held in contempt of court.”

  “Thank you, your honor, but that won’t be necessary.” He reached inside his folder and withdrew one sheet of paper. “Senator Glancy, would your lover’s name by any chance be Tiffany Dell?”

  Glancy didn’t answer, but even he couldn’t prevent his eyes from widening, his lips from parting.

  Where have I heard that name before? Christina asked herself. Somewhere around here…

  And then she remembered. And realized how bad this really was.

  “Thank you for that visual confirmation, sir. Not that I had any doubt. You see, I’ve spoken to Miss Dell. And she told me all about it.”

  “Objection!” Christina said, rising to her feet. She didn’t care what Glancy thought; it was time to intervene. “We’ve had no notice of this witness. She is not on the prosecution’s list.”

  “We do not plan to call her,” Padolino replied. “She only came to us late last night, after she read an account in the Post of Mr. Capshaw’s testimony about the senator’s other lovers.”

  “Whether she’s taking the stand or not, he’s using her testimony. We should’ve been told.”

  “Certainly, if she had anything exculpatory to say, we would’ve notified the defense immediately. But that wasn’t the case. Far from it.”

  “Your honor,” Christina insisted, “this is inexcusable. It’s trial by ambush!”

  Judge Herndon leaned across the bench, gavel pointed, a somber expression on his face. “Mr. Padolino, do you give me your word as an officer of the court that you knew nothing of this informant before last night?”

  “Absolutely, your honor.”

  “And will you make her and any of her records or documents available to the defense should they wish it?”

  “We will. She’s in the building now, sir.”

  He fell back into his chair. “Very well. I’ll allow it. But you’re on a short leash, Mr. Prosecutor.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Christina cut in. “Your honor, I must-”

  “I said I’d allow it, counsel!” He slammed his gavel. “The cross-examination will continue.”

  Padolino turned his gaze back to Glancy, the expression on his face so smug Christina wanted to scrape it off with a pizza knife. “Senator, knowing your strong feelings about truth telling, you’re not going to deny that you know Miss Dell, are you?”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  “And you won’t deny that you had an affair with her, either, will you?”

  “If she’s already admitted it publicly, I suppose there’s no point.”

  “Glad you’re being so reasonable. Let me ask you, Senator-how old is she?”

  Glancy hesitated. “I… don’t know. She’s young, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Well, of course, she’s young. You only interview, hire, and sleep with women who are young.”

  “Objection!” Christina shouted.

  “Short leash, Mr. Padolino,” Judge Herndon said, a fierce tone in his voice. “Very short leash.”

  “Right, right,” Padolino said, holding up his hands. “My apologies. What I want to know, Senator, is her age.”

  “I don’t know her age.”

  “Don’t you? You sponsored her. Because she’s not exactly a congressional staffer, as you led the jury to believe. She’s a congressional page. A high school student.” He paused. “She’s seventeen.”

  Christina’s eyes closed. Just as she feared. It was the same Tiffany whom Glancy had sent to meet Ben and Christina when they first came to the Senate.

  The stir in the courtroom was almost deafening. Judge Herndon slammed his gavel, but it still took several moments to restore any semblance of order.

  “Senator, why did you sponsor Miss Dell?”

  Glancy took a deep breath. “She’s a bright, ambitious young woman who was raised in a very poor undereducated family in rural Oklahoma. As with Ms. Cooper, I was trying to do her a favor.”

  “Do her a favor? Or do yourself a favor? What did you promise this bright, ambitious girl if she would submit to your disgusting advances?”

  “I never did anything of the sort. This is all untrue!”

  “I don’t think so, Senator. She was a minor and you knew it. You knew it when you sponsored her and you knew it when you took her to bed.”

  “I object!” Christina bellowed.

  “Sustained!” Herndon said, equally loudly. “Consider yourself fined, Mr. Padolino. One more outburst like that and you’ll be spending the night in jail.”

  Padolino plowed ahead just the same. “You didn’t suppress her name because you were trying to protect Miss Dell. You were trying to protect yourself. From a rape charge!”

  “That’s not true!” Glancy insisted. “It was entirely consensual.”

  “It was statutory rape, at the very least,” Padolino continued. “And I wonder if it wasn’t more than that.”

  “Again I must object!” Christina said. “This is pure character assassination. It has nothing to do with the murder.”

  “Oh, I’m getting to that,” Padolino said, in a way that sent chills down Christina’s spine. “I’m just laying the foundation here. There’s much more yet to come.”

  “Then get to it,” Judge Herndon said. “I’ve had about as much of this as I’m going to take.”

  “Senator Glancy,” Padolino said, “do you recall the intimate evening you spent with Miss Dell?”

  Glancy’s whole demeanor, his very presence, had changed. He looked rumpled, confused, uncomfortable. His face was red. Sweat dripped down the side of his face. “Of course I do.”

  “That’s good. Do you remember the part when you bit her on the neck?”

  One of the female jurors gasped. They all looked horrified.

  “I didn’t do anything I thought would be… unpleasurable to her.”

  “Indeed. Do you remember when you cut her?”

  And that was when Christina knew. Knew for certain. That wa
s when it became hopeless.

  “Again,” Glancy said, suddenly looking old, desperate, lecherous, and totally untrustworthy, “it’s none of your business what goes on between consenting adults.”

  “But she’s not quite an adult, is she?”

  “I didn’t do anything she didn’t like!”

  “Anything she didn’t like? Or anything you didn’t like?”

  Glancy’s face was so tight, so flushed, he looked as if he might explode. “She… was enjoying it!”

  “No, sir. You were enjoying it. It was your fetish. Always being in control. She told me she asked you to stop repeatedly. But you wouldn’t.” The buzz in the courtroom rose, but Padolino continued. “She said you cut her neck, and she cried out for you to stop, but you wouldn’t. She said it was as if you lost all reason, as if you became some sort of monster!”

  “Objection!” Christina shouted. “Is counsel testifying now or just repeating hearsay from his ambush witness?”

  Padolino ignored her. “Tiffany said you cut her, and you wouldn’t stop, and she believed that if she hadn’t been strong enough to stop you, you would’ve killed her!”

  Christina objected, and Glancy denied, but they were both drowned out by the tumult that swept across the courtroom. It took much gavel pounding before Judge Herndon restored any semblance of order.

  “Just answer this for the jury,” Padolino said, “and answer truthfully, sir, because I have photographs that were taken by Miss Dell the very night it happened. Do you deny that you cut your young lover on the neck? With a knife?”

  The wait seemed interminable. But at last they got their answer.

  “No,” Glancy said quietly. “I don’t deny it.”

  And then it was over. Not the cross-that went on for another half hour, and then Christina attempted to redirect, for all the good it did. And they would interview Tiffany Dell and try to find some holes in her story. But that had nothing to do with the trial. The trial, as Christina knew all too well, was over. She had no doubts now about whether the jury would convict. She only wondered if they would do her the courtesy of deliberating.

  The Sire was dancing around the dead body of his former underling, clapping his hands and shouting in tones that bordered between elation and hysteria. “You thought you could escape the Inner Circle? You thought you could escape my wrath? You fool! Thus to all traitors. Thus to all who challenge the Brotherhood of Miatas. I am the Sire! I cannot be defeated!”

  He’s insane, Loving thought, as he lay helplessly on the floor. Totally over the edge. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Sire killed him. And in his current condition, he was unable to stop it. Even if he managed to pull himself up, he could never move fast enough to elude that drooling psychopath.

  “You thought you could defeat me, didn’t you?” He jerked the scalpel out of Deep Throat’s neck and pressed it against Loving’s throat. “You thought you could take what was mine. Mine! You thought you could steal from me! No one takes what is mine, my sad pathetic friend. I am an immortal! I am a god among men.”

  “Fine,” Loving managed to spit out. “Kill me. But let Beatrice go. There’s no reason why you have to kill her.”

  The Sire shook his head, giving Loving a pitying expression. “How little you understand. After all this time.”

  Loving felt his gorge rising in his stomach. He had failed-totally and utterly failed. He couldn’t save Beatrice. He couldn’t even save himself.

  “How does it feel to be helpless, my strapping friend? How does it feel to know that your time on this planet is about to come to an end? That I’m going to add your petty life to my collection of souls. That I will drink your blood for my breakfast?”

  Loving desperately wanted to tell him what he thought, but he knew that wouldn’t be wise.

  “Still silent? Very well. Prepare yourself. Say a prayer, if you think it will do you any good.” He held up the scalpel; it glistened in the overhead light. “I’m going to cut your throat now. And drink from you like a fountain. Like a fountain!” He crouched down beside Loving. “I’m going to cut you like-”

  “I don’t think so. Say cheese, Dracula.”

  “What?” The Sire whirled around in the direction of the voice, but before he could complete the turn the room was split by the sound of a projectile whistling through the air. It thudded into the center of the Sire’s chest. He screamed, then collapsed.

  His hands were clutching the bolt of a crossbow.

  “Nice shot, if I do say so myself. Kind of disappointed he didn’t turn into dust, though.”

  Loving leaned forward, struggling to see. “Shalimar!”

  She walked beside him, beaming. “Yup. Your friendly neighborhood vampire hunter.”

  Loving did his best to appear cross. “I told you to stay outside.”

  “Yeah. Good thing I didn’t listen, huh?” She crouched beside him. “How are you?”

  Loving grunted and stretched out his arm. “Help me up.” He felt extremely woozy, but he was determined to stay at his feet. “The Sire. Is he dead?”

  “Nah. Hurting real bad, I hope, but not dead. See? Eyes still open.”

  Loving bent over the Sire, who was writhing on the floor, trying unsuccessfully to remove the bolt. Loving desperately wanted to kill the fiend on the spot, but he knew that wouldn’t be smart, however pleasurable.

  He grabbed the end of the crossbow and gave it a twist. The Sire screeched like a banshee. “Not so fun when the sharp instrument is inside you, huh? You’re bleedin’ big-time. The human body only contains eight pints of blood, as I ’spect you know, bein’ an expert on the subject. So if you don’t tell me what I want to know, immediately, not only am I not gonna call an ambulance, but I’m going to leave you here to die slowly. Then I’m going to let all your henchvamps come in and lap up your blood. And then-” He leaned closer so the Sire could feel his breath. “Then I’m going to take your body to the Playground and put it in the room reserved for necrophiliacs. For the first time in your miserable existence, you’ll be bringin’ some joy into someone else’s life.” He paused, giving the man a look that made it clear he was not bluffing. “One chance. Only. Where’s Beatrice?”

  The Sire raised a shaky hand and pointed up the stairs. Then he jerked his hand to the left.

  “You’d better be tellin’ the truth, or I’ll prove to everyone in the Inner Circle that you’re not immortal. Come on, Shalimar.”

  Shalimar raced upstairs and across the hall, then through the far left door. Loving hobbled behind as best he could. She threw open the door.

  “Oh my God.”

  It was like a wing of a hospital ward, one bed after the next, all of them alike, all of them occupied. By young girls.

  “Beatrice!”

  Shalimar spotted her long before Loving did. She raced to her sister’s side. Loving followed as quickly as possible.

  She looked much as she had when he’d seen her earlier, in the Inner Circle ceremony-pale, weak, motionless. But now her eyes were open, and they reacted to the sound of her sister’s voice.

  “Beatrice! Oh my God. Beatrice!”

  Shalimar leaned across the bed and hugged her sister tightly, tears streaming from her eyes. Loving sat on the edge of the bed, tired, hurting, but so so glad. They’d found her. She wasn’t dead. She was-

  Loving spotted the IV needle in her arm. Beside the bed was a bottle filled with a red fluid.

  Her blood.

  And as he scanned the room, he saw that on every bed, every girl had an IV needle in her arm, and a half-filled bottle beside her.

  Oh my God, Loving thought. This was too much. Too much.

  “Call the ambulance,” he whispered, the best he could manage. “Call the police. Ask for Lieutenant Albertson.”

  And then he closed his eyes and tried to make the rest of the world go away.

  Oh my God. Oh my dear God.

  Part Four. Duende

  *

  24

  B en and P
adolino were huddled in the judge’s chambers, both hunched over the man’s desk while Christina and Padolino’s assistants stood barely a foot behind them, each feeding their attorneys case law and citations as the legal wrangling roiled. The court reporter sat just behind them, her fingers rapidly taking down everything that was said.

  “This is absolutely unacceptable,” Padolino declared. “The trial is over. He was done.”

  “I never rested,” Ben said. “The judge specifically said we could have more time.”

  “To interrogate Tiffany Dell, yes. Not to drum up some surprise witness.”

  “Right,” Ben shot back. “Only the prosecution is allowed to do that.”

  “I never put Tiffany Dell on the stand!”

  “You used her as a witness just the same.”

  “Gentlemen, stop!” Herndon put his hands down firmly on his desk. “I’ve had enough of this bickering. If you have a legal argument to make, then make it. If you have some precedent to present to the court, heaven forbid, please do so. Otherwise, be quiet!”

  They both started to speak at once. Herndon raised a finger. “I want you to both sit down. Now. We’re going to take turns. You remember about taking turns? Perhaps your mothers introduced the concept one day when you were playing Candy Land.”

  Both attorneys eyed each other. Lips parted.

  “Padolino,” Herndon declared, “you’re first.”

  “Your honor, in the name of fundamental fairness, do not allow the defense to pull out some unknown witness at the eleventh hour in a desperate attempt to salvage a case they are going to lose-for good reason. My associates can provide you with a dozen cases in which judges refused to hear testimony from witnesses who were not on the pretrial witness list.”

  “Nonetheless, this is surely a matter that has to be considered on a case-by-case basis.”

  “But we didn’t even know this woman existed before Mr. Kincaid called us last night. We’ve had no opportunity to talk to her.”

  “I have it on the authority of Lieutenant Albertson of the DCPD that Mr. Kincaid himself did not know about this woman or talk to her prior to her discovery by his investigator last night. And the only reason you haven’t been able to talk to her is that she’s been in the Bethesda intensive care unit along with many other young women discovered on the same premises.”