“She was that strong, eh?” Sutton asked.
“Well, all right,” Robert admitted, “maybe I didn’t try very hard. You know how it is, a little alcohol, the stress of the campaign, a woman throwing herself at you. So maybe my resistance was low—okay, she was a cold and I caught it. After all, I’m only human, and Randy’s had me living in solitary confinement since December. But if she thinks she can get away with crying rape, she’s got another think coming!”
“Don’t worry,” Sutton assured him. “Acquaintance rape is a very muddy charge and the hardest kind to prove. If it’s not true, believe me, she won’t get away with it.”
“But if it goes to trial, that alone will be enough to ruin me,” Robert argued, considering the big picture. “I haven’t come this far to be done in by some crazy person.”
“Well, you might consider pleading to a lesser charge.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe simple assault.”
“That’s still a felony, and a felon isn’t going to get elected President of the United States.”
“It’s better than rape.”
“What if I just denied everything?” Robert suggested. “Said I was never there and had an alibi to prove it?”
“I would never knowingly let you perjure yourself—or anyone else you may be thinking of involving in this,” the respected partner of Sutton, Wells, Willmont and Spaulding replied tartly. He and Robert were not exactly friends, but they had known each other for over twenty-five years. “Besides, they’re bound to have DNA evidence, at the very least, that can place you at the scene just as surely as an eyewitness from a foot away.”
“I’ve been in the inner circles long enough to know that evidence can … disappear,” Robert said casually. “All it takes is enough money and the right connections, and I’ve got both.”
“You’ve built your reputation on honesty,” his attorney reminded him. “My advice would be to stick to that.”
“It was just a thought.” Robert sighed, wondering what good an honest reputation was going to do him in the middle of a maelstrom. “So now what?”
“Let me sort things out,” Sutton said, “and I’ll get back to you.”
Lamar trudged up the steps of the Jackson Street house just after three-thirty that afternoon and pressed the bell. A faint melody of chimes sounded from somewhere inside, and a moment later an elderly man in black livery opened the door and, without so much as a word, ushered him into a room off to the left of the entrance foyer.
Three men awaited him in a richly appointed library of the type that Lamar had heard about but had never been invited to enter. He recognized Robert Willmont, of course. The second man was perhaps ten years older than the senator, not as tall but equally distinguished-looking, with a full head of silver hair. The third man was shorter, younger, thinner, with receding red hair and glasses.
“I’m Hal Sutton, Sergeant Pope, Senator Willmont’s attorney.” The silver-haired man stepped forward but did not offer his hand. “This is the senator’s aide, James Randall Neuburg. And, of course, you know the senator.”
“Gentlemen,” Lamar acknowledged.
“I appreciate your cooperation in allowing this meeting to be held here, instead of at Justice,” the lawyer continued smoothly. “Discretion is vitally important in this instance for reasons you can readily understand.”
“I assure you that I would have preferred to meet the senator under very different circumstances,” Lamar responded in kind, but he wasn’t one for social chitchat. “So, with your permission, I suggest we get right to the matter at hand and get it over with as quickly and painlessly as possible.”
“Certainly, Sergeant.”
They sat down on facing sofas. Lamar pulled out his tape recorder. “Do you mind, sir?” he asked with just the right note of deference. “It helps me to remember.”
“Not at all,” came the senator’s reply after a quick glance at his attorney.
“Thank you.”
“You know that I would be well within my rights not to make a statement at this time,” Robert declared.
“Oh, I know that, sir.”
“The only reason I’m doing so is because I want this whole thing to go away before it does some real damage.”
“I appreciate that.”
“All right, then, where do you want me to begin?”
It took less than twenty minutes for Lamar to obtain the senator’s account of the events of Tuesday evening.
“I’m sure you understand,” the senator concluded, “there could be any number of people out to get me. Someone in my position is always vulnerable. Was I foolish, under the circumstances, to succumb to a woman I hardly knew? Of course I was. But I assure you, foolishness is the only thing I’m guilty of. Now I hope this will be the end of it.”
“Well, sir, I can’t exactly promise you that,” Lamar replied. “Needless to say, your version conflicts somewhat with the lady’s, and that means we’ll have to do a little more investigating.”
“You certainly aren’t going to take her word over mine, are you?” Robert asked with a sharp edge in his voice.
“It’s not up to me, Senator,” Lamar told him. “I just gather the information.”
“Well, who then?”
“Once my investigation is completed, it’ll be up to the district attorney’s office.”
The senator glared at Lamar. “I don’t believe this,” he snapped. “Some deranged woman comes out of nowhere and tells a big fat lie, and because it involves someone respectable and important and very much in the public eye, you people jump all over it.”
In the background, Hal Sutton cleared his throat.
“Yes, well, what more can I say or do, Sergeant?” Robert went on in a more reasonable tone. “What will it take to convince you that I didn’t rape anyone?”
“Perhaps you’d be good enough to show me the clothes you were wearing on Tuesday.”
“My clothes? What the devil do you want with—?” Robert began. “Of course—you’re looking for evidence that may support one story or the other. Well, I certainly don’t know what my clothes can tell you that I haven’t already told you, but you’re welcome to them.”
He jumped to his feet and crossed to the door, yanking it open. “Preston,” he barked at the aged man who waited in the hallway. “Bring down whatever clothes I was wearing on Tuesday. Suit; shirt, tie, everything.”
“Shoes,” Lamar prompted.
“Yes, and my black loafers.”
The four men stood around looking uncomfortably at one another until the butler returned with the clothing.
“I’m sorry, sir, but the shirt has already been sent to the laundry,” he said, apologizing for his efficiency.
Robert shrugged. “Then this will have to do.”
“In that case, sir,” Lamar requested, “I hope you won’t object to unbuttoning your shirt.”
“I damn well do object!” the Senator snapped. “Who the hell do you think—?”
This time it was the redhead who cleared his throat.
“Certainly, Sergeant,” Robert said stonily.
He ripped off this tie and undid his shirt. Four angry-looking red lines slanted down his chest.
“Yes, she scratched me, if that’s what you’re looking for,” he conceded. “But I assure you it came out of her… exuberance, and not from any effort to fight me off.”
“Thank you,” Lamar said, gathering up the senator’s clothing. “I believe that’s all I need for now.”
“What do you think?” Robert asked the moment the door closed on the police investigator.
“I think they’ll probably charge you,” Sutton replied.
“Shit!”
“When they start asking for clothing and looking for scratches, it’s a pretty good indication,” Randy agreed.
“But I didn’t do it,” Robert protested.
“I think we could still plead it out,” Sutton advised.
“If he ple
ads to anything,” Randy declared, “it ends his political career right there.”
“Maybe so, but it might keep him out of jail.”
“No,” Robert sighed. “The only chance I’ve got is to be cleared in open court.” He turned to his aide. “Get Dobbs on this. Let’s turn it into a cause célèbre. A real civics lesson that will prove to the whole country that the system does work.”
“What if it doesn’t?” Randy asked softly.
“Of course it will,” the senator assured him. “Don’t forget—this is my state, my town, my people. No jury here is going to convict me of something I didn’t do.”
At nine forty-five on Monday morning, Jay Agar, the Deputy District Attorney for the City of San Francisco, walked resolutely down the third-floor corridor of the Hall of Justice and stopped at an office barely larger than a moderate-sized closet. A window with a broken blind overlooked the freeway and took up most of one cracked beige wall. The scarred desk took up most of the floor space.
Agar rapped on the open door to catch the attention of the woman inside.
Teresa Maria Yacinta Escalante, hands down the best ADA he had ever had the good fortune to work with, glanced up from the stack of files in front of her. She was a black-haired, black-eyed beauty with very white teeth that flashed when she smiled. She was smiling now.
“I heard you coming,” she admitted. “But I was hoping you would pass right by. Just look at this desk. I can’t possibly handle a single other thing for the next two months.”
“I’m sorry, Tess,” Agar sighed, dropping a folder on her desk. “You don’t know how sorry I am.”
Tess flipped the folder open, knowing it had to contain something big because he hadn’t even bothered to pose his usual questions about her weekend. She scanned the pages quickly and her already large eyes grew even larger.
“This is a joke, right?” she charged. “Like in April Fool’s?”
“No joke.”
Tess frowned. “You mean, someone is really accusing Robert Willmont of rape?”
“So I’m told.”
“Senator Robert Willmont?”
Agar sighed. “He’s the only one I know.”
“Why me?” she protested. “You usually grab on to all the biggies. Why aren’t you grabbing on to this one?”
“The Stepaner case,” Agar reminded her. “I can’t tell the judge in the middle of a triple murder trial that I’m sorry but something else has come up.”
He didn’t bother to mention that the Stepaner case was a notorious one, bound to enhance his reputation, while this one was clearly destined to be a no-win situation, whichever way it went.
Tess leaned back in her chair, her brow furrowed, and tapped her pen against her left palm.
“It doesn’t make sense. Willmont’s got to know there’s a goddamn microscope trained on him,” she observed shrewdly. “He’s just about got the nomination sewed up. Why would he risk it? Does it strike you that the timing here may be just a little too perfect—that this might be a setup?”
“Sure.” Agar shrugged. “But it doesn’t matter what I think,” he said. “The DA is afraid it’s too solid to ignore. What you think is up to you.”
“Why me?” she repeated.
“Because you’re honest, non-partisan, and the best—and everyone knows it. If I put anyone else on this, both sides would cry foul.”
“But I’m already over my head.” She gestured to the mountain of paperwork on her desk.
“I know, and I’m willing to let you lay off as many of your other cases as necessary. Needless to say, this one gets top priority.”
“No kidding,” she grumbled.
“Look, will it help if I tell you that you’ve got Lamar on this one?” he coaxed.
“Don’t try to butter me up,” retorted Tess. “I wouldn’t touch this case without him and you know it.”
Tess Escalante and Lamar Pope were a team, the best ADA in San Francisco and the best sexual-assault investigator in the country.
The beefy ex-Texan brought a degree of dedication, intuition, and sensitivity to his work that surprised everyone but Tess, and kept him digging after most others would have given up. On more cases during the last five years than Tess cared to remember, she knew she would have been dead in the water without him. But even with Lamar Pope in her corner, the last thing Teresa Maria Yacinta Escalante wanted to do was go after a United States senator—especially this one.
She wasn’t any more or less political than any other assistant district attorney whose career hung on the reelection of the administration that employed her, but neither was she blind to what was happening in America. She liked the things Robert Willmont was saying, although the majority of her colleagues considered him too radical.
The daughter of migrant workers who had escaped the border patrols to live and die stooped over the crops they were lucky enough to pick, Tess could see the writing on the crumbling wall of America. What both surprised and pleased her was that she was apparently not alone, judging from the impressive number of primary victories that the senator from California was piling up.
There had never been so much as a hint of a shadow over Robert Willmont’s private life, which meant that either the public relations pabulum being fed to the people about him was accurate, or he was very discreet. Tess considered Edmund Muskie and the forged letter that was his downfall, Geraldine Ferraro and her husband’s business affairs, Michael Dukakis and Willie Horton, and the more recent flap over Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers, and she couldn’t stop the specter of dirty tricks from looming large in her mind.
“All right, go on and get out of here and let me do my job,” she said, waving Agar off. “But you’re going to owe me for this one. Boy, are you going to owe me.”
She read through the folder again, this time studying the preliminary police report, Azi Redfern’s account, and the two statements made by Karen Doniger. Then she looked at the police photographs. Finally, she read Robert Willmont’s account of the event. By the time she finished, Lamar Pope stood in the doorway to her office, filling it up.
“So who are you voting for in the primary?” she asked.
“I don’t vote in primaries,” he drawled. “I’ve been a registered nonpartisan my whole life.”
Tess chuckled. He was the only one in the office who could get away with wearing jeans and fringe to work. The cowboy with the college education, she thought, as she shoved the folder away from her and looked squarely at him.
“How did you ever get Willmont to make that statement?”
Lamar lowered his bulk into the chair across the desk from her. “He offered. He said he wanted the truth to be known right up front.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“I’m not sure yet,” the investigator admitted. “With the primary just around the corner, I can’t figure out why the man would be so stupid.”
“More or less the same thing I told Agar,” Tess agreed.
“Are you thinking it could be a frame?”
Tess sighed. “I don’t know what I’m thinking—except that right now I wish I’d never left Salinas.”
ten
Mary Catherine sat at her desk in the gathering dark, the outer door of campaign headquarters safely locked. She had sent the staff home the moment the story broke, the moment Robert Willmont had been arrested on charges of sexual assault and battery, the moment he had been escorted downtown to be fingerprinted, photographed, and booked, the moment the office had begun to be bombarded by the media.
“I’m sure it’s all just some horrible mistake,” she assured the wide-eyed workers who stood in a daze as they watched the first telecasts from outside the Hall of Justice and saw a behemoth in cowboy clothes conducting their beloved senator inside. “You know, one of those cases of mistaken identity. By tomorrow, I’m sure it will all be cleared up, and everyone will be right back on the job.”
But in her heart, her bones, or whatever it was that had deftly guided her th
rough forty years of politics, she knew better.
She told the flood of reporters she had no official comment, but as a woman who had known the senator for over a decade, she personally could not believe there was any merit to the charges.
“What can you tell us about the alleged victim?” they cried.
“Nothing,” she said. She had been warned not to talk about Karen Doniger, not to the media, not to anyone.
“But you do know her, don’t you?”
“I’m sure the senator will have a statement for you in the next day or two,” she replied.
Then she politely ushered them all out, locked the door and turned off the telephones.
Mary Catherine had no idea why her most valued volunteer had cried foul, but she could not bring herself to believe that this was a question of assault and battery. She knew Robert Drayton Willmont was far too desirable a man to have to resort to forcing a woman to accommodate him.
Still… Karen Doniger didn’t seem either unbalanced or the type to let herself be used as a political pawn. On the contrary, she was bright, competent, and to all appearances perfectly normal—in fact, just the kind of woman who was likely to appeal to the prurient side of Robert Willmont. Not that it really mattered, Mary Catherine reasoned. Whether he was found guilty or innocent, he was going to be politically dead in the water. The Moral Righteous would turn away from him like so many stampeding cattle, and even the thinking segment of the population would, in the backs of their minds, remember the old saw about where there’s smoke—there’s likely to be fire. The administrative assistant, who had to all intents and purposes grown up in Washington, D.C., knew that the stain of accusation would never wash off.
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