They had met at Jackson Street on Saturday—Robert, Randy, and Mary Catherine—to work out a contingency plan should worse actually come to worst.
“I can’t believe this,” Robert had fumed. “The woman practically rapes me, and I may end up being arrested. Maybe I should charge her.”
“We don’t have time to waste on anger,” Randy suggested mildly. “We have to decide how to handle the situation. You have three scheduled appearances this weekend. Do you want to go public now with your side of the story? Do you want to claim political motivations on her part?”
Robert turned on Mary Catherine. “What do we know about her?” he growled.
“We know she’s attractive, accomplished and efficient,” the administrative assistant replied. “She’s married, she has three stepdaughters and two step-grandchildren, and she writes popular poetry.”
“What does her husband do?”
“He’s an architect,” Mary Catherine told him. “In fact, he’s the architect on the China Basin project.”
Robert’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Can we bring any pressure to bear there?”
“I think it’s too late for that,” Randy said.
“Why didn’t I just deny the whole damn thing and tell everyone to go to hell?”
“As your attorney already advised you,” his aide told him, “that kind of bluster wouldn’t have worked very well.”
“Why not?” the senator shot back. “It sure worked for Clarence Thomas.”
“Clarence Thomas was judged by his peers, in every sense of the word,” Mary Catherine declared with more than a touch of cynicism. “You won’t be that lucky. You’re going to be judged by the voters.”
Robert sagged against his seat. “Needless to say, I’ve been in touch with all of my top campaign advisers, every one of whom has counseled me to brazen it out. But the two of you are still my best political weather vanes. What do you think?”
“First,” replied Randy, “you keep your mouth shut for the time being, and carry on as scheduled. You don’t want to open any can of worms unless you have to.” He had spent over two hours on the telephone with Mariah, discussing strategies and probabilities.
“I agree,” Robert said.
“Second, we hire the best damn private detective agency in the country to find out every last thing there is to know about Karen Doniger.”
“Mary Catherine, get on that,” Robert directed.
“Done,” she said. She already knew the right firm to contact.
“Third, if and when it becomes necessary, you admit to a very foolish mistake—cry stress, cry exhaustion, you can even cry temporary insanity, if you like. Voters love to forgive repentant sinners when they sound sincere, so you’d better sound sincere.”
“I am sincere.”
“Fourth, you suggest that this is nothing more than a political frame; since you are clearly about to capture not only the nomination but the election as well, someone needed to find a way to stop you. But be careful you don’t make the issue a partisan one. In this case, it would be wiser to hint that it could have come from either side, not to mention the auto industry, the NRA, and a few foreign countries who are heavily dependent on American aid.”
“I like that,” Robert said. “I like it a lot.”
“Fifth, if it comes to trial, you call in every marker you can to push for an early date. Who knows, if we can expedite matters and win a fast acquittal, we might still be able to salvage something.”
“What do you mean if?” Robert barked. “Of course I’ll be acquitted. I’m innocent, damn it.”
“Sixth, for however long it takes, you and Elizabeth are joined at the hip.”
The senator shifted uneasily. “To be honest, I don’t know how that’s going to go over with her. We haven’t been especially … close lately.”
“Well then, we’d better have her in and find out,” Randy declared. “Because without her we don’t have a prayer.”
Elizabeth Willmont had spent the afternoon at the beach with Adam, where she delighted in her son’s agility with his new surfboard. She returned with glowing cheeks to find Robert and his two associates anxiously awaiting her.
“I understand you wanted to have a word with me,” she said, floating into the library.
“We need your help,” Randy said simply, before Robert could respond.
Elizabeth smiled. She had always liked Randy Neuburg. Even at forty, he retained a boyish charm that was direct, unaffected, and appealing.
“Has this anything to do with all the closed-door meetings that have been going on around here the past couple of days?” she inquired.
Genuinely startled, Randy turned to Robert. “Doesn’t she know?” he demanded. “Haven’t you told her?”
“Know what?” Elizabeth asked.
“I didn’t really see the point,” the senator replied uncomfortably. “I mean, you know, unless it turned out to be necessary.”
“It’s necessary,” Randy retorted. He strode across the room and took Mary Catherine by the arm. “We’re going to take a walk around the block,” he said meaningfully. “We’ve been cooped up in here all day and it’s time to stretch our legs. We’ll be back in half an. hour.”
When they returned, the glow was gone from Elizabeth’s cheeks. Her eyes were narrowed and her chin was set. On the table beside her were a glass of water and her pillbox.
“If you thought this would come as a surprise to me,” she said coolly, “you were wrong. In fact, I knew it was only a matter of time before his promiscuous ways caught up with him. Of course, I always thought it would be something like gonorrhea or AIDS, which is why I’ve refused to sleep with him for years. But don’t worry. I’m his wife, and for better or worse, I’ll stand by him. I’ll even lie through my teeth in court, come to that.”
Then, with as much dignity as she could muster, she stood up and left the room.
What a woman, Randy marveled to himself. She had known about the senator all along and kept her silence. In a time when wives were divorcing their husbands for a good deal less, Elizabeth had been able to focus on the big picture. She was stronger than he had suspected, despite the vagaries caused by the pills, and he was now confident that, however messy things might get, she would stick.
She must want to be the First Lady a whole lot more than anyone realized, Mary Catherine mused with increased re spect, knowing that, if she herself had been married to the good senator, she would have long since kicked him out of more than her bedroom—White House or no White House.
Robert cleared his throat. “Naturally, I won’t hear of her saying one word publicly,” he said. “Unless, of course, worse comes to worst.”
Worse came to worst on Monday, April 13, at two o’clock in the afternoon, when Lamar Pope met the senator at his home, presented him with a warrant for his arrest, and escorted him down to the Hall of Justice.
Mary Catherine sighed deeply. She knew she ought to be doing something other than sitting there in the office in the dark. Pack some of her things, perhaps, or make arrangements for a flight back to D.C. But she didn’t move. She went on sitting there because she was sixty years old and it was too late to pick up and start over again.
There would be no more bright-eyed idealists to teach, to guide through the political quagmire, to cultivate and mold. No, it was time to take her prudently managed savings and retire somewhere.
A little after eight o’clock, the elevator doors slid open and closed and she heard the sound of a key fitting into the lock on the outer door. It was the sound she had been waiting for.
Randy came in and snapped on the lights. “I thought you’d be here,” he said wearily. “But why in the dark?”
“It seemed suitable,” Mary Catherine replied. “Where is he?”
“At home. Hal had everything arranged. The booking, even the arraignment. I left them at Jackson Street. The preliminary hearing is set for the twenty-third.
“That’s pretty fast, isn’t it?�
��
“We would have opted for tomorrow, given the chance.”
Mary Catherine nodded. “How is he?”
“Incredulous … confused … outraged,” Randy reported. “About the same as I would be, if my whole life suddenly exploded in my face.”
“Does he know?”
Randy shrugged. “On some level, I think he knows. But he’ll never admit it. He’s sure he’ll beat this thing and that the people will rally behind him.”
“Voters have done crazier things, I suppose.”
“I suppose.”
“The media’s having a field day,” Mary Catherine said wearily. “He has to make some kind of statement.”
“He’s going to call a press conference for tomorrow,” Randy told her. “He wants to get his side of the story to the people while the woman is still hiding behind anonymity.”
“What does Hal say?”
“He says it can’t hurt.”
“I’ll set it up.”
“Make it before three,” Randy directed, “so we can catch the national newscasts.”
Even in the midst of disaster, her last protégé was in charge—the dedicated aide, the political engineer who had almost made a dream come true. Mary Catherine peered at the man she had nurtured and taught so well for so many years.
“How are you?” she asked gently.
“Numb … angry … frustrated.” He sighed. “We were so close.”
“What will you do?”
He thought for a moment. “Go back to practicing law, I guess. Get married. Have a life.”
“That sounds pretty good to me.”
“Damn it, though, it just isn’t fair,” he raged. “That somebody can come along and ruin someone else’s whole life, just like that.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.
Mary Catherine hauled herself to her feet and picked up her purse. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get drunk.”
eleven
The lights in Tess Escalante’s third-floor office had burned well into the night for a week, until less than twelve hours remained before she would present her evidence at the preliminary hearing, and ask that Robert Drayton Willmont be bound over for trial on charges of sexual assault and battery. Even though she normally had weeks instead of days to put a case together, she felt she was prepared.
At the start, she had resented Jay Agar for dumping this hot potato in her lap, but now she was forced to admit that her interest had been piqued. Regardless of her position as prosecutor, the ADA had been fully prepared to dislike the alleged victim and to disbelieve her story, if only because the man Karen Doniger had accused of rape was the man whom many, Tess among them, truly believed to be the last hope of a desperate country.
The whole staff watched the senator’s press conference, the day after his arrest, and it served only to strengthen Tess’s convictions.
“As some of you still may not know,” he had said, looking straight into the camera and holding tight to his wife’s hand, “I was charged yesterday with rape.”
His face openly showed both fatigue and stress.
“Did I have sex with the woman in question?” he went on, carefully avoiding the use of her name, as he had been instructed. “Yes, I did. I’m not going to lie to you. I knowingly broke my marriage vows, and I have no excuse for that, at least none worth offering you. But did I rape her? No, I did not Our encounter was mutual and brief and we parted on what I believed were amicable terms.”
As a silent affirmation, Elizabeth Willmont moved half a step closer to her husband.
“How do you defend yourself when a woman cries rape?” he asked. “How do you call her a damn liar without sounding like a cad? How do you convince anyone that, while you may have behaved stupidly, you did not behave criminally? How do you suggest that the timing was too perfect—that, because of who you are and what you stand for, someone would plot to discredit and disgrace you?”
Despite themselves, a ripple ran through the collected attorneys who sat watching with Tess.
“There are those who are saying that my candidacy is dead,” he declared. “Certainly, if a jury of my peers convicts me of this heinous crime, they’re right. But I believe in the system. I believe that America is still a country where truth matters and the innocent are acquitted. And if it is, then I will be acquitted.”
Behind the senator, members of his staff lifted their heads a little higher and stood a little taller.
“Now, I could request that my attorney employ the type of tactics that would delay this matter for years,” the candidate continued, his voice rising oratorically. “But instead, I have instructed him to expedite it, to pull every string and call in every favor to get my case before the court as soon as possible, so that I may be freed of this stigma and allowed to return to my life’s work.”
He paused unblinkingly for five full seconds.
“There are those who think that candidates for high office should be heros, saints, even gods,” he concluded in a more normal voice. “But the truth is, most of us are just men—vulnerable, fallible, very human men, doing the best we can with the tools we’re given. And that’s exactly who I am and have always been—just a man who believes that he can help his country get through a terrible time. I know of no way to convince you to give me the benefit of the doubt until this awful business is behind me and my innocence is established. I can only hope that you will.”
Tess sat staring at the screen long after it had gone blank.
“He should have been an actor,” one of the ADAs said with a chuckle.
“Nah,” replied another. “The last thing we need is another actor in the White House.”
“But you’ve got to give him points for style,” said a third.
“How about you, Tess?” someone asked. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s a very smart man,” she replied.
Guilty or innocent, he had done absolutely the right thing. He had put his case before the public himself, with dignity and alacrity, and more than anything, Tess Escalante wanted to believe him.
But after only one meeting with Karen Doniger, it was clear that the alleged victim was no one’s political ploy, no mental case who manufactured events, no eccentric in search of notoriety. In fact, just the opposite seemed to be true.
“I don’t really want to be here,” the woman declared after the formalities, her words slurring softly through her stitched
lip.
“Then why are you?” Tess asked bluntly.
“Because Azi convinced me I had to at least come and talk to you,” she replied, nodding to the RTC counselor beside her.
“Yes, I did,” the Native American confirmed. “I told her it shouldn’t matter that the man who raped her is somebody big and important, because, as big and important as he might be, in the eyes of the law he’s no bigger and no more important than she is.”
“I agree with that,” the ADA said.
“Is it true,” the woman asked, “that I can refuse to testify?”
“Yes,” Tess told her, “that’s your right. And if you exercise it, the charges against the senator will be dropped and the case will be closed. Of course, if he actually committed the acts you claim he did, he will then be free to go out and commit them again.”
“I know,” the woman whispered, and Tess saw a haunted look come into her eyes.
“I don’t want to deceive you,” the ADA said. “A rape trial is very often every bit as vicious and as humiliating for the victim as the original assault. Is that what you’re afraid of, that you might not be able to stand up under the pressure?”
“I don’t know,” came the reply. “Maybe, if I thought he would be convicted, I could convince myself that anything was worth it. But to tell you the truth, Miss Escalante, I don’t think he’ll be convicted, and I don’t want to go through an ordeal that will surely devastate and maybe even destroy my family and my life for nothing.”
“I happen to think we have a very strong case
against him, Mrs. Doniger,” Tess assured the woman. “Why don’t you think he’ll be convicted?”
Blue-gray eyes looked straight into black ones.
“Because men like that are never held accountable for what they do,” the woman declared. “What they want, they take. What they can’t buy their way out of, they lie their way out of. There are still a lot of people in this world who don’t really believe that a woman can be raped, that she can be held down and kicked and punched and forced to have sex. Even with all the evidence in the world against him, it will still come down to my word against his, and he’s an elected politician who can do a lot of good for this country. Who am I?”
Tess eyed the woman thoughtfully. One of the things that made the ADA so very good at her job was her talent for objective evaluation. Despite her strongest-held beliefs, she was able to interpret every piece of evidence, every scrap of testimony, every glance, every nuance with unbiased clarity.
“He did it, didn’t he?” she breathed, feeling her heart sink to the bottom of her stomach.
“Yes, Miss Escalante,” the woman said clearly. “He did it.”
“Then Azi is right. It doesn’t matter how important he is. No one is above the law and he can be held accountable.”
“Perhaps you believe that,” the alleged victim agreed. “But I watched enough of the Willie Smith trial to know better.”
“I see.” Tess nodded with understanding. “And you’re afraid I might turn out to be as inept as you apparently feel Moira Lasch was?
“It was clear, even to the experts, that the defense didn’t win that case,” the woman said. “For whatever reason, the prosecution gave it away. Now, I have nothing against you, Miss Escalante. I don’t even know you. But I have children I care a great deal about and a husband whose work depends on public acceptance, and I’ve even enjoyed a bit of success in my own right. I can’t afford to have happen to me what happened to Patricia Bowman. I don’t think I’m as strong as she is. And even if you believe in me one hundred percent, you aren’t going to be representing me in the courtroom, you’ll be representing the people. If you lose, what does it really matter to the people? But I’m branded a liar, an adulteress, or worse, for the rest of my life.”
Guilt by Association Page 39
