Oath of Office

by Michael Palmer

  “I got to the motel as fast as I could and knocked on room twenty-four as the caller had instructed. The door opened up and I found myself alone in a hotel room with a very young, and very naked girl. A hidden camera on a tripod recorded everything. She literally threw herself at me, pushed me backwards onto the bed, and kissed me several times before I could throw her aside.

  “I knew it was a setup and a very volatile situation. I probably should have called the police right then and there, but instead, I ran and called my attorney. I had no idea there was a camera hidden in the room. Later I found out the room was registered in a bogus name the day before, and the clerk who was on the desk at the time told the police it probably was me. The girl said she had done business with me before, and that I liked to have her undress me. But this was the first time I had asked to have the camera there. When the police looked at the film cartridge, the part showing me shoving her off and running away was conveniently missing.”

  “What about the box of photos in your closet?”

  Evans could only shrug and shake his head.

  “Sure sounds like a setup to me,” Kim said after a moment’s pause.

  “Even if they drop the charges, I’ve lost.” Evans’s voice broke, and for the first time he seemed close to tears.

  “Martin was very reluctant to accept your resignation, Russ. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know what you’ve told me, Darlene. And I thank you for that.”

  “I don’t get it,” Kim said. “You were the secretary of agriculture. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t see why anyone would go after you.”

  Evans nodded as though he’d heard that opinion of his former position before. “As Darlene can tell you, there’s a lot more to our part of the government than just making sure food is safe for eating. The work we do touches the lives of virtually every American. It’s our responsibility to provide a sufficient, safe, nutritious food supply, produced in a sustainable and environmentally supportive way.”

  “Doesn’t seem like anybody would want you out of office for that,” Kim said.

  “I suppose the frame-up could have had nothing to do with my being the secretary, but there are lot of variables that go into what we do. We’ve got local food producers pushing an agenda counter to what the major growers demand. Environmentalists lobby hard for more sustainability, and we’ve got technological advancements in fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides to keep track of.”

  Darlene felt a chill go through her and went rigid in her seat.

  Kim noticed and placed a concerned hand on her knee. “You okay?”

  To her great dismay, Evans’s explanation of the issues surrounding farming reminded her of her father, only in the darkest days, before financial reversals and unremitting melancholy caused him to press a shotgun up beneath his chin and pull the trigger.

  Darlene nodded and took a sip from a glass of water. “I’m fine,” she said, knowing that her friend could tell she wasn’t. “Russ, do you have any idea who might have set you up?”

  “Take your pick,” Evans said. “Every decision makes someone a winner and someone a loser.”

  “I wish there were something I could do to help,” Darlene said.

  “Actually, there is.”

  “Name it.”

  The former agriculture secretary’s face tightened. “After Martin told me he intended to appoint me head of the USDA, I began developing a legislative agenda for our first term in office. My aides have a series of bills drawn up that I was going to present to the president when … when I resigned. They involve everything from school lunch requirements to the handling of foods containing genetically modified organisms. I don’t have much I’ll be leaving behind, but I would love to see those bills get submitted by the president and passed. I was hoping that because of your and my history and your commitment to kids’ nutrition, you might help that happen.”

  “Does the president know about these bills?”

  “No. I tried getting them to him, but it was too late. He doesn’t want to hear from me. I’m pretty sure the woman Martin has lined up to replace me has no intention of following through on any of my programs. I’ve got nothing left, Darlene. My friends are bailing on me as if I were septic. My integrity’s been plowed to the roots. These are good, important pieces of legislation. If they go under, my last shred of dignity and purpose goes with them.”

  Darlene bit at her lip and tried to keep Evans’s profound sadness from becoming too much her own. “No promises, but have them sent to me,” she said.

  The three turned as the door behind them was opened by Victor Ochoa.

  “Mrs. Mallory, Ms. Hajjar, I’m sorry for bursting in like this, but there’s been a multiple shooting with deaths in Kings Ridge, Virginia. We feel you should return to the White House until we have more information.”

  “Deaths? Do you know how many?” Kim asked.

  “It looks like seven. We should know more by the time we get you home.”

  Seven people shot to death.

  Darlene felt ill. Countless terrible, vivid images began flashing through her mind. She hadn’t ever told anyone except her husband, but as a teen, she had been the one to discover her father’s body.

  “You just have to make every day precious,” Kim said as they gathered their things. “’Cause you never know.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The final battle for Dr. John Meacham’s life was over almost before it began. On a vent, with IV blood pressure support and other meds, he was essentially being resuscitated before his heart stopped beating. Dr. Schwartz, the salaried intensive care specialist, who had deferred to Lou for the insertion of the chest tube, administered some cardiac stimulants without any success, and then, after no more than ten minutes, turned to Lou.

  “Do you see any reason to continue, Doctor?” he asked.

  Lou flashed on the day when he and Meacham had first met at the Physician Wellness Office. Meacham was as tight as a drum skin, and positive that he would never be allowed to practice medicine again. Lou, as a survivor of disaster in his personal and professional lives, knew otherwise. Most of that first session had consisted of him exposing his new client to the life strategies of AA—strategies that he had ridiculed at first as being naïve and simplistic—until he actually began to use them in his life.

  Meacham had caught on quickly. With the help of an AA sponsor and people at the rehab, his need to drink ceased almost immediately. Following that, his hair-trigger temper gradually came under control.

  Now this.

  “I can’t think of anything else we should be doing, Dr. Schwartz,” Lou heard his voice saying as if from down a long tube.

  Schwartz looked up at the clock and nodded toward Sara Turnbull. “Seven forty P.M.,” he proclaimed.

  And just like that, John Meacham’s life was done.

  “Has his wife, Carolyn, been around?” Lou asked, realizing that in the craziness of the hours just past, he had lost track of some of his own civility.

  “She was in the family room a little while ago,” Sara said. “Should I check?”

  “No,” Lou said. “I know her. I’ll go.”

  “Out the sliding doors and down the hallway to the left.”

  Head down, consumed by heavy sadness at the senseless deaths of so many, Lou stepped through the unit doors.

  The husky detective was still at his post. “So, Doc, how’s it going in there?”

  “It’s not,” Lou said.

  “Dead?”

  “Dead.”

  The cop nodded. “Whether it’s cops’ bullets at the scene or a shiv in the back in the slammer from one of the other inmates, these things almost always seem to end this way. Well, there go the answers.”

  “I suppose,” Lou replied, wondering how easy it would be for him to let matters drop.

  The cop was right. There was still a boatload of unanswered questions, starting with the meaning of the words no witnesses.

  Lou opened t
he lounge door. The modest room, furnished in vinyl, with dog-eared magazines scattered about, was deserted. His eyes went first to a television set mounted catty-corner, high up on the far wall. The volume was turned off, though Lou could easily read the CNN news flash graphic from across the room.

  BREAKING NEWS: SUSPECTED MASS MURDERER IN CRITICAL CONDITION.

  “Not anymore,” Lou murmured, wondering if the grim outcome would have been any different had the local neurosurgeon not gone probing blindly for a bullet in or near the area of the brain dealing with cardiac rhythmicity.

  He averted his gaze from the broadcast just as the door to the family room opened and Carolyn Meacham entered. She was slight woman with carefully trimmed gray hair and more makeup than Lou felt she needed. It was surprising that there were no family or friends with her, but perhaps some were on the way. Her makeup did nothing to disguise her pain. Without a word, she raced across to Lou and threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest.

  She was a spirited woman—a New Yorker, Lou thought he remembered, with a hard edge. He had liked her from the very beginning. In all the time he had dealt with her and Meacham, he had never once seen her cry. Now, her tears flowed liberally. It was impossible to imagine what she must have been experiencing since receiving the news. Her three children were all in their teens.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked before pulling away.

  Lou nodded. “Just a couple of minutes ago. I came out here from D.C. to see if I could help, but there was really nothing I could do.”

  “He was fine when he left home, Lou. He’s been going to meetings and staying sober, and this morning when he left for the office, he was fine.”

  “Where are your kids?”

  “At my sister Rosalee’s in Chantilly. When the news broke, I had her pick them up at school and take them to her place to keep them away from reporters.”

  “Good move. Do you want to go in to see him?”

  Carolyn hesitated, and for a moment Lou thought she was going to decline. Then she nodded and took his arm. Her sobbing had already ceased.

  The scene in Meacham’s cubicle had largely been cleaned up when they arrived. Nurses had respectfully not pulled a sheet up over his face, although they had left a bandage in place over the bullet hole. Death, as Lou had often encountered it, even violent death, frequently had a calming effect on a patient’s countenance. To some extent, that was the case here.

  Carolyn stood motionless for a time, gazing down at the man she had shared a life with for so many years—the interested, interesting caregiver who would never get the chance to see their daughters into womanhood.

  “What happens next?” she asked stonily.

  Lou felt himself react to her abrupt change in tone. “Now you have to sign some papers with the nurses and John’s body will need to be autopsied,” he said simply.

  Carolyn glanced over at him. “Is that really even necessary? Isn’t it obvious how he died?”

  “It’s standard practice for all homicides.”

  Carolyn shook her head. “Let’s go,” she said, spinning and heading out the door with Lou rushing to keep up.

  There were no final caresses, no request for a minute alone, no more tears. It was as if someone had thrown a switch, making Carolyn Meacham aware of the horribleness of her husband’s crime.

  Lou gave passing thought to asking what her husband might have meant by the cryptic remark, no witnesses, but this hardly seemed the time.

  “I need to pick up my kids and go home,” Carolyn said with no emotion.

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “I’m fine to drive.”

  It was an order, not a statement.

  “Well, you may be fine to drive, but you’re not okay to be alone. I’ll ride with you. We can talk in the car. Then, if need be, I can take a cab back here.”

  Carolyn made no attempt to talk him out of it.

  Outside, the rain had picked up and the fog had thickened. The unseasonable chill persisted. It was Carolyn who first spotted the crowd of reporters lurking about her silver Volvo SUV. Many were using makeshift plastic tarps to shield their equipment from the rain. Lou, headline news himself when the DEA and police descended on his home and arrested him for writing prescriptions for himself, marveled at the resourcefulness of the vultures—how they already knew this particular car belonged to Carolyn Meacham.

  As if underscoring his thoughts, their camera lights lit up as soon as he and Carolyn neared. He wondered how long it would take for them to come up with his name. Calls to Filstrup would be sure to follow.

  Oh, happy day.

  Lou pulled Carolyn close to him, shielding her from the onslaught. Reporters shoved their microphones in her face like mothers trying to force-feed their children, and shouted out questions that became garbled as they clashed with one another in midair. Carolyn was silent ice, her head high, her intelligent green eyes fixed straight ahead. Through the swarm, she somehow managed to get her door unlocked, and then reached across the seat to open Lou’s side. He tossed his rain-dampened jacket into the backseat and quickly climbed in. Carolyn turned the ignition key. The reporters banged on the windows and doors, and stepped aside only when the car began to move.

  “Lou?” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Something made him do this. He was not a violent person. Something made him do what he did.”

  Lou passed on the urge to remind her that a few years ago, her husband had nearly gotten booted out of medicine for losing control.

  “I suppose that’s an understandable feeling,” he said instead.

  As she pulled onto the driveway, John Meacham’s widow left rubber on the wet tarmac of the doctors-only parking lot.

  “Find out what happened, Lou,” she said. “Find out why John killed those people.”

  CHAPTER 9

  They drove largely in silence, wipers on intermittent, traveling along a country road that snaked through a hilly landscape. Dusk had passed, and night had settled in quickly, but Carolyn did not appear bothered by the headlights of the vehicles splashing past in the opposite direction. In fact, Lou guessed she might be going as fast as any of them.

  “Are you all right to be driving?” he asked.

  Carolyn sighed heavily. “I need to be driving,” she said. “Even in this crappy weather, I need to be doing something. Just sitting in that lounge … waiting for news … trying to make sense of it all … hoping he would live, praying he would die. It was so horrible, so lonely, Lou. You couldn’t possibly imagine.”

  A beloved husband dead. Hundreds of lives irreparably shattered. Carolyn left to dwell in the aftermath.

  Those were Lou’s thoughts before he said, “No, Carolyn, you’re right. I couldn’t imagine.”

  They fell back into the heavy silence. The Volvo’s wipers now beat a steady rhythm against the driving rain. Fog transformed the approaching headlights into a hazy glow that stretched across the darkening horizon. Even with bad visibility, the rain-slicked road, and Carolyn’s above-the-limit speed, there were drivers daring enough pass them when permissible.

  Carolyn made a disgusted sound when one zipped by. “I’m not going to speed in weather like this,” she said.

  Lou reached for his jacket in the backseat and fished out his cell phone. He assumed that Renee had already seen news reports of Meacham’s death, but knew, since she and Emily were there when the call came in from Filstrup, that she’d want to hear directly from him. He began keying in Renee’s number, when he felt the SUV shift hard to the left. His seat belt went from loose to taut in a blink, keeping him from being thrown against Carolyn.

  Before Lou could regain his bearings, the car swerved again, this time to the right. The tires lost traction on the rain-soaked road; suddenly the Volvo was fishtailing, lurching violently from side to side. Moments later, Carolyn had calmly regained control. Her speed had, if anything, increased.

  Lou flashed on the possibility that she had insiste
d on driving because of some kind of suicidal urge.

  She veered right, then left, then right again.

  Lou’s stomach dropped as though he were front seat in a roller coaster. The left wheels of the SUV crossed the solid center lines twice, one of those times coming close to crossing into the oncoming traffic. But in both instances Carolyn pulled the car back just in time. Her expression had grown tense, her eyes narrowed.

  She leaned on her car horn and began flashing her lights at the driver in front of them. “Get out of the way! Move over!” she shouted.

  “Carolyn! What’s going on?” Lou cried out. “What are you doing?”

  Carolyn’s eyes remained locked forward, unblinking. She continued to flash her lights and beep her horn. “Move over!” she yelled. “Get over now!”

  “Please slow down! Carolyn, slow down and pull over!”

  Instead of responding, Carolyn steered the SUV into oncoming traffic, presumably to try to pass the car in front. But here the road turned, and Lou saw the dotted yellow dividing line become a solid one. In the next instant, he was blinded by a set of powerful headlight beams. He heard a deep-timbred horn—not a car’s beep, but something much larger. Lou’s stomach knotted. The horn had to be an eighteen-wheeler. A second later, he saw the rig emerge from the fog like a huge phantom. Carolyn, acting unfazed, continued on a straight course, unable to pass the car to their right. She sped forward as though playing a game against the forty-ton machine.

  “Look, Lou,” she called out, still surprisingly calm though her voice had an anxious edge. “The car three ahead of us. Its left taillight is out. Someone’s going to get killed unless we warn them. There’s been enough death today.”

  “Carolyn, let it be! Slow down. Please, slow down!”