“Hey,” Gannon said through a practiced smile, “you already paid plenty just to be here.”
“That was for the food,” a matronly woman said. “I want you to have more to carry on the good work you’re doing for us in Washington.”
As the fund-raiser broke up, Gannon was approached by an attractive young Cuban-American journalist who asked him for his views on lifting the embargo against Cuba.
“That’s a complex issue,” he replied, taking note of her cleavage. “I really don’t have the time to get into it right now. I’m due back in D.C. for meetings. But anytime you want to stop by my congressional office, I’ll be happy to discuss it with you in depth. Pick the right day and we can discuss it over dinner.” They exchanged business cards.
“I would like that very much,” she said.
“So would I,” Gannon said.
Luke Bennett drove Gannon to the Tampa airport for his return flight to Washington.
“Nice speech,” Bennett said from behind the wheel of his silver Lexus.
“Nice crowd, too. Thanks for putting it together, Luke.”
“My pleasure. The Cuban-American community loves you.”
Gannon laughed. “Some do, some don’t,” he replied. “The old-timers like it when I talk tough about Castro and Cuba. The younger crowd would just as soon see us send white doves of peace and give that Commie thug hugs and kisses.” Another laugh. “Good thing they don’t compare notes on what I say to each group.”
“How’s my girl?” Bennett asked as he exited the highway and navigated roads leading to the airport.
“Laura’s doing fine,” Gannon said. “She’s a terrific gal, smart as hell.”
“What do you have her doing?” her father asked.
“Working on constituent requests. Keeps her busy. Tip O’Neill was right. Good politics is local.”
“She called last night. Grace got the feeling that she might not be crazy about her roommate.”
“Oh? I hadn’t sensed that. I’ll ask her about it.”
“You do know, Hal, that I’ll be happy to rent her an apartment of her own while she’s in D.C. working for you.”
“I think it’s better that she stay within the housing system for interns, Luke, but I’ll follow up with her about the roommate situation. Thanks again for the luncheon and the ride.”
“Anytime. Is Charlene staying in Tampa for a while?”
“Yeah. She prefers working on her paintings in the studio we built off the house to playing the role of a congressman’s wife up north. Can’t say that I blame her. But Charlene will be coming to D.C. for some events in a couple of weeks.
“How’s your mom?” Bennett asked.
“The same. I visit her in the home whenever I’m here and can find the time. She doesn’t even know who I am anymore.”
“Best that she’s in a good facility that takes care of her.”
“I know. My sister gets to visit her more than I do, but with her three kids, she’s busy. Life’s strange, huh, Luke? It goes fast, and we’d better wring all we can out of it before it ends. I’ll get back to you after I speak with Laura.”
Bennett watched Gannon stride into the terminal and wondered at the sort of life he led in Washington as a member of Congress. Before Gannon had tossed his hat into the political ring in Tampa, Luke Bennett had been approached to run for the House seat that became vacant when its occupant died. He’d waved off that overture without thinking twice. The idea of being dropped into the squabbling circus that Congress had become was not appealing. Worse, having to run for the seat every two years seemed akin to being put on the rack. “Don’t be silly,” he told those who queried whether he’d consider running.
* * *
Hal Gannon had a different view of the opportunity.
Back from his Tampa fund-raiser, Gannon took a taxi from Reagan National Airport to his one-bedroom apartment in the Adams Morgan section of the District, a vibrant, funky community of bars and restaurants, coffeehouses, art galleries, and bookstores catering to the city’s young people, who flocked there after dark to take in its sometimes raucous nightlife. The center of Washington’s Hispanic population, the area boasted more than thirty nationalities, the city’s true melting pot. When Gannon chose to rent the apartment on busy Eighteenth Street, some of his colleagues raised their collective eyebrows. It was an unusual location for a member of Congress to rent a place in which to crash while the House was in session. Most congressmen and -women vied for apartments closer to the Capitol; when money was tight they doubled and tripled up to save. But Gannon had the resources to live where he wanted. He responded to Adams Morgan’s vitality and youthful culture. It was there that he found the freedom that he’d longed for back in Tampa, the feeling of liberation that he’d enjoyed when he went off for his first year of college.
He’d been a high school track star in his hometown in Minnesota, was voted most likely to succeed, was president of his senior class, and excelled on the debate team as well as being the lead actor in student productions. He was a star, and he basked in the glory of it. There were plenty of girlfriends, enough money to keep his five-year-old car in gas, and lots of like-minded buddies with whom to share beers at the bars in town that didn’t check ID. He was the clichéd big fish in a small pond, and it satisfied his adolescent need for acceptance and glory.
He used his treadmill in the apartment for a half hour before showering, and changed into casual clothing. He left the building at seven, drove across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and pulled into a parking space a block from Café Papillon on Lee Highway. He sipped a glass of white wine at the bar while waiting for his dinner companion to arrive. He mused about how things would have turned out differently in his life if his parents and sister hadn’t moved to Tampa as he was about to graduate from high school—and if he hadn’t met Charlene.
“Sorry I’m late,” Rachel Montgomery said, kissing his cheek, “but I got stuck in a meeting that seemed to go on forever.” She aimed a stream of air at a stray strand of silver-blond hair on her forehead and muttered a four-letter word. “We’re doing Don Giovanni,” she said as she settled next to him. “The bitch playing Donna Anna—” She laughed. “I’d say pardon my French but we’re in a French restaurant. The bitch is being the diva, ‘get me this, I need that.’” She adopted a deep, dramatic voice. “‘I simply cannot play that scene with him.’ She hates the baritone playing Don Juan. God, what a nightmare!”
Gannon listened without bothering to hear what she’d said. Rachel Montgomery was prone to bursts of the dramatic. Whether she was naturally that way, or whether her position on the board of the Washington National Opera stoked it, was conjecture, and nothing that he particularly cared about.
“Let’s take the table,” he said.
Gannon was known at the restaurant by its owners, and he and Rachel were led to his favored table in a secluded corner of the smaller of two rooms. Since initiating the affair with the wealthy divorcée four months earlier he’d picked the spots where they would meet with care, nothing in the District unless circumstances demanded it, always across the Potomac, or in suburban Maryland. He’d stressed to her from the beginning the need for discretion, including when she visited him at his Adams Morgan apartment. She was to be sure that no one would see her take the elevator to his floor, and he asked her—no, demanded—that she do everything possible to hide her features, a hat, a scarf, anything to mask her identity. She’d balked at first, but he’d explained that because of his seat in Congress, and because his marriage was falling apart, he didn’t want to give his wife ammunition in the inevitable divorce. Their relationship had to be kept secret until he’d given up his seat in the House—which he assured her he planned to do—and until he’d legally separated from his wife and instituted divorce proceedings, which he also swore would be soon.
Gannon’s almost full glass of wine had been carried to the table. Rachel had finished hers and ordered a Manhattan.
“We have
to talk,” she said.
“About what?”
“About us.”
“This isn’t the time or the place.”
“There doesn’t seem to be the right time anymore, Hal. I call and get that infernal answering machine. I leave messages, but you don’t call back for days. It used to be that—”
Gannon leaned across the table and said in a low voice,” I’ve been insanely busy, Rachel. You know that.”
“So busy you can’t pick up a damn phone? I call your office and that bitch Roseann always tells me, ‘The congressman is unavailable at the moment.’” She’d adopted a saccharine voice.
“That’s right. I’ve been that busy. Roseann is my chief of staff. She’s paid to take my calls.”
“Do you sleep with her, too?”
“Maybe we should leave,” he said.
She sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Hal, it’s just that I—it’s just that I love you and want to be with you.”
“I know,” he said. “I feel the same way. Tell me more about the problems at the opera company.”
She guffawed. “You don’t give a damn about that.”
He leaned forward again. “Look, Rachel, we can hash this out when we’re someplace alone.”
She started to protest but realized that he was right, and that she was violating the promises she’d made about keeping their affair quiet.
“I’m having the swordfish au poivre,” she said.
He gave the waiter Rachel’s order and chose duck breast in a raspberry sauce for himself. She had another Manhattan, which bothered him. Alcohol loosened her tongue.
They spent the rest of dinner talking about less contentious things.
“Can I stay with you tonight?” she asked as he signed the credit card slip.
“No, not tonight,” he said. “I’ve got to prepare for a committee meeting tomorrow. But soon.”
“Promise?” she said in a little girl’s voice that grated on him.
“Promise.”
The last time she’d spent the night at his apartment she’d confronted him about a lipstick she’d found in his bathroom.
“Charlene must have left it the last time she was here,” he explained, which she accepted. In fact it had been left there by a Dallas-based American Airlines flight attendant he’d met on a flight and with whom he was enjoying an occasional tryst.
He walked her to her car.
“When will you tell your wife you want a divorce?” she asked, her words slurred. She shouldn’t drive, he thought, but he wasn’t about to suggest that she leave her car and that he would drive her home. It was her problem if she got pulled over for a DUI.
“I’ll do it when the time is right,” he said. “Charlene isn’t well. I can’t just walk out on a sick wife.”
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him hard on the mouth. “I love you, Hal.”
He disengaged and said, “I love you, too, Rachel. Now get on home. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”
He watched her drive off and was angry that he’d allowed the affair to progress to the point that it had. He didn’t need this complication in his life. The problem was that he wasn’t sure how to get rid of her.
CHAPTER
4
By late May, Laura Bennett was ensconced in her new life as a congressional intern and loving every minute of it despite the city’s fickle weather, hot and humid one day, rainy and chilly the next. Her parents had driven her to Washington from Tampa on April 24 to start her internship with Congressman Hal Gannon. She wasn’t due to begin her duties until April 27, but she wanted to get settled in her new digs.
The apartment that Gannon’s chief of staff, Roseann Simmons, had secured for Laura was spacious and airy. The furniture, while hardly fashionable, was utilitarian, befitting a space that experienced frequent turnover as twenty thousand young men and women toiling as interns in the nation’s center of power came and went. The couch and a pair of cushioned armchairs were covered in green vinyl. A small dining table and four straight-back chairs occupied one corner of the living room. The kitchen was small but usable. It had a dishwasher, a gas stove, and a small refrigerator. The cabinets contained the requisite glassware, plates, silverware, and serving pieces, but Laura prepared and ate few meals there aside from breakfast. She was more interested in exploring the myriad restaurants and bars that dotted the immediate area and beyond, using the credit card her father had provided to pay the tabs.
Her roommate, on the other hand, enjoyed cooking dinner and eating in. Their different approach to meals was but one example of the personality gap that existed.
Reis Ethridge was a studious young woman from a suburb on Long Island who was interning at the Department of Justice. Small and slender, with large glasses and a helmet of tight reddish curls, she was as reserved and shy as Laura was outgoing and gregarious, preferring to stay at home and read on most evenings while Laura immersed herself in the city’s abundant nightlife. It didn’t take long before their differing lifestyles clashed.
* * *
On her first day at work in Gannon’s office in the Rayburn House Office Building, one of three buildings housing offices of members of the House, Laura spent her time getting familiar with other interns and staffers, and becoming indoctrinated in how constituent queries and requests were handled. Gannon’s unflappable chief of staff, Roseann Simmons, was curt but helpful, and the hours seemed to fly by. At a little after five, Laura asked Roseann to recommend a good place to enjoy a relaxing drink and dinner.
“Depends,” was Roseann’s reply. “D.C. used to be a joke when it came to good restaurants, but that’s changed. The city is loaded with them now. Maybe you’d like to try one of the nearby watering holes that congressional staffers frequent after work. There’s Bullfeathers on First Street, the Hawk ‘n’ Dove—that’s on Pennsylvania—and Lounge 201 is popular. That’s on Mass Avenue.”
“Recommend one?”
Roseann shrugged. “Try Lounge 201. It’s on the Senate side of the building. Nice bar, mostly Senate staffers. Their flatbread pizzas are terrific.”
Laura poked her head into Gannon’s private office to say good night.
“Got through your first day all right?” he asked.
“No sweat,” she said, “but this is a busy place.”
“Heading home?”
“Heading for a restaurant that Roseann recommended, Lounge 201?”
“Nice place. Did Roseann fill you on bar etiquette in congressional hangouts?”
“No.”
“If you’re going to complain about me, never mention my name. It’s always ‘my member.’”
Laura’s laugh was risqué. “‘Member’ like in member of the House of Representatives, or—?”
“No, not that member,” he said, also laughing.
I’ll try and remember your advice,” she said, “only I haven’t been here long enough to complain about you.”
“Give it another couple of days,” he said, “and you will.” He waved her away. “Enjoy the evening.”
As she left the office and headed in the direction of the bar, she kept thinking of Hal Gannon sitting behind his desk, jacket off, tie lowered, looking as attractive as any movie star, and she wondered whether he ever went out for drinks and dinner with his interns. He wouldn’t have any reason not to. Going out with people from your office was perfectly acceptable, nothing mysterious about it. She wondered how old Gannon was and whether he ever cheated on his wife. If he didn’t, he had a lot of willpower in a city crawling with single women looking to hook up with a powerful man who also happened to be as handsome as sin.
The bar at Lounge 201 was hopping, and she managed to find the only available barstool. Seated next to her was a young man with a heavy five o’clock shadow and a thick mop of black hair. He’d removed his suit jacket and hung it over the back of his stool. A half-consumed mug of beer sat in front of him.
“A cosmopolitan, please,” she told the bartender
.
“A heavy-duty drinker, huh?” the man next to her said.
“I hold my own,” she replied.
“You always drink cosmopolitans?” he asked.
“Sometimes. I like beer, too, and a John Collins now and then.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a drink like a Tom Collins, only it’s made with bourbon instead of gin.”
“What are you, a bartender?”
“No, but my father used to be before he became a lawyer.”
“My name’s Matt. Matt Caruso. Yours?”
For a moment she was taken aback but said, “Laura, Laura Bennett. Caruso? Like the singer?”
“Yeah, but no relation. I’m a big hit on karaoke nights, though.”
The bartender delivered her drink, and Laura took a thoughtful sip. She wasn’t sure how to proceed, so she asked the easy question. “Do you work on the Hill?”
“Afraid so. You?”
“Yes. I work for Congressman Gannon.”
“The right-leaning Democrat.”
“He calls himself a Blue Dog.”
“He heads up that caucus in the House.”
“You? Who do you work for?”
“Senator Jenkins from New York.”
“I like her.”
“She’s the real deal. I’m her White House liaison.”
“Interesting job.”
“Depends on how you define interesting. Yeah, I suppose it is. Buy you a drink?”
“Thank you.”
He touched the rim of his mug to her cosmopolitan. “What’ll we drink to?” he asked.
“I don’t know, maybe world peace.”
“Sure. Why not? Here’s to world peace, and all the world’s lobbyists. What would we do without them?”
They fell into an easy conversation over more beer for him and her second drink.
“So, it’s your first day as an intern,” he said. “That demands something special.”
“Like what?”
“Dinner at a nice place, my treat. Like Thai food?”
“Yes. We have a good Thai restaurant back home in Tampa.”
Margaret Truman's Internship in Murder Page 3
