by Stuart Woods
“Sometimes the conventional wisdom is the best wisdom available,” Stone replied. He shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t see how I could be of help to you.”
“Here’s how: I want to launch a private investigation into my wife’s murder. I know that you have a police background, and I’d like you to head the investigation.”
“To what effect?”
“To the effect of clearing my name and making me suitable for a cabinet post.”
“So you want me to conduct an investigation that clears you of your wife’s murder?”
“That is correct.”
“Don, an investigation that ends in a preconceived verdict would not be an investigation. It would be a sham, and no honorable attorney or firm would be a part of that. I think what you need is a publicist, what those in Washington like to call a spin doctor. The problem is that preconceived verdict I mentioned. What a publicist can do is to hear your story, read all the news reports, and write a statement for you to deliver to the media—preferably in person—that asserts your claim of innocence. That might dispel some doubts, but not all doubts. Some people are just doubters.”
“Then what am I to do?”
“I’m afraid that you will have to wait for the police to announce the results of their investigation into your wife’s murder. It would be very helpful to your cause if they also announced the arrest and charging of a perpetrator—one who is not you.”
“So you think that I killed or hired someone to kill my wife?”
“I have not formed an opinion on that subject, not having heard the results of the police investigation,” Stone said. “I can tell you, though, that if you, before the police investigation is concluded, make a public declaration of your innocence, then the results of the investigation could turn public opinion against you. My advice is to wait for that announcement, then make a public statement either accepting or denying the results of the investigation. It is likely, though, that a police announcement establishing your guilt will have been preceded by your arrest, so you will have to wait for your arraignment to declare your innocence to the public.
“In the meantime, I advise you to retain a criminal attorney from a distinguished Washington law firm to declare your innocence and to respond to any hint of your guilt. And I’m afraid that is all I can do for you.”
They rose simultaneously, and Clark extended his hand. “Thank you for your advice. Please send me your bill.”
“Don, you are welcome to my advice, and there is no bill.”
Clark turned and walked out of Stone’s office.
Joan buzzed Stone. “Dino on line one.”
Stone picked up his phone. “You won’t believe who just left my office,” he said.
“My best guess would be Donald Clark,” Dino said.
“How the hell did you know that?”
“Because you are the third attorney in New York that he has spoken to today.”
“Are you having him followed?”
“Maybe just the tiniest bit.”
“Who . . .” Stone began, then stopped himself. “Never mind, I don’t want to know who the other attorneys were.”
“I’ll give you a hint,” Dino said, “they are all sleazier than you.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“Dinner tonight?” Dino asked.
“I’m afraid I am otherwise occupied.”
“Anybody I know?”
“I’ll give you a hint,” Stone said. “She wears a burka.” He hung up, laughing.
9
Late in the afternoon, while Stone was still in his office, the president of the United States, swathed from the tips of her toes to the top of her hair in silk, entered the room and slunk a hip on his desk.
“So? How do I look?”
“I can’t tell, because I can’t see you.”
“Would you like me to take it off?”
“Are you wearing anything under it?”
“Why bother?”
“Then I think you should wait until we’re upstairs, because Joan might still be in her office, or there might be a Secret Service agent wandering about.”
“No problem with them. I’ve banished them from the interior of the house. Joan, on the other hand . . .”
Stone took her hand, which was clad in a white silk glove, and walked her to the elevator. He gazed into the one open space on her body. “I think I had forgotten how lovely your eyes are,” he said. She unfastened something at her throat, revealing her face, and they kissed until the elevator door opened and he led her to the master bedroom.
“Is there a rip cord, or something?” he asked.
Apparently there was, because she did something, and the garment fell into a puddle at her feet.
Stone was able to undress quickly, because she was helping, and they fell into bed together.
“At last, a woman again,” she said, “and not a president.”
A muffled ringing noise came from somewhere in the room. “I told them not to call me, unless there was a dire emergency,” she said.
“Then you’d better answer,” Stone replied.
She got out of bed, found her handbag, got back into bed with her phone, then answered it. “This better be very, very bad or very, very good,” she said, then listened, her face a blank.
“Shoot him,” she said, then listened again for a moment. “Oblige him. Or her. Anything else? Good. Issue a statement from me and keep it cool.” She hung up.
“What?” Stone asked.
“Somehow, a man with an assault rifle got onto the White House grounds and fired several rounds at the building. No one hurt, no windows broken.”
“And you had to tell them to shoot him?”
“They think his intention may be suicide by Secret Service agent.”
“And that was what ‘oblige him’ was about?”
“Yes,” she said. “Where were we?”
Stone rapidly found his place again, and they continued.
* * *
—
Sometime later, they dozed off for a few minutes, then Holly said, “Were you planning dinner in your study?”
“Either there or here,” Stone replied. “What is your preference?”
“Here, please. It’s so much closer to you.”
Stone rang downstairs for dinner, and in due course, food was sent up on the dumbwaiter. He tasted the wine, then looked at the label. “Ah,” he said, “this is one of those beautiful reds Marcel DuBois gave me: a Château Palmer, ’61. Fit for a president.”
“Absolutely marvelous,” Holly said, sipping some. “All we have in the White House cellars are American wines, and I love them, especially the cabernets, but I miss French wines.”
They were quiet for a while, then Stone said, “Donald Clark came to see me today.”
“Whatever for?” Holly asked.
“He wanted me to conduct an investigation into his wife’s murder and proclaim him innocent of all charges.”
“What did you tell him?”
“To get stuffed. In the nicest possible way, of course.”
“How did he take that?”
“He took it somewhere else. Dino told me I was the third lawyer he’d talked to today. Apparently, the NYPD is keeping an eye on him.”
“After what you told me about his threesomes with Little Debby Myers and a girlfriend, I think it’s a good thing that I got him out the door immediately.”
“The man is a ticking time bomb,” Stone said.
“Then why won’t he just go away quietly and write his memoirs? Or hire someone to do so?”
“Maybe he thinks his life isn’t interesting enough for an autobiography.”
“Everybody thinks his—or her—life is interesting enough for an autobiography,” Holly said, “if they just had the tim
e to write it.”
“Well, I guess Don has nothing but time, now, but all he wants is to clear his name.”
“I think he had Pat killed,” Holly said.
“Really?”
“He had motive: a bad and very expensive divorce. Means: enough money to hire an assassin. And opportunity: an alibi.”
“I missed the alibi.”
“His mother; you met her at the inaugural party, remember?”
“Now I remember,” Stone said. “I don’t think the word of one’s mother is sufficient for a credible alibi—especially one as old as the elder Mrs. Clark. She’s got to be in her nineties.”
“Ninety-seven,” she said. “At that age, there’s always dementia, or just plain forgetfulness, to consider.”
“Both my parents lived into their mid-nineties,” Stone said, “and they were as sharp as tacks, until the day they died.”
“I didn’t speak with her long enough to get an impression,” Holly said. “Still, Little Debby’s homicide people bought the alibi.”
“You think Debby may have put her thumb on the scale?” Stone asked.
“Given her position, it’s a pretty big thumb,” Holly pointed out. “There’s a tiny part of my brain that is still a cop,” she said, “so I’m always a skeptic about alibis.”
“I guess I’m a softer touch than you,” Stone said. “I tend to believe them, until I have a reason not to.”
“Little Debby certainly got Art out of town in a hurry, didn’t she?”
“Yes, and he seemed baffled about New York, said this was the first time he’d been here.”
“Well,” Holly said, “I guess not every American has visited the Big Apple.”
Stone put their dishes back on the cart and into the dumbwaiter. “Would you like some dessert?” he asked.
“Yes, I would.”
“We’ve got some ice cream downstairs.”
“I didn’t mean that kind of dessert,” she said, fondling him.
10
Stone awoke at seven, and Holly and her burka were gone. He had just sat up in bed and rung for breakfast when his cell phone rang. Blocked call. “Yes?”
“It is I. I’m sorry to dematerialize so soon, but I have a nine o’clock, and I can’t do that in a burka.”
“Understood. Tonight?”
“Let me see what I can do.” She hung up. Stone sighed.
She rang back after ten minutes. “I’ve just been told that I have an afternoon of appointments,” she said, “and a dinner.”
“Oh, well.”
“I think what I’ll have to do is plan further ahead and blank out a couple of days as vacation time.”
“Then the press will want to know where you’re going.”
“I’ll take a firm line on that. They’ll get used to it.”
“What happened to the man with the rifle?”
“They shot him, but not dead. Sounds like he’ll end up in a mental ward for a long rest.”
“You were safer in my arms,” he said.
“Don’t I know it! Gotta run.” She hung up.
* * *
—
Stone had just sat down at his desk when Joan buzzed him. “Dino on one.”
Stone pushed the button. “Good morning.”
“You obviously haven’t seen the early edition of the New York Post.”
“I try to spare myself that.”
“There’s what you might call a speculative, not to say a made-up, story that a woman in a burka was spotted leaving the Carlyle with a known Secret Service agent.”
“Oh, shit.”
“It’s okay, they think she had a Muslim visitor. They’re working that up into a brink-of-war-in-the-Middle-East story.”
“Whew!”
“Nice idea, though. Whose was it?”
“Hers, I think. I can’t remember.”
“I think you’re going to have to think up a better story, one that takes place in a less convenient place. How about Camp David?”
“Lots of staff around there.”
“Some other place where you have a house?”
“Too cold in Maine, too far to L.A., England, or France, unless there’s legit government business in one of those.”
“Problem is, after all that waltzing on inaugural night, you’re now officially on the radar, not to mention fair game.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Maybe what Holly needs is a beard.”
“That would be unattractive.”
“You know what I mean: a harmless male escort, preferably gay and out of the closet.”
“I don’t know how that would work. The problem is, eventually, we’re going to get busted. And it will be worse than if we had just made an announcement after the inauguration.”
“How about an engagement announcement in the Sunday Times?”
“Engaged for eight years?”
“Well, there is that. Plus, you’ll never get laid again, if people believe you are engaged to the president. Of course, there’s a certain kind of woman who would view that as a challenge.”
“Spare me that kind of woman,” Stone said.
“If we put our minds together, we could come up with something that would work. Dinner tonight?”
“Patroon, at seven,” Stone said, then hung up. He asked Joan to book the table.
* * *
—
He was halfway through a bourbon before Dino showed. Half a dozen people had complimented him on his waltzing.
Dino slid into the booth, just ahead of a Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks. “Did you come up with anything yet?” Stone asked.
“I haven’t given it a thought.”
“Me, either.”
“How about moving to another city?”
“It would have to be London or Paris. I can’t buy any more houses. And I’d never see Holly again.”
“Presidents visit London and Paris.”
“I don’t think I can conduct a sexual relationship while accompanied by a motorcycle escort,” Stone said.
“Yeah, I guess that kind of travel would entail an entourage.”
“Look who’s here,” Stone said, nodding toward the entrance.
Dino looked. “Well, as I live and breathe. Our Lieutenant Jacoby has found a restaurant table in New York.”
Jacoby was with an attractive brunette, Stone noted. “A table isn’t all he’s found.”
Jacoby saw them across the room and nodded. He ordered a drink, then excused himself from the brunette and crossed to their booth. Hands were shaken.
“I want to ask your advice,” he said.
“Which one of us?” Dino asked.
“Both of you. I had a visit this afternoon from Donald Clark.”
Stone threw up a hand. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me. He wants you to conduct an investigation of his wife’s murder and find him innocent.”
“You, too?”
“Everybody in town,” Stone said.
“Did you give him any advice?”
“Yes, I told him to go back to D.C., hire a top criminal lawyer from a top firm, and have him issue a statement that he’s innocent.”
“I guess that’s cheaper than an investigation,” Jacoby said.
“I guess so. What advice did you give him?”
“I told him it was ethically inappropriate for him to seek my advice, since I’m still listed as an investigating officer on the case.”
“I like it,” Stone said.
“Enjoy your dinner,” Jacoby said. “Any recommendations?”
“The chateaubriand or the Dover sole,” Stone said. “Or anything else. It’s all good.”
Jacoby gave him a little salute and returned to his brunette. “I wonder who else is on th
e list,” Stone said.
“Sherlock Holmes,” Dino replied.
11
Stone’s phone was ringing as he walked into his bedroom. “Hello?”
“It’s Eggers.” Bill Eggers had been a law school classmate of Stone’s and was managing partner of Woodman & Weld, the prestigious law firm in which Stone was a senior partner.
“Hello, Bill. It’s a little late. Do you need bail money?”
“Har de har,” Eggers said. “I need a traveling companion who owns a Gulfstream 500.”
“Have you been reduced to hitchhiking?” Stone asked.
“No, but I need to fly to L.A. tomorrow morning for a couple of days. The firm’s airplane is in the shop, undergoing an inspection of some sort, and I need one of the firm’s attorneys to accompany me, so naturally I chose the one who has a Gulfstream.”
“Naturally. What time do you want wheels up?”
“Ten AM. I’m not an early riser. The firm will pay for the use of the aircraft and all expenses, of course.”
“You mean, one or more of the firm’s clients is paying?”
“Same thing. You in?”
“Why not. There’s room in my house for you.”
“Thanks, but I’ve taken a large suite. There’ll be meetings all day the day after tomorrow.”
“For which my attendance will be required?”
“Only one meeting for that. I’ll explain on the way.”
“Be aboard by nine-forty-five,” Stone said, then hung up. He called his pilot, Faith Barnacle. “You’ll need a copilot and a stewardess,” he explained, “and catering for two of us and the crew—lunch and an afternoon snack. Wheels up at ten AM. I’ll do the takeoff and landing.”
“Do I get to know where we’re going?” Faith asked.
“Sorry, L.A. You can call the Arrington and arrange your usual rooms. Also, request transportation for two. There’ll be a guest aboard. Get yourself a rental car for the crew.”
“How many days away?”
“At least a couple.”
“See you tomorrow.”
* * *
