“Thank you,” she said. “That’s all for now.”
Eager reporters continued to hurl questions, but they went unanswered. Allison and her DOJ representatives exited first, followed by O’Doud and his assistants. When they reached the hall, she pulled the director into a vacant office and closed the door, nearly slamming it shut.
“What the hell was that all about?” she demanded.
O’Doud shrugged, feigning ignorance. “Just doing my job.”
She moved closer, using her height advantage in heels. “It’s not your job to talk about the death penalty. Prosecutors will make that decision. Not the FBI.”
“I wasn’t making any decisions. I was just telling it like it is.”
“You were campaigning against me and my record on the death penalty, that’s what you were doing. This was supposed to be an apolitical press conference.”
He stepped back, guffawing. “Apolitical, my foot. Thirty minutes before you appear on national television, the press somehow gets its hands on some mysterious photos that make the general look like a sniveling wimp. What do you call that? Coincidence?”
“Are you suggesting I released those photographs?”
“Are you denying it?”
Her face reddened. “Yes, I deny it.”
“Fine. But unless you’d enjoy having to deny these kinds of accusations to the American public, I suggest you take the advice I gave you from the start. Stay out of the investigation.”
“Am I hearing things,” she scoffed, “or did one incredibly pompous ass just threaten to smear my name in the media?”
“I’m not threatening anything. I simply won’t allow this investigation to be directed by an attorney general who may be more interested in winning an election than solving a crime.”
“You won’t allow it?” she said incredulously. “You work for me, O’Doud.”
He made a face. “A mere technicality, given the circumstances. Somehow, I don’t think the director of the FBI is in any real danger of being fired by the president just twenty-four hours after the nation’s biggest kidnapping since the Lindbergh baby. Somehow, I don’t think you want to be skewered as the attorney general who is more interested in protecting her own turf than saving the life of a twelve-year-old girl.”
“You’re the most amoral human being I’ve ever met.”
“You’re the politician, not me. It’s you who has the conflict of interest.”
“Who the hell gave you the authority to decide whether I have a conflict of interest?”
His expression turned cold, but smug. “The next president of the United States. That’s who.”
She watched in silence as he left the room, numbed by his words. Alone.
16
Repo switched off the television set and rubbed his tired eyes. The drive from Nashville to Baltimore had been exhausting, but he and Tony Delgado were both too full of caffeine to sleep.
The living room went dark without the light from the television. Old heavy drapes blocked out the morning sun. The green sculptured carpet reminded Repo of his grandmother’s house, only this place was even smaller. The tiny Formica kitchen with harvest gold appliances was in full view from the combined living and dining rooms. The vintage sixties bathroom was at the end of the hall. On the right was the master bedroom, where Tony and his brother Johnny would sleep. Kristen was in the other bedroom. Repo got the couch.
The toilet flushed, the bathroom door opened, and Tony came back in the living room.
Repo switched on the table lamp, then sank back into the couch, glaring. “They’re seeking the death penalty.”
“What?”
“I just heard the press conference. The head of the FBI just said they’re gonna seek the death penalty for the murder of Reggie Miles.”
“They gotta catch us first.”
Repo shook his head, exasperated. “I’ve been thinking about this since Nashville, and I’m telling you straight up. Your brother is trouble.”
A sarcastic smile came to Tony’s face. “And I think you’re a pussy. So that makes us the perfect triangle. Nobody trusts nobody.”
“I’m not kidding around.”
Tony’s smile faded. “What do you want me to do, Repo?” He turned in anger, grabbing the phone. “You want me to call Elliot Ness right now and turn Johnny in?” His voice rose as he slammed down the phone and grabbed his gun. “You want me to blow Johnny’s brains out when he gets here? You wanna blow his brains out? Is that what you want? Tell me. Because I’m sick of your whining.”
Repo stared him down. “I took this job because you were heading it up. You’re the one with the brains. Not Johnny. If you just rubber-stamp every stupid mistake your brother makes, this ship is going down. I just want you to have the balls to keep your own brother in line. That’s all.”
“Don’t tell me how to handle Johnny. If he makes a mistake, I’ll deal with him the way I’d deal with you. But killing Reggie Miles was no mistake. In fact, Johnny did us a favor.”
“A favor? Thanks to him, now we got the death penalty hanging over our heads.”
“Which is perfect. Now it’s an all-or-nothing game, and we’re free to do whatever it takes to pull off the job. No matter what else we do, they can only execute us once. So if we need to kill a cop, we’re free to kill a cop. If some hero gets in our way, we’re free to kill him, too. We’re free-absolutely free-to do whatever we want. Which means that if we have to kill Kristen Howe…”
Repo’s expression fell.
He smiled thinly. “Say it, Repo. I want to hear you say it. If we have to kill Kristen Howe…”
Repo blinked hard, then looked away.
Tony laughed and headed for the kitchen. “Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, we’re free, at last!”
Allison went home for lunch, not so much to eat as to talk to Peter. She couldn’t remember the last time she and her husband had eaten together alone in their own dining room, but after the morning press conference and the exchange with O’Doud, she simply needed to get out of the Justice Building and clear her head. It seemed everyone around her had a political stake in her next move.
She dropped her coat on the sofa and fixed on the news-at-noon broadcast blaring from the television in the kitchen. She recognized her voice, but it was old footage-almost a year old. As attorney general she had downplayed her own personal tragedy, lest she be typecast as an irrational zealot with no respect for the rights of the accused. She knew, however, that the media would dig up the past once she launched her presidential campaign. Upon announcing her candidacy last December, therefore, Allison had granted just one “tell-all” prime-time interview to talk about Emily’s abduction and her own eight-year ordeal. The strategy was to get it out of the way early and move forward with the real campaign issues. With Kristen Howe’s abduction, the media had resurrected that old interview, replaying one sound bite in particular.
“One thing remains as true today as it was then,” Allison said in the taped interview. “The first twenty-four hours are crucial in any case involving the abduction of a child by a nonfamily member.”
The reporter was back on the television screen live, standing outside the FBI headquarters. “This afternoon, as the investigation into Kristen Howe’s disappearance moves into its second day, the attorney general’s words of one year ago weigh heavy in the minds and hearts of all Americans. We can only hope for a happier ending than there was for Allison and Emily Leahy.”
The anchor replied in a solemn voice, “Absolutely.”
Allison cringed. Absolutely-the TV journalists’ all-purpose idiotic response, suitable for any occasion. Hotter than blazes out there today, eh, Ted? Traffic’s a mess this morning, isn’t it, Jamie? Sure hope we’re first on the scene when they pull that girl’s dead body out of the woods, huh, boys? Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.
Nice to know they care.
“Hi, sweetheart.” It was Peter, emerging from the dining room. He had blocked out
a week of work in New York to campaign with his wife, but with Allison’s sudden diversion he was sort of on vacation, in the most absurd sense of the word.
Allison gave him a quick kiss, then switched off the television. She followed him to the dining room table and sat at the place setting across from him. She was deep in thought, shaking off that television reporter’s last crack about a “happier ending” and trying to focus on the morning’s disastrous press conference.
Peter sipped his iced tea, studying the stressed-out look on his wife’s face. “Well,” he said, “Wally is at football practice, and Beaver has to stay after school for letting a toad loose in Mrs. Mergatroid’s science class.”
Allison shook herself free from alpha-land. “Huh?” she said, not really listening.
Peter’s eyes warmed. “Why don’t you tell me what’s rattling around in your head?”
She sighed, then held her thought as their multilingual housekeeper served them boneless chicken breasts baked in what she called a lovely “moose turd” sauce, which Allison was relieved to discover was actually a mustard sauce. When the housekeeper left, she spent the next twenty minutes telling Peter all that had happened, never once lifting a fork.
Peter pushed his half-empty plate aside, then said, “Are you really that surprised by any of this? The stakes don’t get any higher, and you’re dealing with Washington egos. You have to expect some political maneuvering.”
“It’s more than just maneuvering. I feel like the whole kidnapping is being…manipulated.”
The word hung in the air. “In what way?” he asked.
“In every way. First a cameraman ambushes me at the river trying to make me look like a publicity hound. Then the press runs photos of Lincoln Howe that make him look like a wimp. This morning the FBI director tells me point-blank that Howe has ordered him to cut me out of the investigation. It seems like nobody gives a damn about getting Kristen Howe back alive. All that matters is the spin.”
“If that’s the way it is, maybe you’re better off being out of the investigation.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you see it, Peter? By cutting me out, they’re pushing me into a no-win position. If Kristen is found, Howe’s campaign will vilify me as the missing attorney general who wouldn’t lift a finger to help save her opponent’s own granddaughter. But, God forbid, if something goes wrong, you can bet I’ll get all the blame. I’m the attorney general. The ultimate responsibility for Kristen’s life is mine.”
Peter poured another iced tea from the pitcher. “Sounds to me like you’re suggesting that the kidnapping isn’t just being politically manipulated. Sounds like you think it was politically motivated.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that everything that has happened in the past twenty-four hours isn’t just a bunch of political strategists reacting to a terrible tragedy. Maybe the terrible tragedy was part of the strategy in the first place.”
Allison looked him in the eye. “I would hate to attribute those kinds of motives to anyone.”
“It doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility. Some die-hard supporter of General Howe snags his granddaughter in the demented hope that the sympathy factor will help push him over the top.”
She swallowed hard. “Or a die-hard Leahy supporter who figures the kidnapping will send the Howe campaign into utter chaos, will take the public’s eye off the bogus infidelity issue that nearly ruined me at the debate, and will allow me to flood the media with tough-on-crime speeches for a solid week before the election.”
“I hadn’t thought about it being someone on your side.”
“I have. How much ink have the media spilled on adultery since Kristen’s abduction? Not a drop. Overnight, it went from becoming the deciding factor in the election to a complete nonissue.”
“Well,” he said, arching an eyebrow. “Which side is the bad guy on? Howe’s? Or yours?”
Allison sighed, then looked out the window. “Honest to God, Peter. I don’t have a clue.”
17
Room service at the Opry Land Hotel offered lunch as early as eleven, but Lincoln Howe was still too angry to eat. The photographs of him sobbing in the back of his limo had captured a side of himself that he didn’t think existed. Ed Muskie must be smiling, he thought. From now on, when the world spoke of weepy presidential candidates, they’d mean Lincoln Howe in 2000, not the late senator in the 1972 Democratic primaries.
Howe loathed public displays of emotion. Even when he was leaving for extended tours of duty with the army overseas, he had never let his wife see him off at the airport. They said their goodbyes at home, in private. No tears in public places. No hugs and kisses in front of the troops.
The thought of his teary face plastered on every newspaper in the country was enough to make him fall on his proverbial military sword. He needed someone to blame, and his anger was only fueled by his campaign director’s courageous confession that it was he who had hired the man who’d snapped the pictures.
Howe was pacing across LaBelle’s hotel suite, saying nothing, digesting everything he’d just heard. Blind with anger, he nearly tripped over an electrical cord that snaked across the oriental carpet. Since the abduction, the suite had been wired like a satellite campaign headquarters with computers and extra fax machines, but not even the phone dared to ring as he formulated a response.
“Of all the stupid-assed ideas,” the general boomed, pacing more furiously and waving his arms as he spoke. “Where the hell do you come off hiring someone to take my photograph without me knowing it?”
LaBelle cowered in the armchair, staring blankly at the floor. “I wanted candid shots, so naturally I couldn’t tell you about it in advance. But I would never have actually used them without your approval.”
“You could at least have hired someone you could trust.”
“I thought I could trust him.”
Howe faced him squarely, sharpening his tone. “Does that mean you believe this Red Weber character? Did somebody really break into his hotel room and steal his negatives, or did he just double-cross you and sell them to somebody else?”
“I don’t know. Seems to me that if he had wanted to double-cross me he would have waited until after I paid him the fifty grand. Then he’d sell an extra set of photos to somebody else.”
Howe nodded, agreeing with the logic. He was pacing again. “So, suppose there was a break-in. And suppose we can even raise the inference that Leahy’s campaign was behind it. Where does that take us?”
LaBelle scratched his head, thinking. “It’s a two-edged sword, I think. We can’t really make much of it in the press. Sure, a break-in orchestrated by Leahy’s supporters makes them look bad. But once the cops or the media start to probe, it’s bound to come out that we hired Weber to photograph you. That makes us look even worse than them.”
“Damn it, Buck! I thought you were fucking smarter than this.” He was more furious than ever, the veins bulging in his neck. “Don’t you see what kind of a bind this puts me in? I’ve been taking the high road with everybody. With the FBI, the press, even Allison Leahy. I’m on the record saying over and over again that I will not tolerate any manipulation of this kidnapping for political gain. How the hell is it going to look if it comes out that you hired a photographer to snag some candid Kodak moments of me mourning the loss of my granddaughter?”
“Sir, I-”
“Shut up, soldier!”
They exchanged glances, saying nothing about the general’s lapse into “soldier” talk.
His hands tightened into huge, angry fists. “I swear, Buck, if the election weren’t so close, I’d fire your ass. No, by God, I’d take you out and shoot you. This is a time bomb we’re sitting on. What’s to keep this low-life Weber from running to the press and telling them what you hired him to do? Tabloids would pay big money for a story like this.”
LaBelle sat in silence, as if the question were rhetorical. “I can think of one thing that might keep him quiet,” he said fin
ally. “Pay Weber his fifty thousand dollars.”
The general froze in his tracks, stunned, like a man punched in the chest. “Hush money?”
“That’s such a negative term. But, yeah. I guess you’d call it hush money.”
The general made a face. “Are you serious?”
“Do you want Weber to keep quiet? Or do you want to go back to being five points behind Allison Leahy?”
Howe turned away, riddled with anguish, speaking aloud but to himself. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “I can’t believe this.” He leaned on the windowsill and stared out at the parking lot. A mother and young daughter were walking to their car, reminding him of his own offspring. An urge arose to fire LaBelle on the spot, but he knew of few things more dangerous than a disgruntled ex-campaign insider. The bastard would probably catch the next plane to New York and auction off his tell-all memoirs to the big publishing houses.
“Even if we pay,” he said with his back to LaBelle, “there’s no guarantee it won’t leak.”
“True. I suppose there’s only one sure thing. But you don’t look like a break-legs kind of guy, general. At least not in a civilian setting.”
Howe blinked hard, not sure what to do-then a faint image in the glass gave him pause. It was LaBelle, sitting behind him, watching him, unaware that the general could see his reflection on the window. He detected a certain gleam in his eye, a smirk on his lips, as if relishing the fact that the general was even considering the payment of hush money.
This was the nightmare General Howe had feared, the reason he’d refused to run for office in 1996, the reason he’d so reluctantly sought the nomination in 2000. A surge of anger swelled within-anger at himself for having entered this despicable arena called politics. He drew a deep breath and quelled the rage within, recognizing that, under the circumstances, there really was nothing else to do.
“All right,” said the candidate. “Pay the man his damn money.”
The Abduction Page 10
