The President s Assassin

by Brian Haig

  Within a few short hours, Larry obtained her record of travel five months earlier, the three-day round trip to Killeen, the hotel she stayed in, the meals she charged, the rental car she used, and so forth. It wasn’t hard, really. It was all there on her Bureau Visa card.

  Bob obtained her cell phone records from the week of the killings. What those records revealed were Jennie’s repeated calls to several cell phones registered under the name Chester Upyers, though billed to a guy named Clyde Wizner. That Clyde, what a wicked sense of humor. Who would’ve guessed?

  Bill worked on becoming my buddy again. Fat chance.

  Eric Tanner really didn’t need to be there, but he had earned a front-row seat at the endgame, and I wanted him to have it. And to justify his presence, he updated us on what the CID gumshoes at Fort Hood had learned about Clyde Wizner, about MaryLou Johnson, and about Hank Mercer.

  There’s always something, and in Clyde’s case it was a voracious gambling problem. He was a high roller on a low roller’s dime, and from accounts at various casinos he had visited, Clyde didn’t know how or when to push away from the table. His only winnings from Vegas were frequent flyer miles and, according to a scrub of his medical records, two cases of clap. As Mom, in her more ruminative moments, used to warn me, one vice always begets another. Also, interviews with his neighbors and some talkative regulars at a local redneck dive indicated Clyde and MaryLou were a hot item and had been for years.

  Regarding MaryLou, she had a record: three counts of prostitution, two for passing bad checks, and sundry lesser offenses. Born and bred in a dilapidated trailer park on the western outskirts of Killeen, she never came close to the American dream. Also, people who lived there a long time remembered that MaryLou’s mother, who never married, many years before used to date a guy named Clyde something-or-other, a soldier at Fort Hood, if they recalled rightly. The possibility here was fairly ugly and, we all agreed, more than we needed, and a lot more than we wanted to know.

  Hank lived three apartments down the hall from MaryLou, had twice been institutionalized, and had an IQ of 72. Neighbors in the apartment complex were shocked and dismayed to learn that he was an infamous thief and murderer. He was widely recalled as a gentle giant, helpful and compliant, a playful guy who liked to horse around with the little kiddies on the playground.

  Eric Tanner had another interesting tidbit to pass on. Two of the civilian employees on his list of suspects at Fort Hood recalled being interviewed some five months earlier by a lady agent from the FBI. No, they didn’t remember her name, but she was a looker and they’d know her if they ever saw her again.

  So day turned into evening, and we gathered together in Mr. Townsend’s tiny, overheated study. We were all, I think, shocked and thoroughly depressed. Larry said to Townsend, “What we have, sir, is damning...but not damning enough. We can justify an arrest for conspiracy. Unfortunately nothing we have ties her directly to the most serious crimes, murder and extortion.”

  Bob seconded that view and further advised, “We could get a warrant, but an arrest would be premature at this point. We’ll dig all night, but we shouldn’t jeopardize our chances of a conviction.”

  Bill nodded agreeably. Bill was everybody’s pal. Bill would probably smile and nod even if I said we should just forget the whole thing. For the record, I preferred Larry over Bill. With Larry, you saw it coming, at least.

  Mr. Townsend for some reason looked at me. He asked, “What do you think?”

  “Arrest her right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s brilliant. Because she’s smarter than us, and offered the slightest chance she’ll outwit us. Because she has access to twelve and a half million bucks, and we have no idea what might spook her.”

  Mark Townsend’s pupils, I noted, were no longer dilated or unfocused. The fish stare was back in full force, and after a moment he said, “You’re a lawyer. Could you get a conviction?”

  As he well knew, no experienced criminal attorney, no matter how rich the vein of evidence or how persuasive the case, ever promises a conviction. But he also knew that Jennifer Margold had ordered the murder of his wife. I replied, “I’ll guarantee you this—if she gets away, we’ll never see her again.”

  He told Larry, “Pick her up now.”

  In retrospect, Mr. Townsend’s decisiveness was timely and providential.

  It seemed Jennie departed her office early that day, complaining of an upset stomach. The onset of her illness came only moments after she spoke with Elizabeth, her gabby secretary, who disclosed both my unexpected visit and my interest regarding her early interest in Jason and his father.

  So, the good news. Like her now departed colleagues, Jennie had made no real preparations to escape. I don’t think it ever dawned on her that she would lose, and in fact, until that moment, she had every reason to believe she had won it all. The bad news was that it took the FBI two hours to find her name on the manifest of a United Airways flight, high above the Atlantic, three-quarters of the way to Paris, and freedom.

  But when you murder the wife of the FBI Director, the wheels of justice do not want for grease. Townsend made a few calls, the pilot turned the plane around, the onboard air marshal changed seats, and he and Jennie became acquainted.

  We stayed at the house, swilled coffee, monitored our phones, and traded theories about Jennie, none of which made the slightest bit of sense. At 1:30 A.M., Larry’s phone rang; the plane had landed at Dulles International, and the air marshal handed over custody of his prisoner to a team of FBI agents on the tarmac. Jennie was being sped to a federal facility, where she would be photographed, fingerprinted, and our collective hope was she would do everybody a favor and confess to everything. I was sure she wouldn’t, but my job was done. I went home.

  I went back to work the following morning. Unfortunately I don’t wear bad moods well, and within an hour people began avoiding me, which made me happy. Phyllis tried hard to keep me busy, flooding my in-box with memos and wasting my time with unimportant meetings. I don’t handle that well under the best of circumstances.

  I was haunted by feelings of guilt that I had missed it. I had been right beside Jennie as she ordered those deaths, and had I not allowed myself to become enamored with her, had I kept my eyes open and paid better attention, some of those people might be alive.

  Two days after Jennie’s arrest, I looked up and Phyllis was standing over my desk. She said, with some insight, “You’re useless to me.”

  “Thank you. I try my best.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “No? Who’s fault was it?”

  “We all missed it.”

  “You have an excuse. I was with her the whole time.”

  “By the same token, proximity can be blinding.” After a moment she observed, “I worked with Aldrich Ames for years. We often lunched together. I never saw it coming.”

  “Did you nearly sleep with Aldrich Ames?”

  “Oh...well, no...of course not.” She examined me a moment, then said, “By the way, we have a very intriguing development in our Oman embassy. A most valuable source of ours was murdered. Our station chief suspects it may have been the result of an in-house betrayal. A team is being sent over to investigate. We need somebody to head that team.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “I’m sure it will be. Are you interested?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “I think you should be.”

  “I’ve been to Oman. It’s hot and dusty, there’s no booze, the women wear veils, and they don’t sleep with Christians.”

  She ignored this comment. “When you fall off the horse, you have to get back on.”

  “No...you learn to walk or drive.” In case she wasn’t getting the message, I reminded her, “Not interested.”

  “Have I mistakenly given you the impression I was looking for a volunteer?” She threw something on my desk that looked amazingly like an airline ticket. “Depart from Dulles Saturd
ay afternoon. Mort will familiarize you with the details in the interim. Do a good job or I’ll make your life miserable.”

  I hate women who think they know what’s good for you.

  On the third day after Jennie’s dramatic midflight apprehension Larry called, which was an unhappy surprise.

  As I mentioned, once you know who, you quickly figure out the whats, whens, and hows—it’s the why that often remains elusive. Larry told me they had sweated Jennie for three days and nights without puncturing her shield of sanctity. He said, “You know our problem here? She was a profiler. She helped write the manual on interrogations.”

  “Then get creative.”

  He replied, a little dumbly, “We threw away the manual two days ago. Nothing’s working. I’ve got two interrogators experiencing nervous breakdowns.”

  “Then get new ones. Wear her down.”

  “I’m talking about the fourth team we’ve thrown at her. Each day, she just hardens.”

  “No new evidence?”

  “None. If she’s got the money, we can’t find it.”

  “Is her lawyer in the act?”

  “Says she doesn’t need one.”

  “Because she’s completely innocent.”

  “She swears it. She’s making it really hard on us.”

  “Alibis?”

  “She doesn’t know who called Clyde Wizner. Says it wasn’t her. Sometimes her cell phone was left lying around, and anybody could’ve used it. Says she stopped her interviews at Fort Hood after the first two suspects didn’t pan out, a more important case came up, and she left. Swears she never met Clyde.”

  “And the Paris thing?”

  “You’ll love this. The pressure of the case and the crushing burden of her new responsibilities put her on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She had an anxiety attack only French cuisine could cure.”

  “So she’s introducing reasonable doubt, and you have no proof, no evidence. Nothing to convince a jury she did these things beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  Larry agreed this was so, and added that the Justice Department believed the odds of a conviction for conspiracy were dropping fast, and the chance of convicting her for murder had nowhere to drop as it was already nil. At best, she’d get five years, maybe less. And Jennie’s cocky obstinance indicated she was aware of it. He finally came to the point of this call and informed me, “She says she wants to see you.”

  “I don’t want to see her. Tell her no.”

  “Just hear me out.”

  “I’m very busy, Larry. I’m going to—”

  “You were the one who talked Townsend into the arrest. You can at least hear what I’ve got to say.”

  “Fine. Why does she want to meet with me?”

  “You tell me why.”

  “I haven’t got a clue, Larry.” Though he and I both knew it was a lie.

  But sometimes, Larry explained, recalcitrant witnesses soften up in the presence of people with whom they feel a strong emotional connection. I informed Larry that my emotional attachment with Jennie Margold was the same as a fish to a hook. He laughed. I don’t know why; it wasn’t a joke.

  So we went back and forth for a while, Larry trying to tell me why it was a good idea, me trying to tell him to piss off.

  Because on one level, I thought it was a lousy idea, and on another, more personal level, I did not want to ever see Jennie again. I still had not the vaguest idea why she did what she did. I did not want to know.

  But back to that first level, whatever romantic sparks had flown between us were hot and deluded on my part, and on her part, a calculated pretense. Jennie suckered me, intellectually and emotionally—she knew it, and I knew it. I was an aching, self-pitying Lothario, Jennie would know this, and Jennie would find a way to exploit it. Putting me in a cage with her was like throwing red meat to a lioness.

  Back to that second level, I recalled a warning Jennie once gave me. If you haven’t passed through the darkest forest, you cannot imagine the ghoulies and monsters that inhabit the back shelves inside people’s minds. She was right. I had prosecuted and even defended individuals whose crimes seemed to be the progeny of madness, but on closer inspection, always the roots of those sins were sunk in more ordinary, proletarian muck: greed, lust, or some other idiosyncrasy of human selfishness.

  Jennie was most certainly different. For all her outward sanity, I was sure she was utterly insane, whatever that means these days. Some stew of demons had mortgaged her soul, and I did not want even a peek at them.

  But Larry was persistent. He said, “Come on, Drummond. This might be our last chance.” After a moment, he added, “Incidentally, Townsend asked me to pass on that he would regard this as a huge favor to him.”

  Well, what could I say? So Larry and I batted around a few ideas, and I agreed to meet with Jennie—conditionally—though not until the next morning, and only after I had had a chance to run down one small detail.

  Which was how I ended up pacing in a tiny courtyard tightly enclosed in chain-link and barbed wire, experiencing a quiet claustrophobic fit. Jennie insisted that we would meet out here, or nothing. Probably she was just tired of being ogled by prying eyes through two-way mirrors. Or maybe she thought the outdoor setting would level the playing field a bit. Or maybe both. Nothing was arbitrary with this lady.

  Jennie was led to the doorway by a hefty matron, who backed away and allowed her to shuffle into the courtyard alone. The day was warm, though off in the distance dark clouds were gathering, which seemed fitting somehow. She stopped about two yards from me.

  We avoided each other’s faces and eyes, and the silence grew uncomfortable. I knew she was forcing me to make the first move. I said, “Would the prisoner like a cigarette?”

  “The prisoner does not smoke. Neither do you.”

  “Well, one acquires bad habits on death row. Never too early to get a head start.”

  She ignored this barb and asked, “Are you wired?”

  “No. Are you?”

  “Liar.”

  “Spare me, Jennie.”

  She finally looked up at me. Sounding hurt and annoyed, she said, “I’m sorry...I’m having a little trouble trusting you these days. The deal, as I remember it, was you’d watch my ass.”

  “The deal turned out to be too open-ended.”

  “Did it? I saved your life.”

  “Did you?”

  Jennie reached up and grabbed my chin. She said, “Look at me. Look at what you did.”

  So I did. She did look dreadful. She was dressed, appropriately, in a baggy gray hopsack muumuu with matching foot and hand manacles, and white slippers. Her hair was dirty, stringy, and matted and hung in oily clumps and strands. Dark pits were under her eyes, and her shoulders slumped with fatigue. She was still very pretty, but like a rag doll after a playdate with the family rottweiler. In an accusing tone, she said, “Now they want you to finish what you started. Right?”

  “I’m here because you wanted to see me.”

  She acknowledged this truth with an ambiguous shrug. “And how do you feel now that you see me? Proud? Guilty? Disgusted?”

  I knew she was trying to put me on the defensive, and if I let her, I knew I’d never get out of the pit. “I feel sorry for you.”

  She laughed. “You should. I’m innocent.”

  I replied, truthfully, “In a way, Jennie, I believe you are.”

  She looked a little surprised by this admission, and I was sure she wondered why I felt this way. In an irony run amok, the profilers at Quantico had taken a deep and incisive look at the woman who had walked among them not so long ago, one of their top guns. Employing their queer skills, they had cast a net far and wide into her past and dragged back a number of revelations that in hindsight were illuminating, breathtaking, and, mostly, quite saddening.

  In preparation for this meeting, I had been provided that file, which I read closely.

  As Jennie once told me, she was an only child, and in fact, her parents did die when sh
e was only thirteen, though not in a car crash, as she expressed; they were roasted in a fast-burning house fire in the middle of the night. The neighbors told the investigating officer that Mr. Terry Margold was a heavy drinker, a brown-fingered chain-smoker, an abusive husband, and a father whose cruelty was nearly boundless. Jennie’s mother, Mrs. Anne Margold, was meek, timid, and overpowered, or as a neighbor described to a police officer after the fire, “Old man Margold ruled that house and beat the...well, the dickens outta everybody. You’d always hear howls and screams comin’ from that place. I got chills just walkin’ past it. Good riddance to ’em, I say. Nicer neighborhood now.”

  And from other neighbors, more of the same. Essentially, people who knew Jennie and her family in those early years universally recalled a monstrous man, and a childhood of Dickensian horror, a poor little girl born into pathetically harsh circumstances, molded by brutality and terror.

  A few pages later I found this interview, conducted with Mrs. Jessica Parker, Jennie’s eighth-grade English comp teacher: “She was an odd girl, brilliant, highly competitive, though I thought, insular and utterly stressed. I...actually, several of us...we often saw horrible bruises, and scrapes, and scabs. Once she had a cast on her leg. Several times I asked how she got these wounds. She claimed through roughhousing on the playground. She would even make up elaborate alibis about her wounds. She could be terribly deceptive and utterly convincing. I knew she lived in mortal dread of her father. Really—I felt awfully sorry for her.”

  I recalled the scars and burns on Jennie’s body, and I understood, as I suspected Jessica Parker had understood, that some scars go more than skin-deep, straight to the soul.

  On the night of her parents’ roast, according to the police report, Jennie had had the rare good fortune to be at a sleepover at a friend’s house, only three blocks and a short walk through the woods from her own home. No arson inspectors were brought in to sift through the ashes, as there was no evident cause for suspicion, the house was small and wooden, and the local fire department found traces of cigarette butts sprinkled around the bed of Terry Margold, a known drunk and careless slob.