Murder on Capitol Hill

by Margaret Truman

  Her thumb went to a white trigger on top of the cylinder. Her friend had showed her that all that was necessary to activate the cylinder was to swing a white trigger a quarter-turn, which took it from a lock position. She did it, and as the man pulled pages from the envelope and asked if she was sure this was the letter, she brought her left hand up so that it was less than a foot from his face and squeezed down with all her might on the trigger. The ortho-chlorobenzal malononitrile gushed from the cylinder with a hiss. It covered his face. His mouth opened; Lydia directed the stream of gas into it.

  He fell to the floor, writhing. The knife dropped to his side, and the envelope and its contents went out of his hands. Lydia couldn’t stop herself, leaned over and went on pressing the trigger until the twenty-two grams of Mace had been fully discharged, directly into his eyes and mouth.

  Now, a kind of revulsion set in. She was appalled at what she saw. He clawed at his eyes, and a long, agonizing cry came from him.

  She ran to the kitchen, grabbed the receiver from a wall phone and dialed the MPD. An officer answered on the first ring. “This is Lydia James.” She gave her address and said that an intruder was in the house. He asked why she was able to get to a phone. “It doesn’t matter, send someone immediately.”

  She dropped the phone, leaving it dangling on its cord, and ran out of the house and across the street, where she leaned against a lamppost, put her cheek against its cool metal and waited for the police to arrive…

  The first officer out of the car was Horace Jenkins, deputy chief of police. He saw Lydia and ran across the street to her. “What happened?”

  She tried to speak and couldn’t. And then she buried her face in her hands and, like any other human being, broke down into deep, heaving sobs.

  Ten minutes later a police ambulance arrived and Lydia’s attacker was taken away.

  She was taken back to the house and now was in a small study, where she sat on a window bench and stared out the window. Jenkins came in. “Okay, it’s over, Lydia. The kid is a punk named Billy Baulkis. He’s got a long sheet on him. What did he try… rape?”

  Lydia shook her head.

  “Money?”

  “No,” she said so softly that it was barely audible. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “We’ll go into that later. Probably not… no harm, no foul, is the way these damn things work out… By the way, where did you get the Mace?”

  “It was a gift. If you want to arrest me for possession, feel free.”

  Jenkins patted the pocket of his raincoat. “No, I’ll toss it when I get back to headquarters. Good thing you had it, but don’t quote me. Will you be all right now?”

  “Yes, I will, thank you.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t stay alone here tonight.”

  She assured him she would leave immediately to spend the night with a friend. “And thank you, Horace, for coming. I’ll be all right.”

  “Glad I came on the call myself,” he said. “Well, good night, Lydia. Don’t let it get to you. Punks like him are all over this city these days.”

  After he was gone Lydia called Clarence. She quickly told him what had happened and said flat-out she wanted to spend the night. He told her not to drive. Ten minutes later he was at her front door and had a cab waiting at the curb.

  Much later that night Clarence provided the medicine she most needed. Only then did she manage to sleep….

  ***

  When she awoke in the early morning it occurred to her that her attack had coincided with the one on Ginger. She called Ginger’s apartment.

  “How are you?” Lydia asked.

  “Disgusted. I’m sorry I stood you up last night, but it was due to circumstances beyond my control.”

  “Well, kiddo, even though we weren’t together we shared an evening.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you. How are you feeling?”

  “Not so bad, actually. At least I got a look at the guy and his car. I ended up with a bump on the head again and one more lost purse, but, like they say, it could be worse. I’ll be in this afternoon.”

  “So will I,” Lydia said. “I think we have some debriefing to do.”

  26

  Senator Wilfred MacLoon was nearing the end of his press briefing. He’d set a routine of weekly meetings with selected members of the press a number of years before, and had found it to be a useful way to help keep his name in front of the public and help deflect press and other criticism before it could develop to a serious degree.

  He’d covered a variety of weighty-sounding subjects in the briefing, including whether or not the new missile system would get through the Congress. He told the reporters he was confident it would, and added, for rather obvious home consumption, that every strategic study made it increasingly clear that Utah provided the best possible site for its deployment.

  His final item had to do with a proposed Senate investigation into the practices of religious cults. He’d been instrumental, indeed, pivotal, in having such investigations shelved for at least a year. That vote had taken place the day before, and one of the reporters asked MacLoon to explain why he’d taken such a stand in favor of religious cults.

  “That’s the trouble with you people,” MacLoon said. His cigar had gone out. He lit it again. “I did it because I’m against the Congress of the United States poking its nose into organized religion, and because I respect the Constitution upon which this nation was built. It doesn’t mean I’m in favor of cults. In fact, I’m not, and many things I hear about them disturb me. But the bottom line is that one of the most sacred principles of this democracy is the separation of church and state. For the government to investigate religion would be to disregard what our founding fathers, in their wisdom, bequeathed us. No, I am not in favor of cults, ladies and gentlemen, but I am in favor of church and state going their own separate ways.”

  He looked around the room. “Any more questions?”

  There were none. He thanked them and with Rick Petrone at his side left the room and returned to his office.

  “Well done, Senator,” Petrone said.

  He nodded. “What’s new down the hall?” He meant Lydia’s committee office.

  “Nothing much. As far as I know she’s working with the MPD on preparing her report. She doesn’t seem to spend too much time here anymore.”

  “Good. Ted Proust call?”

  “Yes, he said he’d meet you at the usual time and place.”

  MacLoon was annoyed at the way Proust had put it. It sounded too undercover, and he wondered whether Petrone had picked it up. He made a mental note to tell Proust to stop being so damned James Bondish.

  “If you have nothing else for me, Senator, I’d like to leave early,” Petrone said.

  “Who is she?”

  “My mother, she’s in town for a few days and wants to spend time with her favorite son.”

  “Give my best to her. She’s a good woman, good Mormon stock.”

  After Petrone and other members of the staff had left for the night MacLoon poured himself a stiff shot of bourbon from his private office stock, sat heavily in his chair and thought about the evening ahead of him. He was to meet Proust at the Lee House, a small homey hotel conveniently located only four short blocks from the White House. MacLoon used it as a place to rendezvous with an occasional paramour, and had recommended that Proust stay there on his trips to Washington. He also enjoyed a turn-of-the-century pub in the hotel called Durdy Annie’s that ran old-time movies and served good food at modest prices. Wilfred MacLoon, who did not like to spend his own money, had become an expert in getting more for less.

  Proust was in town with substantial sums of money. Except that MacLoon hadn’t been able to come up with much of a list of those involved in the missile system decision who might also be receptive to having their palms crossed in exchange for a position favorable to Utah’s cause.

  He was even more worried about a meeting to take place at eight o
’clock. At first he’d refused to attend, but pressure mounted and he’d agreed.

  He left his office at 7:45 and stopped at a McDonald’s on his way to the eight o’clock meeting. He carried a bag containing two Big Macs, a large order of French fries, a chocolate shake and hot apple pie to his car, where he quickly finished the meal, then drove toward the meeting site. “The hell with them,” he told himself. “They don’t own me. Nobody does.”

  But as he pulled into the parking lot of the Caldwell Performing Arts Center his confidence faded. In all his years of dealing with special interest groups—and there had been many—he found this one the most troublesome. It wasn’t just the nature of the group that bothered him. It was the people he’d been forced to deal with. He detested them. They weren’t like the men he was used to, not by a long shot.

  He walked through the main entrance to the Caldwell Center. The lobby was empty, as he’d been assured the center would be that night except for a board of directors meeting in an upstairs conference room. That meeting, he was told, would go on past midnight, so no problem there.

  He checked his watch. The man was late. He went to heavy double doors that led to the auditorium, opened one and looked inside. The theater was dark except for a bare lightbulb that hung from the ceiling of the stage area.

  He stood in the doorway, fretting, wishing things could have been better, less so damn complicated, like when the kids were younger and he even got along with his wife. His kids… an older son, now a doctor in California, a daughter who was an executive with a major airline in Atlanta, and the younger boy in his second year of prelaw at the University of Utah. He missed them, things had been different when they were young and at home. No big financial squeeze to push a man into all kinds of deals he didn’t want, make him do business with disgusting characters like—

  “Good evening, Senator.”

  MacLoon turned. “Hello, DeFlaunce. You’re late.”

  “I was detained,” Jason said. They looked at each other a moment, sharing an intense mutual dislike, to put it mildly.

  For Jason, MacLoon represented everything that was wrong with life in high places. Jason’s own father had been a local politician in their Massachusetts hometown. He’d been a heavy drinker and womanizer, and Jason had spent his childhood and teenage years hating him for the way he treated his mother, who unaccountably more often than not defended her husband. Jason had gone on to earn a degree in theater at Northwestern University, then a master’s in the same subject at NYU in New York City. Along the way he’d given up ambitions for a performing career, instead concentrating on the business side of the theater, becoming an expert fundraiser for Broadway shows. He moved to Washington to be a bigger fish than he could ever be in the Broadway scene. In quick time he’d gained access to Washington’s inner artistic circles, and was pleased to find its members willing to rely on his experience in the world’s theater capital. He became, in short, a formidable art maven, to use the phrase of one of the local columnists.

  From MacLoon’s perspective, Jason DeFlaunce was nothing more than a swish, a fairy. Gay rights was not one of his favorite causes.

  “Okay, Mr. DeFlaunce, let’s get on with this. I got places to go.”

  Jason, a half-smile on his lips, shrugged. “Whatever you say, Senator.” He pushed past MacLoon and walked down the aisle of the darkened theater until he reached the stage. MacLoon slowly followed after him. “Why here?”

  “Why not?” Jason said. “No one will bother us. Besides I like discussing important things on a stage.”

  MacLoon felt the gorge rising. He looked at the bare bulb hanging over the stage, pressed his lips tight together. “What do you want to tell me?”

  Jason walked up a short flight of steps leading to the stage apron, passed under the lightbulb and went to the furthermost corner of the stage-right wings. MacLoon reluctantly followed him, turning once to look out over the empty seats. Jason took two folding metal chairs from against the wall, opened them and sat on one. MacLoon, who would have preferred to stand, roughly pulled one of the chairs away from Jason and sat down.

  “I met with our mutual friend recently,” Jason said.

  MacLoon knew who he meant but still asked, “Who’s that?”

  “Francis Jewel, of course.”

  “He should be happy the way I… discouraged the investigations in his outfit. It was a question of conscience being coincident with—”

  “Oh, come off it, Senator… But yes, I expect he is. People usually are pleased when they receive a return on money spent. That, however, was not what Mr. Jewel asked me to speak to you about.”

  “Whatever else he wants to talk about doesn’t concern me,” MacLoon said. “Nor your own impertinence. I did what I thought was right by keeping church and state separate. The money he’s contributed to me through you had nothing to do with it, and you’d better damn well let him know that. I don’t like him or his damn cult, but there is a constitutional principle involved here—”

  Jason laughed. “Whatever appeases your conscience, Senator.”

  MacLoon almost came off the chair. “Look, DeFlaunce, if there’s a conscience that needs appeasing, you’d better look to your own.”

  MacLoon settled back in the chair, took out a cigar and lit it. “Is this all you’ve got to say to me?”

  Jason reached up, ran his hand along one of many ropes attached to spars on the wall, almost as though the rope were a living thing being stroked. His eyes remained on it as he said, “No, this is much more important than simply influencing a congressional investigation. You are aware that the Caldwell family’s interests have been threatened for a long time by the presence of a certain videotape.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Come now, Senator, I can’t believe that you haven’t heard something about the tape.”

  MacLoon drew on his cigar, leaned forward. “That’s the problem with people like you. You get so wrapped up in playacting you have no idea what reality, or the truth is. Videotape? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Jason shrugged, turned his hand over in the air. “Be that as it may, this same videotape that has caused the Caldwell family so much anguish is doing the same thing to our mutual friends at the Center for Inner Faith.”

  “So what?”

  “So what? Senator MacLoon, you have chosen to be very directly involved in that organization’s work.” MacLoon started to protest but Jason waved him off. “I know, you like to see yourself as a dedicated public servant working within Congress on behalf of Mr. Jewel’s interest only because of your deep and abiding belief in the Constitution.” His sarcasm was not lost on MacLoon. “But in reality, and you are very big on reality, and the truth, you have a continuing obligation to Mr. Jewel. I’m sure you would agree that it would be embarrassing to you should your distinguished colleagues in Congress, or your constituents, learn that you’d been accepting… how shall I say it, gratuities from such people.”

  MacLoon stiffened, draped his arm over the back of the chair and crossed his legs. “Don’t try to intimidate me, damn you. I could chew you up and spit you out anytime I wanted to, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Tough talk, Senator. But you don’t intimidate me either. The fact is, you’ve gotten pretty sloppy lately, and I don’t mean just the size of your belly. I know all about Cale Caldwell having found out about some of the sources of your extra income, including the take from Mr. Jewel and his people.”

  “You’re crazy—”

  “No, I’m not, Senator MacLoon. Senator Caldwell had discovered not only that you were taking from Mr. Jewel, but he’d learned about the millions being laid on you by those wonderful folks back in Utah.”

  MacLoon denied the accusation, which wasn’t easy. The fact was that Caldwell had discovered certain things about him and had directly confronted him with his findings. They’d almost come to blows once, and Caldwell had left MacLoon’s office that day threatening to expose
him to the full Senate…

  He shifted in the chair and puffed on his cigar. His collar was tight, he ran his fingers around it. Finally: “What does all this have to do with you and with that gang of weirdos—?”

  “I wouldn’t call them that, Senator. After all, they’ve contributed rather handsomely to you—”

  “And you, too—”

  “I’m a survivor, Senator. I’m good to my friends, they’re good to me. That qualifies me for the Senate, wouldn’t you say—?”

  “No, I damn well wouldn’t.”

  Jason stood and turned his chair around so that he could sit with his arms folded over its back. “Well, no matter… Mr. Jewel originally called me because he thought you might be of help in locating the tape.”

  “About that tape. Just what’s on it?”

  “That’s not important, Senator. What counts is that it exists and is of vital importance not only to Mr. Jewel but to the Caldwell family. It must be located, and destroyed. You see, when Mr. Jewel first called me he was shooting in the dark about where the tape might be. But I received a call late this afternoon from him telling me that it now appears that the tape is in the possession of Lydia James or her researcher Ginger Johnson. It’s not Mr. Jewel’s style to suggest breaking into Lydia’s office to search for it. But there’s no need for that anyway, is there? All you have to do is make the search yourself, or, if that’s distasteful to you, have one of your loyal aides do it.”