“Be your age, Bayard. Have you ever even read any of the transcripts of the hearings Taverner masterminded? He reveled in unveiling people’s secrets. He kept quiet because-“
“I know you share Calvin’s views,” he shouted me down. “You can’t believe Taverner had a sense of honor, because the Communists you admire so much didn’t believe in the concept.”
“You’ve said about twenty actionable things in the last five minutes,
Bayard.” My own temper was rising. “But let’s keep to the real questions here. Isn’t it more likely Taverner kept his secrets to himself because he didn’t want his own secrets coming out?”
“If you mean his homosexuality, he didn’t hide that from me. It didn’t affect my respect for him,” he said stiffly.
“It doesn’t matter now the way it did in the fifties,” I agreed. “So what secret of his own did Taverner care so much about that he kept one of your father’s for four decades?”
“You are completely wrong about Olin’s character because you only believe what you read in the liberal media.”
“This line about the liberal media is the same kind of garbage as `lies of the capitalist press’ that the old fellow travelers reiterated,” I snapped, exasperated. “Both of them are slogans to keep you from thinking about what you don’t want to know. But have it your way: Taverner pledged his life, his fortune and his sacred honor not to tell people your father had been stealing from Augustus Llewellyn. Now, tell me: How did you know Taverner had this secret file in his desk, the one you broke into his place to find?”
He scowled. “It was a desk that had belonged to one of the early Supreme Court justices, William Johnson, and it was Olin’s most prized possession. He had it in his Washington home, not his office, and he moved it back to Chicago with him. A couple of times when I was visiting him and we were talking about-about Calvin and Renee, he tapped the desktop and said, `It’s all in there, my boy, and when I’m gone you can learn the whole sorry story.”’
“So when you learned he was dead, you wanted to get to the whole sorry story before the lawyers did,” I suggested, “just in case Julius Arnoff thought the papers ought to go to your mother or even be suppressed, instead of including them with what he turned over to the heirs.”
“It would be like Julius,” he said bitterly. “Damned little busybody, trotting around like Calvin’s lapdog, wagging his tail anytime the big man threw him a biscuit.”
“And when you got there, and went to all that trouble busting open the patio door, what did you think when you saw the papers were already gone?” “I figured the Mexican who looked after him stole them to see what he could get for them.”
I thought of Domingo Rivas, with his quiet dignity in looking after his “gentlemen,” and felt another spurt of anger. “So did you talk to Mr. Rivas?” “I told him I’d pay him a thousand dollars for anything he removed from Olin’s desk, but he claimed he knew nothing about those papers.”
“He has his own code of honor, and I doubt it includes stealing from his patients. You know, of course, that if he’d wanted to take something of Taverner’s, he would have known where the keys were-he wouldn’t have had to follow your sterling example and break any locks.”
He flushed. “Who else could have them-unless that black reporter filched them. Because I sure as hell don’t have them.”
“Oh, it could be a black reporter or a Mexican orderly, but not a rich white guy?” I was thoroughly angry by now. “That’s the question, isn’t it: If you don’t have them, and Marcus Whitby didn’t take them, where are Olin Taverner’s secret documents?”
CHAPTER 40
The reporter must have taken them,” Edwards insisted. “Not because he was black, because he was a reporter. Just because I’m against affirmative action doesn’t mean I’m a racist, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Affirmative-“
“Yes, I’ve read all those position papers,” I interrupted. “I understand how insulting it is for African-Americans if whites give up any privileges. Marcus Whitby didn’t take Taverner’s papers. When Whitby left, Taverner locked the documents back in his drawer: Mr. Rivas saw him do so.”
“He could have come back for them later. Olin called me on Fridayhe wanted me to know he was going to make his story public now, while he was still alive. I asked-begged him over the phone-to tell me what was in those papers, but he wouldn’t, not on the phone. He was obsessed about phone taps, about the liberal media listening in on his conversations. So I said I’d fly out. I was going to Camp David with the president for the weekend, but I told him I’d fly out first thing Tuesday. But Tuesday Olin was dead.”
“Camp David with the president. A rarefied life, augmented by a little housebreaking. But of course, there’s a precedent for that, isn’t theredidn’t the Watergate burglars pal around at Camp David on the odd weekend? Maybe you got away early on Monday, though, and took an evening flight into O’Hare.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why do you say that?”
“Taverner had an unexpected visitor Monday night. It wouldn’t have been you, would it, trying to argue him out of going public, or knocking him off prematurely so you could collect his-“
He got to his feet. “I’ve had as much as I can stand of your innuendos. I wasn’t in Chicago on Monday, and it’s your word against mine that I was here on Thursday.”
“And the FBI’s,” I said lightly. “I think your pals in the justice Department are listening in on my conversations. At least, they sent in a couple of agents who knew how to bypass my alarm system and my locks. I don’t know whether they installed voice-activated bugs, but they might haveyou should ask them if they have a recording of our conversation today.”
He turned white, then red. “You taped this conversation without telling me?”
“No, Bayard. Do listen to what people are really saying to you. I’m letting you know that the attorney general whose methods you applaud may be taping my conversations. On account of they think I know where Ben jamin Sadawi is. Or because Marcus Whitby knew what was in Olin Taverner’s files and they’re hoping I’ll find out. Or because they care passionately about what the average citizen is thinking and doing. Take your pick.”
His eyes darted around the room, assessing where a bug could be placed. Like me, he seemed to find the possibilities both endless and daunting. “And you’re one of the people my mother has let into my daughter’s life. By God, Catherine is going back to Washington with me.”
“That should be an interesting conversation,” I said dryly. “Out of curiosity, why did you leave Catherine with her grandmother in the first place?” “It was easier,” he snapped. “When my wife died, I let Renee take over Catherine’s care. I was too shattered to look after a toddler and then I was traveling a great deal. I thought-I assumed that Catherine would see through Renee and Calvin’s political hypocrisy just as I had, and meanwhile she got the advantages of New Solway and that stable environment. But I should have known, easier is never better. And, by God, now I’ll do it the hard way.”
He stood so roughly that my desk chair rolled backward and cracked into the coffee table. “And the first change I’m making is that I forbid you
to talk to my daughter again. I will not have you continuing to involve her with terrorists.”
“I didn’t involve her with terrorists-I met her the same way I met you-by interrupting her housebreaking. If I had a kid, I wouldn’t let you hang out with her-I wouldn’t want her thinking that it’s okay to break the law if you’re rich and powerful.”
He glared at me, his square angry face looking very like Renee.
“You probably want to get back to the hospital.” I got up. “When I visit Catherine, I won’t mention our chat. I don’t pledge my honor, because we both know I’m a liberal and don’t have any, but I do care about disillusioning children’s belief in their parents. For whatever reason, your daughter seems fond of you.”