‘I don’t blame her.’
‘Where’s David Nolan in all this? He’s handled things for Jeff all their lives. I hate to say this but I trust his judgment more than I do my own son’s.’
So he didn’t know about Jeff and David’s wife. He was seventy-four years old. He was overweight and drank a lot. He also kept the tobacco industry rich. He still smoked those small Chesterfields that had killed Bogie among many other millions. He’d had a stroke a few years ago. He knew about the murder. But he didn’t know about the adultery. Or the blackmail. I wondered how much was too much to put on a man like him.
‘Yeah. I got to talk to him. Real steady as she goes. Jeff’s lucky to have him.’
‘Just a sec.’ He cupped the phone. I heard an angry voice. Helen. When he came back on, he said, ‘Helen heard me say that about trusting David’s judgment more than Jeff’s. I thought she was upstairs. It always pisses her off when I say that. She says I’m being disloyal. To me I’m just being realistic. Our boy has a lot of good qualities.’
At the moment I couldn’t think of any but theoretically I suppose he did. I mean if I really thought hard about it I could probably think of a few. Maybe.
‘Burkhart’s probably been jacking off all night,’ Tom said.
‘I’d imagine so.’
‘You see those photos of him at the Creationist Museum? Little kids riding that animatronic dinosaur. The Europeans have always regarded us as hillbillies and by God maybe they’re right. Riding dinosaurs, for God’s sake. You think they really believe that shit happened?’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘I don’t know what the hell’s going to happen to this country.’
‘It’s already happened, Tom. That’s the hell of it.’
SEVEN
Yellow crime scene tape was the brightest color of the gray and cold fall day. Rain had turned the once colorful leaves sullen. A squad car sat next to the back door. The downstairs was a symphony of whispers. Mrs Rosenberg waved to me. It was obvious she’d been crying.
I climbed to the second floor. Apparently the no-smoking law was no longer being honored. I saw a couple of junior staffers hurrying toward me, both of them bearing cigarettes. They nodded and hustled on by.
David Nolan’s office was empty. I stood in it for a few minutes and cursed Jeff Ward. There are moral politicians and immoral politicians. You’ll find both on both sides of the aisle. You’ll also find the sociopaths on both sides. Power attracts them. They feel it’s their due. The hell of it is some of them vote your way, so if you want to keep the country safe from being overrun by the robber barons and the madmen you have to reluctantly support them.
I suppose Nolan had felt that way about Jeff Ward. He’d known him so many years he had to see what kind of a man Ward was. He had to have excused a lot in the name of friendship. Or maybe he drank a little of the heady wine himself. Washington is a gaudy young whore. She can make you feel important and in some respects immortal. You want to keep going back and back. It’s the only place where you can get the magic wine. But then your ticket in, who has been your lifelong best friend, sleeps with your wife and you’re forced to look not just at him but at yourself as well. How could you not see this coming with a man like Jeff Ward? You’d covered for him so many times with the wives of other men, why would it be any different with you?
Kathy Tomlin came in wearing a crimson sweater, black pencil skirt, and black heels. ‘David was supposed to be at an advisory board meeting this morning but he didn’t show up. That’s really not like him. I’m worried about him. He’s just such a decent guy. He really is.’ She came closer to whisper. Her perfume made me fall in love with her. So did the finely-made face. A true pleasure to contemplate. ‘Unlike another guy I could mention, I mean. David told me about Jeff and his wife. He is such a bastard. How could he do that to poor David?’
I wanted her to keep whispering to me but she had the nerve to lean against the door frame. ‘If that ever gets out-’
‘You think David might ever-’
She shook her head. ‘No way. Even if he hates the messenger, he believes in the message. Burkhart is a fascist and I know we’re not supposed to use that word because he isn’t technically a fascist but that’s what he is to me. I just wish we could get something big on him.’
I said, ‘This campaign is so dysfunctional I don’t know how you won two elections.’
‘David Nolan. That’s how we won two elections.’
Lucy came into the room looking as if she had absorbed the shock of Waters’ death and was forcing herself to come back to the world of the living. She had even tricked up a nervous smile for us.
‘Am I interrupting?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We’re just trying to plan the day. How’s the press conference coming along?’
‘Pretty well. I’ve got both the nun and the relative. A little old lady whose voice trembles when she speaks.’
Kathy caught the moment. Grinned. ‘Shameless, Dev.’
‘That’s what they pay me for. And even if we pull it off that won’t stop the questions. Did Waters take drugs? Was he gay? Did he belong to a terrorist organization? The local hate radio boys and girls will be slandering him every time they’re on mike. And they’ll use that slander to paint our whole campaign.’
‘He wasn’t gay and he didn’t take drugs and he sure wasn’t in favor of terrorism,’ Lucy said. As she spoke her voice rose defensively.
‘God,’ Kathy said, ‘those brochures with Jeff in all those tuxedos and dinner jackets and with all those bimbos. Think what the radio jerks can do with them.’
‘He told me they were all from very good families,’ Lucy said. She sounded serious.
Kathy joyously put a maternal hand on Lucy’s shoulder. ‘Sweetheart, we know he got a bj from one of those very good family girls in the parking lot of a Burger King one night. And I mean outside the car.’
‘God,’ Lucy said. ‘I forgot.’
Kathy smiled devilishly at me. ‘That was probably the one and only time he was ever at a Burger King, by the way.’
I spent the next hour and a half going through every newspaper in the state. They all had extensive websites. Then I went to the sites of the TV and major radio stations. The coverage ran predictably. The conservative sources had already turned Jim Waters’ murder into a mystery with hints of the diabolical. ‘Friends said that although they liked him, he was often strange and secretive. He had worked as a speechwriter for Congressman Ward for three years, even during the time that the congressman was under suspicion for seeing several women outside his marriage.’ Nice way to work that in. If they’d had more time they would have worked Ward’s history to include bedwetting, public nose picking and leading terrorist cells in singing anti-American rap songs.
The more moderate outlets, print and electronic alike, weren’t as hostile but most made the point that with the election so close a murder was not exactly what the congressman needed. They all cited the noon press conference and predicted that it would be well attended. Then I saw a quote from a fat junkie who had a radio show. It was a long quote. I could only stomach a few sanctimonious lines of it. God and family values. I wondered what any of his three former wives would make of it.
As I was about wrapping things up I decided to check on Burkhart’s site. Any kind of official comment would wait until after the press conference of course but Sylvia had gotten her first shot in already. ‘I want to offer the Waters family our true condolences. I’m told he was a very bright young man and an extremely hard worker. This is why it is so important that our youth get off to the right start. They get caught up in all these liberal causes and they lose their way. You can’t have a mission that includes drugs and sex and a belief that big government can solve everything and expect to stay sane. I’ve seen a lot of my friends destroyed by these things in my lifetime. I certainly hope this wasn’t the case with poor James Waters.’