Senior had constructed his manor house of slate-gray Tenino sandstone on a high bluff overlooking the Columbia River. With its roof of red tile and parklike grounds, the mansion looked friendly and noble and had none of the personality of its owner. The grounds were surrounded by an ivy-covered brick wall that kept out the riffraff. Burdett used the call box at the gate and was admitted to the grounds. Derrick Barclay was waiting at the carved-oak front door. He was five feet eight, narrow, and had a pale complexion. Barclay’s lips were forever pursed, as if to let the world know that he found everything he encountered distasteful.
“Mr. Pope will see you in the study,” he said in a clipped, British accent. Burdett was tempted to answer, “Jolly good,” until he remembered that Barclay had the ear of his biggest campaign contributor.
Arnold Pope Sr. was pacing back and forth on a Persian rug when Barclay showed the DA into a high-ceilinged, book-lined room. A stone fireplace occupied one wall and a leaded-glass window looked out on a garden. Pope was a bear of a man, who had invested the money he made in timber in several fledgling high-tech companies that were now industry leaders. When the timber industry took a nose dive, Senior didn’t blink.
“Do you have him?” Pope asked without preamble.
“No, sir, but every law enforcement agency in the country is looking for Marsh. He won’t stay lost long.”
“What about that woman? Is she in custody?”
Burdett’s brow furrowed. “What woman?”
Pope stopped pacing. “That gold-digging bitch he married, the person who’s responsible for my son’s murder.”
“Sally Pope?” Burdett asked, puzzled by the suggestion that Junior’s wife had anything to do with the murder. “A number of very credible witnesses saw her when the congressman was shot. No one saw her with a gun.”
Pope glared at the district attorney. “Please don’t play stupid, Karl. You do know about ‘aiding and abetting’ and ‘conspiracy,’ or didn’t you pay attention in your criminal-law class?”
Burdett flushed. “I know you’re upset but you don’t have to insult me.”
“I’ll do more than insult you if the people who killed my boy escape justice.”
“I can’t just arrest Sally, Mr. Pope. There’s no evidence indicating that she’s guilty of murder.”
“Then you haven’t heard about the note?”
“What note?”
“The one found in my son’s Washington, DC, office.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You do know about the photographs?”
“Of course. We collected all of them from the crime scene.”
“They were sent to Arnold along with a note. His aide delivered the envelope. My son left the note on his desk when he rushed to the airport. The FBI has it.”
Burdett didn’t bother to ask how Senior knew about an ongoing FBI investigation about which he-the head law-enforcement official in the county and the person in charge of the murder investigation-knew nothing. Senior didn’t just contribute to local political races. His tentacles reached to the top tiers of the Washington hierarchy.
Pope pressed a button on his desk and Barclay hustled in, carrying a fax. Pope nodded toward the district attorney and Barclay handed the document to Burdett. It was a photocopy of a note constructed from letters cut out of magazines and pasted onto a piece of paper. The note read: THEY’LL BE TOGETHER AT THE WESTMONT TOMORROW NIGHT AT THE GURU’S SEMINAR.
“I don’t see how this note implicates Sally Pope,” Burdett said after studying the fax. “The pictures show her having an illicit relationship with Marsh. Why would she send it?”
Pope smiled, but there was no humor in his smile. “You don’t know my daughter-in-law very well, Karl. She is a devious, scheming whore. She knew you would see it this way. Who could suspect her of tipping off her husband about her affair?”
The smile disappeared. “Think, Karl. She used the note and the pictures to enrage Arnold, knowing he would rush back to Oregon to confront her. They set him up to be killed. And she set up Marsh to take the fall for her.”
“That’s an interesting theory, but I can’t arrest Sally without proof.”
Pope’s smile reappeared. “Oh, there’s proof that she was a conspirator in the plot to kill my boy. There’s more than enough proof. The FBI found fingerprints on the note. Guess who they belong to?”
CHAPTER 17
In his youth, Frank Jaffe had been a brawler and carouser; a man’s man with a ruddy complexion and the thick muscles of a stevedore. He believed wholeheartedly that a woman’s place was in the home, where she did womanly things like cooking and raising the children. Men, on the other hand, worked long hours to support their families and played with their children when time permitted. Then his world turned upside down.
Samantha was twenty when she died giving birth to Amanda. How did a man raise a baby-and a girl baby at that-when he didn’t even know how to change a diaper? That was just one of a thousand questions Frank had asked himself during the grief-filled days that followed his wife’s death and his sudden plunge into fatherhood. Frank had to answer these questions quickly. When a baby is screaming there’s not much time for in-depth research.
Frank was a great father, even during the insane years when he was attending law school at night, working all day, and thanking God that his parents were overjoyed to babysit Amanda. When he started Jaffe, Katz, Lehane and Brindisi with some classmates from law school, he had nothing in his life except work and his daughter. Frank never remarried, because he’d never had the time for a serious relationship and he’d rarely found anyone who could measure up to Samantha. On the one occasion he’d come close, his devotion to his work and his child had created a rift that could not be mended.
Frank had written off romance by the time he entered the fourth decade of his life. Then his secretary ushered Sally Pope into his office and Frank felt like a virginal teenager who has just been introduced to the head cheerleader.
“I assume you know who I am,” Sally said as soon as they were alone.
Frank smiled. “Anyone who watches television or reads a newspaper knows who you are, Mrs. Pope. You are notorious.”
Sally laughed and Frank heard church bells chime. Her eyes laughed, too. Her caramel-colored hair shimmered.
“I guess I am notorious,” Sally said. “The papers talk about me as if I’m one of those femme fatales from the old black-and-white films.”
“Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon or Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity,” Frank agreed.
Sally looked directly into Frank’s eyes. “There is one difference between me and those ladies of the cinema, Mr. Jaffe. I am not a murderer.”
“Does someone think you are?”
“My father-in-law, Arnold Pope Sr., is doing everything in his power to see that I’m charged with murdering my husband. And-before we go any further-I need to know if that’s a problem.”
Frank was confused. “If what’s a problem?”
“If you take my case, you’ll have to go up against Senior. He’s a formidable opponent. I know that from experience. He also owns a lot of people. I need to know if he owns you or if you’re afraid of him.”
“I barely know Mr. Pope.” Frank smiled. “We don’t exactly run in the same circles. And, from what I’ve heard, I doubt I’d like him very much if I did get to know him.”
“Then you’ll take my case?”
“Is there a case? Have you been charged?”
“Not yet. But I have friends who have friends and I’ve been warned that Karl Burdett has convened a grand jury with me as its target.”
“Have the police or a prosecutor tried to speak to you?” Frank asked.